#Idk how to describe it but episodes felt more flat and basic more often than not despite there being several good ones in the mix too

[kaythefloppa]

Enough time has passed to where I think we can openly admit how WK has gone through seasonal rot within its previous 2 seasons and how the hype of Season 7 along with the generally positive reception is a really green flag for the show's quality.

[bigskydreaming]

A good description. For my part, I don't like talking about it because of my own experiences. I can, however, see Batman, a story where nearly every memorable villain and even the protagonist himself is a Svengali, could attract a disproportionate number of rape apologists, though fandom is full of them. (Oh, hey, that's the other thing with Jason. Talia.)

Ugh I’m so sorry to hear you can relate, and I totally understand not wanting to talk about it. I have no idea what your particular situation is, obviously, but I also want to reiterate since its been awhile since I’ve mentioned this part.....I don’t feel any like....basically, my choice to talk about this stuff is simply put, MY choice, made for my own reasons, that aren’t a reflection on any other survivor. There are a million and one reasons NOT to come forward, or to struggle with it or not to be open about what happened to us, and none of them are a reflection on any of us, but rather the position it puts us in.

Again, I don’t know your situation or what gender you might be or anything else, and this isn’t at all because your ask made me feel defensive or anything like that. This is just something I’ve wanted to put into words for awhile now seems relevant today, and here’s as good a place as any to put it down:

For myself, being a male survivor....like, there’s never really been any getting around the existence of that kinda, idk, caveat that not many male survivors come forward. Sure, we all see the posts and tweets reminding “remember, men can be raped too!” But that’s not the same thing as men sharing their stories and experiences the way far more women have come forward. And that’s why I ultimately began talking about my own experiences in order to express how I felt about my own positioning in society and how as a survivor I interact and am interacted with by others. Because frankly, there wasn’t anywhere else I could really look to in order to see others talking or sharing about similar things and see myself reflected in what they were saying or the experiences they were describing. So, if I couldn’t find what I felt I needed or could have benefited from, I figured at least I could put it out there in case anyone else who could relate could benefit from mine.

Except, ultimately I’ve come to feel that I honestly don’t believe its that men just flat out don’t come forward with their stories or experiences, its that even when we do, we’re rarely signal boosted - as you can kinda see from the fact that I can post the most inane shit and get it to a thousand notes, but in the five plus years I’ve been making posts about this subject, I’m lucky if I can get a single post on the topic to double digits as far as notes go.

People just flat out are a combination of uncomfortable with the novelty of actual discussions about and around male survivors as well as being not really sure how to talk about it because we’ve never really developed the tools for it.

And to be 100% clear, this has NOTHING to do with female survivors, as a point of comparison or ANYTHING else. It drives me up a fucking WALL when people try and compare and contrast even just how much men being raped is talked about vs women being raped, no matter WHAT their reasons are, because I promise people, I PROMISE - NO survivor, of any gender, has EVER benefitted from being pitted against other survivors to ANY degree. Its not a zero sum game and it doesn’t help male survivors to pull shit like “well at least female survivors are acknowledged�� because a) eww, and b) nobody asked anyone to say that on our behalf, and c) hyper-visibility isn’t a privilege (or whatever the best parallel to that might be, I’m not trying to appropriate an anti-blackness specific term so much as its the closest comparison I have at the moment for something that isn’t even a matter of marginalized identities but rather marginalized experiences) and d) its COMPLETELY beside the point and actually misses the point by a WIDE margin.

Because what I’ve come to realize over the years, from my own experiences and talking and sharing with survivors of all genders and demographics and walks of life, is that first off....nobody really needs the reminder that hey, men can be raped too. We see it happen all throughout entertainment and other aspects of society, its not an experience that’s hidden away from the light, its just not ever really CALLED what it is, or followed up on, and talked about.

Like Dick Grayson isn’t a statistical outlier in media. Take Horrible Bosses, a summer blockbuster comedy a few years back with a cast of fairly big name comedians, and whose running B plot throughout the whole movie was Jennifer Aniston’s character wanting to rape her employee, Charlie Day’s character. Not only was this not objectionable to audiences in any sizable way, not only did this never really get called out as wtf by critics and reviews, the movie was successful enough to warrant a sequel with even BIGGER names in its cast, like Christopher Pine, and the continuation of the Aniston’s character trying to rape Charlie Day’s subplot. With zero awareness. And its not like that’s the only movie. There’s plenty more I could name.

Or then you’ve got television, where like, take Riverdale, a well-promoted, well known CW show....whose first few episodes featured the lead character Archie in a sexual relationship with his much older female teacher. Except not really a relationship, because that’s textbook, no debate, literal statutory rape.....that ended with Archie’s character being condemned for it as though he were on equal footing with the teacher, who ultimately left town, and it never really acknowledged that he was literally a victim of statutory rape, that any teacher who does that is not an equal partner but a predator. I stopped watching the show for a lot of reasons by like the fourth episode, but I see enough gifs on tumblr to know that several seasons later, this left little enough impact that some kind of Archie-goes-to-jail plotline has resulted in more memes and jokes about prison rape than I can count, and zero awareness that people are compounding jokes about a character who is literally already an unacknowledged survivor.

That’s one. Or you can take Once Upon A Time, a popular ABC show of multiple seasons, and the running subplot where Robin Hood’s character is raped by the Wicked Witch literally the same way Dick was by Mirage in the comics. She shapeshifts into Maid Marian, who ends up dead, and has ‘sex’ with Robin Hood (no, she rapes him) and ends up pregnant. Not only is this never really called what it is, later on, other characters LITERALLY CHEW HIM OUT for objecting to this baby being left in the care of her mother, aka his rapist, and for ‘not being willing to give her the benefit of the doubt/let her change’ as though him not wanting to co-parent with his rapist is no different from any of the show’s other dubious redemption storylines....except for the fact that this particular part of her redemption arc isn’t ever really one she actually needs redeeming for, because nobody ever fucking points out that she literally raped him and he was her victim. Fast forward to the end of the series, Robin Hood’s been dead for seasons, the Wicked Witch is happily redeemed and has a loving wholesome relationship with her daughter, named after Robin Hood like they were some kind of loving, happy family instead of a rapist, her victim, and the child that was born of it.

Or you can take Grimm, a fairly successful NBC show of multiple seasons WHICH LITERALLY DID THE EXACT SAME THING. The main character Nick was raped in season two by the antagonist of the time, who shape shifted into his wife and had ‘sex’ with him, with him not realizing the truth until later on, by which point she’s pregnant with his child. Fast forward to the end of the show, not only was this never really called what it was, his wife’s character was killed off seasons earlier and he is now, get this, ‘happily’ in a romantic and sexual longterm relationship with his rapist (who he by now knows exactly what she did do and what happened between them and just.....got over it without ever actually like, reacting to it)....and oh yeah, not only are they raising the child born of it together, they’ve had a second child since then.

Anyone ever hear much outcry about the male rapes in these shows? And again, like Horrible Bosses, tip of the iceberg. There’s a LOT more shows I could name, just like there are movies.

Or take comics. Its not even just Dick Grayson that’s a survivor. Or Bruce. Or Jason as you pointed out, which......I know a lot of people ignore both Morrison AND Winick’s take on Talia in order to not write her as the rapist she is in their stories, which I can totally understand as she was a well-established character of color for long before either of them got their hands on her and its perfectly valid for people not to want to have to write her as being tarnished as a rapist because two different writers wrote her that way....without.....either of them ever really acknowledging that was literally how they were writing her. I myself write her as a character of complicated and often dubious morality, but never a rapist, for that reason and many others, but its definitely there. And even in a fandom that has never lacked for acknowledgment of Dick being a survivor whose rapists were women.....a LOT of people still romanticize Jason’s ‘relationship’ with Talia as being something other than a grown woman taking advantage of a minor in an extremely vulnerable and compromised state.....with a TON of other takes out there about the two of them, in posts and fics alike, where its somehow danced around or outright called something other than “that time Talia raped Jason in the comics.”

