#I don’t wanna say unsatisfactory but like in a way where it’s real

[starlooove]

Anyways nothing in the show made me cry till seeing ekko and Mel sitting there alone and it doesn’t even have to do with powder and Jayce it’s the fact that they have to get up the next day its exhausting like there’s so much work to do.

[ghosts-and-blue-sweaters]

A fact about your personality

I COMMUNICATE SO MUCH BETTER THROUGH WRITING THAN THROUGH VERBAL STUFF!!! LIKE. OH MY GOSH.

Irl I often feel like… what I say doesn’t make sense? Or it doesn’t come out the way I wanted it to, or it gets all jumbled, stuff like that.

Through writing though, I have time to think through what I want to say and formulate a response. I have the ability to say exactly what I want to say :)

What I love most about myself

Okay, I wanna clarify real quick: I don’t love myself. I love being myself.

Does that make sense?

Aksgajsgaksgajf loving myself kinda… I don’t know, I think that way of thinking could lead to an entitled, unsatisfactory, annoying life. It kinda takes credit where credit isn’t due, I think. I didn’t create myself, after all. I didn’t craft my own being. I think loving myself puts me on a higher level than others—my wants, my well-being, etc—and is ultimately selfish.

No no, God created me, and I’m really really happy being myself!! I genuinely love being myself! I’m so grateful that God made me :D But I don’t love myself.

Gosh I really hope that made sense

THERE WAS A POST ABOUT THIS BUT I CANNOT FIND IT AAAAAAAH

Anyways. Cough. Onto the question!

Being a writer is up there, I’m pretty sure :D I just… I love being able to etch worlds into motion with words, and being able to craft all these stories and interactions and experiences and feelings with words. It’s freaking awesome.

[charmspoint]

how was it ^-^

Let's seee. It was good, perfectly enjoyable, it reads fast and i was never really bored with it. I'd give most chapters like a 7/10 and then chapters 71-82 like 8 or 9/10 and then back to like 7/10 and the ending was weird but also kinda sweet in its own way.

Now to preface anything else: This isn't my type of manga. I can easily see it being a 10/10 for someone who really likes fight scenes and death and gore and what not. I'm not really into that, I'm a character and story driven person which is why the manga as a whole scored as just goodish to me while chapters 71-82 which kinda make a lot of emotional and psychological aspects of the chapters before them come to culmination scored a lot better. You know I don't GET fights. Chainsaw man was very gory but I didn't even really register it. Like because of all the gore I feel I heard people say it has horror aspects but I never really felt scared or off put or anything. It was just kinda like 'oh a lot of people are in pieces rn, okay, that's a thing that's happening'. So yeah that's why the score is the way it is, it simply isn't a manga that focuses on things I like and that's perfectly alright. I couldn't buy into the hype like I did with jjk and I certently didn't feel 'oh this is the best thing ever' like I felt with witch hat atelier.

With all that out of the way let me talk long and hard about Denji and sexual aspects of the series in a surprisingly positive light:

I like Denji as a character. I think he's still a bit rough around the edges but he's not a character made for introspection so that's fine, you really kinda have to take what he says and how he acts and think about it because the author won't do it for you. That being said, I think Denji is probably the most compelling shonen protagonist I've read so far. Like when I read bnha or jjk I see Izuku and Yuji and I'm like 'this is a shonen protagonist'. They are a likable character but they won't be your favorite character. They are largely made for japanese high school boys to project themselves on and I'm not a japanese high school boy. That being said, Denji feels like a character of his own and not something meant to be projected on to. Honestly if anyone projected on to Denji I'd be worried about them. But that makes him probably the most compelling shonen protagonist I've ever read. You just wanna dig a shovel into his skull and go 'man kid ur fucked up'.

I know when you first read csm you were off put by Denji because it felt like a manga put a pervert character as a protag which is naturally off putting and I can 100% see that. Now be it because I was warned about it first or something else, I didn't actually find fanservice jarring at all. It kinda was integrated into the world in a way that made me think 'yeah of course it's like this'. This is a very grim and rough and drty world and things in it would be just like that. It is a story about base desires and sex is one of those. These are people who expect they will die any day now and Denji is a person who's just now getting to experience a somewhat decent standard of living. Here's a thing I noticed though: even as Denji thinks many sexual things (which, he's a teenager, that's normal) he's actually very respectful. I don't think I've ever seen him touch anyone without their permission, in fact i think things like that mostly happen to him. Like example how Power comes in just as Denji is in the middle of his 'i wanna touch some boobs' phase. You would almost expect that what happens next is we see him try to grope Power as she's sleeping or something. But no, he doesn't do a thing until she asks him to help her save her cat and he gets to touch her boobs for it. And it's like this with p much every other sexual encounter through the series. Both partners are consenting and getting something out of the whole thing. Sexual aspects are used as normal bartering chips in a world where your whole body is a bartering chip. It's normal and no one is forced into it. I've told you before that my biggest misgiving with fanservice is that it's often based on embarrassment and unwilling participation of the girls. Like fanservice isn't fanservice because you saw a boob it's fanservice because you saw a boob when you weren't supposed to, when the girl didn't want you, when she's angry or scared or embarrassed because you did. A lot of fanservice feels very much like taking something from the girl, debasing and humiliating her for the sake of watchers/readers satisfaction.

Despite all it's sexual jokes and themes and everything else Chainsaw man never once made me feel like that. It never once made me feel like the author expected me to gain sexual satisfaction out of debasement of female cast. Which is why even though boobs and naked women are literally all over the manga I didn't mind it at all. It stopped being fanservice and became just a natural part of characters lives as sexuality and sex is a natural part of real world.

Back to Denji.

So I mussed a bit about Denji and Maslow before but here it is in total

Denji is 16 years old and at the beginning of the series he's just starting to have his physiological and safety needs met. Like he doesn't live like a human being at the start of the series and Makima recruiting him is A BIG CHANGE for him. Like for a good while Denji is like 'Now I have three meals a day and a place to sleep at so I'm good with whatever'. He's given reliable sources to fulfil his needs and he's given a way to keep those sources stable. He has a job, it's not a good job but he has it. He has a place to live and a theoretical safety net. He's immortal so there's nothing to fear in the death and injury department which means the otherwise unsafe job is perfectly fine for him. Now what Denji gets stuck on through most of the series is Love and Belonging. Because you can't just give someone love like you can give them food (not that Makima doesn't try). People are more complicated. Compromises need to be made and human connections are hard to establish, especially if you are someone like Denji who has no idea how to interact with others aside from obeying orders. This is why his need for love and belonging first manifests as a sexual need (that and he's an allo teenager). Human connections are hard but sexual contact doesn't have to come tied with connections so it's easier (if unsatisfactory as Denji finds out with Power) to achieve. A lot of Denji's personal growth is tied to him finding out that this need can be fulfilled by other things alongside sex. This is why I love chapters 71-82 so much because they are really a culmination of Denji's emotional journey in that category. Along the way along with sexual love he finds romantic one. He wants to spend time with girls he likes, he wants them to like him beyond the sexual. Of course sexuality is always an aspect of it but after that scene with Power it's never the only thing. Human connection, understanding the other person, knowing them, loving them, making them happy. And it all culminates in the familial love he finds with Aki and Power, taking care of someone and being taken care of for no other reason than they are your family and you love them, you care for them, you want them to be well and happy. There's this scene with Power later on when they are taking a bath together and Denji is like 'huh we are both naked but it doesn't feel naughty at all'. He's stopped seeing Power sexually because he started to see her as his sister and it's just really nice, those few chapters we get to see them as a family are really nice.

By the end of the series Denji starts checking off the esteem box too, by people accepting him and loving him and him feeling like he wants to respond to that, but I feel like that aspect and possible self actualization will be more explored in part 2.

There you have it, my essay about why Denji is the most compelling Shonen protagonist I've ever read :)

Also I really liked the girls in this series, it really isn't afraid of letting it's female characters be weird and gross and in Makima's case just plain evil and I appreciate it for that. I just wish Quanxi got more time and things to do but she's a side character and it's not her fault she's cooler than the whole main cast (Power best girl tho).

I feel like I talked a lot already about what was my most important take away from the whole thing but yeah, in general: pretty entertaining read, would probably be a complete blast for someone who's invested in fights, a little thin on psychology and emotion for my tastes but when it delivers them it delivers them good.

Also I like how it basically ended on 'you should give people more hugs' it was cute

Additionally I think the authors idea to basically release manga in seasons like you would an anime is straight up genius I hope that more mangakas start picking this up because it allows them more rest in between big arcs.

Ok now that's it for real this time.

[full-of-roman-angst-trash]

Where Did You Go?

This fanfic is dedicated to @moxy--sanders101! Congrats on 1k!!! You definitely deserve it!

Prompt by @transformationloveb

Orginal pompt

TW: Small Unsympathetic Virgil, Roman Angst, Cursing, Very Small Hint of Self Deprecation (Very easy to miss but added it just in case)

Pairings: Familial Creativity Twins (Don’t tag as R*mR*m) Platonic Roceit, Platonic Demus/Dukeciet

~~~~~~~~~

“Loooogggaannn!!! I’m starving!!!” I whine loudly, staring at Logan from my spot on the couch.

A groan responds to my whine.

“Remus shut the fuck up! I’m trying to follow this stupid recipe! If you’re actually starving, then stop being annoying and let me concentrate!”

Daddy dearest frowns a bit, “Logie, language!”

Another groan escapes the Nerdy Wolverine’s mouth, “Sorry, Patton.”

“It’s fine, Logie. Just take a deep breath; If you want, I can try and help you with supper.”

Logan takes a deep breath before sighing and putting the knife that he was using to try and cut some vegetables with, down. 

“There really isn’t a need. No matter what we do, the outcome won’t come out well.”

Virgin, who was sitting on the counter, rolls his eyes, “Geez, try having some faith, teach.” 

“Why should I have ‘faith’? In the past month that Roman has refused to leave his room. Any food that we have attempted to make has been unsatisfactory. I am merely basing my hypothesis on past data.”

"I was just trying to be optimistic...." The emo mumbles in response, shrinking into his hoodie. 

"Awwe Kiddo," Daddy goes over to Virgin and hugs him, "It's okay."

Four-eyes sighs, "My deepest apologies if I hurt your feeling Virgil, that was not my intention. I am merely just frustrated with our current predicament."

"Remus, can you try to convince Ro to come out out of his room again? Please?" The Old Man glances at me.

I throw myself off the couch and onto the floor. 

"I've tried, but Little Miss Tinkerbell refuses to come out until Double D over here leaves," I inform him.

Anxiety rolls his eyes and groans, “Oh my god! Can he just stop being so dramatic!? He’s such a crybaby! He’s literally hurting us just because Deceit made a snarky remark at him! Which was his fault since Deceit was defending himself from Roman’s bullying!”

His words ring in my ears and make a seething rage spread throughout my body, I was just about to defend my brother, but someone beats me to it. 

“Shut the fuck up, Anxiety,” The coldness and anger in Jan’s voice makes a shiver run through all of our spines. 

Anxiety turns to DeeDee with an annoyed and offended expression on his face.

“Excuse me!? I am literally defending you, and you tell me to shut up!?” Virgil glares at Janus.  

“Well, last time I checked, I didn’t ask you to defend me, now did I?” He stands up and starts making his way to our once ally, “Also, you weren’t there for that episode; you only know Patton’s side of the story. So you are in no position to speak about an issue you know barely know anything about.”

He stops right in front of Par-Anxiety and puts a hand on his shoulder passive-aggressively.

He smiles, yet it was an unsettling and scary smile, “You haven’t tried seeing things from his perspective or tried to be sympathetic and tried to understand why he reacted like that. On top of that, you have no right to declare his rebuttal as bullying.”

Anxiety swallows and slaps Jan’s hand away, “W-whatever...” He takes a step back, “I don’t understand why you’re defending that asshole!”

“CALL MY BROTHER ONE MORE NAME I DARE YOU!!!” I summon my morning star and point it at Anxiety, unable to hold my anger any longer.

The coward squeals and takes another step back, not responding.

I take a deep breath and put my morning star away before starting to walk away, “I’m going to talk to my brother.”

“Wait,” Janus grabs my wrist and stops me from going further, “Can I come with you, please? I wanna try and apologize to him...”

I know that Janus is the last person Ro wants to see, but I can’t really say no to Dee. I know Dee really regrets what he did, and well, I want Ro and Dee to get along.

I sigh softly, “Fine, but if he wants you to leave, please do.”

He nods, “Aright, that’s fine,” He lets go of my wrist and follows me to Roman’s room.

We get to Roman’s room, and I knock on the door softly, “Ro, it’s me, Rem. Can you please let me in?

It takes a while for me to get a response, but I know I would.

“A-are you alone....?” His voice is just barely loud enough for me to hear it.

I glance at Double D, noting his shocked expression, probably from him hearing Roman respond.

“No, I’m not,” I turn back to the door.

This time the wait for a response is much longer, “W-Who’s with you...?

I take a small deep breath, “Janus...”

Silence. That’s all that comes back at me. Suddenly though, the door opens and Roman -with messy, tangled hair, a plain black shirt and shorts, puffy red eyes and nose- looks at us.  

“C-Come in.....” 

He moves to let us in. We walk in, and I immediately notice the state of his room; All the posters he had up were ripped clean off, the fairy lights that were hanged on the wall were gone, plain white sheets replaced his rose bed sheets, and his closet wall that he had hand-painted designs into was repainted white. 

I bite my lip and try not to get upset at seeing my brother’s past confident and fiery love for his passions gone. I notice that Jan is looking down, and it was evident that he was also holding back his emotions. I hear Roman close the door; he walks over to his bed and sits down.

He avoids looking at us, “S-So, w-why are you guys h-here....?” 

I sit on the floor, Jan hesitantly sitting next to me, “Well, I think someone has to  tell you a few things.”

I turn to DeeDee and give him an encouraging smile. Roman stays quiet, just waiting for one of us to continue speaking.

Dee takes a deep breath, “Look, Roman...” He starts quietly, “I’m so so sorry... I know what I said wasn’t right, and it was way too far... There was a line, and I definitely crossed it... I’m sorry.”

His words seem to take a while for them to reach Roman; for a while, the room falls silent. 

“I’m sorry too,” Ro finally looks at us, his voice hushed, “For everything I’ve ever done to both of you... I wrongfully judged you guys and stereotyped y’all... Then I had the audacity to insult and make fun of you guys... So, I’m truly sorry...”

Dee smiles softly, “How about we start over?”

“Yeah,” A small smile creeps its way to Roman’s face, “I’d like that.”

“Okay, sorry to interrupt you guys’ moment,” I loudly interject, not really all that sorry, “But, dude, I’m starving, and we have to fix your room, it looks disgusting right now!”

The Disney whore lightheartedly rolls his eyes, “First of all, fine, we can fix my room later. And second of all, can’t you make your own food? I mean you literally eat deodorant.” 

I whine loudly, “You usually make my deodorant, though! You’re the only one that can cook anything good, stupid!” 

“Remus is, for once, correct Roman,” Janus butts in, completely ignoring my offended gasp, “We’ve tried to figure out how to cook, but sadly we’ve had no real success.”

 Mr.Depresso sighs and gets up, “Fine, I guess I can cook dinner again.”

I excitedly stand up, (almost accidentally slipping and crushing Jan) “Yay! Thanks, Hoe Bag!” 

He smacks me on the arm, “Dumb bitch,” He helps JD up.

“While this isn’t quite amusing, stop calling each other names. Also, thank you, Roman.” 

Prince crybaby huffs, “No problem and fine, I yield.”

“Well, I don’t! Now let’s go bitches!” I grab both of their hands and start running out of the room. 

They both follow without bothering to struggle. Once we get to the living room, I let go of their hands, pushing Roman forward slightly. 

“I got the dumbass!”

Everyone's attention turns to us.

Roman regains his balance from my shove and clears his throat awkwardly, going back to avoiding eye contact.

Suddenly, I scoff cuts through the silence, “Oh great, The egotistical prick is back.”

I immediately recognize the voice, and when I notice Roman flinch, all my anger from earlier came back.

“Stop Anxiety. May I remind you that he’s being nice enough to cook dinner for us. Something we don’t deserve after ignoring him and pushing him aside for so long,” Janie quickly responded.

I smirk, “Exactly! So, shut up bitch!”

Before he or any other side can say anything, I grab Janus’ and Roman’s hand and drag them to the kitchen.

As we’re walking there, I hear a small whisper.

“Thank you, guys. You two are the best.”

