#I’m not getting my best work done then anything too complex is getting relegated to tomorrow morning Liz

[aestheticvoyager]

I know our corporate overlords aren’t likely to give us a 4 day workweek anytime soon but maybe as a show of good faith they could consider making the workday end at 4 instead of 5? Like pay me the same for 35 hours a week instead of 40?

It’s just always such a treat when I get to leave the email factory at 4.

[bloodbenderz]

humaniterations (dot) net/2014/10/13/an-anarchist-perspective-on-the-red-lotus/ this article from oct 2014 is very dense — truly, a lot to unpack here, but I feel like you would find this piece interesting. I would love it if you shared your thoughts on the points that stood out to you, whether you agree or disagree. you obv don’t have to respond to it tho, but I’m sending it as an ask jic you feel like penning (and sharing) a magnificent essay, as is your wont 💕

article

i know this took me forever 2 answer SORRY but i just checked off all the things on my to do list for the first time in days today so. Essay incoming ladies!

ok im SO glad u sent me this bc it’s so so good. it’s a genuinely thoughtful criticism of the politics in legend of korra (altho i think its sometimes a little mean to korra unnecessarily like there’s no reason to call her a “petulant brat” or say that she throws tantrums but i do understand their point about her being an immature and reactionary hero, which i’ll get back to) and i think the author has a good balance between acknowledging like Yeah the lok writers were american liberals and wrote their show accordingly and Also writing a thorough analysis of lok’s politics that felt relevant and interesting without throwing their hands up and saying this is all useless liberal bullshit (which i will admit that i tend to do).

this article essentially argues that the red lotus antagonists of s3 were right. And that’s not an uncommon opinion i think but this gives it serious weight. Like, everything that zaheer’s gang did was, in context, fully understandable. of course the red lotus would be invested in making sure that the physically and spiritually and politically most powerful person in the world ISNT raised by world leaders and a secret society of elites that’s completely unaccountable to the people! of course the red lotus wants to bring down tyrannical governments and allow communities to form and self govern organically! and the writers dismiss all of that out of hand by 1. consistently framing the red lotus as insane and murderous (korra never actually gives zaheer’s ideas a chance or truly considers integrating them into her own approach) 2. representing the death of the earth queen as not just something that’s not necessarily popular (what was with mako’s bootlicker grandma, i’d love to know) but as something that causes unbelievable violence and chaos in ba sing se (which, like, a lot of history and research will tell you that people in disasters tend towards prosocial behaviors). so the way the story frames each of these characters and ideologies is fascinating because like. if you wanted to write season 3 of legend of korra with zaheer as the protagonist and korra as the antagonist, you wouldn’t actually have to change the sequence of events at all, really. these writers in particular and liberal writers in general LOVE writing morally-gray-but-ultimately-sympathetic characters (like, almost EVERY SINGLE fire nation character in the first series, who were full on violent colonizers but all to a degree were rehabilitated in the eyes of the viewer) but instead of framing the red lotus as good people who are devoted to justice and freedom and sometimes behave cruelly to get where theyre trying to go, they frame them as psychopaths and murderers who have good intentions don’t really understand how to make the world a better place.

and the interesting thing about all this, about the fact that the red lotus acted in most cases exactly as it should have in context and the only reason its relegated to villain status is bc the show is written by liberals, is that the red lotus actually points out really glaring sociopolitical issues in universe! like, watching the show, u think well why the fuck HASN’T korra done anything about the earth queen oppressing her subjects? why DOESN’T korra do anything about the worse than useless republic president? why the hell are so many people living in poverty while our mains live cushy well fed lives? how come earth kingdom land only seems to belong to various monarchs and settler colonists, instead of the people who are actually indigenous to it? the show does not want to answer these questions, because american liberal capitalism literally survives on the reality of oppressive governments and worse than useless presidents and people living in poverty while the middle/upper class eats and indigenous land being stolen. if the show were to answer these questions honestly, the answer would be that the status quo in real life (and the one on the show that mirrors real life) Has To Change.

So they avoid answering these questions honestly in order for the thesis statement to be that the status quo is good. and the only way for the show to escape answering these questions is for them to individualize all these broad social problems down into Good people and Bad people. so while we have obvious bad ones like the earth queen we also have all these capitalists and monarchs and politicians who are actually very nice and lovely people who would never hurt anyone! which is just such an absurd take and it’s liberal propaganda at its best. holding a position of incredible political/economic power in an unjust society is inherently unethical and maintaining that position of power requires violence against the people you have power over. which is literally social justice 101. but there’s literally no normal, average, not-politically-powerful person on the show. so when leftist anarchism is presented and says that destroying systems that enforce extreme power differentials is the only way to bring peace and freedom to all, the show has already set us up to think, hey, fuck you, top cop lin beifong and ford motor ceo asami sato are good people and good people like them exist! and all we have to do to move forward and progress as a society is to make sure we have enough good individuals in enough powerful positions (like zuko as the fire lord ending the war, or wu as the earth king ending the monarchy)! which is of course complete fiction. liberal reform doesn’t work. but by pretending that it could work by saying that the SYSTEM isnt rotten it’s just that the people running it suck and we just need to replace those people, it automatically delegitimizes any radical movements that actually seek to change things.

and that’s the most interesting thing about this article to me is that it posits that the avatar...might actually be a negative presence in the world. the avatar is the exact same thing: it’s a position of immense political and physical power bestowed completely randomly, and depending on the moral character and various actions of who fills that position at any given time, millions of people will or won’t suffer. like kyoshi, who created the fascist dai li, like roku, who refused to remove a genocidal dictator from power, like aang, who facilitated the establishment of a settler colonial state on earth kingdom land. like korra! she’s an incredibly immature avatar and a generally reactionary lead. i’ve talked about this at length before but she never actually gets in touch with the needs of the people. she’s constantly running in elite circles, exposed only to the needs and squabbles of the upper class! how the hell is she supposed to understand the complexities of oppression and privilege when she was raised by a chess club with inordinate amounts of power and associates almost exclusively with politicians and billionaires?? from day 1 we see that she tends to see things in very black and white ways which is FINE if you’re a privileged 17 yr old girl seeing the world for the first time but NOT FINE if you’re the single most powerful person in the world! Yeah, korra thinks the world is probably mostly fine and just needs a little whipping into shape every couple years, because all she has ever known is a mostly fine world! in s1 when mako mentions that he as a homeless impoverished teenager worked for a gang (which is. Not weird. Impoverished people of every background are ALWAYS more likely to resort to socially unacceptable ways of making money) korra is like “you guys are criminals?????!!!!!” she was raised in perfect luxury by a conservative institution and just never developed beyond that. So sure, if the red lotus raised her anarchist, probably a lot would’ve been different/better, but....they didn’t. and korra ended up being a reactionary and conservative avatar who protected monarchs and colonialist politicians. The avatar as a position is completely subject to the whims of whoever is currently the avatar. and not only does that suck for everyone who is not the avatar, not only is it totally unfair to whatever kid who grows up knowing the fate of the world is squarely on their shoulders, but it as a concept is a highly individualist product of the authors’ own western liberal ideas of progress! the idea that one good leader can fix the world (or should even try) based on their own inherent superiority to everyone else is unbelievably flawed and ignores the fact that all real progress is brought about as a result of COMMUNITY work, as a result of normal people working for themselves and their neighbors!

the broader analysis of bending was really interesting to me too, but im honestly not sure i Totally agree with it. the article pretty much accepts the show’s assertion that bending is a privilege (and frankly backs it up much better than the original show did, but whatever), and i don’t think that’s NECESSARILY untrue since it is, like, a physical advantage (the author compares it to, for example, the fact that some people are born athletically gifted and others are born with extreme physical limitations), but i DO think that it discounts the in universe racialization of bending. in any sequel to atla that made sense, bending as a race making fact would have been explored ALONGSIDE the physical advantages it bestows on people. colonialism and its aftermath is generally ignored in this article which is its major weakness i think, especially in conjunction with bending. you can bring up the ideas the author did about individual vs community oriented progress in the avatar universe while safely ignoring the colonialism, but you can’t not bring up race and colonialism when you discuss bending. especially once you get to thinking about how water/earth/airbenders were imprisoned and killed specifically because bending was a physical advantage, and that physical advantage was something that would have given colonized populations a means of resistance and that the fire nation wanted to keep to itself.

i think that’s the best lens thru which to analyze bending tbh! like in the avatar universe bending is a tool that different ethnic groups tend to use in different ways. at its best, bending actually doesn’t represent social power differences (despite representing a physical power difference) because it’s used to represent/maintain community solidarity. like, take the water tribe. katara being the last waterbender, in some way, makes her the last of a part of swt CULTURE. the implication is that when there were a lot of waterbenders in the south, they dedicated their talents to building community and helping their neighbors, because this was something incredibly culturally important and important to the water tribe as a community. the swt as a COLLECTIVE values bending for what it can do for the entire tribe, which counts for basically every other talent a person can have (strength, creativity, etc). the fire nation, by contrast, distorts the community value of bending by racializing it: anyone who bends an element that isn’t fire is inherently NOT fire nation (and therefore inherently inferior) and, because of the physical power that bending confers, anyone who bends an element that isn’t fire is a threat to fire nation hegemony. and in THAT framework of bending, it’s something that intrinsically assigns worth and reifies race in a way that’s conveniently beneficial to the oppressor.

it IS worth talking about how using Element as a way to categorize people reifies nations, borders, and race in a way that is VERY characteristic of white american liberals. i tried to be conscious of that (and the way that elements/bending can act in DIFFERENT ways, depending on cultural context) but i think it’s pretty clear that the writers did intend for element to unequivocally signify nation (and, by extension, race), which is part of why they screwed up mixed families so bad in lok. when they’ve locked themselves into this idea that element=nation=race, they end up with sets of siblings like mako and bolin or kya tenzin and bumi, who all “take” after only one parent based on the element that they bend. which is just completely stupid but very indicative of how the writers actually INTENDED element/bending to be a race making process. and its both fucked up and interesting that the writers display the same framework of race analysis that the canonical antagonists of atla do.

anyway that’s a few thoughts! thank u again for sending the article i really loved it and i had a lot of fun writing this <3

[thecaffeinebookwarrior]

The Many Faces of the Strong Female Character

The much-requested, positive counterpart to my classic “Female Characters to Avoid in Your Writing” and it’s much-later sequel.  

Here, I will discuss some of my favorite fictional ladies and what makes them work so well;  given my rapturous love of women, there will probably be a sequel!  In the meantime, I talk more about portraying female characters here.

Happy writing, everybody!  <3

1.)  The Warrior

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When most people hear “strong female character,” they picture the most popular definition of the term:  a stony-faced, emotionally shallow, conventionally attractive broad who punches and kicks stuff.  She may occasionally shout things like, “I DON’T NEED NO MAN,” while perhaps punching a small baby. 

I decided to start with my wife Diana, because she is the perfect antithesis of this trope.  She isn’t stony, she’s courageous.  She’s unabashed about showing her doubts, hopes, affections, and optimism.  Her love interest never steals her spotlight, but she feels no need to shun romance to appear “strong.”  She’s beautiful, but not sexualized or objectified.

And while most Strong Female Characters™ are ironically reduced to damsels in distress at some point in their own narratives, Diana consistently takes the lead, totally autonomous over her own story.

You can kick ass AND love babies, people.  Joss Whedon, please take notes.

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Other examples:  Okoye from Black Panther, Furiosa from Mad Max: Fury Road, Rey from Star Wars, and Ser Brienne of Tarth from Game of Thrones.

2.)  The Comedian

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If you haven’t watched Chewing Gum on Netflix, stop whatever you’re doing and watch it right now.  Its relatively simple premise – a twenty-four-year-old from a fundamentalist Christian household struggles to lose her virginity – is a segway into a hilarious, genuine exploration of human sexuality, relationships, and how we forge our identities.

Brilliantly portrayed by the series’ creator, Michaela Coel, Tracy is essentially that one friend who knows exactly what you’ve been thinking and isn’t afraid to say so.  She is never relegated to a single trope or stereotype.  She’s stumbling, clumsily but enthusiastically, through the life experiences that shape us.  Most importantly, she is allowed to be sexually curious, awkward, aggressive, insecure, and – I can’t stress this enough – hilarious.  The dialogue is infinitely quotable, and endlessly relatable. 

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Watching shows like Chewing Gum makes me realize how few female characters – and even fe wer Black female characters – are portrayed as truly human.  Typically, they’re allowed to be sexy, but not sexual.  They’re allowed to be awkward, but only if it’s cute.  They can be insecure, but only if that insecurity can easily be solved by the affirmations of a male love interest.  And they’re rarely allowed to be the main source of a series’ comedy.  