But its not just the Batbooks. Its like how I’ve mentioned in the past, Garth Ennis wrote into one of his storylines that Kyle Rayner was raped when he went to Gotham one time.....not to make it a plot point, but to use it as a JOKE. Or take Marvel comics, Bobby Drake, one of my other all-time favorite characters....who is also a rape survivor of multiple occasions, without it ever acknowledged as such. Like, he was briefly in a relationship with Mystique, who turned out to have entered the relationship under false pretenses, shocking, and who used having sex with him to depower him and take him out of the upcoming fight between the X-Men and the Marauders, which...we don’t have time to unpack all that right now. But fast forward about a year later, and Bobby has since gotten back together with his ex-girlfriend Opal Tanaka.....who, it turns out, is actually just Mystique in disguise, having sex with him again without it ever being called rape since he was consenting to sex with Opal, not the woman who slept with him that one time just to make sure he was helpless to stop a whole lot of people from getting killed. But hey, forget about Mystique! How about that time Chuck Austen wrote him ‘having sex’ with an empath who was EXPLICITLY noted in the narrative as using her powers to manipulate his emotions to even WANT to have sex with her in the first place, and when an issue later it comes out she’s married and her husband starts beating up Bobby for ‘sleeping with his wife’ all the other characters present, all of them friends and teammates of his, condemn Bobby for this without it ever being acknowledged that he was literally manipulated into it by a superpower and he was the victim.

Again. Tip. Of. The. Iceberg.

But you see what I mean? Male rape isn’t an outlier and it isn’t an unknown....its everywhere! Its just.....never called that, really, and never really talked about, even by people who normally would, except for the fact that I don’t think we as a society have ever really forced ourselves to FIND a way to talk about it, because of the fact that like.....the very notion of it threatens and undermines the essence of the patriarchal beliefs that are hammered into us all from day one. Even when we know the patriarchy is crap, we still have so much ingrained in us from early childhood that stuff like this, which is a blatant symptom of it even if not one aimed primarily at disadvantaging women.....like, it slips under the radar because its never fully called out or spotlighted in loud enough or widely enough ways to keep us from overlooking how much its impacted our POVs.

Blatantly put, the patriarchy and sexism RELIES on the idea that men are somehow more powerful/stronger/whatthefuckever than women. And male victims - of abuse as well as rape, though definitely rape.....like, even just a widespread awareness of our existence is enough to kinda destabilize that belief that is so foundational to the patriarchy its DEPENDENT on it being upheld as unassailable truth.

Because if forced to acknowledge that men are just as vulnerable to even something like rape as anyone else in the ‘right’ situations or dynamics, it forces confrontation with the reality that no matter what the patriarchy has claimed for as long as its existed.....men aren’t inherently any more powerful, or stronger, or resistant to harm/humiliation/VICTIMIZATION as anyone else.

And the patriarchy flat out can’t afford that confrontation, so it can’t afford to acknowledge male survivors.

Again, just want to be beyond clear - nowhere here am I okay with making this about a compare and contrast between the experiences and interactions society has with male survivors and around male rape, and the same with female survivors and rape. Because I mean, we all should be more than aware that society as a whole sucks at the acknowledgment, addressing and handling of rape in any context, in any of the ways it comes up as a topic, in terms of any survivor who comes forward no matter who or when or how.....like. We suck at this topic, and at any and all discussions about this topic. Period. Flat out. So when I say the patriarchy can’t afford to acknowledge male survivors, I am in no way aiming to diminish the reality that it does just as fucking an abyssmal job at acknowledging and responding to female survivors....the point here is not the poor reception any and all survivors receive to disclosing their experiences in our society, but rather the specific why of this when it comes to male survivors just as the particular subject of focus here.

And again, like, my only credentials here are just like. My life experiences, lol. I’m not trying to claim anything more or other than that, make no mistake. I’m a literal college drop out, this is not the result of comprehensive studies or vetted by the scientific method. This is literally just “like, my opinion, man” and makes no pretenses at being other than that. Its just the conclusions I’ve formed over the years and why, completely anecdotal and not aiming to be any kind of authoritative or expert viewpoint with my personal take here. Largely because I haven’t really found anywhere that I feel the conversation has proceeded enough in earnest that its even at a point that would ALLOW for that yet. So this is all more just.....my feel of things, and why, as just kinda idk, hopefully a starting point for further ACTUAL exploration of all this. My attempts at starting the kind of conversation I feel we need to be having in order to be at all productive instead of just constantly spinning around in circles, which is what it so often feels like.

So when I say I think the patriarchy can’t honestly AFFORD to acknowledge male survivors specifically, I’m not positing some grand conspiracy or active cover-up.

Because nothing like that is even necessary.

Its built into the framework of the system itself. Its not that I believe anyone goes out of their way to “hide” male survivors from anyone, I’m saying there’s no need. Because its been so ingrained into us from such a young age and in so many ways, most of us never even think to question whether anything is even being hidden, or if its just as simple as, well men don’t really come forward, because their pride and self-esteem is so impacted by what happened to them, due to the expectations heaped on men by the patriarchy.

Its kinda stunning, actually. Even while ACKNOWLEDGING that the patriarchy does impact male survivors in ways as well, we’re kinda....led away from the ACTUAL ways and ACTUAL reasons why....because despite literally calling the patriarchy out as the bad guy in this way, it still manages to weasel itself out of this confrontation by virtue of the fact that you can’t ever really effectively address a problem when you’re being misdirected to a tangent that’s not really the REAL problem that needs addressing.

So personally, I’m of the belief that its not that men just don’t ever really come forward. Its that even when some do, like myself, we can scream our heads off for years and it just echoes into the void, because its not being heard in the ways we need to be heard in order to effectively....signalboost our stories and experiences and needs. Much like I just mentioned above, its misdirection......everybody’s too focused on addressing an issue that doesn’t actually NEED solving (ie, reminding everyone/promoting awareness that men too, CAN be raped), and thus at least feeling productive, feeling like they’re contributing to tackling the problem.....that meanwhile, the ACTUAL problem (men CAN be raped too, and are, and here are men talking about it only for the signal to get lost and fizzle out rather than get boosted)....it flies right under the radar.

Because in line with what I said earlier about how it does no good to compare our experiences, both in terms of assault and our lives in the aftermath, with women survivors - its because its apples and oranges.

Rape isn’t a gendered issue, because it can happen to anyone of any gender, at any time....its situational. Dependent on context. Rape culture, however, IS a gendered issue.

Because rape culture, how our society INTERACTS with the very idea of abuse and rape and its victims and perpetrators....spills out entirely from that core foundation of the patriarchy and sexism, and thus much like those things themselves, how it affects women survivors is always going to be totally different from how it affects men who are survivors. Our experiences are not interchangeable - that has nothing to do with being better or worse, more publicized or less, etc, etc. They just....manifest different ways. The cause of our trauma-related problems might be the same thing, but the problems it creates for us are not, and none of us can ever really benefit from it being treated as a one size fits all kinda deal, nor is it to our benefit to treat it like there’s only so much conversation about the topic available to go around.

What I mean here is, like I said, the patriarchy at the foundation of our society can’t afford for it to be widely acknowledged that men can be victimized too.

But it can’t actually stop this from happening, given that its basis for saying it never happens is an inherent uneven-ness that only exists because it made it exist, not because like....we’re innately born uneven.

So....it had to come up with a narrative, a response, for when men DID step forward and say hey, I too was abused. I was raped. Etc.

And it did.

As a result, a lot of women don’t come forward because they fear not being believed, with reason. And this is true for a lot of men as well, just as the following is true for a lot of women too....

Which is that IMO the bigger reason/more immediate reason a lot of men don’t come forward, is that our concern isn’t so much that we won’t be believed....

