#discourse bullshit you guys need to go outside

[dm-clockwork-dragon]

Another Unpopular Opinion

I was asked to delete my earlier reblog by the OP, so they didn’t get sucked into discourse, so I’m reposing this as it’s own thing Well, here I go publicly stating another opinion that will probably get me cancelled. To be entirely fair, I’m sort of beyond caring at this point?

I think people need to calm their fucking tits - homegrown, surgical, or happily removed - over not just this game, but about HP stuff in general.

I’m a recently hatched egg, but I’ve considered myself non-binary for almost 15 years, and been an ally for as long as I knew what an ally was. I also have no particular love for the franchise, despite enjoying it a lot when I was a kid. That’s not virtue signally, or an attempt to defend my position - just letting you all know a little context, and that I do actually have a horse in this race.

I get it, I really do. JK is a fucking terrible person, and should burn in a thousand multicolored hells for the bullshit she spews and the hate she engenders in others. On top of that, she’s a shitty writer, to the point where she accidentally created an entire wizarding world where the difference between the good guys and the bad guys is just what flavor of Nazi you want to choose. But there’s a couple reasons I think that people really need to try and separate her from the franchise that she started.

1. Death of the Author.

This is the one that everyone else gives. It’s possible to enjoy, appreciate, or interpret a creative work in absence of it’s author or their intent. We do it with music, we do it with painting. and Like OP here points out: if we were to burn every book written by a problematic author, we would leave glaring wholes not just in our understanding of our own history and society, but in our understanding of how to avoid the same injustices and suffering caused by those authors. Dead or alive, the author’s right and control over who others interpret their work the moment they share it with the outside world.

2. You guys don’t know how JK makes money, do you?

I see all kinds of arguments out there about how engaging with, or - dare I even mention - paying for HP content is somehow a crime against transfolk because it directly supports a raging TERF and her platform. It doesn’t. Aside from the argument that JK makes all her money through investments and stock market trades - just like any rich person - She also DOESN’T OWN THE FRANCHISE. She retains intellectual property rights: AKA, she can write new books or shit if she likes (we have seen how that goes for her), and she is still treated as the primary source, but the IP and all production rights are owned by Warner Bros. JK doesn’t make a dime off of game, movies, or anything else that WB license or produce based on THEIR franchise. She already made her money by selling the franchise to them years ago. Honestly, she probably got the raw end of the deal at this point. At most, she might get some meager royalties that are eaten up entirely by the cost of paying someone to process them. That’s how publishing contracts and movie deals work - they are a fucking racket.  3. HP isn’t just something some people can throw away.

Like I said above, I sorta grew out of my HP phase, long before any of the issue of JK being a TERF ever came up. And I know that a lot of people who considered themselves fans have also willingly distanced themselves from the franchise in light of her shitty views and actions. But not everyone has that ability. To give you a different example: I grew up reading the Dune books. I finished the core series for the first time when I was 8, and have re-read the entire extended series more than a dozen times since then. It’s more than just my favorite book series, it’s a formative part of who I am as a person. So much of my beliefs and identity as a person have been informed or inspired by those books that I would argue it is impossible to truly understand myself without them. Hell - I’d argue the entire reason I started explore my gender and sexuality in the first place is because of the emphasis those books placed on the “Quisach Haderach” as the perfect fusion of male and female. Even if I were to verbally disavow the series for some reason, those books still define who I am today, and It would be physically impossible for me to separate myself from them Harry Potter is the same way for a lot of people. I think some of us loose sight of just how meaningful those books are to a generation. Not all of us - even within that generation - had the same connection, but for a lot of people who grew up reading them from the time they could turn a page, those books are just as formative and intrinsic to who they are as Dune is to me. they couldn’t separate themselves, even if they wanted to. And pissing all over someone for something they can’t change about themselves is exactly the sort of thing we are supposed to be fighting against! Same can be said of the bible, the Torah, the Quran or any other work that was meaningful and formative to a persons cultural upbringing. Even within the trans community, there are countless Christians, Jews, and Islamic followers. They make the faith their own, because it is an intrinsic and immutable part of who they are. If you are going to condemn Trans or Allies who can’t separate themselves form HP, then you are also condemning any Ally or Transperson who still practices or believes in some form of the religion the grew up with.  4. If we can reclaim slurs, we can reclaim this! I see so many of the same people who rail against HP, also writing or relogging posts about how important it is to reclaim slurs and other labels that have been historically used against us, and I agree. But that shit goes a lot further than just the names we have been called. Reclaiming something from those who would hurt you with it is like picking up the rock that was thrown at you, and saying “neat, this is mine now, you cant have it back”, as opposed to just kicking it back to the abuser so they can hurl it at you again. JK is a terrible person. which is all the more reason that we have a responsibility to take this beloved franchise away from her. She doesn’t deserve it, and as long as it remains in her power, she can continue to use it as a platform to hurt people. And this isn’t without precedent: Look at Butch Hartman, or Joss Wheaton, or Notch, or Gary Gygax. We have a history and a present filled with examples of taking beloved content away from shitty people a deciding “this is ours now, you can’t have it back.” We take those things that were or are important to us, and reframe them, re-write them, or reimagine them into something positive and supportive.  As an author myself, I know quite well how painful it can be to see your work taken away from you, and transformed by people who don’t share your vision. So lets hurt JK where it counts! Not in the wallet, not by railing against her on social media, but by taking away the one meaningful thing she has ever created in her miserable life. Because she doesn’t fucking deserve it.

[fite-club]

"aces aren't LGBT because LGBT is an acronym" please, i'd love for you to go around various queer groups around america, and hell, especially those outside of it, and ask them to agree on one singular acronym. please do it. it will not happen. we say 'LGBT' for conciseness and simplicity, it's not a completed list of all sexual minority identities.

"talking about asexuality and the ace spectrum and how one can consensually have sex while being ace leads to abuse" exactly how? with well informed discussions/education on consent, safe sex, asexuality, etc, how exactly does this lead to abuse? have you thought about this point in any meaningful capacity or are you just repeating the same bullshit people said about asexuals back in 2016? the only scenario i can think of involves a sexually active partner pressuring their asexual partner into sex, which is abusive in ANY case and NOT unique to asexuals by any measure of the imagination.

"aces think sex workers are not oppressed" where has this been said recently? i'm going to need screenshotted evidence of this. because i've seen a number of asexual sex workers and porn artists, using either their own bodies for sexual material, or by writing or drawing pornography. i'm struggling to imagine that there is such a staggering lack of solidarity between people who have sex for work and people who lack a sexual attraction - two extreme ends of a spectrum of human sexual activity that society abhors - that anyone over the age of 17 would actually believe this. have you seen an adult with a job and a life saying and believing this? or has it been a 16 year old twitter user whose only queer life experience comes from their high school gay club?

asexuals are sexually assaulted and pressured into having sex by society's expectations of sex. those experiences and talking about this fact is not saying that sex workers are not oppressed. that is not what any of that means.

and finally...

"you already have non-aces defining asexuality" then why are you continuing to contribute to that problem? why do you believe, over asexuals, that your opinion on a sexuality that you do not identify with is what's correct? why do you feel that you are so entitled to an opinion on a sexuality that you agree is *already* being spoken over by people who are not a part of it? genuinely, why?

brother, every single thing you just said came out of 2016 era bullshit about asexuals. i genuinely want you to question if this discourse is productive for you or anyone else, and i want you to question where your opinions on this subject actually come from. are they based on real-life, first-hand experience? or have you been stuck in the same echo chamber for years?

i don't agree with all of your opinions, but i respected you quite a bit because it seems like your opinions are based in not just theory that you've read/dwelled on, but also real life experience being a transgender man. none of what you said about asexuals is actually based on your real life experience or any theory, and is based entirely on easily debunked bullshit arguments about asexuals, all of which are entirely 'whataboutisms' and making up a guy to get mad at. i can't respect you after your tirades about asexual people. please do some soul searching and reading on this subject.

“LGBT” is the exact acronym anon used. “you can enjoy sex without attraction/you can enjoy sex you don’t want” is rape culture rhetoric. you can ask around, but i’m pretty sure most asexuals don’t consider hypersexual people to be marginalized unless they also identify as ace. sexual assault is abusive in every case and not unique to asexuals. i believe “aces can want and enjoy sex” is aphobic, and “aces don’t want sex” isn’t; i think actual asexuals are being spoken over by allosexuals who want to identify as asexual. yes, my opinions come from real life, i’ve had asexual and “asexual” people in my life tell me about how they do or don’t experience sexual attraction. i’m not making up a guy to get mad at, i’ve had an asexual be homophobic to my face, and i’m sure i’m not the only one with that kind of experience. “do some soul searching and reading” shut up. wanting to have sex with someone = sexual attraction. someone who experiences sexual attraction =/= asexual, period.

[generallyjl]

straight up just a rant into the void because this head-up-ass election cycle discourse in the midst of the genocide in Gaza is beyond enraging

truly one of the most socially insufferable things about the Vote Blue Crowd to me (a white u.s.american who doesn't have to deal with the worst of their bullshit directly) is the analogies they come up with to make themselves the morally honorable and politically intelligent actors in these discussions online. like every smug little tiktok skit or snarky post on here about how it's so important to vote for Harris or whatever so clearly and obviously betrays a perspective on the world that i can only comprehend as having your head so far up your ass that you can only see the world through your own asshole.

"listen everybody, we have to choose between buying a Shit Sandwich or buying Literal Poison to have for dinner today. and if we don't choose, the Literal Poison Company is just gunna come force feed the poison to us at night, so we better all suck it up, put on our big girl panties, and buy from the Shit Sandwich Company!" and it's just like.... 1. that's fucked up for yourself as an acceptable (even metaphorical) world to live in and make "choices" in, right? but more importantly, 2. that's just not what's even happening at all. like, let's go with this thoughtless ass premise and add just 1 tiny little dash of inconvenient reality: you can choose to buy a Shit Sandwich and have the money you pay to the Shit Sandwich Company go towards mass murdering people globally, or buy the Literal Poison and have the money you pay to the Literal Poison Company go towards mass murdering people globally. if that's a (still extremely simplified and trivialized) situation in which you pretend like you have a genuine human-centered moral choice to make, idk what to tell you? get a grip and figure out a meaningful way to grapple with what it means to partake in the "democratic" process within the u.s. as a genocidal imperial power and settler-colonial state (and accept that you probably won't be able to come out of that feeling comfortable and good). at the very fucking least, don't come online and pretend like you're The Good Guy everyone should agree with for wisely shoving the Shit Sandwich in your mouth while the Shit Sandwich Company is actively using the money and support you give them to horrifically and brutally murder thousands of people in front of you.

disclaimer: honestly this is not even telling people to *not* vote for the people who have enabled, supported, defended, and driven forward a genocide. you don't even fucking need the permission or approval of commies or anarchists or whoever online to vote for people who are doing genocide. but if you are going to do so, then you simply must at least accept that 1. the people impacted by these genociders might fucking hate you forever (and if you feel sad about that then that's something you gotta work through yourself), 2. your choice to vote for the genocider who will probably treat you nicer is machiavellian not moral (as @/bloglikeanegyptian put it so succinctly), and 3. some people who have the ability to vote in u.s. elections will simply never be on board with the Shit Sandwich Company while they are carrying out a genocide and will prioritize political engagement outside of checking a box next to one of two mass-murderers on part of a ballot. do what you will and simply cope!!

