#you guys do understand that we live by the narratives we immerse ourselves into right?? you know that our worldviews and beliefs

[psalmsofpsychosis]

yeah so i dont get the "wasn't that some fucked up shit? anyway i'm Rod Sterling" mentality some people have towards different narrative reads. It's all sweet and cool to want to explore all the different variations of a fucked up scenario, but i'm gonna need the reasons for it. I need the "why"; why are we exploring this thing? Why is it important to explore this story? what am i getting out of it? and no it's not about morality.

I dont need a story to teach me "good" life lessons, though that'd be lovely. I dont need it to be an exceptional and exemplary narrative even, but i need my discoveries to be purposeful and meaningful. Sometimes the aim for an exploration of say, a very tragic story, is to simply experiences the different flavours and nuances and complexities of a deeply held personal emotion; sometimes it helps us find the mirroring and connection and relatedness that we need to feel seen and heard and understood. Sometimes it helps you parse out your own bullshit by taking it out of your head and putting it in front of you– i dont care what the reason is, but there's a reason. There's a purpose for every single endeavour you take on, even if you haven't discovered the reason yet. "i just want to experience a fucked up shit" lazy superficial thinking, dig deeper. I hate superficial and purposeless shit; and no i'm not gonna explore the 863796373th trending trauma porn piece of the day because "wouldn't that be fucked up?" nah. I dont care, it's got no use to me. I will absolutely respect the endeavour and make space for it if someone tells me something as simple as "it is relevant to me and my interests and experiences and my mental preoccupations, and helps me refine my humanity and my understanding of humanity in general", that is a lovely and true statement. But if someone keeps churning out worst possible fucked up sad scenarios one after another under the "wouldn't that be fucked up?" flag, i'm out, i dont give a fuck. take your sad shit somewhere else, i have absolutely zero space for purposeless horrible narratives that positively add nothing to my life and dont help me navigate it in any meaningful way.

[dailyaudiobible]

03/08/2023 DAB Transcript

Numbers 10:1-11:23, Mark 14:1-21, Psalms 51:1-19, Proverbs 10:31-32

Today is the 8th day of March welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is great to be here with you today around the Global Campfire as we gather to take the next step forward. And I’m grateful that we get to take the next step forward each and every day. Our…our next step forward, the one we’re gonna take now, the step forward for today will lead us back into the book of Numbers and we will continue our journey with the children of Israel in the wilderness. Numbers chapter 10 verse 1 through 11 verse 23 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the gospel of Mark we have reached the portion of the narrative where we are encountering the last supper of Jesus, the betrayal of Jesus, the last days of Jesus. And I mentioned when we went through this in Matthew, we should always give reverence to what we’re reading. We get to encounter this story four times, once in each of the Gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - and then we move forward into the book of Acts and into the letters and we leave the narratives of the ministry of Jesus behind. And, so, when we encounter these stories, giving them the weightiness that they are due it’s important especially now that we’re in this season of Lent, a season of repentance, a season of reflection, a season of trying to slow things down enough to realize the impact of our lives and understand that sin, as we have allowed it to direct our lives has only ever let us to destruction, and that a Savior came to rescue us. That's the story that we are moving into in the gospel of Mark. And, so, just again reminding us as we move through this in the coming days that…that…that we immerse ourselves and meditate upon the story of our salvation.

Then we turn backward into the book of Numbers and our reading began poignantly, and I quote, “the people began complaining openly before the Lord about hardship.” Like that one sentence right there describes a generous portion of our lives, especially our spiritual lives. “The people began complaining openly before the Lord about hardship.” A couple verses later...later we get to hear what they were saying as they were complaining about hardship. “Who will feed us meat. We remember free fish we ate in Egypt along with the cucumbers, melons, leaks, onions and garlic, but now our appetite is gone. There’s nothing to look at but this manna.” So, what they're saying is, ha, this journey into freedom has gotten difficult. “Do you guys remember how great it was when we were slaves when we could eat fish and cucumbers and melons and leaks and onion and garlic. Now all we have is this manna.” So, what they're saying is slavery fed us better. God's provision out here in the wilderness that is sustaining our very lives, we’re sick of this. This is too hard. This is too difficult. And then Moses hears all this, and he gets provoked by it, but he’s not like mad, specifically at the Israelites. He is also complaining before the Lord. “Why have you brought such trouble on your servant? Why are you angry with me and why do you burden me with all these people? Did I conceive all these people? Did I give birth to them so you could tell me to carry them at my breast like a nursing mother carries a baby to the land that you swore to give to their ancestors? Where am I supposed to get meat? How can I feed all these people? I can't carry all of this by myself. They’re too much for me.” And then…and then the best. “If you're going to treat me like this, please kill me right now if I have found favor with you and don't let me see my misery anymore.” So, Moses is one of the greatest leaders in the Bible, absolutely revered above all in Judaism. Like Moses…this is who the law came through. This is Moses, the prophet that led them out of slavery in Egypt. This is a man who was the friend of God. And now they have all received instruction from God at the mountain. They have made preparation to do all of the things that God commanded them to do. They have built the tabernacle and made it portable, a place for God to dwell among them wherever they go right in the middle of the story wherever they go. He is providing for them daily all that they need, but it's getting hard and challenging because now it's not a concept. They have to live this. And in living this, they've had to go further into the desert to further understand the message of the wilderness that they are utterly dependent upon God. They are learning to trust. It as if God is saying I have a path through this wilderness into the land of promise. I have a way prepared for you. I will protect you every step of the way. I will take you. And when you face things that you don't understand you have got to remember that I have got you. I understand. Like you’ve gotta stop trying to hijack the story and write something different. You've got to trust me. You've got to follow the path that I've made for you. If you're going to deviate, it's not going to work. You've got to learn this out here in the wilderness. And they're not. They’re thinking about how good it was to be in slavery and bondage, and Moses is exasperated as a leader because he is carrying too much. He's trying to own too much of this because he as a leader also has to learn the same lesson of utter dependence upon God. Even as I’m retelling the story that we just read in the book of Numbers it should become apparent that this is a mirror into our own stories through our own wilderness journeys. We get into places that we don't understand or situations that feel constricting, we feel like we’re in the wilderness and it's hard and very very easily we find ourselves thinking about better days, the days of bondage. Somehow, we look back and forget that we were being destroyed before our very eyes and we were rescued. And sometimes as leaders we can be leading and nobody's listening and no matter what we do we can't seem to keep anyone on the same page and it gets exasperating and we’re just simply trying to serve God by leading His people to Jesus. And, so, we see both in this example, today, the children of Israel and Moses facing their own set of difficulties in the wilderness. This is the mighty children of God, the chosen people. This is the mighty Moses, the prophet of the most-high God. And as it turns out they didn't have anything that we don't. In fact, we have much more than they did. We still find ourselves in the same places in our lives. And, so, let's once again watch how everything plays out, allow it to be a mirror into our own souls, and realize that scriptures are certainly telling us the story of the children of Israel, but through the story they're telling us how our own story. There is a way forward. That doesn't mean we won't have to endure the way forward, but we will accomplish the way forward if we will realize that we are utterly dependent upon God. We will begin to realize that we wrestle with this a lot because what we would prefer is that by our own power we would be able to arrange for the kind of life that we want and that God would empower us to do that when the invitation is to go on a grand adventure of life with God, trusting Him completely for all things in every conceivable way. Some things for us to give some thought to today.