~~~~~~~~~

Writing Taglist

@just-violet-flowers @itriedandimtired @lilyrockerlove @random-fander

[cowboylikedean]

Now that I’ve had time to sit with all of this, my feelings are.... complicated.

The thing is... I was finished. I was done. I watched seasons 11-14 out of respect for my past, my history, my time, my life. I was watching season 15 out of respect for the show. To see it out to the end, to give it the opportunity and respect to be finished. But I was already done. 

And then they did one of the three (3) things that could bring me back. 

And I feel so... manipulated? 

I kinda feel like Buffy in season 6 talking about coming back from heaven. “I was finished, complete. And I was happy. But I was torn out of there, ripped out... by my friends.” 

Because I was happy. I was happy in that I had made peace. I knew that I loved the original seasons 1-5 arc, that my favorite season was 7, that season 8 was when I started to really not enjoy myself, that season 9 is when I lost all ability to enjoy the show, that I only watched season 10 for the 200th and the nostalgia presented in that episode was fun, but it carried me for two or three weeks and then.... I let go. I had made peace with never getting that back. I was never going to watch this show and have fun again, unless I was rewatching 1-7, and that was okay. I didn’t need to enjoy it. I didn’t need anything. The writers were terrible and I knew that but it was okay. I didn’t have to trust them or have faith in them or generally give a shit because they were bad writers phoning it in for a pay check and that’s fine... If you can, you can I guess. I mean it’s bullshit but like I was okay. 

But now.... Now I care again. Now I need and want something from them. Now I’m worried about the fact that I don’t trust them and I think they’re all shitty writers phoning it in for a paycheck because now I care about what happens. 

And I’m pissed. 

Because out of those three things, they chose the ONE that I resent the most. 

Those three things are (1) They kill Sam. This is clearly my favorite, and if they were gonna do one I wish they’d done this especially if it was at Dean’s hands. He’d never have a happy ending after killing Sam, but I would. (2) They kill Dean. This would have been a cut and dry “let’s go kill someone” charge. I would have had my appropriate moment of outrage and disgust. I’d be seeing Sam-stans and Cas-stans write their long metas about how “it’s actually a perfect ending for Dean” and see destiel wannabes write their mourning fics like it was cute and be justified in every spec of anger I’ve ever felt. 

But they chose (3) Destiel goes canon. I get no satisfaction from this... But I do get my sense of nostalgia played upon. I get used for views with nothing in return. Well... Maybe that’s not accurate, I get something, but it’s not... 

I stopped shipping destiel 2 seasons before I finished watching. Season 8 was the last time I shipped it in any serious fashion. I sat through the wild and incredible queerbaiting that was Jeremy Carver’s run of the show.... and honestly for what?! I was here in the hiatus between seasons 7 and 8, leading up to what we, the fandom, called “season gr8″ which it was only named because of queerbaiting. And I fell for it. I drank the koolaid every single week in season 8. I wrote metas and posts, my fb memories are filled with posts insisting that “this would be the week.” 

“It’s not queerbaiting if they make it canon,” I’d say. “It’s a slow burn, a long build. A will-they-won’t-they.” I felt like my fellow fans who were getting increasingly more aggressive with the cast and crew had just “lost faith.” that if they saw the big picture, that Dean and Cas were an epic love story that didn’t need immediate payoff, they could enjoy all the little moments we were getting without demanding more. 

By the time I left the show, I no longer expected they’d make it canon... but more importantly, neither did I want them to. By that time, Dean had been put through the ringer being the emotional support for every character, the punching bag, the background to everyone else’s stories because no other actor could pull the emotion Jensen could. Dean had everything he had despite the other characters’ stories and emotions. He was seen by the fandom and most of the writing staff as a filler, an extension. He was one half of a relationship - romantic or not - not his own person. He was “the dumb one” and characterized in really stupid ways. You can see it as recently as 15x16 when a writer who has written one other episode of the show and clearly never actually watched the show especially the flashback episodes. Dean was a caricature, not a character. And Cas... Cas was written with increasing amounts of fanservice too. He went from a powerful being trying to learn to balance his sense of angelic responsibility with love of the Earth to being a whiny crybaby who was generally helpless to circumstance. He was written in such a way where he both leaned on Dean to give him purpose and validation while also completely ignoring everything about Dean that made Dean Dean. 

As the seasons have gone on, this has gotten more apparent. I think what happened with Mary and Dean kicking Cas out the bunker earlier this season (which was also written by Robert Berens btw and if it’s true he wrote the confession scene first in the season - he wrote this scene after that one) is a perfect example. Dean’s criticism there is that Cas doesn’t trust him. When shit is hitting the fan, Cas expects Dean to react in the worst possible way he could, so he refrains for telling Dean vital information and asking for help while he looks for a solution by himself so Dean never has to know there’s even a problem. Then something goes wrong and Cas is always left there saying he’s sorry, that he shouldn’t have done that... But he never seems to learn, or trust Dean enough to do something different next time. And that time, the lack of trust killed Dean’s mom. The narrative and the fandom both treated Dean as irrational and overly emotional - the bad guy - in that situation. Dean shouldn’t have done that.

But like what the fuck should he have done??? I’d have killed him. Or cut him out for good... like for good for good. How toxic is it to have someone in your life who repeatedly ruins your life by not trusting you with a problem that could be dealt with collectively, but not alone? 

And we’re going to what... retcon all of that? By bringing destiel into this, all the reasons I haven’t shipped it and I’ve considered Cas to be one of the most insidious abusers in this show are what? What am I supposed to do with them? 

It’s no fucking wonder the script says Dean can’t reciprocate! Because how could he? How can they really justify Dean expressing his frustration at being manipulated and lied to for 11 years at the beginning of the season and expressing undying romantic love at the end of the season? 

But this isn’t about narrative sense. It’s about an ending. The whole season is about endings... and writings... and god and death to the author... The metas flying around about “god” and “the writers” are all spot on... And so, it doesn’t matter. The message is the story is what we make it, not what they do. And therefore, they call upon destiel as the greatest example of the fandom finding a story within the story that wasn’t being told. 

Except that’s not true. Because it has been being told, just not with any intention of payoff. It’s been queerbaited and intentionally so. “It’s not queerbaiting if they make it canon” is a lie. It is still queerbaiting if they never intended to make it canon! And it’s not okay. 

But here I am, two episodes to go and then that’s it. There are no other opportunities for them to make canon honor that unspoken promise to the viewers. This is it. And endings do matter. Despite the message of the season being generally that endings aren’t important. That the story, the push and pull, the free will of the characters to run away with the story and bring the writers and audience to new places, the interaction between audience and story and the life they run away with, that those are the important parts of stories and storytelling... But that just isn’t true. It’s a romantic notion that endings are just silly things we tack on our stories that confine us, that the real stories are within us... but we consume these stories for the payoff of the ending. An unsatisfactory ending can completely ruin a work; just ask HIMYM. 

So then this is my last chance... My last chance to feel the release of payoff of a relationship I was intentionally inspired to care about without an intention of payoff. This is my last chance of vindication for all that emotional time and energy spent. 

So I’m hopeful and I’m transported back to 2012 and 2013 when I cared. When I believed. When every week felt like a possibility. When it felt like it could really happen. And most importantly, when I wanted it to. Because I do want it to now. I have actively not wanted it to for 6 years, but now is my last chance and it very well might happen so now... I want it.. 

And the way they did it... With giving Cas his moment, but leaving it open for interpretation... IT’S SO CALLBACK QUEERBAIT. AND callback toxic Cas. Cas lays this on Dean and then yeets off? And tells Dean that it’s because Cas loves him that he’s going? Every single part of Dean’s emotional history and trauma makes that evil, but Cas does it to him? And I’m hoping he’s not mad for the sake of the payoff of the relationship?!?!?!??!?! 

Are you fucking kidding me?

And then also I wanna circle back to the queerbait of it all. Misha acknowledged today that there’s some room for interpretation here. And I don’t know how that gets resolved in the final two episodes, if it does... BUT THAT’S THE FUCKING POINT!!! I will be watching live, as it airs, for the first time in 7 years, one week before I intended mind you, because I’m being baited with the promise and hope of explicit payoff that doesn’t leave room for interpretation???? And that’s not queerbaiting??? 

The whole thing is ridiculous and manipulative and just generally awful, but I’m eating it up because I don’t really have the luxury of another choice. Because hoping for payoff is the best option I’ve got. 

I hope I get to justify my past self and see all of that payoff and feel that vindication for the part of me that loved destiel, but I consider destiel to be the number 1 thing that ruined the show for me. So it will be a hollow victory, for sure. And that’s if there’s even a victory, which isn’t a guarantee. 

I just feel so used right now. 

[fratboykate]

I’m beginning to think that I’ve reached a point in my life where I don’t have the interest or the patience for content made 1) by straight men and/or 2) by/for white people.

I just watched Clouds of Sils Maria and...is it bad? No. Objectively it’s well done. I might even go as far as saying that it’s “very well done” in all technical aspects. I don’t have any major complaints about it but I walk away from it irked regardless. There’s something so completely uninteresting and vapid about these type of stories to me now. Rich, self-important white people and their rich white problems are just so fucking over done and they’ve been overdone for years. Not to mention that if I never see anything with lead characters that are actors trying to make a play or a movie in my life again I’d be perfectly okay with it. It’s all so insider baseball and spiritless. We as a society need to move on from that.

This director also does shit that really annoys me and I know it’s a pattern with him because he did the same things in Personal Shopper. There’s a feeling of pompous self-indulgence to his direction that REEKS of entitled white man with a deep feeling of superiority. That being said, he can coax performances out of people because that is probably the best acting I’ve ever seen out of Kristen. I had been putting off watching this movie for ages because I truly cannot stand Chloe and he somehow managed to make her bearable in the (thankfully) few scenes she had. So yeah, he’s a good actor’s director, I’ll give him that.

Wanna know what he isn’t? He’s not a good writer. The exact same fucking complaints that I had about Personal Shopper are the complaints I have with this one and one of the biggest things is the way his characters talk. His dialogue is one giant, endless circlejerk about how obviously smart and more well read than you he is. He’s also reminded me how fucking over seeing female characters written by men I am. These two characters could’ve just as easily been men and nothing would’ve changed. There wasn’t a thing that made them feel like authentically real women, nothing that made me believe they were more than a coin-toss gender choice. Matter of fact, Kristen’s character was so superficial that she was barely a character at all in my opinion. We knew nothing of her just that she was a pretty damn good assistant. Her character also had one of the most unsatisfactory endings that I’ve seen in ages. It vanishes quite literally into thin air. One of the two leads. Gone. No explanation. She’s just nowhere to be found in the last like 20 minutes of the movie. We can obviously infer what happened with her but it’s was wholly idiotic writing in my opinion.

I don’t know...yeah...it’s good. It is. It’s ��fancy”, film snob jerkoff, haughty filmmaking but there’s not an ounce of a soul in this. There’s only the insipid work of a white man who tried to make ~rEaL cInEmA~ and ended up pumping out sterile nothingness instead. I’m just so over that shit. The version of me that existed ten years ago would’ve been so far up this movie’s ass that I would’ve never seen the sunlight again but now I’m just like...a female director of color would’ve made two insanely riveting, real, raw, relevant films for the budget this dude blew on this snooze fest. I hate it.

[ofravensandgenesis]

The Investment of an Antagonist - Part Three

Entry 04 continued. [Trigger warning content: post contains discussion of Far Cry 5 details for the main villains including violence, brainwashing, torture, child abuse, neglect, emotional manipulation, dark backstories, drug use, cult content, etc. Spoilers for Far Cry 5 inherent. Part 03 of 03.] [Link to part one here.] [Link to part two here.]

