#and yes all those censors are for me not to expose myself on the internet (even though i overshare way too much) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

bigskydreaming · 5 years ago

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Saying that a fictional depiction of a rape is the same as promoting rape is like saying that writing a story about a character being gaybashed is promoting gaybashing. If you have the right to write a story based on your experiences, why don't I? Also, where's the line between depiction and romanticisation? There is none. At all. -- queer survivor who will not let you or anyone silence me.

Literally not something I’ve ever said, so congrats on the reading comprehension and thanks for being the 8,647th person to hop in my inbox or on one of my posts about this subject and attempt to make it about everything EXCEPT for things I actually have said and believe.

And for the record, there is a very clear line between depiction and romanticisation, are you kidding me??? Do you even get how communication works?

A work of fiction that essentially says “here are events that happened,” is a depiction.

A work of fiction that essentially says “here are events that happened, and the way in which they happened is intended to be received as sexy or romantic, as is further evidenced by reader reception in the form of comments about how sexy or romantic that depiction of events that happened was,”

....THAT is romanticization.

I am so, so, soooooooooo endlessly tired of being engaged by people who insist on being willfully dishonest and hypocritical about how much power they perceive fiction as having.

Every other day of the week, fanfic is empowering because it gives literally any of us a platform with which to reach other fans and express our own ideas, storylines and emotions regarding characters we all share an interest in.

But the second THIS conversation comes up, in ANY of its myriad forms, suddenly you’re all like, “ummmmm.....I am just a helpless little author who has never shaped anything I’ve ever written with any kind of specific intent or goal towards how I want the audience to receive or perceive my story?? I wouldn’t even know how to go about doing that? Is that even a thing?”

You all know damn well the difference between a story that depicts rape, pedophilia and incest, and a story that romanticizes/sensationalizes/uses those things as the specific elements that are supposed to result in that story being sexually gratifying to readers who engage with it.

Like, lmfao, I’m not the prude anyone makes me out to be, any more than I’m this evil censor about to go into all your houses and strip you of your ability to write whatever you want. Shockingly, guess what? I’ve written erotica myself! Not about those topics, clearly, but I’ve literally written and sold stories that I wrote with the specific intention of being perceived as erotic, sexy, romantic, etc.....

BECAUSE I, LIKE MOST OTHER WRITERS, KNOWS HOW TO GEAR A STORY IN VARIOUS DIRECTIONS WITHOUT HAVING TO ACTUALLY INCLUDE THE HEADERS “THIS PART IS JUST A DEPICTION” AND “OKAY NOW THIS PART YOU SHOULD THINK IS SEXY.”

LOLOL I’m so fucking tired. Literally the only message I have ever expressed on this subject in all the years I’ve been posting about it, on my own damn blog, in my own damn threads, with people like you always being the one to come and engage ME and still somehow operate under the impression that YOU’RE the ones being silenced here, like I’m the one going around to shut down everything YOU’RE saying every time you even open your mouth on a specific subject.....

Like, did I make that clear enough? Was the irony pointed enough there? Is it maybe sinking in a little, the utter ABSURDITY of people like you streaming into my inbox night after night, week after week, to yell “STOP SILENCING ME, I WILL NOT BE OPPRESSED OR CENSORED BY YOU”.....

When I literally have no idea who most of you are, thus couldn’t silence you even if I WANTED to, which again, is not something I’ve ever even expressed, given that my message on this subject over. And over. And over. And over. AND ALWAYS AND CONSISTENTLY IS:

I am not for censorship. Not only do I hate censorship, I don’t view it as even slightly effective, and at most its like trying to slap a bandaid on top of a wound without any attempt to even examine the injury itself and see how it came to be and what it really needs to be effectively treated.

My viewpoints on this subject have always been about one thing and one thing only: personal accountability.

As in, I advocate for people to just fucking apply a little more awareness to their OWN power, their OWN impact, their OWN platform....even if that platform is only fanfiction on the internet, yes.

Power and impact and influence are all still there, even among fanfic writers, as anyone who’s ever posted or reblogged about the legitimacy of fanfiction as a form of fiction, like, already damn well knows, so its so exasperating seeing that fly right out the window the second anyone asks a fanfic writer to scrutinize their own work to even just make sure THEY THEMSELVES are okay with ALL the potential impacts of whatever it is they’re writing.

Fiction is just language. Language is just a tool for communicating ideas, intents, emotions, experiences and more.

And like literally any other tool in the history of humanity, for this is literally the nature of tools and how they work....

A tool has no inherent ‘goodness’ that makes it IMPOSSIBLE to be wielded in a way that produces harm. It simply exists. And its capacity to help or to harm, to be used in positive ways or negative ways.....depends SOLELY on its wielder and how they apply that tool and to what ends.

Fiction, whether the kind on bookshelves in stores or the kind found only on Ao3....has tremendous power. It communicates new ideas to people who’ve never considered a certain point of view before. It conveys new experiences to people who would never encounter something depicted firsthand in their own day to day lives. It conveys emotions, imbued into the narrative by the author themselves, even if those emotions are not necessarily always what the author thinks they are or intended them to be or not always ones readers truly read into the text versus simply project onto the text themselves.

But there are an infinite variety of ways in which fiction has power, has impact, can and does reach people. It connects people, linking them via shared experiences or viewpoints or ideas so that a reader seeing themselves represented in what an author is writing can at least say they’re not alone, there’s someone else out there who says or thinks or experiences things similar to them. It can persuade people, exposing them to new viewpoints they’ve never considered before and convincing them of their validity by the arguments written into the text, even if they were never intended that way or the author might not even consciously be aware of making an argument in the text. It can fortify people, reassuring them that a perspective they have on a subject does have validity because here in this story, there’s someone thinking the same things for the same reasons. It can help people heal or even just hold on long enough to heal, by seeing their own tragedies reflected in a fictional mirror that still manages to impart that healing and recovery after something tragic are possible, that there is potentially more good still to come, in a reader’s life just as in a character’s story.

All I have ever expressed, over and over and over, is that its important to always keep sight of the fact that because fiction is just a tool, and not any more infallible than any writer using it to convey their thoughts and ideas and emotions.....

Fiction DOES still have just as much power to harm, too, if wielded irresponsibly. Everything I just detailed above has a flip side. Its a two way street, it can go both ways. Fiction can just as easily connect bigoted people, white supremacists, homophobes, transphobes, etc.....via shared experiences or viewpoints that reflect and empower the perspectives of bigots, etc. It can persuade people to do or think things that aren’t healthy, by exposing them to toxic viewpoints and convincing them of their validity due to a reader being vulnerable to various arguments that are made in bad faith. And no, this does not mean that I’m saying people run out and do what they see depicted or even romanticized in fiction. I’m simply saying fiction holds every capacity to convince people of the validity of something harmful as much as something healing.....it all just depends on how important that particular thing or argument is to their specific lives, how vulnerable or exposed they are to particular arguments, how much weight they give it, etc, etc. There are a ton of factors here. All I’m saying is this IS a factor, its included among those many, many other things.

Moving on....it can fortify the worst kind of people, reassure them that their prejudices or toxic viewpoint on a subject has validity because a story is seemingly endorsing it without any sign within the narrative that the characters’ perspective on this matter IS flawed, or toxic or unhealthy or prejudiced, rather than just a straight forward and unbiased depiction. And yes, it can hinder personal healing or recovering, by keeping a reader mired in the same kind of thoughts or emotions they’re already currently battling and reinforcing their personal perception that there is no alternative to those things, etc, etc.

None of these are in any way a given, with any given story, any given writer, any given reader. There are tons of variables, as I said.

But also as I’ve said....my only point has always just been that these things EXIST, the potential for these things to happen in this or that way EXISTS, and it is willfully dishonest of fanfic writers and readers to insist on the power of fanfiction to help, to heal, to connect people......while simultaneously trying to absolve themselves of even the need to be CAREFUL with how they wield the power of fiction, because apparently, with fanfiction, its ONLY ever a one way street. Fanfiction NEVER has the power to harm, to reinforce negative or prejudiced perspectives, impart and convince readers of toxic viewpoints and arguments.

How can you pretend that’s not how this works? That saying la la la, I’m JUST a fanfic writer, I only have a couple hundred readers maybe, so by virtue of that, somehow, only good things can result from my writing, there’s noooooooo possible negative impact to any of my work or various ideas I put forth....

Like, that isn’t a thing! LOLOL. That’s not a disclaimer with any power or truth. All it is, is a fandom-spread and perpetuated lie meant to reassure people that here in this space, there is a kind of power that unlike ALL OTHER FORMS OF POWER IN EXISTENCE.....can only ever be a good thing, a positive thing...and thus there is no need for any one in a fandom space, whether writer or reader, to ever have to be on their guard or careful about what they say or believe the way they have to be ‘in the outside world.’ Here, in fandom, you can finally just RELAX, you can just enjoy yourself and have fun and not have to worry about whether you’re doing or saying the wrong thing because none of those things are even a POSSIBILITY here, and anyone who says otherwise is just trying to tarnish our perfect paradise, let the ugliness of the outside world into it via unnecessary and unasked for criticism and scrutiny that isn’t fair to apply here because its not like any of us have any real power, we’re just fans, writing stuff on the internet.

And people are just...DETERMINED not to accept that, or to even LOOK at it as the actual subject being discussed in a lot of these conversations. So you spin everything I and others like me say, turn them into arguments we’ve never actually espoused, warn against the perils of censorship we’ve never actually asked or advocated for, stand tall against the attempts to silence you...THAT HAVE NEVER ACTUALLY EXISTED.

Like....the message that bothers me, the communication that I personally am disturbed by seeing practically everywhere I look in fandom? Yes....its the message conveyed by the mere existence, the sheer volume of fics that depict traumas exactly like mine....but in ways that sexualize them, make them seem more about erotic fantasy rather than the abuses of power that they are in real life. I hate these kinds of stories, and just how damn MUCH of them there are, its true. I’m not denying it, I’ve never denied it. To me, them and all the hundreds and thousands of kudos and comments they receive - even without reading the fics directly, just via a mere AWARENESS that these conversations are taking place, no matter how hard I try to pretend otherwise - to me, the message being conveyed over and over by them is that in the right light, from the right angle, things that happened to me at various points in my life are HOT, are SEXY.....

Like as an example, since apparently it seems I’ve been using my ‘gaybashed’ card too freely and unfairly shutting down conversations like this (lol again, let’s not forget, conversations that I begin, on my own blog, and that not a damn one of you is forced to interact with no matter how hard to play the STOP SILENCING angle when voluntarily approaching ME and trying to shame or guilt ME into not talking so much about this topic, aka SILENCING MEEEEEEEEEE)...

Anyway, all that aside, for this example let me pull from something I don’t talk about as much: the years when I was an escort in my late teens and early twenties, literally getting into bed with much older and extremely predatory men because I needed the money....AND because I was using this in part as a ‘coping mechanism’ to convince myself that sex had no power to hurt me. That thus by doing this I was retroactively taking away my rapes’ ability to harm me in the first place, and thus, I had never really been harmed and was FINE..... Except I was very much NOT okay, I absolutely ended up revictimized and further traumatizing myself because a lot of the people I interacted with at that period of my life were NOT good people and DIDN’T have a care for my best interests or even safety, even while saying and doing all the right things, the sexy things, even the romantic things...

I mean, I’m just saying....I could absolutely, without a doubt, write some of my own life experiences, things that were traumatizing to me and have left lingering scars....I could take some of those and write them in such a way as to have a sexualized or romanticized slant, publish them on Ao3 with names swapped out for some fictional characters and call it an AU.......and I for sure would get comments and kudos about how hot all of that was.

Now, I have no interest in doing that, obviously....but the thing is, I don’t HAVE to. Because those stories already EXIST, even if they don’t exactly match up to my specific experiences and they’re written by people who literally have no idea I even exist, let alone have lived through scenes eerily similar to what they write.

And just like those stories exist....the comments, and the kudos, and the praise and the glorification of these stories, the events depicted within them, the DYNAMICS depicted within them....these already exist as well. And I’m painfully, PAINFULLY aware of that. Every day. Every fandom I’m in. Every fandom I’ve ever been in.

And it SUCKS. I hate knowing that two posts down from some story I’m reading, there’s a story that has people drooling over the exact kind of predator that fucked with me and my head so much back in those years. I hate stumbling into an untagged AU every once in awhile and finding Bruce being depicted as Dick’s sugar daddy, preying on the MUCH younger man that we all normally associate with being his SON.....and knowing from past experience that if I click on the comments, almost without a doubt, judging by the 22 comments on one chapter alone, I’ll find enough swooning over how HOT and ROMANTIC this is, that it will most likely make me violently ill for the rest of the night. Because I so INTIMATELY know that there is NOTHING safe or healthy or not fucking traumatizing about that kind of dynamic with a person who is SUPPOSED to be safe and trustworthy to be around.......and I’m reminded all over again, just like I have been at SO MANY points in my life....how many people just don’t want to HEAR this, because they prefer their fantasy over the reality I know firsthand....BUT NONE OF THAT MAKES MY REALITY ANY LESS REAL OR LIVED THROUGH.

