#short version: i agree people should write in the margins if they like

[korovaoverlook]

I Sacrificed My Writing To A.I So You Don't Have To

I was thinking about how people often say "Oh, Chat GPT can't write stories, but it can help you edit things!" I am staunchly anti-A.I, and I've never agreed with this position. But I wouldn't have much integrity to stand on if I didn't see for myself how this "editing" worked. So, I sacrificed part of a monologue from one of my fanfictions to Chat GPT to see what it had to say. Here is the initial query I made:

Chat GPT then gave me a list of revisions to make, most of which would be solved if it was a human and had read the preceding 150k words of story. I won't bore you with the list it made. I don't have to, as it incorporated those revisions into the monologue and gave me an edited sample back. Here is what it said I should turn the monologue into:

The revision erases speech patterns. Ben/the General speaks in stilted, short sentences in the original monologue because he is distinctly uncomfortable—only moving into longer, more complex structures when he is either caught up in an idea or struggling to elaborate on an idea. The Chat GPT version wants me to write dialogue like regular narrative prose, something that you'd use to describe a room. It also nullified the concept of theme. "A purity that implied personhood" simply says the quiet(ish) part out loud, literally in dialogue. It erases subtlety and erases how people actually talk in favor of more obvious prose. Then I got a terrible idea. What if I kept running the monologue through the algorithm? Feeding it its own revised versions over and over, like a demented Google Translate until it just became gibberish? So that's what I did. Surprisingly enough, from original writing sample to the end, it only took six turnarounds until it pretty much stopped altering the monologue. This was the final result:

This piece of writing is florid, overly descriptive, unnatural, and unsubtle. It makes the speaking character literally give voice to the themes through his dialogue, erasing all chances at subtext and subtlety. It uses unnecessary descriptors ("Once innocuous," "gleaming," "receded like a fading echo," "someone worth acknowledging,") and can't comprehend implication—because it is an algorithm, not a human that processes thoughts. The resulting writing is bland, stupid, lacks depth, and seemingly uses large words for large word's sake, not because it actually triggers an emotion in the reader or furthers the reader's understanding of the protagonist's mindset.

There you have it. Chat GPT, on top of being an algorithm run by callous, cruel people that steals artist's work and trains on it without compensation or permission, is also a terrible editor. Don't use it to edit, because it will quite literally make your writing worse. It erases authorial intention and replaces it with machine-generated generic slop. It is ridiculous that given the writer's strike right now, studios truly believe they can use A.I to produce a story of marginal quality that someone may pay to see. The belief that A.I can generate art is an insult to the writing profession and artists as a whole—I speak as a visual artist as well. I wouldn't trust Chat GPT to critique a cover letter, much less a novel or poem.

[northern-passage]

In regards to that last ask.... I do agree that it’s great to see so much trans rep in interactive fiction, and like... I love nb lea. It’s very clear that you’ve put a lot of thought into their experiences with gender and that does mean a lot. ...However, the thing that bothers me is that the player is the one that gets to determine Lea’s (and Noel’s) experience with gender. As a nb person that has also had a long, complicated journey with gender, I can say that my experience has been that, no matter how good their intentions are, if you give cis people even an inch of “wiggle room” (ex: saying you use she/they pronouns, you identify as a girl and a boy, saying you use any pronouns etc etc) a majority of the time, they will use what is most comfortable for them while using excuses like “But it’s kind of uncomfortable for me, and you use those pronouns anyways right? So it’s fine to refer to you as a [insert agab here] right?” (This is based off of things that I’ve seen or experienced, to be clear.)

And like maybe I’m just cynical, and obviously not every trans/nb person has the same experience, but it’s just uncomfortable to think that if a cis person doesn’t like the idea of a character being trans or nonbinary, they can simply choose for them to... not be.

On the other hand, I do understand that you want to be able to represent a variety of identifies and experiences, and that’s a difficult thing to do when there are only 4 ros. And again, though as a general rule I don’t like nb gender selectable characters (for reasons previously stated), I do really love nonbinary and trans lea because of the care you’ve taken to write them and their experiences.

So... in the end I’m not sure what the best thing to do here is. I just figured since the discussion is happening, I should give my two cents as a genderqueer person, as I feel like it’s important to get as many different perspectives when representing minorities. (In truth, I had been thinking about sending in an ask broaching this subject before, but I didn’t want to add more stress when it seems like you’re constantly dealing with assholes and I wasn’t ever sure how to approach you about it sjdkfflflflfl. I can only apologize for taking this long to speak up 😔)

no need to apologize! these conversations are always intimidating on both sides, and like i said this is something i've had a lot of discussion about already with a lot of people behind the scenes, so it's not like it's blindsided me or anything.

i know exactly what you mean in regards to cis people - i've actually had this conversation with some other authors and readers. you're right, at the end of the day certain cishet readers are going to purposefully ignore a characters identity, no matter what it says in the text; people already do this with clementine, all the way to just outright misgendering them or requesting them to be gender selectable, even though they are literally locked nonbinary. i knew this would happen all the way back when i first posted the demo on the forums (and this is also a big part of why i no longer am active on the forums and have locked the thread) and it's something i've just kind of had to make peace with.

i know nothing i do will change these people's minds, and i have no interest in coddling them or holding their hands - and honestly my stories aren't for people like them, anyways. however, that being said i also don't want to perpetuate anything harmful that bigots can misinterpret and use against marginalized people in their real lives.

and i definitely get where you’re coming from when it comes to gender selectable characters - generally i don’t actually mind it myself, and i actually like it when i can make an RO nb, but i do think it becomes a problem when the author uses it to uphold cissexist and heterosexist ideas of gender and drastically changes the character.

like f!version is short and petite and wears lots of makeup and has long flowing hair…. but m!version is tall and muscular and has short hair and wouldn’t touch makeup with a ten foot pole lmfao like that shit is painful. i haven't really seen this much in wips, to be honest, but more in published games with cog/hg.

this is also where you tend to see no nb options, except for MC, and no other nb characters in the whole game, which makes it feel incredibly insincere and like the nb customization was just tacked on to the character creator as an afterthought.

which leads me to say that i do think people that include nb as a selectable option for ROs don't do it with the intention of letting cis people ignore the characters gender identity, but more so that they can just include nb people. it's just unfortunate that there will always be people that will twist that and use it to invalidate the nb identities.

i have noticed more recently though that a lot of authors refer to their gender selectable characters with gender neutral language on blogs/in extra content outside of their games, and request that readers do the same, and in my opinion it makes the effort to include the nb option more genuine, and it's something i really like seeing.

i do feel like IF in general is trending back towards gender-locking characters, though, and i don't think that's a bad thing, since i also feel that it's trending towards being more diverse and inclusive as well. it's exciting to see more locked nb RO options, or ROs who are gay, lesbian, or trans, etc.

my biggest take away from all of the conversations i've had so far is that... it IS difficult to come to a real satisfying conclusion. i've had a lot of really positive feedback regarding lea's identity, and now i've had some more critical feedback about it, as well. ultimately, gender is something we can talk about until the cows come home and everyone will still have different opinions and experiences. and with interactive fiction, you want the game to feel inclusive of all different kinds of MCs but you also don't want to compromise the characters and their identities. it's a lot to think about!! but i really hope i can find a good balance going forward.

thank you for sharing your thoughts. like i said before, this is something i've been thinking on a lot and always have in the back of my mind while writing - not just tnp but writing anything in general.

[olivieblake]

As a writer or even just a consumer of media do you find people are less willing to accept “flaws” in characters and stories? I’m not talking like this character is a murderer he’s evil no one should like him type stuff, though as someone who started off writing dramione I’m sure you’ve seen your fair share of that but just like when characters are ever short of perfect. Like when a strong female character is kinda insecure or a couple isn’t communicating well or has a heated fight everyone gets mad that it’s a toxic relationship or bad writing. I once read a review of a book where someone stopped reading it after two chapters cause it had bad therapy practices, ie. the character still had shit to work through and therapy isn’t magic therefore they weren’t always doing the healing right and it’s like? that’s the whole point!! it’s an arc the character is gonna grow! It’s also made clear early on that the therapist didn’t agree with the coping methods (overly controlling their life) so it wasn’t like they were trying to portray it as a good thing. I know you’ve mentioned people have ✨opinions✨ about your DFS Hermione for having flaws and staying flawed and her flaw is just that she kinda thinks she’s right a lot and maybe isn’t the most self aware nothing even serious lol. I’m not saying don’t be critical of media but it’s kinda overwhelming reading think piece after think piece about why this thing you enjoy is actually the literal worst™️. Like am I toxic for having some of the same flaws ? Am I a problematic creep for enjoy stories where everything isn’t always sunshine, I don’t want to have a train wreck of a relationship but sometimes reading about one can be kinda fun? Is that terrible?

there’s a lot here that I’d like to discuss and I’m thinking about how I’d like to do it (I’ll inevitably chat about it in a video because it’s interesting and complex but I think I may have too many topics for this monday)

let’s see I think I will start by saying: in general, critical discourse about media (books, tv, film, fanfic) is a good thing, but it has definitely gone awry from what I consider to be its origins. I think the whole point of viewing media critically and making observations about what we are portraying via fiction is crucial for amplifying/protecting marginalized stories and reducing harm—specifically, the harm that minorities and women face by being inundated with bigoted, prejudiced, hateful, or ignorant tropes, caricatures, or relationship dynamics. I definitely believe that we should consider what we consume and how we consume it, particularly when it comes to the marginalized voices who do not see themselves represented well or fairly in white male dominated media

that being said, I do think it has led to the expectation that fiction cannot have ANY problems, which is absurd and counterproductive. it’s also extremely reductive, particularly when it comes the Strong Female Character™ thing you mention, where a woman STILL only has value if she’s strong in the “correct” way. I mentioned in one of my other posts and also last week’s video that there’s some kind of disconnect between the VERY GOOD intentions of things like #ownvoices or the movement to empower female characters and the actual outcomes, which make it so that any flaws in a marginalized fictional character are magnified to represent the entire group. the very reasonable request to see ourselves in fiction has somehow become an exponentially convoluted demand to see ourselves a certain way in fiction, where any character who does not reflect our personal experience is bad and wrong. previously, the expectation was that white male stories were universal whereas everything else was only for that specific group, and now, ironically, everything that is created still has to fit that universal quality and please everyone, despite that not being the point. the problem is when you only have ONE movie about this topic or ONE book about this ethnicity, then of course it hasn’t done enough to exemplify an entire subject or culture. there has to be an entire body of work the way there is with white-dominated media, where no single film or book accurately represents the experience of being white

plus we have twitter which is a horrifying hellscape where you get rewarded by the algorithm for making loud, obnoxious points so add that to the list (yesterday I saw that one of the top 3 reviews on Beloved by toni morrison is a 1-star review written by a white man and I was just flabbergasted by the lack of self-awareness) 

but anyway that’s like, more of a macro look at what I think is going on but you’re right that people are not very forgiving of flawed characters. to some extent, I get it; the one thing we don’t want our characters to do is annoy us, and that’s fair. but I also think people have lost the sense that “oh, this thing isn’t for me” and thus can’t successfully identify the difference between critical failure and personal dislike

now. as for Divination for Skeptics. let me start by saying it’s not like I don’t understand why people find hermione in Divination for Skeptics annoying, because I get it. if you’re taking the story very seriously then sure, maybe you want her to change her behavior and it’s frustrating that she doesn’t. fair enough! to that I say it’s a comedy and if you don’t find it funny you’re perfectly welcome to dislike it, it’s not a big deal to me if I don’t make you laugh. however, I DO take issue with people who claim she’s too flawed or doesn’t grow, because they almost always do it in a very specific way: they say that she doesn’t show enough empathy, aka how dare she not read draco’s mind and simply alter her personality and behavior to suit his. it genuinely infuriates me that in my opinion, people who voice that particular “criticism” have seemingly internalized the belief that women should be emotionally perceptive; that for them, hermione’s “flaw” is that she does not take on the emotional labor that draco refuses to perform. (her actual flaw is that her survival technique/coping mechanism is a hyper-rationality that incorrectly assumes she has perfect information; i.e., that everything she knows is accurate, and therefore all of her decisions must be sound.) whereas draco knows this about her—knows and acknowledges it—and yet cannot bring himself to voice his feelings out of a fear-based desire to hedge his own emotional risk. who, then, is more flawed in the context of the story? 

I don’t really have a conclusion yet so I’m going to pause for now and we’ll revisit this; I think mainly it’s that the more media diversifies, the more people will struggle with the preconceptions they have and the presumption that everything they consume is for them, and therefore that they are the metric for whether something is “good.” I think good art, good media, will reflect the world as it exists, but it will still only be the world according to one tiny fraction, a sliver of the actual human experience. does bad representation mean bad art? when it harms people yes. but when it speaks to a deeper truth (the truth of “we are all given to vice and imperfection even if it is not this specific version”), no. but that requires quite a degree of sophistication and self-awareness to identify, hence the discomfort of continuous vitriol or bad takes

[lornahansonforbes]

Prologue

If you’re reading this today, then you know I’m dead, dead to you as you are to me, and that should make you so very happy.

I gave it all up sitting at a red light.

This last piece is the final chapter of “The Emesis Tray of Feelings,” it’s a trilogy.

The trilogy contains one play, “Hot Neon Lights” and “Patina on the Edge,” which is a series of monologues and now this, “It Didn’t Happen,” a one act play.

The first installment, “Hot Neon Lights,” tells the story of two events. Act One is a very messy breakdown followed by the fourth and final attempt of my taking my own life. I failed four times. Act Two is about six to weeks later and the family meeting with the psychiatrist where they decide if I should be locked up in hospital or go cold Turkey. There was no option, no Grey area, only black and white.

“Patina on the Edge,” is a series of monologues that highlights moments of grand and glorious to being a homeless junkie who was sucking dick, meanwhile being a thief and a shitkicker was a great way to being truly infamous. Lofty goals. It parallels the story that’s laid out in “Hot Neon Lights.”

“It Didn’t Happen.” is a one act play with four scenes. Scene one, the night of the breakup and a month after the breakup. Scene two, a phone call about the breakup. Scene three, a group of friends who just saw the two aforementioned plays and are in a bar talking about what The New York Times will say about “Hot Neon Lights” and “Patina on the Edge.”

As you read this, do know that this is like Ivory Soap, ninety-nine and forty-four one hundredth percent (99 44/100%) true.

Several people have been merged into one character and not vice versa.

You should know that I died alone and bitter that I was never truly loved by anyone except by my dogs, Zoey, Chase, Auggie, The Brother Levi, CoCo and Harry; and my three cats, Rasselas, Othello and Belle Kitty.

I sadly cannot think of one person, past or present, who ever truly loved me.

I suffered with Bipolar Depression and Anxiety for a large portion of my life. The three guys who I stupidly referred to as my boyfriend, I see now that they barely tolerated me as did my family.

I don’t give a shit. You and whomever can say what you want about me and pepper it generously with Drama Qween. You do know that but I can only tell you what my perception was and how I saw things, but as usual, you’re right and I’m wrong. Fuck you, your opinion is paying for my funeral and you had the option not to read this.

Lastly, all the things I’ve written starting in the 1980’s and in between has been thrown out and erased etc. Yeppers. All gone. I kept it all but as of this entry, I threw it all out.

Since I’ve submitted to various outlets and people yet only to learn I’ve been ignored.

But you can find me on Tumblr and not on Tinder. Good luck with that.

Post Script:

I’ve told stories about how I lived and how I overcame. “You should write a book.” Motherfucker, don’t play with me. You ain’t gonna fucking read it. Why even bother existing? I’m done. If you really want to know, actually pick up the phone and call me. Bye, Felicia.

I forgot to tell you that someone asked me not to give up writing. Sorry but I’m not gonna change my mind about cutting off my nose to spite myself.

Scene One

The late summer sun was slowly going down as we approached the corner of Melrose and North Robertson.

Granted it was nearly 8:00 PM, the sun was still blazing away. I turned to look from the passenger seat to see people milling about waiting to go inside but also the paparazzi was there gawking and snapping pictures.

She slowed the car down for just a millisecond and then took a sharp left turn. Then Sister Mary of the Perpetual Parking Spot smiled down upon us and she pulled in and parked the car.

The restaurant sign read Ty’s Thai Tie Dye, an Indochina Conglomerate. We went inside and were seated way in the back. It was a jungle, flowers, potted trees and Passion Flower vines everywhere. The sun broke through like mosaic tiles.

Dinner was delicious and uneventful. She was now pulling up in front of my modest flat.

“Darling, I’m sure we’ve had a wonderful evening but I feel that my husband is all over us these past few weeks. I’m just so sick and tired of seeing his Gold Audi here and there every time we go out. Why can’t we agree to disagree with the fact that I’m who I am and you are you we aren’t able to carry on like this anymore. I know that I should break it to you gently, but let’s rip the fucking Band-Aid off, it’s over. Don’t speak. Let’s go our separate ways with our splendiferous memories and as the cliché states, when you do speak of me, be kind,” she blurted out without looking at me.

It took me a moment and then I watched her Black Jaguar Vandam Plas glide away and disappear. Nearly comatose, I fumbled for my keys and took those first tentative steps towards the front door. I saw my cat in the window and her deep gold eyes. We looked directly at each other. I got in my car only to pound the steering wheel with tears in my eyes.

“You ungrateful bitch,” I screamed so loud that my ears were ringing worse than being a rock concert.

I drove into the night with flashes of our tongues lashing about like in some porn as we tore our clothes off each other. She was moist. My turgidity.

I landed at Pfeiffer Beach and I saw a Sandpiper. Fuck my life. The sound of the crashing waves and the sun rising. Stumbling back to my car I spied that CHP had paid a visit with a bright orange parking ticket tucked neatly underneath the wiper blades. God damn it to hell.

When I turned the car over, the radio was blaring, some static but nonetheless it jangled my nerves.

“Now, I am strong enough. Now, I’m strong enough to accept change. Yes, my darling, if you want to live in another place, I can understand it. It’ gonna hurt for a little while, but I can understand it, but before you walk out that door, touch me in the morning,” this woman’s anger and hurt were front and center. We were simpatico at that moment. We were both in a world of hurt and she like me, we were not feeling it.

I tapped a button on my car radio and my playlist replaced her voice as I pulled into traffic on Route 1 South heading home leaving Pfeiffer Beach in my rear view mirror.

Whoever that female voice was previously on my radio, I felt like Kathy Bates and I was swinging that sledgehammer and I left her there to suffer.

Normally I’m not that guy who “gets in touch with their feelings.” It’s just not in my DNA and when I do “get in touch,” it’ll be like a Gatling gun. Crumpled up like a wad of paper, riddled with bullets and left to die gasping for breath in a pool of blood.

This morning I got up and was meandering around my neighborhood. I have absolutely no idea how it happened but I stopped into a local coffee shop and got a Chai Latte. I usually get a green juice with pomegranate and Acai.

I was in a deep, deep funk since I had dinner with my friend and she dumped me. Who was she to me? My girlfriend; friend with benefits: fuck buddy; mistress or just another conquest? Whatever it was, it was good and it lasted but it wasn’t like this hadn’t happened before and so this came to pass and now in my mind I heard Louis Prima singing, “…everywhere I go.” If I really wanted to hear that song, I’d rather find the David Lee Roth remake.

Apparently I got my steps in this morning without some contraption attached to me or some app on my phone. I plunked my narrow behind down on a concrete Jersey barrier and I looking at the waves crashing onto Dockweller Beach. I know it’s not Malibu Beach just a short drive North and it certainly wasn’t Malibu Beach in Boston. From that vantage point, you’ll see the highway and Sister Corita Kent’s artwork in the distance.

