#like and subscribe for more opinions woo

[mtdewred]

i was looking at old articles about BMC and this one in particular rly bothered me

they compare the main character of BMC to DEH and I think they prove BMC's entire point. ESPECIALLY songs like Loser Geek Whatever and Upgrade (both versions).

What on earth is wrong with being *bad* awkward?? Awkward shouldn't have a charming, positive definition it's AWKWARDNESS. It's supposed to make you cringe because you yourself know what awkwardness feels like!! I just hate how Evan Hansen, guy who lies about a kid who killed himself to get with his sister but it's okay bc he's the "sweet and charming" type of awkward, is any better than Jeremy Heere, loser reject who takes a pill and makes mistakes but ultimately tries to remedy it out of his own accord to give free will back to the girl he likes, is worse because he's the painful type of awkward. Why are we. hating on. real awkwardness...

ALSO YOU LEARN SO MUCH ABOUT JEREMY IN THE FIRST SCENE LIKE JUSTBHIM IN HIS ROOM. JOE ICONIS WAS LIKE THIS IS THE PINICLE OF BE MORE CHILL. like he's just a lonely lil dude leave him and his porno ALONE omggg AUGHHHHHH

[sagittarithealastorsimp]

im bored, so im gonna rant about alastor's breakdown scene

deal with it

(i also may have lost the post with most of my info but whatever shut up/j)

WARNING: MAJOR spoilers for for hazbin hotel

if you havent watched it all the way through, id reccomend that-

also speak of sensitive topics such as father issues, mental breakdowns,

i feel like i should say this, i am NOT a psychiatrist, in ANY way shape or form, and im just speaking from prior knowledge and experience, aand also my friend who has studied psychology and all that jazz immensely (say hi to ros! :)

i also make an excess of unnecessary and dumb jokes so if you cant handle that bye i guess (/j)

(will also include random images here and there of him, bcz why not)

okay, so i dont think its that much of a secret that alastor is NOT okay, mentally (and physically, i mean, look at that gash thats not healthy smh)

it could NOT have been made ANY clearer that theres something wrong going on in this mans head, and its... uhm whats the word help ive backed myself in to a corner here

theres more than one s o m e t h i n g thats wrong, i guess, and im here to give my opinion and theory on the matter so uhhhhhh

make sure to SMASH THAT LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE BUTTON FOR MORE AMAZING CONTENT1!1!1!!/j

okay very dumb and idiotic jokes aside smh, im gonna explore and explain each one of the reasons i think this guy is not okay, starting with

d r u m r o l l

father issues! yayyyyy amazinggggg totally not horrible haha whaatt.. anyways, there are numerous hints that alastor had, at the very least, a very problematic father, and, hey, ever notice how he's more comfortable around women?? and that he was a confirmed 'mamma's boy'? yeah, based on those two things (i only provided two reasons because, haha, i may or may not have lost the post i was using for info) i think we can concur that he had atleast SOME sort of father issues, and not the "oh yeah he's just an annoying goofy fella" kind of father issues

of course, we ALSO have the deal he made, which was brought up briefly in episode 5, and 8

and there i s kind of a funky little debate on who the deal was with, and what it was for, but the two main cantidates are lilith, and roo

and who knows what lilith/roo makes him do, even? ...okay, aside from lilith/roo, who would be the ones making him do things-

i dont know, theres not alot i can say on this matter other than its most likely alastor made a deal with either lilith or roo to save his power or something, and briefly bring up the fact that he probably does have to do some things here and there, and the fact that if it i s lilith he made the deal with, she probably sent him to help out with the hotel, maybe, i dont know

WHEWWWW OKAY THEN lets get in to some of his behaviours that are n o t at ALL good or normal, the way he treats husk and reacts to him 'caring' about his 'friends' wooo yayyyyy

also heres another alastor image so you little grubs(/j) dont get bored at the lack of things to look at woo

lets start with how he treats husk, thats just, thats not nice man dont do that :(

jokes aside though, there HAS to be some reason that he treats him like this, theres no way that its just because he owns his soul- like, unless husk did something reaallyyy bad theres no reason to treat him like that (granted, alastor IS in hell for a reason, and is NOT a normal or good person)

anyway thats it for this section because i really dont have anything and im relying on the wiki and memory alone to get me through this post shush :(

okay lets talk about his reaction to him nearly dying for his 'friends' and actually caring about them

its clear that this man has some sort of issues with caring about people, and there has GOT to be more than one reason why other than "oh no people are gonna think im a softie thats no good :( *has a breakdown musically*" i mean, it COULD be just that one, but i just really dont think it is honestly, i dont really have that diffinitive of a reason, i just really think that something happened that made him n o t want to get attached to people,

and i REALLLYYYY want to know what that reason is in season two

alright, for the last bit of this post, i think we should discuss the fact that he always smiles

we DO know that one of the reasons is that, to him atleast, a smile is a valuable tool, that keeps your friends inspired, and your enemys guessing, and always ensures YOU'RE the one in control

but its HEAVILY implied in this image that there is another reason,

if you observe close enough (not really that close, but hey who has perfect eyesight not me) you can see it looks like his mouth is stitched, and even more so to be literally always smiling so theres a possibility that either lilith or roo is ALSO forcing him to smile

then again it could just be something about him literally not being able to talk about his deal, which is also plausible

...or thats just what he looks like idk im not here to judge his fashion choices

CONGRATULATIONS!! you made it to the end of my stupid post! keep in mind that any and all of this could change at any given point, and i will update it accordingly....if i remember to

i am not using this in any way to condone his actions AT ALL, you shouldent be a cannibal, or a serial killer, or be manipulative (is that the right word???), thats unswag smh, and i am NOT AT ALL a psychologist, or a psychiatrist, once again, i only really know some of these things because my friend rambles about them, and i used to get in to crime and psychology documentaries when i was bored

so i am not at ALL a professional

thanks for reading this shit show of a post

[cinnamonroll999]

Top 5 Most Solid Chanbaek Proofs-Part 3

3. Heaven Lyrics Analysis

This is where stuff gets too "coincidental" to be a coincidence any more. I'll start from the beginning.

"Heaven", on Exo's EX'ACT album, is a b-side song written by Chanyeol.

As you probably guessed from the title, "Heaven", is a sweet song about a person who the singer feels like is an angel who came from heaven. In the song, the singer describes the angel as a beautiful person who is like a ray of light for them.

The keywords in the song are heaven, angel, sky, light, etc.

Hello, angel

You're like a painting, when I look at the sky, I can only see you.

As you read in the above image, Chanyeol used "sky" as a way to describe Bakehyun.

And apparently, during this time, Chanyeol also posted pictures of the sky on his Instagram.

Now, posting pictures of the sky is really common, especially among idols, but it's still pretty suspicious how he used it to describe Baekhyun too.

City street lights (Okay)

Even when the lights go out (Okay) and the moon disappears, it's still shining (Woo)

Because you are the star (Yeah, yeah) that fell from the sky

By chance, Baekhyun's superpower given by SM for their Kwangya plot line is light. This is a very small detail and is probably a coincidence, but we should take it in account to not miss anything.

I'm smiling for some reason

I can't sleep even if I close my eyes every night

I stay up all night again, thinking of you

Your shining smile makes me breathe

Perhaps you, you

Are hiding your wings behind your back

Yeah, anyone can tell you're my only angel

When I'm with you, I can fly

Years ago, Bakehyun showed everyone the "angel wings" on his back. He has prominent shoulder blades, and I think he's mentioned before that he is insecure of them.