So remember:  let your female characters be human.  Let them be awkward, funny, sexual philosophers.  It’s easier than you think.  

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Other examples:  Abbi and Ilan from Broad City, Leslie from Parks and Rec, Tina from Bob’s Burgers.

3.)  The Drama Queen

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Watching Riverdale is like hurtling along on a structurally unstable rollercoaster.  It’s utterly insane, a lot of fun, and once you’re on, you can’t stop.

But amidst the explosions of batshit crazy plot points, killer cults, and the existential perplexity of finding yourself attracted to emo Jughead, there are some real gems.  One of these is Cheryl Blossom, and pretty much every plot line surrounding her.

Cheryl is introduced as a fairly one-dimensional, catty mean girl, though the Regina George-esque charisma with which she’s portrayed makes her instantly likable.  Initially, we expect her to be a character we’ll love to hate.

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And yet, within the first few episodes, I was impressed by how layered and complex her motivations were.  Much of contempt towards others was misdirected rage from an upbringing of extreme emotional abuse, and grief over her dead brother -- all portrayed without a Snape-style condonation of said behavior.  By the end of season one, my thoughts were generally, “Oh, crap, I don’t think I can claim to be watching this ‘ironically’ anymore,” and “MORE CHERYL.”

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Season two answered my wish, and then some.  Cheryl was saved from an (impressively conscientiously portrayed) attempt at sexual assault by a pack of her female friends, and her attacker got the shit beat out of him in one of the most cathartic moments of modern television.

To the exaltation of my queer heart, she also came out as a lesbian, in a deeply moving story arc that I never would have expected from this show.  Without spoiling too much, she and her new love interest kissing in front of anti-gay propaganda footage was legitimately one of the most powerful moments I have ever witnessed.

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Before the season was over, she viciously threatened her abusive, homophobic mother while covered in blood, shot a serial killer with a bow and arrow, and joined a gang.  If that’s not gay culture, I don’t know what is.

Oh, how I wish this show was just about her.

Other examples:  Alexis from Schitt’s Creek.

4.)  The Lovable Bastard

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Ah, The Good Place.  I have never experienced such a breath of comedic fresh air.  A new philosophical principle each episode, examined and applied in hilarious and thought-provoking ways.  A complete absence of harmful stereotypes.  Incredibly lovable, three-dimensional, and ever-evolving characters. 

I was considering using my queen Tahani for this list, who externally larger-than-life and internally vulnerable after emotional abuse by her parents.  Also, she’s hilarious.  Everyone and everything in The Good Place is hilarious.  And I also thought about talking about Janet, who is the best character in anything ever, but of course:

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Instead, I’ll be talking about bisexual icon Eleanor, who is something very few female characters get to be:  the lovable bastard.

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Eleanor, when we first meet her, is not traditionally good in any sense of the word.  She turned down a high-paying job because she was expected to be nice to people.  She sold placebos to the elderly, and was great at it.  She was drunken, slovenly, hedonistic, and selfish.  And she’s instantly incredibly likable.

Why and how Eleanor is so enjoyable, even at her very worst, merits an essay all its own.  But in a nutshell:

We empathize with her.  We are introduced to “The Good Place” completely through her eyes.  We are in her shoes.  

The stakes are high.  When we discover that her entry into the good place was a mistake, we want her to be okay.

We come to understand her, and how her terrible childhood shaped her destructive behavior.  

She wants to be a better person, and with time, effort, and character development, we watch her become one. 

Not only is this an amazing lesson in how to endear audiences to your character, it is also infinitely refreshing.  The most famous lovable bastards are all men --  Han Solo, Dr. House, Captain Jack Sparrow, the Man With No Name, et cetera -- but women are rarely afforded the same moral complexity.  If a woman in fiction has done bad things, she’s not usually a lovable bastard.  She’s usually a bitch. 

Eleanor isn’t just a great character.  She conveys an important lesson:  women are people.  People with the same capacity for mistakes, growth, redemption, and love as anyone else.

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Other examples: Chloe from Don’t Trust the B*tch in Apartment 23

5.)  The Cinderella

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Yep.  I said it.  Cinderella is a strong female character.

My girl not only survived in an abusive household, she persistently stayed positive.  She worked each day to make the best of an impossible situation, from which she had no means of escape.  That takes an insane amount of courage and tenacity. 

But Caff, I hear you scream, she needed help to escape!!  Well, my imaginary counterargument, so the fuck what?  MOST people need help to escape their abusive situations, and there’s no shame in that.  Accepting help from someone you trust is the best thing you can do in a situation such as that, and implying otherwise is horribly damaging to victims of abuse.  

But she married the prince, you more feebly protest.  Yes!  She did!  She found love and happiness and a great life in a socially influential position!  And that’s an amazing message!

So in the flurry of female warriors, let’s not forget Cinderella, who tells people that their terrible circumstances won’t last forever, to stay hopeful and kind, and that accepting help from a trusted friend can lead to a happy life.  

Cinderella is a bad bitch, and she deserves her happily ever after.

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Other examples:  For some reason, I’m thinking of Sansa from Game of Thrones.  When people try to discredit her as a strong character, they often make similar complaints.  But both, quite fittingly, end up as queens.

[thecorteztwins]

🔥 villains. 🔥 the hellfire club 🔥the difference between naive and unintelligent characters

Welp, this all got STUPIDLY LONG and I’m really sorry. Under a cut because HUUUUUGE.

