#normalize using your brain and not being a fucking contrarian
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2dami2furious · 1 year ago
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media literacy is actually so over if we have people unironically thinking that miguel is right about canon theory
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ranmanjuu · 4 years ago
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not a request but can you imagine oda forces trying to play smash against the anti-oda or they all play minecraft together
i’ll expose myself here. i have never ever played smash (although minecraft steve being announced is super pog) so i can’t tell ya that part bud. but i can with the blok game. (disclaimer that this request was made after i closed it yet my heart said No, you actually Want to do this so here i am. most probably will be short).
welcome folks, to SengokuSMP.
oda forces:
—nobunaga:
would be the one that steals your iron and shit. commits thefts willy nilly, and no one is exempt from this. if he needs it, he’ll get it with or without your consent.
would kill an iron golem for the few iron it gives
before he got his own base (cause i think he’d just spend most of his time mining and getting materials to protect himself) he’s probably just barge in the nearest bed and sleep in it, regardless of the owner.
his base would probably be built by hideyoshi or sumthn.
he prefers playing pvp more than just survival. since mc placed a kind of restriction for the end (and therefore blocking them from completing the game), he goes onto servers and practice his battles even in a block game.
1.9 axe-shield pvp. he’s tactical in knowing when to strike and block and to back down, and is immaculate with his crits.
—hideyoshi:
probably spends the first few days around nobunaga to protect him. he always fights off the mobs near him even if nobunaga can handle himself.
always reminds people to sleep every night, so that the phantoms don’t come. even though a lot of the players prefer to just stay up.
built a base for nobunaga near his mine cause he needs A Place and not just mooch furnaces and beds from other people.
spawned iron golems for “protection” but nobunaga keeps killing them cause it just gets in the way
would be the one to make mines 4 blocks high so you don’t Bump your head thing, probably like 3 block width and even staircases. would also be the one to make a safety railing across any bridges he finds.
if an ally, he’d greet new players and give them some extra stuff so that they have Something to start off with
i feel like he’d be a pve player idk why
—mitsuhide:
no one knows where he is most of the time. nor his base.
unless you see his nametag (which, most of the time, he’ll see yours first) it’s kinda hard to find him when he’s off and alone.
mf is the black market of the server. whatever potions, potion ingredients, or shit like that, he has. he probably owns like several wither skulls enough to summon a wither.
he would sneak around when mc is mining and just like. scare the shit out of them. the cave noises don’t help.
(the newest screenshot hasn’t been released yet but,) y’all know the warden? the new mob? cause it’s reliant on sounds, if anyone is ever in its proximity he’d throw like snowballs at them so that it goes after them. little shit.
bow skills?? perfect. even in a game his accuracy is spot on. you know those obstacles people make with like slime blocks and maybe mlg 360s? mf can do that
he probably knows enough redstone to make traps, too.
somehow knows what everyone has/doesn’t have.
—masamune:
prank ass bitch.
he probably has like a Source of tnts in his base or something. if anyone is moving out of their old base, he’ll either blow it up or burn it, whether they wanted to or not.
fuck it. he’ll do it even if you’re not moving.
probably doesn’t often sleep and would rather fight off the phantoms than anything.
he probably wants to defeat the dragon quick, cause it’s supposed to be the game’s ultimate goal. but because of the previous restrictions you put, he just goes off and fights other players (cough kenshin, nobunaga)
and when he does kill you, expect like half of your items to not be returned.
also one of the casual thieves in the server. he just doesn’t care that it Belongs to someone and just yoinks
also a pvp player, although i find him leaning more to 1.8 style. he will jitter click you out of existence.
has dogs because idk he gives off that vibe also they Attack.
—ieyasu:
does not log on much lol. he got on once and then Never Again. it’s only when you ask him that he begrudgingly does get in in his own contrarian way.
definitely goes wayy far out for more isolation cause he doesn’t want to get caught up with whatever shit masamune has.
the only major thing he did besides mining and everything was that he got a cat. and almost no one knows about it, other than you because:
“ieyasu has made the advancement [Best Friends Forever]!”
“mc: :OOOOO!!!!”
yeah, you never told anyone.
the longest time that he logged in at first was probably when he found out that cats sleep in beds and just. sat there as the night goes by in his bunker just watching and hearing it purr. he’s a bit irritated when the others tell him to sleep, but then see that the cat went and slept on him that secretly made his heart soft.
and then you insisted on going to his base which took a considerable amount of time, and even with his denying, you decide to decorate and expand his base! you also got to name the cat, but you never knew since you just said like “i’d name it [...]!” and later ieyasu found a name tag and actually did name it that.
—mitsunari:
he doesn’t run a lot i don’t feel. primarily because he was wonky with the controls from the start.
i feel like he’d have the brain to be a redstone engineer. he spends more time like, making those cool machines than anything (probably those that’d help out everyone like an automated farm, etc.)
thing is he forgot that he could die, so most of the time he’s just starve to death without even noticing it.
much like in real life, he always forgets to sleep. and that’s why phantoms are his number 2 in his cause of deaths.
doesn’t have an actual base. hideyoshi built a small one for him, but mitsunari kind of never uses it and just logs off on the spot. at this point it just became a part of the main buildings for everyone or something.
he doesn’t do an awful a lot of collecting and often asks others for some. and when he is given it, he goes “thank you ^^ <3″ and does like the happy-shift thing. it’s honestly too cute for it to be just pixels.
probably knows a lot about minecraft stuff too, it’s just that he never uses any of it.
—ranmaru:
he was so excited the first time you told him that he was invited to the smp of sengoku warlords! would probably frequent the most.
i think he’d just vibe really. not exactly going extremely into pve or pvp or redstone or building, he plays it at a very slow place and more like an animal crossing player would.
like, he builds a small farm and stuff. it isn’t as efficient as mitsunari’s, but it is what it is. also has an animal pen with loads of one animal category and he tends to let people use it with the exclusion of some (coughs masamune) as long as they breed them again or something.
and while he doesn’t go for the big projects, he is kind of a builder? he has the Aesthetic sense while building his house and stuff yk. would maybe lean into the cute, cottagecore stuff.
favorite food in game is probably cake! it takes more effort than most other foods and it just looks cute so he likes making them.
totally has shaders on.
is scared shitless of cave noises at times. you could play 11 near him and he’d just straight up panic and log off.
uesugi-takeda forces:
—shingen:
i find him to be maybe one of those builders that stick to large projects and stuff idk why
he does other things too, mainly pvp (he likes to just head over to nobunaga’s base and kill him sometimes. not that the man doesn’t accept the challenge). would probably also be more into 1.9 pvp because he’s a very calculative person in fighting. yes even in block game.
but the first thing he built once he’s set from collecting materials, was a “restaurant”. for what, you ask? why of course he takes you on a minecraft date. that was the top of his list the moment you even told him about the smp
once the others found out (which was not that long) he just started bragging. kenshin burnt down the building later on.
but he always escorts mc or some shit while spewing out his Lines in chat, sometimes doing the bow in game thing. in response, there are several barfs in chat, and a list of people coming to kill him.
mf likes to combat log on kenshin when he’s on a Killing Spree for the shits and giggles.
—kenshin:
first time you told him about it, he was very happy to learn something about mc’s modern times, even if it’s a children’s game. unfortunately, he didn’t know what an ‘smp’ meant.
so when he logged on and saw that there were Other people, his smile turned into a deadly frown as he just began punching them to death. he only stopped when they ran off and you intervened.
he tried having you stick around longer when you were giving him a tutorial of how to play the game.
at first he only collected material to get stronger. and by that only sword because he sees no need in getting armor (he doesn’t die in battle irl, he can’t die in a simple game). but WRONG cause he got killed by shingen who, even though he had a stone axe, had iron armor while kenshin got nothing but an iron sword.
he doesn’t make a base (why do so many here don’t make bases istg). in fact, he doesn’t log on much.
at first, he only goes on if mc is on. it’s only when he sees that mc appreciates some of the work the others have put into things (like shingen’s builds, mitsunari’s redstone, etc.) is when kenshin tries to Do Things Too and kinda fail.
this man kinda has no aesthetic sense in the block game. but you give him a for effort.
1.8 pvper. he can definitely do 1.9, but more the former mostly cause his deadly anger makes him jitter click like crazy. often challenges others (consented or not) which mostly includes masamune and nobunaga, and he often surprise attacks shingen and sasuke.
