#posting on tumblr was the best thing i ever did

[fionaapplerocks]

The Long and Winding Road That Leads to Fiona Apple

By Tyler Coates 2012-05-31

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” So goes the oft-quoted line from William Faulkner’s Requiem for a Nun. Time is circular, and our relationship with our own personal histories is ever changing. This is a concept with which the enigmatic Fiona Apple is deeply familiar.

The 34-year-old singer-songwriter is about to release her fourth album—the first in seven years—aptly titled The Idler Wheel is wiser than the Driver of the Screw, and Whipping Cords will serve you more than Ropes will ever do. The spinning wheel of time cranks back and forth for Apple, who continues to re-examine her past while trying to keep up with the present. Like most artists, however, Apple finds that her fans cherish the past more than she does.

In 2000, a 16-year-old fan named Bill Magee approached Apple after a show in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania with a request: he told her he was a member of his high school’s gay-straight alliance and hoped that Apple could write a few words of support. “[I] was much more interested in interacting with a celebrity than building an alliance between gays and straights,” he admitted on his blog 12 years later where he posted a scanned image of the letter he received less than a week after requesting her response.

Apple wrote: “All I know is I want my friends to be good people, and when my friends fall in love, I want them to fall in love with other good people. How can you go wrong with two people in love? If a good boy loves a good girl, good. If a good boy loves another good boy, good. And if a good girl loves the goodness in good boys and good girls, then all you have is more goodness, and goodness has nothing to do with sexual orientation.”

“My brother was the one who told me about it,” Apple tells me just weeks after Magee posted the letter on his Tumblr, which was then picked up by various sites like Jezebel and Pitchfork. “I was like, ‘A letter I wrote to someone when I was 22 has made its way online?’ That’s the scariest thing I could possibly hear in my life. And the subject matter was so important—I know how I’ve always felt so I knew it wasn’t going to be a bad letter, but I was like, ‘What did I say?!’”

The letter’s sudden popularity online is indicative of how much has changed since Apple released her debut album, Tidal, in 1996.

For starters, she was then a 19-year-old singer-songwriter signed to a major record label and churning out emotional and dark odes at a time when her contemporaries were singing bubblegum-pop love songs.

She made headlines after appearing in the video for “Criminal.” Shot in a seedy apartment, the video featured a scantily clad and emaciated Apple, sparking criticisms of the exploitive quality of the images (and suggesting that she had an eating disorder). In 1997, when accepting her award for Best New Artist at the MTV Video Music Awards, Apple infamously shouted into the microphone, “This world is bullshit, and you shouldn’t model your life on what we think is cool, and what we’re wearing and what we’re saying.”

While the speech was replayed and parodied on TV for years following, Apple was lucky enough to have said those words before the days of blogging and YouTube; had she given the speech 15 years later, it may have turned into a career-damaging viral video and sparked a few thousand snarky tweets.

She also has the luxury of being a successful artist who doesn’t need to promote herself online. “They want me to tweet now, but I don’t,” Apple tells me of her label reps. “It doesn’t feel natural to me. But I do find it actually more interesting to see people posting ridiculously mundane shit. I like to hear about what people had for breakfast or what they did all day. It’s interesting because I don’t know how other people live.”

While Apple is hardly a recluse, she’s made few public appearances in the seven years since the release of her third album, Extraordinary Machine. The excitement following the announcement by Epic Records of the late-June release of The Idler Wheel speaks to the loyalty of her fan base. (And as for that long-winded title, it’s a callback to the much-maligned 90-word title of her acclaimed sophomore effort, universally shortened to When the Pawn…)

The Idler Wheel does not deviate from the familiar sounds of Apple’s earlier records; the songs are still layered with complex instrumentation, and her reverberant voice still takes center stage in each tune.

The album was produced nearly in secret over the last few years—a surprising move from an established artist with the resources of a major label at her disposal. But Apple explains that her experience with the label system is what allowed her to feel free to work on her own. “It was very casual, and I wasn’t fully admitting that I was making an album,” she says. “I got to use the time in the studio to inspire me to finish other things rather than feel like I was finishing homework to hand in. It wasn’t a lot of pressure. And the record company didn’t know I was doing it, so nobody was looking over my shoulder.”

Most might take that mentality as a reaction to the restrictions of her record label, especially after the drama surrounding the release of Extraordinary Machine. After collaborating with Jon Brion (who produced When the Pawn) to create an early version of the third album in 2002, Apple then decided to rework all but two of the songs with producer Mike Elizondo.

The original version of the album leaked online, and Brion suggested in interviews that Apple’s label had rejected the demo and forced her to rerecord the songs (a claim that Apple later denied). Still, it incited an uproar among her fans. An online-based movement called Free Fiona organized demonstrations outside of the Sony headquarters in New York, and protestors sent apples to the label’s executives.

