#nobody freak out about the appendicitis thing

[ghouljams]

apologies ghoul but i'm a little slow rn and my brain seems to be fried (i'm also really sorry bc this question seems and looks so dumb but i cant help but picture this big hulking built-like-a-fucking-fridge of a man manhandling this tiny little toy when i know it's not but that's what my brain's picturing falsdjkfa)

when you say 'doll', i'm thinking of like a tiny figurine, maybe 4ish inches long. how big is the doll that ghost made? like roughly the size of a barbie or is it something he made himself where it's bigger?

Oh no it's fine, Mr. Ghoul thinks I have appendicitis so we're all having a rough one.

The doll is a mature style, MSD sized, Ball Jointed Doll so between 16.5-19.5 in (or 42-50 cm) tall. Big enough that Ghost can comfortably fuck his fat leaky cock against the poor girl's resin stomach, but small enough that he can also wrap his big meaty hand around its waist and grip it like a cave man.

Also realistic genitalia and nipples because I personally find those dolls to be fascinating.

[kremlin]

you know, i don't do the super longform posts like i used to, i mean to say, i don't post them anymore, but i still do write looooong ass walls of text, they don't ever make it to my blog. idk. on re-read they all have a very distinctive, unmistakable smell of "bus stop crazy" to them, and even after fixing all the grammar mistakes & forgotten words & etc they graduate from nutcase scribblings to "manifesto"

all those posts go to pastebin, anonymously, and then on to reddit, which is a huge pain, i have to farm throwaway accounts for like a year, not posting at all, before i can post a pastebin link and not have it be spam filtered, just to gauge how accurate my self-assessment is. it doesn't work because nobody reads it, unlike this blog, where 5-6 people read it.

and even that isn't working due to a wild phenomenon. when you write about niche subjects unappetizing to a normal audience, it only really makes its way to the same freaks that you're already friends with. in my case, these are people i've spoken with at great length solely textually over the internet, for like, twenty fuckin years. it probably wouldn't surprise you to know that they can clock something i've written like eight sentences in. and this sucks, it defeats the purpose of trying to hide my Shame Posts from the world with anonymity, so let me tell you what i did.

i tried just, you know, making a conscious effort to write in the most unkremlin way possible, and the result was indifferentiable than something i wrote normally. like, didn't even fool them any longer than otherwise. sure. fine. i guess that isn't interesting. but i wasn't satisfied.

so i call in an owed favor to a buddy that has zero language skills, like, unless you are speaking to him and standing in front of him, every message, regardless of platform, will read like a business email, signature and all. total dingus. he's like 26 & perpetually on welfare, (like all elite programmers) but writes like he's your dad sending email with that fancy corporate-branded-outlooko client that auto-appends some long ass disclaimer to all your email. anyways, that's besides the point, i gave him something i wrote & asked him to rewrite it in his own voice. no dice. "this sounds like something kremlin wrote but he's doing some kind of joke i don't understand, or maybe he got hit in the head". fuck. so i write a WHOLE new thing, not even solely focused on some niche subject that auto-reduces the potential culprits to like 5 people, and i give his ass the broad strokes of what i wrote and asked him to flesh it out. only a marginal improvement. they still nailed me after just a bit more thinking.

so fuck it. i hit up "Gunther" which i don't have the right keys on my keyboard to type properly, there's two dots over the U. gunther is very clearly a german guy, which you can tell on account of him speaking German, and when you speak to him in english, he's all "wast ist das" and shit. so i try giving HIM the broad strokes and having him re-create it, which was an idea/concept he did not grasp fully or understand on account of us not really sharing a language exactly. guess what. it wasn't immediately recognized, at least, it took about an hour for them to deduce i was the author, and at this point i have given up, i have lost because these increasingly cartoon antics have become my signature, and i will never be able to escape the shame of my Weird Bad Writing. they even figured out it was gunther sort-of-ghostwriting it, since it didn't have the quirks of software translation & was sent using some fucking ISO/IEC charset that europeans prefer over utf-8, at least the ones i talk to, for completely unknown reasons. they try and explain it, and i can't figure out what they're talking about, not because i don't speak french & german but because i don't speak ÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈÈ

i will never -- and this is a solemn promise -- write in any other way than to bang out the whole thing in 1 hour, never organizing anything, never looking backwards even 2-3 words, never *ever* proofreading (i get someone else to do it for me with explicit instructions to only fix grammar & highlight completely incomprehensible gibberish that they couldn't decipher for my reluctant fixing). i will also never stop posting it.

[pe0pleall3rgy]

something that just popped into my head mere moments ago is ford explaining things so they sound absolutely horrifying when it isnt as bad as he makes it sound

dipper gets appendicitis and he's in the hospital and he needs to get it removed, and nobody understands the terms the doctors are throwing around except for ford so he turns to an insanely stressed stan hugging mabel to keep her from crying and at the worst time he says "yes, so, they want his organs and i can assure you they're going to get them" and they both start freaking out so he corrects himself in a PANIC "oh no-- no mabel dont cry please it was a joke it's a very common procedure HES NOT GOING TO DIE ITS ONLY ONE ORGAN"

(^^^ this is like barely related i just wanted to joke about ford saying dumb shit in a situation where he needs to be smart)

-gf anon (also im currently filling out a google doc of younger ford headcanons so i will be dumping those on you sometime)

LMAOO I absolutely adore Ford being kind of clueless of the most socially acceptable thing to say in these scenarios. He’s out the gate with the most morbid-sounding explanation possible.

[lillyjmes]

BACKDATED: MARCH 21, 2022

She didn’t think much of it, ten hours earlier, but after having a conversation with Sebastian about how it was concerning that she was still severely sick after multiple days, she took to Google to look up her symptoms. Of course, the internet is the worst place for self-diagnosing. Lily got a variety of answers such as the flu, appendicitis, and even to the extreme lengths of death. Though one article peaked her interest after scrolling through the first two pages—pregnancy. It stunned the actress, she didn’t feel pregnant. Then again, she had no idea what that felt like. 

While waiting for her boyfriend to fly back to her, even if she insisted he stay in New York, she left her hotel room to get some air, and a pregnancy test just in case, which she hid in her coat pocket so nobody would take notice. The last thing she needed was to wake up headlining the news with a possible pregnancy scare. Before heading back up to her floor, she had asked the reception desk to leave a key for Sebastian when he arrived. A few minutes later, she was sitting on the bed, staring at the sealed box contemplating if she should wait for him or do the test on her own. She didn’t want to freak him out, or get him too excited and it be false. She knew it would break his heart.

[cerastes]

SO AMONG THE 72 Arts of the Shaolin Temple, there is one named Tie Shan, or Iron Shirt, which everyone here is familiar with. You know the typical body hardening techniques of hard Chinese martial arts you usually see in Wu Xia? Like when this small and thin dude gets smashed by a giant of a man wielding a tree or a steel pipe and, against all expectations, it doesn’t do jack shit against the dude and instead the log explodes into splinters or the pipe gets bent? That’s Iron Shirt.

The guiding principle of it is to use “qi” (efficient breathing techniques and thoroughly trained muscle tightening) to harden the shit out of your body, usually one body part where you focus the absolutely totality of your attention and kickasstitude. It’s like when the sci fi ship its getting its teeth kick right through its asshole and the captain says “REDIRECT ALL ENERGY INTO SHIELDS!”, it’s basically that, but you train to actually be able to do that in the one-person crew stellar spaceship that is your body, and instead of a proton beam, you are blocking the punch thrown by the blistering white supernova of ire that is the kid at GameStop after you buy the last copy of 50 Cent: Blood On The Sand.

BASICALLY, it’s not so much a whole school in and of itself as much as a discipline you Responsibly Consider in the mastery of the overall fucked and wide scheme of Shaolin martial arts. But, as one of the 72 Arts, it gets its own full backstory because the ancient Chinese people never once fucked around in their entire lives throughout the Dynasties. Don’t believe me? Consider that Jing Ke was just an alcohol-loving scholar who just so happened to love dabbling in swordsmanship, and he spawned the fucking cusp of all anarchist legends, and well deservedly, too, but my point is, the moment the Chinese saw a dope ass technique, that shit NEEDED a backstory, else it would just fall short of the hype their real life entailed.

For real, I really wanna sit down one day and talk about how fucking crazy Chinese myths are simply because their daily lives were worthy of 45 minute long OVAs that leave wanting more: To be ancient Chinese is to live generations upon generations in “Current Events”, in shit that now shows up on history books as “And This Fucking Madhouse Was Going On Over Yonder, In Case You Pondered”. How the fuck do you make mythos attractive and relevant to The People if it fails to outdo Current, Real Events in the “Bruce Willis Shooting a Gatling Gun” meter? You don’t, which is why for every fucking blade of grass that swayed by the wind in old China, there was a specific reason, a legend, and a moral of the story as to why that shit happened, otherwise literally nobody would’ve fucking cared about the grass, the wind, or the swaying.

But today is not that day, today is the day I tell you about IRON SHIRT.

So anyway, the lore behind redirecting all of your energy into your balls so you could tank a kick to the huevos and possibly redirect damage to your opponent by breaking their foot with your mighty pain baby sacks finds its humble origins with our main man, Zhou Tong (who must not be confused with Zhou Tong, archery teacher of general Yue Fei of the Song Dynasty, two different people) in the very self-descriptive story known as... I’m not gonna tell you the title just yet because it kinda fucking spoils the story, which is something the old Chinese were fucking bad about, aight, but trust me, anyway, Zhou Tong! Zhou Tong was just taking a stroll down the road, going places as he usually did, when over yonder, he spotted, without any exaggeration or glamour, an absolute chunkster of a lad, an absolute unit, Agent Fat Fucck’s respected ancestor, a BIG BOY. This dude was MASSIVE and WELL BUILT. So Zhou Tong looks at this mother fucker real good, hits him with that Scan Lv.3, and comes to the very fair and safe conclusion that this man looked forward to humiliating him, if “very fair and safe” also encapsulated “paranoid fucking old man”. See, to be fair to Zhou Tong, he WAS a renowned master of martial arts, and if there’s anything you should know about martial arts, it’s that a great number of martial artists are always looking for that big break, that “get my name out there for those in the know”, and the shortest route to that is to beat up a renowned master. It’s why Bruce Lee always had challengers! It’s why this one time, this one dude threatened Bruce Lee’ family in order to get Bruce to fight him, which is about the single worst possible fucking idea you can get. Drinking molten glass with a dab of lemon is a better idea than picking a malicious fight with Bruce Lee, and yet, here we fucking are! And in case you’re curious, Bruce Lee demolished that dude, but anyways, the thing is, Zhou Tong was, like, 17% justified in thinking this way.