—yukimura:
honestly a normal player in survival.
he makes a decent house, has some pretty strong gear, and just helps around his allies a lot (mostly {try to} drag kenshin away from trouble, scold shingen for being too close to mc {though it’s a him problem ngl} and just being a messy caretaker).
i feel like he’d enjoy tekkit tbh. sasuke would probably introduce it to him and he’d just generally enjoy it.
but this is about the smp
he got lucky the first drowned he killed dropped a trident and it’s been his favorite weapon.
probably tried at one point to build kenshin a small base but he wouldn’t listen so like. shrugs.
he’s a bit iffy with playing alongside the enemies in the same server, but they are kind of divided into two. and mc did say it was just for fun and games and they didn’t want to see actual wars be dragged into this, so he just lets it go and has fun.
he looks forward to beating the enderdragon a lot, when the end is available.
—sasuke:
oh Boy he’s having a field day. his adored sengoku warlords? playing minecraft, his childhood game??? absolute pog.
even though it was you who proposed the idea, the one who set up the server in the first place was sasuke, since he has more knowledge on that stuff.
since he got his bearings quicker than the rest from experience, and he was earlier to log on due to testing and stuff, he mostly helps you with building like the main hub, like the center place for everyone and generally things that involve helping the overall smp.
can mlg water bucket, through a lot of trial and error. he uses it mostly to make dramatic entrances where he drops from a hill and just not take damage.
^ speaking of Dramatic Entrances, he probably has a chest full of ender pearls for those specifically.
although he helps a lot with guiding everyone, at times, he pulls out the ol’ “sleep in the nether :)” suggestion just to troll
ngl he’d stick to his ninja thing and successfully make a redstone-wired door and has his banger secret base in it
—yoshimoto:
the s in smp doesn’t exist to him.
he’s just a collector, really. one of his first priority isn’t even materials like stone, the moment he finds any kind of flowers he’ll pick it up. it’s only when yukimura and sasuke actually Give him shit does he start living a not broke life.
probably dies a lot to mobs and stuff
but like legit, this man spent a long time collecting all 13 discs and almost every flower (yes, even the biome only ones) because he wants to take it all in. nevermind the fact that he can just listen to the discs online and all.
he’s immaculate in his aesthetics. even with just wood he makes his base look really cool ngl. 
some parts of it are plastered with every painting there is in minecraft, or just item frames, or flowers in their pots. every decoration you can think of, lamps, campfires, even armor stands, he has them.
you gotta give him credit, it’s a lot of effort.
he often afks just to listen to the music even though, again, he could just listen to it online.
got into a bit of a spiel with ranmaru, since he unknowingly dyed a lot of his sheep (he did categorize it with color though). and so they made an agreement to just have every color sheep, and put them in different pens. so they just shared it now
he saw the cave updates and went silently bonkers because how pretty some look (like the lush caves? hello??)
he has like. 14+ texture packs and 4 different shaders ready at his settings.
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isocrime · 5 years ago
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okay so this may just be me assuming - but you generally write top!tony in ults and top!steve in 616 so i was wondering how you would see the flipside come out in both those verses i.e. top!steve in ults and top!tony in 616. do you think (based on your preferences/characterisation) that the former is more natural/preferable/interesting for you to write, or is it just whatever suits the idea you have? curious because you seem a lot more lax re the top/bottom discourse that stevetony is cursed w/
I’ll write either tony and steve topping/bottoming (meaning who’s in the driver’s seat, not who’s pitching/catching) either way depending on what suits the story, but I do definitely have preferences!
For ults, I do indeed tend to write top!tony/bottom!steve I like that dynamic a lot. Steve is so stiff and repressed, desperate for human intimacy and afraid to ask for it. I want to watch him release that and let his walls down, but in a sexy way. Also, Big Buff Sub is one of my kinks, and ults Steve is the biggest and buffest. Tony knows he doesn’t have to hold back, because Steve is superhuman — he can do things he’s fantasized about that would be too unsafe to do with a normal person. Meanwhile Steve could throw Tony off so so easily, but he allows it, even when it makes him squirm with humiliation, which is some intense, sexy submission. Plus he hates himself for wanting it; it means he’s not a real man. He’s not just gay, he’s gay AND he loves to be called a slut and take it up the ass. All the tension and denial!
For top!tony in ults it’s like — he’s such a hedonist and a maximalist (I love his stupid ornate bedroom and his four-poster bed), so I can really imagine him wanting to own Steve for himself and get to do whatever he wants. He lives his social life playing games and obfuscating the truth, wearing these different personas that are all exaggerated and campy and flirty, which makes me think he’d be really good at making the theatrical parts of kink feel real and hot instead of kind of awkward and made up. Tony commits to the bit and doesn’t care if he looks silly — he’s confident he can pull it off so he does. So you have Tony, who’s incredibly deft and motivated and greedy and powerful, and pair him with Steve — clumsy and earnest and so so so needy underneath all the ways he’s denying it — and it’s just delicious.
Then there’s 616, where I like to read things a little differently. Tony is so tightly wound in 616 I want him to let go and let himself have something nice that he doesn’t have to obsess over and make all the choices perfectly or else everything will go wrong forever. Tony needs to turn off his brain and let someone else be in charge. Additionally when Steve and tony are really fucked up and bad for each other (weirdly, I don’t have dysfunctional headcanons about ults steve/tony. i write them as a mess while they’re getting together but long-term I think they do pretty well) I think Tony wants to make up for all the things he feels guilty about, and having Steve fuck him and hurt him and tell him what to do makes him feel better.
Steve, meanwhile, is so earnest and confident and he loves to lead well, so I headcanon that he would find it really natural and satisfying to take charge in bed. I think also all the natural strength and body control makes Steve generally hot as a top. He can really properly overpower anyone and do exactly what he wants to them if he decides to. Hot hot hot. Less healthily, I think Steve yearns to get Tony under control and topping is a way for him to live that fantasy. When Tony submits to Steve, he stops pushing back and doing manipulative shit that drives Steve up the wall. Sometimes Steve just wants to grab Tony and shake him, and kinky sex lets him take some of that frustration out on Tony.  At their most functional, Steve wants to care for Tony and help him be the best version of himself. At their most dysfunctional, Steve wants to punish Tony and force him to do what Steve thinks is the right thing to do.
So, how would I do them the opposite way around? (I am aware this is already super long, I have feelings on this subject apparnently!) For bottom!tony in ults, I think he’d love the game parts of it. There’s a reason kink is called play, and Tony’s all about pretending. Like 616 tony, he’s very tightly wound and could stand to be taken out of his head and given a space where he’s free from responsibility. There’s grief and lousy pain he wants to forget, and Steve is really hot and he wants it, he wants to indulge in something a little taboo that he can make into a joke afterwards, haha you plowed me good, being crude to cover up how much he liked it. (I’m realizing that I tend figure out the dynamic starting from the character who’s bottoming.  Huh — start with what you know I guess!)
Ults Steve as a top is sort of volatile and inexperienced, which makes being helpless around him is sort of risky, and I bet Tony would eat that up. The possibility that it could be a disaster — that he could cause his partner to lose control and get more intense than expected — is titillating.  I think ults Steve wants terribly strongly. And if Tony is the thing he wants, especially if the thing he wants to do to Tony is hurt him, which is a kinky and perverted and bad want to have, Steve would torture himself with guilt and denial and desperate, pent-up lust. Repressed yearning for DAYS. And when Steve snaps and fucks tony the way he wants to, it’s hot and perfect and Steve hates himself for loving it and the more he hates himself the more he’s fucking desperate for it, this thing that’s wrong, he’s not supposed to want to hurt anyone, he’s a good man but he looks at Tony and he wants to take him and leave him wrecked and gorgeous and bleeding.
I actually have an ults sub!tony one-shot on the to-write list, so this is useful brainstorming!  For 616 I don’t have anything planned, but it’s fun to think about how top!tony/bottom!steve would work.
Healthy bottom!steve in 616 is full of love and adoration. He’s given his life to helping people, and I think he’d bring that into the bedroom, this intense desire to serve and give the person he’s in love with all of their favorite things. When everything’s not filled with angst, Steve is a super super sweet sub, eager and earnest and pretty good at communicating what he likes once he gets the hang of it. Also, serum-enhanced cock: Tony can order him to come over and over again, or he can edge him forever and torture him with overstimulation and all of that is hot. Dysfunctional bottom!steve is more like “you betrayed me, you used me, I hate you — do it again.”
Top!tony in 616 has taken his control issues and turned them outward, so instead of wanting to let go instead he loves to orchestrate sex just like he likes to orchestrate solutions to world problems. Plus he’s got the same generosity that Steve has, so he likes being able to give his partner what they want in bed and set things up perfectly so they can feel nice. He brings his natural suave composure to topping, but it’s cut with a sort of soft wonder that Steve’s trusting him with this because his self-esteem is garbage and he can’t possibly deserve someone as good as Steve submitting to him. Then when things are not so pleasant between them, tony uses sex to punish both Steve and himself, taking the thing he wants and beating himself up with it afterwards. He’s addicted to Steve and doesn’t care what’s good for them, he’s going to actively ruin it all.