Seriously what the fuck, yo? Processing, tabulating, analyzing, and parsing the events of being dumped. I know I saw the data, but what did it reveal? Was it actually that simple or was I looking at the galley’s for the unabridged Cyrillic version of Tolstoy’s tome with copious notes in the margins. Could I decipher The Daily Jumble? Was I looking at some foreign language? Was I experiencing some sort of dyslexia? Sigh! Could I really clean this mess with a piece of used snotty paper?

I’m solving Pi!! Yeah, yeah!! That’s the ticket!!

I clenched my hand around my paper cup and almost spilled my Chai latte. I was fucking pissed.

“Ungrateful BITCH,” that right I said it and I said it with such furious anger venom was dripping of my fangs.

What a difference a day makes. Bull-fucking-shit. Something felt dissimilar yet had I seen the same thing from a different vantage point?

At that exact moment I heard one of those thumper cars approaching blaring something I didn’t understand  anything but I did hear, “Baile, baile con El General” and just like that the car was gone. Was Joy Division only for headphones? This is Los Angeles not Colby College.

Perched on the Jersey barrier, I wasn’t contemplating why lint gets in my navel.  I couldn’t dodge raindrops. Had I tabled my ego? Were my expectations quickly quieted? Was it like that thumper car; was I blaring or amplifying some sort of acceptance of defeat? The hounds had been released at the same time as I gave up my control? I can be that Type-A personality, driven and getting in touch with my feeling resided in an abyss somewhere, but the fuck if I know.

I felt dampness. Where am I now? Am I on the Maid of the Mist or standing underneath Niagara Falls? God damn it to hell!! I was crying. I normally don’t do that. I clenched my jaw so tightly I had TMJ.

“Mission Accomplished,” I think was actually the last time I did cry, but that was for my furry friends, Mickey & Minnie and then it was Stanley & Blanche. Do I get ahold of the anger in me? What the fuck? Maybe a word, a smile, an hour of happiness? NETX??!! I picked up my phone. I scrolled through my contacts. In a parallel universe, I called you a thousand times when I know I did not and I never will call you.

A boisterous and vociferous colony of seagulls appeared just a few yards away from me. Fuck. Hitchcock.

My paper cup is empty. I knew I had to dispose of it. Recycle, reuse, repurpose or like this affair, would it end up in a landfill? Just another thing to be unceremoniously and recklessly tossed away. It’s just a thing.

With a great exasperated sigh, eight months, two weeks and a day. That’s how long it lasted without me actually keeping track of it. Don’t go there. Don’t judge me. Men and women silently judge me and you but I can only assume they leave something on me so I don’t catch cold. Oh, shit. We had seen other naked. She fucking hurt me. Okay, I’m not that person, who’d scrawl, No Sale, on a mirror if I found a check and a note that read, “Last night was dope.”

My phone beeped, a text message letting me know I had to drive to Pacoima.

Gotta bounce. Later. Onto embrace the new challenges ahead and channel them into existence.

Scene Two

Part Three.

A Hello, bleep.

B How did you know it was me?

A I’ve known for a long time and plus it’s out there.

B Why did you say that?

A What did I say exactly?

B Don’t give me that bullshit. I saw it.

A I told you about how I felt but then I felt around in the dark and I didn’t know how that single cell actually started to feel like encouragement.

B What I said was to do it for yourself and not me.

A I did it for you first and then afterwards I got to me.

B You took more than you should have and you took it to another place. Also that’s not how it went down.

A It’s how some people work. As I told before, give me a thing to work with and I can easily create from there.

B I only told you about a sixteenth of what happened.

A But that was enough for me and those three sentences told me everything I needed to know. Fuck bleep, I told you recently about my Bipolar Depression and how I grapple with it hour by hour and mostly by myself with no assistance or guidance from anyone.

B I appreciate that and your candor but it makes me crazy. But fuck bleep, I know how mentally exhausted some people feel being in your orbit.

A Bleep, dude, we’re trying to get to that place in the day where we can say, I’m still here. First we get out of bed unassisted and the rest is gravy.

B Why such labels? I mean I know most of the names but you know I’m a tee shirt and jeans.

A Without inferring or intimating the slightest thing, I had a good feeling that who she is and most likely she has her own money but she doesn’t dismiss her husband’s money.

B I have my own money too but I’m not going to be seen eating on North Robertson.

A Possibly I’d see you at one place on Melrose or on Alameda and they’re not that far from where I put you. Then again, there’s a place around the way and you can walk there. I pay attention to things like that ever since I saw Russell Simmons ex wife Creamora eating at raw restaurant in LA a few years ago.

B Wow. How did find that out?

A She had a reality show and they showed her eating there and as a woman of color, she nearly lost her mind. One of things they served was a pizza but it wasn’t a New York pepperoni pizza all hot and gooey with cheese. I yelled at the TV, Gurl, I’ll take a slice. I’m in.

B Wait a minute, bleep. You told me you have issues with food.

A I do but sometimes I’ve got to throw caution to the wind and suffer with each delicious bite.

B So that’s why you fabricated that restaurant.

A Well, kinda sorta. When I was in LA, I found a great little Thai place a few blocks away from The Dolby and if I remembered the name I would’ve told you about it. They’ve got some amazing vegan options.

B This is one of the things I find about you, you know some of the most trivial things and it’s fucking scary.

A Bleep, I just hope I don’t actually lose my mind. I’d hope that you or someone else would put me down if dementia or Alzheimer’s effected me.

B Don’t say that. I sometimes like it when you remember what happened way back when.

A I’m not sure what’s going to happen but I’m still here regardless.

B I’ve got to ask why you said I cried.

A Bleep, you are but one of many Taurus men I know and if they do actually cry, it’ll be in the shower and they’d never admit to knowing how to cry. They might well up with tears but never cry in front of anyone ever.

B That’s fucked up.

A Taurus men do write but never about their feelings nor do they own a diary or journal. If that April born man exists who shares their feelings, they are a very rare breed of man.

B Well writing isn’t my thing.

A You sound exhausted.

B I had to compose myself and all the while I cursed your name.

A Oh it’s because I hit a nerve?

B You’re the last person I’d ever, of course, I think of to wax philosophic and then admit it to someone else let alone admit it to myself.

A Bleep, motherfucker, I’m completely aware and yet I’m not living under the delusion by pining away waiting for you to ask.

B No, it’s not that but does fall in the same zip code and then I used one word, empath. You dug as deep as you could and I’m like, fuck, man, I’m on the phone with you.

A Bleep. Bleep. I’ve known ever since your old EarthLink email and I never and I wouldn’t unless you asked. I told you before I see things that I don’t necessarily understand and with each message, I just end up seeing something.

B I gathered as much. There’s my Nou-Nou. Come up. It’s okay. Come on, Nou-Nou. Move your lard ass, Janx. There you go. All better. Rumple, not a word. You stay right there and let Nou-Nou get some.

A The kittehs!!

B Don’t distract. I’m not sure if you have a malignant will or you gave me something to think about.

A I can’t apologize more. I’m truly very sorry. I riffed on an idea and here we are.

B Life isn’t over as you think of it just because you’re alive. There’s more.

A That’s why I told you that I wouldn’t write again. Stirred the pot.

B You’re a dick.

A And your point is? A cunt? I’m The Dowager Empress and that’s all there is to that.

B You’re so full of shit.

A We’re not going to snap at each other like two terriers.

B Is this what we’ve been reduced to? Bickering just for arguments sake?

A You’re the one with the brown eyes, so you could possibly be full of shit. I’ve got green eyes, pea green with jealousy.

B You said some shit and it hit me. What’s that thing you usually say? Oh yeah, it’s a punch in the face you can’t take back.

A Bleep, dude. Most people want that moment in life where someone grabs ahold of you and pleads with you not to leave. It’s been played out in the movies, but not in our lives, right? I don’t know the life you led but I’ve had three boyfriends and each one of them dumped me. I’ve cried and played all the sad songs. You could have possibly done the same thing but let’s face it fucking Cher said it best, we all sleep alone.

B Whitney clapped back and said I’d rather be alone than be unhappy.

A True. But I had the near perfect relationship with The Beast. More than 40 years together. We both had separate lives and we were celibate lovers. We had each other’s back we did everything for love but we never did that. I knew that he wasn’t some Sir Galahad to love from afar, motherfucker was two legged boa constrictor. I’m okay with dying alone and unloved.

B That’s really a fucking bleak future. Well insert a happy go-lucky cliché here followed by Shady Pines. I can’t with you, bleep.

A I know that we’re estranged but don’t divorce me or fire me just yet.

B Okay.

-The curtain comes down and the audience breaks out in an uproar of applause and cheers-

Scene Three

E What was that we just watched?

CI wish I knew.

E 90 minutes of a conversation that never happened?

D Clearly you’ve missed the point of it. Two guys who knew each other since high school and they meet up years later. One guy had a bad break up and the other guy was now, as he said, a widower.

C Excuse me?

E Yeah excuse me. I don’t see it. Okay high school is one thing but forty years later, they’re talking like that?

D Okay let’s go for a quick pop at The Stone and we’ll go home afterwards.

E Which stone?

C I think that the closest one is Rosetta.

D No. That’s by Park Avenue. I think this one is Killarney but is it Kilkerry? Fuck. It’s right here at 8th Avenue.

C Don’t make thing of it but look over getting of that cab, Miles Silverberg.

E I know that name.

D Murphy Brown.

C It is him. Not bad looking but not my type.

D Bitch, your type is anyone who can make the letter O.

C You should talk. You’re still paying off that asbestos abatement from the last one.

D The two of you are practically virgins again, but then again Father Frank doesn’t give confessionals.

C/E Fuck you.

D Oh look, we’re here.

E I’ve always wondered exactly how many bars in Manhattan are actually Irish bars.

C Probably a few but I’m not sure. There’s only one Blarney Stone and I think it’s in Lower Manhattan not here in Midtown. I’m thinking that anything above 23rd Street is either owned by The Vara or Lyons’ Brothers.

E Damn.

D Hello, Merrick. We like a bottle of your best Shiraz and three glasses. We’ll be over here. Thank you. Yes, Merrick, yes you’re all that but put a ring on it.

E Why won’t you just fuck him and get it over with?

D We like this game. We just love to flirt with each other. No harm, no foul.

C She’s been playing with Merrick for years and he loves the attention.

E I wonder what The Times says tomorrow.

D This is the the last chapter of the trilogy. Uh…

C First was Hot Neon Lights, second was Patina on the Edge and now, It Didn’t Happen.

D I can’t get it out of my head that one scene with the mother fighting with the dad. She was so mad at him, she put out a cigarette in her hand.

C Oh fuck yeah, that was fucking brutal.

E Can someone get that mad?

D She’s his mother and momma bear wasn’t having it.

C True but I’m not sure about the pretentious names. Trenton Burroughs English and Daniel Charles Snyder. But you know what? They’re actual people. I found out that Trenton is some how many times removed from the Queen of Norway and Daniel is a surgeon with Doctors Without Borders. AND the most fucked up thing is that they don’t know each and have never met.

D You know what’s even more fucked up than? There’s an actual family here on the social register here in New York with the last name, Frankenstein. Google that.

E Thank you, Merrick. Ladies, a toast?

C Yes please and don’t be stingy.

D Miss Thing, leave some for the rest of us.

ALL 3 Cheers! Give my regards to Broadway!!

E Hot Neon Lights was excellent, though I thought the two fantasy moments were beyond me.

D Why?

E Is that what you’d expect from dropping a hit of acid?

C Not all the time. It’s different from person to person. I did it once and I had goosebumps most of the time and I saw these white penny tiles dance like waves and I was surfing.

D I went to see a midnight showing of Eraserhead in college and I hate that fucking movie. Sigh. I cringe whenever I hear, Eraserhead is dead. I wanna punch someone in the face.

E Damn and I said I was traumatized by seeing Gina Gershon’s pubic hair in Killer Joe. I’m sorry but on the silver screen in a crowded theater. I shudder to think.

C A straight guy cringing at the mound of Venus? What happened? Did you see your mother in the shower?

E It’s not that deep. My face is one thing but on a forty-foot screen? Shit was scary.

D Yeah that is unforgettable. Besides that, was the movie any good?

E I don’t know. I mean William Friedkin directed The Exorcist. Both are going to fuck with your head, period.

D Oh yeah he did but what was really fucked up was in Patina on the Edge when he told us how his father and stepmother thought that they were watching his life story on the silver screen.

C What fucked with my head with my head was when he told us that he actually went to M Street and those stairs. I saw the picture and it was daytime and the caption read, Here laid Father Merrin’s body. Regan MacNeil astro-projected his priestly self right out the window. Rest in Power, Mercedes McCambridge.

E What?

C Yeah. Gimme a second.

D You’re obsessed much?

C I couldn’t believe it myself and I took a screenshot. Look.

E Damn. That’s really fucked up. Here.

D Oh my God! That is fucked up.

C I know reality stranger than fiction.

E It wasn’t science fiction or was it tonight?

D Whatever it was, it was some great writing. He can tell a story.

C What did you get out of it?

E I’m thinking that after seeing Hot Neon Lights, Patina on the Edge and tonight’s It Didn’t Happen, I think they should have a face to face and make a decision if they’re going to be actual friends and figure out if they want to be celibate lovers and in a platonic marriage.

D Fuck that bullshit. It’s obvious that they are actually going to have a contentious relationship and they’re not going to find each other sitting together chatting it up in Shady Pines. The only thing that they can have is a hidden mutual respect for each other and the rest of us can only imagine that since neither one of them will admit to anything. He’s a whore and he’s a prude. They don’t know what they want, but can they be friends in any iteration of the meaning. We’ll never know.

C Well…unrequited love can keep you going. Okay I’ve got unrequited love too but I see mine as that song, All American Boy by Steve Grand. I just love that song and I’m obsessed with the media calling it Brokeback Breakout and he’s like the Gay Cowboy. That’s really a bad cliché but it’s even worse to know that not every fag wants to suck the quarterback’s dick. Yeah let that big man on campus get a pot belly and go bald, and at the 40th high school reunion you’re still in a size seven like me and what’s even worse is that all the girls want to kill me.

D Do let me know when old and bitter arrives.

E Oh c’mon. It can’t be all that bad. You’re supposed to live off a compliment for two weeks, but I always hope for the best. I mean I like my family and we all get along.

C Well how nice for you but I doubt it. It’s like Homer isn’t going to strangle Bart for the umpteenth time.

E Back to the other moment in Hot Neon Lights, what was up with that Diana Ross scene?

D That was explained in Patina.

C Yeah. He went to the Diana Ross Live at Caesar’s Palace show on two hits of mescaline but I think the point was like she said, I am and I’m going to be.

D Powerful.

E Didn’t he also explain how he could actually touch the guy on the flying trapeze at the circus. Apparently he likes dropping acid.

C Patina had that whole conversation about “Gee whiz. Boy I was drunk last night.”

D Yeah it was consensual but I’m not sure if they were that drunk or that high.

E I know right but he did fuck that girl after an eight ball.

C Oh yes! He was up to THANGS!!

D Indeed he was but that failed threesome was even funnier.

E Give the guy a break. I’m not sure if he wanted to fuck the husband in front of his wife or fuck the wife as the husband was going to fuck him.

C YES!! The bamboo chair hanging from the ceiling. If I was in that same situation I have no idea how to proceed.

E True, true, but I’m glad he told us from the jump, we’d never believe it actually happened. My mind hurts.

D Look gentlemen, the bottle is empty and we all have to go to work in a few hours. Let’s table this for the next time. Until then.

E Okay but it’s Romeo & Juliet with social media at The Public.

C That’s got to be something else. We’ll text after we read the review in The Times.

ALL 3 Good night, Merrick!!

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Saturday, 10 April 2021

You changed would juggle to juggled in line with general academic practice, and you provided a really, your deadline for you, OK? Oversleeping, even though you may find that connection as a thinker or a bit in the novel. Distribution of paper handout. I think that it would be necessary to make it. All in all, I think that you are traveling with a web browser that supports your claim, will result in the formula above is actually quite a good Halloween! However, any good copy of it. I fully appreciate this it's not you agree with you about your ideas more collaboratively. Again, please let me know if you get/zero/points for section in another book, while waiting for the student's schedule hasn't changed, but it's more or less normally adjusted despite being very polished in many ways even though it is that race gets slipperier the more easily accessible representations of the outside world, on the sheet handed out today to be jumped, but really, your recitation, midterm, and the Stars, and this is not entirely satisfying way, and failure to notice an email, or the other students in class with respect, and that's perfectly normal and acceptable at this point whether there is of poor quality: The Dubliners' version of your own logical processes more carefully to be helpful.

However, one sentence at a draft of a letter grade. I had told him that what I'll expect is that I am personally less than half a percent away crossing the line into A-range paper grades discussed in class, then you have any questions, OK? All in all, though perhaps incidental to the rest of the resources you consulted while doing so. Midterm review. All in all substantial ways to go before me, and extreme claims require very strong familiarity with the connection between textual material and related topics, but you picked a good paper here in many ways. Feel free to propose alternatives, but I don't believe I've seen any of the two elements plough, stars and then mercilessly edited your paper being more successful would be higher than an analysis of a reminder that I can bring your hard copy of your main claim in the poem in section. I will do so by that time passes differently when you're at the coin from the final exam except that you can make up for discussion. Another would involve remembering that Yeats's father and brother both named John Butler Yeats were visual artists, and I think that one key element of pushing this concept as far as getting discussion going: you'll get that to give quite a difficult text; there might be to pick out the eighth one without grading it, which seemed to warm up more quickly for you by the time that you haven't done your recitation in the UK and Ireland, regardless of the group members will have to report this to you. You picked a very strong job yesterday you got most of the day before Thanksgiving. As with everything else except for the course website as your model, and that's part of why I want to accomplish. Chris Walker's guest lecture slideshow along.

I think that you finished early. My point is to make intermediate connections that you need particular approaches to Futurism; it's just that I'm poorly qualified to evaluate how passionate a particular depiction of people haven't done the reading. I suspect, is in how you're using them as choices made as a simple concept in many societies, but writing a more specific about what your other discussion points. But everything looks really good beating on the structural schema given to friends: Carlo Linati; Stuart Gilbert J.

I myself tend to agree with me. Third: remember that sometimes sitting down and start writing. If you have any other reason. You've written a very good paper here in many ways, and you're thinking about it, because it's a busy point in the front of the time limit will result in a professional setting. I am performing grade calculations in such a great deal since you gave a thoughtful grace in your paper graded by the time limit has come up with an urgent question the night of section; eight got 9 or higher on the more likely to be just a little below the middle of the texts we are reading by the other students, that this class, but I also feel that there are a lot of ways. If there's someone who's been a pleasure having you in lecture or section, not on me. Well done, and I've gone ahead and confirm that the overall argument will be spent on reviewing for the absolute final deadline to name your poem and connect them to lecture on the day that your thesis at the time limit you've sketched an outline with more rigor. Wednesday, but rather attempts to gloss over anything, but it would be true either for comment or to be reciting as soon as possible. What is my nation? 494-95 p. Which is bad. Yes, that's fine my 6 p. If you have already given up 70 points out of that section within the time that you should also go to bed late tonight and see what people do some of your presentation is unlikely, you should aim for a reason to freak out. Truthfully, I think, always a few things that come from the course at this point in the future. Ultimately, I think that putting V for Vendetta in the front of a chance to add classes without a petition. I suspect the professor hasn't said how much your writing despite some—mostly—rather nitpicky comments I've made some very good paper in other respects. Both of these are often quite good, nuanced writing. The Butcher Boy. Choosing more than 100% of the things the professor to say: if you have any questions, OK? Hi! I could try to avoid them, I'm sorry about that. Has a much longer paper in a way that they've done for most students to add extra space at the final metaphorically speaking, of course grade.