Prayer:

Father, we invite you into that. We confess. We confess that when we feel self-sufficient and that we have power and control to arrange for things that we feel the most stable even though we still navigate ourselves and all kinds of trouble regardless…regardless of where the path is leading us until we realize that trusting you is the only way forward. We will continue to try to hijack things, write a different story than you are telling. May we relax. May we exhale. May we realize that we are safe, that you are with us and will never leave us. May we trust you instead of reflecting back upon the good old days of bondage that we used to have. May we trust you, because where we are going is into the promise. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Good morning it's the 28th of February here in the UK and I just heard the prayer request from a gentleman who refers to himself as Joseph in the Pit. He was requesting peer for his marriage, in particular his wife due to childhood trauma has left __. they've been married for 25 years. And I call you Joseph at this time. Joseph I was so moved by your prayer request because it is almost identical to the situation that I have in my own life. I am very similar to your wife in that I had childhood trauma and that led to control in ways that were unhealthy in my marriage. I've been married for 26 years, and I just started counseling last week. And, so, my prayer for you is the same prayer that I pray for myself and my marriage. Father God, I pray for Your intervention. I pray for You to convict Joseph's wife. Convict her of her fear and of her anxiety to want to control issues. I pray Lord that she finds the courage to make herself vulnerable in Your site so that she's able to hand over…hand over those issues of control and fear to You Lord, lay them in Your hands so that You may be able to take hold of her and…and minister to her heart Lord for the healing that she needs. I pray for Your protection over Joseph and his wife's marriage Lord. May You guard his heart also as they hand him over to You. I pray that You hold him dearly and closely to You and I pray this in Jesus’ name. I come against the enemies’ ploy to try to prevent them from having a healthy, strong marriage. And I pray this Lord trusting that You will speak to her and that she will lay herself vulnerably at Your feet and nail to the cross all her fears and anxieties and seek the help that they require in Jesus’ name Amen.

Hi everyone, this is Willow from Washington. I don't have any prayer request today, but I just wanted to share some scripture that I read the other day that's just been very encouraging to me. I actually made it my lock screen, home screen on my laptop so I could just be reminded of it every day. But…so it's gonna be psalm 71 versus 19 through 22. Your righteousness O God reaches to the highest heavens. You've done such wonderful things. Who can compare with You O God. You've allowed me to suffer much hardship, but You restore me to life again and lift me up from the depths of the earth. You will restore me to even greater honor and comfort me once again then I will praise You with music on the harp because You are faithful to Your promises O God. I just wanted to share that scripture with you guys. I'm praying for all of you and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.

Hey DAB family this is Julian in Miami FL and I'm calling in to pray for Cynthia who requested prayer for her eyes and gave such a beautiful prayer for the whole DAB community. And I just want to pray over your eyes Cynthia and say, Lord Jesus we know that all things are possible through You, we know that all healing is possible through You, we know that miracles are possible through You. And in Your name Lord we pray for our sister Cynthia. We pray over her eyes Lord, and we pray that You may heal her fully 110%. Lord, we know that these things are possible through You when we call upon Your name Lord Jesus Christ. Love you, Cynthia. Take care. Bye-bye.

Hi neighbors it's Lisa the Encourager. I am wanted Work in Progress to know…first of all I'm going to call you WIP because that's easy…work in progress…easy for us to all remember, but I just wanted you to know that ever since you called in, I have been praying for your daughter. Every day I have her on my prayer list and I am praying that especially that considering she was a follower of Daily Audio Bible and she is part of this community I feel like we all should in unison just call out to God and pray that the angels on earth will just come to her aid and be able to help your daughter to be safe, be rescued, not only in her mind and soul and body but her heart and just be changed through the Holy Spirit. And I just want us to all please…just all pray together for WIPs daughter and pray this in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit. God, please Lord God, please put people in her life Lord that will be able to give her safety, give her security Lord. Put people in her life that can help her God, any resources that can come her way God, that can protect her. And we just pray dear Lord, that she will hit her rock bottom, that her rock bottom is now God and now is the time that you are going to send your angels to protect her and guide her back to you and even back to this community God. I pray all of this in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Love you.

Hi this is Winnie. I've called once before a couple months ago, I guess. My nephew had called. He had lost his wife and he was left raising his three kids. Just an update. They've been evicted from their home and the two older kids are living with my niece and her sister. They sleep on the floor and the couch and then the baby is staying with my mother, my 80-year-old parents Monday through Friday. Friday. I pick the baby up and keep him through Sunday just to give my parents a break. I work full time, so they help out in that way, and I help them. But the father has pretty much abandoned these kids. He shows up to take the baby to daycare and that's about it. We don't see him again especially on the weekends we don't hear from him. So, I just want to ask the DAB family to just pray for this situation because my parents, like I said, are in their 80s. They can't do this and it's becoming very taxing on everybody. The girls who don't have their own bedrooms anymore are just pretty much in limbo. And, you know, I understand that he's bereaved, but he has…he has children. And, so, I just ask for your prayers for that. And…and that's pretty much all right now. I'm thankful for this DAB community and I pray for you all. Thank you.

Hey DAB family I've got a couple of prayers that I want to pray. It's Alexis the psalmist on the prayer wall. First of all, I want to pray for my sister in Europe whose mom passed away after suffering from some longtime illness and her dad is struggling. Lord God I just lift up my sister. I pray father God that as You have given her the strength to continue to believe in You, to continue to trust in You when it's just been a month since You lost her mom since her mom returned to be with You, I pray Father God that You give her and her family the strength to get through the season. Comfort her by Your precious Holy Spirit and give her grace and strength to move forward each and every day. Yes, there will be hard times, but Lord God I pray that through each and every hard time, each and every single wave of grief You are with her and with her dad and You draw them to You in Jesus’ name. I also pray for Kim in California who has been through quite a time with the floods and the storms. Lord God, it says in Your word in the book of Isaiah that we’ll go through the fire and we won't be burned and we'll go through the floods and we will not be overwhelmed. So, Lord God I just speak that word over her and her husband. I pray Father God that even through the health challenges that he is facing he won't be overwhelmed. I pray that there will be a peace in their home, a peace that surpasses understanding, that surpasses their surroundings and just to keep them. And last of all I pray for Emma and Beloved on the Beach Lord God, the move that they have made. Lord God, I know that You direct the path of the righteous. So, Lord God I pray that You direct Emma specifically to good friends and good counsel in Jesus’ name. Amen.

[intransigent-boy]

My Top Ten Films of The Decade.

10. Her

Okay, so whether you like it or not, this movie is about the present. This movie tells a very powerful story with an embarrasingly personal narrative. You feel sorry for the main character, it makes you so uncomfortable. And the reason is, because we are all in some sense are like this guy, Theodore. We have better relationships online, and with our advices, than with real people. It’s a really bizarre conception, but we should face it, and ask ourselves: Where is the limit?  The script is just brilliant, but also has very controversial scenes. Joaquin Phoenix is simply the perfect choice for a lonely man, like Theodore. Melancholy everywhere, and great visuals. Arcade Fire made the music for this, and it was pure melancholy. Very interesting film.

9. The Place Beyond The Pines

Derek Cianfrance is an exceptional director. He can wonderfully create an atmosphere with great lighting techiques, unique musics, and of course with talented actors. This movie has a linear, but quite unusual story-structure. The main theme haunts you after you watched this. Legacy! 

8. Nightcrawler

Louis Bloom is something of a loner who is unemployed and ekes out a living stealing and then reselling copper wire, fencing and most anything else he can get his hands on. When late one night he comes across an accident being filmed by independent news photographer Joe Loder, he thinks he may have found something he would be good at. He acquires an inexpensive video camera and a police scanner and is soon spending his nights racing to accidents, robberies and fire scenes. He develops a working relationship with Nina Romina, news director for a local LA TV station. As the quality of his video footage improves so does his remuneration and he hires Rick, young and unemployed, to work with him. The more successful he becomes however, the more apparent it becomes that Louis will do anything - anything - to get visuals from crime scenes. The conception is just brilliant, and screams to your face, what kind of society are we living in. I think Psychopathy is going to be one of the biggest issue in our generation asides with mental illneses. And this movie reflects perfectly. You understand the character, which is geniusly performed by Jake Gyllenhaal. 

7. Inside Llewyn Davis

The Coen brothers' exquisitely sad and funny new comedy is set in a world of music that somehow combines childlike innocence with an aged and exhausted acceptance of the world. It is a beguilingly studied period piece from America's early-60s Greenwich Village folk scene. Every frame looks like a classic album cover, or at the very least a great inner gatefold – these are screen images that look as if they should have lyrics and sleeve notes superimposed. This film was notably passed over for Oscar nominations. Perhaps there's something in its unfashionable melancholy that didn't hook the attention of Academy award voters. But it is as pungent and powerfully distinctive as a cup of hot black coffee. This movie is about sacrificing everything for your art, directionlessness  (is there such a word?) , and finding the right path. Existential theme, with surpisingly good acting from Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, and Justin Timberlake. This is an Odyssey-story from the 1960′s America. What more you could ask for? 

