#i told her my opinion that he was misquoted

[zoyalannister]

Hellooo

So It's me hi

Again

You know me already

So let's got to it

This time a bit snippetery but not really let me explain.

Basically from each WIP you have, Geranium, endless sunlight, hntf and sisstg (not counting the rest of tlf as I think you have more advanced these ones) you have to give 5 facts (choosing the gabrily property number? you can bet on it)

Which can be things that may or may not happen, backstage ideas, headcanons you have of that universe in each of them that hasn been mentioned (like I see in ES that Kit owned a dog at some point, even if this doesnt show in the story´), things that have surprised you of them while writing, or reactions you didnt expect, or comments of them you loved. Very very free basically

So that's it

Good weekend

Hi Anon,

I reply here to your other question because you forgot to put the anonymous function and I don’t know if you want your nickname to be public. 5 is totally fine as a number!

The thing is that I talk so much about my fanfics that most facts are known now. But I will try to see if there are new facts!

How (not) to end a feud

1. I had the idea for this story because I was getting super bored during a course.

2. Poor Joshua was created mostly to make Kit jealous. He will have a good conclusion, though, just not a romantic conclusion.

3. I discarded an idea about Kit feeling proud if Joshua got himself off while hearing him and Grace having sex, but I deleted it because Kit isn’t that much of an asshole.

4. Old Isidore being gay and having a relationship with the town priest when he was young are amazing ideas by @fimproda

5. You know the scene where Grace tells Kit that Old Isidore knew the truth about Kit? I imagine that conversation on the porch of the house, both of them on an armchair with Grace holding Little Isidore (a few months old at this time) as he sleeps on her chest. There's the sunset as they speak, and after Grace confirms what Old Isidore suspects about her husband, she kisses Little Isidore's head and says something like "He's the only thing I have left of my husband."

Geranium

1. The foreshadowing in chapter 1 for what happens in chapter 5 is much more obvious than you think. It's the kind of thing "so obvious I rule it out immediately".

2. I told @fimproda the ideas for Cecily giving Alex to Grace (chapter 2) and Cecily defending Grace from the mean thing her nieces say (chapter 3) at 4 a.m. when I was drunk. Poor woman she had to listen my drunk rambling the morning after...

3. I said it for the meme, but I literally don’t know how it became from a Gracetopher to be focused on Cecily and Grace. At some point it just happened that Grace was super paranoid about Cecily’s opinion of her, and wanted her attention, and wanted to be loved like a daughter but at the same time was scared of this love. In any case, the both of us loved this change.

4. I told quite randomly to my friend that I had the intention of inserting a line like "can you please hug me and pretend to be my mom?" and she said I had to find a way to insert it because she loved it.

5. Somehow @fimproda can make the scenes even more disturbing. When you read her version of the chapter preview I posted today, you will understand what I mean.

Still insists she sees the ghosts

1. The title is a misquote of a book I love.

2. I will do something I never did: a third rewrite.

3. I'm a bit scared that for months there was too much hype about this fanfic that it won’t actually be at the height of your expectations.

4. I was a bit worried that ChoT would contraddict something in the later chapters, but that plotline was totally overlooked so I can use it however I want to.

5. The main functionality of Cecily’s POV at 18 is to set up and explain why in the current timeline she acts a certain way. I hope the final result will make sense.

Endless Sunlight

1. There's a scene heavily inspired by V for Vendetta. You will recognize it immediately.

2. It's not a big spoiler since you will see it immediately in chapter 1, but Kit took over Chiswick Manor. He did a lot of renovations and it will be cool describing the new version through Grace’s eyes who only saw the decaying house in canon.

3. It's heavily influenced by videogames, especially the fighting scenes are very Dark Souls like. It will be fun to see the result since I never wrote fights...

4. One of the big changes you will find in Thule, happened already in TID years. I loved playing domino with the events and the consequences they have.

5. There's a BDSM scene.

I think it’s all and (almost) everything should be news ahah

Thanks for passing here once again!

[thewoodlandjournal]

Why I Left the Squirrel Times

Ex Squirrel Times star reporter, Fluffy opens up about her departure from the Squirrel Times after six years of silence in a letter to the editor

Dear The Woodland Journal, 

If you used to follow my journalism at the Squirrel Times, welcome back. If you are reading me for the first time, hello, my name is Fluffy and after 5 long years of being the Squirrel Times star reporter, I left. I laid low for 6 years after that. Theories of my untimely demise grew; it was even written about and referenced in several Woodland Journal articles. But to repurpose a famous misquote, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” I spent my time in the shadows solving a mystery that has haunted me since I abandoned my desk a mystery that involves presidents, SeedCo, and suburbia. 

In February 2016, I was asked to write a piece on Captain Squirrel and his running mate Friedrich Engels. If you were one of the millions of rodents subscribed to the Squirrel Times, you read a soulless hit piece criticizing Captain Squirrel for the alleged crimes of his last running mate, Karl Marx. My journalism was one step away from slander once it was edited. My bosses were adamant that my first original draft was nothing more than a hero-worship. Until this day, I have never written an opinion piece. I have strived to be objective in my news reporting. My credibility as a news reporter depends on my ability to stay impartial despite my personal politics. 

After “my” article was released I was universally praised for it by the rodents in my suburb. Signs in support of Ronald/Bush appeared outside the nests and burrows of my fellow neighbors. They discussed Captain Squirrel with disgust. My bosses sent me back to write quaint pieces about my neighborhood in the diary reporting that had propelled me to their front page. Fluff pieces by Fluffy. The butchering of my article cleared the smoke from my eyes. As I observed my surroundings for my next article, I witnessed the Stepfordization of my town, my suburbia.

I realize recalling the hypnotized post-war aesthetic is a tad extreme, but I felt like I was watching a manufactured world. So, as any journalist would, I did some digging. According to the Rodent Census, about 93% of rodents in the suburbs have R names. Why do almost all the rodents in the suburbs have R names?  I ran their names on a list of voter registration records and every single R-named Rodent (except for one of my neighbors, Miss Roxanne) is a member of the RNC: the Rodent National Committee. One of the many requirements to join this pool of conservative voters is having an R name. Suddenly, I was surrounded by conspiracy. 

In 2012, the Squirrel/Marx campaign was ahead in the polls including in the suburbs. Then the current president allegedly sent Marx to prison, and the campaign fell apart. People turned on Captain Squirrel’s progressive ideology, sighting that he must have been criminal and corrupt like his running mate. In late 2020, hackers found Roger Rattigan’s (the lead witness in the case against Marx), financial records. The records included a massive payment of 4.2 million acorns in the winter of 2012 to Rattigan from one Chip Munk. Searching the name, I was led to a directory for the SeedCo headquarters in Butternuts, New York. I could not find a Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, or any publicly available government records for Chip Munk. So I called the head of maintenance as a new freelance journalist looking to write a fluff piece for the Rodent Review. I was told there was no one named Chip Munk working in the building. Worried they had realized my identity, my friend, Mark Ment a mild-mannered mouse and New York native went to the company to investigate.

Mark met the janitors on duty and none of them had heard of Chip Munk either. The head of maintenance asked him to leave before he had the chance to visit other staff members. I was fine to let well enough be. I do not chase red herrings, but Mark left with the phone number for the former head of maintenance, Bernut Sanders. If the name does not ring a bell, Sanders is a current Deciduous senator for New York. 

Sanders was happy to talk with me about his old job. He alleges that “upper management would put fake names on the records to use on payouts” and “they needed to create a believable paper trail for reporters.” SeedCo has many lobbyists advocating for the expansion of the suburbs and other policies that will help them sell bird feeders to humans. The founder of SeedCo, Robert Rockefeller is also, allegedly, a Rodent supremacist. Robert Rockefeller owns the Media Conglomerate SquirrelNation. The Squirrel Times is a part of SquirrelNation. It would seem the original draft of my 2016 article did not align with the beliefs of the person who lines my former bosses’ pockets. 

Two questions had been answered for me. My original article was destroyed because of alleged differences in politics between higher-ups. SeedCo would benefit from a Rodent candidate like Ronald because SeedCo expands urban areas and persuades humans to buy their fancy products, which benefits squirrels. These products have unintended consequences for our other animal communities. In 2012, an alleged bribe occurred under the nose of Robert Rockefeller that shifted the tides of the 2012 election. My choice to leave the Squirrel Times was greater than a disillusionment from my town and a difference in opinion. It was a consequence of an alleged massive plot to persuade rodents to join the RNC and ruin the political aspirations of Captain Squirrel and the Deciduous party. 

After the fall of Marx, many news outlets, including the Squirrel Times released a slew of opinion pieces questioning the ethics of the Deciduous party. They suggested the Deciduous party was a cult. It was a party that exploited woodland creatures’ dreams for their own gain. Many rodents abandoned ship to the comforts of the suburbs and the life SeedCo promised to provide. Their beliefs were further justified when Captain Squirrel announced his new running mate would be, Friedrich Engels, a notorious colleague of Karl Marx. 

If we had more independent journalism maybe they could have stood a chance. Was Marx corrupt or was the president? Was someone paid to put Marx behind bars? These are questions that our current era of multimedia conglomerations cannot answer. I am lucky the Woodland Journal, a champion of woodland equality has allowed me a platform to present my long unspoken side of the story. The future of truth is up to us. We must dig ourselves out of our carefree suburbia and wake up to a new dawn (or dusk if you are nocturnal).

Yours Truly, 

Fluffy

[gently-fading-grace]

.

[dahlia-coccinea]

@astrangechoiceoffavourites Sorry, this post is super long (my fault lol) - but still I want to respond because you bring up a lot of good points.

I do agree with you that Catherine shows some naivety in her marriage, but I’ve always wondered why critics never try to explain why her feelings are seemingly all over the place at this point. She directly contradicts herself at times. I’ve always been interested in how she always frames things in a really strange way. I’ve mentioned a few instances of this before, but for example, how she misquotes Isabella saying “I love him more than ever you loved Edgar, and he might love me, if you would let him!” to get around talking about her feelings towards Edgar. In the case of comparing Edgar’s jealously to how she feels about Isabella’s beauty is kind of the same situation I think. She doesn’t actually associate it with Edgar’s worry about her feelings towards Heathcliff but makes it an issue of coveting goods, status, and superficiality. She said “I gave a few sentences of commendation to Heathcliff” and associates his “melting into tears” with her talking about Heathcliff’s newfound status and how he “was now worthy of anyone’s regard, and it would honour the first gentleman in the country to be his friend.” I’ve always thought her emotions are really dammed up at this point and ultimately explode after her argument with Heathcliff and Edgar.

I think this can be linked with her original insistence that Heathcliff will never know how much she loves him since she cannot marry him. Which is understandable since she knows his character -  she may worry about what Heathcliff would do. When he leaves her at the Linton’s he says “if Catherine had wished to return, I intended shattering their great glass panes to a million of fragments, unless they let her out,” but when he see she’s happy, “I left her, as merry as she could be.” Very similarly he tells Nelly years later “I wish you had sincerity enough to tell me whether Catherine would suffer greatly from his (Edgar’s) loss: the fear that she would restrains me.” How would Heathcliff react if she told him that she loved him more? I think it shows also their love and jealously does sort of function in the same way for both of them. Heathcliff says:

And there you see the distinction between our feelings: had he (Edgar) been in my place, and I in his, though I hated him with a hatred that turned my life to gall, I never would have raised a hand against him. You may look incredulous, if you please! I never would have banished him from her society as long as she desired his. The moment her regard ceased, I would have torn his heart out, and drunk his blood! 

Which is similar to her (supposed) ability to accept his marriage to Isabella - though I still don’t think she saw Isabella as a real rival, and she still does show fear of being replaced when she confronts him about his feelings towards her, and suggests that after her death he’ll one day say: “I loved her long ago, and was wretched to lose her; but it is past. I’ve loved many others since.”

I think perhaps because she’s the one caught between two men and perhaps because of their gender, some tend to look at similar ideas expressed between them and yet believe they have totally different kinds of love for each other. 

I have mentioned before that in my opinion she does love Edgar, and his affection towards her, so I do think it does hurt her that he isn’t paying attention to her after her breakdown and even worsens it by still bringing up Heathcliff. I just don’t think that it is the source of the breakdown. 

“I think this naivety can be intentional. I think Cathy is capable of forgetting or ignoring stuff that aren’t convenient to her or are traumatic to her. For example she immediately forgets about the content of the “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now” speech when she fears that Heathcliff had run away because of it.”

I think it is this exactly! As I mentioned she sidesteps so much during the time that Heathcliff comes back. I think Emily, probably totally unintentionally, wrote such a good character that shows the affects of childhood trauma - her gaps in memory and simultaneous aversion to, and yet creating of, drama is very realistic.

About her death being “unattractive from both a feminist perspective and a moralistic perspective” - I don’t think she does kill herself outright, but I don’t know what other way, regardless of interpretation, that it isn’t at its most simplistic form, her “dying from lost love” or something like that? I think it is more than a broken heart though, she’s been suffering from mental heath problems for years now and while she initially tries to starve herself it does seem that it is childbirth during her weakened state that kills her. Even taken at the most metaphysical level she still dies in part because of Heathcliff’s return and the proceeding drama, it’s just Heathcliff is also a fill-in for nature/freedom. I think if people want to complain that it shows she’s just a “typical weak female” or some nonsense then they need to equally criticize Heathcliff for dying over his broken heart as well. Which again is too simplistic a view of both of their deaths, but I get why people perceive it that way. Anyway I don’t really care if people have a problem with this with her character. Judging why someone would lose the will to live or want to kill themselves is so toxic tbh. And love isn’t nothing - literally some dogs will stop eating if their companion dies, its completely natural to suffer from the loss of people you love.

About Catherine’s ghost, (if it is real) I do like the theory that Heathcliff’s obsession with revenge is what blocks Catherine’s ghost out, or is what makes him unable to focus enough on it to really perceive it. I still don’t think he does soften to Edgar, but as we somewhat discussed the other day it is his feelings towards Hareton that gives him humanity. She is not his “reward” but the novel could be making it a moral when it shows that he cannot be at peace until he lays down his revenge (obviously he doesn’t entirely but he does give up on continuing it). Not that I really agree with it but there is another interpretation that says because of Emily’s belief in universal salvation, Heathcliff (and everyone else) is essentially is essentially in purgatory paying for their sins on earth and there is no punishment in the afterlife. Or Charlotte did say Heathcliff is “unredeemed; never once swerving in his arrow-straight course to perdition.” So there are options lol. 

[petalsmooth]

Lili fans who are not vicious, psychotic stalkers determined to destroy lives please avoid this post

At the heart of every attempt to tear Cole down and take with him women who did nothing but breathe in his area lies an opinion that the women they troll him with are of lesser character than Lili. Unless they stood aside as their mother whipped a rabid group of obsessive fans up into trying to cancel him across the social mediums, as their mother stalked Cole fans to try and turn them and, failing in that, turned those rabid fans on THEM, stood aside as THEIR fans outed his residence at the time, stood aside as his friends were attacked, stood aside as their fans tried to get him fired for the “sin” of breaking up with her, relayed the general area he bought a NEW house in an interview when Cole has yet to acknowledge it himself and hell even KJ hasn’t done so yet, used the NYT’s to cast innuendo without actually saying he did anything wrong because she wanted to sell a book and a movie....well sorry if I don’t consider virtually any of these women downgrades even if allowed you were right about all dozen of them. 

