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missmentelle · 4 years ago

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How do I know if I'm being gaslit? What does that mean?

If you are experiencing “gaslighting”, it means that someone is intentionally trying to make you feel like you are irrational and insane. They will try to convince you that you can’t trust your own judgement, even about things that you experienced firsthand. The internet tends to use the term ‘gaslighting’ to describe any kind of lying or arguing, but it’s a lot more complicated than that - when you are being gaslit, it means someone is going out of their way to make you feel like you’re the crazy one who causes all the conflict in the relationship when in reality, it’s the other way around. A person who lies about liking your new haircut or starts an argument with you about whose turn it is to do the dishes is probably not gaslighting you - gaslighting is intentional, repeated, and specifically aimed at undermining your sanity and emotional stability. It is a pattern of abuse, and by definition, it can be very difficult to recognize and escape from.

Examples of gaslighting include things like:

Insisting that things did not happen the way you remember them, even if you have proof. Maybe you and the abuser had an argument over WhatsApp yesterday, and they called you a slur. You definitely remember that this happened, because it was devastating for you, and you took screenshots in case they deleted the message. But when you confront the other person about what they said, they flat-out deny that it ever happened - in fact, they have no idea where this is coming from, and they feel insulted that you would accuse them of such a horrible thing. They didn’t do that. They’ve never done that. In fact, there was no argument. You made the whole thing up in your head. It doesn’t matter that you have screenshots - they don’t want to see them, because they know that you are totally misunderstanding what’s in them, just like you always do. When you’re being gaslit, the gaslighter doesn’t care about reality. They will flat-out deny what happened and create a new version of events that puts them in a better light, and they’ll insist that you are the one with the faulty memory for not remembering it that way. Even with evidence right in front of their faces, they’ll stick to their guns and say that you are completely inventing things.

Constantly insisting that you overreact and blow things out of proportion. Maybe you saw a notification on your partner’s phone the other day, and you realize that they’ve been texting other people on a dating app. You are obviously very upset about the situation, and you aren’t sure if you even want to stay in the relationship. But instead of apologizing, your partner begins to get angry with you for how upset you are - they insist that you are blowing this completely out of proportion, that you’re being a huge drama queen, that you’re being manipulative and attention-seeking, and that it’s completely insane for you to be upset. Any time you are upset with the other person for genuinely hurting or harming you in some way, they flip everything around - all of a sudden, the conversation becomes focused on how unstable and dramatic you are, and the abuser’s wrongdoing is totally forgotten. The abuser paints a consistent picture of you as someone who freaks out over absolutely nothing and completely overreacts.

Playing up your existing mental illness or insisting that you are mentally ill. Your abuser sees signs of mental illness in everything you do. If you have a history of mental illness, they’ll insist that it’s coming back - if you don’t have a history of mental illness, they’ll invent a new mental illness for you out of whole cloth. Did you get upset because your partner screamed at you? That’s not normal, you’re having huge mood swings and you’re definitely bipolar. Did you stick up for yourself when your partner was trying to control you? That’s definitely not normal, you’re acting just like this person they knew who had severe BPD. Whenever you are upset about the way you’re being treated or just refusing to be controlled, your abuser will play the mental illness card - suddenly, they are the hard-worn, loving caretaker and you are the very sick person who refuses to let them help you. Sometimes, when you are getting especially angry about your partner’s mistreatment, they may flip a switch and go from yelling at you to acting like your caretaker in an instant - they’ll start pleading with you to get help, offering to drive you to the hospital, and begging you to understand that you aren’t well and that they’re just so worried about you. The point, of course, is to completely undermine you as a person; they want you to believe that you are seriously mentally ill and incapable of understanding what’s real and what isn’t.

Positioning themselves as the innocent “victim” in the relationship, even when they are the one mistreating you. To an outside observer, you are the one constantly being terrorized by someone who criticizes and controls you. But your gaslighter doesn’t want you to see it that way - according to them, they are the innocent victim who has to tiptoe around your constant unpredictable mood swings. They’ll claim that they try so hard to help you and avoid setting you off, but you’re just so unreasonable - they may even claim that you are the one abusing them. Any time you fight back, stand up for yourself or have a negative reaction to their abuse, they will find a way to frame things so that your response is the real issue, and not the abuse that provoked it. If they pinned you against a wall and you pushed them off you to get away, they will flip the narrative on you - they’ll swear up and down that they were just gently trying to keep you from hurting yourself when you violently attacked them. Somehow, every confrontation you have about your partner’s bad behaviour turns into you apologizing and feeling bad, even when you went into the conversation being pretty sure that you did nothing wrong.

Intentionally turning friends and loved ones against you. A gaslighter will sometimes try to recruit your friends and family to “their” side, turning them against you. They will tell your loved ones all about your supposed mood swings, “mental health issues” and how difficult you are being, in an effort to win sympathy and destroy your credibility. The idea is that when you turn to your friends to say “my partner freaked out on me over something small last night”, they’ll respond with “mmmm, your partner already told us this story and they gave a very different version of what happened. It sounds like you’re leaving a lot out to make yourself sound better. Your partner says you’ve been acting weird lately, what’s going on with you?” It’s much easier to warp someone’s perception of reality if you can convince their friends and family to reinforce the fake reality that you’ve created.

Dramatically misrepresenting your motives. A gaslighter will find ways to “prove” that you’re the kind of person they say you are, regardless of what you do. Even if you do something nice for them, they can find ways to twist things to suit their narrative. Did you buy them an expensive birthday present because you care about them? You’re clearly being manipulative and trying to bribe them somehow. Did you clean the whole house for them because you wanted them to be able to enjoy coming home to a clean living space? Nonsense, this was clearly you being passive-aggressive and trying to shame them for not being as clean as you. Your actions end up not mattering - no matter how hard you to try to prove that you aren’t the difficult, terrible person that your gaslighter says you are, they will always find ways to misrepresent your motives and lie about your intentions so they can turn your innocent behaviour into whatever they want it to be.

Being gaslighted is an immensely stressful experience - it’s designed to make you feel crazy, and if you’re subjected to it for a long time, that’s exactly what will happen. It’s unbelievably stressful to be in a position where you feel like you cannot trust your own mind or make rational decisions. And when that stress inevitably starts to affect your mental health, that becomes further evidence that your abuser is correct and that you’re the crazy one. It can be extraordinarily difficult for a victim of long-term gaslighting to escape from their situation, because they genuinely start to believe that they are the problem in the relationship and that they’re lucky anyone will put up with them.

If you suspect you are being gaslit, there are some things you can do to recognize the issue and break free from it:

Keep meticulous records. Write down the details of conversations and arguments as soon as they happen. Record fights with the audio recorder on your phone. Take and save screenshots of important conversations. Save voicemails. Keep a diary with dates and times of events. Nobody has perfect recall, but if your partner’s version of events consistently doesn’t match your hard evidence in a major way, that’s a pretty good sign that they are twisting the truth to suit their needs.

Talk to a neutral third party. Talk to someone outside the relationship that your partner doesn’t have access to - this could be a friend, a coworker, a neighbour, anyone that you feel you can trust. Turn to an internet group or forum if you have to. Show them the evidence you’ve collected or talk to them about what’s happening, and get a neutral perspective. People who have not been exposed to your gaslighter’s charms will be able to tell you pretty quickly that your situation is not normal.

Think about your past relationships. Have any of your past relationships followed the same patterns as your current one? Has anyone in your past made similar complaints about you? If your last relationship didn’t have these kinds of issues, there’s a good chance that the new person in your life is the problem - not you.

Trust your gut. If you get the sense that something isn’t quite right, don’t ignore those feelings. Remember, you don’t actually have to be certain that you’re being gaslighted to justify leaving the relationship - if your relationship frequently causes you stress and anxiety or makes you feel like you can’t be yourself, something is seriously wrong and it may be time to go.

It’s also a good idea to talk to a mental health professional or a domestic abuse expert if you suspect you are being gaslighted - they are experts at helping your recognize it and come up with strategies to have healthier relationships in the future.

Hope this answers your question!

#Anonymous

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steponmepinkjun · 4 years ago

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the muriel size kink shit had always made smut of him really unappealing to me. Like not even just smut at times but theres fluff that describes the size difference in weird ways and its just.. okay? he's large? we know? not everything has to be able how BIG he is. His character is much more than just being huge. Idk I'm ranting he's my favorite and it just sucks that a lot of the content about him makes him out to be this timid child who can't do anything and must be protected at all costs or just a fucking giant.

There's just a weird and frustrating disconnect between what size kink actually is, and what Muri mains think it is.

First of all, the man is canonically huge asf. The average height for women on planet earth is only 5'3" (HAHA YALL SHORTIES, 5'8" GANG GANG) and the average height for men is 5'7". He's more than a full foot taller than both of these, so of course his height and general size are going to play a huge role in how he is perceived by characters interacting with him in most all cases.

But just because someone is tall or wide doesn't make it size kink. Forgive me for being VERY crass and explicit here, but a fic where someone has two fingers in someone's hole doesn't constitute a warning for fisting porn. Having a tall motherfucker like Muriel partake in sexytimes does not automatically make it size kink—intention and focus matters, and if the intention and focus isn't on wanting to fuck someone primarily/explicitly for their size, or—in simpler terms—if you aren't fucking them because of their height/weight/cock size/etc rather than who they are or how you feel about them, it isn't fucking size kink! You just happen to want to fuck someone whose body is larger than yours! The way the fandom throws around the term "size kink," most smut that features Portia being chubby should have to be labeled size kink as well.

There's just a fuckin disconnect. Not every sexual encounter is full of kinks and fetishes. Not every sexual preference is a kink, not every single attribute a person enjoys is a kink. But labelling anything outside of strict white-on-white married man-and-woman missionary position penis-in-vagina penetrative sex as being a kink muddies the waters, imparts shame on people either intentionally or unintentionally, and is plainly quite stupid. Sexual desire, fantasy, and pleasure are not zero-sum games of "this is Normal, and everything outside this is Kink/Fetish." I suppose that's the issue I have. Not every sexual scene outside of missionary p-in-v needs a kink/fetish label. It's fucking puritanical.

Yeah, if you fuck someone twice your size, there's gonna be some stark contrasts between your anatomy. That doesn't make it kink. And furthermore, it's actually the readers job to police what they consume, not the authors job to hold their hand and only show them content they might individually find validating or enjoyable. If I write something that someone labels kink, but I don't see as being even kink-adjacent, it's their job to divert their attention, not my job to accommodate their opinion. Curate your own internet experience, people.

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night-unfurls-its-splendour · 4 years ago

Text

The Critique of Manners Part IV

~Or~

A Very Amused Review of Emma (1972)

One doesn’t really know where to begin with this one. I’ve watched a few of these 70’s/80’s period drama adaptations, but I’ve never written a review for one. I think the tricky thing is it doesn’t feel fair to judge them against more recent adaptations because the approach and quality are so very different to modern television making.

But people do. I’m sure it’s different for people who grew up watching these, who are just used to them and their objectively terrible, stagey quality and can look past that particular weakness on the sheer power of nostalgia.

So I’m going to try and find a middle-ground here where I ignore the stagey and obviously dated aspects and judge it primarily on its value as an adaptation – is it faithful to the book?

Let’s dive in.

Cast & Characterization

Normally I would start with Emma and Knightley but this time I’m gonna switch it up a bit and do them last because… well we’ll get there in a bit.

Let’s start instead with Mr. Woodhouse. I have to say, I kind of like this take. The 1996-7 and 2009 adaptations all kind of went for the same type of older man: a bit stout, or in Michael Gambon’s case… however you would describe Michael Gambon. With Donald Eccles, however, this version goes for a rather more frail looking Mr. Woodhouse; in fact to compare him to any recent Mr. Woodhouse, I suppose he comes closest to Bill Nighy (although the general characterization is of course very different.) He’s a ridiculous but lovable soul who seems always, of course, worried about his own health and comfort, but in his own selfish way, concerned for his friends and family as well. My only complaint is that maybe they over-utilized him.

I thought the casting of a plump Mrs. Weston (Ellen Dryden) was an interesting choice, and definitely different from other versions. Her acting was actually really good too.

I wasn’t quite so pleased with the characterization of Mr. Weston, on the other hand. I have huge issues with this script vis-à-vis the men, but Mr. Weston and Knightley in particular. The problem with Mr. Weston is how he’s written as just verging on uncouth at some points. There are way too many rustic contractions here: “Ain’t I looking well too, Miss Emma?!’ “’Ark at that eh? The sly young rogue!” “Oh I think it looks tolerably gay and festive, don’t it?” and then just throwing himself back on the grass and chortling when Emma makes her fateful Box Hill faux pas? Like, what the hell? I’m not saying he shouldn’t use a few casual contractions (“How d’you do?” for example) but he seems almost like a positive country bumpkin and I don’t think it’s appropriate; he doesn’t talk like that in the book and I’m just all-around not here for it.

Constance Chapman, a well-respected character actress of the time was cast as Miss Bates, while Molly Sugden, of Are You Being Served? fame was WASTED in the bit-part of Mrs. Goddard. If you ask me, they should have swapped this casting, since I think Sugden, an outstanding comedienne, could have done so much more with the Miss Bates role than the usual wittery-old-lady style chattering Chapman delivered.

Mr. Elton was played by Timothy Peters (Right) and was, eh, adequate. They did slime him up a bit by having him over-eagerly offer to fix Emma’s bootlace, which she points out isn’t entirely appropriate for a man to do, especially the vicar and it’s pretty funny; but other than that, he has all the appearance of being a pleasant young man, as Mr. Elton should – becoming less pleasant as the story progresses.

One John Alkin (left) played Mr. Robert Martin, and he, too, was adequate. There’s not much of him and, since Mr. Martin wasn’t one of those characters this version decided to approach more three-dimensionally, there’s not much to say about him.

Frank Churchill is… OMG IT’S PRINCE HARRY FROM BLACKADDER!

Ahem. Yes, Robert East (BETTER KNOWN AS PRINCE HARRY FROM BLACKADDER) plays a very agreeable (and smarmy, but not too smarmy) Frank. I think honestly this is as good as this part could get in the 70’s, although at 29 he was a little too old for the part.

John and Isabella, in an interesting (?) casting choice, were played by brother and sister duo, Yves and Belinda Tighe. I actually really liked Yves’s John Knightley (he’s actually one of the more handsome John’s, in a 70’s kind of way; for note-taking purposes I have nicknamed him “Not-Harrison-Ford”), but his sister as Isabella seemed kind of old and had just a really annoying voice. Also she doesn’t look at all like Doran Godwin, and Emma and Isabella are supposed to look somewhat alike.

The real casting stand out for me in this version is Fiona Walker as Mrs. Elton, although she too was a little old for her role, I’ve said before that there are no bad Mrs. Eltons (only bad accents) and she just absolutely nailed the insufferable chatter to a definitive standard (until the recent adaptations – 2009 onward).

I did however, get the feeling in this version that they kind of wrote in a through-line where Mrs. Elton is putting the moves on Mr. Knightley (to the point where they actually wrote out Mr. Elton from scenes he should be in) which was one of those unnecessary deviations which made me raise an eyebrow and also was just… weird.

Now my question is – why do all of the young women in this series kind of look like evil dolls?

Debbie Bowen, from a strictly book accuracy perspective is one of the most accurate Harriet Smiths I’ve seen – in fact we don’t get another this accurate (to my way of thinking) until Louise Dylan in 2009, who fits roughly the same model (fair and shapely). Its Bowen’s acting I don’t like, but I know that in the 70’s, this kind of simpering acting for this kind of character was just unavoidable. It was the style at the time, so I’m cutting her a break critically; but the performance just doesn’t cut it for me.

This Jane Fairfax (played by Ania Marson) is not my favorite interpretation of this character. At first I thought she was going to be alright, but in her first scene she bursts out and actually shouts in frustration at her chattering aunt (which she has some basis for, I’ll admit, since Miss Bates, in her muddle-headed way, could very well have unwittingly spilled the beans about Jane and Frank) but this is far more feeling than we should even have a hint of from Jane at this point. The whole reason Emma doesn’t like Jane (other than the fact that Emma is an attention whore and Jane steals her thunder by being so admired and accomplished) is because she’s timid and demure and reserved.

But the biggest problem I have with this Jane is that she can’t even fucking sing. I know they write it away as her having a sore throat (Which I think is a pull from a different part of the book?) but this was just egregiously bad to me. This is the only time in the series they show Jane singing so it’s never actually established that Jane really is more accomplished than Emma (although they don’t show Emma herself singing or even playing at all either.) Could the actresses just not sing well so they decided to write around it? You could have dubbed it; you had that technology in the 70’s!

OK. Now it’s time to talk about Doran Godwin. I’ve never seen her in anything else so I don’t know if it’s just that she can’t act, but I have no idea what she was going for with this portrayal of Emma, and this is something so consistent and unique to her that I, for once, can’t justify blaming it solely on the director because you can’t direct crazy-eyes. They just happen; and they happen A LOT in this series.

I’ve struggled to find the words to sufficiently describe my feeling about Doran Godwin’s facial expressions and her acting in this adaptation. In my ribbon rating notes I think I describe her as a “witchy automaton”? I stand by it. Every time she talks to someone her eyes go very wide and she sort of looks like she’s trying to hypnotize everyone in Highbury. The effect is just absolutely inhuman. I never thought I’d ever see anyone with more patently crazed Crazy-Eyes than Timothy “Crazy-Eyes” Dalton – but man, Doran “Hypno-Witch” Godwin just stole the prize. Perhaps she escaped from the set of a Doctor Who? telling of the story where Miss Woodhouse has been replaced by an android.

You have scenes such as this in episode 2 , where Harriet is trying to get Emma to acknowledge Mr. Elton calling after them as they walk past the vicarage, and Emma ignores her by mechanically continuing to talk, looking straight ahead with laser focus. Of course, Emma is intentionally ignoring Harriet because she wants Mr. Elton to follow them, but that wasn’t quite apparent to me until the end of her ramble – which I had assumed she was forced to complete due to some directive in her programming. I have more to say on her characterization, but we’ll get to that in a dedicated section of the review.

John Carson might actually be one of the better Knightley’s, but I’m sorry – at 45 he was just too old. This is something you can play around with in other characters (Mr. Weston and Miss Bates after all, have no stated ages in the book) but not only do we know how old Mr. Knightley is in the book, they state in the show that Emma is 21 (Doran Godwin was actually 28) and that Mr. Knightley is sixteen years older than her – 37 or 38 – and John Carson is CLEARLY no 38. This obviously-over-forty appearance does have an effect on how I view his banter with Emma, and it’s more avuncular than the older-brother feel that Mr. Knightley and Emma should have.