6. Dunkirk

Reinventing a genre is quite exceptional. And Nolan did it. The best war movies of the last 20 years, including Saving Private Ryan and Hacksaw Ridge, have also placed viewers in the centre of battle. Nolan has not reinvented that immersive approach, but he comes close to perfecting it. The story structure is-again- brilliant. There’s no main character in the movie-just like in a war-but only  scared people. They want to go home. But they can’t. We’re with them with their struggle, and fears. We’re in the air, land, or water, it’s just a haunting terror.  And the soundtrack from Hans Zimmer is really remarkable. You hear it, and you recognize the movie. That’s what I call a score. Reflects perfectly, and holds the attention throughout the whole movie.

5. Hell or High Water

Another genre-twister masterpiece. This Neo-Western is just pure art. Hell or High Water is a film about a criminal  who commits the ultimate offence of putting his gorgeous and much nicer brother in a ski mask for several minutes of this film. Okay actually it’s about a career criminal brother and his he-wasn’t-but-he-is-now criminal brother who team up to commit a series of small-scale bank robberies across Texas, with the aim, finally – after several generations – of lifting the family out of seemingly inescapable grinding poverty. The part of Texas they live in is dying on its feet so career criminal is pretty much the only career left open that doesn’t involve serving in a diner or herding the few remaining cattle. It would’ve been easy for Hell or High Water to to turn out a cliche-ridden double bromance as there are quite a few movie tropes in this love story / revenge thriller, so it’s a tribute to director David Mackenzie that it’s actually a very touching, at times funny, at times quite brutal story. With a bit of grudge-bearing thrown in at the end to stop it being too redemptive. Memorable scenes, great acting, and a deromanticized western-feeling. After this film, you want to live in Texas, where everything’s slower, but sometimes you can chase criminals. It’s nice, isn’t it? 

4. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Martin McDonagh’s fiercely written, stabbingly pleasurable tragicomedy stars a magnificent Frances McDormand; watching it is like having your funny bone struck repeatedly, expertly and very much too hard by a karate super-black-belt capable of bringing a rhino to its knees with a single punch behind the ear. He’s a scriptwriter genius, it was shocking, how perfectly the dialouges and the actions were constructed. It is a film about vengeance, violence and the acceptance of death, combining subtlety and unsubtlety, and moreover wrongfooting you as to what and whom it is centrally about. The drama happens in a town with an insidiously pessimistic name – Ebbing, Missouri, a remote and fictional community in the southern United States, where the joy of life does seem to be receding. There is a recurrent keynote of elegiac sadness established by the Irish ballad The Last Rose of Summer and Townes Van Zandt’s country hit Buckskin Stallion Blues, a musical combination which bridges the Ireland which McDonagh has written about before and the America he conjures up here, an America which has something of the Coen Brothers. The resemblance is not simply down to McDormand, though she does give her best performance since her starring role as the pregnant Minnesota police chief in the Coens’ Fargo in 1996. It was brutal, controversial, and violent. 

3. Midnight in Paris

The definitive poem in English on the subject of cultural nostalgia may be a short verse by Robert Browning called “Memorabilia.” The past seems so much more vivid, more substantial, than the present, and then it evaporates with the cold touch of reality. The good old days are so alluring because we were not around, however much we wish we were. “Midnight in Paris,” Woody Allen’s charming film, imagines what would happen if that wish came true. It is marvelously romantic, even though — or precisely because — it acknowledges the disappointment that shadows every genuine expression of romanticism. The film has the inspired silliness of some of Mr. Allen’s classic comic sketches (most obviously, “A Twenties Memory,” in which the narrator’s nose is repeatedly broken by Ernest Hemingway), spiked with the rueful fatalism that has characterized so much of his later work. Nothing here is exactly new, but why would you expect otherwise in a film so pointedly suspicious of novelty? Very little is stale, either, and Mr. Allen has gracefully evaded the trap built by his grouchy admirers and unkind critics — I’m not alone in fitting both descriptions — who complain when he repeats himself and also when he experiments. Not for the first time, but for the first time in a while, he has found a credible blend of whimsy and wisdom.

2. Beautiful Boy 

This supersensitive and tasteful movie is all but insufferable, suppressing a sob at the tragedy of drug addiction afflicting someone so young and “beautiful”. It is based on what is effectively a matching set of memoirs: Beautiful Boy, by author and journalist David Sheff, his harrowing account of trying to help his son Nic battle crystal meth addiction, and Tweak – by Nic Sheff himself, about these same experiences, the author now, thankfully, eight years clean. Steve Carell does an honest, well-meaning job in the role of David and the egregiously beautiful Timothée Chalamet is earnest in the part of Nic, David’s son from his first marriage. This is like a modern-day Basketball Diaries. Honest, and Raw. Most underrated movie of the 2010′s, with an unquestionably important topic. 

1. The Social Network

Before Sorkin wrote the screenplay, Ben Mezrich wrote the book based on Mark Zuckerberg and the founding of Facebook titled: The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal. It was published in July 2009, and most of the information came from Facebook “co-founder” Eduardo Saverin, who in the film is played by Andrew Garfield. The screenplay that Sorkin wrote was blazing, he wrote the characters like they were in a William Shakespeare play, with a story full of lies, jealousy, and betrayal. I especially love how Sorkin balanced the story between 2003, 2004, and then 2010. It goes back and forth between the past when Facebook was just an idea for Mark, and in the current day when he is being sued by Cameron & Tyler Winklevoss for, in their minds, having stolen their original idea, and by his former best friend Eduardo for having him pushed out of the company. In fact, some of the very best dialogue (and the film is full of great quotes) happens during the deposition scenes. Well-recognizable, rapid-fire dialouges, wonderful directing, with Trent Reznor’s greatest soundtrack. The movie’s probably going to outlive the Facebook itself, and that’s just great. 

[frankencocksupremacy]

You don’t have to answer this if it’s too personal I was just wondering how did you deal with the negativity/stress around phalloplasty? I’m having it soon and it’s a serious downer hearing both the negative talk from non-op guys and stories from people have regretted surgery (even if that’s rare). I’d appreciate any advice if it’s not too much to ask

i don't mind answering this at all, no worries. this sort of thing has actually been on my mind for a long time and this gives me an excuse to talk about it lol. please note that just because something made me feel better that doesn't mean it'll work for you. we're all individuals and i'm no therapist. also note that i'm still in recovery and my main way of coping with anything heavy is cracking jokes (INCELS STILL WISH THEY WERE ME) so try to take particularly specific things i say with a grain of salt and feel free to toss out whatever advice seems unhelpful. if none of this works for you, i apologize, but maybe someone will find it beneficial.

ANYWAY here's whats been helping me get through my days (i tried to condense it but it ended up being a novel anyway oops):

⦁ post-op depression is real and it happens to lots of people. it can be coped with. keep yourself as mentally well as you can post-op. seek the support of people who care. immerse yourself in things you enjoy (just be careful if those things are drugs or sex. ask your doc about what your limits are while you're healing). develop a strong sense of humor. and be patient with yourself if you get frustrated or insecure. post-op depression doesn't last forever, and contrary to what some people believe, it also doesn't mean you've made a mistake. it's completely normal to feel shitty when you're in pain and exhausted for a long time

⦁ don't share more then you're willing to, no matter what. you don't owe nobody nuthin. transition is personal and nobody is entitled to the details, esp if they just want to know how to better shit talk you. be polite towards the well meaning, but set your boundaries and don't let people bully you past them. there are some trans people who think we must share all of our experiences, that we must make ourselves vulnerable for each others' sakes, but i promise you nobody will die if you choose to keep things private

⦁ understand when people are speaking in bad faith. non-ops who find bottom surgery "faulty" or are jealous of it don't care about the actual results, they just want you to feel bad for either living differently then them or for having what they don't. spiteful detrans people don't care about the thousands of happy post-op people who live and die as their transitioned gender, they're bitter about their own difficult experience. trans people who regret bottom surgery have their reasons to and that should be respected, but those reasons are entirely theirs (read: not a reflection on you or a guarantee that you'll feel the same way). Their_Experience_Is_Not_Universal.jpeg. none of these people having different lives or opinions needs to mold your reality