Its that we will be believed, but rather than this getting us the help we need or the justice we ask for, it only ever really creates more problems for us, due to the patriarchy’s go-to fix-it job for this situation:

Paint the male victim as being not so much a victim as a victimizer-in-training.

See, the lie that men are innately more powerful, stronger, more ‘deserving’ of being in charge can’t afford the admittance than men are also vulnerable, can be victimized, taken advantage of.....

But it CAN afford the idea that men can be abused/raped/etc with this going on to eventually result in us becoming abusers/rapists/victimizers ourselves in the future, as long as THIS is kept the clear focus and emphasis of the narrative.

Because after all, there’s nothing in the idea that we all inevitably take out our pain (whatever it may come from) on others that contradicts the idea that we’re stronger, more powerful, etc.

And its not like the patriarchy and its supporters give a shit if this throws even other men under the bus, because the only thing institutions and systems of power actually care about is POWER.

They’re not our friend, even if in a different life, we could have ended up wielding more of that power than we do in this one. Even if we do in other aspects of our lives gain social and other forms of power more easily/with less obstacles than other people.

They only care what we can do for them, to spread that power, perpetuate it, preserve it....so just like white supremacy will happily screw over poor white people and America doesn’t give a shit about its prison population and the LGBTQ+ community so often ignores the issues of its members of color and so on.....the patriarchy is more than willing to make male survivors from any and all groups and communities take the hit it has no intention of taking by letting it be confirmed its built on sand and bullshit.

So just as much as we’re ingrained from early childhood with the idea that men can’t be victimized the way others can, the linked lesson we’re taught is that men who have been hurt badly or in certain ways will almost certainly end up hurting others.....

With the implicit acknowledgment that there was just an admittance that we can be hurt badly/in certain ways ending up just swiftly glossed over. As the focus is instead kept on the harm done to our hypothetical future victims.

Because the easiest way to keep someone from being sympathetic, is to give people someone else to sympathize with MORE. To give people reason to feel a person doesn’t even deserve your sympathy in the first place.

And so now think about not how often we see men victimized by abuse and rape in media, or how often we see men portrayed as survivors and yes, victims of these things.....

Think instead of how often in media we see men who victimize others, who are the antagonists, the villains, the serial killer/rapist/abuser of the week.......and with it offhandedly being dropped into a scene and then never really focused on again, that these men were almost always said to have been abused or raped or victimized in the past....and this is the REASON for why they all ended up doing what they did.

Suddenly, the numbers go up, don’t they? The second you think about it from THAT angle?

Its just....the reason that angle literally exists to the extent it does in society and the messages we’re fed, the entertainment we’re given.....is because that’s the POINT.

Because its natural for us not to think of any of those men as victims when by the time we find that part out, we’ve already internalized our view of them as victimizers, and solidly put our sympathies with their victims in the present. Because what was done to them in the past doesn’t excuse what they do to others in the present. Being hurt doesn’t give you carte blanche to hurt others. We all know this. Hence....WHY IT WORKS.

Except, this isn’t actually a reflection of reality. The myth of the perpetual cycle of abuse is just that, a myth. Oh, it happens, certainly. With men, with women, quite probably more often with men than women, not much doubt about that....

But its not that it happens, we’re told. That’s not the issue here.

Its that we’re pretty much told it ALWAYS happens. Its always GOING to happen. That there’s no real point in sympathizing with a male victim who is most likely going to end up victimizing someone else in the future and thus he’s not really gonna deserve your sympathy at that point, will he? Which makes him not really worth wasting it on him in the first place. Makes it easy to come up with something to focus on more instead of his story or experiences, something just as deserving of your focus or sympathy, but that you’re less likely to end up regretting in the future like you would if a male survivor you sympathized with now ends up in the news five years down the line for having hurt someone else.

Because over centuries and generations the idea of male survivors at all has been cultivated into having this almost mythic quality, there’s just enough subtle feeling of wrongness around the very idea of it, like, that it just doesn’t quite make sense...that it ends up being almost a relief to give our minds a reason, an explanation for why they don’t have to come up with a way to adjust the paradigm there, to make room for that idea, realign a worldview into one where there’s a specific spot for male survivors much like any other subject that needs focusing on or evaluating for whatever reason.

And this point, this conclusion that no matter how tragic what happened to make a male survivor was, it will only ever ultimately end up in the same spot, with him later on passing along the harm, a warped kind of paying it forward....this is hammered home over and over. We see it everywhere, without even often realizing what it is we’re seeing and internalizing, like with the examples I cited of all the times men are raped in entertainment without it being called that. Its the flip side of that....the times that men are raped in entertainment with it being called that, but swiftly moved past that to introduce the reason not to care that that’s what it was we just saw.

And thus throughout several seasons of Law & Order: SVU we’ve had male survivors, usually teens, who at first seemed eminently sympathetic for what had been done to them.....but who by the end of the episodes, ended up becoming school shooters exacting revenge on their bullies. Or ended up killing the coach who raped them in high school and then went on to rape a dozen others. Or in the last scene of the episode is found kneeling over their abusive father’s corpse with blood on their hands and the detectives standing over them in sadness that now they had to take the boy they thought was the victim away to jail as the victimizer he didn’t have to end up becoming.

Except.....he only becomes that because they make the choice to write him becoming it! Every single time!

Like in 13 Reasons Why, where another male survivor ends up....another school shooter. Or in Criminal Minds, where pretty much every single killer throughout the series ended up with a backstory of abuse and rape and victimization as a child, making it ‘all the more tragic’ and with the protagonists often literally using the phrase “almost like the guy never had a chance.”

Well no, they didn’t. Not when it was written to BE that way.

And then we see the idea root and take hold in audiences. And spread and perpetuated. Validated.

Its why I hate the woobification thing in fandoms, where fans of (white) villain characters fill in their backstory for themselves with all the REASONS they are the way they are, and with the reasons never being that they’re just a sadistic entitled asshole, but because they were hurt. They were abused as a child, they were raped offscreen, the heroes said mean things about them in the burn book once and that’s why they just had to kill the hero’s whole family, see.

And everything comes full circle.....not only is it that all male victims are destined to end up victimizers....its equally true that all male victimizers must have once been male victims. Even if we didn’t see it onscreen or on the page.

Except, and why I loathe that fandom tendency.....

THAT NARRATIVE IS NOT AN INEVITABILITY AND NEVER WAS! The end point and point of origin presented there are NOT innately set in stone!

And all that does is just validate and accept as truth the LIE that patriarchal society puts forth in order to play smoke and mirrors with this one specific facet of human experiences that innately possesses the potential to destabilize the lie at the very rock bottom foundation of everything the patriarchy’s ever built at everyone else’s expense. The reason it offers up for why its not only allowable, its for the best that we look elsewhere from any male victims that actually step forward and say hey, can you all listen to me for a second, I want to tell you what happened to me.

And the fun irony of THIS aspect of things is if you think this woobification fandom thing benefits male survivors as a whole in some way or another, like the tendency of fans to find even villainous victimizers sympathetic means that they can and do sympathize just as much with actual male victims.....I’m fairly certain it doesn’t.

See, because with villains in fandom......this retroactive sympathy for imagined past traumas happens to only the characters that fandom has already decided they liked DESPITE the awful things they’ve done. Its made up to be used as an excuse instead of an explanation....

And like we all know damn well, even if we don’t always admit it or like to acknowledge it....

Explanations are not actually excuses. The harm you do can not be wiped away by the harm done to you.

So, because that’s still inside of us, our awareness of that, even if its ignored on the surface while defending hot white villains or whatever.....it doesn’t actually give anyone reason to ignore the narrative our society constructs around actual male survivors who it encourages people to condemn or ignore on the basis of purely hypothetical FUTURE abuses or wrongdoings.

And after all, you can’t actually decide you can look past the harms a person enacts and still view them as sympathetic if....you don’t actually know yet what those harms are going to end up being and thus whether you can make your peace with them, can you?