🔥 villains.There’s just been a robbery! All the jewels in the museum’s vault have been stolen! The culprits are….Sabretooth and Magneto!Yeah, that doesn’t sound right, does it? Thievery isn’t really something either of them do, they’re not bank robber or cat burglar types at all. And Magneto’s not a fan of Sabes to my memory, it’s unlikely he’d work with him unless it was essential to his ACTUAL goals…which this isn’t. But hey, they’re both bad guys, so they must do ALL the bad things! No matter what it is, it’s in-character if it’s evil or unlawful, right?This is the logic that I see running both often in fandom, and also sometimes with canon writers. There’s a mentality that if someone is villainous or bad in ONE way, then they must be villainous or bad in ALL ways. I think there’s always been this misunderstanding, as people do tend to think in black and white a lot, but I think it’s also increased with the rise of purity culture in Tumblr, where people/characters/works are All Good or All Bad, and if the bad guys aren’t depicted as 1000% heinously evil then it’s APOLOGISM. An example in RP would be that more than once I’d had people expect Fabian to be a racist. I can see why, given that he expresses sexism, classism, a bit of ableism, and disgust with physical mutations. But not only does he never express racism, he never expresses racism DESPITE AMPLE OPPORTUNITY. Think about it—his main antagonists are Magneto (Jewish) and Quicksilver (Jewish and Romani), he once personally fights Bishop (Black and Indigenous Australian) one on one, he’s on one team with Shinobi (half white, half Japanese), and his allies/underlings in the second-gen Acolytes included people who are African American, Moroccan (and Muslim-coded), and Inuit. And he never, ever, EVER even THOUGHT anything related to race (or religions that are usually implicitly tied to race) about ANY of them. Given how blatant his other prejudices are, I think he would very much let the reader KNOW if he were racist, anti-Semitic, etc. An example in canon…look, I’m sorry to bring up this dead horse again, but it is the best example that I presently have—Sebastian Shaw making the “women’s work” comment. As with Fabian, I get why it makes sense on the surface. He’s a powerful man, the proverbial rich old white guy, and he’s part of an organization where women walk around in lingerie as a general rule. It seems like it makes sense, it does, I grant that. But then if you actually look at his history…for 40 years of canon, he’s been allies and enemies with many powerful women, and never made a remark about their gender, never relegated lesser or menial tasks to them, never treated any of them differently as partners or foes, he actually never even flirts with any of them, be they opponents or partners in crime  (except that ONE issue when Emma is in Storm’s body and he kisses her…yeah that was a weird issue, why does a telepath need a gun to switch bodies?) Which is pretty unusual for a male Claremont villain. And he actually reacts with “I…see.” the one time a comrade makes a genuinely sexist remark. He doesn’t agree with him, he’s more like “wow ok I can’t believe he said that but I guess I’ll let it go since I want to recruit him” So, it’s actually VERY odd for him to suddenly say something like that, once you know the character. Especially since, like Fabian, he had TONS of opportunity in the past and he’s also not a character that most writers want to seem sympathetic or likeable. So it’s unlikely the writers were just trying to make him look good by playing down some secret sexist tendencies all this time or something. It’s more likely he just doesn’t have them BUT IS STILL A HORRIBLE PERSON! He just doesn’t need to be horrible in every way! Most people, even the MOST terrible, aren’t horrible in EVERY WAY POSSIBLE.That’s also why I try to avoid having Fabian being too homophobic (beyond “I can convert lesbians”) or transphobic, despite the fact that I *could* justify it (since those things are very intertwined with sexism)—because he’s awful enough. Giving him additional bigotries just seems stupidly redundant and cheap. Especially since I think people actually hate a bigoted character more than they hate a murderer; like I feel like if Duggan ever graduates to Shaw making a racist or homophobic remark, I might have to close his blog, but it’s fine to have blogs for fictional serial killers. By the same token, a villain having good traits doesn’t somehow eliminate their bad ones, especially if the good and bad traits are unrelated to each other. A mass murderer supervillain is not “actually a good guy deep down” because he loves his family; it’s actually VERY common for even genocidal dictators to care for their own. Hell, not to go all Godwin, but Hitler was an animal-lover and had a beloved dog. You can certainly point to good traits to show that a villain isn’t ALL bad (which as I just said, I support) but not being “all bad” isn’t the same as “actually a good person and just misunderstood!” Like, Shaw being an egalitarian in a lot of regards or was good to Madelyne Pryor or loved his father, doesn’t change he’s a heartless, morally bankrupt monster who abused his son and sold out an entire oppressed species (his own, no less) for his own financial gain. Mystique is an incredibly complex character, far more so than Shaw, but her love for Destiny and Rogue and many of her other good points don’t change that she hunted down other mutants for the government, abused her human son for not being a mutant, has committed rape by deception numerous times (though I think that’s due to the writers not realizing that’s a thing), constantly tries to manipulate her daughter’s life and choices, and I’m pretty sure I recall an issue where she framed a guy for domestic abuse just for funsies?Basically, villains are people. They have individual different traits and beliefs and motives, and those things will drive them towards individual different types of villainy. One villain probably won’t do the same kind of villainy that another does. Likewise, someone being a shitty person in one way, or many ways, doesn’t mean they will be in ALL ways. Pointing this out isn’t the same thing as denying their flaws or defending them, but some people do do this and that’s wrong too. Nuance needs to be allowed for. Pointing out Shaw isn’t awful in every way doesn’t mean I think he’s a misunderstood woobie whose crimes should all be forgiven. Pointing out Mystique has done awful shit doesn’t mean I think she’s pure evil and all her complex points should be ignored. It just means I don’t think characters should be strawmanned by fans OR writers as paragons or demons, especially when it contradicts what canon has actually established (with the caveat that canon is dumb sometimes too, and also some characters canonically ARE one extreme or the other, but I’m talking about ones who AREN’T)🔥 the hellfire clubI’ll give two on this! One is “unpopular” just in the sense it’s not something I’ve ever heard anyone express, but I’ve never heard an opinion in opposition to it either. The other is “unpopular” in that it does directly contradict a popularly held opinion.The first is that I think it’s stupid that Grant Morrisson made The Hellfire Club into a strip club, and it’s stupid that writers since depicted it this way. The Hellfire Club is shown in the 80s and 90s as being, first and foremost, an elite social club for the wealthiest and most powerful people in society. It’s basically a big posh country club, and most of its members are just regular people. Super duper rich people, but still normal people, lots of old money and new money and big business owners and politicians and probably royalty/nobility. Most of what they’re doing is big fancy, stuffy galas and balls, that kind of thing. But under the surface, it’s hinted that there is indeed a much more sexual underside to it. The female staff wear very fetishy maid costumes, the female Inner Circles literally have dominatrix lingerie as their getups, and while we actually never see what goes on beyond the closed doors in the 80s, nor was anything directly stated, the hints are definitely there that it’s as libertine in the private rooms as they are prim and proper in the ballrooms. We don’t know WHAT exactly is happening, only that it’s dark and decadent and surely sexual in some kind of “abnormal” (read: kink shaming) way.And then it turns out it’s just a strip club where the dancers wear corsets? Really? REALLY? I’m sorry, you expect me to belief that these oh-so-forbidden and secretive sexual delights that are available only to the richest and most powerful people in the world are…a TITTY BAR WITH NO ACTUAL TITTIES EVEN OUT???? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard! It’s so fucking juvenile! It feels like something a 13 year old made up while trying to come up with the mos edgy, shocking, “sexy” thing he could. It just…doesn’t work. It doesn’t work firstly because it completely took away the whole “upper class veneer” that is as much an essential part of the HFC as the sex. In fact, I think more so. Writers, artists, and fans all like to focus on ZOMG THE SEXY COSTUMES but thematically speaking, I think the fact it’s an elite organization exclusive to the super-wealthy is much more important; that should be what they’re really about as villains, but writers end up focusing way too much on the shock value of the kink, and that’s how you wind up with stuff like this. The second reason it doesn’t work is that…it isn’t even shocking. When what they were doing was kept hidden, the reader could imagine no limit of decadence and depravity. When it’s revealed, and revealed as something that’s frankly super and common and TAME (seriously, strip clubs aren’t edgy these days) that you can get anywhere else, you’re left wondering why exactly anyone gives a shit about being in the HFC if this is all it really is? We should NEVER get to see what the HFC patrons truly do in private, and we should definitely never get shown that it’s just watching a woman pole dance with Victorian underwear on. That doesn’t make the HFC look sexual, it makes them look like PRUDES!Honestly, I do actually love the sexy sinful decadent aspect, but it’s overtaken the “extremely rich and powerful people trying to rule the world from behind the scenes through political and economic manipulation” aspect (which is far more interesting and villainous) that I kind of wish sometimes they had been created without the kink or colonial cosplay aspects, and instead had just worn some 80s powersuits.Now, here’s the “unpopular as in contradicts the popular” opinion. I see the Hellfire Club described a lot, in canon and fandom, as an organization of powerful MEN, as a bunch of MEN who just want to control others, as a BOY’S club…but aside from Sebastian Shaw, all the most prominent and effective members of the Club have been women? I mean, think about it. The names most synonymous with “Hellfire Club” in fandom are Emma Frost, Selene, Jean Grey as Dark Phoenix, and Sebastian Shaw. Shaw’s the ONLY dude that really gets any focus from writers OR fans; the women are almost always utilized more by writers and remembered more by fans. Heck, in the London Branch of the Hellfire Club, NONE of the male members of the Inner Circle even got NAMES, while ALL the women did. Now, of course, individual women in an organization being successful in said organization and beloved by fans/writers, doesn’t mean the organization itself can’t also be sexist. And like most people, the disparity between the costumes of both the Inner Circle and the mere staff does lead me to believe that it was probably founded and run only by men originally, and I bet women probably weren’t even allowed in for a long time (especially given that it was established in the 1700s) But that’s my HEADCANON. That’s what I EXTRAPOLATE. But what’s actually on the page IN THE PRESENT is women that are on equal footing with men, or superior to them. They’re not just simply ALLOWED in the Inner Circle, they’ve been dominating it from the first appearance with Emma ruling it alongside Shaw over Leland and Pierce, and then Selene coming in to challenge Shaw and Emma (with Shaw being terrified of her) in a way that none of the other members (all male—Leland, Pierce, Von Roehm) could. Gender is never brought up by anyone, even the most despicable male HFC members like Donald Pierce. So while I believe it was founded by sexist men, the Inner Circle seems pretty egalitarian now.But of course, there’s the costumes. I absolutely think it’s a sexist setup that the men get to wear (super ugly) period cosplay while the women are in fetish lingerie. It seems to be the standard uniform, and the fact that they haven’t CHANGED it shows that there’s definitely still some sexism.Except…it doesn’t seem to be a rule in-universe that the women HAVE to wear them? We actually see female members of the HFC, such as Selene, wearing clothing other than that while hanging out there; there’s actually a scene wear Selene is wearing pants and a sleeveless turtleneck with gloves. Maddy also wears a lot of black leather when she’s a member, but it doesn’t look like the Hellfire Club ladies getup, it looks like all the other stuff she was wearing in the 90s. And when Selene, Emma, etc., AREN’T in the Hellfire Club…they often still dress exactly like that, or in a similiar manner. I think it’s pretty clear that no one is MAKING them wear the uniforms, they just LIKE them, they’re probably “encouraged but optional” or something like that. And Emma even has that WHOLE DAMN SPEECH about how this is her armor, how it empowers her, etc. That said, while I don’t think any other CHARACTERS are making these women dress like that, I do think the writers/artists are. If a real woman made the speech that Emma did, I’d be like “ok sure, you go girl, do what feels empowering for you”. But Emma ISN’T a real woman. Every word in her mouth in that panel is being put there by Chris Claremont, a horny man with a dominatrix fetish who is trying to justify it by selling it as feminist. That is what it is. But just because that’s the case on a meta level…on an in-universe level, no one makes these women dress like this, and that’s very evident, and while the way they’re treated by writers/artists is definitely affected by them being women, the way other characters, including the Hellfire Club men, treats them, isn’t. At least not til shitty recent stuff. (I’ve seen some people think SHAW made the women dress like that….yeah, sure, like he could make SELENE do anything? He’s completely afraid of her but somehow can make her wear something she doesn’t want? Emma and Selene dress like that no matter where they are and whether they’re presently HFC members or not, but somehow he’s making them do that? HOW DOES ANYONE GIVE THIS GUY THAT MUCH CREDIT?)Basically, I think people are TRYING to be feminist, but it often ends up feeling like SEXISM to me? Because it’s totally ignoring and erasing the power and agency that these women exert in this organization, and often even claiming that it’s actually the men who have all the control, when aside from Shaw it’s usually the ladies running the show. It just seems disrespectful to me. It’s like, as much as people are claiming to hate a lack of agency for female characters, they seem more comfortable with that idea than a situation where women actually HAD it. Maybe it’s because they’re villains, maybe it’s because the costumes really are distracting and unequal no matter how the writers try to justify it (again, I wish they’d just gone with business suits), but there seems to be an overall fandom determination to insist on women like Emma Frost and Selene as victims or simply accomplices to a greater (male) villain, rather than embracing them as the Top Tier Bad Bitches they were/are, and, again, that seems more sexist to me than not. But I worry people will think I’m sexist if I say that. But you know me, you know I LOVE agency for female characters, and how I rail against it when see them ACTUALLY lacking it in comics, so you know it’s not that. I think it’s just a part of the rise in purity culture that even “progressive” people would rather see a woman forced or coerced to be a victim than choose of her own volition to be a villain and be GOOD at it :/🔥the difference between naive and unintelligent charactersWell, firstly, obviously there IS a difference. Naivete is just a lack of experience or learned knowledge, neither of which has anything to do with intelligence. A naive character may make mistakes in a new situation based on their lack of knowledge about it, and that may LOOK stupid to those who have this knowledge, but it’s not the same thing. I think we can agree that, say, Tony Stark isn’t stupid, but if he had to navigate in the wilderness, he might do things that experienced hikers and campers and outdoors people know are SUPER BAD IDEAS. Because this isn’t something he knows about or has experience with.So, I think considering characters who are new to this world (as is common in comics—lots of people from other dimensions, planets, and times) as stupid because they don’t know a lot of things we take as a given, is erroneous. I think it’s pretty common for fandom to look at, say, Longshot or Thor, and deem them as basically being idiots because they’re not familiar with their new environments…when in fact, we’d all be acting the same if we wound up in Asgard or Mojoworld. Not that there’s not other reasons they can’t be idiots, but not knowing what a toaster is isn’t one of them.The big difference is that naivete is a temporary state, and I think both writers and fans forget that. The character’s naivete will gradually decrease as they learn more and more. So if you’re writing an Avengers fic where Thor has been on Earth for five years so far, he probably knows what a toaster is, can order normally at a restaurant, isn’t confused by normal sights like cars or traffic lights or computers, etc., but could still be confused if he went to a Midgardian country with very different cultural norms than the ones he’s learned in the United States. Likewise, I can keep Malcolm perpetually baffled by new worlds in RP since time is kinda wobbly here and can be static or move forward or back as we like, but if I were writing him in a linear story, he would have to learn along the way about the technology and norms of other worlds as he experiences them; if he didn’t learn, THEN he would be unintelligent, not just naive. If he touches a hot stove once because he didn’t know what it was, and it burns him, that’s naive. If he touches it twice to test if it does the same thing again, that’s curious and maybe even smart, despite looking stupid to others. If he keeps doing it every day by accident, then THAT’S an idiot. Also, even a naive character may still be able to deduce that certain things are bad ideas, dangerous, etc. For instance, let’s say my character is a normal everyday girl sucked into a fantasy realm. She doesn’t understand the language, and the people around her don’t look like anything humanoid, but when all of them go quiet and still when a larger, more decorated one enters, and they all give it a lot of space, she can probably deduce that this is someone of great importance, and she probably should do what the others are doing and not risk pissing it off. She may know nothing about these beings or their customs, but she still can use her powers of observation and common sense. It may end up being a TOTALLY wrong move—for instance, maybe newcomers are meant to come introduce themselves to the leader by touching them–but it was a good, sensible guess. Whereas if she’d just walked up to the being and given it a good swift kick, that’d be unintelligent to an almost unbelievable point, and no amount of “she’s just naive!” could excuse it.Oh yeah, and optimism doesn’t automatically equate to naivete either. To be honest, I think that extreme cynicism is just as naive in its own way as thinking everything is sunshine and daisies, and I’d like to see this explored more in fiction rather than the perpetual “happy positive people are dumb and naive and just don’t know better, whereas the grumpy cynics are always smarter and more experienced” that media is so fond of.TL;DR Not only is naivete not unintelligence, it also should be a temporary state. It’s definitely cute to watch a naive character stumble around their new experiences, but in gaining those experiences, they’re going to become less naive, and make few mistakes. Naive characters should also still be capable of acting in ways that are sensible, even if they end up being wrong for the new situation. And being positive doesn’t automatically equate naivete either, nor does negativity equate to the reverse (and can be naive in itself)

[kendrixtermina]

Thoughts and Feelings about“Change Your Mind”

I really wish I could rewatch this motherfucker somewhere but I have to sleep and go to work 

Well on the one hand the main story lines are pretty much done for, on the other, the fallout alone could fill another season, and I’m actually glad that they’re not relegating that to the epilogue but actually going to show it

I assume season 5 will be Steven working with the Diamonds to improve homeworld, explaining things to Jasper, integrating the former corrupted gems on earth, finding out the deal with pink pearl, further developing Steven’s new fusions etc. 

Other open questions involve gem origins and peridot’s renewable energy project, but I suppose that will come up as Steven tries to make the Empire less... imperialistic. 

I understand why they wanted to air this in one piece, you couldn’t leave the younger viewers hanging with some of these creepytastic scenes and no resolution

There’s various concepts I feel reminded of. 

There’s this idea of “tzimtsum” in kaballalistic thought, about how God created the world - In order to create a being apart from himself, he “hid” some aspects of the being, the ones that would seem - So every part of creation reflects one aspect of god, but none shows the complete pictures of it, and because everything has some aspects of god but not others, it is unique - so all humans are made in gods image, but still be different from each other.  

Maybe Pink Diamond would be something like Lucifer in this analogy, part of the creation but as far from the god as you can get while still existing, and somehow their antithesis (stretching the analogy here, of course Judaism has no counterpart to Lucifer let alone the positive-ish early modernity interpretions of him - but of course, White Diamond isn’t exactly a benevolent God either. )

First of course Star Trek, like the ep where Captain Kirk is split into what at first seems like his good and evil half but is more like his animal instincts and higher reasoning, or in Voyager, when B’Elana Torres is split into her human and Klingon halves. 

I guess Garnet wasn’t completely wrong in his being something in-between fusion and human reproduction, his gem half could be considered A Pink Diamond, but not the same one who created him - He must be fricking powerful to shrug off WD’s beams like that, like how Stevonnie still has “boosted” versions of Steven’s abilities despite Connie being human, Steven’s probably like Pink Diamond, but ‘boosted’.  

Steven’s victory certainly showcases how it comes from both sides of his heritage. It involves making WD laugh/embarassed like what Pink used to do, but unlike her, he has the communication skills from Greg - I don’t think Pink ever talked to Blue in that way, she didn’t seem aware of what the other Diamonds were thinking at all, any more than she really understood Pearl’s lingering knot of complexes. It’s just not a skill she could have picked up before Greg - when? From whom?  

His responsibility is all uniquely him and due to his upbringing with the CG’s and wanting to help him more, tho, both his parents where free spirit hippy bohemians, but it was Steven who decided “Nope, I WANT to fix it, because I can”, not because he owes it to anybody, even when no one could fault him for running. 