[mineofilms]

Political Discourse on Perspective

“Great Minds Talk About Ideas. Average Minds Talk About Events. Small Minds Talk About People…” ~Eleanor Roosevelt

The Extreme-Progressive-Woke-Left collectively talk a lot about other people and/or groups of other people, usually pertaining to Donald Trump, whom I am not a direct supporter of. I am probably going Independent if I vote at all. Just so it is known. I have just as many issues with the right than I do the left.

Your everyday average-middle-class American are thinking more, they are talking up more, they are curious, they ask questions and then ask more questions. They are humble, they will and often do listen to multiple angles of a conversation. They try to make the illogical, logical. They try to make all the things that do not make sense, make sense. Your average-middle-class person is attracted to these things. Go to New York City, Chicago, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. What do you see besides the obvious? Lots and lots of bitterness. I see a lot of, ‘alleged,’ smart people who do not have the sense to use that, ‘alleged,’ intelligence and who do not have it mentally, emotionally, and intellectually together. What I see is a lot of people who say they are smart by default based on where they went to school. When I say school, I mean college. None of these people would ever attempt to say they are smart and not be from a fancy college. I see these same people, bitter, living in interconnected boxed right angles, stacked onto one another, like how one would organize the useless things they own and then sit back and be proud of that. Working dead-end jobs, being jealous of others that live free, outside in the sunlight, eating fresh non-processed food. We see the people in the Mainstream-Progressive-Woke-Left-Establishment trying to appear to be intellectuals, but what they are really doing, in doing so, making stupid decisions or saying illogical things, like not being able to properly define what a woman is or that "kill the Jews," is not harassment on college campuses. They won’t condemn “Death to America” chants in public. What we are seeing now isn’t just illogical, it is just really dumb. Extreme-Progressive-Woke-Left collectively attempts to make minority issues displayed as majority issues and those issues be labeled as normal and/or everyday ‘FACTS...’” They keep telling us everything is great and the country has never been better.

We all look outside for ourselves, check our bank accounts, go to the grocery store and that is not the reality that is being projected onto us by them.

The disconnect of the Extreme-Progressive-Woke-Left with your average everyday citizen that identifies as left and/or right is becoming a real problem. It has been a real problem since this movement has attempted to make what are obviously bad ideas appear good and use very poorly executed reverse psychology to tell us we are all wrong, bad, evil and stupid for questioning anything this point of view labels as normal, news and/or facts... As previously stated; I am not even a Trump-guy and can see through all this bullshit. Basically, anyone that doesn't agree with their 'class' is an ‘anti-intellectualist.’ First it needs to be stated that in order to be an intellectual, one has to be, you know, 'intellectual.' Simply going on TV and pulling a Vice President-Second in Command-Dumb-Dumb-of the Year-Kamala Harris-Word-Salad of nonsensical rhetoric does not make what anyone has to say right by default. That is why more people are looking / scoffing at the left. Not because they are left or democrat by default but rather they have had power and look what they did with it. They undid Trump's work out of spite, regardless of right/wrong for the country. It was literally like 15-yr-old high school TikTok drama and then they turn around and tell us, it is all our fault too. That to me is crazy. It would be ok if the left was; “hey, we FK'd up, we'll do better if we win.” No. They say we're better now with Biden than we were with Trump and here is the proof. What proof? The reality is we are not better. They keep on telling us bad is good and we need to accept it. We try to vote, talk, say things that make sense and they turn around and use more language that logically makes no sense.

"Anti-intellectualism…" What in the hell are they talking about?

After “The Matrix Reloaded” (2003) came out. I first thought that both the red and blue pills did the exact same thing. If you take the blue pill or the red pill that one would still wake up in a pod fighting the good fight. That is what I thought back then. I used to joke that if it were me I would give Morpheus the finger, take both pills and jump out the window yelling “wild card,” like Charlie from “Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” Nowadays; I see Red/Blue, in both political terms and philosophical terms, that each ‘choice’ may have a different road, but all roads lead to the same destination. The Red/Blue pill itself is like seeing reality in 2D, flat, a straight line, no depth, while those that control the flow of both pills/colors, see reality in 3D and/or 4D depending on what level of control we have here. 2D beings will never be able to understand and/or perceive 3D, let alone 4D. Even how we perceive 4D, from the 3D perspective is very tough to see/interact with/understand. You take red, you go right. You take blue, you go left. Both roads are curved, but they seem straight to us. Eventually, because they are curved both roads lead to the same destination. The majority of humanity follows the curve, thinking they are going in a straight line away from the opposing color never conceiving that they are playing right into the system's hands.

• Control Dissidence – is when a person believes that they are free, but they do not know that they are more oppressed than those who are still stuck in “The Matrix.” Both pills are a lie. The choice was always an illusion. “Choice is an illusion created between those with power and those without. You see there is only one constant. One universal. It is the only real truth.” ~Merovingian, “The Matrix Reloaded” (2003).

A logical fallacy is a flaw or error in reasoning that undermines the validity of an argument. It involves deceptive or incorrect reasoning that may lead to an unsound conclusion. Logical fallacies can be categorized into various types, and they often manifest in the form of faulty patterns of thinking, misleading evidence, or irrelevant reasoning. These flaws can occur in coherent or probabilistic reasoning and may be intentional or unintentional.

Common Types of Logical Fallacies Include:

• Ad Hominem – Instead of dealing with someone's argument, you attack the person who's making the argument.

• Straw Man – Making someone else's argument look weaker than it really is, so it's easier to criticize. (Over simplification).

• False Cause – Thinking one thing caused another just because they happened together, without enough proof.

• Circular Reasoning – Using the conclusion of your argument as one of the reasons your argument is true, but it doesn't actually prove anything. (Most popular and currently in play most days of the 2020s).

• Appeal to Authority – Believing something is true just because an important person or source said so, without looking at the actual argument. (Very common in the political landscape).

• False Dichotomy – Making it seem like there are only two options when there could be more. (Most binary information systems, like the two-party system).

• Hasty Generalization – Jumping to a conclusion based on too little or biased evidence.

• Appeal to Ignorance – Saying something is true just because it hasn't been proven false, or vice versa.

• Red Herring – Bringing up something irrelevant to distract from the main point.

• Honorable Mentions – Pseudo – Pseudo-logic – Pseudo-intellect – Pseudoscience. Pseudo literally means ‘made-up.’ Let’s not forget, ‘anti-intellectualism.’

Recognizing and avoiding logical fallacies is essential for constructing sound and persuasive arguments, as they can undermine the credibility and effectiveness of reasoning. Critical thinking skills, common sense and logic practitioning are crucial for identifying and addressing logical fallacies in both everyday discourse and more formal debates.

Presentism – uncritical adherence to present-day attitudes, especially the tendency to interpret past events in terms of modern values and concepts.

Presentism is a WOKE and/or Progressive attribute of belief. WOKE is both a Subculture and Internet Subculture that attempts to make minority issues displayed as majority issues and those issues be labeled as normal and/or everyday ‘FACTS...’ Keyword semantic concepts, 'minority...' Minority means, minor, not many, not all, not most, but “some.” Minority can never be mistaken for majority, which is most, much more than minority. These concepts are not one in the same. Presentism refers to a common tendency to judge historical events, people, or ideas by today's standards and values. Instead of understanding the context of a particular time period, presentism applies current beliefs and attitudes to past situations. For example, it's like saying someone from the past was wrong because they didn't act according to today's morals, even though the norms and values back then were much different than present day society. This approach overlooks the complexities of history and fails to appreciate the unique circumstances of each era. Presentism can distort our understanding of the past and prevent us from learning valuable lessons from history. In simpler terms, it's like trying to fit square pegs into round holes—forcing current ideas onto past events without considering the differences in time and context. So, being aware of presentism helps us approach history with a more open mind and understand it in its proper context.

Rhetoric as Semantics:

Rhetoric is the art of being a master bullshiter…

In semantics the meanings in the words would require logical, real, facts and not pseudo-facts where ‘pseudo’ literally means ‘made-up.’ The one part of this that I have always challenged is this all comes down to what a real, true, fact is and what isn't. Facts are obtained by the scientific method, not faith or a/the belief of it (whatever 'it' is). Belief in something doesn't necessarily always mean it is both real and/or true. Belief is just that, a belief, a thought that something ‘could be’ real/true. One believes this, whatever this is, to be true. A fact is taking that belief and proving it is actually real and/or true in the real world… I look deep into most of the things that are being spewed as semantics, but really are just rhetoric, where semantics is the study of real and true meanings of words and phrases and are based on credible facts. Where rhetoric only has to appear it is based on credible facts, but doesn’t actually have to include anything real, true or fact, merely that it only sounds plausible.

For some very odd reason our society has allowed far too much nonsensical thinking to become part of our everyday mental processes. Our attention spans are so limited now. We can blame the internet and/or social media, but the internet was not always like that. People used to spend hours behind their computer screens. I still do, very much so. Things used to be long format. Things used to take time. Now anything over a few sentences on social media via a smartphone or a video up on YouTube is longer than 8-minutes people skip it and move onto something else that is over-simplified.

It is us. We did this. We are doing this. We are allowing this.

It is a real shame that people who are not very intelligent, in general, should become people who lead us. It really does boggle my mind sometimes that some, ok, most, of the people who lead us are of less intelligence than a majority of the very many that make up our everyday average-middle-class American. In a world where presentism reigns supreme, the past becomes a battleground for contemporary ideologies that don’t even make logical sense. History is and is always both complex and written by those that won the wars. To judge it through the narrow lens of today's hypersensitivity of narcissistic-sociopathy that is now our ‘new normal’ misses its richness entirely. As we attempt logical discourse, let's strive for fuller depth of context, recognizing that the past is not a mirror of the present, but a window into how we used to be and where we should go from here. So, let's approach history with humility and curiosity, embracing its diversity and learning from its lessons and/or mistakes. The 80’s were better than the 90s. The 90s were better than the 2000s. It’s always been that way. All of the above, all at once, never ending.

It is more important to remember how it actually happened or those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. And that is exactly where we are heading. Rome fell over a time span of 150 years. I dare us to do better…

Political Discourse on Perspective by David-Angelo Mineo 4/19/2024 2,182 Words

[x-other-souled-x]

Syscourse on this website is so fucking stupid but I can't look away, its entertaining as much as it is frustrating.

