#like yeah… yeah ok ignore the fundamental aspect of both characters

[chodoyodes]

Why do I keep going into the secret history tag… I am taking 1d4 psychic damage from every other post PLEASE TURN UR SHIPPER BRAIN OFF FOR 2 SECONDS

[faeparrish]

What did you think about Adam apparently trying to talk himself out of being in love with Ronan when he went home to st Agnes every night?? It sounded so prosey but it didn’t feel like it was supported by the text? Like I felt the Opal story and CDTH did nothing to indicate that

omg sorry i only just saw this q !! but yeah idk i’ve been thinking a lot about that recently. i think with certain contexts it does make some sense to me? not that adam would want to stop loving ronan but that he’d feel like he should stop loving him. that ending things sooner rather than later felt like the safer thing to do for both of them, emotionally speaking. having said that, i feel like if we’d been in adam’s head at all through trkopal or dreamer trilogy, it would’ve made this information less surprising (another loss for the adam pov agenda rip). i have a lot of thoughts on this tho and i ended up writing a lot more than i intended to so i’m going to get into it under the cut !

ok so first off, i think in terms of adam’s arc in dreamer trilogy (or what we saw of it lol) it would make a lot more obvious sense for him to be having that dilemma. at that point he’s actually living in this version of himself that can’t coexist with the version of him who chose a life with ronan. it did kind of surprise me that he’d been feeling that way in the opal story, but then again that story was only told through opals eyes so we only really got bits and pieces of the full picture. we weren’t in adam or ronan’s heads. i think it’s kind of interesting that maggie went back to it from a sort of omniscient point of view in greywaren tho — she tends to do that a lot, like retrospectively add new context to previous scenes by changing perspectives. i guess a perk of writing multiple points of view is that you get a novel filled with unreliable narrators, which means you can withhold information from readers by having characters misread or ignore certain aspects of a situation.

going back to what you said tho i feel like some people would read that section you mentioned and take it to mean that he was going back on his conversation with gansey in trk or that he didn’t want to be with ronan. i don’t think that’s it at all - i think he saw that they were heading towards a future that couldn’t hold their relationship without either of them having to compromise some fundamental part of their lives. and these were compromises that neither of them could make or would let the other make. it was also a conversation they weren’t having; we know they weren’t properly communicating at that point, not in the way they perhaps should’ve been given their situation. but it’s also heavily implied that the reason they weren’t voicing their concerns was because they both knew they wouldn’t be able to fix these problems by just voicing them. they were going to go in circles: adam didn’t want to do long distance; ronan couldn’t move to boston; adam could go to a closer school but ronan would never let him do that.

i think it’s also important to note that they were both at a crossroads in their lives that summer. they’d survived past the point where they thought they would, and now the things they thought they wanted in life were starting to feel different to them. everything was going to shift when adam moved away. they both knew something about their situation had to change but neither of them were ready or able to make it happen. and so they spent a blissful summer trying to avoid confronting it, because it hurt too much to admit that it all felt impossible.

i think we should also remember that we didn’t have any povs from adam in dreamer trilogy OR the opal story. every time we saw the pair of them interacting in dreamer trilogy it was through ronan, who was absolutely in denial about how hard it was going to be for them (see: his theory of plausible deniability at the beginning of cdth). we have to base our understanding of adam’s behaviour on outside observations of him. ronan’s pov in cdth does mention how tumultuous adam’s mental state had been during that summer, especially when he found out he was accepted at harvard. he was anxious about starting something he’d been working towards for years, and he was anxious about leaving ronan and having to deal with the reality of their relationship outside of the barns. it makes sense that adam, who is generally less in denial about harsh realities than ronan, was probably having a silent dilemma over it. he’s an incredibly practical character, he over-analyses everything, there’s not a single outcome of a situation that he wouldn’t consider. there was no way that he hadn’t at least touched on the possibility of having to end things with ronan, however painful that outcome is. he was probably debating whether it was worth dragging themselves through something that was inevitably going to hurt them, or if it would just be easier to confront it head on. it’s one of those things that sometimes happens in relationships where, yes, the love between the two people is strong and present, but the love isn’t the problem. it’s their circumstances. sometimes you can’t see a way to fit your life and your relationship together, sometimes you can’t find a compromise that works, and i think that’s what adam was afraid of. he associated ronan with the magic part of his life. in his mind, magic and harvard couldn’t coexist.

the problem adam clearly had was that while this self-preserving and practical side of him was trying to reason it out (i.e. if you convince yourself you don’t love someone then you save yourself the pain of losing them), the more emotional side of him couldn’t fathom not loving ronan. as soon as he was with ronan again, the reality of loving him was too tangible. which also fits into why it feels slightly surprising to learn this information: we pretty much only saw adam when he was with ronan in trkopal, and (as we now know) every time he was with ronan he forgot everything he’d been telling himself when alone. it became impossible for him to imagine ever throwing their relationship away for anything. i also think that’s why that line is so sad. ronan meant so much to him that adam couldn’t convince himself to step away and save his heart from further pain.