This does not even address the fact Lili’s entire persona is now in dispute since she seems determined to undermine everything she previously claimed to hold dear. She said she valued privacy in her relationships. Clearly not true. She spoke up about editing photos. Clearly changed opinion there. She previously said she has never been with a woman, then said she had in a timeframe when she is believed to have had a boyfriend. She spoke out about sexualization of costumes for the sake of it...that went out the window this Halloween which is especially galling because she has real talent as an F/X artist and could have done something actually amazing. She used to shoot the idea of Barchie down to the point their fans wanted her fired and RAS would backtrack and do damage control to keep Barchie fans dangling but now she seems entirely onboard. She’s pushing religious scams onto her young fanbase. She built this entire pretense this summer of being scared to leave her home and mask up then went cross country to visit a family who had been vacationing in COVID hotspots. A family she claims to miss and love dearly but couldn’t be bothered to spend time with most of quarantine. She now seems to at least at times call the paps as the TMZ video and Halloween pics would suggest. She compared life in Vancouver to prison then rather than apologizing tried to blame others for their misinterpreting her. Another new pattern that seems to have emerged in past months as she claimed multiple journalists misquoted her, leading to their integrity being questioned and attacked but in retrospect seems they did quote her accurately.

I told you people not to push this but you persist so here we are. If at his WORST Cole has had sex with multiple consenting adults this past year since exiting his relationship, done soft core drugs and alcohol which Lili does too, amidst actually WORKING and wishing his ex a classy farewell post which she has STILL not reciprocated or acknowledged than damn if I don’t still think he is lucky to be out of that relationship and could do better.

Sorry if the sane Lili fans read this and understand if they move on but I have it with this idea Cole is a degenerate raised out of the depth of Hades by Lili’s sheer grace and now should be condemned back because their goddess has removed her favor or worse...because he removed his. You want people to face facts well face these: not everyone views Lili the way you do and regardless of what happens to Cole my opinion of her actions remains firm. I am not so naïve to think the breakdown of their relationship was driven by one person alone and I don’t know what specifically happened (though her mother is no credible source) but I know what I’ve been forced to witness on social media since and on THAT score he has been almost faultless.

[throughthewwods]

Last night RB mentioned  when he was a teenager his first job was a Little Caesars. Kiddo misquoted me in her parroting, “ That’s not a real job though” from a talk we’d had about the importance of education and apprenticeships.

I think one of the most challenging tasks I take on as a mum is helping my kiddo develop the skills, attitudes and awareness that will help her to succeed. It’s complicated though. In my opinion, telling your kid, “Don’t worry about money. Just follow your dreams!“, “ You can be anything you want” without guidance on how to do ABCD fantasy, or training them their self-esteem depends on gains is lazy, one dimensional parenting that sets kids up for a life of unrealistic expectations and existential crisis.

I talk to my daughter a lot using the ikigai model.

It’s true, chronically scraping by is scientifically detrimentally stressful and harmful to one’s health. As someone who has experienced Real poverty, romanticizing being poor is either a luxury of the privileged medicating their existential dread or it’s trauma response for those enmeshed near inescapable hardships.

While at the same time making sure she understands that one’s income is not indicative of self-worth or lack-there-of like my parents pressed upon me,

Though can be a red flag if they lack obtainable ambition to improve their circumstances and lean on parasitic practices, especially when thinly veiled as communal idealism or self-important grandeur.

I ended up reexplaining that for many possible reasons a grown-up may need that Little Caesars job, not be in a position to go ‘get a better one that pays more’ and it could hurt their feelings to be told that their hard work each day doesn’t count. I explained that it’s not our place to make assumptions or judgements. We don’t know them. We don’t know their life. 

I also reiterated that there are life skill benefits to having a part time job when you’re a teenager, but schoolwork needs to be top priority because qualifying for scholarships will be crucial given my own financial limitations to help her when life throws curveballs at her.

Which I hope comes across as a very different sentiment than my upbringing: by your own bootstraps, we are willing to help as long as it’s not an inconvenience, or you’re 18 and no longer our problem.

All I can do is keep talking to her about these things and hope the key points get across.

On a lighter note,

RB came over early evening yesterday, which doesn’t happen often. Poor guy pinched a nerve while installing the seatbelts. I decided to make an impromptu movie night of it. Only during COVID-19 is getting out of the house simply for the car ride to pick up Domino’s an event.. 😅 RB offered to chip in, but he’d just bought us Mexican when I had my migraine so I didn’t have to cook and then pad Thai for everybody on vaccine day. It’s a small thing I can do to keep things feeling balanced. 

We finally got around to watching, “Soul” on the projector. It was clever. I like kids movies in general though.  I appreciate the lack of distress and how everything comes together neatly in the end. It’s a nice reprieve from the stress and confusion of adulthood. 😝

As we try to enjoy our movie. Y GSD has a tantrum on the linoleum. Thanks for not splattering the carpet I guess? Moody AF creature. 😬 I joke with RB, “ Low maintenance girlfriend, high maintenance dog. Well, you can’t have everything“

[kyloring95]

The Rise of Skywalker aka Ben Solo-Skywalker aka WE TOLD YA SO

Holy crap guys. We have a TITLE and a teaser trailer I did not expect! I tried to put my thoughts into words yesterday after the live stream of the panel but all I could successfully do was fangirl aggressively. So here is my completely unasked for opinions/reactions on THAT trailer. 

We have an interesting set up here with Rey on this desert planet (Jakku, Tatooine, or maybe a new unknown planet?) she doesn’t seem worried/upset/panicked. It looks like she has done this before? Like she is preparing herself for something. 

We hear Ben’s Silencer flying in the distance and not only does she ignite the legacy saber but she turns her back on Ben then she pauses listening then takes off like she is trying to time something just right and then does the most badass of all badass flips onto Ben’s Silencer. Side note: Ben never fires on her and he is ALONE. They aren’t fighting in this sequence. Nor do I think Ben is training per se...I think they are trying to coordinate a move just right before having to apply it to a fight. (TFA concept art anyone?)

The next frame is odd to me as I can’t place it nor do I have any idea as to which planet this is? Have we seen this one before? Or is this a new world we get to visit potentially in the unknown regions.

Oh my god LOOK at the cinnaren roll kicking ass here. Boi straight up clotheslines this dude (who suspiciously looks like the guy from Rey’s vision in TFA that he impales) this poor poor stunt man... This scene does remind me now of that section of vision in the TFA novelization. FYI if Ben tells Rey “I’ll come back for you sweetheart.” I will legit pass away my soul will leave my body and I will melt in the theater.

I want to know who they are fighting in this scene. CONTEXT damn it I need it! 

Words can not describe how HAPPY I was to see Ben maskless. I came into this season of marketing fully expecting them to desperately try and make Kylo look like the big bad for IX and have his precious face covered by his mask but no they gave us MASKLESS BEN SOLO. 

These. Are. Not. Ben’s. Hands.

These are not Chewie’s hands.

I want to know who.

I want to know why.

This does look similar to one of the leaks of one of the new alien characters that’s nameless right now. I am hoping that as time goes by we will get more to work with on this front.

Finn and Poe are looking fiiiiiine. Mmmm MMM mmm. I am LOVING everyone’s new looks.

Could they be on the same desert planet as Rey and Ben when she flips onto his Silencer?

Have they stumbled upon Rey and Ben’s meeting place and are watching her do that BADASS flip? 

I need to know. I want to see an extra salty Poe talking to Rey in front of Ben all like “He tortured us Rey. You of all people should be against this!” and Rey can be all awkward and Ben can chime in “Torture? I didn’t torture her Dameron.” *dies laughing*

Lando and Chewie piloting the falcon just brought a wave of bittersweet emotions...

Are those stormtroopers using jetpacks like in the video games?!?!?!?! I am sooooooo excited to see if they are as thats the only time we have seen them! 

Poe, Finn, and 3PO on a vehicle that reminds me of the ones used at Jabba’s palace. 

Leia...oof... Carrie you are missed by so many.

This clip of her hugging Rey and Rey’s tears...my heart hurts.

The clip of Leia holding Han’s? Luke’s? medal...

Just hit me in the feels LF.

Look at Chewie.

Look at BB-8 and D-0.

Look at C3-PO.

And Poe.

And Finn.

And Rey.

They FINALLY get to go on an adventure together! 

I am so ready to see the character dynamics in this film!

Also they found the remnants of the Death Star...

Sith relics?

What is on the Death Star that they need? Hmmmm

THIS COCKROACH

THIS SLIMY OLD MAN

THIS BASTARD THAT F*CKED WITH ANAKIN’S HEAD

THIS EVIL EVIL MAN THAT KILLED PADME THEN TOLD ANAKIN HE DID IT

THIS PIECE OF WRINKLED DEFORMED GARBAGE NEEDS TO STAY AWAY FROM MY SPACE FAMILY DAMN IT

I heard his cackle and wanted to vomit. 

He literally makes me sick to my stomach.

Ben should finish what Anakin started and finally kill this walking talking piece of space Sith garbage.

Yes this is in here again because...how could I not put this here again? Look at that precious boi out to destroy people. 

Last random thoughts.

Luke’s voiceover. 

“We’ve passed down all we know. A thousand generations live in you now. But this is your fight. We’ll always be with you. No one’s ever really gone.” 

So many possible meanings... 

I am crossing my fingers and praying that he is talking to Ben or even Ben and Rey when he says this. JJ already said on the panel that the light and the dark would have to face the greatest evil (probably misquoting this rn but you know what I’m talking about) so this could be Luke giving them a talk about what they need to do. It also makes me think that multiple force ghosts? have given them knowledge of some kind that they need to use to defeat Palpatine once and for all.

ASLO Ben’s theme as the title is revealed only to sound hopeful and HOLY SMOKED THEY AREN’T EVEN TRYING TO BE SUBTLE WITH THAT MUSIC OR THAT TITLE. 

Alright everyone that’s all I have for now. Hope you enjoyed my cluster f*ck mess that is my blog post.

[terfslying]

Extremist Traits & TERFs

 The traits are taken from (here), which is a list of extremist traits by Laird Wilcox. Most examples are from interactions with people on this blog, because I’ve got to limit myself to something.

Character Assassination

“Extremists often attack the character of an opponent rather than deal with the facts or issues raised. They will question motives, qualifications, past associations, alleged values, personality, looks, mental health, and so on as a diversion from the issues under consideration”

TERF Examples: Character attacks on Susie Green, of Mermaids UK, to attempt to imply that her motive for Mermaids UK is to force her own child to transition. & Claiming Mermaids UK was a significant part of forcing a young UK child to be trans, when in fact he was being abused by his mother and Mermaids UK only ever were contacted by phone by the mother, and were not otherwise involved in any way.

Name-Calling and Labelling

“Extremists are quick to resort to epithets (racist, subversive, pervert, hate monger, nut, crackpot, […] and so on) to label and condemn opponents in order to divert attention from their arguments and to discourage others from hearing them out. These epithets don’t have to be proved to be effective; the mere fact they have been said is often enough”

TERF Examples: "pedophile apologist”, “infertile, fat white loser”, “rapist” (all directed at me!)

Irresponsible Sweeping Generalisations

“Extremists tend to make sweeping claims or judgements on little or no evidence, and they have a tendency to confuse similarity with sameness […] they assume that because two (or more) things, events, or persons are alike in some respects, they must be alike in most respects.”

TERF Examples: “trans women are just men”; use of crimes by cis men to attempt to demonstrate trans criminality

Inadequate Proof For Assertions

“Extremists tend to be very fuzzy about what constitutes proofs, and they also tend to get caught up in logical fallacies […] they tend to project wished-for conclusions and to exaggerate the significance of information that confirms their beliefs while derogating or ignoring information that contradicts them.”

TERF Examples: “This research is reliable because I agree with it, and I don’t care that the authors have deliberately published politically motivated anti-gay propaganda studies before”

Advocacy of Double Standards

“Extremists generally tend to judge themselves or their interest groups in terms of their intentions, which they tend to view very generously, and others by their acts, which they tend to view very critically. They would like you accept their assertions on faith, but they demand proof of yours. They tend to engage in special pleading on behalf of themselves or their interests, usually because of some alleged special status, past circumstances, or present disadvantage.”

TERF Example: Refusal to criticise WoLF + Julia Beck’s association with the Heritage Foundation due to presumed good intentions

Tendency to View Their Opponents and Critics As Essentially Evil

“To the extremist, opponents hold opposing positions because they are bad people […] not merely because they simply disagree, see the matter differently, have competing interests, or are perhaps even mistaken.”

TERF Example: I deserve to “rot in hell” because I don’t agree with TERFs

Manichaean Worldview

“Extremists have a tendency to see the world in terms of absolutes of good and evil, for them or against them, with no middle ground or intermediate positions. All issues are ultimately moral issues of right and wrong, with the ‘right’ position coinciding with their interests.”

TERF Example: Willingness to use and spread sources from the alt-right with no regard for the source, since if it coincides with their interest, it’s ‘right’

Advocacy Of Censorship or Repression of Their Opponents or Critics

“They may include a very active campaign to keep opponents from media access [… or] actually lobby for legislation against speaking, writing, teaching, or instructive ‘subversive’ or forbidden information or opinions.”

TERF Example: Pressure to isolate young trans teens from media access

Tend to Identify Themselves In Terms Of Who Their Enemies Are

“[E]xtremists may become emotionally bound to their opponents, who are often competing extremists themselves. Because they tend to view their enemies as evil and powerful, they tend, perhaps subconsciously, to emulate them, adopting to same tactics to a certain degree.”

TERF Example: "TRA’s”, “libfems”, “transcult”; emulating anti-feminist tactics by joining groups like Hands Across The Aisle to directly partner with anti-abortion, anti-feminist conservatives and divide-and-conquer

Tendency towards argument by intimidation

“Extremists tend to frame their arguments in such a way as to intimidate others into accepting their premises and conclusions. […] They use a lot of moralising, pontificating, and tend to be very judgemental. This shrill, harsh rhetorical style allows them to keep their opponents and critics on the defensive, cuts off troublesome lines of argument, and allows them to define the perimeters of debate.”

TERF Example: Using the words “trans women” and “literal pedophiles and rapists” interchangeably in arguments

Use of Slogans, Buzzwords, and Thought-Stopping Cliches

“For many extremists, shortcuts in thinking and in reasoning matters out seem to be necessary in order to avoid or evade awareness of troublesome facts and compelling counter-arguments. Extremists generally behave in ways that reinforce their prejudices and alter their own consciousness in a manner that bolsters their false confidence and sense of self-righteousness.”

TERF Examples: “Peak trans”, “autogynephiles”, the bathroom & prison rapist tropes, to discredit trans women; “handmaids” and “libfems” to discredit cis women who disagree with them

Assumption of Moral or Other Superiority over Others

“Most obvious would be claims of general racial or ethnic superiority […] Less obvious are claims of ennoblement because of alleged victimhood,”

TERF Examples: Expanding real victimisation of women to include historically inaccurate concepts, such as ‘witch hunts were methods of controlling women’s knowledge’ to increase superiority; complete disownment of any moral responsibility for violence perpetrated or encouraged by TERFs

Doomsday Thinking

“Extremists often predict dire or catastrophic consequences from a situation or from failure to follow a specific course, and they tend to exhibit a kind of ‘crisis-mindedness’. It can be a Communist takeover, a Nazi revival, nuclear war, earthquakes (… etc. …) Whatever it is, it’s just around the corner unless we follow their program and listen to the special insight and wisdom, to which only the truly enlightened have access.”

