#i sound stupid and pretentious but all i can do is get worse

[whatthewindsows]

My brother din't let me keep my favorite but worn out boot.

He said that I would be keeping trash, a

picture would be more than good.

But I have lived of trash for all my life, what of is there to live for if not that?

Being alive doesn't make me more than just trash.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

didn't want to add to your post bc i'm not welsh (but asian) and haven't lived in the uk for a while so by no means is this on the same level as the celtophobia experienced by welsh people, but thank you so much for bringing up that "hahaaha your words are so complicated, too complicated for meee" thing that english people do! it's so spot on, right down to that stupid laugh! i work in academia too and i swear i've only ever seen the english do it*-- not just with names/terms/places in lectures but even refusing to say the names of speakers that they introduce at conferences. it's like there's pride in that behaviour, as if they think makes them sound humble rather than incredibly insensitive and ignorant. the other day i saw an english comedian on tv apologize (apologize!) for pronouncing a french word CORRECTLY (while commentating eurovision, of all things) because she knew it was "making her sound pretentious". like what is wrong with these people!

(* not that non-english people are always respectful about non-english/minority languages, but i've never seen them refuse to pronounce something or do "the laugh" + i've experienced a lot more non-english people at least saying "i hope i pronounced this correctly, please correct me if i'm wrong", which is marginally better. i wish more people were like you with the tanzanian terms)

anyway, i hope that lecturer faces consequences for being so unprofessional.

Oh yeah, this is a HUGE part of the problem! The one I always bring up is Amanda Holden announcing the UK Eurovision voting results in 2021. Like EVERY OTHER ANNOUNCER, she had learned how to say 'Good evening' in French and Dutch ("Bon Soir, Goedenavond."); and then, unlike literally any other announcer, IMMEDIATELY followed it up with "That means good evening in French and Dutch, but I've got no idea which is which! Tee hee!"

Friend, I can tell you now - Welsh language social media had a fucking field day.

But yeah, they are highly motivated, culturally, by the idea that respecting someone else's language is cringeworthy and pretentious. They can't handle the idea of losing face and being embarrassed in case they get it wrong, so it becomes turned around - if saying it right is pretentious, then socially, they no longer have to do it and risk embarrassment. It would now be embarrassing to do it right. Genius! They're off the hook!

Anyway, it's bad enough when they do it to us, but it's worse when they do it to Asian languages and cultures, so I offer you a fist bump of solidarity.

[ash-arts-but-sinful]

This is burning a hole into my brain, but what if new game+ gave you the option to summon Carlo instead of Specter and he offers stupid/witty commentary for each boss you fight with him. Tbh this is just for fun, but I wanted to share in case anybody else might like it

Might have to put this one under a cut it could get long. Also spoiler warning!

Scrapped Watchman

• I never liked cops, this is going to be fun!

• Do we really need a watchman this big?

• Okay Sparky, let’s dance!

• (if he gets picked up) Shit-! -> Ugh- okay that might’ve hurt a little.

• Haha! Good riddance! Don’t know what the local kids saw in that thing.

King’s Flame

• Oh boy, a walking furnace.

• Have I ever mentioned I hate the heat?

• The floor is lava! Shit!

• (if he’s set on fire) I know I’m hot, but this is ridiculous! / Hot! Too hot!

• Sigh, thank god. I could never work alongside that… thing.

Archbishop

• Oh wow, that is… hard to look at.

• Watch the chicken legs!

• Really?! With its tongue?! Disgusting!

During phase 2

• How did he manage to get even uglier?

• You should’ve stayed in your shell!

• God chose you to be an Angel alright. Just not a living one.

Black Rabbit Brotherhood

• Some rabbit, the big guy looks more like a pig to me!

• Would somebody shut her up!

• Half of you aren’t even rabbits! That stupid bucket looks like a dog!

• You are too full of yourself, bunny boy.

• These guys need better fursuits

• Pathetic… And don’t bother coming back!

King of Puppets

• Something feels wrong about this.

• That voice…

• No… It can’t be-!

Second phase

• Romeo?!

• Romeo please! Why won’t you stop, it’s me!

• How do we get through to him?!

• No!!! UGH Why wouldn’t you LISTEN?! *shakey inhale* Damn it, just go! Get out of this damn place.

Victor

• What do you want? Are we killing my best friend in disguise again?

• I finally get to see this guy in action and I’m the one who has to fight him! Seriously?!

• This guy really is all washed up.

• That can’t be good for you.

• Yikes, those fists pack one hell of a punch!

• That Simon guy is a real piece of work. Good luck with that.

Green Monster

• Ohh this thing looks disgusting.

• It sounds disgusting too, I think I’m going hurl!

• It slimed me!

Phase 2

• Not the giant cop again!

• Would you! Just! Sit! Still!

• I can only imagine what it smells like in that puppet chassis.

• That was truly vile. If you ever need help fighting a giant slime monster again PLEASE hesitate to ask.

Black Rabbit Brotherhood 2

• Didn’t you learn your lessons last time?

• Lord, are these guys full of themselves.

• If you couldn’t beat us last time what makes you think you can this time?

• Looks like the pig wants his bacon cooked again!

• You had to mutate yourself because you wouldn’t beat us last time? Now THAT is pathetic.

• Still losers. Still pretentious. Still pathetic. How disappointing.

Laxasia

• Hmm. Big sword.

• Oh and it makes lightning too, great!

• How can she move so fast with all that armour!?

Phase 2

• Ohhhh good, now she’s even faster!

• Weakness to it or not electricity still hurts like hell!

• There she goes into the air again. Coward!

• Well that wasn’t fun, but I suspect it’ll be even less fun in that tower.

Simon

• Isn’t that the guy from the exhibition?

• This guy is a real piece of work.

• And I thought the rabbits were full of themselves!

Phase 2

• I didn’t think it could get any worse!

• Who needs this many hands?!

• God or not this guy is going down!

• The last like after Simon is defeated depends on your playthrough: Truth “Until next we meet. Which will be sooner than you think, I can’t wait.” Punctuated by a dark chuckle. Lie “I’ll see you again soon. For what it’s worth though… I’m sorry.”

Bonus: depending on what playthrough you did the Nameless Puppet will actually talk and have different dialogue

Truth playthrough/Lie playthrough

• I’ve been waiting for this for too damn long. / I didn’t want it to come to this.

• You don’t deserve that heart! It’s rightfully mine! / Please, you have to understand! I need that heart!

• You stupid puppet, I hope you didn’t think father actually cared about YOU! / Gepetto never cared for you, I wish he had, at least you could’ve known love.

• Why won’t you DIE ALREADY!? / I deserve to live too, this isn’t fair for either of us!

• You will NEVER be me, just give up already! / You may not be me, but you deserve better than this.

During Phase 2 the puppet won’t speak, but Carlo’s dialogue will be inserted along everyone else’s, tbh I want to have him say something during phase 2, but there’s already so much going on during that fight. In a truth playthrough the ending will play out as normal and Gepetto will die, calling Pinocchio a useless puppet, Pinocchio will be the one to finish off Carlo’s vessel. In a lie playthrough Carlo will finally be able to control his actions and is unable to finish off Pinocchio, he shuts himself down while giving one final line.

“Maybe in another life we could have been… brothers.”