and then we have ronan. he’d essentially been having the same dilemma over their situation as adam. distance from someone makes it easy to convince yourself that things won’t work out. isolation and distance makes it even easier. which is why (amongst other factors) it reached a point in book 2 where ronan, more isolated and distanced than ever, ended up being the one to call it. because ronan sees things in black and white and adam tends to focus on the grey areas. because ronan is driven by impulse and adam is driven by considered decisions. because at that time, ronan couldn’t exist in multiples; he was already being pulled in so many directions by his human side and his magic side. he didn’t know how to exist as both: as soon as one thread from his human life came loose, he was unable to contain the rest. adam, however, has always existed in multiples. student and logician, man and boy, etc. his life is a balancing act. he’d balanced friends and school and magic and work and an abusive home life; he could balance this too. he could hold on to this. to quote adam himself, he wanted it too much. even after ronan had essentially ended things between them, adam still found somewhere safe for ronan’s body, still came back to visit him, still risked his life scrying in order to find him. it’s like adam said in greywaren, ronan was where he stored all the reality. with the direction he was going in his life at that point, if he lost ronan, he was losing the one person who knew the truest version of him — he’d essentially end up losing himself fully.

so yes. i think considering everything, it does make sense to me that adam had that dilemma because it fits with the way he behaved in dreamer trilogy. it also feels very realistic. everyone has doubts, or considers cutting loose to avoid the risk of heartbreak. i think it’s quite an accurate depiction of how a lot of people behave and feel in relationships, especially when it’s your first long-term relationship, and especially when you were never taught how to properly and healthily communicate (which neither of them were). it’s hard to imagine a way out of the problems you’re facing, especially when those problems feel out of your control. but i think for me it only solidified how strongly adam felt for ronan, because even with those fears and those doubts he was never going to walk away. no matter how much easier it may have felt to do so, he always came back.

[sirenalpha]

I posted 323 times in 2021

53 posts created (16%)

270 posts reblogged (84%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 5.1 posts.

I added 44 tags in 2021

#atla - 16 posts

#zuko - 6 posts

#aang - 5 posts

#azula - 3 posts

#bnha - 3 posts

#writing - 3 posts

#yeah i hate this - 2 posts

#ao3 - 2 posts

#star wars - 2 posts

#and by that i mean when i have to deal with it when writing - 2 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#and with star wars i feel like with kylo ren they were like i like him so he must get redemption and i must justify and excuse anything bad

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

guys come on the Fire Nation is a monarchy

Zuko was born first

he doesn’t have to take the title of crown prince and heir to the throne from anyone

everyone has to be taking it from him aka banishing him, naming him traitor, trying to kill him etc

that’s the whole point of him being born first and Iroh calling him his son

it’s all for the Rightful King Returns trope after Ozai stole the throne from Iroh

8 notes • Posted 2021-01-24 05:31:16 GMT

#4

This is my simplified version of a more historically accurate Assassin uniform for Ezio to go along with my fic Stories Lived just so I and any readers who want it can have a reference for what it looks like

it’s just more historically accurate rather than perfectly historically accurate, like I kept the colors close to the original, and mimicked the cut of the skirts of the original, and kept the wideness of the original belt, but I did make them belts that went entirely around the waist rather than just securing the giant metal Assassin symbol, and I left the hood, but just made it more like Altaïr’s in that it is a separate item rather than connected to anything like it looks in Ezio’s original uniform

but I gave him a doublet which he doesn’t seem to be wearing at all in the original which you can only see the red sleeves of, but it has a high neck and no collar which was the fashion in 1470s Florence, I also gave the overgown which I think is the layer Ezio is wearing in the original over his shirt is supposed to be, but overgowns weren’t open or tied at the front at the time, they were open on the sides and belted closed which is what I did here though it’s not obvious from the front, I put in pleating that was popular with overgowns at the time, and I changed the sleeves to ones that were in some of the paintings of young Italian men in the 1470s rather than just capped sleeves, I also changed him from brown pants and boots with greaves to the hose that would have been worn during the period and thigh high riding boots

14 notes • Posted 2021-06-06 19:55:55 GMT

#3

Azula right from season 2 episode 1 is established as a perfectionist, someone conceited and disconnected enough to ignore natural limits such as the tides, and a lying manipulator

Atla is extremely effective at establishing characters, these three things are all fundamental to her as a character and her negative character arc that culminates in her break down

Azula loses some of her power when she can no longer use lies and manipulations on Zuko after he gains confidence and perspective from being with the gaang

it’s thematically significant to their final Agni Kai that she can’t say anything to throw Zuko off his game and he is in fact goading her rather than the other way around

you can’t cherry pick the times she happens to tell the truth because the truth is more hurtful to ignore this fundamental aspect of her characterization