Whether by direction or actor’s choice, Carson’s Mr. Knightley speaks in a way that just doesn’t feel period to me. He has a very sort of 20th Century, stock British, hearty-good-fellow manner, that dates this adaptation pretty badly and feels old-fashioned (but not in a Regency/Georgian way) even in the 70’s.

Sets & Surroundings

Normally at this point in the review I would talk about the British manor houses and estates used and how they measure up to the book descriptions but the publicly funded BBC ran on a much tighter budget in the 70’s (apparent in the production values and number of obviously bad takes that they just decided to leave in, in everything they made) and as such they couldn’t afford to film in and rent out large estates quite as much, so this has the trademark 70’s/80’s BBC sound-stage quality of all of their other productions of the period. That said, this production actually has some of the better sets I’ve seen and that’s saying something, for being made in the 70’s. The walls didn’t actually shake when doors were closed, and it didn’t feel as stagey as some other Austen serials of the time. (This doesn’t improve the very “on-cue” acting in the series, but I have to give credit where it’s due.) I believe they may used a real manor house for the exterior of Hartfield (and not a landscape pastel) and maybe some of the interiors too? I can’t say for sure, and I would love to tell you what house and where it is but I can’t find any credits on it. I’ll just say that I think it’s very suitable and leave it at that.

Costumes

Much like today, the BBC almost exclusively used, re-used and rented costumes for their period productions. Almost every costume in this series was also used in the 70’s and 80’s BBC productions of Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, and Pride and Prejudice (P&P being the overwhelming common denominator – almost every one of Emma’s evening dresses and pelisses was seen, primarily on Caroline Bingley.) Some of the shawls have been picked out in BBC Austens as recently as 2008.

For being made in the 70’s the costumes in this production are really kind of nice. They don’t date themselves too badly. The ones that do feel 70’s retro, in fact, were mostly styles borrowed from period accurate fashions that just happened to coincide with contemporary 70’s tastes, and which aren’t often used in Regency costumes today because, well they don’t coincide with our modern tastes. For the most part, they look well-made (although some of them do have that stiff, dingy polyester look to them and there are definitely some plastic pearls here and there).

I’m quite pleased with the silhouettes which don’t suffer from Square Bust/Boob Droop syndrome the way the 1980 P&P does. All of the assets seem to be lifted and shifted in the right places.

Daywear

I like Emma’s blue day dress the best of all her day-wear looks. It’s a rich color and has pleated cups (Also on her white day dress) which is a style I really love.

Emma wears the gauzy… let’s be kind and say ivory instead of “Yellowish” ruff during the day A LOT (Emma Pic 2). It’s a popular look on Jane Fairfax too (Jane Pic 2) and I just… I don’t like it. Not that it’s not period appropriate (because it unfortunately is) it just makes them look like Dr. Seuss characters to me, especially worn with short sleeves which is something these dramas do a lot and I hate it. It just makes the person in question look very awkwardly disproportionate to me, especially because. if they had long sleeves to go with it (which would be more correct from a historical authenticity standpoint) it would even it out so much better. Compare Jane and Emma to see what I mean. The single layer ruffle (Emma Pic 1) is much more agreeable to me. (I wanna point out that Jane wears the same green dress without any partlet or undersleeves for strawberry picking at Donwell, which is blatant Eveningwear-For-Daywear™ and looked really out of place since everyone else was wearing day-appropriate attire).

Emma’s wider, cuffed, long sleeves and Mrs. Elton’s puffy segmented Renaissance sleeves are exactly what I mean about period accurate styles that suit the 70’s in a way that they just don’t jive today. Even Harriet gets some.

Mrs. Elton Orange ™ is another crayon color Crayola should consider I think.

Harriet gets stuck with a lot of brown outer wear but her day clothes are otherwise pretty nice. I especially like the ivory and blue number (Bottom right) and her white day dress with blue accents (Top right) which I think is the nicest thing she wears in this whole series.

Evening Wear

Emma’s evening wear confines itself pretty exclusively to cool purples and blues except for her white ball gown. I find this interesting because other versions tend to dress Emma in warmer colors and pinks (As I’m very partial to purples and blues, I love all of them). I can’t say it’s inconsistent with Emma’s cold characterization in this version. Mrs. Weston’s evening gowns are uniformly amazing. I especially love her blue party dress, which is my favorite in the series.

Both of Harriet’s party dresses are characteristically pretty and girlish. The pink is a bit fussy for me but I love the blue one (which has a lot more detail but I couldn’t get a full length shot of it.)

I’m pleased that Jane is given a bit of a break from the Jane Fairfax Blue ™ trope with her evening wear. She has one light blue evening gown and gets a few green numbers, most notable being her mint ball gown. Her beige party dress is absolutely tragic though.

Mrs. Elton’s evening color seems to be chartreuse (Which I think was also the case in the ITV version? ITV fans back me up.) Her black overlay/spiky number is iconic of the Austen Bad Girl, but her ball gown is a bit disappointing in its simplicity to me.

I would love to have seen a full length shot of Isabella’s black and purple number because I have a suspicion THAT would have been my favorite but I just can’t make out enough detail on it.

Zig-zag patterns on the skirt are a huge theme in this version, which is so of the period. Mrs. Cole (shout out to another future Are You Being Served? familiar, Hilda Fenemore) looks straight out of a fashion plate in her dark green party dress, which has (drumroll please…) a padded hem!

Outerwear

This version has SO MANY PELISSES AND REDINGOTES. Are they all nice? No. No they are not; I particularly hate Emma’s fugly salmon number that she wears for Strawberry picking/Box Hill. Mostly because she looks SO over-dressed compared to everyone else who’s wearing loose fitting light clothes (except Jane, who’s wearing an evening dress). Just looking at her makes me hot. I’m also NOT a huge fan of her pink winter cloak. The one trimmed with… faux ermine? One can only assume. It looks awfully tacky.

That russet pelisse tho! This is one of my all-time favorites. It’s SO. PRETTY and so detailed (See this number on Jane in P&P ’80). I think her gray fur-trimmed pelisse is pretty fabulous too, but I do not like the hat she wears with it. The brim is kind of a funky shape to me.

I know I’ve criticized brown before, but I do like it in moderation and this version is astonishingly brown-free for being made in the 70’s, so I really like her red/brown velvet spencer, especially with the cream dress and gloves, and her hat has some amazing decoration.

Jane and Mrs. Weston are the only other characters who get pelisses/redingotes. I’m not a fan of Mrs. Weston’s fuchsia number, and while I like Jane’s, it does put itself solidly in the Jane Fairfax Blue™ category.

Harriet gets pretty much only one form of outer-wear, her brown school cloak (a different brown school cloak from the one in the ‘97 version, in case you were wondering) and while it’s pretty dull, it’s hardly unexpected. Here it is paired with her rather ugly blue bonnet, with yellow ribbon. The bonnet features heavily in this episode.

To be honest for the most part I totally forgot about the…

because a lot of it is very standard. No dandy standouts here, but overall it’s pretty okay and I’m really pleased to say that there are no bib-cravats. That’s not usually so much a problem in Regency Era stuff (Since ruffles were going out at around this time), but you can really distinctly see that the ruffles (where ruffles there are – usually on older men which is good) are part of the shirt and distinctly separate from the cravat. Also there are LOTS of high collars and they’re not comically high to the point where they get wrinkled, like they were in Emma. (2020), so points for that also. These are the screencaps I gathered going back over it for posterity.

Mr. Knightley doesn’t really get a lot of cool outfits. His best is his purple velvet evening jacket which somehow manages to not look ostentatious (but is his only dress jacket), and his gold-topped Prussian boots (which you should just be able to see bottom right.) The worst though… I’m sorry, (looks up costumer’s name) Joan Ellacott – do you really expect me to feel the weight of Emma’s cock-ups when Mr. Knightley is rebuking her in such a cartoonishly proportioned top hat? It’s like being scolded by the Mad Hatter. All of the men’s hats are pretty flared in this series too, and I’m not totally sure but, I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that flared top hats are not right for this period?

I think Mr. Weston only has one day outfit (which, in keeping with his characterization is pretty farmer-chic) and one evening outfit. Frank’s dark green day-jacket is a pretty standard look on him and I don’t think we get a fresh look until his fabulous blue jacket/yellow waistcoat combo that he wears for Strawberry Picking/Box Hill. I believe his evening jacket is also dark green but it was tough to tell. Again I think he has only one set of evening-wear. I would expect Frank to have more, since he’s such a dandy.

Mr. John Knightley doesn’t have much to write home about in terms of evening kit, but DAYUM, his blue traveling coat is DOOOOOPE.

Let’s Talk Script

This adaptation was directed by John Glenister and Dramatized by Denis Constanduros.

Now I’ve seen a lot of positive reviews for this on IMDB calling it the… let’s see here… “The best Emma I’ve ever seen” and “The most true to the novel”… *Takes off spectacles and sighs heavily* I’m afraid I have to disagree. Several people also really love Doran Godwin’s Emma (We’ve already gone over why I don’t, and I have also seen reviews that name her and her lack of charisma as the main sticking point preventing them from really enjoying it, so I’m not alone). I’ve also heard it described as “sensitively handled” “Intimate” and “The most faithful to the spirit of Austen” and so forth, and again maybe it’s that prejudice against the stagey production and… no there’s definitely some other reason I have a problem with this version.

Let me make this clear – I don’t totally hate it, and I’m not here to shame the people who really love this version. Once again – if this version gives you what you want from the story I think that’s great for you. I, myself, like it pretty well and I think it’s one of the better early BBC Austen serials. It’s certainly not boring; but I do want to go over some of the changes that were made and choices in the script.

Some of them aren’t really that egregious, but they’re annoying in that I think they didn’t need to be made and don’t really add anything. Characters being added to scenes where they didn’t need to be and written out of scenes where their presence was missed. Like writing Mr. Elton out of Box Hill (And really the whole second half of the series, to facilitate Mrs. Elton flirting with Knightley), and adding Miss Bates into the after-dinner scene, I think at the Randalls Christmas party? I’m sure this was done for expediency but you have six episodes. It’s not as though you’re strapped for time.

Particularly praised, as far as I’ve seen, is the scene at Christmas when Knightley and Emma make up after their argument over Harriet. It takes place in the nursery, which I suppose isn’t an unreasonable place for Emma to be fawning over her niece (in the dramatization she seems to have been feeding the baby, where in the book she is playing with her). The book doesn’t specify where the scene takes place, although I assumed it to be a downstairs room, and I’m not sure that it’s entirely appropriate for Emma and a man (even one connected to her family through marriage) to be alone in an upstairs room together with the door closed and no more chaperone than a baby. But in spite of this, perhaps inappropriate, level of privacy, the scene feels less intimate to me than the book, where in the course of the conversation, where Mr. Knightley takes the baby from Emma “in the manner of perfect amity” and holds her himself and it is very adorable and sweet. In the dramatization, Knightley sort of just stands next to Emma’s chair and leans down a bit. After this conversation in the book, John comes into the room to talk to George, while in the show Emma puts the baby in the cradle and they leave the room to go downstairs.

But there are more outstanding changes that just feel wrong to me. When confronting Emma about her meddling in Harriet’s response to Mr. Martin’s proposal, Constanduros changes “What is the foolish girl about?” to “What is the stupid girl about?” it’s not that big a change, but it makes Mr. Knightley sound unnecessarily mean.

I’ve already mentioned the, er, additions regarding Mr. Weston’s dialogue and Mrs. Elton, and Jane shouting at Miss Bates; but by far the biggest, worst additions were made with Emma. The worst, I think, is the handling of this scene in Episode 4 when Harriet is feeling heartsick following Mr. Elton’s marriage.

And for those of you who don’t wanna follow the link, here’s a transcription:

Emma: Now Harriet! Your allowing yourself to become so upset over Mr. Elton’s marriage is the strongest possible reproach you could make to me!

Harriet: Miss Woodhouse –

Emma: Yes it is! You could not more constantly remind me of the mistake I made, which is most hurtful!

Harriet: Oh Miss Woodhouse, it was not intended to be!

Emma: I have not said “think and talk less of Mr. Elton” for my sake, Harriet, because it is for yours I wish it. My being hurt is a very… secondary consideration, but please, please Harriet, do learn to exert a little more self-discipline in this matter.

Harriet: {Looks down} Yes, Miss Woodhouse.

Emma: We are all creatures of feeling; we all suffer disappointments, it is how we learn to suffer them that forms our character. If you continue in this way, Harriet, I shall think you wanting in true friendship for me!

Harriet: Oh, Miss Woodhouse! You, who are the best friend I’ve ever had? Oh what a horrid, horrid wretch I’ve been!”

Emma: Oh now Harriet – (She’s gonna console her now, right?)

Harriet: Oh yes, I have, I have!

Emma: Harriet, control yourself! (ha ha bitch, u thought) Now, you will tie your bonnet, and you are coming with me to call on Mr. And Mrs. Elton at the Vicarage…

Harriet: Oh, Miss Woodhouse –

Emma: Yes you are! And I’m sure you will find it far less distressing than you think.

Harriet: Oh, Miss Woodhouse, must I?

Emma: Yes, Harriet; but you may borrow my lace ruff if you wish.

Harriet: Oh may I, Miss Woodhouse? Oh, thank you!

(Look how evil she looks! She looks like she’s planning on baking Harriet into a pie!)

While this scene is in the book and much of the dialogue is also from the book, it’s the lines that were added that stick out to me. Emma does tell Harriet that her allowing herself to become upset over the Eltons is a reproach on Emma more than anything else and reminds her miserably of the “Mistake [Emma] fell into” but from this point, the script takes a left turn from the firm but kind appeal to Harriet to move on for both her happiness and Emma’s own comfort, to a far more manipulative strain.

Even after Harriet apologizes, she goes from simply appealing to Harriet to let herself move on, to basically telling her that she’s a bad friend. She treats Harriet like she’s unreasonable for feeling this way, where in the book Emma is very understanding and feels that “she could not do too much for her; that Harriet had every right to all her ingenuity and patience…” and only after Harriet goes all afternoon with Emma soothing her and no improvement in her spirits does Emma take any kind of reproachful tack whatsoever.

In this scene, Emma says that her own happiness is a secondary consideration (this is stressed much more in the book) but from the way she says it, it seems more like she just wants Harriet to shut up about it rather than actually meaning it. (This is a very prominent example of Emma’s not seeming to really like Harriet at all in this version, only tolerating her presence.)

AND THEN she does something which Emma in the book most certainly did NOT do and forces Harriet to come with her to visit the Eltons, as if to put her on the spot and test how good a little friend she will be. I can’t express how disgusted I am by the changes and interpretation here. This is the culmination of the general through-line of Emma’s manipulative characterization being taken to an extreme. She looms over Harriet sounding, by turns, like a school marm and a saccharine nanny. She’s like a (very) low budget version of Tilda Swinton as the White Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia.

My question about all of these changes is simply: Why? They don’t improve the story or the characters. They’re not big, but a lot of them just strike me as weird and unnecessary, but I guess there’s no accounting for artistic license.

Final Thoughts

So is it a faithful adaptation? I often find this a more complex question to answer for myself than one would think, since inflection and line delivery and even, at some points, intention behind what the characters say tends to be up to the interpretation of the person reading the book.

Is the dialogue faithful? Other than the many changes I’ve mentioned (and the numerous cuts and edits I didn’t – and besides no screenplay can be 100% faithful), for the most part yes.

Are the characters accurate to description / faithful in their portrayal – again this tends to be subjective and opinions vary. In my opinion, Emma is not. I’ve mentioned that Knightley is too old, and Emma not only seems more intentionally manipulative than I believe she’s meant to be, and also just does not seem 21. She acts and looks like a much older woman, especially when preaching at Harriet) but she’s also very gawky, and Emma is supposed to look very healthy and glowing.

So my book accuracy rating meets in the middle at a 4.5. It’s NOT the most faithful adaptation I’ve seen, nor is it the most fun or the most intimate, but it’s not totally a travesty either and there are good things in it, even with a robot witch playing the main lead.

Ribbon Rating: Tolerable (43 Ribbons )

Tone: 4

Casting: 5 (Witchy automaton Doran Goodwin plays opposite avuncular good-fellow John Carson. Fiona Walker stands out as Mrs. Elton.)

Acting: 5 (Doran Goodwin is by turns crazed and mechanical with some momentary touches of what might be actual emotion. Raymond Adamson way over-acts Mr. Weston as a hobbeldy-hoi, verging on uncouth.)

Scripting: 4

Pacing: 4

Cinematography: 4 (A bump up from the usual 1 or 2 for TV dramas of the time. Surprisingly less stagey than expected.)

Sets and Settings: 5

Costumes: 7 (Very clearly of the 70’s but drawing on perfectly accurate styles that jived well with contemporary taste)

Music: 1 (Plinky, poorly played piano music. Only used for intro and outro I think? Jane Fairfax can neither play nor sing.)

Book Accuracy: 5 (They changed a lot of small details. Lines are changed unnecessarily (Calling Harriet “Stupid” rather than “Foolish” – Why?) Mrs. Elton seems to have a thing for Knightley? People present when they shouldn’t be, others absent when they should be present, again without any apparent reason.)

#jane austen emma #jane austen #regency #period drama #costume drama #emma 1972

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andybondurant · 3 years ago

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New Post has been published on Andy Bondurant

New Post has been published on https://andybondurant.com/2021/08/03/you-can-hear-gods-voice-here-are-5-keys/

YOU can hear God’s voice. Here are 5 keys.

If you’ve been around church or Christian culture at all, you’ve heard some form of the expression, “the voice of God.” Most likely, you’ve wondered what that really means. Is it an audible voice? Does God really speak to “regular” people? Can I hear God’s voice? Is it all just a bunch of religious hype?

There is a story in the Old Testament about the prophet Elijah. Elijah was used by God to push back against the godlessness permeating the nation of Israel. Elijah stood up against the false god, Baal, and two of his most important followers, the king and queen of Israel (Arab & Jezebel).

The still, small voice of God

In this story (1 Kings 18-19), Elijah has just defeated the prophets and priests of Baal in an epic showdown. God shows up, and puts these holy men to shame (think water, fire and wicked, smart quips). The people of Israel rise up and kill these false holy men. The queen, Jezebel, is beyond angry and vows to kill Elijah.

Elijah runs for his life.