TERF Example: Fair Play For Women’s unrealistic theory that if Gender Recognition Certificates were easier to get, women’s prisons would be flooded with trans sex offenders instantly.

Belief that it’s okay to do bad things in service of a good cause

“Extremists may deliberately lie, distort, misquote, slander, defame, or libel their opponents or critics, engage in censorship or repression, or undertake violence in “special cases”.”

TERF Example: Wetmeadow ‘distorting’ my post on the cotton ceiling to imply that I was saying same-sex attraction is a mental illness, to discredit me.

Emphasis on Emotional Response (and less on logical analysis and reasoning)

“Extremist have an unspoken reverence for propaganda, which they may call ‘education’ or ‘consciousness-raising’. Symbolism plays an exaggerated role in their thinking and they tend to think imprecisely and metamorphically.”

TERF Example: ‘consciousness-raising’ has a long history in extreme radfem spaces; in recent online spaces it’s more often called ‘peak trans’.

Hypersensitivity and Vigilance

“Extremists perceive hostile innuendo in even casual comments; imagine rejection and antagonism concealed in honest disagreement and dissent; […] Although few extremists are clinically paranoid, many of them adopt a paranoid style with its attendant hostility and distrust.”

TERF Example: Exposinglesphob’s entire blog

Problems Tolerating Ambiguity and Uncertainty

“[T]he ideologies and belief systems to which extremists tend to attach themselves often represent grasping for certainty in an uncertain world, or an attempt to achieve absolute security in an environment that is naturally unpredictable […] Extremists exhibit a kind of risk-aversiveness that compels them to engage in controlling and manipulative behaviour, both on a personal level and in a political context.”

TERF Example: “What do you mean, someone’s gender or sex might be ambiguous?? Woman is a biological term for adult human females, it’s simple”

Inclination towards “GroupThink”

“‘Groupthink’ involves a tendency to conform to group norms and to preserve solidarity and concurrence at the expense of distorting members’ observations of facts, conflicting evidence, and disquieting observations [… Extremists may] only talk with one another, read material that reflects their own views, and can be almost phobic about the ‘propaganda’ of the ‘other side’. The result is a deterioration in reality-testing, rationality, and moral judgement.”

TERF Example: Any source I give is bad, even if they’re genuinely trying to say that wikipedia is ‘good research’.

Tendency to Personalise Hostility

“Extremists often wish for the personal bad fortune of their ‘enemies’ and celebrate when it occurs.”

TERF Example: The fact that pretty much every person who isn’t a TERF and who discourses has been told to kill themselves.

Extremists often feel that the system is no good unless they win

“If public opinion turns against them, it was because of ‘brainwashing’. If their followers become disillusioned, it’s because of ‘sabotage’.”

TERF Example: Ex-terfs like myself either are just too dumb to understand radical feminism, or we never even existed in the first place.

[crying-over-supersoldiers]

endgame ramblings

I tried to make a thread on twitter but it would have been awfully long soooo..

This will probably be a mess and I apologize. I also want to say that I stand by this and if anyone comes to my inbox with “BUT ACTUALLY!!!” asks, or trying to start discourse, you’ll be ignored. I don’t have time for that.

Let me start from the bad so we can end on a good note.

THE BAD

Thor. WHat the fuck did they do to youuu?? His glory moment at the last battle was Fantastic, but other than that, he was turned into a tasteless joke. But we been knew the mcu and the writers don’t know shit about PTSD or how to take it seriously.

This is more of a personal note, but I’ve never liked Bruce Banner/Hulk. It’s annoying to me, it’s lame, the bruc/enat agenda just reinforced my hatred to him, his parts/side story were just unnecessary? is it just me? ok.

It kinda peeves me the whole “I found a family (with the avengers)/ u made me a good person” of Natasha (?? don’t quote me on this), when the avengers were never a family to begin with. but lmao, okay. It was used, in my opinion, to give a bigger Emotional depth and shock value to the whole thing.

Steve. Oh boy, here we go.

Steve “you gave me a home” Rogers, Steve “I don’t want to live in the past even if it’s tempting” Rogers (again, don’t quote me on this, I’m relying on memory), Steve “I went to the past and hated it” Rogers? Steve “I cannot back up from a fight” Rogers. Went to the past, and stayed with a girl he met for  couple of weeks??? hIs TruE lOvE???? (if anyone made me hate steg/gy more than the fandom, is the mcu itself).

This is especially fucked up when Steve himself is at the beginning of the movie leading  support group to Move the Fuck On!!!

Am I supposed to believe that that is Steve Rogers? That is, my dudes, with all due respect, bullshit.

it’s just not realistic.gif

WHATEVER

I mean… I gave up on natasha and clint as characters since, probably, day one, soooo. I’m not thrilled they killed Natasha but the mcu didn’t deserve her either.

Clint has been a mess and his Big Arc conclusion ended up being more on the Ultimates!Clint so I’ll just… keep ignoring him as i’ve been doing.

I understand the difficulty of having a fuckton of characters in one movie, without making said movie 6 hours long, but I still would have wished more than one liners from certain characters.

Carol Danvers being there for like 5 minutes, considering she’s probably going to be the New Face of the mcu.

The time travel rules that just...make no sense. Either you alter something (taking out the stones) or you don’t? (going back to live the american dream)?????

???????

the sudden “everyone can touch stones even when we said before u could die if you do”.

WHAT MADE ME CRY

boiii,, BOOOOOIIIIIII here we go

Tony and Nebula? that was cute and great, loved it. nice.

Steve… rushing to Tony,... after he just landed.. to cradle him in his arms… I live off of this crumbs of the Friendship that should have always been.

“I lost the kid” BITCH! superfam!!! he was so so so heartbroken and his physical condition was shit and I lost it.

Pepper, it’s been 84 years, I missed her.

The “I told you so” moment. He fucking told you so!!!!!!!! Tony been knew!!! And no one listened to him. It was so satisfying to see him snap at all of them. Like, yes! Make them feel bad.

Tony invents time travel. Love that for him.

Scott Lang? Surprisingly had a large amount of time and I enjoyed it.

The whole time travel sequences, stevetony undercover in the 70’s? hell yeah. The  battle of NY and America’s Ass? Cap vs Cap? HELL YEAH.

Nebula and Rhodey bonding.

Rocket!! He’s just so *clenches fist* precious and supportive and amazing.

The Big Three! in a single frame, getting ready to fight thanos even when “this is a trap isn’t it?”.

The actual battle that leads to

STEVE!!!! HOLDING MJOLNIR!!! AND THOR’S PROUD SMILE BECAUSE YESS! HE KNEW HE WAS WORTHY, I FUCKING BLACKED OUT FOR A SECOND

THAT INFINITY GAUNTLET MOMENT WHEN IT’S JUST STEVE VS THANOS AND STEVE’S SHIELD IS BROKEN BUT THE LITTLE SHIT JUST WON’T STOP BECAUSE “AS LONG AS ONE MAN STANDS AGAINST YOU, YOU’LL NEVER WIN” (MISQUOTED, AGAIN) (THIS IS WHEN I STARTED SOBBING THAT WAS SO POWERFUL, GOOOOD, THE THANOS  ARMY AND STEVE ALL ALONE THERE THAT’S MY BOY!)

WHEN THE PORTALS STARTED TO OPEN AND ANGEL!SAM APPEARED AND BLACK PANTHER, AND EVERYONE CHEERED!

AND MORE AND MORE CHARACTERS APPEARED AND THANOS WAS LIKE “WHAT?”

RESCUE!!!! PEPPER!!!! SHE DID THAT!!!! I GOT CHILLS

THE WHOLE GAUNTLET RACE

“I AM IRON MAN”

WE CAME FULL CIRCLE, WE CAME FULL CIRCLE

THAT AVENGERS PANEL OF TONY WITH THE GAUNTLET BUT IN BIG SCREEN

Honestly i dont think there could have been a better ending, like, yes, that’s EARTH’S GREATEST DEFENDER, and sacrifices needed to be made, he knew it better than anyone. It just felt fitting.

it even felt like a kinda mirroring to Thanos and his “my destiny completes” kinda thing.

Overall, I feel satisfied with it. As someone who felt absolutely detached from the mcu for the last couple of years, I am surprisingly pleased with how it all ended. I feel like I am finally free.

Would watch again for sure.

If any of you read all this, thanks a lot!

[thetruthaboutlovecomesat3am]

For the prompt thing : BlackHill 42 (out of pride) please? Thanks!!

Here you go! (Sorry, this is long and really random, but at least it’s something cute and not sad to break my recent sadness spiral. Hope it’s close to what you wanted! Thank you for the prompt!)

List of Kiss Prompts (still working on the others I got, don’t worry they’re not lost! I’m just a slow writer)

Mariaremembered how it all started. With an email from Tony that just said“omg is that you?” and an attached link. Maria thought first of avirus, but remembered SI’s emails were strictly filtered. Then shethought of some sort of international incident, possibly she wasbeing accused of treason, worst case scenario this was about theSokovia Accords. When she opened the link and saw a blog articletitled “Top 5 Avengers Most Likely To Be Queer” She wassure Tony was just messing with her. She wasn’t even an Avengeranymore. She was the head of Stark Industries security.

Outof curiosity, she scrolled down.

Numberfive was, not to her surprise, Steve Rogers. It was theorized aromantic affair with Sam (number four). Number three was no otherthan Tony Stark, digging back into bisexuality rumors from before hesettled down with SI’s CEO, Pepper Potts. Number two wasSpider-Man, the article called him “the twink hero we’ve all beenwaiting for” whatever that meant.

Andthen there was number one. The picture they chose almost had Mariachocking on air. Number one on the list was Natasha Romanoff. And whywas she most likely? The very picture that had Maria chocking. A gif.Natasha was talking to a brunette woman, her hands clutching the hemof her jacket, keeping her closer. The brunette seemingly whisperedsomething in her ear because Natasha smirked and nodded. Maria wasthe brunette. She remembered that party, they thought they were in adark corner, they thought nobody was paying attention to them. Mariawalked to her, complimented her with a casual “nice dress”, thenNatasha pulled her closer. Maria lightly kissed her neck thenwhispered in her ear something like “if you want to come by myplace later I’d love to get you out of it” and the smirk and nodNatasha gave in response were captured in the gif. At least the neckkiss was left out, Maria thought.

Atleast it wasn’t an official newspaper. This was just some randomblog, and Tony only knew about the article because he had an alertfor any Avengers article that came up, right? It just randomly pickedup this gossip article nobody was going to care about. She scrolleddown and saw that the article had six little thumbs up. She sighed inrelief but a split second later she realized that Tony couldn’t bethe only person with an Avengers alert on his search engine, couldhe? She refreshened the page and scrolled down dreadfully. The littlethumbs were now 16,709 up and 207 down. So seventeen thousand peoplehad clicked on the article in the time it took her to read it.

Sheopened up the message Tony sent her and wrote back to him “Can youtake it down?” but hesitated to send it. If enough people had seenit and it suddenly disappeared they could end up having a PR scandalon their hands. She could read the next article already. “HomophobicAvengers PR deletes an article on an LGBT+ blog”. They wouldn’tknow the article was deleted because it was true and, unless theydidn’t want to confirm it was true, to remove it would be to standagainst an LGBT blog. And the last thing Maria wanted was that. Shedeleted her message to Tony, knowing the only possible course ofaction would be to ignore the article altogether.

Sherefreshed the page again; 93,000 people had now read it.

Herphones went crazy. Her desk phone, her mobile work phone, herpersonal smartphone. Pepper personally told her this was ano-delegation matter. As if Maria would ever dream of delegatingsomething this close to her. She was taking calls two at a time,denying rumors about Stark, Rogers, Wilson and Romanoff all with thesame pre-made line: “I can neither confirm nor deny thisallegations at this moment.”

Maria,of course, could definitely confirm or deny most of thoseallegations, but she couldn’t, because she didn’t know whatproof they had nor was she in any hurry to handle the backlash headedtheir way.

Then,the call came. She picked up, giving the same answer she was givingto anyone else, saying she couldn’t confirm or deny the rumors. Butthe reporter on the other side of the line immediately interruptedher.

“Actually,miss Hill, I’m calling from the AvengersUpdates blog to ask if youhave a quote. We’re sending out an article in a few minutes.”

“Whatarticle?” And why hadn’t they ask for a quote from Stark, if it wasabout the same list? “Why do you want a quote from me?”

“Wehave an article about your relationship with Natasha Romanoff, thegif spoke for itself after all, but we decided to add a few words ofour own.”

“Hold,please.” Maria brought her work mobile down and her desk phone toher ear. “I can neither confirm nor deny these allegations at thismoment. Goodbye.” She hung up the phone, then brought the other oneback up to her ear. So someone identified her from the damn gif. Ofcourse they did. “What’s in the article?”

“You’llbe able to read it in a few minutes when it comes out. No punintended. Do you have a quote for us?”

“Ido. It is a great shame that people are still, to this day, forcedout of the closet. The Avengers are making an attempt to keep theirprivate lives private despite being in the public’s eye for no otherreason than keeping the public focused on what truly matters. I can’tconfirm nor deny these rumors, but either way, it shouldn’t matterwho they’re in love with, it should only matter what they do for theworld as our heroes. Let their private lives be private.”

Shehung up and went onto the next call, then the next, then the next.Until her laptop started signaling incoming mails. She opened upanother email from Tony, the message reading “omg is it true?”,and she clicked on it, dreading what she was going to read at the endof that link.

Thearticle was titled “EXCLUSIVE Black Widow’s lover: “Itshouldn’t matter who they’re in love with.” Who is NatashaRomanoff’s mysterious girlfriend?”

“Oh,come on, that is the line you decide to extrapolate?!” It made itsound…well, it made it sound like Maria straight out admitted therumors to be true.

Herphones all rang at the same time.

“Wecan’t confirm nor deny these allegations at this moment,” she saidafter answering all three of those at once. She hung up the deskphone and her work cell, but a somewhat amused voice spoke back fromher personal phone.

“Heythere, mysterious girlfriend.”

“Natasha?”

“Yep.So, we’re girlfriends now, are we?”

“Thatquote – they didn’t – I didn’t say that. They just took half asentence from what I said to them to make it seem like I wasconfirming the rumors.”

“Haveyou read it? Maria Hill, national hero in the army, former deputydirector of S.H.I.E.L.D., third in command at Stark Industries andprettiest woman in New York City.”

“Theydid not say that.”

“Nah,that was all me. But they do say I apparently seduced you andabandoned you to avoid making my sexuality public. Made you fall inlove, then fled. Hence the quote about let the Avengers love who theywant to love.”

Mariasighed, leaning back on her chair and pressing her fingers againsther eyes.

“I’llsend out a press release where I categorically deny this.”

“Whatif I don’t want to deny it?”

“Youknow I’m not in the public eye as much as you are, I don’t have anissue with that.”

“Well,if we deny it it’s only going to make the press more interested. Ican always put pictures online of me and Steve holding hands, nobodyknows he’s like a brother to me. Or with Sam, I’ve got plenty ofchoices.”

Mariafelt an almost instant knot in her throat. “I’ll issue a pressrelease as soon as possible. My other phones are ringing, I need totake it.”

“Youknow I’m joking, right?”

“Iknow.” No, she didn’t. “I do need to take this. Bye, Nat.”

“Youanswer that and I’ll take care of the press release.”