So what he did was what any other person would: He started redirecting all of his energy into his right shoulder. See, the way they were walking, they were going to walk by each other while crossing a bridge, so Zhou Tong was like “this mother fucker wishes to humiliate me by chucking me into the bridge in front of the hoes!”, so Tong, as a master of Iron Shirt, focuses like 1700 Magic Points into his right shoulder, which turns red, and then purple as it becomes harder than rock, harder than iron, harder than spending 5 minutes away from the boys, under his clothes. So, the fated moment comes, they brush shoulders, and the Big Boy gets fucking Destructo-Blasted. Big Boy was almost knocked out of the bridge just from brushing his shoulder. It was so painful that he was pouring saliva and the entire right side of his body was left numb until the next day. Zhou Tong fucking DUNKED on Big Boy and avoided being publicly humiliated in front of girls, the greatest accolade you could possibly append to any student of arts most martial.

Except.

It was a misunderstanding.

That Big Boy was none other than Wu Song, his future student. Wu Song didn’t even notice Tong, he was looking at his own feet and minding his footsteps because he didn’t wanna get his feet wet after last night’s rain.

So, I IMPLORE YOU, the reader, to hold my hand (platonically) and accompany me through a reconstruction of the events through Wu Song’s perspective:

There was a freak rain last night in a place known for how dry it is. You only have shit ass sandals, and there’s a trillion puddles of water between you and your destination. You, as a certified Immense Chunk Man, have large trotters and don’t wanna step in a puddle because then you get the common cold and then you fucking die because this is somewhere around the year 1121 CE and medicine amounted to “these pleasant aromas and needles either heal you or you fucking die”. You take extra care to not get the common cold by minding your steps, and suddenly, out of absolutely fucking nowhere, you get Destructo-Blasted while crossing a bridge, you get utterly ragdolled, you get Broly Punched through three fucking buildings and almost hole-in-one into the river, you are drooling, you can’t feel the right side of your body, and when you look up to brace yourself against your assailant, you see this older man just sort of chilling with a joyful stride, walking as if he didn’t just deliver your fucking groceries with that 200% Damage In Hyrule Castle Lower Half Of The Map Forward Smash. What the fuck?

And then some years pass, you get involved into some Pretty Important Shit, and you’re going to learn martial arts from a certified badass, and then he walks out of the bead curtain holding a lemonade, and guess who the fuck it is, it’s Mister Destructo-Blast himself. How fucking awkward was that encounter? No, really, what were their first words towards each other? “Oh, I remember you! You were the old dude that nearly ripped my arm off for no reason that one day it rained!” That’s a great ice breaker.

So, anyways, they go, train, become even stronger, and then do immensely hype shit in the classic story, Water Margin. Zhou Tong became the 51st of the 72 Earthly Fiends and Wu Song became the 14th of the 36 Heavenly Spirits in the 108 Stars Of Destiny. You should read Water Margin, it’s fucking nuts.

But anyways, that’s the lore behind the esteemed martial art of redirecting all energy to shields, Iron Shirt is pretty cool. The moral of the story is to not just fucking randomly ragdoll people because you’re a mite suspicious, but also? If you can actually randomly ragdoll people like that? You’re probably dope as hell and can get away with it, so practice Iron Shirt for political immunity, that’s all, the end.

[themculibrary]

Black Panther Masterlist

Links Last Checked: January 21st, 2024

part two, part three

as to the river, so to the sea (ao3) - pepperfield G, 4k

Summary: “I’m your favorite sister!” T’Challa nods. “She has a point,” he tells Erik, who flicks a chip at him. “And I’m your favorite cousin!” “Mm, debatable. I have many cousins,” T’Challa says and this time Erik throws an entire handful of chips.

Scenes from a life hypothetical.

erik stevens, prince of wakanda (ao3) - theformerone G, 20k

Summary: AU in which T'Chaka takes Erik back to Wakanda. Erik is a problem child, then a priest, then a big cousin, then a diplomat, then a hero. But he's always a prince, and he's always a panther.

Iconic (ao3) - denyingmyselfalways T, 3k

Summary: In which Shuri and Peter keep quoting vines and driving Tony and T'challa insane. The rest of the team is just confused.

(Except for Nat.)

Kandake (ao3) - HerenorThereNearnorFar nakia/t’challa G, 11k

Summary: Ramonda helps Nakia prepare for queendom, in a very Wakandan way. There are traditions for Black Panthers, and there are traditions for those who marry them, and they both get pretty wild.

Alternate Title: Bachlorette Party In A Graveyard, Talking About Your Dead Ancestors, Getting Wild, and Fighting Your Goddess.

Musings of the White Wolf (ao3) - SeleneJessabelle12626 nakia/t’challa G, 65k

Summary: Wakanda was fascinating place for any outsider, but its people were what interested Bucky the most.

A series of semi-interconnected one shots about Bucky's life in Wakanda.

Natural order (ao3) - Builder T, 5k

Summary: “No one would blame you, you know,” she says. “If you wanted to take it easy.”

“It’s sitting behind a desk and listening, Natasha,” T’Challa says. “It is easy.”

_____

If only things were as simple as that.

Also know as That One T'Challa Appendicitis Fic

Nobody's Idea of a Vacation (ao3) - scioscribe T, 4k

Summary: Ross grinned. “As always, you’ve come to the right place. I’m guessing your overlap on ‘obviously non-Wakandan people’ and ‘people you sort of trust’ and ‘people who aren’t Captain America’ is pretty slim, but I’m always happy for a vacation.”

Overcoming Solitude (ao3) - Melethril T, 11k

Summary: Leopards live a solitary lifestyle. In extension, so do panthers. Wakanda decides to open its borders. Not even wise King T’Chaka could have foreseen the consequences.

Or: What if the Wakandan delegation also consisted of Shuri because T’Chaka wanted her to learn a bit more about politics and what if Tony also came to Vienna to deal with the Accords?

Pads, Paws and Claws (ao3) - molmcmahon harry potter/t’challa T, 8k

Summary: Harry lands in a world of superheroes and secret countries and finds a home and maybe something more.

Peter Parker and Shuri Prank The Avengers Team (ao3) - myheartisoverseas mj/peter, clint/natasha, gamora/peter, steve/bucky T, 37k

Summary: Peter and Shuri are just adorable and like freaking their friends out with pranks.

rhythms of unseen drums (ao3) - lissomelle nakia/t’challa T, 3k

Summary: King or country, which do you serve?

Nakia passed every test to join the Dora Milaje but one.

The Wandering God (ao3) - manic_intent erik/heimdall E, 4k

Summary: “I am called Heimdall,” Heimdall said, looking straight at T’Challa. “And I bring greetings from Thor, King of Asgard. Well met, your Highness.”

“You speak Xhosa,” T’Challa said, surprised.

this life (all I know) (ao3) - jjjat3am m’baku/erik T, 6k

Summary: "We will take him,” M'Baku said, shrugging. “The Jabari could always use another set of hands. If he decides to hurl himself off a cliff instead, that’s none of my business.”

or,

Erik tries to put his life together after surviving his fight with T'Challa. M'Baku helps. In his way.

uthando lukabawo (ao3) - moon_opals G, 10k

Summary: All he sees are stars. Love is destructive. Erik Stevens will not be a statistic.

where the monarchy is headed (ao3) - biblionerd07 t’challa/sam, steve/bucky T, 44k

Summary: When T'Challa says he wants to court Sam, Sam is all in. And then come the "prince lessons." There's a lot more to this dating-a-king-thing than Sam realized.

[crazedlunatic]

Bob’s Concussion

I don’t know why I even wrote this.... I think I just like to make people suffer? Or, really, maybe to just torture Blaine? Oh well.

“Why are the police in Bob’s office? Where is Bob?”  Blaine demanded.

“Calm down.” Jake said in a firm voice.

“No. What happened? Where is he? When I left you said you didn’t know where he is and now the police are in his office and I know that you’re trying to not tell me but I need to know.”

“Blaine, I can’t talk about this right now. The police keep coming up to me and asking questions.”

“Then take a lunch!” Blaine exclaimed, loud enough for a police officer in the hallway to look up to see what was going on.

“Go and help Brian. I will come and get you when they leave.” Jake said.

“No. I don’t want to help Brian. What happened?”

“Please don’t tear up, Blaine. Oh my God.” Jake said, looking over at the police officers who didn’t look like they needed anything.

“Is he dead?” Tears filled Blaine’s eyes.

“No. No, no, no.” Ryan came up behind Blaine and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Don’t cry. He’s not dead. He’s going to be fine, Blaine.”

“What happened? Is he okay?”

“He’ll be fine. Listen… just go and help Brian. When they clear out, we’ll talk.” Ryan said calmly. “He’s going to be fine.”

“Going to be?” Blaine asked sharply. “What does that mean?”

“Ryan, maybe we should just—” Jake began.

“He didn’t want Blaine to know.”

“Well he’s being an idiot if he thinks an investigation is going on here and that Blaine’s not going to assume something happened to him.”

“What’s going on? Quit talking to each other and talk to me!” Blaine was trying very hard to not cry.

Something had happened and nobody was telling him what. Which meant it might have been really bad.

“Are you taking him or am I?” Jake sighed.

“I will.” Ryan tossed a keychain to him. “In case they need in the locked drawers.”

“No one can go in those!” Blaine exclaimed, looking between the two of them like they were crazy.

“Blaine, they’re going to have to go through them.”

“But why?!”

We’ll be back.” Ryan told Jake and led Blaine out of his office. “Calm down. Bob doesn’t want anyone to know.”

“What happened?” Blaine asked, getting into Ryan’s car.

Ryan turned the heat on and looked at Blaine. “He was in a really bad car wreck last night.”

“Oh my God… but why are the police here?”

“Because he was hit head on and then they came back and slammed the car into a building… twice.” Ryan said gently. “It definitely wasn’t an accident.”

“Someone did it on purpose?” Blaine asked, eyes wide.

“Bob’s put a lot of people in prison, Blaine. Usually for really bad things. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened.”

“Where is he? Jake said Bob didn’t want me to know so he’s alive. Right?”

“Yes, he’s alive, Blaine.” Ryan sighed.

“Can I go see him?”

“He’ll probably be in the hospital for a few days.” Ryan looked at him.

“He’s… in the hospital? Am I the only one that didn’t know he was in the hospital?!”

“No. Jake and Brian know. Tammy Jo is already on her way to the firm from Cambridge.” Ryan took a deep breath and rubbed his forehead. “Listen, he won’t be home for a few days. He’s in a lot of pain and he hit his head on the dashboard at least twice… the last two times the car hit him. He has a grade 4 concussion and he’s not doing very well. He doesn’t want you to worry. He asked me to not let you know what happened.”

“You saw him?”

“Yeah. Sarah called me last night and I went to the hospital. The police are involved and they’re going through his biggest cases to try to find out who may have been released recently or anything that sticks out... but like I said, he’s not doing very well and isn’t really much help to the police right now. I saw him this morning too and he wasn’t doing any better.”