Gepetto is distraught and instead of shedding tears for his father Pinocchio sheds them for Carlo

A lot of his radient dialogue would consist of laughter that borders on unhinged and the usual exertion and damage taking grunts. Regardless of what playthrough you do he wants to keep either his heart or Pinocchio alive, so if his health falls below half he has a chance of reminding you to heal. Also depending on the playthrough he’ll either compliment perfect blocks, parry’s, dodges or hits for lies and for truths he’ll be a snarky asshole, claiming he could do just as good if not better

[riality-check]

even more daisy jones-adjacent things. parts 1, 2, 3, and 4. tw mentions of substance abuse, talks of blacking out. part 6. part 7.

ao3

It hits number five.

The song about losing, the song Steve helped write, the song with Steve's vocals, hits number five. It's the highest Corroded Coffin has ever gotten on a chart, and it's the highest Steve Harrington has, too.

They're ecstatic, Chrissy is smug, and the record company offers an album.

If, and only if, Steve Harrington continues to work with Corroded Coffin.

Eddie scared himself by saying "yes" first and scared himself even more by agreeing with Steve. But, he reasons, if they're going to be writing an album together, he needs to get the hell over himself.

Easier said than done, but Eddie has always had an "A for effort" kind of mindset.

He's always been the one writing most of the songs. He's always been the one with too many words in his head, always itching for a pen, always thinking in terms of guitar tabs and staff notation when Archie is feeling especially pretentious. Eddie has always done most of it, which has always worked. Jeff helps with lyrics because "I need to make sure you won't make me say anything stupid," Gareth has no interest beyond writing his own drum parts, and Archie, despite knowing the most formal music theory of any of them, doesn't care beyond cleaning it up.

But Eddie needs to write with someone now, and he realizes very quickly that he can't work with someone he hates, or, worse, barely knows.

"Let's play a game," he says, setting down his guitar and kicking his feet up on the couch. He and Steve have long since abandoned writing in the studio and instead decided that Steve's house - a little stucco bungalow with a pool and other cars always in the driveway - would make for a better venue.

Steve scowls when he sees Eddie's feet on the couch, but he stops humming to himself and starts paying attention. "What kind of game?"

"Truth or truth."

"Don't you mean truth or dare?"

"Nope," Eddie says. "Truth or truth. I ask a question, you answer it honestly, then I have to answer my own question. Then you ask, I answer, you answer. Rinse repeat, you get the drill."

"How do you win?" Steve asks, looking up at Eddie from where he sits on the floor.

"You win if you ask a question the other person refuses to answer."

"Sounds like I can just give up as soon as you ask."

"You could," Eddie admits. "But where's the fun in that?"

A tiny, barely-there smile pops up on Steve's face, and that's how Eddie knows he's starting to get somewhere.

Yeah. He's on edge around Steve. He thinks that anyone in his position would be. But Steve is admittedly impressive and mysterious and pretty, and all of that calls to Eddie's lesser instinct to push.

So, the game starts. They exhaust the run of the mill questions fairly quickly; Eddie learns that Steve's favorite color is sapphire, that he used to babysit and lifeguard, that he's from some podunk town in Indiana that he doesn't seem too keen on sharing more about. Eddie, in turn, says that his favorite color is ruby, that he used to work as a mechanic and thought about doing tattoos, that he's from a lot of different places all around Appalachia but the simpler answer is "born in West Virginia, raised in Kentucky."

"Shouldn't you make country music or something, then?" Steve asks.

"Folk's more applicable," Eddie says. "And I grew up listening to it, but I need to make something a little more... all-encompassing."

"I wouldn't say metal's very general."

"No, but when you listen to it, you can't think of anything else but the sound, can you?"

Steve considers for a moment, then nods wordlessly. "Your question."

Eddie thinks. He stares at Steve's twitchy hands, his exhausted face, his slumped posture. And he asks, in direct opposition to his better judgement, "When's the last time you slept?"

He watches, in real time, as Steve's face completely shutters.

But that only lasts an instant. The complete fall, the shut-down, lasts a fraction of a second before Steve completely shifts. He sits up taller, brushes his hair back from his forehead, and looks more alert, less fidgety.

He sobers up, right there in front of Eddie, or at least he pretends to.

"That's a boring question," he says. "Last night."

"You're supposed to answer honestly," Eddie reminds him.

"I am. I slept last night. Seven hours."

Eddie bites his tongue to stave off his instinctual, No, you didn't.

"You're supposed to answer your question now," Steve says once the silence has stretched too long.

"Same as you," Eddie says. "Last night."

Steve scoots closer toward the couch. There's a smug smile on his face, one that Eddie doesn't particularly like.

He thinks he might need a cigarette.

Then, Steve asks, "When's the last time you drank?"

Yeah. Eddie's definitely going to need a cigarette by the time this conversation ends.

"Two years ago," he says because if Steve won't be honest, he will. "August. Indianapolis. I was blacked out. I don't remember anything until halfway through the show the next day. Gareth says he thought about dragging my ass offstage because I was too far gone to tune my guitar until after the first three songs."

The smile melts off Steve's face the more Eddie talks. If Eddie were a better person, he wouldn't find such joy in that.

Eddie isn't a better person. Steve isn't, either.

"Eddie, I-"

"Answer your own question."

"A week ago," Steve says. "I was out celebrating Robin's birthday. Honest."

Eddie believes him. Really, he does. But he's a little bit vindictive, and because Steve shoved him, he has to shove back harder.

"What are you running from?" he asks.

Steve goes completely still. "What?"

Eddie doesn't bother explaining. He knows that if he brings up the way Steve is always a little not here, the way he's fidgety and always too warm, the way he always wears something with pockets that he sticks his hands in, that Steve won't say anything at all.

So, he says again, "What are you running from?"

"I'm not running from anything," Steve says.

"I think I win the game."

Steve scrubs a hand down his face. "Sure. Whatever. But answer your own question."

"Monsters," Eddie says because he's honest.

Steve raises his eyebrows. "You have no idea what monsters are, Eddie."

"Is that what you're running from?"

Steve stares at him again. Eddie watches his hands move in his pockets.

"I need a cigarette," he says, standing up. "You want one?"

Steve shakes his head. "I don't smoke. It stains my teeth."

Eddie walks outside before he pushes further, says something about the fact that Steve is doing way worse than cigarettes and cares more about his teeth than staying alive.

What the hell is he running from?

Eddie hates himself for wanting to find out.

[brehaaorgana]

I really do hate how much contemporary art wings or museums give me headaches. It's like sensory hell 90% of the time:

The worst soul sucking vibrating white on the walls. Brighter than landlord white. Brighter than dorm room white. It's neon white. Death to white box rooms in galleries and museums. Hate that shit. Smh it's worse than neutral greige.

Floors are also usually terrible. Shiny concrete or hospital chic tile type of shit. Everything is literally colder because of it. Bring back polished old wood and carpet!!! Or cream/ivory tile!!

It feels like the chrome episode of SpongeBob tbh

ACTUAL neon and flashing lights are unfortunately common and while I don't normally find those to be a huge issue, see them combined with above white paint and despair. Had a contemporary curator guest lecturer berate me in grad school for politely asking to move away from the loud room with pulsing lights in order to focus on the discussion better bc I could feel a headache building.

(I also disliked her immensely because she assigned pretentious overwritten contemporary curatorial readings but knew very little about museum theory and also got mad when I pointed out someone's mock exhibition proposal on a staircase was LITERALLY wheelchair inaccessible. All those stupid fucking readings on diversity and the contemporary art world or whatever the fuck and me saying "hey if this exhibition was literally mounted going up a staircase, how will people with disabilities access it?" Was apparently an appallingly rude critique of a final project which was meant to be as realistic as possible and not the most basic fucking question of accessibility. I still get so angry whenever I think about it. A whole class of curatorial theory and "okay but how do people see that cool art if they can't walk on stairs?" Was something No one else in the room considered. Dumb. Pure contemporary curatorial theory is divorced from reality entirely.)