The final version of the album was released in 2005 and received positive reviews and earned Apple a Grammy nomination. “I ran into the guy who started Free Fiona after a show in Chicago,” she tells me. “He apologized to me! They didn’t get the story quite right, but they did help me get my album out. I felt so bad that he had spent all this time thinking I was pissed at him—I had a physical urge to get down on the floor and kiss his shoes!”

It’s an intense reaction (she admits she didn’t bow to her fan because “it would be weird if I did that”), but Apple is still a very intense person. Dressed in a flowing skirt paired with several layers of spaghetti-strapped tank tops that reveal her slender frame (which seems healthier than in her early days, giving the impression that she must spend most of her downtime on a yoga mat), Apple fidgets in her seat during our conversation, often giving off an infectious giggle.

But she is surprisingly comfortable to talk to, not much like the somber young woman who sang of heartbreak and disappointment. “I don’t think I’ll ever have an idea of what I look like to the rest of the world,” she replies when I ask if she ever worries that her lyrics, which are sometimes in stark contrast to the up-tempo, progressive sounds of her songs’ instrumentations, give off the wrong impression of her personality. “It’s all your own perception. I could easily be concerned with how I’m taken and then have all the good stuff filtered through to me and choose to believe that. For the rest of my life it’d be the truth for me, but not the whole truth.”

Born Fiona Apple McAfee Maggart in New York City to Brandon Maggart and Diane McAfee, Apple’s musical destiny was settled at birth. The McAfee-Maggarts are, while not reaching Barrymore-level name recognition, an entertainment family; Apple’s father was nominated for a Tony for his performance in the Broadway musical Applause, both her mother and sister are singers, and her half-brothers work in the film industry—one an actor and the other a director.

She’s a third-generation performer, as her grandmother was a dancer in musical revues and her grandfather a Big Band-era musician. While Apple’s auspicious introduction to the pop world had critics calling her a prodigy, she crafted her early songs as a cathartic necessity. (“Sullen Girl” from Tidal, in particular, is about her rape at the age of 12.) “Over the years it’s transferred more into a craft,” she says. “I use myself as material because that’s what I’ve got. But these days I write less than half of my songs to get myself through things. I have to find other things to be meaningful— otherwise I’d just be miserable all the time.”

Her songs are still extremely autobiographical, which is perhaps their charm. Following in the footsteps of other singer-songwriters, especially women who emerged in the early ’90s and expressed their emotions in particularly vulnerable ways, Apple’s openness has always had an empowering appeal. Her songs seem to suggest that feeling a variety of emotions—sadness, glee, despair, insanity—is not only normal, but, like those self-reflective musicians before her, she also gives permission to her listeners to feel the same way.

Even for Apple, her older songs are relics of another time, and she now makes them applicable to her life in the present. “They all kind of become poems after a while,” she says. “You can take your own meaning out of them. It’s been a very long time [since my first albums], and I can apply those songs to other situations that are more current in my life.” She admits she has changed greatly since she started writing songs in her late teenage years, especially when it comes to how she portrays herself. “I don’t feel comfortable singing the songs that I wrote. I used to blame other people and not take responsibility. I thought I was a total victim trying to look strong.”

And she is much harder on herself in the songs on The Idler Wheel than she ever was before. Sure, she admitted to being “careless with a delicate man” in “Criminal,” arguably her most famous song, and in When the Pawn’s “Mistake” she sang, “Do I wanna do right, of course but / Do I really wanna feel I’m forced to / Answer you, hell no.”

On The Idler Wheel, Apple examines her own solitude and neuroses as well as their effect on her relationships with others. “I can love the same man, in the same bed, in the same city,” she sings on “Left Alone,” “But not in the same room, it’s a pity.” On “Jonathan,” a somber love song layered with robotic, mechanical sounds that’s presumably about her ex-boyfriend, author and Bored to Death creator Jonathan Ames, she urges, “Don’t make me explain / Just tolerate my little fist / Tugging at your forest-chest / I don’t want to talk about anything.”

But performing, as a central requirement of her career, still takes precedence. “Some nights I’m very, very nervous, and some nights I’m not at all,” she tells me. “I think, ‘This is ridiculous. I’m not a person who does a show, I’m a person who should be on a couch watching TV.’ But then it’s like I get knocked into another state of consciousness, and then I’m left behind, and the person that’s doing the show is there and there’s nothing else in the world existing other than the note she’s singing. It’s such a joy to do, but I forget about it until I’m on the stage.”