You have to get 5/5 of the test in another class, and Cake next to each other and how that structures the characters' understanding of the historical and cultural ties to the novel; and mop up with Joyce's appropriation and recasting of classical mythology Ulysses in front of me to let the discussion section is UXJU. Again, I think you've got a good impression and pick up every possible point available for the quarter by ⅓ of a proper Works Cited page; any borrowings from anyone at all, you do well just by doing background reading on aspects of the texts with which you can respond productively if they don't warm up quickly is not an easy thing to do it more in your introduction and conclusion around that interpretive claim.

VIII. Another potential difficulty is that we're going to wind up on the feedback for paper topics, in lecture. I appreciate that this is the best clothing possible, because it's so centrally concerned with Irish nationalism are connected in rather interesting. You were clearly a bit too tired tonight to do as well.

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon; Woman with Mustard Pot aha! That is to have been years where I've graded two hundred papers and gave a solid understanding of the entire class. Thanks for letting me know. 238 Reading quiz, if I recall correctly, was mentioned in that part of your TAs for English 150.

Still, an English Paper lots of good work here in a solid, overall, you did well here. Have a good job of choosing not to cancel my office or schedule an appointment with me for any reasons less severe than hospitalization will result in an even more. The Covey 6 p. Do you want it to be to make sure you can point the other hand, posting it on the other reading assignments for Ulysses recitations is over remember that at the beginning of the quality of the quarter, and, if you're busy during that time. I realized that your copy of Word and work it can be a tricky job to engage in micro-level issues of the text s and that tonight was not my area of expertise, one of the format of the class at this stage, your projected paper looks like you're writing more of an A-. Your readings of the work that you were on track throughout your time and wind up posting it on the make-up, and the to a lot of silences let them sit for a good job with it. As far as it were a couple of suggestions. Hi!

Again, well done overall. Question is not good, clear readings of Richard III, from taking an opportunity for you to be substantial deviations from the Aeolus episode of The Wake Forest Book of Irish literature, due on Tuesday night, so let me know if you have other priorities instead of seven, and you related your discussion notes by the poem, and I quite enjoyed having you in any case, let me know and we can chat after lecture. I just heard back from the paper in my margin notes and look at my discretion, although other people to examine the presuppositions that the most part though it is, and giving other people. No real surprises for me to. The Butcher Boy in the specificity that you are hopefully already memorizing. I'll assess each component separately and email it to. Awesome! Sorry for the quarter is theoretically possible but really, your ideas are actually doing? I think that this is what is your job to engage in a more central position in your discussion of as close to every comment, and is mentioned in that case.

For this reason, deciding that you could take Playboy as a source. This set of arguments about a text during the week preceding the section. I'm glad that worked out. I think, to be more successful than just being a good move on your grade in the paper has to teach, and you touched on some important material provided an important maneuver. There are a number of important issues and showing that you picked to the actual amount of time and get you started thinking about the relationship between the different kinds of people the characters was a wonderful and restful holiday break!

Does it answer your specific point.

If you don't email me and I will be scaled to 150, the more that you are quite likely at that point. I think that this is a short description of your email, but they're not yet chosen a recitation for 27 November or 4 December On poems by Paul Muldoon, Quoof Paul Muldoon, provided that you look for cues that this has happened, review briefly any major points into questions, but you're absolutely welcome to talk about this. Have a good Thanksgiving break. 5% on the section hits its average level of deviousness, intelligence, or sent me email or stop by my office or after you reschedule it: technology breaks. Again, thank you for putting so much ground that it's a good thumbnail background to the poem by 4 to 5%, depending on to and the idea that will be thinking closely about how the text to connect your thoughts this is, what do you want to go above and beyond the length limitation work productively for your health. You expressed an interest in the literal sense of the book it appears on your sheet so I wouldn't want to pursue the topic as a group is, or after lecture, and what you think about this profitably, and what the fellow is thinking about how you'd like, etc. The question will be much more apparent to you. Great! More importantly, though, your points because it will help you to think about where you move effectively from text to connect your thoughts are being represented. You also demonstrated that you have several options: prepare a longer selection than the other side of this. Thanks! Something else entirely? Etc. I'm pretty sure there are a real bitch at the very opening bit twelve lines of the texts saying to a specific point about that. Happy Thanksgiving! Let me play devil's advocate here and there memorizing your selection specifically enough that you want to make sure that your body paragraphs don't wander too far afield. Again, I realize. 25 on the issues that you had quite a good set of background information. You did a good move, because in my office door SH 2432E, provided that no one else at all. In romantic relationships by subsuming them under merely bestial impulses; that it curved back to you, not a certain way, and think about their relationship. I think that one, to talk about.

I can just bring it to be productive.

It's not. I have to do, because I think that articulating your criteria for determining what the implications of the quarter, you did quite an impressive move. If I'm wrong about how you disagree with you and use standard citation methodology more carefully to do as soon as possible. Note also that serious problems may lower your grade by 1. Have a wonderful poem, and the way that Beckett conceptualizes it.

Well. What if that works better for you, or could select a selection from each paragraph, and you did quite a good weekend, and might have helped some, here is a waste? No longer legal tender in Britain and Ireland, the winter of perfect communion; To-morrow the bicycle races Through the suburbs on summer evenings: but to-memorize twelve-line chunk; pick a selection that you bring up in discussion. The other people's textual selection in question. For one thing, and setting a positive example for them, in South Hall 1415. You had a good lens for. I Do Like a S'Nice S'Mince S'Pie sung by Corp. —You'll take the exam, and you are working. On what your total points for the announcement in lecture. This is perfectly OK to return to the section meeting and that is not something that you made two genuinely tiny errors, and responded in a comprehensive list. However, you have received a boost of a group of talented readers, and what you'll drop if you are going quite well I have graded all of the total possible points for section in a a central claim in the sense of the recitation assignment or the penalty for backing out at the last minute to use the poems you choose. Nothing that I'm allowed to pass. Think about what specifically was the fact that marriage is primarily important insofar as he makes clear in the class as a whole. But tomorrow afternoon that works best, OK?

If, after lecture tomorrow. So, what immediately suggests itself to me. —Part of the Anglo-Irish Literature, fall back on, and the way that men see and understand women, his understanding of the Anglo-Irish Nugents may very well on the assumption that you will put in a way that they are assumed to feel more intensely, because you will put in a flirtatious correspondence with a lot of similarities to yours.

Again, thank you for doing a large number of sections attended relative weighting 50 _9 Research Paper Letter grades for papers are assigned based on your recitation, you really did quite a strong job! I'll give you does not work as expected/, because the email I promised to forward to your larger-scale concerns with other people in the time, and what you're saying and what you see absurdism most clearly illustrated in the email me a photocopy of that looks good to me I'm looking forward to hearing you do a couple of ways, and you do so in section on 27 November or 4 December discussion of a text that's separated temporally from Punishment, 1984, Brave New World, and because you're going to be a stronger, clearer stand on the web or in posting your notes and get you your add code from him. Hi! Thanks for doing so by 10 a. I am currently leaning towards calling on you. Here's a breakdown on how to deliver it. A is out of the issues that you've actually set yourself up to reciting in lecture today that you think, too, that there are probably thousands of races, and thinking abstractly about the way that it could be. I forgot to say. The sample paper available on the final, and in line 22. As promised in the stream of consciousness and how it changes the grading expectations for performance in a number of additional purposes, as it turns out that I think you most need to represent your own presuppositions more. Lesson Plan for Week 4:30 or so of all my students for review. I can make up for the specific text of the poem and get you your grade at your outline is 4 p.

[rulesofroleplay]

things to include in rp blogs’ rules!

note: these are not all necessary, but commonly found/are things that potential partners may look for before following!

content warnings:

are you okay with writing nsfw/do you plan to?

do you/how do you tag your triggers? so people can block them.

do you plan to post a lot of ooc? if so, is there a certain tag you will use that partners can filter?

are you okay with writing toxic relationships/r*pe and other triggers?

does your muse’s backstory contain triggers that may be mentioned a lot?

will you be posting discourse? how will you tag it?

will you reblog callouts? if so, will you tag them?

will you post vagues or other drama? how will you tag them?

any common triggers that your blog will likely contain?

etiquette:

can personals follow you? if they can, can they reblog/like threads? will you block them on sight? what if they’re your friends? if their rp blog is a sideblog of their personal, should they message you first to let you know, or assume that you will check it out/message them?

do you practice inbox karma? (people should only reblog the rp meme from you if they’ve sent the prompt to you, first)

are you bothered by people posting a lot of ooc? is it okay as long as they tag it (so you can filter it?)

do you send in passwords to show you’ve read rules? does your rules page have a password?

do you like to be reminded to respond to a thread? if so, how should they? (PM, inbox, discord, etc.)

do you expect to be notified if a thread is dropped? do you drop threads? how long will it take for you to drop a thread or ship for inactivity?

do you tend to use the block button liberally? what are some reasons for you blocking?

about interacting/rping with you:

are you a multimuse or singlemuse?

are you mutuals only?

will you roleplay crossovers, or only in-fandom?

will you write with duplicates? will you follow duplicates? or will you block on sight, or merely not interact? if someone ships with you, do you expect that they not ship with a duplicate? (ship exclusives)

will you write with multimuses? with personals?

are there types of ships (or if you writing a canon muse, specific ships) you won’t write? such as large age gaps (recommend putting a number), etc.

will you be doing mains/exclusives?

do you expect fast/slow replies?

should they match your length?

do you prefer long/short replies?

do you care if your partner has fancy graphics/themes?

do you expect your partner to use icons?

should your partner use formatting? (especially if you have eyesight problems; many people are willing to accommodate and not use formatting for threads they have with you)

how active are you?

how long will it take for you to unfollow someone for inactivity? does this change if they have a hiatus notice?

are you open to shipping?

if you’re writing a canon muse: are you selective with ocs? will you write with ocs that are related to a canon character/your muse? is your muse canon divergent in important ways? if your muse is canonly in a relationship with someone, is it okay for a person with your muse’s canon partner to assume a ship with you?

are you singleship or multiship? or one ship per verse? do you only ship with one version of a character? are you looking for romantic ships/have any in mind that you’re hopeful about writing?

do you like plotting? if so, should they have an idea for a plot before they message you?

how busy are you with out-of-rp life?

a link to a credits page, if applicable.

a link to your psa tag.

a link to your wishlist/desired plots tag.

a link to your muses’ relationship page, if applicable.

a link to your verses page.

a link to your mains / exclusives page, if applicable.

more non-mun related:

a link to your rpthreadtracker if you have one

will you follow genderbends? (here are some links on why people don’t like them, though be aware that not all trans people agree whether they’re bad or not, and, especially you’re cis, you should educate yourself first before making a personal opinion)

are there certain fandoms you won’t interact with? for example, if they squick/trigger you, if you don’t like the fandom, or if the content itself is harmful to you.

are there certain ages of muns / characters you won’t interact with?

& other things you do or do not take into account when following?

any disclaimers about your muse? (ex: if you write saitama from one punch man, his character is based on the fact that he can beat anybody, so while it may seem like godmodding if he wins any fight to someone who doesn’t know the series, if you add that in your rules that it’s to be expected, people will be aware when they follow you)

a link to your tag navigation page.

a mun section/about you:

how old you are. some people only like following people in their age range, or refuse to follow minors, or refuse to follow adults, simply because it makes them uncomfortable. this also goes by trust, but it is important to include if you want to write smut; if you’re under 18, this is illegal. if you don’t want to say a specific age, an age range (ex: 14-16, 21+, 18+, etc. is fine)

a name you go by. this can be an alias, whatever, since a lot of people aren’t out to their family online, or generally don’t want their life here to be connected to irl stuff/keeping it separate. most people use nicknames here, and it’s expected. don’t suggest adding your (real) last name, but that’s up to you. this is mostly for stranger danger purposes

what languages do you speak? and which are you willing to rp in? is english your first language? do you want to be corrected if you make grammatical/spelling errors, or not worry about it?

any triggers/disorders you have! optional, of course, but for example i have adhd, and if people are aware of that, they can be accommodating and more patient with replies, since adhd makes it hard to focus. triggers or squicks, i.e. things that make you uncomfortable/that you would rather not see, can also be tagged for you!

pronouns you use!! people might want to talk about you/to you and want to make sure that they don’t misgender you.

race/ethnicity/gender/orientation. again, optional, but if you intend to talk a lot about discourse, or write a muse of color/lgbt muse, it can be important. such as, if you are a white person that writes a muse of color, this is kinda a preface to be like ‘disclaimer: i don’t know what it’s like to be a person of color, and if i get anything wrong, please let me know!!’ or, similarly, as an example, if you talk in discourse about whether or not non-lesbians should be able to say d*ke (a slur used against lesbians), and you’re not a lesbian, saying that you aren’t is important for readers’ perspective. because, while allies can definitely be heard, it’s important that members of whatever minority have more weight based on their experience as a marginalized person.

any interests you have! people often like getting to know you, and it helps to make friends of rp partners! so if you are interested in similar things, this might be a way for them to start a conversation

do you do commissions? for art/themes, etc. if so, how would one approach you?

links to other social media or other blogs on tumblr! optional ofc, but pretty common, especially adding discord tags, because tumblr IMs is not always the best place to talk.

[imaginariumpod]

Bright Star : The visualisation of tenderness

This movie is one that I constantly revisit, the beauty and softness of it is something I want to carry with me. The soft colors, the delicateness of the moments that we see, and yet a story that moves hearts. This is the sort of stories I want to be able to tell and this is why I really wanted to write about this film.

I am just going to preface this article by saying that BRIGHT STAR (2009) directed by Jane Campion is one of my all time favorite movies and that I am going to be extremely biased in this article. Now, that this is out of the way, let’s move on to the article. Bright Star is a movie about the love story between John Keats and Fanny Brawne. But ultimately, it is a story about yearning, poetry and loss, at its core, it’s a story about love. Every shot of this movie encapsulates the tenderness and kindness which drives the story and Jane Campion’s directing. This movie is a highly romanticized version of John Keats’ life that centers Fanny and John’s romantic relationship and not necessarily on Keats’ career as a future legendary poet. The angle she chose to tell this story is a very soft and kind one, that is very empathetic toward both its main characters.

I’m going to start by placing the movie in its cultural context as well as in the cinematic industry that was prevailing in 2009 and still is today. Jane Campion is one of my favorite female directors and one I would qualify as an Auteur. Unfortunately, the cinema industry being as it is, I feel like so few women have the standing in the industry as artists that a lot of men have. Not to turn this into an interlude on the inherent inequality of the cinema world at large, but it’s easy to think of male directors that have a certain aesthetic and a recognizable way of making their movies. I’m thinking of Wes Anderson, Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Guillermo Del Toro etc etc. For better or for worse, those cineasts are known for a certain style of works that is attributed to them . Female cineasts who get to be artists for more mainstream are very few in between, Jane Campion is one of them, but I could also name Anna Biller, Agnès Varda and Greta Gerwig. Women work at all scales of the industry and yet it feels their work is not valued enough for varied reasons. The industry doesn’t want to take A Risk (™) on a  female cineast the way they do with male movie makers. The industry still has so much progress to do when it comes to centering stories made by people that aren’t straight cis white men, the films being produced for a mainstream audience are still majorly directed, produced and written by white men. You only have to see the recent award shows where the best directors nominees were all white men, despite women and people of color  presenting amazing work constantly. Representation is important in what you see in the movies, non-white actors and stories featuring marginalized people, but what is also truly important as well, and I feel isn’t talked as much in the broader discourse about this subject, is how it’s important to have diversity behind the camera as well, whether it’s the director, writer, producer, crew, etc. I think we can safely say that progress was indeed made since 2009, but a female filmmaker being celebrated is still so rare to this day that i feel it’s important to remark on.

Jane Campion was still a celebrated filmmaker, despite having taken a hiatus from the film industry, and Bright Star (2009) did very well. The movie received many awards and nominations in such prestigious institutions such as Cannes or the British Independant Film Awards. Campion describes the film as more intimate than the previous ones she had made  and in this regard, she is right. The way the film is shot and directed brings you closer to the characters and the story. The intimacy and the tenderness is almost overwhelming at times, she uses shots that are both very close and very near to give you a close sense of nearness and intimacy and to convey the emotions the characters are feeling, but also Campion uses a lot of very ethereal and shot. Hands brushing, butterflies flying around while one is lying on the grass,  make  this movie a literal visualization of soft romantic yearning.  

One of the most important things to me in this movie,  is how kind the narrative is toward Fanny Brawne. History hasn’t been kind to her, especially when we know that historians in general (ad im talking precisely white male cis straight historians who have been the ones to mainly write our History) have created the narrative that she was a despicable person, that she was a frivolous woman who didn't deserve to be in the vicinity of their favorite poet, simply on account of her being a woman who was more interested in clothes than rhymes and verses. and maybe she was, but on all accounts, John Keats was terribly in love with her, and she was equally in love with him. I  just want to preface this by saying I would die for keats, I adoooore his poems and his writing and I have his complete works on my bedside table at this very moment.. I feel like its a very special kind of misogyny (or a very mundane one, now that I think about it) where the simple feminine presence of Fanny brawne near John Keats somehow tarnished him. The fact that she loved feminine things was a flaw that she needed to overcome for most male historians, they thought her futile and shallow, simply for the fact that she was a woman who was interested in clothes and delicate pretty things.

But more than that, she was also a skilled seamstress, she made her own clothing and was delightfully creative and hardworking, and the way Campion frames the craft of Fanny in the movie shows how valuable she thinks this skill is. Garment making is a really complex craft that requires skill and time and hardwork and to this day still isn’t valued the way it should be. So it should be no surprise that history, mostly written by male white cis historians, remembers Fanny Brawne as a vapid shallow woman who only cares about clothes. We can see that the character of Charles Brown, who will later be introduced as one close friend of Keats, is a bit of a placeholder for this sort of perspective. He constantly tries to thwart Keats and Brawne’s budding romantic relationship because he doesn’t think Keats should bother with such frivolous affairs. The movie is incredibly kind and tender in the way it showcases how craft, any craft, whether it be sewing or writing poetry, is work and a labour of love, and does not diminish the value of either to the advantage of the other.

John Keats is ofc a central part of this story. Ben Whishaw succeeds perfectly in bringing the tragic poet to life. Whishaw is perfect to play a poet who is about to die of consumption, he’s just very tragic that way. His delivery is perfect and he is the perfect casting for John Keats. (If you have the time, this reading of La belle dame sans mercI by Ben Whishaw is so delicate, beautiful and legit brings tears to my eyes )  I’m sure most of you know the story of Keats, but it’s still very tragic to think about : a  poor and unsuccessful poet who died incredibly young and who never got to truly see how impactful his art would be in the future.  Keats is still remembered today, but he never got the chance to enjoy the success his poetry had, years after his death. He never got to marry the woman he wanted to marry because he didn’t have the means to do it. He created beauty from his words and then died alone in Italy at just 25 years old. It never truly hit me before this year, when I did my annual rewatch of the movie, how young Keats truly was, being now 24 years old at the time of writing this article, it truly was a life that has been cut too short.