— Faith —

Lastly we have Faith, née Rachel Jessop, the youngest of the Seed family. The easiest themes to assign to her are unsurprisingly drug-use and escapism. She is an intriguing and complex character with some very beautifully done layers, in particular playing with gender expectations of behavior both in-world and on the meta in what may have been either intended brilliance of foresight or fridge brilliance by the dev team.

Thematically speaking though, as with the other Seeds, she is projecting her past experiences onto others and turning into the abuser in the recreation of her trauma. In this case, it could be taking up the role of a manipulator using soft-coded presentation and masking shaming techniques with positive wording and oblique expectation-pressures to get people to go along with what she’s saying...as well as making them more pliable via the Bliss. It could be that part of her escapism theme manifests as disassociation, separating one’s self and in this case Rachel from Faith, her followers from their worries and problems, and at the most extreme end the Angels from essentially their entire personality and past. In contrast to John, Faith seems to be much more so about forgetting/burying/separating one self from one’s past problems, sins, unhappiness, etc rather than facing it head on. In a way, it could potentially be interpreted as a denial of those aspects of a person, and herself, through the Bliss. This could be a better parallel to how Jacob also breaks the unwilling down in his Trials, albeit for more specifically war-like purposes than Faith. We don’t get to hear if John has opinions on how the “new recruits” up in Jacob’s neck of the woods are treated well or not, but he doesn’t include Jacob in his jab. The absence could be used to infer that John has either separate issues, less issues, or no issues with how Jacob runs things, but that’s the problem with this kind of absence: it lacks definite, concrete matter to build with. We hear only a very vague telling of the details of Faith’s life from Faith directly, which in this instance is going to be presumed to be true, albeit perhaps glossing over the details and told from a carefully crafted perspective for a desired end result. Others also have their own opinions to fill in on the details of Faith as she is and was, and her life before, including but potentially not limited to Tracey and Sheriff Whitehorse, as far as I’m aware at this time. What’s really interesting is the almost split presentation we get at times with Faith: in some moments she is the epitome of her title the siren, bright, friendly, seemingly warm and enticing. Other times she has some lines that cast very long, dark shadows. Three of the phone calls one can find in the Henbane are particularly dark, if one assumes the call with the sounds of a crying woman on the other end to be Faith. Even disregarding that third one, the other two show more of Faith’s darker aspects, as noted below: “Rachel’s so sad and alone. Once was lost, never found. She lead a faithless life and it brought her low. Faith rose up in her, but Rachel stayed low, down. Faith flies divine, and Rachel...Rachel gropes around in the darkness. I left her there, a long time ago.”

The second phone call text:

“A baby is a sack of screaming, shitting, crying impulses with no personality, no thoughts, no understanding of the world beyond feelings. It has no soul. You have to give it one. The only soul we ever have, we receive from others. And it is only others, who can take it away.” One possible interpretation from these two comments from Faith would be that she was very strongly shaped by her family and friends before she ran away with Tracey to join a commune out west. Not into total obedience without personality, but perhaps instead placation and appeasement behaviors, attempting to make the other people in her life “happy” as a form of self-protection coping mechanism to deal with living in an abusive home environment, and later on refined into intentional choices as these lines from her might strongly suggest: "All my life I dealt with people like you. People who underestimate sweet, innocent Faith. You see what you wanna see... a playful butterfly, a delicate flower... a child with childish thoughts. It's easier to disregard a child. Tracey made the same mistake as you. While you all ignored me, I walked right through every one of you." From Faith’s wiki page, it also states that Sheriff Whitehorse talked about “Tracey and Rachel, who were friends, 'joined a free spirit movement in the west, smoking doobies, banging on drums’. But Rachel and Tracey fell on harder drugs and fell out of favor with their community. Tracey searched for a new home and found the Project at Eden's Gate, and Faith decided to return with her to Hope County to join the cult.” From there, with Rachel going through the painful and dangerous process of withdrawal symptoms while attempting to end her addiction, it might be that she also felt that her new self, Faith, or Faith-to-be, was shaped by Joseph and the Project. That this new self was a new soul, and that her old soul, her old identity, Rachel, had been cast away. Perhaps that was another motivation for her to possibly split with Tracey, staying with the cult over staying with her best friend whom she had left her home behind with once before—the friend she’d run away with into the unknown at what was likely a rather young age. Perhaps staying with Tracey, Faith felt too much of Rachel remained. Rachel, the addict. Rachel, the powerless. Rachel, the abused. Perhaps those reminders were too painful for Faith, and she wanted to separate from them as much as possible. If she wanted Tracey to stay though...perhaps she had also hoped Tracey would have a fresh start. That Tracey would be “happier” at the Project. That the two of them would be born anew and cleansed of their sins, as the Project promises. All of the Seeds are in this interpretation trying to cope with their traumas. Faith in this aspect is perhaps the one closest chronologically in time to her trauma, being the youngest, and thus perhaps still emotionally rawer at times underneath it all. Rawer in a more youthful sense, not related to the innocence she tries to project as a front, so much as how she cries out in panic and fear during her boss fight’s finale, when the Deputy strikes the final blow, and how her tone changes when she’s threatened during the fight, talking about how Joseph threatened her and plied her with drugs. In this regard, it is very easy to read Faith as still placating, still coping, still appeasing the powers that be in her life, in this case the Project, Joseph, and the other Seeds to a degree. With being Faith, and not even the first and only Faith but at the very least the third in a series of adopted “sisters,” the danger of being killed, cast aside, or deemed unsatisfactory for whatever reason is very real, and could echo possible fears she’d harbored of her parents, other friends, and community members in her past. How much danger she was in from her parents is unstated as far as I’m aware, but that she was abused and likely was afraid is enough. Fear itself is real enough and a weighty factor in any situation where it exists, as it was meant to be by biological design. So in recreation of that potential trauma-build, Faith placates all of her followers with the Bliss and gentle words, making some members of the Resistance note in commentary that they feel special, loved, cared for. Drawn in to become a part of Faith’s idealized dream of everyone being predictably calm, and open to suggestion. While it is still technically appeasing behavior, with Faith being in control of the Bliss’s drug production and seemingly also the hallucinatory effect it has on people, she is also master of the realm and thus the one with the keys to the kingdom, and I daresay enjoys her power with how she mocks the Deputy upon their return to the Jail after the cutscene of her reasserting control over Burke and the ensuing happenings. Her methods on the surface are soft and appealing seemingly, but she is ultimately now able to control those in her region and under her power with a far more beautifully beguiling and insidious form of puppeteering. She makes a splendid contrast in that regard with how Jacob brainwashes people, with making Angels versus the brainwashed fighters of Jacob’s. Another piece of interesting dialogue regarding the Angels as mentioned by Faith in I believe the Whistling Beaver Brewery is as follows: "Have you seen their faces? On the Pilgrimage? Oh, you should see it. To see the sin fly from their heads and their faces slacken to peace. The vanity shaved from their heads, evil taken from their lips. Never to speak a sinful word, any word, again. It gives me life. Every time a bell rings..." Combining that with the above comment about how Faith believes people don’t have souls until given them and shaped by the others around them, Faith certainly seems to have grabbed the reins on shaping who people are, with the intent to “smooth out” any disagreeable parts. To the point of perhaps erasing a person’s individuality entirely, thus producing an Angel. She like her brothers is also driven by purpose, as she mentions in her first cutscene of being given purpose, and from the random encounter line below: “I’m going to tell you a secret... Eden’s Gate is not here to fix your life. That’s your own selfish dream... No! Eden’s Gate exists to save something greater than you and me. It is here for the Father to bring salvation to the world’s very existence, and you’re trying to destroy that. I put so much hope in you. I thought you’d be special. Was I wrong?” That first bit about not fixing one’s life feels like a potentially open admittance that the Project is not trying to fix people at least in her region, so much as to re-purpose them to the Project’s own ends, and Faith fulfills that with a gentle kind of at-times-gaslit brutality that she selectively applies more forcefully when someone isn’t playing according to Faith’s own preferences. While the doubting may also be real in her case in the later lines, it also serves as shame-based social pressure to not disappoint her, directed at the Deputy as an attempt to erode any resistance they have to conforming to doing the “right” or “sympathetic” thing—as defined by Faith anyway. Its a good bit of manipulation, leaving it blurry whether its outright just intended to influence the Deputy or if she indeed has any doubts. I lean towards the latter for added nuance of emotion, though I do think she’s more than capable and willing of violence and brutality when desired. One minor example among others that comes to mind would be the signs of violence and likely death in the Chan residence, with the implication that Faith sent some of her people to deal with Jasmine and likely kill her, per the blood on the floor and the unsent note contents: “To whom it may concern, Thank you for addressing my complaints about all that noise coming from that Eden’s Gate construction site. One of your representatives (I think her name was Faith, not sure) passed by and said she’d have a word with the people building the statue. She even said she’d make them come by to apologize in person. Although we may disagree on some philosophical matters, it’s nice to see some neighborly etiquette. I look forward to resolving this amicably. -Jasmine Chan” Aside from that, there are also other mentions such as Ethan Minkler overdosing on the Bliss (while that may be a possible accident, the point likely remains that he either died or became an Angel, much to the mayor Virgil Minkler’s grief,) comments by Resistance NPCs about how forced-pilgrims on the Path are sometimes made to crawl on their hands and knees until they bleed, the ones made to jump from the Statue of Joseph and land among the littered bodies of those who did not survive, etc. Ultimately what all of that might be mirroring is her own treatment at the hands of her family and other people in her past, as well as perhaps what Joseph, the Seeds, and the Project asked of her: not to be fixed, but re-purposed. It was never about her, but what she could do for someone, be it her family, friends, or the Project. In that, the Angels are an elegantly simple solution: they are obedient to the wishes of the Project, and are loyal to a fault without any chance of wanting anything to the contrary than what is asked of them, provided they are provided with a steady supply of Bliss (presuming they require it as a continued addiction, though that is purely speculation.) The Angel’s Grave in the Horned Serpent Cave seems to be a lake of boiling muck that is implied to be a mass grave for Angels, per the Grieving Note found therein: “Lana. Christ in heaven what they did to you. The fact that they could make you believe all that nonsense, make you forget yourself so hard. Forget your own name? How, Lana? What did he say to you? What kind of fucking dirtbag blood ritual could make you think your name was “Faith”? Doesn’t matter how, I guess. He told you you were special, but in the end he threw your body in here to disintegrate in the boiling muck, like a common Angel.” This certainly shows the Project has little to no respect for the dead, or at the very least those turned into mindlessly loyal Angel minions. It echoes back to the lack of individuality Faith may struggle with internally as a theme—it may also be that her parents abused her through the unrealistic-expectations archetype of wanting and pressuring her to be what they wanted, without any regard of who she was as an individual or what she wanted out of her life. Perhaps during her life she was treated as nothing more than a commodity, trying to forever appease and live up to her parents’ expectations. I sadly have very little on the Jessop family as a whole, so this is all once again pure fabricated speculation. This lack of personal worth through individuality does thread through the recurring instance of there being multiple Faiths before Rachel, and it is shown in the notes to the two known previous Faiths, Lana and Selena (both referenced from Faith’s article the wiki.) “You’re not the first one, Selena. You’re not the first woman he’s used up and thrown away. For years I’d been hearing this Faith Seed was tall as her brother, with black hair. Couldn’t miss her. And then I saw you in one of their trucks last week, yellow hair in the breeze, and heard them calling you Faith. He thinks he can just SWAP YOU OUT. Like you don’t got a brain of your own. God knows who you are, and so do you. Selena. I love you. Don’t lose yourself to this.” Both of the above notes have mentions to identity issues with taking on the new name of Faith, of losing oneself or forgetting oneself. With the note to Lana and the last note from one of the Faiths there is also the double mention of “being special.” “I just wanted to be special. When Joseph came into my life, I felt like you’d given me a true gift, Lord. That a man who talks to you would bring me in on your holy conversation..? And so I too the name that you gave me, Lord, through Joseph: “Faith.” And I am a woman made anew. But now, I’m ashamed to say, even though I carry this name, my devotion to the Project is..plagued. By Doubt. What do I do? I know you will forgive me, dear Lord. I don’t know if Joseph will.“ The above note titled “A Confession” on Faith’s wiki page is possibly from Rachel, though the wording has me contemplating that it’s likely from someone a bit older, and the style I’m uncertain if I’d attribute to Rachel though I acknowledge that writing and speaking can present very differently. I would expect her to write with a more direct style of wording since presumably she had internet access and was familiar with texting, speculating off of Tracey’s note in the convent that mentioned Tracey being “tired of this 19th-century-ass writing shit.” The pauses via commas and more formal-yet-casual feel of the written cadence, along with more talk of God feels like someone else’s voice rather than Rachel’s, but I could be wrong. But that’s also fitting with the theme of uncertainty of who’s who beneath the name of Faith. Therein lies the loss of individuality and lack of clear denoting of which Faith this was, or is.

