#guys he invented the internet we are using right now

[breezybeej]

Season 4 has introduced me to a new love.

[thinking-emoji]

RNZ interview mirror - the original file is exactly 700 kb too big for tumblr so I had to compress it slightly 🙃

Transcript under the cut!

YouTube megastars Dan and Phil will be coming to Aotearoa next week with a live show full of scandalous stories. For those who don't know them, these two Brits invented being internet famous. Coming to stardom in 2009, the pair have amassed a media empire with over 40 million combined followers, 2 billion views on YouTube, as well as a handful of best-selling books. Dan and Phil went on hiatus in 2018, with each coming out as gay soon after. This is their first tour together since then. The show is called Terrible Influence and it's coming to Auckland's Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre next Thursday, the 19th of December. I caught up with Dan and Phil earlier on the line from Australia.

DnP: Hello.

(Interviewer laughs)

D: Sorry, was that a weird stereo hello there? That must have been disturbing.

I: That's exactly how I wanted you to answer the call.

P: Yes, that's how we speak all the time. D: We share one braincell.

I: You speak in unison.

P: Yes. (laughs)

I: Because you two have lived together for quite some time, haven't you? D: We have. I: Not only working together for many years.

D: Yeah, like imagine like being really fed up with your co-worker and then you want to come home and you want to be like, God, this guy, I can't stand him. Like, what are we doing here, people?

P: Then he's in your house.

I: How long have you lived together for?

D: Errr, fourteen- P: No. D: No, thirteen- twel- P: Twelve years. I want to say twelve years. D: Twelve years, but it feels like 2000. Do you know what I mean? P: Time is not real. We don't know what's going on. D: At this point, we're like, you know, when you go to a zoo and there's two elderly tortoises that are about 400 years old. P: Yeah. D: That's how we feel. P: Yeah.

I: I'm glad that you've decided to, you know, take air travel to get to New Zealand.

D: It's literally the furthest place from home we could ever. So we get some tweets from people that are like, Dan and Phil, thank you for coming to New Zealand because, by golly, you've travelled a bit of a way. But hey, we're happy to be there. New Zealand is a beautiful country. P: Yes. D: And so are the people.

P: Whenever I come to New Zealand, I just want to move to New Zealand. I'm like, why am I in London when I could be in this beautiful, verdant land?

D: A lot of people do abandon for New Zealand and we understand why.

I: Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad that you do understand that. And it's your first big tour back since coming out in 2018. D: It is. I: The show is kind of a little bit like a gossip session. Is that right? Setting some things straight?

D: Absolutely. We're people that have been on the internet for a very long time and people have talked a lot of smack about us over the years, as a lot of people do with anyone with a lot of followers. And we're like, you know what? We all deserve to look back at our past. We all deserve to be roasted for the things that we did and said. That includes us being embarrassing and what our audience were like when they were all teenagers on the internet. But if we have a bit of a therapy session slash Catholic confession, we can end it with a bit of a hug and a pat on the back and go, it's okay. We survived. Here we are now in 2024. So it's like a roast and a healing session at the same time.

I: That must be quite an interesting thing because, you know, you both grew up on the internet and made so much content. You have this huge following that you've built. And so many people work really hard to kind of erase their former selves online. And that's probably something that you cannot do.

D: Oh, no. I would love to. It's too late. P: That's the thing as well. Sometimes our audience know us better than we know ourselves because they watch these videos so much. I never watch my videos back ever. So they'll come up to us at a meet and greet like, remember that thing you did in 2014? I'm like, no. D: No, I don't. P: I don't know what I said or did. D: But Phil, you love this ice cream flavour. P: Yeah. Speaking of ice cream, I'm excited for the Hokey Pokey ice cream. That was the thing I remember in New Zealand. I: It is good.

D: Yeah. Someone said, hey, you're excited to have it again. I was like, what was that? P: We don't have that. D: Don't you remember the time that you had it? P: No. D: Here, I've got this photo on my phone. P: Yeah. I'm going to have some more when I get there for sure.

D: That is not the main reason why we made the travel, but it will help with the jet lag.

P: It's 80% of the reason, I'll be honest.

I: Why is the show called Terrible Influence?

D: I think there's this idea that everyone on the internet, all these creators, all these TikTokers and podcasters are just horrible people that are trying to sell you some kind of crypto scam. And the truth is 90% of them are. And the question that we're asking is, were we terrible? What did we do to all these young people that watch it? Maybe the other question is, what did they do to us? Is what we do inherently bad? Is it a two-way street? Well, maybe we can answer that question and along the way just giggle so much that we kind of forgive and forget.

I: I'm sure you have a pretty good idea of the extent of your influence. But being in high school in New Zealand when Dan and Phil were first starting out, it was almost like a code word. (Dan laughs) It was how weirdos, kind of, identified with each other.

P: I think we've always been happy to kind of have representation for the slightly alternative people of the world.

D: Yeah, we like to joke that it's for the goths, the girls, the gays and the geeks. Any type of person that feels like on any level, they may not be completely mainstream. They may not be vanilla. They might feel other in any kind of way. We have an audience and we look out now because you understand when all these people were 14, it kind of looked like they were all teenagers. Now that they're all adults, some people are coming up to us, they're like, hi, Dan and Phil, meet my child. (laughs) But all these people have been in such different journeys in life. But it's knowing that, you know, back in the day, there was a place where no matter what kind of person they are, they felt like, you know what? Here in this comment section with these guys, I can just be myself and that makes me happy. I think whether that is something that we did do intentionally or it's an accidental byproduct of our influence, we'll take it.

P: And a lot of them have grown up with us as well. That's the lovely thing. So we're meeting people now that are just much older, but they're still watching the videos because we've- we've grown up and they've grown up as well.

I: Absolutely. And you took this hiatus, you know, from the internet. How long was that hiatus for and what was the impetus for it? And for coming back?

D: It was five dark years. P: Five years. D: And there was no Dan and Phil in the world until one day, like Jesus, we returned and here we are now.

P: We did. I think it's always a good thing to kind of have a moment where you're like, what's going on in life? Have a reset. And and I think we're kind of back now.

D: You know, like when everyone, you know, there was a pandemic and then they were like, you know what? My relationship, my job, you have decided it's not for me. I think we were trendsetters there. We did that early, voluntarily style, because we'd been going nonstop since 2009. And I was like, I just need to hit the brakes and look around for a little bit. And then I came back and I was like, hi, guys, I'm gay now. And they were like, ah, yes, that makes sense. But sometimes you have to hit the brake in life in order to take the space, look around you, take stock of things, make decisions. And ultimately, when you come back, it'll be healthier and happier.

P: And we didn't know this Dan and Phil thing- Like when we came back, we're like, do you guys still want these videos? And then, like, the reaction has been incredible, like, so many people watching the gaming channel. D: To the extent people thought Dan and Phil, you need to go on a tour right now. You need to get your butts all the way to Auckland (laughs) because I've been waiting for you to come back and we need to have a good night together. P: Yeah.

I: Yeah. And get out from behind the screen and kind of just interact face to face. You two are hugely into gaming and it's been quite a good pivot from YouTube to kind of try and be more successful, I guess. It's incredible how popular you are on these platforms. Can you tell me a little bit more about how that works and how you kind of make a career out of this?

D: Well, Phil's been doing it so long that he did it before YouTube could even monetize videos. He was doing it purely out of boredom and passion for the craft. P: Yeah. D: That's terrifying.

P: I'm a YouTube dinosaur. But I think with the gaming, we've got a Sims series, which we've got- how many episodes now? Like- D: Oh a hundred or so. P: A hundred episodes. And I think people follow along the journey with us playing the games. And it's like, I guess it's like when you were a little kid and you're watching your big brother play a video game. It's kind of that thing. You're just like watching along, having the bants. So I think what the people come to our videos for is more of the personality and us having a laugh rather than getting really into gaming.

D: Yeah! I mean, gaming is just the topic. It's like any type of TV or radio talk or commentary show, it could be about football, it could be about music and pop culture or the news, you just want to see people that you relate to, that you find entertaining, doing something that you find interesting and then you pair it together, and for lots of people they go: yeah! This is what i want to see P: Yeah.

I: Phil, how have you noticed the kind of gaming culture change over time, and was that something you're a little bit hesitant about, you know coming out as gay in that kind of domain, because we know generally that - you know, over the last decade-

D: The gamers are the worst demographic in the world absolutely- I: Things have changed. D: We’ve been on the internet since the ancient times and it's hard to say, like in a way obviously the internet these days, it feels like it's more terrible than ever, but in a sense it is a lot less toxic and a lot more wholesome and inclusive than it used to be.

P: Yeah, I'd say coming out on the internet is always going to be a scary thing, when you're saying that and being kind of vulnerable in front of so many people. Thankfully we've got such a great audience that the reaction was incredible, I would say.

D: And i think that what's great about the internet is that people can find their own communities, so even within spaces that you might think, oh they're dominated by this type of person – any subculture, any type of person that feels like, I want this space for myself – you can find it. If you want to order you know a ping pong club for girls with ginger hair called Susan that drink wine on a Tuesday, you can start that discord server, people will love it.

I: And I think it's nice to have those pocket on the internet where people can feel safe and can kind of commune together. You will be playing the Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland, on December the 19th. What about people who didn't grow up watching you, who think you might be quite funny right now. Like what could you say to them if you want them to come to your show?

P: I'd say, well luckily for you we have got a whole section of the start of the show which is the complete history of Dan and Phil in five minutes, so if you might have just slightly known who we are and be like, what's going on with these guys? We're going to catch you up in no time.

D: A lot of people drag their boyfriends, their sisters, sometimes like that mum that you need to drive you so you can have a couple of cocktails to the show, and we're like we need something for these people, we're going to catch them up, we're going to get them on our side, and if we have a spot- there's like a grumpy dad folding his arms in row three, I'm like, I'm going to crack you P: but- D: My mission for the night is you're going to be belly laughing by the end. P: They're always smiling at the end though. That's the thing, we do. We do crack them.

I: Oh and this will be your last show before a well deserved Christmas break, then back into the new year. What will Christmas look like for both of you?

P: I mean we're going to try and get home for Christmas. D: Yeah, yeah the question is, can we get back from Auckland on the 21st of December? P: Twenty- yeah. I think it's gonna be a challenge to get all the way home, but then I'm probably just gonna be asleep on my mum's sofa with jet lag, hoping to drink a lot of cocktails. D: I'm gonna slip into a nice coma.

I: I'm really glad to hear you are back together again.

D: Oh, well thank you! We really, really appreciate it and we're so excited for the show, so thank you New Zealand. P: Nice speaking to you!

