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earlgreytea68 · 4 years

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A Review of the Fall Out Boy Biography Inevitably Colored by Shippiness Oops But Really Mainly By My Love for Pete Wentz

I don’t even know who the audience is for this monstrosity of a review, nor do I know the audience for this biography, though, so, like, it’s fitting lololol:

I am a new Fall Out Boy fan. I say that because, if anybody was in need of a Fall Out Boy biography, you would think it would be a new fan. AND YET. I’m not entirely sure who the market for this book is, because it isn’t really Fall Out Boy fans of any duration, because not only can everything in the book be easily located with the simplest of Google searches but also there’s so much he leaves out. And what he leaves out is just…so incredibly telling. It’s like, the facts he chooses to highlight are often pointless and random (although thanks for telling me that Pete Wentz’s jeans were so tight he had to perform without underwear, I’m going to think about that a lot now), whereas the facts he leaves out are the ones that lend both complexity and context. Like, this whole book could be Exhibit A in how malleable facts can be. Given the same set of facts, this man and I would tell two very different stories.

At least partly this is because he’s a music critic (I glean from the book) and I’m a creative writer. I believe he is a music critic because he takes care to dedicate a paragraph of musical analysis to every song on their earliest CDs (he loses interest in them over the hiatus, and more on that later). I appreciated this, because I know nothing about music, and I learned a lot about how talented Patrick Stump really is, like, not as a vocalist, because I knew that, or as a musician, because I also knew that, but as a smart, clever songwriter. I don’t know how to critique music, and I was happy this guy was full of praise for what Patrick does. He also pointed out musical hallmarks of theirs – like their tendency to drop the music suddenly for Patrick to sing an a cappella line – and that was the first time I’d ever really thought about them.

He was full of much less praise for Pete’s lyrics, though, and I think that’s because he’s a music person, not a word person. Not that he thought Pete’s lyrics were ever bad but he tended to stay very conventional about them: emo, confessional, dramatic, and ingeniously juxtaposed with Patrick’s clear-as-a-bell voice. He’s kind of obsessed with the contrast between Patrick’s voice and the lyrics he’s singing, whereas I’m much more obsessed with the contrast between Patrick himself in sweater-paws and glasses snarling, “I am your worst nightmare,” like, sweetheart, I doubt it. AND YET HE PULLS IT OFF. Like, that’s so interesting to me, how much Patrick can make himself embody Pete, that act of alchemy where he sings on his behalf, but this book talks less about that than I think it might, mostly because I don’t think this guy really wants to think too hard about how incredibly good Pete’s lyrics actually are. The thing about Pete’s lyrics – he does this, and it’s so clever, it’s killer clever – is you can read them so easily on one very obvious and expected layer, and then there’s always one or two additional meanings tucked underneath them, and you might never stop to think about them, especially if you’ve already written him off, but his lyrics reward careful study and a lot of thought, he specializes in triple entendres, a turn of phrase that spins out into so many meanings, that’s so hard to do and he makes it look so easy that it’s such a simple mistake to dismiss it, to not even see how dense his poetry is. The conventional story on Pete Wentz is he’s good at marketing – marketing the band, marketing himself – and so he spun in circles to keep the spotlight on him and away from Patrick, and that’s definitely one take, and another take would be to point out that the same whirligig sex-symbol tabloid-fodder act also had the side effect of undercutting any tendency to take Pete seriously from a literary point of view, like, so much easier to just say that, in keeping with his goth guyliner, he wept into his inkwell and scrawled messily over parchment. So anyway: criticism #1 of this book is that they should have complemented the music-critic-ness with an English major.

Criticism #2 is that I feel like people always get wrong what appeals to girls, to speak in the massive generalizations of this topic. Like, someone somewhere was like, “Hey, girls like this Fall Out Boy band, it must be because Pete Wentz is hot.” And they’re not wrong about that, exactly, but they always seem to miss how many entangled layers often come with attraction. Like, yeah, sometimes it’s just he’s got nice abs but often there’s a million other things happening there, and one thing I cannot forgive this guy for is not just his failure to engage with Pete’s lyrics on any real level, but how little he also truly examines Pete Wentz’s genuine marketing genius. He’s a music guy: His interest is clearly in Patrick, and also in Joe and Andy, because they’re musicians, and he can wax poetic about them. Pete gets his standard paragraphs: Oh, he chose the right management, the right record label, the right deal. He can pick out a good band, like Panic! or Gym Class Heroes. All of that is true, but none of it really grasps exactly how smart Pete really is. Like, the book hardly mentions at all how much Pete realized immediately the value of internet fandom. When I first fell for Pete Wentz – that first weekend I spent Googling him – what really was the death knell for me was stumbling upon the old FOB Q&As he used to run in the earliest days. And it wasn’t actually his constant leaning into the Peterick shipping with such dead-on unerring understanding of fandom that did it for me (although that was pretty charming, ngl). It was how often teenagers messaged Pete Wentz with their problems, and how patiently he took the time to respond. My boyfriend broke up with me. My grandma just died. I don’t feel like I fit in anywhere. Again and again and again, Pete Wentz took these messages and wrote out detailed, laborious responses. And I know he was a guy angling hard to be famous but not all guys angling hard to be famous realized how important something like this is, this very personal connection, like, above and beyond the bantering and the smirks, and even if you’re doing it entirely for ulterior motives, that’s a ton of emotional labor he was performing. I finished reading those Q&As and thought, God, Pete Wentz must have been exhausted.

And I’m not sure that’s something the bio ever really wrestled with, because it never really talked about that aspect of him. I don’t actually think the bio read anything Pete Wentz has ever posted online, like, not even those basic Q&As that are the easiest thing in the universe to Google, never mind the secret blogs he still has scattered all over the internet with nuggets of lyricism buried in there for Patrick to mine. It’s just so easy to buy into the Peter-Pan, devil-may-care Pete Wentz picture, and for all I know that’s the truest of the pictures, but it’s also undeniable fact that the other side to that was either really cunning and savvy or just a nice guy, and either way it’s another layer to Pete Wentz that gets short shrift in the bio. Which isn’t surprising because although the author clearly appreciates Fall Out Boy the band, the author clearly isn’t fannish at all, whereas it’s pretty abundantly clear Pete Wentz is fannish. He’s unapologetically fannish. He speaks fan language with a fluency that is hard to fake. And he’s astonishingly well-versed in tropes. He’s instinctively good at creating a good story, not just in his lyrics (although he, like Taylor Swift, is adept at tropey lyrics, so it’s no surprise they have a mutual admiration society), but in his life. In addition to the Q&As, that first weekend was full of me being like, …How is this the tropiest thing I’ve ever read??? It’s unsurprising that the bio doesn’t point out all the tropes in the Pete Wentz / Patrick Stump / Fall Out Boy story, because the author isn’t versed in tropes, but Pete Wentz definitely is. He knows how to use words, well. And you wouldn’t necessarily know it to listen to him – he babbles and uses tons of filler phrases and never, ever ask him what his lyrics are about, it’s like trying to have a conversation in Wonderland – but that’s all part of the aw-shucks-sometimes-I-scribble-some-stuff-down-Patrick’s-the-real-genius brand.