You just know that harms WILL be done, so....might as well err on the side of caution and assume they won’t be forgivable when deciding here and now to be thrifty with sympathies and spread any actionable effort taken on behalf of survivors in areas where those sympathies are more likely to be put to better use.

And yeah, all of this plays into why I focus so much on certain aspects of Dick’s narratives, and they usually AREN’T the rapes themselves.

Because for me, for many other male survivors I know......

Acknowledging those happened, examining how he felt when those happened....its not the biggest issue. Just like in our own lives, having it acknowledged or known what was done to us, having to face how it made us feel....that’s not really our primary concern.

Its what happens AFTER that.

How people view us and treat us AFTER their initial sympathies, whatever they are, dry up - which, we’re given reason to believe, they always inevitably will.

Because it isn’t all that different from what I frequently complain of happening with Dick in fandom, and hell, its WHY it bothers me so much, because its literally been a recurrent theme throughout my life:

The most widely acknowledged male survivor in comics, just also happens to coincidentally be....

The character most often spun as having a wicked temper, being almost irrationally angry at times, with his temper being likened to things like an eruption, an earthquake, a NATURAL DISASTER....something to be avoided at all costs, something the other characters fear, with good reason, but also impossible to avoid, because its too intrinsic to his nature. Its an inevitability. Dick Grayson WILL erupt or explode again at some point, and its going to be ugly. Like he’s a time bomb.

Even though....as I frequently go in depth on.....Dick’s never actually been shown as having particularly poor self-control either on just its own merits or specifically in comparison to others. He doesn’t really actually HAVE a track record of taking out his own hurts on others. On giving people REASON to be afraid of his temper even while they continue to take no responsibility for giving him reasons to be angry at all.

Its why I so often emphasize the discrepancy between the fact that whatever someone’s own personal character preferences, the FACT remains that Dick Grayson is the character in this family that most often bears the BRUNT of everyone ELSE’S anger.......just as the fact equally remains that Dick Grayson is still ultimately the character most often singled out in posts and headcanons and fanfics as unleashing his temper on others in unjustifable ways and usually without actual provocation.

None of this is a coincidence to me.

Its how we see over and over again that its okay for Dick Grayson to be angry FOR others, ON others’ behalf....its just when he’s angry FOR HIMSELF, for being taken advantage of, ignored, walked all over or mistreated....that’s when his anger is unjustified. Irrational.

Dangerous.

Or you guys know that one fanon about how Dick forces his hugs on his siblings, and his displays of physical affection are often unwanted, and thus violations?

Yeah, that one hits me right in the Issues too, because again, that’s not remotely supported by anything in canon....there has NEVER been an instance of Dick’s family asking him to cut it our or feeling like......IMPOSED upon because he likes to hug his family.

Its not to say people can’t feel that way about even well-meaning displays of physical affection that aren’t cleared with them first....

Its that this is something that people had to DECIDE to make a thing with Dick and his family. To actually craft the narrative that the many-times victim of unwanted touching was effectively violating his family’s wishes and boundaries every time he hugs them without being asked or invited to.

With that number being however many times a writer wants to write him doing when highlighting it as a violation.

And is this a thing we really see with any other character? Is my question there. How often do you see literally any other character being chewed out or resented for....hugging?

Just the one character most known for giving physical affection freely with his FAMILY and close friends.....

Who just so happens to also be the one character most often the guy who has his bodily autonomy violated.

The canon rape survivor has literally had HUGS weaponzed against him.

With the end result being.....every time he does it, every time this pings on a reader’s radar as Bad and Unwelcome....the linked takeaway is its one more reason for that reader to then ask themselves....well if he doesn’t care whether other people want him touching them, why should I care when he doesn’t want people touching him either?

Which ultimately just winds up another form of: why should I feel bad if bad things happened to someone who isn’t really that great of a person?

See what I mean?

Its all connected. Its not me getting frustrated with a bunch of different random things, its all the same thing at the end of the day, all so often traceable back to the same places.

I couldn’t untangle myself from so much of this and how it impacts me and my view of things even if I wanted to, to such an extent that in the end, want really has very little to do with it.

(And uh, you think those bug the shit out of me, let me tell you about just the very SIGHT of all those fics where Dick the widely acknowledged, perhaps best known male rape victim in comics.....is a rapist himself. Because yeah....even if people like to keep their incest light and fluffy or sweet instead of predatory, to someone who is y’know, personally familiar with all of this, Dick and ANY of his younger brothers is never going to appear as anything BUT predatory. As yet one more time where the linear journey of a male survivor all the way to the final evolution into male predator is born out and treated as so matter-of-fact, so inevitable, it hardly warrants noting as anything especially obscene or gross to write about a character famous for his survivor status. And its not like Dick is actually the only character in the franchise I like, so its not like its any better when its Jason painted as the aggressor in a fic, for instance....and while I will always be hugely critical of how Bruce is written as abusive in canon, that’s a wildly different thing from sexually preying on his sons so again, seeing him as his own sons’ rapists is yet again more upsetting than most people would think without connecting Bruce’s own status as a canon rape survivor, whether we like that story or not.....and plugging it into again, this pre-programmed route traveling from survivor to predator, over and over again. Victim to victimizer. Like clockwork.)

Anyway, my point is not to harp on this but rather to just lay it out there in this way. And how it plays into so much of my own personal approach to dealing with all of this when it comes up.......because the simple fact is I have to, there is no opt-out lol, and it comes up a lot, in large part because its so easy t reframe as being something else that most people who don’t have direct experience being directly impacted by all of this in its various myriad expressions are understandably not going to see it pinging on their radar and getting logged into their awareness the way it always does in mine.

*Shrugs* It is what it is. Its there. Avoiding it has never done me any favors, so.......as I so often demonstrate in a variety of degrees of Hmm Probably Coulda Done That Better, lol, I try and deal with things head-on and adjust as needed.

Easier said than done, not always pulled off, never any guarantee that I’m going about things the right way, just that like.....

There’s problems that need addressing that stem from all of this, and I know where mine lie and put a lot, a LOT of effort into addressing them and keeping an eye on them and not letting them get the better of me.

But the flipside of paying that close attention and that much means I’m also keenly aware of when and where I couldn’t take responsibility even if I wanted to, because the responsibility literally just isn’t mine to take....because yeah, I live in a society but guess what, so does everyone else, and its the same damn society, so  at the end of the day, no matter HOW well or not I go about handling the matter of my rapes and their overall impact and shaping of my life.....that’s just me handling the rape part of things.

The rape culture? And how THAT affects and informs every survivor’s life in whatever way it does going forward?

That’s kinda.....only ever going to be improved upon or not, on like....a cultural scale. That’s a society thing. Not a survivor thing.

Because we are all shaped by our cultures, every aspect of our cultures, and this one is unfortunately no different. But, its shaped by us too.

But to actually shape it INTO something, or more accurately, to shape it into LESS of what it is, blunt some of its edges, lessen some of its ability to do harm to survivors, to compound the harm already done.....

Something like THAT requires intent. Conscious effort.

And intent requires like....first being able to SEE what problems need addressing.

And that’s kiiiiinda the whole point of survivors coming forward when so rarely, so MINUTELY does it EVER result in actionable justice for that individual survivor.

And I don’t for a second believe a single one ever believes or assumes otherwise.

Cuz its super not fun. It never like......I don’t fucking know how it looks to other people, tbh, because I’ve literally been a survivor since before I even really knew that I was being abused or molested, that there was something I was surviving....but trust me, I’ve thought about it, I’ve wondered, and I don’t know if like, people think a survivor ‘telling their story’ is somehow an equivalent of like, getting a book deal or something, there’s the attention it brings after all, and isn’t there that saying that no publicity is bad publicity.....

LOL. Yeah. Umm. Just saying, if you don’t have personal experience as a survivor having come forward or shared openly about your experiences, let me refer you to another saying as counterpoint: Don’t believe everything you hear.