Also, Frankenstein (the Novel not the film) - The original Victor was a sympathetic, even admirable character, but somehow he just couldn’t bring himself to have empathy with the monster, though Adam was in many ways alike to him and initially didn’t wish to be his enemy.  Because while the gems relate to White Diamond as their goddess and the other Diamonds see her as their mother, she seems to regard them as extensions of herself. Maybe she would, as their creator. Gods are expected to smile benevolently upon their followers and solve their problems, Mothers, while they are flawed humans,  are supposed to love their kids as they are and realize that they become their own persons, but artists frequently tear up their own work if they’re dissatisfied with it, because it’s supposed to be a reflection of their existence, so they might hate it for not reflecting them well enough - 

i often regret tearing up half my teenage fanfics, but I’m able to view them different now that I’m - Back then, I felt like they reflectzed badly onto me - but if had kids and treated them like my fanfics or crumpled drawings, well, that would scar them for life. 

You could certainly see this as a metaphor for narcissism, particularly in the way WD judged everything by how much it was like her, to the point that she would ‘overwrite`’ ppl’s personalities with her ideas of how it ought to be, while lacking a solid identity of her own apart from being “perfect/the best” by default, but that only goes so far because the gems literally are her creations who take their characteristics from various aspects of her being. 

She’d have a completely different conceptual framework to anyone else, though she’s certainly not “above it” in any way. 

I don’t think she was completely unaffected by Pink’s dissapearence either, if you want to complete the Stages of Grief analogy she would be Denial or Bargaining. Most likely,  she was growing increasingly frustrated with her ability to make her empire “perfect” like she ought to and that’s why she started keeping to herself more and assuming that Pink couldn’t be dead. 

She seemed like the knowing one when she was as much in denial as anyone else - you can tell they had a complicated relationship because of how White saw herself in her, that might be why she indulged and preferred her, but then again she didn’t always like what she saw and felt that Pink represented parts of her that she didn’t want to see. 

It’s not without reason that Steven tells her to “get out of her own head” and try to see the world for what it is rather than her preconceived notions of what it is or means. You could perhaps relate that to 

When she realizes that she’s actually dead - that’s when she has her breakdown. 

You could even draw a parallel to “Romeo And Juliet”, where the older generation only realizes how much its ways were fucked up when it gets their beloved children killed for just trying to live happy lives. 

Cal Gustav Jung would certainly remind us that what irritates us about others are often things that irritate us about ourselves, that we may be liable to “see the world as we are” and never is that more apparent than when we view everything through some skewed belief system, or when we hate - people hate people who blur boundaries because they don’t want to confront the ambiguity within themselves, or act as “superior” and merciless because they’ve rejected their own mortal fragile humanity.

Another observation is that when you set up anything as the “default” you create pressure not to deviate from the norm and prevent its members from experiencing their individuality. (see societal pressure on heterosexual men, or Euro-Americans saying they ‘have no culture to celebrate’ - maybe instead of becoming a devouring plague upon your fellow men, you could actually appreciate European culture? Like, read some books, eat some cheese, learn a language, listen to some classical music, vote for worker protection laws?)

It speaks for PD that she even tried to save other aliens at some point. steven stepped completely out of her shadow the moment he was able to feel sorry for her, like “Geez, she had to live like that? No wonder she turned out the way she did!” he pretty much calls the other Diamonds out at some point, like he gets a secure sense of the differences between them when he realizes how much better off he’s been in his own life. Like, UGH. 

For my part, I don’t believe the “best of the worst” thing was true, and more of an “evil cannot comprehend good” moment from White, if not outright projection. (after all, White seems to view all other Gems as imperfect copies of herself) If anything, Pink seemed upset that she got stuck being the leader even as “Rose Quartz” (see the Beach scene in “Greg the babysitter”) - but of course Steven, not being Pink, wouldn’t know whether or not White is right. 

Other Thoughts:

In the earlier scenes you could see a lot of parallels to less than ideal family situations, and how people might end up acting as proxies of the problematic person, almost sprouting their words, in the name of keeping the peace, and how people in such an environment may have no idea of how it’s not normal

You CAN talk down such a person (I know of multiple people who made a bona fide job out of talking sense into literal nazis and clansmen, person by person - their tactic was generally to find whatever problem their rage came from), but there’s a difference between “flawed” and “awful” and I do think it came through that White is a piece of work quite unlike, say, Connie’s mother, and that Steven’s dealing with her because he wants to for the good of society, because he’s the bigger person and secure in himself,  not because he owes it to her or anything

It seems like they went for “awesome” rather than “beautiful” with Steven’s fusions. The designs are kinda gaudy, but even so, once you getpast the gaudy design, it’s kind of touching how Steven’s and Garnet’s fusion is essentially a motivational speaker who sprouts encouraging advice nonstop. Garnet was always Steven’s Mentor and  as well as the main person (besides greg) to teach him morals, as well as generally encouraging & supportive, but Steven of course encourages and supports her too, and both like doing that for others

I love Peridot’s short shorts and that she and Bismuth repaired the ships/ went a-tinkering together. It took me a bit to notice that it’s supposed to be shorts and not just her old outfit with starts instead tho

Voice of Reason!Connieis a gift that keeps on giving

[thesffcorner]

Avengers: Infinity War Review

Avengers: Infinity War is the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s latest venture, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo. It takes place 2 years after the events of Avengers Civil War and follows Thanos on his quest to gather all the infinity stones and destroy half of the universe.

As this is a film that has been 10 years in the making, with elements and threads from nearly every MCU film, there is a lot to talk about and most of it consist some kind of spoiler. I will go over general impressions in the first half and get into most substantial, plot related spoilers in the latter, but if you don’t want to know anything about this movie before seeing it, I suggest you come back to this article after you’ve already done so. 

This is a difficult movie to talk about; it will definitely draw out a reaction but how positive or negative will hinge on how much you love event comics and Thanos as a character. I can’t say I liked it, but there wasn’t much that I thought was objectively wrong with it, in the way of say the Last Jedi. So let’s start first with the things I liked. 

Nearly every character that’s in this movie gets a moment to shine, be it an action beat, a scene, or just a good one liner. At no point in the film did it feel like a character was underutilized or unnecessary and the Russos do a great job at juggling all the different personalities and plot-lines. Despite the sheer amount of people the action is clear, the film rarely feels like it drags and more or less uses all its players to their fullest potential, with several having a lot more room to breathe and play.

The plot as I said is pretty pedestrian; it’s just “Thanos wants the stones so he can destroy the world and the heroes want to stop him” which works for this type of story. It’s nothing to write home about and the twists come from the individual character plot-lines and while I didn’t love it, it was pretty unobtrusive and allowed for more character interaction which is always a positive in my opinion.

The action is also for the most part excellent, with the Russos making sure everyone gets at least one scene where the kick ass, including the villains. They also get pretty creative with the different powers in the film, especially the infinity stones. There are several downright amazing scenes that showcase the time, reality and soul gems, and the two characters who get to show off the most in terms of power are definitely Thor and Strange.

Speaking of, another thing I liked was that the characters that carried the plot and got the most screen time weren’t the ones I expected would. Tony is the only one who I knew would get a lot of screen time and does, but I actually really liked his story-line; it was probably one of the best the MCU has done so far. The Russos really like and understand Tony’s character, and his emotional conflict having to do with the fear of losing Earth and all his friends, his guilt over the Avengers dissolving, him returning back to paranoia after the dissolution and creating the nano-tech suit were all excellent. The ending was also incredibly powerful for Tony specifically and there is one scene that was so emotionally visceral, it actually unsettled me.

Thor was another character that got a lot of screen time and I’m still somewhat conflicted over his character. I loved Ragnarok and I think Waititi’s Thor was the best and most accurate one we’ve gotten so far. So I was really worried when I read an interview with Hemsworth which talked about how he at first didn’t like the direction his character was going in.

And at first I agreed with him; the beginning of the film especially felt like Marvel just hates Thor and all of his supporting characters and in a way completely negates the ending and the message of Ragnarok, because it makes everything that happens in that movie irrelevant so we could get this one. What I did like was that at least (unlike Taika) the Russos gave Thor a moment to grieve and come to terms with the all the horror that happened to him in these two films and and just be human. There is a pretty touching scene between him and Rocket which I really appreciated and their pairing was very entertaining.

Strange was another character that got to shine and I liked his dynamic with Tony, especially Strange giving up the stone to save Tony’s life (even if he had ulterior motives), after plainly saying he would save the stone over everyone.

And now for some stuff I didn’t like. I’ll start with the more minor things and build up to the two major problems that I had with this movie. ACTUAL SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT FOLKS.

Firstly, this is an event comic in movie form with all the good and bad that comes with it. It’s all action and spectacle and contains surprisingly little humanity, other than in the form of jokey jokes and one liners. The tone is grim and though the film doesn’t take itself too seriously it still pauses for grandiose speeches which absolutely kill the momentum dead. Combined with the amount of characters this means that every character that isn’t plot relevant would get one line, or one scene or mostly one joke and then they are out of the movie.

People like Nat and Cap, who have been veterans of the MCU get completely lost in the shuffle. Sure they get fight scenes, but they don’t get any kind of emotional backstory. Bucky, Sam and Rhodey might as well not be here for all they do, even if they do get some funny lines here and there. Bruce fares a bit better, at least being present in most of the film, the entirety of the Black Panther cast gets like, a scene and a half and let’s not even get into people like Pepper, Loki and Wong who literally get ejected out of the film after one scene.

Gamora, Thor and Tony, are the only characters who get any emotional substance to them; the rest aren’t even deigned a subplot beyond the minimum necessary requirement to tie them into the main plot. An especially egregious example of this are both Wanda and Vision and Peter and Gamora’s romances.

Both of these romances were set up in previous films, but while they had time to slowly develop, here they need to be at Earth-shattering, I-need-you-to-kill-me-or-the-world-ends levels. This is less bad with Peter and Gamora because we’ve had more time with both characters and two whole movies to develop them, but Vision and Wanda only started really interacting in Civil War, and now they are at the stage where they are promised to each other? I also didn’t like that both romances had the same resolution; in case things go wrong Gamora and Vision ask to be killed, the only person who can do it is Peter or Wanda and we get a dramatic scene where exactly that happens only for Thanos to swoop in with one of the stones and change the outcome. Diminishing returns, is all I’m saying.

Wanda’s character had nothing to it beyond being worried and in love with Vision, but Peter… oh poor Peter.

First he gets into a stupid pissing contest with Thor about who is manlier which was just the most inane, stupid thing, then he does the exact same with Tony, and then (because the film needs him too) completely loses his mind about Gamora, and attacks Thanos, allowing him to steal the time gem and escape. Look, Peter was never the smartest person, and he does have an insecure, competitive, peacocking streak, but he was never an idiot like this film makes him out to be! Honestly all the Guardians are shafted; Mantis and Drax are barely in the film, Groot gets a single scene of cool, Rocket, while funny is relegated to being Thor’s sidekick/psychiatrist and Peter is turned into an idiot!

And now we get to Gamora. Poor Gamora, this movie did her dirty. Just a reminder, Gamora is one of the most skilled and bad-ass assassins in the galaxy, she is notorious and infamous in the Guardians films. Her entire plot in vol 2 was coming to terms not just with the abuse that Thanos inflicted on her as a child, but also the abuse she was complicit in with the other children, specifically Nebula who she was actually close to. The film ends with them starting to come to terms with this, and forgiving each other, but not Thanos who doesn’t deserve their forgiveness.

But then in this movie, she gets fooled into thinking she killed Thanos, gets kidnapped by Thanos, leads him to the soul stone and gets unceremoniously killed as Thanos’ sacrifice to get the stone. And all the time, she gets emotionally blackmailed and gas-lit by Thanos who keeps calling her his daughter, saying he wants to see her on Titan’s throne, how he sacrificed his crazy ass mission to save her once on her home-planet and choses her as the one thing in the universe he loves but has to trade to get the soul gem. WHAT?

Are we supposed to feel bad about Thanos? Thanos, the sociopathic, sadistic, torturous, unambiguous villain, who by that point in the film has killed the entirety of Asgard, including Loki and Heimdal, and the Grandmaster and the entirety of Knowhere? I absolutely hated the implication that I should feel sad because Gamora was wrong and he did love her. Not only does it badly undercut the message of vol 2 which is abuse is real and has lasting effects, but the movie wants us to on some level side with Thanos and think that Gamora really was ungrateful, since he obviously loved her and she betrayed him. They even give her this stupid speech about how the universe is punishing him by demanding he sacrificed something he loved since he doesn’t love anything, which was so over the top and drawn out and made Gamora sound like an idiot! It made me want to throw things at the screen.