Too many pieces have audio clips on repeat, and an unfortunately large number of the audio sounds are discordant or unpleasant on purpose. Shrieks, squeals, chanting, whatever. Volume levels are never standardized (it can alternate quiet and LOUD) and shit frequently echoes. How tf did I not go insane when I was student working front desk at a contemporary art museum?? Even if there's headphones you can often still hear the buzzing noise coming from outside them. Very specific form of torture when you experience it for several hours on repeat. Especially the quiet humming of the lights or electronics and repetitive audio.

Video clips with light flickering, flashing, or color changes are fine for me briefly or alone but for more than ten minutes? Death.

[thatscarletflycatcher]

I know, I know, this will probably sound a little pretentious/condescending, perhaps, I probably deserve any negative interaction I may get, but I can't help but feel this way and I need to say it:

The concept of Mina is magical, but the execution is very poor. And I guess you can say this about pretty much every character in Dracula, but in her case it is specifically jarring to me because it tells me Bram Stoker cannot really think of writing a woman as a fully rational creature with a will of her own. He heaps praise on her as an attempt at compensating, but it doesn't work, because she's constantly denied a voice and a place on the team as a member of the team. And by this I don't mean that I expected Mina to become Mina Harker Vampire Slayer, and for her to like, get armed to the teeth with all sorts of weaponry and go climb walls and break into houses with them and getting into fistfights, that's ridiculous. But she doesn't get to give suggestions, her opinion is never consulted or sought after, and Stoker has forced the characters to become stupid so that he can sideline Mina more effectively.

The past couple of days have been worse on this front that what came before, for me. Mina gets gruesomely assaulted by Dracula, and she's allowed like... a 5-10 minute breakdown, and then she's back at "being brave and cheerful"... but this is not about her being strong but about the men needing HER, THE ONE WHO WAS ATTACKED AND IS TURNING INTO A VAMPIRE SLOWLY to comfort and encourage them, and also for them not to feel that bad and guilty about what a miserably poor job they did at protecting her before.

By turning Mina, Bram has now turned her into the team's GPS, she's now a tool, even if she is a willing tool, and she doesn't even get to do it while conscious, they take the info out of her under hypnosis. Bram also uses the host-brand thing into another motivation for the men, and Mina's feelings and thoughts about it are little more than an afterthought.

You can make all sorts of justifications in-story, and you are valid; I don't think the characters are evil, or that Van Helsing is branding Mina on purpose, the same way I didn't believe that Arthur was honor killing Lucy, and I really sympathize with the impulse to think of Mina and the other characters in terms of their potential rather than what they are in the novel. But I also cannot help to find the grasping at straws to say that Mina IS in the book a character with lots of agency and depth very sad, and then "well, it was the times" justification even sadder, because it is not true.

[pink-lighter]

chicken feet: what is your emotional "flaw"?

red cheeks: what makes you nervous?

sunflower: what do you love and cherish?

bells: what sounds are your favorite or calm you the most? turnip: what is a food you could eat everyday?

spit: do you get jealous easily?

hiiii i love you sm!!!!

chicken feet: for me, it always boils down to fear. i have a desire to maintain a distance between myself and my emotions, especially as it pertains to communication. it’s so hard for me to express my emotions verbally, and it’s so hard to articulate them in a way that captures their breadth; the only way i can ever do my emotions justice is through writing and written language. writing creates the perfect amount of distance between myself and what i am saying — traces of my soul linger, but only if you look, like the writing stands in for my presence. i guess all of that is the say that honesty scares me, and to express my emotions verbally puts me at the centre of that sincerity.

i’m also afraid that the way i think and feel and think about how i feel is inherently pretentious. sometimes, i feel like i’m so far disconnected from reality that nobody else could possibly relate to my thoughts or feelings. the things i have to say are preposterous, or worse yet, they are clichéd and unoriginal, as if the depths of my emotional undercurrents are that of a stock character. this might also be a driving force in my fear of vulnerability. i’m considerably less scared of this now than i have been in the past, especially after a conversation i had which a friend: he said that making music felt essential for his life, and immediately made a joke that it sounded douchey. i quoted the idiot by elif batuman, and said that saying things you know to be true always sounds a little pretentious.

as mentioned before, i have a very deep-rooted fear of vulnerability. i’m afraid that if i am not constantly performing, or brightening other people’s worlds, they will leave me. i’m learning to accept that in order to meaningfully let someone in, i have to allow them to see the worst parts of me, shine a light on parts that i am scared and ashamed of, and choose to stay. moreover, arguably the worst part of myself — my fear of vulnerability and sincerity — will never go away unless i continually confront it by letting the people i love confront it too.

red cheeks: a lot! i get really flustered in the people i perceive to be very intelligent, or look up to in some way, because i want them to like me and think i’m smart. i get nervous around crushes. i get nervous when i’m ordering food at a place i don’t normally go to, and i’m afraid of asking for something in a stupid way. i’m afraid of asking for my medication at a pharmacy because i never know what to say. “i’m here to pick up my medication.” no shit. it’s a pharmacy.

sunflower: i am filled with so much love, so it’s hard to keep this answer concise! i really love all my friends, and i’d do anything for them. i just feel so incredibly known when i talk to them. my friend was helping me with my homework today, and while she was on call with her mum, her mum said “tell [name redacted] that i love her!” human interaction and connection is just so beautiful. i love when i’m walking and the sun is shining. i love the curve of my lips. i love listening to music and feeling it make a permanent home in my heart. i love existing in the world and seeing all my love and care for other people reflected back at me. i’m listening to elliott smith’s cover of thirteen, and thinking about someone i love and care about dearly. i love writing and reading. i love studying, and i’m so grateful that i’m getting an education. i love architecture, especially architecture that makes you feel like inhabiting it is a perpetual act of discovery. a building on my campus has very decorative vents. i love tea, all the different and enticing flavours i can choose from. i love smiling, and being smiled at. i love fresh fruits and vegetables, and cooking them. i love the sound of laughter. i love learning, and i never wish to stop. i love my eyes. i love curling up underneath my blanket. i love love.

bells: oooh, i love the sound of rain! the sound of a really thunderous rain in the morning or early afternoon on a day when you have nothing to do and nowhere to go is particularly delightful.

turnip: right now, it’s this tomato and aubergine spaghetti i made last night. i think this might just be because i had it so recently. in general, i don’t really want to only have one food for the rest of my life. anyways, here’s how i made the pasta: i cubed the aubergine, salted it to extract the bitterness, and roasted it with olive oil. i semi-caramelised some onions, then added garlic and cubed tomatoes. i salted the tomatoes to extract some water from them, and then i added some pasta water and let them boil in that until the tomatoes softened and i crushed them a bit with the back of the wooden spoon. i added chilli flakes, chilli powder, black pepper, and dried basil. then, i added the boiled spaghetti and roasted aubergine. below is a phot of said tomato-aubergine pasta

spit: i hate feeling jealous, but, yeah, i think i do get jealous easily. i think the thing i get most jealous of is when my friends have parents that treat them like adults. my friend and his girlfriend took a trip a few years back, and i could help but feel so jealous that he could just…go? i know it’s unfair, but i just wished i could also go places without asking for permission.