Yall are so fucking stupid, anyone can talk shit about anyone, anyone can say whatever they want, talk shit get hit, whatever.

Its not a "boundary" for others to talk freely, if you don't want to associate with people then dont. Block them. Move on. Stop flinging hatred to others.

And anyway someone blocking you isn't you winning an argument.

If you get blocked its more likely it's because you're annoying or a pest or keep saying the same shit over and over and expecting people yo just give up and say "you were right all along, I renounce my personal expereinces to you, oh wise tumblr user who is an expert on everything life has to offer! Woe was I to ever beleive I could possibly have an opinion or life expereince different from anyone else, I had forgotten we all must suffer in exactly the same ways!"

Yall REFUSE to take your safety and health into your OWN HANDS and use the fucking block button and live comfortably in your little circle jerk bubbles and then COMPLAIN about it. Shut the fuck up whiney little kids.

One day when you grow up you're gonna realize none of this fucking matters. You'll get the care you need if you fight for it and it's not fucking endos online or even genuine fakers using up ""resources"" (guys fakers don't go to the doctor, duh, no I'm not arguing that bc even if they do they don't last long OR if they do then they have something ELSE seriously wrong they need treatment for, ppl don't just pay thousands of dollars for FUNSIES omg.)

It's not them, its the prohibitive nature of healthcare systems around the world who don't give a shit about you as far as your wallet goes.

Why don't you focus your fight on the actual target, the ableist and restrictive nature of much of healthcare around the world. What ever happened to mad pride? Why are yall fighting your siblings like this? It's stupid.

Here I'll help you out, go from here, learn a little.

Go outside make friends who aren't entrenched in online discourse and life your fucking life. Touch grass. Choose better battles and stop wasting your time making your PEERS lives miserable for no other reason than you need to feel good about yourself.

We can help each other if we dont just keep tearing each other down for no reason.

No instead yall just bitch and complain and whine and ATTACK OTHERS over stupid shit like wether or not someone can use an anime character's name if they introjected said anime character. Or the mere existence of people different than you. Fucking inane behaviour. Get a better hobby for fucking real.

I stick my head in from time to time because I think it's funny to see a bunch of kids whine about things that they can step away from at any moment. Except it makes me sad to see yall waste your time making dedicated syscourse blogs and other dumb bullshit youre wasting your time on. You're not changing minds, you're fighting for grains of rice on the dirt floor.

And yes actually you CAN step away from the internet at any moment and do something else with your life. Even if you're chronically bedridden, read a book, write a story, draw a picture, watch some movies, play with dolls, whatever, just take a fucking break.

I'm turning off reblogs and blocking anyone who screenshots this to argue**. Seriously, get a better hobby. Live your damn life. The opinion of a STRANGER ONLINE shouldn't make you shake and get so heated that you can't think of anything else. L

You WOULD feed the trolls and you do.

(**with one exception, if you want to agrue about the prohibitive costs of health care and provide resources that dont cost thousands, because it would actually help people)

[mywitchcultblr]

Ask and submission turned off because some people keep telling me to kill myself, calling me horrid stuff and wouldn't stop baiting me to debate about fanfic morality.

It's been going on for a while, but it has become more intense in the past few days. Usually i got some from people who disagreed with my dragon age takes or because I'm a very vocal LGBT leftist who is pro inclusion

But anon hate fanfic? That's new, maybe I recently got it because of my anti Tiffany G/anti AO3 censorship post or because i wouldn't shut up about horny Star wars fanfic and stuff

The sign begin from this ask i feel

Some anon keep calling me 'disgusting pro ship' 'pro ship kys' even though I'm NOT putting that label on myself, I just don't want to make a big deal of fanworks, I'm not even agreeing with all ship or all kind of fan art.

( Okay maybe I have 0 moral high ground because i like reading Hiddleston x reader, don't look at me, my life suck and I'm lonely) GOD saying you are not into fandom harassment and you are anti fandom harassment even towards fanfic or fanwork that you don't like is enough to make people coming after your ass and telling you that you should suffer and die.

That you are disgusting and nothing... 0 equality advocacy that you do matters because you are not into fandom crusading

If i don't like something? I wouldn't read it. If something is REALLY GENUINELY BAD and REALLY WORTHY of report, then i will block and report without doxxing or harassing

Life is more than anti vs pro ship discourse

Another one wouldn't stop yelling about how I 'ruined' Obi wan with my horny kinky story whatever and I should quit Star Wars fandom

if you want me to die please let's talk in DM. I'll tell you my address and you can shoot me or hang me myself. Go on, come here I dare you

Also darlin if you want to tell someone to die, don't bother to use KYS, you are already horrible anyway. Just say it "kill yourself"

That person who told me to read the bible over omegaverse is super tame compared with the asks that I deleted. I didn't turn off ask for so long because there are funny or nice asks

Okay this is a bit funny but still condensing. This is tame btw...

It's getting too disturbing. I'm done

[menthav1ridis]

okay ive slept on it (sidebar: the ep was genuinely disturbing! i have a hard time gauging that kind of my response while im close to it but i Thought About It Unbidden a few times which is for me the mark of Media That Affected Me, in this case... not in the good way) and my thoughts are as follows:

-as a piece of gothic horror romance the level of grotesquerie, emotional and physical violence, is perfectly precedented and can be a valid choice. however. that shit should have had a trigger warning. the power of fantasy and metaphor is exploring the dark parts of ourselves through a veil, an additional layer of safety that allows us to probe deeper without risking real harm. what we saw there was only a Fight by sheer technicality. i don't like how much they beat on louis and claudia. i don't like it as an artistic choice, outside of all other context. They Didn't Need To Do All That.

-it's not exactly Like Hannibal, You Guys, (i fucking love hannibal. for the record.) because a lot of the discourse is not over the violence as an independent unit but in context as a work of adaptation. because:

-as an adaptive choice this was ENTIRELY OUT OF LEFT FUCKING FIELD. it's so weird to me just based on the other choices made so far in adapting the material?? i really, really like the other adaptive choices. it's a beautiful piece of interpretation. episode 5 was.... not that! im not saying it's completely out of place in the narrative, sure, if you're telling that kind of story, kick the baby some more, but they Haven't Been doing that so far??

-in the terms of adaptation i dont like what this means for claudia's murdery vibe. because now she's just, like.... right. lestat totally deserves exactly what's coming and that's not a great choice in my mind?? because vampires are Excessively dramatic. they are our worst parts amplified. lestat's murder isn't righteous. it's messy. i worry for how clean cut this might end up being.

-that said this feels very similar to when I finished castlevania season 3 and actually craved death. then season 4 came out, and the horrible grimdark bullshit was put into context, and it didn't make it a better writing choice but it sure made a lot more sense. so i am choosing cautious optimism. that was a weird, sheer drop in authorial direction and they have to go Somewhere with it.

[fromthefishbowl]

Oh i love you for saying Lazaefair's name outloud.Not just you, I appreciate everyone in this fandom who had the guts to call her out.I understand people who are hesitant to call her out, cause she's a snake who have an exceptional knack in gaslighting and turning anything and everything in her favour. Lazaefair, Len and their cronies have hurt so many people inside and outside tog fandom and i won't be surprised if people come out saying they had suicidal thoughts because of these people.These racist antisemitic people needs to be called out ( and i loved the way how you mentioned the cronies without saying their name) . Their 'All and more' discord server is the most toxic racist discord in this fandom cause all they do is cover up all the racist and antisemitic bullshit done by their mods. (well, people do have reciepts of all the things they said in that server)

They should be held accountable for the things they did. They should apologize for every horrid things they did to poc, muslims,jews, writers, content creators and even fans.

Then there are the 'silent ones' ( theres a lot) or the blind devotees (yeah they too follow lazaefair and lens bible) who just keeps on making their cute little posts and a reblogging posts as if nothing happened in this fandom. All i have to say is they are straight up racist. Its like they are all part of this cult.

I am really holding myself back from naming the cronies because its not my place.But they all need to be called out by their victims.

Remember these people have been decieving and bullying people in the tog fandom for a year. For a YEAR they disguised as adults engaging in race conversations and fighting racism but they were like actual 12 year olds making "lists" and sending death threats to people.

But i have to warn you a particular "newb" or a different crony is gonna send you some death threats for mentioning lazaefairs name. Just be prepared to fight that anonymous 12 year old.

They better not start sending anon hate or threats or nasty comments, because everybody will know it's them and their reputation is already six feet under as is. Making it sink even lower would be embarrassing even for their standards.

And I have already mentioned this to a couple of friends, but... it's hysterical that these people are literally know for sending death and rape threats - across multiple fandoms too!!! -, pushing people out of fandom, harassing, bullying, and vagueblogging, and yet they took time to create a secret Discord server to recruit people into and "make the fandom great again" or some shit, as if they weren't the ones who ruined it in the first place - also by spreading actual misinformation and accusing actual MENA people of not telling the truth, with Lazaefair who worked real hard to spread the rumor that one of the MENA bloggers who were writing informative posts was actually an evil sockpuppet, and rejoicing when they wrote their last post before leaving fandom after receiving weeks worth of death threats, because we can't forget that! How dare anybody cross the ignorant American woman and her equally ignorant French bestie and their shit takes???

I was never in A&M, literally the only TOG servers I've ever been in are Top!Joe and the Zine one, but... if things are how people told me... whew, guys. And they are supposed to be the good guys? The righteous ones who put us on the right road and teach us how to be better people?

Them having a secret server also explains how it was possible that all the "big names" in the fandom who supported discourse, from Miss Finland to Miss Racefaker and their little cronies too, went real quiet just before the beginning of Pornathon and the day the event began they suddenly began yapping and whining about racism again, reblogging from each other, spitting out the same two takes - I loved, loved, when I pinned Len down when she was trying to shit on people for being """antisemitic""" and reminded her that Lazaefair is actually antisemitic, and Len pretended that she didn't know her lmao. If I were Lazaefair, just for that I would've thrown her under the bus as soon as the exposé was posted. Now that I think about it... was I the catalyst that caused her to write that racist as hell post? The one with the MENA boys who conveniently look like Majid because that's totes how all MENA boys look like in Europe?

Here's the thing: you don't suddenly go online and become antisemitic or racist or xenophobic because you read rambling posts that barely make any grammatical and syntactic sense. You don't suddenly begin sending death and rape treats, insults, threatening people to post about them on KiwiFarms - someone is trying to be edgy here lmao - if you are a decent person. And you don't go out of your way to defend people who are. They were always shitty, they were always antisemitic and racist and awful people. Len and Lazaefair just gave them the authorization to let it all out.