I don’t need or want complexity and sympathetic traits given to a villain that has been nothing but a sheer force of evil and destruction thus far. It would have been so much better to just go the Galactus route with Thanos and make him just an unstoppable chaotic neutral force, rather than some deluded mad genius. I’m sorry, but am I supposed to sympathize with a villain literary referred to as the Mad Titan, whose grand master plan hinges on him believing the overpopulation and over-consumption myth so hard that he wants to destroy half the universe to remedy it? This is the better story than him trying to impress Death that Marvel came up with?

Even if overpopulation wasn’t a myth (which it is) what happens when living beings once again reach the status that they have now? He would have to snap his fingers every 10 000 years or so just to keep the status quo. It’s ridiculously stupid and infuriating and the film treats his plan like it actually has some merit and he’s somehow a mad genius who just goes about it the wrong way. I really didn’t need a 10 min scene of him mourning how he had to kill Gamora to get the stone that lets him DESTROY HALF THE UNIVERSE, complete with sad music and a flashback to baby Gamora asking him what kind of price he paid for his own insane plans. We could have spent that time giving Cap something to do, like maybe acknowledging that Tony, his best friend is lost in space and the world is ending.

The Russos love Thanos, he’s clearly their baby but I hated him. He took time away from the heroes that I wanted to watch and didn’t bring anything to the table but melodrama that was completely unfounded. It was also additionally frustrating because he a) is so much more powerful than any of the heroes combined and b) we know he gets all the infinity stones by the end of the film. So the question isn’t how the heroes will win, but how long will they last against him. The ending also undercuts itself, because the heroes don’t win; the glove self-destructs after Thanos uses it, meaning it would have done that regardless of if Thanos met any resistance while acquiring the stones, meaning this whole 2 and a half hour film was pointless!

The other part of the ending was shocking, but it’s not meaningful, because we know all those characters aren’t dead. We know we will get a Dr Strange 2, Black Panther 2 and Guardians 3, and we know Avengers Infinity part 2 comes out next summer so we know they are still somehow alive. My guess is they are all trapped inside the soul stone, since only the glove got destroyed at the end. Sidenote, aren’t Tony and Nebula still on Titan? So can’t they just like… sneak behind Thanos and stab him now that he’s wounded and can’t use the stones anymore?

This was a frustrating movie to watch and even more frustrating to talk about. There were things I liked, like some of the characters and humor, but for the most part I thought it was overblown, melodramatic and focused too much on the one character I cared least about. I am curious about part 2, but honestly? I feel the same about this movie as I do about event comics; who TF is Thanos and can he get out of my Guardians ongoing so I can return to reading about the characters I actually like and care about.

[thewordonmainstreet]

It’s Happening Again:  On Seeing My Life Once Again Go To Shit

I said in a few blogs ago how I find people are looking so haggard and worn out by life.  Well that’d be me as of late.  Everything has been hard for me lately due to my current mental health crisis.  Either my meds. are no longer working or my mental health is getting worse.  I’m really, really struggling to cook, get out of bed, do daily tasks and most importantly, do my much-loved job well.  My brain has been the hardest hit as I process thoughts at a reduced speed. My ability to order priorities in a day and even type is affected.  I’m all drugged up, I can hardly think and I’m really having trouble matching up invoices, one of the new requirements of my job.  The confusion is unreal and I’m often having to think hard about some of the rules of the road.  This is scary shit.  I’ve been here so many times before, the depression or the meds. doing me in so many times in my life.  And I mean really doing me in, I haven’t achieved career or relational success all because life has been a constant fight against my mind’s demons. I was a college student recently diagnosed with severe depression/generalized anxiety (the terrible two that go hand in hand most of the time) and it took everything in me to get through and pass my program, albeit with a GPA that I had to lie about on job applications.  I failed two placements in my Early Childhood Education program because of my battle with mental health and I saw it start to take my future away. I was a young woman barely able to muddle her way through an Office Management program and again saw depression take me down.  My head was full of so many meds. that I could barely think.  As I started doing temporary administrative work, I only made it through those jobs because of colleagues and bosses who maybe didn’t see me struggling or didn’t say anything. Eventually, I just couldn’t find work, I’m sure the word got around to the agencies that I worked for.  Depression has stolen the best of my life time and time again.  I’ve lost so much and failed at so much because of it.  I know this feeling all too well, I’m at a pivotal moment when I could either be saved by grace and my goodness as a person or see it all go to shit.  What does life feel like doing to me today?  Have I been good enough to keep my job?  I haven’t been able to get through my days at work very well and sent out a highly personal and vulnerable e-mail to HR and another person I was doing a project for explaining how I feel.  I was asking for help and saying just how much I value my job.  So much is at stake here.  When it falls apart, it really falls apart.  What will happen first is an immediate financial hit.  My bank balance edging down and then I lack the ability to put good food on the table.  The cost of groceries is insane now and I was just starting to have desirable food in the house with this job.  When I suffer the blow of a lost job, I suffer the loss of good eating and am relegated to plain, survival eating that leaves me wanting so much more.  Then to thinking about getting another job.  I feel so stressed financially that it stops me from looking for work.  I don’t have the gas money or money for lunch breaks on the road to deliver resumés.  Almost nowhere will hire me with my resumé that makes it look like I can’t keep a job.  I can’t live on ODSP alone and my ODSP is automatically reduced due to the earnings that I have now. I work now, I pay later.  There will be no Christmas, there never has been for me, I’m living a life interrupted by a cruel illness or the drugs that treat it.  I hate the drugs and what they’ve done to me.  I imagine it in my mind so I’ll be able to get used to it when it really happens, me losing my home and everything I own.  The path isn’t very far from the house to street.  Charities are mired with long wait lists and stringent qualifying criteria.  This job is the only kind of routine I have in my life, it’s tethering me to normalcy.  I can see the family fights as mental illness causes so many of them.  For some reason, mental illness causes fights.  Cancer or kidney failure never does, but there’s something about mental illness.  My relationship with my parents has been fractured all of my life, only knowing moments of understanding that are as few and far between as are months of my good health.  They all see me as the black of sheep of the family that must be seen and not heard, it’s been that way since I was a child.  The fights are becoming more frequent now.  I can hardly wait until Christmas. The straw is so close to breaking the camel’s back and one day they will just get so sick and tired of me because of my illness.  I see myself in my dreams losing everything, the painful rows with my parents because they’re so fed up, them telling me I’m a total failure and that their taking my home away as the final statement of  their displeasure.

Me ending up on the street panhandling, the plausible end of a life mired by health battles and deep poverty.  I want to prepare myself soon for this so I imagine it more and more often in my mind.  I see myself struggling to eat meals at soup kitchens because when I get really stressed I cannot physically swallow food.  I’ve been to meal programs a few times before in life starting when I first got sick at age 18 and then in my late twenties and maybe I will darken their doorways again.  I search social services and charities on the Internet to prepare myself so I know whose out there and where they’re located.  I’ve worked so hard to create my own unique signature on this home. Work as in shop I should say but when you have to go from thrift store to thrift store, that’s work.  I’ve got so many one of a kind, quirky decorations, kid’s toys, stuffies, McDonald’s toys and miniatures. 12 years of committed thrifting has amassed me a lot of whimsical, unique finds that I cherish.  I have a razor-sharp mind and have the uncanny ability of recalling just what thrift store each item was procured from.  Now I’m under pressure and in the fight of my life to hold onto that stuff.  Shit’s never been so real as it is now.  There’s no way I’m losing this place yet as I lie in bed when the confusion and mental anguish is so real, I imagine me calling around to get prices on storage lockers knowing that I’d never be able to afford what they’re asking and keep myself fed in the same month.  I can’t figure out what I love the most, almost like what I would grab first if there was a fire.  I love it all, I’ve worked so hard to keep jobs to fill my home with nice things.  I see myself on the street, a blanket over my knees as I hold out a cup and hope I look pretty enough without makeup because I’ve lost my whole collection, tears running down my face because this is just too much to bear. It’s just too much.  I’m in the fight of my life to hold onto this job.  I’ve seen this fight so many times before.  The e-mail or conversation where you reveal your health struggles and the ever uncomfortable fallout.  You muddle through the day and you’re treated like a stranger that doesn’t even work there.  You become the subject of whispers by the water cooler.  They don’t even tell you where you’re f’ing up as there’s no reason to.  You go in everyday, ready to be fired.  When getting through the day is as much of a battle as it is now, getting through the month most often never happens.  When you’ve got a broken mind, soon enough you’ll be broke yourself.  And the fact that most people on the streets have a mental health issue really hits home.....just when will I be among those in the city’s homeless count?  I’m hanging by a moment here and hope there is mercy and understanding.  I can’t afford to lose what I’ve got.  I’ve got more money in the bank than I’ve had for 5 years (and it’s not a whole hell of a lot) yet I’ve never been closer to the edge.  The only jobs I can get now are shady day jobs where I risk not getting paid or Tim Horton’s and like I want to be a slave for a brand that honestly tastes like watered down mud. My longest job in life was 6 months and my resumé rivals a new grad.. The blue collar world destroys me by bullying or abuse and the white collar world doesn’t understand me.  The truth is the world doesn’t want a f up like me.  I’m a nice girl finishing last and the social safety net isn’t robust enough for my complex situation.  My mind or the matter (the damn drug that may have caused this) decides what’s going to happen next.  Do I lose it all or somehow hold onto it?  Survival is all I really think about, there are no breaks from the gritty work of survival.  Will I have healthy food in my house, will I be able to get through next month?  I just hope that fortune will favour me and that I can hold onto this job.  I’ve never wanted anything more in life than to have something last for me, to have something go right.  Too much has gone wrong for someone that just wants the pride of a hard day’s work.  When it all falls apart, it really f’n falls apart.  It’s messy, it’s embarrassing and it’s scary.  I’ve been falling apart all of my life. 

[thewaywedo33]

Wynonna Earp 2x06 Thoughts and Faves

Well, we’re officially halfway through the season, and oh what a ride it has been so far. Time to rundown my (overdue) thoughts and faves from 2X06.

Let’s start with a quick mention of the badass Wynonna door kick in scene. If I was still hesitant about this whole pregnancy storyline thing, it was blown out of here right along with that door. (Also, every other damn thing in the episode allayed my fears).

Bobo left a big coat to fill as the season baddie, and the widows are starting to fill it nicely. It turns out Dani Kind has a delicious ability to play a villain. I’m sad we didn’t get more time with actual Mercedes, and I wish Wynonna was able to keep what was shaping up to be a fun friendship, but the storyline is working for me.

Underrated moment of the episode: Faux Mercedes looking down at her ass when Wynonna asks if she has a silver spoon stuck up there again, because she doesn’t know the phrase is now used as a euphemism and takes it literally.

Wynonna and Nicole, man, I feel like I’m going to be writing about them every single week. Not only do I love their dynamic and the potential that comes with it, but I also think their relationship could be extremely important for both characters. Wynonna really does need a friend besides her sister, and things are always going to be complicated with Doc and Dolls, so they can’t really fulfill that role. With Nicole still newish in town, I think she needs a friend too, even if it is her girlfriend’s sister.  Hey, Purgatory is a small town.  

Anyway, the end of last week’s episode was a turning point for Nicole and Wynonna. It cemented for Nicole that she can count on Wynonna to protect and save Waverly in the important moments. I don’t think Nicole has ever questioned Wynonna’s love for her sister, but it seems reasonable to assume she harbored doubts about her ability to do what’s in Waverly’s best interest sometimes, due to her drinking and flippant seeming attitude. 

We know Wynonna finds Nicole bossy and somewhat overbearing, but up to this point she was willing to overlook those things because of how obvious it is that Nicole loves her sister. After this episode, Wynonna is starting to understand Nicole’s better qualities for herself.

I’m in love with the scene where Nicole walks in to discover Wynonna’s pregnancy. The first, and most important, thing for her to ask is if Waverly knows, and boy do I love that, because it’s a tiny moment to indicate just how well Nicole knows her girlfriend. It would kill Waverly to be kept in the dark about such an important thing concerning her sister. Once it’s confirmed Waverly knows, Nicole quickly moves right past the confirmation without asking further questions when it’s clear Wynonna doesn’t really want to talk about it (she is incredibly observant after all). I have such an appreciation for the way Wynonna’s eyes widen when she realizes Nicole understands she doesn’t want to talk about it, or have anyone else know yet, and that Nicole is actually going to respect her wishes. Wynonna hasn’t had that experience much in her life, so it really resonates with her. We know it does, because she THANKS Nicole, something that Wynonna doesn’t do often.