Apple has lived in los Angeles since Tidal’s release in 1996, although she admits that she’s “not an L.A. girl.” “I was supposed to stay in New York,” she tells me. “I remember being 17 and asking if I could record in New York. How did I end up here? It’s 15 years later… How did that happen?” Apple doesn’t seem to process time like other people. When I ask when she began recording The Idler Wheel and when she knew it was ready, she has a complicated answer. “It must have started in 2008. Or 2009. I don’t know! I have no idea. It’s weird to think that there was 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011.” Her big blue eyes suddenly look to her right as she furrows her brow. “Where’ve I been? What was I doing? What was that year about?”

Maybe the solitary nature of living in L.A. contributes to her aloof tendencies. “I’m not a social creature,” she says, “I don’t go to parties all the time because I’d probably just wonder why I’m there in the first place.” Her preference for being alone may also stem from the kind of personal criticisms that people tend to throw at female musicians. “I’ve gotten so used to being misunderstood. Nobody’s ever really said anything bad about my music, but when I’ve had albums come out there are always people making fun of me. ‘Oh, she’s back?’” She didn’t even expect the comments (mostly online) when the full title of The Idler Wheel was announced. “I didn’t stop to think that anyone would call it ridiculous, but people did. I thought, ‘Ahhh. My old friends.’ I’m not sure what’s ridiculous about it, but that’s what they’ve got to say.”

I cautiously mention the infamous acceptance speech from the VMAs, a moment early in her career that defined the public persona of Fiona Apple as an angry, ungracious woman. “I’ve never been ashamed of that,” she replies immediately. It was the first moment, she says, in which she felt like she could speak up—to break free from the shyness that defined her childhood and early teenage years. “I genuinely, naïvely thought that I was going to put out a record and that was going to make me have friends. I expected to give it to people and they would understand me; no one would say to me, ‘We don’t want to be your friend because you’re too intense or too sad all the time.’” It wasn’t necessarily the case.

“Do you still think the world is bullshit?” I ask when we talk about the VMAs. She laughs. “It’s not the world!” she exclaims. “Of course people think that ‘the world’ is the whole world. I felt that I had finally gotten into the popular crowd, and I thought, ‘Is this what I’ve been doing this for?’ I felt like I was back in the cafeteria in high school and still couldn’t speak up for myself.”

These days, Apple spends more time focusing on her own art rather than the reactions to it. With age has come calm and decreasing desire to pay attention to her detractors. “I’ve decided it takes too much energy to try to avoid it,” she tells me, brushing aside her freshly dyed crimson hair. “I’m not going to hide from the world.”

Source Archive.org:

https://web.archive.org/web/20120603033544/http://www.blackbookmag.com/music/the-long-and-winding-road-that-leads-to-fiona-apple-1.49114

[scholastic-dragon]

I posted 255 times in 2022

That's 255 more posts than 2021!

158 posts created (62%)

97 posts reblogged (38%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@turtle-babe83

@thelaundrybitch

@exovapor

@pheradream15

I tagged 236 of my posts in 2022

Only 7% of my posts had no tags

#tmnt - 100 posts

#tmnt bayverse - 71 posts

#tmnt leo - 65 posts

#tmnt donnie - 63 posts

#tmnt raph - 62 posts

#thanks for the ask! - 60 posts

#tmnt mikey - 57 posts

#tmnt headcannons - 51 posts

#guardians of the galaxy vol 2 - 45 posts

#hellboy - 41 posts

Longest Tag: 116 characters

#like you make it all cute with the hat and sharf and you look down and raphs made a freakishly (huge) realistic dick

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

hey!! is it alright if i asked for like a fluffy 'nd angsty kinda songfic with the reader referring or viewing the bay!tmnt with the lyrics, "your beauty never, ever scared me." by Ghost's Mary On A Cross? (bc im pretty sure they all share an insecurity abt their specie and physical appearance yk but reader loves n reassures them ,, thank you!!! <;3)

I absolutely agree, they definitely have a lot of insecurities about how they look.

I'm doing this as a Turtle of Choice thing, so you can imagine your favorite dude <3

This is heavily inspired by @turtle-babe83 post about insecurities but for the S/O not from the boys. (Please click the link her works are so good!)

Turtles x Gn!reader

Beauty

Word Count: 822

Warnings: insecure turtles, them being soft bois, established relationship, first "I love yous", spelling mistakes

Summary: after hearing a lyric from your favorite song, your boyfriend opens up.

Spring cleaning.

Worst time of the year because it comes right after seasonal depression and cabin fever which beat your ass. Every. Single. Year.

But now you had a boyfriend to help with all your chores and keep you...mostly...on track.

He offered a helping hand when needed, willing to do anything and everything you asked. Even if it was just sitting on your bed whole you folded laundry.

He knew you struggled a lot and if he could help you in any way he would.

Now it was late evening, the sun was setting, turning the sky pink, orange, and purple, and small stats were appearing in the sky.