Now I am not qualified to write a Fall Out Boy biography and also I don’t know these people and also everything I do know comes from Google but that said, I feel like I do know for a fact some primary source materials that the writer just chose to leave out that really does display how malleable stories can be depending on what you highlight or not. Like, if he didn’t want to draw psychological conclusions based on the facts that’s fair enough. But he also pared back the narrative so drastically that it left off the true meat of it, like, if you read this book you would not necessarily think there was much interesting about these people, whereas if you really dig into everything they’ve got out there, well, you could start to think they’re super-interesting people. But I am a creative writer and this biographer was a music critic. He settles happily into the song analysis but I’m busy connecting dots into a narrative, and life is complicated, it is not a simple narrative, but that impulse underlies most biography, the idea that we can assemble the facts into something that has something to say about a human life. But that act really exists in how you assemble the facts.

~~~~~~~~TRIGGER WARNING: SUICIDE DISCUSSION~~~~~~~~~~~

A really good example of this is the way the biography deals with the Best Buy incident. Here are the bare facts: Pete Wentz, in a Best Buy parking lot listening to Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah,” took too many Ativan. In a phone call, his manager noticed he was slurring, called his parents, they rushed him to the hospital, he lived. These are the facts that the book gives you, and these are true facts.

If you want to expand slightly upon these bare facts, Pete has given many, many interviews about this incident because he is very open about mental health issues and his bipolar disorder and depressive episodes and anxiety. Pete has said that he’s not sure he was trying to kill himself so much as just make his head quiet for a little while. Pete has said he felt like he was too busy being Pete Wentz for everyone else and he just wanted to rest. These are also facts, although ones I don’t think the biographer truly believes. He does dutifully quote them but he also clearly has his own belief about how much Pete’s telling the truth. Because this is inevitable in any telling of the facts.

If you want to expand slightly upon these facts, you could point out that Pete’s lyrics reflect how noisy his head is (“when this city goes silent, the ringing in my ears gets violent”), which might color how you understand him when he says he just wanted some peace and quiet. You might also point out that, as the bio has already said, Pete was the driving force behind the band’s strategy and it was about to culminate. You might remind the reader that Pete walked away from other possibly very successful careers to do this band (there is much made in the book of the theoretical ease with which Pete could have achieved a soccer career, which made me raise my eyebrows a bit but, you know, Patrick does say Pete’s really, really good at soccer). You might recall that Pete has these kids relying on him whose parents he literally had to persuade to trust him. You might say that so far everything had gone exactly as he planned and he just needed to stick the landing. You might mention the fact that they kept rewriting songs and rewriting songs and rewriting songs; that Pete was in such utter meltdown mode that he was sliding lyrics under Patrick’s door and then retreating, so that the rest of the band never even saw him; that they had scrapped half the album and were furiously writing new music right up until the deadline – all of which are facts not even mentioned. You might say all of those things, because they are indeed all true facts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is appropriate at this point to note that many of these things were simply not germane to the story this biographer was telling, which was a music-critic-focused story. But these things are all incredibly germane to the story *I* would tell, about these four people who found each other, lost each other, and found each other again, and the two people at the center whose creative alchemy was by turns either too dazzling or too explosive and in both incarnations needed to find a way to balance to keep the band afloat. This is the story I would tell, but, to be totally honest, Pete and Patrick’s creative partnership doesn’t really seem to interest the writer of this book. He mentions it vaguely, in passing, once or twice, fairly standard surface proclamations about Pete handling lyrics and Patrick handling music, and Pete drawing the spotlight away from Patrick who didn’t want it. Or he’ll say that the true secret to the band’s success is Patrick’s voice and Pete’s lyrics, like Patrick could be any pretty-enough voice, which I think just isn’t true, there’s so much more to the way they clicked together. I read this great New Yorker article once about how, through history, genius exists in pairs, that often two people need to find each other to push each other to be better than they would ever be apart.

It’s fine to not want to get into that too intensely, it’s just that that means that half the story of Folie goes away, if you’re not focused on how the band was creating. Like, there’s so much about the lead-up to Folie to talk about: Patrick’s control over the music to the exclusion of everyone else, Pete’s worsening prescription pill thing, and the way that their creative partnership seemed to disintegrate while simultaneously leaving no room for Joe or Andy in the band. The book mentions really none of this – nothing about the fact that at one point they had descended into physical altercations over chord progressions; nothing about the story the producer tells that Patrick would get so frustrated after phone calls with Pete that he’d throw things around the studio; nothing about the story that Patrick once told Pete, “I don’t care, I’m going to write a song and call it ‘I Don’t Care,’” such a telling little tale when later Patrick comes to hate the song “I Don’t Care” – so the hiatus feels like it descends out of nowhere, with a paragraph about the fans not liking the album. Which, again, is a true fact, but without the other true facts of the way the entire creative process was crumbling around them, around all of them, it sounds less compelling. The bio does get into Joe wanting to flex his creative muscles more but doesn’t connect it back to the Folie era of being shut-out. The hiatus becomes entirely about Patrick not liking being booed.

Even worse to me is the book devotes a lot of time to each of their music videos, which is awesome, because their videos are important and great, but it devotes exactly zero time to the video for “What a Catch, Donnie.” And I’m so bewildered by that, you can have a field day with the symbolism in that video, even if you want to just make a true factual statement about its plot: Patrick collects all of the detritus of Fall Out Boy and all of their friends come and party with him, while Pete goes down with a sinking ship all alone, to a medley of the words he’s leaving behind. Like. That is literally what happens in this video. And then the hiatus starts. To me this is one of the most ridiculously angsty things ever, that they would go out to their own triumphs echoing back at them and the literal death of captain!Pete Wentz. To the story I would tell, this is the most germane. It merits not a single mention in the bio (other than praising the song itself for being one of the strongest on the album, and talking about the Elvis Costello cameo).

Because he’s much more interested in them musically than as people or relationships, he seems to lose interest in them post-hiatus. He details each of their hiatus-era projects with his typical attention to the music criticism side. And then he spends, like, eight pages talking about the guy who wrote the article that triggered Patrick’s “We Liked You Better When You Were Fat” blog post. I’m not even exaggerating. It’s an entire chapter dedicated to the article and the guy who wrote it. Patrick’s response is described and quoted and even praised, but not in nearly as much as detail as the original article, and Pete’s reaction to Patrick’s blog post gets literally zero attention. Which is fascinating since, in some tellings of the story, that’s the entire reason the hiatus ended. Pete has said on multiple occasions that he read the blog post and was upset Patrick was so upset and called him up and asked him to try writing with him again. But if you’re not actually interested in that creative relationship as a relationship, then you don’t see a reason to explain the motivation behind trying again.

You also don’t really see a reason to tackle why they initially struggled to get back into it. Like, truly grappling with the Pete/Patrick relationship leads to more depth than the surface “Patrick doesn’t like the spotlight, so Pete takes it for him.” That’s too simplistic a formulation, as Pete himself has said. It also discounts Patrick’s obvious dedication to Pete, his complete willingness to step in and publicly defend him on many occasions, like, Patrick’s no shy, retiring wallflower when it comes to Pete, Patrick can let loose viciously on behalf of Pete. Their protectiveness is mutual, although the public narrative often glosses over that. (In one of those “why leave that out” details, the biographer notes that Hemingway was Pete and Ashlee’s ring bearer but not that Patrick was Pete’s best man, Idk.) At any rate, I point that out because the struggle they had to find their groove writing together after the hiatus mirrored their initial struggles, to find their way into trusting each other’s strengths, but the book is just kind of like, “The first session wasn’t successful but the next session was. They were out of practice.” They weren’t out of practice with songwriting, not really, especially not Patrick – they were out of practice with each other. And that wasn’t just a hiatus-era souvenir, that went back to Folie, but we didn’t get that part of Folie.