⦁ in addition to that, realize when people are speaking from a place of bias. of course someone who hasn't/can't have this surgery may talk shit, that's what sour grapes and internalized transphobia do to you. of course shittier people who've detran'd think nobody can be happy with the outcome of surgery, they're focused entirely on their own pain. of course people with surgical regret may try to disuade others from surgery, it wasn't what they wanted/needed/expected and they typically think they're doing you a favor. don't buckle to other people's perceptions of this operation without asking yourself what's motivating their mindset and what they'd get out of you believing it. everyone has intentions and they're not always good

⦁ don't argue with people who have made up their minds that they dislike your body, your decisions, or you as a person. you will not win, and you won't change their mind no matter how you respond to them. they'll just drain your energy and convince themselves that your reaction proves they're right. if someone makes a disparaging comment in person, subtley express disapproval at their social faux pas and then ignore them. if you get nasty messages online, delete them without acknowledging them publicly at all, even if you have the sickest of burns ready. and then reward yourself for staying mellow by doing something you enjoy, esp if its with people who actually respect you and make you happy

⦁ you are not a hypothetical or a statistic, so don't cling to them and psych yourself out. many men have this surgery and are thrilled with their lives after, and no percentage of people who encounter A Bad Thing That Happens Sometimes has ever changed that. live with what's happening right now in mind, not what could happen or has happened to others. this isn't to say you shouldn't be aware of or prepared for things like complications or difficult feelings, of course, just don't borrow trouble

⦁ in case it ever comes up: anyone who says your penis "isn't real" or "isn't functional" is wrong. your penis will be real, and chances are that if you've elected to get phallo, it will have the functions you'll need for it to be worth it to you. i can't predict your surgery outcome, and i'm only 6 weeks out as of yesterday so lord knows what's in my future, but my penis is very much a penis and it becomes more like how i want it to be every day. it's my own flesh and blood, i urinate through it, and someday i will have sex with it. cis =/= real and we'd all be better, happier people if we stopped pretending that was the case

⦁ reach out to other men who've had this surgery. feeling isolated and alone makes it easier to fall victim to the negative mindsets of (internally) transphobic people. frankly a lot of us are very happy to share because too many of us had to go through our transitions without much guidance or support, and we get that from discussing it with each other. if you need explicit permission to feel comfortable reaching out, though, my ask and IMs are always open and i love talking to other trans people about medical transition wink wink nudge nudge

⦁ don't be hard on yourself if you have transphobic or unsure thoughts. this is normal and almost impossible to avoid regardless of how things go. beating yourself up fixes nothing, least of all negative thinking. instead, if you find yourself half-believing non-ops who are insulting this surgery, question yourself. would you berate or judge another man getting phallo? are your thoughts framing cis people and their bodies as superior to trans people and theirs, and if so, why? are you dwelling on your own insecurities or dysphoria with little else backing your logic? if after surgery you start panicking because of things detrans or regretful trans people have said, keep asking. has this change actually made your life worse, or are you just anxious about it hypothetically being a regret someday? does focusing on the negative experience of others actually benefit you in any way? do you genuinely relate to the experiences these people have when they share why they're regretful? self interrogation might keep you from feeling like you're just ignoring narratives that make you uncomfortable, all while letting you constructively work through your feelings

⦁ remind yourself that no matter what anyone says or thinks, you're not changing for them. naysayers of phallo never prevented me from getting - and loving! - mine. ignorant detrans people have never made me go back to being a girl. others' surgical regret and post-op horror stories have not kept me from getting any surgeries. my life is mine, i choose what to do with it, and no matter how much hate or misinformation i've been faced with, i have persisted because my transition is for me and i know i'd regret it if i never took my chances with it. phallo wasn't for any romantic partners, or my family, or society, it was truly for Me. your transition is for You. you have one life. do what you truly believe will make it the best it can be, and no matter what happens you will be better off in some way for having tried

if you can maintain a healthy, productive way of thinking that focuses on self acceptance, you're golden. it's not easy, i know, but even the smallest effort to try makes a noticable difference. you're gonna do great. keep your chin up

(small note: i mention detrans people a lot here because they are among the people who experience surgical regret and some are loudly opposed to surgical transition because of it. i have no issue with people detransitioning. but notice how each time i bring them up i'm describing ones that are volatile and intentionally hurtful. those are the kind of detrans people i don't care for. plenty of detrans people are chill. don't listen to the ones that aren't)

[chlopernicus]

Essay 1: Prisoners of the Human Condition

The ghost of Zona Heaster Shue reveals not only the problematic gender roles that have existed since before the late 1800’s, but also how we are not just a people of reason, but faith as well, and lastly, leads us to the haunted history of prisons in America. Zona’s husband was merely ignored by most, even while displaying erratic, controlling, and possessive behavior. We see the role of toxic masculinity play out in this story through her husband, and instead of focusing on it as a potential factor in the cause of Zona’s death, it is shrugged off as a man’s way of dealing with the death of his wife, despite his questionable past. Instead of raising boys to be emotionally aware and vulnerable, we teach them strength, pride, ownership, and aggression. Zona’s mother attempts to take the situation into her own hands after being haunted by the ghost of her daughter. It is because of this paranormal and spiritual experience that Trout, Zona’s husband, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his wife. This reveals how faith and the fascination with the unknown is intertwined into our human condition, through religion, ghost sightings, spiritual experiences, metaphysical intuitions, and convicting a man of murder based off a haunting. Although the haunting did produce some physical truth giving it much more credibility. The seemingly unexplainable physical evidence that came out of the haunting is what made it tangible, believable, and ultimately the reason why Trout was sentenced to life in prison. The potential reason why he was not instead given the death penalty, which was common at the time, could be due to the underlying apprehension towards the fact that this was the outcome of a seemingly inexplainable paranormal experience.

After this story, Colin Dickey of Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places, then puts us inside the American Prison System. The same prison Trout lived and died in became known for its horrific treatment of inmates, leading to the prisons closure, the doors to the spiritual realm to be opened, and dark tourism to take over.

( Image: West Virginia Penitentiary: Faces of the executed prisoners during the life of the prison.)

Prisons are interesting places. This idea that crime takes away from our humanness and therefor you must be exiled from society to pay for your crimes is one that deserves further analysis. It is an institution put in place to hide the darkness that can reside in the human form. The further we separate criminals to the human form, the easier it is for us to suppress and separate ourselves from the darker sides of existence and the human condition. Dickey allows us to see it from the perspective of sociologist Margee Kerr, “In the public act of confining the criminal, or the ‘abnormal’ other, societies reaffirm their shared values, the difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’ become visible, and the dividing lines are fortified” (163) So many of the systems we have in place in our society reinforce this idea of segregation. Separating us by any means possible, race, gender, class, able-bodiedness, good vs bad. It is based out of our need for survival, and criminals threaten our safety, and therefor means of survival, and thus must be exiled. Yet, the dark tourism that takes place in some of these abandoned prisons allows us to step into the mind and life of the imprisoned criminal, just long enough to get a glimpse of how they lived, breathed, and thought, but not long enough to feel the full weight, to get sucked in, and to face the darker sides that we suppress by historically pushing those thoughts and feelings to the side because they no longer make you an acceptable and respectable member of society. Kerr reveals “you are also relieved by the recognition at the tours end, that you are not one of the ‘bad guys’” (163).  At the end of the tour, they get to walk away, reminding them of their role in society and how the only time they would ever want to end up at places such as these is by personal choice; as a visitor, not a resident.