The thing so many of you don’t get is....none of this is even about whether I read these stories or not, none of it is about whether all of them get tagged properly or not....hell, none of it is actually about whether the people writing these fics are actually pedophiles or ‘endorsing’ these things or anything like that....I NEVER ARGUE ANY OF THAT, BECAUSE NONE OF IT IS THE POINT.

The point is just....the sheer bombardment of a singular message across so many fandoms, so many pairings, from so many people....

With that message being, to a very wide audience....with the right character in the right scenario....the things that for various people like myself and other survivors who DON’T like being surrounded by all this either, whether or not there are many survivors who for whatever reason DO find themselves okay with it...

(And considering our existence and arguments don’t invalidate your acceptance of these things, why do you so confidently tout the idea that YOUR existence and arguments should somehow innately just make all of this less objectionable to us? Just curious.)

The point is, no matter who is writing these stories or why, whether they ACTUALLY endorse these things or would never in a million years find them acceptable in real life (and again, why are you so confident that this is true for EVERYONE who writes these things, and by extension, why the FUCK do you presume its okay to expect all survivors to just give EVERYONE the benefit of the doubt as to why they’re writing these stories, when some of them are virtually indistinguishable from the kinds of things someone who DID find these things hot and sexy to enact on others in real life, would write themselves)....

Like.....none of that matters. Because none of that in any way affects the reality so many of us experience in fandom spaces:

That over and over we’re reminded that what was devastatingly traumatic for us, and impacts every day of our lives ever since.....to a wide audience of others, is just a hot, sexy fantasy and they’re all crying out MORE, MORE, GIVE US MORE.

And you all just sit back there and just us for saying....”it really bothers us to be surrounded by this message everywhere we turn.”

You shame US for saying this makes our fandom environment toxic and hostile at times.....and you flip the script and ask how dare WE shame survivors, who are probably just using these fics to cope....and literally ALL the people reading and writing these fics are survivors probably, I mean, you don’t know....and of course it’d be wildly inappropriate to ask so its probably best to just assume everyone writing these things are survivors....and thus we, no matter if we are survivors ourselves, have no business SHAMING or SILENCING them for just working through their shit in ways that its not even like it can actually hurt us anyway.

Except it DOES. It IS. And we say that, and you REFUSE TO HEAR US. You say “well this isn’t true for me, so it can’t be true for you or else just doesn’t matter if it is,” even though at no point have I or others I know ever said “because this is true for me, I am assuming it to be true for all survivors.”

You come into MY inbox, and act like you’re standing tall and proud against MY silencing tactics. Yeah, would I love it if I could go even a single day without having to gingerly avoid these stories and all mention of them, all casual references to them, all glowing praise of them, everywhere I look in fandom? Absofuckinglutely. Does me WANTING this thing - this thing we all know is never in actual danger of happening, lol - does this in ANY way ACTIONABLY translate into me censoring anyone, impeding anyone’s ability to write or post or read these things, is it me going in the comments of any of these fics and yelling HOW DARE YOU WRITE THIS and when that doesn’t get me the response I want, going to the blogs of the writers and yelling I WILL NOT BE SILENCED?

No. No. And fuck no. None of these things are happening, none of these things are reality.

And yet here you are, like SOOOOOOO MANY before you and like SOOOOOO MANY who will inevitably follow you in the future....

And your condescension and disdain for me and everything I think and everything I’ve lived through and my willingness or even just the way I choose to talk about it, just JUMPS off the page.

But the thing that will never not just absolutely fucking SLAY me, is the sheer absurdity of the accusations you and so many others level against me for MY censorship, MY shaming of other survivors. MY silencing tactics or whatever....

When you consider the fact that, yeah, I would love not having to see all these stories and other related things every single day. I would LOVE it.

But I’m not doing a single damn thing to make that a reality, to make that a DANGER, a THREAT to you and the thing you enjoy.....

Other than posting about it on my blog, and expressing how I feel about it, and arguing why I wish other people would spend more time considering perspectives like mine on the matter.

That’s it. That’s the whole grand conspiracy. That’s my awful and terrible assault on you and your autonomy and your freedom of speech and your interests and likes.

And meanwhile, here you are, stepping forward to confront ME in my own space about things I’ve said here and nowhere else that you’re forced to engage with and interact with and incapable of avoiding....

And you have the utter GALL to tell ME that YOU will not be silenced by the likes of me.

When every single person who reads this knows DAMN well that you and others like you only send me all these anons......

Because you want me to shut up and just never talk about these things again, as much if not more than I wish all these people would not even stop writing.....but rather just....would consider writing literally ANYTHING else instead.

But somehow, for some reason....when YOU want ME to stop talking....you’re not trying to silence me, or censor me, or any of those other things, oh know.

Its just me talking about my own damn feelings, experiences and opinions on my own damn blog.

THAT’S the real threat to fandom togetherness, community, and freedom of speech and personal autonomy.

LOL. Awfully convenient, wouldn’t you say?

But whatever. Its all good, anon. You go ahead and keep the moral high ground here. You’ve earned it, clearly.

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jakattax · 5 years ago

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That is a very interesting point to raise and I definitely see on a daily basis a growing discontent towards ceremonialists like myself who adhere to the originating texts and carry out a traditional evocation, traditional meaning magician in circle, lengthy rites, usually the demon bound to a specific area for safety and containment. I’ve been recently called out on these methods as to some they are deemed harmful or disrespectful to the spirit at hand, as if they have they have kinship or compassion or even a degree of familiar friendship with spirits, in particular demons and most prominent with the 72 demons of the ars goetia. So much a rising anger and general distaste of these methods that even the word ‘Solomonic’ has been censored as if it’s a crass and vile insult, used only you wish to invoke the vengeful ghost of King Solomon. To say of demons are well meaning or not is a completely different debate, as spiritual entities we can’t really categorise or place any notion of human emotions or feelings unto spirits, as a whole we can’t invent their own motives or desires because it’s something we as humans won’t be able to comprehend. Can demons be deemed ‘good’ and ‘helpful’? Absolutely. Can demons not deemed ‘wicked’ and ‘unhelpful’? Again absolutely. There is no wide generalisation of such petty morality as good or evil in the mind of spirits or demons, they just can’t be registered on a scale, they are unquantified, immeasurable, neither white or black and not necessarily grey either. As magic is the highest form of natural science and philosophy, it’s the job and duty of the Magus to explore these areas and not just to form a consensus because someone in the Internet said so. What is deemed the Solomonic method of evocation, the formula and method which the vast majority of magicians have used for centuries is naturally the most appropriate and by far the safest method to achieve evocation. As I said that demons are morally ambiguous spiritual agents, they’re still a force from hell and being such their inherent energies tend to focus more on the wild and deceptive side, not necessarily ‘evil’ at all, just an aura of uncontrolled, feral power. And in a setting in which the Magus and those around him/her can be exposed to this is not ideal, as incorporeal beings they can effect your surroundings, body, mind and soul in a negative way. The ‘Solomonic’ method (I don’t really like labelling any form of spiritual ritual evocation as Solomonic in nature but I’ll use it for the sake of brevity) ensures that this can’t happen, it ensures that the magician is safely contained within the circle and that the demon is safely contained within the triangle. Yes there are spells in the Goetia such as the black handled knife, Greater Curse and the Curse of the fire in which the Magus places the sigil (the symbolic and physical representation of the demon) into a metal box and hands it over fire, thus in effect burning the demon until it relents into obedience, and yes these measures can be perceived as extreme. However in a ritual setting your never going to be guaranteed 100% success regarding who or what you conjure, you could spend the entire ritual in the hopes of contacting say Buer and you get a spirit which you either can’t identify or may be masquerading as Buer or may be a completely different demon of the Goetia altogether. What are you going to do then? Ask it nicely to go away? Demons do not respond to kindness and good intentions, if a demon is being unruly and uncooperative you simply must take these measures to rid yourself of it. Usually the knife of black handle will suffice, but the whole reason why these spells and curses against the demon exist is that they work in repelling the spirit. A demon cannot feel bad or be injured or wounded, a magician certainly can, a magician could die if they screw up a demonic evocation, these curses send the demon away, don’t be concerned about the feelings of a demon because they have little concern for you.

However under the right circumstances and when the evocation is carried out in the proper manner with the Magus showing due respect, veneration and adherence to the text, these complexities don’t happen; the demon is summoned safely, the Magus is safe, the request is given, you achieve or fail, Depart the demon and job done. No ‘harm’ done to the demon and hopefully no damage done to the magician through the operation. That’s as easy as it is. Read the book, follow the instructions and do the magic. The ars goetia, well in fact the entire Lemegeton is one of the few ‘complete’ traditional grimoires and as a system of magic it is in its entirety (well the ars notoria is a bit fuddled) and it is functional, practical and workable. Yes there are definite obstacles and hurdles such as the many tools you require and yes it ideally needs a prolonged period of study devoted to it, but once fully digested it is a relatively simple grimoire to work with.

And I think that’s where the modern problem of ‘boo you enslave demons!’ lies; in a nutshell it’s idleness and a lazy attitude to practical magic.

I don’t watch or interact with anime so can’t possibly comment on their representation of Demons or a western ceremonial magic evocation, and it’ll be impossible as a human to comprehend if there is a demonic agenda or conspiracy at work, for all we know there is, however I lack both the scholarly and practical knowledge to exposit further. However to address my prior point of laziness in magic; I’ve been on tumblr for over a year now, so I’m still new I know, and I joined because I understood that out of all social media platforms this one was most alive with the occult and magic. Before I joined tumblr I was very hermetic in my 10 odd years of magical study and practise so this is all relatively fresh to me. And I’m still constantly surprised and occasionally upset by the sheer amount of inaccuracies, deception, falsehoods and errors regarding some methods of magic. As a student of ceremonial magic with a dash of Alexandrian and Gardnerian Wicca with some traditional English witchcraft knowledge obviously I don’t know everything about every method and path of magic. And the constant thing which pops up the most is this modern attitude that magic is both simplistic and quick. That intent is all that matters and if you brush your hair you’ll get good fortune and if you drink water Persephone will give you a boon (I’m just using gross exaggeration here not specifically calling any one out. Well I am really, just no one in mind) and just this attitude that anything can be achieved with a bright attitude and a mindful of hope. Wonderful if your a happy go lucky existentialist and a very good way to live your life, but not in magic, not in ceremonial magic or evocation. Demons and spirits require hard work to get into contact with, it’s by no means a necessarily easy procedure as it demands time, effort, devotion and restraint, just like anything in life it gets easier with practise but it remains a long and arduous process. A sigil alone is not enough, the sigil is a demons written signature, it’s calling card, having one drawn on the ground is not enough to get a response. It may turn a head or get its eyes on you in conjecture with other factors but alone it’ll achieve nothing. There also seems to exist this feeling that demons can be companions, even friends and I’m not even going there because it’s laughable. I’m sorry but it is, your either deceiving others with your claims, deceiving yourself or just plain delusional if you think Baal has your back and is your personal chum. Obviously I’m being quite critical over the notion of demonolatory, again a relatively new term to me. As a core principal and philosophy of actual worship of a demon is just a bad, I’m running out of fancy words so I’ll just say bad. I think this attitude of magicians being the bad guys is a hodge podge of how everyone wants magic to be easier, so everyone skips the proper evocation techniques and those who do them are labelled ‘elitist’ just because we actually, you know, do the work. It’s not elitism in the slightest, it’s just that if you want the magic in the text to work you need to put in the work 🤷‍♀️ simples. And I certainly feel that maybe in the eyes of pop culture demons have become somewhat...cutesy. Look at poor Stolas for example. I think it’s this systematic dumbing down of demons in combination with a lazy attitude to magic that puts this idea into some people s head that demons are A: easy to contact and B: will be my friend. Naturally this is dangerous magic as your willingly opening yourself up to coercion and influence, you become blinkered almost and the ‘Solomonic’ methods are designed to counteract all of that, to secure the integrity of the magician so it’s he/her in control and not the spiritual force.

I’m losing cohesion now so I’ll wrap up. Yes this modern attitude of “Boo! Nasty S*lomonic magician hurting demons!” Is in this odd crucible of idleness, misinformation, pop culture attitudes and a lack of understanding of the core principles and working of ceremonial evocation, again in particular to the ars goetia. It is hard to deconstruct in its entirety and this is all just speculation and conjecture on my part. Obviously as a ceremonial magician I will always champion the ceremonial magic methodology, they haven’t changed or evolved (much) over the centuries for a very simple reason; it works. So don’t fix what isn’t broken.

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otp-armada · 5 years ago

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A Time Capsule

I’ve been lurking across several fandoms spanning a decade now, since my days of reading “Bones” fanfics on fanfiction.net. Before any inkling of Ao3’s existence. Maybe longer, my memory is murky at times.