@dnp-described

[centrally-unplanned]

Let's see if I have one more election take in me:

I am deeply sympathetic to Sam Kriss's rage against the Democratic corpo-political shibboleth, and not just because we are both deeply enmeshed in the grand tradition of dissident Oxbridge-style cantankerous internet rants. He is right that Kamala was a weak candidate, for one. But more importantly, I still feel what he feels deep down. I remember the starry idealism of my halcyon youth, of believing that conviction, that vision, that the zeal only a platform birthed from authentic principles, tempered by struggle and sweat, would carry the day over crass, paint-by-polling-numbers incrementalism. When he describes Harris thusly:

"She’s a machine politician. She wants power, but not for any particular reason. It’s just that life is a game, and the point is to reach the highest level."

I see my own reaction to her when she first stepped into the 2020 limelight, and low-key hating her for it. I feel his heart, for it is my heart.

But it is not my brain. Because I am not a teenager anymore, and his critique is fucking bullshit.

He says all this stuff like:

The reason Kamala Harris lost is the same as the reason she was the candidate to begin with: the Democratic Party is allergic to democracy.

And how the electorate is seen as but ants from inside the towers of the Machine, like the Dems just invented "not running a primary" this time as a lark. As opposed to neither party in America ever having primaries against incumbent presidents! Because they are normally popular, and it would be a waste of everyone's time to do that! Could you imagine, launching a real primary against Obama in 2012? And possibly sabotaging his brand a bit for absolutely nothing? It is a reasonable policy, particularly when incumbents used to have an advantage for being so. Now they clearly don't, Biden was unpopular and too old, and the Dems took too long to realize it. A costly mistake, but it is a purely strategic error. Big orgs have inertia, and the Dems fucked up. It has nothing to do with an "allergy to democracy".

And Kriss can go off summarizing how the Harris campaign was offering voters nothing:

But for some unaccountable reason, among the general public, ‘Kamala: You Already Like Her!’ was not the brilliant pitch it seemed to be. [...] Another option would be to actually offer something to the voters.

Which sounds neat, but he made it up! I remember Kamala's actual campaign speeches, ads, and platforms, which she repeated so monotonically in her tightly-scripted campaign appearances: protect abortion rights, expand the welfare state, provide better child care support, lower the cost of housing. And most importantly, she ran on Biden's record of a strong economy and promised to deliver more of it. What does even mean for this to not be a real platform? Beyond not having some synthesized, totalizing "Critique" of modernity that packages it all into a beautiful, systematizing little box.

Because I promise you, voters synthesize jack shit. None of this is why Harris lost - voters have made that pretty clear:

You can find other data ofc, this or that point varies, but the story is not opaque. They didn't like Biden! They didn't like his inflation. They didn't like immigration, or they didn't like his liberalism, and they thought Kamala was too similar. She had too much policy baggage. And she wasn't charismatic enough to dig herself out of that hole - no disagreement from me on that front.

Though even then, by that we mean she lost an election by ~3-4% margins after getting subbed in at the 4th quarter while down by ~8% in the polls. That ain't bad!

None of the voters who matter share Kriss's sensibilities, and he cannot hide his disappointment in that. So he pretends that Donald Trump, the guy who promised 20% tariffs on everything to fight inflation, is giving them a real vision:

That’s what Trump did: he offered an enemy to blame and the prospect of doing violence to them

I don't know man, I think swing voters just don't like the last four years and think 2019 was better. I don't think the promises of orgastic violence against democrats are why Trump won! Actually a bit of an unforced error on his part.

But since Kriss presumes to value democracy, that thesis can't hold - so the lack of reality delivering on what his vision for democracy should be is displaced onto Harris's mistakes. The voters can never fail you. You can only fail to elevate them with the right candidate. Which, tactically? Sure, why not. But you can leave the moralism at the classroom door.

This ties into our dreaded media discourse debate, so it is time to bring in another explainer, by Michael Tomasky:

The line-by-line isn't interesting here; instead I want to focus on this quote:

Weren’t they bothered that Trump is a convicted felon? An adjudicated rapist? Didn’t his invocation of violence against Liz Cheney, or 50 other examples of his disgusting imprecations, obviously disqualify him? And couldn’t they see that Harris, whatever her shortcomings, was a fundamentally smart, honest, well-meaning person who would show basic respect for the Constitution and wouldn’t do anything weird as president? The answer is obviously no—not enough people were able to see any of those things. At which point people throw up their hands and say, “I give up.”

To which the immediate reply is: my dude, what are you talking about??

A 56 percent majority of Americans say Trump is probably guilty of a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results through false claims of voter fraud, including 40 percent who believe he is “definitely guilty.” Republicans are less united than Democrats. Nearly 9 in 10 Democrats believe Trump is guilty, while nearly 7 in 10 Republicans think he is innocent. Among independents, nearly twice as many think Trump is guilty as think he is innocent.

You know how when you ~13 years old, and you have that friend who is just old enough to start taking Dungeons & Dragons books filled with splash art of succubi into the bathroom with him, but not yet old enough to get that "talking to girls" is an acquired skill? And they are blatantly, openly salivating over the first chick in the 7th grade class who discovered what power the combination of a camisole and a push-up bra holds over the male gaze? And she just completely ignores his faltering attempts at ~casual conversation~, so his brain script-cycles through its backlog of tween sitcom plots until it lands on, "Hey, what if I confess to her? Then she will know about my feelings!"

And you have to pull him aside and gently explain that, bro. She knows. That is not your problem.

Kriss is too intelligent a thinker to not understand this, but our dear Tomasky - and so many like him - has stuck his 14-year-old head in the sand over this. Swing voters know Trump is a scumbag! They know he lost the election, they know he raped a few women in his day, they know he is a serial fraudster. Even a bunch of those Republicans who, in polls, go "oh it's all a Dem conspiracy"? They know too; they just have the decency to lie about it. How could they not? Every media outlet in the country has been repeating it for a fucking decade! I might think voters are morons but even I won't stoop this low; they have eyes and ears, they aren't illiterate.

They just don't care.

Not enough at least, not enough to make it the only thing they consider. And here is the rub, here is the grand mistake Kriss & Tomasky are making - they are at least somewhat right to not care. The height of the Democratic privilege is that they get to play this card because they don't have to deal with it being turned against them. Kamala is a political chameleon but she is a decent person. She would never take a bribe from a foreign government, she would never assault a coworker, she would never, ever, deny a free and fair election.

Which means you don't have to choose between voting for a rapist and voting for someone who is going to shove a bullshit interpretation of the 14th amendment down your throat via a stacked court to ban abortion nationwide, forever. Pro-life people think abortion is genocide against babies! Why are you surprised they aren't voting for the pro-baby-genocide person because she is nice? How sure are you that you would do the same when that is reversed? I guess those boycott-Harris-because-of-Gaza people got some cred, but I think we all agreed they were dumb, right?

This is the rub of why outsiders always have so much difficulty understanding how people like Berlusconi, Trump, Le Pen, etc, get so much vote share - they have no stake in the political struggle beyond the vague idea of democratic norms. It is easy to say "Italy, choose a non-crook!" when you don't have to live with the policy programme of the other guy. From the inside the price of those principles is far, far harder. It isn't shocking that most choose not to pay it.

This isn't to give voters like a moral pass - Trump's conduct is truly disqualifying, I would vote Republican if the shoe was on the other foot in this case. My point instead is that they generally won't as a simple fact of life, and blaming them is futile. If you have wound up in a situation where the political system has taken its pool of hundreds of millions of potential candidates and narrowed it down to two for the voters, and one of them has "launched a coup but will say go to hell to the inflation guy" as a bundled package, someone fucked up and it isn't the voters.

You need political elites to do their part in the system - Republicans never should have let Trump be their candidate in 2016. Open primaries with no organizational thumbs on the scale are a mistake, actually, allowing arbitrary minorities to generate subpar candidates. The decision to let Biden run again was, fundamentally, born from the same impulse - the Democratic Party had no leadership capable of telling him no, because they outsourced that job to "primaries". The Dems are not "allergic" to democracy; democracy is allergic to too much of itself.

But the cat is out of the bag now! These changes happened for a reason after all. Which I won't dig into here - I will keep my point as focused as something as sprawling as this can be. Voters will not save you, and you should not be disappointed when they don't. It was never their job.

[dorka]

Most mar a garbage day is megirta (egybol ossze is omlott a site)

Over the weekend, the always-excellent John Burn-Murdoch, over at The Financial Times, posted an alarming bit of demographic analysis that has now gone very viral. It’s from a column Burn-Murdoch wrote titled, “A New Global Gender Divide Is Emerging,” which shows a tremendous political gap forming between young men and women around the world.

Burn-Murdoch followed up the column with a lengthy thread on X hypothesizing as to what may be causing this gap and thousands of other users have offered up their own diagnoses, as well: Smartphones, video games, economic inequality, lack of education, an over-correction post-#MeToo.

Interestingly enough, though, the bulk of Burn-Murdoch’s reporting focuses on South Korea, the US, Germany, the UK, Spain, Poland, China, and Tunisia. Which, aside from China and Tunisia, were all countries I worked in, covering elections and far-right radicalization, in and around the time period those countries’ respective political gender gaps began widening. I’m not saying I have a tremendously in-depth understanding of, say, Polish toxic masculinity, but I did spend several days there following around white nationalist rappers and Catholic fundamentalist football fans. And, in South Korea, I worked on a project about radical feminists and their activism against the country’s equivalent of 4chan, Ilbe Storehouse.

In fact, between 2015-2019, I visited over 20 countries, essentially asking the same question: Where do bad men here hangout online? Which has given me a near-encyclopedic directory in my head, unfortunately, of international 4chan knock-offs. In Spain, it’s a car forum that doxxes rape victims called ForoCoches. In France, it’s a gaming forum that organized rallies for Marine Le Pen called Jeux Video. In Japan, it’s 2channel. In Brazil, it’s Dogolachan. And most, if not all, of these spaces pre-date any sort of modern social movement like #MeToo — or even the invention of the smartphone.

But the mainstream acceptance of the culture from these sites is new. Though I don’t actually think the mystery of “why now?” is that much of a mystery. While working in Europe, I came to understand that these sites and their culture war campaigns like Gamergate were a sort of emerging form of digital hooliganism. Nothing they were doing was new, but their understanding how to network online was novel. And in places like the UK, it actually became more and more common in the late-2010s to see Pepe the Frog cosplayers marching alongside far-right football clubs. In the US, we don’t have the same sports culture, but the end result has been the same. The nerds and the jocks eventually aligned in the streets. The anime nazis were simply early adopters and the tough guys with guns and zip ties just needed time to adapt to new technology. And, unlike the pre-internet age, unmoderated large social platforms give them an infinitely-scalable recruitment radius. They don’t have to hide in backrooms anymore.