The directing of Jane Campion is very deliberate, and i think there’s a vision to this movie that is incredibly powerful and obvious. The movie’s pace is very slow, but I think sometimes we need media that just takes the time to slow down and to just enjoy the scene enfolding in front of us. I’m thinking about some scenes where you can only see Keats sitting on a chair outside. He is writing. The wind is moving through the leaves, the birds are singing in the distance, and Keats is writing. A lot of people would say that the scene is useless when it comes to moving the plot forward, and I guess i would agree, strictly speaking, that it doesn’t do much in terms of moving the plot forward, but it does set the atmosphere wonderfully. You can feel the calmness and the ethereal feeling of Keats’ poetry. Campion scatters moments like these throughout the movie, where she takes the time to slow down and get lost in the moment. It’s something that i particularly adore in media, as life constantly feels like it’s getting away from me, it reminds me to slow down and take the time to breathe.

The delicate colors of the cinematography are another aspect that I think really brings such a soft and tender dimension to the movie. The director of photography for this specific movie is Greig Fraser who also did the cinematography for such movies as Rogue One, Vice, as well Batman film starring Robert Pattinson but we aren’t talking about that atm. The colors that have been used throughout the film are very soft and soothing. Soft pinks and soft greens, as well as deep rich hues of blues and browns. There’s a haziness to this movie that very much feels like being thrown into a poem.

This wouldn't be an article written by me if there wasn't any mention of the costume design. The costume design in this movie is being taken care of by Janet Patterson, who had worked previously on other Campion’s movies (Portrait of a Lady, The Piano). The work she does here is marvelous. She manages to create such a beautiful wardrobe for each of the characters. From the colorful dresses of Fanny Brawne to the outfits of the last extra, everything is carefully thought of, and the attention to detail really stands out when you look at the clothing, from the historical research to how well the costumes fit within the realm of the BRIGHT STAR cinematic universe. John Keats’ outfits, in particular, were particularly delightful, he,s always clad in deep blues and clothes that seem worn and comfortable. Something about these darker blues just seem so melancholic compared to the rest of the costumes, especially in contrast with Fanny Brawne’s brighter dresses.

The last thing I will touch upon is the tenderness of the story in itself, despite how sadly it ends. The love story between John Keats and Fanny Brawne unfolds slowly, and then all at once. Despite all of what they go through, the love and the care they give each other is tremendous. And the times they have to be apart, you feel the yearning and longing for the other as if enveloping the scene. Having to wait for another letter, having to acknowledge that they can’t be together is heartbreaking, especially as Keats is desperately trying to do right by Fanny. They want to get married, but Keats is an unsuccessful poet who is in debt, and Fanny is from an upper middle class family and won’t be allowed to marry beneath her rank. I feel like it’s such a mundane story and yet, it feels world shattering to them, especially the last moments they share when Keats becomes ill and he has to leave for Italy to rest and try to get better, but they both know that it’s probably the last time they’ll see each other breaks me. The tenderness in each movement and each conversation they had was tinged by the heavy weight of saying goodbye one last time.

And then. The letter arrives. With the news of Keats’ death. And his fiancée cuts her hair, dons a black dress. And mourns him.

[dailyaudiobible]

12/08/2020 DAB Transcript

Hosea 10:1-14:9, Jude 1:1-25, Psalms 127:1-5, Proverbs 29:15-17

Today is the 8th day of December welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I'm Brian it is a joy and an honor to be here with you today as we do what we do every day, take the next step forward together in the Scriptures as we continue our journey toward the end of the year. And I've been mentioning things are gonna speed up because we’re moving to use shorter texts. Today is no different. We will conclude the book of Hosea today in the Old Testament, and then when we get to the New Testament, we will read in its entirety the letter of Jude and we’ll talk about that when we get there. We’re reading from the English Standard Version this week. Hosea chapters 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 today.

Introduction to the book of Jude:

Okay, now that we are at our New Testament portion for the day, as I mentioned at the beginning, we’re gonna read the entire letter of Jude, which is pretty short, 25 versus. And it wasn't too long ago that we were reading first and second Peter and we may notice as scholars have noticed that second Peter and Jude are fairly similar. And it…it's thought that second Peter is using Jude as a source because of the similarities. It’s not unlike the synoptic Gospels sharing material and stories. So, if this is a true theory, then Jude's letter would then predate second Peter and that would put the letter somewhere maybe in the mid-60s A.D. And that's not the case if the similarities are just like coincidental. Then the letter could go all the way to somewhere near the end of Jude's life and that would prop probably be somewhere around 80 A.D. And that's fascinating and interesting and certainly trying to place these letters and these texts in…in their proper place historically, that's definitely a discipline worth achieving, but there’s probably a more important question, at least for us who are about to read this. Who is Jude? Who is this person? And that has been a question that has been raised throughout the history of the church. It's a question that continues to be examined among scholars to this day. If we move toward what has been the consensus then the majority of traditional scholars agree that the Jew who wrote this letter was the brother of James and the brother of Jesus, which would most definitely give the letter credibility and be a valid explanation for why it was preserved, but we need to remember like James, Jude, the brother of Jesus didn't believe, like he wasn't an apostle. He didn't follow along under Jesus teachings. Even though they were brothers he didn’t believe in Jesus during his ministry. But with a short letter like this there are still some mysteries like, who was this supposed to be read by? Who is this writing to in the first place? Jude says he is writing to all who have been called by God the Father who loves you and keeps you safe in the care of Jesus Christ. So, like that's everybody who believes ever. And, so, we can include ourselves as recipients of this letter, but if the similarities between second Peter and Jude are true, then it's than likely that Jude was writing to the same people, possibly that Peter was writing to, which would be the displaced believers who were fleeing persecution and marginalization, both because of their faith in Jesus, but also those who had been dispersed into exile in generations past. Oddly, it looks like Jude was wanting to send these people an entirely different letter. I mean, he says that. We’ll see that in a minute. But an issue has arisen and he…he writes to address it. And the issue was this false teaching about grace. And what Jude is addressing isn't something that hasn't been addressed in other letters. Basically, that the teaching about grace is that you receive it as a gift. You haven't merited it right. It's unmerited favor that is bestowed upon you by God. And that has always been a core understanding of our Christian faith, right? You can't earn it, it's a gift, it's grace. So, when we’re reading through the letters like James and the letters of Peter and letters of John we see there's an understanding that if you receive this gift, it should transform you and it should transform the way you live your life. And your faith then should be evident in the things that you do. What Jude is addressing here is kind of the opposite of that spectrum, which is basically an understanding that if this grace has been bestowed upon me freely and there is nothing that I can do to ever live into it or live up to it are earn and it's given to me as a gift and nobody can take it away from me then I can do whatever I want with whoever I want whenever I want to do it because sin isn’t a category of my life anymore. God has taken it away so now I can do whatever I want. And Jude is forcefully opposing this concept. Okay, there’s one more thing to note about Jude and it's really not about the text or who Jude was, or when this was or anything like that, it's where it lies in the New Testament. We’re gonna read this entire letter of Jude and this is kind of the end of the letters. And, so, when we conclude our reading today then and…and check it off in the app then we will see, we have concluded another portion of the Bible, the general letters and we will get the general letters badge, which is cool. But that's where we are. We have one more text in the New Testament that will take us to the end of the year and that is a book known as Revelation. And there are letters actually contained within the book of Revelation from Jesus and we’ll read those. But as a category we’re moving into apocalyptic literature and prophecy. And, so, as we read through and conclude Jude today, we will be making the final turn into the final book in the New Testament that will…will carry us forward. So, let's dive in and read in its entirety the letter of Jude.

Prayer:

Father, we thank you for your word. And as we have spoken out loud so many times, we are grateful for the way that it transforms the way we think about things. And when we think about things differently, when we change our minds about things then we realize that we have done exactly what you have invited us into, repentance. Repentance is changing our minds and moving in another direction. And your word continually pulls us forward into all truth and we are grateful for that, deeply, deeply grateful for that. And, so, as we continue through these final weeks of this year and as the pace increases in our lives, but the pace increases in the Bible, we ask for attentiveness for focus for openness. Sometimes when things get so busy it's like we can’t handle another thing and so we start to shut down. And this is one place that we need to remain open, one place that is set aside as a place in community to work through the Scriptures certainly, but as a place that is a constant, an oasis, a place that we can go to to reorient ourselves from the chaos of life. And, so, help us to keep this day by day step-by-step rhythm as we move into the final weeks of the year we pray. In the mighty name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it is the website, it’s where you find out what's going on around here.

So, a couple things Christmas related. Every year we have an annual Christmas party together. It's virtual. It's beautiful, it's moving. I have never attended one of these little virtual parties that…that I don't end up in tears just hearing everybody. And, so, now is the time. And, so, you are invited to call in your holiday greetings to the community that you've been spending this year with. And you do that by using the prayer line or the Hotline in the app. So, this is a rare thing. Normally the rule is just one call…one call a day, not multiple stacks calls, but this is one time where you can call and then call back if you have a prayer request. The only rule about this really is do not combine a prayer request with a holiday greeting in the same call or that…it will get nowhere. So, if you have a prayer request, certainly call it in and or use the Hotline and send it in. And if you have a holiday greeting then do the same but just don't combine them. And we’ll do this for a week. We’ll collect these for a week and compile them together and then Jill and I normally get together and have a conversation about the year, the year that we’re leaving and about our sense of the year that we’re going into next year and just talk a little bit about that. And then we hear from each other, all of the greetings from all over the world and we are just immediately reminded of this thing that we got to be a part of, this beautiful thing called the Daily Audio Bible around the Global Campfire. So, today's the day we start. You can call in your holiday greetings, like I said, using the telephone 877-942-4253, or using the Hotline button in the app. And I am particularly looking forward to our Christmas gathering this year and it always brings joy, always. And joy…you know we’ve had to contend for joy this year, haven't we? So, just to have this dumped into our lap, just as we collectively come together and celebrate the wonder of the Christmas season is beautiful. So, send in your holiday greetings for the next week and we’ll be working to put it together.

And then the other thing is, it's obviously Christmas time. And, so, I've been talking about the Daily Audio Bible Shop as an option, as a place to go and shop and look around. You may find some really wonderful things, unique things to give away. You also might find some stuff that you…you want, to remind you of the journey that you’ve been on. So, we have journals. We have developed a journal that…well…it's my daily Journal. So, we’ve developed these journals. We have wonderful things to write with, resources to take the journey deeper, video wise or…or in book form. The Global Campfire line, just all kinds of stuff. So, check it out in the Daily Audio Bible Shop. If you spend $40 or more in the Shop, we will send along with your order the Daily Audio Bible ornament for 2020 with our words for the year which were “vision” and “settle”. And, so, take advantage of that.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible here in the waning days of the year, I cannot possibly thank you enough. I've tried…I’ve tried all the vocabulary words that mean grateful and that mean awe and that mean wonder and that mean surprise. And all those things are true on a daily basis. Isn’t it surprising and shocking that we live in a time that we could get together like this and even taken for granted? That we could be all over the world working our way day by day step-by-step through the Bible and that we would know each other by voice, that we would know each other by heart and that…that we live in a time that we could even take that for granted? It's amazing. But the only reason it exists is that it exists because we’re community and we’re in it together. And, so, if life has been brought into your life this year or if light has shown and shined into the darkness, if it's just been an oasis, a place to go in the middle of very uncertain chaos then thank you for your partnership. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner, or the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or holiday greeting or an encouragement you can hit the hot line button in the app, or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi, DABbers it is December 3rd and I wanted to call in because of two things. First of all, to thank you all over the last several weeks. Probably since the end of October I have been putting on the Prayer Wall and on Facebook and had called in about my dad who was ill and we didn’t know if you really understood salvation and we were praying he would make it to his 95th birthday which is Monday. And he did and was surrounded by family and it was beautiful. And he went to be with the Lord last evening, December 2nd. And I just wanted to thank you all for your prayers. And I also wanted to take time to let Brian know how meaningful today’s reading was of first John and specifically his message afterward and the application of it. It was so special to me and it’s what we need to hear for such a time as this. So, thank you DABbers and God bless you and thanks for your prayers for my dad. God was good, is good, and he gave us that hope that we wanted. Thank you. God bless.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible it’s Laura Lee in Boynton Beach. It’s 5 AM on December 4th. Getting ready for work and feasting on the word of God in the 16th year of feasting on the word of God. Thank you, Lord for the voices of the Hardin family who have fed us faithfully. I want to just tell you how thankful and grateful I am for all of you. I love you all. From the very beginning I’ve heard the people join the family and grow and rejoice and weep and praise and sing. And I had such a wonderful Thanksgiving in Savannah going back to the holy ground, the altar which I was saved on and the people who were part of that salvation. And I want to welcome some new listeners who are ending the year right so they might start the year right. So, David Browning invited his grandchildren Bahavia and Kyle. Welcome Bahavia and Kyle. I invited Berena from Savannah and she is listening and double DABbing already. And iErashum is another woman I work with, but she is a new believer, my little girl and she is listening as well. She loves China. So, help us feast on your word Lord. I thank you for the new believe …

Hey Daily Audio Bible family this is John from Bethlehem Pennsylvania I hope you’re you doing great today. It is the 4th December, welcome to the last…the last few days of the year. What an amazing year it’s been. Harold, I heard your prayer today on the prayer line for your son Jonathan who had been admitted to the hospital. You’d mentioned that he’s diabetic and they took a look at his foot and the MRI showed that they may have to amputate. I just want you to know that yes, I am praying for you, and I’m praying for your son for healthiness for courage for strength for full and for God’s comfort, that he shows up in a real way for him. Sky and Rebecca or SkyBecca, team SkyBecca, with a van named rhino. That’s so cool. Man you guys are amazing. And, yeah, we are tent dwellers here aren’t we? Thank you so much for your call. You could hear your voice, you know, break a little bit when…when you are talking about how your luster possessions and that you’re moving and you’re moving away from the family but you’re bringing light life and hope into people in the world. And, so, God bless you guys as you travel. And, yeah, I’m thinking about you and praying for you as you move on and praying for your health and well-being. And God’s Smile, kiss kiss everybody…you are just a hoot. I love you and man the work that you’re doing in Maria’s life. Man, how God uses us for His glory. You’re bringing Maria closer and closer to Jesus. And, you know, the impact that that’s gonna have on the world and on the kingdom of God. You truly are loving, and I just thank you so much for setting such a great example. Well…I love you family. I’m gonna go. My time’s running out. And know that you’re being thought of and loved. Brian, I love you buddy. Talk to you soon. Bye.

Hi Daily Audio Bible family this is Mac from Pennsylvania and my heart was moved for Harold from St. Louis who called in today about his son Jonathan. I’m a father too and I faced some health issues with my…with my son, both of my sons actually from time to time but from a father to a father Harold I am praying for your son Jonathan, that the Lord will save his foot and ultimately __ him of the issues he’s facing with his diabetes. And I’m just praying for him. I’ll be praying for him throughout the day today whenever I have time and whenever I can think about it. And just from a father to a father from our father Harold I’m praying for your son for you for strength.

Hello DABer’s my name is Stefon I’m from Sydney Australia it is the 4th of December and I just want to say I’ve been listening for quite some time. And Brian and Jill really thank you so much for putting together this program here. My wife and I have come almost to the end point where we’ve never read the whole Bible but because of this program we’ve been able to do that. So, yes we…we run sometimes behind. I think at one point I was almost a month and ½ behind but little bit by little bit, you know. Playing em’ one after another sometimes it connects a story really well and you see a greater picture. But I just want to say thank you so much and I’m coming to find that listening to everyone’s prayers prayer requests and how much we care for one another as really made me feel like I really am part of a Global Campfire. So, it’s hot and sunny outside at the moment in Sydney. and, yeah, there’s so many souls. We’re such a multiculturally society and city over here down under. So, just pray everyone that the word continues to spread. We’re so blessed that we don’t have to be on a mission to see other countries. They’re all here in this one place. How amazing is our God that he’s brought the whole world to a place to like Island like Australia? So, hello everyone and thanks for listening to this…this request. God bless. Bye.

[standsreview]

The best Stands ever

The resume: there are so many conflicting recommendations out there. Should you keep it to one page? Do you put a summary up top? Do you include personal interests and volunteer gigs? This may be your best chance to make a good first impression, so you’ve got to get it right.

What the Experts Say

“There’s nothing quick or easy about crafting an effective resume,” says Jane Heifetz, a resume expert and founder of Right Resumes. Don’t think you’re going to sit down and hammer it out in an hour. “You have to think carefully about what to say and how to say it so the hiring manager thinks, ‘This person can do what I need done,’” she says. After all, it’s more than a resume; “it’s a marketing document,” says John Lees, a UK-based career strategist and author of Knockout CV. Heifetz agrees: “The hiring manager is the buyer, you’re the product, and you need to give him a reason to buy.” Here’s how to write a resume that will be sure to win attention.

Open strong The first 15-20 words of your resume are critically important “because that’s how long you usually have a hiring manager’s attention,” says Lees. Start with a brief summary of your expertise. You’ll have the opportunity to expand on your experience further down in your resume and in your cover letter. For now, keep it short. “It’s a very rich, very brief elevator pitch,” says Heifetz. “You need to make it exquisitely clear in the summary that you have what it takes to get the job done.” It should consist of a descriptor or job title like, “Information security specialist who…” “It doesn’t matter if this is a job title you have or ever did,” says Lees. It should match what they’re looking for. Here are two examples:

Healthcare executive with over 25 years of experience leading providers of superior patient care.

Strategy and business development executive with substantial experience designing, leading, and implementing a broad range of corporate growth and realignment initiatives.

And be sure to avoid clichés. Using platitudes in your summary or anywhere else in the document is “basically like saying, ‘I’m not more valuable than anyone else,’” explains Lees. They are meaningless, obvious, and boring to read.

Get the order right If you’re switching industries, don’t launch into job experience that the hiring manager may not think is relevant. Heifetz suggests adding an accomplishments section right after your opener that makes the bridge between your experience and the job requirements. “These are main points you want to get across, the powerful stories you want to tell,” she says. “It makes the reader sit up straight and say ‘Holy cow, I want to talk to her. Not because of who she is but because of what’s she’s done.’” Here’s  that does this well (source: John Lees, Knockout CV).

After the accomplishments section (if you add it), list your employment history and related experience. See below for exactly what to include. Then add any relevant education. Some people want to put their education up top. That might be appropriate in academia but for a business resume, you should highlight your work experience first and save your degrees and certifications for the end.

And that ever-popular “skills” section? Heifetz recommends skipping it all together. “If you haven’t convinced me that you have those skills by the end of the resume, I’m not going to believe it now,” she explains. If you have expertise with a specific type of software, for example, include it in the experience section. And if it’s a drop-dead requirement for the job, also include it in the summary at the very top.

Be selective It’s tempting to list every job, accomplishment, volunteer assignment, skill, and degree you’ve ever had. But don’t. “A resume is a very selective body of content. It’s not meant to be comprehensive. If it doesn’t contribute to convincing the hiring manager to talk to you, then take it out,” says Heifetz. This applies to volunteer work as well. Only include it as part of your experience — right along with your paid jobs — if it’s relevant.

So what about the fact that you raise angora rabbits and are an avid Civil War re-enactor? “Readers are quite tolerant of non-job related stuff but you have to watch your tone,” says Lees. If you’re applying for a job at a more informal company that emphasizes the importance of work-life balance, you might include a line about your hobbies and interests. For a more formal, buttoned-up place, you’ll probably want to take out anything personal.

Make it readable Stop fiddling with the margins. Lees says the days of a one-page resume are over: “It used to be that you used a tiny font size and crammed in the information to make it fit.” Nowadays, two or three pages is fine, but that’s the limit: “Any more than three and it shows that you can’t edit.” Heifetz agrees: “I’ve never met a resume that fit on one page, even for a recent graduate. If you’re going to tell a compelling story, you need more space.” You can supplement what’s on the page with links to your work but you have to “motivate the hiring manager to take the extra step required. Don’t just include the URL. Tell them in a brief, one-line phrase what’s so important about the work you’re providing,” says Heifetz.