“What do you mean he’s not doing well?”

“He’s having trouble recalling words. He’s nauseous so he’s vomiting any time he moves too fast. He’s really sensitive to noise and light and he’s having a hard time seeing because everything is blurry. He’s not doing good, Blaine.”

“I don’t care. I want to go be with him. I’ll just sit there. I won’t even talk… I will just sit there.” Blaine took a deep breath.

Ryan watched Blaine.

“You… you don’t understand. He’s like my dad and he stayed by my side for three weeks when I got appendicitis. And when I got in my car wreck. He—"

“Blaine… he specifically said to not let you go.”

“Someone should be with Sarah.”

“Brady is there with her. Charlie has Miles, Sam, and Emily.”

“Are you busy? Can we go?” Blaine looked Ryan in the eyes.

“I can’t take you, Blaine. He doesn’t want you to see him like this, okay?” Ryan watched him. “I know that you two are super close and he’s like a dad to you. I understand that you are really worried and I am too… He doesn’t want you to see him like this. He specifically said to not let you know what happened.”

“I will go by myself. I’ll try all of the hospitals in the city until I find the right one if you don’t take me or tell me what hospital he is at.” Blaine threatened, pulling his own car keys out of his pocket. “I’ll call Charlie and if he doesn’t answer I’ll try Mallory. I will call until someone tells me because this isn’t right. You need to tell me where he is!”

“We’ll go.” Ryan said gently after several seconds passed. “But he looks really bad and he’s in a lot of pain. Like I said, light and noises hurt. He can’t see very well and he’s having a hard time remembering words and he’s pretty much throwing up a lot.”

“I don’t care. I want to be with him. I want to see him. I don’t even have to talk.”

…

“Blaine.”

“I told you to let me call him, Robbie. You knew he was going to find out.” Sarah sighed, standing up and going to hug Blaine. She had been sitting on the edge of the bed next to Bob. “Hey, honey.”

“Hey.” Blaine frowned and went to a chair on the other side of the bed. The lights in the room were off but they could see well even with the blinds pulled.

“I didn’t want you to come.” Bob said, voice much quieter than usual.

“I don’t care.” Blaine took a deep breath.

“I’m going to have a rough couple of weeks but I’ll be fine.” Bob said as Ryan sat next to Blaine.

“He went straight to Jake who is already freaking out enough without Blaine freaking out at him. The police are tearing your office apart.” Ryan sighed. “I figured it would be better for me to tell him than making them both more nervous. How do you feel?”

“Like shit. They make me sleep but then wake me up doing whatever it is they’re doing. I can’t even stand up by myself. I’ve probably puked out half of my body weight.” Bob sighed and winced a bit. “It also hurts to move which is kind of unrelated to the concussion. Everything is so loud.”

Ryan stared at him, not knowing what to say.

“I’m fine.” Bob winced when a nurse came in.

“I’m sure you are which is why you’re cringing when you see light, right?” She asked sweetly, writing numbers down off a computer screen by Bob’s bed. “Is there anything I can get you?”

“A way out of here?” Bob asked.

“Sorry. Maybe next time I come check on you.”

“You’ve said that every time.” Bob groaned.

“Yet you still keep asking.” She smiled.

“You’re giving her a hard time, Robbie.” Sarah sighed, sitting on the edge of the bed again—the side the nurse wasn’t on, of course.

“Oh, this is downright pleasant compared to some of the men I get. He’s doing a lot better than most of the people with a severe concussion.” The nurse reassured her. “And he isn’t handsy making him my favorite patient so far for today.”

“It’s still early. There’s time for that to change.” Sarah joked. “He gets pretty grumpy when he’s not feeling good.”

Bob sat up suddenly. As if on cue, the nurse handed him a large bowl.

Sarah got up again, bending and rubbing his back. “You’re okay.”

When he was done he didn’t lay back down but leaned sideways against Sarah.

“Thank you.” Sarah said when the nurse brought him a new bowl for the next time.

“No problem. Let me know if you need me.” The nurse smiled.

Bob nodded as she walked out. He then said, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You have a concussion.” Ryan said. “Can we get you anything?”

Bob shook his head as Sarah sat back on the edge of the bed and then rested his head against her chest. Blaine had a feeling she’d been on and off the edge of the bed the whole time she’d been here.

“No. Go on back. I’m fine.” Bob said after several more seconds when it became evident Ryan wasn’t going to leave.

“Are you sure? Can I bring something after work?”

“I’m fine, Ryan.” Bob sighed.

“Okay… Blaine, you’re not leaving, are you?”

“No,” Blaine said at the same time as Bob said, “Yes.”

“Let him stay.” Sarah whispered.

Bob nodded— mostly because he didn’t have the energy to argue with a hysterical Blaine Anderson-Hummel.

Ryan stood. “Please let me know if I can bring you all anything.”

“Thanks.” Bob’s voice slurred a bit.

“I’ll text you.” Sarah promised.

“Blaine, let me know if you need a ride home or back to your car.” Ryan squeezed Blaine’s shoulder and left.

“Okay, you need to lay back down.” Sarah said, coaxing him back down against the pillows. “You’re starting to slur again.”

“Don’t leave me.” Bob said somewhat pitifully.

Blaine felt literal daggers go through his heart and suddenly wanted to bawl. Because this wasn’t Bob at all. He couldn’t even imagine how bad he must feel to act that way and then ask Sarah to not leave him. It just wasn’t Bob.

“I’m not going anywhere, silly.” Sarah rubbed his shoulder until he fell asleep and then held his hand.

“I’m… uhm…” Blaine said.

“It’s okay, sweetie.” Sarah said gently.

“He doesn’t seem like he is.” Blaine swallowed hard.

“He will be okay. He’ll just be out of sorts for a while.” Sarah smiled at him sadly. “He’ll probably start to feel better in a couple of days.”

“Start to feel better? Days?” Blaine echoed.

“Don’t worry. This isn’t the first time he’s been in the hospital because of work. It’s not even actually the worst… but he takes the bad cases and that means… bad guys.” Sarah sighed a bit. “That’s what he says at least.”

“How many times has he been in the hospital?”

“This is seven or eight. The second one was the worst though when he was 28. He was out of work for two and a half months… and honestly, he probably shouldn’t have gone then.”

“He had big cases that young?”

“Yeah, he was starting to get them. I think that was around when Ryan became his intern. I was kind of hoping he would quit after he got hurt the first time but it just pissed him off and made him take more on… you know how he is when he’s pissed.”

Blaine nodded. “Yeah. It makes him work harder.”

Sarah nodded, squeezing Bob’s hand. She then glanced over where their second oldest son, Brady, was fast asleep on a small couch in a corner of the room.

“How is he doing?” Blaine asked, glancing over too.

“He left in the middle of his night class to come to the hospital. He finally laid down an hour ago.” Sarah laughed a bit. “Honestly I think they argue so much because they’re so alike. He acts just like Bob 80% of the time. Neither of them will admit it, though.”

“My best friend Wes argued with his dad a lot for, like, three years but they’re closer now than they were before. That was during undergrad too.” Blaine said. “I know they piss each other off but they won’t do it forever. It’s probably a hard transition for both of them.”

“Yeah. Robbie would do anything for any of them… you too.”

Blaine smiled a bit.

“You know, you don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to. I know it can be pretty boring.” Sarah said. “He won’t mind.”

“He would stay if it were me.” Blaine said, knowing 100% it was the truth. Bob had stayed with him in the hospital for three days when he’d had his appendix taken out. Three days straight. He had also ‘worked from home’— rather Blaine’s home— for several days until Blaine was cleared to be by himself for prolonged amounts of time. He would still stop by and check on Blaine on his lunches until Blaine was okay enough to go back to work.

“Well… what do you want to watch on TV? Please just no sports.” Sarah asked, smiling.

“I don’t care.” Blaine said, glancing at Bob who was still asleep.

“He’ll be okay.” Sarah reassured him. “This is actually pretty tame. Two times it was a lot worse.”

“If that was supposed to make me feel better… it really didn’t.” Blaine admitted.

“Yeah. It doesn’t make me feel better either.” She sighed. “But he’ll be okay.”

“Do you think he’s mad that I came?”

“No.” Sarah said softly, shaking her head. “He assumed you’d find your way here after the police got to the office.”

“He was right.” Blaine shrugged one shoulder.

“God, don’t let him hear you say that. He gets so smug when someone tells him that he’s right.” Sarah groaned. “Want to turn on the TV but not really pay attention to it?”

“You don’t need anything, do you?” Blaine asked.

“No. I’m good.” She smiled as Brady rolled over onto his other side. “Thanks for keeping me company… since apparently Brady isn’t doing a great job.”

Blaine forced a smile back.

…

“You’re reaching stalker status.”

Blaine pulled up a chair next to Bob’s hospital bed two days later, ignoring his comment. “I brought you Panera if you’re up to eating it… and I brought you a sweet tea too if you can handle that.”

Bob began to push himself up.

Blaine hopped up, helping him. After seeing Bob’s look he said, “Pay back for my appendicitis.”

“Thanks.” Bob leaned against the pillows.

“Do you know what you can and can’t eat?” Blaine asked him.

“Nope.” Bob took the cup and, moving slowly, took a drink. “You are in my top seven people alive right now.”

Blaine forced a smile and put some soup and a small salad in front of him. “Do you feel better than yesterday?”

“It doesn’t hurt as much to think?” Bob sighed and took a bite of his salad. “You know you don’t have to stay here, right?”

“Sarah’s working and Brady’s in school.” Blaine frowned. “You didn’t leave me alone so I’m going to be here as much as I can.”

“Thank you.” Bob said again and pushed the food away.

Blaine grabbed a bowl, putting it under Bob’s head just in time for him to vomit into it.

“Fuck.” Bob moaned before throwing up more.

Blaine swallowed hard because he still didn’t seem like Bob.

Sometimes he did but other times… not at all.

Bob straightened up and looked at Blaine before throwing up again.

“It’s okay.” Blaine said, not sure what else to do but hold the bowl and be there.

“S’not okay.” Bob slurred a bit, finally sitting up and then leaning back against his pillows.

“Do you want to lay down?” Blaine asked, keeping his voice as quiet as he could. He reached back, setting the bowl on a chair and then leaned over.

“Yeah.”

Blaine slowly helped him move down and then straightened his blanket.

“m’fine.” Bob blinked at him.

“Are you?” Blaine asked, moving Bob’s sweet tea and opening up a bottle of water—because Bob only drank one kind. Which, honestly, Blaine understood.

“I’d be better if I quit moving and talking.” Bob took the bottle of water and drank, nearly downing the whole thing at once.

Blaine grabbed another one, watching him carefully. “What can I do?”