The biographer also, annoyingly in my view, loses all interest in them at this point. He devotes almost no time to the post-hiatus era, which is fascinating to me, since their ability to launch a comeback as successfully and relevantly as they did is striking, and to do it not by relying on nostalgia but by generating genuinely new hits with a genuinely new audience, and he’s not interested in that at all. Even worse than not being interested in this is the fact that he fails to close the Folie loop, like, he devotes lots of time to Patrick coming to hate Folie because of how much the fans hated it. Then he makes a little note, like, “Maybe someday Patrick will come to love Folie again,” or something, and the thing is, I know the book was written a few years ago now, but there was definitely stuff available about how much Folie had become a fan favorite in the hiatus years. Patrick gave an interview somewhere where he talked about the reunion show and how he read fan reviews of it and the fans were like, “They should have played more songs from Folie!” I always think at that point And then Patrick looked into the camera like he’s on The Office. But, at any rate, Patrick got to see Folie become beloved and that loop could have been closed better and he just leaves it dangling. (I’m almost like, Did he really write most of this book while they were on hiatus and then when they came back he was like, …Goddamn it?)

He doesn’t at all get into the shock of the immediate level of success of their comeback, like, that’s another thing that’s documented, that they were unsure anyone would care and they were so startled by the response that they had to actually add larger venues onto their tour because they’d thought no one would want to come to their shows. He could have talked about how people waited hours outside in the Chicago cold to get into the comeback show, how they started the show with “Thriller” and Patrick says the response was electric and it must have been amazing and he’s just not really interested in it, you can tell that he’s bored. He doesn’t talk about how Patrick hadn’t really thought about having to perform the new songs live because he didn’t think anyone would really care about the new album, so they had to really think about how they were going to make it work, and how he almost permanently damaged his voice having to sing “Alone Together” live and that’s what finally finally drove him to pursue actual voice lessons, like, he mentions none of this, he’s just like, “They wrote Save Rock & Roll, and then they wrote American Beauty / American Pyscho.” He’s just clearly, at that point, bored. Whereas in the story I would tell, that is the most satisfying part, the happy ending beyond their wildest dreams.

Okay, omg, this is SO LONG, but here are some other random thoughts:

· He never – not once – goes back to source Pete’s lyrics to their original blog entries, which can be very interesting. This is because he’s not interested in the lyrics really, but it’s very frustrating to me because, like, SOMEBODY TAKE THESE LYRICS SERIOUSLY, PLEASE, THEY’RE SO GOOD. It also means that he misses things like “Miss Missing You” and the way it echoes Pete’s poem with the line “I miss you missing me,” like, that’s just a fact ::shrug:: He also says “Hum Hallelujah” is about teenage romance, and that is the most straightforward, surface-level reading, like, “Oh, it says ‘teenage vow in a parking lot,’ that’s what it’s about.” This pains me only because “Hum Hallelujah” might be the most perfect lyrically constructed song Fall Out Boy has, every line is golden and stuffed with meaning and emotion, and he’s just like, “teenage romance,” so dismissively, and I wince, like, “I could write it better than you ever felt it” is a line that deserves more than that. Not to mention “I love you in the same way there’s a chapel in a hospital,” god, or “One day we’ll get nostalgic for disaster,” ugh, do not read this book for lyrical analysis. He also terms the best lyrical line on Cork Tree as “To the ‘love’ I left my conscience pressed / Between the pages of the Bible in the drawer” and, while there’s nothing wrong with that line, I don’t even think that’s the best line in XO (I mean, leaving off the follow-up of “What did it ever do for me? I say” undercuts those lines immediately, imo). (He does at least point out that “Keep quiet, nothing comes as easy as you / Can I lay in your bed all day?” is a devastatingly sexy couplet.)

· Can I just say, the entire debacle with Hey Chris gets precious little time in this book, which in a way is fine but in a way is like, just by Googling I got way more information on what went down and the weird, weird words that were being flung back and forth (at one point the term “heterolifemates” is used which makes zero sense at all in this context), but this book does spend a lot of time with Chris and Pete pre-Patrick (fascinating, right???) and there’s this weird part where Chris says he hated Pete before he met him and is like, “He should wear pants that fit,” which is just…such an interesting reason to hate Pete Wentz, like, Idk, Chris, coupled with your heterolifemates thing and weird thing about “whose name do you say every night???” which is also weirdly sexual phrasing and also being like “no one knows how to break a heart like he does,” like, everything about this entire situation has so much queer subtext but the book doesn’t touch any of that, ever, in any circumstance, with a ten-foot pole.

· EVERYONE, THE BORDERS WHERE JOE AND PATRICK MEET IS LOCATED IN EDEN PLAZA AND I AM SO UPSET I DIDN’T KNOW THAT WHEN I WROTE THE DEVIL FIC.

· I did not know that the producer wanted them to change the “We’re falling apart to halftime” line in Dance, Dance because he thought it was too incomprehensible and I’m just like, That’s the lyric where you thought you were going to lose people??

· From the bio, describing the Live in Phoenix performance: a strange moment where Wentz inexplicably gets changed onstage. A strange moment? Inexplicably? Okay, like, germane to my telling of the story is how much those dick pics affected Pete Wentz’s public persona, how much he knew exactly what he was there to sell and he sold it with gusto, and how much of a spiral that ultimately sent him on. Instead, this biographer finds it inexplicable that Pete Wentz would take his shirt off onstage, and his analysis of the music video for “This Ain’t a Scene” gives the dick pic storyline only an offhand reference, calling it “making light” of the scandal, instead of really digging into the obvious pain there, like, that’s not a joyful lark there. (Later, much later, years later, Brendon Urie will manage to actually make light of the dick pic saga, both in the Drunk History and also in the joke of the dick pic being the photo that comes up when Pete calls him, as seen in the promos for the tour they did together, and that feels much more genuine. But that bit in “Arms Race” is kind of heartbreaking.)

· Pete says of their failed attempt to get the Guinness record of the first band to perform on all seven continents that it was the worst feeling he’d ever felt in Fall Out Boy, and the biographer is like, “Really, Pete? Really?” and I kind of want to shake him because Pete Wentz is obviously a dramatic person and he feels disappointments keenly and he made that statement literally just as they were finding out they wouldn’t be able to do it, like, of course it’s just hyperbole! The biographer is weird through that whole section of the book because he never once mentions that, as a consolation to Pete, Patrick stayed up all night with him so they could get the record of most interviews by a duo in a twenty-four-hour period, like, that’s what I would have said about that story instead of trying to get way more out of Pete’s off-the-cuff self-pity (which is just so Pete Wentz, it’s like this writer hasn’t just spend a hundred pages writing about him…).

· Whenever I read about how many songs Patrick shows up with when it’s time to record an album, I always feel this little twinge of solidarity with him, like, sometimes that’s just how it is in your chosen creative medium, you’re just always endlessly writing.

· I had never thought before about the fact that Pete says all the time that he was too selfish pre-hiatus, all the time, a lot, that’s how he describes his problem – and the fact that there’s an entire song on Truant Wave called “Love, Selfish Love” with the line “God bless the sad and selfish” and I’m just going to…sit here and think about who in Patrick’s life could be described as sad and selfish.

· From the bio re: Soul Punk: It’s disarming to hear this garrulous boy-next-door sing so candidly about sex. Yeah, I don’t think you were paying attention to the way Patrick smirks at the camera in the music videos, buddy.