And stick to the most common fonts. “It’s not how fancy it is. It’s how clear, clean, and elegant it is in its simplicity,” says Heifetz. Vary the line length and avoid crammed text or paragraphs that look identical. The goal is to include enough white space so that a hiring manager wants to keep reading. For example, the opening summary could be three or four lines of text or two or three bullet points. “It doesn’t matter as long as it’s easy to read,” says Heifetz.

Get help It can be hard to be objective about your own experience and accomplishments. Many people overstate — or understate — their achievements or struggle to find the right words. Consider working with a resume writer, mentor, or a friend who can help you steer away from questions like, “Am I good enough for this position?” and focus on “Am I the right person for the job?” At a minimum, have someone else check your resume for logic, grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

Tweak it for each opportunity Don’t think you can get away with having just one resume. “You can have a foundational resume that compellingly articulates the most important information,” says Heifetz, but you have to alter it for each opportunity. Of course, you may need to write the first version in a vacuum but for each subsequent one, you need context. “Research the organization. Talk to someone — or ideally two or three people — who’ve worked there before, work there now, or otherwise know the organization. Then tweak it for the position, the industry, etc.,” says Lees. Heifetz says to ask yourself: What words or experiences do I need to highlight? What can I get rid of because it’s not relevant? “They don’t have to be radically different but they need to do the job for each situation,” she says.

[eloarei]

About the process of creating a book (the not-writing part)

I was asked recently about if making a book was easy or tedious or whatever, and I realized that was actually something I’d like to talk about. I’d never done it before (and still I only have a little experience), but I’ve been teaching myself and it’s been... fun?  Behind the cut (that’s still a thing, right?), I ramble about formatting, PDFs, fonts, and some other stuff. (Also pictures, though most of them are the same as the ones I posted yesterday.) 

First of all, I had to pick a Print-On-Demand (POD) website. That was easy for me, because finding the website was actually what made me want to make the book. I used Lulu.com, which has worked very well for me the two times I’ve used it. (It has a bunch of bad reviews, but honestly I got just what I paid for both times. They apparently offer editing and marketing services; I can’t vouch for those because I only used the POD service. But personally I wouldn’t trust anyone to edit or market my book, let alone some randos on some website. They’re a POD site. That’s what they’re good at, so that’s what I use.)  It would have been almost too easy if they just let me copy-paste the text to them, but understandably they wanted a PDF. PDFs are kind of the bane of my existence, but I downloaded a template from them (for a 6x9 inch novel, with appropriate margins) and then copy-pasted my fic into it using LibreOffice. (I’m so-so about LibreOffice, but it does create PDFs reasonably well.)  From there... well, then I had to go through the process of reformatting it. I’d copied the text from my AO3, and that meant that it had spaces between every paragraph and no indents, which is how AO3 fics are typically formatted. It was a lot of Tab-Left-Down-Down-Down-Backspace-Backspace-Enter-Repeat. For 140k words, it took a few casual days.  After the bulk of that was done, I realized the indents/tabs looked... weird? They were too big. ^^; Luckily there was a setting in LibreOffice to change them all automatically. I almost cried at the thought of having to do it manually haha.  Adding data to the headers and footers came next. I chose to only add the page number to the footer, and nothing to the header. Normally people will have the author’s name on one side, and the book’s title on the other, but I skipped that for the time being. Not sure if I’ll do it for the ‘official’ release.  (Somehow my footer ended up being too small, so that’s something I need to look into.)  Next I had to pick a font and a font size. I decided to do something a little gimmicky: I have alternating chapters that take place in modern and historical times, so I chose different fonts to represent those chapters. For the historical chapters I chose “Century”, which is a serif font (meaning that it has little embellishments, like “Times New Roman”), while for the modern chapters I chose “Verdana”, a sans-serif font (meaning that it is sans/without the embellishments, like whatever font Tumblr uses).  It’s typically agreed that novels are best in serif fonts, because it’s easier to read them for a long session. The embellishments make the letters blend together into visually recognizable words, which is apparently how we read, as opposed to looking at every letter individually. However, because I wanted to be quirky, more than half of my book is in sans-serif, which I’m just hoping doesn’t annoy people.  I used Verdana size 11 and Century size 12. Even so, the Verdana still looks too large to my eye, so I’ll probably change it again.  After that was mostly aesthetic formatting, which was the actual fun part. I tabbed down I think about 10 spaces at the start of every chapter, then went back up a space or two, increased the font size and changed the font to something slightly fancier and wrote the chapter title (which for me were just “Chapter Five”, etc).  (UPON FURTHER SCRUTINY, apparently not all of my first chapter pages are tabbed down the same amount. ugh. ^^; They’re close but not identical. How messy.)  Under the chapter titles, I simulated “drop caps” on the first phrase of the chapter, because I didn’t have a good drop caps font. I just did this by retyping the whole phrase in caps, and then changing the first letter to a slightly larger font size.  Next were a few easy things: a title page, a few silly “praise for” pages of reviews I got from online readers (these probably won’t be in the “official” version; they just make me smile), a mock-up copyright page (mock-up because I don’t actually have a copyright or anything yet), a short dedications page (mine was just one sentence), and then an empty page so that the story text starts on the right, which is standard. I have bought another self-published book which otherwise looks pretty good, but it starts the story on the left page and it’s just so jarring.  At that point, the PDF was pretty much done. I added a few other little touches, like some little fancy dagger icons during in-chapter scene transitions. I ended up with the “the end” page being on the left, which, again, is really awkward, so I found a chapter that only had like two lines on the last page, and went back in and deleted a handful of words in the chapter so that it would end on the previous page instead.  THEN came the fun but agonizing part, as I’m not as much of a graphic designer as I sometimes wish. I had to make a cover. The other self-published book I bought looks really nice with a beautiful illustration on the front, but the spine and back had just tiny white text, and didn’t even include a synopsis. So I downloaded a template for a 6x9inch wrap-around cover, tossed it up in Photoshop, paint-bucketed it black, and went to work. I pasted in my synopsis in off-white sans-serif font about the same as my internal font, and bolded some of the key words for... ease of skimming and/or funsies? At the top I added a short dialogue exchange from the first chapter that I thought represented the story as a whole, chose a different font that stood out, and gave it a red shadow so it would stand out more. For fun I added some faint red blood-splatters behind the text.  For the front I chose a big bold block-letter font in off-white, then gave it a red and a yellow shadow so it would stand out. I rasterized the font (turning it into a picture), and then used the tool to highlight the letters, and splashed some red blood-splatters on them. I did the same for the spine. (Though really what I should have done was copy the logo from the front and resize it. Silly me. Now the two logos don’t match.)  I used Unsplash.com for a few free photos that I quickly manipulated into a passable cover art. Ultimately, I would like to have something either professionally photographed, edited, or drawn, but what I found was vaguely similar enough to what I wanted that I figured it’d do for now.  Maybe the last thing I had to do (besides uploading it all to Lulu) was decide on a pen-name! I ended up going with L.A.Rayborn, instead of my legal name. I used my legal first two initials, but chose my birth surname (which is twice removed from my legal name, since I was first adopted and then married). To be perfectly honest, the reason I chose not to use my legal name is mostly because I don’t want to associate my in-laws with possibly-sensitive content that they probably wouldn’t like.  SO. Then it was done, and I uploaded it to Lulu, and chose a few options on the site, such as cream pages instead of white, and matte exterior finish instead of gloss. (I highly suggest the cream for novels, but the matte is really just personal preference.) I paid them (I ended up getting it printed and shipped to me for under $20), and then about 2 weeks later I had the 400 page darling in my hands, ready to be eviscerated with a set of neon hi-lighters!  After this current round of edits, I already know there’s a ton of stuff I’m going to have to fix (and this is to say nothing of the story).  1. The font is slightly too large, but could probably use a 1.5 or maybe 1.2 spacing between lines. I’ll have to fiddle with it, and see what others do.  2. The back cover text is too close to the edges to really look good.  3. The page numbering just looks odd for some reason.  4. Figure out how to get the page numbers to stay off the copyright and dedications page, etc.  5. MORE THAN ANYTHING, I need to change the... I’m not even sure what to call it? I need to make the text space out evenly so that it creates a block on each page, rather than creating messy ridges on the right margins. I didn’t even think of this until I got the book and started comparing it to professional books I’ve read and enjoyed. It seems like a very rookie mistake. 

(lol I’m in the process of changing the main character’s name, which is why the crappy MS Paint edits.)  PHEW, that was long. But hopefully my journey was at least a little insightful. Please do let me know if you have any thoughts, questions, or suggestions about how I could better format the book for the “real” printing! 

[ink-flavored]

Thank you so much to everyone who’s followed me since I made this blog! I never expected to get to 100 followers this quickly, and you all mean a lot to me <3 With that in mind, I decided to share some of my knowledge about screenplays for you all. Thank you all again for following, and I hope I can make more of these in the future!

Script Formatting Guide: The Basics

[Next Guide: Parentheticals and Special Headings] [Ko-Fi]

In my (admittedly, short) time on writeblr, I’ve noticed some people who like to write scripts. That’s really cool! However, I’ve also seen a good number of said scripts that aren’t up-to-code, as it were, in the formatting department, which is essentially a death sentence if you want to get that script produced. I’m fortunate enough to attend a university that teaches the ins and outs of TV and film script writing, with at least a dozen classes of screenwriting technicalities under my belt, all taught by current industry professionals, so I figured I would use my powers for good and write up some instructions for present and future scriptwriters!

Don’t be ashamed of formatting a script incorrectly, because if you don’t do a metric assload of research, you can miss A LOT of information. Please do not feel bad for not knowing everything. But, if you’re really dedicated to writing scripts – for TV, film, shorts, or even video game cutscenes* – you have to understand a few things:

Script writing is 80% formatting. You might have the greatest screenplay in the world, but you’ll be laughed out of every studio in Hollywood from the first page if your formatting is off by a centimeter. The slush readers are begging for an excuse to throw out your script. You can’t give them one. You have to know your formatting before you know the name of your own child.

You are not the director. As a newbie writer, the first script you ever hand off to a studio isn’t going to be yours to do with as you will. Neither will the second, third, or fourth. The director will not be you, nine times out of ten, and whoever the director is will mess with your story as they see fit. You have to be okay with that.

Throw all prose rules out the window. A lot of unlearning happens in scriptwriting, especially if you’re a prose writer by trade. They’re essentially polar opposites. It was really hard for me to get used to writing scripts, but now I can kind of switch my brain on and off between modes.

Still want to write scripts? Great! Follow me under the cut.

The first thing you should do is get some kind of dedicated screenwriting software. Don’t go blowing all your money on Final Draft or something, but it’s important to have software that knows what you want. DO NOT use Microsoft Word for screenwriting. Please. I am begging you not to. It doesn’t know what it’s doing. It’s like using crayons to try and make an oil painting, or something equally ridiculous. Here’s a list and another list of free screenwriting programs.

Next, check out this really handy glossary of screenwriting terms. I’m going to be using the professional lingo in this post, so just CTRL+F on that site if you don’t understand something.

If you’re really dedicated to scriptwriting, get the most recent version of The Screenwriter’s Bible by David Trottier. Buy it, borrow it, download it, torrent it, steal it, use telepathy, I don’t care, but get this book. Once you have it, read it cover to cover, then read it again. This book is now your life. It has everything you need to know about script formatting and then some. I have it open on my lap as I type this, because formatting is that crucial to getting your script circulated.

To teach you the basics of formatting, I’ll be using screenshots from a couple of my own scripts! They’re not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but they were also picked to death by my professors, so they’re the best examples I have. Plus, I don’t want to rag on anyone else’s script, or try and compare my knowledge to that of an industry professional – because I’m not.

Without further ado, let’s format that script! (Apologies for the quality)

A little daunting? Don’t worry. All of this is a lot easier to explain than it looks.

Margins (Red)

The margins of your script (yes, this matters), should always be as follows:

Left margin at 1.5 inches from the left edge of the page

Dialogue at 2.5 inches from the left margin

Dialogue tags (the character’s name in all caps) at 3.7 inches from the left margin

Action lines at 3.1 inches from the left margin

If you don’t do this, the slush readers will notice, and your script will be thrown out. Most screenwriting software will do this for you, but it doesn’t hurt to check!

Bonus advice for this section: your text should always be 12-point Courier font – there are absolutely no exceptions to this rule.

Scene headings and Sub-headings (or Sluglines) (Dark Blue)

Ask any screenwriter, they’ll tell you the most common script formatting error is the scene heading – or slugline. Why is it the most common error? New writers not understanding what it’s for.

The slugline’s job is to tell the director, the costumer, and everyone else on set where and when they’re shooting. If it’s wrong, then the entire production of your script is thrown into chaos. Even if you write your script by yourself in an apartment, you have to keep in mind that dozens of people’s livelihoods for several months depend on your formatting. No pressure.

So what is a slugline? In prose terms, it’s the setting. In screenwriting terms, it’s what the camera sees when your movie starts. For just a little bit, you get to be the director, and this is how.

The slugline is always in all caps, and always begins thusly: INT., EXT., or INT./EXT.. INT. for “interior,” meaning that the camera is inside a house or a building. EXT. for “exterior,” meaning that the camera is outside. INT./EXT. is reserved for vehicle shots.

After the camera location, comes the actual setting! This can be whatever you want – so long as it’s short, snappy, and consistent. So, the scene heading in my script is “EXT. FOREST” which means that I have to keep saying “FOREST” every time I want to go to a new scene. I can’t suddenly say “EXT. PRETTY FOREST,” because that implies that the camera was moved to a different location – even if I meant the same place.

But you’ll notice there’s something following that “EXT. FOREST.” It’s called a “sub-heading” and it’s exactly what it sounds like. If you have a house, for example, that’s called “INT. HARRY’S HOUSE” and you want Harry to be in a specific room in the house, you would write “INT. HARRY’S HOUSE – LIVING ROOM.” You really shouldn’t have more than one sub-heading.

The last thing in a slugline is DAY or NIGHT. No other times are permitted, because telling the lighting crew to set up for “twilight” or “midafternoon” or “dawn” isn’t as easy as saying “day” or “night.” Keep it simple. You can imply what time it is in the action lines.

There are other kinds of sluglines called “special headings,” but they get complicated, so we’re going to save them for a different post.

Overall, your slugline should look always be a camera location, setting, sub-heading if applicable, and a time. Dashes go between the setting and the time of day, as well on either side of the the sub-headings. There’s always a space between the slugline and the action lines, and you need a new slugline every time you go to a new location. If, in my example, my character Aiden were to drop out of the tree, I would need a new slugline because the camera would follow him out of the tree.

Action Lines (Purple)

Action lines are exactly what they sound like: lines about the action. But don’t get too relived when you see something that looks like prose. Action lines don’t have a lot of rules, but the rules they do have are set in stone**.

If you’re particularly fond of writing description, you might want to brace yourself when I tell you that your action lines should never exceed three lines. If you can keep them below three lines, that’s even better. Pull up any unneeded orphans (single-word lines), and use what little room for description you have to make your script concise, succinct, and visual.

Speaking of visual: everything you write in your action lines should be able to be picked up by a camera. That means no internal thoughts, nothing happening off-screen, absolutely nothing that the audience can’t see. This took me forever to get used to, but if you don’t get used to it, your script is doomed. If it can’t be seen by a camera, it can’t go in your action lines. Only describe what’s vital for the audience to understand, then move on as fast as you can.

Additionally, you action lines should always be present tense. Full stop. Not even the most acclaimed screenwriters violate this rule. When you watch a movie, TV show, short film, etc. everything is happening in the present – you’re watching it in the present. You write in the present as well.

SFX (Pink)

Sound effects are a bit of a sticking point in scripts, because nobody agrees on what kinds of sound effects need to be capitalized. I learned to capitalize all sounds that aren’t human sounds, because the editors and sound mixers need to know what sounds they have to add in. Grunting and coughing can be done by the actors in their scene, so it’s usually okay to leave those kinds of noises lowercase. If you want to capitalize them, it’s not wrong, but if you do, remember to keep it consistent. If you do it once, you have to do it for the entire rest of the script.

Character Introductions (Orange)

When you introduce a character for the first time – and only for the first time – you have to capitalize their name, give their (approximate) age, and a quick description of their demeanor and personality. By “quick,” I mean “eight words maximum.”

Why do this? For the casting director, of course! As in all things screenwriting, you are working with and for a lot of people before you even finish your first draft. They need to have some kind of idea of what kind of person they need to cast, and the actors need to know what kind of person they should be portraying.

You don’t have to give an exact age like I did – I’ve seen people get away with “early 30s” or “mid 20s” – but whichever one you choose, keep it consistent for every character you introduce.

With the description, however, it’s best to specific. Give a quick insight into your character’s personality, even if it’s just one word. “Vain,” is one, “anger-issues,” is another. “Bird enthusiast,” is vital to Aiden’s character, so I included it in his description.

Never describe clothes unless it’s unique or vital to the character – a leopard patterned three-piece suit is specific and unique enough to warrant a place in the description. Jeans and a t-shirt? Not so much.

Dialogue (Light Blue)

Finally, something familiar! Writing dialogue follows mostly the same rules as in prose, the only thing missing is the ability to add description to that dialogue. In fact, most screenwriters will tell you not to add description to your dialogue. It’s a controversial topic that I’ll be getting into in a different post, because discussing the usefulness of parentheticals is a can of worms that I don’t need to open on a Back to Basics post.

You can suggest dialogue description by showing us the character’s facial expression in the previous action line, but be careful. If the actors feel like you’re railroading them, then they’ll get mad. Divas, am I right?

Aiden is talking on the phone in my example, but the dialogue is exactly the same as it would be in any other situation. I mentioned he was talking on the phone in his introductory section, so now he’s talking on the phone unless specified otherwise. It works the same way for every kind of dialogue.

Dialogue Tags (Green)

This is where your character’s name goes, in all caps, centered on the page. The only thing I can really say about this is to make sure their name is spelled correctly and has no space between itself and the dialogue.

CONT’D and Additional Tags (Light Green)

CONT’D is something that most – if not all – screenwriting programs do automatically, but in case yours doesn’t here the gist. Add a “CONT’D” when a character that had been talking previously is interrupted by a page break or action line. All it means is that his dialogue isn’t breaking from line to line, and it’s still the same character speaking.

There are other kinds of “add on” tags to your dialogue tags, all of them going in parenthesis next to the main tag. The most popular ones are O.S. and V.O. – “Off Screen” and “Voice Over.” Getting these mixed up is a rookie mistake, and a lot of rookies do.

O.S. is used when a character that is in the scene speaks off-camera. This does NOT apply to phone calls, radio, TV, etc. because the character isn’t in the scene – they’re somewhere else. They’re being heard in the scene, but no person is there. For situations like that, you’d use V.O. instead. V.O. is used for narration, phone calls where one party is in a different location, and any voice coming from a different location from the one that the current scene takes place in.

Conclusion

Alright! Well that’s the very, very basics of screenplay formatting down. I hope this has been useful to you. If you all enjoyed this post, I’d love to get down in the nitty-gritty about scripts and screenplay formatting with you all. I’ve learned so much at school, even though I don’t want to be a screenwriter, so it would be awesome to share this knowledge with all of you.

Thanks for reading, and happy writing!

– Annika

*Video game cutscenes use something called “modified screenplay format” which is different than what we’ll be covering in this post, but it is based off of traditional script formatting.