You two were washing the dishes, listening to your favorite Playlist. You would scrub and rise the dishes then hand them to him, he would dry them and then put them away.

It was a perfect system, keeping you focused but making it a little fun. You'd tell him about your day, why this plastic cup was your favorite, or why you loved a certain song.

He found it so endearing listening to you talk about your interests and to do simple mundane things with you.

"Oh, I love this one!" You happily start humming and mouthing the words.

It was cute watching his face try to figure out if he knew the song and try to hear the words. His brows furrowed and he gently swayed to the music.

"It's from tiktok," You lean in, whispering as if it were some great secret.

He nodded, the gears finally clicking in his head.

"I would've gotten it," He mumbled, drying off a glass cup and putting it in the corner cabinet by your side.

"Eventually," You add, nudging his arm playfully. He laughed, taking the plate from your hands.

"Oh, this line reminds me of you," You gently touch his arm. He lowers his arms, still holding the towel and plate, listening to the song coming from your small speaker.

🎶"Your beauty never ever scared me," 🎶

You saw the moment the words registered in his mind. The way his mouth opened slightly, his eyes going slightly wide, the sharp inhale.

"That-that line?" He asked, cautiously. "Reminds you of me?"

You nod, as if it were something simple.

"But....But, I'm, well you know," Setting the plate down he awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck.

See the full post

585 notes - Posted August 19, 2022

#4

Relationship headcanons for all bay!turtles?

So this turned more into a 'how did you and the turtle(s) start dating' type of thing, hope that's okay

Bay!Turtles Relationship Headcannons

Leo:

Say hello to 'slow burn' 👋

This boy pines for you

Long stares, strong eye contact and obvious feelings....but this boy is too nervous to ask you out at first

He memorizes any and all details about you whenever he can

He stares....a lot. He just thinks you're so pretty

He really likes your laugh, he'll do almost anything to hear it, but he doesn't like it as much when he isn't the one to make you laugh

The "first move" He ever made was movie night. Since it was October, Mikey picked a horror movie, much to your dismay and protest. You were shaking the whole time and when the villain went to attack the main character, you jumped and buried your face into his shoulder with a mumbled. "Tell me when it's over," His hand gently rubbed up and down your back as you shook in his arms.

Afterwards you sheepishly thanked him, holding his hand for a little bit too long as you were leaving.

From them on you sat by him every movie night. It's kinda your thing™️

If you spend the night he will offer you his room. And no he won't stay in there with you, he's too much of a gentleman with anxiety to do that.

But he likes it because then his pillows smell like you

He's so nervous to be around you when he realizes he's crushing on you. He just wants to touch you. Not in a sexual way, but touching your shoulder when he walks by, hugging you hello and goodbye, snuggling, anything.

He melts when you yank him down for a goodbye hug after one movie night. You tuck your face into his neck and sigh deeply and he knows he's done for

After being friends for a few months you finally get him to stay in his room with you when you're spending the night.

But he's putting all the blankets on the floor...?

"Leo?" You sit up in his bed, peering down at him. "Are you going to sleep on the floor?"

"Where else would I sleep?" He pulls his blanket over his lap.

"In bed."

"With....with you?" He turned a few shades darker. You nod, scooting over and patting the free side.

You can see how he's shaking as he stands and comes over to the side of the bed. He awkwardly sits down, sweat dripping down his face.

"You don't have to, if you're too uncomfortable," You whisper, reaching out to touch his arm.

"I've just worried I'm going to mess this up," He mumbles back, taking your hand in his and running his thumb along your knuckles.

"You're not messing anything up,"

He let down some of his walls and finally decided to open up to you....literally the next morning.

He was too nervous to sleep under the sheets with you so he's laying on all the blankets watching you peacefully snooze.

After a bit you wake up and exchange some "good mornings" and then he just straight up tells you he's got feelings for you

See the full post

649 notes - Posted October 30, 2022

#3

Tmnt Headcannons part 3

Leo hates the word "moist"

Raph and Donnie unironically like dark chocolate

If offered, the guys will not say no to a glass of chocolate milk

Leo has a sensory thing and cannot handle the sound of bones cracking, it makes him do a full body shiver

He also hates the texture of jello. Not the taste, but the texture, it makes his teeth feel fuzzy

Their whole friend group (you, April, Casey, and Vern) all roast each other playfully, but if Casey or Vern were to make a sexual joke or mean comment to you. Shits about to go down.

One of Leo's toxic traits is watching the Olympics and thinking "I could do that" (we've all done it don't lie)

Donnie uses Leo's tea mugs for his coffee just to annoy him

Whenever they got out for a drive and are listening to music, no one can touch the radio.