I’ve never made a splash in any fandom, so to speak. I’ve always been content to stand shrouded in anonymity, residing on the edges of fandom, never an active participant. Perfectly at peace to never have a voice. Never brave enough to want to be heard. It has only been in the last few years that I discovered Tumblr and felt comfortable enough in taking advantage of its anon feature to interact mostly with The 100/Bellarke crowd, “conversing” with one user in particular. In the instances I chose to speak, there was safety in knowing my words never had an identity attached. A safety that lent itself to sending anon asks a fairly common activity until I wrote one recently sharing a remnant of my “The 100” viewing experience. The warm response from the users who read it left me smiling for the rest of the day. Their reply took a direction I didn’t expect. They encouraged me to take credit for my words under my username, which of course, I didn’t have, not being a Tumblr user.

I was flattered by the response, bolstering me to continue the line of conversation with another ask and was met with reiterated sentiments.

In the wise words of one of those awesome people,

“I was the ultimate lurker for a long, long time. I had a Tumblr account for four years before I ever made a single post, and even then I had to be talked into it. And you know what? When I finally starting “talking,” it was so freeing! Even if no one else was listening, even if I was speaking into the void, I was no longer dependent on anyone else to share my thoughts and opinions. I could do that myself.”

I took the compliment but waived the advice. Tumblr is made of communities built upon sharing and I have always been unto myself an island. It goes against my shy, introverted nature to take part in a community. I have no business pretending I have a place there. None at all.

And yet, despite my misgivings, the idea wouldn’t leave me as I believed it would. I started to genuinely ponder the merits of creating a blog.

There are strong reasons to support the affirmative.

First, the utilitarian benefits. In the absence of a blog, I turned to alternative methods of archiving appealing posts. If by some miracle, the item count of my browser reading list hasn’t yet ascended to the thousands mark, it most assuredly rests in the hundreds. My camera roll queue has indubitably reached the thousands count, currently sitting pretty at 3,300. I shudder to think of the sheer number of my bookmarks. One hundred and eighty notes on my phone. The final frontier has been broken, at last, habitually inundating my laptop with screenshots. Long has it been overdue to clean house.

Second, I find writing to be a herculean undertaking I enjoy in the moments it doesn’t drive me to the brink. A slow-going process, but when I’m able to appreciate the fruits of my labor, marvel at the polished product, I often feel quite proud. Writing is a skill I’ve lost touch with over years of disuse but found incrementally returning while expressing my opinions via Tumblr asks. Like any skill, it can be honed with time and practice. Transferring my streams of consciousness onto written medium challenges me to think critically, ask myself if my POV genuinely holds true or falls apart, requiring further reflection. If nothing else, it’s a good way to process thoughts and emotions. I find it easier than and therefore preferable to oral communication. I am a perpetual editor, always amending my statements which can’t really be done as effectively in speech.

Third, if there was ever a time to join the Tumblr fandom I’ve found a home in for the last three years, why not in time for the show’s last ride? The night I signed up for Tumblr coincided the first day of “The 100” cast and crew filming their 100th and poetically final episode. Around the same space of time, we got a release date and the nostalgic goodbyes of a few cast members rolled in. I know when Bellarke crosses the last threshold, I’d want it plastered all over my dash and I’d be able to make it happen.

But where there are pros, the cons inevitably follow.

Do I really need a further distraction from my responsibilities, spending additional hours and expending more energy I should not spare online? The too easy potential for more hours behind a screen when prone to headaches and horrid habits of not regulating my eating and sleeping schedules? The answer is a clear and resounding “No.” Would maintaining a blog be harmful to my mental and emotional health? Remaining anonymous has historically done a fine job of insulating me from general rebuke, which has mitigated the risk of reproach at least. No corner of the internet can be designated as a safe space. I knew I would in all likelihood have to work diligently to curate and be responsible for my experience, leading me to doubt how the effort could possibly be worth it. How could it be worth feeling exposed, self-conscious? Constantly second-guessing myself, debating whether or not my thoughts are best kept within the privacy of my mind to avoid stepping on anyone’s toes? Combating the periodic skepticism that my thoughts possess value worth writing?

There was always the lingering possibility I was overthinking the decision to my detriment, as is my norm. After all, it seemed silly and dramatic to regard one obscure little blog in a sea of hundreds of millions of social media users as momentous. But I know myself better than that. It is a really fucking big deal for me.

I vacillated between both sides of the argument for days before deciding not to follow through with the venture.

And then one night, a single stray observation ran through my mind. One observation became another, became another and before I knew it, I had formed the grounds for an entire meta post. It didn’t end there. More ideas filtered through. I expanded on those ideas. More traction gained. Another meta formed. More jumping off previous points. Before long, I had mentally written the foundations for four metas. And I was so excited and proud of forming these connections to this puzzle without even trying that I wanted to share it. I sat down to write them in my trusty Notes, outlining, trying to jot the main points down before they fizzled away from memory. I saw how long-winded these spiels had gotten sans the full writeup, subsequently rationalizing…well, not blowing up someone’s inbox is just good manners, isn’t it? And terribly inefficient to boot. More to the point, it seemed a disservice to myself to censor my rumination to fit the small confines of a Tumblr ask box.

The part of me that wanted to push forward envisioned what the future of my blogging efforts may look like. That part knows that this blog is for me and only me. What makes me laugh, what makes me cry. Smile. Rage. Flail. Think. Whatever the hell I want. I get to say what I want, however, I want. It’s incredibly nerve-wracking. It’s also exciting, thrilling, and yes, freeing. The notion of carving out a tiny space for me to fill to the endless brim with whatever brings me joy makes me…really damn happy. It’s not an easy feat to accept and harder to retain. I should be ok, so long as I never forget that I get to be in control of what happens here. It’s within my right to block anyone I don’t want to engage or associate with. It’s my full right to not care what anyone else has to say if I don’t want to. Block out anything negative I don’t want to endure with only a few clicks. If I decide I want to walk away, permanently or otherwise, for any reason, it’s within my right to do that too. It’s comforting.

There was a time when I “knew” I would never sign up for an Ao3 account until one of my favorite authors withdrew the majority of her stories from public consumption. I “knew” I was never going to post commentary until I did. I “knew” my username would never be seen by anyone aside from me, never to be affiliated with my commentary until it was.

I did. Each and every time I thought I would never, I did. I broke my own barriers with patience and some courage. Maybe the most intimidating aspect of something new is simply the beginning. I said earlier that I’ve been an island for nearly as long as I can remember. It’s still true, I don’t expect overnight results. It’s probably going to be true for a long time. Perhaps forever. But maybe it’s all the more reason why I should take this step toward peeking out of my self-imposed shell. Do what scares you, or whatever it is they say.

I wish I could say it was enough to reverse my earlier verdict.

Nope, I had to agonize some more.

What can I say? Fear is a damn powerful inhibitor.

Lo and behold, as if the universe took pity on me, I got the chance to communicate directly with the same awesome lady whom I quoted above and she kindly offered some more merciful wisdom to a truly maddeningly indecisive individual:

“When you create a blog, you are STILL anonymous. You have a username, yes, but it doesn’t lead back to you unless you want it to. You still have your personal privacy. Tumblr isn’t Facebook. If you want to disclose personal information, you can, but you certainly don’t have to.

And second, your blog is for you, not for anyone else. It’s for you to express your own opinions. Or create gifs or other visuals. Or just repost what other people create. You can be on every day, or just once a week. It’s also a great way to save stuff you might want to look at again. And then… and then… when brilliance suddenly hits you, you have somewhere to let it hang out! 😁”

It was much I had already considered, but it helped immeasurably to have my reasoning reaffirmed from an external source I respect. I logged into Tumblr for the first time the very same night.

After much deliberation, an uncharacteristic burst of bravery and a grueling four hours I owe to technological ineptitude, I have, tentatively and cautiously, opted to give this Tumblr thing a go.

With luck, a day will never arrive when I dust this preamble off for a much-needed pep talk. Instead, it is my hope that one day, this memo-to-me will stand as proof that I don’t always need to be afraid of the unknown. Not all endeavors have to be as frightening as they may appear. And if I can apply this attitude to all else suppressing my personal growth, I might just be peachy someday.

Bearing this in mind…

…here we go.

#about me #personal

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rainbowloliofjustice · 2 years ago

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I do apologize but I’d like understand how it it silencing victims to say my abuse was fictionalized into media obscuring me identity . I was made into “ characters” I was for legal obscurity and other reasons no longer who I was. I was fictionalized . This is the term my medical issues apologies for any confusion there. Its not a phenomenon with a concrete legal definition yet./gen

It's silencing when you use it to bash other victims, blame proshippers (and while I myself don't particularly use the label, I know many of them are victims of CSEM/CSA and other forms of sexual abuse), advocate for censorship, etc. What you went through isn't "fictional". Yes your abuser changed things for legal obscurity but it doesn't make the fic itself (specifically in relation to you) fictional.

Simply put, it's damaging to refer to abuse you've been through as "fictional". There's a difference between "My abuser wrote stories/draw images of my abuse/me and those should be removed" and "fictional abuse should be removed".

Especially when many antis use "fictional CSEM" to refer to characters that range in appearance from Kanna to dragon maid to Momo from BNHA, call people pedos/predators, etc. over ships and other forms of fictional content, and basically use their abuse as a weapon against other survivors. /gen.

Also that i was exposed to generated images of CSEM fitting legal definitions that of CSEM being indistinguishable from real children but that of generated. It was generated “ non fact” in affect fictional CSEM. These images are not Real children but look like it in images maybe even children who are based on real people at all .It is often called generated ( digital or via sophisticated props) CSEM but in context of my medical appointments it is lumped together broadly in non specific discussions of as theyre very related in my story. I legitimately forgot this wasn’t just a thing because its so so common for me to discuss this way. For any confusion regarding I apologize.

When it fits the legal definition, it is disingenuous to call it "fictional" even if it is generated. If it is generated to look indistinguishable from a real, identifiable minor it is just CSEM. Not "fictional", not "generated" it just is. Calling it "fictional" or "generated" is not only harmful but incredibly dangerous considering people often use it to, once again, refer to purely fictional characters that bare little to no resemblance to real, identifiable minors.

There have been people that have posted legitimate CSEM but censored it in the same way that they would purely fictional NSFW content. Calling NSFW of Amphibia characters "fictional csem" or "csem" is not only dangerous, but it is harmful because it puts drawing purely fictional characters on the same level as having abused a real person and it encourages people to see fictional characters as if they are real people and treat real people as if they are characters. It blurs the line between reality and fiction to such a severe degree when people hear the terms "pedophile" and "groomer", many have to stop and ask "Is this about shipping discourse? Or did this person actually groom a child?" and that type of alarmage and use of language to describe purely fictional characters and content is once again, dangerous and disingenuous to victims and only serves to enable predatory people.

If you want to talk to your therapist about it that way, by all means, that's between you and your therapist. But once again when you make generalized posts calling it "fictional CSEM", blaming proshippers, etc. it is dangerous and disingenuous. If you want to vent and not have your posts criticized for the things they present, might I suggest a private blog or a diary.

I dont like above examples of CSEM being publicly accessible especially for profit.

Which is fine. No one wants that kinda content available on the internet. No one wants CSEM that qualifies as the legal definition of it widely available on the internet. However, as mentioned there's a difference between what is legally defined as that and what people consider ""CSEM""

I dont like “ proship” content I don’t seek to censor it. My experience was regarding stuff that broadly may fall under some “anti” labels hence tagged as such

I dont care about legal recourse for you liking some drawing of an anime kid I find offensive as my personal experience.

By definition of the terms in general, that would qualify you as "pro ship" or "pro fiction". Understandably, I get why you would tag some of your posts that way but 0/10 do not recommend it. Especially when you are expressing "sympathy" that comes off as condescending towards proshippers

To use a different example, it would be like making a post that says "I hate men" and then tagging it "radfem friendly" even if your experiences with the statement overlap with the "radfem friendly" tag. Why would I recommend against doing it? Because it puts your post in the circle of bigots.

Similar when it comes to antis, when you tag it as "antis" and "proship" when discussing real experiences even if it has an overlap, it puts your posts in the group of people who conflate fictional CSEM (i.e characters such Kanna), seek to censor media that offends them, wants legal recourse for people who write fictional content and in more extreme examples, engaged in doxxing, harassment, and spreading around legitimate CSEM to harass pro-shippers. Hell, it is even popular on places like twitter for antis to put a photo of a real child next to an anime character, photoshop the head of a baby onto an adult woman, trace over images of real children, and put them in sexualized clothes (or draw sexual clothing over the images of real children), etc. in order to prove that liking fucked up fictional content is "the exact same" as doing it to a real child.

My post was saying if you consume that content and look to a medical provider for advice regarding a specific source not a non trauma informed provider is best especially one who is sexual trauma informed.

That is fair but that isn't a "pro shipper" thing, that is just a general medical advice thing. There are many pro shippers who have trauma experts and sexual abuse experts who tell them that it is fine to engage with purely fictional content (either creation or consumption) if it helps vent their feelings, explore their feelings in a safe way, etc. Even if it wasn't your intention, your post comes off as "Medical experts can be wrong (which is true) so any therapist who tells you that it is fine to engage in problematic fiction regarding abuse, CSA, etc. is wrong (not true)"

When you say things like you did in your post, it comes off as condescending and telling people that unequivocally, their therapist is wrong if they say it is fine for the client to consume fiction revolving around their abuse (assuming the client is now of age and not a minor). Through no fault of your own (I assume), that very same post is being used to harass and demean people, it is being used as a justification to harass pro-shippers and tell them to get "a new therapist". It is not the first, second, third, fith, nor tenth time I've seen that same exact post being used as a means to harass and demean people over how they cope with trauma. Because it's being used as a "gotcha" to basically say "medical therapists can be wrong sometimes, therefore yours is wrong when they say you can use fiction to cope with trauma".