Here, he bent down to show them to everyone and by coincidence, Chanyeol was the one who revealed them. He knew exactly where to press.

Baekhyun then gets up, and I believe he says "I'm an angel" or something along similar lines.

Yeah, she says, "Don't, don't

Casually say that I'm pretty as if it was a joke"

I took this particular point from @yeolspuppy's analysis. You should go check that out if you want a deeper analysis, since I only covered the major points. I'll link it below.

Bakehyun has some traditionally female traits, so in turn, many Exo members and Exo-Ls describe him as "pretty". While fans do it to praise Baekhyun's visuals, Exo members do it jokingly like an inside joke.

Saying that a girl is pretty jokingly seems really weird. In a world where people assume that they are a couple when a boy and a girl hang out, it seems like you wouldn't want to tell a girl that she's pretty in fear that she might find out about your feelings. However, if you have already confessed and are in a relationship with her, then why would the girl assume you are joking when you call her pretty? That is supposed to be a compliment.

Chanyeol is a celebrity who would face major backlash for using "he" in a song, especially in a country like South Korea. In order to protect his reputation, mentioning anything other than a "she" would be dangerous. Just because Chanyeol mentioned "she" does not confirm that he is straight or was referring to Baekhyun.

Thus, this line could easily mean Baekhyun telling Chanyeol to not jokingly call him pretty.

Heaven Song:

@yeolspuppy's Analysis:

There are honestly tons of song with Chanbaek clues. I compiled them all along with some other Exo songs that give chanbaek vibes. You can check it out if you want to:

Here's a YouTube channel I'm subscribed to. They give pretty good Chanbeek, Baekhyun, Chanyeol and Exo Daily Updates. Their analysis is also pretty good. Check them out:

[nequittezpaswrites]

I would love to know more about how you came about developing Diana as an OC. Was it plot first, then character development? Or did Diana help the plot develop?

I’m just so curious!— I often have a hard time getting into OC-centric fics because I sometimes can’t connect with the OC, but I find myself very intrigued by Diana. She’s the type of character I’d obsess over making moodboards and Pinterest boards for. 😂

This is a fun question! I hope you’ll forgive the lengthy response.

What came first was the talent, actually.

Inter Vivos began life as an Aro x OC fic, and I wanted to create a character with a talent which would draw him in, in particular. The idea of a talent for influencing people sprang to mind immediately. Originally, I thought about making Diana a vampire to begin with--but the problem is that any vampire with sense who had that kind of talent would probably do their best to stay well away from the Volturi.

So, the OC had to start out human. She also had to be in a position where she would be noticed by Aro and the Volturi, without being eaten. So she had to stumble on the secret, but there had to be a compelling reason why she couldn’t just be killed or turned right away.

With these constraints, investigating a loved one’s mysterious death in Volterra came to mind immediately as the opening for the story, and it demanded a certain sort of character: someone suspicious enough to worry immediately; someone proactive and clever enough to track her loved one down; someone brave enough to walk into almost certain danger in order to save her loved one; and someone cunning enough to put together fail-safes that would, if not guarantee her safety, at least guarantee serious repercussions if anything were to happen to her.

Diana’s character unfurled from there. The story was initially going to be pretty straightforward--Diana striking the bargain for time, then doing her best to hate Aro as she slowly gets to know him, failing, and ultimately romance ensues. The hybrid pregnancy plot did not exist at all.

Diana’s character shaped the plot very significantly from there. For one thing, she’s a little too similar to Aro to make for good romance, at least in my opinion. They’re both cunning and curious and share a lot of the same values. That made it hard to come up with good conflict beyond “you ate my sister.”

(Aro, for his part, is inherently difficult to write a romance with, because when you’ve seen every thought everyone’s ever had immediately upon meeting them, it’s easy to make judgments about who you like and who you don’t like. I don’t subscribe to love at first sight, but for Aro it does seem likely that he would experience love at first touch. And while I could have written a story where Aro fell in love immediately and had to slowly woo an extremely reluctant Diana, that isn’t the sort of romance I’m interested in writing. Also, CarnivorousMuffin and Vinelle’s meta and fics have convinced me that Aro is mostly gay for Carlisle, and I’m now incapable of shipping him with anyone else.)

With the pairing that inspired the story originally in tatters, I scrambled for candidates to salvage this as a romance. Writing the Volturi is difficult because, aside from Aro, the rest of them have very, very few lines.

I narrowed down the candidates to Marcus and Demetri. Once the hybrid pregnancy plot was involved (which was a natural extension of the political situation), Demetri was out. We get very little from him in canon, but he does come across as very polite and dutiful, and thus not inclined to hit on a woman who is basically royalty and thus above his station. That left Marcus, who already had an edge because while he only says like two sentences in canon, he has a solid backstory from which his character can be extrapolated. And that extrapolated character is different enough from Diana for me to work with.

TL;DR: The kernel of a plot gave me Diana’s character, which then imploded the planned plot and forced me to rewrite the whole thing.

[can-i-make-image-descriptions]

[Image ID: Comment with username blocked out reading: You're not too far off. "Harris" runs a private Discord server for his fans who pay at least $300/mo on his Patreon. On his Discord he reportedly hosts spiritual "relationship advice" classes, primarily targeting queer youths and young people belonging to other marginalized identity groups, for which he charges access on an annual basis. He's built up a small cadre of a few dozen subscribers over the past few years, each likely having paid him several thousand dollars at this point for the combine Patreon sub and course "tuition" Its currently unknown exactly what is taught in these courses (no normal person has been willing to cough up $400+ for this shit) but apparently he's heavily leaned into New Age/"Easter" hippie woo, anecdotally presenting himself as God's prophet for the "Aion" (New Testament speak for "the coming age" according to some intrepid Twitter sleuths). Believe it or not, there's something fishy going on in that limy's fanbase. There's more info on Twitter and some of the less trafficked drama subs if you do some digging.

From what I can tell, posts about the classes or "tuition" fees get scrubbed from his main subreddit. Apparently some of the mods on there are paid "community ambassadors" (lol) so you can guess why they might not want this becoming the next big story on drama YouTube. Either way, one of these days "Harris" is getting his day in the court of public opinion.

Edit: the fans get very angry whenever anyone brings this up lol /End ID]

if you’re wondering how it’s going, internet historian fans have resorted to making up qanon conspiracy theories about hbomb

[idolskpop]

‘Destined With You’ Episode 13 Spoiler: Jo Bo Ah & Rowoon Face Their Cursed Past

‘Destined With You’ Episode 13 Spoiler reveals that Jo Bo Ah and Rowoon will have to deal with the consequences of their tragic past lives as they struggle to maintain their romance in the present. The JTBC drama has been captivating viewers with its mix of fantasy, mystery, and comedy, as well as the chemistry between the two leads.

What happened in ‘Destined With You’ Episode 12?

In the previous episode, Lee Hong Jo (Jo Bo Ah) and Jang Shin Yu (Rowoon) finally confessed their feelings for each other and started dating. They enjoyed their sweet moments together, despite the chaos at work and the threat of Lee Hu Beom (Ahn Sang Woo), who is obsessed with Hong Jo.