Cuz that’s definitely not one anyone else ever forgets when ‘listening’ to any of us.

Anyway, wrapping this up by bringing it back to like.....my extremely evident mood and irration of this past week.....this is ALL connected, this is ALL part and parcel of every single time this comes up as an issue for me and its never less of one at one time than it is at another, its never a little easier this time because this reason or that....its always the same damn frustration every single time. Stuff like this doesn’t get doled out in manageable portions, its all or nothing. Its either a problem right this current second or its not, and if its not, that’s only until the next time its a problem again, likely sooner rather than later.

And that’s the part that makes me talk about this as much as I do, and get as frustrated as I do when people just do not seem to get.....

I don’t have an off switch on this matter because there IS no off switch for me. The times I get frustrated and vent about this stuff are actually only at MOST a TENTH of how often it rears its head for me to deal with.....the times my reactions or responses boil over into public view, into something you guys see, or ‘have to deal with’ are literally just the times where there is no keeping a lid on it because the pot was already full to start with.

And so it really. Epically. Beyoooooond doesn’t help matters, when despite being the only male survivor I’m aware of being consistently vocal on the matter in the only fandom I know of where a prominant male character is almost universally acknowledged as a survivor....

I usually only ever hear the response:

“Mmmmmm, I’m not really sure what makes you think there’s a problem here and that it has anything to do with us, when see, I don’t agree, and I don’t really see why you think your opinion on the matter of how this particular character is written about and viewed and depicted interacting with others and how fandom interacts with him, is like.....of any kind of real relevance? This is just like....your opinion, man.”

Me: ........have I ever claimed for a second it wasn’t? Didn’t I use those exact words at least once in all of this already?

fahsklhfaklhflakfhalffha

Cuz for the record, ultimately, that’s what this all boils down to. I’ve wanted to post about this stuff for awhile now, but make no mistake:

It literally is all just my opinion? Formed of my own personal experiences and the conclusions I’ve taken away from them. Laid out as fully and extensively as I can manage, specifically SO people can take all of that into context when deciding for themselves how much weight or not to GIVE my opinion......

In which case, y’know, the experiences I have with this matter and how they correlate to these opinions, like, have contextual relevance and seem necessary to include.

Its NOT because I’m trying to use them to browbeat everyone into agreeing with me because I think I’m the only one whose opinion matters here, lol.

No. Just that like....it DOES matter? And its kinda exhausting when people act like all of this is arbitrary and abstract to me, that its some kind of superiority complex or me moralizing from a pulpit or some shit when I’m literally saying none of it is abstract or arbitrary to me, and the louder I say that, the more people THEN say “oh so basically your opinion is the only one that matters here unless we disclose the same kind of experiences or background huh?”

*headdesk*

I just.....it seems my stance is either born of self-righteousness and nothing personal whatsoever....unless I make enough of a fuss about how that’s NOT true, in which case my stance is that apparently I think I’m the only one who is allowed to have an opinion here because I’ve made such a point about it being personal.

But its definitely not that people are just determined to invalidate anything I have to say on this subject one way or another, right?

Anyway.

So all of that’s like...whatever that was. Make of it what you guys will, but I do hope that at least for some people whom it might be a new perspective or new information to, you’ll consider asking why is it that in a fandom that prominently features a canon male survivor whose survivorhood is so frequently denoted as a key and critical part of his character....someone like me, who is frequently cited as a resource on many, many other kinds of meta about Dick Grayson......seems to have more people interested in discouraging me from ever expounding on my own experiences in this matter and any correlations I see between those and Dick’s experiences and narratives, than there are people interested in like......utilizing me as the freaking resource on male survivor experiences and viewpoints that I’ve literally been out here offering to be from day one....specifically BECAUSE of how rarely men are viewed as coming forward and being open about our shit here.

*Shrugs*

Just food for thought.

[lia-nikiforov]

Winter 2018 Anime Final Review

Why yes, pretty much all the Spring premieres are done (don’t even remind me haha I’m so far behind) and this is horribly late, I had a busy couple of weeks ;---; and am still struggling to catch up, but here’s my final rundown of this long slow winter! Worst to best, as always.

Dropped

Basilisk Ouka Ninpou Chou: Although I’d said I’d keep watching for the Nobunaga twist, given the onslaught of new stuff for Spring, it’s unsustainable to keep watching something so mediocre I don’t even find anything to say about it. Also Nobunaga hasn’t been mentioned in three episodes.

DUMPSTER FIRE

Darling in the Franxx: So we’re halfway through the show and still feels nothing of importance has happened, except we learned “lesbians are not viable, what a relief” and also KOKORO REALLY WANTS TO MAKE BABIES. The whole Kokoro business is very unsavory because on the one hand the writing is a dick to Walking Fat Joke Futoshi, but on the other hand Futoshi is an entitled Nice Guy who acts like Kokoro has some obligation to return his feelings, so basically everyone sucks lmao. Btw, does anyone know what happened with episode 13? I went to watch it but what I got instead was a Deadman Wonderland episode, complete with the story of Palurdo meeting Lab Experiment-turned-Beast Waifu as children and making a promise that would subsequently be forgotten until they meet again in their teenage years. Jesus, does Womenz are Beastz: The Anime have a single original idea?

How am I supposed to measure my own disinterest and contempt

This basically means I didn’t care for these shows. I don’t hate them but I was aggressively unengaged in them and I can’t really rank them from worst to best because that would imply me having any measurable emotional reaction to them

Violet Evergarden: I don’t think I have much to add about this one that I haven’t said before. Tryhard Sad Anime Girl stories rehashing old clichés with little novelty to them,  with a bonus of a super poorly explained and thought out child super soldier tragic backstory that still has me ?????? The final episode has the addendum of trying to redeem That One Asshole in a “he treats her bad because he’s sad about his brother dying sob sob sob he’s totally not a jerk” and i was very annoyed by that.

Koi wa Ameagari no You ni: It’s complicated to talk about this show. I really liked the first episode, hated the 4-6, then was mostly bored by the rest of it. The whole romance angle was completely dropped in the latter half, but I’m not even sure if that’s a good thing given how tastelessly it was being handled in some moments, or a bad one given how bland everything else was. It felt like Akira’s crush on Kondo turned out to be insignificant in the grand scheme of things. It also felt like Akira was profoundly underdeveloped, and it bothered me because Kondo was developed properly. His character felt more fully realized than hers. Like idk, I just cared so little for the last few episodes and it didn’t feel like Akira’s emotional progression was very connected with the first half of the show. 

Fate/Extra Last Encore: I don’t even have a screenshot. Apparently the reason the show started so late into the season is that it took a long time to produce, and apparently there are two more episodes that will be released at some point in July. But really, what matters is that I have no idea of what this show was trying to accomplish. The characters were a bunch of pieces of cardboard spouting pseudo nihilistic philosophical nonsense and I don’t even know how to describe the plot. It was generic in its Boss of the Week approach but the execution was often very flat. Definitely none of the fun from Apocrypha’s cool characters was to be had in this iteration of the franchise.

Too much iyashikei

This season we had too much iyashikei and I’m burned out. Here are the ones I didn’t hate but also wasn’t super in love with.

Miira no Kaikata: I think this show would’ve worked better as 3-minute vignettes. 20 minutes of it was a bit too much and I struggled to pay attention. I also felt the dragon and MukuMuku had very tangential roles. I don’t have a whole lot to say. It’s cute, if cute is your jam this show is for you. Connie is best smol monster.