Much of the digital playbook fueling this recruitment for our new(ish) international masculinist movement was created by ISIS, the true early adopters for this sort of thing. Though it took about a decade for the West to really embrace it. But nowadays, it is not uncommon to see trad accounts sharing memes about “motherhood,” that are pretty much identical to the Disney Princess photoshops ISIS brides would post on Tumblr to advertise their new life in Syria. And, even more darkly, just this week, a Trump supporter in Pennsylvania beheaded his father and uploaded it to YouTube, in a video where he ranted about the woke left and President Biden. Online extremism is a flat circle.

The biggest similarity, though, is in what I can cultural encoding. For ISIS, this was about constantly labeling everything that threatened their influence as a symptom of the decadent, secular West.

(X.com/jeremykauffman)

Taylor Swift, an extremely affluent blonde, blue-eyed white woman who writes country-inflected pop music and is dating a football player headed for the Super Bowl. She should be a resounding victory for these guys. Doesn’t get more American than that. But due to an actually very funny glitch in how they see the world, she’s actually a huge threat.

Pop culture, according to the right wing, should be frivolous. Because before the internet, it was something sold to girls by corporations run by powerful men. Famous pop stars through the ages, like Frank Sinatra, America’s first Justin Bieber, or The Beatles, the One Direction of their time, would be canonized as Great by Serious Men after history had forgotten they rocketed to success as their generation’s Tumblr Sexymen. But from the 2000s onward, thanks to an increasingly powerful digital public square, young women and people of color were able to have more influence in mainstream culture and also accumulate more financial power from it. And after Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign was able to connect this new form of pop influence to both liberal progressive politics and, also, social media, well, conservatives realized they had to catch up and fast. And the fastest way to do that is to try and smash the whole thing by dismissing it as feminine.

Pop music? It’s for girls. Social media? It’s for girls. Democrats? Girls. Taylor Swift? Girls and also a government psyop. But this line of thinking has no limit. It poisons everything. If Swift manages to make it to the Super Bowl, well, that has to become feminine too. And at a certain point, the whole thing falls apart because, honestly, you just sound like an insane loser.

[goodluckclove]

"literary junk food" reminder?

mm FUCK YOU'RE RIGHT.

Okay so like. I'm calmer now. I woke up, made a green tea, and had my daily Weekend Wife Look (That's when I look at my wife while they're still sleeping and think about how much I like my wife). But yes, I saw something on the internet that upset me yesterday and for some reason I've decided I need to talk about it.

Under the read more, though. I got. Rambly.

First off I should clarify a few things, as this is something I can see a certain type of person using as a way to dub me "anti-intellectual". I am not an anti-intellectual. I consider myself decently intelligent and above the norm in terms of the amount and variety of literature I've read. I won't call myself well-read because that's another label I do think is mostly bullshit. But I've read a lot of the "Smart Person" authors like Kafka and Vonnegut and Camus and Calvino. I tried reading James Joyce's Ulysses like three times and it sounds like something I'd love, but for some reason I can never get past the first 60 pages. I can enjoy shit like Naked Lunch and The Sound and the Fury fine but Joyce consistently exhausts me with his particular brand of Irish Incoherence.

What I mean to say is that I regularly enjoy the type of books - and culture as a whole, really - that on several occasions forced me into conversation with A Certain Type of Person. The kind of person who treats their tastes in art as a moral virtue. Who thinks the failings of society are at least partially due to the fact that not enough people have read and appreciated "The Classics". I actually was pushed towards dropping out of college by an interaction I had with a guy who was in the Master's program I was working towards. He saw I was reading J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey (I like it! I wish Salinger wrote more women) and took it as an opportunity to start raving about his opinions on Catcher in the Rye, a completely separate book I did not bring up at all.

People who do this make me unreasonably angry.

So the thing I saw was using "literary junk food" to talk about people who only read Young Adult fiction. I have so many issues with this that I don't know where to start. Because it plays into a bigger issue, I think. I see people on Youtube talk about the BookTok influencers who say they only read the dialogue in their books, or who complain about how a book has "so much text". They scoff at these people. Laugh at their inability to properly appreciate literature. These people are the problem.

And like. No? No. No, they're not. Some of them might be a reflection of a problem, sure. If a person of a certain age genuinely struggles with a dense book of a certain length, or if they only read books far below their age level, that could be an issue. But it's 100% not an issue with the reader. Much like how in the rising rates of younger people who struggle with fundamental reading skills, we shouldn't blame or make fun of the fucking kids, you weirdos. What? What are you doing? That's so weird. Stop it.

Most people aren't born with an innate love of reading. There are so many factors that can make developing that kind of passion incredibly difficult. Maybe they didn't grow up in a house with books and they weren't read to as kids. Maybe they're dyslexic or something and the fonts of most paperbacks are legitimately difficult to read. Maybe they were never exposed to the kinds of genres and authors they'd really enjoy. Maybe they saw some stupid fucking argument on the internet (Audiobooks aren't real reading! YA and comics aren't real reading! Mmm paperbacks are soo much better than e-readers I just want to shove them in my mouth yummy yummy I am so cool and smart) and decided they'd rather stay away from all of that entirely.

"Oh," the strawman I invent for this hypothetical exclaims, "but the internet exists! You can just look up more appropriate books to read! There's no excuse!"

Hey, Scarecrow I Reanimated Through the Dark Magic of my Rage? Do me a favor and try what you just suggested. I Googled "books for people moving past YA" and found a few lists on the subject, and the books were mainly:

modern novels I haven't read and might be fine

way-old classics that seem thrown in so people would think there was "variety"

some wack shit i'm very confused why people would suggest to those branching out from YA (Dune? The Martian? That's crazy, right? That's crazy to me.)

I was overwhelmed. I imagine if someone was only exposed to YA and saw a bunch of lists like these they'd could easily be discouraged. That is, if they weren't already discouraged by the dipshits online implying they're wronging themselves by enjoying the books they enjoy.

The thing that pisses me off is that Those People who say that aren't entirely incorrect. If someone only consumes one type of art, they are denying themselves a bunch of styles and stories and perspectives that might profoundly change the way they look at the world and at themselves. This applies to the person who only reads dystopian trilogies and romantasy epics, and it also applies to the person who only reads fucking Tolstoy or whatever. It applies to me, as a majority of the fiction I read up until like five years ago was written by men during like the 40s-90's (I don't know why but that ended up being my Era of Choice).

Variety in art is cool and good. If someone feels like they don't have the option to explore different stories, that belief is the issue. The person is not the one at fault, even if their reasoning for not branching out is incorrect. Yes, there are more adult-orientated writers who aren't old white straight men. There are adult-orientated writers that might be more engaging then the ones from the 19th and early 20th century. Not every adult-orientated book is Ripe With Ideas and Philosophical Concepts. There are fiction books written for adults in mind that make their prose as accessible as their dialogue. There are nonfiction books, even, that are written by intelligent authorities with a genuine love for their subject that makes their writing super enjoyable to read and not at all like a textbook.

But also it's not a bad thing if your main genre is young adult fiction. My main genre is probably post-modernism. The only difference between us is that post-modernism sounds esoteric enough that a lot of people won't question it, where as a ton of people feel super comfortable assuming a YA book is lesser. These are usually the same people who assume young adults are inherently unable to grasp complex ideas.

I don't read a ton of YA. At the same time, I will never go as far as to claim the entire genre has nothing to offer adults, because that's an absolutely insane take. That's nonsense. I've read fucking picture books as an adult that touched my heart (Has anyone read The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds? Oh god I teared up.). Cynthia Voigt's book Homecoming was an early step in me realizing my mom was abusive. I'm pretty sure Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events played a huge part in my want to become a writer.

"But you moved on," the Scarecrow breathes, voice weakening as the dark magic seeps out from the thin veil of hay and burlap, "adults are supposed to move on and read Grown-Up books."

Yeah man, maybe. There's a lot of shit that adults should be able to do, and people are so satisfied with those milestones of Adult Development that they sometimes forget that age is not the only factor in those things happening. If other reading options aren't presented in a way that seems welcoming and engaging, what are they supposed to do? Just walk to a library and grab the most boring looking book because that might be their only frame of reference for a "grown-up" book? Slog through it like they're in high school again? All to feel worthy in the eyes of someone who publicly condescends what might be the only type of literature they've enjoyed and connected to so far?

Why? Why would they want do that?

Anyways I'm getting hungry and the scarecrow I enchanted has lost its sentience, so I'll cut it short. There are a lot of intellectual pursuits - brilliant artists in a variety of mediums - that I am consistently bummed out that people feel like they can't get into. But I also understand, because a lot of people who like Adult Books or Abstract Art or Improvisational Jazz or Experimental Theater tend to not like the art itself as much as they really enjoy being perceived as a person who likes those kinds of things. And ultimately that's - fine.

That's a fine way to live, Scarecrow Corpse. You're allowed to base a majority of your identity out of truly understanding Infinite Jest or Koyaanisqatsi or Derek Jarman's Blue. But like don't expect that to change or improve the lack of culture you claim to hate so much.

[frostyreturns]

"the tinfoil comes off when you have to imagine the government as smart." This is one of the responses to my post about government having access to technology far beyond the general public. This is a pretty common dismissal of conspiracies and it's the dumbest thing I've ever heard every time I hear it.

A.) What you think the government is and what the government actually is are two different things. This attitude only works if you actually believe the puppet they parade in front of a camera is in charge. Can you honestly tell me you believe that, for example Joe Biden a demented old fuck that doesn't even know where he is...is the one writing and enacting policy right now? You have no idea how smart or how dumb the people in charge are because you don't even know who they are. There's video footage of him signing laws where he says the words "I have no idea what I'm signing." But sure I guess if you're dumb enough to think guys like him are the government I guess thinking the government is too stupid to plan stuff makes sense. The government has so much power and so much control over your life that this idea that they are just too incompetent to plan anything is beyond ridiculous.

Bureaucracy is just one part of government and yeah they're going to have incompetent workers maybe even more than the general public but to say the people in charge are too dumb to plan anything...come on. They were smart enough to trick you into allowing them to steal from you every week, to control your entire education and to be able to send armed men to kill or imprison you if you do anything they don't like.

B.) You know Hanlons razor "never attribue to malice what can be explained by stupidity" well that's retard shit go ahead and reject that premise in totality because reality is actually the opposite of that, the world is full of malice especially when you look to the upper echelons of power....those people are all psychopaths.