14 notes • Posted 2021-01-01 20:59:30 GMT

#2

Ok here’s the thing, if you think Anakin by himself is solely responsible for the fall of the Jedi due to a fatal character flaw of selfishness so he is always doomed to fall to the dark side and bring the Jedi down with him even if he never gets properly trained as a Jedi

you have a complete misread of the character and why he fell and took the Jedi with him both as a matter of characterization and on meta level regarding the entire narrative of PT and OT

first of all, if Anakin never became a Jedi he’d never come into contact Palpatine you know the man who ordered him to sack the temple, Anakin did not come up with this plan independently

and the reason Anakin went along with it was because a) Mace Windu proved that the Jedi no longer followed their own code so what differentiates them from the Sith and b) the Jedi definitely don’t allow you to come back from one wrong move, Anakin cuts off Mace Windu’s arm for threatening his chance to save his wife and child which allows Palpatine to kill him, yes it’s bad but it’s not sacking the temple bad and Anakin already knows he can’t go back from it

because that’s the point of the whole prequel trilogy

Anakin isn’t the problem

it’s the Jedi

that’s why they’re all destroyed, Anakin is just the systemic issues reduced to an individual for narrative convenience because the Jedi could not help this one person he became exactly the person the Sith could use to destroy them, it’s absolutely poetic

the Jedi left themselves and Anakin in particular vulnerable to Palpatine because they were a stagnant, corrupt, and misguided organization not because Anakin was greedy

this is also why Luke is a hero because he doesn’t do what Obi-Wan and Yoda tell him to do, he has enough life experience outside of being a Jedi to choose to do something different which is what allows him to surpass them as a new and better type of Jedi and save Anakin/return him to the light side

19 notes • Posted 2021-01-10 21:33:12 GMT

#1

does Zuko have to say Azula always manipulates for people to get what and why he is saying when he says she always lies?

saying manipulates would technically be more accurate but he clearly came up with it as a child, she did it frequently enough when they were young he didn’t have sophisticated enough vocabulary to use the most accurate term to describe what she’s doing

it’s obviously about her manipulation not whether or not she’s telling the truth or a lie at any one particular moment because either way there is always, always an ulterior motive that is typically not in Zuko’s interest that he can tell is there but just doesn’t always know exactly what it is

56 notes • Posted 2021-01-01 21:08:31 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[zaggitz]

VIDEO GAMES 2017: ONE MILLION GAMES ENTER, TEN GAMES LEAVE.

Well that sure was the best year in video games since probably 1998, wasn’t it? Nintendo put out a new console and 3 major franchise entries, basically every anticipated game of the early 10′s finally frickin’ came out, we got 4 new English Falcom games, 3 of which with good locs, and they made a new Nier? What??? 

What a time to be alive.

Let’s not waste any time getting to the list, lord knows VIDEO GAMES 2017 has already sucked out enough time from me for a lifetime.

Before we begin, here’s my lists for 2015 and 2016.

Honorable Mentions:

Persona 5:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaIo82uT0qs

It’s insane that this game isn’t in my top ten, hell, it’s insane that it isn’t in my top five. It’s less a commentary on Persona 5′s quality and more that the games that did make the list resonated with me a whole lot more. VG2017 truly was too powerful.

P5 is mired with stiff localization problems, but even without the loc in consideration, the thematic through-line of the game gets muddled and becomes a toothless version of the promising rebellious first ten hours the game provides by the time you reach the finish line, which also just happens to come 20 hours too late, in my opinion.

What a great looking and feeling game though.

Tales of Berseria:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYXwD2CfxOs

On the flipside we have this game, the first Tales game I’ve enjoyed since Tales of Vesperia back in 2008. This game has an amazing story and great characters with a thematic backbone that sticks to your ribs after you finish it.

Now if I didn’t hate the act of actually playing it and having to scour its way too big boring empty dungeons and crappily designed world, it’d be a list maker for sure.

OKAY NOW IT’S TIME FOR THE CERTIFIED BANGERS:

10. Metroid: Samus Returns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhQWJG-_Oco

Somehow my least favorite Metroid game got two remakes that both made my list two years in a row?? This game is pretty great in it’s own right though it has a few control scheme imperfections and I could see a switch port easily being the definitive version to get.

The reason this game really makes the list though is because of how it lives up to its title. Finally an official Nintendo Metroid game that comes out and undoes Sakamoto’s vile character assassination of Samus back in Other M. . 

The queen is back, and she has been missed.

9. Horizon: Zero Dawn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD0DByDxJBA

An engrossing open world, great stealth/hunting/gathering systems AND robot dinosaurs are just a part of what makes this first outing for what seems like an extremely promising series great.

No, what really sets this game apart from its contemporaries is how it fleshes out its backstory, culminating in the creation of what might actually be the most despicable piece of shit villain ever put to writing for a video game. And he’s been dead for a thousand years so you can’t do shit to him.

Fuck you, Ted Faro.

8. Night in the Woods

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2UUFFMGcgY

This game hit extremely close to home for me. Forced to come back home to a small, dying town full of people clinging to the good old days instead of doing anything for the generation after them, having this game to play and have it be said out loud that yeah, other people are living this nightmare too, was insanely refreshing.

For as much as we all need a bit of direction sometimes, sometimes what we also need to know being a directionless 20-something asshole trying their best is okay too.

Also Gregg rulz ok.

7. Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNgph1g422Q

Great gameplay, great music, fun characters, one of the most fun to explore worlds in an action adventure game. This game truly nails the sense of pure adventure Ys is known for.

It’s a shame then that it’s plagued with one of the most laughable translation efforts in the industry, much of the games personality comes from the fact that even a bad localization job can’t overwrite some character quirks, but this still leaves the rest of the script feeling extremely stiff at best and incomprehensible at worst.