I get that it is likely not your fault nor intention, but when you pin things on "pro shippers" and "antis" that's what it ultimately comes down to. Even if it wasn't your intention and you just wanted to provide general medical advice to people, the way you worded it basically weaponized it against people who used fiction to cope with trauma.

I apologize for going so hard in on it, but that is why, especially with how it was tagged and discussed pro shippers and all things considered around the content of your blog saying how it isn't okay to cope with fiction, blaming pro-shippers for the existence of abusive content, etc. and equating the conception of fictional content if you have been a victim to self-harm.

Again I genuinely think you cane from a place of trying to protect how some survivors feel.

Similarly, I get you want to protect people who have content of their abuse specifically hosted on websites like AO3, drawn, etc. and I agree there should be more way of going about getting abusive content taken down. However, that isn't something that's the fault of pro shippers that such content exists. As I've mentioned, blaming it on them directly or indirectly is harmful to survivors and it serves to enable abusive people.

These can co exist, but please understand that post regarding how non trauma informed therapists may fuck up treating trauma wasn’t meant to hurt you. Its meant to help prevent malpractice.

In the context of that, I don't disagree. Like i've mentioned, it comes apart when you bring in "pro shippers" and word the post as if only they are victims of malpractice and indirectly frame it as "if your therapist tells you that it is fine to cope with fiction, get a new one".

I don’t know your stance on generated CSEM fitting legal definition that doesn’t contain images of a real child. I will not seek to assume either way as you have not specifically said in the case , legitimately just dont know as some believe this has medical benefits ( even if in my researchI dont find that compelling)/nm

It depends on "does not contain images of a real child". If by "does not contain images of a real child" you mean they are purely fictional characters, I don't think it fits legal definition. If it is made using the image of a real child (i.e traced, photoshopped, etc) then it would definitely qualify as CSEM even if they use it to represent or turn into a character.

That said, the consumption of NSFW anime or fictional characters may not have health benefits, but for many, it is a viable coping mechanism because a fictional setting allows them to explore their thoughts, feelings, etc. in a way that won't hurt anyone or themselves. Basically, the type of content you consume has no barings on how you are as a person, if you are more or less likely to abuse someone, etc. At most, you will exhibit more amounts of empathy if that.

Otherwise, the human brain is very good at telling the difference between what is fantasy and reality. Therefor, the type of fictional content you consume =/= you as a person or your morals.

So it's less so "this has proven medical benefits" but rather "This will not cause you any harm unless you have an illness that causes you to not be able to tell the difference between fictional content and reality". And for more specific types of dark media concerning sexual violence, csa, etc. even those don't have a baring on your morals or person. You aren't any more likely to be a predator whether you do or don't consume that kind of content regardless of whether it is presented as glorified, horrified, etc.

In short, research suggests that there is no negative side to dark or problematic media consumption. People like to play pretend, if anything you may experience more empathy.

This is only one source but there are many more if you search the internet. Unless the content is specifically triggering to you, many mental health advisors even say there's nothing wrong with the conception of it.

If you have anything to add, comments, recommendations, questions please lmk. /nm /gen

My recommendation would be that if you want to discuss medical malpractice, advocate for therapy, etc. stop (either directly or indirectly) putting the fault of the existence of fictional content on pro-shippers and/or tagging the posts proship, anti, etc. Especially when many antis have spread around and harassed victims of csa/csem and have committed some seriously vile acts.

I would seriously recommend getting away form some of the people you RB from, get out of the "anti vs pro ship" mindset and if you want to focus on medical trauma, your own abuse, etc. just do that without the dichotomy of "pro shippers" versus "antis", especially in a way that frames pro shippers as unequivicoly wrong in terms of how they engage in fiction, etc. especially when (judging from the posts of your blog) many people within the anti community have engaged in similar tactics.

Ofc I myself do not consider myself a "pro shipper" by label for different reasons, but I don't align myself with "antis" either because by virtue of not wanting to censor fiction, not wanting to harass people over fiction, not wanting people to face legal recourse over it, etc. and only being concerned with CSEM that fits the legal definition of it, it doesn't make me an "anti". Whether you intend for it or not from the people you've shared posts from, IMO you've aligned yourself with them and their ideals and much of which has an unhealthy relationship to fiction and how survivors should be treated.

This is especially true when you consider the worst of the respective communities. Like I mention, you don't have to associate with either and many people call themselves "pro fiction" or "anti harassment" or simply put, don't label themselves at all regardless of how or whether their experiences overlap with a tag unless you specifically want to be associated with people who use it.

I get wanting to remove imagery of your own csem regardless of the form it's in removed from the internet but advocating for ways of people to get it removed is very different than calling it "fictionalized" and calling for censorship regardless of whether you call it censorship or "drawing a line" when it comes to material unrelated to your own abuse.

It's just a roundabout way of silencing victims who don't fit under your guise of what a victim can/should do and shaming them for not fitting underneath your square little box.

#rainbow commentary

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pinelife3 · 4 years ago

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Whatever happened to Lainey Gossip?

Lainey Gossip was the smartest celebrity gossip site on the internet. I was an avid reader for most of my adult life. You may recall my April 2016 blog post about gossip and, in particular, blind items. Well, it’s been nearly a year since Lainey posted a blind item. In the site’s heyday (pre-2017), she posted a blind roughly once a month.

Beyond the drop-off in blind items, the site has decayed in a number of ways. It’s become smug and self-aggrandising. They rolled lifestyle content onto the main blog feed, so now I have to scroll past posts about, I kid you not, baby names. (Caring about baby names is so inherently stupid to me, I feel genuinely irritated just being exposed to that content. Just name your kid something out of the primary religious text for your culture/region/family. Adam can never go out of style.)

The main thing which has turned me off Lainey Gossip is the writers’ misapprehension that the site is some kind of arbiter on social justice issues. Every other day there is a post with some insufferable moralising about feminism, equality, systemic racism, Rowling’s transphobia etc. It’s not that these are bad takes - I actually agree with what they’re saying. But I don’t want to hear it on this site. I don’t refer to gossip writers for guidance on this. Lainey is not a political activist. The writers on the site are just regurgitating ideas and lessons they’ve learnt elsewhere. This post from June was the final straw for me. The relevant part of the post is Alia Shawkat’s apology for saying the n-word during an interview in 2016. The clip of her actually saying the n-word seems to have disappeared from the internet, but basically she was describing a time when she and some of her friends arrived in a very nice hotel and how she thought of the lyric: “Nigga, we made it" from the Drake song “We Made It”.

Here’s Lainey’s analysis:

As people have pointed out on Twitter, 2016 isn’t that long ago. And Alia was in her 20s. Whether or not you decide to cancel her, as many are doing, is up to you.

I can’t fully account for it, but the phrase ‘Whether or not you decide to cancel her is up to you’ rubbed me the wrong way. Whether you decide to cast her into the fire for not correctly censoring herself when quoting a Drake song. Whether she is destroyed as a person forever. A worthless husk. Irredeemable. Whether her soul should be torn out and her body fed to crows. That’s up to you. The new god? It’s you, the reader of this gossip blog!

youtube

This was during the peak of the Black Lives Matter protests and discussion this year. So, in the second half of the article Lainey gets high on her own farts, like so:

While I have never used the n-word casually, and many of you may say the same, we do all engage with Black art, we do all borrow from it, consciously or unconsciously, in the ways we express ourselves, in the way I have expressed myself here, from fashion to language to GIFs. Think of how much cultural colloquial vocabulary comes from the Black community – recent examples include “lit”, “snatched”, “shady”, “flex”, “tea”, and phrasing that’s become commonplace and permanent in our language like “chill”, “dope”, “extra” – all of this comes from the creativity of Black minds. And they’re almost never credited for it.

So yes, of course, call out people like Alia for their irresponsible use of the most egregious words, but at the same time, let’s all consider how much we owe to the Black community for what they’ve given to us and for little we’ve given back in respect, appreciation, and credit. Because while the immediate urgency of Black Lives Matter is to prevent more senseless killings of Black people, the broader focus of BLM is Black dignity in all forms, and all of this is related. We can’t say that we honour Black humanity if we are erasing their contributions in all aspects of our lives.

Thanks Lainey. To be clear, I wouldn’t mind if this was the only time she’d shared an opinion like this - but this type of argument is repeated ad nauseaum across the site. She’s a therapist. She’s a civil rights activist. She knows what’s good for you. She speaks with great authority on how to solve racism.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and Lainey is apologising for the hideous shit she used to write on her blog in the early 2000s where her takes were often racist, homophobic, and/or misogynistic. In her apology post, she wrote:

Many people object to cancel culture. My personal opinion on it is that while cancel culture is not always judiciously applied, it does have value. Sometimes people should be cancelled. And if you visit this website often, you might be thinking about whether or not to cancel me. That’s fair.

...I have been conditioned in white supremacy, and I have enabled white privilege, even as a person of colour myself, because we too, given that white supremacy is so dominant, can have bias... When I started this site back in 2003/2004, I wrote misogynist things and slut shaming things, and racist things. And as the site grew in popularity, it served as confirmation bias, that there was an appetite out there for this kind of content, and I wanted to keep delivering it. Over time, I learned and grew, along with many of you who have learned and grown. And through it all, I have talked about my progress, calling out my past mistakes and leaving much of that content on the site instead of deleting it. There are some things, though, that have been deleted because I was embarrassed and I didn’t want to be part of it and obviously didn’t want to perpetuate those thoughts. But in the process of doing that, I realised that that would be erasing history – and for marginalised people, their pain and trauma is constantly being erased and invalidated. My leaving it there to be eventually called out is nothing compared to their experience.

Many gossip blogs were like this in the nascent stage of online journalism. They called it snark - and it was very popular. I think in some ways this was to differentiate blogs from the content and coverage in traditional gossip mags. Most gossip magazines are toothless - because they want celebrity interviews and exclusives. But, in 2006, a website was never going to get an interview with anyone worth interviewing so why bother to be nice - especially because being cynical and mean was more entertaining for the average reader. A lot of the gossip coverage that occurred back then would never fly now: ridiculing Britney for shaving her head, fat shaming, cruel coverage of celebrity eating disorders, slut shaming. The edgelord humour of the early blogs was crushed beneath the wheels of progress.

I don’t care about what Lainey wrote in 2006 - I don’t think it’s nice, I don’t think it’s interesting or funny, I wouldn’t have chosen to read it. But it doesn’t change my view of the site as a whole. What it does do though, is highlight how hollow all the talk of respecting women, honouring Black culture, working to be better, being good allies, etc. is on this site. Because it’s not really about doing that shit - it’s about telling other people off for not doing it. Lainey has weaponised wokeness as her new snark.

After the fall out around Lainey’s embarrassing old articles, a banner was added to all of the articles on the site which were published before 2013:

She’s effectively disavowed half of the blog’s history. Lainey Gossip launched in 2004. Is it really fair to say that articles published in 2012 were posted during an early period of the site?

What is Lainey doing when she toys with Alia Shawkat’s fate like Anton Chigurh tossing a coin? She knows in her heart of hearts that she has also said things she regrets, also said unsavory things in public that she didn’t really mean. It’s so weird: can’t you see the parallels between yourself and her? Lainey is pretty clear in her apology that she’s acknowledging the problematic history of the blog because people were exposing her on social media. Were it not for this, she likely would have continued writing about problematic shit other people did 10 years ago without acknowledging that she is no better.

Again, I want to be really clear: my issue isn’t with the articles she wrote in the early days of the site. It’s the weirdness around publicly criticising people when your own behaviour is comparably bad. What could you gain from doing that beyond reveling in the snark? Destroying someone else before the mob you helped create comes for you?

Let me remind you: THIS USED TO BE A GOSSIP BLOG with analysis of celebrity culture, movie deals, blind items, industry insider stories. Now it’s just been sucked into the culture war vortex. Ruined by the discourse.

Gossip used to be talking about other people’s business: Speculating about which Victoria’s Secret model DiCaprio would pick up next. Investigating rumours that Jennifer Lawrence faked her tumble on the stairs at the Oscars. Analysing why a celebrity filed their divorce papers in California rather than Texas. Waiting to see which celebrity would be the first to wear Marchesa on a red carpet after the fall of Weinstein.

Gossip is a way of learning what is acceptable in society, a way of observing how others perceive and react to the decisions people make - and how behaviour which violates societal norms attracts backlash. It’s even more interesting when the subject of that gossip is rich and famous. Lainey Gossip is no longer turning out this kind of content - so where can we go for these insights?