(Photo : JTBC) However, their happiness was short-lived, as they both remembered their past lives and how they died. Hong Jo was shocked to realize that she was Aeng Cho, the woman who cursed Shin Yu in his previous life as a prince. She also saw how Shin Yu killed her in a fit of rage after she betrayed him. Shin Yu also recalled his past life and how he suffered from the curse that made him unable to love anyone. He felt the pain of losing Hong Jo again, as he sensed that she was distancing herself from him.

(Photo : JTBC Official Instagram)

What to expect in ‘Destined With You’ Episode 13 Spoiler?

The new stills for ‘Destined With You’ Episode 13 Spoiler show that Hong Jo and Shin Yu will face a crisis in their relationship, as they try to cope with the secret of their past lives. Hong Jo is in tears, as she feels guilty and confused about her role in Shin Yu’s curse. She decides to push him away, even though she still loves him.

(Photo : JTBC Official Instagram) Shin Yu is also heartbroken, as he can’t understand why Hong Jo is avoiding him. He tries to drown his sorrows in alcohol, but he can’t forget her. He still worries about her safety, especially when he learns that she encountered a strange incident at her home. He rushes to her side, hoping to protect her from any harm. The production team hinted that more secrets will be revealed in the upcoming episode, and that they will affect the fate of Hong Jo and Shin Yu.

(Photo : JTBC Official Instagram) They said, “The confusion caused by the secret of their previous lives will change the relationship between Lee Hong Jo and Jang Shin Yu. Please look forward to how they will overcome their destiny and find their true love.”

Where to watch ‘Destined With You’ Episode 13 Spoiler?

You can watch ‘Destined With You’ Episode 13 Spoiler on JTBC on October 4 at 10:30 p.m. (KST). You can also stream it on Netflix with subtitles. ‘Destined With You’ is a fantasy romance drama that tells the story of Lee Hong Jo, a webtoon editor who can see people’s past lives, and Jang Shin Yu, a webtoon writer who is cursed to never fall in love. They discover that they have a connection that transcends time and space, and that they are destined to be with each other.

(Photo : JTBC Official Instagram) The drama stars Jo Bo Ah (‘Forest’, ‘Tale of the Nine-Tailed’) as Lee Hong Jo, Rowoon (‘Extraordinary You’, ‘She Would Never Know’) as Jang Shin Yu, Ahn Sang Woo (‘The World of the Married’, ‘Beyond Evil’) as Lee Hu Beom, Kim Seul Gi (‘Oh My Ghost’, ‘Splash Splash Love’) as Kim So Hye, and Lee Hyun Kyun (‘Hospital Playlist’, ‘My Mister’) as Choi Jin Ho.

What do you think of ‘Destined With You’ Episode 13 Spoiler?

Are you excited for ‘Destined With You’ Episode 13 Spoiler? Do you think Hong Jo and Shin Yu will overcome their cursed past and find their happy ending? Share your thoughts and opinions in the comments below Don’t forget to like, share, and follow us for more K-Drama news and updates! Subscribe to IDOLS KPOP for exclusive updates and captivating content. Read the full article

[lady-maria-the-wolf225]

I had a thought the beginning of a third TMNT bayverse film would've started with the turtles being 19 to 21 years old, and doing their own ASMR videos with their own youtube usernames kinda like this in my opinion 😂😂:

*whispers* Greetings my lovely students, it is I, your Sensei "the great Master Leo." And today, we will be doing a very silent meditation session today. Before we begin, please subscribe to my channel and slice the bell icon for more meditating and ninja training tutorials. Now that we got that out of the way, let us begin our session. Let me just put some relaxing music here, and we shall get started...*does meditation things in silence for the remainder of the video*

*whispers loudly* wassup you beautiful bitches! It's me your tough red headed big boy here! "Mr.Sexy Ripped Raph!" Today, I'm gonna do some quiet weight lifting and whispering dirty things in the microphone afterwards. Subscribe to my channel for more sweet ass content from me, or imma go into your house and fuck you up so good, you wont be able to walk in a full week. Now that shit is out of my system, lets do dis thang. So, prepare to have your ovaries explode!....*he prepares his weights and begins lifting them up, but they fall on top of the camera and it breaks* FFFFFFUUU- *please stand by...* 😅

*whispers in a very soft tone* Hello my darling assistants. This is your favorite brilliant science guy, "Professor-Donnie." Today, I shall be mixing three different liquids with some salt. Before we begin, here's a little word from our sponser, Adam and Eve. Care to experiment on yourself with some gorgeous looking glass butt plugs to ram up your bum with? Or vibrate that beautiful pink clit to make yourself squirt with a rechargeable vibrating bunny dildo like a pulsating sprinkler that you have at your front yard? Than use the code:"ProDonnie" to get a 30% off special offer for your purchase of $100 or more on any items you wish to buy, and you will recieve free gifts with that purchse such as a sex tape, a free toy, and a starter kit. Again, the code is "ProDonnie". Also, subscribe to my channel for more sciencey content. Now that this is all in conclusion, let us begin. *starts mixing the liquid and salt as it bubbles and puts it close to the microphone whispering some more* you here that?.....that is the sound.....of science.....

*whispers excitedly* what is up my Babes and bros! It's me your awesome, handsome, and totally cool pizza loving, sexy skateboarding gamer boy with a dazzling personality, the one, the only, "Happy-go-lucky-Mikey!" And today, we will be playing the new Crash:4 its about time! Woo hoo! Im so excited for this thing! I cannot wait to get started! And while I play, I will also silently eat some pizza while I'm at it. So let us start this awesome journey with our favorite non-verbal orange bandicoot crash himself with his magical talking mask Aku Aku, and also. Dont forget to subscribe, and check out my new merch! I got skateboards, headphones, pins, stickers, T-shirts, hoodies, and even magnets and mugs with my face all over em! Use the code: "funky-Mikey" to get 15% off of your first purchse! And now without further a do, let's get this bad boy started! *5 hours later* oh yeah! This game is so wicked peeps. *takes a bite of pizza* Mmmmm!....So good!.....*chews close to the microphone while still playing*

That's all I can think of. What do you guys think? 😂😅

@teenage-mutant-ninja-freak @tmntspidergirl @selfless1978 @memes-in-a-half-shell @the-second-circle-of-shell

[pinelife3]

What Women Think Men Think

In the 2000 film What Women Want, Mel Gibson accidentally electrocutes himself with a hairdryer in the bathtub which for some reason gives him the ability to hear women’s thoughts. This comes at a great time for him personally and professionally as it allows him to perform well in his job as an advertising exec, woo the lovely Helen Hunt, and bond with his estranged daughter.

Sadly, the genius of What Women Want was not recognised by critics in its time and the film received poor reviews - however, it did perform well commercially, making it a great candidate for a gender-flip remake. Our prayers were answered earlier this year with What Men Want, in which Taraji P. Henson plays a sports agent who misses out on a promotion because she doesn’t get men. Surprising no one, What Men Want received worse reviews than the original, but managed to one-up it by also being a commercial disappointment.  I haven’t seen it (I hear it is genuinely unwatchable) but from Wikipedia I gather that she drinks some magic tea and then can hear men’s thoughts which... makes her good in bed but doesn’t lead to as much professional success as you might expect. While What Women Want, directed by the great Nancy Meyers, is about a chauvinist learning to respect women, What Men Want is about a woman learning that most men suck and that they don’t deserve respect so it’s better not to work for them. What Men Want was directed by a man which, if you ask me, seems kind of pandering: why would a man make a film about how cartoonishly awful men are?