I hope the re-translation patch is good. Until then, Fuck NISA and have a good day.

6. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiU65nQdZE8

I would describe this game as a great first step in evolving the Zelda formula. That’s not even really that accurate, the real first step was in Link Between World’s item rental/no dungeon order systems. 

Nevertheless, BOTW amazes with a sense of scope and exploration no game has ever really come close to, and achieves it almost effortlessly by simply giving you the ability to climb anything.

More music, more proper dungeons, a deeper story and a few durability tweaks are basically all you need to make the next Zelda game the easy best in series.

5. Yakuza 0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYB-D9qEwzI

This isn’t the best game this year, but it is easily, no question, the MOST video game this year. 110 hours in and only 60% complete, Yakuza 0 is the game that keeps on giving, with an enthralling true crime story that reshapes what we know about its protagonists. It’s pretty much a non stop emotional thrill ride to the finish line.

It effortlessly incorporates the best side story aspects from the many games in the series to come out before it, and utilizes them with a fantastical glee that keeps you with a smile on your face for the whole run. This is easily the funniest game I’ve played this year. Thank you SEGA.

4. Hollow Knight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1unm0LS10ao

God I can’t wait for this game to get ported to consoles. I bought a new laptop basically just to play this game and the absolutely enthralling metroidvania world design, hand drawn and animated aesthetic, and fantastic npc characters blew me away.

The encounter designs are tough but fair(except maybe the Colisseum) and the DLC so far has been great. I can’t wait for all the post release content to come out so I can play through it all again on Switch and probably PS4. 

It’s insane only 3 people made this game.

3. Super Mario Odyssey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhciLj5VzOk

Nothing to say here that hasn’t been said by hundreds of others. SMO is pure joy distilled into video game form.

I can’t wait for Odyssey 2 to come out and somehow blow this one out of the water like Galaxy 2 did for Galaxy.

2. Nier: Automata

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKOM3lNFajE

An amazing contemplation on what it means to be alive, and a thoroughly satisfying conclusion to a story that, for me at least, has been told since Drakengard in 2003. Game after game of sad tragic stories with bad endings and characters fighting an imperfect world imperfectly and only making things worse while temporarily making things better for themselves.

And really even in those cases there’s caveats.

Caviats???? Anyway.

Ending E of this game finally brings some semblance of peace for this fucked up world where a deranged killer and his dragon fell through the sky and made things the worst for everyone for literally tens of thousands of years. Finally Devola and Popola can sleep. All is well.

1. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wld2q4mLhYM

Another year, another Trails game at number 1. I’ll be real with you, I’m about to drop a bunch of personal rambly stuff about what this entire trilogy means to me so if you don’t wanna read that, that’s fine. 

This game is basically a perfect epilogue to a game that means a whole lot to me and serves as an amazing capper to an amazing jrpg trilogy.

When I first played Trails in the Sky First Chapter, it was the PC version in 2014. Now in 2014 I was coming off being in college for about 6 years, switching majors a few times and not really being into what I was doing but, yknow, you gotta major in something and then you gotta get a job, that’s kind of what getting started as an adult is. 

So I played this weird little jrpg that was, fundamentally, about a country and the people in it trying to move on from a tragic war years prior, hiding their still fresh wounds in plain sight and just trying to go on with their lives. 

It was an extremely interesting game, for how plot-light it was in the early goings, you got to really feel the struggle of these people and the unseemly past they were trying to run away from or avoid repeating. This underlying conflict builds and builds until we can’t ignore it anymore.

When I played Second Chapter a year later, I had been laid off from a job I got right out of College and had no employment prospects. I hated the fact that I’d spent basically my entire adult life up to that point doing something I wasn’t passionate about and then got let down by the system. 

At the same time, the shame of my situation lead me to close up and not tell anyone about the problems I had, I was broke, I owed two months rent, on the verge of getting evicted, I felt extremely alone.

All this to get to the point that Second Chapter was ultimately a game about pulling out the dark shit we don’t like talking about and saying “it’s okay to talk about this stuff, there’s always someone who will listen.” It got me to get over myself somewhat and actually reach out for help, and I’m really thankful for it not letting me hit rock bottom.

Two years later still, I’m in a much better place, I finally feel happy about where my life is and what I’m doing and oh boy here comes Trails in the Sky the 3rd.

Completing the journey I started back in 2014, I found myself playing a game all about how it’s okay to acknowledge the bad things that happened to us, so long as we learn and move on from them accordingly.

This trilogy has so much heart, and so many memorable characters, and so much to say. It’s so, so special to me, and I was openly weeping when all the characters I’ve come to know and love over 4 years finally parted ways.

Thank you Falcom for making these games, and thank you Xseed for bringing these games to us.