—  Conclusion —

What I find absolutely fascinating about all of these villains is how they tell the story of the trauma and past experiences through their actions, dialogue, beliefs, and all while moving the main story forward. We do have some direct story telling in the sense of them telling us about those key moments that lead to their revelation and some backstory details, but the fact that even afterwards in a lot of what they do if not all of what they do we can potentially draw more inferences of how they came to be who they are? That is some very beautiful story and character construction in my opinion. In how the past influences their present and relatively speaking future events, so too does their present and future come circling back to tie to their past. This possible feedback loop of influence is just so neat in my opinion and is particularly pronounced here with the Seed family and how they are presented in-game. I feel it works exceptionally well for antagonists but could in theory also work for any main character. The sheer weight of how their past influences them so profoundly is really interesting, and while we all are shaped by our past, it’s particularly highlighted here with the Seeds. Often the trope of a character having a dark backstory is presented as the reason they’re doing X, or are prone to behaving in a certain way (one such popular demeanor being say brooding,) and is particularly common for villains. What I think makes the Seeds for me more interesting in that regard is how individualized their processing of their traumas is. It’s not just out to do evil because they are simply evil and have a backstory to facilitate handwaving as to why they are evil, they’re going about it in a particular way, and have all developed a nuanced system of belief relating to that and likely significantly influenced by those around them as well, with the Seeds all I would say influence each other to varying degrees. Them being a group of villains is part of that complexity with the layers of them having a family dynamic, the cult hierarchy, significantly different styles of managing their affairs while still sharing some core elements, and being such diverse personalities. The Seeds in their entirety as a group are what make or break the story in my opinion, since to have really good conflict I would say you need excellent villains or antagonists, and the Seed family fits that bill in my personal opinion very well. It feels like there was a lot of time and care put into each of the Seeds in different ways and in crafting their stories as well as fitting those stories to the main story of Far Cry 5. The speculation I personally take away from this in terms of developing interesting characters is that sometimes having a very detailed background and having it influence a character heavily and actively both in-scene and on the meta of writing the scene can be really interesting. Obviously sometimes not knowing a character’s past and leaving it a mystery works very well too. But if there’s been care put into how the character is developed and there are in-world, albeit unknown backstory reasons for their actions, words, and beliefs? Then even if we the audience don’t know the reasons, that can make for a very compelling character for audience members to speculate and fill in the blanks about. Obviously there are other builds and exceptions and such for making compelling characters and in particular villains and antagonists, but I do think this style of character construction in relation to the overarching plot is honestly quite gorgeous as a story infrastructure element in its own right and worth taking a look at should it appeal to one to examine it. It’s a really lovely echo of how much investment the dev team’s put into the characters themselves that those characters in-world also care and are heavily invested in what they’re doing and saying too, as an added accent to it all. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk, hope you all have a good day/night! [Link to part one here.] [Link to part two here.]

[coolgirl]

I feel like he fundamentally is so unrelatable him being a billionaire and generally really powerful (and super emotionally constipated) but his relationships with his kids is really such a good way to humanise him if only he’d get therapy and learn how to process his emotions. Also ?? He has similar trauma to some of his kids but got some reason they’re not all allowed to heal and grow from them :// idk I feel like there are so many ways to write batman well but ppl always take the edgy route

Yeah that's true, tho I gotta say the kids aren't the only way to humanise batman - his compassion for the rogues and believing they could get rehabbed and change and even being in good terms with some of them used to happen more in his comics, or at least enough that I can think of a handful of examples off the top of my head when I haven't even read the comics itself. Writers just wanna make batman edgy and like well ugh off the rails as bad as the rogues and unredeemable because they think that's interesting when like... Not necessarily.. Bruce has plenty of flaws don't get me wrong but rlly peak batman was that one batman adventures issue i believe? When he went to an ideal world or something and all the rogues were living their best lives and they were happy and healthy and he got to go home to have lunch with his family lol. Every comic questioning that is like Oh bRuce needs the rogues!! Needs them to keep on being batman!! And shit like why wont u challenge that instead of doing the same old shit as always.. like don't get me wrong it can be an interesting narrative and on itself it is challenging batman but it's been done a lot of times and it's not always done correctly and never actually has any lasting changes to the narrative yk? Like what's the point of challenging Batman's methods and moral code if the next issue it's gonna be a different writer who won't do anything about it and do their own thing separately of what was trying to be done.. like idk

SORRY I TURNED THIS ASK INTO SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY but yeah older batman comics used to have him have a deeper connection with his kids and like seeing himself reflected on them and it hit differently.. like dick with his parents, and Jason & Cass and (waves hand around) so much stuff. I feel like it will always come down to writers not wanting to address all the shit bruce has done to the kids and that he's been a really bad parent in some runs. They prefer to swept it under the rug and not question his methods when like WHAT so you're gonna write a whole book about batman being evil and the rogues actually being victims but won't spare any thoughts to his own kids???? It's kinda nuts. Like right off the top of my head, when Damian died and he put all the other batkids through the grinder and he was IMMEDIATELY forgiven because :( poor Bruce just lost his son :( like what the fuck you're never gonna address how Barbara seemed to be legitimately scared of him bc he was super aggressive towards her?? How he dismembered Frankenstein dude in front of Tim and then blew him off, how he made dick do the whole fake your death don't tell anyone thing, and taking??? Jason to the place where he died without any kind of warning under the lie of helping him in a case and then goading him into a fight because he needed to blow off some steam?? And all this was IMMEDIATE swept under the rug and Tim Babs and Jason helped him and were there for him after all this & then never really addressed... Literally a joke. It's just so unsatisfactory how he can do whatever the fuck and it's not addressed. We just gotta roll with it like 😭 it's so annoying by now 😭 if you're gonna write Bruce doing all that messed up shit AT LEAST address it and show the consequences of his actions..

SORRY I got a bit ranty with no real substance lol.

[djcygnet]

NEW YEAR, NEW FIANCE → AJ

TAGGING → DJ Cygnet & Aimee Blake (@aimeeblake)

TIMELINE → January 1, 2020

SETTING → Swan Castle or whatever it’s called

SUMMARY → Aimee finds DJ after his betrothal to Karmen is announced. Nothing happens because we never finished it, the chatroom just expired and it’s been sitting in my drafts for 20 years! 

DJ didn’t know why he was surprised by how the night had turned out. Grammy Uberta had been trying to find him a wife basically since the moment he was born, and it had been a while since his betrothal with Elle had been broken. This had been inevitable, and yet... He hadn’t seen it coming, somehow. And as nice of a girl as Karmen Inka was, DJ still hated the entire situation. As soon as he’d been able to slip away from the watching crowd, he’d headed out to the bridge, where he dangled his legs off over the waterfall and buried his head in his hands. Fuck duty, he thought bitterly, even as he fully knew that he’d fulfill his duty when all was said and done. Just for tonight, though, he wanted to mourn the life he could have had if he hadn’t been born into royalty, with expectations and pressures that most average people couldn’t begin to understand. Still, it seemed that he wasn’t even allowed a few minutes of quiet to reflect on what might have been as the crunch of footsteps approached.

Aimee was feeling pretty pleased with herself as she approached DJ on the bridge. She'd managed to grab a whole tray of "celebratory" champagne from the kitchen, since she figured after the bomb Uberta dropped they'd both really need it. "Sup, Mr Inka?" She teased joylessly, putting the tray down before plopping down next to her bestie. "Wanna toast to apparently never running out of hand sanitizer ever again?"

DJ felt his spirits soar momentarily when he realized it was Aimee who had found him. He’d rather be alone, but if he was going to be with anyone, at least it was his favorite person in the world. Even if she was the biggest reason why being forced into an arranged marriage was so disappointing. ��Hi,” he grumbled, figuring if there was anyone he didn’t need to force a smile for it was Aimee. “I’d rather toast to the fact that I’ll have a water slide installed here in no time, if my future father in law is in charge,” DJ said humorlessly. He glanced at Aimee wistfully, resisting the urge to lean into her. “Wanna be my best man if it happens? You’d still be hot in a tux,” DJ said, taking the first flute of champagne from her and downing it in one go.

Aimee wrinkled her nose at the idea of a water slide being stuck anywhere near there castle. "You'd drown us both immediately. " Aimee sighed, nudging DJ with her elbow before she picked up a flute of her own and shot it back. "Was I not already going to be your best man? I've been planning my best man tux for years now." Thinking of how half many times her little playful wedding planning sessions turned into visualizing herself as DJ's bride rather than his best man, Aimee quickly picked up and downed another flute of champagne.

DJ scoffed, trying to make light of the situation. "How deep do you think waterslide pools go? Clearly Kuzco knows how to design them better than you do." Joking about it didn't quite feel right, though; it wouldn't make it go away. "Besides, I'd never let you drown," DJ added with an offhanded shrug. At least that was sincere, at a time when he felt like he was surrounded by nothing but falseness and bullshit. It wasn't Karmen's fault; she was fine, all things considered. She just wasn't his best friend, and though he'd always known that he could never really be with Aimee the way he wanted, it still sucked when reality set in like this. DJ took another flute of champagne, this time taking just a sip before staring idly into it as if it held some sort of answer. "I don't even like hand sanitizer. It smells like I should be able to lick it, but if you ever do by accident, it tastes like ass. What am I gonna do with a wife that has a lifetime supply of it?"

Aimee shrugged simply. "I don't know, I just know you'd probably figure out some way to fuck it up anyway." Sliding just a touch closer, Aimee leaned her head onto DJ's shoulder and let out a sigh. "I know you wouldn't. You're too good to me for that." If DJ had been engaged to any other girl, Aimee was sure she wouldn't be filled with as much weird melancholia. Any other princess could've very easily been Elle Charming'd eventually. But Karmen was so extra and...uptight, Aimee seriously doubted that Uberta would catch them in bed together or doing something else unsatisfactory until at least AFTER the wedding. "You're going to have to not lick her, I guess." Aimee said sincerely for a moment before looking up at DJ and cracking a smile at her own joke. "Do you think you'll like her though? She seems...nice."

DJ actually managed a real grin at Amy's words. She knew his super-human ability to injure himself better than anyone; she knew everything about him better than anyone. "You know how the water's supposed to stop me at the end? I bet I wouldn't stop, I'd just keep going until I either launched myself out onto the concrete and broke my face, or slammed onto the end and broke my legs. Or I'd just get such a bad water wedgie that I'd break my butthole or something," DJ shrugged, wondering how Karmen would deal with that. She was so... clean. Maybe he should just hurry up and show her that he was a walking, talking human hazard now before she got any further trapped in this situation. Unthinkingly, he wrapped his free arm around Aimee, still watching the bubbles in his glass fizz and disappear instead of looking at her. Her words hit too close to home; he was good to her, and all he wanted the chance was to be even better. Be more, be everything. Now, though, it just felt farther away than ever. "I can probably manage that. She seems like she'd hate that, anyway," DJ sighed, trying not to be so miserable about something he couldn't control. "And she is nice! She's even kind of funny. She's just not..." DJ stopped himself just short of saying you. It wasn't fair, to judge his poor betrothed just based on the fact that she wasn't the girl he never should have let himself love so much anyway. DJ swallowed thickly, then brought the champagne to his lips again, figuring maybe if he drained another glass Aimee would ignore his near-slip.

[ssweeneys]

i’m having a REALLY bad day

or really past couple of weeks where work is concerned and i just wanna vent bc you know sometimes people out there in the working world understand ya know???

its long, beware. idek if i’ll keep this up its more so for me to just let it out.

so like i’m an office admin for a company (we’ll leave it nameless for protection purposes) and like i supervise receptionists for my office so i’m kinda an office manager but not technically? if that makes sense.

anyway. people these days just don’t want to fucking work like EVER and like to start jobs and then up and vanish to collect that unemployment which to me is really just dumb since there are rules to it in every state and nine times out of ten you’re making like 60% of what your normal paycheck would be and thats surely not enough to live on, so like ??? i don’t get it.

there’s been a constant rotation of receptionists come and go over the last couple of months and two girls who work for me have stepped in on numerous occasions. one lady is in her 60s and doesn’t know anything about computers and is kind of dense?? to say the least. nothing against old ladies. i actually find a majority of them cute or hilarious bc they say what they think and dont give a f*ck who it offends and sometimes that blunt honesty is refreshing and you just need it in a world where people bullshit you 24/7 to further themselves for selfish gain and yaddy yada

anyways.. over recent weeks she’s become more and more intolerable to deal with. i ask her to do things and she gives me attitude and its like the simplest of things.. like email this person, make sure you let this person know they got a package, etc, etc. she can’t do even the most basic of tasks without screwing up. her attitude is just atrocious.

and due to people coming and going i’ve had to alter our schedule a lot. recently, one girl requested off so i adjusted the older lady’s hours (lets call her--carla) mind you carla only works 1 day a week and i’ve been super generous in giving her the entire week of christmas off so -- yeah.

anyways the girl who requested off (we’ll call her nicole) told me she didnt need those days off anymore and so i fixed the schedule one more time to her original days/hours.

now, i print off the schedule every time a change is made and whoever is at the reception desk i tell them to let the other girls know and post it right by the computer they sit at every day so theres no excuse for anyone to say i didnt make them aware. well carla is not the brightest bulb as we already established and she doesnt pay attention so we pretty much have to coddle her apparently and make sure she understands (although its pointless bc she doesnt no matter how hard you try to explain something to her) ANYWAYS she comes in on nicoles day when she wasnt supposed to anymore bc the schedule was fixed, posted, etc. and she gets mad when i ask her why shes there. and yes, i understand that the rotation has fucked us all over and up in so many ways. she is not the only victim here. this has been stressing me out left and right and to no end for MONTHSSSSS. so like i get it? i’m sympathetic to that. i understand the confusion and frustration, i’m right there with them.

HOWEVER, because she’s annoyed/mad/whatever she gives me attitude all day yesterday and is flagrantly disrespectful. i’m her supervisor, regardless is someone upsets you, act professional.

but she doesn’t. we know that. or at least I DO. anyhow.. she’s mad. she’s pissed off right? she’s got an attitude. she sees the new schedule, she brings it to me in my office and asks if its the correct one for tomorrow WHICH SHE IS ON!!! let me make that clear. she was on. she asks if its correct, i’m in the middle of composing an email so i take a moment to respond ‘yes’ she huffs, storms off and goes “you know what? nevermind” i’m like.... okay?? i brush it off. i’ve been brushing off her poor attitude all damn day and i dont say A THING. BC I GET IT. I UNDERSTAND. IM SYMPATHETIC TO THAT. we all have bad days. we all get a little frustrated sometimes. we’re human, yeah?

yeah. right. ok.

so then like... carla is working the morning shift for nicole. both carla and nicole showed up. carla pitched a fit bc she came in and was already there and didnt want to go home so nicole was so sweet about it and said thats okay, she can work i understand. bc even though nicole is like half her age, she’s MATURE.

at this point i dont even understand why carla is so upset? she got to stay. she got the hours. she’ll be making the money. all is good right? WRONG.

when the next girl comes in for the afternoon shift, i over hear carla telling her about the mishap that happened that morning (yesterday) and my office is literally maybe 6-7 feet from the front desk so i can hear EVERYTHING that goes on. i mean this is my job. i’m pretty much in charge of making sure the office is running, our employees are happy, etc.

so yeah i over hear carla telling this girl that and i quote “yeah nicole came in this morning and the schedule was switched around and i stayed because i was already here. (then something unintelligible I cant make out bc her voice lowers) you know, it really pisses me off that this keeps happening.”