And I agree with you: they absolutely should apologize for the shit they have done and said in the past months, but would that be enough? Would that repair the hurt they caused? Like... apologies are nice, but will they delete Len and Lazaefair's posts from their blogs? Write down that they are awful people who say awful things? Because at this moment I've seen a looooot of excuses but not a single apology - and I very much doubt that any is gonna come from any of them. Their little antisemitic, racist, xenophobic hearts cannot bear to have been proven wrong and that their savior is a flavorless, privileged French lady who is paler than the people they have harassed in her name - me included, which is so, so funny.

[theliterarywolf]

If you don’t mind me asking, why is there so much discourse regarding Hazbin Hotel?

The thing with Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss is that they’re at the midway point of having two kinds of discourse lashed at them: general fandom-wank discourse and outsiders who want to prove how sanctified and noble they are discourse.

The prior is just the general discourse that you see in any fandom for anything with a currently popular fandom: ‘oh, this ship is abusive/problematic’, ‘oh, you shouldn’t be a fan if you haven’t consumed all of the media for it’, art theft, and whatnot. You also get the bonus-value of some ace discourse/aphobia due to Alastor being canonically Asexual and a lot of people just having it out for those black, silver, white, and purple lines.

Thus, even if you were able to circumvent and sail a steady course to avoid all the fandom-wank just to enjoy your show, then you get the latter camp of discourse full of people who want SO MUCH to shit on the team behind these cartoons that they’ll cling onto constantly debunked claims like they’re Rose clinging onto that damn door in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, try to pit minority creators against one another -- 

I saw several people trying to say shit like ‘Why watch this shitty show when you can stan Tuca and Bertie instead~?’ (the show, of course, being the creation of Lisa Hanawalt) Which, 1. Does nothing but make people who actually like Tuca and Bertie look like brats (thanks for that), and 2. Tuca and Bertie was saved from Netflix’s bullshit by Adult Swim, so you really don’t need to be hostile to other content anymore..?

-- Make long-winded ‘critique’ videos that don’t even go into LEGITIMATE criticisms of the show (like the sound mixing in some parts of the initial HH pilot being unbalanced) but pull stuff out of their asses, I know one guy tried to make a whole tirade about how Alastor having a voice that sounds like a radio broadcast ‘was dumb and didn’t make sense’, despite, you know, him being THE RADIO DEMON!!

Or, my favorite, people trying to say that VivziePop hates LGBT people because of characters like Angel Dust and Katie Killjoy. You know, despite the fact that it’s BLINDLY OBVIOUS that Angel Dust isn’t in hell because he’s gay, he’s in hell because of his violent past and drug-addictions, Katie Killjoy saying ‘You can put that away; I don’t TOUCH the GAYS’ is there to show that she’s a shitty person, Alastor is, once again, Asexual, and our main character Charlie is wlw in a relationship with another wlw Vaggie. 

And so much other stuff that is either torn so far away from context that the complaints don’t make sense or it’s just people making up stuff to trash on a creator making something they don’t like.

Tl;Dr - The reason why HH/HB have so much discourse surrounding them is because they’re popular, dark, and new and people tend to hate anything that’s popular, dark, and new but they don’t want to just say that they hate the things, so they have to justify said hatred with lies.

[floatingcatacombs]

Studio Trigger’s Best Anime

12 Days of Aniblogging 2021, Day 2

Studio Trigger is a weird place. Proudly carrying the torch of Gainax, they focus on original projects with a flair for over-the-top stories matched with excellent stylized animation. We could talk about The Promare Twink, or the studio’s tendency to recycle the same third-act-bullshit plot structure over and over again, or *insert Kill la Kill discourse here*, but for this blog post I wanted to show off one of the weirdest and most unique series in their back catalogue: the impeccable Turning Girls.

Trigger started gaining real notice following the release of Kill la Kill in late 2013, but they put out two short zero-budget net series before it. The first is Inferno Cop, which should need no introduction. The second, Turning Girls, has always languished in obscurity. It is the product of Trigger rounding up all their non-animator female staff and asking them to make an anime, just to see what would happen. If interviews are to be trusted, each episode was made in a matter of hours. And against all odds, the result was something great.

Turning Girls is a semi-autobiographical anime about the trials and tribulations of four office ladies on the precipice of entering their thirties. Each woman has her own quirks and gets an episode or two focusing on them. They’re genuine and believable characters, even when shown at their most extreme for laughs. Frequent topics of the show include trying to find guys, having weird hobbies, and backstabbing your friends for kicks. The whole thing really does feel like outsider art, from the simplistic drawings to the PowerPoint-style animation. It adds up to have a real earnestness from a perspective you don’t see very often in anime, both on-screen and in the writer’s room. A lot of Trigger’s works can be reduced to “the ridiculous stories kids make up while smashing action figures together, but an anime”, but when they break that mold and create shows with a feminine touch, the results stand out.

Kaerun is of course the girl who steals the show. A janitor by day, wannabe idol by night, she’s Turning Girls’ greatest agent of chaos. Her Niconico livestreaming episode is a standout, with the fansubbers at Commie performing an incredible feat by subbing every single line of scrolling danmu comments. I hope the real woman behind Kaerun got to follow her dreams.

There’s not much more I can say about Turning Girls without just spelling the whole thing out. It’s funny, it’s sincere, and even when it has misses, each episode is only 5-6 minutes so you’re spending a little over half an hour in all. I rewatch it at least once a year and I’m willing to go to bat for it somehow being one of Trigger’s best. Give it a shot! It’s all free on Youtube but you should really grab the Commie-fansubbed version off of nyaa instead for the Niconico episode alone.

Also the end credits use the same font as the Paper Mario games for whatever reason, and I have to let that trivia fact out somewhere.

[luxwing]

I think a lot of you get so hung up on defining your identity with Tumblr discourse that you guys don't bother to experience life outside the internet and just believe whatever some fucker said because they made a funny meme or shit and since your internet friend thinks this way you decide yeah I'm gonna like this because they're my friend and don't bother to think about it critically yourself or listen to literally anyone else

Like with LGBT+ discourse you guys will reblog one post made by someone who's never interacted with anyone LGBT irl or been to any organized pride event then define yourself with this opinion when it's absolutely horseshit and use any garbage that's obviously made by trolls or joke posts as some sign to hold up and said "look! Proof!!" And whenever someone points out it's fake you're like "ngggggh Poe's Law nggggh" when that's not even applicable when every example you find is fake?

Honest to God I think you all need to legitimately shut the Fuck up and grow a personality that exists beyond arguing with people on the internet about who/what does and doesn't belong at pride because prides existed long fucking before tumblr and twitter and theyve did just fine without your "umm acktually-" bullshit.

Look into your local pride organizations. Actually go out and help or join them and interact with queer people outside of the internet. If you don't have any nearby or you can't safely join one do research on LGBT+ history. Listen to people who have actually been involved in the community instead of tumblr user cumslutclown420 who thinks theyre the defining source on queer culture when they're fuckin 17 or shit. Do better.

[vroenis]

Part 2

This is part 1.

Can you tell how tired I was getting by the end? This is life under meds, but given the other benefits (I think?), I’ll take it for now.

When I woke up the next morning, I had a whole lot I was thinking about and it’s stuff I want to say given I said a lot, but didn’t cover this stuff. I’m still happy with part 1, I think that’s just how I write, moving from subject to subject more or less organically and it does show me to more unstructured even if there is a vague plan for how I want the piece to go.

Anyway let’s get going.

As always, mild spoilers for well, everything. If you haven’t seen this stuff and are mildly interested in watching them then ah, you may have a lot of catching up to do. I don’t think I’ll drop any real hard spoilers for anything but you never know.

Ghost In The Shell is an Outsider story

There are whole stacks of lore you could dive into with Stand Alone Complex in particular, with Motoko having been in an aircraft accident and getting her first shell (cyber-body) at a very early age, what that means, the thing with Kuze (avoiding spoilers here), and the extended cast - not that Paz, Boma and even Ishikawa get a whole lot of time anyway - but it’s not really that important.

Looking at just Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 film, and even more-so his 2004 film Innocence (not really a sequel but usually regarded as such), the narratives cast the characters very much as Outsiders. In the first film, Section 9 is already at odds with the government in general and while it’s subtle, Aramaki as a department head is certainly different from his contemporaries, even if we don’t see much of it - again, so much more of this in Stand Alone Complex. Motoko’s early conversation with Togusa in the first film is probably the most telling as far as playing it loud. She speaks in pragmatic terms to why he’s there, but this is a precursor to what will ultimately transpire for herself at the conclusion of the film, something very intentionally written into the film. Batou is also an Outsider in more ways than one, not only in the role he plays in the department but in the very clear personal boundary between him and Motoko. There are boundaries between Batou and everyone and they become more apparent in the second film. Togusa is easy pickings so I’ll leave him alone, suffice to say if the film needs one, he’s the audience’s window of ignorance which is why he’s discarded so willingly half way in. He gets his time in the spotlight in Stand Alone Complex and it’s pretty amazing.

As for Motoko... I admit it is difficult separating my understanding of her character from Stand Alone Complex and attempting to just isolate what’s shown of her in the first film but I’ll try.

I mentioned the film’s centrepiece montage in my previous journal, in which we might say Motoko is the centrepiece but if so, she probably shares it with the city itself, and I feel much more is being said about the two together rather than separated simultaneously. This would be one of the first indications of Motoko’s sense of identity, of otherness, isolation, questioning. Again the scene that plays it most loud would be diving on the boat and her speech to Batou. There are other moments tho; single frames of her face, looks, movements that are lingered on, I feel like Oshii is constantly telling us about her and what she’s going to do, but more important than that, why she’s going to do it and how she feels.

Ghost in the Shell is a film about great emotion, and not like I’d know because it’s been a long time since I’ve looked into the discourse around it, but I suspect no-one really talks about it as a film about feelings.

I realise these days I talk more and more about moods and art being mood pieces. I labelled my Instagram account as being “A catalogue of moods” and I’m very fond of the use of the word in vernacular. It might seem flippant but it’s immensely empowered, especially for me as an individual when I understand my moods and can translate them into, via and thru art. I do appreciate many struggle with Oshii’s cinematic language as it can appear cold and detached and that’s fine, but it’s anything but for me - it’s immensely emotionally charged, it just appears differently to what audiences are perhaps accustomed to seeing. It’s a different language that perhaps takes time to learn, but it’s all there.

This couldn’t become more evident than in Innocence (the Ghost in the Shell 2 moniker I think was a western addendum). Batou takes centre stage and is  immediately presented as bluntly as possible as an Outsider, reaffirmed later by Aramaki who also cements Togusa’s position in limbo.