The rough premise of both What X Want films is that when the protagonist has access to the inner thoughts of the opposite sex, what they hear is revelatory: the opposite sex is apparently unknowable, inscrutable, vastly foreign. It requires magic (or bathtub electrocution) to know what others really think. Ha! Well, I have that magic. A portal to another world. A world where men, unobserved, unfettered by social barriers, freely say whatever they really think of any idea, image or product you present to them: Reddit.

I’ve often complained to Matt that practically any post on Reddit which features a young and/or attractive female woman girl will draw comments from men saying that they’re going to jerk off to the picture. Why do you think we care that you’re going to mash your genitals while watching this gif of a girl in a bikini using a homemade water slide? Why did my eyes and mind have to be subjected to this information about your plans for the afternoon? Did that first improbable spark of life, apes descending from trees, straightened spines, the birth of technology, everything our forebears strived for across eternity, really lead up to this moment where you wrote that on the internet? Why are we pack animals?

So the shtick of this blog post is: I sneak about on Reddit to find out want men want, what they care about, and think about. But! We ladies don’t care what they think about beer and barbecues (we already know that all men are practically BBQsexual, am I right?) so let’s identify a few things where we do care about what they think. 

For our purposes, I think women only care about men’s opinions on women - and possibly also sexual politics. For sports, most political issues, food, music, etc. I think we all agree that if you ask a man what he thinks, he’ll probably give you a pretty straight answer. The fantasy of knowing what men really want is that it’s information you would not normally have access to, because you’re too shy to ask, or you’re concerned his answer would be evasive or dishonest. Most people aren’t dishonest because they’re mean liars. They’re dishonest because they doesn’t want to hurt your feelings - or perhaps because they can’t be bothered to argue. So some of the impulse to eavesdrop on someone’s thinking is an insecurity, it’s suspecting they’ve withheld or softened an opinion - and wanting to know the full truth even if it’s hurtful. 

In particular (and mostly because I want to talk to someone about these books), I’m going to pick ideas from Sally Rooney’s novels to compare romantic men as written by a woman with the actuality of men on Reddit. Rooney writes love stories (or at least love-adjacent stories) which are widely read by women and have been enormously popular: this to me suggests that her idea of romantic men has resonated with many women and therefore it may be interesting to see if the interiority of the men she’s written could exist in the real world (or, at least on Reddit).

My methodology for trawling Reddit for relevant information is simple:

1. Is the attribute mentioned in Reddit’s NSFW directory? I don’t want to solely rely on the Reddit NSFW directory as a barometer for men’s interest in things, but I believe when trying to assess what men find attractive, this is a decent tool. I would venture to say that every (legal) niche interest is addressed by a NSFW subreddit: gamer girls, women in sundresses, redheads, anime princesses, cute girls, sexy girls, skinny girls, mums, teens, big boobs (attached to women with rich interiorities, I’m sure), mascara stained tears, and so on forever. Related to this: just because a subreddit exists to address a particular niche (e.g. braces), this doesn’t mean all men find that age group, attribute, body type, piece of clothing, etc. attractive - but it at least illustrates that someone found it attractive enough to create a community dedicated to it.

2. Is the attribute mentioned in any of Ask Reddit’s 'Men, what’s one unusual thing you find really attractive about women’ type threads? Men seem to sense that these threads are always started by women, so the responses are more romantic than sexual. Dudes tend to say the ‘unusual things’ they find attractive are freckles, when women can’t reach things on high shelves, messy up-dos, etc.

Question 1: Do men like the pale, non-sexy parts of women?

In Rooney’s second book Normal People, the male protagonist spends a lot of time looking at the female protagonist and admiring her pale delicacy.

You look really well, he says.

I know. It’s classic me. I came to college and got pretty.

He starts laughing. He doesn’t even want to laugh but something about the weird dynamic between them is making him do it. ‘Classic me’ is a very Marianne thing to say, a little self-mocking, and at the same time gesturing to some mutual understanding between them, an understanding that she is special. Her dress is cut low at the front, showing her pale collarbones like two white hyphens.

Later, he admires her pale lips and wrists: 

He hasn’t seen her in person since July, when she came home for her father’s Mass. Her lips look pale now and slightly chapped, and she has dark circles under her eyes. Although he takes pleasure in seeing her look good, he feels a special sympathy with her when she looks ill or her skin is bad, like when someone who’s usually very good at sports has a poor game. It makes her seem nicer somehow. She’s wearing a very elegant black blouse, her wrists look slender and white, and her hair is twisted back loosely at her neck. 

Women hope men think of them in this way: that men closely observe us and like what they see, that they can thrill romantically at non-sexy parts of our bodies like our under eye bags or bony elbows, that they’re so devoted they like us even when we’re sickly. Lolita has this to thank for its enduring popularity. Sure, Humbert Humbert is a broken man and a pedophile but he’s so lyrical:

I looked and looked at her, and I knew, as clearly as I know that I will die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth. She was only the dead-leaf echo of the nymphet from long ago - but I loved her, this Lolita, pale and polluted and big with another man's child. She could fade and wither - I didn't care. I would still go mad with tenderness at the mere sight of her face.

Men want to be him, women want to be adoringly described by him. 

Anyway. Let’s check Reddit to see what men really think of pale wrists and collarbones - or if they think of them at all.

There are no communities in Reddit’s NSFW directory focused on wrists or collarbones or any bony protrusion through pale skin. There is a subreddit dedicated to NSFW content featuring pale girls with ~420,000 subscribers but the focus of this content is sexy areas of the body (enormous pale breasts, perfect pale butts, etc.) and there is not much coverage of pale wrists and/or collarbones.  

I also couldn’t find any references to pale non-sexy parts of women in any AskReddit threads related to things men find attractive about women. 

Conclusion: I do not believe that men as a cohort are particularly into dark under eye bags, bony chests, etc. These are just things women wish men liked about them.  

Question 2: Do men like damaged women?

In Rooney’s first novel, Conversations with Friends, the protagonist has the following conversation with her ~lover~ in bed:

I want you to hit me. I don’t think I want to do that, he said. I knew that he was sitting up now, looking down at me, though I kept my eyes closed. Some people like it, I said. You mean during sex? I didn’t realise you were interested in that kind of thing. I opened my eyes then. He was frowning.  Wait, are you okay? he said. Why are you crying? I’m not crying. Incidentally it turned out that I was crying. It was just something my eyes were doing while we were talking. He touched the side of my face where it was wet. I’m not crying, I said. Do you think I want to hurt you? ...  I don’t know, I said. I’m just telling you that you can.

In Normal People, the protagonists have a similar exchange during sex:

Will you hit me? she says. For a few seconds she hears nothing, not even his breath. No, he says. I don’t think I want that. Sorry. She says nothing. Is that okay? he asks. She still says nothing. Do you want to stop? he says. She nods her head. She feel his weigh lift off her. She feels empty again and suddenly chill. He sits on the bed and pulls the quilt over himself. She lies there face down, not moving, unable to think of any acceptable movement. Are you okay? he says. I’m sorry I didn’t want to do that, I just think it would be weird. I mean, not weird, but... I don’t know. I don’t think it would be a good idea.

in the context of these novels, this behaviour is a form of self-harm from women who hate themselves: even those I’m closest to want to take advantage of me, will do what they want with me, will hurt me if I let them. The perfect men, confused and innocent to this self-destructive behaviour, are concerned and decline the offer. The women interpret this as a form of sexual rejection but the reader knows this rejection is actually romantic. Could we really thrill over a man who agreed to beat her? No one talks about 50 Shades of Grey anymore but Mr Darcy lingers in the minds of mothers and BBC-watching daughters the world over. Rooney’s romantic leads are very nice men for not hitting the protagonist during sex. 