"Mikey, don't you touch my fuckimg radio!" Que Donnie frantically hitting his brothers hands

There are at least 3 movies that Donnie and Mikey can fully act out. They quote it often, Raph and Leo don't get the jokes.

Donnie always corrects Raphs spelling in group chat messages

Raph has gotten up from wherever he was to hit Donnie because he corrected him. (He spent an hour in the haishi)

Leo makes really cute faces when he reads

Mikey gets irked when you call him "Michael" but he doesn't have the heart to tell you to stop (its kinda growing on him)

Ok, so everyone knows Raph is the knitter of the family, but if you knew how, you are now instant favorite.

He would be over the moon, head over heels in love with your ass if you knitted something for him.

"You made this?

"Yeah."

"For me?"

He did cry over it (don't tell him I told you)

Every time Mikey makes Mac 'n cheese, he says "that's what good pussy sounds like"

653 notes - Posted March 10, 2022

#2

Bay Turtle Kisses 💋

Thank you for requesting this @akesdraws-blog it was so cute and fun.

Warnings: giving the turtles the smootches they deserve!

Leo:

Hear me out

HEAR ME OUT

Neck kisses

And not just the sexual kind no no.

Leo's a tall dude, even if he's not the tallest, he's still large. And you probably still have to reach up on your tippy toes to hug him. And because of that, the easiest place for you to place kisses was his collarbone and neck.

Knees: gone

It's just such a strange and sensitive place and he loves how intimate it is

He's gotten forehead and cheek kisses from his brothers and April, but your kisses are more personal and he can't get enough of them

He was terrified to kiss your neck for the first time, but he couldn't stop staring and it was eating away at his brain. He needed to know how smooth the skin was, how potent your scent would be.

It was date night at your place, you were watching a movie, wrapped up in a thick blanket, sitting in between his legs.

He had a perfect view of the back of your head and the side of your neck. Even more so when you moved your hair to the side because you thought it was bothering it.

It was but in a different way

He couldn't help himself, he leaned in, taking a moment to appreciate how your perfume, body wash and natural scent mixed before kissing the juncture where your shoulder and neck met.

He pulled away, not wanting to overstep, but stopped when your arm came up, pushing his head back to your neck.

At your small, "more, please," He was sure his heart had stopped

Game on.

Mikey:

Nose kisses

His favorite is when you both make eye contact, doesn't matter where or how far apart you are, and he licks his lips and keeps -purposefully- glancing down at your lips.

So you start to lean in, and he takes your face in your hands, tilting tour head, moving extra slow to build momentum....and then places a sweet kiss to the tip of your nose.

Then he pulls back, going back to whatever he was doing, trying not to laugh at your mad face

You make the cutest face when he does this, you try and make a mad face but your cheeks are red, eyes crinkled from laughed and fighting a smile.

He laughs, and plants kisses all over your face, leaving your lips for last.

One of his favorite pranks is when you're sitting at the dining table for a meal, he makes eye contact, licks his lips, then stands from his chair, leaning across the table with puckered lips.

You lean forward, giggling and mumbling something about how 'he can't even wait five minutes for another kiss'

And then.....he leans down and takes the straw of your drink into his mouth and happily sipps whatever is in the cup.

See the full post

827 notes - Posted November 23, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Being friends with the 2014/2016 TMNT boys

This is my first ever post and I'm a little nervous about it, but I really want to write so here we go.

Let me tell you, these boys are FUNNY

Memes 24/7

You 100% introduced Mikey to Tiktok

It was both the best and worst thing that has ever happened

On the one hand, he now sits quietly watching his phone

But once his phone is down he's screaming tiktok sounds

"We DoN't tAlK aBoUt BrUnO-nO-No"

"The woman was too stunned to speak,"

"Piggy dippin' piggy dippin' in da piggy pond"

It gives Leo a headache

Raph is most annoyed by it at first, but then he gets tiktok and starts doing it too.

You and Mikey spend HOURS showing each other tiktoks

You try to include Donnie

"Donnie...DONNIE"

"WHAT, IM BUSY"

"...I wanna show you a tiktok..."

"...okay, but just one,"

It's never just one

They have movie nights Every. Single. Week.

They like to binge long movie series and sagas

They will not go back and watch pervious movies if you miss one. You will suffer and be lost

Donnie and Leo will share their snacks with you. Raph won't. Mikey will bite your hand if you try.

Donnie does not share blankets.

They will purposefully move your things around the lair and laugh as you spin in circles to try and find it.