I should pause and say that within the GitS canon, I feel Togusa is definitely embraced by Section 9, so he’s not wholly an Outsider to the department, but for obvious reasons, he doesn’t fully share all of their daily or philosophical concerns - hence not wholly. He would also definitely be an Outsider to most other members of the force after joining Section 9, but unfortunately I’m not here to love Togusa, poor guy - I feel like he’s always a bit unloved. Someone write a giant essay in service to his greatness. He actually is great.

But I adore Batou in Innocence. I love his story, his struggle, his emotion. I love how present Motoko is without ever appearing on screen and then when she does, the impact she has on everything, especially with the lines she delivers, one of which I quoted to open the last journal. Batou is in many ways a shadow of what Motoko was and is/has become, just in physical form, mirroring her in a real world manifestation with the natural physical limitations that comes with.

For some reason I feel like I need to inject a comment about Batou putting the jacket/vest on Motoko’s body. I don’t know if people perceive this as an act of masculine modesty but it’s not how I read it. I did stumble on this action for years but as I began to interpret the films as Outsider stories, I realised that he does this as an act of inclusion, and that Motoko consents, permits him to and doesn’t immediately react with violence or technological recourse we know she is well capable of, indicates it’s mutual. Their inclusion isn’t just about the boundaries of the Section 9 department but extends beyond that, an inner circle that may only contain the two of them - inside which there are still boundaries between them Batou can never cross. Those boundaries become infinitely more apparent after the final events of the first film, and the second film effectively is all about how he feels about them. He is an ultimate Outsider, but so is Motoko in the state she now is in.

Section 9 is a department of stray dogs. Individuals who haven’t quite fit in where they belong, and found belonging with one another. Then, after a time, one of them moves on - at the conclusion of the first film, and then another feels an almost permanent and ultimate sense of separation - more or less the duration of the second film.

Ghost in the Shell isn’t about technology and sentience and hacking and corporations at all. It’s about loneliness and belonging and acceptance and affection. It’s about how that feels.

I’m Not Sure Why People Struggle With David Lynch Films

I need to stop talking about anime. Honestly I looked at the list at the start of the last journal and thought hell yea Sky Crawlers, Jin-Roh, Haibane Renmei and Lain let’s unpack some shit! but honestly I’ll run out of time and I should really draw from a variety of mediums and sources.

OK I’m not being facetious when I say Lynch’s films are fairly straight-forward narrative-wise. Again, it’s hard for me to position myself in a place where I’m not into the stuff I’m into and maybe that’s what gives me the cinematic language familiarity to parse them but that just sounds like wanker bullshit to me. I don’t mind if folks don’t like Lynch films, that’s fine. But they aren’t difficult.

So in the context of everything else, even on that short list on the last journal, plus how I keep trying to shift the discussion of works from the pragmatic reading of them to an emotional reading of them from a mood perspective, I feel as tho the same process can be applied to Lynch. So much about his films are about how they make you feel, or I’ll say - how they make *me* feel. It might be grandiose to assume I’m feeling the correct emotion, that these are the moods that David Lynch himself is attempting to create and evoke and thus, I am interpreting them correctly but hey - I enjoy the hell out of the films, feel I understand them and watch them over and over again so that’s all I’m basing it on.

That’s not to say there are things I dismiss as meaningless or that I don’t understand in his films, it’s just that I don’t have to parse them immediately at first watch and perhaps that’s the audience’s problem. I don’t know if reverse-diagnosis is appropriate but looking at how much hand-holding there is in other directors’ films might be just as telling. I mean I saw Nolan’s Tenet and was about the least confusing thing I’d ever seen in my life but apparently *that* confused people, and you know hey that’s fair I guess, but I mean Nolan did a whooooole lot of audience hand-holding in that film, I mean, the dialogue was terrible. There was so much unnecessary exposition, which I generally find in all of his films, so if an audience can’t follow that then OK sure, Lynch is going to be a problem.

The thing is popcorn cinema is totally OK. I watch it. I really love it, I’ve written about it before, it’s good Industry. There’s a lot of great creativity in popular cinema, I don’t at all think poorly of it and I love seeing a really well produced, Hollywood picture... but I guess if that’s all you consume, and I guess if folks’ short-format episodic media (aka series - think Netflix, HVO etc.) is more or less to the same standard, then it begins to make sense that anything outside of that isn’t going to make sense.

Long story short - Lynch films tell simple stories where the feeling of the film is as important as the narrative of the film. To understand the story, you have to understand the feeling, and vice-versa.

Surprise surprise, it turns out independent and deemed “fringe” film-makers... aka Outsiders... make films about Outsiders.

Now I wouldn’t know if any of the Marvel films thematically are about Outsiders or Outsider culture, they probably are and very loudly at that, but the reason I’ve never included one in my catalogue of moods is they all read the same way. Not only are Marvel films mostly indistinct from one other to me, they’re also mostly indistinct from much of popular culture in general. That doesn’t make them bad, some of them still have some pretty awesome stunts, visfx, even parts of the narratives, funny jokes etc. in them, but on the whole they’re not useful to me as things I deem truly valuable in the long-term.

It’s OK, I’m not at all going to lament the proliferation of Marvel films, a lot of them have been pretty cool and they keep people in work. Meow meow meow “the death of cinema” mate, sure - I find it more difficult to find the sorts of films I like but that’s always been the case. Humans will do what they do, it’s not a read on cinema, it’s about being an Outsider and what that’s all about. True, maybe weird shit like Lynch and Noe might be more difficult to make, but the weird-indie corner was also dominated by white men and that needs to change, so who knows what the future holds.

Can you detect the point at which I took my meds and started getting tired?

Ghost in the Shell // Innocence // What We Want // What We’re Left With

Growing up as an Outsider, I feel as tho the first Ghost in the Shell film carries the weight of isolation, questions of identity and belonging, ultimately of acceptance, empowerment and liberation. Then Innocence brings to bear very similar moods but states that things may not necessarily change for the better, they simply change state. I love that in both narratives, the main texts of hacking or corrupt corporations, crime etc. are the least common denominators and barely relevant to heart of the films. I think about the theme of icons in Innocence, icons operatively being the dolls throughout the film, and the final image of Togusa’s daughter’s gift. As humans we assume we’re to take the position of biological humanity as representative of sentience, taking moral priority over all other beings. Earlier in the film we think Togusa is in limbo, but  at the conclusion Motoko asks the question, or perhaps states that perhaps we’re all in limbo together.

I think that’s a significant part of what growing up as and being an Outsider is like, what it feels like. Christians have this saying about “living in the world but not of the world” (derived from a bible verse) and honestly I don’t think they know what it means because they just operate like a cult, but I think queers and folks with long term mental health conditions have a better idea. We are pushed out to the fringes of our social groups from an early age, long before we know or understand what’s different about us. Our peers and the adults around us do this to us because their social behaviours are so well hard-coded, even they may not even know precisely what’s different about us, they just do - and they’re right. We are different. And they don’t accept us.

Maybe I am starting to get a little more upset that weird/different art is becoming more difficult to fund and make, because it’s for us, for me. It speaks to me. You already have so much, and representation and inclusion is so important. I don’t just need queer cinema, I need weird cinema, I need moods. I need quiet, introspective, pensive, reflective, Outsider moods.

I still feel like an Outsider. I have a few people who understand more about me, but I don’t think I have a place, not in a real sense. I have never felt that. Art is one of the few places I feel any connection with anything, and connecting with people is a very odd thing to consider - honestly, I actually would really like to connect with people but the unique combination of being queer *and* autistic comorbid with bipolar makes it really tough, more difficult the older I get. And now all you want to do is fund Marvel movies. I can’t feed off of that.

I’m getting tired, I’m not making any sense. It’s time for bed.

[stimmyvillain]

tumblr (social media in general really) has really made exclusionism and devision within the queer community the norm and it’s sad :(, i talk to my older queer friends (60+) and some of them are really baffled by the way queerphobia has become the norm and acting like slurs for queer people have only ever applied to one group within the community. it’s not like queerphobes doubled checked they guy they were calling was a gay man and not a bi/pan/etc queer man before calling him a faggot, and the same with other slurs. like exclusionist on here have really just started recycling terf and queerphobic talking points and acting like they aren’t inherently harmful for everyone in the community- bi anon from before

okay anon I wanna THANK you for typing this out because you expressed this so well. I wish younger LGBT+ people on this site would realize that a lot of the discourse around LGBT+ identities is nowhere near as black and white and simple as their histories and TERF ideology dogwhistles are absolutely RAMPANT on this site. People need to do their own research that isn’t asking their favorite discourse blog on tumblr what opinion they should believe in. That includes asking me too! Go beyond what I say, I can be wrong. I can misunderstand things or misinterpret things. I can just be ignorant to some things! Misinformation isn’t always spread maliciously or intentionally, but anyone has the potential to spread it. Be critical of the things people insist to you are “fact”. And when I say that TERF ideology is what fuels these exclusionists I mean it. When people tell me that “you’re bi you just have internalized biphobia and you clearly hate bi people for identifying as pan (insert panphobic rant)” it is very very very very very very very very very VERY eerily similar to when I was told I was just a butch lesbian with internalized homophobia when I said that I was a queer trans man. If you are LGBT+ in any fashion, I’m sorry to say, but you are always going to be hated for that by someone. You didn’t do anything to cause it, you just existed. It’s not fair but it’s true. And you can perpetuate that bigotry even if you are LGBT+. Just because some tumblr blogger said pansexuality is out to destroy bisexuality or that demisexuality doesn’t exist doesn’t mean it’s true. And more often than not they just mimic TERF argument. I just wish this site would actually do research and not just take discourse blogs as gospel truth 

And I know no one likes to admit it but when you’re 13, 14, 15, etc. You are dramatic as all fuck. I was dramatic during that age, you were dramatic during that age, everyone was dramatic during that age. The issues you think are gonna make or break a community are most likely easily fixable with mature conversation, proper research, and compassion. I remember being 14 and being scared of doing the wrong thing or being a bad queer or that somehow I was pretending to be queer even though I very obviously wasn’t, and that makes you wanna buckle down and really do the right thing and not step out of line in fear of being rejected. And like you said anon when you speak to someone who’s been a part of the LGBT+ for years, decades, they’d tell you most of the discourses going on rn are bullshit. who fucking cares if I, a not-cis-gay-but-most-certainly-am-queer-man, reclaim fag. Everyone at my old job knew I was trans and heard me call myself a fag many many times and no one ever batted an eye. I promise the lot of you to step away from tumblr for your own benefit and expand your attention to viewpoints outside of it.