“Sure,okay.”

“Bye,Maria.”

Shehung up, then moved onto the next call. “I can neither confirm nordeny these allegations at this moment,” she kept chanting.

Thephones had been quiet for seven minutes. Seven blessed, peacefulminutes. She even had time to check on her actual work and make sureeverything was being handled, before her phone rang again.

“Ican neither confirm nor-”

“MissHill, it’s the same AvengersUpdates blogger, I was wondering if youhave another quote?”

“Ido have some opinions about your article but seeing as you misquotedme before I’m not sure I’m comfortable-”

“No,this isn’t about the article. About the press release. MissRomanoff’s video?”

Mariaslowly closed her eyes and sighed. “Hold please.” She opened heremail inbox and immediately saw a new message from Tony from aboutfive minutes before that only read “omg”, Tony’s word of the day,apparently. She clicked on the link and started to watch the video,recorded from Natasha’s phone. Well, that was quick.

“Goodmorning,” she started in her mock serious voice, that had Mariaworried already. “Please treat this video release as an officialstatement. I would like to address the issues brought up today by twoarticles, the first one addressing me as the avenger most likely tobe queer and the second one about an alleged relationship between meand Maria Hill. First of all, it is not only outrageous to mepersonally, but absolutely not true in any way that I, and I quote,broke Maria’s heart before I fled the city. It’s preposterous andridiculous.”

Mariapaused the video. And there it was. It was ridiculous to Natasha thatthey could be a couple. Preposterous, even. Outrageous. Then again,they had gone without a label for so long now, that it wasn’t thatsurprising Maria didn’t like the outcome. Natasha was denying theywere involved. And, sure, technically, maybe they weren’t involved.Maybe they had a tacit friends-with benefits deal. Maria never caredto investigate her luck, but right now she was feeling she shouldhave before it became a public matter.

Shepressed play again.

“Iwould never break her heart knowingly. I love her. And, as she saidto the reporter who wrote the article, it shouldn’t matter if we’rein love. It doesn’t affect our jobs, it’s private and it should stayprivate, not because we’re ashamed. In fact, she’s the thing I’mproudest of. I’m proud of my sexuality and I’m proud of ourrelationship. So if you want to write an article about the firstavenger to come out, please go do that and stop calling Maria at herwork number or mobile number because she isn’t going to give you abetter answer. Unless she wants to dump me via blog article, then youmight get yourself a scoop.” She then stopped walking, raised hereyes and saw something behind the camera that made her decide tochange her route. “That was a joke, please stop contacting her toget information about me. Thank you for the attention, goodbye.”

Sherecognized in the video Natasha walking on the block of the SI towerand it felt bizarre, because she wasn’t supposed to be back in NewYork until the next day. What was she doing there, then? Sheseemingly changed path to go around to Tony’s backup entrance insteadof getting inside by the main one. What was going on out there?

“MissHill, are you still there?” The voice from the other end of theline reminded her of the ongoing phone call.

“Yes,sorry.”

Therewas a knock at the door and then it sprung open without her needingto invite whomever was knocking in. Natasha strolled past theentrance, closed the door behind her, and sat down on one of Maria’schairs.

“It’scrazy out there, there’s two dozen reporters waiting outside thebuilding,” Natasha told her like she hadn’t just dropped into heroffice unannounced.

Mariastared at her for a moment, before pressing the phone back to herear.

“Yes,I do have a quote,” she said to the reporter. “Please write itdown because I don’t want to be misquoted again. Okay. The quote is:I’m proud of her too.”

Natashasmiled and got up from her chair as Maria hung up the phone. Shecircled the desk and bent down towards Maria, resting her hands onher chair’s armrest.

“Ireserved a table at Gianni’s for this evening, but something tells meit’d be hard to lose the paparazzi.”

“Youknow, you had me convinced you were going to deny everything and actoutraged for a second there,” Maria said, grasping her jacket andbringing her down a couple of inches, until they were barely apart.

“Itold you I didn’t want to deny it. I’m proud to be with you.”

“Withme, uh?”

“Haven’tyou heard? We’re girlfriends.”

Mariasmiled and reached up to kiss Natasha firmly on the lips.

“I’mproud to be with you, too.”

[tobe-sogolden]

I’m nosy so I’m wondering what ridiculousness you saw on Twitter. I’ve found that my tolerance is much lower now that the album is out and no matter how much I block and mute, completely delusional theories keep popping up on my timeline. I don’t understand why people can’t just listen to the music, vibe, shake their ass and enjoy it - why does everything need a theory or “hot take”?! Although I have found that the people who are making the hot takes are usually the ones who are living in an alternate reality so I think it comes down to self soothing.

But nothing bothers me more that just blatant lies or spreading of actual misinformation. That is the shit that I will literally FIGHT against because the “fake news” crap from the past few years is actually so dangerous. People denying truth or facts just because they don’t like it - NOPE. I can’t handle someone having a different opinion than me or interpreting a song different than I do, but when I see people just straight up lying (like the ridiculous takes that Cinema is a gay sex song or the album was completely done in fall 2020), I will go to war to push back on that crap.

Oh that's literally exactly 100% how I feel. I've already said this but misinformation - especially misinformation that's very easily proven false - makes me see red and the thing that annoyed me was exactly that. I'll put it under a read more so it's not too long on everyone's dash lmao

It was two things, really. One was people passing around a blatant misquoting of the part of the Stern interview where he talks about Cinema. I saw it being quoted as: "This is a love song?" "Yes." "Is it about your present girlfriend?" "No, it's mine." And then celebrating that he dissed Olivia. LIKE !?!?!?!?!?!??!!?!?!?! That is so NOT what was said and it's very easy to verify that if you just WATCH THE FUCKING INTERVIEW but so many people were passing it around like it was fact when they clearly haven't watched it to verify (or they have and they didn't like it so they're going to bury their head in the sand and pretend they didn't see it) and it pissed me off so much. The second one was some dumbfuck commenting under a video of Olivia at the show last night and being like "I heard she wasn't even invited and she had to go as someone's +1 how embarrassing! I heard Jeff told her to leave when he saw her because he didn't want Harry to see her because it'd ruin his mood." Like.....................what the actual fuck are you even talking about? That is so far detached from reality it's actually insane to me. And their source was a fucking tumblr anon like you CANNOT be fucking serious. And what made me even angrier was the fact it had so many likes like WHAT THE FUCK????? ARE YOU ALL BRAIN DEAD?????

[groovycrusadeperson]

Hi, I'm disgusted by a fanfic that misquoted Steve to prop Tonky, and would like to counter with actual Tonky dialogue. Can you suggest some things that Tonky has said that should be called out? Thanks

Is there a specific Tony dialogue you’re looking to counter this with? Or just in general? Because off the top of my head I’ve got -

“They should have left him (Steve) in the ice” - Tony Stark, The Avengers.

“I don’t want a city hall debate” - Tony Stark pretending he’s the only one who gets an opinion on whether the world needs an AI overlord, Age of Ultron.

“That’s it? You just roll over and show your belly everytime someone snarls?” - Tony Stark turning on Bruce because Bruce dared to acknowledge they fucked up in re Ultron, Age of Ultron.

“That was never my life” Tony Stank when confronted by the victims of his war profiteering, Age of Ultron.

“I don’t trust a guy without a dark side” - Tony Stark getting on Steve’s case for not reacting to trauma in exactly the right, Tony Stark-approved way, Age of Ultron.

“We are mad scientists. We’re monsters buddy. We gotta own it” - Tony Stark being a gross, manipulative fuck to Bruce and hitting him right where it hurts to get him to agree to AI overlord 2.0, Age of Ultron.

“How about nonce?” - Tony Stark shutting down any possibility of a discussion about whether he gets to create another AI overlord to help the first one destroy the planet, Age of Ultron.

“We dropped a building on him” - Tony Stark trying to shift the blame for Charlie Spencer’s death on the rest of his team who told him Ultron was a bad idea, Civil War.

“I don’t want to lose her (Pepper). I thought maybe the Accords could split the difference” - Tony Stark shamelessly admitting that he wants his entire team to sign away their human rights so he can save his relationship, Civil War.

“If you sign we can make the last 24 hours legit. Barnes get sent to an American psych centre instead of a Wakandan prison” - Tony Stark holding Bucky’s life over Steve’s head to get him to sign his human rights away and at the same time denying Bucky his human right to medical aid and evaluation independent of whatever Steve decides to do about the Accords, Civil War.

“Must be hard to shake the double agent thing…T'Challa told Ross what you did so… they’re coming for you” - Tony Stark literally gloating over how Thaddeus Ross, a very powerful and dangerous psychopath, is going to screw Nat over because he takes Nat deciding to follow her moral compass as a personal affront to him and his ego.

“Because you broke the law. I didn’t make you” - Tony Stark, child kidnapper extraordinaire, who is also planning on breaking more laws to go after Steve trying to justify Clint’s illegal detention to him, Civil War.

“I don’t care he killed my mom” -Tony Stark refusing to care that the man he’s about to murder is innocent, Civil War.

“You don’t deserve that shield” - Tony Stark screaming at Steve while he’s wearing the weapon of mass destruction he was just trying to kill an innocent guy with, Civil War.

Every sentence uttered by him, SMH.

But if you’re looking for something specific that’s not listed here do let me know.

EDIT: anon I’m a fool and it just struck me that the one dialogue you’re probably looking for is the one I forgot to mention so here’s the entire conversation so no one has any excuse to misinterpret Steve or Tony - 

 Tony: I file a motion, have you and Wanda reinstated… 

 Steve: Wanda? What about Wanda? 

Tony: She’s fine. She’s confined in the compound currently. Vision’s keeping her company. 

 Steve: Oh God, Tony! Every time. Every time I think you’re seeing things the right way… 

Tony: It’s a 100 acres with a lap pool. It’s got a screening room. There’s worse ways to protect people. She’s not a US Citizen and they don’t grant visas to Weapons of Mass Destruction. 

Steve: Protection? Is that how you see this? This isn’t protection, it’s internment, Tony. Come on, she’s a kid! 

So here you have Tony falsely imprisoning a woman without following any due process whatsoever. He then tries to justify forcefully confining this woman by essentially stripping her of her humanity (and therefore her human rights). And he basically says she has no right to complain because he could have done a lot worse to her in the guise of protecting people (“there are worse ways to protect people” - he’s talking about the scared, irrational, prejudiced public here, not Wanda) since you know… she’s just a dangerous weapon and one without a visa that too. Therefore she’s undeserving of the dignity that ought to be accorded to human beings.

To this Steve responds by protesting this terrifying dehumanization and pointing out that Wanda is not just some dangerous thing but a human being (and a young one at that) with rights. 

 And the fact that Tonkies pretend Steve was the one out of line here for trying to defend Wanda’s humanity from Tony’s ugly, dehumanizing comments should tell you how far they’ll go to pretend their fave is perfect.

[alli-howard]

Who Told You That You Were Naked?

Many of us know the Biblical creation story. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and He saw that it was very good. Then God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into His nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being. He made trees grow in the garden, and in middle of the garden was the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God told the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” Then the Lord God saw that it was not good for man to be alone, so He created woman. The man and his wife, Adam and Eve, were both naked, and they felt no shame.

I want to spend a little time today on what happens next. Genesis 3 says, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.” He asked Eve if God really told her that they must not eat from any tree in the garden. Eve responded inaccurately, “We may eat from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” “’You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked…”

Later the Lord called to Adam “Where are you?” This appears to be a rhetorical question, because of course God always knows where we are. The man answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” And He said, “Who told you that you were naked?”’

This story is so well-known by many Christians that it can be easy to overlook, but I think it bears great relevance for us during our current cultural moment. As a result of the pandemic and stay-at-home orders, many of us are spending more time in front of screens, taking in information from the world around us. Many white Christians are listening to what Black Americans have to say about their experiences in our country for the first time, because we are all finally forced to pause. For many this feels like new information and it has been surprising and saddening to some, and threatening to others’ sense of identity. These are important conversations. It is important to recognize, though, that not everyone is utilizing this moment for the sake of God’s glory or the greater good. 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22 says, “Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil,” and I hope to give us a framework for how we can do that, based on this story in Genesis 3.

First, the Bible says that the serpent was more crafty than any of the other animals. It’s not popular to talk about the Devil, but the Bible says that the Devil exists and that he seeks to steal, kill, and destroy. Jesus describes the Devil this way, “He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” Currently, there is quite a bit of distrust in the media and our political leaders. It is easy to dismiss inconvenient facts as “fake news,” but not everything is subjective. There are voices out there that would ask you to believe that you should trust them unequivocally, believe everything they say is true and overlook everything they choose to ignore. This is unwise. Every human is flawed- we all see the world through our own lenses based on our time period, geography, and life experiences. Any human who just asks you to take their word for things should be met with skepticism (myself included!). Trust, but verify.

Secondly, Eve responded to the serpent’s question by misquoting God. While God had told them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Eve responded that they were not even allowed to touch it, or they would surely die. This seems like a small point but it’s not. When we are not firmly rooted in God’s word, the Devil can take our misinterpretations and misunderstandings and twist them to his advantage. We need to stay in the Word of God and ask ourselves what it truly says and what it means. When the Bible contradicts our lives and opinions, we need to be open to changing our lives and opinions. If there really is a God, after all, we should not expect Him to look just like us or to affirm all of our preconceived notions. Our lives should conform to the image of God, not the other way around- and we can only do that when we are reading His word.  

The last point I want to make is one that has been incredibly helpful for me lately. When Adam hid from God, God didn’t ask him, “How did you figure out that you were naked?” Instead He asked, “Who told you?” There are a lot of voices competing for our energy, emotions, and outrage right now. Many are pushing their own narratives and agendas. Be discerning about what voices you choose to listen to. Personally, I have a few questions that I like to ask myself. If someone is presenting new information about faith, I ask myself: (1) Does this align with Scripture, (2) what fruit can I observe from the life of the person who is telling me about this new belief? and (3) how can I find out if this belief is false? I think these questions are a helpful starting point, because if someone is presenting information contrary to Scripture then we should reject it right off the bat, but if someone displaying the fruit of the Spirit in their life and is presenting information I just may not have thought of yet, then I have the opportunity to remove blind spots that are preventing me from living out my faith consistently. Additionally, it is important to remember that truth corresponds with reality. If someone is asking us to blindly believe something that cannot be disproved, we should approach the topic with healthy skepticism.

Of course, there are other conversations taking place right now that are not about faith- many of the ones I am hearing about most frequently involve our national history, politics, economic systems, the role of law enforcement, and the prevalence of systemic racism and human trafficking in our world. As we learn about these issues, we should consider what the voices we’re listening to want us to believe and what the fruit (our ultimate outcomes) of their beliefs is. When you discuss these issues, I want to humbly invite you into a more nuanced conversation. Please do not fall into the trap of thinking that you can only be against abortion and human trafficking or against racism. That is a false dichotomy and it’s just not true. Many of us (myself included!) have been prone to either/or thinking, when the Gospel is more accurately both/and. God is for justice, mercy, humility, truth, and hope. As His followers, we should be too, as consistently as possible.

 In writing this, I found the Christianity Today podcast, “What the Bible Says About QAnon” to be incredibly helpful. I highly recommend it.