TL;DR

[fiftycucks-blog]

Fifty Grand & Distance Decay Discuss Antifa and Freedom of Speech

DISTANCE DECAY ok let's un pack this -

FIFTY GRAND It’s easy. I don’t support what antifa is doing Especially last night Gross and embarrassing Bunch of privileged college students breaking shit Then going back to the privacy of their homes And chillin maybe play some video games Nothing revolutionary Sorry Not fixing anything Not helping anyone Protesting milo yiannapoulous of all people It's a sad time for the left If this was coming from the right you damn well know you’d condemn it DISTANCE DECAY other people have opinions too - u can be anti violence urself but to not understand why people would oppose fascism with violence is what i'm not understanding - i believe u said on ur own facebook something about those complicit in the holocaust FIFTY GRAND But dude Milo isn't a fascist Come on This is bad If you can prove to me That milo is a fascist I’ll fall back Forever

DISTANCE DECAY ummm are you speaking for me now? u don't kno my politics - so let's not assume and ask eachother questions the tweet u quoted wasn't about milo it was about anti fascism FIFTY GRAND Right But who destroyed property and hurt people last night Innocent people Antifa So I'm trying to understand Why you think that's ok We aren't talking about literal Nazis

DISTANCE DECAY 1. i believe there's reports of yianopolos supporters and antifa 2. i'm personally not for violence where in do i say i'm okay with what happened last night again the tweet was about anti fascism FIFTY GRAND I'm talking about Milo tho Not his supporters DISTANCE DECAY and i thought we agreed not to assume? i'm all for talking here, ur feelings are valid i don't want u to feel as if they're not FIFTY GRAND I'm just responding to you DISTANCE DECAY i could just as easily say i'm speaking of anti fascism as an ideology not those who carry it out FIFTY GRAND You and I both know what the original tweet refers to Antifa The org And to go back to your original question I'm not neutral or pro DISTANCE DECAY are you pulling tribalism on me? FIFTY GRAND The fuck lmao ?? DISTANCE DECAY i just woke up - i mean this sincerely the "you and i both" confused me to the tweet earlier - i saw the police language tweet - i don't want u to feel that censoring u, just showing how i feel, but i don't want u to feel unvalidated in ur feelings either FIFTY GRAND No I get that. But like. If I wanna say the word cuck I can I'm not politically correct I don't feel the need to be Besides you keep bringing that up, did you not even see who I was responding to that day? Someone who was attacking my character and music as a comeback Yea I shut them down And I don't care It wasn't discourse DISTANCE DECAY yeah u can,  and i've seen u use it other times also on facebook but still i'm not gonna tell u what u can or can not say just so i can understand this we agree people can say what they want - correct? but i don't think that means freedom of consequences from that speech i.e. someone responding to u - which is very different from censorship FIFTY GRAND Let me ask you something What do you think was accomplished last night DISTANCE DECAY honestly - i just woke up so i don't kno the full extent of what happened, outside of the quick search i made when milo kept being brought up so i think that brings us to our earlier point - antifa destruction of property caused harm to innocent people, milos followers emboldened by his speeches brought harm intentionally to those whose identities they feel have no place FIFTY GRAND Ok I see where we disagree I don't believe that speech is oppressive I used to But I don't anymore He has the right to his speech Which is just about feminism and men's rights , sometimes Islam If you listened to his speeches you'd see it's pretty clear he's just a gay Jew supporting free speech on college campuses DISTANCE DECAY i don't think i said the speech was oppressive however i think that to say it's unequivocally not would be against a very common definition of the word - mental stress or despair - as well as not taking into account the way it can spread and be internalized thru socially learned behaviors - and that humans are creatures of socialization - i think u like psychology so think genie, victor FIFTY GRAND Ok true, I think words can be used as violence, psychologically But I think oppression is more systematic DISTANCE DECAY i think defining our terms is always helpful - i do believe systemic oppression is real and bad - so i think ignoring the psychological aspect would be a disservice to how social organization is formed - given that humans run these systems, learn and reproduce these oppressive values from other humans falls chimed in a lil here -milo and his supporters can arguably represent a cultural shift that has happened in the us in the right-wing (i.e. altright). it's fair to say that this shift is also part of the reason trump was elected, as he was championed by the altright. basically: at what point does this ideology and rhetoric stop being systemic when the elected president is  espousing the same type of rhetoric? isn't that the definition of systemic?

i also believe language plays a huge role in shaping culture tho i am a descriptivist at heart 😋 FIFTY GRAND Not everyone who supports trump is alt-right tho. In fact it's majority rust belt people, poor people who hate the establishment. The alt right is a fringe movement and you're only seeing that because the media is blasting it everywhere And I see you co-signing tweets about me being a victim but you've totally ignored the fact that hella people ARE coming at me And bet you wouldn't even publically denounce me being called a Nazi Ur totally silent there And I find that incredibly problematic If you believe language can shape culture why are you okay with throwing the labels fascist and Nazis round so freely? Because now it just means anyone who disagrees with you Trump was not elected by the alt right Half of America is not the alt right Trust me You're a very smart person, how can you not see the irony in what Antifa is doing? How is it you can bend over backwards to justify it all You know it's only going to get worse People will be harmed Innocent people Every time I tweet on my own platform you see how people react. It is not unfair to assume that I might be subject to violence in the near future But this is the climate you support DISTANCE DECAY 1. i think falls said part of 2. wouldn't that be antithetical to ur argument in free speech ? 3. how far does free speech absolutism go for you? in so far as it hurts your feelings? 4. i think it is a problem when people going throwing these things leading to witch hunts etc, as it is to make generalizations about islam, referring to this as an isolated incident etc. 5. no where do i define it as anyone who disagrees with me - i believe the examples i gave lend itself more to those who are white nationalists 6. half of america may not be alt right but that doesn't change that they champion him nor that bannon is in the white house