SHE SAID THIS. TO A NEW GIRL. MAKING ME, NICOLE, EVERYONE LOOK BAD EVEN THOUGH SHE GOT WHAT SHE WANTED, NICOLE APOLOGIZED, I APOLOGIZED FOR THE MISHAP, IVE DONE EVERYTHING FOR THIS LADY TO PACIFY HER OR WORK WITH HER OR COMPENSATE HER.

so its so infuriating, disrespectful and really downright disgusting for her to trash me, my name, etc to someone. but you know what? I DONT SAY ANYTHING. I dont cause a scene. I go about my business and let it roll off my shoulders bc at this point I know if I say anything its just going to turn ugly and I’m in a professional setting. Sometimes its better to bite your tongue, hold your head up high and move the fuck on about your business.

NOW... oh now, we’re on today. carla is scheduled to work. she came into my office, confirmed it, she was FULLY AWARE OF THIS.

so nicole calls her 5 mins before shes scheduled to clock in and is politely like hey you on your way? and carla is like oh no i don’t work today.

BITCH! THE FUcK YOU MEAN????? WE CONFIRMED THIS LITERALLY!!!!!!!!

omg i cannot at this point i really cannot

but lets proceed... so carla. she’s like yeah i dont come in, tells nicole to check with me. nicole comes to me, i smh and just sigh and am like ok i’m sorry can you please call her back and tell her shes supposed to be here and if theres any issues, transfer the call to me. so nicole calls her, they’re talking, carla is being a cunt (sorry at this point you are) and so i talk to her and shes like you know, this is so frustrating i came in there i asked you if i was supposed to work and you said no (the other girl she trash talked to idk who to name her) and IM LIKE SITTING THERE GOING ????? WHEN????? TO MYSELF BC WE JUST HAD THIS CONVERSATION

MY PATIENCE IS SO THIN, ITS NON EXISTENT AT THIS POINT IM OVER IT

IM TIRED

IM SO FUCKING TIRED AND SICK OF HAVING TO PICK UP THE SLACK AND DO EVERYTHING MY FUCKING SELF BC NO ONE CAN COME TO WORK, DO THEIR JOB AND GO HOME.

can i just make a point too that we make $12 an hour here. sometimes we are LITERALLY SO BORED we have nothing to do. we can read books or watch netflix if no one is around or i even have time to rp at times. so like THIS IS THE EASIEST JOB IN THE WORLD A FUCKING MONKEY could do it.

all you do is answer phones and transfer calls or send an email

its LITERALLY. THAT. FUCKING. SIMPLE????

so like i just dont get it

but back to the point... carla is arguing with me, basically saying my communication sucks, i’m unprofessional (which is laughable but ok) etc...

and i just cant hold it in anymore?? and i’m like well carla, i’m sorry you feel that way and i understand where you’re coming from but i don’t appreciate that you were disrespectful yesterday, you told (new girl) that you were pissed off about what happened and proceeded to talk about me in a really unsatisfactory way.

and she WANTED TO TRY AND SAY THAT THIS WAS A DEFAMATION TO HER CHARACTER. WHEN SHE FUCKING SAID IT!!!!!!!!!!! i mean you can’t but if you were to ask anyone i know i have freakishly good hearing and it gets on my family’s nerves all the time bc i need quiet when writing and i have to beg them to turn their tvs down low just so i can concentrate.

I FUcKIng HEARD THESE EXACT WORDS COME OUT OF HER MOUTH!!!! and she wants to sit here and say that i’m defaming her character.

NO BITCH. Im repeating what I fucking heard you say!!!

why would i make that up? why??? how does that benefit me in any way??? what does that do for me???? NOTHING! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!! i’m not benefitting from anything here.

in addition when talking to her on the phone i bring up the fact that she brought the schedule to me (the correct one which SHE IS ON) and asked me to verify if it was correct. but then proceeds to say in the same breath (contradicting herself) that she’s going off the old one????? like okay????? but you’re wrong?? SHE EVEN SAYS ITS AN OVERSIGHT ON HER CHARACTER, SHE ALREADY MADE PLANS YADDY YADA, SHE CANT COME IN TODAY

moral of the story is... she’s dumb. she’s a fucking cunt. and i hate people who try to spin things and victim blame and tell you you’re defaming their character when you call them out on something real they actually said because they’re scared little pussies and can’t just admit its what they fucking said.

yo i’d have a lot more respect for you if you just admit it. i’m not even mad??? i dont give a fuck what you think or feel about me. when i leave here every day i dont come home and cry about work or how people feel about me there.

work me is different from real me. I. DO. NOT. FUCKING. CARE. work people do not know me on a real level only a professional one. i am here to do a job, to make money, to pay bills, to LIVE. i am not here to fret over the opinions of people who do not follow me home, who do not know the real me. WHO. DO. NOT. FUCKING. MATTER.

POINT FUCKING BLANK.

THANK YOU AND GOODBYE

like seriously?? GOD FUCK! i’m so angry.

if you read all of this, like thanks for letting me vent to a total stranger lmao you’re a real one, may you be blessed today and always.

onto that note... i gotta get back to work. (lmfao fucking irony at its finest)

[fadedtoblue]

NYCC 2018 Daredevil Season 3 Clips: Spoilers abound!

Sorry this is a little late - I had drafted everything on mobile but I couldn’t do read more cuts and figured it was worth waiting until I was back at my computer, just in case. I don’t want to spoil anyone who is actually trying to avoid that stuff.

Anyway, this is a Very Spoilery write up of the clips we saw at NYCC the other day. Pardon any errors or nonsense - I wrote this quite late the other evening and no mobile no less. I might be a little bit fuzzy on certain specifics right now but the major beats should be covered! I’ve also tried to match up screengrabs from the released trailers to add context. Read at your own risk under the cut...

Clip #1: Matt and Maggie

Scene opens with two little boys poking around a disgruntled Matt who is lying in bed. We soon find out that these are little boys who live at St. Agnes, the orphanage Matt himself grew up in, and where he is apparently convalescing. Sister Maggie comes in to shoo them off - she comes off as very strict and humorless, which comes into play when she starts chatting with Matt as she’s redressing his wounds. They talk about he was young and he was her charge at the orphanage. They also talk about Matt being the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen (he had to have been dropped off in his costume I guess!) and go into a back and forth about his senses and how it all works. Maggie also emphasizes to Matt that since he’s mostly healed, he’ll need to find another place to stay.

Clip #2: Karen and Foggy

Karen and Foggy are having a hushed conversation in the Nelson family butcher shop. Karen thinks Matt might be alive because she’s heard about some guy in a black mask running around town. Foggy firmly disagrees, implying that it’s not possible, and this whole thing is clearly a sore subject for them. Karen asks something like don’t you want to be sure that this isn’t your best friend running around out is there and Foggy seems resigned, saying that if that were actually his best friends, then Matt would have come to them already. Karen leaves, upset.

Clip #3: Special Agent Nadeem and Fisk

This is inside the prison, Nadeem and Fisk sit across each other at a table. Nadeem starts to give some FBI spiel as but stops part way, thinking this whole thing with Fisk is nothing more than a charade. Fisk doesn’t see it that way, and launches into a speech about how he’s been willing to pay the debt on his crimes, but he refuses to accept that the person he loves (Vanessa) should pay for those crimes too. I can’t remember that particulars now, but this is basically when Fisk asks to strike a deal - he’ll become an informant in exchange for a Vanessa’s safety.

Clip #4: Matt vs. FBI

The scene opens inside a car, which happens to belong to Big Ben Donavan; Matt lurks menacingly behind the drivers seat while Ben is unaware. Matt then pulls a cord across Ben’s neck and threatens to choke him in exchange for information - why did Fisk flip on the Albanians and what his greater plan is. Ben gives some answers that are clearly unsatisfactory to Matt, who pulls the cord even tighter - Ben insists that Fisk is doing this all for Vanessa, but Matt believes it has to be more than that. Before he can finish interrogating Ben, feds enter that parking garage level, and Matt tries to make an escape. So begins Matt basically working in stealth mode and trying to take out the agents one at a time, almost succeeding, until he runs face to face with an agent aiming a gun at his face. Matt goes into ass kicking mode, taking down the agents even though he pleads with them to not do this. One of the agents yells at Matt that these guys have families - it feels like the seeds are being sown for DD becoming public enemy #1, at least with the Feds.

Clip #5: Introducing Agent Dex

Fisk’s FBI convoy is shot out of the road but what I assume is heavy weaponry, flipping the car over and knocking out all the passengers, including Fisk. When Fisk comes to, he’s shouting for Nadeem and he realizes there’s some serious shit going on outside. He actually looks a little nervous - FBI agents surround the overturned vehicle, firing on an unknown group of assailants, who are packing a lot of firepower and taking down the agents. They clear out the group and turn to trying to get Fisk out of the car, shooting at the windows to weaken the glass and bringing in machinery to cut through the door, presumably to capture him for themselves and some unknown purpose. Before they finish, there is suddenly someone gunning for the group. He picks everyone off cleanly and accurately, one by one. When it appears he might be out numbered, he throws dual knives straight into two dudes’ throats. He headshots the remaining mystery assailants, right as Fisk manages to get out of the vehicle, and slowly lower himself to the ground with hands on his head. Agent Dex has his gun trained straight on Fisk - this is the first time they cross paths.

Clip #6: Bullseye Teaser, which everyone has already seen!

Clip #7: Matt vs. Bullseye

Okay this was some crazy bonkers bullshit. I’ll give you a chance to stop reading bc it might be worth experiencing totally fresh on the show but if you wanna keep going, then you do you.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Scene opens with Foggy walking into the Bulletin newsroom. The first thing he sees is a dead employee, bloody on the ground. His eyes move across the room and he sees the back of Daredevil. Foggy is clearly confused. Fake Daredevil turns around and makes eye contact with Foggy, who is stock still, whether from fear or confusion, it’s not clear. Fake Daredevil, who is Bullseye, reaches down to pull his billy club out of another employee’s head. Then he lobs it across the room directly at Foggy’s head, when it is suddenly stopped right in front of his face by Matt, who is wearing an improvised black outfit. Foggy is stunned AF and eventually turns and runs out of the room - he goes out a door and closes it, only to find Karen and two other employees holed up while she’s pointing a gun at the door.

Back to Matt and Bullseye - we see Matt holding the baton and both of them sizing each other up and that’s where we get the “Who are you?” “I’m Daredevil.” exchange. At this point, shit suddenly gets REALLY real and I don’t think I can even convey the specific order and particulars of this crazy ass fight, not in a way that does it justice. It starts out hand to hand, and Matt is putting up a solid fight. Unfortunately, they are fighting in a newsroom full of office supplies, which basically becomes a limitless toy box of weapons for Bullseye. I can’t remember the exact order as the scene bounces all over the room, but Matt is woefully underprepared for this. 

There is definitely the moment when Bullseye bounces the baton off the ground and straight into Matt’s face - ow. Then the fight goes another level of crazy - basically any piece of office furniture, accessory, or equipment becomes a deadly weapon in Bullseye’s hands. Moments include: Bullseye grabbing a handful of pencils right when Matt pulls up part of a desk to shield himself - every pencil pierces partially through stopping short of his face. Bullseye nailing Matt in the head with a computer monitor, a stapler, like...everything, and this is WHILE Matt is dodging and flipping and crashing through furniture, doing his usual shit. He gets hit by EVERYTHING. There is a moment when he is hiding behind the wall of a cubicle, Bullseye grabs a roll of tape (?) aims it the wall opposite Matt and bounces it straight into this face. Or Matt is trying to quietly take an xacto knife or similar looking utility item off someone’s desk, but Bullseye shoots some other office item at his hand before he can pick it up, as if he were sniping him with a gun. There’s another crazy moment when Bullseye chucks a large crystal ball looking paperweight or snow globe or something at Matt’s head, which he catches, but he shoots a pencil straight into the globe and explodes it in his hand. Matt does manage to distract him long enough by making a noisy diversion, at which point he launches into him and resumes hand to and and does whatever he can to take Bullseye down, keeping his arm pinned back just out of reach of a pair of scissors in a pencil cup...but he manages to get his hands on it, and flicks the scissors STRAIGHT INTO MATT, which completely throws him off and onto the ground, at which point a bookshelf falls on top of him (or he may have fallen into shelving) and Bullseye basically stomps his face. 

Matt is out and Bullseye looks gleeful about what he did - a small maniacal smile crosses his lips. But then there are sirens that sound like they’re getting closer and that’s probably what saves Matt from getting seriously wrecked or killed.

Again I feel like I’m doing a shit job of describing just how incredible this scene was. You fully grasp the extent of Bullseye’s abilities straight away and everything is filled with a ruthlessness. Matt is STRUGGLING. It’s just bonkers good okay?

Anyway, that’s it for the clips. I am so hyped for DDS3, you could not believe. October 19 cannot come soon enough!

[tellywoodtrash]

Okay, I stopped watching after Laal Ishq track, but I've kept following updates on IB. I don't understand one thing: most of the ppl complained about groupbaazi, then the Rosie Rani track, then Chutki track (they didn't want Gauri, I think), then the social message tracks, then they whined during redux, so...if they are upset about tracks since the last 11 months, then why are they unhappy that IB, as they know it or Shivika, is ending? What did they want for Shivika??

Agreed. Like, I truly don’t get what people want out of this show anymore? They legit just wanna see this one fictional couple live their boringass everyday life????????????? (That’s what yesterday’s ep was and lord, I couldn’t even get through it.) Coz that’s all that’s left to these two. In either universe. If there’s anyyyyyyyyyything to be explored in this show, it’s the “groupbaazi” (So many interesting dynamics.) Par they’d rather have the show as they know it end than watch THAT, so lol, ab bhugto.