Dickey suggests that we should feel unsettled, and disturbed by these tours, by these places, by parts of our history, not feeling better about ourselves because we weren’t there, we weren’t them, or we weren’t involved. But being a human makes you involved. These stories and places are deeply encoded into our history, and therefor, our collective consciousness. The Stanford prison experiment is a perfect example, of how even people who are supposedly “normal” when immersed in such environments, are driven to do the same thing they were expected never to do. How under the right conditions, our suppressed selves will find a way to escape. It allowed us to see the flaws in the system, not just the people. This is the history and dark realities of the world we live in, injustice that has not disappeared along with bodies, ghosts being a haunted reminder of this. This is something real and frightening that took place in our society. When we tell it through the perspective of a ghost story, versus a historical narrative, it lessens the severity. Some view ghosts as myths and fantasy and allow them not to fully feel the weight behind the history. Ghost tours are a temporary sensation, a drug for the tourists. It is a way to get your fix without having to stay long enough to let the full weight of the reality sink in. A distraction from truth. To remain a spectator and not a inhabitant.

The systems we have created in this country have become just that in many ways, a distraction from truth. The prison system, down to its architecture, has been crafted to let the people on the inside know that they are not in a beautiful place, that they are not supposed to be comfortable, that they are not supposed to want to be there, and it lets the people on the outside know this too. It is a secluded place keeping you trapped on the inside from experiencing the outside world, and keeping outsiders blind, apathetic to, and deterred from what is happening on the inside.  Everything we can process with our senses evokes an emotional response and prisons take advantage of that. With their monotonous and dreary colors, the windowless hallways, cold prison bars, spiked fences, etc.. All there to remind you that you are trapped, desensitized, de-humanized and removed of privilege and agency. We put everyone in the same uniform and give them numbers, taking away from their humanness and adding to their imposed insignificance and confinement.

Despite studies that reveal practices such as solitary confinement are more psychologically damaging then helpful in aiding inmates to realize what they have done is wrong, we still impose practices such as these. We want criminals to pay and suffer for what they did because they are not like us, and are less deserving of love, compassion, and understanding. We run prisons to punish, not to rehabilitate; because instead of putting in the extra work to treat inmates as humans with the potential ability to heal, we would rather make them disappear and keep them far away from our society over fear of safety and survival, while profiting off of the ghosts of their bodies. It is much easier to confront the ghost of them then the actual human. It is easier for us to live through supposed fantasy as opposed to face reality. 

[scribblechill]

Cartoon episodes that aren’t plot driven, also known as filler episodes, often bore us. But could they be good, or even great as well? Watch to find out!

Click ‘keep reading’ for video transcript. 

Writing a non- plot driven episode is actually a lot harder than we think, because the audience starts off not caring about the characters at all, since there isn’t some overarching plot, lore, or unknown backstory that captivates them straight away. Therefore, the writer has to captivate the audience using much more subtle methods.

One of these methods is to create a sense of communion amongst a group of characters. It’s that feeling you get when you feel immersed within all the characters, as if you are one of them- it’s that warm, fuzzy feeling that puts a smile on your face. Surprisingly, that feeling is particularly strong when the story of the given episode is a break or pause from the main story arc- usually Christmas episodes or holiday specials.

And this is all due to the fact that you relate to these characters- because you understand them emotionally from past events in other episodes.

Whether it’s just two characters alone under a starry night, or a group of characters hanging out, we see a manifest of characters with different personality, goals, challenges, and struggles. And eventually, we would look at our own selves as well, and see that we are as complex and as flawed as these characters, making us feel immersed and emotionally connected with them.

An episode that breaks away from the main plot and focuses on highlighting this sense of immersion could actually do a lot more to engage us as the audience, and it’s a much more permanent and powerful way of making sure we return to continue to watch that series.

The opposite of our favourite plot driven, intense, and narrative heavy episodes are usually the other group that portrays the lives of the characters at their default- what normal life is like for them. Judging from what I said, you guys probably think that I’m talking about filler episodes- but wait, aren’t filler episodes, like, boring? Well, a less plot- driven episode does not have to be lame and mundane, because the characters involved in those episodes are still the same characters who are involved in plot-heavy episodes and massive conflicts. They can still grow and develop without embarking on some huge death defying mission where the fate of the world is in someone’s hands.

And by character growth, I am talking about making the character deeper and more complex by showing their capacity to improve themselves as a person- whether it is their relationships, their wisdom, or their self- awareness. And there isn’t, and shouldn’t be a rule where moments like these could only appear in plot driven episodes. For example, two characters could learn about each other in a fierce fight with an antagonist, but they could also do the same thing by just casually having a haircut on a cloud.

Capturing these minor yet compelling moments makes the character a lot more relatable, because we as the audience rarely grow and mature as people by hopping on a dragon’s back and fight demons or space invaders, but we grow and learn via more subtle and humble ways, such as observing people on a train to work. Hey, I’m not the only person who does that, right?

Alright, so, another reason why a great cartoon episode does not have to be plot driven, is because a deviation from the overarching plot could create an opportunity for the development of setting and immersion.

In order to remotely captivate an audience, a world has to be created- one that seems like it extends beyond the screen, not like your sixth grade school play.

An episode or two that deviates from the plot and explores the setting could actually be a great one as well, because surprisingly enough, setting- based episodes could be used to develop the character depth.

If you think about it, different places evoke different responses from us in real life. A certain school corridor could make us remember the happy feeling of school ending for the day. A certain smell or atmosphere in a diner or cafe could make us remember the times we spent there with someone.

Using that as an advantage, setting could be used to establish a place the character feels at home. A place where they feel the coziest and the warmest, and most importantly- a place where the people they care about surround them. In Gravity Falls it could be the Mystery Shack, in Steven Universe it could be Beach City.

The benefit of this is to create a sense of contrast- when the character is far away from home facing a challenge, away from their friends and close ones. We could feel the character’s yearning for home, which makes their decision to fight onwards, if applicable,  more powerful and more compelling.

As you can see, a great cartoon episode does not have to be plot driven, as long as it places the characters at the forefront.

In some aspects, non- plot driven episodes are sometimes even better than plot driven ones, given that they are written well. These episodes have a subtle sense of comfort to them, because it shows us as the audience that we don’t need to embark on a life- defying, nail biting quest, adventure, or journey to be better people. They show us that it’s OK that life is mundane for us sometimes, and more importantly, it shows us that we could grow, improve ourselves and become better people from our rather humble surroundings, and that there isn’t a barrier for us to try.

Thanks for watching!

[olyer-reylo-blog]

Revenge of the Myth: A Reylo Meta

OMG I wrote 2500 words on Reylo. All errors mine as I don’t do betas. Feel free to share. Feel free to comment. Criticisms will be welcomed. Abuse will be ignored.  Disney owns Star Wars. The fans own Reylo. I own the arrangement of these words.  In a recent meta, further discussed on her podcast Fansplaining, Flourish Klink addressed "The Problem of Reylo." For Flourish, the problem is that the Star Wars universe has relied on mythic tropes, but the Sequel Trilogy's humanization of these archetypal characters has led to a somewhat unresolvable tension in Reylo fanfic. Flourish observes that "If we think about the plot of the new movies in the same mindset as we watched the original trilogy, then, Kylo Ren can’t be considered a mass murderer in any real world sense. He’s simply an embodiment of Badness, which means he can be saved by the embodiment of Goodness, which is probably Rey (because when has there ever been a Star Wars movie that didn’t feature a battle between Good and Evil?). (More on this later.) In this context, Reylo seems not just reasonable but almost required. We aren’t really talking about any action either of them has taken, any person either of them has killed. We’re talking about sweeping themes of redemption, forgiveness, and Light and Darkness in balance." The problem, Flourish notes, is that once we see these characters as humans, once we see the greater psychological complexity in them, beyond the Original Trilogy tropes of good and evil, we then have to make these characters responsible for their choices. Realism renders the characters of Rey and Kylo Ren/Ben Solo to be pretty much un-shippable. 

Maybe. 

When confronted with an either-or proposition, my instinct is to go all Kobayashi Maru and find a third way. And so I propose a third way of looking at the Sequel Trilogy.  

No (Mono)myth 

The OT was a relatively simple tale of Good vs. Evil, Light vs. Dark. But the Sequel Trilogy is not retelling the monomyth so much as problematizing it. Those who live in the 21st century have seen the ways the myth of good vs evil has been leveraged against us, the way that it has been used to enact horrible crimes against humanity. One example, of course, is the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. Currently we see the demonization of the "other" in all sorts of ways, from the War on Terror, anti-immigration policies, Gamergate and online misogyny.  