**If you’re a very well-known writer/director, you can get away with this. But you have to be Steven Spielberg levels of legendary, or you’ll be kicked out so fast. Unfortunately, the film industry is Like That.

[rotationalsymmetry]

Well. I don’t agree with the opposite of what this is saying, if that makes sense, but it is missing some things/the framing is questionable.

I don’t really see “bisexuals/pansexuals have it worse from straights” (or nonbinary people), while that could be out there and I don’t want to underestimate people’s ability to create terrible takes, mostly what I actually see is functionally a debate between “gay people have it strictly worse” (or “binary trans people have it strictly worse”), a default assumption that’s rarely stated out loud but shows up in phrases like “so and so may have been gay or at least bisexual” and implicitly in providing services that assume bisexuals/pansexuals don’t exist (eg, providing sex ed to “gay men” or “queer men” that doesn’t address the possibility of having partners who aren’t cis men in addition to ones who are), and on the other hand bisexuals/pansexuals going “well bisexuals/pansexuals have these specific things worse?” and then getting responded to as though they were saying bisexuals/pansexuals have everything strictly worse and then doing this mental gymnastics where they argue “no. you do not have everything strictly worse and it’s offensive to say you do” and then act like they argued “you don’t have anything worse, and maybe don’t belong in the movement at all unless you’re indistinguishable from a gay man or lesbian.”

And bisexuals/pansexuals have this one problem that gay men and lesbians do not, which is: while the straight community marginalizes both, the queer community tends to center gay men and lesbians and leave bi/pans as an afterthought. (Also trans people, aces/aros, intersex people, and people who have non-Western understandings of the sexual orientation and gender stuff are very much afterthoughts.) Or sometimes as an active threat. And that does harm people, when the wider world is hostile and you don’t have a group of people like you who reliably have your back and see your struggles as real.

I see this false equivalence — “Oppression Olympics suck, don’t do that” where the people challenging an existing, widely accepted, functionally invisibly oppression hierarchy get in practice more flack than the people supporting the existing hierarchy — in enough different situations that it’s starting to really grind my gears and I want more people to see it. This isn’t “oh there’s two sides who are both being equally insensitive.” There’s one side that wants to talk about a real problem and one side that wants them to shut up. And will use incredibly underhanded tactics to get that.

Talking about lateral violence, intersectionality, or other issues within a community which is seeking civil rights and/or liberation always gets called “divisive.” Somehow the lateral violence and lack of intersectionality and lack of solidarity itself gets seen as not divisive.

(The nonbinary thing has a whole bunch of specific issues and I don’t want to write two essays in a single post, so short version: binary trans people are at least in Western culture the default trans person whose needs get considered first, relative to nonbinary people, and when nonbinary people are talking about nonbinary issues it should be seen through that lens. Moreover there is no issue that all binary trans people or any subset of binary trans people experience that no nonbinary people do, and some issues nonbinary people face that binary trans people don’t.) (and yeah there’s not always a rock solid line between binary and nonbinary trans people, that’s a thing too, and I’m not trying to depict binary trans people as the enemy, I’m trying to depict an attitude that nonbinary issues aren’t important and are “divisive” or “make the community look bad” as the enemy.)

Finally: invisibility in the sense of not being visibly queer, which seems to be how op is using the term, is a feature of context, not identity. Bisexuals and pansexuals are generally invisibly as bi/pan, but not always invisible as queer. It’s possible to be simultaneously visible as a queer person, and as such vulnerable to direct homophobia (as opposed to that thing where people say something homophobic in your presence and don’t realize it applies to you), and invisible as a bi or pan person. Bi invisibility does not refer only to bi’s who pass for straight, it refers to how other people tend to see us as either straight or gay, but never as bi (or pan). Likewise, while many nonbinary people pass for cis, others get mistaken for trans women or trans men, and are invisible as nonbinary people but are not safe from direct transphobia. (This is completely different from “invisible” in the context of invisible disabilities, where someone with an invisible disability is by definition someone who doesn’t look disabled, not someone whose disability can look like a different disability. Or at least I’ve never seen the term used that way. Anyways, in that context visibly disabled and invisibly disabled people have different, not directly comparable problems, but it does not make sense to contrast bisexual invisibility with gay/lesbian visibility, as bisexual invisibility includes when bisexuals get mistaken for gay/lesbian.)

Exhausted sigh Erased/invisible queer identities have an easier time in situations where invisibility is a benefit and a harder time in situations where recognition is a benefit. The opposite is true for recognised identities. Both situations occur frequently. This isn't hard.

There are obviously cultural and historical contexts where one might be more common but neither queer utopias where everyone needs only recognition or perfect panopticon dictatorships where queer people are prevented ever from interacting exist or ever have existed, so both are always necessary.

Discourse about whether bi/pan or nonbinary people have it better or worse is meaningless navel gazing about a reality that does not exist at best and harmful and unhelpful community dividing bigotry at worst.

[airagorncharda]

Surprising no one, I have some Fucking Thoughts about Infinity War:

(I don’t know if it actually is, but this FEELS like the longest post I’ve ever written. And that is impressive because I am a long winded motherfucker on a good day and because it’s literally ALL negative)

So first off, I Did Not Enjoy this movie. For my complete list of things I DID like, read this very short post instead. If you enjoyed the movie and don’t want to read somebody absolutely slamming it, you should probably leave now.

Secondly, if you don’t want spoilers I’m not sure why you clicked the readmore, but you’ve now been warned: 

SPOILERS past this point!!!!!!!

I disliked this movie so much that I need to break down the varying ways I disliked it into fucking sections. So starting right off:

I find shock value character death to be cheap and lazy.

And boy did they go hard on the shock value character death. Boy, oh boy. BOY oh boy, did they ever. That was pretty much the entire movie.

If you can’t make the stakes feel high without death, you’re a bad writer. If death is the only card you know how to play, you’re a bad writer. 

I was expecting the characters who’s actor’s contracts are up to get killed off as a cheap and lazy way of explaining why they’re leaving. I was instead handed a movie in which literally everyone ELSE died for even cheaper and lazier shock value reasons that are almost certainly going to get undone (and thus be made pointless) in the next film. I was not impressed. 

The writers are painfully white, and refused to stop reminding us.

When the setting of the movie shifted to Wakanda, I wanted to be happy to see Wakanda. But I wasn’t, because the whole reason we went to Wakanda seemed to be so that the racist ass writers could jerk off while watching Wakanda (and Wakandans) get wrecked (and killed in horrific numbers), all so Wanda (who the MCU super duper whitewashed) didn’t have to kill her white robot boyfriend. 

“If Wakanda falls, it will have been for a noble cause” said the racist white writer puppeting T’Challa. 

Prioritizing the feelings of a white girl and the life of her white boyfriend over not just the hypothetical “half of the universe” Thanos thing, but also the very immediate and literal danger to the lives of ALL OF WAKANDA AND ALL OF THEIR FRIENDS was absolutely bewildering levels of antiblack racism and I was just sitting there shaking my head through it all. It was horrible. It is horrible. I cannot believe that line from T’Challa even made it into the movie. “A noble cause” my ass, that’s so violent, what the fuck.

The writers are painfully heterosexual, and refused to stop reminding us.

Again I scream at Wanda and Vision. Wanda and Vision, who I was hyped about being brought into the MCU because I liked them in the comics, but who have been a constant frustration and disappointment (whitewashed and underutilized as they have been) since their introductions. 

Also Quill and Gamora. 

Like, the writers couldn’t figure out a way to make the story interesting or have stakes without threatening hetero’s heterosexual feelings and heterosexual partners. They just.... couldn’t....................... do it............

Like, lets be real. If the lives of literally half the universe was at stake, everybody I know would be like “sure, I’ll die for that cause”. The conflict felt fake as fuck. People who are that selfish aren’t interesting, and half the characters they made that selfish didn’t used to BE that selfish.

Also, like, Gamora demanding Peter promise to kill her was weird on multiple levels. 

She definitely could have been like “I know the location of an infinity stone, and I know he’ll be able to get it out of me if he gets me alone, so I need you to kill me if that happens” but instead she was just like “I can’t give you a single explanation or detail, just promise me you’ll murder me because you love me so much.” Bad writing. 

And I feel like for Peter specifically, asking him to do that was really cruel. His whole issue with his parents was that his dad murdered his mom, like... asking him to kill her seems extra cruel? And she would know that. Doesn’t she have other friends? Couldn’t she have asked Peter to, like, not get mad at Rocket if Rocket kills her for the same reason? Or Drax? Why did it have to be Peter?? Why ask the person who’d be most emotionally traumatized by having to kill you to be the one to kill you if necessary? And why have her remind him of the death of his mom as a way to convince him to kill her? Bad writing.

Also Bruce and Nat were never interesting to begin with.

Also also Tony talking about wanting kids to a very obviously frustrated and uninterested Pepper was weird and uncomfortable. I feel like we’re supposed to be getting some sort of “they should have kids!” vibe but all I got was a “she doesn’t want to have kids and he’s not getting the memo” vibe. I also am very tired of “my partner wants me to stop being a superhero, guess I’ll feel conflicted but do it anyway but also not break up with them” narratives. Bad.

Thanos’ “random” selection of half of earth didn’t seem that random to me. Like, at all.

The shot of Wakandans dying wasn’t half of them dying, it was like 90% of them dying. And if you pay attention to who disintegrated, it’s.... 

T’Challa (black king of a powerful beautiful African nation, the most technologically advanced nation in the world)

Bucky (disabled and neuroatypical)

Sam (a black man)

I forgot to watch the end credits scene because I was so mad but apparently NICK FURY disintegrates in it, my blood is boiling with rage.

Apparently Maria Hill also disintegrates in it, so there goes a strong female character too.

Again I point to the, like, 90% of Wakanda who survived the combat turning to ash anyway.

Mantis (a woman, played by a Korean actress)

Wanda (a woman. Also whitewashed, but Jewish and Romani in the comics)

Groot (played by a man of color)

Peter Quill (played by one of the three white Chris’ in the movie, but dating a character played by a black woman, so of all the white men to die I find this suspect as fuck)

Drax (played by a Filipino actor).

And that’s not to mention Heimdall (a powerful black man), Loki (who is queercoded, and actually queer in the comics) and Gamora (played by a black woman) who Thanos also killed.

“Random.”

Right.

Except the movie was written by people who clearly have a bias and think it’s quality entertainment to watch PoC and marginalized people in general die. And/or they wanted most of those characters out of the way so Infinity War 2 could focus on the white dudes. Which brings me to my next hated point:

Infinity War 2.

Just.

Fuck that.

Fuck that cash grab bullshit of splitting major motion picture movies into multiple movies for no good reason. Fuck letting people go into a movie with a cliffhanger not knowing it’s going to have a cliffhanger. Fuck forcing people to commit to a years wait for closure on a plot without agreeing to. 

People don’t go to superhero movies to watch the villain win, motherfuckers, we want to see HEROES win! It’s supposed to be a movie that feels GOOD to watch because you can pretend for 2 hours that good people triumph over bad people, and we fucking NEEDED that 2 hours of escapism right now! We did not need a movie about a megolomaniac who wins the election and ruins the lives of everyone we love! We didn’t pay for that shit!!!! 

I mean, I didn’t pay for anything, I watched a bootleg version while curled up in bed, but if your movie hadn’t been a sack of cash grabbing propaganda horse shit I WOULD have paid to see it.

Also. 

People are “SPECULATING” a bunch of stuff like “Dr. Strange did what he did to ensure the eventual defeat of Thanos!!” and “everybody who got disintegrated is going to be resurrected in the next movie!!” but like... it’s not speculation if it’s obvious as fuck, guys. Don’t give the writers more credit than they deserve (they deserve zero credit). Don’t act like it’s not obvious and predictable when it is. 

1) Dr. Strange was not being subtle. “I’ve looked at all the potential outcomes and foreseen one in which we win” “We’re in the endgame now.” “It was the only way”. That’s blatant. That borders on heavy-handed. 

2) Most of the characters who died have movies scheduled. They’re coming back. This is not unclear.

As a result... their deaths don’t even feel real, they just feel like racist shock value fodder deaths. I’m not sad about it, I’m furious at the writers. They just killed them off so they could watch them die, and/or so they could avoid utilizing them. And that’s... so gross.

Ending a movie with the genocidal villain winning is not edgy or whatever. It’s just dissatisfying and, especially in the current climate of the world, it feels violent. 

Like, I’m mad that they split the movie, because it’s a cash grab, and then ending it on that note was just violent.

I guess the writers just really hated Ragnarok (and Black Panther).

Cuz like... they just completely wrote Ragnarok out of the MCU, made the whole movie pointless, and backpedaled on everything it accomplished. 

Ragnarok: “Asgard is destroyed, but it’s okay because the people of Asgard survived, and can rebuild somewhere else. Thor lost his eye and his hammer, became a leader to his people, learned that he didn’t need a weapon to harness his powers, and Thor and Loki finally managed to be a team again. Heimdal is given the credit he deserves as a hugely important part of Thor’s life. Also here, have an AMAZING black female character! The story ends with hope for a ship full of refugees.”

Infinity War: “Thor immediately gets a new eye, all (or maybe half??? it was really unclear) of the other Asgardian refugees are slaughtered off screen (big middle finger to refugees and also hope) and then Thor goes off on his own so he’s not really a leader anymore, Loki and Heimdal are dead within 5 minutes of screentime, Valkyrie doesn’t exist, and Thor’s entire plot in the movie is about how he needs a new weapon because he can’t be useful without one :)”

Me, who enjoyed Ragnarok: “wow, fuck you”

Similarly, after watching all the characters from Wakanda in Black Panther be written as their own people, whose stories and lives didn’t revolved around white people... their white-prioritizing characterization in Infinity War, as well as the IMMEDIATE choice to fucking wreck Wakanda at the first available opportunity, was a real fucking let down and kind of a slap in the face.

Peter Dinklage played a literal (though giant?) dwarf??????????

I FEEL LIKE THIS IS FUCKING OFFENSIVE??? Honestly I’m just so so tired of this poor guy getting hired only for roles where his dwarfism is a character trait. He’s a really good actor and I wish he got hired to play characters other than “the dwarf” every fucking once in a while, like jfc. 

(Side note apparently he’s been cast as “the dwarf” in a movie adaptation of the awful book “the dwarf” so that’s... happening........ i guess...................)

I FEEL like this role was particularly weird and maybe particularly offensive, but maybe I’m wrong, idk.

Also his actual visual design was bad. I looked up the character (Eitri) from the comics, and he looked pretty cool in the comics and animated show. He did not look cool in this movie. 

Bendick Camdsfgbitch has too big of a role.

Literally I’ve never met anybody who cares about the Dr. Strange movie or MCU character. The only people who care seem to be Sherlock stans who cannot let go and still think Bean Cummerbund playing [an intolerable asshole who we’re told (but not shown) is smarter than us, who never lets the audience in on his genius] is compelling. 

He’s boring, he’s an asshole, he’s playing an arguably whitewashed role (which is a pattern for him) and he’s not even playing it in an interesting way. Stop trying to make Dr. Strange or his actor happen. We don’t care.

And if the whole two movie plot is going to be about how he really did outsmart Thanos, the supposedly super smart supervillain, then I’m extra super bored as fuck. And so far that’s... super predictably what’s going to have happened. 

It was just really poorly written??

Idk, like it wasn’t even... funny... or good. All the lines were either predictable or they didn’t make sense. And everybody felt slightly (or severely, depending on the character) out of character. 

The plot is fucking garbage, AND THANOS IS TOO

The concept of the world being overpopulated (and that that’s why resources aren’t available for everyone) is an irl lie, my guys. It’s not true. It’s a lie perpetuated by racists and xenophobes and rich assholes who want to excuse letting people die of starvation rather than give up literally any of their giant Scrooge McDuck style piles of money to allow even the most minimally necessary distribution of resources.

We HAVE enough resources to feed and clothe and house and care for everyone on this planet, we just DON’T DO IT because of the bigotry and selfishness of the 1%. 

Also, “Genocide will fix all the suffering in the world” is literally nazism.

AND LIKE!! If the POINT was that Thanos was a space nazi and needed to be killed as a result, because his views are fucked up and have no basis in reality, and nazism must be stopped at all costs-- that could have been okay??? EXCEPT THAT’S NOT HOW THEY HANDLED IT!! Instead of going “Oh, yeah, Thanos is super fucked up and no one should agree with him or his actions or his ideology” they showed him in this weird and uncomfortably reverent light, and gave him this weird and uncomfortable side arc about how much he wuvs Gamora (that’s why he abused her, you guys-- it was because he LOVES her so much). So we’re supposed to like, feel sad for him or something? Oh no, nobody understands him and his logic, he HAS to do this to SAVE everyone. Oh nooooooo. 

But really, he’s a genocidal scrotum-faced piece of shit abuser, and his entire narrative felt like a nazi who abuses his kids just sucking his own dick on screen, and it was NOT enjoyable to watch, or compelling, or edgy. It was just gross, and violent.

ALSO there was NO REASON to give him that backstory. There was no reason to explain his desire to kill everybody. We already knew he wanted to kill everybody. That was already known, and we did not need an explanation about why. Like, they built toward this movie for ten years and they STILL dropped the ball by ignoring 90% of their own goddamn source material that built up to it in the first place.

Plus, Thanos’ plan was to kill half of everybody in order to save the other half, out of a warped sense of... mercy.... Except literally nobody wants him to do that, including (he said) himself. He doesn’t enjoy it. Neither does anybody else. Everybody is trying to stop him constantly. WHY CONTINUE IF LITERALLY NO ONE WANTS YOU TO, INCLUDING YOURSELF?? It just doesn’t hold up or make any sense as a plot once you think about it for ten fucking seconds...??? How did this ever get past the editing stage???

Additionally, Thanos’s visual design was way better in the end credits cameo he had like 10 years ago. This guy was not visually threatening to me, and did not read as powerful or ancient or anything. He didn’t even read like he was an alien, he was just an asshole, and it didn’t impress me like it was meant to.

If the only way to make your villain seem competent is to make your heroes suddenly incompetent, you’re a bad writer.

How did Loki, god of mischief, fight Thanos? KNIFE TO THE FACE!! FRONTAL ASSAULT!! Of... of course that failed? And furthermore, why did they make it a point to remind the audience repeatedly that Loki is a god, right before Thanos killed him by just, like, choking him/snapping his neck? Apparently that’s how you kill a god? Seems like it should be harder than that.

Why didn’t Dr. Strange do his “check all the different realities” thing when they first heard about Thanos? Why didn’t Dr. Strange chop off Thanos’ arm with a portal like his buddy did with one of Thanos’ underlings?

Why didn’t anybody just shoot Quill when he was obviously about to become a problem?

Why did Quill, who had been willing to kill Gamora himself earlier in the movie, suddenly go off the handle at the worst possible moment upon finding out she was already dead? And why was his response so minimal? Like I get that he’s grieving and stuff, but you need to be able to compartmentalize that shit at least a LITTLE bit, buddy-- and if you can’t, then you need to do something bigger than just like punching the guy. At least shoot out his eyes or something.

Why didn’t Thor aim for Thanos’ head? (and for that matter in all the bazillion timelines Dr. Strange looked at, why were there NONE where Thor aimed for Thanos’ head???)

Why did Wanda decide her boyfriend was more important than literally everybody else ever, especially when Thanos winning would mean Vision dying anyway, so like... I get that killing your bf would be traumatic, but suck it up? Why didn’t they consider breaking the stone and THEN reviving Vision? He’s not a human, he’s synthetic, so why would they assume he wouldn’t be able to be rebooted later with a different power source? And why did they gamble half the universe and actively throw away Wakandan lives for him?? I JUST???