Hakumei to Mikochi: Another cute show that gains extra points for its somewhat unique setting, beautiful color palette and picture book aesthetic and because the two main girls are great characters. I particularly liked the first and last episodes. It’s a relaxing, fun little show

Sanrio Danshi: The harbinger of feminism made into a toy commercial, while not quite iyashikei, is still a slice of life that just occassionally indulged in too much melodrama. It was nonetheless a fun little thing that managed to turn cynical consumerism into a positive message for boys: it’s okay to like non-traditionally-masculine things. One of the details I liked most was that none of the boys had to give up on their previous groups of friends even after “coming out”, Kouta’s friends and Shuu’s team were supportive of them and even participated in their dumbass musical play. Some may even read this show as a not-so-subtle allegory on homosexuality and while I don’t think this was Sanrio’s intent (their intent is to broaden their market, plain and simple) the fact that it works so well with that reading is honestly great. I had very minimal expectations for this show and I’m happy it turned out better than those.

Classicaloid 2: Classicaloid isn’t quite iyashikei either but it fits in the “didn’t love it, didn’t hate it” category. I’m a huge fan of season one, but unfortunately a big part of S2 failed to capture the magic. I think most of it was restored in the second cour, specially with brilliant episodes such as the one where Dovo-chan becomes a super-realistic painting of himself, and the last three episodes really captured what made Classicaloid great. I’ve really come to love this cast, so I wouldn’t complain if we got more seasons (please do Vivaldi!!!)

Shonen is a Good Genre, Actually

Shonen as a genre/demographic is much reviled for its repetitive clichés and childish stories, but I think we live at a time in which we can have well-executed shonen anime that, although falling for the same old clichés, have enough heart and sincerity that makes them enjoyable. This part also isn’t necessarily ranked, since my favorite one will change depending on which day you ask me

Nanatsu no Taizai: Imashime no Fukkatsu: As I have mentioned before, this second season seems to be the polar opposite of the first one’s rapid pace. It’s been a while since I read the manga, but I feel like it took a lot less to get to the mid-season cutoff point there than this anime would lead you to believe, especially the training part felt excruciatingly long. NanaTai has other various flaws including its 1000% not funny harrassment jokes and the dumb introduction of quantified “power levels” (why Suzuki), but characters like Diane, King and Ban give the show a unique flavor. And I’m not even gonna pretend to be unbiased, I just love everything involving Ban, even the weird and questionable choice of bringing Elaine back. I’m excited that we’re finally approaching Escanor’s arrival.

Yowapeda Glory Road: I also forgot to grab a screenshot lmao. Yowapeda is a very particular beast, and with its episode count already in the hundreds, it’s not something I’d reccommend unless you’re super into dragged out ridiculous sports anime. This second season of Onoda’s second year has not been without its flaws either, starting with the, imho absurd persistence in making Sohoku look like underdogs even though they’re reigning champions. It’s made a lot of the first two days of the Interhigh feel a lot grimmer than this cheerful show ought to. Kaburagi is still an insufferable character, and the fact that he drags the team down doesn’t help him either, and I just wish the writers would let Best Boy Teshima win anything. I hope the second day ends on a lighter note, because the gloom and doom is making this a less enjoyable watch than it should be

Mahoutsukai no Yome: I feel a little better about this one knowing the final was anime-original, but at the same time I’m beyond livid with how it was wrapped up. I loved the second half of the series because of how well-written and emotional Chise’s growth was, and everything up to her embracing of Cartaphilus’s curse was a beautiful display of her strength and will to live. What I’m not here for is that asspull wedding whatever that makes no sense in the context of the previous events, especially because after the fact, Elias’s attempt to kill Stella is swept under the rug. This could’ve been my favorite show of the season without that bullshit ending and while I don’t regret watching it, it leaves me with a sad feeling of what could have been

Best of the season

Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens: It had a slow start, but with its endearing cast and well-developed character relationships, HTR won me over, especially the last quarter. The animation was veeery barebones, but Lin and Bamba’s charisma and their organically developed relationship carried the show to be one of the most enjoyable of the season. I also really appreciate the fact that the series includes a gay couple with an adopted daughter and that Lin’s crossdressing is never used as a joke or treated as a character flaw or a “phase”. I love stories about found families and I’d love to see more of this gang fighting crime and doing shady business in their city of assassins.

Garo: Vanishing Line: This iteration of Garo had a somewhat slow start, but boy did it pick up steam in the second half. The action was great -the final fight against King had some incredible stylistic choices, the characters’ journeys felt complete and very human and the story was interesting and different enough from other Garo to not feel repetitive, yet with enough Garoisms that made it feel connected to everything else. Like I said, I love stories about found families, so the way Sophie found a home with Gina, Luke and Sword by the end was very touching. Watching Sophie’s journey has been a treat, and I’m immensely happy that this wasn’t a Guren no Tsuki disaster, but was more in line with the excellence of Honoo no Kokuin.

Gakuen Babysitters: This was the huge surprise of the season for me, I almost expected it to be pretty dull. Instead it turned out to be super cute and extremely heartwarming. It had a couple of duds here and there, mostly the not-actually-a-pedophile joke character and the early love triangle skits, but the former disappeared and the latter was vastly improved in the second half of the show. I wish Ryuichi’s grief had been dealt with a bit more, but I think what they did show was very well executed and empathetic. And the portrayal of the kids felt very realistic, including both children’s most adorable and most obnoxious behaviors. KIRIN IS BEST GIRL

Card Captor Sakura Clear Card arc: I have expressed some complaints and dissatisfactions with this sequel all through the season. Mostly in regards to the new cards and how the old ones seem to have been forgotten (also the lazy designs of the new cards). In spite of that, Sakura hasn’t lost any of its heart in these 20 years, the characters are still the kids we grew up with. It is an overwhelmingly cheerful and positive show, from Sakura and Syaoran’s shyly developing relationship, to the hopefulness of Sakura’s magic and just the simple day to day life of Sakura and her friends. In spite of all its flaws, Sakura is still my favorite show of the season and I’m happy we get to spend one more season with these characters. Just please give me more Yue??? 

Ooooof, finally I’m done with this! PLEASE LET’S NOT TALK ABOUT THE 20+ SHOWS I’M SAMPLING FOR SPRING AHAHAHAHA. There’s too much anime. Anime must be stopped, immediately. Don’t hesitate to send me your thoughts about the winter season, even if it seems I’m losing my mind a little Dx TOO MUCH ANIME

[bearfeathers]