Hiding on the side of a mountain, Elijah has this encounter:

““Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the Lord told him. And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And a voice said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”” 1 Kings‬ ‭19:11-13‬ ‭(NLT‬)

One of the outcomes of Jesus’ coming to earth was His gift of the Holy Spirit to us. Jesus and the Holy Spirit tore down the wall between the average person (me and you) and God. It allows for us to have the same type of encounter Elijah did with God. Specifically, it allows us to experience the “gentle whisper” or what the King James Version of the Bible describes as the “still small voice” of God.

How to hear God’s voice:

So, yes, God speaks, but it’s not usually in a loud, ostentatious rumble. God speaks quietly to our hearts. It’s quiet…a whisper.

Yes, God wants to speak to you, so how do you hear? How do you hear the voice of God?

There are lots of ways God speaks to people, but here is what I’ve done to hear God speak to me, and how I’ve found God most commonly speaks in my life

1. Slow Down (and be quiet)

We put too much of our spiritual life to chance. We live life so intentionally in our relationships, our eating habits, our physical routines, and our finances, yet when it comes to our spiritual lives we just let life happen.

I’m guilty of this. I’ve found the problem isn’t, “Will God speak to me?”, but “Will I listen for the voice of God?”

There really is only one way to listen, and it doesn’t mix well with our 21st century lives. How do you hear God’s voice? You need to slow down and be quiet. It may be one of the hardest things to do in today’s culture, but you have the choice to take intentional breaks to listen for God.

Patterns and habits work really well. For me it happens early in the morning at my kitchen table. For you it may be during the lunch hour walking through a nearby park. It could be in the evening in your favorite lounge chair. The key is finding the time and place where your heart and mind can be quiet and still. It’s the place you won’t be interrupted by people or technology.

Where is your quiet place? Where can you slow down and listen?

2. God’s voice: pay attention to “loud thoughts”

Why do we need to slow down and find a quiet place? If we go back to that story of Elijah, most often, God will speak to you through a gentle whisper to your spirit. If you’re not in a physical or emotional space to hear it, you won’t hear it.

Now, what does it mean…a gentle whisper? What is a still small voice? I’ve heard it described as “loud thoughts”. It’s a thought, an impression, or even a feeling that jumps out at you.

These are thoughts that you can’t quite let go. You try to move on to the next idea, but you keep falling back to the loud thought. I suggest if you come across one of these loud thoughts, write it down. Use a journal or a notes app in your phone to capture this idea.

Just because you have one of these loud thoughts, it doesn’t mean it is the voice of God. We’ll take a look at how we can measure these thoughts below. Between those safety nets and experience, you’ll quickly begin to decipher God’s voice in your life.

What “loud thoughts” have you had recently? Where did you record it?

3. God’s voice: the “outside voice”

When I was a kid, I was scolded for being too loud inside. I’m sure you were too. You may have been told to use your “inside voice” not your “outside voice”. Many times God speaks to us through an outside voice.

I don’t mean it’s a loud, audible voice (though God can speak this way). The outside voice is God using people, circumstances, music, books, media or any outside source to speak to you.

In some ways it is similar to those loud thoughts from God, it just comes from outside of ourselves. I may hear the outside voice of God as I read – the Bible, spiritual non-fiction, non-fiction and even a fiction book (Have you ever noticed how often an author promotes a particular world view?). Sometimes I hear Him driving in the car, listening to the radio. I even will hear the voice of God watching a movie or television show.

It won’t always be a “Christian” source either! God isn’t picky when it comes to speaking to us. God is Lord over all creation. He will use creation (His creation and human creation) to speak to you. He will use anyone and anything to speak to us…even a donkey (Numbers 22:21-29)!

Again, the question isn’t will God speak in this way, it’s will you hear His voice when he speaks. In this case, it doesn’t mean we are in our quiet place, but our heart is in a posture to hear.

The posture is humility.

Too often we approach conversations and circumstances with a belief we already know answers, outcomes, and truth. It may be true, but it may not be. If we don’t listen and hear with a posture of humility we’ll never know what God may be trying to tell us.

When have you heard God using His outside voice? What is your current heart posture?

4. Measure it (pt 1): Compare to scripture

So you had one of those loud thoughts, or you had a conversation that has changed the way your think about something. How do we really know if it is God speaking? Is it just my own weird idea? Was that person just really convincing? Was it the burrito I ate last night?

The first place to turn is scripture. You can be assured about this when it comes to the Bible:

“All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.” ‭2 Timothy‬ ‭3:16-17‬ ‭NLT

If we hear something that contradicts the Bible, then it is not God.

If you think you hear God saying, “Ask that person on a date,” while you’re married, you know it’s not God. Why?

“You must not commit adultery.” –Exodus 20:14

“Give honor to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage. God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery.” –Hebrews 13:4 ‭(NLT‬)

That may seem like a obvious and simple example, but this is why so many people are skeptical when someone says they heard the “voice of God”. That phrase has been used to abuse people, institutions and the truth. We protect ourselves and others by comparing what we hear to what God has already said through the Bible.

If you are new to the Bible, this may be overwhelming. How do you know what the Bible says about what you heard? The internet is your friend. But don’t search for people’s opinions. The internet is full of “Christian” opinions that have nothing to do with the Bible.

When you search the internet, search for scripture. In the above example, search for scripture on “marriage” or “adultery”. You’ll have plenty of options to look and read through on almost any subject you are weighing. Also, don’t settle for finding just one verse or story. Try to find multiple references in both the Old Testament (before Jesus) and New Testament (after Jesus).

What does the Bible say about what you’ve heard from God?

5. Measure it (pt 2): Take to mentor

Sometimes scripture isn’t clear. It may seem obvious when you read one passage, but you read another that seems to say the opposite. In some cases, scripture doesn’t specifically cover what you’ve heard at all.

Maybe you felt like God called you to quit your job to go back to school, so you can get a better job. There isn’t a great scripture to answer the question, “Is this from God?” You do have the ability to take it to another source. Take to someone you admire and trust in the way they live their lives. It could be a pastor or minister you know. You may have a friend or parent who fits this role.

Again, the important position to have is humility. They may respond with the exact opposite of what you want to hear. They may challenge you in areas of your life you don’t want to deal with.

“Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.” –Proverbs‬ ‭1:7‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Submitting what you think you heard from God to another person (or group of people) is wisdom. The fear of the Lord is respecting God enough to make sure you are truly hearing from Him.

Who can you turn to when you hear God’s voice? Do you fear God?

Now you know.

When it comes to our spiritual lives, we tend to complicate things. We make knowing God harder than it needs to be. We complicate scripture. The same applies to hearing God’s voice. We make it bigger and more challenging than it needs to be.

God wants to speak to you. In fact, He probably has spoken to you more than you realize. You just haven’t been still and listened for the loud thoughts. It may be you’ve dismissed those outside voices as something besides God. Trust that God has been trying to speak to you, so take those loud thoughts and outside ideas to Scripture and a few friends.

Now you know, and as I learned from GI Joe in the 4th Grade, “Knowing is half the battle.”

What has God spoken to you recently?

#1 Kings #2 timothy #Elijah #Exodus #G.I. Joe #God’s voice #Hebrews #humility #intentional #loud thoughts #Numbers #Proverbs

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elfindreams · 3 years ago

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SOME THOUGHTS NOW THAT I’VE FINISHED ADWD:

• good god I can’t imagine having been a fan of this series all along and having to wait ten-plus years for TWoW, which STILL hasn’t been released... WHAT HAPPENS TO BRIENNE IS SHE OKAY I NEED TO KNOW

•I have a weird and terrible premonition that the prologue chapter of TWoW, if/when it ever comes out, will be from the POV of Rickon or perhaps Shaggydog.

•I haven’t kept proper count or anything but there have to be at least five different characters (all male, incidentally) who are described within the narration as grotesquely fat and repulsive and smelly. Like, constantly. In excruciating detail. After the second or third instance of this, I began to have this uncomfortable sense that there are some kind of sublimated body image issues and self-hatred at play here, because GRRM himself doesn’t exactly have a slender body shape... is this guy okay, emotionally speaking? I’m not even saying that in a jokey way, like, seriously, is he? ._.

• On a separate but not-irrelevant note. This man just LOVES himself some titties, huh. Absolutely adores them. (Relatable)

• I have a reasonably high tolerance for disturbing shit within fiction provided that it’s handled well, and I’m the last person to insist that authors need to show their characters brushing their teeth before crossing the street lest their grown-ass target audience absorb negative moral values, but the Victarion chapters in ADWD crossed the line for me. Yes he’s an intentionally awful person yes you’re not supposed to feel comfortable yes it will surely all make sense once TWoW comes out blah blah blah blah blah but, like... what’s the point of Victarion? I mean, really? His chapters are unpleasant to read, they contribute very little to the plot so far, and on a thematic level, the only thing that really comes across is “LOOK HOW AWFUL AND MISOGYNISTIC THIS GUY AND HIS CULTURE IS!!! WOW, ~TOXIC MASCULINITY~ SURE IS BAD!”, which is just as simplistic and didactic as only writing nice characters who perfectly fit our world’s moral sensibilities. And that’s especially strange because Jaime and Sam’s respective subplots are both about men who are super emotionally fucked-up (in completely opposite ways) because they were raised to think that the best and only way to be a man is to be a Cool Tough Badass Whomst Fights Real Good™, and both are done really well. So on that level, the Victarion chapters are treading on well-worn ground, and also faceplanting.

• It belatedly occurs to me that Ygritte was described as “pug-nosed”, which implies that pugs exist in Westeros...

• I was more sad about the presumed deaths of Pretty Pig and Crunch than about Jon Snow, tbh.

• *kicks rock* I wish Ser Barristan was my grandpa...

• I remember seeing Discourse on my dash circa 2014-2015 regarding Dany’s subplot in Astapor/Yunkai/Meereen as a white savior fantasy, and it’s certainly not for me to say whether that part of the show is Good, Actually, because I am super white and also haven’t watched the show. But if anything, the book version seems like a critique of that type of story: Dany shows up in these places that are completely foreign to her, swiftly and forcibly fixes their major societal ills using her superior firepower without knowing anything about the underlying factors which contribute to their existence... and then she is shocked when everything goes horribly wrong like 20 minutes later. (i.e. she ends slavery but the rich and powerful former slaveowners are still rich and powerful and still ✨control the means of production✨ so most of the formerly enslaved people end up right back where they started, it’s just that they’re now “free” but being paid starvation wages and barely surviving instead of being literally enslaved. Which she maybe could’ve avoided had she spent time learning about how the city’s economy worked and would need to be changed, and/or sat down with people and directly asked them what they wanted and needed, what would be useful to them in starting new lives for themselves, etc.)

• (I feel like I’ve already mentioned the above bullet point in a previous post but I am dumb of ass and pure of heart and also don’t feel like going back through to check)

• Satin lives!!! YES!!!

• oh right uhhhh yeah R.I.P. Quentyn, you died as you lived: doing your best but unfortunately also being kind of below-average

• Regardless of whether Young Griff/Aegon is actually Aegon, Varys’ master plan seems... bizarrely short-sighted and risky? Like, he spends 20 years intentionally destabilizing the realm plotting to put this perfectly-molded prince on the throne, but what happens if his perfect prince gets randomly thrown from his horse or gets an infected cut and dies? Even if he ends up on the throne, how can it be guaranteed that his own children are equally perfect future rulers? Is that why he and Ilyrio helped Viserys and Dany survive, so they could serve as backup in case anything happened to Aegon? But if so, then why didn’t they keep those two closer at hand, and try to educate them in a similar fashion, and keep them safe? And if his whole motive is peace and prosperity for the realm, then what was wrong with the existing state of affairs by the end of ADWD, with Cersei stripped of political power, a good-natured and pliable child king on the throne, and Kevan serving as the regent and doing a legitimately good job? Instead of the whole convoluted Aegon plot, he could’ve just... I dunno, found a way to maintain a position with court and pulled some strings to make sure Tommen was properly taught how to be a good king.

• oh yeah right R.I.P. Kevan, too

#text post #asoiaf shitposting #long post

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deunan403 · 5 years ago

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Oh my gosh your ‘the name is English’ fanfic is so good. Any advice on getting like. The distinct voices of each of the characters? I’m just dabbling in homestuck fiction and I think I got Dave and rose and jade. But John and the alpha kids are hard

(Edited: I kept thinking about the mistakes I made in this explanation so I’ve finally gone back and fixed them pfffft, Also like... I think I might’ve misconstrued the kind of answer anon was going for, in which case, only the very end end of this long ass response is useful. Welp.)

SO FIRST OFF, I am insanely flattered anyone is asking my advice on how to write Homestuck characters because these are some of the most difficult characters I’ve ever written. Thank you so much! These kids each have an insane amount of dimension to them and I completely understand why they come off a bit intimidating to write correctly. I don’t even think I do that good of a job, lmao. Anywho, I’mma go ahead and apologize in advance because I got a little carried away with my advice. When I get to explaining things I like to over-explain and hope you just pick out what ends up bein actually useful to you. There is... a lot of shit under this cut, so be warned.

Hello! Welcome to this wordy as fuck space under the cut. (Edit: It won’t format correctly so ALL this bullshit under the cut. Thanks tumblr. SMD plz). Unfortunately I can't describe the way they talk without deconstructing a little bit on how I view each of their personalities because a part of me insists it's better to provide context and examples, so again, I'm sorry for these unnecessarily long ramblings. Skip to about the center of each paragraph if you want to focus on speech pattern-specific things, eheheheh.

John's pretty difficult for me too because his vernacular slate isn't as colorful as everyone else's, but this is kind of what I've come to understand about him: His general reaction to everything is a mixture of chipper and blasé--going with the flow. He kind of became the “straight man” in HS to combat the way everyone else was reacting to the wild shit that eventually went down. At face value, the way he talks makes him come off as a simple dude -- what you see is what you get, which isn't necessarily true. He's honest about his feelings but at the same time it seems like he has difficulty processing and understanding them, which makes them come through much milder than what you'd expect for the situation. It's probably why he absorbed his dad's death very slowly and got hit hard when it finally processed that he was gone for good. But not many things get all the way through his initial blaséness which actually makes him kind of callous in that he can give oddly indifferent responses to things others would consider a big deal, such as when Terezi died in front of him. He looked at her corpse and was just like "Eugh. She's so weird." Like damn dude, that’s cold. Ain’t like she bled to death or nothing. Anyway, some speech pattern specific things I keep in mind when I write him: He doesn't use a lot of big words, sticking to casual, simple responses, most of them positive or enthusiastic sounding. He sometimes uses old man speech and idioms, like Jake but toned down by like 85%. He's a bit slow on the uptake, points out the obvious, and says things that he thinks are clever but he's either completely missing the mark or being lame in general, not to say he can't sometimes be particularly sassy/savage, especially when it comes to his immediate friends because he knows them and can see through their bullshit better than he can with other people he doesn't know that well. In the chat client, he likes to divide combined words like "what ever" and "time line". If you're being canon compliant, he adopted some chat quirks from Vriska after they dated, such as multiplying punctuations by 8 for emphasis!!!!!!!! (edit: Ignore this last part. I think I may be thinking of a dead john, lmao.)

Jane's also a little difficult but easier than John since speech-wise, she's more of a balance between him and Jake + if they were super skeptical about everything and cared about being smart. She's actually kind of a wild card to me, because sometimes she has probably some of the most realistic reactions to the more ridiculous things in HS, but has grown used to equally ludicrous happenings such as the assassination attempts on her life in her intro. She also tends to wear her heart on her sleeve, and has quite the temper. She tries to override her more emotional responses with good southern manners because she's polite, god dammit! When her short fuse isn't ignited, her bottomless passion fuels her cheerfulness as well as her fearlessness. She's also pretty inquisitive, about the world around her as well as towards her friends, asking them questions to understand what they may be dealing with better. She tries really hard to be reasonable about things but struggles with letting other things that may be in play ruffle her well-kept feathers. Speech pattern-wise, she vacillates between speaking like a normal teen and a grandma, to a way lesser extent than Jake. Initially, she tries to keep it prim and proper--sophisticated like a southern suburban housewife with an interesting hint of embellished self-narrative like she's the protagonist of a Noir comic (like here), but when real shit starts to go down, she gets quite a bit more casual (like when they're on their quest slabs here). That is to say, I wouldn't say her normal way of talking is something that doesn't come naturally to her because it totally does, but she loses most of the laciness because short and to the point is better, which is the case for any of the kids with more flavorful quirks. She tends to steamroll over other people when she gets passionate about a topic, but when that's not happening, she's actually super accommodating, to the point of viciously ignoring her own feelings so she can be a voice of reason. In the chat client, she uses toothy emojis like :B.

Roxy, on the other hand, comes pretty easily for me because she's really similar to one of my closest friends and speaks much the same way we do when we're chill. We're also from the south, where much of the youth talk like Roxy does, lmao. Roxy is probably the most accommodating of any of the kids, readily bending over backwards to cater to her friends' needs and letting her own needs take a backseat, which probably leads to a lot of resentment she keeps buried. But she's still the chillest one, taking just about everything in stride before and after her alcoholism. She tends to get sad before she ever gets angry. And if she does get angry, it's usually only frustration at others for being difficult. Communication-wise, she's the most shorthanded--thinking and living in chat-speak. She's all about living her best life and taking care of her family so things are fun and peaceful. She wants to be super sure of herself (like Dirk) because she wants to be reliable. When talking, she likes to use a bunch of metaphors (again, like Dirk), and she tends to casually throw in a lot of puns too, such as when she tells Jake that they're still "humanated" when he asks if he's alienated her too. The nature of her responses is typically pretty flippant, even when things are serious. It's probably obvious that getting comfortable with general Ebonics will help a lot when writing her. In chat client, I try to remember these things: typos only happen when she's drunk--when typing her drunk, I avoid actively trying to give her slurred speech. Instead, I kind of let my fingers type a little more haphazardly and leave the typos I made that sound like mistakes she would make. She only tries to correct a small portion of her typos, more frequently the closer she is to sobriety. When she IS sober, her shorthand isn't consistent. One sentence she'll write "u" and the next, she'll write "you". Same thing with "2" and "to" or "4" and "for", etc. She'll cut out unnecessary letters in words, use typical chat abbrevs, and only use singular letters in place of a whole word, like "y" for "yes". Also uses smileys and other signs like <3. She's super fun for me to write because she comes away with a general feeling of "lmao" if that makes any sense.