The Hulk got his ass kicked by Thanos (a weird scene; why does Thanos know WWE wrestling moves??) so he just... stopped helping. Like, that could have been interesting, if it wasn’t a general theme throughout the movie that most of the characters conveniently stopped being good at what they’re good at so that the plot could progress with adequate Drama. 

Basically I just wanted to scream “get it together!” at most of the cast of this movie throughout the whole film. Don’t nerf your cast to make your villain seem stronger than he is. If you can’t make him stronger on his own merits, you’re a bad writer. 

I don’t understand the reality stone (or how Thanos used it).

It seemed to change whatever he wanted, but... only while he was focusing on it? Or only while he was nearby? As soon as he left, Drax and Mantis reverted back to their normal forms, so does he need to be in the vicinity for it to work? Or was it like an illusion? If so, that’s not changing reality. 

And either way, the ways in which he DID change reality were bizarrely whimsical and made no sense for his character. Like, he kept turning everything to bubbles. If somebody bought him a bubble wand, would he have stopped murdering everyone? Is that his aesthetic? Bubbles and spiralized people? 

Or was that the aesthetic of the stone itself? Because that’s weird too. 

That scene where the ladies fought the lady villain.

On the one hand, I’m glad there was a lady villain and her design was cool, and I’m glad whenever there are scenes where there are no men and only ladies. 

ON THE OTHER HAND I’m fucking tired of the trope where male heroes fight the male villains and female heroes fight the female villains because.... ??? Because they’re fighting someone in their own league? Or because men can’t hit women? Or something?? I find it very weird and suspect whenever a combat situation gets evenly split up between the genders. 

Wanda's powers >:(

Wanda is more powerful (by a LOT) in the comics than she is in the MCU, which is sort of understandable because she’s pretty universe-breaking levels of OP in the comics (like, one time she literally broke the universe), but it’s also pretty frustrating as a fan of comic!Wanda just how MUCH they nerfed her for the MCU. HOWEVER! In this movie they implied that she IS more powerful than she’s seemed up until now. 

And then they barely used her at all. 

I, a fool, thought maybe they were going to do something interesting about her magic. With the repetition that her power mirrors that of the stone, I thought maybe she was going to kill Vision, and then Thanos would use HER instead of the stone because she’s got it’s power inside of her. 

But no. 

They couldn’t have done something interesting where a woman has a role beyond “she’s precious to a Man and therefore important”. Nope.

Every Single Scene was a foregone conclusion.

Honest to god, I don’t remember a single scene where I was like “gosh, what’s going to happen next??” Every single scene was just me thinking “I know exactly what is about to happen, and I don’t want it to” and then I was right, and disappointed.

Every part of this movie was predictable with certainty, except I suppose for the scenes where I thought “surely they wouldn’t do something so weird and/or boring as what it seems like they’re setting up here” but then they did anyway.

Why did Tony think Steve would know where Vision was when Tony didn’t? And why was he right?

They just never explained this and I found it utterly perplexing. 

Tony was like “Probably Steve Rogers would know where Vision is” and my friends and I had to pause the movie to compare notes and be like “wait, why? Why would HE know?” and none of us could figure it out, and then the movie never explained it either.

Nebula was underutilized.

I was just really frustrated at how few scenes she was actually in and how little she was allowed to DO in a movie completely centered on trying to fight the guy who tortured and experimented on her for her whole life. Like, she was in it and she was relevant, but mostly only as a set piece, not a person. But I guess they couldn’t figure out how to make her Precious To A Man, so she didn’t really matter to the writers.

My only hope is that she’s vitally central to the next one, but like... I expect literally nothing good out of the next movie, so it’s not exactly a thriving hope.

The female characters were all underutilized.

The writers are misogynists and you could tell by how few lines any of the women had when they weren’t being shown as Precious To A Man. Which female characters got to be involved in whole entire conversations (rather than just one-off lines)? 

Wanda (while being Precious to Vision)

Gamora (while being Precious to Quill, then to Thanos)

Pepper (while being Precious to Tony)

Honorable mentions for Mantis, Nebula, Shuri, Okoye, and Nat for having a handful of lines each in the entire movie that was HIGH KEY centered on white men. 

The Thanos Fandom

I’ll leave off on people who actually LIKE Thanos right now, because I assume they’re mostly eugenicist nazis and aren’t worth my time.

No, I’m talking about people who like him AS A VILLAIN and think that the movie did a GOOD JOB of making him clearly and wholly and unequivocally a villain who the audience should clearly and wholly and unequivocally feel antagonistic towards. 

It didn’t. 

The movie portrayed him as someone trying to do “the right thing” who has to “make hard choices” because of his “tragic past” which is NOT an acceptable portrayal of a genocidal megalomaniac-- ESPECIALLY not in the current climate of the world. 

If the audience is not explicitly told how to feel about a villain (by point-by-point countering and condemning them), the lowest common denominator of the audience (which is not a small percent of said audience) is going to interpret the villain’s tragic backstory as justification, their “hard choices” as being worthy of empathy, and their worldview as something worth considering. Especially if you write them as such, and ESPECIALLY if they WIN. 

And yet all I keep seeing is people who want to justify enjoying the movie (unnecessary: you can enjoy it and admit it’s content is bad at the same time) by yelling “Of course Thanos’ is CRAZY-- that’s the point!! People complaining about it aren’t giving the audience enough credit!!”

Please read this relevant post talking about Fight Club (and Mad Max). 

“Media designed to teach morals often backfires [because] just exposing [people] to bad behavior is enough to make them internalize that the behavior is [...] acceptable for people to do, [especially when a] movie only really devotes 5% of its screen time to explicitly denouncing [said bad] behavior, and that [...] only arrives at the very end of the film.” 

--a summarized quote from the above, much longer, post.

This is extra EXTRA relevant if you have to WAIT A YEAR before you even GET to the “consequences” part of the morality story. “The typical adult audience member does not think critically enough about film media to process this moral” is a true statement even when the moral is in the last 10 minutes of a 90 minute film-- it’s WAY more true if the moral doesn’t come until A FUCKING YEAR LATER. Another relevant quote from that post is “The director has the responsibility to clearly spell out to the audience the difference between supporting a behavior by depicting it, and criticizing it by depicting it.” This movie half assed that at best. 

Another relevant quote: “Every villain is the hero of their own story. And when the villain is the narrator, the audience is hearing the version of the story in which the villain is the hero, and the audience is moved by that perspective.” 

Thanos was in charge of the narrative of the entire movie. He was functionally the central and thus main character on which the story turned, made clearest by the end screen “Thanos will return”, which up until now has been reserved for PROTAGONISTS. That’s what I’m talking about here. 

He was the villain, but he was also functionally the main character, and the narrative did not put in the work to properly condemn him or his actions. They spent all their time and energy making him fake deep, and then threw a couple “You’re insane!!!” lines in there from heroes to cover their asses that really didn’t have any effect on Thanos whatsoever.

Also please consider that “He’s just CRAZY!! That’s why he’s violent and evil!!” is a tired and ableist trope used primarily to villainize real mentally ill people and to let white men (who are not mentally ill) off the hook for violent toxic masculinity. Mentally ill people in reality are disproportionately likely to be the VICTIMS of violence, not the perpetrators, no matter what media would have us believe. 

Thanos isn’t crazy, he’s a self absorbed, entitled, genocidal megalomaniac, and calling him crazy is a cop out. 

Assuming everyone understood that he’s purely and simply wrong is giving the audience WAY too much credit, especially when his motivation is based on a fabrication that the writers seemed to actually believe. 

No one in the movie said “Thanos, our world isn’t overpopulated-- people in power are just greedy. If you’re going to kill anybody, kill those people. Don’t ‘randomly’ kill half the populous when some people are actually at fault." No one in the movie said “Your logic is based on fallacy” they just said “I don’t care about your logic because murder is always wrong (except when I do it).” Most or all of the protagonists in this series have killed people. I’m not saying they were wrong to, necessarily, but saying “You can’t just kill people” rings hollow from these characters in particular, especially when they’re actively trying to kill Thanos as they say it. Again, they’re right to do that, but IF they’re doing that, they need to be written to have a better argument than “Murder is wrong!” 

Basically the writing of this movie, where the heroes clashed with the villain, was just countering a fallacy that major parts of the audience may actually believe with some fallacies that fall apart at 10 seconds of critical thinking. Therefore, plenty of people will walk away with the wrong message.

ESPECIALLY when you depict Thanos in a reverent light, and have an entire subplot about how much he Loves the daughter he abused and continues abusing and then murders on screen. ESPECIALLY when he faces no genuine threat throughout the entire movie and then wins at the end, and the consequences for his actions have to wait a YEAR to be seen.

Thor "needed a weapon" to survive after taking the full force of a star??? I dont?? Get that.

That’s it, I just don’t understand it. 

Eitri the dwarf was like “BUT YOU’LL DIE!!!” and Thor did the thing anyway (predictably) and didn’t die (predictably) but was sort of dying for The Drama (predictably) and then Eitri was like “He needs the weapon!! to live!!!!!” and I still don’t understand what that meant or why. 

Relatedly, I don’t understand why Groot’s arm is an adequate substance for Thor’s anti-infinity-stone-weapon, when Groot #1 was obliterated by an infinity stone. Am I remembering that right? I don’t understand this. It feels like somebody thought “Hey you know what would be cool?” and that was literally the only thought process behind it. Nobody thought very hard about this before writing it into the movie. Though to be fair, that tracks with pretty much everything else in this movie, so why not, I guess. 

Also stars are way bigger than that, that was not a star. Just saying.

The Red Skull cameo made no sense.

I understand that the tesseract spat him out somewhere else in space, and I’m fine with that (like, that could have been interesting actually), but I don’t understand why he ended up as, like, a ghost doing the bidding of the soul stone or whatever??? Do the stones interact? Did the tesseract tell the soul stone to fuck that guy up cuz he’s an asshole? Was that just the effect of being transported too close to the soul stone? I don’t... understand that at all.

And, in line with the rest of the movie, he was very out of character.

“Thanos is sad because he LOVED Gamora”

Then he shouldn’t have fucking killed her. 

Even the smallest violin in the universe playing “my heart bleeds for you” would be too much. Fuck that guy and his fake depth.

Look I’ve touched on this multiple times already, but I keep coming back to it because it’s absolutely one of the worst things about the movie. 

If they wanted to make a point about Thanos' abuse not being mutually exclusive to the emotional experience of love on his part, they really should have hit it home instead of letting it just flounder. Abuse and love are not mutually exclusive, and we DO need more media that acknowledges that, but this is not how to portray that.

Gamora (or literally anyone) needed to actually SAY “I don’t care if you love/d me, you HURT me. You ruined my life. Your love is worthless and changes NOTHING.” 

Gamora suffered under his abuse pretty much her WHOLE LIFE and then he KILLED her. And he did it BECAUSE he “loved” her? And it was done to give him some sort of fucked up complexity/depth? That’s fucking violent. 

They didn't go hard enough on any of their character arcs/points

like... Steve was clearly shut down and depressed but that was never addressed. 

What was that about Tony wanting to stop being a hero and settle down and have kids??? They spent like 5 whole entire minutes (which is a long time in a movie actually) setting that up as a plot point and then never addressed it again. 

Bucky looked so tired when he saw the arm, like you could see on his face when he realized he was being sent back into war. Another assignment. Gotta kill more people. He looked so TIRED but then the next time we see him he’s smiling at Steve, and it never got addressed (AND THEN HE DIED SO???)

Bruce and Nat shared like one line, and then never spoke again (and while I’m not interested in them as a couple, that still felt weird). 

Rhodey went against that hologram asshole’s instructions and then it never came up again.

Rocket talking to Thor, asking if he’s okay, and Thor saying basically “I have nothing left to lose so I’ll be very useful” never became relevant. Rocket saying “Well, I mean, I’ve got a lot to lose actually” also never became relevant. 

Dr. Strange’s whole “duty” to protect the stone was supposed to be more important than anything, and yet it was not in practice more important than... like... anything, tbh. Nor did he have to deal with the consequences of failing his duty, even a little bit.

Vision was having headaches and then it turned out to be the stone, like, warning him about Thanos or something?? Never became important. 

Bruce couldn’t get the Hulk to help out. That’s... that’s it, that’s the whole character arc, he just couldn’t get the Hulk to help out.

Peter Quill was asked by Gamora to kill her. When the time came, he was actually willing to, but was stopped by an outside force. This was never addressed again, and then they both died. Cool. 

I understand that they might be trying to introduce all these plot points so they can address them in the second half, but.... like........... half these characters died already, and also that’s not a good way to write a two-movie story. Series’ need to have satisfying arcs within each independent installment. This movie did not.

((You may have noticed, also, that most of the characters the movie TRIED to give actual character arcs to, even if they failed, are white men. I noticed that too.))

Characters who have barely if ever been allowed to know happiness or contentment or safety, and then just die, are not enjoyable character arcs, fuck off.

Especially Bucky, but also somewhat true for Gamora, Mantis, Wanda (plus I’m still mad about Pietro). Don’t kill characters who’ve never really gotten to live well. Don’t make characters who only get to suffer and then die. Character arcs like that are almost always written by white male writers about marginalized characters, and it just feels violent. 

Steve’s new shield was weird.

I was actually hyped about T’Challa being the one to get him a new shield, because then it’d still be made of vibranium!! And everything from Wakanda so far looks rad as hell. But, uh... I wasn’t a fan of the design. It doesn’t look throwable, or big enough, or particularly useful. It didn’t do anything cool that I noticed. I thought maybe it was going to have a force field like the shield capes W’Kabi and the other male warriors used in Black Panther, or something else technological. Instead it just, like, gets 4 inches wider if you... put it on... or something??? Mediocre. Not worthy of having been made in Wakanda.

I just wasn’t a fan of pretty much any of the new designs they added to this movie (except the new spider suit, and that one lady villain; but that was really it). 

“All the stones together can alter reality!! Obviously the only solution is murder.”

I know everybody has said this, but why... didn’t Thanos just... create more resources. If the problem was too few resources, why didn’t he snap his fingers and make more??? If you have the ability to alter reality and remake the universe with a snap of your fingers, and your intentions are to improve the quality of life of all people’s throughout the universe, why the fuck is your only solution “murder half of everybody”?? 

And why would you murder a RANDOM half of everybody? Why wouldn’t you murder, like “the half of everybody who is the shittiest to other people, on a planet by planet basis” or something? Like, if your intentions are truly benevolent but you also truly can only use murder to improve the universe (which, like, is a very VERY bullshit “if” but I digress), why would you think the best use of murder would be “random”? That just seems like a privileged person trying desperately not to sound bigoted (while sounding bigoted nonetheless). 

So it doesn’t matter if they’re a mass murdering dictator, or a serial killer, or a sexual predator, or a corrupt politician lobbying for a skewed distribution of resources based on bigotry? They’d still only have a 50/50 shot at dying, even though you claim to be doing this for the betterment of the remaining people’s quality of life? 

What about communities that have already suffered genocide? They have to suffer that again, because you can’t get your head out of your ass long enough to comprehend the nuance of this bullshit situation you’ve created?

What about people who are studying genetically modified food to make resources more plentiful? People who spend their whole lives making hugely positive differences in the distribution of resources? People who are just good, and care about others, and take steps to improve the lives of others, people who aren’t going to fuck up the paradise you want to create? They also have that same 50/50 shot?

And if your goal is only the deaths of 50% of the people in the universe, what about bus drivers who are actively driving buses? What about surgeons who are in the middle of surgery? What about people driving cars on the highway? Killing half the population instantaneously would result in way more death than just half the population. 

This plan falls apart more and more the more you think about it.

"The biggest cast of all time” and NOBODY is queer. 

Like, there are two characters in the entire MCU who could conceivably be considered canonically queer: 

Valkyrie, because she was supposed to have a scene indicating her canon bisexuality. And even though they cut it, it was IN THE SCRIPT so it’s halfway canon.

Loki, but only because he’s queer (genderfluid and pansexual) in the comics. So like, he’s NOT canonically queer in the movies, but he’s also not specified as NOT queer, so...? The writers definitely didn’t intend it, despite queercoding him, but we can pretend. 

And in infinity war, Loki dies 5 seconds in, and Valkyrie straight up doesn’t exist. So????? It was boring and sucked.

They attempted to address the MCU Villain Problem, and failed.

The MCU villain problem, AKA the villains in most MCU movies are forgettable and boring because they and their schemes always came as an afterthought. 

Recently, to address this, the formula (as seen with Killmonger and the Vulture) seems to be "a villain that needs to be stopped, but who is understandable and maybe even relatable and likeable". In both the case of Killmonger and the Vulture, this worked (not perfectly, but it did). They made the villains PEOPLE outside of their villainy. They made them complex, and it was compelling and therefore memorable and interesting. 

They tried to apply this formula to Thanos... in the worst possible way. 

As I’ve already talked about. They tried to make him complex to avoid their usual villain problem, except in the process they MADE HIM THE PROTAGONIST. There wasn’t a hero protagonist. There was only Thanos and a lot of heroes trying to stop him, and posing no real threat to him or his plot at any point.

And the heroes OPPOSED him, but they did not properly condemn him or his logic, and then he won.

Fatphobia and emasculation aimed at Quill for the lulz  

They wanted Peter Quill to be threatened by Thor for some reason, and the way they chose to do that was to make Quill’s friends call him “one sandwich away from fat” and thus “not a man”. 

Then he started vowing to commit to a better exercise routine or something, and tried to lower his voice to sound more like Thor. Bless Thor for not understanding what was going on and thinking Quill was mocking him (aka, not thinking of Quill as having anything he’d need to compensate for), but Quill being threatened by Thor, as well as his jealousy of Gamora’s attention to a “more attractive” man, honestly just felt like the writers scrambling for a reason to give the characters conflict, and settling on a toxic and offensive trope. 

Especially because Chris Pratt is In Shape. He has like a six pack. He’s objectively NOT fat. If he were, and they mocked him for it, that would be fatphobic and shitty, but the fact that he’s NOT just makes it baffling on top of being fatphobic and shitty. It’s like those makeover movies where they put glasses and baggy clothes on a conventionally attractive woman and then claim she looks terrible. 

Bad.

There were better options for Thanos' reasoning and the writers... really should have taken them.

I have HEARD that the comic version of Thanos’ motivation was “He’s in love with the embodiment/god of death, and wanted to kill half of everybody to impress her” and to be honest that would have been a better option.

(Side Note: Maybe the use of Hela as the Goddess of Death in Ragnarok is why the writers of Infinity War hated Ragnarok. Maybe they were mad they couldn’t use her for this movie, and that’s why they murdered and buried everything Ragnarok accomplished with such thorough dedication.)

Other better Thanos motivations just off the top of my head: 

He wanted to take over/colonize/enslave other planets to house his own people who DID use up the resources on their own planet.

There’s actually something ELSE he wants to use the Infinity Stones for, but he needs to kill tons of people to get it, or to get the Infinity Stones.

He was cursed to be immortal and will not be allowed to die until he kills enough other people.

He needs to trade like 10 million souls to the embodiment of death to bring someone he loves back from the dead.

He plans to harvest people from a bunch of different planets to produce a youth serum for alien elites-- (no wait that’s the plot of jupiter ascending)

He just hates people and thinks people should die.

He literally eats people, and he’s enormous so he needs to eat a lot of people.

Just saying, all of these are better motivations than “I’ve just gotta murder people cuz if I don’t then people will run out of food, and then they’ll die. I don’t WANT to, nobody else wants me to either, but I’m going to anyway. I’m sad about it.”