“Get me out of here?”

At least Bob was talking louder than the last two days, Blaine thought to himself. And talking more too.

“I think you’ll be in here a couple more days.” Blaine sat on the edge of the bed since the rail was down. He kept the bottle of water ready for when Bob needed another—because he had been going through water like crazy.

“Thank you, Blaine.” Bob leaned against Blaine.

“Are you okay?” Blaine whispered after a couple of silent minutes passed.

When Bob didn’t answer he glanced down—Bob had fallen asleep, his head resting on Blaine’s shoulder.

…

“Oh God. You? Please tell me Sarah did not send you to babysit me.” Bob said two weeks later when Blaine came in his front door. He had been laying on the couch trying hard not to think—but then he had to think about not thinking, which just made the whole thing difficult.

“It is your lucky day, mister.” Blaine said, closing the front door.

“Ugh. Just put me out of my misery.”

“Hey, that’s rude. You slept on me for three hours last week.” Blaine pouted a bit. He then added, “And no. It wasn’t Sarah.”

“You are going to get me into trouble with Tammy.”

“How come sometimes you call her Tammy and others Tammy Jo?”

“Because I am lazy and I hate double names.” Bob said.

“I brought you more sweet tea… although I’m pretty sure you aren’t supposed to have it. Caffeine and all. I Googled it.”

“Watch me not care.” Bob eagerly took it and took a big sip anyway, looking grateful.

“Also, Jake lets his person work from home.”

 “She’s a third year lawyer who also has a baby… and technically Jake doesn’t even have the authority to do that.” Bob winced. “He actually doesn’t have authority to do a lot of things but sometimes the help is nice.”

“I’m a sort of-almost third year with two dogs, a Kurt, and twins on the way. Does that count for anything?” Blaine set his laptop and bag down, then came over to the couch. “The twins will be here soon.”

“Yeah. I know.” Bob cringed.

“Are you okay?” Blaine asked worriedly.

“If you get worked up every time I make a noise or face, you’re going to be exhausted by the time Sarah gets home. Concussions this bad are painful. I’ll survive.”

“But are you okay?” Blaine repeated.

“I’m fine… but kind of dizzy.” Bob said. “And nauseous. I’ll tell you if I’m not okay.”

“That doesn’t sound okay.”

“Can you close the blinds and the curtains?” Bob asked pitifully.

��Of course.” Blaine nodded and went around, pulling all the blinds and curtains closed.

“Thank you.” Bob said as Blaine came back over.

“Sure. Anything else you need turned off or closed or anything?” Blaine looked around the room, surveying it himself.

As if on cue, one of Bob’s cell phones started to ring on the coffee table. Bob winced as Blaine answered it, going into the other room.

Several minutes later, Blaine came back in. He grabbed Bob’s other phone and put it on silent.

“What was it?” Bob asked.

“Nothing.”

“You were gone too long for it to have been nothing.” Bob gave him a look.

“Don’t worry about it.” Blaine said. “Do you want some water? Your tea is empty.”

“Yes.” Bob said, slowly sitting up and then leaning against the back of the couch. Not even a minute later, he threw up into his trashcan.

Blaine rushed in with the glass of water. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Blaine.”

“Drink this.” Blaine pushed the glass of water into his hands and then took the bag out of the trashcan.

“Stop. I can get that. I’m not helpless and I can walk.” Bob said. He then added, “I’ll probably throw up again in ten minutes anyway.”

“And then I’ll take the next bag out to the trash bin too otherwise I’ll be puking too because of the smell.” Blane called from the other room, his voice cheerful. “Charlie told me you got dizzy and almost fell down the stairs last night. That’s why I’m working from home until your symptoms go away or lessen dramatically… and by working from home, I mean working from your home.”

“Are you doing this because of your appendix?” Bob gave him a look.

“No.” Blaine shook his head. “I’m doing it because everybody else has to work and I have no trials this week. I’m all yours this week.”

“Oh my God.” Bob groaned, slowly moving himself back into a laying position. “That’s terrifying. At least at CMJ there’s a wall between us.”

Blaine gave him a bright smile. “At least it’s not your new favorite intern.”

Bob shot Blaine a very annoyed look.

“He’s not bad… and he doesn’t even complain about you anymore when you act like an asshole.”

“You do know I’m still your boss, right?” Bob looked amused.

“Technicalities.” Blaine shrugged, smiling. “Plus we’re not at work and you know I love you anyway.”

“You’re something else.”

“Thanks… I think.”

Bob nodded and then said, “I really need to quit doing that.”

“What did the doctor say yesterday before they let you leave the hospital?” Blaine asked, sitting on the floor in front of the couch.

“Blaine, this is a couch. I promise I won’t kick you.” Bob looked at Blaine like he was crazy.

“Fine.” Blaine got up and sat at the other end. It was a pretty big couch so he was able to sit Indian style with his back to the armrest, still not touching Bob. He was able to watch Bob but far enough that maybe it would not be quite as obvious. “What did the doctor say?”

“I can’t go back to work until this all quits.”

“Obviously. I mean about it still happening. Is it still blurry sometimes?”

“Yes.” Bob nodded. “Apparently it can happen for months. I can’t go back to work until it stops completely.”

Blaine frowned.

“The dizzy and nauseous part at least… and the seeing fuzzy sometimes… and—”

“You’re going to make your head hurt more by talking.” Blaine interrupted.

“Did Sarah ask you to stay over here?”

“Not exactly. She just let me in.”

“Tammy Jo? Oh my God. What is with these women?” Bob groaned and then winced.

“Well actually it was Jake but Tammy Jo definitely agreed it was a good idea… I think seeing you in the hospital really upset her the day before yesterday.” Blaine hesitated.

“It’s a good thing she didn’t see me earlier in the week if she thought that was bad.” Bob sighed.

“Sarah was really happy about it too. I think she was worried about you being home alone already.”

“That’s even worse.” Bob groaned. “Jake thinks I need a babysitter and Tammy Jo agreed.”

“We’re all worried and I happen to be the least busy one at the moment since I stopped taking cases for the end of October and all of November.” Blaine said.

Bob sighed and frowned.

“I won my case yesterday.” Blaine said after a few minutes of silence—not the uncomfortable kind, either. Sitting without talking used to make Blaine super anxious but he’d gotten used to the fact that sometimes Bob was just… quiet.

“Good job.” Bob gave him a smile, although Blaine knew it was forced. “You’ll catch up with me soon.”

“Pfft. Never.” Blaine made a face.

“You’re doing really well, Blaine.” Bob moved to push himself up.

Blaine picked up the small garbage can, holding it under Bob’s head. Like clockwork, Bob threw up again.

“I’ve got to quit moving so fast.” Bob groaned.

“I’ll be right back.” Blaine took the bag out and returned with a bottle of water for Bob. “For when you need it.”

“Thank you, Blaine.” Bob moved to sit up straight.

“The doctor said you should rest.” Blaine gave him a look and took his spot back on the couch.

“You and Charlie.” Bob sighed but still pushed himself into a sitting position. “Don’t worry. I’m not getting up.”

Blaine, who in fact had been worrying, relaxed against the arm of the couch.

“I can’t believe you and Kurt have been married for 6 weeks.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to rest?” Blaine tilted his head.

“I am resting.” Bob said. “I’m so happy for you two, you know? Your wedding was beautiful.”

“Thanks.” Blaine smiled. “It was perfect. And your toast was so sweet. It meant a lot to me—a lot to both of us. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. How are the twins doing?”

“Still cozy and growing.” Blaine bent down and pulled two new ultrasound pictures out of his bag.

“Every time you show me one, they’ve grown so much.” Bob looked at them.

“I hope you feel better by then. I really want you to see them when they’re born.” Blaine frowned a bit.

“Oh, I’ll be there. Don’t even worry about that.” Bob slurred the last two words and then looked up at the ceiling. “Goddamnit.”

“There’s the Bob I know and love.” Blaine said, moving to help Bob back into a laying position. “If you puke on me, I’m buying Miles a toddler drum set.”

“Is there a receipt I can use to return you? You’re obviously defective.” Bob scoffed.

“Maybe Emily would like a karaoke machine?”

“Is it five, yet?”

“It’s only 9:30 in the morning.”

Bob pulled a couch pillow over his head as Blaine laughed.

…

“Oh God. Who gave you a key?” Bob groaned a week later, blinking and squinting a bit—not as bad as he had been before, though.

“You did when Kurt and I moved in down the street.” Blaine said. “I actually like working from your home a lot because you’re across the street and four houses down. I don’t have to drive in horrible traffic to get here and I get free food… I also don’t have to get dressed for work which saves on dry cleaning bills.”

“Mmmh I’m going to need that key back.” Bob joked. “You’re abusing the privilege.”

“Sorry about your luck.” Blaine smiled sweetly.

Bob rolled his eyes and drank some of his orange juice. He then sarcastically asked, “Are you here to make me some breakfast?”

“Ha. No.” Blaine dropped a plastic container in front of him. “Kurt made you some muffins, though.”

“I love Kurt.” Bob said, pulling one out.

“He must like you a bit too since he made you muffins. He only gives me baked goods at holidays.” Blaine laughed. “How are you feeling? You look better than you did Friday when I left.”

“Better but not good.” Bob admitted. “So, are you just going to bring the twins and watch me in a week? Because wailing babies won’t help my head.”

“Apparently she’s already dilated two centimeters.” Blaine said. “It might be less than a week… we really need to finish unpacking.”

“Your sons could be here in less than a week and you still haven’t unpacked everything?” Bob looked amused.

“The boys’ stuff is all good to go.”  Blaine took one of the muffins, grinning when Bob shot him a ‘look.’ The look that didn’t even faze him anymore. None of them did, actually. “What? These are really good.”

“I know. That’s why I don’t want to share.” Bob said although he passed Blaine another muffin. “Shit, Blaine. If she is already at 2 cm, you theoretically could have the twins by tomorrow night. It takes some women forever to get to 10 cm but twice Sarah’s went really quick.”

“Aaaah.” Blaine tapped his fingers on the table anxiously. “I know… but with Beth, it took a couple of days… so I guess you’ll have to come to my house when they’re born.”

Bob laughed. “You know I would be fine by myself now, right?”

“Yeah.” Blaine nodded. “But I would have been fine before you went back to work too.”

“I can’t believe you haven’t finished unpacking yet.” Bob shook his head—four days earlier, he would have vomited immediately after.

“You’re, like, four houses down and I haven’t seen you offering help.”

“Yeah. Because I’m on bed rest until the end of my forties.” Bob groaned.

“That’ll be in a couple of days, right?” Blaine grinned. He then said, “We’re mostly unpacked. The stuff that’s left is stuff we could probably throw away but we want to keep.”

“Yeah. I’ve got a hall closet full of that crap.” Bob said and then asked, “Freaking out? Excited? Terrified?”