Obviously some of these elements can be applied to both universes (Steve is always big and buff, yum). There’s a lot of juicy stuff to explore with either top!tony or top!steve, which is why I like both types of fic! The thing that really decides if I like a fic or not is how well the characterization is done and how well it explores a facet of Steve and Tony’s personalities.
I do get a bit bristly about a certain type bottom!tony fic, and about some bottom!pre-serum Steve fic (though the latter isn’t very common in comics universes), but that’s mostly because I find it really infuriating when a fic takes all the agency away from the bottom and replaces their personality with “eager-to-please horny bimbo who’s all weak and fragile.” I’m a contrarian, too, and since there’s more top!steve than top!tony (a quick ao3 tag search gives about a 2:1 ratio for top!steve:top!tony), I like writing the latter. Otherwise, I aspire to be cool, even though I have my favorite dynamics. I love me a wide variety of kinky smut -- the discourse is exhausting and i have bascially infinite salt about how dumb it is.
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alovevigilante · 4 years ago
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Me: Ok. I’ve made an executive decision on behalf of all of us...
Me also: are you an executive?
Me: yes.
Me also: at what company?
Me: ours. Yours and mine.
Me 3: and mine too!
Me: yes, at threes company, ok? Will you just listen to me? (The other me’s sit, silent) thank you. Now, we have all come to terms with the fact that we’re 46 and still not sure where the hell we fit in in society, let alone a career to help aid it, right?
Other me’s: yes, Agreed, (hub hub etc...)
Me: ok, good. Well, not good, but yes, we all concur. Now, we, collectively, are a fucking mess, so I propose this: we start from scratch. At zero point, ok? Ok! Great!
Me also: um, question?
Me: yes?
Me also: I don’t mean to be a contrarian or anything, but we’ve been here on earth now for 46 years, and we’ve experienced a butt ton. So, how do you just scrap it all, and have that be something that’s widely accepted by society as a whole?
Me 3: yeah! Cause I saw this one “I love Lucy” where she couldn’t even audition for a tv show without having some experience.
Me: yeah, but we’re completely walking away from the entertainment industry...
Me also: yeah, but what are we going to do? Walk into a different profession, let’s say, being an astrophysicist, and they say, “hey lady, where are your degrees and your on the job training, & oh, I see here on your non resume that you have never even taken a physics class. Were you in a coma for 50 years or something?” And then we’ll look like an asshole.
Me: good point. So, since we can’t start at a zero point, how do we make life ok from where we’re at if we’re feeling lost and confused about what to do next?
Me 3: I dunno.
Me also: well, maybe we can mediate.
Me: eh. You feel like that?
Me 3: not particularly. Me also?
Me also: I was hoping one of you would do it for me...
Me: no.
Me 3: no.
Me also: fine. Any other ideas?
Me: well... how about thinking about shit.
Me also: that’s what got us in this mess to begin with!
George Carlin: hello ladies! May I be of some assistance here?
Me 3: why not? We’re plum out of ideas...
George: ok, well, let’s simplify a bit, Kari, singular, let’s chat.
Kari: hey George.
George: love the pic you choose to rep me.
Kari: yeah. You’re being a lil Italian when you talk with the garlic clove shaped hand you got going there. 🤌 🧄 🇮🇹
George: Yeah. I’m diggin it. But you know, in your mind, I’m one of the reasons you’re here in this ass place.
Kari: you are? how do you figure?
George: people don’t like the fact that you write on behalf of the deceased.
Kari: well, Tim burton did it in beetle juice and a lot of folks love him..
George: ok Kari, can I be Frank... Sinatra-like with you?
Kari: I dunno, can you?
George: yeah. Just pretend I’m sporting a fedora, a cigarette in one hand, and throwing my jacket back over my shoulder with the other looking at you coyly.
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Kari: ok... if you want to... but is the cigarette in his pocket? Cause if it’s lit, that shits gonna hurt his Netherlands eventually....
George: (like Sinatra) no. Now listen up, baby, it’s not normal to write on behalf of a dead person that was not a character, and that whom was once alive. People get touchy about it. We have friends still alive that knew us and probably don’t dig it.
Kari: I see.
George: so it seems like we’re at a crossroads here. What do you want to do about it?
Kari: do about what?
George: your writing! It’s freakin everyone out! Kari, look, you know how normal Hollywood is, ok? They are all normal, non creative, in the box gladly thinker kinda people...
Kari: they are?
George: yes!!! Come on, keillor, get with the program! You are too far fetched for these folks! They want normalcy, and sameness, and only all the shit that’s ever been shat!
Kari: George, are we talking about Hollywood California, here? Or Hollywood podunk nah? Because Hollywood California is where all the creatives go to create!
George: right! And guess what, Kari Keillor! You are not welcomed in Hollywood, California! They have a sign up with your picture on it at the airport that says, “beware! No to this woman! Too much with the weirdness! She writes dead people!”
Kari: I write live people too... hey, do I have a cowboy hat and a mustache on for my mugshot on that sign?
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George: nice one Cookie Monster! Well, Keillor why not?! You may as well, because this story has as much validity as any other story you make up and make worse in your head cause you’re sensitive about of your writing...
Kari: you’re the one that said all that shit! You planted it in my head!!!
George: so I did, but remember, I’m a facet of you. So, decide. Is there any validity to what I/you said?
Kari: how the hell should I know?! I haven’t been in lax recently...
George: right! So you never know until you try talking to some people.
Kari: I’ll call the airport... Listen, George, I’ll be perfectly Frank Sinatra with you now, ok.?
Don rickles: no mere woman can be like ole blue eyes...
Kari: Shut your misogynistic, ass-kissing pie hole, Pickles.
Pickles rickles: oh fuck... she does it to me every time...
Frank Sinatra:, you tell him, baby!
Kari: I’m 46. (Back to George Carlin) Anyway, look George, I have had a few successful people from my entertainment past either shun or block me for no apparent reason, so I’m pretty sure that I’m not well received again, for whatever reason... probably because I wrote the truth about a second city class I took when I was 16, about the current state of snl which I am completely unfamiliar with because I do not watch it, and the way comedy has changed or not over the last many years. Come to think of it, maybe it was because I love frank oz, and frank was mad cause I wrote that belushi John was teasing him and calling him an asshole, another ironic statement because clearly frank oz, NOT an asshole, was many of the muppets for years, and Frank is one of my idols! (Not a true central religious figure to me, but someone I admire a lot...)
Frank Sinatra: who loves ya, baby??
Kari: (to Frank) kojak. (Back to herself) Or it could be because i called bill murray, the beloved patron saint of comedy, an asshole like me, yes, I said like ME, out of jest and irony, because yes, he cared about the kid in meatballs making friends, ok?! That’s probably it. & yes, i was kinda stoned when I wrote it, and also yes, I still can’t figure out why the movie was ducking named “meatballs”, cause there wasn’t an Italian to be seen in it! Ok?! And come to think of it bill as Peter venkman in ghostbusters 2, written in part, by him I think but let’s just say yes cause it supports my point, called all of New York City and it’s tri state area, all 3 million people, miserable assholes, and they took a head count, & they still (probably mostly) all love him! & that shit was good (I love that movie so much) and it was made in 1989, and that was a long ass time ago, ok? And some of those people, have procreated since then, and again, they all love bill Murray and now those “miserable asshole’s” kids, ALSO love Bill now! Double the miserable assholes! Why?! Because he’s funny, and much like me when I’m being tongue and cheek, he didn’t mean for people to take the shit he says seriously! See for yourself! https://youtu.be/t1gkRAWvxOs (1:15 on)
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So yes!!! I just think people are not into that kind of talk from me and me alone, even though it wasn’t coming from a mean or spiteful place. It was coming from a place of love for my craft, and of both frank oz, and bill Murray. The rest, as I say once again... I dunno....
George: Kari, frank just told you he loves you, and you blatantly ignored him...
Kari: no, he asked who loved me. He didn’t say he loved me.
George: Keillor, stop being so mean to the dead crooners, ok?
Kari: pickles isn’t a crooner! He’s a ye olde well paid curmudgeon who made fun of everyone like a jerk fach.
George: um, Kari...
Kari: no, ok? No! The difference between me and pickles, besides everything under the sun other than the fact we’re both human, is the fact that I am pointing out the obvious hypocrisy of the way we are set up as society, and wanting to heal it within myself to make it a more palatable world for me and my family and friends and acquaintances to live in. And pickles thought making fun of people was ok. What royal lineage did pickles come from that he’s able to rip on everyone the way he did? And even if he was of a royal bloodline so fucking what?! And dude got paid to be mean! And normal people made him rich and famous! And how did that become prevalent, let alone celebrated in this world?! Roast em! Yes! Hilarious.