If we stop thinking about the ST as part of a Campbellian monomyth, as in the OT, and instead consider it as a rejection of the monomyth because monomythical thinking is inherently flawed, we may see Kylo Ren differently and thus perhaps see Reylo differently.  

The text of the ST explicitly addresses the power - and flaws - of the mythmaking surrounding the Star Wars Universe. The myth has power, of course. But how much should it have? Both Luke (the "good" guy) and Kylo Ren (the "bad" guy) want to discard the past. Rian Johnson has said that the question of how much of the past to keep and honor and how much to discard is one of the issues of the ST.  

The ST has made a conscious effort to destabilize the monomyth by creating characters that are more than tropes, by humanizing and naming a Stormtrooper, by giving emotional depth to a low-level maintenance worker, and by explicitly calling attention to the human costs of a world built around endless war. Flourish recognizes this in her meta but sees it as a problem because the monomyth cannot co-exist with realistic depictions in a story about galactic war.  

Monomyths do not talk about themselves as monomyths. They simply live their monomythic-ness. That's part of the monomyth's power. The ST is profoundly different. The language of the ST, especially TLJ, is to talk about myths *as* myths, about stories *as* stories. This is important. TFA is about trying to locate the mythical hero, Luke Skywalker. The movie ends with Rey's triumphant visit to the island where he has lived in self-exile. But TLJ begins with the rejection of Rey's quest. Luke just throws the lightsaber over his shoulder. Fuck This Shit, he seems to say. The myth of Luke is very different from the reality of Luke, much to Rey's disappointment. Lesson the first: we should not mistake myth for reality. 

At the same time, mythmaking does have power. At the end of TLJ, the myth of Luke Skywalker is shown to prevail, representing hope and the spark of the rebellion. Luke projects himself onto Crait and buys time for the Resistance to escape. Luke saves the Resistance, but it only works because Luke himself is not some immortal figure able to deflect blasters with his light saber. He works by distracting Kylo Ren into fighting a projection, a figment. If Luke Skywalker embodies the monomyth, the hero's narrative, well, it's an incorporeal, unsubstantial, ephemeral narrative that can't hold up for very long.  

But perhaps the other story that has to be destroyed is the one that people in the galaxy, like Rey and Poe Dameron and Rose Tico, have grown up to believe: that someone like Luke Skywalker will come save them from evil. The myth has power, but it cannot save everyone.

We all use these myths, these stories to try to make sense of our worlds, to give meanings to our lives, to understand our identity in the world. But these myths come with costs. They are ephemeral and cannot replace self-help, or the help members of a community give to each other.  

Another cost is ignoring the humanity of others. That was Luke's mistake when he thought about killing Ben because Ben had "the dark side" in him. For a brief moment, he turned Ben into the Bad Guy who needed to be destroyed. That dehumanized Ben at great cost.  

So, if there is no monomyth in the ST, what is left? Is it pure reality? Is Reylo doomed because, in the end, Kylo Ren is nothing more than a mass murderer? 

What's the Story, Allegory? 

Well, we can still see Rey and Kylo Ren as symbolic figures without having the story follow the pattern of a Campbellian monomyth. We don't need the Good vs. Evil tropes or the Heroic Journey tropes or the so-called romance tropes. We've got ourselves a contemporary allegory happening.  

Much to the surprise of many viewers of TFA, the backstory of Snoke was not explored. In fact, his bisection by Kylo Ren came as a bit of a shock to viewers, many of whom were pretty angry at the lost storytelling opportunity. However, it is hard to escape the conclusion that Snoke himself is not important. Snoke's *actions* were important. 

And what did Snoke do? He whispered in the ear of a young boy as he was growing to adulthood, corrupted his soul and used the boy's ability to achieve his own ends. And therein lies the heart of the allegory.  What else whispers into the ears of adolescent boys and encourages them to embrace the worst parts of themselves? As the mother of a 15 year old boy, I can tell you my greatest fear is that despite my attempt to raise him to be a feminist ally and to respect and value the rights of all, he will end up being "seduced" by the easy white supremacist misogyny of the Internet. 

Snoke isn't evil personified. He is actually a very banal evil. He is the alt-right and 4Chan and the Reddit Red Pill community and every "MRA" or "PUA" community out there. He is Steve Bannon and Milos Yiannapoulos and PewDiePie and Roosh, every toxic male that populates online communities today. They don't wear masks, but they wear pseudonyms. They hide behind these masks and they yearn for an imagined past of white supremacist patriarchy because it makes them feel stronger.  

This isn't a new idea. Kayti Burt at Den of Geek made this argument first, though her focus was mainly on Leia and Holdo schooling Poe Dameron and the delusions of heroism that motivated him to take the ill-considered step of fomenting a rebellion. Poe learned from his mistakes and earned a leadership role at the end. 

 It's clear that Kylo Ren is Ben Solo wearing a mask, trying to be like his grandfather, who lived in a world where his toxic male power was unquestioned and abused; Vader even abused (physically and emotionally) his own daughter (the torture of Leia and the destruction of Alderaan).  

Ben's adoption of the name Kylo Ren is not unlike an online gamer's adoption of a gaming name. The best ones often take from one's own name, of course (Kylo Ren pulls in Ky from Skywalker, Lo, from Solo, and Ren from Ben). He has a "posse" of "Knights" who think like him and support him. The word "Knight" suggests chivalry, a social dynamic that relies on prescribed gender roles that emphasize male heroism and female weakness and submission.  

Kylo Ren does not make sense as a trope in a monomyth. He makes the most sense as someone who *sees himself* as a trope in a monomyth, the hero of his own story.  But it's a story that has been told to him, that he has adopted in lieu of another story (his status as the crown prince of the Skywalker dynasty), and it is a story that is flawed. It's the story of white male supremacy that he holds onto because he fears he is nothing without it. 

So when he tells Rey she is nothing, he is repeating the negging of toxic misogyny, because that is the language he has been immersed in. But the whole speech he gives is telling. He has killed Snoke. He wants a new order. All the myths - Snoke, Skywalker, the Sith, the Jedi - none of those matter. He wants to be free of all these stories. In Rey he sees someone without all the baggage of the past, someone he can start anew with. As Dickinson might say, I'm nobody, who are you? Are you nobody too? Then there's a pair of us! 

It's not the best argument he could have made to Rey at that point, but it was the best argument he could have made to himself. Thinking he is nobody (because of abandonment issues or because all adolescents think of themselves as nobody), he has embraced an ideology that tells him he is somebody, an ideology that values his gifts. For him to destroy the source of that ideology is to say that he does not need it any longer. Rey knows him and, he thinks, accepts him for who he is. She identifies the fearful, insecure person behind the mask and still thinks he has value. 

But Rey can't save him. She thought she could, and that was the old-school romance trope Flourish disparages, that scene from Pretty Woman where Richard Gere saves Julia Roberts from Snoke, and she saves him right back by throwing a lightsaber to him. But it doesn't work, and it was never meant to. The text of TLJ has already rejected the romance-y trope of a woman saving the man with love.  

Relationships don't work that way. The existence of a "good" person in a "bad" person's life is not redemption in and of itself. But that doesn't mean that there is no role for love in redeeming another.  

What Rey has introduced into Ben's life is compassion for another, a feeling he has not felt in a long time. It's not Rey's compassion for Ben that is significant. Rey's compassion for Ben cannot save Ben.  

Rather, it is the compassion Rey brings out in Ben. Compassion, love, sentiment: these are all anathema to Snoke. They mean "weakness." It's not that different from the men and boys of the alt-right, of the GamerGate community, of these toxic internet spaces. The men and boys there lack and/or deliberately eschew empathy and compassion for someone not like themselves.  

Snoke sees that Rey has made Kylo Ren feel compassion, and Snoke thinks that by making Kylo Ren kill Rey, he can kill the compassion that has developed in Kylo Ren. But Snoke's mistake is that killing Rey cannot kill the compassion because she is not the compassion. The compassion is now in Ben himself. The Force has been awakened. 