“Equal parts excited and anxious… I just want to see them and hold them. I mean, their room has been ready for months. I go in it all the time but now it’s… like, right here, you know? Within a week, they’ll be in that crib.”

“You and Kurt are going to be such good parents.”

“I hope so.” Blaine let out a deep breath. “I hope you feel good enough to come see them the day they’re born.”

“Oh, I’ll be there. Don’t worry.” Bob reassured him.

“You shouldn’t drive.” Blaine said.

“Oh, I’ve been up since five. How do you think this orange juice got here?”

“You really are feeling better then.”

“Not great but if I’m well enough to go into that huge store and get stuff, I’m well enough to see the babies. If they get too loud I can always leave and come back when they’re quiet again.” Bob reassured him.

Blaine looked relieved. “I’ve been worried about that. I just really want you to see them that day.”

“Don’t worry.” Bob repeated. “Are Kurt’s parents heading up already?”

“Yeah. They’re flying in tonight. Carole’s going to stay with us for a week after they’re born to help us get settled… I think AJ is going to stay some too.” Blaine said. “Thank God.”

“Give it another week and hopefully I’ll be able to be around the wailing.” Bob said. “Sarah and I would love to help too, you know?”

“Thanks.” Blaine smiled. “We may need the baby whisperer.”

“Any time.” Bob smiled back.

“So… if you’re feeling better… do you want to go and get Chicken Tikka Marsala? I’ll even pay since you had to put up with my stalking since you got hurt.”

“If you’re paying, I’m going.” Bob eagerly stood up. “You know, the next time we do this you’ll probably be a daddy.”

Blaine got an adorable smile on his face. He then asked, “What day is it?”

“October 22nd I think.” Bob grabbed a sweater. “Do you care to drive?”

“Yep.”

“Just don’t get into your fifth wreck this time… I still can’t believe you got in a wreck on the way to your wedding.”

“Then you were the only one surprised.” Blaine laughed, holding the door open for Bob to go through.

[theinternetcultureproject]

A thesis on memes by reddit user cosmic daddy_ (WARNING: Long Post is Long)

...

Remember Longcat? I remember Longcat. Screw whatever we're supposed to be talking about, I want to talk about Longcat. Memes were simpler back then, in 2006. They stood for something. And that something was nothing. Memes just were. “Longcat is long.” An undeniably true, self-reflexive statement. Water is wet, fire is hot, Longcat is long. Memes were floating signifiers without signifieds, meaningful in their meaninglessness. Nobody made memes, they just arose through spontaneous generation; Athena being birthed, fully formed, from her own skull.

You could talk about them around the proverbial water cooler, taking comfort in their absurdity: “Hey, Johnston, have you seen the picture of that cat? They call it Longcat because it’s long!”

“Ha ha, sounds like good fun, Stevenson! That reminds me, I need to show you this webpage I found the other day; it contains numerous animated dancing hamsters. It’s called — you’ll never believe this — hamsterdance!” And then Johnston and Stevenson went on to have a wonderful friendship based on the comfortable banality of self-evident digitized animals.

But then 2007 came, and along with it came I Can Has, and everything was forever ruined. It was hubris, people. We did it to ourselves. The minute we added written language beyond the reflexive, it all went to hell. Suddenly memes had an excess of information to be parsed. It wasn’t just a picture of a cat, perhaps with a simple description appended to it; now the cat spoke to us via a written caption on the picture itself. It referred to an item of food that existed in our world but not in the world of the meme, rupturing the boundary between the two. The cat wanted something. Which forced us to recognize that what it wanted was us, was our attention. WE are the cheezburger, and we always were. But by the time we realized this, it was too late. We were slaves to the very memes that we had created. We toiled to earn the privilege of being distracted by them. They fiddled while Rome burned, and we threw ourselves into the fire so that we might listen to the music. The memes had us. Or, rather, they could has us.

And it just got worse from there. Soon the cats had invisible bicycles and played keyboards. They gained complex identities, and so we hollowed out our own identities to accommodate them. We prayed to return to the simple days when we would admire a cat for its exceptional length alone, the days when the cat itself was the meme and not merely a vehicle for the complex memetic text. And the fact that this text was so sparse, informal, and broken ironically made it even more demanding. The intentional grammatical and syntactical flaws drew attention to themselves, making the meme even more about the captioning words and less about the pictures. Words, words, words. Wurds werds wordz. Stumbling through a crooked, dead-end hallway of a mangled clause describing a simple feline sentiment was a torture that we inflicted on ourselves daily. Let’s not forget where the word “caption” itself comes from: capio, Latin for both “I understand” and “I capture.” We thought that by captioning the memes, we were understanding them. Instead, our captions allowed them to capture us. The memes that had once been a cure for our cultural ills were now the illness itself.

It goes right back to the Phaedrus, really. Think about it. Back in the innocent days of 2006, we naïvely thought that the grapheme had subjugated the phoneme, that the belief in the primacy of the spoken word was an ancient and backwards folly on par with burning witches or practicing phrenology or thinking that Smash Mouth was good. Freakin' Smash Mouth. But we were wrong. About the phoneme, I mean. Theuth came to us again, this time in the guise of a grinning grey cat. The cat hungered, and so did Theuth. He offered us an updated choice, and we greedily took it, oblivious to the consequences. To borrow the parlance of an ex-contemporary meme, he baked us a pharmakon, and we eated it.

Pharmakon, φάρμακον, the Greek word that means both “poison” and “cure,” but, because of the limitations of the English language, can only be translated one way or the other depending on the context and the translator’s whims. No possible translation can capture the full implications of a Greek text including this word. In the Phaedrus, writing is the pharmakon that the trickster god Theuth offers, the toxin and remedy in one. With writing, man will no longer forget; but he will also no longer think. A double-edged (s)word, if you will. But the new iteration of the pharmakon is the meme. Specifically, the post-I-Can-Has memescape of 2007 onward. And it was the language that did it, you see. The addition of written language twisted the remedy into a poison, flipped the pharmakon on its invisible axis.

In retrospect, it was in front of our eyes all along. Meme. The noxious word was given to us by who else but those wily ancient Greeks themselves. μίμημα, or mīmēma. Defined as an imitation, a copy. The exact thing Plato warned us against in the Republic. Remember? The simulacrum that is two steps removed from the perfection of the original by the process of — note the root of the word — mimesis. The Platonic ideal of an object is the source: the father, the sun, the ghostly whole. The corporeal manifestation of the object is one step removed from perfection. The image of the object (be it in letters or in pigments) is two steps removed. The author is inferior to the craftsman is inferior to God.

But we’ll go farther than Plato. Longcat, a photograph, is a textbook example of a second-degree mimesis. (We might promote it to the third degree since the image on the internet is a digital copy of the original photograph of the physical cat which is itself a copy of Platonic ideal of a cat - a Godcat, if you will - but this line of thought doesn’t change anything in the argument.) The text-supplemented meme, on the other hand, the captioned cat, is at an infinite remove from the Godcat, the ultimate mimesis, copying the copy of itself eternally, the written language and the image echoing off each other, until it finally loops back around to the truth by virtue of being so far from it. It becomes its own truth, the fidelity of the eternal copy. It becomes a God.

Writing itself is the archetypical pharmakon and the archetypical copy, if you’ll come back with me to the Phaedrus (if we ever really left it). Speech is the real deal, Socrates says, with a smug little wink to his (written) dialogic buddy. Speech is alive, it can defend itself, it can adapt and change. Writing is its bastard son, the mimic, the dead, rigid simulacrum. Writing is a copy, a mīmēma, of truth in speech. To return to our analogous issue: the image of the cheezburger cat, the copy of the picture-copy-copy, is so much closer to the original Platonic ideal than the written language that accompanies it. (“Pharmakon” can also mean “paint.” Think about it, man. Just think about it.) The image is still fake, but it’s the caption on the cat that is the downfall of the republic, the real fakeness, which is both realer and faker than whatever original it is that it represents.

Men and gods abhor the lie, Plato says in sections 382 a and b of the Republic:

“οὐκ οἶσθα, ἦν δ᾽ ἐγώ, ὅτι τό γε ὡς ἀληθῶς ψεῦδος, εἰ οἷόν τε τοῦτο εἰπεῖν, πάντες θεοί τε καὶ ἄνθρωποι μισοῦσιν; πῶς, ἔφη, λέγεις; οὕτως, ἦν δ᾽ ἐγώ, ὅτι τῷ κυριωτάτῳ που ἑαυτῶν ψεύδεσθαι καὶ περὶ τὰ κυριώτατα οὐδεὶς ἑκὼν ἐθέλει, ἀλλὰ πάντων μάλιστα φοβεῖται ἐκεῖ αὐτὸ κεκτῆσθαι.

[‘Don’t you know,’ said I, ‘that the veritable lie, if the expression is permissible, is a thing that all gods and men abhor?’

‘What do you mean?’ he said. ‘This,’ said I, ‘that falsehood in the most vital part of themselves, and about their most vital concerns, is something that no one willingly accepts, but it is there above all that everyone fears it.’]”

Man’s worst fear is that he will hold existential falsehood within himself. And the verbal lies that he tells are a copy of this feared dishonesty in the soul. Plato goes on to elaborate: “the falsehood in words is a copy of the affection in the soul, an after-rising image of it and not an altogether unmixed falsehood.” A copy of man’s false internal copy of truth. And what word does Plato use for “copy” in this sentence? That’s effing right, μίμημα. Mīmēma. Mimesis. Meme. The new meme is a lie, manifested in (written) words, that reflects the lack of truth, the emptiness, within the very soul of a human. The meme is now not only an inferior copy, it is a deceptive copy.

But just wait, it gets better. Plato continues in the very next section of the Republic, 382 c. Sometimes, he says, the lie, the meme, is appropriate, even moral. It is not abhorrent to lie to your enemy, or to your friend in order to keep him from harm. “Does it [the lie] not then become useful to avert the evil—as a medicine?” You get one freaking guess for what Greek word is being translated as “medicine” in this passage. Ding ding goddang ding, you got it, φάρμακον, pharmakon. The μίμημα is a φάρμακον, the lie is a medicine/poison, the meme is a pharmakon.

But I’m sure that by now you’ve realized the (intentional) mistake in my argument that brought us to this point. I said earlier that the addition of written language to the meme flipped the pharmakon on its axis. But the pharmakon didn’t flip, it doesn’t have an axis. It was always both remedy and poison. The fact that this isn’t obvious to us from the very beginning of the discussion is the fault of, you guessed it, language. The initial lie (writing) clouds our vision and keeps us from realizing how false the second-order lie (the meme) is.