First off, this narrow-minded tunnel vision people have had towards the OU since this redux started has always puzzled me. It’s been very obvious from the start of this whole thing that the OU is OVER, and this is the new reality. They took this step because all plots in that universe for those characters have been completely exhausted. I’ve never understood all these ~~fantastical~~ sci-fi/psychological “theories” people have cooked up and bent over backwards to explain the redux as some kinda temporary thing. Go back to the OU and show what exactly? There’s nothing left there. There’s no plot left even HERE after the remarriage/exposure of Bua’s fuckery track ffs.

Then they wanted a goddamn pregnancy/kids track to show that Shivika are living happily ever after (as if procreating is the only endgame to happiness in life; its 2018, get with the program pls; a childless couple can lead perfectly fulfilling lives too) and Surbhi (rightfully, at the age of 29) didn’t want to do that; so the only alternative left for the show now is this. (Tbh if you ask me, this “Shivika ka pregnancy/bachcha chahiye!!!!!!!!!!!” garbage is to blame for all of this. Yeah, I said it.) They cannot have Surbhi playing a love interest to Shivaansh, whether it’s played by Nakuul or not. WHY AND HOW THE FUCK WOULD HE FALL IN ROMANTIC/SEXUAL LOVE WITH SOMEONE WHO HAS THE FACE OF HIS MOTHER? Narbhi simply CANNOT portray romantic interests against each other in the next generation without making it weirdly incestuous. One of them will have to go (QH S2 style.) The one way they could have made it work was a reincarnation track; but now they cannot do that either because that’s effectively what the redux is. They wrote themselves into a corner and this is the end-result. It’s time to let these characters end now. They’ve served their purpose, and it’s time for them to go.

Also, Gul makes some veryyyy pertinent points in her IV; for allllll this naatak, where’s the ultimate tangible result? She stated concrete numbers of TRPs and Time Spent Viewing, and Hotstar’s internal ratings, which are clearly unsatisfactory. These are the actual indisputable facts of the show. 4Lions khairaat baatne ke liye nahi banaate yeh show. This is a business. And if the business isn’t getting the returns, it will evolve/shut shop. The audience of this show are like those fakeass instagram food bloggers. Who go to places and take pics of stuff in the display cases/the bhaiyya talofying the jalebis on the street, and what not, NOT ACTUALLY BUYING ANYTHING, and in the end getting mad that the place shut saying “How daaare they close, I went there everyday!!!! I GAVE THEM SO MUCH LOVE AND ONLINE PRESENCE! HOW CAN THEY NOT RESPECT THEIR CLIENTELE LIKE THIS?!!?!??” Lol, get fucking real. Tweetstorm machaane ke alaava kuch karte nahi, aur chahiye Shivika ka hour-by-hour Bigg Boss-style reality show, which they themselves will tire of and complain about in 2 weeks. For once, I am on Gul’s side, coz she’s making decisions as a rational businessperson. Twitter trends aur instagram hashtags se chulha nahi chalta. Dena hai toh TRP/TSV do. In the immortal and oh-so-poetic words of Chetan Bhagat, “Deti hai toh de, warna katle.”

[literaryanxiety]

Closure + Rant on Academic Snobbery

I met up with my dissertation supervisor today (missed her so much!) and finally got much needed feedback about my work. As mentioned earlier, I didn’t make the grade that I worked for and was wholeheartedly expecting, which is perfectly fine. I just needed answers in order to understand what worked and what didn’t, and to improve on my work if, say, I wanted to go to graduate school in the near future.

Turns out the marker (not my supervisor) was offended by my analysis of pop culture villains and the depiction of evil in mainstream media because I used modern theories of evil that made mention of various atrocious historical events on bad guys from TV shows. To said examiner, I was making a grave mistake by equating evil in pop culture to evil in the real world, which I was NOT trying to do. I was trying to show that the dehumanisation of evil in mainstream media has its parallels in the real world. Because where do we get our stories from, right? What I see are patterns of behaviour in real life that are played out on screen in eerily similar ways. I was definitely NOT saying that TV show bad guys were equivalent to Nazis. What’s worse was that the marker refused to budge even when my supervisor tried to defend me because they were SO offended.

You can talk about evil in the real world and evil in literature in the same vein with no problems at all, because they’re both seen as serious business. But with pop culture, you’re only allowed to look at, say, consumerism? Pardon me, but I strongly disagree. By excluding popular media from "serious” academic conversation, you’re really restricting yourself to the academic bubble, because, let’s be frank, most people exist outside of it. We draw from our experiences of history and of the world to create new narratives, even entertainment. We are entertained because these shows speak to us and some even make us think about the implications of our own actions on the wider world. How can the humanities continue to be relevant if it wouldn’t even consider mainstream narratives a part of culture? Let’s not forget that fairy tales were once pop culture. Much of the literary canon was once pop culture. Heck, Shakespeare was pop culture. There are Shakespeare departments in universities worldwide because his plays pose sharp commentary on the social mores and issues of his time. Who would’ve known? Yes, it can’t be denied that contemporary pop culture tends to sensationalise various issues. But man, when you tell me that dismissing people as evil in real life doesn’t involve similar mechanics as dismissing people as evil in TV shows, I’d like to bring your attention to the world news today, specifically with regards to how the media treats terrorism, and the resulting consequences.

I still harbour thoughts of going into academia, and rather than turn me off that route, this feedback makes me wanna do it even more. It’s time the institution looked beyond itself and try to make itself relevant to the public. I don’t care if I’m going to keep getting unsatisfactory grades, because I’m doing what I believe in. If I’m going to offend stuffy academics for the rest of my life getting people to see the links between pop culture and the real world, then so. be. it.

I’m so so thankful that I got the supervisor I got because she believed in me and my work all the way through. I can’t imagine if I’d gotten someone else who’d have been offended from the first instance and discouraged me from pursuing my own topic of interest.

With all that said, all you pop culture analysts on tumblr, I salute you. Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.

[kimmysfandomblog]

🔥 for the dr3 anime. Have at it. (Before I forget I just wanna say I agree 110% about your opinion on Ko's sexuality. Single-target sexuality, I think it's called?)

Thanks for the ask, Hyun :) Sorry I took so long, but I have a lot of feelings when I write about this subject ^^; I accidentally... wrote you an essay ;;;;;;;

(And also, thank you so much!!! I never knew that existed, but it sounds very much like how I headcanon Ko!)

Unpopular Opinion on DR3, huh? I feel like I am generally... aligned with how most of the fandom view DR3?  DR3 was written poorly, DR3 ruined some characters (specifically a certain girl I love), DR3 had a bad mastermind/main antagonist, DR3 retconned  things poorly, etc. Like, honestly, the only thing I can do is actually tell you something I like about DR3, lol.

I guess one unpopular opinion would be that DR3Z Episode 3 is still my favorite out of all of DR3 (Hope Side included)!

I think when someone refers to their favorite episode in DR3, it would be something like Hope Arc, maybe an episode of Future Arc (like in Episode 6 when we were super hype about possibly Kamukura being there instead of Hinata and all these boats coming on their way). While I was also super hype about that, and I may have watched Hope Arc 20x times that day because my boy Hajime Hinata is safe and Happy, I have to say, I just like DR3Z Episode 3 more. It wasn’t completely satisfying (I don’t know if any episode of DR3 can be said to be completely satisfying, especially once you’ve finished the series), but it made more of a lasting impact on me.

First of all, I think one of the things that made me attached to it is that this is a much more Hajime-centric episode. We start with Hinata’s POV, and it shifts only a few times to other perspectives (Like Fuyuhiko’s, or Sato’s). WHen I finally got to know and love th DR2 cast, I was prepared to be excited for DR3 and getting to know their pasts. I first saw the DR3 trailer not knowing what they were talking about until they released the game on team, so when I rewatched it in anticipation, I got excited! One of the things I definitely wanted was more of Hinata! He was, and remains, the best DR Protagonist! I kinda figured that we would get more of Izuru than of Hajime, but I wanted to at least get more out of his motivations, and, yeah, we kinda did! It wasn’t what I thought we would get, what with a few mentions of his parents, but not so much of what they were like, but parts of Episode two, and all of Episode three were made to explain it a bit. SOme stuff, we already know, or could guess, such as that Hinata was desperate for a talent, and that be acquiring a talent, he would get Hope (Or a meaning to his life).

However, we get some additional info. Firstly, in Episode two, it is mentioned that HPA is paying for his tuition, should he enter the Hope Cultivation Plan, implying his parents are not as rich as we thought (DR2 made it seem like they were, since his parents were mentioned in that sort of flashback sequence). That puts a lot of pressure on him... not to mention they give him some time to decide. By the start of Episode three, he mentions he only has a week left. Within that one week he has left, he is acquainted with both sides of the decision, represented by Chiaki, representing the Ideal solution, where he wouldn’t need the project to have Hope, and Natsumi, representing the, I guess you could say, “Logical” solution, as in that no one alive cares about anyone unless they have talent, and HPA is giving it to him with no monetary cost to him, or his parents.

Now, we know that Chiaki is technically right, that even without a talent, you can have hope, but the problem is that she doesn’t have that same perspective. She does have a talent, and those words she learned from Yukizome can only help her because they were meant to say that Talent shouldn’t restrict Chiaki from doing what she wants, just for the fun of it. Hinata, meanwhile, has much less freedom in this Talent-driven society he is stuck in. No one will acknowledge his existence without talent, and because of  that, he can’t do anything even if he wanted to. By the end of this episode, he sees this flaw because unlike Nanami, Natsumi has the same perspective he does. She dies and it looks like as if no one cares at all about her death.

Now to Natsumi, she is the character struggling with society’s rules that you have to have a Talent to mean something. Both of them actually believe in these rules, and they are both desperate to get into the Main Course, but for Natsumi, the need is greater. She has a brother and his bodyguard who are both acknowledged as Ultimates, yet though she probably spends time with them both, Natsumi was left out. She was deemed, by society’s leaders in HPA, that she wasn’t enough for them, so how could she be enough for her brother? She would do anything for the same opportunity Hinata got. Hinata, who had been stuck with Reserve Course students that were all trying to accept they were nothing more than Reserve Course students and would never move on to the Main Course, now has come across someone similar to him, who has also refused to give up on their dream of being acknowledged as something special.

Hajime feels like the Hope Cultivation Plan is his only chance to finally be happy and proud of himself, but at the same time, he is, by nature, skeptical that such a plan would. It’s too good to be true (and it was, of course). The episode starts off with him looking up the school’s website, which doesn’t give him any real results. He’s only got a week to decide left, and he’s not completely sure yet if this is the right way to go even if, in his head, he desperately wants this to be the solution. It would be easy, and would benefit him and his family. But, with that doubt he still has, he latches on to Nanami’s words that he won’t need talent to be happy. THese words sound right. They sound like this is something that exists. But, it isn’t proven. In fact, it is disproven by Natsumi, first by her denial of his words that Talent isn’t everything (because it is something to enough people for it to matter), and secondly, when Natsumi dies despite coming from an influential family, and when she dies, her death is covered up with lies and unsatisfactory answers. This girl who he only just came to know and kind of befriend is dead, and he could do nothing about her death. He even pieces together that Sato killed her by chance, and that there was something clearly wrong with Sato to begin with, but then she is dead. Two classmates, now dead, and both of them had their deaths covered up. Hajime is not dumb, he can put pieces together (He didn’t need as much help in the trials unless someone was withholding information (usually Komaeda)). He knows exactly who to ask, and would have investigated it, but is stopped by Juzo.

He of course doesn’t know Juzo is trying to make sure he doesn’t dig too deep and gets targeted by HPA for revealing too much, but Juzo really doesn’t know how to talk with anything other than physical language. As in beat up a 15-16-year-old kid into submission, but you know. Juzo is just one more reason on top  of Natsumi’s death that he accepts the plan. Juzo validated his thoughts that he, nor anyone that lacks talent, matters.

It’s really heartbreaking to see Hinata like that, however I suppose, in his own way, he thought of the project as his way of breaking the mould of normality he was stuck in. You know that he needs to become Izuru Kamukura, you know it has to happen, but it does crush me how he had to come to the “realization” he is worthless otherwise to do it, through two deaths and his own degradation by Juzo. (and being saved by Chisa... probably not what he wanted.)

I find it interesting that the person that represents accepting the Hope Cultivation Plan is Natsumi, because we know if Fuyuhiko had ever heard her speak the words she did to Hinata, he’d have denied it. He’d have said she deserved to be in his place, that she would have been the better clan leader, that even though she didn’t accept his role, he would always introduce her as is Ultimate Little Sister, and no old men and drunk scout can change that.

If Hinata could have known that by being such a supportive friend, his friends would value him more than just as someone who has an Ultimate Talent, or EVERY Ultimate Talent, and that he provides all the difference just by being himself, I don’t think he would have turned to the Hope Cultivation Project.

But that isn’t how things went. Hinata, had no proof that Talent was truly meaningless. Society kept on validating that Talent meant much more than someone not acknowledged to have any.

Oh... I got.... way off topic ^^;

Well, overall, this was an emotional episode. I get why people don’t like it much: They really rushed the Twilight Syndrome MurderCase, to the point of not even showing the events in the minigame. I also wished for more Natsumi and Hinata interaction, or have this episode split in two (and take place instead of Love SOup incident, please). I found Satos’ character to be ver much lacking as well, since they reduced her to some kind of yandere-like personality (although thinking back, was she like that in the Twilight Syndrome Murder Case?) However, for what we got? It’s still something that I really love! It gave us an insight into Hinata, and an awesome character to boot!