· Detail I knew but had never really thought about before: that Pete got Patrick to really click into songwriting with him again by giving him a puzzle. Patrick says that sometimes Pete gives him homework assignments, “I want a song that sounds like x, y, and z,” and Patrick will be like, “That’s impossible,” but also so intrigued that he ends up sitting and writing the thing. The fact that Pete knew, after a few mediocre songs neither of them liked, like, “You know how I snag him? This way,” is adorable. Also, the fact that it was Pete who adored the song to come out of it, “Where Did the Party Go?,” and that it was his excitement over the song that made Patrick think, Okay, maybe we can do this, like, it was Pete’s joy that drove Patrick’s optimism, they’re so creatively linked, these two.

· He does include the detail that Pete was worried he’d fallen behind during the hiatus because he didn’t spend much time playing music and so he committed himself to practicing and improving with metronome work, like, Pete Wentz ugh <3. In a very recent interview that I cannot blame the bio for not including, Pete said that Patrick helps him with the bass because he’s so musically talented and everything about that offhand statement just kills me.

· I did not know that one of the leaks of their reunion was on a blog that wrote “You can stop refreshing for a journal update,” and I’m in love with that, sorry.

· Ugh, can I just say, the fact that Patrick sang all of his vocals for Pax AM Days live with the band is just so unbelievable, he kills me.

· From the bio: “We were fireworks that went off too soon / And I miss you in the June gloom, too,” Stump sings here, and you can’t help but wonder if the words refer to his public but brief marriage. …I have indeed helped the wondering of that because I have never once thought that about this song lolololol

#long post #peterick #pete wentz #fall out boy #fob #bandom

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ibtk · 3 years

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Book Review: Amber and Clay by Laura Amy Schlitz & Julia Iredale (2021)

(Full disclosure: I received a free ARC for review through Edelweiss and Library Thing's Early Reviewers program. Content warning for child abuse, animal abuse, and sexual assault.)

The children I spoke of before were like that. They weren’t alike, but they fit together, like lock and key. The boy, Rhaskos, was a slave boy. Unlucky at first. A Thracian boy—(Thrace is north of Greece) —redheaded, nervy, neglected. A clever boy who was taught he was stupid. A beautiful boy whose mother scarred him with a knife. The girl, Melisto, started life lucky. A rich man’s daughter, and a proper Greek. Owl-eyed Melisto: a born fighter, prone to tantrums, hating the loom. A wild girl, chosen by Artemis, and lucky, as I said before— except for one thing: she died young. This is their story. When it's over, if you like, you can tell me what it means.

"I want to tell you the things I never told anyone, in case this is my last chance. When I was alive, I didn’t talk much. So much of what I felt was a secret. I think that’s what I loved about the bear. Neither of us had any words."

Again we walked and talked. I never talked to anyone like that. No one ever talked like that to me. I talk to you still, Melisto. I’ve been talking to you ever since.

The red-haired boy variously known as Rhaskos, Thrax, and Pyrrhos is many things, though few of his masters care to know. He's Thracian nobility, with the scars to prove it - and also a slave, belonging to the wealthy Alexidemus and his soldier son Menon in Thessaly, and then to a humble potter named Phaistus in Athens. He loves horses and is as adept at handling them as he will one day become at drawing and sculpting them. He is a contemporary and friend of Sokrates, though he is powerless to stop his execution. He is an orphan, with a dolphin for a mother; a mother who loves him so fiercely that she curses a ghost to help set him free. He is like clay: common at first glance, but also not; capable of transmuting into creations lovely, clever, and full of value.

The owl-eyed girl called Melisto is seemingly as lucky as Rhaskos is not: the only child of a wealthy Athenian, Melisto wants for nothing. But she is a wild (read: untamed) girl child in a rigidly gendered society that has already predetermined Melisto's future for her: marriage, motherhood, a life of quiet domesticity. When, at the age of ten, Melisto is chosen to serve the goddess Athena as a Little Bear, her life opens up before her at Brauron; this is who she was meant to be. Like all good things, it cannot last.

Rhaskos and Melisto's destinies collide when Melisto frees a bear cub that is to be sacrificed to Athena. Or maybe their paths met even earlier, when Meda/Thratta was ripped from her toddler son. Perhaps the gods nudged them towards each other from birth. Alternately, the gods have nothing to do with it. Who can say? (Hermes, maybe. He has a lot to say and loves to hear himself talk!)

AMBER AND CLAY is ... not what I expected. Normally I'd steer clear of a contemporary (or any!) book styled after the ancient, epic poems (I positively labored through THE ODYSSEY and THE ILIAD in high school!), but the visual element sucked me in. I was under the (mistaken!) impression that AMBER AND CLAY would be heavier in illustrations than it actually is, almost as though part graphic novel. As it turns out, the illustrations - of archaeological artifacts - are a little sparser than I hoped, but they tie into the narrative quite nicely and add another layer of wonder and surprise to the story. The "exhibits" are really well done and do not disappoint.

Additionally, the synopsis had me thinking that this would be a supernatural romance; and while AMBER AND CLAY is indeed a love story, Rhaskos and Melisto are entirely too young to hook up, even by the time they finally meet near the story's end. (It's hard not to envision them - especially Rhaskos - as older than they are, both because the story seemingly stretching across years, and so much happens to these crazy kids to last several lifetimes.) Instead, this is a different kind of love story: AMBER AND CLAY tells of the love between a mother and her son; a father and his daughter; a teacher and his students; a girl and a bear; a ghost and her tether to the earth.

And despite my reservations about those epic poems, Schlitz both honors the form and breathes new life into it. While Melisto tells her story in prose, Rhaskos speaks in verse; and the gods sometimes address us commoners in turn-counterturn, occasionally using more complicated linguistic techniques like elegian couplets (which I barely recollect from HS English). This all sounds incredibly tricky and complicated (and undoubtedly is), but Schlitz pulls it off without a hitch. AMBER AND CLAY is fun and engaging, with a surprising sense of humor and expert sense of dramatic flair.

“Oh, Phaistus, look at his hair! He’ll be beautiful once he’s healed. We’ll call him Pyrrhos!” As if I were a dog. Pyrrhos means fiery. Half the red-haired slaves in Athens are called Pyrrhos.

It is, dare I say, exceedingly readable.

Honestly, I let out a little groan when I saw the "Cast of Characters" on page one, complete with various households and multiple monikers for the same people; but the story, the characters, their relationships to one another - all are easy enough to follow.

Schlitz's characters, both those based on historical figures and those spun from imagination and whimsy, are so full of life that they practically jump off the page. Rhaskos and Melisto; Meda and Lysandra; Phaistus and Zosima; Menon and Lykos; and, of course, Sokrates. Likewise, her descriptions of Greek life and customs left me hungering to learn more. Naturally, the most fascinating custom - that of the Little Bears of Brauron - is also that which we know the least about.

The scenes featuring Melisto and the bear cub are among my favorite in the book. In a story filled with animal sacrifice, this little slice of compassion and respect is life-affirming; to wit:

It turned in slow circles and collapsed with its rump pressed against her thigh. Melisto put one hand on it. It seemed to her that she had never touched anything more real than the bear cub.

For a moment her mind slipped back into the past. She recalled the bruises she had carried from her mother’s pinches, and the sore patches on her scalp from Lysandra’s hair-pulling. She remembered the loathing in her mother’s face that struck terror into her soul. She had never been afraid of the bear like that.

and

On the nights when she waded into the bay and watched the moon, she was barely conscious of the fact that it was she who saw, and the moon that was being watched. In the same way, she did not measure how much she loved the bear. She was the bear.