Importantly, while the offer of subservience and sexual violence is not an immediate aphrodisiac, it adds to the overall appeal of our lady protagonists as women who are soft, damaged, not easily available, but also deeply vulnerable. Bob Dylan muses, basically (she’s delicate and seem’s like veneer. Sidebar on that line: I heard it when I was 17 and was jealous because it’s so good. Turns out this line is hotly contested in places where people contest Dylan lyrics. One tribe thinks it’s: she’s delicate and seems like veneer. Another tribe thinks it’s: she’s delicate and seems like the mirror. The tribe which is 100% wrong thinks it’s: she’s delicate and seems like Vermeer.). 

These books both have this thread of college-aged women who hate themselves and want to be mistreated by their lovers, and lovers who are perfect and sensitive enough to like the control they have in the relationship, but not abuse it. My read on this is that women like to think that men like to save damaged women. Damaged meaning women who are clearly dealing with one or more of the following: 

Untreated mental health problems

Self-medication dependencies 

Daddy issues

Memories of growing up with violence/abuse/Teletubbies/war crimes/poverty

Heavy baggage from previous relationships

You know what I mean. So, let’s check Reddit to see what men think of damaged women. In the NSFW directory there are a number of BDSM subs, most of which are focused on women being dominated by men: women trussed up in elaborate rigs of ropes and straps, women being used in various ways, beaten, dominated. Most of these subs have between 100,000 - 200,000+ subscribers. This would indicate that there are a decent number of Reddit users who are interested in hurting their sexual partner. 

(DISCLAIMER: I don’t mean to kinkshame. ContraPoints (I think in this video) argued that while it’s fine to be into BDSM and enjoy being hurt or hurting someone else, it does suggest some things about you. BDSM isn’t just fun. No one wants to be tied up and beaten/pissed on for no reason. You want those things because it means something to you to be treated badly or to treat others badly. Liking BDSM doesn’t mean you’re damaged, but it might mean something adjacent to that.)

Furthermore, re: Reddit’s attitude to ‘damaged’ women, any time a guy on Reddit tells a ‘crazy ex’ story, someone from the 3 brain cells club will flop out an old cliché: don’t stick your dick in crazy. Men like to warn each other about damaged women. That cliché often attracts a popular counterpoint:  

Crazy chicks are good in bed! What a treat: there are perks to dating a damaged woman. More than anything, men on Reddit love acting like they know a lot about women and wild sex. A damaged, compliant woman is great for clocking up these experiences.

I think we can say that some men do indeed like damaged women. The impression you get from Reddit is that a lot of these men would take advantage of the vulnerable Rooney protagonists, but that’s the point even within the novels: the man could have said yes, could have hit her - which the reader wouldn’t find romantic because we know that on some subcutaneous level she didn’t really want to be treated that way. A lot of romance only reads as romantic because we’re aware of the unromantic alternative: what if Richard Gere had treated Julia Roberts the way most men treat prostitutes? What if Bob Dylan compared a beautiful, mysterious woman to the 17th century Dutch painter Vermeer? 

In the final act of What Women Want, Gibson loses the ability to hear women’s thoughts. The point the film makes is that he’s been so reformed by hearing women’s perspectives and relating to them as actual human beings, that he doesn’t need magic anymore to behave like a nice person. This is also because it would not be romantic to be in a relationship with a man who was eavesdropping on your inner monologue. If the relationship is real and working, then you don’t need psychic powers to anticipate how the other person is going to feel and respond to things. You can always just ask - and you’ll have to trust that the answer is honest. 

Bonus: more of that lovable scamp Mel Gibson:

[stoweboyd]

One More Turn Of The Screw At Medium

Announced with fanfare a few days ago: Medium Seeks Partners to Launch New Publications. This is jaw-dropping considering how many pivots the company has undertaken, and how many 'partners' it has screwed over in the process.

Medium's current strategy seems to be growing into a media giant, like a redo of the old Huffington Post or Forbes, before those pubs chased away all the flakes. But in the meantime, they are attracting all the 'thought leaders' writing listcicles and self-help manifestos, and on top are trying to create their own 'publications' with paid writers.

The site is maddening, oversaturated, and terrible to navigate.

Sadly, many writers I know and admire write there.

I am involved in a new publishing venture (about which more later) and I had considered publishing it there, but I think I will go a different route. I don't believe Williams.

My friend Rafat Ali tweeted about this:

Since this is Medium, unfortunately this will close down in a year too. Sad to see writers being fooled & falling for this again & again & again. This NYT story is surprisingly context-free. https://t.co/9GyraZ5a3d

— Rafat Ali, Media Operator (@rafat) March 19, 2019

The NYTimes article was a Bittman puff piece with no discussion of the many pivots at Medium. And no mention of the departure of Hackernoon from Medium and Medium's efforts to screw them as they were moving.

I've written about Medium numerous times:

June 2015 What’s Going On At Medium?

January 2017 Medium shifts direction, away from ads and towards … what, exactly?

January 2018 Medium Continues Dismantling Publications

February 2018 Ev Williams Hires Siobhan O’Conner from Time, to continue Transition into Megamagazine

For those who want to review the various zigs and zags in Medium's history, I recommend Medium's Mess: The rise and fall of the site that was supposed to save journalism by Katie Fustich. Here's one long excerpt:

In 2014 the company acquired and relaunched the digital magazine Matter as a general-interest publication with the goal of creating a home for “timely, original journalism that combines the reporting and scope of serious publications with the fun and intimacy of the social web.” Originally a subscription-funded, Kickstarter-launched science publication, Matter got a new editor-in-chief, the veteran GQ editor Mark Lotto, and became the mouthpiece of Medium itself, commissioning glossy, high-budget content that served as a tentpole for the platform. It published elaborate features like an account of lawyer Shannon Liss-Riordan’s 2015 lawsuit against Uber, as well as Awl-ish musings on neon signs, and an epically long essay on selfies. (Disclosure: Study Hall publisher Kyle Chayka was a contributor.) The aggressive editorial strategy nabbed Matter a National Magazine Award for Joshua Hammer’s long-form reporting on the Ebola crisis, making it the first digital publication to win the award.

In addition to re-launching Matter, Medium expanded its staff. The site raised $25 million and $57 million in 2014 and 2015, respectively, giving the company a $400 million valuation. Medium also continued to roll out new publications funded by its own capital as well as scattered ad deals, like Re:form, a design blog sponsored early on by BMW.

With a sleek publishing interface and shiny, award-winning content, Medium became an attractive publishing option for media newcomers and websites struggling to make it on their own in the digital platform era. In 2013, comics publisher The Nib launched with Medium under cartoonist Matt Bors, and in 2015, by-and-for women’s news site The Establishment set up shop. Smaller media companies like Pacific Standard, The Awl, and The Ringer also began using Medium’s platform as a content management system, in deals sweetened with guaranteed revenue from Medium’s inchoate ad operations. In 2016, Pacific Standard magazine editor-in-chief Nicholas Jackson gushed, “Moving to Medium was an obvious solution for what we wanted to do.”