They clear another hurtle in the clock maker’s mansion when Wynonna has to ask Nicole to deal with Tucker and let her worry about keeping Waverly safe, and Nicole listens again. “Thank you for saving our girl”, that’s what Nicole said last week, and it’s exactly why Wynonna asks Nicole respectfully to trust her to save Waverly again this week. 

These two started out this season somewhat reluctantly united because of their mutual love for Waverly, but they are moving one step at a time towards a bond that is based on their respect and admiration for one other.

Now it’s time to talk about Nicole and Waverly. I’m going to try to keep this on track, because part of me wants to just smash on my keyboard in all caps and call it a day, but I won’t.

Never in my lifetime did I think I’d see a show where the female/female pairing is the ‘A couple’, but that’s exactly what we have here. Granted, I haven’t watched every single show with a f/f relationship, but I’ve watched enough of them to know we have something special going on.

Consider this: In Season 1, Wynonna and Doc have a couple sexy scenes, which are lovely, but compare that to what we’ve gotten so far with Nicole and Waverly. They get together in episode nine, and a lot of (most) shows would have then relegated them to the background ‘B couple’ role from there. Instead, we’re getting a complex, nuanced progression of their relationship, and absurdly chemistry-laden, sexy scenes. A lot of them. How is it possible that the barn scene has become distant memory? (I’m just kidding, that scene will never be a distant memory, but I think you know what I mean

Honestly, bless Dominique and Kat, because absolutely nothing about their physical scenes feel stilted or forced, and we’re getting more than a chaste pressing of closed mouths together on occasion. Normally, I wouldn’t explicitly comment on something like this, but it’s actually a big deal and pretty ground breaking on a non HBO/Showtime/Cinemax show.

I won’t pretend I don’t think Nicole and Waverly still have important things to talk about, because I do. But if Emily Andras tells me they’re in a really good place right now, I’m taking her word for it. I’m actually okay with it if they don’t address all the issues at once, because honestly, that’s how people are in real life. We don’t pull out a list and say ‘And now I will recite everything I’m feeling insecure about so we can talk about it at length’. I trust that things will play out in their own time.

They did address the most important issue at the moment though, and that’s the question of Waverly’s consent. Nicole was so worried and upset by the idea that Waverly wasn’t herself during their sexual encounters. Not only is it extremely in character for her, but it’s something that SHOULD matter, and I appreciate the show for acknowledging it.

The progression Nicole goes through in that scene is amazing to watch, by the way. She goes from so blissfully happy that Waverly tastes like ‘her’ Waverly again, to pulling back because she needs to know if it really was Waverly during their previous times together, to eagerly jumping back in when Waverly says yes the first time, to (reluctantly) pulling back again because she needs to be SURE, and it’s all so incredibly well done. The pain on her face is visible when Waverly admits she doesn’t remember things when the demon was in control, and it’s beautiful to watch  it slowly melt away as Waverly speaks softly of remembering ever kiss and touch. The way these two gravitate towards each other is something else, and I’ll never stop yelling about it.

Speaking of being something else, EARP SISTERS. Another week, another gorgeous and breathtaking Earp sister scene to end the episode. The Earp sisters are the cornerstone and heart of this show, just as Waverly is for Wynonna.

I do find it interesting that Waverly is constantly giving Wynonna exactly what she herself needs and wants, which is unconditional love and support. Sure, she’s the town sweetheart and everyone ‘loves’ her, but that’s predicated on Waverly playing the roles everyone wants her in, and suppressing anything that might not gel with people’s view of her. But that’s a whole separate post I’ll maybe write someday, which will include the way Nicole Haught was able to really ‘see’ Waverly from the start, and how important her “as long as you want me, I will be by your side” is for Waverly to hear. But now is not the time for that little detour.

Something else I’ll find interesting is when Wynonna and Waverly inevitably reach the point in their narrative arcs where they’re on opposite sides of an issue. It has to happen, because it’s pretty much a staple narrative beat of a television relationship like theirs. When it comes, I hope it doesn’t hurt too much, and that we get a satisfying rebuild between the two of them. Knowing this show, it will, and we will.

Okay, rapid fire favorite lines and random thoughts:

-“God really is dead.” – this show is just so top-shelf.

-Tucker Gardner is literally a walking MRA poster child. Why did he feel the need to put on a mask for the clock maker’s mansion when he just takes it off after a minute? Probably because he wanted to live out some black ops fantasy situation in his head. I’m glad the dude got shot.

-Speaking of Tucker getting shot, I will never stop laughing at Nicole’s reaction when he jumps out the window. Which is to say, she didn’t have one at all. Not even a glance out the window to see if he ran, or is dead of a broken neck, just a ‘well anyway’ holstering of her gun and moving right on.

-“Don’t talk about my partner’s ass.” Did anyone else love when Doc referred to Dolls as his partner? There’s going to be tension from the Wynonna pregnancy reveal, but gosh I want these two to work through their issues and continue to work together as they compete/snark at each other. It’s fun.

-"When, when you were in like, labor?" I understand Dolls' shock, and I'm sympathetic to it, but dude kept the fact that he's part dragon a secret from Wynonna, so he better get right with her hesitation to tell him about this real quick.

-Oh Jeremy, sweet, summer child, holding the walkie talkie like a gun on the stairs at Shorty’s, wondering what The Rock would do, never change.

-Shout out to Nicole’s continued use of “the worst.” The list of things she considers the worst is now up to boy men, girlfriends fighting, and Tucker Gardner.

“I do judge you…judge you to be unexpectedly awesome.” RISE brotp.

-With the Stone Witch decapitated (screw you Tucker Gardner, you really are the WORST) does this mean we’ll get an again mortal Doc Holliday? My money says yes.

-“Tell me I’m wearing clothes this time.” – Funny Nicole Haught moments are magical.

-Doc’s ‘I’m all in’ note was a right kick to the heart, and also randomly reminded me of Juno.

-Wynonna, sweetie, darling, I understand why you initially associated the woman in black with Willa. Shoting her weighs heavy on your mind, and you thought of her first when you smelled Shalidelle. But…Willa liked the scent because your MOTHER wore it. I think Mama Earp is coming y’all, or at the very least, she’s going to wind up being at the center of a very important reveal.

-I’m ready to start the official fan campaign to get Scrofano nominted for an Emmy. Pick any individual aspect of her acting and it would make her worthy of the accolade ALONE. Now combine all of the aspects, and it’s just absurd to think about her not getting her fair due. Literally, every cast member on this show levels up when they do scenes with her; that’s a rare, special thing. Tatiana got hers in 2016, let’s get Mel one in 2018, shall we?

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got in me for this week. Not as in depth as I could have gone, but I’ll admit I kind of burnt myself out a bit writing that angst parade of a story that shall not be named.  I’ll be back after this week’s episode with more thoughts (that will probably center a lot around Nicole/Waverly, Nicole/Wynonna and the Earp sisters again, let’s be honest).

Who’s ready for drunk(?) Nicole and Wynonna at a Strip Joint, and protective, pissed off, yet still adorable, Waverly?  Everyone, right?  Yeah, that’s what I thought.

[shalegas34]

bizarre love triangle chapter 9

Macquarie had called me into his office.

“You have feelings for me, don’t you?” he said, the corner of his mouth twitching.

“I don’t know why you’d think that,” I responded, unable to stop staring at him.

He got up from his desk and came over to me. He put his hand on my back. “It turns me on when people are attracted to me,” he growled into my ear. “Close the door.”

Jeremy, my mother’s cat, landed on my chest with a waul and woke me from my dream.

“The fuck,” I groaned, addressing both the cat and the dream.

I’d been away from Macquarie for three days but already the pining was insufferable. I couldn’t believe I was wasting my own time like this. He would never want me.

Oh well. It was Monday morning, a cloudy and overcast day was in store, and I needed to hurry if I was going to get to the conference centre in time.

I didn’t see Macquarie’s missed calls and texts until I was halfway into town, stopped at a red light. So the EPA had shut Northstar down.

I called him back once I’d parked.

“Got fired,” Macquarie said, his voice void of inflection. The silence which followed was palpable.

“We have a week to pack up and get out while they decide who replaces me.”

I felt myself growing angry and desperate. I’d only just started this job, but the thought of not having Macquarie in my life next year or next week made the future seem bleak. Also, as altruistically popped into my mind in second place, he’d lose his house now he was out of work. What the fuck did Sally Zhou have on him?! She’d ruined his life.

In very distant third, I realised he’d said ‘we’. So I was fired too. I had a place in Brisbane to return to at least, though my parents would be scathing.

Well, I wasn’t sure when I’d decided I’d fight, but adrenaline was already running through me. Maybe it was because, for the first time in my life, I had something I wanted to protect. I realised I’d never felt about Orica, or my old career, the way I felt about Macquarie. I was shocked by the intensity of my feelings.

Things were looking bad. We had one week. I’d be swamped once I got back to the office, so any pivotal salvation had to happen here, today.

“Are you still going to the AGM?” Macquarie asked.

“I’m here. Might as well,” I said as casually as possible. “Unless you need me in Melbourne?”

“No,” he replied, distracted. “Best not play with the plane tickets.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” I said, gulping down the empty reassurances I’d been about to spew. I had no right to even think I could change things.

A gaggle of protestors greeted me at the entrance of the conference centre. Their signs reminded delegates about the accelerating effects of climate change, proclaiming that our exports were coming back to us in the form of flooding and droughts. They probably weren’t for Crownsdale.

I arrived just in the nick of time, as the networking was wrapping up. Macquarie wanted me to put myself out there, and I knew why now, but I felt like a complete fraud with my rudimentary minerals processing knowledge and three months’ experience in the finance industry. The suit jacket wasn’t helping; I rolled up its cuffs for a bit of reprieve. I looked ridiculous.

Settling in at the back left-hand corner of the theatre, I took out the book containing my rare earths industry data. Come on Crownsdale, tell me something I don’t know.

The CEO was introduced; as he walked up to the podium he ran a hand through his mop of dark hair, smirking at the audience with a sideways glance. My heart flipped a little; he reminded me of Macquarie. I considered getting Leila to sneak me a photo from the reports meeting… if Macquarie was still presenting, I thought with a sudden pang.

“It’s great to see a big turnout,” the CEO began. “Crownsdale has had a bumper year. We even got the protestors back, looks like they got old too.” That drew a laugh. “Just a joke. They’re here for the coal conference upstairs, good for them.”

He was a charismatic speaker, but the more technical sections had me floundering. I forced myself to focus. Going back to Melbourne with nothing to show was not an option.

“…Strong operating cash flows of over fifty million dollars,” the CEO was saying. I felt my pulse start to race because of the good result, and I despised my own naivety. As if perfect solutions ever existed.

“That’s a 25% increase on 2043, leading to a 50% increase in net profit. These outstanding results have been driven by cost reductions and increased recovery in our milling and solvent extraction circuits. Investment in advanced process control is enabling up to 30% reduction in electricity and reagent consumption, with opex savings on both utility costs and the carbon tax.”

This wasn’t in the slides; I noted it down. Process control, milling and solvent extraction. I could sense my neighbours staring as I furiously scribbled what the CEO said, word for word, but I pretended not to notice.

Macquarie texted halfway through the presentation of the financial statements (I noticed the control expenditure had been capitalised, and was far too proud of my basic observation).

'Don’t forget to talk to people,’ he’d written, with a wink emoji on the end. In an instant I was blushing like crazy. This was out of control. Think of your good friend Sydney, I shouted at myself. But I hadn’t seen Sydney in years, and they suddenly seemed very distant and extraneous.

“REE markets remain challenging,” the CEO had launched into his conclusion. “But we’re confident that performance can be maintained through further improvements in efficiency and market share expansion.” It sounded good, but that was what he was paid for.

As the talk neared its end, I began to sweat. I’d heard a lot of optimistic forecasts, and one company couldn’t save us anyway, no matter how good it was. We were done for if we couldn’t start clearing the backlog of sunk costs. I needed to think outside the box.

“Within the next ten years, prices are expected to recover as supply contracts. Crownsdale is well positioned to ride out the bust, and we’ll be steps ahead of the competition when the upturn comes.”

Another half hour was about to be provided for networking. I was sweating even harder now.

“We have time for questions,” the CEO said with an attractive lopsided smile as the applause died down. Please, I begged of my mind. I had to think of something! I could not leave empty-handed when Macquarie had so much faith in me.

Intelligent questions rolled in, and the only one I’d managed to come up with was trite in comparison. I fixed my eyes on my notes, crushing all sentience. I raised my hand.