You have made the mistake of assuming the terrible things they do are because of stupidity and that they just keep screwing things up by mistake...the screwing up is very intentional. Every socialist policy maker who claims "oh I'm raising the minimum wage 5 bucks to fight inflation because I care about the poor" knows 100% that they are causing inflation and that it will make life harder for everyone and especially hard for the poor. They know...they want your life to be harder, they want money and power and wish you harm. It's not a bug it's a feature.

They knew when they went on tv and said get this shot it will save your life and your grandmas life...they knew they would be injecting you with heart attack cancer juice, that was pure unbridled malice, not stupidity.

C.) You understand it's not DMV employees and politicians doing science for the government right? You do understand that when I say the government has tech we don't it's not because I think Justin Trudeau figured out AI before google right? They use those private companies as contractors to develop technology and then control how it is accessed used and if and when and how it is released to the public. Or they just hire the smartest people to do R and D directly for them. Like when they invented the internet at DARPA. But usually they just swoop in and take what they want that someone else created. People also have this idea that major corporations and the government are separate competing entities when they're not. They dump funding into companies and install CEOs and board members to control them. Google for example only exists because of the government, oh did you think google does whatever the government wants purely coincidentally? The idea of corporations vs government is a fantasy that should have been even more apparent during 2020 when the will of the state was summarily executed by virtually every corporation on the planet.

The idea that people still think the government is separate from corporations after minimum wage employees at walmart were tasked with being bouncers at the door and making sure everyone was wearing a mask had their injection and weren't standing too close to each other because the government told them to ...is ridiculous. 2020 should have been the death of the "private company can do what they want" nonsense.

D.) We tend to use ourselves as barometers of what others are capable of but the problem is there are ways of life and being that are totally foreign to us. Many assume because they are not smart or sociopathic enough to collude and scheme to achieve power and control over others...then nobody must be like that. You went to public school smoked weed the whole time and learned how to write in cursive poorly...I don't think your experience is the same as someone who was born into wealth and power and can spend every minute of their life for generations learning how to keep and amass more wealth and power. You have no idea what it's like to have everything you could ever ask for, all the money you could have to indulge any whim and get weird and disconnected because of it and to feel entitled and superior and spend your days trying to exert your will on the rest of the world. That's not even going into any secret cults or organizations...which are also a thing.

Embracing the tinfoil is the only rational way to proceed with what we know. The only alternative is comfortable delusion. And this wasn't even about a wild or hard to swallow reality...it was just the notion that the government is ahead of the consumer market with technology...that's not even a conspiracy it's a demonstrable fact.

[stemms]

Hello, guys. I’m sorry for being inactive in terms of original content lately, but I’m back, and right now I would like to give you an important update.

I’d briefly mentioned my abusive familial situation in the past, but I never really went into details. However, I’d like to share more context now, as it is directly related to the reason for my sudden disappearance.

I’ve been trapped in an abusive situation for the past seven years, and the longer I stayed in this household, the worse it became. While the abuse was mostly psychological, it escalated to the point where one of my abusers nearly choked me to death. I will elaborate on that incident after giving you some context.

My abusers are my mother and stepfather, with the latter causing me more harm. He tends to always blame me for everything, invent more and more nonsensical rules for me to follow (and randomly abandoning some, only to come up with something else) and get mad if I don’t learn them by heart the moment he introduces them (which happens because of my horrible memory that his abuse worsened). He always expected me to reach out to him if I needed emotional support, but when I was actually struggling mentally, he either preferred to ignore it or cut off the internet because “it was obviously the reason”. Additionally, he’d always get mad at me over the stupidest things ever and use it as an excuse to yell at me for 2 hours. Also, fun fact: some of my top posts are heavily inspired by something he did to me (: (: (: My mother isn’t better because she watched every single time he was abusing me, but never really tried to stop him. Yet, when I tried to confront her about his behaviour and explain that this is literal abuse, she’d gaslight me into thinking it’s normal, and it could’ve been worse, so I’m lucky and he “has good intentions anyway”. She’s also extremely controlling, manipulative, and obsessed with the idea of moulding me into the person she never got to be, as well as always keeping me around.

Since I’ve been dealing with this kind of behaviour for so long, my mental health seriously deteriorated. My hands are always shaky, I flinch whenever my stepfather enters the room, I tremble if he comes too close, I flinch if he touches me, I’m horrified of maintaining eye contact with him, I’m always in the fight or flight mode, I overanalyse his behaviour and always make sure to do anything I can (even if it's humiliating) to ensure that he doesn't hurt me again. Recently, I started going to therapy and taking medication, and it's been very helpful so far.

Although things weren’t perfect already, I didn’t expect my life to be threatened. A while ago, I was having an argument with my transphobic mother about my identity, and after it was over, we had dinner. During the argument, my stepfather wasn’t home, so he was unaware of it, but he noticed the tense atmosphere, and it infuriated him to the point where he went to the kitchen to do the dishes instead of eating with us. I had a feeling that he thought it was my fault, so I followed him to reassure him that my mother’s state wasn’t his fault, and it was just a small argument between us (which was literally true), but he started shouting at me because he assumed I was accusing him of something???? I tried to reassure him some more, and then he lashed out at me and said lots of transphobic shit. After that, he grabbed me, pushed me to the floor and got on top of me, pressing me harder and harder to the floor, started choking me so hard that I could barely breathe, so I bit him, and he continued to choke me and pull my hair. I messaged my English Literature teacher and she called the police. We were interrogated and although my mom told me to downplay it, I was too scared to do so and told them everything, plus showed them the pictures of my bruises.

After that, I couldn’t look at any c!Prime content for a while because it suddenly felt triggering, so I just needed to take a break from my blog and work on my mental health for a while. But right now, I'm doing better and I’m feeling more comfortable about c!Prime again, so I should be able to make more content soon. I must admit, I'm not that hyperfixated on it at the moment, but I’m definitely going to do more c!Prime content soon because these freaks are too fun :)

[dysphoria-things]

love your takes on neil gaiman such a breath of fresh air after scrolling the tag yesterday. like why are people so incapable of focusing on the actual villain here. i at least have *some* (not much but i do understand the impulse) sympathy for people who are just being really fucking tone deaf posting about how #valid it is to be upset at feeling like you need to renegotiate your relationship to works that were integral to your identity or whatever. but i stg all the other posts are just about how important it is that you never even think about a character he invented ever again and literally need to burn all your copies of his books or you're evil like...... why the fuck are people so fixated on his work and not his crimes right now? why can't we just stand by the victims and condemn the man? i mean obviously there are discussions that will need to be had about engaging with art he's been involved with moving forward but it seems like so many people are legitimately more mad about hypothetical former fans of his pirating s3 of good omens or reading old sandman comics from a used book store than the actual atrocities that should be the center of the discussion here, because "you should have known you can never trust a man and they're always this evil" (as if it wasn't his own, unfortunately probably trauma-fueled, decision time and time again to hurt people in such disgusting ways and just his ~innate male nature~) . i mean i guess there's not that much to say beyond "man that's fucking horrible hope those girls find peace and he rots in hell" but just. god. let it sit for a minute before going straight to the internet arguments people!!! and don't get me STARTED on the "i've always known he was evil and his work was terrible and you're stupid if you ever liked it or admired him as an artist" people crawling out of their self-important caves (as if so many of his victims weren't fans just like all of us). fuck.

no exactly. like his position as a famous author is relevant but like. good omens tv really isnt. your collection of sand man or whatever isnt the point. you feel betrayed, whatever, i understand, but why are people so intent on making this so inherently fandom related?

well i know why technically, it’s because they only known the guy through fandom and think that’s the most important part of it, but whatever

everyone thinks they’re at the center of this, or they could be

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

Shout out to the guy who read:

"I keep trying to warn you where this will lead.

It isn't about what I want or what I think should happen, I'm not endorsing anything, let's be clear, it's about what will happen, really, it's about human nature.

This isn't about what's moral, or what's reasonable, or what you think you can stoke a divisive culture war against, it isn't about my opinion, I did not invent the nature of need, it's about what people have always done when faced with no good options, guns in their hands and staring up at the people sentencing them to suffering and death."

Interpreted it as me saying "gun violence is the appropriate solution" and then threatened me with gun violence for saying it was the solution...

And then deleted his reblog when I pointed out his lack of reading comprehension and blocked him.

Leave alone that he is exactly the kind of disillusioned right wing supporting gun toting reactionary who I was trying to point out will be the ones actually enacting the gun violence [not so much the staunch leftists who believe in the value of human life]... As has actually already been proven at least 3 times now.

I'd like to remind him that I do report people for threats of physical violence and for harassment.

And I'd like to recommend stepping away from the internet and having a nice hot bath or something every time he feels the need to try to make a nasty comment... Before he makes an ass of himself again.

I'd also like to reiterate that I am not endorsing gun violence, I am merely pointing out that this will continue to happen if we stay on this trajectory, and you can't reasonably expect another outcome.

Look at history's example.

You are fucking so deeply with human rights and everyone being able to meet their basic needs that the angry incels who used to be taking aim at women and students, are the exact group who are now looking angrily up at billionaires and politicians, having finally seen who they should be mad at [not an endorsement of them seeing gun violence as the solution], and wow I bet THEY -the largely rich white men who are 'calling the shots'- don't like it when the guns are being aimed at them instead of the women and children they can usually scapegoat...

Maybe try not to literally threaten to shoot the messenger?

I mean, I can also predict that suddenly gun reform will start to seem okay or be dropped as a main talking point by the political right once enough billionaires, CEOs, and politicians are shot/shot at... That's just me pointing out what's a near inevitability... Not me exerting some power to try to make it happen. [I have none]

I'm not the one with the gun, and I'm not the one stripping people of their basic human rights or denying their needs for survival. I have no power to tell people what to do and I have about as much influence as your average tumblr shit-poster at best. That is in fact the MOST power I have in any facet of my life. I'm just telling you what I see happening. If you think lashing out at me solves anything, you are misdirecting that energy, buddy.

[tayfabe75]

Love your theories, but one thing gives me pause right now. Would they really spend important holidays away from each other, kissing different partners for New Years Eve for example, just to prove some sort of point? We know they’re both romantics and I just can’t see them faking it for such important occasions.

Hi anon! First and foremost, nothing at all wrong with having pause. If everything seems normal to you and nothing feels a bit off or amiss, then there's absolutely no reason to engage with theories or even humor them. We all have our own sense of intuition. And regardless of what I say, or what Twitter says, you should trust your own instincts!

That said, my own instincts tell me that something is "off". Personally, I could not reconcile the breakup based on Taylor and Matty's words and actions. I could not reconcile Taylor Ssswift 🐍 bowing to a hate mob similar to the one that tried to take her down in 2016, or turning her love life into a spectator sport.