The best barometer for conservative public opinion on celebrity movements and the related enforcement of societal norms is the The Daily Mail comments section. The Daily Mail itself seems like something of a journalistic agent of chaos: I would have assumed that they swung right, but they post pro-Trump articles and anti-Trump articles. They do not seem to have a dog in the fight: the world turns, empires rise and fall and The Daily Mail persists.

In the ‘entertainment news’ articles on the site, no impassioned arguments are made, no particular analysis is shared: the journalists position themselves as impartial observers just reporting the facts. Occasionally a piece is clearly designed to bait the readers - for example, any time they mention the price of someone’s home in the headline... “Celebrity in $13 million mansion reminds fans to appreciate the small things” or that kind of crap. But the article itself is just a list of facts. No analysis, no reflection - just positioning.

Also interesting to observe is that The Daily Mail comments section is typically quite harmonious. Readers generally have similar take-aways from articles and it’s very rare to see an argument break out in the comments section. It’s as if Daily Mail readers think with one mind:

Stay with wife many years? Very good. Society like this. Daily Mail readers approve.

Stay with wife many years and maybe wife is slightly overweight? Oh yes - this guy is the best. International hero. Daily Mail readers all agree: we love.

Stay with wife many years and then divorce her? Hmm let’s see how this situation develops before we judge...

Stay with wife many years and then divorce her to be with younger woman? You die now.

The Daily Mail comments section is a glance into the void. A pit of human misery where people say exactly what they think. No subtext. No analysis required.

They like Pierce Brosnan because he is a straight-forward nice male celebrity and he has been with his wife for a long time - his wife is a little overweight so it makes readers feel good to imagine that he might not be repulsed by the average woman.

They do not like Emma Roberts because in 2013 she was arrested for beating her boyfriend in a hotel room. This was a long time ago and not many people think about it now. She has a successful career and is well liked on social media. But that’s because those youngsters forget.

The Daily Mail comments section does not forget. Their memory is long and their pity is scarce. They are society’s hive mind. The majority. A snapshot of what 95% of the planet’s population would think on any given subject - which actually makes for very interesting reading.

Forget about Lainey Gossip, trawl The Daily Mail comments section with me.

#lainey gossip #alia shawkat #cancel culture #gossip #the daily mail #pierce brosnan #emma roberts

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daleisgreat · 4 years ago

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35 Years of NES - Flashback Special!

It took me 12 minutes to set up this shot of what encapsulates my NES fandom! Please sit down and listen for awhile as I recount my life and times as a NES kid! This October in a couple months will mark the 35th anniversary of the launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in North America so that means it is time for another flashback special where I recount my personal history with the NES. This is the 11th platform that has gotten the flashback special treatment from me in the little over a year I have been doing them and if you want to get caught up with the rest make sure to check out the links at the bottom of this entry! Furthermore, if you are looking for a more traditional anniversary piece chronologically highlighting the history of the system and its top games I have you covered there too. At the bottom of this article I have embedded old podcasts of mine I recently uploaded to YouTube from my personal archives where we highlight the system as a whole on its 25th anniversary ten years ago. I additionally have podcasts from my history of RPG and comic book videogame series highlighting the NES entries from those genres that are all featured at the bottom of this article to keep that NES anniversary train rolling for the rest of the year! Being Introduced to the Power

I will never forget the first impression the NES made on me because it was the first time I ever witnessed and played a videogame! It was the Christmas shopping season of 1988 and I just got home from Kindergarten class to see my older sister playing some electronic contraption that was absolutely foreign to me. My eyes soon gazed upon the TV where a crudely pixelated man in red overalls was running and jumping across the screen to the catchiest of background music jingles that will always stick with me. She soon enough passed along the NES’s vintage rectangular controller to me and within minutes I was hooked as I sunk my teeth into my first videogame, Super Mario Bros.. Our family got the ‘Power Set’ which had the 3-in-1 cart featuring Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt/World Class Track Meet along with the Power Pad and Zapper accessories. I was too little to figure out how to operate the Power Pad at the time and rarely played World Class Track Meet, but the family did get a decent amount of playtime in Duck Hunt and groveled over how we could never shoot that damn dog! We always kept coming back to Super Mario Bros though. I had no idea what I was doing as a five-year-old at that time, but I knew I had to give it my all to get Mario to jump to the top (and over???) of the flagpole at the end of most levels. Eventually I stumbled my way accidentally jumping into hidden blocks that contained SECRETS like extra lives, bonus coin blocks and vines that lead to bonus coin rooms and warp zones! Much like today how I have to explore every nook and cranny in the latest open world sandbox game, Super Mario Bros. planted the seeds for that gaming mindset in me to jump around and explore everything to find whatever secrets Nintendo had in store for good ‘ol Mario.

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The minus world was the ultimate secret in videogames for so many years that it was the #1 secret of the top 100 secrets in the 100th issue of Nintendo Power. It took me about a couple years of trying over and over and taking advantage of all the warp zones and extra live secrets I could, but the original Super Mario Bros. was the first game I ever finished. When I thought I discovered all the secrets in the original Super Mario Bros. a friend or cousin would power it on and showed me all new secrets and tips that blew me away. First it was getting to time a jump just right on a koopa troopa coming down the block stairs so Mario would repeatedly jump on them to get near-infinite lives. Then they showed me the hidden warp zones….and then there was the day after much repeated attempts that my cousin showed me the much talked about ‘minus world’ in the game that perplexed me so much that I lambasted him with questions about said level’s eye-opening odd level design. ‘Why did the level never end? Why is this magical force sucking Mario through the bricks, cousin….IS MARIO A GHOST!?!?’ That tripped me out as a Kindergartner, but not as much as the most sinister-looking baddie in the game, the dastardly Hammer Bros!!!! No I am not talking about the adorably-huggable hammer bros. from Super Mario Bros. 3, I am talking about the spiky-squiggly-shaped monsters that chucked super-sharp-metal-thingies at Mario!!! The original Hammer Bros. petrified five-year-old Dale!!! Just see for yourself below…

Encountering the Hammer Bros. for the first time in a night level only amplified the terror they unleashed! I was terrified of them, but what was especially terrifying was how Nintendo gave them a paint of cuteness by their look in Super Mario Bros. 3 as you can see above on their right. You can almost look walk right up and give them a hug! Bring back the sinister OG hammer bro Nintendo! As much as I loved the original Super Mario Bros., I never got to put a lot of playtime into its sequels. I think they were always rented out at the local video store. I do recall watching my cousin finishing Super Mario Bros. 2 and watching in awe the quality of the ending ‘dream’ cinematic that stirs controversies to this day! I never played much original NES Super Mario Bros. 3 either until I got Super Mario All-Stars where I later played a ton of both of those games, but that is a story for another day. The Joy of Renting and Garage Sale-ing

Speaking of renting though, it was how I played almost all my NES games for the first couple years our family had the NES. I was too young to realize games could be purchased at the store and thought games could only be rented at the video store….at least that is what I think my mom caused me to believe anyways. Looking back I loved those early NES years perusing the local video store and only going by misleading box art on what to rent. There are four specific renting memories stood out from those years around the end of the 1980s. One is playing a ton of the first CastleVania and being perplexed at why the heart pickups did not restore health, second is perishing repeatedly in the original Mega Man right from the start which got me to swore off the franchise for a few decades (more on that later). Another time I freaked out at the video store receiving my copy of Tengen’s RBI Baseball and discovering how their black cartridges differed than the standard NES gray carts, but only to have the video clerk assure me they would work on the NES. Finally, my favorite rental memory was getting gleeful goosebumps as a result of the mesmerizing beats of what is my single favorite NES theme, yes I am talking about the ‘Moon Theme’ of Duck Tales. A theme so powerful it still gives me the shivers to this day.

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Behold the single best NES stage music of all time!! Now listen to it for ten hours straight!!!! I mentioned in previous flashback specials how I grew up with divorced parents. I would visit my dad on the weekends and he would usually be a system a generation behind because he was big on garage sales and people were getting rid of their old systems typically when the next system was hitting. So when the NES was the primary system, I would play Atari 2600 at my dad’s on the weekends. Around the time SNES launched in 1991 was when my dad finally got a NES, and he would have another regular NES game or two every several weeks he found at another garage sale. I recall the first four games he got with his NES: Days of Thunder, Gauntlet II, Ikari Warriors and 10-Yard Fight!

My dad bought whatever he thought was a deal at the time of those garage sales, and the quality of games he brought back varied greatly. His garage sale bargain was how I first played classic hits like the original Legend of Zelda and Maniac Mansion. I was seriously into both of those games even though I struggled to make progress in Zelda because all I had was the packed in map to guide me in the pre-Internet and strategy guide days. I made my own dungeon maps in Zelda, and loved trying to figure out the way to get past its increasingly trickier dungeons and puzzles, but eventually got stuck after the third dungeon and could not deduce the pattern in its version of the ‘Lost Woods’ for the life of me. Maniac Mansion was the first adventure game I was exposed to and was instantly hooked, even with the clunky and censored NES port I was resilient in attempting to figure my way around the lighthearted obstacles of the mansion and trying to hide from its alien residents. Reflecting back on my fandom for Maniac Mansion, it got me confident that if I was aware of the PC gaming scene of the late 80s/early 90s instead of the NES scene that I would see myself being head over heels for the countless adventure games from Sierra and Lucas Arts at the time. There were other times however my dad would come back from a garage sale with not-so-desirable titles like XEXYX, Dash Galaxy and Rocket Ranger, but sometimes his picks were a surprise. I somehow got locked into the addictive nature of the stock market game of Wall Street Kid and played far more of that than I had any right to. My dad eventually got the four player adaptor for the NES and the family tried to do the unthinkable one day and dedicate an afternoon to finishing Gauntlet II. We loved that game, but never had time to finish it in a session because the levels just kept never ending and we presumed it had to end by level 100. So one of my favorite NES memories is when the family gathered determined to finish level 100…which we did, but our bravery was for naught when we were all stunned to see that was not the end of the game. I believe we got to around level 130-ish before we eventually threw up our arms and powered off the NES. How the hell were we suppose to know back then that the levels procedurally generated!?!

Gauntlet II and Ikari Warriors were two of the four games that came with the NES my dad purchased at a garage sale and thus we invested countless hours in both, yet both titles we failed at finishing! My dad, brother and I played far too much Ikari Warriors together. I know it is a sloppily designed game with a lot of glitches and other hiccups, but the setting and atmosphere of Ikari Warriors rode the coattails of the infectious Rambo-hype of the 80s. Ikari Warriors on the NES felt like more of a faithful videogame adaptation of that film than the actual Rambo NES games itself. Ikari Warriors was the next best thing by chucking grenades and wreaking havoc with a tank, especially with a second player in co-op! That game burned through lives to the point of where I expected there to be a cheat code to get more lives because it would hang at the game over screen for a good 10 seconds so eventually I mashed buttons until I memorized that ‘A,B,B,A’ unlocked three more lives! I was super proud of being able to figure out a cheat code on my own! The levels in Ikari Warriors went on forever though, and regardless of having near-infinite lives with that code, we would eventually get bored and/or confused at that awkward fourth stage with the bizarre piping the warriors would get hung up on. Over the years the odd gameplay quirks of Ikari Warriors I look back at fondly I came to discover that everyone else detested as one of the worst NES titles, which I feel is a bit much. If my words cannot do it justice, then James Rolfe captured the highs and lows of Ikari Warriors perfectly in an episode of Angry Videogame Nerd I highly recommend giving a watch by clicking or pressing here. Playing with a Different Sort of Power

Over the years I came to find out that the mega popular Nintendo Power magazine was the go-to source for NES fandom of that era. I am an outlier in this case as I was not aware of the magazine until well into the 16-bit era. I chalk this up to never buying games brand new at the time where most new games on Nintendo platforms came bundled with Nintendo Power subscription inserts which I did not become keen to until getting new GameBoy games in 1993. So where was I to get all my latest NES coverage in the late 80s and early 90s before the Internet and then completely oblivious to the videogame magazine market? Through super cheesy, early 90s videogame-themed TV shows! There was not an official Nintendo Power show, but there was an awesome game show on weekday mornings for a couple years in the early 90s called Video Power that showcased kids playing the latest NES games in various challenges. Nickelodeon had a videogame TV show too, which was another game show called Nick Arcade. They had kids answering trivia and competing in various arcade game and virtual reality-esque challenges. The magazine GamePro also endorsed a TV show at the time and it featured more traditional game coverage and I recall it having an over-the-top host showcasing the latest secrets and tips. If you are not familiar with these shows, they are fun to look back on as they capture the goofy ‘extreme kids’ nature that dominated the early 90s. James Rolfe once again does a nice breakdown video of Nick Arcade and Video Power I will embed below or you can click or press here to check it out. These three shows and the latest gossip with classmates and friends were the only ways I got my news about the latest NES games back then.