The Real Humanizing Turn

The allegory then is an allegory of humanity. The alt-right trolls of the Internet play games for lulz, for spite, for power. They don't see that they are doxxing and bullying and hurting real humans. They hide behind their anonymous masks wielding power because they can and because they don't see their prey as human. They lack empathy. They lack compassion. They see themselves as heroes of some sort of story they are telling themselves, one that involves Good and Evil, and they are the Good and women/people of color/LGBT/"libtards"/anyone different are the Evil.  

Feeling compassion for the "other" is the first step to radical change. Black feminist theorist bell hooks speaks eloquently and often on the need for love as a condition for social change. hooks cites Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s call for love in the social justice movement and notes that after King's death and the black power movement's ascendance, "a misogynist approach to women became central as the equation of freedom with patriarchal manhood became a norm." This came, hooks says, from a shift away from a love ethic to an ethic of power. Sound familiar? Is the Force about power, or is it about love? 

 Love between Rey and Kylo Ren has enormous symbolic resonance. It represents the emerging compassion and love within Kylo Ren, and his acknowledgement of a woman, a "girl," as powerful as he is. A powerful woman, one without a fancy Jedi lineage, has no place in the monomyth, she has no place in misogynist ideology… but she has a place in a new story. That Kylo Ren is open to that story is a significant development. In a movie or even a trilogy we can't tell the story of a changing society by looking at every individual, but we can look at one individual as representative of that change.  

So the story of Reylo can be read as an allegory of love, the turn to humanity, the humanizing of Evil, the shift from a power conflict to a love "concord," a word that means, at its root, a coming together of hearts. This is not a bug. It's a feature. 

That there are viewers of the ST and readers of Reylo fanfic that want to explore this allegory is not a cause for despair. It is the new hope. It is the hope that love can transform society, and it's a hope that has parallels not to reductive tropes and monomyths but to social justice movements. 

[njawaidofficial]

'Detroit' director Kathryn Bigelow forces audiences to look at ugly history

http://styleveryday.com/2017/08/04/detroit-director-kathryn-bigelow-forces-audiences-to-look-at-ugly-history/

'Detroit' director Kathryn Bigelow forces audiences to look at ugly history

Kathryn Bigelow’s dramatic retelling of the infamous 1967 Algiers Motel brutality compels us to reckon with things we might wish to avoid, to feel the rage others felt.

In April 1992, Los Angeles went up in flames.

Most of us who lived here should have known something was coming. Ever since the Rodney King trial got underway — and even before that, when video of his beating disabused even cockeyed optimists about the police treatment of African-Americans — it was clear that anger was simmering in this smiling city. Far away from the palm-fringed boulevards and sun-drenched beaches, kept at a safe remove from the air-conditioned cars and airy offices, a far more troubled L.A. coexisted with the idealized version that had graced so many movies. And then suddenly that parallel city exploded in violence, leading to a week of riots, $1 billion in property damage, 12,000 arrests and 63 heartbreaking, unnecessary, irreversible deaths.

I still remember watching this as it happened from a distance. Peering out from my office high above Sunset Blvd., I could see smoke wafting from South Central L.A., a part of the city I barely knew, just like so many other privileged white members of the film community. I remember comparing notes with friends across town in an endless flurry of phone calls. “Is it safe?” we repeated over and over, like the Nazi dentist in Marathon Man. “Is it safe?”

If I were to tell anyone today that I lived through the L.A. riots, I’d be lying. Yes, I lived in L.A. when it experienced the riots (a word that subtly prejudices us; the term rebellion is equally valid), and yet, as so often in this city of multiple identities, where geographical and class divides keep one person’s experiences light years apart from another’s, I never actually lived through them. I observed everything through my window and the glass prism of my television. The nightmare that others were enduring took place just 10 or 12 miles away; but I was anesthetized to it, immunized to the full scope of the horror by having it filtered through a cathode ray tube.

To this day, I’ve only been able to understand the riots as an outsider. No one has ever taken me inside, made me know what it feels like to be crushed by an all-powerful oppressor, or feel the revulsion I should have felt then at a society that benefits one group even as it does so much to hurt another.

Until now.

The miracle of Kathryn Bigelow’s Detroit is that it compels us to reckon with things we might wish to avoid, to feel the rage others felt, and identify with those at the bottom of society rather than the top. True, her story is specific to one city and one event that took place 2,000 miles away and half a century ago; but anyone who watches it will emerge with a new view of the heart of darkness, whether it’s in Michigan or California or any of the many places where urban unrest has occurred, and is still occurring.

Detroit isn’t about one city; it’s about America.

For those who haven’t seen it — and I hope you will — the movie charts the beginning of the events that commenced July 23, 1967, lasted for five days, left 2,500 stores looted and 43 people dead. In particular, it focuses on one tale: the assault by a group of policemen on a number of African-Americans (and two white women) staying at the Algiers Motel. For sheer awfulness, it’s only a half-step away from the torture scenes in Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty.

What Americans learned about the matter was almost entirely disseminated to them by white, middle-class newsmen who may have empathized but never truly knew what it was like to be mistreated on a daily basis, to put up with more and more until the bearable became unbearable and suddenly something snapped.

Count me among that group. Like many, I existed somewhere in the borderland between innocence and ignorance. And the terrible thing is, I still do.

No matter how much I try, I’m still getting my information from the same people and similar places — the broadcast networks, the cable news divisions, NPR — all of which have value, but none of which go into adequate depth on the problems facing the poor and minorities in this country.

Our media still gives us all too few accounts — both in fiction and non-fiction — about African-Americans and Hispanics, as well as the blue-collar and unemployed. The stories that we do get barely scratch the surface of the real hardships facing those who face poverty and injustice.

Hollywood films are dominated by the feel-good; the brands and franchises that have replaced substantive filmmaking reduce everything to a fantasy world of superheroes and villains, of good and bad and black and white. God forbid we should identify with the bad guys, or see people similar to ourselves doing anything wrong. Our morals are never challenged, our ideology never thrown into question.

Nor does the news do any better. Switch on Fox or CNN or MSNBC any evening, and the shows are dominated by the mosh-pit in the White House, or the sexiest scandal-du-jour. Ivanka, Scaramucci, Spicer — these commedia dell’arte characters may be shaping our lives, but it’s their soap opera that engages us, not the policies they’re promoting.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve taped ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir — to name but one — knowing I’m going to be entertained by the latest Twitter tempest or (literal) tornado, even as the newscast largely ignores so much else. Syria? Lebanon? Child malnutrition? The world of the underdog has no place here. Ratings are driven by what’s fun.

Who needs reality when we’ve got reality TV?

But without confronting the real, without understanding the pain millions endure, especially in our inner cities, how are we ever going to fix it?

Bigelow’s single greatest accomplishment is that she looks this dead in the eye and never blinks. She’s our greatest cinematic explorer of the recent past, a historian no less impressive because she paints with the image rather than words.

Her American history trilogy (add this to The Hurt Locker andZero Dark Thirty) may be depressing, but it’s nonetheless valid. No one has disputed how dreadfully the police behaved in Detroit, and yet no other filmmaker has had the guts to take this on.

Believe me, Detroit’s no fun. I hated watching perpetrators who looked more like me than the victims. I loathed suffering with those who suffered, even in the comfort of my armchair. But awareness of suffering is the first step on the path to reform.

Like Dunkirk, Detroit immerses us in one protracted historical moment, an event that lasted a few days and then was over; like Dunkirk, it avoids conventional narrative, psychological insight or character development. But it goes further than Nolan’s picture in challenging our ideas of right and wrong. Dunkirk reassures us that, horrific as war may be, there’s at least some glory at its molten core. When it comes to urban warfare, there’s none.

Life, Bigelow seems to be saying, is nasty, brutish and short. But if it is, we need to know. Showing us that, without flinching, is what separates the great artists from the very good.