And wouldn't you know it? The more I dug in, the more history I found between the pair. The more their respective discographies started to sound like a dialogue, two halves of the same story. And then the coincidences! Everyone has a threshold of how many coincidences are too many before it becomes impossible that they are coincidental. For me, I think that number is just lower than for most. But as someone who loves mysteries, my brain is primed to see patterns in a way that maybe most don't (for better or for worse).

As a proud non-conformist, I wouldn't give the media or the internet the satisfaction of baselessly hating Matty Healy. I often say I learned about him out of spite! (Turns out the world cannot identify a man of outstanding moral character when it's staring them right in the face, and trust me, this is so much tangibly worse than the jokes he laughed at)

I became so fascinated by Matty's character that I started obsessively listening to all of his interviews. Turns out that he can't shut up about Brad Troemel, the guy who created the Taylor Swift Fan Union (and probably The 1975FU) and who has been working literally over Matty's shoulder throughout this year, and has suggested he might be working with Taylor, too.

Now, I bet you're scared to theorize because you're scared to be compared with a subculture of Taylor fans who have theorized about say, a hidden relationship or sexuality, perhaps? Here's what I'll say about that: for their theories to work, they had to completely ignore Matty's existence at his own fucking show on December 4, 2014, aka ground zero. I believe Taylor and Matty once benefitted from these theories - they were somehow so close yet so far off the mark that they were 'safe' being underground without raising suspicion. Why go underground? Well, Matty told us exactly why (and was crucified for it)! However, ignoring this subculture for so long turned it into a Frankenstein's monster. So, since they knew this monster was going to try to destroy Matty at all costs anyway, they had to come up with a plan. I think they did two main things to address it:

1) Orchestrated Matty's cancellation 2) Hired Brad Troemel to do it

So, how can I believe Taylor and Matty are still together despite spending holidays apart and kissing separate partners?

Kayfabe.

Now this is a wrestling term, so you're going to have to think a little outside the box to apply it to celebrity culture instead, all right? I'll start by quoting the man, himself, Brad Troemel:

"The term 'Kayfabe' was invented to describe all the different measures taken to ensure viewers' suspension of disbelief was upheld. Kayfabe includes everything from the matches' predetermined outcome, the scripted moves wrestlers use, their stage personas, their promotional interviews, the feuds between competitors, their ongoing love interests, the storylines that weave feuds together, the belts wrestlers win, the media coverage surrounding wrestling. All of it! Kayfabe is the entire massively collaborative theatrical universe created to maintain wrestling's believability. It's the never-ending commitment to the bit. One of the most important parts of Kayfabe, developed in the 1930s, was the idea that all wrestlers could be sorted into two camps. On one side, there'd be the good guys, known as babyfaces - who follow the rules, take their vitamins, and say their prayers. Then on the other side, there'd be the bad guys, known as heels - who play dirty tricks and would do anything to win. The job of the heel was to generate heat among the audience. This meant goading the crowd into belligerent anger by breaking the rules whenever possible, and cowardly hiding behind the rules whenever convenient. Once a wrestler's persona was established, it extended into every aspect of their life. Wrestlers were expected to maintain kayfabe both inside and outside the ring whenever a fan was present. This meant that if your wife at home was different from your in-ring lover, then you were expected to keep your marriage secret."

Then you have quotes from Taylor like this one:

"Having journalists write in-depth, oftentimes critical, pieces about who they perceive me to be made me feel like I was living in some weird simulation, but it also made me look inward to learn about who I actually am. Having the world treat my love life like a spectator sport in which I lose every single game was not a great way to date in my teens and twenties, but it taught me to protect my private life fiercely. Being publicly humiliated over and over again at a young age was excruciatingly painful but it forced me to devalue the ridiculous notion of minute-by-minute, ever-fluctuating social relevance and likability. Getting canceled on the internet and nearly losing my career gave me an excellent knowledge of all the types of wine."

Because everyone tends to speculate the worst in others, the narrative quickly turned into: "Taylor always wanted to be in the spotlight having people spectate her love life, it was her mean ex who kept her trapped indoors!" Okay well, now we know thanks to Jack that the "mean bad ex" was probably out of the picture by the time she made this speech. For a woman who proudly easter eggs her clothing, the fact she wore the NYU sweatshirt when she was seen with Matty was… a choice.

Now, let's think about Matty's quote about how he struggled to distinguish reality as a kid because his parents were both actors and celebrities:

"I'd be a child, and something would happen in my real life, and then I'd see that thing on a newspaper, and I'd think, That's not what happened, but that's my mum saying a version of what happened, and I know Mum's at home and she's O.K." He came to understand that a person's life was "a balance between what is real, what is said, what happens, what people believe, what people project, and what is true."

Pair this with not just his desire to make a name for himself and his band completely outside of the shadow of Taylor Swift, but the recent prediction that The 1975 will become the most important band of the decade (and just before hiatus!) At this point, I would say there's a pretty striking case for motive. The Reputation prologue is another great read for anyone who presumes they know a damned thing about Taylor Swift (oh, definitely including myself!):

"We think we know someone, but the truth is that we only know the version of them they have chosen to show us."

That was me trying to keep it brief, but I'd say that's a good "101" of the basics, at least! 🤼‍♂️

[mymanyfandomramblings]

Gleecap 4x16--Feud

This feud is bringing out the worst in Schue, but...understandable

How did the students find out about the kiss?

Also, I love that Blartina are the leaders of the New Directions and are conducting the intervention. Blamtina might be the Harry, Ron and Hermione of McKinley, but Blartina are the new captains.

Also I love that O Fortuna (usually reserved for Sue's tantrums) is used for the feud

More supportive Santana! Yay! After watching Mash-Off yesterday it is so refreshing to see her being a great friend.

Rachel's not pregnant--not that I was seriously expecting her to be, but I am the weirdo who loves a good baby storyline, so I'm the teensiest bit disappointed

I don't like Brody--or where this is going--but the dance sequence in How To Be A Heartbreaker is funnn

Okay, wow, Rachel went off on those vocals! Stunnnninggg

Sue and her contracts--this woman is hilarious

The pan to Tina--and apparently even Sue didn't notice her. This is hilarious

I feel like Ryder is about to have a dangers-of-the-internet storyline. However, I am glad he's seeking someone else, and not hung up on Marley

Unique is a star!! I love how she has Marley's back

Bad move, Ryder. Bad move.

I feel like Finn is asking to get his feelings hurt here. He's sensitive.

Will's harsh--but somewhat right. Also I don't think he's being entirely honest about why he put Finn in charge--I think it's because he believes in what Finn can be capable of, but he's angry, so I get it.

The triumphant return of Santana's psychic Mexican Third Eye! It's official, I love S4 Santana

Whyyy is Sue so evil? I feel like her more batty schemes only make sense when she's feuding with Will specifically, and she's not supposed to be trying to destroy non-Will-entities lives. Then, it is S4, and they're probably running out of Sue ideas

Once more, Sue has invented a new minority to be

Once more Jake, Marley and Ryder--Most Reasonable Glee People Ever

Ryder drums?!? (now, I fail to see him as Finn 2.0--they're different characters, but the drumming is a very Finn thing to do)

Unique and her tiaras are so sweet! Especially how excited everyone else is about them

I do think Ryder can be a jerk, but I also think that he's just..struggling to wrap his head around Unique's gender--especially since so many people keep using he/him for Unique. Ryder just needs to be less pigheaded about it, and be willing to learn.

Becky's Nicki outfit is so cuuuute

I love whenever glee does those locker shots. They're such a fun framing device

"Don't apply logic to Lopez" SANTANA ily

Damn, Santana killed Coldhearted.

I love the guys being 'neutral backup dancers'

"Cool. Can we begin please." Kitty, I hate you, but that was excellent delivery

Sam is dressing exactly like Mike Chang--the vest + fedora combo is iconic

Wise words from Sam

Santana channeling Sue with her 'my breasts ache with rage' line

Sue's Super Bass is---I have no words whatsoever for it. Either that or many words, none of which I can articulate

"maybe you should go back to not speaking so freely' I am loving this Finn--Marley conversation so far.

Yesss! Teacher!Finn.

Once more, this batch of New Directions are so good at dealing with their dramas in a reasonable way.

Okay, Kitty is coming through for once.

Yes Blaine and Sam plotting!!

Santana is a criminal mastermind

It is beautifully unnerving how Finn smiles when he's mad

Sam's awkward dancing, my beloved!

Also I love Marley's dress in the final song

[womanofwords]

The Poisoned Prodigy (Chapter 10)

I woke up alone in a hospital bed with a blinding light in my face. "Where am I?" I asked the bleached white walls. A nurse bustled into the room with a tray of food.

"How are you feeling?" he asked me.

"Pretty good, but my head hurts," I told him. "What happened, exactly?"

"You were brought in here unconscious after a man hit you," he said, putting the food down on a table next to me. "You are now in Olympus Medical Centre."

Olympus Medical Centre. The same hospital Patton was admitted to. "Where's Patton? He's a patient here. I need to see him."

"Oh, no you don't," he told me sharply. "You're not going anywhere. You need to rest, Vincent. People will be visiting you soon."

So my parents were coming. Made sense. I settled back into my new bed and waited. I closed my eyes to prepare for sleep.

"Hi, Vince," Patton said. But it couldn't be Patton. Patton was still in a coma.

It was Patton.

I scrambled into a sitting position. "How are you awake? You're in a coma."

"I came out of it," he giggled, hopping over and sitting on my bed. They'd taken his prosthetic leg off and left him crutches to use. "So, since you've been awake for the past few days and I haven't, how's Ernest doing in prison?"

I explained everything that had happened, the bribery, the blackmail, the frame job. Patton's eyes watered. "Dr Jacobs was my favourite teacher," he said. "He inspired me to create the prosthetic leg with the flexible foot to better mimic the movements of an actual foot. I won with the invention he inspired me to make."

"I'm so sorry to tell you." I pulled him towards me and hugged him. "You'll be OK, eventually. Your school had a shrine to you. And the skate park. You are loved and missed, something Ernest and his family will not know anything about."

"I've been told as much. I was surrounded with so many flowers I thought I woke up in a florist."

"I met your friend, Sally, too. Apparently, all the people who like Ernest could have been written on a sticky note that was ripped in half."

Patton burst out laughing. "She said that? That is cold. Accurate, but cold."

"Once you get onto the internet, you'll be able to follow the whole story online," I said.

"Cool." We lapsed into a comfortable silence, until Patton decided to speak again. "What's going to happen to Ernest? He's been proven innocent, but the stuff his parents did for him doesn't look good."

"He'll probably leave the school. Having your parents blackmail a teacher into making other students do work for you and poison a student isn't a good look."

