#a lot of really terrible shit

[schismusic]

On abandonment, Lou X, the eternal recurrence of the same

Browsing through the people I follow (and my followers) I can't help but notice just how many of these blogs haven't been updated in literal years. That line Diane Venora has in Michael Mann's Heat comes to mind: "you live among the remains of dead people…".

The idea of neglect and disuse is a weird thing to me, in that I never registered it as an inherently negative thing - it's melancholic, sure, but not everything needs to keep being active and productive. In unrelated news I'm listening to Lou X as we speak, go figure. For my international followers, Lou X is a rapper from Pescara who made his last full record in 1998. It is called La Realtà, la Lealtà e lo Scontro and you could call it a conscious/gangsta rap record in Italian/Abruzzese dialect. Then he basically went off the radar except for maybe one feature or two on other people's songs and albums.

If you think about it Italy's greatest contributions to the culture of the past century mostly involve objects that either don't exist, are somehow crystallized into unserviceable forms, were abandoned years ago and have reached an absolutely dismal state that could only make them interesting as a work of art. Think about it: Neorealism in cinema (and maybe even the Realists' interest in decrepit/disadvantages rural realities, but that would be an overarching nineteenth-century European thing), Ennio Flaiano's Tempo di uccidere, the last writings of Cesare Pavese ("Tutto questo fa schifo. Non parole. Un gesto. Non scriverò più": what else here but the defeated realisation that nothing could ever change?), Italo Calvino's Le città invisibili, Luigi Ghirri's landscape photography work, CCCP and CSI even.

Europe is doomed to its binary division and therefore we are of course doomed to repeat stylings and "revolutionary" aesthetics in never-ending loops: Disciplinatha were smart enough to point it out, but like Whitehouse said: "grubbing job-hunting artists and art aficionados who prefer art that 'raises questions' are certainly as disgusting as those rubbered dilettantes who recognize that the answers are what you masturbate over". Whitehouse also had this to say, in the same context: "So better to just shut your fucking mouth".

Obviously mentioning a rapper from Abruzzo has implications for those of you who know anything about me. God knows there are very few places as left to their own devices as that region of Italy, and considering my violently antihumanist views regarding the Abruzzese people I'm inclined to say that the only reason this abandon should end is just so I can no longer hear these motherfuckers bitch and moan about nobody giving a shit about them or something. It's no big deal to be fair - people think Abruzzo is further down South than Rome is because it was added into the monetary help program for the South of Italy at the end of World War II. The Abruzzese people who have voted for Matteo Salvini in the past seem to have conveniently forgotten that if it didn't mean more votes to him, they would be seen as cannon fodder at best and shit under his feet at worst.

When the Amatrice earthquake hit in 2016 we knew that would be the end of the very little good things we had managed to get back after L'Aquila in 2009: the small towns in the province, which is unreasonably fucking big in L'Aquila's case but honestly what are we going to do, make Sulmona or Avezzano their own province like assholes?, anyway I'm getting distracted - my point being everything went even further to shit when that happened. A lot of the old people, some of whom not as old as you would expect, died in consequence to the quakes or went further down into some form of (if I had to guess) trauma-induced dementia. Happens even to the best of us - then, you can imagine how easily it happens to the average Abruzzese. I was setting up another band with some kids and if we had our way, honestly, I believe there would be no NUMBERS, simply because I had found people who really got me, in the typically effortless way that teens bonding through activities do, and I do believe I got them, too. When I meet them now, and I never meet them together because one of the two guys can no longer come to town now, it feels like I'm on a completely different wavelength. Yet I refuse to let go, because in true Abruzzese fashion I never fucking learn. We did manage to get a record out, though. Its only tangible effect was, likely, to stop NUMBERS and the Operators from playing the La Zona d'Ombra festival at Bronson, in Ravenna. Here in the future, everyone has their fifteen seconds of fame.

In relating to the theme of this post, I cannot seem to let go of this fucking post. I have been writing in circles for literal hours at this point because the idea of abandonment ultimately scares me, disproving what I said at the beginning. It's no surprise that the only things I can think of when they suggest to me the idea of abandonment are Burial, Forest Swords, Techno Animal, maybe some ambient music. No point in trying to prove at all costs that "I'm different" or that "I have something fundamental to say about it".

So better to just shut my fucking mouth.

[heartorbit]

make a wish! 🍃

happy 1st anniversary, in stars and time 🤍

[welcometogrouchland]

(ID in alt) I literally said I was gonna post this month's ago and then never had the wherewithal to describe it and so I didn't Lmao (said with pain). But since I'm thinking of opening my commissions I figured I should remind ppl that I. Yknow. Can draw.

Lots of Steph here (I had major art block making all of these and my brain worms for her kept me going) + some sprinkles of stephcass for Cass nation to enjoy!