Jake I'm always worried I'm doing wrong but he seems to be the one people love my characterization of the most so far, lmao. So I guess I must be doing something right. The thing about Jake is he wants to be the "likeable character". He takes what people want in a guy and molds that into this garbled persona. So when he talks to others, even his friends, he tries to be super agreeable, positive and supportive, regardless of the subject matter; he’s always talking these people up to make them feel good about themselves so that they enjoy conversing with him. But the reality is that he's extremely (but not necessarily intentionally) self-centered. He also aggressively ignores anything negative or forcefully turns it into something positive even when it doesn't make sense. He only tends to express frustration when others (Dirk) are being difficult; I don't remember if he ever actually gets angry in the comic?? He also likes to express surprise/amazement at things (a lot more than the other kids do at least), at the beginning of his responses, even when someone says something that's particularly obvious. The thing that gets me about Jake is that his superficial shell is so impenetrable, I don't think that issue was ever really fully addressed, much less fixed in HS, which leaves a lot of questions about his character & several different but valid interpretations of him by the audience. He may very well actually just be an oblivious idiot who's suffered brain damage one too many times (there's not too many pieces of supporting evidence to negate this) but I personally like to think Jake is far more complicated than that. I mean, look at how many convos he's grabbed the helm of and steered into a completely different direction just so he doesn't have to deal with something. His speech is probably the one I have to look up references for the most because he uses a fuckton of idioms you'd only hear one’s well-meaning but probably unintentionally racist poppop use, and a weird mixture of western/country and british vocab + bro speech he probably adopted while talking to Dirk. This is one list I find super useful when trying to find words to use (bless this person), but I still have to google a bunch of goofy phrases and words to be sure I'm not exhausting my material. One thing I know I do wrong when it comes to Jake's speech is use modern British slang such as "bloody" and "bloke", which is something he absolutely never does but I use them anyways because... idfc, I guess, idk. lol, I acknowledge it so it's fine.

Dirk is probably the one that comes easiest to me because he and I behave and talk pretty similarly. Either that, or I just like to think that and I'm just projecting while writing him completely wrong, lmao. Either way, Dirk hides behind the fact that he's super chill and levelheaded when really he's a nervous paranoid wreck. He's always thinking and overthinking about everything and he never gives himself a god damn break. He calculates every response he gives so it comes off exactly the way he wants it to, so when it doesn't because he's caught off guard, you get to see these little snippets of this dude freaking out underneath. He's a neurotic control freak that makes sure the flow of conversation stays on a set course he wants it to or else he gets either uncomfortable or pissed off. He skirts around anything that might get personal to him and dismisses any focus that sheds light on his own emotions UNLESS he feels, again, that he can control that flow of conversation. Or he's already emotionally compromised. Either way, he avoids conditions that might catch him actually being vulnerable because he's just too fuckin' proud. He likes to make a lot of comparisons, using extended metaphors and milking the fuck out of them if he can get away with it because the more he talks, the more he feels in control. He likes to smoothly play along with people he finds are being ridiculous, like Jake and Caliborn, or even just because he knows they'll know he's just playing along like Roxy. That's a key thing for me actually--how much he likes to fuck with people and how inelegantly he takes it in those rare cases someone successfully fucks with him. His speech seems to be a balance between Rose and Dave, a chill bro with access to the biggest vocabulary ever. I encourage aiming towards sounding like a pretentious asshole when writing Dirk because that's what he is all the time sometimes. He likes to Dirk-splain because more often than not he knows exactly what he's talking about, but he also doesn't realize his Dirk-splaining is something no one needed or asked for. Even though he's acknowledged and now resents the ludicrous size of his own ego, he still struggles with not stroking it at every opportunity. He’s a super capable, reliable guy and he knows it, but the reality is that much of what he plans for doesn’t work out. It’s only when he and his friends are really in the shit and he doesn’t have time to think that instinct takes over and he ends up doing some hella amazing things (Unite: Synchronization). That’s why his whole thought process of being better off alone is dangerous--he’s capable because he has people he loves relying on him. (I went off on a tangent unrelated to speech here. I’m sorry. I got a lot of feelings about Dirk and his selfishness vs. his selflessness, lol)

With all that, these are some general notes I try to abide by:

The ramblers of the kids are Dirk, Dave, and Jake, the former two especially when they're anxious. Dave's definitely the worst in that regard. The Striders both act like they wanna come off as men of few words and both fail miserably; it seems like being forced to live in verbal silence for a good portion of their lives gave both of these social wrecks a stigma against any gaps in conversation. Jake on the other hand rambles because he's self-important, not unlike Dirk. It's almost like he's not sure how else to contribute to the conversation if it's not about movies or himself.

For me, it actually helps that I think Dirk and Jake may both be on the spectrum. (I'm sorry if the following offends anyone who is on the spectrum, but this is just my general experience talking to people with those conditions). It certainly explains why their joint communication is so shit and why they either both give long-winded explanations that no one really asks for, or extract themselves from conversations they don't have a good foothold in, the latter being way more common for Jake (I hint a little at all this in my fic, moreso for Jake via Dirk's observations). They both want to be heard but may have difficulty being good listeners because their heads are already filled to the brim with things that have been cycling since before the other person has started talking.

On a final note, I find it pretty important to note the changes in each character's demeanor and way of talking after certain things happen. A glaring example is the Alpha Kids' behaviors after the batshit candy juju episode they all had. When Jake's broken out of his glorified, overwhelmingly positive fake self-image, he's actually very self-critical. However, his self-centeredness is hard to break out of, so when he broods on all the flaws he'd ignored in favor of being the guy everyone likes, he directed all of his nervous energy into finding reassurance from Roxy. (This self-deprecation could've also been born from his constant need to be agreeable, so since he thought everyone considered him to be a piece of shit, he felt the need to agree that was the case. Depends on how you read it.) Roxy had a shorter fuse and was a bit more snappy and resistant to dealing with Jake's ridiculousness. Jane remained calm and acknowledged she can be a bit too stubborn and self-righteous. Dirk finally took a step back from the details and absorbed the big picture of his problematic expectations toward his friends and himself. It’s just something to keep in mind if you fear you’re getting kind of OOC with their personalities. It’s natural for people to behave different based on changes in their mood, so don’t be afraid to experiment.

All that being said (I lied about that final note), I go back and reference the comic a lot when I’m unsure whether I’m representing a character accurately. It’s a good habit to double-check yourself. If you’re unsure how you’re writing a response but wanna move on, write it the best you can and then come back to it later and revise after reading a few conversations that include that character.

Most importantly of all: the thesaurus is your fucking best friend of all time. Fuck everyone else. The thesaurus is your god damn hero. I find “define:”ing words on google actually super helpful when trying to find synonyms that work better for me.

But that’s it! I hope you found at least a few things helpful in that word splurge of fumbling analyses. And thanks a bunch for reading my fic! It’s not super popular so it’s reassuring to know there are people out there who really enjoy it. Keeps me trying to update regularly at the very least.

#anon #deunantalks #hs #deunanrambles for fuckin days #stfudeunan #ask

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youswiminmywater · 6 years ago

Text

new perspectives on loneliness

it’s important to try to stay away from your bed sometimes. i never used to be the type to spend the entire day locked away in my room, but the past few months have been exactly that. i even rearranged all of my furniture one day just to change things up, update and organize everything in a way that made more sense. pointed my bed towards the tv. put my clothes in the closet, in my bed drawers (which is astoundingly a habit i’m still keeping up!). organized, alphabetized, and filtered through all of the stuff on my bookshelf, made better use of the space in my room. there’s still some stuff to throw out. there’s still dust accumulating. but it’s a snail’s step, a healthy move inside of a swampy situation. i don’t want this room for much longer, or at least i don’t want to be trapped in it all the time, but i’m glad i fixed it.

the other day, i went down to the cafe to get a salad and try to read a little in public, which is generally my go-to outing for when i want to get out of my house. it’s important to get out of the house sometimes. i’ve been trying to slog through “the faerie queene,” which is an old renaissance epic poem about knights and chivalry and greek mythology splashed into a weird christianity-focused landscape. i’m reading it most because i can, because i know what words like “weet” used to mean, because i’m comfortable reading spenser’s intentionally bizarre spelling and letter-swaps. just for context, here’s an example:

Nathlesse the villen sped himselfe so well, Whether through swiftnesse of his speedy beast; Or knowledge of those woods, where he did dwell, That shortly he from daunger was releast, And out of sight escaped at the least; Yet not escaped from the dew reward Of his bad deeds, which dayly he increast, Ne ceased not, till him oppressed hard The heauy plague, that for such leachours is prepard.

and i’m also reading it because the stories are fun to retell in my own words, whenever i can find an ear to gab into! a lot of old literature is like that, surprising you with a fun story. so i took my massive old book with queen victoria on the cover, got my salad, and decided to sit nearby a couple that looked like they were on a date so that i could eavesdrop on them.

boy is it easy to judge strangers! from what i could tell, he was an older guy, maybe grad student age, clad in nouveau punk garb, the band shirt with sleeves rolled up to his armpits, the rolled up jean shorts, stompy boots, thick rimmed glasses, the side shave haircut that everyone seems to be sporting these days, tattoos up his arms and half way up his neck. he was talking very adamantly about his classes, particularly with a recognizable pretension about how much of an intensely emotional and intellectual endeavor it is to both READ and WRITE in the modern age. something or other about how his professors just Don’t Understand, how they’re Taking the Magic Out of It. he was very particular about the genres he liked to read, and very particular about explaining it to her with confidence, caution, and exactness. she, meanwhile, was at least a few years younger than him (in fact, i’m pretty sure she was an acquaintance of mine, knew her tangentially through people i knew in high school), and it seemed like she hadn’t been to at least a traditional college in several years. the last i remember, she worked at this kind of odd farm-fresh fast-food joint, where they make you wear blue bandannas instead of brand hats. she looked like she went to art school maybe, studied photography. she was very supportive of his opinions on reading books, or whatever, and tried her best to come up with things to share back on the subject, but it was clear she wasn’t really That Into reading. she ran with the crowd that was used to doing, parties and skateboarding and concerts, not sitting at home over a notebook.

it just seemed like the kind of pairing that didn’t have much in common, but they were still fresh and enthusiastic and willing to blow past differences and have some fun for a while. in any case, i was in true goblin form, hunched over my salad, building stories for each of them in my head, telling myself they were communicating poorly and failing to connect with each other, telling myself they’ll be over and done within a few months, maybe more if the circumstances call for it. a stupid grin slapped across my brain while i half-read about some sinful queen named “lucifera,” who embodied Vanity itself in every way, even carrying around a hand mirror just to admire herself.

this is the cafe i used to work at, and so i knew a lot of the patrons and just about all of the employees; i spotted one person, the “new girl,” also enjoying a salad off duty a few tables away from me. she had been hired shortly after i left, though the two of us had developed a little bit of camaraderie between my frequent visits. i called her bree-bree, she called me bri-bri, it was something cute and fun between us. one of the few fond connections i have with the world outside my bedroom.

i made my way to the door, pretended to notice her, and sat down in the seat across from her, imposing in probably a very trumpian way, though she didn’t seem to mind, wasn’t nose deep in a book like i pretended to be. we got to immediately gossiping about the couple i was just eavesdropping on, my favorite hobby, talking about dating and relationships from a safe and frankly lofty position, dragging someone into my holier-than-thou mindscape to bond with them. it’s the magic of people-watching, really, and sharing that experience with someone makes you feel so much less like a wretched lonely creep. she nodded sagely when i talked about talking but not communicating, first dates in the cafe.

she told me a story about how she was on a first date with a guy and kept asking him questions expecting him to toss the ball back into her court, but at the end of his several monologues, the only thing he was able to bring back to her was “so, any more questions for me?” i told her he was probably trying very hard to impress her, and maybe felt interrogated. like it was his time to make a splash and show her how good and smart of a boy he was! and probably terrified out of his mind. you can’t chalk everything up to male vanity. she shrugged a maybe-probably. i declined to tell her a story about some of my first dates, not wishing to mirror the guy she just described to me.

i learned that she was dating one of the other guys that worked at the cafe, who was working there that day, though the whole thing was a sort of semi-hush. she said they dated but she didn’t really talk about it. she just gazed at him over my shoulder, dreamy-eyed. how do you get a girl to look at you that way? i admired it, appreciated it. i turned around and announced to the guy “i didn’t know you two were dating!” made him blush, show him that i was Aware and not threatening anything by having an intimate salad talk with his girl right in front of him. she told me she was moving to Cleveland in two weeks, and was bad with long-distance. she didn’t seem that bothered by it, though i still sympathized, knowing by now how those relationships end, the early 20s flings that always get bashed backwards by college schedules and other necessity.

her mentioning it gave me an opportunity to talk about vivien, for a moment. i told her i was a long-distance veteran. i forcibly showed off pictures of vivien, of the two of us together, because i was dying to show at least one person, even someone who could be barely considered a friend. i don’t know why i wanted to; maybe another opportunity to say “just so we’re clear, i’m not trying to come onto you, here’s a girl i already like!” or maybe it was a way to legitimize a connection in my life that seems to slip away more and more every day.

i offered to give her a ride, probably a minor misstep. she said she preferred walking, good exercise. i agreed, told her i wanted to ride my bike more often too. she insisted i make some desserts for her and the cafe before she had to leave, and i promised i would. left.

i had something of a panic attack that night. i don’t like calling it that, because the feeling wasn’t...well, maybe i’m just unfamiliar with panic. it was intangible. i was feeling manic, i could hear myself breathing, i wanted to get out of the house again (this was now around 11pm or so). i was feeling trapped, claustrophobic, lonely, forgotten. i went to a 24/7 gyro place to tap my foot, pick up dinner for me and my mom. wrote an obscure facebook status. sent a few oblique text messages. wanting attention but not wanting to attract it. wanting someone to care about me and show concern but feeling selfish and childish by offering out my hands.

i had a phone conversation with a friend of mine just before. my best friend, or at least someone i used to be really close with, now feeling more and more like a stranger, more like a burden, more like i destroyed something that was taking a painstakingly long time to fully implode. i was becoming less and less to her, and it showed in our conversation, and showed even more when she was telling me about other friends she was starting to hang out with more, or when she was having a conversation with her boyfriend that was so much more lively than the one she was having with me. it used to be the other way around. i sat on the phone and let my heart break, realized i was becoming alone again, and ended up at this gyro place an hour later.

it’s not that i’m particularly going to miss the life i’ve been living the past few years; i really hate feeling stuck, even if i had some great company while doing so, and shared a lot of myself with someone who has been very important to me. but trying to move on has blasted away a lot of stuff i took for granted, or didn’t realize i depended on so heavily. so i guess i had a panic attack, on both ends. i felt empty and heartbroken looking back on my past friendship; i felt worried and alone looking forward. i’m still not sure if i’m moving into anything real or not.

maybe i’m once again too much in my own head, but sometimes i get the feeling vivien is already done with me. we don’t really have any plans when it comes to moving closer to each other; i’m not even sure what she wants for her own life sometimes. we’ve both been through our own gauntlets, and we know long-distance isn’t really something we have the energy for anymore. all i know is that we happen to have landed in the same spot, together, right now. but i don’t know if we’re both going to leave this place together, or if we’re going to be facing the same direction when we do. we’re certainly not going to stay here for much longer. i only hope she isn’t already through with me. sometimes i feel like a needy puppy, begging for her attention, putting effort into something that i maybe shouldn’t be. i truly do adore her, and we resemble each other so much; we sometimes joke about being each other’s “twin flame,” soulmates. it still feels that way. but soulmates aren’t always lovers.

i’m just preparing myself for the worst. i don’t want it to be over yet.

today i listened to an “etiquette podcast” on the way home. it’s really hardly about etiquette most of the time; it’s just this married couple that started a podcast together, likely because the wife felt left out of her husband’s podcasting career and wanted an excuse to hang out with him. they pick random topics, the wife goes into a brief “history” of the thing, and then they talk about “the best way to blank,” “when is the right time to blank.” how do i ask for a raise without coming off as bossy? what’s the best way to end a phone call? what’s the proper thing to say when i fart on the train?

this week’s episode was about naps. the wife went into a personal yarn about how she had postpartum depression and took frequent naps that just felt Very Bad. like gigantic naps that felt too good, wasted the whole day. the husband likened it to eating ice cream when you’re starving. just the wrong medicine for the occasion.

when i got home, i took a 6-hour nap. i was still riding the wave of sadness from the day before, though without the manic energy. just the overwhelming feeling of aloneness, having no one to share anything with anymore. being alone really makes a lot of things feel pointless, when you’re in the headspace of, i want to do things so i have something to share with people. suddenly reading feels stupid. endeavors to work out feel pointless. long naps are a brief fast-forward through something that feels like it ought to blow away at some point. and it really doesn’t, at least, not in the way you expect it to.

i woke up and checked my e-mails, my school e-mail in particular, to remind myself that i was still a student and had responsibilities beyond trying to find love and companionship to enrich my future (snort!). cracked open my textbook, a chapter about plate presentation, and got quite lost flipping between dessert possibilities. really inspiring stuff, even though the book is a little outdated:

i’m sure this is somewhat a product of my mood...but looking at these foods made me really want to dive into my work as a pastry chef. become good at something, make all these sauces and coulis and collect a bunch of chocolate shavings and such and try out some plate designs for myself, likely in very bizarre, personal ways. “here you go mom, i made dessert, and i bought a special plate to put it on!” i mean, how else is a boy to practice? it’s a relief seeing stuff like this, because the class i’m taking right now makes me believe cake decorating is the alpha and the omega of pastry learning. and i just hate cake decorating! my boss told me that some people are decorators and some people are producers, and that i’m a producer. i feel good about that role. it’s encouraging.

i’ve written pretty freely and frequently about this belief i have, that people have a built in “fail-safe” system that keeps them from tolerating a bad feeling for too long. some motivation inside of them that keeps them from stewing in depression until they disintegrate. in the past, i’ve taken opportunities like this one i’m in to go on impulsive bike rides, usually in the dead of the night. i felt the same impulse washing over me today; however, i knew that my bike tires were flat and needed a pump. this is essentially the extent of my bike-repair expertise, so if they didn’t stay inflated, i was probably done for without a real concentrated effort to fix the damn thing.

i went outside to our backyard shed to try and find the bicycle pump. no luck. and our backyard was starting to look and feel overgrown, plants poking through fences and coming up to the windows. my mom says she likes the overgrown because it grants privacy, but i hated it in that moment. i wanted to clear everything away. in lieu of finding my bike pump, i grabbed some forgotten rusty shears instead, and just started going to town on these masses of towering plants. snipping bit by bit, shoving them into mossy old yard bags, grabbing thorns and twigs barehanded in my sleepwear and clogs. just fed up, burying my feelings in the impulse.

i started to imagine, maybe this is what i need to do from now on. just focus on cleaning the house, yard work. eventually move on to working out, getting stronger arms, losing weight, eating healthier. if i’m going to be a shut-in for the rest of my life, maybe this is the secret to accepting it. just obsessing over some kind of work and never thinking about loneliness ever again, except maybe by accident late at night, in moments of stillness. it made me feel kind of like boo radley. it was a familiar place, like one that i had recognized in writers and poets, or any other person that was considered isolated, in solitude. like a retired old dad, feverishly picking up hobbies to keep himself busy. emily dickinson with her botany and gardening (did you know she had a 66-page leather-bound book of pressed plants? it’s called an herbarium). or like a robert frost type, hauling wood to a cabin, reveling in the simplicity of it. after all, it’s easier to tear weeds out of the ground than it is to make friends. maybe it’s the kind of life i need to embrace, constantly becoming better and healthier, more useful, stronger, but for nobody. building a nice home and a nice life and only sharing it with someone if i get really lucky.

i didn’t really hang out with my dad much after my parents were divorced, and now that i’m older, and i’m realizing how badly i wanted someone to teach me how to be a guy. all the things i remember doing with him when i was younger, fishing, flying kites, swimming, are distant memories. i’m rusty. i’m gonna take my kids to do these things with nostalgia and fumble at it, because it fell out of my life a long time ago. i feel like being outside again, getting bug bites, tearing up the yard and putting it back together again...it’s a way of being a dad to myself. or i feel like my dad was supposed to teach me this stuff, like it’s a old secret, “now son, when you grow up and your life isn’t what you wanted it to be, just build a birdhouse. it’s the best remedy for depression!”

or maybe it was just a manic episode, me out there chopping away at the bushes. a cathartic release that’ll sink back into its deep slumber again come tomorrow. it was a shift in perspective, another way of making loneliness OK, a different kind of ocean to drown in. i wouldn’t mind if it stuck around.

i know i really don’t deserve much, i’m not exactly a very good person. but if i can find a way to turn all these feelings back in on themselves, and just focus on something...manual and productive, i think it’s a life i’d take. just needs some motivation.