"Oh. You are the coolest best friend ever," Patton said.

"I'm really not."

"You solved my poisoning, saved Ernest from going to prison even though everyone thought he did it, and went head to head against an evil teacher that had everyone fooled. Admit it; you're amazing."

"I'm still not."

"Well, that's it. I'm going to make you admit it. Admit that you're amazing." He poked me in the ribs experimentally.

"I'm not ticklish, Patton."

"Right. I keep forgetting that." His shoulders slumped. "What do I do now? Something has to convince you that you're awesome."

Umma rushed in, Appa and James close behind her. "Vincent!" She hugged me tight. "What were you doing? Who did it?" She did a double-take when she saw Patton. "Patton!"

"Hi, Mrs Song," Patton said.

"Patton, he found your murderer!" James yelled. "My dork brother Vincent found the guy who murdered you!"

"He's not my murderer; I'm not dead," Patton explained. "And I already know that it's him. He told me."

"Oh," James said, looking deflated.

"Also, you're a prick," Patton said.

Umma gasped. Appa's jaw dropped. James glared at Patton. "What was that?" James asked, fist clenched. It was a rhetorical question.

"You are one, though," Patton said. "You always make fun of Vincent, even while he's in hospital for exposing an attempted murderer and corruption scandal and getting hurt while doing it. He's an actual hero and he still can't catch a break from you."

Appa, Umma, and James looked at Patton like he'd grown a second head in front of them. "James, be nicer to your brother," Umma said. She looked embarrassed that Patton pointed out what a jerk James was. She never listened to me when I was telling her the exact same stuff.

"Fine," James said. He looked embarrassed, too.

Good.

"Vincent!" Sally rushed into my room, stopping when she saw everyone staring at her. "Am I interrupting something?"

"Vincent, this is your . . . friend?" Umma asked.

I took a deep breath. "Mom, Dad, this is Sally. She's been helping me with this stuff. She goes to Patton's school."

"Hi, Sally!" Patton said, waving. She froze.

"How long have you been awake?" she asked.

"Since yesterday," Patton said. "And then I went back to sleep because I was still tired."

"You were just out of a coma!" Sally laughed.

"Patton's kind of like a cat. He's supposed to sleep for eighteen hours a day," I said.

Patton clutched an imaginary pearl necklace. "Hey!"

"You have to admit that it fits, though," Sally laughed.

"I have two friends, and they're both mean," Patton groaned. "Why are you both mean to me?"

"Hey, we went out of our way to find your real poisoner, have some respect," Sally said.

"You are still awful," Patton said. Aunt Indigo and Uncle Malcolm rushed in and carried Patton out.

"How did you get here?" Aunt Indigo said, handing him over to his uncle like a package or something.

"I was looking for Vincent. He found the real poisoner, Auntie."

"What?" She paused. "What?"

"Yes. It was mostly him. I helped a bit," Sally said.

Malcolm sniffled. "Thank you. Thank you so much for finding my boy's attempted killer." He approached the bed and lifted me up out of it. I always thought that him lifting Patton around just meant that Patton didn't weigh very much. He actually was pretty strong. Half of me was lifted out of the bed as he hugged me.

"My son should rest," Umma said, suddenly shooing everyone out of my room. She had been watching all of this from a corner of the room with a smile on her face.

Pride.

She was proud of me.

:-)

The hospital allowed my family to take me home after a day of observation. "Rest, Vincent," Umma told me. "Enjoy your gifts. People have been very worried about you."

I stopped focusing on the raindrops racing each other down the window and looked forward. "Worried?"

"Yes, everyone's been very scared. This is big," Appa said. "Media asking questions. Very invasive."

"It blew up and people found out where we lived. You're a hero, man," James said.

We arrived at our home and found flowers. Bundles of them waiting outside our home, with cards and letters. "This is a lot," I said. "People actually know about me?"

"People love you! You're a badass!" James said. "My little brother's a badass! My little brother's a badass! My little brother-"

"JAMES!" Appa and Umma yelled.

Appa took me home and walked me into the house. "My good boy," he said, over and over. I laid on my bed and stared at the ceiling. Same bland, boring ceiling. I hated that ceiling. I stared at my skating helmet. Green and reflecting light from the light streaming through my window. It didn't feel as foreboding as it used to.

I'll be able to skate with Patton soon.

If you want to read the other chapters, see Masterlist.

[squeakyfir]

I'm your huckleberry (Tombstone 1993) (Doc Holliday)

Description:

The joys of modern inventions and miracles are often taken for granted. Your hungry or thirsty? Get something from the fridge or make it. You need to go somewhere? Drive or call an uber. Your hurt? Go to the doctor.

Your bored? Watch a movie, play video games, watch videos on the internet, talk to people without ever leaving your house.

Some much time is in our hands... but back in the 19th century... you wouldn't last very long.

Diseases are rampant, gun violence is higher, no modern technology, barely any good medicine, almost all of your favorite food doesn't exist and most of the people are rude as hell. But... That doesn't mean all of them were so bad. Love was not something most people in this time really cared about. At least, in the town of Tombstone, Arizona.

After falling asleep with a nice looking stone you bought at a small stand at the carnival, your whole world becomes the opposite. Six people from the past discover you unconscious and alone in the blistering heat and offer help but it was their help that let you meet the most amazing man you've ever met.

John Henry "Doc" Holliday.

Chapter 5

Previous ~ Next

"Look out ladies" you yelled as you slammed the door open and entered the cottage, arms outstretched like royalty and being dumb on purpose. "I have returned"! The women laughed and the Earp brothers were right behind you. "Don't do that" Wyatt said like he was scolding a child, "You could break the door".

"I was careful" you said dismissively and then turned your attention to the wives. "Guess what girls! I got a date with a hot and sexy man! WOOP WOOP"!

"A date" Mattie asked.

"You know. When a guy asks you out and you both spend time with each other. You know". They understood and got excited "You did" Allie asked excitedly. "With who"?

"Doc Holliday"!

The woman were speechless in shock and confusion. "What's wrong"?

"Isn't he still with Kate" Louisa asked Morgan.

"Doesn't sound like it" Morgan said, "They were pretty stuck on each other".

"Who's Kate? His girlfriend or something"?

"If you mean lover, then yes" Morgan said.

"Oh". You said feeling suddenly upset and sat down on the couch besides Allie. Wyatt could see that this really did upset you suddenly and decided to share his input. "Believe me when I say this, (Y/n)", you looked over at Wyatt. "I've known him for a very long time. And I can promise you that he keeps his word".

"I hope so".

"But this is still wonderful" Allie said, "We need to get you a dress and-"

"I already told you guys that I hate dresses and I already told him that I won't wear a dress and he was ok with it. So HA"!

"Oh, come on, (y/n)" Louisa begged, "Will you at least let us do your hair"?

"So you can make me look like a discount Lady Gaga"?

"What" Morgan asked surprised and trying not to laugh.

"Nevermind. It's just another thing from the future". You turned your attention back to the woman. "I still don't think it's a good idea".

"Oh, come on, (y/n)" Louisa begged, "Your hair is so beautiful, you have to do something to it at least".

"Really" you asked carelessly. "Watch this". With their attention on you, you flipped your hair around stylishly and looked back at them to say, "That's style right there". Morgan tried not to laugh.

"Oh please, (Y/n)" Allie begged and stood up, "Let us do your hair. If you won't wear a dress then let us do your hair at least".

"That won't matter" you said, "It wouldn't look right with what I'm wearing and I would look even stupider than I already am".

"You don't look stupid, but please let us do your hair" Allie asked.

"I'm sorry but no" you said genuinely. Allie and Louisa sighed sadly and knew that they couldn't convince you. "Very well, but you'll have to make it up to us at some point" Allie said.

"Alright. You have a deal. But for now, I got to kill time. So I'm gonna play some games on my phone". You went and sat down next to the girls and the Earp brothers walked over to see the small device in action once again. The small device was illuminated with bright colors and they couldn't follow along with what your doing.

They couldn't watch for long since the ladies had to figure out what to wear and you pulled out your solar panel charger to charge your phone for awhile until night finally came and Doc came to the cottage to walk with you all. It was a bit cold outside and you didn't mind since you do enjoy cold weather. You walked alongside the Earps and their wives and Doc offered his coat to you to keep you warm and you accepted even though you didn't need it. As you all walked in, there were a lot of cowboys taking up the benches on the ground level but the Earps told you that they were going up to the birdcage balconies to have better views.

As you all sat down, Morgan and Virgil and their wives had their own booth and you with Doc and Wyatt with his wife had your own booth, you admired the whole theater. It was so nostalgic and enjoyable to look at. "I've never been to a live performance before".

"I'm assuming it's different in the future" Wyatt said.

"You have no idea. I can show some of them to you guys later".

"Here darlin'" Doc said as he took his coat off your shoulders and gently guided you to the seat closest to the balcony. "Sit here".

"Oh why thank you" you said sweetly. Doc slipped his coat back on and gave you a brief smile and sat down beside you. "Wyatt" a voice said from beside Doc. "I'd like you to meet Mayor Klump and his wife". It was Fred White. Wyatt stood up and shook the mayors hand. "Mr. Earp. Your reputation precedes you". They retracted their hands. "I was wondering if you might be--"

"Not a prayer. Nice meetin' you" Wyatt said dismissively and sitting back down. The Mayor and his wife looked at each other awkwardly before turning to leave to go back to their seats and with Fred White leaving as well. The sounds of a drum were heard which signified that the theater was about to start. The curtain was pulled up to reveal a man with three wooden pins and dressed nicely. He bowed and you all then hear one of the cowboys say, "Professor Gillman? Oh, I seen him in Bisbee. He catches stuff".

"Hey professor" one of the cowboys stood up his gun drawn and aimed at Gilman. "Catch this". He fired at him and shoot one of the pins and said pin exploded. Gilman was shocked and ran off stage exclaiming they were shooting at him which made the cowboys laugh. Another man walked out onto the stage wearing a black robe and two men helped set the stage. All it was was placing a 5 ft. fake marble pillar and the other man replaced the sign on the stand saying what the next act is. "Prettiest man I ever saw" one of the cowboys said laughing.

The man on stage whipped his robe off dramatically and revealed him in a white unbuttoned shirt and red tights but also with red and black stripped flows and black boots. The cowboys cheered for how he looked and the man spoke. "Ladies and gentlemen, the st. Crispin's day speech from Henry V. To set the scene-"

A cowboy shot at the pillar and it startled you that you quickly grabbed Docs arm for safety and you quickly realized what you did and let go. Doc smiled and said, "Nothin' like a beautiful woman to hold me for comfort".