[stupidrant]

Since we’re on the topic of video games, im tired of these fucking remakes. Ive said it before but i’ll say it again each time. These companies dont wanna invest in an actually good remaster or port and would rather waste their time with these remakes bcuz “ooh look how shiny and better the graphics look!!1!1!1” often times it has an empty feeling because everything has to be ultra realism super 6000. Its gotten so bad that now regular gamers are starting to gaslight you into playing or enjoying them. So much has been lost artistically, (like the cool UI designs) that it’s now considered “juvenile” and that i need to “grow up” and “accept it” 😂

[tothepointofinsanity]

Thinking about my strange beloved piper storybook series again…I had some excerpts of the books saved in my gallery, so I remembered a few things.

One thing me and my brother agreed on when we initially finished co-reading the series was that it’s kind of scary that if the main character, Patch, was picked up by one of the teachers at the academy who was actually one of the mastermind villains, for his playing potential, he would have been brought up as the main antagonist selected to reign the world through chaos instead in whatever alternate timeline the story could have went.

[dazais-guardian-angel]

kinda wild to me that one of the most compelling aspects of both Chuuya and Kunikida's characters to me, that I never really see talked about, is how they're heavily set on a doomed crash course towards complete and utter destruction, and how I am so, so worried for them both.....

[it-may-be-dull-but-im-determined]

On the verge of doing a deep dive compare and contrast between both Wicked and Evita being adapted for films because the parallels are RIGHT THERE. In this essay I will

[sapphorror]

Okay but my favorite GIR moments are ALWAYS the ones that imply he's just aware enough of what's going on to know that the thing he's doing will fuck up Zim's day, and he still does it anyway, possibly specifically for that purpose.

[fantasticalleigh]

🖤🖤🖤🖤Another one for The Education of a Lady 🖤🖤🖤🖤

used this Pin as a reference

[thebigqueer]

literally having the worst day ever and i cant ever be happy (has only experienced minor inconveniences today but they keep adding up)

[autumnrory]

i rmr when all the initial meta around endgame was coming out people were talking about steve being depressed and whatnot and it's like well yeah but he's BEEN depressed, like he woke up alone in this century and he kept going, now i can understand it being worse this time after finding a family and getting bucky back and losing them all except of course that's not why endgame steve was on about so like......the people writing meta were trying to connect these things that of course weren't really there on screen because that simply wasn't our steve

but i think it really could've been SO interesting to see this is the thing that finally makes steve stay down like he's lost so much and he just CAN'T keep fighting like i get some people think that's what they were going for but considering the ending......it's really not. and so i'm just thinking about a version after iw, maybe he gets some of the thor treatment except not turning his depression into a dumb fatphobic joke lol and maybe nat and others are trying to get through to him and it just doesn't work and then we get some flashbacks (which you could have done for all the original avengers actually which would be particularly important for bruce and nat and clint who did not have their own trilogies) including his mom telling him "you always stand up" and THAT being the thing to finally get him moving like it would've been such a perfect way to finally show sarah rogers some respect and ACTUALLY show steve really struggling instead of whatever they tried to do with him in that movie

[mla0]

i hate when people portray michael and/or patrick as some kind of master manipulator who was terrible to shaun and stormy. like, in the past, michael sometimes got portrayed with little autonomy, or as childish and overly innocent in a weird way. that in itself is an issue with the treatment of mentally ill characters (infantilization), but the solution isn't to argue that he's actually a monster who only wanted to hurt and mislead people. the same goes for patrick. i don't enjoy the "goofy flirty mass murderer" interpretation for very similar reasons, because in the canon patrick did indeed do some wild shit but i think it's a stretch to say it was out of malice, except maybe towards eric lol

obviously there will be different views of these characters and this isn't meant to be gatekeep-y or anything, i'm just concerned with how certain portrayals can quickly slide into negative biases towards mental illness. i think if you're going on this route you might want to ask yourself why, and consider how it could make the mentally ill people within the fandom feel when they see their own symptoms portrayed by their peers as synonymous with being dishonest or manipulative

[fatherramiro]

thinking about this the other day but the thing about ramiro and ángel's cover story that i always wind up coming back to is the choice to frame them as equals. on an in-universe level, i've talked before about ramiro being at a disadvantage during their escape because he has less money and doesn't speak any english, which means there is a power imbalance between him and ángel and he is dependent on ángel to get him out of europe, but there was a specific choice made when they came up with their cover story that they weren't going to fall back on their old roles during their escape. which makes sense because it's likely that the police would be looking for a wealthy guy and his servant rather than two brothers, and it's less likely they'll be accused of anything unsavory if they have that cover story, but there's also the element of thinking about how for the entirety of their relationship prior to this, ramiro was not seen as ángel's equal. that's got to be incredibly painful for ramiro, and quite honestly ángel probably wasn't a fan of having ramiro be treated like that either. no wonder they drop that part of their past and exchange it for something else. i genuinely doubt the idea of continuing to escape as wealthy guy and his servant was even a thought in their minds when they came up with their plan, because at that point why pretend that they aren't equals?