“Hi,” I said, my voice quavering like bank shares after a rate cut. “I’m Aurizon…” I named our bank. “Can you tell me more about the new control systems at the plant? Like… How new is this technology?” What was I even trying to say?

Thankfully the CEO took my incompetent question in stride. “I couldn’t tell you off the top of my head,” he said guilefully. “But if you leave an email with the media team we can get that information to you.”

A man to my right raised his hand. “No need,” he said when he got the mike. “Come talk to me later. Laurence Parker from Manta Controls. My company installed the new systems.”

“There you go. Good to see you Laurie, let’s catch up,” the CEO bantered.

I spent the rest of question time regaining my wits, and I was relatively sedate by the time the last few items came round, namely passing remuneration packages. I assumed Macquarie would vote with the herd, and he didn’t have many shares anyway, so that’s the way I went.

I ambushed Laurence Parker when the meeting closed, but not before grabbing one of the delectable-looking scones provided for attendees. “Hey,” I said, itching to bite into the succulent cream.

“Hey, Aurizon right?” Laurence said, extending a hand. “I’m an engineer and director at Manta.”

“I’m a…” This was embarrassing. “I’m in funds management at Bank L.”

“So you wanted to know more about control systems.” Laurence took a big bite of his scone and I followed suit. “Well, if only every mine in the country would consider what we have to offer. We’d reach our emissions targets by 2050.”

“Really?” I said, perking up. Emissions targets… the EPA…

“Comminution is very inefficient,” Laurence explained. This sounded well-rehearsed. “That’s grinding, milling, crushing, whatever you want to call it. Biggest consumer of energy at any mine, but if you control the material flow, you slow corrosion and get a more consistent product using less energy. It’s the same with solvent extraction, or flotation, or any chemical process. Even 1% output increase can mean millions of dollars and huge emissions reductions.”

I frowned. “What’s the catch?”

Laurence shrugged. “The normal one. It might be a couple hundred grand to get up and running. Those big computers don’t come cheap; not many mines have that kind of capital lying around.”

My hero complex was raging. Northstar copper mine needed sustainable savings. This sounded like an easy fix. The capital? Surely there was a way around that; do now, think later. If only they could placate the EPA…

“Any way you can reduce water consumption? Wastewater flow?”

“Of course,” Laurence said, finishing his scone and looking at his watch. I started to sweat. “You can do just about anything with control. Get in touch if you want to talk more, maybe next week?”

“Wait,” I blurted out. I took the proffered business card. “Erm… Uhh… Busy time?” I died on the inside.

“We’re organising our IPO, things are a bit tight. Bank L, you said?” Laurence regained some interest in me. “Give us a glance, would you? We don’t just work in the mining sector.”

I didn’t have another week. I had maybe five seconds before Laurence ditched me for his buddy the CEO.

An idea was forming in my mind. I’d never done anything like this before. I prepared to be relegated to the dole for the rest of my life.

“Would you consider doing a pro bono case for a copper mine in South Australia?”

Laurence stopped in his tracks. He was regretting inviting me to talk. “We’re a small company working towards a float in two months. It’s out of the question.”

I pressed on. “What if I told you, there was someone willing to underwrite your new stock, no questions asked?”

Silence hung in the air between us.

Maybe it’s time for a new direction, I desperately justified my impulsive actions to myself.

“I’m listening,” Laurence said.

I panicked. “How about I set you up with our head of equity tomorrow morning.”

“This would be conditional.”

“Of course, but what we need should be easy for you. Right?” I said.

“That will depend on the state of the equipment. Is it a new mine?”

“Yes. Relatively,” I committed. I regretted not just this conversation but the entire past year of my life.

“Send me the details once you’re ready,” Laurence said. “Manta will be there.”

I sprinted from the conference centre. What the hell was I doing? I drove like a delinquent all the way back to my parents’ place, returned the car, and bussed to the airport, gasping for breath the whole way.

I didn’t confront the shitstorm boiling in my mind until an hour into the flight. Gradually calming down, I began to realise that I might not have fucked everything up. Maybe I’d even done something right, though my execution left a lot to be desired. I hadn’t signed anything, only opened up a conversation. I ought to have been proud of myself, having taken some fucking initiative for the first time in my life.

I had a burning need to see Macquarie, though it was dark and colder than the frigid reaches of the arctic by the time I neared Melbourne’s CBD.

My gamble paid off. Macquarie was still at work, and worth the wait for someone to exit the building so I could slink inside.

He checked the time as I knocked on his door.

“Aurizon, you’re back.”

“Hey,” I said. God, he was so captivating up close. I tried to remember what I came to talk about. Manta Controls, Crownsdale, Northstar…

Macquarie tilted his head to one side. “How was it?”

“The, uh, AGM?” I managed to force out. I was getting very distracted by his face. “Yeah, good. I didn’t get much networking done…”

“Did you talk to anyone at all?” he asked.

“This one guy from Manta Controls…” I took a deep breath, prepared to come clean about what I’d gotten us into. Before I could get any further, Macquarie got up from his desk and came over to me. I forgot everything I had lined up as he looked into my eyes.

“Come have a look at this,” he said, but he wasn’t moving anywhere.

I only had to reach out a little bit to touch him…

“What?” I used gargantuan effort to ask, keeping my arms at my side. My face was a thousand degrees. Thirstier than the surface of Mars.

Macquarie moved after what was probably three seconds but felt like an hour. “I’ve put a list of cessation matters on the board,” he said, brushing past me and heading outside. “These all need to be taken care of by the end of the week.” He waited for me to catch up. I tried not to stand too close. “There’s a couple of extra things I thought we could investigate,” he said with a wink. Goddamn! You are killing me, man!

“I guess you never want to give up hope.”

He handed me a marker and suggested we brainstorm ways he could salvage dregs from the portfolio in a week. If he left on a rebound from rock bottom, he might be able to talk his way into a job at another bank.

This was it; I had to bring up Manta Controls. I opened my mouth.

“Macquarie,” Sally Zhou’s voice said from behind us. I closed my mouth.

Macquarie spun around. “Good, you’re back,” he said, his expression shifting inexplicably. Probably just happy to see another competent professional. I couldn’t tell if I resented Sally for blackmailing him, or if I was just jealous.

Now the fund seemed to be crashing, they weren’t taking any precautions with keeping the details private. I watched Macquarie’s face for some reprieve from the heavy legal and strategic conversation. He smiled in relief when Sally mentioned Rowan Stewart was in some shit over the Northstar preference stock. This ran deep.

“We’ve covered our tracks, though,” he stressed.

“Everything you’ve done has been legal, I promise,” Sally said. “You’ll only be losing your job. Just a few bad decisions. Bad luck.”

Macquarie’s phone rang. He checked the number and his composed façade seemed to crack, just a tiny bit…

“Hey, what’s up?” he said when he answered. I wanted to reach out and give him a huge bear hug, but I couldn’t even manage it when we were alone.

I immediately knew it was Sydney. The room had gone quiet with Sally staring at the floor, and their voice came through clearly, not even attenuated by Macquarie’s hair.

“I asked for more shifts at the tower,” Sydney said. “But they can’t do it unless they switch me to full time.”

Macquarie’s face showed no expression. “Are you happy to take it?”

“I don’t know,” Sydney said. “How many months can we do on savings?”

“Two. Maybe three,” Macquarie replied. There was a long silence. “I’ve been meaning to spend more time with the kids,” he tried a different path. “I can handle them.”

“It’s not that,” Sydney said. “I need the days off.”

“I know…” Macquarie said miserably. “I’m sorry.”

I felt so bad. It wasn’t helping that I was obviously still attracted to him and that was filling 50% of my brain during this time of crisis. I looked at Sally Zhou instead and pretended not to be listening.

“I’ll take it,” Sydney said after another long silence. “It’s only a one-year contract. I’ll survive.”

“No, I changed my mind,” Macquarie burst into repair mode. “I can’t do that to you. I’ll find something in three months, no problem. Honestly.”

“I just signed it,” Sydney said.

“Take it back,” Macquarie said. “I’ll borrow money from Aristocrat.”

“I’ve sent it off. I start in August.”

“Sydney…” Macquarie wailed.

“Thick and thin,” Sydney replied, but it sounded like they were trying not to cry. The wedding vows. I tried to beat every ounce of feeling out of myself.

“I love you,” Macquarie said.

“I love you,” Sydney replied. “Get back to work.”

Nobody spoke for a while after Macquarie hung up.

“I… I think we’ve said everything we need to,” Sally said, without looking up. “We’ll start squeezing Northstar tomorrow.”

She hastily gathered up her coat and briefcase, her long black hair hiding her face. She said goodbye on her way out, and her voice was thick with something unidentifiable. I’d never seen Sally Zhou so distressed.

So it was just me and Macquarie.

“I…” I croaked, trying to look at him normally.

“Aurizon,” Macquarie said. He met my eyes. Even now I couldn’t stop myself from imagining he would lean forward and kiss me, and I wanted that so bad. I dug my nails into my wrists, trying to replace the emotion with pain or anything else. He was so close. I needed to say something.

“At the AGM. I talked to–”

“Aurizon, are you in love with me?”

I couldn’t stop my mouth from falling open in shock, though I knew I was more obvious than an arbitrage opportunity on a bond market.

“Why would you think that?” I heard myself asking.

“It’s just the way you look at me. It’s how Sydney used to look at me too, when we started dating.”

I was aghast. I still hadn’t had a chance to bring up Manta. I couldn’t let him throw me out now. With sudden and immense clarity, I realised Manta could save Northstar and be a sound investment itself into the future. Manta could bring the fund back. I had to try get this deal through – for Sydney, I told myself, but I was lying.

Again, I panicked.

“You’re right, I’m flustered,” I said, my face burning. “But… But it’s not because of you.”

Macquarie waited.

“I’m in love with Sally Zhou,” I said.

[chorusfm]