[aoifesfatvagina]

Trump Lingo Bingo: Our military was depleted, delinquents, do nothing democrats, crying chuck Schumer, republicans are united, African Americans, hispanics, asian Americans, 2.5 trillion, frankly, I don’t know her, tremendous, we took their oil, we’ll see what happens, the pres of ukraine, he turned to me and said his name was Col Raisin and I looked at him and said Raisin? I dont blame China I blame our past presidents, It was a totally perfect transcript, Warriors because thats what they are they are warriors, patriots that’s what they are they are patriots, We found the magic wand, I told them do it today, The past administration, before I took office, (insert country) was a totally different country 2 years ago, He’s a bad cookie, Mexico is doing more for our country than the democrats, thats billion with a b, Adam Schiff is a disgrace, I kept my promise, 250 billion, terrible terrible nafta deal, ***NEW: the lame stream media, to be honest, its a learning process, its the engine of our country -small businesses, like a rocket ship, 15 people, invisible enemy, its called project airbridge, the biggest economy in the history of the world, because of what we’ve done, 184 countries, Joe Biden called me xenophobic he called me a racist and other things, you don’t hear about ventilators anymore, we were right about that, democrats and republican governors, Gavin Newsom has said some really nice things, they have an expression ready willing and able, its really sad that people write fake stories, we’ve got almost 10,000 that are ready to rock, phase four Steve, the world health organization is a tool of china, its been totally China-centric, the bobsy twins, the most difficult decision I’ve ever had to make, the scariest day of my life was about a month ago, some states are looking at other states, they’re considered a developing nation?, rejuvenation, a lot of good brain power was involved, science based, literally, John, we will be helping countries that need help, we’re uniquely talented, we can do things that nobody else can do, we have the best people, we inherited a broken system, I call it a beautiful puzzle, what a sad state of affairs, on a per capita basis, this is about the plague and what its done to us, more than any other country, I said “you gotta be kidding” to the Dr, this was a very unpleasant test, we have a tremendous laboratory capability, we started with garbage, rude and nasty, I said “Mike, that’s politics,” V for victory and V for ventilators, like a hammer, its my opinion, we are the talk of other nations, the Washington Post, the New York Times, with our friends from-wherever they come from, what they’ve done with the army core and fema, one’s a swab one’s a q-tip- it’s actually different, it was hard to get it aroused, its pretty amazing, virtually everyday, nobody’s every heard of anything like this not since 1917, I want to draw your attention to Gov. Cuomo’s remarks, a lot of good things are happening, unfortunately the press doesn’t cover it, we’re moving very rapidly, some weren’t aware some were very much aware some-where, we have locations that are very important, medical capacity, thats due to a lot of things, we’re opening up America again, I said from the beginning, javits center, I see a lot of light at the end of the tunnel, its gonna be gone-gone, we’re doing something with schools, they don’t appreciate it okay they dont appreciate it, ready? I’ll say it for the 5th time, we have tested more than every country in the world put together, some of the countries are very big, 1 person is too many, now its much different, there’s been no one that’s been tougher than me on china, let me tell you what they told me- they told me plenty-they told me plenty, you have to do what you have to do, I’ve had a very good relationship with Kim Jong-Un, totally misquoted, it may not come back at all, I’ve spoken to 10 different people, we didn’t know about corona and now we know about corona, nobody writes about that, spoke with Pakistan, you people aren’t satisfied, when we became the king of ventilators, I think I can say the word was “unbelievable,” we must guard against a dangerous rebound, deaths, this is what we were just talking about, you know it and I know it and they know it, famous testing, we’re doing more than anybody else anywhere in the world-there’s nothing funny about that John, on site-5 mins-great success, I told the gov of Georgia Gov Kemp that I disagree strongly, we’re gonna have phase 2 soon its just too soon, I love those people that use all of those things the spas and the beauty parlors and the barbershops, sometimes we don’t want to win so we just go to a standstill, operation America Strong, that’s not the way this country works, it was an amazing success, the Covid hotspots, at record speed, I don’t know who he is, I saw a magnificent picture of Dr Martin Luther King, for example- sports, it’ll never be enough, when the governors were complaining, nobody that needed a ventilator didn’t get a ventilator, they’re literally coming in by the millions, its subject to change, I think you can say I helped a lot, what about the lion at the New York zoo? How did that happen?, do we want to keep going a little while longer or no?, You’re not gonna say ‘oh he took questions all night long?’, how many questions can you ask? convalescent plasma, antibodies, supposing you brought the light inside the body, its called containment, I once mentioned that maybe it goes away with heat and light, I just threw it out as a suggestion but it seems like that’s the case, when that surface is outside it goes away very quickly, it dies very quickly with the sun,  I just told you I’m not talking about that now, if they’re outside and their hands are exposed to the sun will that kill it?, well I know a lot about economists, the answer is: they have no idea, people are just thrilled to see it, in a few weeks you’ll see numbers, Germany and ourselves are doing really well, they’re insulting to look at, they’re doing it at a level that they’ve never done it before, as we have found and as we have I think shown, I think we will come up with things as time goes by, if we had done one for each person the media would say oh you should’ve done two, we have 11 different places making ventilators, we also have 500 million masks, this whole nightmare-this whole curse-this whole plague, these are brilliant people, Harvard, we’re looking, they had a lot of problems before the plague came, I hope people enjoy the sun, I would like you to speak to the medical doctors to see if there’s any way you can apply light and heat to cure, maybe you can maybe you can’t I’m not a doctor, I’m like a person who has a good you know what, Debrah have you ever heard of that? The heat and the light relative to this virus?, I think that’s a great thing to look at, I’m the president and you’re fake news, I’ll say it very nicely, It’s just a suggestion from a brilliant lab by a very very smart perhaps brilliant man, he’s talking sun he’s talking about heat, I’m just here to present talent I’m here to present ideas, we want ideas to get rid of these things, Johnson and Johnson, I think the report was done by a network, CNN is fake news-dont talk to me, okay next question, I wasn’t happy with Brian Kemp I will tell you that right now, I’m not happy about it and I’m not happy about Brian Kemp, If we could do it quickly that would be great, I could’ve done something about it if I wanted to, I want them to open, we have a sleepy guy at the basement of a house that the press is giving a free pass too, half of all Americans live in states, we ask every American to maintain vigilance and hygiene, from governors down to people that just stand there and help you with the doors, I really believe that, I spoke with Tim Cook today of Apple, we are getting through this challenge together as one American family, the whole world is watching us, I spoke with the leaders of numerous countries today, nobody has ever done anything like what we were able to do, our country-in the not so distant future, the FDA has been incredible, many tests are going on, I think we’ve done a great job, i don’t know how you cite a whistleblower complaint, everybody knows who he is, that I don’t know, we’re looking into it-we’re studying it-we’re investigating it, it could’ve been stopped easily in China, who are you with?, the postal service is a joke, they’re handing out packages for amazon and other internet companies, raise the price of a package by approximately 4 times, or let Amazon build their own post office, the post office is massive and serves every little piece of the country, it’ll be a whole new ball game, well ill go a step further, if they don’t raise the price I’m not signing anything, the service they give which is a tremendous service, the postal workers are fantastic, i was asking a question sarcastically, if the sun is out or if they use disinfectant it goes away in less than a min, did you hear about this?-yesterday, I was asking a very sarcastic question to the reporters in the room, disinfectant on the inside, sun can help us, this is a study, sun has a massive impact negatively on this virus, in other words it does not live well with humidity,  it doesn’t live well with sun-sunlight-heat-heat and sun and disinfectant, I want to help that industry, make the airlines work again, I got involved with those two countries to make them make peace with each other, oil is less than water nobody has ever seen anything like it, our national strategic reserves, that’s 75 million barrels, a very sophisticated friend said ‘I never knew you had 184 countries’, we will make the energy business great again, one of the ways we can help the airlines is by buying tickets at a very large discount, you buy into 4 or 5 years worth of tickets, idk sounds good right-if we get a good discount?, you shouldn’t be afraid of the radical left, very nice people, AOC plus 3 and all of her friends, we’re blessed in this country, we have tremendous wealth, we are bigger than Saudi Arabia we’re bigger than Russia, we don’t have ships very much in the area anymore, and with all of the conflict and all of the things, they kept saying “where are the American ships?”, Ronald Reagan tried to get it approved-couldn’t do it, he said that was one of his big disappointments, he could not get ANWR approved, every president couldn’t do it-I got it approved, thats why I talk about it, it’s gonna be natural, one day it stopped, something happened that nobody thought would ever happen, the work they do,  the president of Honduras-a really nice guy, sun and heat and humidity-wipes it out, this is from tests, so then I said ‘well how do we do it inside the body or even outside the body with our hands?”, I guess thats one of the reasons they say wash your hands, sun itself sun has a tremendous impact, hours to one minute instead, I said “you gotta go back and look”, maybe there is something to light and the human body and helping people that are dying, a group of extraordinarily hostile people- the fake news media, things are moving along, loved ones have been stolen from us, there’s a hunger for getting our country back, these goals work in tandem they work side by side, we’ve launched the most ambitious testing effort likewise on earth, think of that, what walmart and the others have done has been nothing short of amazing, we had a fantastic call with the governors, young people seem to do really well, the word is “safety”, well I think its a very unfair question, I was very fortunate whether it was through luck or whatever, I can tell you that Nancy pelosi was dancing in the streets of china town, lets go out and party, you don’t mention that you could mention that, you should have no complaints-please, I heard there was a glitch, we’re relying on the banks to go out and do an accurate job, we are not happy with china, we took in 10’s of billions of dollars, I helped the farmers, we should be able to get the answers, we’re reliant very much on the local areas-the governors, that’s been the way it has been for me maybe not for everybody, the governors some of them are doing an extraordinary job-not all of them, Manhattan is much different than Montana, if you look at the world I mean this is worldwide damage, I can’t imagine that, I think its very important to know, not only do we have the most testing in the world by far but we have by far the best testing, OAN please-go ahead, I think that General Flynn is a wonderful man he had a wonderful career, what happened to General Flynn should never happen again in our country, what happened to your president of the United States should never again be allowed to happen, I do not know but I can tell you, we are looking at a group of people who should have stopped it at the source, you’re gonna see an incredible 4th quarter, I built the greatest economy with the help of 325 million people, one day because of something that should have never been allowed to happen we had to close our country we had to close our economy, I built it, if you would have said with the tragedy that this country had to endure and go through, with all of the death and the people that died and were so badly hurt by what happened, you can only say god bless them, we’ll never forget these great people, incompetence or something else other than incompetence, they could’ve protected the whole world, we had the greatest economy ever in the history of our world, I had to turn it off in order to get to a point where we are today, obviously you’re gonna have GDP lack of growth, I’m looking at the head of Walmart, what a job Walmart’s done in going through something, they were doing yeoman’s work, millions of outfits and those are high quality, people have stepped up to the plate, I think it will be a tremendous tremendous comeback, we are gonna do it again, its tragic, say it?, You would’ve been in war with North Korea if I wasn’t president-that I can tell you, I hope he’s fine I do know how he’s doing relatively speaking, you’ll be hearing more in the not so distant future, I never even thought of changing the date of the election, November 3rd-thats a good number, that was just made up propaganda, I see all the time “statement made” per Joe Biden- sleepy Joe, let him know that I’m not thinking about it at all, this is breaking news, yeah we’ve lost a lot of people but if you look at what original projections were, we are lapping the world on testing and the world is coming to us saying “what are you doing?”, thank you for the apology, well it will go down to 0 ultimately, when it comes to cases we do much more testing than anybody else, as an example: China, if you test you’re gonna show many more cases, somebody said “if you add everybody else combined that would be a number”, likely so, very many good experts, this wouldn’t affect the United States it wouldn’t affect Europe, the experts got it wrong, I listened to experts, I’ll tell you what-I did something that the experts thought I shouldn’t have done, I closed down our country and our border, Ron Desantis was telling me before that when people came in people were put into quarantine people were checked, I think we did something well ahead of schedule and we did that at the end of January, we were early, by banning china and banning people coming in, we probably saved hundreds of thousands of lives, that was a thing that I really would love to see happen, a lot of people agree with me, I think frankly its simple, something like that could happen, the problem with the states is that we’re not looking to recover 25 years of bad management, if its Covid related I guess we can talk about it, but we’d want certain things also including sanctuary city adjustments, which I don’t think are even popular even by the radical left-folks, what’s happening is people are being protected that shouldn’t be protected, and a lot of bad things are happening with sanctuary cities but thats just standing up here answering this question thats one of the things I think about, if we are gonna do something for the states I think they probably want something having to do with sanctuary cities something having to do with other different points that we can discuss, in the very near future, either the airlines or government, we haven’t been given the press in terms of I think fairness of the press but thats okay, yahoo, than anybody else times 2, or everybody combined, and they keep talking about South Korea, it goes up exponentially, within a short period of time we were setting records, we’ve done more than the entire world combined, we’ve done more than every country in the world, we have some governors that are very strong on testing we have other governors frankly that aren’t nearly as strong on testing, their test is much more modest, the real test is when people stop getting sick and they’ll be able to do that too, I understand both systems very well, if you look at the numbers it could be that we’re getting very close, I don’t have the exact numbers we would’ve had them if you asked me the same question a little while ago because people with the statistics were there, we’re gonna be there very soon, I watched your report on NBC today and it was an incorrect report, unfortunately the administration the people that work our government hasn’t been given the kind of credit that it deserves, last month it was about ventilators, we’re able to give them to Italy France Spain, we’re making over 150,000 we’ve distributed thousands and thousands, they converted from cars and other things into ventilators, the job that we’ve seen has not been seen since world war II, we had a call yesterday with governors, I’m sure many of you were on that call-even though you shouldn’t have been, you shouldn’t have been Amy-but they were, the governors were thrilled, we’re doing a job the likes of which nobody has ever done, and I’m not talking about myself I’m talking about people in the army core of engineers, we built thousands and thousands of beds all over the country, in a matter of days what they’ve done is so incredible, and the Dr’s and the professionals and all of the people that you see me with all the time, these are great people and they’ve really done a great job, I think its gonna be very very successful, next year is gonna be a tremendous year for this country, I think Mitch is looking at it as I do to an extent, I wasn’t in favor of it I can tell you that in the Middle East, 8 Trillion dollars, and yet you wanted to fix a pothole a roadway or a highway in this country, you didn’t do it because they didn’t have the money because so much money was spent in the Middle East, we wanna do infrastructure, well I think that-like- hopefully we’re gonna come up with a vaccine, you always have to say “I think”, a lot of movement and a lot of progress has been made, I think what happens is its gonna go away, this is gonna go away, we’ll be able to put out spurts, we’ve learned a lot we’ve learned a lot about “it”, the invisible enemy its a bad enemy its a very tough enemy but we’ve learned a lot, its hard to believe its inconceivable, now we have 184 countries going through hell, I think that a lot of good things are gonna happen, I really believe that 4th quarter’s going to be-maybe tremendous?, well I have many people I know many stories, I lost a very good friend I also lost 3 other friends 2 of whom I didn’t know as well but they were friends, its a bad death its a bad thing it grips onto some people, we found out that young people do extraordinary well, thats why I think we can start thinking about schools, I notice where Purdue University a great school in a great state, I think the whole concept of computer learning is wonderful but its not tela-tela-learning, with this horrible scourge they do very well, I think we found a couple of stars in this room today, I don’t want to spend 2 1/2 hours at an eye doctor, I can call Steve at any time I can call him at 2 in the morning 6 in the morning it doesn’t make any difference, I say “did I wake you” the answer’s always “no”, we’re going through a period of time the likes of which we’ve never seen in this country before, certainly even if you go back into 1917 that was the worst of all time but it was also not as bad here, it was very bad it was very rough it was a bad one, it wasn’t wasn’t quite like what we’re going through right now, its because of the amazing-when you look at how contagious this is-where people literally just being in the same area with other people it catches, 