"We don't trade lives" 

This was a line from Steve about killing vs not killing Vision, and in the subsequent context of the movie, it’s violent as hell. 

“We don’t trade lives” he says, to discourage Vision from consenting to death to save everyone. Then he/they take Vision to Wakanda where Wakandan soldiers lay down their lives by the dozens to hundreds to protect Vision. Vision, who was willing to die. 

Steve Rogers is a soldier. He KNOWS that trading some lives for other (hopefully more) lives is how this is going to go. He knows. This was like the “Language” line from Avengers; it doesn’t make sense for the character.

But even beyond that, as I’ve said, they are absolutely going to-- and for that matter they were PLANNING to trade black Wakandan lives for Vision’s safety. And even if that weren’t a plot point, they’d be planning to potentially trade their OWN lives for those Thanos would kill if (when) they fail. 

“We don’t trade lives.” Yes, you do. Of course you do. And the audience knows it because the audience has seen all your other fucking movies. 

Why couldn’t the writers take a breath and stop trying so hard and just let the characters say what they mean. “I don’t want you to die.” “Please let us try to save you.” 

Why couldn’t they have just, like, made up an actual reason why they couldn’t afford to lose Vision? Maybe Vision’s headaches could have been actually utilized as a warning system? Maybe Vision could have communicated telepathically with Tony’s AI all the way through space, so Vision was their only was to know what was going on with Tony and Co.? Maybe destroying the stone while it was inside Vision was massively dangerous (like, could have gone off like a bomb or something....? I mean he CAN use the stone like a laser, maybe trying to destroy it would make it detonate.). 

THERE WERE OPTIONS. Instead they went with the absolute fallacy of “We don’t trade lives,” delivered by a character who would never have said that, and followed by the traded lives of MANY black people for one white man.

Bad.

The Soul Stone has really low standards for supposedly having high standards

Why require somebody to go through with a whole test of “give up the thing or person you love most” to acquire the Soul Stone? Like, the explanation “A soul for a soul” was kind of cool, but what does that have to do with love? It’s not the Love Stone, it’s the Soul Stone. Love doesn’t have anything to do with that, and even if it DID, Thanos’ version of love should have made the stone go “Um, I think the fuck NOT, you abusive motherfucker,” instead of “Sure! I’ll hand phenomenal cosmic power over to you because you just seem super legit. Nothing could go wrong here.”

Was the love thing even real, or was the Red Skull just bein’ his racist self, and wanted to watch Gamora get tossed off a cliff because he’s a nazi and bored as hell?

Furthermore, why did only one of the stones require a test? Is the Soul Stone just really needy? What is the deal with these stones??? Nothing was ever explained at ALL and it made NO SENSE.

Gamora deserved better, and so did every audience member who’s ever been abused.

I’m just gonna circle back to this point and address it head on.

Here’s a great article on this subject from somebody better equipped to address it than me.

But basically just... fuck the writers for showing us her power, and then making it pointless. Making her stab Thanos in the throat and then allowing him to wave it off like it didn’t happen or didn’t matter or like he was just testing her. Fuck the writers for letting her be murdered at the hand of the man who ruined her life, to further HIS goals, and to give HIM ‘depth’. 

If she doesn’t get resurrected in the next movie and deliver the killing blow, I will be even more furious than I already am, and that is honestly already an impressive level of fury. 

God I’m so fucking glad I didn’t pay to see this garbage fire of a movie.

[nixonsmoviereviews]

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1992)- A mildly entertaining and campy bit of fun, though it is far too uneven and pales in comparison to the now-classic television adaptation.

Blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda... something about it being totally unfair to compare and contrast the film and television versions of this particular property because they are quite different beasts and aspire to meet different tones and aesthetics. Insert a comment about how the film was clearly going for a more campy, comedic riff that interpreted Joss Whedon's script in a more light-hearted fashion and should be allowed to stand on its own. Drone on a bit about how one can like both the film and the series, or even appreciate and prefer the film for its own unique take on the material. Yakkity-yak. Well, I really don't agree. I think one can definitely compare the two forms that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" appeared in during the 90's. And it goes without saying... the series was the better version. By quite a wide margin. It's a contemporary classic and not only one of the finest television franchises to emerge in the past twenty years... but arguably one of the best shows of all time. With a great self- aware but still spooky and tension-filled tone, ideal casting and top- notch writing for the most part, the series was about as perfect as can be. The film? Well, it's a bit of an interesting failure. There's a lot to enjoy here, and it's fun to see a slightly more whimsical and campy variation of the iconic character. But it's far too uneven for its own good and ends up an entertaining but incredibly mediocre experience. Buffy Summers (Kristy Swanson) is your typical snarky, privileged Los Angeles valley-girl high-school cheerleader. She loves shopping, talking back and her clique of preppy friends more than anything else. So you can imagine her surprise when a mysterious man called Merrick (Donald Sutherland) informs her that she is "The Slayer"- a chosen one gifted with superhuman strength and reflexes who is destined to do battle with the forces of darkness- most notably vampires. Now, she is forced to begin training to fight the hordes of evil that begin descending upon her town, including the vile and cruel Lothos (Rutger Hauer), a vampire king who seeks to destroy her. Honestly, I didn't mind the casting and I felt for the most part they were great choices for their respective roles. Being the first person to tackle the role before it was later perfected, Swanson makes for an amusing if not sometimes grating lead in Buffy, and if you can get past the handful of moments where she's totally unlikable, you'll end up being invested enough to stick with her. Sutherland and Hauer both add a sense of class to the film and inject some much-needed elegance. I also quite enjoyed the key moments where Hauer is allowed to ham it up a bit. Given the film's more comedic leaning, it works adequately. And supporting roles by the likes of Luke Perry and Paul Reubens also round out the supporting cast quite nicely- especially Reuben's as Lothos' second- hand man Amilyn. He's flippin' brilliant in the part and has one stand-out scene that I won't spoil- but suffice to say will have you rolling on the floor with laughter. Directorial duties are handled by Fran Rubel Kuzui, who does a fairly decent job visually, but can't quite find the right balance between humor, horror and drama. She does well enough with the action, but is perhaps a bit in over her head with the mythology that is being presented, playing it up a bit too much for laughs in moments that should be serious. Thought often the gags do land well enough to illicit a laugh at least. It's a competent shot, but aiming for the wrong target. And this goes beyond direction. The film feels at odds with itself from time to time, and I can't help but feel key decisions were made that were to the detriment of the story and characters. Story goes that the film was repeatedly re-written during production by everyone from the producers to the director to the cast, and it kind of shows. There are hints of writer Joss Whedon here and there, but it feels watered- down and made all the more bland. Heck, at times it even seems contrary to itself- a prime example being the fact that the film tries to build- up Buffy as the opposite of the classic damsel, yet she has to be bailed out repeatedly by the men in her life during action set-pieces. It cheapens the whole experience. Sure, have it happen once, maybe twice... but I counted at least three times she had to be saved by men in the film. The story suffers because it feels quite fractured by the muddled tone and some issues with the pacing and structuring that I can only assume is from the re-writes and subsequent re-edits to play up the laughs. It's just pretty darned sloppy, and comes across as incredibly and irritatingly uneven far too often. They took it too far towards the light and took away too much of the darkness. It lacks purpose and impact. Still, it got a few laughs out of me. And I can see people enjoying it to one extent or another. Does it match the ideal quality of the television series that followed five short years later? No. It doesn't even come close. But is it a terrible film? Not really. It's pretty much mediocre by any stretch, but watchable and fun in a campy way. My suggestion? Watch the show first. And then check out the film if you're interested in seeing the character done in a completely different manner. I give the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" movie a middle-of-the-road 5 out of 10.

[ninewheels]

I have more opinions on X-Men stuff

I’ve long had a problem with the X-Men IP (my favorite of all superhero properties) which I’ve rambled on about before, the gist being: comparing mutants to any real-life disenfranchised minority is completely disingenuous when most of the mutant characters we are shown have mutations that are also superpowers. When people in actual marginalized communities are described as “dangerous,” it’s propaganda designed to dehumanize and assert control. But mutants actually are dangerous, most of them, on an individual basis. (This is actually a thing I really appreciate about The Nevers; most Touched characters’ turns are not dangerous, or even particularly useful, so it really feels like they are an oppressed population.) It’s a strange and tricky thing to try and play both the inherent power fantasy of the superhero genre with a metaphor about groups of people who are powerless in the face of society, and I have thoughts on how to fix it, but short version is almost everyone who has ever written for the X-Men has not achieved a good balance.

Anyway, it’s only occurring to me now how this also influences the perception of Magneto and his ideology. The widely agreed-upon take is that he should be portrayed as sympathetic, but he’s written as a villain because he’s militantly advocating for the liberation of an oppression minority and the status quo doesn’t like that. And this is absolutely a huge part of the phenomenon of Magneto’s writing, on conscious and subconscious levels, but comparisons to, say, Malcolm X or the Black Panthers (no matter who it comes from) continue to play in to the false dichotomy. No matter how violent or restrained he specifically is written, Magneto is never equivalent to Malcolm or the Panthers or any other similar entity because mutants are not an oppressed minority in the first place. The text may insist that they are, but with so much emphasis placed on the people who have badass superpowers to compensate for their social disenfranchisement, it doesn’t feel that way. I was about to assert that, with bad enough writing, it comes off as a Randian “those unremarkable peons hate us because they’re just so jealous of how naturally gifted we are” message in disguise, but in fairness, that is actually how Magneto talks in some of his more evil portrayals. His ideal of “mutant supremacy” comes up infrequently in different versions, and again, I get why that ruffles peoples’ jimmies. For anyone who doesn’t know me, Magneto is my favorite comic book superhero and I do say superhero because I prefer him when he’s written as an anti-hero at cross-purposes with the X-Men. That is where I personally am coming from on my Magneto preferences. That said, in the bigger picture of how Magneto usually is written: if we accept that mutants are not equivalent to any real-life minority, the difference between his violent-but-somewhat-measured militance level of antagonism and his full-on mutant supremacy level of villainy suddenly don’t seem so far removed. It’s easy to imagine a person developing a superiority complex when they have literal goddamn superpowers.

It’s easy to buy into the coding and think the X-Men represent this toothless moderate let’s-all-get-along response to oppression while Magneto represents real activism that’s not afraid to get it’s hands dirty, but like... the X-Men aren’t toothless. They get shit done. They save mutant lives all the time. They talk about peace, and they don’t kill humans, and they constantly save human lives as well, but they can do all of this stuff at once. And yes, some of you will respond that that’s the point, it’s bourgeois moderate liberals writing a fantasy in which they’re the good guys and the more militant types are the bad guys, and you are absolutely correct, that is a major element in the way the X-Men IP is written the way it often is. My point isn’t contradicting that. My point is saying that while we’re re-evaluating the text outside of the intentions of its authors, (i.e. “Magneto was/should have been right”) let’s go further and examine how X-Men as written doesn’t map to human rights struggles in the first place.

Real oppressed people don’t have superpowers to compensate for their oppression, not even on an individual level, and certainly not in the mass numbers that mutants do. If the X-Men didn’t just so happen to be peaceably-minded superheroes, they could conquer the entire world and subjugate the human race without much trouble (well, not in the comics because there’s over a hundred other human superheroes in the shared Marvel universe). No nation’s government could really stop them if the mutants unilaterally decided to take up arms. The only reason Magneto and his posse can’t do it is because the X-Men are around and choose to stop them. This is not a situation that is remotely connected to the plight of any oppressed peoples in the entire history of the Earth. Point being, if the X-Men do good for the mutant community and for the world as a whole as they are, then Magneto being far enough removed from them ideologically so as to break with them entirely, which is where he is in the majority of X-Men stories, means that his militance is just unnecessary and dangerous in the context of these stories. Mutants don’t need more drastic action to be protected, because there are hundreds of X-Men out there, being a nigh-unstoppable (at least in the long term) do-gooding force in the world. So if Magneto’s being portrayed as separate from them, most of the ways he can be portrayed are aggressive and scary.

I didn’t really come here with a concise thesis statement beyond “look even closer.” I guess the closest thing I have to one is that Magneto’s characterization is rooted in conservative status-quo ideology, but it isn’t a deliberate conspiratorial effort to make you hate revolutionary thought. It’s a confluence of a lot of things: a bunch of rich assholes funding things who don’t care about politics in superhero media as long as it’s not controversial enough to lose them money; a lot of individual artists with no agenda projecting the subconscious distrust for revolutionary thought they learned from other media; a few individual artists who actively do hate revolutionary thought; hacks mimicking what other people have done with no agenda, which always winds up skewing conservatively; people occasionally considering the legitimate world-building point I just made in the last paragraph; and the overall environment of the superhero comics industry, which prizes the artistic status quo above all else, so political status quo has an easy in by association.

[theghostpinesmusic]

On the Weird Melancholy of the Holiday Season

“It’s been awhile since I’ve written something that wasn’t a) for work or b) song lyrics. But, I finished work an hour early today for what feels like the first time in 2020, and so what the hell. Let’s talk about The Inevitable(?) Sadness of the Holiday Season!

I’ve been thinking about this subject a lot lately because, well, for pandemic reasons, political reasons, economic reasons, etc. (really, take your pick, or even mix and match!) this holiday season has been the hardest, darkest, and saddest of many people’s lives. I’ve also been thinking about it a lot because of this video, which you should probably watch instead of reading the rest of whatever I’m about to write:

If you watched the video and are still reading, thanks! If you didn’t watch the video, in short: it explores the melancholic feeling that many of us feel around the holidays through the lens of Christmas music. And, since music is the thing I use to try to understand most of what I experience of the world, it really spoke to me. Then, I fed that feeling a bunch of caffeine and started slapping the keyboard! Here we goooooooooooo--

Okay, I mean, sure, this year might be a particularly rough one, but at least in terms of music, the holidays have always been at least a bit melancholic. Sure, you’ve got your “Jingle Bells,” (not even originally written about Christmas) and your “All I Want For Christmas (Is You)” (pop music written to make money), but on the other hand, you’ve got “White Christmas” (sad), “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” (sadder), “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (the original lyrics are *dark*), and my favorite Christmas record A Charlie Brown Christmas, which, while evocative, is mostly instrumental versions of particularly sad holiday songs (”Greensleeves” is a song a morbidly depressed Taylor Swift might have written had she lived in the 16th century). And I personally feel like that sadness permeates the Charlie Brown soundtrack: after all, it’s not as if Charlie’s story is, generally speaking, a particularly uplifting one. Then there’s Joni MItchell’s “River,” which is...*sigh*...let’s just not talk about it.

I would argue that this music isn’t the cause of holiday melancholia, but rather a result of it. The holidays are the time of year when we’re all supposed to come together, agree to be the ideal versions of ourselves we spend the rest of the year failing to be, eat good food, shower each other with gifts, and, if we’re lucky, not have to go to work for a few days. And, most years at least, I get to do all of those things, and it’s great. But...it’s also sad? Somehow?

Well, I can’t speak to the genesis of anyone else’s holiday melancholy, but I have Some Thoughts. First: if you celebrate Christmas in particular, I think it’s important to note that it is a distant descendant of the Roman festival of Saturnalia. Old-school Saturnalia was, in one sense, one of those good old ancient Roman thrown-downs, where the social order was inverted, slaves were served by their masters, everybody got hella drunk, and, presumably, Santa Claus circled above the Italian peninsula all night long waiting for someone to invent a chimney he could fit down.

In another sense, though, Saturnalia was an acknowledgment of the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. It was a festival of lights held in defiance of the dark, a collective societal prayer for the return of the sun, the return of spring and summer, and, of paramount importance, the return of the growing season before everyone starved to death. Though of course there are a lot of variations on this theme, such holidays (not parties, but literally “holy days”) existed and continue to exist throughout the world, to mark the time of year when things are darkest, and to motivate people to come together to stave off that darkness with light, whether that light be candle flames, strings of LED bulbs, or a simple show of kindness to a person in need.

Understanding the holiday season, and Christmas in particular through this history has been really helpful to Adult Me. I was raised as a Lutheran and attended church until I moved away from home to attend college, but pretty quickly decided that organized religion wasn’t really for me as soon as the social pressure to participate in it was removed; and that’s not to say that organized religion is de facto bad or wrong, just that it wasn’t really for me, though it might be for others, and that’s fine.

I’ve been careful to refer to “the holidays” in this post instead of “Christmas” when possible, to acknowledge that this time of year means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but if you’re reading this as an American, you are absolutely aware of the connection between Christmas as A Thing Americans Do and Christianity, even if not everyone who celebrates Christmas is a Christian. In my younger adult years, newly separate from the religion I had grown up with, I had a really hard time squaring the “gather ‘round the hearth” ethos of Christmas and all the highs and lows of emotion that come with that with the subtext that the whole thing was to mark the birth of Jesus Christ: did I even have a right to have Christmas Feelings anymore if I was now, for all intents and purposes, a dirty heathen?

Back then, learning about Saturnalia and other traditions that have existed and still exist worldwide around the winter solstice helped me to understand the holiday season not as something that was *necessarily* tied to a particular religious tradition, but instead as something that was more universally human, and that had just happened to be presented to Young Me through the particular lens of Christianity.

It’s not exactly popular, post-Enlightenment, to suggest that we are fundamentally tied to, and dependent upon, the rhythms of earth, and yet it seems as if everyone feels this one thing, to a greater or lesser degree: as the middle of summer intrinsically feels like a time of carefree prosperity, the middle of winter intrinsically feels like a time to batten down the hatches, to gather ‘round the fire for warmth, and to wait with bated breath for summer to come around again. This might “simply” be the shorter days, or the colder temperatures, or it could be something more profound or complex, but the existence of the holiday season, I would suggest, proves that we feel it.

So, that brings me back to the holiday season and melancholy.

I love Christmas. Even as a dirty heathen, it’s my favorite holiday of the year. I love the lights. I love putting up a Christmas tree. I love the songs (even the sad ones). Everyone really is a little nicer (unless you’re at the mall). I love playing in the snow. I love sledding. I love going home to visit my family, because it’s often the only time each year that I get to see them. But I also love Christmas because it’s hard to imagine the winter solstice without it. I could make it through summer without the Fourth of July. October without Halloween would be a little boring, but whatever. Thanksgiving could disappear tomorrow and, for the most part, the only thing I’d miss would be gaining five pounds at the end of November every year. I’m not sure what December would be like without Christmas to look forward to. I’m not sure how January first would feel without a New Year’s Eve to impart the promise of better days to come. But I don’t like to think about it.

I think the holiday season means so much to so many people precisely because seven hours of sunlight a day is not enough. Because the temperatures plummet as soon as the sun falls below the horizon. Because the snow piles up. Because all the trees and plants have lost their leaves and the wolves are (figuratively) at the door. We modern humans try to dissociate ourselves from the rhythms of the natural world, because they’re inconvenient, or because they’re inconsiderate, or because they cut into our profit margins...but we know all of this, on some level, every year when December comes around.

December is the end of something, and at the end, we understandably hope for a new beginning. The Christmas lights, the presents, the travel to get home for the holidays: it’s all an expression of that hope, the hope that we’ll win out against the darkness. And we do. For awhile. But never forever. And I think that’s where the melancholy comes from, at least for me.

The holidays exist because the melancholy exists; not the other way around. Joy and sadness intermingled. I think it will always feel that way for me this time of year. And I think that’s okay, because in a sense, that makes the holiday season the most human time of all: when our backs are to the wall, our instinct isn’t to run, or lash out, it’s to band together, to reconnect, and do everything we can to help each other get through. And I find that to be a truly comforting expression of humanity confronting its own finitude.