But there were persistent tremors of uncertainty. In summer 2014, Medium announced it would be rolling out native ads and sponsored posts, finally answering the question of how the site planned to make money (Williams had previously stated that traditional banner ads would tarnish Medium’s aesthetic). In 2015 Matter began to slow down its publishing, and by 2016 it was crumbling, publishing its final post in November. The title relaunched as an independent media incubator-slash-studio that March, with funding from Williams himself and leadership by Lotto and his wife Hillary Frey, the former executive editor of Fusion (now executive editor at Huffington Post). Then the studio closed abruptly in January 2017 due to management issues, leaving writers with potential collaborative projects—book deals and film aspirations—in the lurch. The studio did, however, produce a trailer and swag for its rebrand logo.

Matter’s sudden shift coincided with the departure of Pacific Standard, The Ringer, and The Awl from the Medium platform. In May 2017, less than a year after joining Medium, Jackson was already explaining that Pacific Standard’s departure from Medium would allow it to increase subscriber growth and develop new features. The Awl departed several months later without much fanfare. Editor Silvia Killingsworth described the publication’s return to WordPress in a post that referred to Medium as “a cool experiment, in my opinion.” She continued, “Personally I missed the ads.” (The Medium detour seemed to help derail The Awl permanently; it shut down in January of this year.)

Medium’s meandering business model meant that in early 2017 it was forced to lay off approximately 50 staffers (one-third of the company at the time) and close offices in New York City and Washington, D.C. Under duress, the company pivoted away from serving as a platform for other media brands and doubled down on its own fraught editorial strategy.

[adamicoarts]

WOO! I'm pretty happy with how these turned out, and I hope other people are too! I'm going to have these made into stickers with fun additions like gold/silver effects for the houses that have them, and holographic for the first house, because Jon had to be SO overdramatic with the mother of pearl color.

Pre-order stickers on my Etsy: LINK

ALSO, A number of people expressed interest in enamel pins- I think these would be great for those, but as they're much more expensive to have made than stickers, I'd like your opinions on which ones you'd most like to see first! I'm hoping to do them three at a time. The poll is hosted on my patreon, but you don't need to be a subscriber to vote.

Poll for Enamel Pins: LINK

Thanks so much for your interest and support, these were so fun to work on!!

Calling Locked tomb fans… I was thinking it would be fun to make nine house emblems that weren’t all exclusively skull-based for stickers (or maybe pins/patches?) These are just drafts and they would eventually be in the proper house colors, but I’d love to get your opinions!

[lovelylogans]

Roman has always lashed out and seemed angry and insecure. He has always been super on edge. Like in accepting anxiety he randomly began breathing strangely and he was the only one to look super upset still when he was lowering down to go back to the normal living room space once they left after Virgil had to try and help Thomas calm down enough to leave his room safely. Poor Roman isn't doing so good in the emotional department right now.

*cracks knuckles* i have Several Opinions i would like to share

i’m gonna take it by accepting anxiety and a couple other examples plus the most recent video and then uhh ramble some more (this got kinda long so i’m putting it under a read more)

accepting anxiety:

one hc i think is probably really accurate about accepting anxiety is the fact that roman was the most affected by anxiety. not the character, not virgil, but the condition itself

he was the first to develop the eyeshadow, had arguably the most drastic shadow of the lot of them by the end, and began acting much more erratically sooner than, say, logan.

but even looking into what roman represents: imagination, creativity, ego. let me just say that when my anxiety’s particularly heightened, i don’t think i can compose a musical, and i never feel particularly great about myself when i’m feeling anxious

i’m paraphrasing here but i think roman said something along the lines of “fear is the biggest thing that holds you back from achieving your hopes and dreams,” which, well, yeah.��

so it’d make sense that roman’s really heavily affected by a room meant to heighten your anxiety; it’s much more.... threatening feels like the wrong word, but i’m gonna use it, threatening to his state of being than logic (logic can often help defeat anxiety) or morality (or emotions; anxiety can help heighten those, sure, but it doesn’t actively drive down your emotions to nothing. it might even help heighten them, for some people. and sure you can get anxious about a certain set of morals you subscribe to, but, well. that’s not going to make you stop being moral)

breathing strangely is, woo, a symptom of an anxiety attack (or generalized anxiety) for a lot of people, including myself. the breathing exercise took longest on roman to take effect; if i’m remembering correctly, first it was logan who sunk down (again, anxiety and logic, they clash a lot) then patton (who sniffled a little before sinking down, which, yeah, calming down a little) and then roman, shortly followed by thomas himself. 

which, like, yeah. again, this is me personally, but one of the easier things to do while anxious is attend to physical needs (am i thirsty, am i hungry, do i need to shower, do i need to sleep?) and then maybe address myself emotionally (it’s okay now, here’s some calming things i can do to help myself, here are some friends i can text for reassurance) and, uh, being creative and thinking about my hopes and dreams? nope. not a thing. not happening. i’m going to bed and waking up and seeing if i can handle that. that is waiting until the next morning.

I’d almost argue that roman just... isn’t good with emotions, period. which, I mean, relatable, but consider it. 

he’s creativity, ego, hopes and dreams; very little of that involves negative emotions (i.e., anxiety, sadness, anger other than “righteous fury,” depression, et cetera. no one hopes or dreams about those.) sure, those can be used in creativity, the moving on duo itself being a fantastic example of taking your pain and turning it into art, but that’s not necessarily inherent. you don’t have to be angry or sad or depressed to make art; you make art. art can be an outlet, which i think is what roman’s probably used to doing, taking any pain and externalizing it (lashing out, as you mentioned; the little aside in the crofter’s musical video; probably more, but i’m not exactly doing a super thorough deep dive here) and he probably doesn’t, like, deal with it beyond those outlets, which. huh. actually.

the manticore-chimera is a pretty decent metaphor, actually? roman’s physically injured in the clip yet insists on taking it on alone; logan tells him that’s pretty dumb, he should heal or at least bring other people. logan’s understanding of emotion is very, well, logical; flashback and nostalgizing in moving on, he didn’t really get it, bless his heart, but he knew it was integral to a process of growth. roman is very used to taking it on alone; creativity is his thing, hopes and dreams are his thing. 

heck, i’d argue that’s a pretty strong message of the sanders sides, is that you’re not always alone; virgil tried to isolate himself and was surrounded by people in turn offering a hand back and trying to understand him. patton was isolating himself and losing himself in the past even though it hurt to surface, and was surrounded by people commiserating in his pain and encouraging him not to hide his feelings. roman, well, i’m not gonna pretend to know the underlying cause of roman’s surely upcoming arc, but it’s there. and we all know that the other sides (plus thomas, of course) will be there to help out.

wow, don’t know if that answers your question, but i always like to analyze, so!

[bexical]

Squid Game

Spoilers ahead

So, I finally got around to watching Squid Game since it’s been hyped so much, and well... it was rather mediocre. It does some things well: it has good characterization, and the actors do a splendid job. It was arguably good enough that I binged it in one night, more or less. But still...

It’s excessively predictable - this doesn’t mean that I saw everything coming from episode 1, but it did mean that a lot of events felt like foregone conclusions, and I ended up watching most of it on 1.5x speed. And speaking of twists: the reveal in the last episode regarding Player 1 is just bad, calling the entire premise into question (but not in an especially provocative way) and weakening the story greatly.