Dean Martin: oh noooo... hey, listen pally...
Kari: dean, don’t get me started, ok? Cause I like you, I really do, but you know how I feel about that shit... Listen, Dean, you left a legacy here that was mostly great, but in my opinion needs a lil tweaking. Instead of “roasts” which people do to this day, and I can’t see how it can make the honoree feel anything other than like major ass, we should have “toasts” (copyright Kari keillor 3/19/21 actually before this date but I never published publicly...)
Pickles rickles: toasts?!? What is THAT supposed to mean?!
Kari: it means, my curious lil ornery pickles, that instead of roasting someone and being a mean rotter egg to them, you can “toast” them. Cheers to you, honoree, we salute you, in a hilarious way, by being honest about you but not vicious, viper like, and cruel. It’s where everyone laughs together cause it’s not a character assassination, instead of ripping on someone. It’s being funny, and yes, in a KIND and uplifting way. Where you actually celebrate the person being honored. Now, will that take a lil more brain power then the go-to usual jerk fach? Yes. But, it’s a challenge I hope everyone will accept for the good of all of us. Cause I guarantee that no one walks out of a roast feeling great. And if they do, cause they thought they killed or whatever, they probably did. And not in a good way. And that, again, is ass. No one wins. It’s a short lived feeling, the feeling of “one upping” a person. It never makes you feel better about you in the long run.
Dean: I see. I think I’ll go work on my volare now...
Kari: see?!? Now THAT I like! It’s not at anyone’s expense!
George: oh shit.... kari.... Why do you give a fuck about all this?
Kari: you know why George? Cause this has become our accepted collective energy! The haves and the have nots! Take away your money and what have you got?! Who are you, without the people who have made you who you are?! People, make other people in the 3D reality we live in. So take away everyone’s cash money, homes, clothes, and all the cars, and all the shit, and what do ya got? A bunch of naked humans starring at our different body bits, ok?! We’re All the f’n same. So think about it. What are we each individually contributing energetically to the whole of us? What message are we sending the next generations In our every day lives? I’ll tell you what message. Whatever we feel about ourselves individually both good and bad. THAT’S what energy we all give, and receive from one another. That’s what we’re teaching the kids. They model themselves after how we feel, and how we choose to think, and how we decide to act toward others. So let’s all collectively recognize that, and how we treat other human beings and wake up first inside ourselves then beyond ourselves so we can all make the whole, better.
I am not an asshole or a human joke or any other kind of joke. I’m not going to cry over the fact that I’m not accepted by people who’s energies don’t match mine. And by the by, no one is a joke, no matter who they are, or what their socioeconomic standing is. So I don’t wear an ascot and a smoking jacket, and a neck full of gold chains and chest hair, holding a whiskey on the rocks with an umbrella in it saying “see that?! be somebody!” ok?! I’m not Steve Martin in the jerk, ok? https://youtu.be/tBfXTyzaUfQ
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I’m not even close to Hollywood! I live in the Midwest! I’m Kariwood, ok? And I’m not even kari wood, I’m no woods, ok? cause I’m pretty much never in the woods or the outdoors for that matter, so much so that I just purchased a sweatshirt that says, “indoorsy” on it, ok? True story! So yeah. Cause one time I was in Wisconsin in the woods, and I was thinking, “look at me! I’m in the woods! Weird, no?!” (Cause never in the woods, but I thought, I’ll give it a shot! What’s the worst that can happen?) And guess what? Despite my shower the night before, I felt something on the base of my skull the next morning, and I picked out a really nasty, creepy and scary tick. And it was alive, and disgusting, and wiggly. And I started screaming. And I am still freaked out to this day about it. And that happened at least 17 years ago. And I didn’t like it. So that’s how “non woods-y” I am... I’m not even a fan of woodsy the owl, ok?
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So I don’t know how I feel about all that. All this to say that I am definitely not Hollywood, but yes, I am included, as a “somebody”. I may not be an award winning, keillor, but I am still somebody, and I may not be rich and famous, but yes, I am somebody, and I may have been on one trajectory and now I do t know what the heck I am now, ok? It’s true, and yes, I’ve posted this before and I’ll keep posting it until everyone in me gets on board with it, yes! I am still somebody because yes, dear me, we are all this: somebody! : https://youtu.be/tu0lNcrZjG8
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George: hard to argue with that.
Kari: eh. You know what I am, George?
George: yes, Kari. I know what you are. But do you?
Kari: well, I feel, like I’m one of those kids on Sesame Street sometimes, looking up at and intently listening to Jesse Jackson, wondering how to get from small to big, and from where I am, to the success that he reps, you know? The importance of being admired by many. Having a big platform to play on. A huge soapbox to stand on, you know?
George: yes. I get it, Kari, I really do. And we’ve all been there. But everyone’s story about themselves, is different. How we all got to where we are, was our own personal trajectory that we designed with our beliefs. And our thoughts. There’s no set pattern or manual to follow. The only energy you must follow, is your passion and your joy, aka the love. That’s it. So, if you want to be, and decide to be, you ARE Hollywood,. Because Hollywood isn’t a specific person or group of people, it’s a place, and an energy. Hollywood is what you make it to be with how you view it. You don’t have to “be” Hollywood to be in Hollywood...
Kari: you said I wasn’t allowed in Hollywood..
George: you may not be. All I’m saying, is that you are whatever you decide you are. The end.
Kari: well, am I or not? Cause I don’t want to go and be turned away. Besides, I love visiting olvera st.
George: Its a fine street, it is. Great margaritas... listen Kari, you cannot achieve anything in this life that you don’t truly believe is in the realm of your possibility. So yes! You can be, and pretty much are are Hollywood keillor, even if it’s in the Midwest in your own home.. You are creative, and love the arts, and are nutsy, and ballsy, and you may hold the title as being the first person to ever separate the two, and bring them back together in a scote sack, ok? So keep writing, and be yourself.
Kari: I dunno. But what I do know is this: I did it again...
George: did what?
Kari: reactivated all the shit memories and feelings from the past that I’ve felt about my career, allowing myself to relive all those fun feels of inadequacy and upset alllll over again.
George: aww, it’s happened to the best of us. Listen Kari, you are, in my humble not so humble opinion, since I’m still you, a loving person. So you reflect that way; with humor, and yes, absurdist, surreal comedy.
Kari: well, I’ll try.
George: You already do. Your credentials are superfluous. Your love and support of you no matter what you do moving forward is what you’ll feel when you choose to, and it’s available anytime you want to feel it. And when you feel that, it really doesn’t matter what you do.
Kari: ok, well, thanks George. It’s nice to know I have you around.
George: Kari, you were once told that you are golden, no?
Kari: well, I was told that I’ll be golden at some point moving forward doing whatever it is I choose to do.
George: right. So, when are you going to decide to experience that?
Kari: hopefully soon.
George: Kari, why do you chop to talk to and write about us “passed over folk”?
Kari: I dunno. I guess it’s cause I love and miss you guys in theory, even though I didn’t know you personally. And I like to re-experience your energy, as I appreciated and admired it. It helps me feel better.
George: you’re now golden.
Scene.
Appendices: if you choose to perform this scene, good luck. I’d like you to do it all in one breath, if you are a more advanced, and professional actor. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣💕💕💕💕
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Political Rant: Nothing To See Here
Literally, I just need to vent for a bit, just move along.  You didn’t see anything.  Go about your business.
I can’t keep pretending that I want Joe Biden to be president.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m gonna vote for him, but only because it’s a broken 2-party system, and I would literally rather die than vote for Donald Trump.
Joe Biden is at best a moderate centrist, and at worst a mainstream conservative who acknowledges what the people in his party want without actually doing it.  The Overton Window has shifted so far right in the last few years that people are hailing him as some bastion of liberal democracy; Democrats are acting like he’s the greatest politician they’ve ever nominated, and Republicans are calling him a communist.  He’s neither of those things; he’s store brand white bread, he’s a single scoop of plain vanilla with no mix-ins, he’s room temperature with 40% humidity so as not to be explicitly uncomfortable.
He very well could win in November.  I don’t doubt his qualifications, nor his popularity relative to the Gonad Lump we have now, but he’s not going to make any substantive changes if he takes office.  He’s not going to defund police, he’s not going to shrink the executive branch, he’s not going to raise the minimum wage, he’s not going to rejoin the Iran Nuclear Deal or the Paris Climate Agreement or the WHO, and he’s certainly not going to abolish ICE and close the actual literal CONCENTRATION CAMPS. He’s going to uphold the status quo so as not to alienate the Republicans who didn’t vote for him, while driving a wedge in his own party between the old guard moderate leadership and the up-and-comers who even so much as lean to the actual political left.