i don't believe you are actually a nazi or a fascist, however as much as this might make u go "language police!" i think the language u use is irresponsible - as u have people in ur mentions coming at u i had people in mine from our last convo about islam telling me how muslims do not have a right to exist coming at me - i care about u and i'm sorry i hurt ur feelings - i think maybe there's a lack of linear thinking going on here and i'm having an issue proving my point without indulging in ur methods - which ultimately is antithetical to my own but i'm at a loss for getting it across with my words so i'm trying ur method FIFTY GRAND What language of mine is irresponsible? And what are my methods Lol All I have done is talked Used my words And I'm not understanding the free speech absolutism thing. It's actually your belief that if feelings are hurt we should silence Not mine. It seems very shallow to think that changing language will do anything to rectify deep seated beliefs DISTANCE DECAY ur method of saying and doing whatever u want because "i'm not PC" - whatever that means as i find this is another statement that requires careful unpacking FIFTY GRAND Like, do you think telling people to stop saying faggot on the playground is going to stop homophobia? It will not These are deep rooted issues Speech doesn't even begin to cover And I don't say and do whatever I want to defy all that is PC I simply don't think PC culture is conducive to learning and our democratic way of life DISTANCE DECAY not cover - i don't have all the answers here but again i think language has a huge role in shaping culture - so it is a factor FIFTY GRAND Would you police me for calling myself a tranny? Cuz I do I like that word and I reclaim it DISTANCE DECAY no - again you can say what you want i thought we agreed on this earlier? FIFTY GRAND Did we? Ok DISTANCE DECAY but that doesn't mean that others won't say and do stuff as well maybe not that's why i said thought - are you arguing just to argue at this point? we can stop here maybe have a phone call sometime or go to a library FIFTY GRAND No of course I'm not haha I know it's hard to interpret And yea I'm passionate and a little worked up But I don't feel like I'm tryna argue Just lay down my fundamental beliefs DISTANCE DECAY that's ok - i feel broken honestly FIFTY GRAND Me too, and we both feel very strongly that our way is the right one So there is only so much we can say to one another We will have to agree to disagree and I'm always ok with that I think I should say-- I've been very critical of the left recently which you've noticed, and it's because it's my party and I'm seeing so much division I feel like I'm watching it all fall apart And I want to critique it in hopes that people will hear me out Because I've spent most of my time critiquing the right in the past I feel I need to turn to my own party and say what's going on guys??? Sadly I'm not sure how much I can keep doing it, people want to silence me. And I'm not trying to play victim I'm being as honest as I can be, I really do feel ostracized And sure maybe I am getting in my feels, we all are tho DISTANCE DECAY i think where i myself maybe am confused/take issue is when u publicly tweet these beliefs- there is an objective tone taken, doubled by the calling out others for bias - then you  go back editing/rewording them to something at the end after

example : take the "islam is bad argument" which is how ur words read to me and many others at first- i had a lot of people in ny mentions saying muslims should not exist - after hours u reposted ur thoughts saying using religion to justify horrific acts on people is wrong - which i think better portrays what u we're trying to say and i agree with but was not clearly articulated by the first string of tweets - and after so many with hateful thoughts found their confirmation bias already- and felt empowered and yes i think a lot of this stems from us getting emotional - which is fine we are human which i why i don't understand the triggered thing *in general * not with you and i think it's great to critique the left ! but i think your thoughts don't come clearly out at first - like so personally when u tweeted how is no one critiquing obama on immigration? - my twitter is full of leftist who criticized obama and personally i know of and know those who were deeply affected by ICE etc - again i think it's just the words we use maybe confuse us

FIFTY GRAND Yeah that's totally a fair critique of my tweets, I concede I need to do better DISTANCE DECAY we all do sorry that was so scatter brained the immigration policy under him really hit close to home - and it hit a weird thing bc getting rid of these binary thoughts/looking at life as grey - sad/anxious DT is coming to office but still not wanting to silence those who really suffered as a result under him - i couldn't find the words FIFTY GRAND I tweet my beliefs and I try to engage w those who disagree to a degree but  also I don't wanna reinforce stuff I don't agree with, so I shouldn't act like I'm so diplomatic lol cuz I'm not DISTANCE DECAY yes i feel u - and finding the perfect words in 140 characters or less is very difficult - but given the current climate is so important FIFTY GRAND Right. But at the same time Usually something will upset me so I tweet about it, ppl inevitably disagree and then it helps me, by the end of the "rant" usually my stance changes a little or at least opens itself to others But I start out hella strong And that's probably not the best way Something that upsets me tho is that the narrative seems to be that bc I don't support the violence, that I'm automatically the opposition And thats a rough one to me DISTANCE DECAY i don't have the answers :/ personally vulnerability has been the strongest key for me learning FIFTY GRAND It does make me angry but I think before that it makes me a bit sad and fearful. Anger is just my cover up DISTANCE DECAY i think it reads that way bc you haven't spoken on other issues in a long time - which can lead to confusion or assumption - and granted left is your party this is twitter and people don't kno that

simple explicit statements grounded in reflectivity and reflexivity - subjectivity of language taken in account - is very hard for me :/ FIFTY GRAND Very true This might sound weird but is there any way I can like, transcribe this convo and maybe share it? Cool if not , it definitely sounds odd to ask DISTANCE DECAY and yeah that's fine thank you for asking FIFTY GRAND I won't alter it in any way unless there's something you'd want me to omit. DISTANCE DECAY umm i think it's good to go idk throw me 2 the lions *joke* ^^ FIFTY GRAND 😂