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Nick Arcade and Video Power are dissected in the above video and those TV game shows were how I was initially glued into the latest NES games as a kid. NES ‘Rights of Passage’ For those that grew up with the NES, I bet you have a good idea where this is going. Anyone that owned the traditional rectangular NES with the flip cover of doom will know that model of the NES was notorious for only powering up games about half the time. Recess-rumors lead us all to believe that blowing into the cartridges made them work better, and while it usually did I still remember my dad buying cleaning kits at the store and insisting using it to clean the games instead of blowing into them…but I like many other NES-kids were super impatient and instead went with the blowing/jiggling the NES-cartridge ever so gently into place….and sometimes wiggling the cartridge up and down several times before firmly locking the cartridge into place and powering on the system. That was the way I convinced myself to get NES games to power on their first try with a 60% success rate! For younger readers here who are doubting me, I am not kidding. This was a thing….seriously! Click or press here for proof where the GameSpot crew of 2005 detail their near identical NES-troubleshooting demonstrations in their excellent video on the NES!

As the header above alludes to, that was one of several ‘rights of passage’ for all NES-kids of the era. The so-bad-its good animated show, Captain N the Game Master likely was part of your Saturday morning cartoon lineup (yes, I have the DVD set, be on the lookout for a review…eventually). Another one was ‘NES-thumb.’ I love Nintendo’s directional-pad, but on the NES longer play sessions with button-mashy-prone games would result in it leaving a scouring imprint on the thumb for hours! I feel safe to say a majority of NES-kids encountered an awful LJN-published game based off one of their personal favorite licensed properties of the 80s. For me it was the atrocious X-Men title, its agonizingly bad Back to the Future game and most of their WWF games. As much as I loved the Ikari Warriors code described above, the most popular code spread across several NES games was the ‘Konami’ code. Ask any then game player 35+ and they likely would be able to subconsciously spout it off to you instantaneously! John Cena turned the code into his best t-shirt design! Calling Nintendo’s long distance-fee heavy hotline for the latest tips from Nintendo’s endorsed gameplay counselors was another thing that got kids to surprise their parents with $100+ phone bills. The last big hurrah for NES-kids was going to see The Wizard at the end of 1989 to see a few precious minutes of Super Mario Bros. 3 gameplay a couple months before its release! I could go on about The Wizard forever, but that was why I covered it here on my blog last week instead so if you want to know all about the Nintendo adver-film, then click or press here for my entry on it! 8-Bit Sports Fun for Everyone! Talking to other core gamers and listening to many gaming podcasts over the years one irk-ing trend is of most ardent game players shaming sports game fans. I understand why the main EA Sports and 2K Sports games are sim-focused experiences that are not for everyone, but they continue to sell well and have their dedicated fanbase. Back in the 8-bit and most of the 16-bit generation, sports games were simpler pick-up-and-play affairs that worked for almost anyone, especially on the NES with its simpler graphics and only having two primary action buttons. The first sports game I got into on NES was Double Dribble which blew me away with its ‘cinematic’ dunks. Nintendo’s Ice Hockey was a huge favorite of mine and it featured fast, scoring heavy action, and had fights, overtime and shootouts all crammed into a NES cartridge. I thought it was the best hockey game on the NES, and then I discovered the more brutal and up close fights in Konami’s Blades of Steel! There were a deluge of baseball games on the NES and the two I got into the most were the original RBI Baseball and BaseWars. RBI Baseball had the illusion of realistic baseball, but simple enough for anyone to grasp. It had a twee-art style, happy-go-lucky background music to nod along with and was one of the first baseball games to feature real MLB players. BaseWars frigging ruled! Futuristic teams of robots duked it out on the diamond and would engage in battles when attempting a tag out!

For pigskin NES classics, the first one I got into was 10-Yard Fight! It had rather….particular…controls for a launch-era NES football game, but I eventually adapted to it. I know now that Tecmo Bowl and especially its sequel, Tecmo Super Bowl were the cream of the crop of NES football games, but I never got a chance to play them until many years after the fact (and I was still blown away by my friend’s first play he picked against me which was scrambling to the back of his endzone and unleashing a 100-yard touchdown pass!). My own personal top pick is NES Play Action Football, a gridiron game that will forever have a place in my heart! I have everlasting memories of my dad teaming up with me to take on the computer. The passing controls in this game are garbage so we only did running plays, but the players ran absurdly slow…and that was even when factoring in there was a turbo speed button! My dad and I however learned to own that ridiculous control scheme! I would hand off the ball to him and then I would take control of the linemen and block defenders for him as he ever-so-gradually-inched-his-way-across-the-field. I am not embellishing by saying it took a good two whole minutes to traverse about 80 yards. It was completely asinine, but I felt a huge sense of accomplishment with every first down and touchdown my dad and I accomplished with our teamwork! That covers the four major American sports, but there was also a lot of representation from the ESPN Ocho tier of sports games. I loved me some Super Dodge Ball and loved going through its world cup mode. Its adorable oversized character graphics carried over into Nintendo’s soccer game, Nintendo World Cup. Nintendo also delivered two excellent golf titles on the system with the self-titled Golf during the black box launch era of the NES, and a more fleshed out version of that game with a career mode and three courses in NES Open Tournament Golf. Konami’s pair of International Track & Field titles were excellent arcade conversions. Finally, I would be remiss if I was not to give Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out a little love here. I ate up the puzzle pattern boxing gameplay with its distinctive roster of foes for the affable Little Mac. I wish I was not awful at it as I could only get to Bald Bull before my inferior skills met their match.

I invested countless hours into marginally satisfactory NES wrestling games. The cream of the crud pictured above is Wrestlemania Challenge and Tecmo World Wrestling. The wrestling nut in me begrudgingly admits there is not a five star grappler on the NES. All the WWF games range from middling to atrocious. WWF Wrestlemania Challenge I would say was marginally solid because it had functinal enough gameplay, a decent roster with wrestlers not seen in many other games at that time like Rick Rude & Andre the Giant, featured finishing moves and best of all one of the few wrestling games that played AWESOME chiptune renditions of the wrestler's theme music throughout gameplay! Avoid Tag Team Wrestling and M.U.S.C.L.E. at all costs, both of those abysmal wrestling games make all the LJN WWF games seem competently made. Pro Wrestling is good for a launch era game, but it is very limiting all things considered. I had a lot of fun with WCW Wrestling back then, but its unique controls have not aged well. I would have to give Tecmo World Wrestling the nod as my favorite NES wrasslin’ game because of solid controls, Tecmo’s trademark cinematics and its goofy announcer providing nonstop text play-by-play on the bottom of the screen that constantly had my attention.

Some of my favorite driving NES games seen above are Micro Machines on the left and Super Off Road on the right. A Micro Machines game with the same style of core racing mechanics has appeared in almost every console generation since! Super Off Road is probably my favorite four player NES game. Driving and motorsports were another favorite of mine, and the NES was loaded with them! My two favorites were Super Off-Road and Super Sprint. The former because it was a pretty faithful conversion of the arcade game and had four player support my family and friends clocked many hours with. Super Sprint had a similar overhead view of the whole track, but felt like it had more realistic handling, yet still contained many increasingly tough obstacles to overcome. In a strange twist, I later found a couple years ago the developers of Super Off-Road made a F1 style of that game that is also four player compatible in Indy Heat, but it also features pit stops where you can ram over the pit crew! Excitebike was an early childhood rental favorite as I loved going over the ramps and wiping out and randomly assembling a mish-mash of parts of a course in the track editor. I was bummed the NES never got the excellent OutRun from the arcades so I had to suffice with Square’s take on the checkpoint-based driving game, Rad Racer and its sequel a couple years later which were almost, but not quite on par with Sega’s flagship arcade driving game. RC Pro-AM and Micro Machines I am a huge fan of both racing games that feature an overhead camera that locks on and follows the car from a birds-eye view unlike the average behind the car camera perspectives that dominated that era. Collecting for the NES As the 1990s wore on a local video store selling its excess stock and a local game store called Tiger Play were my go to spots for a few years for used videogames. I will never forget lucking into a $2 copy of Tengen’s Tetris at the video store. Eventually eBay opened the floodgates to track down a lot of the NES games I rambled on about above. A regional annual retro game convention, The Midwest Gaming Classic, I attended several times over the past 15 years also attributed to many of my NES games. One year I was ecstatic to get a fan translation of the original Mother game that Nintendo would later officially release on the WiiU as Earthbound Beginnings. I was also ecstatic to get a fan mod updated rosters version of Tecmo Super Bowl. I eventually got a NES-clone system towards the end of 2000s that handled NES games exponentially better than the original Nintendo system and also allowed the ability to play Japanese Famicom games. At MGC I would buy one or two random cheap Famicom games a year to make use of the Famicom slot. I only wound up with several Famicom games, with highlights being Baseball, Tetris and Mighty Final Fight.

The last trip I made out to MGC in 2018 I went in with the goal to finish off my Power Pad game collection and hunt down the last three Power Pad compatible games I did not own to officially have all eight or nine Power Pad games. After perusing the many vendors there I was able to track down the much treasured copies of Athletic World, Eggsplode/Street Cop and Dance Aerobics down, along with a bonus homebrew NES cornhole/bag toss game, Tailgate Party, that also took advantage of the Power Pad. A couple years ago YouTube creator, Pat Contri released his exhaustive Ultimate Nintendo Guide to the NES Library coffee table book/tome that reviewed every single NES game. I read it over the course of a year via a few pages a night before bed. It naturally turned me onto several games I either long forgotten about or completely went over my head and I wound up tracking them down online. That book got me wound up on a NES four player game kick and I have about a dozen four player NES games right now. One night a couple years ago I did a four player NES party night and managed to have a fair amount of fun with some friends going at it in Super Off-Road, Gauntlet II and Super Jeopardy. Right now my preferred way to play NES cartridges is via the Retron 5 system. I know that clone system is a little polarizing because of its emulation software it uses, but I love its performance at playing NES games and other cartridge based systems on my HDTV without the fuzzy graphics and lag that happens when plugging in old composite/RCA cables that came with the NES. I also love that it allows save states and the equivalent of Game Genie cheat codes. A couple years ago I finally got around to playing through SNK’s action-RPG, Crystalis and I would be lying if I said I did not take advantage of save states and a couple of the cheats. Official Nintendo NES Preservation Nintendo has been doing their part, for better and worse, at keeping the NES catalog alive digitally going back to the launch of the Wii in 2006. I picked up several NES games digitally for the Wii at $5 apiece for the Wii’s Virtual Console. I did the exact same thing a few years later for the WiiU and 3DS. The Virtual Console was a handy feature I took advantage of somewhat, but I think it far benefitted younger gamers who were being introduced to those classics for the first time. Nintendo spawned the mini-console craze a few years ago with them debuting the NES Classic, which packed 30 first and third party NES games into a pint sized version of a plug-and-play NES. It featured a solid lineup of games across all genres and was a great bargain considering strong library of games. The emulation quality was leagues better compared to the Virtual Console and the NES Classic feature better implementation of save states and now the ability to rewind gameplay. I brought the NES Classic over to family gatherings and it was a hit all night long.

The NES Classic and NES Channel on the Switch are my two top legitimate recommended ways to digitally dive into the NES library! The best part about the NES Classic was how easy it was to mod and upload your own games to. I know the various RetroPi’s and Mister devices have been capable of this for awhile, but there is something special about the NES Classic’s interface that makes it the preferred way for me to re-experience these NES gems. For a little last minute prep for this article, I loaded up Nintendo’s latest way to experience NES games via the NES Channel on the Switch. Right now it has a little over 50 unique NES (and a small selection of Famicom) games available to play in North America. I dabbled with a few different game for a little over an hour, and finished off my session by playing through the first several stages of Super Mario Bros. again. Nintendo once again stepped up their emulation efforts here by having even better functioning save states and rewind features and now the ability to do online two player. I got my nephew to play with me online and it worked surprisingly well…..other than my fifth grade nephew initially being a little crabby at the graphics being ‘old’ at least. I do not hear many people touting this feature that much and I think it is awesome that Nintendo made this back catalog online and all things considered is part of a great value for $25 a year for Nintendo’s online Switch service.

If those two options do not interest you than there are a ton of other NES games that got re-released as part of collections on many systems over the years. On the current gen alone I would recommend the first Mega Man Legacy Collection that collects the first eight Mega Man games, of which the first six are the NES games. That was how I first experienced Mega Man 2 after the aforementioned boycotting of the brand. Yes, it was after decades of reading testimonials on how Mega Man 2 is one of the all-time greats for the NES I finally played it off that collection a few years ago and loved it. It also allows save states thank goodness, or else I would never be able to conquer that final gauntlet leading up to Dr. Wily! Other recommended collections would include the digital collections Konami released last year rounding up the early entries of the CastleVania and Contra games, both of which have all their NES installments. I highly suggest getting Capcom’s Disney Afternoon Collection that has six of the best licensed NES platformers such as both Duck Tales and Rescue Rangers games. SNK released an excellent 40th anniversary collection last year too which includes several of their NES games including my beloved Ikari Warriors and its two lesser sequels. The Double Dragon and Kunio-kun: Retro Brawler Bundle gathers the Double Dragon trilogy, and a ton of Technos favorites like River City Ransom, Super Dodge Ball and nearly a dozen others that until now were exclusive in Japan. For younger readers not familiar with the NES library, these are all recommended ways to legit first experience a healthy chunk of some of the best games of the NES library! The Power Lives On…. I cannot believe it has already been nearly 35 years since the NES first launched in North America. Since it is the system of my childhood, I will always be super nostalgic about it. The NES introduced me to the world of videogames and I have been hooked ever since. My favorite game for it would have to be the original Super Mario Bros., with podium finishes going to The Legend of Zelda and yes, the dastardly Ikari Warriors. Whenever I go into a retro game shop or convention I almost instinctively find myself glomming towards the NES section in hopes of finding some long neglected title to have in my collection even though I constantly remind myself I have every game I want for it. Many thanks for making it through this beast of a read and indulging my lifetime of NES memories and I hope I have either introduced you to some new NES factoids and games here or at least had a fun trip down memory lane with me. If you want to indulge me in more NES retrospectives, but in audio form this time, I have embedded a few podcasts I recently un-vaulted from my archives below.