(I also kinda skipped over the Hinam bits, but the Fountain scene was pretty sad, even if I’m really ehh about the way Nanami sees he’s hurt and still offers him to play, and other weird things like that involving those two... Like I swear Nanami would be way more concerned about his wellbeing in DR2 and pick up on the obvious bad signs and act on them more)

[uglyducklingpresse]

Ephemeralism, Sequentiality, and Writing By Hand: Emma Clayton in conversation with Constance DeJong

2017 marks the 40th anniversary of the initial publication of Constance DeJong’s long out-of- print novel, Modern Love. Critically acclaimed in its time, Modern Love is now back in print, in a new facsimile edition co-published by Ugly Duckling Presse and Primary Information. On April 4th 2017, DeJong performed from the novel at The Kitchen, where she had performed a one-hour radio version of the novel in 1978. Amid these notable happenings, UDP intern Emma Clayton spoke with DeJong at Hunter College, where she is a Professor of Art/Combined Media. Her work is represented by Bureau Gallery, NYC.

Could you speak about the role re-articulation, repetition, and recurrence play in your work?

You know, it’s a strategy or a device, almost a structuring device in a time based medium, which of course performance is, but I actually think books are too. At the time that I was writing Modern Love it was almost a popular idea among artists a bit older than me who had used it in a way that I found very interesting. There were examples from performance—Yvonne Rainer and Trisha Brown using repetition and restart. The soundtrack that I played in the Modern Love performance was written by Philip Glass, there again involving repetition, although he wasn’t the only composer using repetition. Even among visual artists, you know, repetition in the work of Warhol and in painters and such. When I was in my late twenties and started writing that book I certainly had absorbed it by osmosis, and then by more than osmosis considered it as a way to sort of reset the narrative. By that I mean the narrative is, for want of a better word, moving forward, but repetition is useful to reset it back, and then move with a different forward continuity from the repeated place. And that as a strategy, especially for maybe the first third of Modern Love, was very useful, because it’s polyphonic, there’s more than one strand of narrative going on. I was also interested in memory, and it’s also a kind of memory device—you repeat something, but on the second or third repeat you’re actually in a completely different place.

Within that forward moving narrative and then jumping back, and with writing the book serially, did you employ any type of writing structure?

No, I just wrote into the dark. Which I still do, perhaps now with a tiny bit more ease. The seriality wasn’t serial in the way that sometimes means seriality, like in visual arts. The seriality was a way for me to be engaged in the project. Almost, I put the gun to my own head to produce it and it was a way of manifesting the work into the world. I designed and printed and distributed each issue of this serial by mail. I was maybe of a nature that, the serial just suited me temperamentally. What, I’m going to wait around for the keepers of the gates to say “yes darling, do come in, we think you’re worthy”? You know, at that time, maybe I still am, I was more like fuck you, who are you, you know. So producing this serial was agency.

Forward motion, like a propellor...

Yeah, get into the world. I started performing it, which was another way for it to be in the world. And I thought about 19th century novelists. They often had agents or publishers who published the serials but I’ve always been enchanted by how you (one of the public), would subscribe. You would pay into a subscription for so and so serial, say George Elliot’s or Dickens'. It’s a really interesting, call it business model if you will, but it can also be a very self sufficient and independent way of doing things, which would all happen digitally now.

In an interview with Jennifer Krasinski for BOMB Magazine you said ‘narrative is sequential, you can’t escape it’. When you perform, do you see that as a way of escaping that sequential narrative, through the interruptions you can play with, with music for example?

No I don’t. I just think it’s a reformulation of a kind of sequentiality (if there is such a word). I think the escape, so to speak, from sequential can happen, but in environments where one can escape, which I’ve done in navigated works. You, as a user, navigate the work on the computer, mouse driven, and the piece, which is made of narrative, resets itself every time you turn it on. You venture, as it were, through a sequence of whatever happens in that moment. There isn’t a meta sequence. So that’s a true escape. Within that, on a smaller scale, there’s the sequential. You, the user, can’t rewrite every one of my sentences, you know what I mean. There are moments of sequential. I’m working with Triple Canopy on something for the internet, and that can have programming that does something similar—where there isn’t a meta sequence. There are modules and the module is a sequence, but the experience of the module is multiple sequences. So that’s a true escape. I’m often working on a project base with the performances. So there’s a core of material, almost always written language, ideas, and subject matter, from which comes a book, some objects, a performance, etc. In performance, for me, the doing and differentiating from the fixed sequence of that same material in book form, is something I really enjoy doing. You called it this seamless arrangement—it’s almost this kind of adaptation.

A completely reformulated work...

Yeah, and I do it in different ways. In seemingly more casual adaptations than the one I did at The Kitchen (2017), I will seem as if I’ve left the formal text. But it’s a moment of adaptation. As soon as I finished writing Modern Love I decided to make an audio version of it—an adaptation, it isn’t word for word. So right away I stepped into adapting my own material. I wanted to make a radio program, adapting it for multiple speakers. I asked Philip Glass to write some thematic music, and I got a residency with one of the world’s great audio engineers—Bob Bielecki, my first sound engineer, genius. We would call it now perhaps an audiobook, or a podcast. I thought it would be on the radio. A total folly, because the BBC makes some space for drama and books, but we don’t. Certainly at the time it was almost non-existent. Now that exists as podcasts—often an independent venture.

I didn’t, and still don’t, have a sense of ‘the primary work is the text’—I think all the various parts of the project are in play. I don’t make a hierarchy out of it. I’ve always had a relationship to the material that is fluid, which isn’t really about the escape from sequence, but it is a kind of malleable and porous way of working that is with me even now.

On reading Modern Love, and thinking about that porous nature and the disruption of narrative, I couldn’t help but draw parallels with the work of Chris Kraus, I Love Dick especially, and I know that you were colleagues and friends with Kathy Acker (also noted for her interruption of narrative). I was wondering how you think about those parallels, or whether you see relations between your works?

Of course. I’m a reader as much as a writer. It wasn’t that long ago that Chris interviewed me for her book, the Kathy Acker book [After Kathy Acker, Semiotext(e), 2017) and brought back to my mind things I hadn’t thought about for a very long time. I think something that Kathy and I shared, which came from each of us separately as opposed to coming out of us knowing each other, and I hope this doesn’t sound too nerdy and odious, was this notion of the constructed ‘I.’ The constructed first person singular being constructed as a multiplicity not a singularity. It’s a bonafide narrative strategy we had in common and importantly, with some urgency in our respective narratives. In my work very differently than Kathy’s. Kathy identifies that construct as a multiple, as do I, but Kathy identifies that first person singular with her own name as well, which at that time was very original. Now it’s been done to tedium and I wanna kill the young hipster so called post-modern person who does it again like ‘oh it’s so clever and my name’s on the cover and I’m the character.’ It’s sad how a bonafide, vivid, and urgent construct becomes whittled into a cliche, in one’s own lifetime. It’s groaning. That’s perhaps my problem. Perhaps I should see it from a different vantage point which is that, no, that’s a bonafide contribution and invention to narrative writing and just other people are using it, it doesn’t belong to a couple of individuals or one person. But I don’t. Perhaps it’s because the writing itself, in which that is borrowed and used, is unsatisfactory at large. But that was a

shared view of narrative and, in my case, it was a shared view of self. Now, there I think Chris and Kathy go on a street that I don’t walk on. Because my first-person self is a multiple package that changes, and is not autobiographical. In my work, I have no interest in examining that constructed first person singular as a self that might be considered to belong to a ‘real life’. That has become almost a genre, this bio-fiction, which has evolved over some decades. It’s in I Love Dick and it’s in Chris’ writing. I think there’s a bit more artifice in Kathy’s approach to that. There’s a tremendous amount of artifice in my approach to it. I’m happy to be the queen of artifice. I will wear that tarnished crown, or cross.

Would you therefore say that the self you consider in your work is located externally rather than introspectively?

No, I don’t think it’s a binary like that. We are creatures of both and then some. To overuse the word porous, I think some of us have a lot of porosity between internal and external, or a different sense of balance and at times, prioritizing so-called external events overstates the externalized in a way—as if they’re not products of the mind and of thought, to call those interior. I’ve thought a lot about those distinctions simply by it being brought to my attention by people noticing it in the work. What does one call an event? Does the event have to be describable in language as, ‘she walked across the room?’ I want to acknowledge multiple presences.

It can be experienced without notation and delineation...

It’s experiential. It’s quite hard, but I’ve been trying to use it in writing. I’m really interested now in how we discount, for some of us, a third of our life—sleep and dreaming. I’ve become really intent on this huge event, dreaming, that’s been discounted in our culture for a really long time. We are at a time with brain science and neuroscience, but most of the investigation of the workings of the so-called brain are very mechanical and material—as if there it is, a body of cells. It’s like a line was drawn in the sand after Jung and Freud, and very few people have ventured into that sand again.

It’s like taboo...

It is! In terms of considerations of the interior or exterior, and the construction of self and/or this construction of the first person singular ‘I’—one almost never reads of dreams when thinking about the constructed elements. One almost never finds dream experience within narrative. Do you? Can you think of any examples?

No, apart from the classic ‘she woke up and it was all a dream...'

Yeah, it’s been made a cliche. We’ve not been interested in, we’ve not investigated, we don’t know. We don’t have a language for it. It’s fascinating. Such a huge part of the day.

True, we don’t have any kind of interrogative linguistic framework or line of questioning around that.

I’ve been doing serious research, and there’s almost nothing. There’s a lot of new age, wonky con-artist stuff. And I’ve found some interesting writing from the late 19th century, when there was a moment where people wanted to take on dreams in a serious way. But it is a poverty.

How are you beginning to negotiate that—the taboo realms of these subjects which are cliched primarily? I was also wanting to ask you about how you negotiated the difficulties in dealing with the topic of love?

Well, I think it’s kind of important to tread the taboo. At the time I wrote Modern Love, one was oppressed by notions of love voiced upon the culture, period, but especially on women concerning paradigms and expectations. So some of that conscious negotiation was

going on, which included mocking and making fun of the paradigms, and of the self in my narrative that was trying to throw them off. We all got mocked in Modern Love. I have a strong aversion to narrative that scolds me, that tells me what things are, how to do and live. That adheres to a perspective, a dogma, that didacticism. So in Modern Love you don’t come upon a new oppressing set of paradigms—that women will be this. The work is certainly a lived moment, and continues to be—urgent environments and realities. They stand in for more particular environments and settings, such as a certain room, or a city by name. But you know, the world of ideas is an environment, and a location as well. It’s a temporal location. It may have attributes that aren’t material, but it is a location.

In a way, that agency and urgency forms a context, the need to do.

Yeah, and I think that, if you want a little more about your previous question—Kathy and I lived in the same neighborhood, she sublet my apartment you know, we talked. There was an urgency. Again, manifested in narrative, in fiction, very differently in her work from my work. Certainly she and I shared that. I’m sure other writers of our age and of that time did as well, but I didn’t know that many others. I think a thing that’s in I Love Dick, and in Constance, and Kathy, was the inclusion of material that wasn’t an obvious constituent of the ‘fictional narrative’. Now of course, Melville in Moby Dick has tracts about whales, and Bram Stoker in Dracula has tracts that are informational, historical, research based. But that was a fairly uncommon element of fiction writing. I think it still is very pronounced in my work, where there is a heterogenous kind of material—that there is not a singular strata of what participates in a fiction narrative. I think that was coming very to the forefront in my work and Kathy’s work. There’s a veering off, and that’s kind of interesting.

Thinking about this urgency, what makes you so eager to traverse mediums? The not staying within one communicative medium, in reference to working across forms, how you spoke about working from a core and fragmenting out.

I really can’t say. You would think that I would have had an insight about that. I think it’s partly to do with my understanding of language as a time based medium. I hear it sonically, I write it sonically, I produce it in terms of rhythms, I produce it highly constructed. That sounds like audio-video, and performance, to me, as much as the page. And even the page is something that I have always had a visual relationship to. I’m a pain-in-the-butt demon to work with because I have ideas about what the page should look like. That’s as much as I understand. That there is a sharing of time-based. That’s all I know.

What type of anchor points do you use within time, and your experience of it, yourself?

It’s not static, it’s not a fixed point. I’ve been thinking recently about becoming an elder. And not just becoming one, but anchoring myself to time as, ‘Oh, I am an elder’. And an elder’s relationship to time is very acute. There aren’t tomorrows. When you’re thirty there’s tomorrows and then some. That’s a relationship to time that’s very different than there not being futurity. I rather like it. I like it a lot. It makes things very vivid. I think probably for almost everyone, what you call the anchor to time, changes—if we get to live a bit of decades. I was thinking about that sense of time we almost lose, that non-time time of the inquisitive child—you can look at something, and you can look at it, it seems like hours. We almost don’t retrieve that at other times in our life. It’s really an interesting temporal relationship.

Thinking about language as a time-based medium, and then your work with performance, and this idea of location, I was interested by your decision to locate voice outside person, or within objects. For example, in Modern Love there is the passage where the protagonist is in India and the environment almost becomes the voice and character that is playing out. Also, thinking about your piece Pillow Talk (2003).

Those are two different things. But to answer one—I have a longstanding interest in the inanimate animated by mind and animated by language, which we all do and have done. It’s so accessible and common to all of us, but I’ve kind of pulled it out of the fabric to think about it, to make works not about it, but to make works be that. They’re vessels of memory. Inanimate things are archives of the invisible. I’ve been interested in unthreading those invisible things. And different cultures with different belief systems approach that notion of the inanimate very differently, and how the inanimate is animated by mind or language. A work of mine from 2013 called SpeakChamber, involves three different cultural belief systems that negotiate that place. I should be finished with it, but I’m working on some spoken texts now, for these things I call ‘talking photographs’, which is what Pillow Talk is, and damn. There I am again. With an object that is a vehicle for simply being an object in a present moment, but is also an object whose biography involves Mao and China and the cultural revolution and you know, here we go. Because I don’t write or think in stories, these become the ignition of narrative, from an idea not from a story. But, in that segment of Modern Love, that’s more about polyvocal narrative—you have a preceding vocality, that’s probably identified by an ‘I’, or a character by name, and then suddenly that vocal isn’t what’s vocalizing. It becomes an unnamed vocalizing. And then by the end it actually moves into a third person narrative because it says ‘the woman was traveling alone in India. She was eating ice-cream because it was her birthday’. You are the reader. You know that’s the ‘I’ character that you already have met in the book. But that’s language’s potential for a slight of hand. Again, I don’t do that as a technical feat. To talk about that interior/exterior thing, we do it all the time in our mind. Thinking, daydreaming, wandering about. I mean you’re somebody else, you’re thinking for somebody else, an old version of yourself, you’re remembering, and you’re not confused. It’s not confusing to live in a vocal polyphonic environment. And it’s something that has engaged me in my writing, and continues to.