Likewise, Rhaskos's interactions with Grau/Phoibe are so wonderfully tender, my heart aches just to think back on them. From the moment he renames her (grau means hag) - a change of name that's much more respectful than those Rhaskos was forced to accept - Rhaskos treats his donkey charge with decency and kindness. The same kindness that he himself longs for.

Animals know when things get better. People might not know, but animals do. That very first day, Grau knew I was going to be good to her and I swear to you, she was glad.

Cue the "what is this salty discharge" gifs.

AMBER AND CLAY is such a beautiful story, and I'm glad I took a chance on it. Iambic pentameter be damned.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3861642614

#books #reviews #amber and clay #fiction #historical fiction #Laura Amy Schlitz #Julia Iredale #ancient greece #novels in verse #ghosts #animal sacrifice #child abuse

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smokeybrandreviews · 4 years

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Smokey brand Movie Reviews: Anger Issues

First proper movie of the year, and it’s Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn. Look, the DCEU is a dumpster fire, so much so that the WB has basically given up on it. They’ve started doing stand alone films as a way to recuperate their image and it’s kind of working. Shazam was fun as f*ck and Joker is rightfully getting so much buzz, it’s ridiculous. Even Aquaman was decent once it was released from the grimdark Snyder vision. Birds of Prey is not that. It is, at it’s core, a DCEU film. This thing might as well be called Suicide Squad but with chicks. It’s that ridiculous. But is it as bad as that? Let’s get into it.

The Great

The very best thing about this movie is f*cking Huntress. Bro, i LOVED Helena Bertinelli in this movie! Mary Elizabeth Winstead owned this part, one hundred percent! She was the MVP of this whole goddamn sh*t show but she sure as f*ck ain’t get MVP minutes! Huntress is in this thing for a grand total of ten minutes, man. It might be more, it might be less, but it definitely ain’t enough because she has NO time to shine! What little she gets, though, she kills! Talk about burying the lead, man. I understand that certain cuts needed to made in order to give the top-biller in Harley the god shots, but f*ck, dude. You can’t tease me with so much awesome and then just snatch it all away! F*ck you for that, movie. F*ck You!

The Good

This thing was cast incredibly well. I was on the fence with some of the announcements during development, but it came together nicely. There aren’t many weak performances and, overall, you can tell that everyone was having fun. There’s a lot of great chemistry among this group and i can see myself giving a proper BoP sequel a chance.

Margot Robbie is Harley Quinn. She embodies this chick like Ryan Reynolds embodies Deadpool, for the most part. She was my first pick going into SKWAD and it felt right seeing her in those hot pants. There were some issues i had with that character, mostly the vanishing accent, but she’s gotten much better since then an that growth shows here. It’s unfortunate that her character doesn’t grow in this two hour run time, especially considering how much time Harley gets onscreen.

Jurnee Smollet-Bell is probably the best Dinah Lance we’re going to get for a while. he was surprisingly adept at the part, even if everyone is butt-hurt that she was race-bent. Her Canary Cry was absolute sh*t but that was more the effects fault. Them sh*ts is cheap! Jurnee did a fantastic job as Black Canary and i wasn’t even mad she wasn’t rocking the fishnets while doing it. She kicks high.

Rosie Perez was an interesting choice for Renee Montoya but i knew she could be fantastic in the role if they gave her room to breathe. Perez could have brought that Puerto Rican heat to the role, and she did a few times, but not enough to make an impression. Again, that’s because this ain’t a Birds of Prey vehicle so all of the Birds had to kind of curtail their time in the camera, and overall character development, in order to make sure Harley got her face time with the audience. It’s kind of f*cked up and makes the movie less for it.

Black Mask was a goddamn spectacle! He’s smarmy, and arrogant, and flamboyant, and campy, and generally just brilliant. He’s one of the best villains of the DCEU, which ain’t saying much, but i can say just SO much about Ewan McGregor’s performance as Roman Sionis. His mask is stupid though. And he’s definitely Black Mask in name only. Still, for what this version is, McGregor delivers. If you’re curious what a closer interpretation of the comic character can be, check out Batman: Under The Red Hood. That’s a far more accurate representation of what Sidonis is supposed to be but I’m not mad what we got here.

Chris Messina as Victor Zsasz is okay. In the book, he’s out of his mine and ludicrously violent. Like, textbook psychopath crazy. In this, he’s still pretty f*cking nuts but he’s also wildly jealous and crazy possessive? I think that’s because of the insinuated relationship between he and Black Mask but you gotta read real heavy into that relationship to even broach that subject. Like, I‘m reaching with that statement but, for the most part, Messina does an admirable job of bringing this character to life.

The action scenes, outside of the awesome that is Huntress, is the real draw of this movie. Harley’s story is cliche and the Birds don’t get much time to develop so they’re kind of inconsequential but the action is superb. It’s, legit, John Wick levels of awesome most of the time. There is a lot of buzz about that jailhouse scene and it’s totally worth all the talk. That motherf*cker was spectacular!

The art direction is pretty amazing in here. This looks like how i think SKWAD wanted to look, but couldn’t because of Snyder grimdark nonsense. Like, if that trailer house had full reign to actually film that movie, BoP is what we might have gotten and it is a much better look for the type of movie these things are. Certain sets, like the funhouse and Sinonis’ club were awesome and the little flairs for characters were on point. The confetti beanbags were absolutely genius!

I would be remiss if i didn’t mention the costumes. Harley had a ton of costume changes, so much so a character mentions it in the middle of a fight, but i wasn’t mad. They all reflect her character and Margot Robbie is a helluva a Barbie to play dress-up with but so was Black Mask apparently. He had almost as many costume changes as Quinn and they were all amazing. I liked what they had Canary in, even if it wasn’t comic accurate and i absolutely adored what Huntress rocked in the beginning. All in all, pretty legit costuming, i must say.

Another one where the sound design is worth mentioning. The direction didn’t elevate this assblast of a movie but the sound design sure as sh*t did. There are a ton of punctuating songs and effects that give otherwise flaccid scenes, that extra Viagra boost to get them rock hard! It’s amazing what music can do for anything really. Throw a dope ass soundtrack behind constipation and you have a serenade that eases things up to drop that deuce. I say that because that’s how it feels watching this goddamn movie.

The Meh

Ella Jay Basco is probably the weakest part of this movie. She does an admirable job as Cassandra Cain for being so young but there are certain instance where you can tell this is her first big gig. She isn’t terrible by any means, there aren’t any terrible performances at all in this thing, but she was easily the weakest of the lot.

The liberties taken with the characters in this movie are interesting. I’m curious as to see where this version of Gotham can go and what these particular interpretations of such iconic Bat-Characters can go. I don’t think they are great as a direct representations, f*cking Cassandra Cain is a particular sore spot for me because i adore her in the books, but i can give her chance. I can give all of these characters a chance. I rather adored this version of Huntress. Ma might be my favorite one! Well, almost. I’m pretty partial to Helena Wayne but i digress. While i don’t particularly care for how these awesome women are represented in this flick, i can see the potential. There is a unique vision here that is worth seeing through.

The writing is so-so. I can’t say it’s bad because there is a lot of good in there, tons of interesting ideas, but the execution is real poor. Most of these scenes feel like, on paper, they were dope as f*ck. On screen, though? Just underwhelming. It’s like they couldn’t translate what they wanted or needed to film for one reason or another. I feel like that might have more to do with the direction, I’m getting to that, but the core of a flick is the writing. If you’re script ain’t on point, you’re movie can’t be and i can see how dull them pages were to begin with.