#personal #blog

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shemakesmusic-uk · 4 years ago

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Pixey has released her new EP Free To Love in Colour as well as the video for stand out track 'The Mersey Line'. Speaking about the EP, she says: “I wanted a collection of tracks which gave a quick snapshot into me and my brain – where I’m from, where I want to be and what I’m thinking about. I hope people can take something meaningful from it or simply have a dance.” Of the new video for ‘The Mersey Line’, she adds: “‘The Mersey Line’ video was shot in one day at all my favourite haunts around the city. The song itself is about the walkway line along the River Mersey, so we retraced the steps I used to take as a kid and also when I was starting out as a musician. I would write lyrics to my songs along the same path. I wanted something that sums me up wholly as a person, and I’d say the video does just that.” [via Dork]

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After turning a short TikTok video shot in her car into an empowering body acceptance anthem with over 70 million streams, Vancouver-based pop singer and songwriter JESSIA shares the music video for her breakthrough anthem 'I’m not Pretty' via Artist Driven Records/Republic Records. Watch the video directed by Benjamin Lussier. In the visual, JESSIA steps through the looking glass to confront her insecurities in a playful and tongue-in-cheek kind of way and falls down a rabbit hole into an imaginary yet cinematic eye-popping peach filled wonderland inspired by Roald Dahl’s ‘James and The Giant Peach’. The video illuminates the rising artist’s fun and quirky persona, which is as infectious as the song itself. On shooting the video for 'I’m not Pretty' JESSIA says, “Filming the music video was such a surreal experience. I kept looking around set and asking myself, ‘are all of these people here for me and my song? What? Am I really here right now? What a time. It was such a party on set! SUCH A BLAST!”

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Feminism often focuses on the pressures placed on women in society, but men face their own set of pressures as well, and these are very much connected to the oppression women face. Would we have such high rates of domestic abuse if men weren’t taught to express themselves through violence? Would the sexual assault epidemic be what it is if straight men were not taught to view women as conquests? And if men could be free from these constraints, how would the world look different? Stockholm-based pop artist Elin Blom, known by her stage name FELIN, explores questions like these in her latest single 'Dear Boys,' an open letter to men who commit violence and mistreat women. “Dear guys/did your parents treat you right?/or did they teach you not to cry?” she sings against deceptively upbeat drums and bass. The song is intentionally poppy with an edge and roughness to it. Written at an all female writing camp in Stockholm, it utilizes an all-female writing and production team. With the single, Blom wanted to send her listeners the message that “it isn’t manly to be an asshole and not care about how you treat your children or care about how you treat women,” she says. “It isn’t manly to crack sexist jokes; that’s just rude behavior. It’s way more manly and brave to wear a dress no matter what your friends think, or to speak up against abuse or abusive and sexist language.” In the video she looks at the more positive side of the equation, celebrating people who don’t confirm to their gender roles with shots of actors exhibiting a variety of gender expressions and styles. In the beginning, she speaks out loud: “My heroes are those who dare to express who they are, fully, with no holding back. This is about those heroes; this is their moment. It was important for us to find a mix of men in different ages, with different sexualities and backgrounds, to show that it’s okay to wear [whatever] and be whoever you want no matter what you do for work, where you come from, or where you live,” she tells Audiofemme. [via Audiofemme]

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For a record about the tedium of teenage life in the suburbs, 'Wasteland' is quite the grandiose introduction. The first single released ahead of Alex McArtor’s Welcome to the Wasteland EP introduces the project as both an opus of both catchy electropop and swelling orchestral compositions, all cowering behind the bold, slightly country-twanged voice of the young vocalist. The single arrives today alongside a darkly bizarre visual co-directed by (with Dwyer O’Brien and Ava McArtor) and co-starring (with O’Brien, Ava, and Campbell Barton) the vocalist, with McArtor name-dropping David Lynch as an influence. “‘Wasteland’ is the opening scene of this sonic film I had in my mind that turned into the Welcome to the Wasteland EP,” she shares. “It sets up the characters that are present throughout the rest of the EP and the environment in which they live, both spiritually and physically. ‘Wasteland’ represents a person, a place, or a feeling of recognizing a dead end. It’s like being stuck inside this geodesic dome and feeling controlled or watched by Big Brother and yet knowing that there is something else going on somewhere else.” [via FLOOD]

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Back in January, Quilt frontwoman Anna Fox Rochinski announced her solo debut Cherry. The latest cut from Cherry is called 'Everybody’s Down.' Here’s what Rochinski had to say about it: “'Everybody’s Down' is a song that’s meant to be a little abstract but is generally about feeling run down and bewildered by rampant complicity during catastrophic times. EVERYBODY’S down, including you and me. And yes, also, “down” like bummed, if that speaks to you. And yes, also “down” as in, just casually down to do something, like, down to go grab food with your homies or whatever. It’s a triple entendre. We all feel all of these things every day. It’s a lot. Literally all I can do anymore to stay sane is have a sense of humor and laugh at stuff. I am so much less randomly sentimental than I used to be, but I think it’s because I have learned what really deserves my love and attention. There was a primordial version of this song that I brought in to (album producers) Carlos and Julian, but in the studio, we would visit it at the end of the night after all our serious work was done and throw stuff at the wall to see what would stick. It was like a way to release tension, and we didn’t take it very seriously. We made this minimal, weird, scuzzy instrumental with bass, guitar, synth and programmed drums, and I then took this raw creation home and worked out the structure and the melody and lyrics. In the end, I fell in love with this song, much to my surprise." Musically, 'Everybody’s Down' continues Rochinski’s exploration into a plastic disco-funk like its predecessors. It’s accompanied by a video directed by OTIUM. [via Stereogum]

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Molly Lewis is a world-renowned whistler from Australia. In recent years she has been based in Los Angeles, where her Café Molly events have supposedly attracted the likes of Karen O and Mac DeMarco. Now the esteemed indie label Jagjaguwar announced that it has signed Lewis. Her first single for Jagjaguwar, 'Oceanic Feeling,' is out now. It’s a peculiar song with an even more peculiar video. 'Oceanic Feeling' is a wordless ballad that, between its high lonesome gallop and Lewis’ whistled melody, seems like it could be shoehorned into an old Spaghetti Western. But there are also elements of lounge jazz and exotica in the mix, particularly when Leon Michels’ saxophone enters halfway through. In the video, Lewis dresses like a medieval maiden(?) and music-adjacent Hollywood star and Café Molly regular John C. Reilly mimes the sax part while wearing an outfit that recalls the Burger King. I am not sure if any of this could be described as “good,” exactly, but it’s definitely unique! [via Stereogum]

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Mannequin Pussy have announced a new EP, Perfect, their first new material since 2019’s excellent Patience. Last week, the Philadelphia-based band announced that founding guitarist Thanasi Paul had left the band, which means that Mannequin Pussy are forging ahead as a three-piece. Last year, they got together to record five new songs with producer Will Yip, who also produced Patience, that were influenced by our past year of collective isolation. 'Control' is the first song they’re sharing from the EP, and it starts off slow and methodic, as bandleader Marisa Dabice insists: “I’m in control/ That’s what I tell myself/ When all the walls around me close in.” Mannequin Pussy’s songs have often been about trying to enforce some control over uncontrollable emotions and exploding when that’s just not possible, and sure enough 'Control' bursts apart in its second half, a dizzying but still pretty escalation of guitars and noise. [via Stereogum]

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Bloxx have dropped a brand new single, ‘Everything I’ve Ever Learned’. The track is the first new material from the band since last year’s debut album Lie Out Loud, and is produced by Rich Turvey (Blossoms, Oscar Lang). Speaking about ‘Everything I’ve Ever Learned’, Fee Booth explains: “The last two years for me have been very difficult, with health scares and anxiety hitting the roof. This song was really important in my journey to stop trying to understand everything, and to just accept the cards you’re dealt and make it work for you. It taught me to keep holding on, even when your grip is loose. The depth of what it means to me as a person is so crazy for just a four minute piece of music. It faces the trials of life, and everything that you wish you’d have been taught before having to face it all brutally, in the real world. It’s basically a self help song, it’s for everyone that needs to hear it. “You should learn to hold on, it’s not the end of the world” [via Dork]

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Before the pandemic hit, beabadoobee was set to tour with Phoebe Bridgers and Dirty Hit labelmates The 1975. While that trek obviously never got on the road, the UK-based songwriter still managed to link up with 1975’s Matty Healy and George Daniel to collaborate on the follow-up to her excellent debut album, Fake It Flowers. beabadoobee is now previewing that effort, cleverly titled Our Extended Play EP, with the new single 'Last Day on Earth'. Fans have long known of the mutual appreciation between bea and Healy, and the pair have been teasing their collaboration for some time. The new single is rather clearly the result of beabadoobee’s sound meeting The 1975’s. That distinct ’90s indie melody that made Fake It Flowers one of 2020’s best albums carries through here, only now the vocal cadences recall some of Healy’s more measured moments. The result is a dreamier, more lighthearted beabadoobee, further closing the gap between the nostalgic styles that originally inspired her and modern indie music. Unsurprisingly, it remains as infectious as anything either artist involved in its creation has ever done. “With this EP, it’s kind of alluding to the fact that I kind of want to, you know, have a sound that sounds like beabadoobee rather than someone saying it reminds them of something else,” beabadoobee tells Consequence. “I don’t think it’s a whole new era just yet… I still have blonde hair, the same blonde I had for Fake It Flowers, and every EP I have is almost like who I am right now — right this second. That’s everything I write about in this EP. I haven’t really changed my look and I always base eras on my look, like, ‘Oh, what color am I going to dye my hair this time?’ But I’m pretty comfortable right now. I’m pretty chill.” 'Last Day on Earth' comes with a video directed by Arnaud Bresson of Division Paris. The clip finds beabadobee exploring all the things she would have done if she’d known normalcy would be stripped from us a week in advance. [via Consequence of Sound]

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Inspired by Nestlé TV adverts, K-Pop music videos and the Oscar-nominated 70s film Five Easy Pieces, Irish pop icon CMAT has shared a new video to accompany her fourth single ‘I Don’t Really Care For You’. Adorned in a fabulous snake-skin blazer and skirt combo, the pop starlet performs an impressive and joyful dance routine opposite a mute bearded beauty who’s Instagram followers are set to double in the next few hours. “The director Eilís approached me some time ago to make a music video, and I really wanted it to be for ‘I Don’t Really Care For You’ because I knew she would be able to capture the high energy mood of the song, and also we are into the same old, niche and ugly design stuff,” CMAT explains. “The dream sequence was inspired by a Nestle ad from the 1980s. The choreographer, Nick, made my dreams come true. I was like, ‘I want to dance like Blackpink, but I have absolutely no technical ability whatsoever.’ I think that much is evident in the video but we pulled it off!” Full of CMAT’s lush, yearning vocals, relatable lyrics and Americana-tinged guitars, ‘I Don’t Really Care For You’ is a song that sees her swallow her pride and admit to sometimes being “the bigger dickhead in a relationship.” The witty set of accompanying visuals show CMAT at her finest, exuding a charisma that lights up the screen as she leans into “the Marian Keyes of it all.” [via Get In Her Ears]

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Nordic pop sensation Anna Of The North has shared her new single 'Here's To Another'. The songwriter swoops back into action, crafting a follow up to her Internationally successful 2019 album Dream Girl. A new album will follow later this year, with 'Here's To Another' finding its way online. An all-out Scandi pop banger from one of the best in the game, the single is a finely sculpted slice of electronic melody. 'Here's To Another' twists and contorts, before its final head-long release results in a glorious chorus. [via Clash]

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American songwriter Natalie Bergman has shared new song 'Home At Last'. The new single dips into her country and Americana roots, while adding some soothing gospel elements. There's some sumptuous harmonies sitting around her voice, a soft pillow for Natalie Bergman to relax into. The beautiful video is online now, shot in an abandoned chapel, one that brings out new meaning to her lyrics: “Answer my prayer, when a great man falls and the skies collapse, where’s the joy in this world, is he home at last?” Natalie explains... “I have always written songs about ‘home.’ A place that is not on this earth. It brings me a great deal of comfort knowing that place is waiting for me - especially when life can be so alienating and lonely... In the video for ‘Home At Last�� I found a small chapel in Los Angeles and the moment I saw the stained-glass... I felt like it belonged to me. One of the best things about making music is sharing it with the people you love. Playing it with your friends and family. I invited my favorite artists to be a part of this performance and I asked them to think about what heaven might look like to them.” [via Clash]

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UK band Crawlers may only have three other singles but they’re definitely not your standard alternative indie underdog. The group of four secured air time on BBC radio and were featured in two Spotify editorial pages. Their new single 'Statues' came out on the nineteenth. It only proves this bands remarkable character. The vocals corrosively discharge acerbic phrases, “You make me so calm, let the statues fall”. Holly Minto invites you to participate in tormented ambiance. The guitar slays the entire track, no thanks to Amy Woodall, jolting the listener out of an ignorant slumber. The guitar makes for a perfect incumbent of the perforating bass put down by Liv Kettle. Now the drumline is a total antithesis, very classic rock/n/roll. Harry Breen takes on the persona of a grounding buddha by producing a converse rhythm. It’s like he is having this eloquent conversation with the rest of the instrumentals. [via Sounds Good]

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Nashville-based songwriter Madi Diaz releases her new single/video, 'New Person, Old Place.' Madi recently marked a full restart of her career with the evocative 'Man In Me,' a first offering showing how she’s capable of distilling profound feelings with ease. While 'Man In Me' took Madi through her first steps of a really hard time, 'New Person, Old Place' presents her further down the road, after processing the pain and loss of a breakup. She uses specific diction to describe feelings that are typically hard to verbalize: “I used to stay up on the off chance that you might call me back / I used to go shopping for pain go through pictures it’s all I had / I’d sift through our memories and live there even when I wasn’t sad / I used to, I used to, but now I don’t that.” Madi elaborates: “This was a moment I realized I wanted to start to learn how to do it not better, not worse, but just different… and then something shifted. Something in my heart finally knocked loose and I was breathing deeper. It’s hard as hell, breaking patterns and unlearning all the old shit, trying to shut all the doors that I used to open to let all the same hurt happen over and over. I’m at least learning to find new doors. ‘New Person Old Place’ is a mantra. A line that I’m casting into the future so that I have something to guide me forward. It’s something of a reminder that if my heart is the house that I carry with me wherever I go, I can take it somewhere new, or I can do the same old thing I always do but backwards or with a cartwheel, and I can repaint and I can rearrange the furniture. I can clean the mirrors so I see myself true and clear.” The 'New Person, Old Place' video was directed by $ECK and shot in Madi’s pickup truck throughout Nashville. The video follows Madi on a journey to the salvage yard, driving different versions of herself there to face her history.

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Following the release of her viral rock cover of Miley Cyrus's 'Midnight Sky', which garnered over 341.5K views, Izzy T is unveiling her explosive new single 'Nuclear.' Featuring UK rap artist Ben Hunter, the almighty alt-rock-pop fireball of energy combines electric, raucous sass in a mix of fearsome beats and muffled, gritty guitar. Screaming enough is enough, the mantra of this song sits on a tidal wave of frustration, narrating the darkside of a relationship and how people can become the furthest thing from who they really are. Izzy shares, “This song has really paved the way for my new sound as an artist. I love big crunchy guitars and stompy beats, and the freedom to go from low and creepy, to high as the clouds with my voice!” With an underlying theme of empowerment in dark times, Izzy provides a voice that we can cling on to, emphasizing that we can do whatever we put our minds to.

#videos of the week #pixey #jessia #felin #alex mcartor #anna fox rochinski #molly lewis #mannequin pussy #bloxx #beabadoobee #cmat #anna of the north #natlie bergman #crawlers #madi diaz #izzy t

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dredshirtroberts · 5 years ago

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Been a while since I went on and on about my family.

Probably because shit’s been kinda crazy in my life and frankly there’ve been other things to consider.

I have very, very complex feelings about my family.

I love them, dearly, with all my heart. They claim to do the same to me, and sometimes they do things that prove it. Sometimes they say things that make me think if I ever were to open up completely to them I would no longer be loved. They have helped me and protected me during rough times in my life and I will be forever grateful to them. They have also caused me harm and trauma and seeded deep seated anxieties and complexes that will cause me distress for some time yet as I work my way through all of it. They are also, undeniably human, and for that I cannot find it in me to dislike them for their faults. Much.