"I'm sorry" you said quietly and while the man on stage was saying his speech. "No reason to be" Doc said and then gently squeezed your hand, "I'm right here if you need protection". You smiled back at him and went back to watching the show. "... Gentle his condition. Gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap, whilst any speaks who fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day"!

The cowboys were first to applaud the performance and even started firing some of their guns into the ceiling and the rest of you applauded as well. As the man walked off stage and someone took the pillar off stage, another man went on the stage to change the sign for the next performance that read, "Faust or the devils bargain". The sound of the violin was heard and music to set the scene was played and it sound interesting. Another curtain was pulled up to reveal an old man at a desk and another man wearing what looked to be old victorian mens clothing but he also wore a devils mask.

"Now what in the hell is this" one of the cowboys asked confused.

"Th- that's Faust. H- he's gonna make a deal with the devil" someone replied.

Doc leaned in close to you and asked, "Is your soul for sale dear"?

"Nope" you said plainly but then looked at him to say, "My soul is claimed". Doc looked at bit confused and asked as the play was going, "By who"?

"Oh, I dunno" you said teasingly but then said, "Maybe you". Doc smiled and scooted closer to you. The play continued and it wasn't making any sense to you so you just watched it with a blank stare. "Know what I'd do" a cowboy said and it got your attention. "I'd take the deal, then crawfish and drill that old devil in the ass".

All the cowboys started laughing and so did you but you tried to hide it. Both Wyatt and Doc looked down at the cowboys in disapproval at how they were acting but when Doc heard you laugh, he couldn't help the smirk that appeared on that handsome face of his. The play continued until the music stopped and the act ended and everyone started applauding. "Very instructive" Doc said.

The actors came out and bowed to thank them but the devil actor wasn't on stage. "But who is the devil" Wyatt asked. More music was heard and the devil came out quickly to remove his mask to reveal that it was actually a woman. The same woman that you all saw wearing the grey dress with the orange umbrella from earlier in the day. She looked right up at Wyatt, who had the look of shock, and smiled right up at him in a flirty fashion. "I'll be damned" Wyatt said.

"You may indeed, if you get lucky" Doc said to Wyatt. As the performers walked off staged, everyone got up to leave. "Oh" you said getting the people around you their attention. "It's over already"?

"Yes ma'am" Wyatt said as he stood up and helped Maddie stand up and Doc doing the same thing to you like a true southern gentleman. As you all exited the theater, you all met outside with Morgan and Virgil with their wives. All the cowboys had headed to the saloons for drinks and since the streets were pretty quiet, Morgan asked, "What'd you think, (Y/n)? Was it better than what your used to"?

"It was... Different" you said with Doc holding your arm so properly and like a gentleman. "You still gotta tell me how things are from where you come from".

"I will. I promise".

Morgan smiled and looked up. "Would you look at all those stars? I mean, you look up and you think "God made all of that, he still remembered to make a little speck like me". You all started to walk forward into the street. "Kinda flattering, really. Wyatt, do you believe in God"? Wyatt just shrugged, he wasn't sure how to respond. "No, come on, really. Do ya"?

"Yeah. Maybe" Wyatt said. "Hell, I don't know".

"Well, what d'you think happens when you die" Morgan asked Wyatt.

"Somethin'. Nothin'. Hell, I don't know".

"Well I read this book, a book on spiritualism".

"Oh God. Here he goes again" Virgil said tiredly and sarcastically which made you chuckle.

"Said that a lot of people when they die, they see this light. Like in a tunnel".

"Yeah"?

"They say it's the light leadin' you to heaven".

"Really" Wyatt asked in an interested tone, "What about hell? They got a sign there, or what"?

"I know what it is" you said getting their attention. "If you see a light, you go to heaven. If you see me, you go to hell". They all broke out in laughter and Allie reached over to gently smack your arm. "Hey, (Y/n), goddamnit. I'm serious" Morgan said regaining his breath. That joke really made him laugh hard. "You have such a dark sense of humor" Doc said. He also laughed at the joke.

"Well, what can I say? I'm crazy and fun to be around"! They all agreed and Doc smiled in agreement. He really was enjoying your company. "Comin' to the Oriental, Virg" Wyatt asked.

"Not tonight" Allie said. "Tonight, me and my old man are gonna have some fun". Morgan and his wife bid their goodnights to each other. "Come on, get movin', old man".

"Maiden name was Sullivan" Virgil said and then Allie smacked him with her scarf and after another kiss, Louisa walked off to catch up with Allie and Virgil. "You two better go with them" Wyatt said to you and Mattie.

"Nonsense" Doc said to Wyatt. "Stay with me darlin'. I want to learn more from you".

"Ok" you said sweetly.

"Please stay with me" Mattie pleaded to Wyatt.

"Well, honey, I-I gotta get to work". Mattie look defeated and just said, "All right".

"Well, wait a minute. I guess I don't have to go right now. I could stay awhile".

"No, no. I don't wanna keep you" Mattie said and then reached for something. "No, really" Wyatt said encouragingly, "I can stay awhile". Mattie pulled out a small dark glass bottle and took a drink. "That the bottle Lou gave you" Wyatt asked.

"Yes, it is" Mattie said getting a bit defensive.

"Maybe you should see a doctor" Wyatt suggested.

Mattie scoffed and said, "Wyatt, it's just headaches".

"You know the best thing for headaches is sleep, right" you said. You would've said pain relievers but you had remind yourself where you were currently at. Mattie just brushed you off but Wyatt backed you up. "See" Wyatt then got a bit quiet, "You should listen to her. She knows more than we do. You should rest".

"She doesn't get it. She's not from here, she wouldn't understand".

"I can learn" you said genuinely. Mattie once again ignored you. "I know what I'm doing, (y/n). I don't need to see a doctor"!

"All right, honey. Ok" Wyatt said trying to calm her down.

"Just go" Mattie sighed. "Everything's fine, Wyatt. Work well".

"All right" Wyatt said and then leaned in to kiss her cheek which didn't look like it satisfied her. "Good night". As Mattie walked away, Wyatt said, "You look beautiful tonight". Mattie looked back and scoffed, "Thank you" and just continued walking away. You and Morgan said goodnight to her but she only acknowledged Morgan and not you and that upset you. Why was she being mean? "Hey" Morgan said getting your attention and also seeing that Matties attitude kinda upset you. "Don't worry 'bout it. Come on, let's go have some drinks. You are old enough, right"?

"Shut up, Morgan" you said playfully which made them happy to see you smiling again. There was something about your smile and personality that really made them feel happier to be around you. Doc especially. "You two go on ahead to the Faro table" Wyatt said to you and Morgan. "I gotta talk to Doc for a moment".

"Alrighty" Morgan said and then looked at you, "Let's go".

"COME ON"! You both raced inside like children and both Doc and Wyatt were still outside. "Wyatt"?

"Doc? I really have to ask". Wyatt was nervous to ask this question and knew he couldn't ask this question with you around. "What happened to Kate"? Doc sighed and took a drink from a flask he had in his coat. "I sent her away" he said plainly.

"Why"?

"Oh, I suppose it had something to do with the fact that she saw me more as a meal ticket than her lover". Wyatt could understand this and only nodded. "But with her" Doc said mentioning you, "I can tell that she cares more".

"You two just met today" Wyatt interjected.

"I know, and so did me and Kate when we first met. I thought we were meant to be but I then saw through that false image pretty quickly". Doc took another drink from his flask. "I had nobody else and I just dealt with it. But now, it's different. She's different".

"Well" Wyatt said chuckling, "She is from the future".

"It's not that, Wyatt. I don't know what it is" Doc said having a million theories running through his head. "I don't know".

"Well, maybe you'll find out soon. Cause for now, she's stuck with us. You'll have time to think that through" Wyatt said walking alongside Doc to go inside. Everyone from the theater was inside and they saw Morgan setting up the Faro table and you standing beside him. As they made it over, Doc was still trying to think about what it was about you that really made him feel like you were the one for him after meeting him for the first time today.

He wasn't sure but he knew he needed a drink and to be beside you.

[5sosfanfictioncatalogue]

Neighbors AU Masterlist

All We Seem To Do Is Talk About Sex (ao3) - makingdemands luke/calum T, 12k

Summary: Luke is weird and kind of a total failure and his neighbor has an extravagant sex life.

as the night gets older of you i grow fonder (ao3) - softirwin luke/ashton, michael/calum T, 9k

Summary: Luke’s eight when Ashton moves in next door.

(shamelessly half-based off the video for 'you belong with me')

Bake It Till You Make It (ao3) - nothingliketherain (39_killer_queen) calum/ashton, michael/luke T, 5k

Summary: When Ashton gets a new neighbor, he decides to bring over some homemade muffins to welcome him into the building, like the thoughtful neighbor he is. Nevermind that in the two years Ashton has lived there, he's never done that for anyone. Nevermind that Ashton doesn't usually bake. Nevermind that his neighbor is the hottest guy Ashton has ever seen. It's definitely not just an excuse to talk to him. No matter what Michael says.

Electricity Keeps On Hitting Me (ao3) - galacticsugar luke/ashton T, 3k

Summary: Luke climbs back under his covers to warm up while he assesses the situation. No heat. No internet. No indication when he will have his electricity back. Fuck. What a great Monday this is shaping up to be.

***

for the tumblr prompt "i bought you a ticket."

Hey, Neighbor! (ao3) - cornflowerblue (daydadahlias) luke/ashton E, 17k

Summary: “So, to recap—” Calum says, waving his hand and cocking his brow— “you invented an imaginary beef with your neighbor over lawn care so you could have hate sex fantasies about him? Am I getting that right?”

Ashton sighs, shoulders slumping. “It sounds crazy when you say it.”

I'm Gonna Get to Know You Better (This Christmas) (ao3) - allsassnoclass (brightblackholes) michael/luke T, 6k

Summary: “You hate me,” Luke says flatly.

“I know. Well, I don’t--” Michael sighs. Even when he’s trying to do something nice for him, talking to Luke is infuriating. “Look. I know that we don’t like each other, but it’s Christmas Eve and your flight was just cancelled. Do you want hot chocolate or not?”

i want you (bless my soul) (ao3) - jbhmalum calum/ashton, michael/luke E, 21k

Summary: Thankfully the elevator comes to a stop before Ashton can combust from the blood flowing through his body or say something else awfully embarrassing like “hi, I’m Ashton and I like tall attractive men and it’s hard finding them when you’re already a giant but you’re actually tall and I can’t stop looking at you and you just winked at me and hi, would you marry me and pin me against the wall?”.

- In which Ashton moves in with a guy named Michael, Michael is in love with Luke and annoyed at Calum, and the guy with shaved blue hair from the elevator is too hot for Ashton to know what to do about it.