[theworstbob]

the thing journal, 5.28 - 6.3

capsule reviews of the pop culture things i took in last week. in this post: from a room, chi-raq, the intervention, all the beauty in this whole life, bone tomahawk, spades and roses, souvenir, spin, brooklyn nine-nine, blue velvet

1) From a Room, Vol. I, by Chris Stapleton: My thing with Chris Stapleton is, I have enjoyed his two albums, I have thought they were both Very Good, I think they're both fine examples of what country should sound like and understand their importance in keeping country music vital. I'd fall just short of calling either of them classics. Which is a weird space to be evaluating an album, where your main critique of an album is that it isn't an all-time classic, that you agree the songs are good and that a lot are great (and there's some great fuckin' songs, "Either Way" is just, yerrrgh, that's a toughie), but sometimes, it feels like there's some ingredient missing from the mix. I think it just feels too perfect. This man has a perfectly tortured voice, capable of translating any sort of pain and misery he feels, and he's using it to craft perfect country songs about country things like drinking and being in jail. It feels like he's content to do great things within the confines of the genre when he could be reinventing it, which, hey, fair enough, Chris Stapleton making really good country songs is a thing in this world I'm not complaining about, and if he never unlocks the potential I believe he has and only ever makes songs like "Death Row," I'd be cool with that choice.

2) Chi-Raq, dir. Spike Lee: Because I am ignorant of any piece of media that was made before 2003, I did not know what the Greek drama this was based off was about, so when I realized it was a film about women withholding sex made by the dude who made She Hate Me (this is an unfair comment because I haven't seen the film, but I'm pretty sure that's an unpleasant movie), I kinda prepped myself for an uncomfortable experience. And then the film ended up being fucking fantastic. The fact that the "no peace, no pussy" protest elicits a reaction of "Well, we have dicks. They love our dicks! Surely, if we just remind them of the fact of our dicks we'll put an end to this nonsense" is not just what would obviously happen should a similar protest occur in reality, it calls attention to the fact that so many problems facing the world are being caused by dudes who can't see past the apparent power of their dicks. (I will bring to the grave the belief that, if all the Republican presidential candidates held a joint press conference to tell Donald Trump he had a large penis, Donald Trump would have suspended his campaign and receded into the background.) But more importantly, this film has things to say about this country. It hits on everything, and it hits it hard. It calls out gang violence for bringing strife to black communities, then calls out the people who would use that strife to undermine causes like Black Lives Matter. It's a film stylized all the way to hell that remains grounded in reality because, what with the lists of names the film brings up (multiple lists, and nary a name repeated on any of these lists), it's impossible to fully escape reality. It's an astonishing film from a master director on a subject he's had to explore too often. (Also, Samuel L. Jackson having the time of his life as a Greek chorus.)

3) The Intervention, dir. Clea DuVall: I can never remember which character from Parks & Rec elicited this Perd Hapley line that has stayed with me forever, but all the same, some character asks Perd Hapley "Do you know what I mean?" and Perd responds, "I don't! But it had the tone and cadence of a joke." I have used that line to describe so many things where I respect the attempt at humor but don't ever laugh. This film is an example of what I'd use that line to describe. There's a lot of funny people in the cast, and there were plenty of comedic set-ups, but nothing like an actual joke. I think the film wanted to be a serious meditation on the relationships between these people (who were related in some convoluted way or another), so it tried to distance itself from the comedy, but it never took anything serious enough for the emotional moments to land with any impact. I wouldn't attribute this to the cast -- Melanie Lynskey is fantastic, and I completely forgot but Cobie Smulders can do goddamn work y'all -- more to the point that, hey, there's a low ceiling and low floow for movies about upper-middle-class white folks who only share quiet and emotionally difficult moments with other upper-middle-class white folks, and this film lands somewhere in the middle. I saw this the same day I saw Chi-Raq. Y'all tryna get away with pointin' a camera at some randos, and that's not gonna cut it.

4) All the Beauty in This Whole Life, by Brother Ali: On my personal Top 20 list for the year, I have this ahead of DAMN. It's 10% contrarianism, 20% homerism, 65% this is an amazing record by an amazing man, 5% no one at any point shouts KUNG FU KENNY. It's easy to make an angry political record. I think Rise Against is releasing an album this year, and it's already getting an A- and barely missing the Top 20, because times are shitty and it's easy to be angry. It's hard to look at the world as it is today and find things to defend, reasons to keep going. The most profound political statement to be made is that the world is fundamentally good and needs to be protected from those bringing it ruin, and Brother Ali makes that statement with authority. We'll have plenty of time and reasons to get angry in the coming days/months/years/decades. This is a record advising you to take a second to reflect on what's good in the world, the reasons hate came to be, what we can do to bring out the beauty, to explore what peace we can find before we start a war. It's powerful, amazing work.