Republicans are united under a common banner of cartoon supervillainy, Democrats are a party of chickens running around with their heads cut off. 
Republicans are lemmings who will follow their leader off a cliff. Democrats are turkeys that look up and drown when it rains.
There are no progressive Democrats in any real positions of power; their voices are being drowned out by the career politicians who would rather compromise with the right than fight for anything they claim to want.  Democrats will bend over backwards to reach across the aisle for the sake of bipartisanship, but Republicans would never budge an inch in our direction.  This is demonstrably true, just look at the last 50 years of presidents; Democrats controlled the House of Representatives for Ronald Reagan’s entire presidency, and he still managed to get a shit ton of legislation passed which fucks over the middle class and minorities to this day.
Bill Clinton was effectively a Republican, and they absolutely HATED him.  Newt Ging-bitch’s Republican Revolution?  And Obama, don’t even get me started on Obama.  George W. Bush was so unpopular that BOTH parties ran candidates under the platform of “I am not George W. Bush,” and it’s no surprise that between Barack Obama and John McCain voters chose the one who was the least like Bush.  Obama was a perfectly competent president who pulled us out of the worst economic recession since the 1930s, and Republicans hated him even more than Clinton!  The Tea Party rose up less than a month after he took office, before he’d even DONE anything!  I don’t agree with everything he did as president, in fact I oppose a lot of it (drones), but I know that America was a better place under his leadership than it is now.
And now the Democrats are kowtowing to the Republicans AGAIN, nominating an adequate politician, Average Joe, that Republicans wouldn’t complain about if he wore a red tie instead of a blue one, but even now they’re complaining about it!  They’re acting like he’s a far-left socialist because they want the country to think that his middle-of-the-road policies are WAY too radical; they want to make people think that normalcy lies to the right of Joe Biden, they want to keep shifting the Overton Window until they pick a candidate in 2032 or 2036 that will make Donald Trump look like Bernie fucking Sanders.  Republicans never shift to the left, they never try to appeal to Democratic voters, they never think twice about alienating liberals, they won’t compromise, they’d rather shut down the government than spare a dime for any even remotely liberal talking points.
I’m sick to death of this country.  I’m sick to death of everyone pretending like what we see is not what it is!  Joe Biden is better than Trump, but the bar is so low at this point that I’d feel ore comfortable with a flaming bag of dogshit in the Oval Office than the racist date rapist we have now.  I will swallow my pride and vote for Joe Biden, but I will not be happy about it.  This man does not stand for the people’s best interests.  He will face overwhelming opposition, cave to the pressure from the right, then lose re-election because I know for a fact that he’s too proud to admit he’s too old to run again in 2024.  People keep pretending like his VP is going to get the nomination, but there’s no way on Earth or in Heaven that this man is going to just retire!  This year was a vanity run; he wants to be president because he wants to be president, not because he wants to do anything.  He’s wanted it his whole career; he’s a dog chasing cars, he doesn’t know what to do when he catches one, and no, I don’t means he’s like the fucking Joker, I just think he’s focusing more on himself than the country.  What would it look like in 2024 if the president retired because he’s TOO OLD to keep the job?  The Democrats would be even bigger laughingstocks than they are now; there wouldd be no way for him to retire with dignity without admitting defeat and giving the Republicans a political victory.
He’s going to run for re-election in 2024, and he’s going to have his ass handed to him because by that point he’s going to be stumbling over his words even worse than Trump is now, and the Democrats aren’t going to blindly rally behind him like the Republicans do for Trump.  Republicans will vote in line with Trump whether they like him or not, they know their career depends on it, but Democrats won’t get in line behind one of their own because they want to appeal to everyone, even if that means ignoring the people they claim to represent.
If Trump wins in 2020, America will go the way of the Soviet Union.  You know what, no, that’s not true.  America will never break apart, it’s too obstinate.  What will happen is America will go the way of the British Empire; once a global superpower, now just a bunch of isolationist racists who don’t know they’ve been irrelevant for the last 80 years.  America will continue to alienate its allies while sucking up to its enemies, the wealth gap will widen, life expectancy will drop, infant mortality will rise, and we’ll peak in the 2030s or 40s before losing our position as the de facto “leaders of the free world.”  Under normal circumstances I’d say that’s a good thing because we have no right to force the rest of the world to do whatever we want, but the resulting power vacuum will almost certainly be filled by China which is even worse than we are.  If Trump wins in 2020, democracy dies.  His handlers will find a way to skirt the 22nd Amendment so he can run for a third term in 2024.  They’ll just unilaterally amend the constitution so he can do whatever he wants; every right-wing dictator does that.  Hitler did it, Pinochet did it, Putin is doing it now.  IF the Republicans want to PRETEND that laws still exist, they’ll have him “retire” at the end of his second term, but then stay on as a top advisor to his successor, who will almost certainly be his daughter he wants to fuck, at which point he will be president-by-proxy, ruling vicariously through her until his brain melts enough for him to disappear into the woodwork like Reagan did in the 90s.
If Trump wins in 2020, the Trump dynasty will hold power for decades.  This regime will be no different than the fucking Saudi Arabia or North Korea.
If Biden wins in 2020, we’re just kicking the can down the road; Trump won’t let himself become irrelevant without a fight.  Carter and Clinton and Bush and Obama don’t pretend that they’re still president, they don’t make their voices heard, but you KNOW that Trump will.  He will try to stay in the limelight forever, and the media will let him; they’ll report on every snide comment and contrarian remark he makes on Twitter and compare him to Biden every single day because he’s a demagogue, and Republicans aren’t just gonna move on after they’ve invested so much emotional capital into him over the last five years.  They’ve doubled down in support of him, he can do no wrong in their eyes, he’s their golden boy, the Fuhrer is Always Right; they’ll follow him to Hell and back (though let’s be honest, he’d never lead them out of Hell once he brings them there).  They’ll treat him like an elder statesman and a genius political strategist/advisor until he dies.  He’ll basically get to pick the nominee in 2024 because Republicans will vote for whoever he endorses.  And he’s going to pick Ivanka or maybe, MAYBE, Tom Cotton because he’s a brown-nosing right-wing toadie.
FUCK.
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bigskydreaming · 5 years ago
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So this is kinda a Bobby Drake post but its also kinda not because its more of a just in general musing on characterization and what distinguishes between a character being written as in character and as wildly OOC. So its actually rooted in a lot of Dick Grayson thoughts I’ve been having lately, as well as being relevant to some Scott McCall musings.
Its a Martha Stewart Home Living pot-pourri thingamabob! Something for everyone! I think. I don’t really know what pot-pourri is or even how to spell it and I don’t really know why the fuck I pulled a Martha Stewart reference out of my ass in the year 2019, like, none of these things are like any other thought I’ve ever had ever, like...who am I right now. Whatever. Shut up. My metaphor absolutely works and this isn’t just my brain on sleep deprivation. I like, totally get symbolism.
OKAY! RIGHT! ACTUAL CONTENT OF THIS POST:
So, the only adaptation Iceman’s had just a very minimal presence in was the 90s X-Men animated series. He only appeared in one episode, in one of the later seasons, and most people talk about that episode as though Bobby was wildly out of character because he told no jokes, yelled quite a bit, and told Scott to fuck off a lot, which is also what he did in a flashback scene to when he quit being an X-Man years before the show started, and retired from the hero life to settle down with Lorna.
Except the thing is, that episode is actually WAY more true to his overall characterization than Frosted Flakes in the X-films ever was, or also, pretty much any time Bendis writes him or other writers use him in similar ways to him - like that thing where Bobby stands in the background and says one-liners and also occasionally does something with his powers whilst monologuing about what he’s doing and how.
Because Bobby absolutely is that cheerful, determinedly optimistic heart of the team at a lot of times (sound familiar, lol)....but like.....he also historically has a decades long history of being written as the team hothead when for instance its just the original five and there’s not one of the X-Men’s other resident hotheads available to fill the role of the impulsive troublemaker who second guesses Scott’s decisions in order to make Scott actually think things through. Like the thing in the cartoon about Bobby quitting the team and storming off because he was fed up with Xavier constantly lying to them all and keeping secrets from them - that was lifted STRAIGHT from the original run of the comics, where he did precisely that, for precisely those reasons. Bobby was actually the X-character calling Xavier on his bullshit long before Scott started being written that way, ironically enough....
In fact, during Simonson’s original X-Factor run, it was pretty much ALWAYS Bobby filling that role going against the grain and questioning their official decisions and making everyone else think things through. Because at the time, Warren was pretty much entirely focused on his Archangel issues, Hank was dealing with his continuing physical mutations, that also had a side effect for awhile of giving him a host of mental health issues that interfered with his ability to reason through things as intelligently as he usually did....