I haven’t quite thought of it like that before. That when it’s made so concrete on a page, when not stating subject or voice, it appears confusing, but it’s something that we experience very fluidly all the time.

Yes, we do. And you’re not alone. I’ve had my time to dwell on it because it’s a part of my work and of me so, I’ve lived in that room for a while. And now in that room is dreams, and people who contact us from the dead. The work I donated to the auction [Ugly Duckling Presse’s Art Auction, May 2017] is spirit writing. I’ve been making a project called Nightwriters, which is basically an insomniac narrator whose bed is under a sky light. The only thing she has to do is look through the skylight and get really interested in stars and she starts drawing them and making asterisms and her hand becomes guided by, or inhabited by, something. So three astronomers come through the skylight and spirit write and so she, and therefore we the readers, become acquainted with three women who most of us haven’t heard of: Caroline Herschel, Annie Jump Cannon, and Henrietta Swan Leavitt— three major astronomers. So now in that room of polyphony are the ‘voices’ of these spirit writers. I know it was always a con, spirit writing, but I think it’s interesting that we even, as a culture, as a species, invent these things.

There’s desperation in there.

Yeah, they reflect this desire, and a loss. And my drawings are chalk on black paper because the con artists in the séances doing spirit writing would often use chalk boards—it was a trope of séances. I think it was because then they could wipe it off and not get arrested.

Reading about your new work, and the spiritual side of it, I was considering your close working relationship with Tony Oursler, and wondering whether that influence has come from working with him throughout your career? Or has it always been something very intrinsic to yourself?

No, no, it was something that cemented a friendship more than 30 years ago. It was a common interest, and believe me, there aren’t that many people, especially at the time, who would have a ‘serious’ conversation about those seemingly absurd belief systems. I knew things he didn’t know and vice versa, and we have continued that conversation for over 30 years. Maybe some people will know of Tony and Imponderable (2015 - 2016), which is a recent, spectacular work at MoMA. 5-D film work, also big archive, also 500 page book with many essays in it about some of the beliefs and practices that he’s been interested in for most of his life. One of the interests that we also share is in the invisible histories—the discredited and ignored. Something like spirit writing, at times is also fueled by specific, topical events. The Civil War spurred con artists into both spirit writing and spirit photography, preying on the grief of the country which had never lost that many people to a war. It was a death consumed, death obsessed nation. If you weren’t obsessed with civil rights you were obsessed with the death produced by the Civil War, and in that context certain so-called spiritual ideas came on. Yet if now you are reading about the Civil War, it’s very unlikely that you would read a section about that part of the history of the nation and of that time. They’re willfully and maliciously ignored, hierarchy-ed down.

Do you have any idea why it’s at this point in your work that you’re coming to start to really try and work with these spiritualities?

I can’t say that I do. I’m offended by people being superficial about so-called spirituality.
And I have private interests that have remained private for most of my life and it’s very willful on my part to turn that around—which I did a little bit in SpeakChamber. It came from a commitment to the material that I was mentioning earlier, about this investigation of the inanimate. And to knowing a community of Tibetans for decades, and having travelled and so on, I was aware of an astonishing belief system that is unknown to us. Where an inanimate thing is penetrated and co-habited by the mind, and by repeated practice and visualization and, it’s not correct to call it prayer, but it’s a thinking. That slapped me in the face in 1977 when I first encountered it. It really was a jolt and I never put it down. So with SpeakChamber it was like OK, if I’m really getting down on this interaction between the animate and the inanimate, and want a heterogeneous approach to it, there’s this glaring example that I know. A very old friend idea I activated. Amateur astronomy is another old friend, a huge part of me, and I wanted these three astronomers to have place in a narrative that I’m writing. And I’ll be god-damned if I’m gonna write a researched, historical fiction where I make them walk around and talk and wear clothes and be this thing called a character. Characters are abhorrent. I don’t get it as a device. So I had to get them into the narrative. Spirit writing was how I could draw them literally into the narrative. This is my folly, and everyone can have a good laugh—to me that is a very legitimate way to locate in the narrative, through the hand that’s drawing. Much more legitimate than this creaky, clanky old thing called character that has to walk and wear clothes.

Very concrete formulations...

Yeah, although never go to the bathroom somehow. And I had spirit writing at hand because I had a huge, ongoing, years old interest in it. I actually have an engagement with handwriting, period. I have a fascination with it, with handwriting and artists who make their work with handwriting. Which is rather unusual, but there are a few.

That intrigues me. Looking through your work, it’s so much placed into technologies, for example your current project, ‘Radios’. How does that weave together?

They’re ideas that coexist and I don’t think they’re in conflict with each other. The handwriting and the ever-changing technology I’ve had to learn for wanting to make a certain work—just co-existing interests. Thinking about handwriting now is different to 20 years ago, simply because it’s really disappearing. I have students now who aren’t taught to write by hand.

How do you feel about that?

Well you know, we do lose things and things change things. Generally, if one is living in a moment where something is disappearing, people get very upset and up in arms and it’s the end of civilization or something. But I’ve read a lot about technology over time. This is in my bag right now [DeJong pulls out a book]—Haunted Media, Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television by Jeffrey Sconce, which is a really interesting book about belief systems which inform the rise of certain technologies. For me, the rise or the appearance of new technologies has been in my life since birth, so other things have dropped off. It’s just how it is. It doesn’t alarm me.

Does it affect the way you think about making work? Within your work there seems to be thoughts on broadcast or dissemination or communication. Do you have to very directly think about those terms of communication, or do you find you just flow with the media?

Well, communication is a snaggy word. If I thought about communication I would probably be a greater participant in social media or have a podcast. So I don’t think of it that much as communication—isn’t that interesting? I think of it as form of function and materializing work. I am working on something where there would be a more regular audio presence on the internet. A performance stops and starts and then it’s gone. But the internet is not discreet. It’s just there. Always and anyone.

There’s something about placing the ephemeral, you dealt so much with that...

I am, I am an ephemeralist.

To take an ephemeral moment and place it somewhere that then is, not always broadcast, but accessed at different points.

Yeah, and it’s a very different kind of time-based time. I mean, now in our culture and in several other cultures we know about personal access. Every day, every hour of the day — we don’t even think about it. It’s actually not that old.

Going back to that idea of communication, when I used that term I was more thinking about it in terms of your ability to feed your ideas through certain mediums, and the reception of this in a particular way. Has that had to change? Have you enjoyed the reception changing?

Oh I see. You reminded me that I want to back up to —I’ll try to say this very simply. I was never burdened by what a writer is. Which in my culture, and especially in my city, New York City, it is very conservative and rigid. It’s so constricting. I had an interest and ambition, an engagement with how language could act, how language could perform, where language could operate, where it might be sited. Now those things involved having to invent the locations and the sitings and hence—‘she makes talking objects!’, and talking photographs and public artworks and language infested, language infused things. That precedes an involvement with technology. The involvement with technology is necessitated by this investigating where language might go other than the page. One has ideas for forms and then to make those—I had to know and learn and become familiar with technology so I could use it. I wouldn’t say that I’m interested in technology. I’m not somebody who’s going to start writing essays about the role of technology in culture and what’s happened to handwriting. I might. Until recently that wasn’t the interest—it was need to know. I learned, I taught myself, I took little tutorials, I paid people to teach me. Often, a technological part of a work will be truly beyond me. So I collaborate with technicians frequently, and work together with their knowledge to make the idea happen. The one time that technology interested me, and that I went after it, was for the escape from the sequential—when mouse-driven navigation came into being. That’s what it presented itself to me as—an interesting escape, and another way to construct narrative. So right away it was the technologies that could do something. I think it was Stephen Vitiello who introduced the idea of Tony Oursler, Constance, and Stephen collaborating, and then that collaboration ended up being a commission of Dia’s (1995). Before our collaboration, Dia’s commissions were concrete. There was that tradition—an exhibition for a year of material work, mostly men, minimal. But the new director, Michael Govan, was very receptive to the idea of a digital work. So there was a vehicle, a way to make that work. It was a very new coding, it was painful. Just made our hair fall out how long and hard it was. Then we were fools because we thought that CD-Roms had entered the world as a way of experiencing time based work. Wrong. They vanished. They were like 8- track audio tapes. They were here and gone. Now it could just be on a cloud. You can still find a CD player but you can’t find the hardware and software to drive a CD-Rom.

And it doesn’t bother you that that access has been lost now?

It doesn’t bother me, oddly. Also, the prospect of correcting it is beyond me. I’m really busy and the prospect of taking that on as a project is hugely time consuming. But it’s interesting— there’s three of us and no one is bringing this thing on fire as an idea. It’s strange.

I feel like we live in a world where we are constantly trying to grapple to hold onto things. It’s funny, I feel you can tell you’re a time-based medium artist because you’re fine that things have been and gone and its done it’s thing—when artists are often so precious about work and preventing the deterioration of work.

Yeah, yeah. Partly initiated by the reissue of Modern Love, I’ve been thinking about old work. I live on many streets. One of those streets is the visual art world and it started me thinking about ‘wow, people have retrospectives,’ you know, at a certain age and a certain accumulation of work. I thought up a notion of a time-based retrospective that I’ll do next season, wherein, instead of there being an exhibition where all the work is in one place at one time, there are performances over time that address all of the work in different combinations of programming the nights. So to do that I had to go into a closet and dig out all the old formats for the performances that I did. They start with cassette videos this big [shows with hands] and move forward into mini DV tape—that’s the most current. There’s one thing that’s on a card. So everything before the card, even if it’s digital, still has to be re- formatted. It all has to be re-formatted. To go onto media players. It’s such a job.

-

For more information about Modern Love and to order a copy, click here. 

Well-known for her contributions to downtown New York's performance art and media art scene of the 1970s and '80s, and considered one of the progenitors of media art, or “time-based media,” Constance DeJong has worked for over three decades on narrative form within the context of avant-garde music and contemporary art. DeJong’s writing extends off the page through the body, resonating out of objects and into the space of the theater. DeJong extends her prose writing into multiple forms— performances, audio installations, print texts, electronic objects, and audio and video works. In 1983, DeJong composed the libretto for the Philip Glass opera Satyagraha. Since 1983, she has collaborated with Tony Ourlser on numerous performance and video works. DeJong has also been a writing collaborator with The Builder’s Association on SuperVision, 2005. Her books include Modern Love, I.T.I.L.O.E., and SpeakChamber and her work is included in the anthologies Up is Up, But So is Down: Downtown Literary Scene (NYU Press), Blasted Allegories (New Museum/MIT), and Wild History(Tanam). She is a recipient of awards from NYSCA for Media Production, NYFA for New Genres, and the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Media Production, among others. She has exhibited and performed both locally and internationally at venues such as the Walker Art Museum, the Wexner Center, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and in New York at The Kitchen, Threadwaxing Space, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Dia Center for the Arts. DeJong teaches at Hunter College for the MFA and BA in Fine Arts.

[clarz]

[disclaimer: this is an archive of an old question i answered on curiouscat, copied and pasted so i can take advantage of tumblr's tagging system for organization. i'm mostly doing this for my own record-keeping purposes, so feel free to ignore this post and blacklist "clarz cc" to avoid seeing them in the future.]

answered March 21, 2020

Q (Anonymous): I feel like age difference , dad Namjoon is something new for u? What made u decide to write it? 😁

A: you're right, it's a little bit of a departure and not something i've really expressed interest in before! this is prob gonna be long and i'm SORRY ABOUT THAT but there are a few reasons!

1. this fic is a gift for jeonbenet and practically EVERYTHING in it is very specifically tailored to her interests! we came up with the beginnings of the concept during a conversation several months ago and i'd been meaning to write it, and her birthday is coming up so it was a good excuse for me to give myself a deadline to do it. so, the simplest reason why i decided to do ANYTHING in this fic is just bc i thought it would make jeonbenet happy and i love her very much!

2. the thing that first gave me the idea is v specifically examining namjoon's guilt. i feel like there is a specific pattern in namkook fics i've read, especially canon-compliant ones, where namjoon has a lot of guilt and anxiety over his attraction to jk bc he sees him as still being a child and feels like he's betraying some kind of responsibility toward him as the leader of the group by wanting him. it's an interesting pattern to me bc i never see this depicted as an issue in other namjoon pairings, or in fics where jk is paired with other hyung line members (except very occasionally, and usually to a much lighter extent) even though there's a larger age gap there. it seems v namkook-specific in my experience! and i think it's an attempt by the fandom to explain why namjoon can seem so hesitant and awkward with jk in canon in ways he isn't with other members, but it feels like an unsatisfactory explanation to me, so i always get a little frustrated with namjoon in those fics bc it's like "dude you're being SO SILLY!" so the initial impetus for this idea was kind of to think of a scenario where namjoon feels that same kind of guilt but it's actually TOTALLY JUSTIFIED.

3. i've wanted for a while to write a fic that sits somewhere in a more morally grey area. i think fanfic loves to examine feelings of angst and guilt and conflict but frequently shies away from giving the characters good reasons for having those feelings (e.g., creating the illusion of conflict via a misunderstanding rather than any actual argument), i think partly out of a desire to have every character make correct or good choices. and i wanna say EXPLICITLY that i don't think this is bad! in the first place, we all write about these characters because we love the real ppl they're based on, so ofc we don't want to cast them in a bad light or have them make bad choices. and also! ppl's guilt and anxiety in real life is NOT rational, and frequently unjustified, so it's great to explore the resolution of those feelings and self-acceptance in fic! however, it means that when i DO read fics where characters make debatably bad choices and the fic doesn't shy away from them, it's SO interesting to me. i wanted to try my hand at it! who knows if i will succeed!