Oh Christmas Lights, Keep Shining On (ao3) - allsassnoclass (brightblackholes) michael/ashton, luke/calum T, 3k

Summary: Michael and Ashton have won their town's Winter Decoration Competition for the past two years. This year, their new neighbors are going to give them a run for their money.

Somebody I Don't Know (ao3) - MCRmyGeneral michael/calum G, 7k

Summary: Calum walks into his unlocked apartment to find someone sitting on his couch cuddling Duke. Which is not unusual; his friends all have keys.

Except that Calum has absolutely no idea who this guy is, or why he’s in his apartment hugging his dog.

summer nights (ao3) - kaleidoscopeminds luke/calum M, 14k

Summary: Luke was waiting for romance. He was waiting for the guy that sweeps him off his feet, that wants him for everything he is and isn’t afraid to show it.

He used to be sure that guy was out there. Now he’s pretty sure he’s not.

that’s why you like it (ao3) - merlypops michael/calum E, 69k

Summary: Everything I do is oh-so-wrong. That's why you like it.

'“Like this,” Calum said softly, his breath warm on the back of Michael’s neck, making him shiver as he helped the golden-haired boy throw a proper punch. It was a lot more controlled but Michael barely noticed it. He was too focused on the warmth of Calum’s body soaking into his from behind and the way he could feel Calum’s smile pressed to his shoulder. “There,” Calum said softly, hands moving hesitantly as he stepped away, taking his warmth with him. “I think you’ve got it now, Mike.”'

Calum starts doing workouts in the garden over the summer and Michael spends the whole time with his hand down his pants (until Calum takes matters into his own hands).

The Most Beautiful Man In The World (ao3) - babushcat (MerrytheCookie) michael/luke T, 6k

Summary: Michael keeps running into his new attractive neighbor and is an overall disaster.

two paper airplanes flying (ao3) - dazedlight (opinionoutpost) michael/luke T, 21k

Summary: "When he enters his room, he checks Michael's room out of habit. The lights are off and the window's closed, but still there's a paper plane resting on top of a pile of forgotten laundry. He unfolds it carefully, unsure as to what Michael could possibly have to say."

Or, Michael and Luke are neighbours, and, to get his attention, Michael starts sending Luke cute notes in the form of paper airplanes.

you've been stuck in my brain (ao3) - kaleidoscopeminds luke/calum T, 2k

Summary: As he goes back down the corridor towards his flat from the stairwell, he hears a strange clanking noise that seems to be coming from the lift, like someone is throwing something at the doors. He’s not a massive fan of the lifts in this building, they make very questionable groaning noises and often shudder to a halt in a less than comforting way. Luke is scared of most things so is also fairly terrified of plummeting to his death, even if it’s only down four floors, so most of the time decides to take the stairs. Burrito or no burrito.

[the-firebird69]

This kid and his wife are important to our future the Mac proper have a game they want to play it with them if we don't play along we don't survive we can be part of miscellaneous that's dingleberry top guys and others who want to stick around here's the game it's very intense I figured it out once not necessarily.

--he handled money at work and he helps procure work and he got us jobs and he did it by making technology very weird but he was getting jobs from massive massive changes in the paradigm and in how we do things email internet included massive changes and his brother and the clans were involved but they plan on taking the money he was handling that was associated with those advances and they hand it back to him and he takes over the companies that we were working with and owned at the companies that we had him at so in essence it's like this weird repeating parallel he's building things for us in companies that we owned that he started and he's just a builder running around making places to put it in and it's a very lowly job for what he actually did and eventually he will be sitting in the seat and controlling companies that he started to satiate him and keep him occupied and to try and find his people a lot of people are going to be fired and quit and he's supposed to take over and that's how it's going they know their system and it's wicked they know a little of it he says and it is wicked and that he admits it's massively scary and they're around him and he knows about it and they don't talk and they're deadly and there's other things too and his mother and father are deadly people we understand what we're messing with is dangerous but this puts it in perspective and the cash that's his investments where what infused into the company huge investments massive amounts of money from his investments are now there and they inspire people to invest in those companies and those companies will still be around and they're going to be the biggest and not the only companies he has children and they're going to be invited to the table and they have to and we know why or there's no economy and no people and he's going to have to float us it's a different story than JC and Mary no it's like a clan so they're kind of repeating that and they had them do it and that they did it some of the inventing most of the engineering and they built the companies buildings a lot of Mac proper did so they're saying that they will turn around and take it over in the end that's how it goes and this money is important to them very important and he touched on it saying some things to entice you like your children and it works this might be something that takes a while for you to understand

Mac Daddy

You said something like that before and I didn't get it but he gets it now you get it and now it's starting to make a lot of sense and infusing the money is really making sense to me it makes a ton of sense and he does have investments already and there's one that I can tie on to for goober Meister and it would become huge and he says that Hera can invest directly into it and I didn't get that but I do understand it and she has a way of doing it and you won't know he says until it's done and the people will check and see that it's her afterwards and she's showing an image of Katya with their huge sunglasses what you thought were fascinating and she laughs and says it's probably my sisters and we're supposed to get mad about it and make our own and he says I don't know what the deal is I'll have to copy the style anyways and she says what's coming out of him right now is bothering me and really out of his mouth but he wasn't saying it and he's saying I get a jump in it on them and a head start and I made the retiree glasses type of thing that goes over your glasses for people who are four eyes now she's upset she says don't say four eyes say it's people who wear spectacles like Ken. And yeah spectacle Island okay that didn't have to do with that no. It's getting me back no it's just making it up she says that's Hera and we are saying this is how it's going to happen and it is very big we're going to print some people get it.

It was Trump on top switched into us

Thor Freya

Olympus

[danielmoduleb2]

Filmmaking and AI (Final Full Essay)

In this this new era of film making it seems anyone can be a fil maker. Just typing in a sentence of what they want to see, and it would ‘magically’ appear out of thin air. This is where the technological advancement of AI is heading to where the process of film making should be easier to accomplish, but would that compromise the creative thinking of film makers such as myself essentially becoming lazy? Would it replace jobs as big corporation would need to employ people but invest in AI instead since it easier and would go on strike? AI seems frightening to the creative community, but I believe AI would not replace humans.

Since film making started in the late 19th century the process was gruelling. From only shooting black and white footage with no sound thus having to have a live band perform at the cinemas to give life to these films. The editing process was long since they used the linear method of editing, which involves arranging images and sounds in order. At the beginning, this did involve using scissors to splice the footage and then using tape to attach it in the correct order. This was until 1920 when the Moviola was invented making editing easier but still long. Until 50 years later when the tape recorders started appearing during the time when computers were beginning to advance. Eventually util the digital age where we can transfer files easily from hardware to hardware. We’ve seen in each era in retrospective how technology advancement has helped improve film making process. Why however does AI feels different?

AI has been used in many areas not just in the creative industry but when AI started becoming a ‘problem’ for creatives is when generated still images was created. Ethically this function was controversial as AI steals data from actual artists and essentially steal their artwork for a random person to type in and have an artwork that is the same. Because of this, AI was negatively looked upon from the get-go. Not only it looked ugly and unpolished, but they were no creativity to these images. Despite this these tools were used constantly even by me. In HNC (my first year) I used AI generated imagery to use for a book cover design.

Since overall, the reception was positive Google first announced the first video generated AI tool. Now 14 months later we now have Sora Open AI which right now isn’t available to the public, however they contacted Hollywood to allow fil makers to have early access and make short films. To me this thought is crazy since I already believe Hollywood is becoming to corporate and not allowing creativity to flourish as hard as before (when it comes to blockbusters). So now will Hollywood get rid of employees to make more cash grab movies?

Well looking at the history of film making, and AI I have concluded that AI will not replace anyone. When the internet first came it was controversial for people back then but now it is accepted and is instrumental to the process of film making. AI will be the same if it used as a tool not a replacement.

While I have always been attracted to film making because of the visuals, hence why I am more into music videos and moving image rather than just movies or tv shows, I know that narrative is the most important element of film making. Making something the audience can relate can only be achieved through a human making it. AI can’t understand human emotion or doesn’t have that experience to make a film that can be as emotional. If someone asked me to watch a film made by a human or AI, I would choose human because the authenticity is there. If Hollywood or other big film industry turn to AI film making, they will become bankrupt. To prove my point, I will analyse the AI short film Air head by shy kids.

Air Head is an AI movie is about a guy that has a ballon for a head. He monologues his identity crisis but, in the end, accepts it. This movie wasn’t enterally made by humans. First a human created the concept for the AI to visualise, but also the voice acting, and music was made by humans. Now AI properly isn’t as advance when it comes to making music out of thin air yet otherwise, they could have generated music for this short film and voice acting sounded robotic I originally thought it was AI.

So visually this movie is bland. It uses reference points to make a story because it doesn’t have the relatability to make this concept emotionally. There are many movies that have unrealistic concepts, but the audience can relate because the content in the movie has realism to it. This movie fails to emphasise this because AI is only projecting the data that it has gathered and not creatively thinking of and interesting idea.

Comparing this to another movie with a similar concept, Edward Scissor Hand, is night and day. From the colour grading, the acting, the emotions, Air Head possibly can create this because it can’t replace human talent. The movie Edward Scissor Hand is about an animated human that has scissors for hands. Edward is an outcast therefore however in the movie he falls in love with a girl and thus accepts his identity. Both Air head and Edward Scissor Hands have outcasts as main protagonists but what the latter movies does it takes use through a show does not tell journey that gives us time to sympathise with the main character and cheer him along. Air Head just tells us his issue and doesn’t give us any time to understand his character. Air head may be a short film, but other successful short films are able to tell gripping tales in the short time frame.

I believe AI should be used in post-production, specifically, editing. Right now, I am making my moving image video for my exhibition piece. A problem that I am facing is not being able to overlap. I you see my final footage (thus far) on Tumblr, you’ll see in the question section the video footage is in the back. I want the shape animation to be in the back but to do that I would have to rotoscope the footage for that to work. That would’ve been a long task that I don’t have the time for, so I just settled. If there was an I tool that can just rotoscope for me accurately it would’ve been easier. That example is what I mean when AI can be used as a tool to enhance to creative process does not replace it.

Overall, hard work pays off. Those that stand out in the film industry are the innovators that can be create and make moving tales. Since AI is here and it is not going away, I believe we should adapt to it. If I can be just as creative and use AI to enhance my projects that will push me further than someone who has is doing it traditionally.

So, to conclude this study I will evaluate AI authenticity by giving an AI generator the same brief I had for my artefact project. I made a short film based on my artefact which was an inhaler. Since I have asthma, this film is personal to me so can AI relate that. Also, can AI generate a more creative video than me. That is what I will assess.