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Here is the all-encompassing retrospective I did on the NES for its 25th anniversary 10 years ago.

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And here is where we do a deep dive on all the comic book videogames on the NES.

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To wrap it up, here is podcast deep dive on all the RPG games on the NES.

My Other Gaming Flashbacks Dreamcast 20th Anniversary GameBoy 30th Anniversary Genesis 30th Anniversary PSone 25th Anniversary PSP 15th Anniversary and Neo-Geo 30th Anniversary Saturn and Virtual Boy 25th Anniversaries TurboGrafX-16 30th Anniversary and 32-X 25th Anniversary

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You have not lived the late 80s/early 90s NES fervor without watching a whole episode of Video Power. I present this episode above for your consumption!

Wait a Second, Did I Forget Some Games? Bonus Overtime!!!! I know, I know…I have rambled on forever so that is why I officially concluded this flashback just above. However, if you are somehow, someway still scrolling down and find yourself here I have a few more NES favorites and memories I would love to share so they do not remain on the cutting room floor. First off, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trilogy on the NES I have to get some reflections on! That first game….what a mess of a platformer it turned out to be. I did love its theme music though! TMNT fever was ubiquitous during the NES generation and I was an ardent fan of the shelled heroes like almost all kids my age so I forced myself to put way too much time into it than I should have. Several years ago I revisited it and finally finished it, well after the help of Game Genie cheat codes that is. Even with the cheats that swimming level remains a tumultuous effort to persevere through.

TMNT II: The Arcade Game is exponentially better and is a pretty decent port of the first arcade game. While the graphics are dialed back significantly to run on the NES, that did not stop my friend Matt and I revisiting and romping through this and its sequel several times over the years. TMNT III: The Manhatten Project is a NES exclusive, and featured the same arcade brawling engine as its predecessor, but this one has colorful beach levels with foot soldiers that toss sand at the turtles!! Yes, I have played the NES version of TMNT Tournament Figheters and I will give props to Konami for mustering everything they could out of the NES graphically by late 1993 and making it the only proper 2D fighter on the NES, but it simply does not measure up to its vastly superior SNES counterpart. There are some first party Nintendo games I held off from touching on in the main feature because I have had only minimal experience with them. It is totally on me! There was one more renting memory I refrained from above, and that is dealing with Metroid. Bottom line, it spooked me too much around age six or seven to progress far into it and I remember being irate at going back a screen to see enemies I eliminated moments earlier had respawned again. I need to correct this and revisit it someday. Kirby’s Adventure I briefly played on the NES Classic to briefly try it out before moving on to different games and I never got around getting back to it. That is another NES regret I must rectify as I have played through and enjoyed past Kirby games before! Nintendo’s official licensed version of Tetris is a good playing and looking version of the classic puzzler, but it lacked one key thing the Tengen version had and that is multiplayer! My dad and I played a ton of competitive and co-op multiplayer of Tengen’s Tetris. The Tengen version also had the more Russian-flavored art style that made the visuals pop more. The co-op mode was surprisingly addictive teaming up with my dad to clear a wider, single drop box. I was surprised no other Tetris revisited this idea until it was announced days ago for the upcoming deluxe version of Tetris Effect on Xbox Series X.

Nintendo's Tetris is on the left, Tengen's Tetris is on the right. I love the unique aesthetics and music in both of them, but Tengen's version had an excellent 2-player VS. and co-op modes that made it highly sought after, especially after Nintendo got it banned from stores! The only traditional RPG I put a lot of time into on the NES was the first Dragon Warrior. I rented it, and borrowed it another time from a friend later on and enjoyed the early parts of the game before I ventured out under-leveled and was too young to grasp the concept of grinding to level up in order to properly square off against the tougher foes. I eventually got much farther into it when it was re-released on GameBoy Color. Wait a second, does Zelda II: The Adventure of Link count as an RPG? I have heard for years people argue whether the Zelda series is considered a true RPG and I have always been on the side of classifying them in the action-adventure genre, but Zelda II is incredibly different from all other entries in the series and has leveling up and experience points involved so I would make an exception that Zelda II be considered an RPG. Unfortunately, it was another one that was too brutal for me in my childhood and I never got that far in it. I want to finally wrap this beast up by applauding the preservation market for unearthing several prototypes and lost games that were finished, but never released. Some of the more famous examples of this are Capcom’s California Raisins, a NES version of SimCity and last year the UWC Wrestling title that was canned at the final minute before resurfacing with noticeable roster and gameplay changes as WCW Wrestling. I also want to commend the smaller publisher and indie game scene for finding the resources to release new games on actual physical NES cartridges. They may be unlicensed, but it nevertheless puts a smile on my face to see new NES games being released today! Okay, with that I am finished for real this time! Many thanks again for spending an afternoon powering through this!

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You heard my favorite NES background music earlier with the Duck Tales' 'Moon Theme.' Now behold the worst NES music...no 1942 does not qualify. I am talking about this grinding, ear screeching exuse for music that is the general background stage music for Back to the Future. You are Still Here!? Even after all these videos and links and over 6000 words of my babbling of NES nostalgia? I guess then I have one more story to share since you made it this far. This one is not a moment I am proud of. Sometimes being a NES kid brings out a…..darkness among rival NES kids. I was spending an afternoon at a cousins playing NES games all day. The same one who showed me the Super Mario Bros. 2 ending. The same one who we decided to put on hockey gloves to mimic the fights in Blades of Steel, though thinking back in hindsight I think we got our mimicking of the hockey fight in reverse and we should have had gloves off.

My cousing introduced me to some of my favorite NES sports games like Double Dribble and Blades of Steel. And as you are about to see, it brought out the worst in us! Anyways, this day he was showing me Double Dribble and we played it all afternoon. It impressed the hell out of me by having the national anthem opening and its cinematic dunks! Towards the end of the day we were playing other games when my mom arrived to pick me up. As I was getting ready to leave and my cousin was distracted playing a different game my NES-darkness overtook me and I thought I could ‘borrow’ my cousin’s copy of Double Dribble without asking him. I think I slid another game in Double Dribble’s place where it was on the carpet and I was super slick by flipping it upside down so he would not see the label. Yeah, I only made it out about halfway to my mom’s car outside when he came barreling out and we play-wrestled on the ground for a brief moment until I forked over that copy of Double Dribble. I must have been around eight or nine at the time and one dumb kid to try and pull that off……I should have went for his copy of Super Mario Bros. 2 instead! I am kidding of course, kids do not be like dumb NES-kid Dale and mess with your friend’s games! Extremely not cool, hugging out with a heartfelt apology, now that is cool, no wait, it is emphatically…..Totally Rad!

#videogames #nes #nintendo #mario #zelda #ikari warriors #wall street kid #play action football #power pad #captain n the game master #zapper #nintendo power #video power #nick arcade #mega man

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surveys-at-your-service · 8 years ago

Text

Survey #65

“i couldn’t take my eyes off her, but that’s not what i took off that night.”