I've been treated for depression and anxiety for nearly 20 years - since I was 9 or 10 years old. While certain aspects of these got better with medication and therapy, something still always felt "not right." As a kid, it took me a while to catch on, but eventually I started to realize that the way I thought and the way my classmates thought was not the same. Not to say that I was ~SO UNIQUE~ just more like I couldn't relate to them. Or their motivations confused me. Or I just didn't realize that I was being jerked around. People even now describe me as being a little bit odd. Or different. In the past few years, I've been trying to figure out what this other thing, the "not right" part of me could be, instead of just settling for "I guess this is as good as it's gonna get." Reading and reflecting on my own lead me to wonder if it could be something on the autism spectrum or possibly AD/HD. I started seeing a new therapist a couple months ago and finally brought this up to her. While I really like her, I felt frustrated when she said I had neither after a few questions. I'm perfectly willing to accept that it was neither of those things, but I felt kind of off put when she asked why I thought there was something wrong other than my depression and anxiety. It wasn't so much that she told me it wasn't those things, but because she determined that in under five minutes. It just felt... Rushed? Dismissive? She said I was too aware to be on the autism spectrum and not distracted enough to have AD/HD and that it's not likely that the symptoms would have been missed in my childhood. I said I'd read about these online and that a lot of people said autism and ad/hd could present differently in girls since they were considered "boys conditions" and therefore most studies and research had been done with boys. She informed me I couldn't make an accurate diagnosis from web pages, which I know, but I thought it was supposed to be a good way to talk to your doctor/therapist/etc. about it. But the more I think about it, the more it feels like yes, I do have some of those things, just not your textbook examples. As a kid, I could never pay attention during lectures or "read out loud" portions in class; inevitably I would zone out and daydream, doodle, or flip ahead to more interesting parts of the text book. I have a bad habit of taking people literally or at face value, so when people are joking, sometimes I just don't catch on. Ditto for when people are being insincere. My time management is HORRENDOUS; despite waking up even an hour early, setting alarms, and making check lists, I always manage to get distracted by something or just can't grasp the passage of time, so I'm frequently late to things. If clothing is too tight or an uncomfortable material, I'm not able to focus on anything BUT that. I have difficulty finding my focus; it feels like there's a cork stuck in the bottle where all my focus and concentration is, but I don't have a corkscrew. Alternatively, sometimes I get TOO focused on things; and usually insignificant things at that. If my routine or preplanned schedule is disrupted, the whole day is basically a wash. It's like it knocks me off kilter and I can't get back up on the horse. It can even be something as simple as something coming up where I need to go out, when I had planned to stay in and do nothing. I often feel restless and like I should be doing something and this makes it difficult to do the things I enjoy. When I am doing things I enjoy, like using my laptop, it's like I can't stay focused on one thing. I find it difficult to finish a movie or TV episode without frequently switching to other tabs to do something else. One of the most frustrating things is what I call noise pollution; I work as a police dispatcher and if I've got the radio going and the tv on and people talking in the room, I can't differentiate between sounds. It all just becomes a single, flat noise and I can't pinpoint what is coming from where. I recently went to a friend's baby shower and it took me three days to recover because I was with a large group of people I didn't know and therefore didn't know how to act around, so I nearly had a panic attack. I don't get out of my seat when it's inappropriate... but I can't sit still in it either; rocking, rotating, knee bouncing, swaying, it just makes me feel better. Then there's the skin picking, the nail biting. Even when I know I should stop, I can't seem toz and frequently do it to the point of bleeding and scarring. There are scores of other examples but I feel like I should spare you if you've read this far lol. I don't want to push and say that she's wrong, because it makes me feel... idk kind of like I'm just begging for a diagnosis. But at the same time, SOMETHING is off and I still don't know what it is. I just want to know what the "not right" thing is so I can look into ways to manage it, not because I want people to pity me or because I'm trying to make excuses or anything. I really just want to put a name to this so I can help myself. I don't know if I should seek another mental health professional out? Or if there's some other kind of doctor I should look into seeing? Or if I'm completely off base with what I think this is? I feel like there's a really great person inside me somewhere, but this block is keeping me from being that person, as much as I try. Anyone ever have similar symptoms like I described? What did you do about it?

[wreathedwith]

Write-up - Masterclass: Charlie Brooker in Conversation, 09/04/2017

This event was part of the BFI’s inaugural television festival. (Really good to see TV getting some love as well as films on this sort of platform!) LBC radio host and Newsnight presenter James O’Brien was asking the questions.

It was held at the BFI IMAX, which meant there was a massive screen in front of which there was a tiny plinth from which Brooker and O’Brien sat and chatted.

I was three rows from the front, central section (nobody was allowed to sit in the first row – maybe Brooker can’t cope with people being that close, idk). There was a camera operator filming from one row behind me – not sure what they plan to do with the footage, but keep an eye out for it potentially turning up.

I’m trying to primarily mention stuff here that I haven’t seen covered in interviews before (or just stuff I personally found interesting), as this was essentially a swift go-through of Brooker’s career and certainly some of it’s been covered before. Anything in quotes here may not be word for word perfect as this is all just taken from my notes.

Brooker (looked great and) was wearing a black polo shirt, black trousers, khaki jacket and grey trainers. If you ever had any doubt whether he’s just wearing his own clothes on Wipe, they’re the same trainers he wore in 2016 Wipe when he gets up from the sofa after Trump wins the election and walks off the set (they showed this clip! I don’t offhand remember things that well! I’m not that fucking weird!).

Said massive screen was filled with a massive picture of Brooker (the picture above, so if it’s a bit photoshopped I understand better why now). Predictably when he came on, Brooker reacted with some discomfort to this truly giant photo of himself and said he looked like “a dick” in it.

O’Brien kicked things off by saying he’d received an email from BFI’s comms department telling him that Brooker is a “capable talker” and that his main job would be to keep things on track and watch the time. (This was definitely a problem in Brooker’s interview with Grace Dent, to be fair.) He did a good job of keeping Brooker roughly on track… and Brooker kept apologising for rambling on.

This is pretty much going to be random bits and pieces in the order which they were talked about from here on in:

Brooker misunderstood the requested measurements for his nascent cartoons for Oink magazine, thinking they were in millimetres not centimetres, and so drew his first cartoons for them very small. He used this as the first of several examples of him having no idea what he was doing.

Assuming if you are reading this, you will already know Brooker didn’t get his degree because he wrote his dissertation on video games (an unacceptable topic). O’Brien asked what the thesis actually was. Brooker: “I don’t think it had one! I was just a fan. ‘I like video games’, basically.”

Brooker used to work at a CEX! [second hand video games shop] (I have a deep affection for CEX.) He did cartoons for their ads as well.

Brooker described tvgohome.com as primarily a discipline to see if he could reliably produce something every fortnight. He confirmed there were no ads on it and it wasn’t monetised in any way (except for the exposure that it gave him that lead to job offers).

Brooker said he was first working in The 11 O’Clock Show’s writers’ room in 1998 or 1999. If the cameramen laughed during the rehearsal (“they would laugh at ‘cock’ and ‘fuck’”), that material would stay in.

There was a sketch show based on tvgohome.com in 2001, but Brooker didn’t think it was very good, in part because he didn’t sit in on the edit (he always likes to do this now).

Brooker’s hands were so fidgety when they showed the 2016 Wipe clip (Trump’s win)! To be fair, it was on an IMAX screen in front of loads of people. (I think I saw Jonathon Ross in the audience but I’m not 100% sure.)

Chris Morris corner: O’Brien hypothesised that Brooker really started on the satire when he met Morris. Brooker didn’t really disagree or agree with this (“Maybe…”). Brooker said (as he has elsewhere) that he met Chris Morris through a mutual friend, that Chris Morris contributed some material to tvgohome [under the name Sid Peach] and that they talked about the Nathan Barley [TV show] idea “for four or five years”, because Morris’s gestation period is slow. Brooker said he enjoyed the conversations he had with Morris about Nathan Barley during this period. Whether the show happened or not was definitely in the hands of Morris, as Brooker seems very much in his ‘I have no idea how to get TV made’ stage at this point (also a bit in awe of Morris maybe?) – O’Brien asked Brooker if he ever asked Morris ‘well, are we going to do this then’ and Brooker said “No! He keeps going on about it – I thought unless he’s having a breakdown this will happen eventually.” Brooker said Morris gets things made through sheer force of will.

Brooker also said that his role in the creation of Morris’s Paedogeddon was to “sit in his office and say ‘that would be funny’ to suggestions I thought would be funny”. And Brooker realised Morris could get anything made when he got Paedogeddon made, as when Brooker first heard the idea he thought that it would never get made (this is an understandable viewpoint).

Brooker said the idea for Screenwipe was based on Bushell on the Box, which was certainly not a TV show I previously knew had existed. (Weirdly this sort of reminded me of Peep Show being inspired by Being Caprice in its similar obscurity.) An early title idea was ‘Charlie Brooker’s TV Inferno’ and (as he’s mentioned before) it was going to be like a sort of TV viewing party. (“As if I’m any good at interacting with human beings.”)

Brooker described his old flat where they used to shoot Screenwipe as a flat, not a house. (Maisonette? It does have stairs…)

Brooker described himself as “flailing immediately at the most casual barbeque” regarding current affairs knowledge, so thought could self-improve by reviewing the news as if it was a trashy TV show. (Newswipe is born). He said it felt weightier than the TV criticism.