5) Bone Tomahawk, dir. S. Craig Zahler: Not gonna lie: took a catnap in the middle of this one, very short, not even sure I was asleep, but definitely let the ol' eyeballs have a rest for a couple seconds. Didn't feel like I missed much plot-wise when I woke up, though. Probably missed a lot of beautiful shots of the Western hills (ok, THIS film is how you break in an HD display, I feel, nuts to Interstellar), but hoo boy, this film moved slowly! On the whole, the film was pretty great, I loved the way it built that town's community in just the one emergency meeting scene ("Look at the mayor when you're addressing him." "Yeah! Look at me!"), but there's a lot of time spent with gruff Westerners speaking softly about the great and terrible things they've done, and impeccably composed as those shots were, I can only be so interested in the things Matthew Fox has to say. (Also, hey there, central romance between a dude and a woman 22 years younger than him.) The film builds to the conclusion well, it picked up the pace a few scenes after my nap most regrettable, and I typically can enjoy a glacially-paced film now and then without sleeping, but if you have a worse attention span than me, this ain't rhe film for you.

6) Spades and Roses, by Caroline Spence: i do not remember how i came to add this particular indie singer-songwriter's ablum to my queue, but here we are, and this was fine! This was fine. I liked it. I rode on a bus and listened to this album, and I thought the young woman sang soft and sweet though potentially dark songs over gentle acoustic guitars. I cannot say I regret listening to this album, though I find myself unable to say much beyond that, because it was fine.

7) Souvenir, by Banner Pilot: I listened to this pop/punk album from an act I understand to be local after Spades and Roses, and one thing I should learn to do is try to pair albums better so that I'm not dealing with a change in mood this intense, so that there's a logical flow to the albums, some thematic link, not just "I added some shit to the library and I guess I'm listening to these today." Figuring thiis sort of stuff out is kinda hard, y'know? Like, I don't want to feel like I'm adding stuff to the library just to get it out of the way three weeks later, and maybe that colors my experience with albums like this or Spades and Roses, where they're fine but not necessarily something I feel I need to listen to twice, but if I come away from an album thinking I don't need to listen to it twice to get the full story, I'm not sure I'm being completely fair to the album. ...This review isn't so much a review of the album itself as much as it's a review of how I listen to music. C-. Needs a lot of improvement.

8) spin, by Tiger's Jaw: OK so I can tell ya right now I fucked up listening to this one. I was distracted, I had connection issues, I went grocery shopping and spent the majoirty of the grocery shopping twist asking myself what groceries I needed instead of what this album was doing for me, I did the thing where I treated music like background noise and not the thing I should be paying attention to. I thought the album was OK, but I could tell that it came to me on the wrong day, that maybe I should have put on something I'd heard before, and saved this one for a time when I could give this what it deserves. Bad week for me and my listening habits. Like, I do the thing with movies where I put the film on full screen and only check my phone to check the time, I need to find the thing for music that gets me to pay attention to music for more than one song at a time.

9) Brooklyn Nine-Nine s4, cr. Michael Schur & Dan Goor: I'm beginning to think this show would be the rare half-hour sitcom to benefit from a 13-episode order. This does action-comedy so well, but you can't really sustain the intensity of the action-comedy aspects of the show over 22 episodes, but then they have to fill the rest of the episodes with hangout-sitcommy bits that are very hit-and-miss for me. Once the show has a plot, it sings, but when it's doing its mystery-of-the-week thing what with A, B, and C plots so the entire cast has things to do, it can feel unfocused. I mean, hey, I watched every episode, I think the show is hilarious (I will sing Andre Braugher's praises until they can hear me from the moon), but I had to learn to deal with its inconsistency. Maybe not a Hall of Famer, but so many All-Stars never make the Hall of Fame, y'know?

10) Blue Velvet, dir. David Lynch: I saw this on Saturday night, and I'm still trying to process it. I'm actually not sure right now that I've seen a David Lynch movie before, which might explain why I feel so off-sync with this film; I've seen season one of Twin Peaks, but I'm otherwise unfamiliar with what he does, beyond a David Foster Wallace essay about the director. Perhaps I've become too desensitized to violence to understand what's shocking about the violence in Blue Velvet, or too many films derivative of Lynch to see what's uniquely Lynchian about Blue Velvet. I do see the central point and believe it's fascinating -- the only think keeping Jeffrey Beaumont from actually being Frank Booth is a sense of decorum, that Jeffrey needs to be Jeffrey to live in civilized society, but the only thing Frank does that Jeffrey only does reluctantly is Violence, and now I'm realizing this is Hannibal, that's where I saw this movie, was Hannibal, OK, OK, cool cool cool, but also, that theme of the darkness within, of people like Frank being everywhere, it resonates, because now we live in a world where we can remove ourselves from a sense of decorum and be Frank. To see Frank Booth in 2017 is to see the manifestation of a Twitter egg. So in the course of this review, we discovered that we are on this film's wavelength, and that the distance we had to bridge was created by seeing Lynchian works and living in the end times.