The very structure of the lying meme mirrors the structure of the written word that defines and corrupts it. Once you try to identify an “outside” in order to reveal the lie, the whole framework turns itself inside-out so that you can never escape it. The cat wants the cheezburger that exists outside the meme, but only through the meme do we become aware of the presumed existence of the cheezburger — we can’t point out the absurdity of the world of the meme without also indicting our own world. We can’t talk about language without language, we can’t meme without mimesis. Memes didn’t change between ‘06 and ‘07, it was us who changed. Or rather, our understanding of what we had always been changed. The lie became truth, the remedy became the poison, the outside became the inside. Which is to say that the truth became lie, the pharmakon was always the remedy and the poison, and the inside retreated further inside. It all came full circle. Because here’s the secret. Language ruined the meme, yes. But language itself had already been ruined. By that initial poisonous, lying copy. Writing.

The First Meme.

Language didn’t attack the meme in 2007 out of spite. It attacked it to get revenge.

Longcat is long. Language is language. Pharmakon is pharmakon. The phoneme topples the grapheme, witches ride through the night, our skulls hide secret messages on their surfaces, Smash Mouth is good after all. Hey now, you’re an all-star. Get your game on.

Go play.

[yomomsaho]

That Chronically Ill Barbie

THIS IS A LONG POST..IT'S MY STORY BEING CHRONICALL ILL.When you're battling a chronic illness, you've probably heard "you don't look sick"... Ur right I don't. I get up n beat my face to the gods💄 n show up as best dressed because I hate appearing sick. Honestly, I've been ill for as long as I can remember, I mean, shit, my mom said i used to spit up all the time as a baby. My medical hasn't ever been the best. I've always been underweight n I've been prone to all types of infections. In elementary it was kidneys, but I was still in a lot of pain. I would leave early all the time, n teachers thought I was just avoiding their class. But I really wasn't. I would get really bad stomach aches that i would just tough out. As middle school progressed, everybody was hitting puberty but me. I had no titties💀 n my 9 year old sister had gotten her period b4 me. I thought I was the older sister.Here I was 14 years old, still getting confused as an elementary schooler. When I graduated from middle school, things took a turn for the worst. The pains in my stomach were getting really sharp, n I was vomiting a lot. I was dizzy and tender to the touch. But growing up the way that I did constantly gettin sent home from the hospital as just "dehydrated" and just nervous because of something (in this case, starting hs). I attempted hs, but 3 days in, my body couldn't take it anymore. I'll never forget sitting in a circle with my specialty center(i got accepted for mass communication) and everybody got worried because I nearly passed out. That's when I was heavily in and out the hospital. I was even hospitalized twice at two different hospitals. I actually had a poor experience with my very first gastroenterologist. He was this old man that was convinced absolutely nothing was wrong with me. Didn't test me or anything; He just violently pushed on my tender spots. I would cry nonstop in the hospital because it hurt so much. I honestly thought I was going to die. My heart rate was through the roof, i had caught C.diff while in the hospital in the middle of a tuberculosis breakout, and nobody was helping me. I had lost 10 more pounds in the hospital. I was at an all time low of 85 pounds. Towards the end of my visit, they finally gave me a colonoscopy and endoscopy.It was already weird because instead of prep, they gave me back to back miralax. When i was put under and received my endoscopy, I woke up in the process. I didn't have enough strength to freak out or anything so I juss say there n fell back asleep. when i got back to my hospital room, I had my first meal in a long time. I didn't care how it tasted. I finally got my pictures back from my endoscopy n colonoscopy n my esophagus was swollen shut like a butthole, no exaggeration. It was also severely ulcerated, so I had to start more medication. i lost more weight n the hospital released me antyways. So I immediately went to another n was automatically admitted. There I met another gastroenterologist, n he called me anorexic. That's insulting. It's not that I didn't want to eat, I juss physically couldn't.While i was in the hospital, me and mom researched my first GI and found out that he had been fired from other hospitals n was in the middle of a bunch of settlements. While at the second hospital, i met that gastroenterologist colleague. He was younger n nicer n seemed to want to help me. But from my past with doctors, colleagues don't go against colleagues opinions. So i kind of blew him off. After I was let go, I started packing to go to this Children's hospital in Ohio. It's about a 8-10 hour drive from my house, but I had hope. When I made it to that hospital, I went to the emergency room. n all they told me was "well if it's not appendicitis, she won't die", n sent me home. All that time n money wasted just to be told that they're not concerned if it is not appendicitis. A month later, I finally went to the colleague. He immediately started testing me. I took a pill cam, n I will tell u, the practice pill is the biggest pill I've ever taken. Nothing. I finally took this different test. I had to eat "radioactive eggs", n have it monitored. That's when I found out I have Gastroparesis. Now I'm careful about any and everything. My life got better for a hot minute. I had put on weight;I was a solid 117. I even re-enrolled into school after i had to drop out. But as school went on, my doctors appointments got scarce n I started getting sick again. Now Im 18 weighing at 95 pounds, going through the strugglesI began with. This is my battle but it won't stop me from being the barbie I am~ Chi Chi baby💋🌹🥀

[ark-of-eden]

Thoughts on the Function of Art?

(R:) I didn't want to append this to that big thread about censorship, questionable story content, and authorial intent because I am a Small Person who just consumes things and I was pretty sure that I can't actually add anything useful to the discussion. But I'm still stuck on it a little, so here is a thing that I'm putting behind a readmore in case everyone is fucking tired of the whole censorship debate.

tl;dr: Riss is old and grew up in an environment that was not exactly info-rich when it came to controversial issues. Riss is clumsily attempting to tape this and that together for some reason, possibly just to get it out of the brain. (This ultimately turned into a long fucking story about my early life that doesn't really go anywhere. It's just a long fucking story.)(**ALERT: This includes discussions of stereotypes, slurs, and fetishization.)

People in that thread pointed out the weird over-reliance on interrogating an author about what exactly they meant by writing certain content and that authorial intent should be a yardstick for whether certain content is edifying (and deserving of existence) or not. Other people wisely pointed out that every consumer will inevitably interpret every creation through the lens of their own experience and come up with a different take on what the piece is "saying" about whatever it depicts.

Back when I was very young, there was no way to directly contact any sort of creator. Novels had small text somewhere that mentioned how to send snailmail to the author C/O the publishing company, but naturally there could be no expectation that an author would ever actually write you back. Direct contact with creators was usually in the context of them being guests at a con or signing or gallery showing, which was sort of like seeing a band play live. Every other exposure to them was one-way or indirect, through their work or news articles or possibly from hearing a radio interview or watching a TV program about them, if they were important enough. This was pre-widespread-Internet, so nobody had blogs; some big-name people had fanclubs that mailed out regular newsletters, but the vast majority of creators had nothing but their content in circulation.

I guess that the point of saying all of that is just to illustrate that the present-day situation in which creators have public social media accounts that one can just drop into and toss opinions and questions about intent at them is...kind of a luxury, in my experience? For writers of "classics," there might be printed articles or essays in which they went on about their intent or process, but for creators who weren't popular while they were alive, historians have to go mining for diaries or letters to even get an idea of what sort of person they were, much less what they meant when they wrote that one scene from that one novel that was Kind Of Problematic.

And that was a tangent leading around to a perspective about creative work in general that I heard very early on and took to heart when it came to consuming media. I read somewhere that the point of creating something was to produce a response or emotion in the consumer. Any response. The creation was meant to be a catalyst for newness or change in the viewer, even if the response was something like anger, fear, or disgust. The worst possible response to a creation was dull indifference, because it had failed to do anything at all to the consumer.

I saw supporting evidence for this perspective in a lot of media. Bands built up weird, elaborate Aesthetics purely to draw attention to their songs, not because they were demonstrating some deeply-held belief system. (I've lost track of how many CDs I saw from bands who made dark music about cruelty, despair, and the emptiness of the universe and yet, in tiny liner-note text, poured out flowery squee about how they thanked the loving Lord God and Jesus Christ for blessing them with their musical careers.) Artists who talked to other artists about their craft admitted that they often made the art they did just because they wanted to make it for no special reason, but they fabricated deep-sounding bullshit to attach to it so that collectors would buy the thing just for the story that went with it.

A piece that kept getting talked about over and over back then was Piss Christ, which was literally a large glass jar full of urine that had a crucifix floating in it. Large sections of society were fucking outraged that this thing even existed, that galleries dared to let it darken their doorways, that the artist was even depraved enough to think up such a thing. I don't recall what the artist herself (I think it was a she) said about why she made it, but what was clear to me was that she had succeeded at the goal of art like an absolute champion. Nobody could look at that piece without having some kind of intense response, and whole groups of educated people were compelled to spill out their opinions and argue about it. Piss Christ was Successful Art, the thing that every piece of art wished that it could be. It didn't matter that most of the responses were negative. Apart from making it, the artist did nothing to encourage all the discussions prompted by the art's existence. People used it as a springboard for debates about What Is Art Really, the empty veneration of religious iconography, public obscenity, and all sorts of other things, entirely on their own.

Granted, there were clear downsides to not having instant access to people's creative narratives and backgrounds, or to the greater community of consumers. There were panels discussing themes in modern writing at cons and sometimes a nearby book club where people could rec things and talk about good and bad aspects to whatever they were reading, but if you weren't in a position to have either of those things? There wasn't a lot to do but chat with any reader buddies you might have or actually trust marketing. This book is a NYT Bestseller and has its own special display in Borders? Well, must be a well-written book with quality content, or else it wouldn't have that kind of backing, right? (I was such a trusting little idiot back then, seriously.) So this was when all those toxic norms of casual misogyny, racism, and queer villainization went unchallenged in a lot of places and was just The Way Things Are.

My family moved around to many parts of the US while I was young and I swear I never heard people anywhere bothering to have a discussion about the trend of weak female characters or how POC cultures kept getting reduced to exotic window dressing. There was a sense that those kinds of intellectual topics were the sort of thing that academics did in far-off Academic Country, where they only read classic literature and went over word-by-word symbolism with ever finer combs. I'm no quality literature historian, but I imagine that those kinds of thematic conversations probably got louder as widescale communication got easier, such that a person could throw out into the aether, "Is it just me, or is the only time when cultural elements from Asian, Middle Eastern, Native American, or African civilizations turn up in mainstream lit is when they need 'exotic savage foreigners'?" and people would be able to chorus back, "OMFG THANK YOU I thought I was the only one bothered by that!!" (I mean, advancements in communication helped every minority find other people like themselves, which is why the Internet is part of real life and a genuinely precious resource to isolated odd folk who are forced to live in places that are hostile to them. You no longer have to live your entire life being the only lonely freak instance of your kind in the entire universe.)