and narratively, framing them on the kerberos (where the viewer sees them) as still being employer and servant immediately sets a different tone for their relationship! this is a show where two other major romantic pairings involving class differences (and im referring to clémence/jérôme and ling yi/olek here) very much are about respect and seeing the other person as an equal. if we start the show with ramiro as a servant, ángel is immediately framed differently because when they had the choice to be equals, he would've then chosen to keep ramiro as someone lesser than him. literally everything about their relationship would've been cast in an uglier light, especially with ángel's early behavior. given that we're supposed to see these two as a central romantic pairing that was 99% likely endgame and going by the story of their relationship in s1 (with both of them becoming the kind of people they want to be), it wouldn't have made narrative sense for them to keep the idea of being employer and servant as a cover story.

back to in universe stuff but - in episode three, ramiro has the line about ángel treating him like he's lesser than him, but genuinely i do love that the show frames their decision as "we're traveling as equals" because i do think it says a lot about their relationship both before the priest's death and the kerberos as well as the direction their story goes once on the ship. and what it says is that for all his shitty behavior, ángel does view ramiro as his equal. if he didn't, i genuinely think that he'd have just left ramiro in spain, because why would he run away with a guy he didn't genuinely love and care for?

[anxiously-sidequesting]

So I don't know if it was ever revealed how Duncan felt when we killed Malistaire all three times but I'm wondering if maybe some part of him could hate us for that too. Like you hear that and you go "but why. Malistaire was terrible and even Duncan knew that(?). Why would he hate you for getting rid of him."

But like I think it's so....... interesting in a very, very, very sad way how Duncan so easily latches onto anyone who directly feeds into his delusions of grandeur. And that's no fault of his own that he was manipulated by the nasty Schism but when you think about how desperately clung to the idea that Malistaire, easily one of the greatest necromancers any of us had ever heard of (at that time), somehow actually recognized Duncan's talents (even when canon supports that Duncan wasn't all that talented, at least no more than the next necromancer) and then praised him for it so often that Duncan believed that he would be the next Death Professor is. I mean ☹️

So like with that mindset I unfortunately feel like it would be quite easy to twist even Malistaire's death as something that's horrible and awful and all our fault. ESPECIALLY if the Schism was feeding into Duncan's already broken mind and shattered ego and was constantly telling him that everything bad that ever happened to him ever in his life was Our Fault. That's like a realistic conclusion that someone like Duncan could come to

And like, at this point in time, are Malistaire's crimes even a factor in how he thinks????? Was Duncan ever able to separate Malistaire's talent and skills and prowess from the terrible and awful things he did? If Duncan wasn't able to consciously tell that distinction in the first place I can't imagine it would be any better during the years he was being manipulated and isolated and lied to

Like in Duncan's mind it probably isn't, "maybe I shouldn't idolize a national criminal, or idolize anyone at all for that matter, and aspire to be like someone so harmful when I can recognize my own talent and build from there" it's probably more like, "you (the wizard) permanently got rid of a brilliant mind, an innocent person who just made a few mistakes, and someone who believed in me no matter what just so that you could be the better than me and loved by everyone else" and that's! very sad actually!

[danielnelsen]

things aren’t going well with peach. while i think my dad’s very right to be concerned that she hasn’t eaten anything in nearly 60 hours (obviously i am too), im becoming increasingly concerned that she hasn’t slept at all in around 36 hours and prior to that she was under anaesthetic, which isn’t exactly restful, so it’s closer to 48 hrs

like dad took her back to the vet today and we’ve got injections for her painkillers now because she’s not eating, and also injections for fluids (because she doesn’t drink; she only gets water from her food), so the not eating is Bad but also kinda under management, but if she doesn’t sleep soon i’m extremely worried. dad was like ‘if she doesn’t eat by tomorrow afternoon we’ll take her back because the injections will run out’ but like. if she doesn’t sleep tonight we have GOT to take her back first thing in the morning so they can sedate her or something

[cvsette]

My roommate got back from the hospital (still not sure why he went other than that it was for mental health reasons) and was smoking sitting right under my A/C and as I was waiting for him to get up so I could leave I was like “hey sorry I have to go to my MRI appointment” and he was like “hey...can we talk?” and I was like “no Sorry I have to go to my MRI?” And now I’m brainstorming ways to stay away from the apartment for as long as possible with a slightly better but still thrown out back