April 29th, 

Building block, if there’s a fire we’re gonna put it out, if there’s a little ember burning we’re gonna put it out, we’re gonna put it out very quickly, they mislead us, they’re literally a pipe organ for china, planes are coming out of wuhan, they are going to Italy very big time, what was that all about?, we’re coming up with a very distinct recommendation, there’s nothing positive about what happened in china having to do with this subject, we’re lucky that we stopped it in January, we are not happy with the World Health Organization, well as you know we just worked with the meat processes, we have tremendous product we have ample supply, the bottlenecks, I signed something very important last night, I just got off the phone with the biggest in the world, they’re all gung ho, the quarantine is going to be very strong, we have a very good record of having people getting better, we’re just about #1 in the world, couple of countries are doing okay but we are doing very well, will this be used in the earlier phases or the later phases?, its called “in the teens”, with what we’ve gone through as a country, I think I read this is one of the best weeks in the stock market, since the 1950’s or 1940’s, I think there’s a tremendous feeling of optimism in this country, we’re transiting into but its a very transitional period, I think its gonna do good, I think next year all of the fruits of what we’ve all done together, between the drs and the business people, its about growth, we’re going to be in great shape because we’re growing, there are ways to look at it, we are throwing money at the people that lost their job unfairly, they were down and out and we came along, I don’t know him I’ve never spoken to him, I think he’s a very very good man who had a very bad day, and then he wanted to be Ernest Hemingway, he starts writing long memos, you can’t do that when you’re a captain of a ship, when you talk about spreading, it started with 2 people then it went to 12 people, that spread like wildfire, by double by much more than double more than everybody else combined, I didn’t say 5 million somebody said 5 million, I think it might’ve been the Harvard report, yesterday I looked at Deborah I said “what’s with the 5 million”, we’re more advanced than any country in the world on testing, and not only that the testing is the best, they love the abbott laboratory’s test, nobody even thought about that 2 months ago or 3 months ago, I’m saying where did that number come from I keep asking where does it come from?, you know-whats interesting about that number is, I remember when we did a million we said “we just did a million”, and the media said “oh when are you going to do 2 million”, in other words its sort of a set up, its called the media trap it pertains to me it doesn’t pertain to other people, its what I’ve had to experience for 5 years, all I know is this, president Moon of South Korea, he said your testing is the greatest in the world how did this happen?, He said “I want to just tell you that what you’ve done with testing is incredible”, our people should be congratulated, look we are better than anybody in the world on testing, we’ve tested more than anybody in the world, and we have the best tests in the world, we started off with nothing we had nothing we had absolutely nothing, I always say “the cupboards were bare”, they were bare in the military and they were bare medically, in terms of pandemics or epidemics or whatever you wanna call it, who would think you’d have to play the game?, its to a large extent public relations, public relations or whatever, but china is not to be congratulated for what happened, they are not to be congratulated for what took place, and the WHO is essentially congratulating them, we’ve got problems, the United States pays almost 500 million and they pay 38 million, there are a lot of groups out there, we’re gonna make a decision in the not so distant future, one thing I think I’d like to just finish by saying, we reached a million cases, that’s a tremendous amount, and the reason is because of testing, other countries don’t test, they don’t have the ability to do what we’re doing, its a number that in one way sounds bad but in another way is really actually an indication that our testing is so superior, to think that we have more people and more cases than china, does anybody really believe that, but the testing is different, the transparency is much different, its like from day and night, we are totally transparent, x we’re a much bigger country than most also,

May 11th,

Thats not breaking down, its the hidden enemy-remember that-its the hidden enemy, things happen, three tested negative, we had one person, we have a lot of people that work here, those people are tested depending on what portion of the Oval Office area they’re going in, everybody coming into the presidents office gets tested, I felt no vulnerability what’s so ever, the two people as I said and three people they have been tested and its negative, its an interesting question, if we get tested its a problem and if we dont get tested its a problem, I like the way your question was phrased better this way because it is a positive, these machines here they are incredible machines, they are calling-lots of countries, the private sector what they-how they got it done, these are things that didn’t even exist a short while ago, generally speaking, without exception, we are leaving it up to the governors, the people of the country they’ve learned a lot over the last two months, they’ve learned about social distancing washing your hands and other things that we’ve all learned and talked about, they’ve learned about face masks-the good and the bad by the way, its not a one sided thing believe it or not, our country has learned, our country has been incredible, we’ve prevailed on testing is what I’m referring too, you never prevail when you have 90 thousand people 100 thousand people when you have 80 thousand people, the kind of death, millions of people throughout the world that are dying, testing is a very big important function, we have prevailed, what else is new-with china, they should’ve stopped it at the source, hacking, no-not at all-not even a little bit-no-i’m not interested, China’s been taking advantage of the united states for years for many many decades, we had people at this position right where I’m standing sitting right in that office-the Oval Office-that allowed that to happen, I want to see various things that we want, this is really going to be in my opinion we’ll see but I think its gonna be something thats gonna be very special, its a transition to greatness, and greatness is next year,  next year you’re gonna see-potentially, you know a lot of people wanted to do things they were ready to do things but they had to hold back because of the virus, pent up demand, unless somebody messes it up, like a certain party namely the democrats, you’ll mess it all up, we had the greatest in the world-I presided-this administration presided over it, it got great for a reason, in the case of me I’m not close to anybody, so obviously in my case, if you look at all of those people over there, these are White House staffers, and everyone has a mask on, I understand you very well better than you understand yourself, 5 mins etc, you can’t win, so we have a person and the person got something, happened right after a test was done, three other people met that person came into relative contact, that is not exactly not controlling it I think we’ve controlled it very well, we have hundreds and hundreds of people a day pouring into the White House, its a massive office complex, including the very large building right behind us that you know so well, the other people were only people-they were quarantined for a specific reason, the reason is they were in the general proximity of the one person, and the one person I believe will be fine, we’re seeing that all over the world now with young children very very tiny percentage but its still the swelling and the skin rash, its a phenomena thats just been brought to everyones attention, its a tiny tiny percentage, it is a very very small percentage, and people recover from that the children recover from that-right?, we’re studying that very closely and its been on the radar for weeks, its been very rare, its very important to us, I think one of the things we’re most proud of is, deaths per a hundred thousand people, Germany and the United States are at the lowest strung of that ladder, meaning low as a positive not a negative, Germany and the United States are the two best in deaths, which frankly to me, the most important number there is, thats the problem with a question like that, I think its horrible, he looked-i saw the picture of him in his tuxedo it was so beautiful, just a wonderful guy, to me its a very sad thing, I spoke to a number of people that are very much involved, it breaks your heart, its an empty spot on the tape I guess, now do they have additional tapes-I hope, I called him two days ago I said “Tim what do you think-tell me”, machinery apparatus, there just seems to be no effort on certain blue states to get back into gear, the people aren’t gonna stand for it, they want our country opened, I want it open, don’t forget people are dying the other route, you can go with the enclosed route, everything’s closed up you’re in your house you’re not allowed to move people are dying with that too, you look at drug addiction you look at suicides you look at some of the things that are taking place, you can make the case its an even greater number, its a situation, safety is paramount but people are dying in the lockdown position too, and everybody understands that-they’re just starting to find out, look at what’s going on with drugs and look at whats happening with suicides, very substantially, the models haven’t been exactly accurate, these are models done by a lot of think tanks a lot of universities, few of the models have been accurate, as far as the models are concerned, if you go by the model we were gonna lose 2.2 million people, we had to turn down the whole country, we’re at the lowest of all of the models, many of those models are wrong, they’ve been wrong as far as the US is concerned, you know what I don’t want to think about it even, we acted extremely early in keeping China out of our country, and banning people from china coming in, other than our citizens which we obviously had to take, they were watched very carefully, we had to obviously take the people, could you imagine if I said you’re a US citizen we’re not gonna take you, everybody was against my doing it everybody-everybody was-the professionals the doctors, I was pretty much by myself on that one, and it was a lucky thing we did it because we saved hundreds of thousands of lives, it was obvious right from the beginning-the state of Washington, I would’ve said “nursing homes” and I did say “nursing homes”, that is a real vulnerability, Obamagate its been going on for a long time, from before I even got elected, if you look at whats gone on and if you look at now, some terrible things happened and should never be allowed to happen on our country again, I wish you’d write honestly about it but unfortunately you choose not to do so, you know what the crime is the crime is very obvious to everybody all you have to do is read the newspapers-except yours, just from listening and hearing like you do  we all do-not everybody should get a test, because they have to have certain things and they’re gonna know when they’re not feeling well, the meatpacking is moving along very nicely, we have now and nobody says it they just don’t want to write it by far-more tests-than any other country in the world not even a contest, we have the greatest capacity in the world not even close, Ron Desantis of Florida, and maybe thats a question you should ask China, don’t ask me ask china, you may get a very unusual answer, 

[knightofbalance-13]

https://sokumotanaka.tumblr.com/post/165337672499/knightofbalance-13-one-of-my-pet-peeves-about

Oh-hohoho!

You wanna go? I have literally lost all my patience for your bullshit. So don’t blame me when you get the asswhooping of a life time

He literally tried the “I will explain how these people shouldn’t speak for x minority groups by trying to speak for them.”

Um..where?

Was it here?

What’s worse is that I KNOW people in these groups who disagree with RWDE and, in fact, find RWDE speaking for them offensive. But if they try speaking out, all they get in response is “you don’t count.”

Because I never said that. I knew EVERYONE in the groups nor was I speaking on all their behalfs. Just the people I know.

Or was it here?

The only person you have the right to speak for on this planet is yourself.

Which outright contradicts what you said. So that’s misrepresenting the facts.

And the icing in this dumbass sundae is he also used the.

Manipulative language.

“I know minorities so I can speak for them.”

Look above and apply that here: Misrepresenting the facts in misquoting: “I know people in these groups and they share my opinion so this is obviously not a unanimous thing.”

He decided to double down on the “I don’t know what I’m talking about but I’m gonna do it anyway.”

Like lying about the facts right in front of you and misrepresenting what is blatant.

Also: misrepresenting the facts and manipulative language.

He’s right guys, the many minorities who think this white guy who can’t write racism should stop and at least have someone who either experienced it or learned about it should stop.“

And what about the many minorities saying that he can write racism and telling you to shut up? Oops, looks like you proved my point above correct.

Listen to the one black guy he knows who has no respect for his own race and thinks little of them, who is still suspect to be him BTW.

Proof? because I can prove you’re a racist (https://sokumotanaka.tumblr.com/post/162638286479/sourcedumal-historicalmenandotherdumbshit / https://sokumotanaka.tumblr.com/post/162418155909/damanixjanay-gamsee-today-this-white-girl / https://sokumotanaka.tumblr.com/post/161148592944/somebody-in-my-tv-watching-class-did-a  / https://sokumotanaka.tumblr.com/post/157854485089/locker-room-bitch-commander-homosexual

Yeah, come listen to the racist who calls a black person who doesn’t agree with him “disrespectful towards black people” IE reinforcing the mindset that you

And what about @rainbowloliofjustice who also agrees with me? She’s black: you gonna disregard her race too because she doesn’t agree with me?

The dozens and counting LGBT people who spoke up so have no say, listen to job who’s in the small minority who has assured people, belittled victims and used the "I’m a harassment victim so it’s okay!” Card.

... A. Has nothing to do with the situation at hand so Ad Hominin: That’s four times you’ve used a logical fallacy.

B. And the dozens of LGBT people who’ve told you to shut uop and stop calling queerbaiting? Yeah, I never said you were inaldiated: only that you only get to speak for yourself.

C. STOP USING MY NAME!

He’s so right guys!

This is one of the dumbest post he ever made.

I’m not the one who got outed as a racist with proof, used four logical fallacies and proved my opponent’s point.

I’m pretty sure he’s pointing at a mirror at this point.

[equivvitch]

Fassathon: A Summary (Part II)

or, to misquote John Mulaney: “you have more than ten movies left and it gets worse”:

Eden Lake (Also Steve)

Rating: 7/10

Quick Summary: Jenny and Steve take a weekend trip to a place called Eden Lake which used to be a nice camping spot but is soon going to be torn down to make room for a housing development. They have some difficulty reaching the place as it is technically a construction zone, but eventually make their way deep into the woods and find a place on the shore to set up camp. Soon they’re joined by a large group of obnoxious and antagonistic teenagers who heckle the couple, refuse to turn down their music, and seem unlikely to leave anytime soon. Any attempts to reason with them are ignored and the couple eventually gives up and tries to enjoy their day anyway. They continue to encounter the group of kids and tension grows between them with the teenagers growing violent and threatening. Steve decides to confront them despite Jenny’s protests and it doesn’t go well. All this results in the two running for their lives, trying to escape the group at any cost.

Some Thoughts: This is the better horror movie on here. It’s well-done for the most part. Fassbender’s character is kind of a dumbass and there are some cliché moments in there, but it’s fairly original and doesn’t rely on jumpscares hardly at all. It’s really more of a thriller than a true horror movie, a survival film I guess, since you know who the enemy is and well….it’s just a group of delinquent children so there’s no real inherent fear there. I definitely got caught up in it and had a few good jumps and moments of shock. I wasn’t really impressed with the ending, but since I don’t have the most experience with horror I can’t say whether it was to be expected with this kind of film or not. It’s definitely frustrating at times and the characters make a lot of idiotic choices, but it’s a suspenseful ride. It’s an interesting commentary on mob mentality as well, since the group of kids starts to fracture early on. The theme ties into the ending as well which I won’t spoil. It’s definitely an “oh no we’re trapped in the woods and someone is chasing us” movie but the performances are good and it didn’t become too predictable, at least for me. A solid film all around in my opinion.

Warnings: This is a pretty bloody movie. It’s not as bad as the other horror movie on here, but there is blood and mild torture and immolation. Also animal death because these movies can’t cut them a break. It was accidental in this case, but it’s there. Also just disturbing imagery in general. It’s a horror movie. You probably know if you can handle that or not.

Recommend?: Sure, if you like horror films I think this one is a less well-known one that’d be worth giving a chance. Also it’s pretty short so there’s that.

12 Years a Slave (Epps)

Rating: 9/10

Quick Summary: Solomon Northup is a free man and an excellent musician living in New York with his family when one day he’s propositioned by two men who own a circus in Washington to come and play his violin for their show. He agrees and all seems to be going well when suddenly he finds himself kidnapped along with a good number of others and sold into slavery in spite of his protests that he is free and has proof of it. He ends up enslaved on a plantation owned by a man named Ford who favors him to some degree, desperate to escape. He ends up in a confrontation with one of the overseers on the plantation and Ford, supposedly for the sake of his life, hands Solomon over to Edwin Epps. Epps turns out to be a despicable man and Solomon struggles to survive while under his thumb, all the while attempting to escape and return to his family.