The direction in this thing is mediocre. Cathy Yan did a “meh” job with this thing. A lot of that might have been due to the script but a great director can elevate straight schlock. Look at James Cameron. Avatar is an ass of a film that rips of f*cking Ferngully but his vision got it Oscars and the number one, highest grossing, spot on the all-time list until Endgame murdered that sh*t. Yan did not elevate this schlock. They had to go back to reshoots and have Chad Stahleski touch up some stuff. Like, the best parts of this thing, the action scenes, weren’t even directed by Yan. I mean, they were at first, but this thing got screened by the execs ad all of that sh*t was tossed out. Stahleski made them things pop! No telling what else he touched up, or f*cked up, on his way out.

The Bad

This is not a Birds of Prey movie. This is a Harley Quinn vehicle with a Birds of Prey cameo. I can see what they wanted to do with this thing, backdoor origin story for one of Batman’s strongest supplementary teams, but with no Barbara Gordon as Oracle, it feels hollow. Especially considering that the Birds, themselves, have next to no screen time. I get that Harley is the money maker but this should have been a Gotham City Sirens film.

The continuity of this sh*t is dubious. It takes place in the old DCEU. It’s legit a sequel to Suicide Squad. Harley references that sh*t twice. I don’t know what that means going forward, but this Gotham ain’t that Gotham at all. It’s weird to see because you spend a good amount of time within the GCPD and no Bullock or Gordon; The latter of which we’ve seen already. It’s awkward the way WB has decided to play fast and loose with what sticks and what doesn’t. Joker is a stand alone and so is Shazam. The Batman is going to be a stand alone or it’s own franchise. Aquaman and Wondy are still in the DCEU continuity but i don’t know how long they will be, especially considering Wonder Woman’s solos are all prequels that have no ties to that Snyder depression exercise. It’s nothing to just pluck her out and add her to a much better executed cinematic universe. With Flashpoint all but confirmed, It feels like none of this matters. This one, for sure, doesn’t.

The plot is still stupid. The McGuffin is better since the reshoots because dick pics? Really? But the writing is still stupid. The whole center of the conflict is ridiculous and the resolution is just blergh.

The only thing worse than the plot is the pacing. This motherf*cker drags! There are entire scenes where nothing f*cking happens and it’s stupid. Most of the time, it’s the scenes with Harley. Her arc is just so f*cking pedestrian. It’s well acted, i said as much above, but it’s SO dumb and i kind of hate it.

This movie really hates dudes. Like, i get it, right? Respect. Recognition. Women deserve all of everything. Equality, feminism, yadda-yadda. I get it. There are ways to execute that perspective which are good. A decent writer would convey that by actually writing decent scenes, not just turning all of the men in the film into juvenile caricatures of chauvinism. I personally don’t care, I’m not a neckbeard typing with one hand while breathing heavily on my monitor in my ma’s basement, but i had to mention it because everyone is mentioning it and they have a point. This is glorified misandry at it’s finest but, you know, patriarchy or whatever. I don’t care. It didn’t take me out of the movie, the sh*tty plot did that, but it was interesting to see in person. It’s hard to justify this bullsh*t when Atomic Blonde exists.

So the gay-baiting. Like, really, dude? If you’re going to do it, go all the way. I read somewhere that Black Mask was supposed to have a homosexual relationship with Victor Zsasz but nah. None of that is expressed in any capacity. There might have been a line referencing it, maybe, but that could have been in regards to the violent outburst in the club the night before. Ambiguous because you gotta sell this thing in China! Renee Montoya is legit gay in the books and, other than a passing line early on, it never comes up again. I think that might be because of the distinct lack of characterization for literally all the Birds in their own f*cking movie, but still. That’s massive part of her character and no one talks about it. No one talks about any of the LBGTQ bullsh*t they pushed in the promotion.

All of this controversy does this flick a disservice. It doesn’t deserve all the hate it’s getting and it definitely doesn’t deserve all of the praise. This is not some super “GRRRL power”, kickass, gay-loving, action flick. It’s a mediocre break-up story that happens to have some interesting action set pieces but, ultimately, is inconsequential in the greater scheme of things. This is the Ant-Man of the DCEU. I spoke about this at length a few days ago and the nonsense that I was afraid was going to happen, is happening. No one wants to sh*t on this flick because of “Muh representation”. It’s a female lead, female directed, piece of sh*t. It is. But it’s a fun piece of sh*t and easily the best, of the worst, of the DCEU but it’s still a piece of sh*t. It’s not changing cinema, it’s not some great step forward in representation, and it’s not doing women in the industry a great service. It’s a quirky, violent, nonsense of a movie and should be judged as such. Again, Atomic Blonde is a much better example of ho to “GRRRL power” your way in the box office. Go watch that instead.

The ending to this thing feels rushed and super anticlimactic. I felt bad about it. Seriously. The way this movie resolves, after everything that took place, is just whack, man. It leaves you wanting, especially after how charismatic Black Mask turned out to be more than that, there’s no resolution. No one grows. Everyone is exactly where they were at the start of this f*cking thing. Like, what was the f*cking point? I can tell they wanted me to think that these chicks had grown into something more but did they really? Did we really see any growth out of any one of them not name Harley? Hell, even Harley is still the same motherf*cker! Like, for real, dude? Someone read that script and thought, “Okey-Dokey, this is good enough!” I just wanted to punch this movie in it’s face when it was over. Like, f*ck you, movie.

The Verdict

Birds of Prey is a bad movie. It’s gorgeous to look at, the costumes are amazing, and most of the performances are super strong. However, the plot is stupid, the pacing is on drugs, and the best parts of this flick get, like, no screen time to breathe. The Birds are guest stars in what, very obviously, is not their movie. This really should have been called “Harley Quinn and The Tiniest Bit of an Origin Story For The Birds of Prey” because that’s what it is. Technically, this should have been Gotham City Sirens to begin with but i ranted about that before. Margot Robbie is bad at picking movies to produce and she definitely produced this one. Got her unfortunate and inexperienced fingerprints all over it. Kind of doesn’t matter what should have been, though, this is what we got and this is a sh*t time, for sure. But, it can be fun at times. There is about as much to like as there is to hate especially if you’re open to being blue-balled when it counts. If that sounds like a party to you, check this thing out. If not, you can pass on it. That’s how meaningless this thing feels.

#Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn #Birds of Prey #Harley Quinn #DC

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forsetti · 6 years

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On Defending Misogyny: Ross Douthat Edition

Ross Douthat’s latest nonsense in the New York Times is quite the pile of crap, even when compared to other piles of crap written by Douthat. Here is my take on the article (Douthat’s article in bold.) One lesson to be drawn from recent Western history might be this: Sometimes the extremists and radicals and weirdos see the world more clearly than the respectable and moderate and sane. All kinds of phenomena, starting as far back as the Iraq War and the crisis of the euro but accelerating in the age of populism, have made more sense in the light of analysis by reactionaries and radicals than as portrayed in the organs of establishment opinion. Not one single person with an ounce of credibility thinks that extremists and radicals and weirdos see the world clearly because SEEING THE WORLD CLEARLY IS ANTITHETICAL TO BEING AN EXTREMISTS, RADICAL, OR WEIRDO. The ONLY way Douthat's statement makes any sense is if he thinks people with enough common sense to know invading Iraq on bogus reasons with zero plan on what to do after the initial invasion was a fucking horrible idea, were extremist, radical, weirdo.

This is part of why there’s been so much recent agitation over universities and op-ed pages and other forums for debate. There’s a general understanding that the ideological mainstream isn’t adequate to the moment, but nobody can decide whether that means we need purges or pluralism, a spirit of curiosity and conversation or a furious war against whichever side you think is evil.