Brooker doesn’t watch the news (if it can be avoided, which as he said often it can’t now) when he’s not doing a News/year-end Wipe! He said he avoids it as it makes him sad but also because he knows he’ll have to review it at the end of the year now anyway. As he’s said elsewhere, he felt so morose about 2016 he wasn’t sure at one point in November whether he could do the show, but interestingly said that doing Have I Got News For You straight after Trump’s election made him feel a bit better because he “had to do it” [had to face it and do the show].

Brooker doesn’t like the word satire.

They plan Wipes using storyboards, putting in sofa, desk or “walky-talky, as we call them” (!) sections. Brooker said it took them a “fucking long time” to learn to do that and they used to shoot loads more than they needed. More on the production method: researchers condense hundreds of hours of logged footage, and Brooker watches some of it with the writers and they come up with one liners while they’re watching it then.

Brooker called TV “a disgusting lie” in a very circa 2006 Screenwipe sort of way as he explained Wipe is filmed on the same set location where the Apprentice board room is filmed [shots suggest it’s in Canary Wharf when it’s in fact a set in Acton], and he walks out to the ‘Apprentice losers’ café’ (The Bridge Cafe) in 2016 Wipe because it really is next door to their set, just as it’s next door to the Apprentice’s set.

Brooker thought Dead Set would end his career (as a critic) if it ended up being shit, as he wouldn’t be able to critique TV again. He said he was surprised it turned out so well.

Dead Set has a lot of shake-cam – Brooker said after a clip “it makes you feel a bit sick” watching it on an IMAX screen. He also pointed out a “clunky” bit of ADR that I didn’t notice at all!

Brooker said he really enjoyed making Dead Set. Dead Set was delayed for a long time because of the Big Brother racism controversy in 2007.

O’Brien [I’m making this look much more 1984 than it was] asked if Brooker was at a point in his career when he could anything he wanted made. Brooker considered this, said he didn’t know, but he was sure “as a psychological exercise” he could come up with something unbroadcastable.

Brooker was in the writer’s room for 8 Out of 10 Cats for a bit. O’Brien said that you don’t get into those rooms by accident. Brooker (sort of) insisted that he did, saying that he got that job because the same production company [Zeppatron, of Endemol] were doing both that and Dead Set.

When asked by O’Brien about ideas getting rejected, Brooker said he wrote a sitcom that was rejected called ‘God Save the Queen’ about a punk band (“basically the Sex Pistols”) getting hanged by a Tory MP for treason in 1977 and then “going through the space time continuum” to the then present day. He said what dates it now is that they’re “complaining about ringtones”. (This sounds nuts. Somebody commission this now.)

Brooker pitched A Touch of Cloth five years before it got made.

Brooker liked any TV [and/or film] growing up that made him feel “sick and lost”, like The Wicker Man.

Brooker said he had been writing an episode of the next series of Black Mirror that day, and he’s made it “so fucking horrible it amuses me”.

Talking about getting to do most of the things he wanted to do when he was growing up, Brooker said “I haven’t made a ZX Spectrum game yet”. O’Brien asked if he’s ever written for video games. Brooker said no, he wouldn’t know how to get into that as it’s a very different discipline, and with the notable exception of The Last of Us he just wants to skip the story when it comes up in games so he can play the game!

Brooker originally pitched eight half hours for Black Mirror, and planned to only write one to two of them himself. Was keen for it, like Dead Set, to be played straight, unlike The Twilight Zone which he described as “a bit camp”.

The pig fucking idea came from an idea he’d had for ages of doing a spoof of 24 where Jack Bauer had to fuck a pig.

(O’Brien acknowledged that Brooker has been asked about this before.) Brooker said he’d be writing blackmail notes or “running shirtless into traffic, screaming” if he knew about the whole [Cameron] pig thing, not writing Black Mirror episodes.

Clip of White Christmas was played, meaning giant IMAX Jon Hamm!

Brooker, it should be noted, gave a little nervous laugh before everyone applauded after every single clip shown.

The clip was of Hamm’s character explaining the cookie/copy technology in this episode. Brooker: “That’s a lot of exposition. Fucking hell.”

Brooker said he thinks the stage direction he wrote in the script for when the copy’s light goes out was “The LED dims forlornly.” :(

Brooker said he didn’t know stage directions had to be written in scripts (“I thought you just wrote dialogue!”) until he read a script of Ross Kemp: Ultimate Force. O’Brien said he hadn’t been going to ask one of his intended questions – do you read much – until Brooker mentioned that, which was some of the least pretentious reading in the history of reading (O’Brien’s words). Brooker said that he doesn’t read much. When he reads he reads non-fiction. At the moment he just reads “fucking kids’ books; the Mr Men”.

Netflix Black Mirror differences: on a global scale, and a larger budget, but he described the budget as still not being large. Brooker said San Junipero was the first episode he wrote for the latest series, and that he wrote it very quickly, but he originally thought [spoiler if you haven’t seen it] seeing the two main characters in hospital would be the ending and then he surprised himself by keeping going. He was very specific in his instructions for the arcade games in this episode, and was genuinely very disappointed they couldn’t clear Outrun for use.

Brooker said he was worried about writing San Junipero as it was a love story between women and he isn’t a women and also “I have no human emotions”.

Brooker thinks satire is counterproductive and that change only comes from “mass peaceful civil disobedience”. So there you go kids.

There were a few questions from the audience, which were… mostly OK. Asked about personal fears going into his work, Brooker cited White Bear, saying he constantly worried about “being put in a perspex case and accused of murder”. He also said he worried about scarring his leg on the edge of the glass coffee table he was sitting behind. Just that he’s a constant worrier, basically. He also said he worried about running out of ideas.

AMAZING question phrasing from I think a 16 year old student, who also said her teacher “makes us read your Guardian columns for revision” (“fucking hell”, said Brooker). “How would you advise getting into TV and journalism? Would you just work in shops like you did, or… ?”

(Brooker said it was much more difficult now and he was creating a website that lead to everything else when website were unusual things. He advised uploading something to youtube, but making it the most personal and idiosyncratic thing you can do both to attract attention and because if it is successful at attracting attention you will have to write for other people for a while and not get to do your own stuff for a while.)

(For the journalism, Brooker said he had no idea. When people would tell him he had to come up with an angle he’d think “what the fuck is an angle?”. He said he liked writing a TV column because he didn’t have to come up with what he’d be writing about.)

Someone asked if he agreed with a journalist quote who said he was a “disappointed idealist”. Brooker: isn’t everyone? Brooker said he writes to amuse/entertain himself rather than convey a message, and finds preachiness in other’s work annoying.

Someone asked if he was taking any pitches (no, in part to avoid any accusations of stealing someone’s idea just because they happen to have a similar one to something he may already be working on). Brooker said he’s “not very good at bringing other people in”, and that for this series of Black Mirror they were looking at getting more creatives involved and also looking at how to structure a writer’s room as he doesn’t really do this currently. Hopefully encouraging news for those who would like to see more off-camera diversity.

Someone asked him if he’d seen anything in the news that’s more horrible than what he could create for Black Mirror. Brooker: “Yes, of course! And it’s really happening, the news!” (I sort of want to make ‘It’s really happening, the news” my new blog title.)

I wanted to ask, but didn’t get called on (er, also I was too shy to put up my hand, probably why) about diversity – Brooker’s said in the past he doesn’t necessarily imagine all of Black Mirror’s storylines with the gender, race and/or sexuality of the eventual main characters, and that he consciously injects that diversity – wanted to ask him if there was a point he got more conscious about doing this, and also that hopefully the benefits of it are self-evident but what would he say to people who are worried about getting it right or aren’t doing it at the moment. Or something along these lines. Because I’d be interested and also let’s get the straight white men who are doing well on the in front of camera diversity front to talk to other straight white male writers about how they can too.

At the end, Brooker said ‘oh, we go!’ and jumped up to leave with O’Brien in quite an amusing / adorable way.

Hope some of that write up was interesting to you! It was a great and well-run hour and a bit event that I really enjoyed attending.