It's been 3 weeks since you've seen your favorite water bottle

(It's in the corner kitchen cabnet)

Mikey likes to give you the remote to see what movies you put on

If it's Disney Raph will be all "manly" and be like

See the full post

848 notes - Posted January 16, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[bunnieroth]

[secondbeatsongs]

iCarly Meta, Part 5: Socko, Nominative Determinism, and How I Spend My Free Time

so, you may remember that I've made four separate iCarly posts before, because I am just way too into this dorky, ridiculous children's show.

well, over a year ago, I wrote this fifth one. and after some introspection, some really deep self-evaluation about what I want and where I'm going in life, I've decided that it's time to share it with the world at large

so...let's talk about Socko's family!

to catch you up: Socko is Spencer's best friend, who designs all of the fun socks that Spencer wears! he's first mentioned in s01e07 (iScream on Halloween), though some of his socks are shown as early as s01e02 (iWant More Viewers).

(technical note: production-wise, s01e09 is listed before s01e07, and I think that was intended to be Socko's introduction, and it would make sense, considering how Spencer describes him in that ep. but I can't prove this, and so we move on.)

while Socko is mentioned consistently throughout the show, he's never fully shown on screen. but, he does technically appear in an episode, because you can see part of his arm in s04e11-s04e13 (iParty with Victorious) when he hands Spencer the keys to his van.

Spencer and Socko have known each other since at least 1999 (as mentioned in s02e12, iRocked the Vote) when Spencer would have been 17 or 18. and despite Socko almost never being shown, it's clear that he spends a lot of time with Spencer, and that they're close. if Spencer needs something, Socko is always willing to call in a favor from one of his family members.

and boy, does Socko have a lot of very interesting family members.

let's go over some of them real quick:

Bernie is a welder, Otto is a used car salesman, Tyler designs neckties, Taylor is a tailor, Rob is a thief, Arty is an artist, Isaac is an optometrist, and Ryder is a motorcycle enthusiast.

are we noticing a pattern here?

every single one of these is an aptronym – a personal name that is aptly or peculiarly suited to its owner. and since all of these people are in some way related, this is fascinating to me.

it seems like Socko's family is really into nominative determinism – the idea that people tend to gravitate towards areas of work that fit their names. whether or not this is true of people in real life is unclear, but in the universe of iCarly, this is something that Socko's family is all about.

when did it start, I wonder? who was the first in the family to have a job or hobby that related directly to their name? and who continued that pattern? because someone named Bernard going by "Bernie" and taking up welding is one thing, but an entire family of people going into fields that have to do with their names is unsettling.

is this on purpose, now? do the parents in Socko's family choose names for their children based on what they want them to be? is there an expectation that each child will have to choose a profession based on what their parents name them?

I think there is. and I think it's fucked up.

imagine growing up knowing that your name would control your future career options. that no matter how you felt about your name, choosing a career or hobby that matched it is what would make your parents happy. that at least some portion of your parents' love is tied to the idea that you will be what they named you.

and depending on the name, the kids aren't always left with a lot of options! someone named Bernie could be a welder, a woodburning artist, a firefighter, etc...but for Taylor, there's really only one path to take.

what if a kid is trans? I just have to wonder, would they be judged more for not identifying with their assigned sex at birth, or for changing their name?

and one of Socko's cousins is named Mary. think about that with me for a second – Mary.

imagine that the only dream your parents have for you is that you get married. and not just fall in love! no, you were given this name because their express purpose, their biggest hope for you is that you get legally married.

what if Mary had been gay? what if she grew up with fear in her heart, knowing that the only thing her parents had ever wanted from her wasn't possible, was actually illegal, because of who she was?

or what if she had been aro, or ace, or just otherwise not interested in relationships? or what if she was interested in relationships, but not the serious, legal commitment of marriage?

my hope here (my one fragile hope) is that Rob, Mary, and Josh are siblings, and that their parents were trying to escape this part of the family legacy. maybe they named their kids Robert, Marian, and Joshua, and tried to steer clear of any obvious career choices – but then their sons started going by "Josh" and "Rob" and causing trouble, and "Mary" started talking about her upcoming wedding, and they knew that they would never be free of the family curse.

'cause it's gotta be a curse, right? I feel like at this point, it has to be.

but hey, worry not! because I think there are some loopholes.

Penny, for example, had a lot of choices – she could have minted coins, or built fences, or designed ball-point pens, or been a cashier (etc, etc). but she didn't do any of those things! she started a t-shirt company, and made shirts with fun phrases on them like "church pants" and "parole baby" and "chest words" (all shirts I would wear for real).

her job didn't have anything to do with her name – but she still followed the family pattern. she named her t-shirt company "Penny-Tees", and sewed a single penny into each of her shirts. instead of finding a name-based occupation, she made her own.