Because of the trauma and hurt I’ve been through - whether sourced from them or not - it is incredibly easy for manipulative people to latch onto my insecurities and my anger and turn that into something they can use to isolate me from the people I am closest to both genetically and emotionally, thus making it easier to hurt me differently, more.

This has happened at least twice that I’m aware of. Once with a former best friend who I don’t know intended to be as manipulative and abusive as she is/was but intent doesn’t really matter I suppose. The second time was with my ex-partner I left this past April.

To my eyes it always appeared that my younger sister was the favorite of my parents, and to my sister I appeared the favorite, so we were essentially pitted against one another in a competition we never signed up for - and I believe this was done completely unintentionally. The constant struggle to be “good enough” for our parents’ approval placed us in the unfortunate position of being 2 hormonal teenagers within 3 years of age difference stuck in the same house 24/7. We were constantly fighting - screaming matches designed to hurt. Wild swings meant to intimidate but not connect because if I connected there’d be hell to pay. (I connected a punch at least once, and that’s just the one I remember because it was relatively traumatizing not only to her but to myself because I never actually wanted to hit her). She and I have mostly gotten through the misunderstanding of our motivations from that time period. She struggled because I was the “good kid” who never did anything wrong - even though she knew better. And she was talented and beautiful and got compliments on everything - even though I saw her handheld through some of the things I was forced to do on my own. It was very fraught, and honestly there were things that should have been done better but none of us knew what we were doing.

My parents meant well with everything. They tried not to play favorites but they were both older children determined not to let their oldest child feel like they had - and in doing so had caused their youngest to feel ostracized and like she would never be enough because I had the benefit of the doubt on my side. Confirmation bias - the oldest kid wasn’t in the wrong all the time, which meant I was never in the wrong because they hadn’t been in the wrong all the time (they thought). This was the wrong way to handle it but I don’t think I would have done any better.

They took us out of Public Schooling to homeschool when I was 12 and my sister was 9. They meant to make sure that we were getting the attention we needed in order to succeed. I’d been in the gifted program and was still bored, and my sister was being sidelined because she was placed in That classroom of her peers - the one filled with all the kids who were constantly in trouble, and with the teacher who probably didn’t need to be a teacher anymore. So they thought they would do a better job. My dad worked full time initially so he was gone a lot. My mom tried to teach but she is not a teacher. She is an excellent scholar and does very well with knowing things. If you know things on the same level she does? Great to talk to and debate with. If you’re not there yet? Forget it, you’re going to have to find someone else to teach you. My sister required a lot more attention as she was the squeaky wheel - she wouldn’t read because she finds it incredibly difficult (I’m pretty sure we’ve got some level of dyslexia, and hers is worse than mine). She was very good at math though, which my mother loved because my mother loves math. She picked my mom’s favorite foreign language to learn because it was relevant to her own interests and my mom latched on.

I could read 5 books in a week, write pages and pages of stories, and would research like no one’s business. But I could not figure out math, I wouldn’t put the research into a paper, my stories were not for parental consumption, and I didn’t want to read the books I was supposed to be reading (they were incredibly boring, I stand by my decisions). But none of this interested my mother except in telling me how I was failing, so I was left to my own devices, sitting alone in my bedroom surrounded by my schoolbooks and doing nothing I was supposed to. It was a very artistically productive time in my life. When I got a laptop later in my teens, forget school work at all, nothing got done. I technically did not graduate high school and I only “passed” the assessment tests because I test incredibly well.

So I was alone for a very long time during the day until “my” parent got home from work. Cause I was Dad’s kid and my sister was my mom’s kid, as described above. But I couldn’t get into computers and programming the way my dad wanted me to - my sister was actually into more of the same interests as him, but they Do Not get along. Yes present tense. They do well in short periods of time but they are not ever going to be close-close. My mom and I are cut from the same nerd cloth and I thought at one point I’d maybe found a way into her heart by starting her going to a local comic convention with me. We did an annual day out just the two of us for a good couple years. I think I learned something the one time she tried to bring my dad and sister with us (neither of whom was in any way shape or form excited about the endeavor, and in fact both hated it immensely). We stopped going as regularly after that and haven’t been back since. That...that one still hurts so I’m going to try not to pick open that scab right now.

I spent a lot of time alone. I was trying to figure myself out. I was about 16 when I realized I was not a Girl. I’m actually still fairly certain my initial assessment is correct and actually I am a guy. I just...can’t do anything about it right now and honestly I’ve gotten used to existing as I am so I’m just going to keep on keeping on. It might change again, it’s been known to do that. I don’t know if it’s a natural thing for me or if it’s something that is induced by outside stressors but I’ll just continue existing and we’ll see how it goes.

My mental illnesses were ignored for the most part. Teenage Angst was what my depression was, I’d grow out of it. Normal was what my anxiety was determined to be (hmm, my Super Anxious mother saying my anxiety is just normal life? sounds fake but okay). ADHD? That’s something that kids with less attentive parents have, and since mine were super attentive - I was being homeschooled after all - I clearly could not have that. Plus it was fake, and if I wasn’t so lazy and unmotivated I wouldn’t have a problem. Also I didn’t know anything about ADHD so that was definitely not something I had. The fact that I definitely wanted to kill myself and frequently wanted to die and didn’t think I’d live past 18? I didn’t talk about that. No one knew because depression wasn’t real and if I said anything I was just “crying out for help” and clearly that was only what whiny brats did when they felt the world wasn’t being handed to them on a silver platter.

I self-harmed intentionally for the first time at 14. I have done so infrequently since then. When I reached drinking age, I developed a mild problem - but I didn’t think anything of it because it was encouraged and supported by my family who didn’t know I was using it to cope with the fact that I still felt like dying but now was older than I ever thought I’d be and didn’t know where my life was going. I used pot as a way to escape with my first IRL friend in 7 years. She used it against me as a way to make me easier to manipulate and keep complacent. I let her.

I spent 4 years in a weird haze of things I don’t really remember very well or remember extremely clearly. I was constantly anxious and upset, and I still felt like dying but at least I wasn’t alone anymore. She constantly berated my sister (which I hated and promised never to let anyone else do ever again - which I then broke later but, well, I’m going to be better now). My family didn’t like her, which she used to pit me against them saying they only wanted to isolate me from others again. This is the same time I came to Tumblr and started learning about abuse cycles and signs. It took me a while to stop only attributing them to the way my family worked (not always abusive) and start comparing the lists to her behavior towards me (usually abusive).

I finally realized something was wrong with all of it when I was introduced to a group of people in whom I found several new family members. If you’re reading this, you’re statistically one of those people so you already know what I’m talking about. This ex-friend of mine introduced me to the group and I was shocked at how people could positively support one another and be genuinely interested in my health and wellbeing and also the things I enjoyed all at the same time.

I met a guy through them and with his support and everyone else’s I left the manipulation and abusive behavior of this ex-friend behind. The relationship with the guy lasted 6 months and honestly I’m impressed we got that far now that I think back on it (note to self, if he’s named himself after war machinery it probably won’t work very long). It was the longest I’d ever been out with anyone, my previous record being 2 weeks. 2 months after the end of that relationship and I met my now ex-partner.

I won’t rehash that disaster. It was 4.5 years of slow build up to the shitshow that actually started in December of last year and culminated in April of this year. He used the same tactics against me as my ex-friend did. Slowly pull me away from my support system (who I was already farther away from than I’d been with Her). Remind me that they’d hurt me and that their attempts to hold on to me were to keep me away from others. Hide that he was trying to do the same himself, isolate me from my support system and give me a support system that already backed him up and would side with him no matter what. Use physical intimidation (whether intentional or not he did it, and it was new so I wasn’t prepared) to remind me that I was not in any position of power. Berate my sister, avoid my family, use their attempts to show me that he was in the wrong to prove they were in the wrong.

I swear to god the very next time someone else calls my sister a bitch I am throwing hands and getting the fuck out immediately because I Will Not.

It’s happened twice now and I’ve let it happen both times. It’s not fair to her and honestly it’s not even true. She’s...difficult to deal with, and sometimes she does things in a manner that doesn’t...make much sense to me but she’s not a bitch. She’s a woman who is extremely opinionated and has very strong views on How Things Should Be. She’s not bigoted or hateful which frankly is a surprise considering our upbringing. But she’s not a bitch.

Speaking of our upbringing, I guess I should mention I was raised in a politically conservative, right-wing household. There are certain radio talk-show hosts whose introduction jingles make me think of summertime and relaxation because that’s when I’d be listening to them the most thanks to my mom always having them on the radio during their broadcast times. The Liberals (tm) were Bad and the Republicans were the only hope our country had. The Gays were an evil to be endured but god forbid they get any rights or freedoms, and also women are completely equal to men and racism was abolished before my dad was born so it’s fine now.

We weren’t super Christian - not until later anyway. We went to church on Sundays, and even then Dad took several years off where he just never went to a service. We listened to Punk music and pretended we were on the right side of things, and sometimes we listened to heavier stuff because Satan was bad but not that bad and also probably not real because Christianity isn’t a big deal it’s just important because Reasons (tm). We only prayed before big holiday meals and even then it was more lip service than anything. A tradition of Things You Do. I had friends who were way more performatively Christian than my family and I didn’t really think anything of it.

Of course now my dad’s part of one of those neo-baptists mini-megachurch cults (my bad, I did introduce him to it after I spent a summer in Louisiana) and he’s become weirdly open to things like Neurodivergence and Mental Illness but has regressed on the trans* and gay issues to, like, all the way back: “He’s just confused why does any guy want to wear a dress” and “she’s got a wife and I guess that’s fine because she’s an alright person but gay people shouldn’t get married or exist”. I vaguely know their stance on reproductive rights because we never actually discussed sex despite my dad and I communicating frequently in bawdy jokes and quotes from movies I shouldn’t have seen as young as I was when I saw them, but I told them at one point I was on birth control and I think my mom had a mini aneurism because she just kind of froze for a minute. It’s definitely not a favorable view but I mean...I can’t convince them to care about people who aren’t them and who experience the world differently from them so I mean

Mm and they’ve recently become gun owners which was a surprise. We never owned a gun, we never really talked about guns or gun ownership except as a political thing. Dad kinda mentioned it a little bit sometimes? that he’d one day like a gun but it was always a distant future sort of thing. And now they both have concealed carry licenses, my mom has a purse with a hidden compartment and a lock, they go out to the shooting range for dates together, and my dad went on his first deer hunt this year for a work retreat thing (?????? don’t ask me, I honestly don’t know or understand why that was a thing).

I held a gun one time and it was horrible and I hated it. It wasn’t loaded or anything but it was heavy as fuck and I was so uncomfortable I immediately handed it back as soon as its owner was done with whatever he was trying to prove to me (it was first boyfriend war machinery name guy...again, every time i look back at that relationship I still don’t know how we managed to keep our shit together for 6 whole months. it was not my best decision but considering the other decisions i’ve made regarding relationships, I suppose it could have been worse).

Anyway, I forget where I was supposed to be going with all of this. I think I was just explaining that my feelings about my family are complicated and uncomfortable? And I think the main thing I got out of this (which is a good thing, don’t worry) is that I am not going to let anyone else in my life determine my relationship with my parents and my sister ever again and anyone who tries to manipulate that (even with good intentions, it’s still none of their business) is a bad fit for me and needs to go.

Oh yeah, I guess this is also me coming out to y’all who are reading this: I think I’m a guy. I’ll let you know if my pronouns or anything change but right now I’m pretty much still coming to terms with the gender bit. It’s been a while since I properly explored my gender shit so we’ll see how it goes.

#personal posting #my thoughts #it's not really important but it is long so maybe there's something in there?#idk i just kind of rambled for a bit about my family and my shit i've had going on

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trxsh-pxndx · 7 years ago

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Get to know me

Shamelessly copied from @almost-dead-freak (thanks for the tag ^^)

Original Rules: Answer 20 questions, then tag 20 of your followers that you would like to know better. Updated Rules: See Original Rules, + Add a couple questions of your own!

Here we go, and boy it’s gonna be a big one… (profanity may be used from time to time)

Name? Denis

Nickname? Denis the menace, Davis, Desko, Exodia, Sogeking and the list goes so long, even Gandalf the Grey will be envious of the amount of nicknames I have.

Zodiac Sign? Sagittarius

Height? 177-178

Nationality? Bulgarian

Sexual orientation? Heterosexual

Favorite fruit? Green apple, banana and pomegranate

Favorite season? Spring and Autumn

Favorite flower? Lotus, rose and lavender

Favorite scent? Freshly mowed grass, the scent that the pages of a new book posseses, the scent of coffee, gasoline, the scent of mint and the scent of cannabis

Favorite book? The Lord of The Rings, The Hobbit, Achtung – Panzer!, The Art of Peace, The Lost Regiment and many more

Favorite animal? Lynx and wolf

Coffee, tea or hot chocolate? Depends. Coffee when it’s early in the morning and I’m not sure in which galaxy I’m in or when I have a long shift at work feeling sleepy, tea for evenings when I wanna chill and hot chocolate when it’s cold outside and i need some warmth

Average hours of sleep? Sleep? What’s that? around 6

Cats or dogs? Dogs. My doggo is the special retard that makes my day brighter :3

Number of blankets you sleep with? It’s either none or just one

Dream trip? The list is long but to name a few countries i wanna visit : Portugal, USA, Germany, Holland

Blog created? ~1.5 years ago

Number of followers? The insane amount of 7 (luv ya guys

Favorite color? Crimson red, black and blue

Favorite food? Bacon, shawarma, bacon, beef (ik I’m a filthy meat eater) every existing burger and most of all P I Z Z A

Favorite song? The list is so fvcking huge it’s gonna take me days to write it so shortly: Collard Greens - ScHoolboyQ, Hands on the wheel - ScHoolboyQ, A$AP Rocky - Holy Ghost, A$AP Rocky - Peso, A$AP Ferg - East Coast (and the remix of it), Depeche Mode - Enjoy the Silence, Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus, Foster the People - Pumped up Kicks and just check my blog, some of my favorite songs are in there

Favorite singer/band? Linkin Park, Kings of The City, Slipknot, System of a Down, Metallica, ZHU, Skrillex, Krewella, Qvkata DLG, Keranov and many more

Favorite TV show? Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, Fear The Walking Dead, Rick and Morty and possible the new GoT spin-off called Westeros

Favorite movie? Fury, Deadpool, Borat, The Dictator, Dunkirk, The Hitman’s Bodyguard etc.

Favorite visual artist? Vincent Van Gogh and Leonardo da Vinci

Favorite fictional character? Tywin, Jaime and Tyrion Lanister, Ser Davos Seaworth, Olenna Tyrell, Gandalf, Legolas, Negan, Jesse Pinkman, Rick Sanchez and more

Dream house? (Describe it!) Huuuge apartment big enough to have space for all my stuff and if possible on the 8-9th floor so i can have a view of the entire city

Qualities you look for in an S.O. or friend? The ability to talk on a wide range of topics (regardless of their depth), being able to think “outside of the box”, having a broad view about life, challenging me to push my limits so I grow in a good direction, being understanding and not judgmental, allowing me to express myself and not limiting me in any way (unless i chose to make a compromise), being completely honest (even to the point of brutality) and most importantly being able to communicate their thoughts/feelings (sorry hun, I ain’t no god damn mind reader)

Name one superpower you’d like to have! mind reading (like mentioned above not many people know how to express their thought process so that would save me a lot of troubles)

Also: you can re-tag me if you want me to answer any questions you’ve added!

What is your inspiration in life? Seeing what I was and what I am now

Biggest fear? Loosing everything/everyone i care about, being forgotten and heights

Tell me a joke: My girlfriend and I often laugh about how competitive we are.But I laugh more.

Tell me a story: Meh it’s 3 foken AM, nothing comes to my mind, PM me and I’ll share a story in the morning…

If you could change something in yourself what would it be? I’d quit smoking ( cigarettes), and would like to stop overthinking EVERY SINGLE detail

What makes you feel happy? Seeing the success after hard labor, seeing aesthetically pleasing things, hearing the roar of a V-shaped car engine, taking mountain hikes and listening to music, smoking cannabis

What makes you sad? When people act as if I don’t exist, when I hurt somebody I care for and also failing at something

How do you see yourself in 10 years? I see myself well educated with a job I enjoy and travelling around the world with friends/SO

Who are you? I’m just an average 19yo cunt who spends his time either at work or in front of the PC (yeah, yeah no-lifer with no friends), an odd bird who is either goofy or dead serious, but also a highly motivated person to whom yo can always come and ask for help or assign a task, cuz i like helping people and getting sh*t done. Also I have my weird ways of expressing myself by using analogies for example (you may have noticed already)

What do you want to be remembered for? I wanna be remembered as an example of kindness and how regardless of all the sh*t life throws at you it’s possible to remain kind and loving. I want to teach my close friends that you should talk without offending (intentionally), listen without judging, help without expecting anything in return, because I still believe in the good side that people claim is gone. I was saved from a possible suicide by a person who was my torch when everything around me was dark, who found me when I was lost, who reached for me and pulled me up. That saved me from applying a permanent solution to a temporary problem, so now I want to give back to the people, I believe that a life lost to depression is a life time full of missed opportunities and that’s why I want to teach people to be careful with their words and actions and be helpful, because you might never know… you CAN be the force that changes someone’s perspective on life for the better.

What is your strongest emotion? Eagerness

Questions I would like to add and my answers to them:

What do you seek in life? Adventures, knowledge and friendship

What quality about yourself do you like the most? The ability to remain positive in almost every situation and joking about my mishaps later

Are you an early bird or a night owl? Night owl. definitely.

What is your favorite quote? “Ideas are peaceful, history is violent” - Don “Wardaddy” Collier (Fury),

“A lion doesn’t concern himself with the opinion of the sheep” - Tywin Lannister

Seaside vacation or vacation in the mountain? Prefer the mountain because the air is fresher and it’s quiet up there

Tagging:

@100ritmo

@almost-dead-freak

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karyu-endan · 7 years ago

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Twilight Chapter 8 review: Port Angeles? More Like Port Assholes

So, funny story time. I actually read chapter 8 of Twilight and started writing a review for it as soon as I uploaded my review for chapter 7. But my university workload got too much to handle and so I dropped Twilight for the moment to focus on my studies… and because of that, I never finished my original review. Now that my summer courses are complete I have some time to get back into this before classes start back up in September. I thought about continuing my original review… but it’s been ten months and I forgot I even started writing it, so I decided to read chapter 8 over again and get some fresh thoughts on it.