A lot of events are also super convenient, giving the series a very artificial feel. For example, at two different points, exactly the right number of people are alive so that the next event has nice round numbers. Other events are super convenient for the narrative: for example, the one guard who noticed the cop impostor in the honeycomb game is the same one who is killed later. The worst contrivance by far is the glass shattering at the end of the bridge round, critically (but not fatally) injuring Sae-byeok because they couldn’t figure out how else to kill her off - it’s not like Sang-woo would realistically beat her in a knife fight.

The biggest issue to me though was that, well…

Its discussion of capitalism is actually really tame.

A review from NME describes the series as a “cutting critique” of capitalism and praises it for its “thematic intelligence”. That appears to be the general consensus: Rotten Tomatoes summarizes critical opinion by describing it as a “sharp social commentary”); on the other hand, I'm much more in line with this NY Times review, which claims it merely has a "pretense of contemporary social relevance" - "there’s a difference between making reference to something and actually illuminating it".

The show starts off fairly strong: Episode 2, "Hell", gives us a glimpse of the characters' lives and illuminates how being poor in a real world setting is already hell, with numerous reviews praising the choice to set the series in the real world as opposed to a fictional setting like Panem. But beyond that, what does it actually say? Three of the five characters have mostly themselves to blame; the other two are arguably suffering because they’re foreigners. Who / what is the series criticizing? By contrast, Maid (which was #2 on Netflix behind Squid Game earlier this month) actually calls out some of the absurdities of American capitalism in its first episode, like the impossibility of the "pull yourself up by the bootstrap" mentality ("I need a job to prove that I need daycare in order to get a job?"). Squid Game doesn't do much besides remind us that it sucks to be poor, and well… that's not really that brilliant an insight.

To be fair, that's not the entirety of it. The honeycomb game in episode 3 does raise an interesting question via Player 119: what is this sick game, why do some people have it easier than others? There might be an interesting message about fairness in the series outside of this moment (though I’m not convinced) - besides that though, there really isn't much. Games 3 and 4 quickly turn the players against each other, but the zero-sum pvp nature of the games doesn't feel like an accurate reflection of reality. Though some specific things in life are zero-sum in nature, I would largely say that my success has not come at the cost of someone else’s, nor are my failures the result of someone else taking what could have been mine. People can thrive while working cooperatively, even (or perhaps especially?) in the hardships of a capitalist society.

(There is some discussion out there about whether or not the marble game in episode 6, “Gganbu”, was truly zero-sum or if both players could move forward. I personally don't subscribe to that theory: other parts of the show, such as winners of round 5 being given steak knives and the fact that prior years all had one winner each, all suggest that the players will not be allowed to remain cooperative forever. Even if both players could progress through the marble game, the game would eventually force the conflict - what would even be the point? In the end, it’s unlikely to me that players were intended to 'figure out' they could make it through together.)

I mentioned earlier that I do feel the series has good characterization. One of its strengths is how we see the main cast develop (or, arguably for the main character, remain stagnant), but ironically, I think the focus on the players is ultimately a detriment to any political insight the series could have had. While it does include a(n extremely cliched) portrayal of the hyper rich being amused by the suffering of the player class, there is hardly any interaction for the most part between classes. The workers are largely presented as faceless, interchangeable units; along with the Front Man, they are 'outside' the game. One incident in episode 3 is the singular moment that remembers that the workers are inside the game: the aforementioned player 119 stabs one worker in the eye and grabs another hostage; otherwise, the show ignores them in favor of focusing on the characters. As a result, the series has very little to say about forces external to the players (i.e. the working class) that hold them down.

There is a claim circulating through the fandom that these 'mistakes' are in fact intentional: the fact that the players ignore the workers and turn on each other is an allegory for how the lower class turns on each other instead of recognizing that their conflict is manufactured by the upper class; as another example, the unfairness in the games despite the Front Man's claims of fairness is actually an allegory for the unfair reality of life in the face of claims that the rich have earned their wealth fairly. For the most part though, I don’t buy it: that would be a stronger allegory if it felt like banding together could have helped, but round 5 for example was so… awkward for lack of a better term that this isn't the case; the Front Man's claims that the games are intended to be fair actually are largely true (though using a bullshit notion of fairness), and much of the unfairness arises from the hacky Player 1 twist and the previously discussed glass shattering contrivance, two events that already have other plot issues.

More generally, it’s hard to believe these details are intentional subtle messages because the series doesn’t earn my trust. Again, it does do a great job with some things - I like many of the characters (as characters, not as people), and it was narratively intriguing enough to draw me in. But there are enough issues (with other unmentioned things as well, such as the complete unbelievability of the police ignoring Gi-hun) that it just doesn't come across as the tight, well-constructed critique of capitalism that people are seeing it as.

[blockpaths]

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[teagrl]

He was sitting at one of the tables with a book and a data cube before him. The book was a compilation of philosophical essays by Masters of the Tython Jedi who had first proposed that the Force had a dual nature: Ashla, the creative element, and Bogan, the destructive—light and dark aspects of the same Essence. The data cube contained a treatise of Master Asli Krimsan on the Potentium Perspective, a “heresy” propagated by Jedi Leor Hal that contended—as many had before and since—that there was no dark side to the Force, that the darkness existed within the individual.

-Streets of Shadows

Okay, so like I love hearing about the more “esoteric” sides of Jedi teachings, but Weaver should have taken a position on this. I thought it was pretty clear that the “dark side” refers to using the trapping the Force using it for self aggrandizing power, etc. I think the NJO makes this clear with Vergere’s intervention. I don’t really care for the nu!canon line on this as I am pretty wedded to the idea.

Anyway I wish we could hear other debates the Jedi has in their texts other than that boring attachment thing (heard it so much) and like the basic light-dark side divides. Like could there be treatises on sentience (ontology or metaphysics?), ethics and morality, blah blah harmony with nature, approaches to diplomacy, what constitutes appropriate force, etc? Come onnnnnn. 

“He told me of references he’d found in datafiles to someone they called the Chosen One … a being whose coming was foretold and said to be imminent, who would restore balance to the Force. Perhaps they were waiting for this being to come and accomplish for them what they were unable or unwilling to do for themselves. It was your father’s opinion—and I’ve watched the behavior of enough organic sentients in my travels to heartily agree—that whenever they give up their own judgment to some sort of fanciful higher power, instead of looking for answers within themselves and their actions, they are the worse for it.”

-Jedi Twilight 

I feel like this last quote belongs to the lightsaber woo post here, because it provides an interesting interpretation for the Old Order’s failings (the other one which is a variation of this was the idea of them being too attached to dogma). I’m very fascinated with the numerous interpretations for the Order’s collapse for the simple reason that my fave’s job would necessarily have to be a long meditation for why it happened to try and set a foundation for it not to happen again. 

I do not subscribe to the theory that it was one thing that doomed the Old Order, but a combination of factors in a very specific historical moment. So Luke Skywalker just kind of riding off into the sunset and forming the New Order on the fly out of his essential rightness compared to the old Jedi doesn’t hold water for me. Jedi were more than lightsaber wielding magicians -- for a long while they were thinkers. I kick around Vong a lot, but one of the things it has going for it is that at least it recognizes Luke as that.

[textualdeviance]

Re: that last reblog about false neutrality: YES. Balance is bias. Facts always lean toward one side or another, and any news org pretending otherwise is gaslighting you. 