And Scott and Jean were of course constantly getting bombarded with Sinister drama and trying to raise their kid except oh no, an evil fox person from a thousand years in the future has kidnapped him and infected him with Minecraft and now this giant asshole who looks like the bastard lovechild of a Transformer and a Smurf is quoting the Book of Revelations like he’s standing on a NY street corner wearing a sandwich board and ringing a damn bell. They all had shit going on, so it was actually Bobby who the kids staying with them (Rictor and Tabitha and Rusty and Skids and Wiz Kid) usually went to first when they had problems or like, Julio got kidnapped again or shit like that. 
Point being, there are many many instances and entire runs of different books between the 60s and the early 90s where Bobby is a happy go lucky jokester, its true....but he’s equally depicted as this guy who runs pretty hot and he’s not going to blindly follow orders that sound fucking dumb to him, he’s going to ask Scott to break it down for them or go back to the drawing board because “why are we pretending to hunt other mutants again and just leaning into the anti-mutant hysteria? Guys? Is it just me or does this all seem really fucking dumb and counter productive?” Like he makes jokes when he can afford to spare the spoons for that, but he knows how to be serious when the occasion calls for it.
Its just after the big Blue/Gold relaunch in the 90s, writers just....stopped writing him this way. But given that the cartoon was written and aired....in the early 90s....those previous decades of Bobby being written this way WERE the source material they were going off of at the time.
So that character most fans EXPECTED to see when they watched the cartoon in later years and saw he was guest-starring in an episode - like yeah, that is very much his characterization and always was.....on his good days. But like everyone (and certain other faves of mine, lmao) he has his bad days too, and guess what counts as a bad day? 
Coming home to find out that secret government agents have kidnapped your girlfriend and when tracking her down to rescue her discovering that no, wait, actually she was not kidnapped at all, that was a job offer and she accepted and just....did not tell her live-in boyfriend that hey, I’m gonna go be a superhero again but like...for the government which is completely the opposite but whatever, look the point is don’t freak out or think I was abducted or anything because that’s definitely not what happened here, I just dumped you and started dating my new team leader Havok and forgot where I put my Dear John letter. (You want to talk OOC in that episode, it wasn’t Bobby that was unrecognizable, it was Lorna).
But like, that’s a BAD FUCKING DAY. That’s a day where it would be utterly bizarre for Bobby to be acting the way he often does, like he doesn’t have a care in the world, trying to make light of situations and buoy spirits, which he can AFFORD to do, because usually he is not the central focus of big team-encompassing plots....its rarely him tied directly into the angst of the story, freeing him up to be the guy who focuses on making sure the morale of the teammates more directly affected by the angst doesn’t like....dip into the negative integers.
But you just flat out can’t do that with him in a story where THE ANGST IS ALL HIS, its CENTERED around him, because if he was right in the thick of all that and wisecracking and acting like this was any other mission, its no big deal....he’s going to come across as the world’s most immature, shallow and emotionally insensitive dumbass, because there is a time and a place for that, and that time and that place is not when you think your girlfriend has been abducted by the government and then find out that nah dude, she just disinvited herself from your relationships, whoops, sux2BU.
So if you take any given scene from that one episode and hold it up for comparison against say, a comic written in the last five years where he himself has relatively low stakes in whatever adventure he’s having.....those two characterizations are going to look COMPLETELY at odds. Like one or the other has to be WILDLY OOC because like, the two depictions seem like they’re depicting two entirely different men.
But they’re not. They’re just depicting one man in two entirely different contexts. We all take our cues from the situations we find ourselves in and our physical and social location and environments. We’re all totally different people on our best days than we are on our worst days. But these are all just....different facets of any given individual because we’re all fucking complicated little contrarians who often don’t even make sense to OURSELVES let alone outside perspectives. We each contain freaking multitudes. We are a million different things over the course of our life, and snapshots taken twenty years apart often are gonna look like we got a personality transplant between now and then...because we’re not MEANT to skip over twenty years of in between continuity and act like that doesn’t make all the difference in the world. The journey IS just as important as the destination.
And I guess the point of this particular post is that....IMO the key to strong characterization is recognizing that any character can theoretically be capable of just about any response or action or choice....in the right situation. None of us, no matter how well we know ourselves, can actually say we know for sure how we would react if suddenly dropped in a situation we had zero prior experience with. So I think where a lot of writers get turned around when writing characterizations is they go into a plot, an outline, a narrative, with their mind focused on the characterization they want to show, the way they want to depict a certain character.....instead of letting the situation, the scene, the narrative, inform that character’s actual characterization in this specific context.
If you try and FORCE a certain behavior with a character because you’ve rounded up and that’s the over-all characterization you personally enjoy best with that character, so that’s what you want to write....without fully taking into consideration how the stressors and other aspects of the situation they’re in that are UNIQUE to that situation, that are things they perhaps haven’t encountered before or dealt with often...and thus are things that would be MOST likely to prompt or provoke an unusual or more extreme response from a character than they would normally show in most other situations....that’s when characters get bent out of shape and end up most OOC, I think.
Because writers try and squeeze specific attitudes or reactions or behaviors out of characters caught up in a scenario where those attitudes are just....not appropriate responses to what’s happening around them. And thus they end up coming across as 2-Dimensional, more aggressive than the actual situation calls for, or more immature than the gravity of the actual situation warrants...they end up coming across like they’re a name card placed on top of a situation rather than a character immersed in all three dimensions and existing fully as PART of the situation...because the writers aren’t LETTING them. They’re not letting the character actually engage with what’s happening, react in the moment, have an unexpected response....because they’ve already decided what they want the character’s overall ‘feel’ to be before the actual situations were even written in the first place. 
And written like that, a character is never going to feel real. They’re always going to feel like an afterthought, like something hastily thrown on top of the otherwise completed project as a last minute addition you want to at least make sure is THERE because it just occurred to you that crap, I totally forgot to include this totally crucial element, and you don’t want it to seem like you just completely forgot that thing existed.....but that slapdash shot taken from halfway across the court when the buzzer’s already started ringing and you’re late to school with absolutely no more time to make changes...like....its still usually not gonna do anything to help improve your grade, because just because you threw it in at the very last possible second doesn’t mean that its presence is actually contributing anything to the entire project...especially not when compared to all the other elements you took your time thinking through and carefully integrating into their proper places.
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tedfashionski · 4 years ago
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Finking, Finking.
Hi, welcome to my ted talk. (That is the only time I will ever make that joke. This is Fashionski Finks. Expect radically low standards of self-involved rantiness with zero research or accountability from here on out). For a while there I seriously thought that the covid-19 quarantine was going to result in people being increasingly placid and accepting of creeping extensions of the police state. But here I am, getting depressed again, not about the protests, which I love, but more about my relationship to in-group pressure dynamics. One of the problems with being a relentless contrarian is the discomfort of my impulse to rebel against groups even when they’re championing the right thing. I have to find my own way to fight against the system as an outsider. No gods, no masters, no fucking peer pressure.  I’ll never be happy joining a chorus line. I don’t sign fucking petitions (they’re just lists for the NSA). I do donate, but like fuck will I do it performatively. I can’t go to protests cus I get panic attacky in crowds. I empathise pretty strongly with outsiders of all stripes but believe ridiculously excessively in the public good of criticism, and have a nostalgic love of trolling (I like to think I’m gentle with it though). Bring back the troll! We need that fucker, he’s a sign of a healthy internet. I’m writing this blog thing as an extension of my need to vent my extreme negativity. TBH I never expected to get any followers with ted twitter and the bizarre welcomingness of the hf twitter community totally wrongfooted me. I’m not nice. Ted isn’t meant to likable. He’s my dark side. I was meant to be using this alt as a way to terrorise the nice nice (secretly cruel) fashion people. I’m gunna try and up that aspect more. Just bear in mind, my complaints are largely about the system, but if I see you perpetuating fashion’s entrenched anti-intellectualism or its insidery bullshit, I’ll come for you with a little meta-bomb with your name on it. Maintaining my misanthropic tone does take work tho, like, deep down in some twisted part of my psyche, I guess I do actually want to be liked. It’s fucked up.
I suppose it’s only fair to explain this Ted fursona. Like, new concept, who dis? Why all the furry porn? …..because I just think it’s hilarious. Every time I think about the furries I cackle (not at them, mind). I just love the mad corruption of pure Disney aesthetics into hardcore pornography. That’s anti-authoritarian as fuck. I love the sincerity of their culture. The way the crazy fetish aspect means they’ll never be fully blandified by mainstream acceptance. The way it’s so cringe but so delightful. And more seriously, I’m interested in how a culture of mostly gay male nerds developed to the point where they’ll invest 10k in custom fursuits and support eachother’s independent businesses in ways that the fashion community completely fails to do. The fashion world sucks. There’s so many correlations there that I want to investigate: the newness (furries date from around the 70s, fashion culture in its self-aware state dates from the late 19th C – both very young fields); the centralisation/decentralisation; the hierarchy (furries can be pretty catty, I have discovered in my research, and we all know what fashion people are like); the adoption of new identities; the cis-boy gayness aspect (I’m increasingly tired of the extreme nasty hierarchy of certain CSM queens. It’s all very UGH. Just, fuck those particular bitches.) There’s more to the furry love, but I’ll explore it in future posts.