[frumfrumfroo]

What are your favorite movies and TV shows outside of SW? I’m looking for new things to watch since SW was so disappointing

My tastes are pretty eclectic, so I will stick to just things that are either similar to sw or are in the reylo-esque romance wheelhouse and have happy endings:

Chuck. It is a goofy, light-hearted action-adventure show with extremely endearing characters and a very prominent central romance (seriously, heavy romance and there is a lot of payoff for it, you will be FED- it's kind of slow burn but also shockingly NOT slow burn, they are deep into it pretty much immediately). The main couple is the classic Stoic Badass gradually softened by an innocent they have to protect who is a liability in battle but full of the Power of Heart. Chuck is The Heart btw. He is of that vanishingly rare male Beauty (of B&tB) type. He's incredibly generous and open, Sarah is prickly and closed-off. It is Quality. Very much a gender-swap of your typical cliche anime couple lol. I would recommend stopping at the mid-season finale in season 4, because it's downhill from there. The beginning of season 3 is very rough, but it's definitely worth it to stay for the back half, imo. There are several great endings to choose from before things go to shit, so we don't need to talk about the finale. Probably the most tonally similar to SW thing possible without being high/space fantasy. More humour, more silly, but definitely has a spiritual kinship. Has the best THE BEST 'secret revealed' scenes I have ever seen in anything. If you're into that and were hoping for that in ep IX, you need to watch Chuck.

The Shop Around the Corner. 1940 romance/drama film. You've Got Mail is a remake of it. Jimmy Stewart being profoundly adorable, Frank Morgan (aka the Wizard of Oz), various amusing side characters, and an absolutely deathless double blind 'secretly in love with the workplace nemesis' plot that can and probably has been a great reylo AU.

Mirromask. Fantasy/coming-of-age film. Touted as a 'spiritual successor' to Labyrinth by the filmmakers (one of whom is Neil Gaiman) and let me tell you, that is extremely apt. Beautiful, magical, laden with symbolism and Mask Discourse, and has a great ship. I quote it regularly.

Speaking of which, I'm sure you've seen Labyrinth? If you haven't seen Labyrinth, drop everything and watch Labyrinth.

Legend (the Ridley Scott director's cut, not the theatrical cut). Sumptuous fairy tale, runs on proper fairy tale logic, stunning to look at and overall captivating. Tim Curry. Tim Curry as a lonely tragic lord of darkness who tries to seduce the heroine and has drippingly overwrought monologues.

Howl's Moving Castle. Fairy tale adventure/romance film. Beautifully animated, has the ending you want.

The Silence of the Lambs. Thriller/drama film. Actual masterpiece. Use it as a gateway drug to read the books and rejoice that Clannibal is canon and it is spectacular. Just SotL and Hannibal, you don't need to read the other two. Stan Clarice Starling and revel in that ending. Most triumphant 'villain'/heroine ship of all time (he is not technically a villain but for shorthand's sake).

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Terry Gilliam 1988 fantasy/adventure film. THE TRIUMPH OF IDEALISM OVER CYNICS I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW HEALING IT WAS TO WATCH AFTER THE TROS BULLSHIT HIT. Jonathan Pryce's spiritual villain is basically Chris Terrio and it is cathartic to see imagination and sentiment conquer him.

Sabrina. 1995 romance film. Modern fairy tale with Harrison Ford. Rejecting what you thought you wanted all your life for the thing you actually need, growing up but still believing in magic, beautiful character development across all the leads. Could be (and is irrc) a fantastic reylo AU.

The Scarlet Pimpernel. 1934 adventure film. High romance, secret identities, play-acting, people who aren't at all what they appear to be, falling in love with your own spouse, Big Heroism, guile and wit and audacity. It makes me do little kicks like a happy baby. This is one of the 3-5 films constantly tied for my favourite film of all time. There is a good quality rip free on youtube. Watch it and fall in love with Leslie Howard (this is possibly my favourite acting performance of all time).

Oh, related note. Pygmalion 1938 or My Fair Lady. (The musical is based on this film and borrows from it heavily, including its much more romantic ending compared to the original play.)

The Mummy. 1999 action/adventure/romance film. Very tonally similar to sw. A fucking great time, A+ characters.

EVER AFTER. 1998 romance film. The flawless and perfect and best ever Cinderella adaptation. This is the most satisfying film in history, maybe, the ending is so good it is amazing it exists. Also, it has Richard O'Brien being slimy. Huge selling point. Grapples with identity and stewardship, is brilliant.

Fruits Basket. drama/romance anime. I haven't watched the new version yet, but it's following the manga so I know the story. The original anime didn't do the whole plot (because they caught up with the source material) but it's wonderful and I still recommend it. The central ship is (spoiler.........) a B&tB type where we eventually discover the main love interest both feels like a figurative monster and turns into a literal monster. He has an incredible speech about his relationship with people's fear, it makes me weep. I called the endgame from the first episode and always thought it was obvious, but there is a red herring love triangle dynamic. It's really not annoying, though, because it is a red herring. (I hate love triangles)

I am Dragon. Russian monster romance film. Beautiful, simple fable with a really great heroine.

Jane Eyre. 1943 Gothic Romance film. It's Jane Eyre, byronic hero x sensible heroine love story with much atmosphere and Gothic drama. I stan this version because I am an Orson Welles fangirl and I'm also not convinced it can be improved upon. Elizabeth Taylor's film debut btw.

Hellboy. 2004 action/adventure/romance film. Defying destiny, reconciling identity, monster romance. The complete package and a great time. Tonally similar to SW and probably thematically closest to it out of this whole list. Don't watch the sequel.

Beauty and the Beast 1987 tv series. Exactly what it says on the tin. Deals with the classic B&tB themes, but in a different way. He's not cursed and will never transform into an ordinary man. The first season is very episodic and 'case of the week', but the second season gets more into character drama. It's dated, but if you give it a chance you can get past some of the cheese factor and it's really a unique experience. Its concerns are SO atypical that it feels like something fandom would make rather than a mainstream network show. It was so massively, insanely popular with women at the time that a record of Vincent (the beast) reading poetry topped the album charts. Also Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton. Stop at season two. Point of interest: George RR Martin wrote for this show.

Stargate (the movie not the series) sci-fi fantasy about a nerdy guy who accidentally a hero.

Possession. 2009... mystery/supernatural/romance. Okay. This is a whole thing. Lee Pace and Sarah Michelle Gellar. It's based on a Korean film I've never been able to find for some reason, but being Hollywood they ruined the romanticism and nuance of the original in the theatrical cut to make a shitty punative ending. However. If you buy it on dvd and go to the alternate ending (which follows the original story) with around 20 minutes left (scene after Lee Pace's character wakes from a bad dream-go to deleted scenes and select the alternate ending), you will get a very, very interesting character study/thriller/redemption about sincerity within deception, compassion, and a major question about second chances with a positive answer. It's kind of dark and kind of astonishingly idealistic at the same time. The heroine makes a very powerful choice, twice over. It's fascinating. If you're into the conflicted and uncertain period in reylo, the part where he is most ambiguous, and you wanted more of that and much darker shades to it, you might be really into this. Also, it should be noted, there is a MASSIVE height difference and they show it off. The film is flawed (and the seams show on the Hollywood rewrite) but idk, it's fascinating. Shocking to me that they even got to shoot the original ending. It is pretty balls to the wall with its themes on forgiveness.

I would recommend getting into kdramas because there is a wealth of female-gaze tropey amazing content, but always check the ending before getting invested. My all-time fave is the 1st Shop of Coffee Prince, but it's not sw related at all lmao. It has a happy ending with all the elements you'd want, but it's not satisfying in execution, so that's it's major flaw and I find that pretty common with kdramas. One that is maybe more relevant is My Love from Another Star, which has a hero who is a little bit like Ben in personality. The heroine isn't my favourite, though. It does have a decent ending.

Oh yeah- brain fart. Kurosawa films and classic westerns were both very influential on SW. Or you can combine both and watch The Magnificent Seven.

[eternitas-archive]

Oh one more thing before I leave

It’s just my two cents but I really gotta speak it into the world.

This is gonna be LONG so here have a read more

You all are hypocritical cherry pickers that want fandoms and communities to cater to your interests and morals

And let me tell you honey, that is gonna ruin not only your own experience, but everyone elses.

Lemme adress some things

Why y’all so ready to cry wolf when someone ages up a character?

The discourse is probably as old as this fucking community. It happens every other month and I am sick of it. “If you age up characters you are a pedo uvu sorry I don’t make the rules.” yes you do. You literally made up your own fucking rules about this. “Well you are shipping with a minor!” they’re aged up. “But you still ship with a minor!!”

Okay by that logic, why are we allowing all these other shippers doing their thing? The people that ship with Sans from Undertale that is a skeleton? I mean he is still just a skeleton linking him strongly to the image of death so necrophilia much?

What about the people shipping with inanimate objects? The people shipping with transformers? Those are aliens and or vehicles? Yeah that is mechanophilia.

What about people who ship with f/os that have animalistic features? I mean they are mainly antropomorphic but they still are animals. Beastiality

“No wait that is all dif-”

How about the people shipping with villains and criminals? Clearly that means they endorse that shit irl.

What about the people that ship with people MUUUCH older than them? some millenia or hundreds of years? or just 20? clearly endorse predatory behavior

While we’re at it what’s up with people shipping with divine beings? Angels? Demons? Sounds like blatant blasphemy to me

Do I want you to double down so you can prove yourself right? NO! I want you to understand that you guys are cherry picking and not understanding correlation between topics! Are there legit pedos on tumblr? yes. is it a strangers job to care for all the minors out there? no? If I go into a park it is not my job to hold an eye out for all kids that there are. I am not their parent, guardian or otherwise a person with any responsibility towards them. Same for people on the internet. I will do my shit and keep to myself. and if I happen to enjoy stuff for myself that is my right. Do I halt at a red light bc I want to be a good example for kids so they don’t learn bad behavior? Can I stop every person that crosses a red light and hold them a long ass lecture about how they endorse dangers in the streets? No.

“But there are minors on the internet!” Yes, I am aware, they will always be, always have been, your point?

“We need to make a safe space for the kids!” No we don’t? people need to follow the Terms of Service of a platform and honestly most people that reblog nsfw stuff even clearly state that minors should not interact.

“No like, YOU need to be on your best behavior bc there could be a minor anywhere!”

Since when did I become these minors parent? Since when did someone push these kids into my lap and say “your responsibility now”?

You need to understand that you can’t always just get upset at stuff EXISTING

nsfw fics are usually tagged and marked accordingly, most people that engage in a lot of nsfw stuff usually have “minors don’t interact” on their blog somewhere. Some even BLOCK people that follow them and are clear minors, that’s some DEDICATION.

But I have seen posts catering to FUCKING WRITERS saying “pls keep nsfw out of ur imagines and reader fics :)))) for the minors, otherwise I cant reblog it.” If you want to cater to your minor audience sure, but I can not stress enough how you can not tell others how to run their shit. Yes, you can suggest that to the imagine writers or writers in general but it is their right to say “no I run it like I want to” and proceed with their shit. And there is nothing you can do about it. Besides if minors really want some nsfw, trust me they WILL find it. Should we therefore police everyone and stuck them into horny jail? No.