So I recognize the shitty situation of having mainstream marketers telling people which stories were good and which story elements were admirable without also having access to Discourse that would challenge those norms. I remember just accepting that girls would hardly ever be able to be heroes the way boys could be, and that people from far-away cultures were always primitive and backward but in fascinating ways. Nothing in my daily life countered anything that I read. Discussions that I found online much later in life caused me to rethink the trends in everything that I'd read as a kid and see it all with fresh eyes so that I could realign my opinions. It's vital to have discourse and challenge happening alongside creation so that we don't have generations of people absorbing shitty norms that are supported by fiction and not realizing that there are even alternative ways of seeing things.

But there's still that issue, in my mind, of a good creation being one that creates ripples far outside of itself by prompting any kind of response in the consumer. Which is, I guess, why it seems fine to me that Problematic things exist and that people encounter them even if they come away hating those things. The encounter with that thing can make a person think about their own perceptions and experiences, and it can prompt conversations about was learned from that encounter - the why of the result and what it means. Obviously, the same can be done with media that makes a person happy or comforted, and that ends up in Discourse because people end up comparing their experiences and questioning whether the people who are happy/comforted are correct to feel that way about the media.

(Bonus Tangent: it's never possible to be incorrectly upset/offended, only incorrectly happy, strangely. Because telling people that they are not allowed to be upset about something is controlling and aggressive, but telling people that they're wrong to enjoy something is...I'm not finding any positive result. It's shaming, which is a response used to exert social control over others. Talking about whether or not casting shame on total strangers leads to the desired result is something that even I don't want to take the space to talk about. I'm one of those who considers emotion to be out of a person's control. Emotion precedes action. What's important, IMO, is what action a person takes regardless of what emotions they might have, because it's possible to choose actions. Telling a person that they're not allowed to feel a certain way is an attack based on something that a person can't actually control. Whenever I see antis saying things like "no one should ever enjoy this content," I wonder how people are supposed to casually shut off their enjoyment. Can the antis shut off their outrage with a flip of a switch, since it's just an emotion too? Attempting to reprogram a person's emotional or motivational palette leads to things like conversion therapy, which has a high rate of failure/relapse and tends to traumatize people into other mental deformities. That's why it's far more useful to focus on responses to emotion instead of emotion itself. People with uncontrollable emotional responses - such as phobias or fetishes, say - can learn adaptive actions faster than they can unlearn emotional responses.)

This was a hugely roundabout way of saying that I really think that bad media or problematic media are still important. They can prompt discussion and introspection, as mentioned, but, IME, even a shitty representation of a concept can put cracks in a person's worldview and make it possible for them to be open to better ideas in the same vein later on.

For instance, I had that strict mainstream heteronormative upbringing. The only thing I knew about queer people for a huge part of my life was that they needed to be pitied because they were going to hell, and the closest thing to a trans person that I knew about was that Crying Game trap drag queen concept where the sinister man in a dress seduced honest straight men with borrowed feminine wiles. (I literally did not know that transgender people were actually real until after I was 20, which is one reason why I am such a massive late trans bloomer.) I also had that strict gender role upbringing in which there were certain things that a person must and must not do in order to be "proper."

Back when I first got on the Internet and started interacting with fandoms, genderswap fics were popular in my circle. Often, it was basically the same plot as the source material, but you'd switch everybody to the opposite binary gender and then, based on the assumption that men and women think and do things in slightly different ways, the plot would usually derail from canon because the genderswapped characters wouldn't do the same things that they canonically did. It was just one of many common fanfic thought exercises.

Looking back, reading genderswap fics was something that started eroding the strict worldview that I'd inherited. The "men and women just naturally do things differently" was enough in line with traditional gender roles that it passed by my defenses, but the swapped cast of just about everything ended up with lots of strong, heroic women and the occasional male sidekick. Further, writers tended to use the "women are more socially/emotionally intelligent than men" stereotype to correct shitty things that male characters did in canon because, if they were women, they'd be too smart and perceptive to do whatever stupid thing they did and everything would have happened differently. Nowadays, there's formal discussion about the lack of strong female characters in mainstream fiction, but in fandom, female writers just fixed the problem directly with genderswap so all the interesting, powerful people could be women and the guys could be useless arm candy for once. It was a way of reclaiming importance and power when canon media didn't give women much else to work with.

(I became aware while ago that Discourse is informing people that genderswap fics are hugely offensive to trans people. Now, I've described my crappy upbringing, but as a trans person, I don't understand this at all. I get that the "opposite gender" swap upholds the gender binary, but the issue is offense against trans people, not against genderqueer or nonbinary people. I seriously don't get why I should be offended? Is it because the genderswap doesn't include actual RL transgender experiences, as if the entire cast were realistically transitioning as a plot element? Genderswap is not acceptable unless it specifically includes things like "this is the story of how Cloud Strife got her testicles removed and enjoyed growing breast buds thanks to HRT"?? Maybe I'm an idiot, but those are two distinctly different story concepts and both have merit. o_o)

Later on, I became aware of people who were preoccupied with stories and fantasies of fantastical gender transformation, usually male to female. Some stereotypical male character would get injected with an alien serum or zapped by a fairy's wand or something and he would immediately metamorphose into a woman. There was often a disturbingly rapey element to these stories, like the boy wouldn't want to be transformed and was horrified while he was changing, but after he settled into the woman-shape or had sex as a woman after changing, he realized that he loved it and felt so much better that way. The stories were mostly just short repeats of this exact same situation, written by different authors with slightly different details, and this group never seemed to get tired of them.

Eventually, I learned that most of the people in the core of this group identified as trans women, but they lived in circumstances where they weren't permitted any female expression or had lost hope of ever transitioning. They fixated on transformation fic as a way to soothe the pain of living. Looking back, the noncon/dubcon themes that kept appearing in the fics made sense as a way of indirectly satisfying the powerful social forces that were demanding masculinity of them. The male characters were trying hard to stay male, fighting back against the transformation; they were clearly performing all the do not want signals expected of men threatened with feminization. They fought the good fight, but the enemy overpowered them! Womanhood was forced upon them! It was totally unexpected that they enjoyed being a girl after all, but because their maleness had been aggressively destroyed, they were free to stop performing resistance and love themselves.

But you can find fetish material like this in a lot of places, without any context as to the intent of the creator. (And I'd argue that it counts as a fetish if you crave it as necessary somehow, regardless of whether or not you're jacking/jilling to it.) Some people would write the same kind of stories for forced feminization as a type of humiliation. Among furries, transformation fetish material seems to add an extra angle of growing into new power and strength by a change into some larger, more magnificent creature in addition to changes involving sexual characteristics.

Further into the fantasy fetish scene is smut involving dickgirls/cuntboys. Those terms are inherently objectifying and fetishizing; the focus is entirely on the genitals and how a person has the "wrong" ones for their body. Understandably, this is where trans people get turned into dehumanized kink fuel, and real life "tranny chasers" exist who try to weasel into relationships with trans people just to have an embodiment of their fetish.

Artists seem to be slowly getting better with at least giving a nod to real trans people when tagging this sort of art, but (likely to get the most search hits) usually it's just "transwoman/man" alongside "dickgirl/cuntboy." And the art, at least, is clearly designed as fap fuel, so it's not like changing the label makes the content more respectful to the real humans it resembles.

Fetish art with that sort of name shouldn't be uplifting or encouraging because it makes trans people into objects, I know. But I enjoy it when I see it not because it gets me hot in itself, but because I feel heartened when I see sexy art of, essentially, trans people who have not had any genital surgery. I'm fortunate in that I don't have the worst soul-crushing dysphoria surrounding my (still XX factory standard) genitals, but I know a lot of trans people get seriously torn up about theirs and worry that they'll never be truly attractive to others because their genitals are "wrong." While it's possible to find humiliation art online of people with all kinds of body configurations, I tend not to (YMMV again) find much that seems to be specifically shaming or hating on characters who have trans genitals specifically because they are wrong/ugly/queer/etc. They're just participating in enthusiastic hot sex like all the other characters. Sometimes they're literally just standing around looking sexy, like any other badly-posed pinup. But when they're in the mix of whatever smut they're depicted in, they're objects of desire with their own sexual power, unashamed and equal to the others, and the other characters find them attractive and are clearly really excited to be doing whatever they're doing with that hot trans character.

And this response is very problematic, I know, because smut of trans characters that's designed to satisfy fetishes actually does lead to cis stalkers who want trans partners as living sex toys. And art of pre/non-op trans people being sexually liberated and desirable might end up being nearly indistinguishable from most of the fetish art I've seen, apart from lacking the objectifying dickgirl/cuntboy label. I hate seeing those terms in art tags, but the art itself makes me happy. Not even aroused, just happy to see characters who are essentially pre/non-op trans people being desired and enjoying themselves. When you've lived your life believing that you're ugly and unlovable, seeing people similar to yourself in those kinds of situations is a Band-Aid on an old, deep wound. I wish someone would look at me that way. I wish someone wanted to touch me that way. And even if you can't have that for yourself, you can at least look at art where similar people can, and even if those trans people are imaginary six-breasted purple foxtaurs, you can still feel like at least there are trans people somewhere in the galaxy who are free and happy and desirable. It's the same as those trans girls who spent years telling each other the same MTF transformation story over and over and over even though it was pure fantasy. They needed periodic inoculations of that fiction to keep themselves afloat when they believed that they could never have the reality.

That's why, to return to my earlier point and to the points that the people in that big thread probably said better than I have, I don't want bad media to go away. Even gross White Man Story For White Menfolk fiction can at least prompt discussion and response and might have little bits in it that made someone out there think of something in a way that they haven't before. Even depictions of minorities that are pretty clearly designed to be shallow fetish fuel might be a lifeline to some isolated person to whom that shitty depiction is the most positive representation of their identity that they've ever seen. You'd hope that they'd quickly be able to find better ones, but beggars can't be choosers, and if that shitty depiction hadn't existed then they might never have had the chance or the knowledge that different views were possible. You just can't know what people see and think when they consume a particular piece of media. They bring so much of their own context into the experience.

That's why I wish people would focus on action instead of on vague, catastrophizing speculations about intent or potential or who has a "right" to create or consume certain things. There are at least a couple of stories floating around about female fic writers who regularly wrote m/m smut, but who, IRL, opposed same-sex marriage and disowned their queer relatives. IMO, that's how you can tell who is making objectifying content - by whether they treat actual, living representations of minorities/fetishes like frivolous entertainment. I would bet that those IRL-anti-queer fic writers wrote things that were indistinguishable from the general mass of fanfic, which was why other fandom people were shocked to discover their IRL actions. People create things for all sorts of different reasons, not because ther creations are a clear window into their innermost motivations. You just can't know what's in a person's head, no matter what sort of things they create.