[anhed-nia]

You can really hear the smug voice of an insufferable grammar wonk dictating the tagline for this stupid movie. THE LESSON has one of my favorite movie problems to hate on, which is that it's about someone impossibly great at their craft creating an impossibly great masterpiece--a premise that almost no one can execute, unless you're like making THE RED SHOES with Moira Shearer who was beyond human, this is basically the worst plot setup ever. If you don't literally have the greatest living artist to help make your movie about the idea of the greatest living artist, just don't do it, I'm serious. And actually it's even worse when its a story about a great writer writing a great story, because what is that supposed to imply about the screenwriter who wrote it? And god forbid it's some sort of fantasy tale in which you get to have the uniquely insulting experience of a storyteller telling you that storytelling is literally magical, the implication being that the storyteller is himself some sort of high priest you should worship. But the king of this general problem is FINDING FORRESTER, a movie with all sorts of issues, the main one of which is that it's supposedly about "great writing" but you basically never catch a glimpse of what that consists of. It's like making KING KONG with no ape, just people telling you how big the ape is. Holy mackerel he was a whopper, take my word for it! Big, big ape. The biggest. As I recall your closest encounter with the amazing writing of the story's young prodigy comes when he drops his backpack while trespassing on scary Old Man Forrester's territory, and Forrester leaves notes all over his notebooks like "CONSTIPATED THINKING" and "ATMOSPHERE PUNGENT." Spoiler alert but near the end of FINDING FORRESTER, there is finally going to be a big public reading of an amazing essay--but then as soon as it starts, the music swells and there's just this hilarious montage of extras pretending to listen to something awesome. An amazing mass performance by all the extras.

So anyway THE LESSON is about how Richard E. Grant is a super amazing writer writing his highly anticipated next novel, and Daryl McCormack has to come to his palatial estate to tutor his neurotic son. Daryl spends a lot of time presumably doing great writing, spying on Richard E. Grant while he eats out his wife Julie Delpy, and spontaneously spouting verse or rattling off Wikipedia articles about great cultural figures. THE LESSON has a lot of cosmetic similarities to SALTBURN so it's really obvious that some sort of perverted plan is being hatched by one or more of the people involved, and like I just could not wait for them to get on with it. Daryl is so smarmy and precious and dewy-eyed I just wanted to punch him in is pretentious little face, I never imagined how angry I could be at someone just for reciting Shakespeare, I was really rooting for him to get victimized by the rich people. At least Richard E. Grant is always exciting even when he's saying the dumbest "smart guy" shit imaginable, he's such a demon, but this script is really the pits. It's almost like the guy who wrote it actually hates writing and writers and has some sort of bone to pick with people who are good enough to get novels published. Actually the guy who wrote it is a playwright who does some sort of comedy routine with an acoustic guitar, and I don't think I need to know a whole lot more about that. But at the same time this movie could have done with some jokes, and it was stingy of him not to offer them.

I do have one nice thing to say about THE LESSON though, which is that intermittently, for no particular reason, there are these great inserts of beavers dicking around in the idyllic pond by Richard E. Grant's house. It's so startling when it first happens because apparently beavers make THE WEIRDEST NOISE, it's so cool and fucked up, it sounds like a sick kazoo and I totally love it. I have to think that the beavers were included in the movie spontaneously during production just because they happened to be there and it always adds value to have random nature stuff if you can get it. Nobody ever refers to them, there are no other animals or animal-type metaphors in the picture unless you count some sort of analogy to Julie Delpy getting her beaver licked constantly. That would be pretty funny actually.

N.B. I couldn't find a video of the angry beaver noises that closely resembled the ones in the film. It would be weird if it was just some eccentric foley choice, I don't think it is, but in any case you'll just have to imagine it unless you want to watch THE LESSON.

I'll say one more thing about SALTBURN and then I'll stfu: I guess this is vaguely spoilery so stop reading if you care about that, even though I have to say I found that movie so obvious. By the time it finally gets around to its big perverted twist, I just kind of felt like, Well yeah, DUH. Usually I when I come to a movie like that, I tolerate the beautiful young people and stay for the psychotic debauchery, but in this case I found the movie's darkness so forced and condescending and basically meaningless that I couldn't bring myself to give a shit. The best parts of SALTBURN are when the beautiful young people are having a great time, trying on fun outfits and frolicking on the castle lawn. That seemed to me to be the most honest part of the movie, and actually I think that when people tell these stories about how rich people are secretly corrupt and dead inside despite their veneer of happiness and achievement, it's clear that they're really in it for the fetishistic depictions of extreme decadence, and the twist or the comeuppance part is just a cheap, moralizing excuse to fantasize at length about how awesome it would be to be rich. I guess SALTBURN's big excuse for existing is its ultimate assertion that being jealous of rich people is way sicker and more disgusting than being an actual rich person who hoards resources and plays games with the plebeians. I find that pretty suspect, and I think it would have been a better movie if it just let itself honestly fetishize power and luxury instead of making shady excuses.

[angelic-writer]

Whumpcember Day 22 - Seizures

"Ugh..."

Julia heard Adam utter an exasperated sigh coming from the front desk. He seemed to be annoyed by something. She approached him in case he needed a hand.

"You need help with something?"

Adam ran his hand through his hair. "Ugh... Yeah, I'm just... trying to figure out what to do for this stupid festival. Cesar is supposed to help me, but he's off doing god knows what."

"Oof. I know that feeling. Maybe I can help you out with that?"

"Yes, please! I would really appreciate that."

Julia went over to him and looked at the stack of papers. It appeared to be a map of the classroom.

"Okay, so I'm trying to figure out which event we should do for the festival. The problem is, we're a book club and people tend to view book clubs as boring and kinda pretentious. So we need something that draws them in. Something that'll convince them to join."

"Hmm... Do you think a poetry performance will do the trick? Some of the members reciting their own writing will probably draw them in. Maybe we should make some food as well..."

"Oh? What kind?"

"Well, I was thinking cupcakes or cookies. Maybe we could write each word on them. Give it some variety. Then, people can choose which word they like the most. And maybe we can put an inspirational quote on a banner too! Something about trying your best while writing."

Adam's eyes lit up. "Oh wow, you really know your stuff! I like that."

"Hehe, thanks. I uh, don't know if it's gonna work, though. I haven't really shared my baking with anyone before." She scratched the back of her head.

"Well, I'm sure your work will be fantastic." He chuckled. "Y'know, I kinda underestimated you for a second."

"Eh? What do you mean?"

"Well, I thought you joined because this club is full of cute boys."

"Please don't say it like that. I just want to help out my friend."

"Relax. I'm just teasing you. Honestly, you're even worse than Jonah sometimes. I'm impressed!"

"Ugh..." Julia buried her face in her hands.

"Right. The plans." Adam shuffled the papers in his hands. She looked at him as he worked. He looked like he was really into his craft. Despite him being vice president, he was acting more like the club president than anything. She had no idea where Cesar could be. He was probably just busy or something.

She let out a yawn. Man, when did I get so tired?

"Sleepy?"

She nodded. She rested her head on his shoulder as he continued to scan the map, muttering something under his breath. She felt her eyes begin to close and soon, she was fast asleep.

"Hello...?"

She opened her eyes. She expected to be in the club, but all she saw was darkness. Who spoke to her just now?

"Ces? Adam?" She called out.

"Julia..."

She blinked, trying to look for the voice yet again.

"Do you... remember me?"

That voice... She could've sworn she heard it somewhere, but her head was starting to hurt. It sounded so familiar, but she couldn't remember where she heard it from. It was like being in thick fog. A figure slowly approached her. It was wearing a grey hoodie and was wearing a cross necklace.

Cross... necklace...?