My J school taught exactly that principle, thank goodness. Unfortunately, a lot of reporters--particularly in TV news--don’t have journo backgrounds that include this kind of training, nor have they had proper training in copy editing and fact checking. Way too many of them are just talking heads with a generic communications degree, if that. Used to be everyone in news had either a J degree or rigorous training, but once the big corps with their profit-driven agendas started swallowing up local radio and newspapers and running big cable news nets, journalistic integrity got thrown out the window in favor of the 1980s version of clickbait.

Because these supposed reporters are not fully educated, it’s assumed that they don’t have the skill and wisdom to make a judgment call about what facts are and who is most able to provide them. Thus the practice of getting quotes from all sides of a story, and then laying them out with (supposedly) equal weight, and letting the audience decide who’s right. Problem is: The audience mostly isn’t qualified to make those judgments, either, plus they look up to reporters as people who know more than they do, and thus they expect that the news will reliably tell them the truth. So if some jackass on Fox includes quotes from a Flat Earther in every story about NASA, they assume that reporter is telling them that the Flat Earth Society is every bit as qualified to tell the truth about Mars as an astrophysicist from the JPL. Adding confusion: The editorial and “debate” segments/shows that don’t frame themselves as different from straight news reporting. Used to be people knew that commentary and opinion pages weren’t the same thing as reported news. Now no-one has any damned idea what’s actual news and what’s just someone bloviating or a couple of people yelling at each other for the WWE version of reporting. After about 30 years of this, millions of people are no longer able to determine who’s a properly qualified expert and who’s completely full of shit, and an entire generation of news consumers has no fucking idea what’s real and what’s not.

Fast forward to the intarweebs age, and now news has been fully democratized. In many ways, this is a good thing. If everyone has access to a wide-distribution platform, it’s harder for gatekeepers with bad agendas to suppress a story that makes someone in power look bad. (This is part of why people who love propaganda want to kill net neutrality--if you can make it impossible for the plebes to load the pages with real news, it’s easier to control that flow.) Unfortunately, this also means that every dipshit with an axe to grind can call themselves a reporter and insist that their stories be taken just as seriously as ones from actual journalists. See Alex Jones. See Breitbart. See Young Turks. See U.S. Uncut. See the myriad sites run by homeopaths and other “natural” scammers passing off anti-science woo barf as legitimate information. Bald-faced lies are now being framed as fact, and far too many people have absolutely no clue they’re being lied to.

So how do we fix this? Well, it’s actually pretty easy:

1. Support your local newspapers and public radio.

As long as your local paper isn’t run by a massive conglomerate like NewsCorp or Gannett, chances are good it’s doing some decent reporting. If your local big metro paper is shit, look for ones from smaller cities nearby. Many of the weeklies are doing pretty good, too--even the ones that are part of the Village Voice parent company. Figure out who owns it, who the EiC is and what their background is, and then pay especially close attention to stories written by staff reporters (rather than wire services, freelancers, or stringers.)

Subscribe, if you can, or at least pay for a paper copy. If you prefer to get your news in digital form, turn off ad blockers when you go visit the paper’s site, so they can keep making enough money to pay their reporters and editors.

Any local radio that’s affiliated with NPR is probably a good bet, too, especially ones run by colleges. Donate to them if you can. Ignore virtually all talk radio. It’s an absolute cesspool these days.

2. Support the best of the national/international news orgs.

While they do have a slight liberal lean these days, the WaPo is one of the best national-news sources out there. I’d trust them over almost anyone else, including the NYT. For now, NPR is a close second, but whether that lasts depends on how much Trump fucks with it. For wire stories, take anything by the AP with a grain of salt, and pay closer attention to anything from Reuters, the BBC and Al-Jazeera. Many international papers also have good reporting. If you can read another language, look for stories from Der Spiegel, Le Monde, etc. If you’re looking at the U.K., be aware that they have some absolute shit there--ignore anything from the Sun, the Daily Mail or the Telegraph--but they have some good ones, too. The Guardian is particularly reliable. In Canada, the Toronto Star and Vancouver Sun are pretty good.

Some magazines are also good, and because of their longer lead times, you can often get far more in-depth reporting than the constant flow of glorified headlines you see elsewhere. Many of these have a strong East Coast flavor/bias, so keep that in mind, but for the most part, stuff from the Atlantic or the New Yorker is reliable. Ignore the big weeklies, though: Time, Newsweek, etc. They’re every bit as useless as anything else you’d find in a dentist’s waiting room.

3. Ditch ANYTHING that doesn’t do its own reporting, or doesn’t pay reporters.

News aggregators are the scourge of journalism. If the site you’re on is simply repackaging or doing commentary on stories that someone else reported, stop going there. This doesn’t include blogs or other places that are specifically designed for doing news commentary--and are upfront about that--more just the places that link to someone else’s story in the first graf, then have three more grafs paraphrasing or spinning what was in that story, and calling it reporting. That is not reporting. At all. If the person on the byline didn’t actually talk to any of the sources in the story, it’s not real news. It’s clickbait.

Likewise, some places may have a bit of original reporting, but because they don’t pay their freelancers, they should be ignored. HuffPo is particularly bad about this. They’ve even gone so far as to try to justify this by saying that paying their writers would introduce bias. HOLY CRAP NO.

4. Do your own leg work.

The ramp-up for this can be painful, but it pays off down the road. When trying to decide whether a given news org is worth your time, do some research on it. Find out who owns it, how long it’s been around, etc. Get some background on the EiC. Read some of its editorials to get a feel for where they lean. Look at some of its staff-written stories and see who they use for sources and how they frame quotes. See if they follow up any dodgy quotes with other sources refuting those. If a source seems questionable to you, go look them up, too. Could be that the head of Scientists for a Better World is actually some anti-vax crank who lost his medical license and is now operating a cult out of a strip mall. Some of the worst groups out there have names that sound legit--they do that on purpose to sow confusion. Make note of the icky ones, and avoid any news orgs that use them as sources. Also, see how often they run stories that read like slightly edited press releases. If they’re way too excited about some company or product or person, they may have literally just copypasted from docs they got sent by some PR hack. While press releases are useful for getting quotes or initial information, they have to be followed with real reporting.

Also: Don’t rely on your friends or family to give you reliable news (unless they happen to be journalists!) I’m sure Aunt Sadie is a wonderful person and means well, but if she insists that the article she read about how vaccines are dangerous is the gospel truth, chances are good you shouldn’t trust most of what she says about other news. There are a fuckton of well-meaning-but-misinformed people out there, and while they may be good sources for news about your cousin’s graduation, they shouldn’t be relied on to tell you a damned thing about what’s going on in Syria or whether the county water board has been taken over by corporate stooges.

(This caveat includes me, BTW. If all this seems like horseshit to you, feel free to look me up, too. I don’t expect my words to be taken on face value, and I’m happy to be transparent about my background and perspective.)

After a few weeks of doing this kind of investigative digging, you should be able to determine which of your potential news sources is going to be the most reliable, and you can then follow them on Twitter or FB or--gasp!--even buy their dead-tree editions if they have them, and rest assured that what gets in your face is going to be good information. Try to have at least two or three that you regularly follow. Getting a variety of angles is always a good thing, and some places are especially good for one subject or region, but not necessarily useful for other things.

The only way we get better, more reliable news is to pay for what’s already good, and stop giving money and clicks to the bad stuff. All news has to rely on revenue these days, so money alone doesn’t make a news source bad, but if you dry up the cash flow for the shitty stuff and start dumping it on the good stuff, we can eventually get news media back on track. To get good news, you have to be a good news consumer. Working for responsible journalism is a job for all of us.