More importantly, why Ted fucking Kaczynski? I’m not like, actually a terrorist. (….yet. tehehe. NO, seriously I like non-maiming violence. Fuck yeah to property damage. Fuck yeah to disabling the system in extreme way. But no to wooden IEDs. Think of my shitty jokes that fail to land as my hand-crafted bombs). I think I like the shitness of Ted. He was just an epic fail of a terrorist. I’m a little white girl living in London. I’m not actually a primitivist, as much as I crave a hut in the woods. I did go to an elite school though. I had some really shitty experiences in the fashion industry in my early 20s, and I watch my friends who are relatively successful in that system and I get so angry on their behalf at their poor treatment. They think I’m too angry. Fuck that. They should be more angry, and the fact that they can’t be angry at their extreme precarity and the fact they’re still insecure and terrified of being ejected by the system after all their investment and skills they’ve built up is BULLSHIT. I’ll be double angry for them, I’m not invested in that system. I don’t need it to pay my rent. I’m free, motherfuckers, and I’m coming for the abusers and exploiters. If you’re a complacent industry figure not fighting hard from within, uggghhhhh fuck you. Yes, YOU. Soooo, I relate pretty hard to the MK ultra stuff. (go look him up, he was basically tortured and experimented upon by the elite). But there’s a pretty big chasm between my views and his, and I’ll try to be clear about the extent of my interest in his extreme beliefs. I haven’t even finished reading the manifesto. Basically, I watched that shitty show on Netflix with sam worthington around the same time I watched Joker (that movie fucked me up) and thought it’d be a good outlet to larp online as a terrorist. There’s the angry white alt-right school shooter aspect, which I’m still figuring out, cus I’m non-binary and I was raised by nutso trumpy right-wingers, who I barely speak to anymore, and I struggle to get along with people generally. There’s sad, self-pitying rage here. I empathise with the angry white dudes too much. I feel guilty about it. That’s good ground for artmaking (yes, shamefully, this…is…art. Sorry). I modelled this fursona a little after my brother, who I spent years living with and arguing with and trying to lift out of his scary racist youtube rabbit holes. This is actually quite an emotional thing for me, cus I did the ‘talk to your fascist family’ thing. And I completely failed. I realised his right-winginess wasn’t lessening, I wasn’t gaining ground, and in fact my excessive empathy and desire to reach out to the relative most similar to me in character meant his extremism was rubbing off on me. Making me more resentful and depressed. Feeling powerless. I was being too kind-hearted and forgiving of his masculine impotence. So I’m exploring some personal shit here. But Ted is also a cute lil fuzzball teddy bear. He means well, but me being super autistic and faily at social skills means he’s kind of a dick, cus I am. I’m going to try and further develop this character, this POV, and this post is the only time I’ll explain the divide between him and his creator (moi). The ��I’ on the twitter and here is Ted Fashionski, I need that space between me and him. Masks give us this freedom to be more ourselves. Internet culture has lost a lot of its wild brutal anonymity in the last decade or so, now everyone’s afraid of making mistakes. How the hell do you grow if you’re not allowed to fuck up? This is a vital outlet. He’s become an important part of my life and I have to say, I love being Ted Fashionski. He’s like Paddington Bear who just escaped form Guantanamo or something.
I get pretty fatigued as a matter of course. I’m a long-term depressive since childhood. I have a difficult time keeping my hard-on for living. I don’t get suicidal really but I do struggle with extreme fatigue. I sleep a lot. I often fall into spirals of self-hate. And as someone who utterly believes in revolutionary leftist politics, I beat myself up about not doing enough. I’m so middle class and english and white. I was raised in such a chauvinistic and complacent culture; I don’t even know where to start. I’m wading my way through post-colonial literature and beating myself up for finding it boring and uncomfortable. It’s hard to force yourself to acknowledge your culture is The Bad Guys. It’s easier to fall into fanstasies of supremacy and butthurt misunderstoodness. And it’s not like my depressive brain needs any encouragement to hate me. My trajectory is ever leftwards, but I remember the righteous fury of being right-wing. I get it, that was me. We need more paths back from fascism, more comprehension of why people are that kind of shitty. I talk less, and less well, the more depressed I am. If I’m talking, it means im feeling a lot better. Just, fyi.
Give me a minute to be critical here. With the George Floyd protests, a lot of the cool guys on fashion twitter has gone blazingly hardcore on the political side. But there’s this troubling rhetoric about ‘no return to normal content’ or ‘this isn’t the time for fashion’. Like fuck it isn’t. This is a key problem with fashion culture right here, we have this received perception of fashion as empty escapism. Escapism matters in fashion, yes. But seriously, talking about the surfaces of things does not equal not caring about deeper meaning. What the fuck. Clothes are a connective tissue, a membrane between us. They’re emotional and powerful. We can talk about things that matter THROUGH clothes. I speak fashion, pretty fucking well. Most people who work at fashion magazines are morons with no understanding or respect for their subject. They’re incapable of doing it justice, and that’s deliberate. On this tumblr you’ll see rants and reviews of fashion and other artforms, always interpreting through a fashion lens. cus it matters, cus it’s a vital part of the culture, cus just because something has a glittery, seductive surface doesn’t mean it doesn’t communicate or contain depth. There’s no going back to ‘normal fashion content’, yes. Normal fashion content is a fucking psyop to divert legitimate interest in aesthetics amongst largely non-academic dyslexic visual types away from careful thought/feeling and towards empty consumerist commericiality. The traditional fashion media wants you to express yourself and your interest in the zeitgeist through buying more shit. Another fashion world is possible. Let’s destroy the old and build a new one, one where surface and spirit are connected and true and fashion can’t be abused in service of evil industrial monopolists.
/end rant. TLDR: angry fictional teddy bear with tin-foil hat and an eco-anarchist fetish says no to stupid fashion and yes to the renewal of conceptual fashion. Also, Fuck White People.
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chameleonspell · 7 years ago
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the very model of a modern literarian
@sunderlorn was complaining about his editor telling him he ought to use adverbs like a Normal Person. And, as you can tell, I have way too much unfulfilled brain-capacity right now, ‘cause this is what I’m doing with that.
This is what happens when you’re my friend. I’m so sorry. I guess it’s kinda a fic rec, too? Go read his stuff.
Once he was done yelling WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS? he said I should post it.
I am the very model of a modern literarian, I've information narrative, poetic and grammarian, I know the rules of syntax, I can verb a noun and conjugate, Recite the use of clauses, independent and subordinate. I specialise in assonance, I supervise each syllable, Your spiritless suggestions are both asinine and risible. My elements are layered with a grace that's rare and sensitive-- So miss me with that adverb or I'll split your damn infinitive. (CHORUS: Yes, miss him with that adverb or he'll split your damn infinitive! x3) My metre and vocabulary rival that of Cicero, You think you can do better, pal, then come and fucking have a go. In short, in terms of rhetoric, both classic and barbarian, I am the very model of a modern literarian. I paint a scene in simile, each image subtle and unique, My gorgeous three-page metaphors would bring a tear to Mervyn Peake. My characters are nuanced, their emotions real and visceral, You dare instruct the Muses what's grammatically permissible? I'm elevating language, my technique multi-dimensional, So if I break a rule, then make a note: it was intentional! I graduated Cambridge, with a Masters they were proud to give-- And you don't get to tell me what I can't do with an adjective! (CHORUS: No, you don't get to tell him what he can't do with an adjective! x3) I've read my way through canon from Jane Austen to the AO3, I'd know the opening to My Immortal writ in Dwemeris, I catalogue my fanfic with the zeal of a librarian, So tag me [#very model of a modern literarian] (CHORUS: So tag him [#very model of a modern literarian] x3) Stop getting so hung up on these pedantical semanticals Who wants to live their life as hardline grammar sycophanticals? What matters is communication, words that conjure shock and glee, Don't bludgeon all the life out of them, craving mediocrity. I know my style and audience, they're wrapped around my finger, bro, Got readers leaving comments consisting of just "aaaaaaaa oh no" My stories evoke sympathy, both personal and general, Check out my massive wordcount, and then tell me, who's ephemeral? (CHORUS: Check out his massive wordcount and then tell him who's ephemeral! x3) In closing, please consider: I'm myself an expert editor, Quit picking at my opus, like some nit-voracious predator, I know what I am doing, fam, I'm not just being contrarian, I am the fucking model of a modern literarian! (CHORUS: He is the fucking model of a modern literarian!!! x3)
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theliterateape · 7 years ago
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Why I Will Only Post Positive Things On Facebook Ever Again
By Peter Kremidas
I. Bipedal Nomads Who Can Send Thoughts Worldwide At The Speed of Light
Historically speaking, we have only just started playing around with the internet in general and social media in particular. I think we’ve done, or at least I have done this, without much thought as to how powerful these tools truly are or how to use them responsibly.