She looked at his face. It was completely blank and his neck... It had an ugly purple mark on it like he was...

He was...

She started to scream. The figure began to scream with her. He began to claw at his neck, blood covering his fingers. His eyes were more visible now. They were empty, glassy... dead.

Red, blue and green were all the colors she could see, blending together and morphing into something she could not describe.

The colors, they won't stop.

Bright, beautiful colors.

Flashing, expanding, piercing.

Red, Blue, Green

An endless

cacophony

of meaningless

noise

The noise, it won't stop

Violent, grating waveforms

Squeaking, screeching, piercing

Sine, consine, tangent

Like playing a chalkboard on a turntable

Like playing a vinyl on a pizza crust

An endless

life

of meaningless

R e m e m b e r m e.

"CESAR!! CESAR, GET THE FUCK OVER HERE!!"

She had fallen to the floor and was spasming, letting out an ear-piercing screech. Her limbs twitched violently, her head being thrown back in an awful manner. Adam just stared, not knowing what to do.

"Adam?! What's going- OH GOD, JULIA!!" Cesar dropped the papers that were in his arms and rushed over to her. "Get her on her side! And make sure no objects are in the way!" He turned to Jonah. "Jonah, you time the seizure!"

Jonah was stock still, but nodded. "O-Okay!"

Cesar and Adam turned her over, trying to ignore the look on her face. Her blue eyes were wide and terrified, still letting out a screech. Everyone just stared at the scene, horrified.

"Well, don't just stand there! Get the nurse!"

The triplets were frozen, although Julius had ran out of the club room, racing to the nurse's office. Cesar screwed his eyes shut.

I'm sorry, Julie... I'm so sorry...

[ashtonsunshine]

I mean i liked checking it out and pretty much was into it idk jobless 💀 (but im glad im changing i literally ignore these stuff now as much as can... still nosey but its getting better lol).

Unfortunately i just like to know shit but after a while it sounds weird and almost repetition of the same things that happened long time ago.

I don't get the ones that try to do or change something about things like those are strangers to you ykwim? Just reading the gossip is a thing but trying to intervene like... what are you going to do? 😭

And it got really weird like doxxing and shit so thats not right... specially with a baby on the way its just too much (like weirdos wishing harm on a baby?!!? absolutely insane!)

Realizing to focus on what you actually like is way better and more fun.

But i always notice how ashton does the most for this fandom yet he's always the most hated in these type of blogs, it just breaks my heart he's very passionate about what he does and he gets shitted on for it, being called pretentious for showing his love... does he get a lil silly goofy? Yes but it's sweet idk what ppl see and make up something negative from it and when he uses big words? Lol i like adding new words to my vocabulary that i'll probably never use.

Sorry this is very long and honestly you dont have to answer this but i just was so much in (surprised im not blocked 💀) and then one day i was like well.. this is stupid and annoying so i kinda stopped.

Saw you went to a 5sos show days ago i hope you had a great time 🤍 and again you dont have to answer this at all but your post got me thinking a little... one of the first ppl i followed on here and i think your hello/goodmorning posts are very sweet and the way you always post them is sweeter. i hope you are having a great day/night from wherever you are 👍🏻

I understand the human need to know and be nosy, but I've learnt that sometimes it's better to be ignorant in order to be happy and enjoy things in peace.

I see this dynamic at work every day. People gossip about others because they have this need of talking shit for no reason other than being low-key jealous of their colleagues' workplace situation. It's as if people are envious of other's happiness and become petty about it.

Drama and gossip are addicting. It's like an adrenaline rush. But, ultimately, like every addiction, it starts consuming you from within and disrupting your life.

I'll never understand how some people have so much energy to run these types of accounts that harbour so much negativity, when some days I don't even have energy to exist right.

I've read so much shit about this band over the last decade on the internet, and you're right, Ashton somehow always gets it worse simply because he refuses to play the game and chooses to be himself no matter what. Him and his big words, and his sarcasm, and his snarky comments. It's one of the reasons I love him. Fuck everyone! Be yourself and the right people will come to you and stay with you.

But you know what makes my skin crawl? When the blogs are like "free speech", as if free speech means you're allowed to say whatever you want without consequences. It angers me when people use free speech as an excuse to be unpleasant and mean, because that's not what free speech is. Free speech means you can't be jailed for voicing an opinion; not that you can't be a target of criticism for it.

Only people who haven't had the right of free speech taken away from them do that. There was a heavy dictatorship in my country until 1974 where people would be grabbed on the streets by undercover state police if they gathered in groups larger than three and questioned for conspiracy against the government. Some people were tortured. Some people disappeared. Others were killed. All that for voicing an opinion. My parents lived through this shit, so I don't take my right of free speech lightly, and neither should any of you.

I'm getting political now, so I'm gonna go.

Thank you for the sweet words. 🫶🏻 I'm glad you're out of that dark place.

[potatoesandsunshine]

🌈🤍👐💌!

thanks hannah!!! these questions come from this fic writer ask game

🌈is there a fic that you worked *really fucking hard on* that no one would ever know? maybe a scene/theme you struggled with?: i’m super prone to falling down the too-much-research hole, so even something really short/fluffy like feel the ground beneath my feet turn into the sky had multiple hours spent reading stuff on ink and paper composition that ended up being... almost completely irrelevant 🤣 in terms of scenes and themes, my postcanon-grogleth series was definitely my most challenging. honestly my biggest weakness as a fic writer is that i can’t write a believable romance to save my life, and these two stories... are that. it was easier for me to write about everyone wrestling with grief than it was to write even a little pining, i’m just not good with it. it was also my first try at re-writing a fic from a different pov, so it was a big challenge to decide which moments to mirror and which to step away from.

🤍what's one fic of yours you think people didn't "get"?: y’know, i can’t really think of one! i feel like my work is pretty straightforward and i haven’t had anything get really misunderstood before. i guess in general, once in a while people leave (very kind!) comments wanting something like what i’ve written to happen in canon - when that is never my goal as a writer. i don’t write stories that i want to see in whatever actual canon, i write things i want to have in my own version of it. if that makes sense? like, i didn’t write now this story was when swords were humble because i wanted cr to put out a fictional textbook, and i didn’t write most agitated hands, be my salvation because i wanted supergiant to add a knitting minigame to hades. i just wrote them because i wanted to have those things for my own imagination.

👐what do YOU get out of writing?: it’s 1000% the “i want to read this so i have to write it” feeling. i love comments and i love attention, but the primary reason i write is so i can go back later and reread my stories :P that being said i also go back and reread my whole ao3 inbox whenever i’m sad so. the outside validation does help.

💌share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!: one thing about me is i have 183928493 WIPs at any given moment and i am excited about all of them. i’ve been having a lot of fun lately with a d&d-au for legally blonde characters that’s half very silly half the kind of awful realization that desire can be (i promise it’s not as pretentious as it sounds). i’m finally getting close to done on a dragon age:origins fic that’s been on the burner for about two years and that’s a super fun feeling!! i’m indulging in a woke-up-married pikelan vegas au that no one needs which has lead to a very nostalgic playlist (when waking up in vegas is the first song it can only be good). i've decided to actually break into andor fic and am currently working on a 'they should make this marriage worse by involving a third party' fic that's very 'i hate you so much'/'you wanna fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid also i hate you too'. and i’ve been working on now is the season again, which is entirely ‘haven’t you ever just wanted to destroy’ being narratively rewarded.