The Killers – Wonderful Wonderful

The Killers just can’t seem to catch a break. You’d think that penning one of the most iconic, ubiquitous pop songs of the millennium would win you some points. Same with putting out a debut album that almost single-handedly prolonged the life of rock radio for an extra year or two. By all accounts, Brandon Flowers and company are nice guys who work hard, put on an exceptional live show, and have a better track record of radio singles than any other rock band this side of the Foo Fighters. But The Killers have never been cool. They certainly never earned the stamp of approval from critics, who took the “No Fun Police” stance against the singles from Hot Fuss and then vowed to bury the band when Brandon Flowers had the audacity to suggest that 2006’s Sam’s Town would be “one of the best albums in the last 20 years.” Most music writers expected The Killers to be a flash in the pan, and they were graciously willing to help the band reach their inevitable demise. But a funny thing happened along the way: The Killers held on. As radio rock died, they kept writing hits. As the critical darling indie rock bands of the early 2000s slid toward mediocrity or obscurity or both, The Killers remained stubbornly present. Now, 13 years after Hot Fuss and five years after their last album, The Killers are back, and they are every bit as inescapable as they always have been. In the release week of September 22nd, which saw a massive deluge of new albums from acclaimed and up-and-coming artists, no one got as much press as The Killers. Part of it could be nostalgia. A once-colossal band coming back after five years away to survey the wreckage of rock ‘n’ roll? The “rock is dead” thinkpieces write themselves! Add the fact that The Killers seem to be splintering behind the scenes—both bassist Mark Stoermer and guitarist Dave Keuning have retired as touring members of the band—and it’s almost hard not to write about their new album. But The Killers still have a magnetism that, we can probably all agree, is very rare in a rock band these days. And the magnetism isn’t just about “Mr. Brightside” and how it still sounds good at festivals or sold-out Madison Square Garden shows. On the contrary, on Wonderful Wonderful, the band’s long-awaited fifth album, the magnetism is still there in the music, as well. The Killers have tried to market Wonderful Wonderful as a “return to form” after 2012’s Battle Born, an album they clearly do not like. (Counterpoint: Battle Born is the best Killers LP.) Interestingly, though, of the five albums in the band’s discography, Wonderful Wonderful sounds the least like a Killers record. Crucially, the once dominant roar of Dave Keuning’s guitar has been relegated to a background supporting role. Despite Keuning’s decision to stop touring, he was supposedly a part of the recording process for this album. You wouldn’t know it from listening to most of the songs, though, or from looking at the back cover, which inexplicably features just Brandon, Mark, and drummer Ronnie Vannucci, Jr. The last two tracks on the record, the spooky “The Calling” and the meditative “Have All the Songs Been Written?”, are the two where the guitar seems to take center stage, and Keuning doesn’t play on either of them. (The soulful guitarwork on the closing track was provided by Mark Knoplfer of Dire Straits fame, while Stoermer handled guitar on “The Calling.”) The benching of Keuning pulls some of The Killers’ identity away from this album. It’s not the only factor with that effect, either. Wonderful Wonderful also lacks a clear single, a first in The Killers catalog. Actual lead single “The Man,” with its Bowie-esque groove, is catchy enough, but is missing the anthemic punch that the band has always been so good at providing with singles. There is no “Mr. Brightside” or “All These Things That I’ve Done” on this album, no “When You Were Young” or “Read My Mind” or “Runaways.” The closest is “Run for Cover” a kinetic, synth-led rocker with plenty of zip and attitude (not to mention a timely “fake news” reference), but the hook isn’t as sharp as virtually anything on Battle Born, let alone side one of Hot Fuss. What Wonderful Wonderful lacks in poppy immediacy, though, it makes up for in intimacy. The Killers have never been known for hugely personal songwriting. The closest to personal they got was probably Sam’s Town, ostensibly a concept record about a young man Flower “breaking out of a two-star town” and chasing his dreams. They’ve always been a band that thrived on writing huge, sometimes ambiguous, and usually universally relatable songs. Wonderful Wonderful dispenses with that blueprint. The meat of the record was inspired by Brandon’s wife, who suffers from a condition known as Complex PTSD. Flowers recently revealed that he cancelled part of the tour for his last solo LP, 2015’s The Desired Effect, because his wife was having suicidal thoughts. That heavy subject matter forms the backbone for Wonderful Wonderful. Flowers navigates complicated webs of emotion in the album’s mid-section, which directly addresses his wife’s struggles and how they have impacted his role as a husband and a father. “Rut,” a radiant U2-esque power ballad, is written from her perspective, built around the lines “Don’t give up on me, ‘cause I’m just in a rut/I’m climbing, but the walls keep stacking up.” The next track, “Life to Come,” plays out as Flowers’ response. Where “Rut” closes with the desperate plea “Don’t you give up on me,” “Life to Come” plays like the renewal of a wedding vow. “I didn’t see this coming, I admit it/But if you think I’ll buckle, forget it/I told you that I’d be the one/I’ll be there in the life to come,” Flowers sings, before the rhythm section kicks in and he asks his bride to “have a little faith in me, girl/Just dropkick the shame.” On paper, that last line probably looks hokey. But Flowers’ unwavering earnestness has always been his greatest asset as a frontman, and it turns “Life to Come” into an incredibly moving affirmation of love and devotion. The same is true for the Brian Eno-influenced slowburn of “Some Kind of Love.” Flowers reportedly wrote the song after coming home from the Desired Effect tour to be with his wife. “Can’t do this alone/We need you at home/There’s so much to see/We know that you’re strong,” he sings at the end, accompanied by the three most important guests he’s ever brought on for an album: his children. It’s a beautiful, restrained moment that ranks among the most affecting in the entire Killers repertoire. While Flowers radiates strength and resilience on “Life to Come” and “Some Kind of Love,” some of the best moments on Wonderful Wonderful are where we see the doubt creep in. He’s not doubting his wife or his marriage: his commitment and faith on those fronts is sound. Instead, he’s doubting himself. On “Tyson vs. Douglas,” he recalls watching the eponymous 1990 boxing match, where Tyson suffered the first loss of his career at the hands of a 42-1 underdog. “When I saw him go down/Felt like somebody lied/I had to close my eyes/Just to stop the tears,” Flowers sings. It’s a song about realizing your heroes aren’t invincible or infallible, but it’s also more than that. When the bridge rolls around, Flowers’ thoughts shift from Tyson’s incredible loss to himself. “Feelin’ the slip again/I don’t wanna fall/You said it was nothing/But maybe you’re wrong.” He wants to be the hero for his wife and their kids, the big strong man who keeps them safe and never lets them down. But if the unbeatable Mike Tyson could get knocked out by someone who wasn’t even deemed a threat, how long until Brandon’s kids seem him fall, too? On “Have All the Songs Been Written?”, Flowers arrives at a moment where he feels like his number is up. “Have all the songs been written?/Have all your needs been met?/Have all these years been worth it?/Or am I the great regret?” Struggling with writer’s block while working on the songs for Wonderful Wonderful, Flowers turned to Bono for advice. Did he have anything left to say? Or had he written his last great song? “Have all the songs been written?” was the subject line of the email Flowers sent to the U2 frontman, who encouraged him to turn it into a song. Fittingly, the track that came from that advice moves gradually from self-doubt to assurance. On the bridge, Brandon’s voice trembles as he tries to reassure himself that the storm clouds surrounding his family will pass and things will be good again. “When the train returns to the rails/When the ship is back in the harbor/I will make you happy again/I can see it, I believe it.” He’s not ready for his Tyson vs. Douglas moment just yet. Back in June, when The Killers dropped “The Man” as the first single from Wonderful Wonderful, the song felt oddly tongue-in-cheek for the anthem-obsessed band. A send-up of the aggressive, ambitious masculinity that The Killers—especially Flowers—exhibited early on in their careers, “The Man” felt oddly out of tune with the times. In 2017, society is slowly deconstructing the old ideas of what it means to be a “Real Man.” Yet, here The Killers were, seemingly reinforcing those ideals. In context, though, “The Man” shines a light on the concept and arc of Wonderful Wonderful. Throughout these songs, Flowers realizes that all the macho masculinity in the world can neither help his wife fight her demons nor give their children the love and support they need. Instead, he makes himself vulnerable, being candid about his fears and frailties and being empathetic to his wife’s. The result is the most personal and intimate record in the Killers discography. Given all the inspiration from Flowers’ own life (as well as the reduced role for Dave Keuning), it’s also the Killers album that feels most like a solo LP. It’s hard to imagine much being different about Wonderful Wonderful if it was the third Brandon Flowers record instead of the fifth Killers record. Billing and branding aside, though, Wonderful Wonderful is a surprisingly deep and nuanced piece of work from a band not often recognized for being deep and nuanced. The critics still won’t get it, and certain fans will probably miss the rafter-shaking anthems, but after five years of waiting, it’s a pleasant surprise to get something new from The Killers at all—let alone something that feels so brave, so bold, and so unreservedly human. --- Please consider supporting us so we can keep bringing you stories like this one. ◎ https://chorus.fm/review/the-killers-wonderful-wonderful-2/

[thecosydragon]

My latest blog post from the cosy dragon: Interview with Christopher Slayton

An Interview with Christopher Slayton, author of Chaos Company

Everyone has a ‘first novel’, even if many of them are a rough draft relegated to the bottom and back of your desk drawer (or your external harddrive!). Have you been able to reshape yours, or have you abandoned it for good?

I’m glad you asked! I’ve had a rough draft of my first attempt at book writing still saved in my files and I’m currently finishing it in hopes to have it published this fall! I wrote the first few pages back in 2009 while in college but didn’t feel confident to write a full manuscript for it. The story follows a young man who is forced to become a masked vigilante after his brother, a gun-wielding batman-like hero suddenly dies. I think with the complexity I wanted to put into this story was more than I was able to handle then. I believe that after writing Chaos Company I have what it takes to deliver a complex story within my first manuscript.

Some authors are able to pump out a novel a year and still be filled with inspiration. Is this the case for you, or do you like to let an idea percolate for a couple of years in order to get a beautiful novel?

Well, the truth is I know I have a number of stories from start to finish I can’t wait to get to! I even have a dozen of them outlined! I can’t speak for other writers, but inspiration isn’t a problem for me. I try to find it everywhere, from current events and life experience to traveling. The biggest issue for me is time. Until a year ago I didn’t have the time to write, mostly because after working a 40hr/week job, exercising and being social I didn’t have enough to put my ideas down. But now since I work for myself I have the time needed to put my ideas into writing.

I have heard of writers that could only write in one place – then that cafe closed down and they could no longer write! Where do you find yourself writing most often, and on what medium (pen/paper or digital)?

I often write on my laptop either in my bedroom or the living room. That being said I have written in other places such as the common area of my former college, and even at my old job while I was on break. Heck, I’ve even written when I was on vacation in Spain lol. To me there isn’t really a special place for me to write. There is however a mindset I like to put myself in through music in order to write. For example, if I’m writing a lot of dialogue I like to be listening to alternative rock or instrumental music, and when it comes to me writing action scenes I find it easier to do so while listening to hardrock or EDM.

Before going on to hire an editor, most authors use beta-readers. How do you recruit your beta-readers, and choose an editor? Are you lucky enough to have loving family members who can read and comment on your novel?

Unfortunately I can’t trust my family to read for me because most of them see critiquing me as them being rude. When it comes to beta-readers I have only one. Her name is Tessa. She’s been a friend of mine for seven years now and I can trust her to not only tell me exactly how she feels about my work, but also provide ways on how I can improve on a story. I trusted her taste in storytelling and her suggestions when I had her take a look at Chaos Company, and I know I can trust her going forward.

Now when it comes to hiring an editor I am very picky on whom I choose. I got lucky with Chaos Company. Before being let go with publisher Desert Breeze Publishing they had already edited my book for me and had spent over five months and two editors on the project. But now that I am on my own again I’ve learned to ask various questions before hiring an editor, and have them edit a chapter of my work before hiring them. That way I know what I’ll be getting from when they are working on an entire manuscript.

I walk past bookshops and am drawn in by the smell of the books – ebooks simply don’t have the same attraction for me. Does this happen to you, and do you have a favourite bookshop? Or perhaps you are an e-reader fan… where do you source most of your material from?

I am an e-reader. My mom got me a device years ago and I’ve been using it ever since. That being said, I am a sucker for having a physical book in my hand from time to time. I usually get my physical copies from amazon and the same for ebooks.

I used to find myself buying books in only one genre (fantasy) before I started writing this blog. What is your favourite genre, and do you have a favourite author who sticks in your mind from:

1. childhood? – Dr. Suess. His work was and still is a great stepping stone for young readers. I could do without the films made from his work though lol

2. adolescence? – R.L. and the Goosebump books. Especially the choose your own adventure stories. I remember when I choose the wrong page and quickly flipping back to the previous page to try again! I also remember reading the Halo series based on the video game because I wasn’t allowed to play those games as a kid so I thought reading the stories was the next best thing.

3. young adult? – The Alex Rider novels by Anthony Horowitz. That series really got me through high school and inspired me to try my hand at writing, which I would later fall in love with. I read somewhere that Mr. Horowitz wrote a James Bond novel and I can’t wait to get to it!

4. adult? – As a fan of The Walking Dead show and Graphic novels I am currently making my way through the tie-in novels for the comics. The novels are written by series creator Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonansinga who both do an excellent job portraying a dreadful and cruel world in these stories. I’m almost done the second book now and am grateful to have 6 more books in the series to go!

All that being said, I am a sucker for a good action novel. If it has anything to do with spies, bad-ass one man armies, super heroes or epic individuals, I am all over it!

Social media is a big thing, much to my disgust! I never have enough time myself to do what I feel is a good job. How do you manage it?

If I’m being honest I don’t spend too much time on social media. I have a facebook and twitter account so that’s about it. And my facebook is used mostly for personal reasons, which only leaves me with twitter to promote myself and my work. I may put 2hrs towards social media a month because I just don’t have the time for it right now. With my schedule the way it is and how many projects I want to release by next year I have to put social media on the back burner. When it comes to twitter I at times feel like I’m just yelling into a void hoping people catch wind of my words. That is why I tend to stay away until I’m ready to promote more material and announce when I will be making appearances. Hopefully when writing is my official full-time job I’ll be able to be more active with social media. But until then I refuse to be a part of something I believe has gotten out of hand when it comes to making it as an artist. A true artist’s work should be based on their artistic merit and vision and not how many followers they have.

Since you don’t use social media to promote your work, what do you do? What do you do instead?

– I work as a driver for Uber/Lyft and do odd jobs through the website Taskrabbit. Both jobs require me to meet so many new people on a daily basis and to me that’s a potential new reader/fan I can introduce my work to. It may seem like a slow way to draw in a fanbase, but I get to have a one on one conversation with potential readers and fans and I believe that is worth more in the long run. But, with this method only time will tell if it works.

Answering interview questions can often take a long time! Tell me, are you ever tempted to recycle your answers from one to the next?

No. Well, at least not yet lol. When people are kind enough to interview me the least I can do is be as authentic as possible when answering them. Now if someone asks me a question I’ve had before then yes there will be a few points I may repeat from a previous interview. But I do not just copy and paste an answer and I will do my best to never do that in an interview. It’s not fair to the people interviewing, or the people who have read previous interviews I’ve been in.

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