I really think it's brilliant – she got to do what she wanted, and her parents couldn't complain, because it still suited her name! and if this pattern is curse-based, she found a way around it by following it to the letter (but not exactly the spirit), and because of this, she got to make her own choices.

and speaking of jobs that may or may not suit one's name: let's talk about Socko.

early in the show when we're introduced to him, we know three things about him:

he knows where to find huge pumpkins

he sells Spencer all of his wacky socks

his name is Socko

but, thinking about that third point…is it?

like, is his name actually Socko?

let's look at Socko's family tree for a moment:

(ID in alt text)

(yes, I made this. it took over two days. I skimmed through many episodes, looked through a large amount of the old iCarly website on the Wayback Machine, and as far as I know, this is canon accurate.)

(shhh, this was absolutely a valuable use of my time. don't worry about it.)

look at his family. look at the names.

almost all of them are, well…normal names. names that could belong to any acquaintance, friend, or relative in your own everyday life.

the only real exceptions here are Freight Dog, Boomer, and Dr. Paxil – but if we're being real? "Freight Dog" is almost definitely a nickname, "Paxil" isn't that strange-sounding of a surname, and I have actually seen people named "Boomer".

so that just leaves…Socko.

"Socko" is not a people name. it sounds mean, but I don't know how else to word that – it's just not a name for a human person.

it would be a great name for a cat or a dog (especially if they had paws that were a different color from their body – man, that'd be so cute!), but it is not a name that many parents would willingly give to a human child. especially when all of the other siblings in the family have relatively normal names.

my theory, my hottest take: I don't think "Socko" is his legal name.

think about it: Socko and every single one of his siblings went into the fashion industry. even accounting for the fact that they probably wanted Penny to have a different career, would Socko's parents really want all three of their other children going into the same industry, especially one as tumultuous and challenging as fashion design?

I think not. I think they gave Socko a different name, one that they believed would lead him down a completely distinct career path. and then, like Penny, Socko found his own true calling – but instead of changing his occupation to match his name? he changed his name to match his occupation.

it is my belief that Socko's birth name…the name his parents gave him…

(drumroll please)

…was "Socrates".

now hold on, just stay with me here. because I swear that this does make sense, really!

so, back at the beginning of this post I mentioned nominative determinism, but that term wasn't actually used until 1994. before then, it was called "onomastic determinism" or "die verpflichtung des namens" ("the obligation of the name"), but it wasn't really…a thing? it wasn't something that people really studied, and when they did, nobody could seem to come to a solid conclusion about whether or not your name does actually influence your career choice.

I think that in some way, Socko's parents wanted an answer. they wanted an explanation as to why their family tree reads like a joke book. and by naming their kid "Socrates", they were sending that question out into the world, hoping for a response.

because there were really two options here – either Socko would grow up to be a philosopher, someone who could search for meaning in the pattern of family job-finding, or he wouldn't. and if he didn't, if he threw off the shackles of his name and did something else entirely, then that in itself would be an answer.

and sure, maybe his parents should have thought about how "Socrates" might be abbreviated. maybe they should have considered that he could grow up to design socks. but hindsight is 20/20, and I don't know if that's something any parent would expect of their child, so I won't hold that against them.

I will however, judge them for naming two of their kids "Taylor" and "Tyler" – like, my god. can you imagine how often people got them mixed up? it's inhumane.

even worse if they were twins! though actually, that would make some kind of twisted sense – to give twins names that not only match, but that would lead them to careers in the same industry. maybe they wanted them to go into business together? hoo boy.

anyway, sorry, I've gone off-topic. back to Socko – or should I say, Socrates.

"Socrates" is a pretty fun name. two parts of it are σῶς (sôs, “safe and sound”) and κράτος (krátos, “power”), which is an interesting name meaning for a dude who was executed for corrupting the youth.

(I'm talking about the philosopher here – as far as I know, Socko from iCarly was not executed for corrupting the youth. at least, not yet.)

and if we keep thinking about Socrates (the philosopher), I think there's another reason that this name fits: we know fuck-all about Socrates.

sure, he's well-known – lots of people know about his ideas, and the Socratic method – but…he never actually wrote anything. everything we think we know about him, we learned from somebody else.

all of Socrates' interests, his skills, his beliefs? they were all things we learned from Plato, Xenophon, or (I guess) Aristophanes. we have no idea what the dude was actually like, outside of that.

just like we have no idea what Socko is like, outside of what Spencer says.

Socrates is a vital figure in the history of western philosophy, but all of the things we know about him are altered by the opinions of other people, filtered through the lenses of their perception.

and Socko is a vital character in the show iCarly, but all of the things we know about him – his hobbies, his opinions, his wants – are things we've heard second-hand from Spencer.

(you're laughing. Spencer Shay is a stand-in for Plato, and you're laughing.)

so in a very fun way, Socko (Socrates) did live up to his name…by being unknown to us, the audience.

us, watching this TV show the way chained prisoners watch shadows dance on the wall of a cave.

continuing down this rabbit hole…does this mean that one of the iCarly crew is Aristotle?

no…perhaps that's taking it too far.