Some Thoughts: Nothing I can say about this movie would really be worth anything, so this probably won’t be that long. This is one of those films I’ve needed to watch for a long time and I don’t mean to lessen its importance by doing it in the midst of this. I’m very glad to have finally watched it and really I’d like to rewatch it here soon to really let it sink in, since I sort of took it in short bursts the first time around. It’s an incredibly impactful film and one I think every American at least should see. McQueen is truly at his best, unflinching as ever and putting his distinctive long takes to impactful use. Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon does an incredible job of grounding and guiding the film even when he doesn’t have much dialogue a lot of the time. Lupita Nyong’o is absolutely incredible. I cannot believe this was her first appearance in a feature-length film. She is such a strong presence on screen even though her part was comparatively small. To comment briefly on Fassbender himself, this part was kind of beyond words. He really plays the worst of the worst and not to say anything good about the character himself, but he does it very well. He doesn’t come in until about halfway through the film and….thank goodness he doesn’t jfc… Anyway, it’s a very important movie and very much worth the difficult watch.

Warnings: A lot of disturbing imagery, including lynching and general humiliation of the people who are enslaved. A great deal of blood and abuse, including a drawn out scene where a character is whipped. Warning as well for r*pe/sexual assault. Lots of slurs and violent racist behavior. I’m sure most people get the picture.

Recommend?: With the warnings in mind, yes. Like I said, this is one all Americans should see once they’re old enough.

Jonah Hex (Burke)

Rating: 4.5/10

Quick Summary: Jonah Hex is a bounty hunter who had everything taken from him by a man named Turnbull. While strung up, branded, and forced to watch his family burn alive he ended up with the power to seemingly evade death, as well as talk to the dead for a brief amount of time. He goes around hunting Turnbull until one day learning of his apparent death. After this, he is directionless and mostly hunts criminals, making a name for himself. Soon enough however he finds out Turnbull is alive and attempting to steal and use the most dangerous weapon ever invented to Blow Up the World™. The government enlists Hex to help them stop him so he sets out to avenge his family and apparently also save the world.

Some Thoughts: So this is officially the worst rated movie on this list, but I really don’t think it deserves that title. It really is a stupid movie, but that doesn’t stop it from being occasionally enjoyable. I probably rated it a little too highly but I think comparatively it deserves the praise. Jonah Hex is an actual DC anti-hero from what I can tell and this is, kind of hilariously, an actual DC movie. I really know nothing about his canonical portrayal, but the x-ray thing you get when you rent/buy a movie on Amazon told me that his power to speak to dead people isn’t in the comics which….makes me wonder what he actually can do. But I digress. Hex himself is actually a pretty decent protagonist. He sort of hits a Wolverine-esque level of brusque irritability over everything that he uses to mask his usually good intentions which I kind of appreciated. That said, almost everyone is checked out in this movie. It works for Josh Brolin playing Hex but not as much for the others. John Malkovich as Turnbull isn’t over the top but it’s sort of a tired forgettable performance. Megan Fox plays Sexy Lamp with Knife which is not her fault but she’s also 1000% checked out. To her credit she does useful things, but her relationship to Hex is never explained, there’s no chemistry, and she’s used as an object more than once which is annoying. Fassbender is really the only one who seems to be having a good time which makes his character kind of enjoyable even if Burke is a Bitch. He kind of has an Alex from A Clockwork Orange vibe about him in that he so thoroughly enjoys doing what he’s doing. His Irish accent is really ridiculous, but god, at least it’s entertaining. He seems like he actually wants to be there which is more than I can say for anyone else. He’s having a good time and well…good for him. There is some genre-typical racism in the movie which is a pain in the ass and one really what-the-fuck scene that I wish hadn’t happened. The conflict kind of suffers from Suicide Squad-syndrome in that it’s too big for its britches. There was no need to have it be a destroy-the-world kind of movie. It could have been destroy a town. That would have worked. Also The Weapon™ is stupid and ridiculous and makes no sense and is basically just a bomb in the form of Dragon Balls. It’s not the worst movie on here by far, but it’s not good. It was at least mercifully short and had a few fun moments littered throughout. I wasn’t suffering while watching it by any means. It didn’t really do much for my opinion of DC movies though fjskal;j

Warnings: Some blood and violence. Also the scene where Hex gets healed has strangely disturbing imagery that kind of came out of nowhere.

Recommend?: No, but it’s not the worst thing out there.

A Dangerous Method (Carl Jung)

Rating: 8/10

Quick Summary: Carl Jung takes on a new patient named Sabina Spielrein who is seemingly hysterical, but also very intelligent, even dreaming of becoming a doctor herself one day. Together they work through her past trauma using Dr. Sigmund Freud’s revolutionary “talking therapy” and make excellent progress. Jung encourages Spielrein to pursue her dreams and the two form a strong friendship over the course of their interactions. Some years later, Jung and Freud finally meet, taking on a sort of father-son relationship as would be expected. Some of Freud’s ideas trouble Jung, especially concerning the relationship between him and Spielrein. However, Freud’s predictions come true when Jung and Spielrein start up an affair in spite of Jung’s initial resistance. The remainder of the film follows the disintegration of both these relationships, while also touching on the career paths of all three doctors.

Some Thoughts: This is a really excellent movie. I hadn’t heard really anything about it, but after watching it I’m really surprised I haven’t? It’s definitely one of my favorites on this list. It is a thought-piece and is a little bit more slowly paced, but that didn’t really bother me. It is a highly sexual film in nature, so that might be off-putting but it’s also fascinating. The interactions between the characters are interesting and it’s unclear where the story is going (in a good way…I mean that it wasn’t super predictable). I really….don’t like Freud at all and I was sort of worried that would ruin the movie for me, but it didn’t bother me much. No one escapes this movie uncriticized, which is good. I really, really like Kiera Knightley and she does an excellent job playing Spielrein. She sinks into the role well and pulls it off convincingly. I was impressed with how they handled her character actually. Fassbender did a good job as Jung as well. I almost think playing a real person helps him to get into character more completely sometimes. I liked watching the evolution of the relationship between Jung and Freud, some of their conflicting ideas, how they interact. The movie brings up a lot of interesting ideas, and sort of shows a bit how the fields of psychology and psychoanalysis developed. It might just be because I’m interested in the topic that it appealed to me so much? It’s a very solid and very nice-looking film as well so I’m a little surprised it doesn’t get that much attention. Is it because Fassy has a dumb mustache the whole time? It’s the mustache isn’t it.

Warnings: The nurses at the mental institution treat Spielrein a bit roughly sometimes when she won’t cooperate but it never escalates to full-on abuse. There is a lot of sexual content in this movie as well, so maybe take a peek at the parental advisory on IMDb before watching if that bothers you.

Recommend?: If you’re fine with the warnings, yes. I’d really say give it a chance if the subject interests you. I think it’s a movie that deserves more attention overall.

Blood Creek (Wirth)

Rating: 3/10 (that’s me being generous and taking into account the other worst movie on here)

Quick Summary: This fuckign movie I swear to god…………. It has the dumbest conceit physically possible. So Nazis want to take over the world or whatever and to insure their success they decide to go snooping around in the occult. They discover that our great Nordic ancestors have left these rune stones (more like rune walls but whatever) inexplicably around rural America and deploy some guys to go look for them and learn how to do that. They do this by paying farm families to take in the men. One family takes in Richard Wirth unknowingly and immediately regrets the decision. Flash forward to some indiscriminate time in the future, Forgettable Protagonist #1 has somehow lost his brother, Forgettable Protagonist #2, in a river or some shit and he’s very Sad over it. Then one night FP #2 returns! He drags FP #1 out with him to do some Secret Thing and FP #1 goes because of Familial Guilt. They end up at the farm where apparently people have been disappearing for years. The family’s still alive and immortal thanks to Wirth. They help him catch people to eat for their own safety. Unfortunately FPs #1 and #2 have arrived just before a lunar eclipse! This is Bad because through muttering and blood Wirth plans to open a literal third fucking eye in the middle of his fucking forehead to ~reach the beyond~ as one of the farmers explains after FP #1 demands an explanation four hundred times. But it can only be done during a lunar eclipse!!!! Which is tonight!!!!!! Anyway they have to stop him or whatever and also he can bring shit back to life with his muttering.

Some Thoughts: ….this movie is fucking stupid. Also it probably wins for hardest one for me to watch because it’s kind of a gore fest. I thought it was the worst one on here but………shockingly no. Its narrative might be really, REALLY stupid, but it at least makes sense. It has a plot. It’s a dumbass plot, but it’s a plot. The lighting is atrocious in this movie and so is the cinematography in general, but considering the director I guess that’s to be expected. It’s inexplicably in black and white for like the first ten minutes then flips to color to show time has passed. Get it. There’s a lot of shaky-cam and super dark shots which, while a sort of relief since it means you can’t see anything, it also means that you can’t fucking see anything. This movie rides the edge of almost being funny sometimes which can be kind of enjoyable, but really it’s just over the top but not in an entertaining way. There is an actual zombie horse in this movie which busts through the wall and proceeds to attack the family and it’s played deadass straight. Also the CGI is ridiculous at some points. There’s a lot of yelling for no reason and people refusing to explain anything. When people finally stop yelling and explain stuff you sort of wish they hadn’t because a) nothing they’re saying actually helps you understand what’s happening, they’re just saying words together in approximations of sentences and b) it’s so ridiculous that you might as well just not have known. I can’t say it was actually that scary, just kind of nauseating because of all the blood and gore, though that was partially just me. I’m usually okay with that stuff, but this one was too much. That’s really subjective so keep that in mind I guess. I really can’t imagine what this movie is good for except if you like really stupid horror movies and don’t care about the blood? Even then there has to be better ones you could pull for your bad movie night. I guess Fassbender as Wirth is sufficiently intimidating, though really it could be anyone in that makeup and he has about four total lines that aren’t muttering. (I guess kudos to the makeup team….they did their job fine.) This was seriously in my top spot for Actual Worst Movie on this list. The fact that it got topped sort of tells you how horrible the other one was but….we’ll get to that soon enough.

Warnings: Lots of blood and gore. Also animal death. And rebirth but mostly death. Just gross shit in general. Also CGI zombie horse.

Recommend?: Don’t do it buddy. I suffered so you could live—save yourself.

Slow West (Silas)

Rating: 5/10

Quick Summary: A boy named Jay is riding across the Old West™ in search of a girl named Rose he’s infatuated with who moved from their home of Scotland to America. Along the way he runs into a Silas, a gruff, quiet man who all but forces Jay into paying him to act as a guide and bodyguard on his travels. Jay doesn’t have much choice but to accept and the two set off. Jay is idealistic and pretentious, particularly when it comes to his ideas of love and Silas is uninterested in forming personal connections, so the two don’t get along well. Still, begrudgingly they form a bit of a father-son relationship as they go. Truthfully, Silas has his own reasons for helping Jay outside of making a quick buck: Rose and her family have a fairly large bounty on their head. Along the way, however, they run into a group of bounty hunters Silas used to “drift” with who are also hunting Rose and her father and Silas begins to have a change of heart.

Some Thoughts: I really wanted this movie to be good. In fact, I sort of thought it would be? Ultimately it was pretty disappointing. It’s a really well-shot movie, but it’s sort of a case of interesting concept, poor execution. None of the characters speak like normal people in this movie. Jay is our protagonist, but he’s often insufferable at the best of times. He’s meant to be young and stupid with stars in his eyes, but it gets irritating after a while. He’s chasing after his manic pixie dream girl who’s already moved on without him and probably didn’t like him that much in the first place, but the movie doesn’t really address his flaws or do much with him at all. Silas is kind a stereotypical tough guy who’s been forced to harden his heart to survive, but we learn almost nothing about him so it’s difficult to be very sympathetic to his cause other than he’s much less insufferable than Jay. There was so much opportunity for interactions between the two of them, but?? They really fell flat. There’s a couple short exchanges but there were entire conversations missing from this movie that could’ve helped to develop characters and relationships. More than anything it needed some good fleshing out. A lot of stuff just sort of happens in the film as well and you have to accept it. Silas showing up and extorting Jay is funny but also completely unexplained. At one point a German dude in the middle of a field steals all of Jay’s belongings after they talk a while and is never mentioned again. The group of bounty hunters Silas left seem interesting, but we don’t ever get to learn about them. More than anything, the movie is made up of long shots of people riding across landscapes and that’s about it. There’s no real heart in it and it’s really a shame because it could have been something great. It’s not the worst one on here, but it’s definitely the definition of mediocre.

Warnings: Some blood and violence, mostly due to shoot-outs. Nothing too horrible.

Recommend?: Not really. I guess if you want to see it it wouldn’t hurt since it’s short but it’s nothing special.

Song to Song (Cook)

Rating: 4/10

Quick Summary: This movie is...sort of plotless but I’ll try anyway. Basically it follows the romantic/sexual escapades of a woman named Faye, as well as those of the people she becomes involved with. Faye is a skinny, white, quirky hipster-type living in Austin, Texas for some reason doing very little other than standing around and thinking about how messed up she really is. She begins with Cook who is a Douchebag with basically no redeeming qualities and therefore, by default, a music producer who seemingly ruins everyone who comes near him. Meanwhile she starts seeing BV who at least seems like a decent person if also completely lacking in personality. The rest of the film really is just about their relationships and is mostly composed of very pretty if unrelated shots of the actors standing around posing and wanking on about love/sex and the meaning of life or whatever.

Some Thoughts: From what I can gather this is sort of film is kind of typical of this director. The movie is sort of a collage of unrelated shots, all of which are very beautiful, but that’s about as deep as it goes. There isn’t really any normal interaction between characters, just monologues where characters philosophize about pretentious topics for hours without ever really saying anything of meaning. Really there aren’t characters in this movie, just paper-thin facsimiles of characters. They run around doing quirky things like writing in lipstick on a mirror and chasing each other around the middle of the desert, but never actually interact in any normal way. The narrative is there, sort of, but it’s not interesting in the least. Really it’s a vapid bunch of nothing with a shiny topcoat sprayed on. By forty minutes in I was exhausted and this thing is two hours and ten gotdamn minutes long. I think if it was a shorter maybe it’d be a little more excusable? Probably not. It’s the sort of film you’d expect from a pretentious film student in an attempt to create True Arte and there’s definitely an audience for that sort of meaningless, shallow thing, but not much. It was just sort of exhausting to sit through in the end. It’s never explained why anyone is the way they are, particularly Cook who I guess has been Ruined by the Music Industry and poisoned by Greed or something. I guess I should point out that all this is accompanied by some decent music and is supposedly set against the background of Austin’s music scene. It has nothing original to say and goes on for way too long. Yet another in the category of “look pretty and do as little as possible.”

Warnings: Lots of sexual themes, drug usage, and warning for themes/mild depictions of self-harm. Also just warning for the pure lack of substance this “movie” has.

Recommend?: No, don’t subject yourself to this. If you want to watch an Art movie, there are better ones and shorter ones to boot.

Angel (Esmé)

Rating: 4.5/10 (the variance in my ratings leaves something to be desired I’m sure but a lot of these really are just okay)

Quick Summary: Angel is a young, self-righteous aspiring writer who succeeds in her dream of becoming a great author and gets rich doing so. Because of this she meets Nora and Esmé, brother and sister. She becomes good friends with Nora who is a great fan of hers, even taking her on as a personal assistant. In contrast, she fawns after Esmé, a typical tortured artist sort whose paintings are misunderstood by the general public and whose attitude leaves something to be desired in spite of Nora’s warnings that he’s something of a playboy. Angel flatters her way into a relationship with him, mostly by pretending to like his art and the two end up engaged and married. After the initial honeymoon stage, Esmé begins to lose interest in Angel who is as narcissistic and vapid as ever. A war begins and he goes to fight in it despite Angel’s protests, which turns out to be only the beginning of the troubles their relationship faces.