“haha look at this lame ass adult getting upset they can’t be predatory anymore bc they are being called out on their pedophilia”

Idk how to tell you that it’s none of your fucking buisness what my personal history is and that you have no claim outside of “aging up is pedophilia” but sure go off, bc I am “upset I can not be predatory” anymore and not just outraged people are throwing around unreasonable claims.

Why would I even age up a character if pedophilia is about being into MINORS? Why would I age a character up if the WHOLE THING about pedophilia is that they are kids????

“Okay but then it’s predatory!” There is a point that depictions of an adult dating someione who is “barely legal” normalizes predatory behavior, but honestly, why is that MY responsibility? And who says I age them up to be barely legal? My social media/tumblr/ selfship experience is a very private thing. It’s a very personal thing, so why tf do I need to cater it to people who are NOT ME? When I do that it’s because I want to do it, not because I need to fill some moral obligations. (and yet I can say that YES caring about lgbt, other religious, non white selfshippers and boosting them is something generally people should do)

Like there is a thing about fiction. It doesn’t age like normal people. When I started to love one of my f/os we were the same age. The series eventually ended, it didn’t progress in real time, so I grew up while they stayed their age. And guess what! none of this backstory is any of your god damn buisness!! I don’t OWE it to you as much as writers and others don’t owe their trauma to you just so you can “give them permission” to deal with their trauma through selfshipping or writing. Who do you think you fucking are?

Fiction is not reality. And I am sick being stuck in medevial dark ages europe where people believed everything on a stage to be real life. Where actors were not allowed to exist and the people that did act and depicted a bad guy were generally shunned and hated by everyone bc they didn’t distinguish between fiction and reality.

Does fiction have an effect on reality? Yes. Jaws had repurcussions. Even the german novella “Die Leiden des jungen Werthers” had about a dozen suicides following the lead of the main character. 50 shades had an effect. 13 reasons why had an effect. But that doesn’t mean what you believe it means.

In the end I can not take the role of these minors parents to educate them and look after them. It shouldn’t be my job. And yes there are a lot of scummy adults on the internet. Like a LOT. But you need to understand that the internet will NEVER be a child safe place. And most adults take precautions already!

But fics aren’t for morality lessons. Fics aren’t for sex education. Fics aren’t there to be a fucking HOLY BOOK. Fics are just creative writing. And selfshippers are just there to have a bad time. And if they act out SURE call them out but otherwise just leave them tf alone?

“No no, what you write is what you actively endorse uvu”

Then say good bye to Horror and thriller. Say good by to books involving cheating. Say good bye to books in which anyone ever gets harmed. Say good bye to books ever even mentioning any problematic topic that isn’t 100% uwu pure

“Wait no that is different-”

How is it? Is it only problematic when you get off of it? Is that your argument? Are we going the christian route of condemning being sexually free and enjoying something that is legit a very important thing to a lot of people? (yes to asexuals their LACK of sexual attraction can also be a very important topic bc they have the right to express that without being condemed for not wanting to BONE or not being able to get horny by looking at bodies.)

Yes the over fetishization of certain topics is problematic, yes there is a lot of toxicity when it comes to porn and that shit, but kinks are just kinks.

“So you say pedophilia is just a kink!”

No. Pedophilia is aweful and no child should ever suffer through that sort of exploitation.

“But you say rape is just a kink!”

No. Real life rape is aweful and whoever rapes another human being deserves death full stop.

“You just said-”

YES! I know what I said! A lot of people hate real life stuff that they endorse in fiction. Some people are into pissing and shitting into each other! Some people are into hardcore bondage! And they all have their own histories, their own lifes and it’s their fucking thing? Do I want death on all rapists? Yes. Do I sometimes have questionable fantasies that might involve non con or dubious consent? Yes, so? Do I have my reasons for that? Yes, it’s none of your gd buisness?

It all always boils down to entitlement. Y’all need to understand that you can’t just run around demanding everyone to cater to your bullshit. You can not run around accusing people of pedophilia just because they would like to see themselves date a fictional character, but in their age.

If it makes you uncomfortable then don’t follow and interact with those people but you don’t need to pretend to have some moral high ground so you are the better person. You can just... have dislikes?

Even so, as I make this post I can not speak in broad terms because each case, each person is individual. Maybe some get off on shit and endorse it, how should I know? Maybe someone out there is fighting for not policing and censoring stuff because they actively want more pedo content, I don’t know, I am not the CIA or FBI?

It’s also none of my buisness. Is it aweful that these people exist? yeah. Are they prone to be on tumblr? probably? Are they that selfshipper that ages up their f/o so they can smooch? Unlikely.

People have their reasons. Their backstories, and none of that should have to be layed open just to get a strangers “okay” for shipping with the fictional character that makes them happy.

so uuuh before I leave

tldr: y’all full of shit and aging up is not pedophilia, you are just trying to give yourself some moral highground. you sound like a flatearther lol.

Gates closed, bitches

[grimelords]

I’ve finished my September playlist, only almost a month later. It’s got everything, The Weeknd, desert psychedelica from Niger, and Australian yodelling from 1941. What more could you want!

listen here

and if you’re interested, sign up for my tinyletter to get these playlists delivered to your inbox here

XO / The Host / Initiation - The Weeknd: First of all Trilogy is a masterpiece. The Weeknd is a legend forever for this alone. Back when he was an anonymous character and before he tried to pivot to being a proper pop star and started beliving his own bullshit. This trio of songs for me is one of the highlights of the whole thing because this is where things really take a turn and it serves as a nice flipside to earlier songs like Glass Table Girls (even quoting some of the lyrics from it in a very cool reprise). Where most of the songs from House Of Balloons are about his own descent into this hedonistic life, by the time you get to Echoes Of Silence he lives there comfortably, and he's turned from cool,  dark and tormented to coldly evil and calculating. He's the master of the dark palace and he's drawing this woman in. The chorus of XO is straight up cult language 'all we ever do is love, open up your mind you can find the love'. She's broke and addicted trying to escape her life and he offers her this community. Which is where Initation comes in and things get really dark. This song feels like the real truth of those stories you hear of Drake flying instagram models around and it's a masterpiece of the dark underside of the drugs money and models bragging you're used to.

Sociopath (feat. Kash Doll) - Pusha T: Get a load of this new Pusha song where he's got Rodney Dangerfield ghostwriting for him. I got a bitch that'll master your card.. my wife ova hea!! Also the funny gritted teeth way he says it cracks me up. He also says boop bop be boop bop. There's so many good moments in this very silly song from a man that is normally terrifyingly serious.

Ice Cream - Muscles: I suddenly remembered this song the other day and I'm so glad I did. A good example of how you can get so much feeling out of music that has no relation at all to the lyrics. In the right mood this song makes me so emotional and I can't even pin down why. The way he sings 'ice cream is going to save the day' somehow just makes the urban alienation of the verse even more pointed. It's such a silly little dance song and that's what's so strong about it. It's dancing at night and unsuccessfully trying to forget what happened today.

Running - Gil Scott Heron & Jamie xx: It’s extremely strange that this remix album ever happened, thinking back on it. Stranger still that a Gil Scott Heron song got remixed by Jamie xx and then remixed again by 40 and turned into a Drake song in I’ll Take Care Of U and all three versions rock. Anyway, this song and this whole album remain fantastic - it still sounds futuristic in a way where nobody else really followed Jamie’s sound, everything else went a different direction so this an In Colour feel more and more unique to me as time goes on.

Boyfriend (Repeat) - Confidence Man: I’m in love with this album. It’s the closest I’ve found so far to the level of absolute fun in dance music since Duck Sauce’s album. I love the the attitude of her lyrics, which carries through the whole album. I love when her Australian accent peeks out for a second on a few words. I love his rebuttals that almost but not quite put it over the edge into a comedy song. I love the big fading out leadup to the drop near the end where a huge throat singing drone just swallows the whole song for a second.

Ever Again (Soulwax Remix) - Robyn: Extremely hot remix alert!! Thankyou to Zan Rowe's Monthly Mixtape playlist for putting my onto this.Sometimes all you need is one ferociously hot bassline to make a life complete.

$50 Million - !!!: !!!’s new album has one of the best covers I’ve seen recently, I advise you to check it out. It’s interesting to be so far into your career (this is their 8th album since 2001) and still be writing songs about selling out, a concept which has largely disappeared from music discourse since musicians started making no money post napster. I vaguely remember the turning point being when Kimya Dawson, after blowing up via the Juno soundtrack, turned down a coke ad for a ludicrous amount and the blogosphere at the time turned on her and said she should have taken the money because she was living in a van at the time. Nobody gives a fuck about selling out anymore because bands make more from tshirts than streams so you’ve got to act like a brand just to make a living. Anyway I’ve gotten off track. This song rocks, especially for the breakdown near the end.

Tipped Hat - The Paper Scissors: A song I haven’t heard in over ten years that suddenly popped into my head the other day. I love the way this guy’s voice sounds, just completely committing to sounding like a hand puppet. I’ve been playing bass a lot more recently and so have developed the worst man habit of becoming more sensitive to and pointing out extremely hot basslines to people, so I’d be derelict in my duty to not share this one.

Heimsdalgate Like A Promethian Curse - of Montreal: I love this song about literally pleading with your brain to come good. Here’s a good quote about this album “I went through this chemical depression, and that's when I was writing a lot of the songs for Hissing Fauna. They're all songs about that experience. And I was experiencing it in the moment that I was writing the songs, and sort of asking myself: What the hell is going on? Why are you all of a sudden totally paranoid and plagued by these anxieties? And why is everything so distorted and confusing and fucked up? My lifestyle hadn't changed that much. And then I realized, well, there's something going on inside of me that I don't have control over, and then you realize how vulnerable you are to these things, these elements that you can't understand, or unless you go on medication and get it under control. It's like you're being betrayed by your body.” Something I really admire about this album is that the lyrics reflect black metal levels of mental anguish, he was absolutely going through it the worst anyone can go through it “I'd gotten to that point where nothing was working. I was borderline suicidal, and my relationship with my girlfriend had totally eroded and she'd gone back to Norway with our daughter and everything was totally fucked, and I was just like, What can I do? "The Past Is a Grotesque Animal" is about that.” But the music is one hundred percent committedly twee and I really admire the effect that that split mood gives. “The lyrics tell the story of what was really going on and the music sort of represents this other emotion that I wish existed. The music was really happy because I wanted to make something that would lift my spirits.”

Jesus Rabbit - Guerilla Toss: I love the wobbly weird bass sound in this weirdo UFO cult song. I love the bleepy bloop melody that runs through it and I love how fundamentally unstable the whole song sounds, like it’s made out of paperclips and foil and papier mache.