For those more curious than martial, one useful path through this thicket is to look at areas where extremists and eccentrics from very different worlds are talking about the same subject. Such overlap is no guarantee of wisdom, but it’s often a sign that there’s something interesting going on.

A classic Douthat move-lay out a completely bogus claim right out of the block and then construct a whole argument on top of it.

Which brings me to the sex robots. People having opinions about the Iraq war and the European Union logically leads us to sex robots because of course it fucking does.

Well, actually, first it brings me to the case of Robin Hanson, a George Mason economist, libertarian and noted brilliant weirdo. Commenting on the recent terrorist violence in Toronto, in which a self-identified “incel” — that is, involuntary celibate — man sought retribution against women and society for denying him the fornication he felt that he deserved, Hanson offered this provocation: If we are concerned about the just distribution of property and money, why do we assume that the desire for some sort of sexual redistribution is inherently ridiculous?

If you use “libertarian,” you don't get to follow it up with “brilliant.” Never....fucking ever. As crazy as that juxtaposition of terms is the casual acceptance by Douthat of what “incel” means is even more disturbing. The idea that women in society have to have sex with men is repulsive on every level. That someone gives voice to this notion and give it its own term is fucked up beyond reason. Sorry men, women are not here for you to have sex with. Here's a thought, if men want to have sex with women, then maybe, just maybe, they should behave in ways that women deem appropriate enough to where they will give up their bodies willingly to them. Anything short of this is misogyny at the least and rape a the most. After all, he wrote, “one might plausibly argue that those with much less access to sex suffer to a similar degree as those with low income, and might similarly hope to gain from organizing around this identity, to lobby for redistribution along this axis and to at least implicitly threaten violence if their demands are not met.” Let me de-fuckify this statement because it is a Ceasar's Word Salad of nonsense. “Men who don't get as much sex as they want, think they deserve, need to band together to find ways, even through violence, to get women to fuck them against their wills.”

This argument was not well received by people closer to the mainstream than Professor Hanson, to put it mildly. A representative response from Slate’s Jordan Weissmann, “Is Robin Hanson the Creepiest Economist in America?”, cited the post along with some previous creepy forays to dismiss Hanson as a misogynist weirdo not that far removed from the franker misogyny of toxic online males.

I can't understand why the “mainstream” would find the unionization of violent, horny men hell-bent on making women their sexual subjects offensive. But, see what Douthat has done. He has already constructed his argument where the mainstream is the ones who don't “see the world clearly.” Since the mainstream has been pigeon-holed as not seeing reality for what it really is, then it logically follows for Douthat that their view cannot be correct.

But Hanson’s post made me immediately think of a recent essay in The London Review of Books by Amia Srinivasan, “Does Anyone Have the Right To Sex?” Srinivasan, an Oxford philosophy professor, covered similar ground (starting with an earlier “incel” killer) but expanded the argument well beyond the realm of male chauvinists to consider groups with whom The London Review’s left-leaning and feminist readers would have more natural sympathy — the overweight and disabled, minority groups treated as unattractive by the majority, trans women unable to find partners and other victims, in her narrative, of a society that still makes us prisoners of patriarchal and also racist-sexist-homophobic rules of sexual desire.

There is a lot to unpack here. First, Douthat uses a philosopher, in order to bolster the credibility of his argument. As someone with two degrees in philosophy, I can tell you that there are a lot of batshit crazy people with philosophy degrees who throw out outlandish arguments for no other reason than to be controversial and get their shit published in order to placate the Publish or Perish Gods. Second, having sympathy for how a culture views and treats groups outside the accepted norms like “overweight,” “trans,” “disabled,”... who have a difficult time having sex for a host of reasons is, to quote Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction, “...ain't the same fucking ballpark. It ain't the same league. It ain't even the same fucking sport.” Third, Douthat, a devout Catholic who has carried water for the patriarchy, for misogynists, for homophobes...for years now doesn't get to pretend he is worried about the very structure he helped build.

Srinivasan ultimately answered her title question in the negative: “There is no entitlement to sex, and everyone is entitled to want what they want.” But her negative answer was a qualified one. While “no one has a right to be desired,” at the same time “who is desired and who isn’t is a political question,” which left-wing and feminist politics might help society answer differently someday. This wouldn’t instantiate a formal right to sex, exactly, but if the new order worked as its revolutionary architects intended, sex would be more justly distributed than it is today.

Not only did Douthat use a philosopher to bolster his argument, he completely misused their words in order to do so. Notice how he uses Srinivasan's comment, “who is desired and who isn't is a political question,” and dovetails his own comment “which left-wing and feminist politics might help society answer differently someday,” as if they were one and the same statement. Every culture has their own ideas of what is/isn't sexually desirable. It has nothing to do with “left-wing” or “feminist” politics. Some cultures sexually value heavier companions, those with smaller feet, those with longer necks, those with fairer skin... We can argue the rationality of all of these but none of them are based on leftist or feminist beliefs. In fact, left-leaning and feminists would argue the fuck against these arbitrary sexual values.

A number of the critics I saw engaging with Srinivasan’s essay tended to respond the way a normal center-left writer like Weissmann engaged with Hanson’s thought experiment — by commenting on its weirdness or ideological extremity rather than engaging fully with its substance. But to me, reading Hanson and Srinivasan together offers a good case study in how intellectual eccentrics — like socialists and populists in politics — can surface issues and problems that lurk beneath the surface of more mainstream debates.

By this I mean that as offensive or utopian the redistribution of sex might sound, the idea is entirely responsive to the logic of late-modern sexual life, and its pursuit would be entirely characteristic of a recurring pattern in liberal societies.

Shorter Douthat: “Smart people reacting honestly to the arguments of a libertarian nut job don't know what the fuck they are doing but I, a dyed-in-the-wool social conservative does because of some magical reason that is never explained.” If you think placating angry, resentful, horny men is the way to utopia, I'm pretty sure you are either stupid as fuck and/or just about the most intellectually dishonest person I've ever read.

First, because like other forms of neoliberal deregulation the sexual revolution created new winners and losers, new hierarchies to replace the old ones, privileging the beautiful and rich and socially adept in new ways and relegating others to new forms of loneliness and frustration. Douthat's use of “neoliberal” was done on purpose and as meaningless as the term itself. What Douthat really means by this statement is, “In the past, men could do whatever the fuck they wanted to women, whenever they wanted and women had to take it because that is the fucking way it was. Now men can't do this and they are having a sad about it so we need to blame the women and those who support them instead of the fuck wad misogynists who were morally wrong 50, 100, 200... years ago for their behaviors.”

Second, because in this new landscape, and amid other economic and technological transformations, the sexes seem to be struggling generally to relate to one another, with social and political chasms opening between them and not only marriage and family but also sexual activity itself in recent decline.

“The sexes seem to be struggling generally to relate to one another, with social and political chasms opening up between them.” Holy Both-Fucking-Siderism! NO!!! The “sexes” are not having a problem. MEN caught up in an archaic belief system are having a problem-a big fucking problem. Douthat doesn't get to lay the responsibility and consequences of men not adapting to women's rights on the doorstep of women.