[iseesound]

𝐈 𝐒𝐄𝐄 𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃! 𝐑𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐨, 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐎𝐟 𝐂𝐚𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐫🗡️

Aired 02.09.23

Featuring music from Injury Reserve, Joe Glass, Radiohead and more.

Listen on Spotify and Apple Music.

If you think this is about you, it probably is.

I have yet to feel worse than the day my closest friend betrayed the trust I had in her. (Woah getting personal today aren't we). I find it funny I started making these mixes for my friends and she was the first one to get one, and now almost two years later am doing much more with it.

Beginning with the first three songs, I tried to capture the three main themes throughout the set. "The Inflated Tear" by Rahsaan Roland Kirk was used in the movie "Judas and The Black Messiah" which I find fitting to start a set about betrayal with a song that was used thematically throughout a movie about betrayal. My feelings about everything, to this day, confuse me. Half of me tries to move on, while the other one is still angry. Although the song "u" is about Kendrick Lamar's own internal turmoil. If you turn the second verse onto someone else, or the beginning of the third verse, the verses mirror the same turmoil I felt when I heard about all the things she told my friends. Everything I do, I do with intention. With these sets, I often recontextualize music, and give it new meaning. Which sounds like a pretentious way of making playlists, but I don't see it that way.

It was around September I was able to get over everything that happened. There was this vulnerability, which is expressed in "Time" by George Riley, that I began to feel.

"I'm very protective over my space I don't let no one in unless I'm satisfied they're good and humble Don't like to mingle with the fickle and fake"

I love how this song starts, there's a lot of rock/indie songs in here with guitars/strings being the main instrument. It helps with the cohesiveness of the whole set itself. I'm not an avid Radiohead listener, but the song, even with its clear message of finding real friends, these particular set of lyrics, remind me of the stupidity of it all.

"They brought in the CIA The tanks and the whole marines To blow me away To blow me sky high"

I saw Joe Glass preform "Slither" live last week on Two Faced Radio. (Thursdays from 3PM-5Pm right after my show ;) ) Seeing his fingers dance on the neck of his guitar in person really cemented my love for this song.

"Was there nothing he could Do to make her stay?"

There was a point where I didn't really care about what happened. I was more caught up in salvaging the friendship then realizing how bad it was. Looking back at it now, it was her way of ending our friendship, maybe out of spite, or maybe something else. It was about half a year of uncomfortable conversations that made me feel worse.

The downside of becoming so close to someone, is how intertwined they become with your own life. Our lives began to intersect everywhere. For a long time I wondered what would I say when I would see her. I realized after a while, I really didn't want to say anything. They probably would not mean the same to her anyways.

My American Life, Brockhampton

"And I got nothing to give, that's why I made you this tape I been climbin' this wall, how much more can I take? Sometimes I think about dyin', but then I think of those days Sometimes I wish we could speak, but I have nothing to say"

Bust, Lomelda

"I thought of so many things To say to you, to you But what were they What were they What were they to you, to you"

Reflecting back on it all. What happened, and our friendship. I began to realize that it wasn't as healthy as I thought it was. Ironically, I put this in a mix I made her right after everything happened. But I realize now what Clairo meant in "Little Changes" by singing:

"He loved me good enough to calm me down But tried to trick me into little changes

I see the end before it begins"

I have a photo wall in my room. With pictures of my friends and family. She's in a few. There's a few with other friends that have faded. On a call once with my friend, I asked him, "I should take these down shouldn't I?" What he said to me has stuck to me even till now. "You can still be happy with the good memories you have."

"But white noise comes from nothing at all And finally I feel Good Good to fall between The ones I love and the ones that faded"

The vulnerability I'm trying to express, where I'm trying to figure out how to express is hard to put into words. I feel like it's just plain corny. But sometimes the most clear way to express is just being honest about.

Personally, Omar Apollo

"Too many people I don't see no more Too many feelings I don't feel no more 'Cause I really don't wanna be here alone Too many people I don't need no more So many doubts that I stop keeping score"

I could go on and on about "Glory", from the way Hodge censors himself, to his mention of Jesus. But I own three frogs, and so all I have to mention from this song is this line:

"Dissecting my life apart like a frog with no ribbit"

I just recently got into beabadoobee, "broken cd" repeats the whole mixtape theme I have going on. Though I'm the only one who really understands that with the way I make connections in these playlists.

I go back in forth with my feelings about the whole situation. But for the most part I kept quiet about it.

TO FEEL ALIVE, Kali Chis

"I let them crucify me I kept my head down, humble Some people get their kicks just steppin' on your dreams, I know it"

I remember when “Non Voglio Mai Vedere Il Sole Tramontare” was released, Caroline Polachek had announced it saying it was out of character for her. It doesn’t surprise me she can sing opera so well. (Its to my understanding an opera about Kurt Cobain’s last days.) The translation of the title is “I Never Want to See the Sun Go Down.”

“Outside” by Injury Reserve is the opening track for the album By The Time I Get To Phoenix. Setting the scene for the feeling of the album. Theres a line where Ritchie with a T raps,

“Got my skeletons, you've got yours But let's be honest here  This, this don't end with agree and disagree That ain't possible There's just some things  There's just some things that ain't right"

There was this one conversation I had with her, trying to understand why she switched up on me so suddenly and I realized there was no way it was going to end with us being as close as we had been just a week before.

“The Wake Pt. 3 & 2” by Slauson Malone calls back to the trumpets from “The Inflated Tear” and the strings heard throughout the set like in “Slither”. Though the lyrics remind me of one of the last real conversations I had with her.

“I know, you know I'll be at your wake, in the waves”

After writing this all, I realize this is not about a friend betraying you. Rather it's a set that encapsulates the aftermath of it all. The painting I chose for the Apple Music cover, "The Death of Caesar" by Jean-Léon Gérôme, captures not the assassination of Julius Caesar itself, but rather the immediate aftermath. It seems like a much more fitting cover now.

When Caesar was murdered, his killers say they murdered him because they feared his dictatorship was undermining the Roman Republic. But they were unable to restore the institutions of the Republic.

I find that parallel to my own life. As her actions led to the end of our friend group. Ending much more than she anticipated.

[mimics-dom]

A normal day in Night City

Fog churned and twisted through the trees, plunging the world into blurry shades of grey that the weak winter sun could not pierce. 

"Shit!" The word echoed through the silent morning air, and yet was muffled by the fog. Laura continued to curse softly as she shook the hem of her burgundy sweater, attempting to fling the newly acquired wet mark from its surface.

Laughter bubbled from her right, quiet and high pitched the sound was devoured by the mist and yet Laura felt it ring within her ears.

"It's not funny! I can't believe that damn barista didn't get the lid on my coffee all the way." Her hazel gaze narrowed at the offending paper cup as she spoke, its lid perched just at the lip.

"That's what you get for not double checking the lid before taking a drink. But it could have been worse, it could have gone down the inside of your shirt instead of just down the front." Her companion offered.

Laura turned her searing gaze from the offending cup to the dark haired woman next to her. "Cute, do you have a napkin, or a towel or something I can use to clean this up with?"

Michelle quirked an eyebrow at the blond. "Do I look like the kind of woman who carries that kind of stuff?"

Growling another string of curses Laura shoved the half empty coffee cup at Michelle. "Hold this"

Taking the cup the other woman rolled her eyes before pushing the lid down on the cup's lip until she was rewarded with the soft clicking sound that signified the plastic locking into place around the paper. Smiling she brought the cup to her lips and sipped. 

"You're such a smart ass." The blond muttered as she yanked the sodden material up over her head revealing a crimson tank top she was wearing under the thick wool garment. "Let's just get this done before I freeze out here."