Suburbia - Press Club: I can’t believe I didn’t know about Press Club for so long. I only found out about them this performance https://youtu.be/bCmtc-T5Unk which I’m shocked to learn has less than 5k views considering it’s one of the very best TV performances I’ve ever seen.

Come For Me - Sunflower Bean: I’m pretty sure I’ve talked about this song before and I’m probably going to say the exact same thing but who cares! This song fuckin rocks. I love how assured it is, like “if you’re gonna fuck me then stop fucking around and fuck me already.” It also feels so musically similar to I Can Hardly Make You Mine by Cults to me, which is a great excuse for me to listen to that song every single time I listen to this song.

Thousands - Club Night: This Club Night album is really really good. It's like a really nice middleground between midwest emo and Cymbals Eat Guitars. The way this song blows up halfway through with 'what if we want it!!' is so good. This whole band feels like they're from 2009 but in a good way, the tail end of indie and twee with these prog or postrock structures where the songs just go and go, and you can just get completely lost in it.

Cemetary - Brutus: The first thing you've got to know about Brutus is the drummer is also the singer. Normally who plays what is not really important but in this case I think it's very important because it makes the drums a lead instrument more than they normally would be. When she's not singing my focus is still on the drums because they're linked and I absolutely love it. This song is great and every song I've heard of theirs is just as good, I love Brutus and they're one of the best new bands I've found recently. Someone in the youtube comments said 'there's something really special about hearing a song for the first time and just knowing you're going to listen to it hundreds of times in your life.'

Enter By The Narrow Gates / Spirit Narrative - Circle Takes The Square: I think that I think of Circle Takes The Square as a household name just because they have such an outsized importance in my own life when they're definitely not at all. They're legendary for making The screamo (good kind) album in As The Roots Undo and then taking 8 years to make a followup, which is this album Decompositions, but I don't really know if they're well known outside of like, people who have opinions about what were the hottest music blogspots in 2010. I chose both of these because you can't really have one without the other, the whole album basically runs as one long piece of music and so this just kind of jarringly ends at the end of Spirit Narrative, sorry about that please listen to the entire album. Because of the status As The Roots Undo enjoys I feel like this album was kind of ignored, or overshadowed by the reputation it was trying to live up to, almost exactly like The Avalanches with Since I Left You and Wildflower, when just like Wildflower it's a more expansive, developed take on the original sound that trades some of the rawness for a more polished and considered approach and comes out arguably better than the orginal. I feel like I have so much to say about this album but I don't really know where to begin, just listen to it.

Vitrification Of Blood (Pt. 1) - Blood Incantation: I am by no means a metal scholar, but I know that when the word 'blood' is in both the song title AND the band name that means it's good metal. I love this song, and this whole album is great. It's very 'classic' death metal but there's touches (beyond the extreme length) of psychedelica as well that puts it on another level you can just get lost in. The way the guitar goes to space at 3:40, and again properly into orbit at 6:50 is just magical. The more I listen to this band the more I understand those guys who only listen to metal, there's a whole ecosystem in here and it's really got everything you need.

Out Of Line - Gesaffelstein: This whole song is basically intended as an intro for Pursuit on the album but it’s so powerful just on its own. I love imbuing weirdo lyrics like ‘a bitter sunken love in a bleach blonde submarine’ with such ominous power through the commanding delivery. I love the way the big grunting vocals on the offbeat build to sound like a summoning ritual. I love making a big processed bell the centrepiece of your extremely evil sounding song. It’s sort of a shame that Gessaffelstein has never really gone back to the vision of his first album and has spent his time since diluting it down for guest production on Weeknd songs and the like because it feels like there’s still so much more to get out of this sound. That he hasn’t gone back and dug deeper makes Aleph stand out more and more as a singular masterpiece as time goes on.  

Kamane Tarhanin - Mdou Moctar: Turning to Mdou Moctar after the new Tinariwen album kind of disappointed me, with all it’s big name guests nothing really hit me. I love this song though and I think a big part of it is the sort of loping, 6/4 rhythm that combined with the drone gives it this feeling of endlessly tumbling over itself in place, especially as the guitar heats up.

Achabiba - Fatou Seidi Ghali: I know very little about Fatou Seidi Ghali except that I saw she was supporting Sarah Louise at a show. From some googling it turns out that she’s the leader of a Nigerois band called Les Filles de Illeghadad who you can probably look forward to seeing on next month’s playlist. I also learned that the demonym for someone from Niger is Nigerien or to minimise confusion with Nigeria, Nigerois (said in a french way). They play a sort of desert psych in the realm of Mdou Mocter or Tinariwen, but this song (also the only solo song she has on spotify) shows her acoustic side. I love the swirling melody over the drone as the hand percussion keeps it in place and I love the very delicate vocals, but a probably unintentional thing I love a lot about this recording is the unmistakable iphone locking sound near the very start that instantly removes so much of the mystic exoticism that these sorts of artists are often written about with and places it firmly in the same sprawling modern world we all live in.

Floating Rhododendron - Sarah Louise: I love Sarah Louise. She’s a phenomenal guitarist and has such a big love for traditional folk music with her side project House And Land, but unlike everyone else in the genre is also very interested in pushing guitar forward to new and strange places. Her latest album was super experimental layered electric guitars and voice that still managed to maintain the deep connection to nature that runs through all her work. I would also highly recommend following her on instagram because her passion runs over. She’s regularly just out in the woods somewhere explaining how wonderful a particular mushroom is.  This song one of the first ones I ever heard from her, and it’s back when she was just doing very beautiful 12 string acoustic work, but she recently added it to spotify and it’s a very nice reminder of where she came from and how far she’s gone in such a short time.

Lark - Angel Olsen: The new Angel Olsen is absolutely great. I love how much she is just completely going for it on this album, absolutely unleashing. Taken against earlier songs of hers I’ve loved like White Fire, where the majesty was in her quiet power and the ability to absolutely command silence with a whisper quiet song, this song feels like the direct inverse, an about-turn into all the gigantic majesty of swirling strings and top of your lungs vocals - going all out and leaving nothing on the table. The way this song blows up about three different times until by the end you’re caught in this gigantic swirling maelstrom of screaming sound is just out of this world.

Door - Caroline Polachek: Caroline Polachek’s brain is huge. When I first heard the chorus of this song I couldn't believe it. Are you allowed to have a chant that runs in a spiral like this be the chorus of your pop song? Is that allowed?

North, South, East And West - The Church: The Church feel like they don't get enough respect. They don't seem to be in the same league as Cold Chisel and The Angels and all the other dad rock Australian bands from that era for some reason. They're very good though and I've been really getting into this whole album and this song specifically lately. Maybe what's working against them is just how much his voice sounds like Bono's in this song but surely that was a boon at the time!

Western Questions - Timber Timbre: This has become one of my new favourite songs to sing. The way the words fit together is my favourite kind of poetics where they just sound incredible, phonetically, and can mean anything you like for large chunks. Like “the gelatinous walls of the seeds that seldom remain / while the bulls are  browsing needles through computer casinos / honour the name”. Especially “bulls are browsing needles through computer casinos” is just extremely nice to say. I love the character of this song and am yet to completely understand what it’s saying other than personifying some worldwide blackpilled spirit of nihilist evil. What I love is the experience of all encompassing evil in this song, like a worldwide conspiracy connecting everything together that makes it all make sense. It doesn’t make you happier but it makes it make sense. I also love the finality of the big fill near the end that ushers in the outro riff that ties everything up.

Cold Cold World - Blaze Foley: I got heavily into a country music thing this month and spent a bit of time trying to find ‘real’ country, which of course turns out not to exist at all. The entirety of country music is built on a false nostalgia for an imagined time long past when things were real, some unspecified time in the collective consciousness between cowboy times and coal mine times. I don’t say this to say ‘country music is a fraud’ but that it’s built on a foundation of myth and that’s what’s so good about it. It’s constantly reframing the past as it relates to the present and is energised by the friction between them. Blaze Foley is a good example of this in the modern era because he seems to exist more as a myth than a man. He had three studio albums, the master tapes of which all disappeared through various means (lost, stolen, seized by the DEA) and so the majority of his surviving material is live recordings or long-lost studio recordings that resurfaced decades after his death when his fame and mythology already preceded him. He also thankfully lives up to the myth, he was truly a great artist and it’s a shame more of him hasn’t survived.

Where The Golden Wattle Blooms / Why Did The Blue Skies Turn Grey  - Shirley Thoms: Further to what I was saying about country music before, Australian country is a whole other thing. Transferring the myth and the mythmaking to a new location adds another layer of abstraction. Shirley Thoms was the first female solo act to record country music in Australia in 1941 and was most notable for her yodelling of which she is damn fine. This is a great song and a good a starting point as any in trying to trace the origin of country music in Australia. That it's so english in its identity, so evidently imitating an american style (which is in turn imitating a german yodel) is just more good evidence that nothing is 'real' and traditions of the past and future are malleable at all times.

Talkin’ Karate Blues - Townes Van Zandt: Townes Van Zandt is widely regarded as a songwriter’s songwriter and one of the best country songwriters to ever live, but like a lot of great country songwriters also has one or two songs like this - strange comedy songs about learning karate and getting your arm ripped off.

Strange Tourist - Gareth Liddiard: This album is a masterpiece on the level of Ys and it feels criminally underlistened in my opinion. Luckily in the last week or so some renegade has done up the wiki article on it to a couple of thousand words so that's a start. Because this is a song I've listened to one million times and love a lot, it's hard for me to write about it in a general way so instead I'm going to talk about something very specific and new that I've only begun to appreciate recently. The way he uses the vowels of the japanese words to create these assonant runs in lines like "Koda Kumi sang a coda pink as sarin gas / I took a trip to Nagasaki in a rented Mitsubishi / Then went camping in the Jukai under Mount Fuji" and "They found him frozen in a hollow in Aokigahara forest where them harakiri weirdos go" is really something, and a nice illustration of the two sides of Liddiard's songwriting: densely technical poetics in a song about living with a housemate who was a real freak.

I Dream A Highway - GIllian Welch: I’m not even going to go into the lyrics of this because it’s such an out of this world perfect song but I’m going to say this: it’s really something that this song goes for nearly 15 minutes, sits on the same three chords the whole time and never ever feels long. This song is longer than Emily by Joanna Newsom but doesn’t feel like an epic of the same scale at all. It’s just a mournful slow ode to change and decay that goes on forever and could keeping going on for twice as long if it wanted to.

Deep Water - The Middle East: The way the vocals in the verses are delivered, trailing off and mumbling bits and pieces is somehow magical, like it’s more interested in communicating the gist and the feeling than the actual words. You can just pick whatever part of it you like. Petrol stations and a copper mine, the kind of place I think I could die. This song also has two minutes of silence at the end for album reasons so enjoy that.

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