(it'd be Gibby)

final notes:

I haven't seen all of the iCarly reboot yet (I'm on episode 3! I have mixed feelings, but I think one of the writers ships the thing that I ship, so that's fun), so if it mentions something about Socko lore, I unfortunately do not know about it.

fun fact: the ancient Greeks did often have names that were meant to have sway on their lives! for example: Hedistē ("most delightful"), Demotimos ("honored among the people"), Hippodamas ("horse-tamer"), Nikomachē ("victorious in battle").

additional fun fact: I asked one of the mods of the iCarly wiki, and they said I could put the family tree I made on the page for Socko's Family! :D

look! it's my thing! the thing that I made! how cool is that?!

(I'll be real; I am way too proud of this)

yes, two of Socko's family members have inaptronyms instead of aptronyms: Harry (bald) and Jean (allergic to denim). but in my mind, they still count – the names are still weirdly suited to their specific lives.

since I'm pretty sure "Freight Dog" is a nickname, I also took a crack at what I think his legal name might be. my theory? "Aaron".

(get it? Aaron? because he's in the air? okay, I'll see myself out.)

anyway, my new hobby is coming up with more family members for Socko to have. descend with me into the deepest reaches of The Headcanon Zone, and behold:

Lisa: She's a landlord (she leases apartments). Socko hates her.

Barry: A big ol' bear of a man. Or he could work for Gund or Build-a-Bear or something. That could be fun!

Mike: Audio technician

Amy: Sharpshooter

Summer: Camp counselor

Tony: Orthopedist. (toe-knee)

Marty: Owns and operates a supermarket

and because it's fun, my friend @wonderbound joined in and came up with these super great ones:

Drew: Illustrator

Cody: Programmer or hacker

Pete: Bryologist (he studies moss!)

Norm: He's just a guy

Flo: Plumber – or maybe, an expert in fluid dynamics

Hattie: Milliner (she makes hats)

Howl: Werewolf (or perhaps, the owner of a moving castle 👀)

Will: Estate planning attorney (he writes wills)

anyway, I think that's about it. thanks for coming with me on this adventure! I hope it was as much of a rollercoaster to read as it was to write, because yeah, it was a weird one over here.

I mean, it started out normal? but then the next thing I knew, I had gotten invested, made nine edits to the iCarly wiki, and designed that whole family tree. so I think maybe I went a little overboard with this one. xD

tune in next time, for…I dunno. I think my brain needs a break after that. but, eventually I would love to write more meta! just…maybe not all for iCarly? I have some things to say about Gravity Falls that I think are gonna blow your minds.

(not really; I just think it's great)

[some-mari-thoughts]

What do you make of the idea of Blackspace kinda fusing with Hellmari after a post-good ending Omori gave her true life, therefore making her the entire realm by technicality? Omori would do that cuz he needs something to kinda fill the void that appeared when Sunny left and he's getting desperate after not finding anything in Headspace to do that...

(woooooooooo explaining my omori au lore-)

Truthfully this is so wildly different to my idea of headspace and omori and after-good ending that i cannot make anything of this! i think that's up to u to decide

[franciya]

Bonus:

[g0thsoojin]

🦴

[girlmetalsonic]

my boy silver he pick up the can sometimes

[thedevotionaltour]

*holding out hand* block actor tags with me. forever<3

[eggmeralda]

I need a massive sudden hyperfixation shock to happen again

[widevibratobitch]

.

[jtbb]

google am i on the aro spectrum or am i just a teenager

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

🥳 Happy birthday to the annual baby cow that was just born down the street! 🥳 

[maiamaiden]

so wait what's happening with twt? they're making u guys pay to tweet now or smth?

[izzy-b-hands]

the big Vent post abt my family today and that post i saw went to my fandom vent blog instead, ur welcome lmao

[theflannelwizard]

My dad has this theory about “project-based friends” that I’ve been thinking about lately. A project-based friend is someone you meet through fandom/hobbies, and they’re usually really easy to get super close to while you’re both invested in the project, be it an actual project or the same fandom/fixation or whatever else.

But as soon as one or both of you moves on from the project, you fall out of touch. Because the project-based friend doesn’t really care about you as a person as much as they care about what you bring to the project. Or even if they do care about you, they just don’t know how to keep a friendship up when you don’t have a project together.

This isn’t necessarily a selfish thing, it’s just… the friendship isn’t personal. A project-based friend will have fun with you while it lasts and then either move on entirely or stay kinda half in your life, never really reaching out or holding real conversations. And I think a big part of my problem is that I’ve been expecting project-based friends to stick around for me when really we just liked the same work of fiction for a while. I keep thinking I’ve made a new best friend and then they get into some media I don’t like and the whole friendship kinda disappears.