I think we have a responsibility to really think about, to have an honest conversation about, how we use it. And then think we need to hold ourselves accountable to whatever conclusion we reach. Because this is potentially a very dangerous tool we have here. People get hurt on social media all the time. I know people who are changed, and not in a good way, for the way they were treated online. People can get broken by this stuff. It’s happened to me. I’ve done it to others. And it’s horrible. Kids are killing themselves over this stuff. And that’s just the stuff we are now reckoning with. We have no idea what it’s doing to our brains.
However on the other side of that, 2017 and 2018 and beyond are the dawning of a new and normalized increase in freedom for women. And it’s because of the internet. People could immediately share their stories to hundreds of their friends, see that they are not alone, and pull the lid off something that has been happening for centuries. The internet did that.
Because the power of the internet, just one of them, is that you can create such a fuss that traditional news media is forced to look. They don’t want to look. But they know if they don’t look they’ll look stupid. Because so many people already know about it without their influence, and they are supposed to be the greatest influencers of all. There’s a lot of power to protect there, and now we have some of that. And that is incredibly cool. So obviously there’s a lot of power for good here.
And I’ve been thinking about this for while, but instead of preaching to people I have no control over about what they should or shouldn’t do I started looking at myself. In 2018, I guess my new year’s resolution was to be more honest in my writing, and with myself. And that means calling myself out on my own bullshit, even when it hurts. It's been several bitter pills to swallow.
A few months ago, I was in some stupid facebook debate I don’t even remember what. But it was the billionth time I was impatiently just impolitely and obnoxiously being contrarian on social media. Nothing to gain from it. It was probably me quibbling as usual over some useless irrelevant minutiae that alienated me from someone I actually agreed with. I think it’s called ‘I almost see your point but you’re kinda being a dick so I don’t care.’ Or, more accurately, ‘Just being a dick.’
Someone commented, I don’t remember her name, and told me that there was another time on social media when I did this and it really hurt her. She asked me to stop. She said ‘please’. I reacted predictably, with more condescension and ‘fuck you’ subtext. She told me that was mean, and again could I please stop. Of course, I’d already thought of what to say next and was about to throw it.
But instead I just felt bad. And I knew she was right. And I hated that.
I stopped. I said that’s fair. I apologized. I haven’t been engaging in any debate or anything other than jokes and positive things since then.
Because when when I actually listened. Not just words, but what must this person feel like that makes them want to say that to me. It hit me. I hated that it did. I denied it and was angry for awhile. But it stuck. And at some point it got real quiet. Quiet enough to hear myself say, “Shit…”
“...I have an issue.”
She was right. And that’s why she was being polite, because she didn’t want to incite me more. That’s how smart she is. While I shoot my mouth off and make an ass of myself, she’s the adult in the room. It’s fuckin’ embarassing being such a broken guy sometimes.
II. The Medium
Ever since the election I’ve been reading about human psychology and neurology, because I had to understand how the fuck. And one of the things I’ve found is that humans, we aren’t all that smart. A full 98 percent of our thinking is unconscious. We get caught into different long term habits just by doing them a lot, because they’re rewarded somehow. It’s why if you see a video of someone at 7 years old you can see exactly where their personality traits have come from. They worked somehow and they just kept doing them. It’s why there is addiction. It’s why you have to spend 10,000 hours doing something before you’re a master at it. It’s why when you’ve had a belief for so long it’s hard to change it. Most of our behavior is pretty much automatic, based on some reward system we’ve set up for ourselves or to prevent us from feeling something bad.
The human brain is full of little cognitive weaknesses that would make you a very disappointing robot. If a self driving car slowed down and created unnecessary traffic every time there was a car accident to look at, that would be an annoying feature. But you aren’t a robot, you’re a human. Flaws are a feature, not a bug. They’re actually beautiful, the imperfections. Because they show that survival and progress requires all of us, because one person alone is too flawed to take on that weight. But together, we can take on any challenge because we compensate for each other’s weaknesses with our own strengths. Flaws humble us and remind us how we are weak, and in so being how we are the same.
But some of those flaws also make us easy to manipulate.
The social media business model, the literal one they drew up upon its creation, is that someone giving you a ‘like’ will addict you to the platform. This draws attention to the platform, and therefore advertisers with money along with demographic data to sell. And studies show that ‘likes’ are very much are addictive. You can’t eat them or even exchange them for a coupon. Regardless they cause a little rush of endorphins when you get them, and anything that does that is addictive. This is fact.
In this environment very few will express unpopular opinions. And I actually think that most of the time, that’s a good thing. There are a lot of people need to shut up and listen. Yes, including myself. People often forget that conformity can also be a good thing. But sometimes, not most of the time but every once in awhile, an unpopular opinion needs to be heard. A lot of important truths have started as controversial opinions. And I think that incentivizing human interaction with ‘likes’ can encourage the bad kind of conformity too.
It’s the reason why we’re all fake on Facebook. All of us. Admit it. As long as there is a way that you wish to be perceived, you’re faking it at least a little. And you do. We all do. None of us are above caring what other people think.
Because we all want to be cool. We all want to be accepted and loved. Our desire to be accepted in the tribe is one of the most deeply human qualities honed by billions of years of evolution. So naturally we all put ourselves out there in a way where we will be most accepted, with varying degrees of concern for authenticity.
So it becomes our own personal PR campaign. We choose how we are perceived. We have time to hone every phrase and pose. It grants us time to think about our responses based on how we want to be seen that we don’t have in the moment. We can tell people what we want them to know about us and what not. It’s a self reinforcing game of ego strokes as we are told how great we are, when it isn’t even our authentic selves being validated most of the time.
And the rush we’re subconsciously chasing is those delicious little likes and pieces of attention that shoot endorphins into our lizard brains. We really can’t help it, we’re human. And while it may not always be the case, over the course of time across all the billions of people using it, most actions within the social media landscape will be primarily incentivized by that endorphin rush because that’s the primary reward baked into the system.
If you think it doesn’t apply to you, I promise you that as long as you have a human brain, it does apply to you. And by the way studies actually show that the less you think you are able to be manipulated, the more you actually are because your guard is down. Also consider the truth that, in capitalism, if the product is free then you are the product. It’s no exaggeration to call it both Orwellian and Huxleian. And I think social media’s ubiquity is a testament to some very serious human brain design flaws.
III. The Exploit
And here is where I almost just quit the whole system altogether. And I did disengage almost completely for a time. Almost right away I could feel my lizard brain sinking into loneliness in the absence of my usual stream of digital affirmations. Like, in fact exactly like, an addict in withdrawal. I wondered if there was a way to make feed the addiction without all the harmful side effects. Because remember, it can also be a powerful tool for the positive. And unlike every advertisement, TV channel, magazine, movie, radio station, website, and so on fighting for my attention 24 hours a day every day, this is also the one medium wherein I have a some degree of control over the content.
What I’ve landed upon, at least for now, is just allowing addiction to be fed but with just a little more mindfulness. I have a line drawn now, I cannot allow the addiction to chase the endorphin rush with complaints, anger, to feed my ego, or so on. If my lizard brain is mostly in control of me, and it is, then I will only allow it to be incentivized by good.
Sure, in person I’ll be happy to debate politics and what not, but I think there’s something about arguing online that can never work. And I think it has something to do with how only 7 percent of human communication is conveyed by just the words alone. 38 percent is vocal elements, and 55 through facial expressions and body language. There’s some fundamental disconnect involved in debate on the internet that, when combined with what social media incentivizes, usually only serves to enrage and hurt people.
I'm done making complaint statuses. If I have complaints I will take them to someone who will hear them in person, someone I can vent to at least. If someone wants to have a disagreement, we can do it i person too. I will stop pretending to be someone I’m not. Because while a lot of that behavior is natural and fine, I just don’t want to be rewarded for it. I don't want my brain trained to do it. I will only allow the endorphin feedback to hit me for saying true and good things. And it has to be both. No bullshit.
Things like this:
If lizard brain wants to get that sweet hit, it better make someone else feel good first. I will be a better person, even if that means I have to manipulate myself into being it. I’m not particularly smart or wise, so maybe I just need this.
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