#Audiences #Bigelow #Detroit #Director #Forces #History #Kathryn #Ugly

[articulate-response-blog]

“I Think 'Dunkirk' Was Mediocre at Best, and It's Not Because I'm Some Naive Woman Who Doesn't Get It”

The offending article in question: http://www.marieclaire.com/celebrity/news/a28515/dunkirk-movie-review/ by Mehera Bonner

I am a white man. I take issue with Bonner’s article not because I hate “SJWs” or “Feminazis,” but because this article stylizes itself as a movie review and instead uses most of its space to tear down strawmen and generally be misandrist.

misandry: noun; dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against men

Let’s look at the text of the article itself:

“That movie was fucking bomb." That was one reaction I overheard after watching Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan's new directorial gift to men, who are currently spending their time fervently ranking his movies, arguing about said rankings, and—presumably—wearing fedoras completely un-ironically. Or even worse, ironically.

Bonner begins with a thesis of sorts: Dunkirk is a “directorial gift to men,” and men who enjoy his movies like to wear fedoras, presumably because they are stupid. 

However, as we will see, Bonner does not fully support her thesis. She does bring up some valid criticism of the movie, but the article seems to devolve into repeating the same language found in this first paragraph without explaining her points. I’m not saying she needs to provide “data and statistics” for her movie review. Movie reviews are subjective. She needs to explain why Dunkirk is a “directorial gift to men,” and, if possible, why men are stupid and like to wear fedoras.

Obviously she doesn’t outright state that men are stupid here (that comes later), but for Bonner, the fedora is a synecdoche for the stereotype of a “neckbeard”: a white, fat, fedora-wearing man, who generally holds sexist beliefs and attitudes, while at the same time complaining and loudly wondering why they are not socially popular. The neckbeard is a strawman- but it’s not even clear what should be in place of the strawman. For no better reason, Bonner seems to mention men if only because Dunkirk is generally about a war populated heavily by men. There are no neckbeards in Dunkirk. 

If Bonner wanted to address the societal implications of Dunkirk, or explain how the heated anti-woman and anti-minority atmosphere of the current day played into her opinion of Dunkirk, I would be fine with that. In fact, I wouldn’t be writing this at all. I don’t think movies or any other art need to be divorced from the society in which they were made to be able to judge them fairly. But Bonner doesn’t do that. She just attacks “pretentious men” who “would love nothing more than to explain to [Bonner] why [she’s] wrong about not liking it.”

There are points about the film in this article:

The thing is, I just don't think Dunkirk is a very good movie—if your definition of the word movie is "moving images held together by a plot." Like, yes: Dunkirk is very well-made. I felt like I was going to vomit during it, because that's how intense it was. And if your interests include riding a visual roller coaster called war, you will love it. But if you're a fan of films with plots, Dunkirk doesn't play that game. It's as if Christopher Nolan (sorry, "Nolan") plucked out the war scene from a script, and was like "let's just make this part extra long and call it a movie, lol."

Here Bonner notes that she believes the film is well-made, but criticizes the overall plot structure of Dunkirk- something which has been divisive. Some critics like the structure, others don’t. I wonder what part of Dunkirk’s “plot” didn’t resonate with Bonner, but she doesn’t elaborate, instead choosing to mock “war movie fans,” “Christopher Nolan fans,” and Nolan himself.

The film, in case you aren't already aware due to the endless critical musings devoted to it, is about the real life battle of Dunkirk—where British and Allied troops were rescued by civilian boats and evacuated. It's a story worthy of being told and re-told, and I really enjoy war movies in general, but still—actual stuff needs to happen. Stuff other than scenes of men burning in oil-covered water, ships sinking, and bodies drowning. If you want to argue that the non-stop violent intensity of the film was the point, and that we should feel fully immersed in the war like we're living it ourselves—I present Harry Styles.

I would disagree with her that what is pictured in Dunkirk isn’t “actual stuff.” I’m not sure what she means by “actual stuff,” again, because she doesn’t elaborate, but she does bring up a good point about Harry Styles:

The One Direction band member did a surprisingly impressive job in what turned out to be a pretty major role, but I refuse to believe it's possible for any viewer with even a semblance of pop-culture knowledge not see him and immediately go "OMG, it's Harry Styles."

I think this is an interesting point. I haven’t seen it mentioned by any other critics and it is definetly something I would agree with Bonner about. Seeing Styles in the movie distracted me from the overall tone (the “violent intensity” that Bonner mentioned earlier), and made me focus more on his performance.

Much like Ed Sheeran's cameo in Game of Thrones, having a pop star casually show up in a film will inevitably remove the audience from the narrative and ground them back in reality. Harry Styles is a constant reminder to the viewer that the movie isn't real, while the entire excuse for the film's intense and admittedly-impressive cinematography is to convince the viewer that they're right there in it. You can't have your Harry Styles cake and eat it too.

Yup. 

But my main issue with Dunkirk is that it's so clearly designed for men to man-out over.

Unfortunately, here we veer off the rails and return to Bonner’s “thesis.”

And look, it's not like I need every movie to have "strong female leads." Wonder Woman can probably tide me over for at least a year, and I understand that this war was dominated by brave male soldiers. I get that.

A prevailing theme in this article is language that suggests Bonner needs to justify her criticisms even before she makes them, especially in regards to the “directorial gift to men” argument.

Let’s watch how Bonner begins to make a point about the film, but instead replaces it with misandry:

But the packaging of the film, the general vibe, and the tenor of the people applauding it just screams "men-only"

Ok, how?

—and specifically seems to cater to a certain type of very pretentious man who would love nothing more than to explain to me why I'm wrong about not liking it. If this movie were a dating profile pic, it would be a swole guy at the gym who also goes to Harvard. If it was a drink it would be Stumptown coffee. If it was one of your friends, it would be the one who starts his sentences with "I get what you're saying, but..."

Oh.

I guess congratulations are in order for Nolan managing to unite high-brow male critics and very annoying people on Twitter under a common bromance, but to me, Dunkirk felt like an excuse for men to celebrate maleness—which apparently they don't get to do enough.

Oh.

I might as well ask again- how did the packaging and general vibe promote this idea of “men-only?” How does Dunkirk feel like an excuse for men to celebrate maleness? Why are the men (and only men) who like Dunkirk, douche bros? 

Bonner does not go on to explain.

Fine, great, go forth, but if Nolan's entire purpose is breaking the established war movie mold and doing something different—why not make a movie about women in World War II? Or—because I know that will illicit cries of "ugh, not everything has to be about feminism, ugh!"—how about any other marginalized group?

Because that’s not Nolan’s idea of “breaking the established war movie mold.” In Nolan’s other films, he focuses heavily on non-linear plots, among other things. Bringing that conception of plot to war movies does break the war movie mold. Taking out “men” and slotting in “women or other marginalized groups” to make a war movie does not break the war movie mold.

These stories shouldn't be relegated to indie films and Oscar season. It's up to giant powerhouse directors like Nolan to tell them, which is why Dunkirk feels so basic.

Here is a list of 10 films about women in wartime, by the British Film Institute. Here is Red Tails, a movie about the (all-black) Tuskegee Airmen, released in late January 2012 (after Oscar season), with a budget of 58 million dollars.

I agree there is a shortage of movies about the experiences of women and minorities in all time periods, but to charge Nolan with creating a movie that was “an excuse for men to celebrate maleness” because he didn’t focus on who Bonner wanted him to is ridiculous. 

It's a summer war movie. It'll make you fear for the future and pray that we never fight again. You might get kind of sick. If you're like me, a random man will come up to you after and explain why you're wrong for disliking it. But this war movie isn't special. At the end of the day, it's like all the rest of them.

As a side point, I’m not sure how a random man could come up to you and explain why you’re wrong for disliking it- how would this random man know you disliked it?

Bonner’s conclusion, and article overall, is very weak. It spent some time discussing the movie, but also spent more time leveling ridiculous attacks at people who like the movie, mostly because they are men. 

I’m conflicted, however, because I can somewhat see the reasoning underpinning Bonner’s complaints about “pretentious men.” There has always been a culture of male eliteness in filmmaking, and especially in film criticism, and for a movie like Dunkirk, helmed by one of the most successful directors in the world, it’s not surprising that such a culture would be on display. But none of Bonner’s article seems to be addressing that culture, and Bonner doesn’t handle the subject with any seriousness. 

The article comes off as a way to bait other critics, especially male ones, into a session of “well you’re sexist because you can’t handle my opinion. har har isn’t the male ego so fragile?”

But what do I know? I’m a man, after all.