That and in the original review I got on Bella’s case for being an unreliable narrator, since she apparently did notice the connection between vampires and the Cullens disappearing in sunlight when it seemed like in chapter 7 that she was too pre-occupied with Edward’s absence. I got into a big rant about how the narrator is supposed to be honest with their thoughts even if they’re not necessarily correct, and got on Meyer’s case for making her first-person narrator omitting critical information.

After reading Gone Girl as part of my Writer’s Introduction to Literary Forms class in Uni though, I learned that a narrator can be made dishonest intentionally… and to great effect. So I’m going to let Bella’s unreliability slide.

… Of course, I am also fairly certain that Meyer wanted to portray Bella as honest to a fault as opposed to the ‘liar who is so compulsive about her lying that she even lies to the audience’ she is actually written as. So the problem is, once again, back to Bella having inconsistent characterization; there is nothing inherently wrong with being a dishonest narrator in its own right.

At any rate, on to the actual review!

The chapter begins with Jessica and Angela shopping for dance outfits while Bella is tagging along. They end up getting into a discussion about Bella’s lack of a boyfriend and it’s revealed that Tyler (the one that almost accidently ran Bella over in chapter 3) has started telling people that Bella’s going to be his prom date.

Bella interprets this as Tyler being guilt-ridden over the accident and wanting to make amends.

That… rubs me the wrong way. Spreading rumours behind someone’s back is not making amends; it is causing even further harm. If anything, Tyler is trying to play the accident up for all its worth in an attempt to get into Bella’s pants. That is, to be frank, disgusting. Granted, Jessica brings up the possibility that Bella’s wrong about her interpretation of Tyler’s behaviour, so it might be on purpose. But still, it isn’t the only thing about this scene that rubs me the wrong way. What gets me even more is Bella’s plan to stop Tyler’s martyr act.

She thinks that maybe running Tyler over with her truck might get him to stop.

That’s right. Bella’s first response to someone annoying her is to bash his face in with a vehicle. On top of how outright stupid this is (I can only imagine Tyler in the hospital thinking that he must have done something really bad to make Bella run him over… Cue him thinking this is about the car accident and trying to atone twice as hard as before), it’s yet again an example of Bella never even considering just being straight with people.

“Hey, Tyler? I know you’re upset about hurting me, but I really want to put that event behind me and your constant attempts at making amends are only making things worse. If you really want to make it up to me, then do me a favour and don’t see me again… And don’t start rumours about us behind my back. I don’t like that. Please?”

Bella could use a lot more of that in her life.

Yeah, I know it’s supposed to be comedy, but with how monotonous Bella’s narration is I find it hard to see the humour in any of this book.

Anyway, Jessica leaves momentarily and when she’s gone Bella asks Angela about the Cullens’ disappearing act during sunny days. Bella confirms that they weren’t rogue incidents and they’d been skipping school (and work in Carlisle’s case) every sunny day for quite a while. This one moment, while fairly minor, got me to dislike Angela to some degree. Bella observes that Angela just answered her question and didn’t ask any back, unlike Jessica. This makes Bella start to like Angela, with the implication that it’s because Angela is easy. Bella doesn’t have to think about what to say in front of Angela.

Unlike the one that actually challenges Bella to think for herself once in a while and actually expects an equal commitment. Huh… putting it that way, Bella likes Angela because her being a doormat helps Bella be a doormat too. Birds of a feather?

Oh, and all Angela really says about the Cullens not being around in sunlight? They’re “out-doorsy”. Not, I don’t know, “very weird” or “irresponsible”. You’d think that the Cullens skipping as often as they do would raise a few eyebrows at least. And how is Carlisle supposed to hold a steady job as a doctor of all things if he has to be away every time it’s bright outside? What if he has an appointment scheduled for one day and the clouds suddenly start leaving? What then?

Whatever… Bella and friends finish their shopping earlier than expected and Bella decides to leave them to look for a bookstore on her own. Despite Jessica and Angela being okay with braving the potential boredom to stick together (like how Bella braved the boredom to stick with Angela and Jessica when they were shopping. Imagine that!). And despite Jessica and Angela having been to Port Angeles before and know the way around the place. And despite Charlie’s worries about Bella being alone in another city in chapter 4. You can tell where this is going already.

Bella gets lost, runs into a squad of would-be rapists, and is seconds away from being attacked when her knight in stony armour comes zooming in his silver steed and saves her. Edward Cullen to the motherfucking rescue, bitches! Called it a mile away!

Except something’s wrong with this rescue. Edward is not relieved that Bella is safe. His dominant emotion, as far as Bella can tell… is anger. Murderous anger. I get that he’s worried about his vampire instincts taking over and killing the would-be rapists in a relapse to his human-eater days, and Bella’s delicious scent is not helping matters… but if that were the only issue, I would have described what he’s feeling as fear. Fear of his vampirism getting the better of him and reverting him back into a murderer. And it isn’t just Bella’s narration; Edward confesses that he was so angry that he wanted to go back and kill those would-be rapists and spending his time with Bella was the only thing stopping him, and that he had to work really hard to leave those would-be rapists alive.

So it comes off less as Edward being a retired monster afraid of relapsing, and more like Edward is still a monster that finds it very difficult to not kill people he doesn’t like. Not afraid of going all out, but angry that he has to restrain himself. Meyer meant to write a Jugo but she found herself writing a Suigetsu. That’s how I see it anyway.

Anyways, Edward takes Bella to the restaurant that Jessica and Angela had dinner in after waiting an hour for Bella to come back from her book hunt… Hold on. Jessica and Angela waited for Bella to come back for the hour, but when Bella didn’t come back in time, instead of immediately assuming something went wrong and looking for her (or better yet, calling her cell phone, assuming she has one), they decided to… eat dinner without her.

So Bella’s a compulsive liar, Edward is a creeper and bully, Mike was a dick to his date that one time, and now Jessica and Angela collectively abandoned Bella to the mean streets of Port Angeles.

Does no one know how to be a good friend in this universe?

Moving on, Edward convinces Jessica and Angela to return home without Bella and that he’ll drive Bella home himself after they have dinner. Oh wait, she has dinner; Edward doesn’t eat anything because apparently animal meat is no good after it’s been dead for awhile.

Now, I was actually surprised by the dinner scene. Edward and Bella were just as stupid as usual, but from reading Mervin’s spork I was led to think this scene was the height of abusive romance. It may be because unlike Mervin, I’ve never been in an abusive relationship (or any romantic relationship that didn’t involve a friend-zoning…), so I’m probably not as sensitive to these things, but it didn’t come off that badly. Probably no worse than chapter 4 and definitely not as bad as chapter 5, which I had quite a few words about. The one thing that really stood out to me about their interaction was that Edward claims that Bella has a knack for attracting trouble and that only someone like her can wind up in danger in a small town like Port Angeles. He even has the nerve to insinuate that if anyone else were in Bella’s position, Edward wouldn’t need to be constantly around to protect them.

Never mind that Bella was only in that position in the first place because Jessica and Angela decided to have dinner instead of look for her.

Never mind that Bella was able to live a fairly ordinary life for seventeen years before coming to Forks, with the most exciting thing being that her parents are divorced (which isn’t even that strange).

Never mind that Bella wasn’t even a danger magnet until she met Edward himself and the he started stalking her.

Maybe, just maybe, Edward’s observations aren’t quite correct. That and Edward believing that Bella isn’t capable of taking care of herself says a lot about his feelings for her. Not that he’s wrong about Bella being Too Dumb to Live, mind you… Then again, everyone else is just as dumb as Bella, so she’s not particularly incompetent the way Edward is insinuating.

Oh, and Edward smiles at the thought of Bella going into shock. That’s pretty telling too. But altogether the dinner scene isn’t reminiscent of an abusive relationship to me.

No, what really bothered me about the dinner scene was the hostess and waitress being extremely unprofessional about their jobs. Edward asks for a two-person table. The hostess shows them a four-seater in the most crowded section of the restaurant. It takes Edward asking for somewhere more quiet and giving the hostess a fairly generous tip to correct that obvious error. And the waitress? She never asks Bella what she wants; she always asks Edward what both of them want. The serving ladies were both trying to flirt with a customer while on the job at another customer’s expense. I’ve never worked retail, but I’m pretty sure that breaks a code of ethics somewhere.

This is reminding me of chapter 5 and how the faculty of Forks High don’t know how to do their jobs. Apparently the staff of La Bella Italia (Yes, I noticed the irony right away) don’t know how to do their jobs either.

At any rate, during the dinner scene Edward explained his mind-reading power through very thinly-veiled “hypothetical” scenarios, but he only did so because Bella demanded information in return for telling him the new theory about him she came up with (oh, what’s that? Bella prefers Angela over Jessica because Angela doesn’t ask questions, and yet Bella expects Edward to fork over information in exchange for her own? Hello, hypocrisy!), which she promised to do during the ride back home. Well, after Edward and Bella finish dinner they leave and the chapter ends with Edward declaring that ‘now it’s his turn’.

See you next time for that turn.

#Twilight review #bella swan is an idiot #Bella Swan is a hypocrite #Bella Swan is an asshole #Edward Cullen is an asshole #Jessica is an asshole #Angela is an asshole #those rapists were assholes #Tyler was an asshole #those serving girls were assholes #everyone is an asshole #asshole plot

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gingermcl · 4 years ago

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Identifying and dealing with Energy Vampires

Recently I had an experience where an energy vampire tried to siphon my energy. I figured it out and set some intentions.... then a week this person did an entire 180 and was all of the sudden against me. Reporting she didn’t say things that I have in writing plain as day. I picked up the attachment when I did a reading for her. I told her she only had to pay me $20 and she sent me 50 which was really weird. Especially since this person often talks about how she needs more money. It occurred to me that she sent more money to strengthen etheric attachments.

I no longer believe in coincidence. Let’s talk about some signs of an energy vampire.

What is an energy vampire?

Energy vampires are people who drain your emotional or physical energy. (Energy vampires love empaths.) Energy vampires can intentionally harvest energy or they may be doing it unintentionally and completely unaware of it.

Vampires feed on one’s willingness to listen and care for them, leaving you exhausted and overwhelmed. With an energy vampire it can be hard to get a word in in a conversation. I find vampires are the people I end up frequently interrupting. They can be narcissistic - all about themselves and poor listeners.

Anyone can be an energy vampire. They can be anywhere, at any time, and from all walks of life. Learning how to identify and respond to vampiric behavior can help you preserve your energy and protect yourself from a great deal of emotional and physical distress.

Physical energy vampires will often be an empty vessel. An empty vessel is one that doesn’t have the heart centered/creator spark consciousness, instead these individuals seemingly operate on some kind of AI hive mind. Energy vampires can be souled individuals too. If a vampire is a soiled person he usually has a lot of negative etheric attachments. In this case it isn’t the individual doing the energy harvesting; it’s actually the attachments on him/her harvesting the energy.

Energy vampires are unable to move through life without taking energy from others. They may have a physical, emotional, or mental dysfunction(s) that is(are)draining them. Many times the energy feeding is not intentional nor is it a conscious decision to take another’s energy.

An energetic part of a vampire attaches to you and sets up the negative energy attachment/energy drain. The vampire can be anyone – friend, your children, employee, family members, a chance, one time encounter, or a group meeting. Energetic attachments can attach to an individual at any time and at any place; which is why we must be aware that attachments happen, what symptoms to look for, and learn a process to get rid them.

An individual can also be bothered by unseen energies, vampiric, or parasitic negative energy attachments. These energies set up energy siphoning through childhood or adult traumas - physical, sexual, and emotional, through addictions, injuries, extreme fear, and even ecstatic bliss filled events. A good example that would be a group meditation. In a group meditation people open themselves up. Someone else in the room may be full of energetic attachments that can jump from body to body. A high vibrational individual can pick up nasty attachments in a group meditation. When should meditate alone or only with individuals that he trusts. Attachments can also arise from unspoken and spoken agreements in the physical and nonphysical realms, in other lifetimes, this incarnation, and through joint permission with other people.

If there is a way to suck the life out of you, an energy vampire will figure it out. Tracking your mood, who you’re hanging out with, and negative interactions on your life can be a good way to discover energy vampires.

These vampires are opportunists and will attach energy siphons to an existing harvest another human is doing. There are entities like discarnate spirits who are confused and not intentionally taking your energy. They are simply looking for a safe place to rest and nest. All energy vampires may not have a negative intention. Regardless of intention a vampire will drain you and should be dealt with.

I have dealt with several energy vampires in my life. I have begun to notice repeating characteristics. I looked up signs of an energy vampire before doing this video and was able to find all of the symptoms I had listed on someone’s list. I did see other symptoms listed but didn’t include those. I only like to give advice on things that I have personally experienced or at minimum deeply resonate with.

Signs of an energy vampire

They act like the hero

Energy vampires place their problems on other people. Energy vampires are the first person to place blame on another person and refuse to take accountability for his or her mistakes. They take no responsibility for their contributions to their difficulties.

They need emotional support to boost their self-esteem. This actually stems from the fact that most energy vampires have a very negative self image and low self-esteem.

Cannot admit wrongdoing

Energy vampires are often charismatic. They may seemingly easily get out of trouble because of this charm or gift of persuasion. They’re crafty and will pin problems and blame on someone else in virtually every situation. They will not accept responsibility for their role in any disagreement or conflict. The other person involved with the vampire is the one left bearing the guilt and blame for any incident with the vampire.

Energy vampires may promote a dogmatic or rigid belief based program. They may be involved in groups that worship a deity, god, celebrity, or other physical or nonphysical being(s.) Regardless of whom or what one worships; the act of worship is seeking validation outside of himself; when the truth is genuine wisdom comes from within. Participants in such programs gives his or her energy to these idols/beings. This energy is being intentionally directed elsewhere and who knows for what purpose.

It’s perfectly normal and fine to respect someone and follow ones work. Worship borders obsession. There is a clear difference between general respect or even admiration and worship.

Try to turn elements of your character against you; or describing your character as their own while projecting their own unpleasant characteristics on you - in other words a character switch

Empathetic, sensitive, and compassionate people are prime targets for energy vampires. They offer a listening ear, a kind heart, and endless energy. Energy vampires use a persons very caring nature against him; draining him of his vitality, strength - physical and/or emotional, and motivation.

Energetic vampires may monopolize your time so they can get as much of your energy as they can. They may involve you in dramatic situations in their life that you really have no place being involved in. I am reminded of a woman who was allegedly afraid she was going to be killed in an accident; she decided to text me to tell me she was safe. I didn’t live near her and don’t know what kind of help I could have provided. I don’t even know what city she lives in. Why choose me to tell that she had left and gotten places safely??!? She must have been harvesting my energy. This is the same woman that I did a reading for and got the attachment through her overpayment. If a vampire thinks you feel guilty turning them down, they’ll continuously ask for favors.

Very competitive with everyone, cannot be someone’s partner. Must attempt to do better than you.

Energy vampires don’t like to be outdone and they aren’t keen on sharing the spotlight. This is simply another one of their many narcissistic tendencies. Vampires struggle to feel genuine happiness for another person. Most likely they don’t feel genuine happiness for themselves either. If energy vampires feel happiness they still don’t generate enough positive energy to meet their emotional demands. Hence why an vampire must harvest emotional energy from others. For some reason the vampire doesn’t create enough energy on his or her own.

Hypercritical

Intimidation is a tool some energy vampires turn to when they need to stir up some emotions. Energy vampires are usually insecure. They may use dehumanizing tactics and criticism as an attempt to make/keep their “prey” insecure too. When in an insecure state victims feel like they owe the vampire attention and should working with the vampire to stop his unwarranted attacks.

More energy can be harvested from negative emotions so keeping a victim in a negative state of thinking/emotion is very important for the energy vampire. Fear is also a very strong emotional reaction. If an energy vampire can upset you, they can boost their ego. Energy vampires also love to get their victims living in a state of fear. That is what is going on in the world wide scale with this coronavirus nonsense. The luciferian elites are harvesting a ton of energy from the current state of fear of the people.

Energy vampires often use guilt trips to get what they want. They know shame is a great weapon against people who are compassionate and caring. Shame was the tactic my most recent vampire used too.

Ultimatums are another effective way to capture a person’s attention and coerce them into doing something they otherwise may not want to do. Things like “I don’t know how you expect me to make it without you. I’ll die.” or “If you really love me, you’ll do this for me.” would be considered ultimatums.

Very dramatic; need to keep the drama going for energy

Energy vampires always find themselves in the middle of a catastrophe, flailing from target to target with their emotional and dramatic behavior. When they’ve landed on you, they fling this drama onto you in hopes you’ll absorb it, fix it, and right their wrongs. It is important not to discuss the energy vampire forward focus goes energy flows. Focusing on the energy vampires problems gives the energy. Stick to shallow and non-emotional topics of conversation and keep your interactions as short as possible when dealing with an energy vampire.

No empathy, compassion, very little emotion

Energy vampires feed off your emotional energy. If you’re sad or upset, your energy supplies may be dwindling. The energy vampire will shift the attention of the discussion to themselves in order to drain maximum energy.

Abnormally codependent

Codependency is a type of relationship where one partners actions are designed to generate a certain reaction from the other partner. This a vicious, negative cycle of behavior and many people fail to recognize that they’re in a codependent relationship. Especially energy vampires. Vampires use codependency to continue create and maintain a cycle of drama. Energy vampires are more likely to be involved in an abusive situation. I’m uncertain if these means as the abuser, the abused, or both. I sense both.

Narcissistic personalities are famous for energy siphoning. They will intimidate, physically, emotionally, or even sexually abuse, degrade, confuse, and generally create chaos within their environment. Energy entanglements with a narcissist take help, time, and a considerable amount of self-strength, self love, and self care to get away and recover from.

Why we need to deal with the energy vampires in our lives.

Energy vampires demand a lot from their targets. The continuous drain on your resources an energy vampire causes will eventually have an effect on your well-being. Sometimes quite a noticeable effect. Over time, excess stress can lead to anxiety, depression, heart disease, other illnesses, and more. This is why it’s important to recognize the energy vampire and work to remove them or at least minimize interactions with them.

An individual’s process for dealing with energetic attachments may involve putting up protections, energy and aura cleansing, mantras, and visualizations as methods of thwarting the energy vampire’s efforts. There is no set right or wrong way to develop your process. Do what feels right.

It is best to remove the energy vampire from your life entirely. Sometimes this isn’t possible and in those times minimizing time spent with the vampire plus controlling the topic of conversation is extremely important. Stick with shallow topics of conversation that should not incite an emotional reaction in anyone.