have you ever wanted to travel to germany? i have, yes. if we happen to be blessed with quite a good income, i'd really like to do that once i have children, go on a big family trip to germany. i'd need to brush up on my german, though! is marijuana legal for "recreational use" where you live? also what is your opinion on the recent legalization of marijuana in certain states? i don't think it is... but the whole legalization shit is stupid. you will never convince me that marijuana isn't dangerous. don't legalize dangerous shit. do you usually have bad symptoms around "that time of the month"? i'd say i'm luckier than most, now that i've been on the pill. i get mild cramps, headaches, and i usually break out a bit. how do you feel about being called sweetie/dear/honey/etc.? i'd have no problem with it. jason never called me any of those listed though, just "love," which was my favorite anyway. do you have your national flag hanged up anywhere outside your house? no, we don't. would you ever go to japan? omg yes!! have you ever been in a choir?  i was in the church, yes. have you ever had a speech impediment? i stutter pretty badly. give out your phone number over the internet? i have to VERY few people. what do people usually think your ethnicity is? it's pretty obvious i'm caucasian. how do you feel about people using graphic images as a scare tactic to promote their beliefs? (i.e.: peta, abortion…) do it. DO IT. it may be "too much" for someone, but that's how you initiate action, sometimes. now i mean if you're going to show something ludicrously morbid or something, sure, censor that, please. some things truly are too much. do you think gender neutral bathrooms are a good idea? i'm neutral. how about the transgender bathroom business? you know exactly what i'm talking about. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA TUMBLR WOULD FUCKING CLOSE MY ACCOUNT IF I SAID ONE WORD ABOUT THIS MATTER. what are some of your favorite websites for online shopping? rebel's market makes me moist. do you think it’s fair that people are able to make a reasonable salary and live comfortable lives just by making youtube videos? not in the slightest. they're entertainers. just like singers, comedians, etc... inspired by an event at my school: why do you think there’s so much girl-on-girl hate in our culture? because the country's homophobic. do you have a nice yard? if so, do you spend a lot of time outside in it? if not, where do you go when you want to relax outdoors on nice days? there's nothing special about it. and there's nowhere for me to relax if i wanna go outside. we have no chairs outside or whatever. is there a group of friends that you used to hang out with but no longer do? why don’t you hang out anymore and how do you feel about them now? i'll admit i was a loose "member" of the gothic/emo/scene/metalheads/whatever clique in high school. because i identified most with them. like we all sat together at lunch and such. it was hilarious, actually; overlooking the cafeteria, there'd just be this big splotch of black. xD i didn't "know" everyone in the group, just names, just select people. i miss a good number of them. we just had this... weird, underlying connection that said "hey, you're like me." how many siblings does your significant other or crush have? he has one older brother. what is the movie that you have waited the longest for/which film do you remember anticipating the most/are still anticipating? WHERE THE FUCK IS "THE INCREDIBLES II" do you have any ideas for a story or movie you’re planning to write or you’d write if you got the time/had the talent? please share a synopsis! i had plenty of story ideas as a kid, but none i never fully went through, except one. i don't feel like sharing, mostly because i barely remember it. what is something that an interested guy/girl could comment about you, that would make you instantly open to them (e.g., “that book you’re reading is from my favorite author”)? i wouldn't just magically say "OKAY I TRUST YOU," but it would in fact entice me to trust you easier. probably if you mentioned being a gmm fan. do you refer to yourself by any sort of fan nickname (belieber, little monster, etc.)? mythical beast, motherfucker! \m/ do you ever just get lazy and give up on your friendships? no. if you think you're going to "get lazy" with a friendship, omg, just fuck off. if you are single, even if you are normally happily single, are there certain specific things you witness that make you wish you were in a relationship (e.g., people getting engaged)? honestly, i constantly wish i was. that sounds very desperate and... easy-to-get-ish, but i'm not lying about myself on my own blog. single life is very lonely to me personally. i think almost every human seeks knowing someone is interested in them in that sense and will always be there. out of all your usernames for websites, which one is your favorite? do you use it for more than one site? my name almost everywhere is "ozzkat," which i really like, as it combines two of my favorite things. are there any cities near you that you’re afraid to go to because of the crime rate or its other bad reputations? fuck sharpsburg. where i grew up. do you grandparents ever judge you or stick their heads in your business? if not, is there someone else in your life you dread seeing because of their unwanted input? my maternal grandmother is... ugh. she's very closed-minded about important issues; like she only JUST recently opened up her mind to mental illnesses because of some drama in my family transpiring. so for a long time, my illnesses were invalid to her. last time i saw her though, we got along quite well. have you ever spent the whole day (or multiple days) just looking up one thing on the internet (e.g., videos of your favorite band, how-to videos, quizzes, etc.)? ha ha omg just a few days back i spent all day with colleen and chels looking up tats, pinning all those i wanted on pinterest! if you ever think about getting married, what are some aspects of the wedding that you would like to see in a non-traditional manner (e.g., a different color dress or “partners” over “husband” and “wife”)? well first, i do not want a church wedding, and i'm sliiightly considering a black dress to go with the gothic theme i'm hoping for. do you ask for other people's opinions often? on what subjects do you like to get the opinions or advice of others? yes, i love asking for other people's opinions, mainly when i'm about to make a controversial decision. god bless the few friends i have that've always been there to give me advice when i need it. what are you religious views or your thoughts on religion in general? how long did it take you to develop them? are you still confused or trying to figure out your religious views? i am a creationist christian, meaning i do not believe in evolution, but natural selection, as they go in opposite directions. this is a VERY fascinating subject and i'd love to give anyone curious a link to the blog post that instilled this belief in me. i also believe the world was not created in six literal days, but rather the "days" stood for junctures of time. i'm not sure which christian denomination that is. i was raised a catholic, so i've literally always believed in god, but i turned to christianity alone in high school i think, as well as creationism when my former best friend mini exposed me to it. i am not confused in my religion, no. i'm quite confident in it. are you a rule follower? do you get angry if other people break the rules? can you remember a time that you have broken a rule? it depends on the rule, really. ex. i won't kill a person, but i'll download a song illegally. all depends on what it is, if i support the rule, or if it's legally punishable, honestly. what songwriter do you consider to be one of the best lyricists? CRADLE OF FILTH AND OTEP OMG SLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY have you ever cried from physical pain? as an adult? yeah. i fucking sobbed when i was getting my cyst emptied. what do you like best about taking surveys? do you use them to discuss current events in your personal life? i like that they give me a chance to just... vent. i get to talk about my life, yes, and i at least believe i can do it without being lectured. do you feel comfortable being about people your own age? do you feel like you "fit in" with people your age? in general, do you like spending time with people older or younger than yourself? i feel... inferior to most people my age, honestly. i don't think i fit in because i do far more unimpressive things compared to most people of my age group. i'm not in school, i have no job, i'm not traveling to europe, i'm not married, i'm not raising a kid... i just don't feel like i belong. simultaneously though, i like hanging out with people older than me because they're usually more mature. have you ever read more than one book at once? do you do this often? i'm sure i have for school, but i don't do that anymore. i don't read period. what is your favorite book series, and what is your favorite book out of that series? ha ha omg i was MAD into the "warriors" (you know, the cat books) series in middle school through some of high school. maybe even in elementary, i don't remember. i don't have a favorite book in the series though, i think. who do you think reads these? *shrugs* i've seen my surveys taken before by people (easy to tell when everything's lower-cased and long as fuck lmao), so i guess they may read some of my answers while adding in their own. some random tumblr users find them too, probably. can you change the oil on a car? i cannot. the first time you discovered power: ... i don't want to go into much detail on this, because after i thought about this question for a minute or so, i realized i have only ever felt power in a sexual situation. i'm such a submissive person and just don't experience feeling powerful. after thinking just now, i think me being such the sexual tease i am has to do with feeling powerful. this is... really wrong, but i enjoyed the anticipatory knowing that jason wanted me a certain way, and because he's a man with respect, i had the say whether he could have me or not. please do not confuse this for me saying i was controlling with my ex-boyfriend, i was incredibly submissive to him in general, but i felt in control in some sense. for once. SCARIEST video game monster? but... i've played so many horror games!! uhhhh... well, i HATED the regenerators in "resident evil 4." that fucking smile was horrifying. hmmm... i also really hate/love the keeper/boxhead from "the evil within" bECAUSE OF HIS FUCKING WALK/JOG. THAT thing storming towards you like that? NO THANKS! the one monster, however, that i think would frighten me the most in real life would be the clickers from "the last of us." fuck those things. they're disgusting and horrid. something someone said or did that you found extremely attractive: well i mean, tons of things. the thing that i believe affected me the most though was probably the time jason, in a whisper, called me his wife while we were "doing things." he started out so afraid of commitment, and to hear him call me that in such a confident-sounding whisper, it meant... a lot. but well. he's gone now. something you've done that someone at least seemed to FIND extremely attractive: lmaaoooo i'm open af on tumblr but the thing i've ever done i think jason found the most attractive, i shall not repeat. i promise, you'd thank me. the farthest distance you would travel now to be with someone you desire: for jason? i'd go to the other end of the planet. what you dislike most about having a committed relationship: i mean, i guess after you've been with someone so long, you're afraid of leaving the person even when necessary for your health. if you're in a healthy relationship though, there's nothing i can really think of to complain about... your sexiest feature: ... can hands be sexy? because they're the only thing i like lmao the physical feature for which you are most often complimented: my hair, def. a place where you have always wanted to make love: ... a church fucking murder me the most perverted situation you have ever been in: LOLOLOL LET'S NOT the first time you achieved orgasm: i never have, but i think i got like agonizingly close once and had a panic attack because i didn't understand what was going on. yes, i am truly that pathetic lmao. a person you regret sleeping with: no one. a person you regret not sleeping with: first i don't regret literally sleeping with jason, but i'm assuming in this context, you mean "having sex with." in that case, jason. a fantastic kisser you have known: only ever kissed jason, and i am QUITE sure there's no one i'll meet who'll be better. like ffs he only had one partner before me and certain things he did with me he didn't with his ex, yet he always seemed to know what to do...? the book, song, or movie title that best describes your sexuality: uhhh. idk? you have a great amount of guilt regarding: practically sexting my former best friend's boyfriend when i was like 12. and i was the one who got them together. a moment in your life when your emotions froze and you felt absolutely nothing: when jason told me he was talking to dillon about our relationship in a negative context... i knew. you are haunted by the memory of: everyone knows by now. one of your most peaceful moments: lying with jason on the trampoline, looking up at the stars... a sickness or disease you fear: more than anything? alzheimer's/dementia. i can't forget. i can't. i don't care how tragic my life's been, i don't want to fucking forget. a reason for which you would seriously contemplate suicide: if jason died. i'd more than consider it. your greatest fear about marriage: divorce. marriage is supposed to be for forever; i don't want to marry the wrong person. what's your mood right this minute? i'm actually... okay-ish. for once in my life. i'm talking to my friend jax about a private subject, and it's opening my mind to some possibilities about certain things. i feel like a weight's crumbling from my shoulders. ever had an internal worm? NONONONONONONONONO PLEASE GOD NEVER THEY TERRIFY ME FUCK THAT have you ever been in a lighthouse? no, but i'd love to. :< do you find that you have a certain meal you eat every time you go to certain restaurants? i always get the same meal when i go to any restaurant. you have the option to have sex right now. do you do it? only if it's with jason, yeah. would you ever lie to someone to make them feel good about themselves? depends on the subject. do any medical problems run in your family? OHHH GOD HERE GOES. let's see. heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, cancer, depression, anxiety, bipolarity, and i can absolutely guarantee i'm forgetting some... something you really want right now? i'd rather not say. have you cuddled with someone you weren’t dating? i have not. how long have you been using tumblr? not even a year yet. what was the last pill you took? idk. i take my morning pills in bulk. where was the last place you got completely wasted? i've never been completely wasted. describe god: i'd... rather not with how life is right now. your most spiritual moment: i still believe i had a dream once sent to me by god. when i was much younger, i had a dream that i walked outside onto my front porch, and two geese, one white, one black, flew in sync with each other to perch before me. they morphed into my grandfather, who smiled at me, and my former cat midnight, who meowed. i really do feel like this was god reminding me my loved ones will always watch over me, because the feeling it gave me, it was holy. how you picture the end of the world: the biblical definition, i guess. pretty much everything that can go wrong, goes wrong. it sounds terrifying. do you feel that most wars started because of religious conflicts? i am honestly not knowledgeable about aaaall the wars in our history to determine this answer fairly. i do, however, believe a good majority are related to religion. does life exist on other planets? no. speaking of "life on other planets," isn't it funny how a trace of water on mars is called life, but an unborn fetus isn't?? do you believe we are descendants of adam and eve? yes, i do. the first step toward resolving poverty: hunny, i wish i could tell you. there are a LOT of factors to this. the worst crime against humanity: hm. i honestly don't know what i consider the worst. i'll think about that and come back to this question if i think of anything. the minimum punishment for those who molest children should be: fucking kill them. your most beautiful childhood memory of your parents: probably something regarding fishing... your most horrifying childhood memory of your parents: hearing my mom screaming in ashley's room, calling her a slut, a whore, worrying i'd be in ashley's place some day... a friend you would name as a godparent to your child: if we're even still friends then... colleen. the moment you are most ashamed of: i've told this story enough times. it's the same moment i'm most embarrassed of. someone who shared this moment with you: um. his name is joel. what do you think of people who have fake relationship statuses (like married to their best friend) on facebook? i mean it's whatever, but it may be frustrating if you wanna know if that person is really in a relationship without asking. if your employer looked at your facebook page, do you think they'd fire you? lmao after seeing i'm conservative, i'm sure. do you wish facebook had a "dislike" button or would that cause too many arguments? i'm neutral. i see both sides. who's your favorite band? how long have they been your favorite? ozzy and metallica have been two of favorites since middle school started, and the others, i don't really remember. my most recent favorite band tho is a day to remember, who i've liked for a bit over a year now. do you get annoyed when people try to get you to like their music, even though you've told them before that it's just not your thing? that's never really happened to me. now, i've been told my music is pretty much devil music and is nothing about depression, death, and despair because my best friend's fucking ignorant, but she hasn't tried to control the kind of music i like exactly. last concert you were at? was it good? alice cooper, and it was EPIC. it was storming and we were all soaking wet outside. he did that illusion where his head gets chopped off by a guillotine, which was REALLY cool. towards the end, huge balls were being passed through the crowd and he sang a rendition of "another brick in the wall" by pink floyd and it was just. holy shit it was badass. who was your favorite band in elementary school? do you still listen to them? it was probably green day, and yeah, i love them. looking at your appearance alone, would people be surprised to learn that you listen to the music that you do (ex. do you dress goth but listen to country)? it's pretty obvious what i listen to. pro-gay rights or anti-gay rights? i am for rights towards certain parts of the LGBTQ+ community. i'm sorry to tell you, but i sincerely believe there are... certain sexual/gender-oriented decisions... that are not "real." i won't go into detail on tumblr because it's a liberal parade and frankly i don't feel like hearing it. separation of church and state or no? DEPENDS DEPENDS DEPENDS. it REALLY depends on the very unique situation. prayer in school, yay or nay? you'd best let a child pray to themselves in school. free healthcare (like in canada), good or bad? make it free, yes. using the word "slut" against women--okay or not okay? against a woman who deserves it? sure. before every fucking reader gets triggered, a slut is merely defined as a feminine character who has multiple sexual partners without much commitment. ummm, last time i checked, there are women who do JUST that??? it's just a fact??? i'm white. you can call me white without fucking offending me. same thing for a "slut," i'd merely be stating a fact about you. people have made such a big fucking deal out of this word. if you were pregnant, how long would you wait to write something about it on facebook? OH BOY IT'D BE QUICK. probably right after my husband knew, really! i've already got pregnancy announcements planned! i want to make a really creative pregnancy announcement photograph with my hubby, those are like... my favorite pictures ever. (: when you're on a first date with someone, do you like it when they ASK if they can kiss you? i'm not really into the idea of a first date kiss, but yeah, i think i'd appreciate being asked. in your opinion, is omitting some of the truth the same thing is lying? hm. i do believe i- well... i don't know. it depends on what you say, i guess, but in general, you're not lying yet...? what's your favorite kind of lip piercing? (monroe, labret, snakebites, etc.) vertical labret!!! i really like these because i feel it enunciates the symmetry of your face. what's the most annoying "type" of drunk person? well i mean, this is far more repulsive than annoying, but angry drunks. at what time in your life were you happiest? if it was in the past, would you want to go back and relive it, though still knowing all the things you know now? if you had the option, would you choose (if it’s in the present) or have chosen to stay here/there forever and never learn anything new? the whole time i was dating jason. the first one or two years were the best. but would i go back there, knowing what i do now? no. i can't. there's no way i could. when is the right time to start having sex with someone you’ve become romantically interested in? honestly this is the same thing as a question i answered earlier today about when to consider getting engaged. time doesn't really determine this, but rather the intensity of the bond created. in general again though, i'd personally wait about a year, i suppose, to ensure you're both very serious about these feelings. if you honestly heard the voice of god talking to you, would you tell anyone? how would you tell them? (i.e., "Conversations with god" is a result of the author claiming to have heard god’s voice loud and clear, but some people would have gone packing to the mental institution, and others would have told their church… etc.) i would hate that, honestly. i don't wanna be hearing voices, regardless of who you are. but i do believe i'd tell my mom, but probably only her. have your parents ever told you that you couldn’t hang out with a certain someone? that i couldn't, no, that they didn't recommend it, yes. could you forgive a boyfriend or friend who physically hurt you? LMAO NOPE BYE FAM do you take care of your friends when they’re sick? the only person i've ever truly taken care of when sick was jason when he had bronchitis. do you own any real diamonds or other expensive jewelry? i don't think so. has anyone ever gave you jewelry as a present? mhmm. do you like diamonds or gemstones better? other gemstones, def. silver or gold? gold. i find it prettier and i can't wear silver anyway, i'm allergic. what kind of soda is your favorite? mountain dew, shamefully. do you use any acne products? not anymore. what do you take when you have an upset stomach? peptobismol do you get angry when people criticize your taste in music, or do you just shrug it off? when people say they don't like it, not at all, but if you're gonna straight-up criticize it like it's "bad" or "wrong" or something...? i won't get angry, but definitely annoyed. i find it aesthetically pleasing. you find your music aesthetically pleasing. shut the fuck up. have you ever smoked? i have not.

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