Some Thoughts: This movie is a melodrama straight up. It rides the edge of humorous sometimes, but could have done with a bit lighter of a tone in my opinion. In a lot of ways it was a breath of fresh air after the complete lack of any normal human emotion in the past two movies I’d watched (more so in Song to Song but still) so I probably was little more endeared to it than I would have been otherwise. Really I was sort of hoping for a Meg Ryan-esque movie where Fassbender was the alluring man-prize and Angel was the witty, endearing protagonist chasing after him. But……that is not what happened. Angel herself really…is not a likeable character. She’s rude and narcissistic and shallow and she’s rewarded for it. She gets everything she could ever want and never learns or changes until the very end and even then it’s arguable how much she actually learned. As a child she’s insufferable and she just never grows up. Esmé is an asshole and very much the stereotypical misunderstood artist type. His paintings are dark and therefore a reflection of his empty soul you see. Angel panders to him and at first it sort of seems like they deserve each other since they’re both awful. Ultimately Esmé wins out for biggest piece of shit however which maybe garners Angel a bit of sympathy. Nora and the editor are both decently likeable characters and the scenes with them in them aren’t the worst. I sort of liked Esmé and Nora’s relationship in that they actually acted like siblings most of the time. It’s just a sort of silly melodrama with a couple of strange dark elements thrown in without explanation. The backgrounds when they’re driving around are hilarious, I’ll give them that. But otherwise, the protagonist is annoying and learns nothing and that’s a pretty big issue. If you don’t mind melodramas/soap operas maybe you’d like it okay? Otherwise it’d probably just be irritating after a while.

Warnings: Attempted r*pe and depictions of suicide. Also ridiculously fake backgrounds

Recommend?: Not really

The Counselor (The Counselor)

Rating: -300/10 1/10

Quick Summary: I couldn’t explain this movie to you if you paid me actual money. It has no conceivable plot. It’s about drugs, supposedly, but who could say for sure? Unfortunately someone messes with the drugs which makes people not happy which means something Bad is going to happen, but off-screen somewhere, you know, where all interesting things in this movie happen. Brad Pitt is there. So is Penelope Cruz until she gets fridged. Michael Fassbender is The Counselor™ and that’s literally all I can tell you about his character or part in this movie. Even this much is probably speculation. It doesn’t matter anyway nothing fucking matters let’s just move on please god I’ve wasted too many brain cells on this already—

Some Thoughts: FUCK THIS MOVIE AND ITS NO REDEEMING QUALITIES. I thought Blood Creek was the worst…….how little I knew….. this really was the worst, and by worst I mean The Fucking Worst. This may well be the worst movie I’ve ever seen. This movie make Suicide Squad look like a masterwork in cinema. Its plot is completely incomprehensible. It seems as if they filmed everything, cut the parts they didn’t like, accidentally deleted it, then said “Fuck it” and just scooped everything up they’d cut off the editing room floor and used that instead. The cinematography was horrible. The lighting was shit. The dialogue is atrocious. It goes nowhere and is baffling constantly. The characters just stand around and ramble on like they’re all in freshman philosophy class. You don’t know anyone or why anything’s happening. I swear to god they never tell you what’s happening or why. Not once. They never explain anything beyond the fact that there are some drugs and then something goes wrong with the drugs. What? Who knows. How? Like we’d fucking deign to tell you. People come on screen who you’ve never seen before and never will again. Nothing in this movie matters. The characters are all sex-obsessed and insufferable. Everyone in the cast deserved better than this movie, even Brad Pitt who’s playing Billy Ray Cyrus as a drug lord. I have never seen Fassbender so fucking checked out of a movie. Usually even when everyone else is dragging along he’s putting in some effort, but not here and god do I not blame him. His character is just…..inexcusable. He does nothing but stand around and ask dumbass questions. Nothing ever happens to him. HE IS THE TITLE CHARACTER OF THIS MOVIE AND HE DOES NOTHING. BRAD PITT DOES MORE THAN HE DOES. He just listens to other people talk and then is sad. Boy is he sad. We don’t know what he does or how he does it or how he got into this or why the fuck we should even care. He doesn’t even have a real name. Poor fucking Penelope Cruz is in this mess as well and is nothing but an object for man-pain. I’d also like to point out how ridiculously sexist and pretty racist this movie is?? Because it is. Cameron Diaz…..I’m so sorry sweetie……. There are no words for how horrible your treatment is this movie is. You see, she’s terrible because she’s a Bad Woman and therefore Evil and Conniving. She uses her Womanly Wiles against poor innocent men who don’t know any better. No words could describe how terrible this movie is. The fact that anyone would try to defend it is beyond me. I’m cannot believe I wasted two hours of my own human life on this nonsense. This one really is the worst of the worst, the indubitable worst movie on this entire list which, considering some of its competition, is mind-boggling. Blood Creek at least has a plot, stupid as it is. It knew what it was going for. Things happened and made sense. You couldn’t pay me to sit through this again. I have no idea what Scott was going for and I don’t want to know. I fully plan to repress this movie from my mind and never think about it again. Next person to mention it to me again will be blocked so help me god I don’t want to hear another word about it ever. This topic is banned for eternity.

Warnings: There aren’t enough warnings in the world that could prepare you for this shit

Recomm—I BEG OF YOU DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SAVE YOURSELF IT’S NOT EVEN FUNNY WATCH THE ROOM OR SOME SHIT IF YOU WANT THAT KIND OF LAUGH THIS IS EXCRUTIATING DO NOT PAY TO SEE THIS PLEASE I SUFFERED SO YOU COULD LIVE HEED MY WARNING, YE WHO VENTURE HERE. PRESERVE YOUR INNOCENCE AND AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS PLEAS—

The Light Between Oceans (Tom Sherbourne)

Rating: 8/10

Quick Summary: Tom Sherbourne returns home after several years fighting in the war and takes a job watching over the lighthouse on Janus, a small remote island. It’s a lonely job, but one Tom welcomes readily enough. Before he leaves he meets Isabel Graysmark and the two become interested in one another. When he returns again in order to accept an offer to keep the job for a longer period of time, they go out together and begin a romance. They send letters back and forth when Tom returns to the island and eventually get engaged and marry. Isabel moves out to Janus with Tom and the two are happy. They try to start a family with little success. After two miscarriages Isabel is discouraged and somewhat depressed as having children is very important to her. As if by fate, right after they lose the second baby a boat washes ashore on the island carrying a dead man and an infant which somehow survived. They take in the baby for the time being and Isabel is ecstatic, but Tom warns that they must report the incident and turn the child in. Isabel is desperate however and the two end up conspiring to keep it a secret and pass the child off as their own, burying the man despite Tom’s continued guilt and protests. Little do they know this will lead to greater consequences than either could have ever imagined.

Some Thoughts: In spite of the mixed reviews this movie got, I really enjoyed it? It was the first decent movie I’d watched in a while during this escapade so that might have contributed to it, but I thought it was a really enjoyable, if bittersweet story. It is a romance, but it’s also a drama and it’s not really that predictable. It’s a beautiful movie and an original story, at least to me. I agree that it’s sort of slow-paced, but I didn’t mind it. It sucked me in from the beginning and held my attention until the very end. The chemistry between Alicia Vikander and Fassbender is obvious, and the beginning of the movie is almost sweeter now that they’re married. They make a lovely couple on screen and off. I really don’t relate at all to Isabel’s desires or motivations, but she was still a sympathetic character and Vikander did a great job playing the role. I was glad to finally see a movie of hers. It was also kind of nice to see Fassbender play a genuinely good person, not that I don’t usually enjoy his armada of morally grey parts. It was just a change of pace I appreciated. I thought everyone’s motivations were clear and I was excited to see where the movie would go with itself. It definitely got some tears out of me and while it’s an emotional ride, I don’t think it was overdone necessarily. The ending was as good of one as I could have hoped for considering the plot of the thing. It was a strong film with strong performances in my opinion. I enjoyed it even though I’m usually not one to favor straight-up romances. I’d also like to add that seeing that shit mustache shaved off on screen was incredibly cathartic and this movie deserved an award for including that scene alone.

Warnings: The miscarriages might be off-putting for some people but otherwise, it’s pretty clean.

Recommend?: Yeah, if you like dramas at all, this is a good one.

Haywire (Paul)

Rating: 5.5/10

Quick Summary: Mallory Kane is a special-ops agent of some sort working for a private company. She’s known for being very good at her job, and is hired to rescue a hostage in Barcelona. The operation goes smoothly enough, and she decides to take a break, but is approached immediately afterward by her boss Kenneth. He begs her to take one more quick job in Dublin, working with an MI6 operative. She agrees begrudgingly since she has plans to quit her current job and move on, and heads out. However, once she arrives she finds herself suspicious of the operative Paul and their mission. Her suspicions are soon confirmed as she finds herself under attack without warning from all sides, forcing her to go on the run where she both struggles to survive and find out who wants her out of the way and why.

Some Thoughts: I was actually really interested in this movie, just from the premise and it turned out to be alright. I wouldn’t say it was disappointing, but it wasn’t anything special. Forgettable is probably the operative word. It sort of felt like a 90s movie for some reason, and as though it had a smaller budget than it actually had. Still, even if the execution was kind of shaky with the acting usually mediocre at best in spite of many big names taking part, the concept was one after my own heart. I really like female-led action/spy movies and I gave it props sort of because of that. This movie sort of felt like a precursor to something like Atomic Blonde which was similar in concept but better executed, having come out more recently. Gina Carano is really incredible, just in general, and she plays Mallory. I believe she did most of, if not all her own stunts and that’s always amazing to me. She is as stoic as any James Bond-type and, shockingly, is not sexualized at any point in the film. Frankly Fassy probably won that award since in the 15 minutes or so he was on screen he managed to come out wearing only a towel for no discernible reason. Fassbender has another bit part here, probably even smaller than the one in Inglourious Basterds. He’s fine and just more of a plot device than anything else, on and off screen real quick. It is true that a lot of the characters are plot devices and not that complex. The plot is all eventually explained, but it walks a binary of being too obvious and then too vague. The cinematography was sort of strange, as was the music. It was oddly silent for the most part, like they shot a scene then forgot to add the soundtrack. What music is there is sort of ambient and ill-fitting usually. It was pretty short and that helped it not be weaker than it was. Sort of another nice concept, not great execution sort of film.

Warnings: It’s rated R but it has no reason to be imo. The violence is moderate. There is fighting but not a ton of blood. I was dead-ass serious when I say the most risqué thing was Fassbender’s towel scene.

Recommend?: I guess in the same way I recommended Centurion, if you’re just looking for something to watch this one isn’t the worst. Maybe watch it to see Carano at work.

Assassin’s Creed (Cal Lynch)

Rating: 5.5/10

Quick Summary: Cal Lynch finds himself on death row having been charged and found guilty of murder. Just as he is about to be euthanized, he finds himself rescued and drug off into a strange facility. There he meets Sofia who insists he’s been saved to help them in their quest to bring an end to all violence in humanity. He resists but is forced to help them anyway. He finds himself attached to a machine called the Animus which links him to his ancestor, Aguilar and allows his memories to be viewed. Aguilar is part of a group of people who call themselves assassins. They fight against the Templars in a battle for free-will. The rest of the movie plays out as Cal struggles with his past and must choose between helping Sofia by going against everything his ancestors stood for or becoming an assassin himself.

Some Thoughts: Some background: I was probably, somehow, the perfect person to watch this movie. I assume there are others like me, but probably very few. The thing is, I have really positive memories about Assassin’s Creed. It holds nostalgia for me because I used to like watch my dad or brother play it, but never played it myself because I’m Shit at video games. Therefore, I know nothing about the plot and thus can’t contradict them for getting stuff wrong, but have a fondness for the series that would make me interested to see the movie nonetheless. I suspect that’s why I didn’t hate it as much as everyone else. It really isn’t the worst thing ever. I would say I even enjoyed the first three-fourths or so. The last fourth was a mess, but I’ll get to that. It felt like a strange case of poor concept, good execution. All the acting was really good. I can’t believe they dragged Marion Cotillard into this, but boy did they. She did a great job as usual at least. Her arc really was the more complete one in comparison to Cal’s. Fassbender does a good job as well. I actually kind of enjoyed the fight scenes, endless cutting notwithstanding, and you could tell a lot of work went into them. The atmosphere and cinematography was nice I thought, or at least reminiscent of the game. I could tell they were trying to make it look similar. The actual plot was where it fell flat. The McGuffin was stupid and made no sense whatsoever. The whole idea of violence and free-will being genetic is really dumb and sort of offensive? I don’t know if that was part of the original plot or not, but still.

Cal’s arc really made no sense. (Also jeez, what a shitty time they give him, dragging him straight off death row, into a strange place, straight into a weird gigantic machine….) The first half was fine, you get why he’d want to go back in the Animus and screw the assassins, but then he suddenly changes his mind. That flip, along with the ghost parents and all the other assassins suddenly trusting him after he fucked them over makes no sense and was not explained. The whole end scene was inexplicable. How’d they get there? Why’d they all go if Cal was only gonna kill the one guy? The fact that it was a clear bid for a sequel was….unfortunate and embarrassing. Overall, it wasn’t the worst. I do think people are being a little hard on it, but I’m probably biased since I really don’t know what they got right and what they didn’t. As a layman, it was tolerable. I was expecting it to be The Worst, and since my expectations were so low, I ended up having an okay time.

Warnings: None really. Maybe some blood, but it’s a pretty clean movie.

Recommend?: Not really

BONUS

A Bear Named Winnie (Harry Colebourn)

Rating: 8/10

Quick Summary: Harry Colebourn is part of the Canadian army being deployed to help fight in World War I when, on the way, he finds and saves a bear cub from being skinned. Unable to leave her, he brings her with him, naming her Winnie and declaring her the division’s mascot. Responses from superiors range from begrudgingly accepting to upset and demanding he get rid of her, but he keeps her around anyway. The division grows to love Winnie and Winnie becomes fully domesticated. This poses a problem when they have to head to the front and are unable to take Winnie with them. Harry and the others must find somewhere she can be safe and live a good life without them.

Some Thoughts: I thought I was done but…..this one was free on prime and it just looked too cute to pass up. Really this is a kids’ movie but it’s really adorable and pure. The bear cubs are actual bear cubs and they’re great. It’s like a horse movie, or a dog movie, but with bears, which makes everything hilariously ridiculous because they’re just going around with an actual-ass bear acting like it’s all chill and not a problem. Fassbender is so young in this it’s fun to watch after seeing all the other ones. If you’re interested in just watching him play with bear cubs for an hour and a half this is the movie for you, and really, who wouldn’t? The army subplots in the background are….kind of stupid and go nowhere but again, it’s a kids’ film so that’s sort of to be expected. It’s actually based on a true story and Winnie is the bear who Winnie the Pooh was based off of which makes it that much more adorable. Really it’s just a heart-warming, good time if you like animal movies. I cried at the end because I……am not allowed to watch animal movies I swear to god even happy ones destroy me. I clearly have nothing bad to say about it, it’s cute and good and free. This was the True Good End to the Fassathon we all deserved.

Warnings: None this is seriously the cleanest movie on this list. It’s rated PG or some shit which is unheard of….

Recommend?: Yes it’s really cute

(previously: pt. 1 / cont. in pt. 3)