"You my dear, have to learn to enjoy the little things in life. The way the cool air tingles in your lungs, how the fog  rises from the ground like smoke, the smell of high explosives in the morning." Michelle offered as she handed back the coffee cup and pulled four detonator from her pocket. Tucking a few loose strands of black hair behind her ear she placed three of the detonators in her mouth, holding them gently between her teeth as she inserted the fourth deep into the light brown ball of semtex.

"The smell of high explosives reminds me of dust." Laura stated as she sipped her coffee. A shiver ran down her spine and she frowned. "Seriously, hurry up. I'm freezing. Stupid coffee jockey."

"Patience my dear. We aren't getting paid to half ass this. The explosion needs to draw a lot of attention. Which means it must be spectacular." Michelle mumbled around the detonators still in her mouth. Pulling one free of her teeth she plunges it deep into another ball of explosives before walking around the side of the newly built courthouse.

"Doesn't change the fact that I'm cold and pissed off." The blond snapped, balling the damp sweater in her hand.

"Then go wait in the car. I have two more detonators to place."

"I'm not leaving you. I just want you to hurry the fuck up."

Michelle rolled her eyes and let out a soft sigh. Continuing along the building she placed the last two charges before glancing over her shoulder at her irritated companion. "Done."

"Finally."

"You know you'd probably be a happier person if you learned to be less angry." The dark haired woman offered as she slipped her hands in her pockets and started walking towards the courthouse parking lot.

"What would make me a happier person is shooting that pretentious dick who fucked up my coffee." Laura snapped as she walked by the other woman's side.

"If that's what you need to find inner peace. We'll hit the drive through and you can put two in his chest."

Laura's scowl softened, becoming contemplative before she nodded. "That would actually make me feel better." Stopping in front of a black prius she pulled the keys from her pocket, tapped the unlock button twice and slipped into the driver's seat.

Michelle laughed softly, the persistent fog swallowing the sound and muffling the sound of two car doors closing in tandem.

The Prius pulled smoothly into traffic, disappearing into the haze of winter mist, and the ground shook as the Semtex detonated; adding smoke and dust to the fog.

[ne-plus-ultracrepidarian]

18/07/2024 18:28

I’m at a public R1/T2 school in a research experience for undergraduates (REU) program. I’m working in an ultra-high energy astroparticle physics group, which sounds like a lot, but it isn’t really much of anything. I haven’t been doing much at all.

It’s so interesting. Before opening this app up and deciding to scribe my thoughts somewhere, I was thinking so much, all the time. It’s naturally nothing I’ve ever discussed with someone else, but in the case this is a common sensation to those who’re prone to overthinking, it can hurt, even. A ball of yarn weighing down my cerebrum. Steel wool but worse, maybe? It’s heavy, and trying to untangle it hurts, too, perhaps because of the neurons which metaphorically comprise it. I don’t know, I sound stupid and pretentious even now. I’m going back and revising my words because they don’t sound right, ensuring my wordage and sentence structures are diverse and literary in some way, performing for and shuddering at the perception of some invisible audience. I don’t think I was always so hyperaware of my thoughts as they existed outside of my head, to others. But now every manner of outward expression, even to a virtual void, feels especially dangerous. Naked was a word that came to mind, too, but it didn’t fit well somehow. But there’s nobody here. Just feels like it’d be helpful to get everything down somewhere—

I wish I still wasn’t so grossly dependent on academic success and validation, nor jealous of those who fare better in that realm than me. This entire research experience has been a rollercoaster of emotions concerning ambition, optimism, disillusionment, what have you. Desire for academic validation was something I previously considered a core “innate” aspect of mine, so to speak, in that it was something I found in myself fairly early on prior to (or I believed to be) social moulding. But the reality is, such a complex and contemporary phenomenon is likely only “innate” insofar as a genetic predisposition to the addiction, resulting from disappointingly low-giftedness and whatever extent insecurity is hereditary. A large organ for veneration, even, as Charlotte Brontë puts it. My sister once told me she learned in some high school psychology class that if you envision a child as a notebook, everything learned in its infancy can be analogized as written in pen, and later revelations in pencil. In neofreudian schools of thought, I guess. I can only suppose this dreadful little quirk of mine was written in pen. I can and have tried to smudge it, to little avail. All my pseudo-existential epiphanies at length erode and this immature nugget, as always, is left behind. Buried in my fucking amygdala or something. It’s absolutely great.

Even typing this, I saw a notification banner from my advisor indicating some degree of dissatisfaction in me, and my stomach began to churn. I’m scared to open it but won’t be able to focus until I do. I guess that’s all for now. I wish I wasn’t so stupid, incompetent, etc. I wish whatever power above, if any, had had the mercy to push me safely into the 140+ IQ range or knock me sub-110, stripping me of the knowledge of my perpetual, relative idiocy compared to those in my spheres. I’m sure even relating this shit back to IQ reeks of it. Didn’t mean to, just struggling for words because I’m an idiot, quod erat demonstrandum.

[itsnotmandatorybee]

May 27, 2024

Monday

3:40 PM

I filed a leave on purpose: I don't know what else I can do. This is no longer an existential crisis or exhaustion from life challenges. I had so much, t'was a year ago when I started to be carefree, and I learned so much from it. 2023's my favorite year, but there are bad things happening lately, like having to shake my nerves. It may sound funny, but I'm not just quacking here 'cause I am serious.

The only concern I'm facing right now is how to be consistent and be fine even when things aren't running smoothly. I'm afraid this can deteriorate me for not planning, and I'm pretentious to be with it, but here's the catch: things are getting better, but things also seem to get worse for people I had connections with and for people I don't personally care about or shared rooms with, but I created a fiasco under my bed.

It's so bad that I can't find the exact terms to write it down, and I talked to several people about what I should do to block this problem.

I remember my 2024 mantra is to STOP.

As in, STOP.

If there's nothing I can do to change what's on people's minds, I'll STOP caring. I have my own grave to dig into.

If there's nothing I can do to still believe that welfare exists, I'll STOP thinking of what I wrote before: an article about why I should be kind even when people are mean. If they're mean, I'll be mean.

If there's nothing I can do to pacify their ego, but I already offered something on the table, I'll STOP executing my moral rights, and I'll show them the least they can take.

If there's nothing I can do to do the things I want to do but the situation's not telling me to do so, I'll STOP making a plan and just forget my wants.

Since my mantra for 2024 is to "stop", I also stopped writing journals for months. It's not a challenge for me to stop myself from writing, I only write what I need to write—but I literally stopped writing the highlights of my week, whether they're in good or bad form. No single notebook was beside me, unlike before when my brother's yelling at me why I chose to buy a notebook and a pen at Nash or Miniso when I can buy shawarma like he does, like, the mall is miles away from our town, and it'll take two rides and a couple of hours only to get his beef shawarma!

I said this to a co-worker last January: "I want to leave my pages blank." So, I stopped making one. I bought a notebook, and it's literally blank! Pens are only used to write my weekly meals (when I was sick) and calculate my electric bill.

I then started to become guilty 'cause I missed the day when I was genuinely happy, but I forced myself not to spend an hour; now I forget it already. No—I don't forget it, but I forgot that exact feeling that I had, and I have nothing to recall, no witness of how exciting the day was.

Since then, I feel like I'm walking backwards all the way to kilometer zero, and it disgusts me 'cause I thought that it'd be better not to have something on my paper. I was wrong, in the simple manner that I'm blaming myself a few days in a row for deciding what's unhealthy on my mind. I call myself stupid while I cook. I call myself stupid while lying in bed. It's insane, dude.