And I've literally spent hours writing this and sort of vaguely editing it paragraph by paragraph, so I'm going to post this now and release myself from childhood memory hell. Ultimately, that reblogged thread still said all of this better, but I just had a compulsion to LET ME SING YOU THE SONG OF MY PEOPLE FOR TEN FUCKING PAGES. :P

And oh hey, I was so caught up in time-warping back to the 80's and early 90's that I forgot that Wikipedia existed, so here's their page on Piss Christ. Turns out the artist was male. Says it was only a photo?? Lies!! I distinctly remember seeing the goddamn gross jar of pee!! Because human memory is a reliable, unalterable record!! (Okay, I've clearly gone on too long here. I apologize to the whole internet in advance.)

[newstfionline]

Prozac Nation Is Now the United States of Xanax

By Alex Williams, NY Times, June 10, 2017

This past winter, Sarah Fader, a 37-year-old social media consultant in Brooklyn who has generalized anxiety disorder, texted a friend in Oregon about an impending visit, and when a quick response failed to materialize, she posted on Twitter to her 16,000-plus followers. “I don’t hear from my friend for a day--my thought, they don’t want to be my friend anymore,” she wrote, appending the hashtag #ThisIsWhatAnxietyFeelsLike.

Thousands of people were soon offering up their own examples under the hashtag; some were retweeted more than 1,000 times. You might say Ms. Fader struck a nerve. “If you’re a human being living in 2017 and you’re not anxious,” she said on the telephone, “there’s something wrong with you.”

It was 70 years ago that the poet W.H. Auden published “The Age of Anxiety,” a six-part verse framing modern humankind’s condition over the course of more than 100 pages, and now it seems we are too rattled to even sit down and read something that long.

Anxiety has become our everyday argot, our thrumming lifeblood: not just on Twitter (the ur-anxious medium, with its constant updates), but also in blogger diaries, celebrity confessionals, a hit Broadway show (“Dear Evan Hansen”), a magazine start-up (Anxy, a mental-health publication based in Berkeley, Calif.), buzzed-about television series (like “Maniac,” a coming Netflix series by Cary Fukunaga, the lauded “True Detective” director) and, defying our abbreviated attention spans, on bookshelves.

While to epidemiologists both disorders are medical conditions, anxiety is starting to seem like a sociological condition, too: a shared cultural experience that feeds on alarmist CNN graphics and metastasizes through social media. As depression was to the 1990s--summoned forth by Kurt Cobain, “Listening to Prozac,” Seattle fog and Temple of the Dog dirges on MTV, viewed from under a flannel blanket--so it seems we have entered a new Age of Anxiety. Monitoring our heart rates. Swiping ceaselessly at our iPhones. Filling meditation studios in an effort to calm our racing thoughts.

Consider the fidget spinner: endlessly whirring between the fingertips of “Generation Alpha,” annoying teachers, baffling parents. Originally marketed as a therapeutic device to chill out children with anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or autism, these colorful daisy-shaped gizmos have suddenly found an unlikely off-label use as perhaps the an explosively popular toy, this generation’s Rubik’s Cube.

But the Cube was fundamentally a cerebral, calm pursuit, perfect for the latchkey children of the 1980s to while away their lonely, Xbox-free hours. The fidget spinner is nothing but nervous energy rendered in plastic and steel, a perfect metaphor for the overscheduled, overstimulated children of today as they search for a way to unplug between jujitsu lessons, clarinet practice and Advanced Placement tutoring.

According to data from the National Institute of Mental Health, some 38 percent of girls ages 13 through 17, and 26 percent of boys, have an anxiety disorder. On college campuses, anxiety is running well ahead of depression as the most common mental health concern, according to a 2016 national study of more than 150,000 students by the Center for Collegiate Mental Health at Pennsylvania State University. Meanwhile, the number of web searches involving the term has nearly doubled over the last five years, according to Google Trends. (The trendline for “depression” was relatively flat.)

To Kai Wright, the host of the politically themed podcast “The United States of Anxiety” from WNYC, which debuted this past fall, such numbers are all too explicable. “We’ve been at war since 2003, we’ve seen two recessions,” Mr. Wright said. “Just digital life alone has been a massive change. Work life has changed. Everything we consider to be normal has changed. And nobody seems to trust the people in charge to tell them where they fit into the future.”

For “On Edge,” Ms. Petersen, a longtime reporter for The Wall Street Journal, traveled back to her alma mater, the University of Michigan, to talk to students about stress. One student, who has A.D.H.D., anxiety and depression, said the pressure began building in middle school when she realized she had to be at the top of her class to get into high school honors classes, which she needed to get into Advanced Placement classes, which she needed to get into college.

“In sixth grade,” she said, “kids were freaking out.”

This was not the stereotypical experience of Generation X.

Urban Dictionary defines a slacker as “someone who while being intelligent, doesn’t really feel like doing anything,” and that certainly captures the ripped-jean torpor of 1990s Xers.

For these youths of the 1990s, Nirvana’s “Lithium” was an anthem; coffee was a constant and Ms. Wurtzel’s “Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America,” about an anhedonic Harvard graduate from a broken home, dressed as if she could have played bass in Hole, was a bible.

The millennial equivalent of Ms. Wurtzel is, of course, Lena Dunham, who recently told an audience at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, “I don’t remember a time not being anxious.” Having suffered debilitating anxiety since age 4, the creator, writer and star of the anxiety-ridden “Girls” recalled how she “missed 74 days of 10th grade” because she was afraid to leave her house. This was around the time that the largest act of terrorism in United States history unfolded near the TriBeCa loft where she grew up.

But monitored by helicopter parents, showered with participation awards and then smacked with the Great Recession, Generation Y has also suffered from the low-level anxiety that comes from failing to meet expectations. Thus the invention of terms like “quarter-life crisis” and “FOMO” (“fear of missing out,” as it is fueled by social media apps like Instagram). Thus cannabis, the quintessential chill-out drug, is turned into a $6.7 billion industry.

Sexual hedonism no longer offers escape; it’s now filtered through the stress of Tinder. “If someone rejects you, there’s no, ‘Well, maybe there just wasn’t chemistry …,’” Jacob Geers, a 22-year-old in New York who works in digital sales, said. “It’s like you’re afraid that through the app you’ll finally look into the mirror and realize that you’re butt ugly,” he added.

If anxiety is the melody of the moment, President Trump is a fitting maestro. Unlike his predecessor, Barack Obama, a low-key ironist from the mellow shores of Oahu, the incumbent is a fast-talking agitator from New York, a city of 8.5 million people and, seemingly, three million shrinks.

In its more benign form, only a few beats from ambition, anxiety is, in part, what made Mr. Trump as a businessman. In his real estate career, enough was never enough. “Controlled neurosis” is the common characteristic of most “highly successful entrepreneurs,” according to Mr. Trump (or Tony Schwartz, his ghostwriter) in the 1987 book, “The Art of the Deal.” “I don’t say that this trait leads to a happier life, or a better life,” he adds, “but it’s great when it comes to getting what you want.”

Everything had to be bigger, bolder, gold-er. And it made him as a politician, spinning nightmare tales on the stump about an America under siege from Mexican immigrants and Muslim terrorists.

But if Mr. Trump became president because voters were anxious, as a recent Atlantic article would have readers believe, other voters have become more anxious because he became president. Even those not distressed by the content of his messages might find the manner in which they are dispensed jarring.

“In addition to the normal chaos of being a human being, there is what almost feels like weaponized uncertainty thrown at us on a daily basis,” said Kat Kinsman, the “Hi, Anxiety” author. “It’s coming so quickly and messily, some of it straight from the president’s own fingers.”

Indeed, Mr. Trump is the first politician in world history whose preferred mode of communication is the 3 a.m. tweet--evidence of a sleepless body, a restless mind, a worrier.

“We live in a country where we can’t even agree on a basic set of facts,” said Dan Harris, an ABC news correspondent and “Nightline” anchor who found a side career as an anti-anxiety guru with the publication of his 2014 best-seller, “10% Happier.” Mr. Harris now also offers a meditation app, a weekly email newsletter and a podcast that has been downloaded some 3.5 million times in the past year.

The political mess has been “a topic of conversation and a source of anxiety in nearly every clinical case that I have worked with since the presidential election,” said Robert Duff, a psychologist in California. He wrote a 2014 book, “Hardcore Self-Help,” whose subtitle proposes to conquer anxiety in the coarse language that has also defined a generation.

The Cold War, starring China, North Korea and Russia, is back, inspiring headline-induced visions of mushroom clouds not seen in our collective nightmares since that Sunday evening in 1983 when everyone watched “The Day After” on ABC.

And television was, as Marshall McLuhan famously wrote, a cool medium. Our devices are literally hot, warming our laps and our palms.

“In our always-on culture, checking your phone is the last thing you do before you go to sleep, and the first thing you do if you wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom,” Mr. Harris said. “Just today, I got an alert on my phone about the collapsing Arctic ice shelf. That’s scary as hell.”

Push notifications. Apocalyptic headlines. Rancorous tweets. Countless studies have found links between online culture and anxiety. But if social media can lead to anxiety, it also might help relieve it.

The “we have no secrets here” ethos of online discourse has helped bring anxiety into the open, and allowed its clinical sufferers to band together in a virtual group-therapy setting. Hence the success of campaigns like #ThisIsWhatAnxietyFeelsLike, which helped turn anxiety--a disorder that afflicts some 40 million American adults--into a kind of rights movement. “People with anxiety were previously labeled dramatic,” said Sarah Fader, the Brooklyn social media consultant who also runs a mental-health advocacy organization called Stigma Fighters. “Now we are seen as human beings with a legitimate mental health challenge.”

And let’s remember that we survived previous heydays of anxiety without a 24-hour digital support system. Weren’t the Woody Allen ‘70s the height of neurosis, with their five-days-a-week analysis sessions and encounter groups? What about the 1950s, with their duck-and-cover songs and backyard bomb shelters?

That era “was the high-water mark of Freudian psychoanalysis, and any symptom or personality trait was attributed to an anxiety neurosis,” said Peter D. Kramer, the Brown University psychiatrist who wrote the landmark 1990s best-seller, “Listening to Prozac.” “And then there were substantial social spurs to anxiety: the World Wars, the atom bomb. If you weren’t anxious, you were scarcely normal.”

Scott Stossel, editor of The Atlantic, whose “My Age of Anxiety” helped kick off the anxiety memoir boom three years ago, urged people to pause, not for deep cleansing breaths, but for historical perspective.

“Every generation, going back to Periclean Greece, to second century Rome, to the Enlightenment, to the Georgians and to the Victorians, believes itself to be the most anxious age ever,” Mr. Stossel said.

That said, the Americans of 2017 can make a pretty strong case that they are gold medalists in the Anxiety Olympics.

“There is widespread inequality of wealth and status, general confusion over gender roles and identities, and of course the fear, dormant for several decades, that ICBMs will rain nuclear fire on American cities,” Mr. Stossel said. “The silver lining for those with nervous disorders is that we can welcome our previously non-neurotic fellow citizens into the anxious fold.”