Let’s also discuss a few steps one can take against the energy vampire.

Set boundaries

Creating and maintaining boundaries can be easier said than done at times, but it has proven to be an invaluable tool in my personal experience. Everyone should develop boundaries where one decides how he will and won’t allow an energy vampire (or any energy that is not for his highest and best purpose) to participate in his life.

Don’t agree to go to social events with a suspected vampire. Avoid weekend trips or any extended outing with a known vampire. At work you can limit interaction; don’t agree to any outside of work activity like happy hour or lunch dates, and don’t stop to chit chat with them. If they manage to interact with you, cut off the interaction as fast as possible and keep topics of conversation shallow or on non-emotional subjects. The energy vampire is likely attempting to get an emotional response from you in each interaction. We must learn not to engage this desire.

When making life changes start with one or two small changes, master those, then make additional changes. Trying to change everything at once will cause overwhelm and discouragement.

Adjust your expectations

You can’t fix an energy vampire. What you can do is redo your expectations of them and reevaluate your personal views of them. This may involve actively setting the intention of detaching from this situation emotionally. When a vampire attempts to vent his problems to you or asks for advice don’t give it. If an energy vampire asked you for advice you can say something along the lines of “I’m sorry I don’t know anything about that topic” or “I’ve never heard of that before.” You shouldn’t be rude to the energy vampire for this will give them energy. You want to try to remain neutral when interacting with the energy vampire.

You cannot use an energy vampire for any form of emotional release. You should never vent to a vampire. If you do you will likely notice that you cannot finish your entire story before the conversation gets turned around to them and their needs.

If the energy vampire calls, texts, or drops in unannounced don’t give in. Make up an excuse. You can say that you’ve got plans, are too tired, or don’t feel well. When a vampire is repeatedly given excuses and not getting the emotional energy they desire from you, they tend to look elsewhere. Stand your ground and keep the boundaries you’ve set for yourself. Even the most persistent energy vampire will eventually get the hint.

Guard your emotions and your emotional energy

Energy vampires often notice and interpret nonverbal cues as a way of reading the emotions of their victims. One’s facial expression, how you hold or move your hands, and hundreds of other cues can help an energy vampire keep his investment in your energy strong. This is where learning to detach is beneficial. I will do a separate article on detaching in the future.

If you offer colder (and therefore less readable) response plus answer their questions with the shortest answer possible; you won’t open yourself up to as many of their energetic demands and will keep your energy for yourself.

Cut them out entirely

In many cases, we have the freedom to completely rid our lives of the energy vampire. This may sound dramatic, but some situations require more drastic measures. You must remember you’re protecting yourself in the end.

By recognizing such behaviors and trying to a stop to them, you’re protecting yourself, your health, and your overall well-being. No one deserves to be mistreated or used in a malicious way. It’s not your fault if you’ve been the victim of an energy vampire. We all have been or will be at some point in our lives. There are far too many negative attachments in this realm for an individual to avoid them entirely.

Some people refuse to accept responsibility for their own emotional maturity — and that isn’t your burden to bear. You only have to be responsible to and for yourself. Protection from energy harvesting is a good skill to have in your mental tool box.

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scifimagpie · 5 years ago

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What Even are Jokes?

Millennials - and now, Gen Z - have some weird coping mechanisms.

On a late-night browse through Twitter - which, honestly, tends to stir many ideas - I was reading one-liners and social justice observations while Bad Romance, a podcast about ill-conceived romantic comedies, played in the background. As one of the posts, Jourdain, plaintively asked her boyfriend, "why are you like this," I laughed. It's a favorite memetic joke of mine, and a standard in our household, often repeated when something has gone awry.

Similarly, other simple, despairing cries have become a form of humour - such as the one that inspired the title of this post.

youtube

Why are you like this?

A few years ago, it was Generation Y, the Millennials, who were supposed to Save Us All. Whether we do or not, however, it's impossible to deny that Generation Y - most of us barely in our 20s or 30s - are already exhausted.

Fatalistic, often beset by mental health issues, physical health issues, a history of trauma, societal marginalizations, poverty, or often, a combination of these, Millennials have turned to three coping mechanisms - weed, the internet, and each other. Perhaps it's an uncanny combination of all three that's led to a weird comedic renaissance.

Of course, sweeping and broad generalizations have their limits, but suffice to say that I'm talking about concepts that cross and touch on cultural elements from the queer community, the online community of people of colour, the disabled community and autistic community, and other overlapping groups - yes, including straight, cisgender, heterosexual, and white people. Many of us, as I've said, have various struggles right now, but the common language of memes and comedy often unites us.

For the lols

Comedy tends to fall in broad political groups. Those of us on the left try to eschew jokes that play on "punching down" and enforce marginalizing power structures. In search of comedy that doesn't reflect the regressive ethos of the 90s, our era of origin, a strain of Dadaist absurdism has formed the DNA of our comedy.

Millennial jokes and humour really give me pause. There are intricate rules of grammar, both visual and verbal, that must be obeyed for punchlines to land, but it's also easy to form new jokes using or playing on these rules. References to Tide Pods or moral panics of the day, InTenTiOnAlLy PoR oR iNcOmpRehEnSiBle WrItIng, a focus on poor judgement calls, and mental and physical health symptoms all characterize popular topics. GIFS and images - sometimes macros, sometimes on their own - work either as stand-alone punchlines or visual completions of verbal jokes. Some GIFS and images have taken on their own significance, often completely disconnected from the image's original context. Michael Jackson eating popcorn from a scene in the "Thriller" music video indicates an enjoyment of drama ensuing in a conversation thread. Kermit the Frog sipping a cup of Lipton tea indicates a sassy judgement.

Of course, there are many more. Ironic and sarcastic references to educational or edutainment television such as "The More You Know", to childhood favorite cartoons, and even anonymous photographs of strangers' cats can all serve as side-splitting punchlines. References to creative media that cross over with popular aphorisms from Twitter and Tumblr, and sometimes Reddit and Facebook, bleed in and out of fashion. Decontextualizing them for a moment, it's almost baffling or bewildering. Given that much of the humour is highly context-based or simply absurdist, some of it "pure" or "wholesome" (i.e. relying on positive, sweet, or heartwarming experiences) and some of it utterly fatalistic, it can be hard to understand how all of the jokes work, or even why they're important.

A brief history of suicide jokes

But very noticeable is the prevalence of jokes about death, suicide, and existentialism. Multiple media outlets have been horrified and fascinated and wagged their fingers at us for this type of humour.

However, these jokes were also very common during and just after the Great Depression - as demonstrated in a plethora of classic cartoons.

I think there's a sort of nihilistic argument that at least suicide restores a sense of control, and in a world where the climate crisis' impact is more visible than ever, where chronic mental health problems are an epidemic, and where access to medical care or time off for sickness is rarer and harder to get than it has been in decades (well, stable in its awfulness in some cases), maybe people feel like suicide is the one way to take things back. Maybe it's a way to make the very real possibility of succumbing to depression or other illnesses a bit less scary - whistling in the dark, as some writers used to call it. Absurdist things also tend to play into this. If we can't ignore our demons, perhaps we can befriend them.

Is it okay?

Honestly, I was stumped about what all of this means. Why do Millennials turn to humour like this to survive? What does it provide for us? My partner had a wry insight into the vital role comedy is playing in our survival. "Humour at times like this is an important act of balancing that allows us to reject the horrible situation we live with, while still existing in it. We have been told to accept what we have to pay bills and get by, but this balancing act allows us to not accept it, but live with and cope with it," he pointed out.

It also serves the role of a shibboleth, a passcode or phrase of recognition. Users of Tumblr, Twitter, and even Facebook become fluent in both memes from within their communities and outside them. For instance, members of politically conservative tribes (in the ethno-cultural sense of the word "tribe") are extremely fond of the Minions from the "Despicable Me" series, to the extent that Minions have developed their own independent associations.

On the other hand, certain phrases, such as a "good good [adjective or noun] boy" to describe a creature, object, or person of which the speaker approves, evolved out of the My Brother, My Brother, and Me podcast, but has a simple structure that makes it easy to replicate. Even without the original context of the show, the structure of the phrase has an inherent appeal and comedic elegance that gives it broad applicability to a variety of situations.

It's not as bad as it looks

Honestly? Any coping mechanism can be bad for one if it's used in place of self-improvement, but it's impossible to miss the sweeping waves of therapist jokes that have also taken over the internet. And maybe that's a good sign.

The key is to turn our jokes and fears into action. I'm not finished feeling shocked by how effective direct local action is compared to arguing on the internet. Using online connections to build local friendships and develop solidarity both far and nearby is really important, and for those who can't afford therapy, the support of friends really helps recovery.

***

Michelle Browne is a sci fi/fantasy writer and editor. She lives in Lethbridge, AB with her partner-in-crime and Max the cat. Her days revolve around freelance editing, knitting, jewelry, and learning too much. She is currently working on other people’s manuscripts, the next books in her series, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible.

Find her all over the internet: * OG Blog * Mailing list * Magpie Editing * Amazon * Medium * Twitter * Instagram * Facebook * Tumblr * Paypal.me * Ko-fi

#comedy #generation z #millennials #nihilism #great depression #writing #history

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thenameisbinx · 5 years ago

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Blame Monday

ive been wanting to write down this entry since tuesday but i was busy trying to regulate my thoughts. Writing has always been my point of solace where in i find peace of mind and a completely different outlet as to talking to my friends about what im going through. i’ve set to making this entry in defining my roles and the effect of them. however, i ended up realizing its too complicated to describe.

so let’s start it like this instead.

Facade - a false, superficial, or artificial appearance or effect

OK. let’s not waste anytime by letting people see who you really are. Smile for the audience and don’t show that your hurt, in pain, or depressed. Keep moving and show that you’re fine. be in everyone’s good graces. please them like a slave. adapt, change for them, plead for their acceptance. All the while, bury your thoughts of reality within you. you’ll get to that stage where youre always wanted.

Reality bites. you keep wearing a mask for too long that you forget how to be weak, to be vulnerable. i learned that word when i was seven. one of the words you learn at that age where words originating from the french language. it was along the lines of “rendezvous” words or english classes that tries to teach different sounds of words that has literal sounding letters. When the teacher told us what it means, i always thought it was acting. Facade is a character that you want to play but not in a movie, but in your life. it dawned on me that ive been doing that awhile. since i could remember. Then i keep just playing along.

Before, i would bring the sadness of my day by showing to the people that i’m ok. That it doesnt hurt. My mom pulled my hair and complained how thick it was, even if i was sitting still not wanting her to try to do my hair. called me, “worthless” and “incompetent”. instead of crying, i’d laugh and play around with some classmates the moment i get to school. Or the time that my sister made fun of how ugly i was in front of her friends, that i’m just an orphan. I just talked back and said, “Well, at least im not fat.” Then, there was this one time that my dad scolded me for trying to play in my undergarments, i wasnt naked but i was wearing a thick white top under my uniform and some thick shorts thats long enough to touch my knee under my skirt, like my friends were doing at school. i wore three layers everyday and wasnt allowed to take it off till i go home but i saw some kids doing it. took a layer off and played. i was 6. Dad dragged me out of my school yard and slapped me right in front of the guard. Don’t get me started with my brother. let’s just say, he never made me feel like im important in the family. he’s the only person that treats me like im nothing and no one until now. like my opinions didnt matter, or as if what i do doesnt have any relevance. yet, i’m the jolly one. the funny one. the energetic one. the loud one. the push over. easy definition, the masochist. Harsh but partially true.

Now, implications. still, verbal cues. like, “lazy”, or “stupid”. in the family, its more verbal but emotional responses. Mostly they cuss, or scream or yell. If i reciprocate the same but not intentionally, i still get scolded. i cant talk back because im just the help. i’m obligated to do what they want me to. Even if im tired from work. Even if i just got dumped. Even if my mind is going through some stuff.

what you dont know. i go through these every day and i don’t bring it at work or when i go out with “friends”. I’ll go to work with a smile on my face like nothing bad ever happened to my life. i’d put that big smile on my face and just laugh things out. Remember just the little good things that happened and seemingly move on, but i don’t. its slowly sinking into my chest. Subconsciously weeping like a baby, consciously aware that during a meeting i’d want to cry just because i couldnt keep it in a box. i’d clench my fist as if im waiting for my palms to bleed because it crate wasn’t chained shut. it oozes when you can’t regulate.

Obedient - submissive to the restraint or command of authority

the words “dont” and “do” are basic commands to me. any question that has “did” are immediate doubt on me or even the start of the sentence “have you” makes me quiver already. i was taught to obey a form of authority. Parents, older siblings, uncles, aunties, prefects, teachers, apparently, anyone who is older. so when someone says, “believe me” or “did you know”, i immediately am in awe. i believe them. the fun fact is stuck in my head. i pass down the knowledge or experience. There’s another word for obedience, gullible.

i was once asked by my brother to go through trash when i was a kid. because he threw something he shouldnt. i was asked to do my sister’s homework because my mom overheard her asking me to do so. i was told by my so called friends to ask people for their numbers for them for their friendship in exchange. I have reached the point that i feel guilty when im not doing what people ask me to.

imagine working. imagine dating. imagine meeting new people. i can paint a picture but it’s too painful. Subconsciously, i thought i have removed that side of me. unfortunately, reflecting on the past few days, NOPE. i thought my defensive stature in every decision ive made was and the only way to take off that obedience or gullible card. Looks like i have been. being conditioned this way from the very beginning makes it seem impossible to take off. Obedience equals to gullibility. Refusal equals to guilt.

my dad comes home drunk one time, asked me to give him his gun to point at my brother. i said no, he shook me. no one else stopped me but i obeyed. i talked to my sister’s friends once. she told me never to talk to them and beat me up till i had bruises on my stomach. i wanted to cry when one of her friends talked to me. so i ran away. i wasn’t allowed to sleep until i memorized multiplication set of 9. it was 3AM, i woke up on the bathroom toilet. my mom woke up and asked me to recite it. closed the door and told me to recite it till i said the right answers. there’s consequences if i dont follow. i took that till adulthood.

i have guilt if i don’t do what i was asked to. more guilt if i really decide not to. it consumes me till i finally give in. i feel regretful right after. then, i completely try to forget. that never happened. ever tried telling your boss no? i learned how to say no last year. i had multiple speeches dedicated to me with people saying, “Do you even know how to say no? do you even hear thank you?” i feel obligated to do what people want. i feel obligated to give what people want or need without being asked to. let’s stop there. i sound stupid.

Strength - legal, logical, or moral force; degree of potency of effect or of concentration

People see what i want them to see. Facade comes into this picture. i’m always strong. can never show my weakness. if i do, i lose. if i don’t, i lose internally. i’ve been playing the supergirl card all my life. issue is, i’m always alone. always the savior never the saved.

Superhero syndrome. ever heard that song Superman?

It may sound absurd but don't be naive Even Heroes have the right to bleed I may be disturbed but won't you concede Even Heroes have the right to dream It's not easy to be me

my whole life revolves three things; work, home, friends. i always wanted to be alone, but i don’t survive it much. never felt wanted anywhere, even if its family or friends. then, work came. loved it because it was the only place the NEEDED me. but seems that i wear my cape there everyday. to the point that i couldnt be clark kent there either. always strong, never vulnerable.

been saying lately, im tired of being strong. then Monday came. That’s that for strength, it’s pretty self explanatory on my side. it’s too literal of a section so i hope this would suffice. for the last of the entry.

Tired - drained of strength and energy

Trigger : work

Action : Resignation

Symptoms : Nausea, shaking hands and knees, vomiting, clouded vision, crying, Lack of sleep, loss of appetite, lack of motivation, heavy breathing, sleep paralysis, sleep apnea

Diagnosis : Unknown

Working Impression : Panic Anxiety Disorder

i’ve defined some of my roles. a glimpse of my mind and soul but to the people i’ll be send a link of this too, i bet you only know some. some, would even say they never knew. you know, i dont share my feeling or these heavy stories. seemed irrelevant. one time, 1st grade. i shared a problem about the family to a friend. This ‘friend’ made it seem too petty to the point i avoided sharing problems since then. i feel like any problem i have has no value to others. so i keep it in. just me. maybe a few blank pages. some ink. mostly tears. by myself. on my own.

when i feel bad, or depressed when i was a kid. i would cry faintly inside my closet. come out after an hour or two. wiping tears of my face. i got caught once, by my dad. i just said, nope i was just checking my closet. i acted as if what he said before that point was ok. i step out when i feel weird and want to cry. ive learned how to cry heavily without showing an expression or even in a quiet manner. Congrats to me, i brought that till adulthood.

Until Monday. i tried to put up my mask. but couldnt. i tried to be strong. but couldnt. i tried to obey. but couldnt. i remember asking my boss recently, can i be selfish? all my walls broke down in one day. all my optimism. my positivity. and i thought that i can do it. what people saw of me, they couldnt recognize me.

i showed me. the weak one. couldnt even get myself to fake it. fake being strong, fake happiness, no mask. i couldnt even try. i was just done. even basing on what ive written on this entry, getting tired wouldnt be an option just yet. i didnt even talk about love or difficulties. i only got to write down instances. i was just done pretending.

since that day, i couldnt regulate. i associated almost everything and get anxious about everything. seeing the exit to my work makes me tense. walking to the building tightens my chest. getting inside makes me palpitate. claustrophobic. i dont usually breathe heavy but the doctor said breathing exercises would help. SOMETIMES it does. but not everytime.

it took years to learn how to regulate these thoughts that i experience daily and i feel like i have to go through two decades again to learn how. i didnt lose myself, thats for sure. but i feel like im not strong enough to stay in one place anymore. to have the same people in my life anymore. i want to leave. i want to disappear.

you know what i did after i broke down on my boss? i sat in a Starbucks branch in Molito. and starred out the window for two hours. spaced out. even my friends knew i dont do that. i felt like i died and im just the undead walking around doing my daily routine.

why am i writing this? it’s 2:35AM. nearly sleepy by the way. i’m writing this for me to realize something. i already just did. i just realized that what people knew of me, wasn’t me. what you see and experience of me now, is the true me and i dont like it. i want to be wild binx on good days. bea when im home. bianca when im at work. looks like i can’t be that for a while.

to those im sending this link to, i hope you read the whole thing. so you really know where i’m at. youre worried or concerned yea? well, here i am. here it is. i’m sorry im dumping my indifference this way. i’m sorry that im burdening you of my petty problems. i’m sorry i cant be myself. i’m sorry i cant be that person you knew.

blame Monday.

#anxitey #define me #monday #mental breakdown

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