So, the next thing that I should come up with is to spend my little money in exchange for a notebook—the notebooks that feed my soul when I talk to someone to give advice, and it's cliché, which is why I'll write to curse about it, or I'll write about my frustrations for not masturbating for a week, or I'll expound on those questions I told my co-workers about euthanasia. I had so many pieces to form than to message a stupid someone from the past who doesn't even give a damn about me.

Not long enough, but I'll be active on my top-secret Tumblr account.

—Bern

P.S.: Learn from Pandemic Girl. Scroll, ignore, block!

[theemptyvoice]

This Sucks

This sucks.

Let’s get that name-drop out of the way right now. No coy little dance around it, or a big old wink, or a tired old actor looking for a paycheck looking directly into the audience’s soul as they say, “What are we, some sort of [REDACTED]?”

Can the people perpetually screwing up the DCU sue me for just saying Suicide Squad? Screw it. What is this, some sort of Suicide Squad? It’s a bad movie and a worse line and they should remember it, then go tongue Gunn’s butthole clean or whatever.

But that’s not really what this is about, though that can suck too. Despite popular belief (i.e. Donald Trump’s constant deflections back when we had to think about him every day and presumably still now, even now I don’t have to subject my eyes to his neon orange face), multiple things can suck and need fixing. Like the DCU and late-stage capitalism. My aching joints and climate change.

Like just about everything.

But you don’t need some anonymous stranger on the internet telling you the world sucks. You know that, or at least you should. If you don’t, why are you reading this Elon/Bezos/3rd- Culturally-Relevant-Rich-Person? I feel like this comment should be followed by a witty and biting remark about how terrible these people are, but what can I do that their constant need to flee from their mortality and the fact they don’t matter in any meaningful way hasn’t done already?

Run-on sentences, like running away from your problems (that problem just being one big one called the planet Earth).

I’m not bitter, we’re bitter. And angry, and disappointed, and all those other good dad-talk emotions. Hungry, I guess.

Segue. Not the scooter.

The world is having a bit of a… year, you might say. A few years. Riots, protests, climate chance, abortion, trans-rights, gay rights, book banning (isn’t it ironic Fahrenheit 451, THE book about banning & destroying books as a tool of fascism, is banned?), war, tensions rising, fusion energy (I mean, this one’s good), the rise of megacorporations (that’s the Amazon that’s still around), racists, antisemitism, pause for breath, re-commence panic attack, the growing junk field orbiting our planet (did you know about that one?), animals & insects going extinct… the list goes on.

Religious extremists. Sorry, just wanted to throw in that last one. Oh, and healthcare.

And here we are. I’m an asshole writing what probably is starting to sound suspiciously like a manifesto (Don’t worry, I’m not violent. I’m just a pretentious writer). You’re the asshole reading it. Or maybe you’re really nice, I don’t know.

It’s frustrating, isn’t it? Saying that’s probably a bit of an understatement, but that’s the gist. All these problems, no idea what to do, politicians sitting on their asses.

So few things seem to actually happen on a government level, so let’s start there. Politicians. Lazy, corrupt, but I’m being redundant. And unfair. They aren’t lazy.

Lazy people don’t fuck the lower class on a daily basis. Lazy people don’t pass horrible legislation to remove the free lube and condoms to make the fucking more comfortable. Lazy people don’t ship buses of refugees to a political rival’s house so they can try to fuck all the refugees at the same time to make do with time restraints.

Based on these points, you can see it’s not fair to call politicians lazy. Or stupid, for that matter. It’s actually a bit of a problem, because it makes it easy to underestimate them.

Oh, they’re incompetent. Oh, they don’t know what they’re doing.

The people who have a vested interest in money and the law-making ability to pass bills to create more money for themselves know exactly what they’re doing. When a bill gets pasted and you go, that’s dumb (and probably violates some basic principle of human rights), it’s not there because the senate, or the house, or whoever the heck is stupid. It’s because they know what they’re doing, they’re malicious and greedy enough to do it, and they genuinely do not care about you.

Let’s take abortion as an example. Show of hands, who believes Roe v. Wade was overturned on the principle of good Christian virtues or increasing individual state liberties?

Those of you who raised your hands, there’s not a kind way to say this. But there’s a less mean way, and I’ll try that. You’re not stupid for thinking that. You’re not stupid for hoping for and believing in a better version of humanity, and more specifically a better version of the people in power. But you are wrong. I wish you weren’t, in some ways.

Thought exercise: who does it affect the most?

If you said women, that is correct, but it’s not the whole story. Say, for instance, a woman in a state that has vilified (and more legally important, outlawed) abortions wants one. Well, that doesn’t really stop her, does it? She could just drive to a nearby state that allows it… and seriously, let’s not get into the Texas nonsense. Let’s keep it simple for the example.

Easy as pie, right?

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. A for effort.

There are so many reasons why that isn’t possible for a lot of people. Who are the people it isn’t possible for? Who can’t afford to take that time off work or to travel to another state?

And let me beat you off at the pass—I mean cut you off—poverty isn’t a choice. If it was, we’d all be rich.

Like, say, the rich people who made it so that ruling was overturned. The rich people who can afford to circumvent the shitshow they created without repercussion. Those who definitely do not believe in God ™, or practice God’s Virtues ™.

For them, religion is a tool. Believers are pre-primed to trust them and rally to their cause should they say the right few buzzwords and maybe say Hallelujah once or twice.

And because I don’t think religion should be free from criticism, here’s some shade to be thrown your way. Maybe don’t base your whole personality around a couple thousand-year-old book. Or if you must, temper it with the knowledge that it was translated by people with an agenda that doesn’t necessarily agree with yours. Tell you this much, the reason why there was a long stretch of time where only priests were allowed to read the bible and interpret what was God’s Word ™ isn’t because they were the only special little boys ordained by the holy light of literacy.

For those who get upset when Christianity is maligned, easy now. If your religion can’t withstand this basic scrutiny and the playground-level insults I have the capacity for, it ain’t worth much.

Life ain’t worth much these days either. Why doesn’t that bother religious folk more? Stepping partially back on the abortion train, I don’t mean your lip service paid to the Holy Church of Soothing Your Ego. I mean the people here, and now, struggling beside you to survive in a world that has only grown more hostile as of recently.

Now more than ever we need to band together. None of these issues can be solved alone, but the good news is that they can be solved.

Lotta people would have you believe they can’t be. It’s a fun little trick called learned helplessness. In less psychological terms, it’s despair. You feed people a steady diet of horrible news via doomscroll, break up the monotony with entertainment, then slowly watch as their desire to change the world for the better evaporates like your chances with that celebrity you have a parasocial relationship with.

Weaponized helplessness. For those who haven’t learned to be helpless, riot gear will work. Suppress the peaceful protests with violence and let the violent rioters right on in.

It boggles my mind sometimes why those in power aren’t more afraid of that. Just sitting there, terrified of the day the filthy masses below (their words, not mine) realize that society’s all in their heads. Maybe they are terrified of that. Maybe that’s why they crackdown so hard, work day and night to suppress and oppress and defeat. Maybe that’s why a lot of them want to flee to space (spacespacespacespacespace), even though the technology’s not up to snuff yet.

Maybe they are terrified. I hope they are, that thought makes me a little happier.

In this meaningless world, I’ll take it. A little spark of joy keeps you warm for longer than you’d think, ‘specially when it comes at the expense of those screwing you over.

Voice signing out, or whatever. Callsign. Catchphrase.