Third, because the culture’s dominant message about sex is still essentially Hefnerian, despite certain revisions attempted by feminists since the heyday of the Playboy philosophy — a message that frequency and variety in sexual experience is as close to a summum bonum as the human condition has to offer, that the greatest possible diversity in sexual desires and tastes and identities should be not only accepted but cultivated, and that virginity and celibacy are at best strange and at worst pitiable states. And this master narrative, inevitably, makes both the new inequalities and the decline of actual relationships that much more difficult to bear …which in turn encourages people, as ever under modernity, to place their hope for escape from the costs of one revolution in a further one yet to come, be it political, social or technological, which will supply if not the promised utopia at least some form of redress for the many people that progress has obviously left behind.

There is an alternative, conservative response, of course — namely, that our widespread isolation and unhappiness and sterility might be dealt with by reviving or adapting older ideas about the virtues of monogamy and chastity and permanence and the special respect owed to the celibate.

So let me get this straight, the problem with sex in America is because of feminists and leftists but, “ the culture’s dominant message about sex is still essentially Hefnerian.”? I've never known a single feminist or leftist who was not only okay with the views and attitudes about sex espoused by Hugh Hefner but who used them as the basis of their sexual ethics. In fact, it has been the direct opposite. Douthat's view of feminism and left-leaning is comical and beyond conservative stereotyping.

But this is not the natural response for a society like ours. Instead we tend to look for fixes that seem to build on previous revolutions, rather than reverse them.

In the case of sexual liberation and its discontents, that’s unlikely to mean the kind of thoroughgoingly utopian reimagining of sexual desire that writers like Srinivasan think we should aspire toward, or anything quite so formal as the pro-redistribution political lobby of Hanson’s thought experiment.

By defacto argument, the sexual revolution was bad so men trying to come to terms with how to really treat women as equals would be a misguided approach to the problem. We need to go back in time to when women had limited rights and almost none with regard to their bodies, their sexuality, and start from there in order to build a more perfect union where men get to get laid when they want by whomever they want.

But I expect the logic of commerce and technology will be consciously harnessed, as already in pornography, to address the unhappiness of incels, be they angry and dangerous or simply depressed and despairing. The left’s increasing zeal to transform prostitution into legalized and regulated “sex work” will have this end implicitly in mind, the libertarian (and general male) fascination with virtual-reality porn and sex robotswill increase as those technologies improve — and at a certain point, without anyone formally debating the idea of a right to sex, right-thinking people will simply come to agree that some such right exists, and that it makes sense to look to some combination of changed laws, new technologies and evolved mores to fulfill it.

Whether sex workers and sex robots can actually deliver real fulfillment is another matter. But that they will eventually be asked to do it, in service to a redistributive goal that for now still seems creepy or misogynist or radical, feels pretty much inevitable.

So, for Douthat, the need to address and placate incels is important but we shouldn't do it with legalizing prostitution or other means. What Douthat is really saying is, “If men cannot dominate and be in control of women, then any sexual solution won't be acceptable. Not legalized prostitution. Not sex robots. Nothing short of actual, real women being subservient to men will do.”

At no point in this entire article by Douthat are men held responsible for their beliefs, for their actions. NOT ONE SINGLE FUCKING TIME! “Feminists” and “left-leaning” people are the real reason behind backward thinking, immoral. egotistical men for behaving the way they do towards women. GTFOH!

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recentanimenews · 6 years

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I Wanted to Write a Tourism Article, But I Touched a Mysterious Glowing Portal and Somehow Ended Up in Another World?!

So, cards on the table, this wasn't the article I was originally going to write.

The plan in my to-do list—and the plan in newsroom chat—had been for me to head out to Japan, meet up with a friend there, and review a bunch of the collab cafés currently running. (Astute readers may have gathered that, since I cover the news pieces for like 90% of them, I'm kind of infatuated with them.) I had the reservations all set for all of them, I had my round trip ticket, got my passport renewed, the whole nine yards.

Then on the layover in San Francisco, I killed some time looking at the modern art pieces scattered around my gate, and... long story short, things happened, I touched what I thought was an interactive NASA display but oh silly me it was an interdimensional portal.

No lectures, please. Lessons were learned.

At the moment, I have two issues. One, I have ended up getting so turned around in my efforts to get home that I've actually ended up going through a total of seven worlds, none of which are the one I'm trying to get back to. Two, I have a feature due, like, now. So I figure while I'm waiting to meet up with this mysterious guy who looks and sounds eerily like my childhood friend, I might as well knock out two birds with one stone.

So, in lieu of what was going to be an adorable romp through anime-themed parfaits and soda, here's a travelogue of other worlds you may find yourself visiting someday.

Yggdrasil

If I'm going to get thrown to the four winds, this isn't the worst place to start. Yggdrasil actually seems to have the same view of the stars as Earth, which means technically I was pretty close to home? Also, things aligned pretty well with Bronze Age technology and society, so it wasn't 100% culture shock. Well, you know, except for all the magic and stuff flying around.

Hospitality was pretty decent: all the local tribes were set up as "families," with a Patriarch at the head of each (male or female) and their followers referred to as children or siblings. Apparently loyalty within that system is a big deal around here, to the point that the success of peace negotiations can rest on that.

Then there are the Einherjar: straight-up magic using warriors. You don't want to mess with them, but as long as you're not on the receiving end of their attacks, they're amazing to watch in battle.

Best thing about Yggdrasil? Amazing reception. Data comes through like you're just sitting next to your router no matter where you go. Phone calls are a little tougher, though... you have to be near some kind of magic mirror to make it work. Which is fine if you've got nowhere to go. But, if someone had a loved one back home and had to keep leaving their base and knowing they couldn't call, I imagine that'd make them crazy after a while.

Worth the Trip?: The good news is that with a few web searches and some skilled friends, you can survive the primitive nature of Yggdrasil with some familiar creature comforts. (And then they get a new skill set!) Downside is, no matter how nice people are, if you're living anywhere with anything like society, you're probably about to be in a war zone.

Cross Reverie

Okay, this one was a little weird. I swear I've seen this game around online (I'm more a Fate/GO girl myself), and pretty much everything I saw when I came through here matched up with the game. Same landscape, same types of people, and basically enough going on where if you know the game you can get around like nobody's business.

Here's the thing: everyone is super low-level.

Like, initially I was completely ready to believe I'd ended up inside a game. It wouldn't be the weirdest thing that happened to me on this trip. But everyone's "levels," even the really capable fighters were down in the teens. Then again, I guess when you're talking real-world adventuring, you're not going to spend several hours a day beating up monsters just to ding a higher level.

Interestingly, a lot of the ladies around here don't... wear a lot of clothes? I felt weirdly overdressed a lot of the time. That's not a fast rule, but it was not uncommon to see lower- and higher-cut outfits in fashion. (Take note and... I guess don't visit when it's cold?)

Worth the Trip?: If you're a gamer, you'll feel right at home. Things tend to function on game logic, but at a more "human" level. Just don't expect in-game creature comforts like teleportation. Though, if you're looking for actual straight-up game stuff...

Sword Art Online

There we go. No fuss, no messing, no wondering what translates to what. This is a game. You're in a game. Welcome to an RPG that you actually, like, do.

I'm pretty down with that. I like swords, I like adventure, and being able to do raids and quests without having to worry about spinning the camera around. Extra bonus? Your fellow adventurers are from the same world as you. So less culture shock, less having to explain your bad references in conversation. Overall a lot more welcoming. Plus, it's gorgeous there—exactly what you'd imagine a fantasy world to be, with all the cool clothes and critters included.

There is one major down side, though... transportation out of there is not. Easy. And I don't mean like "flights are expensive" or "there's only one bus route." I mean like "you have to fight your way up a giant tower and not die and that might not even work." So not (and I speak from experience here) the best stop for a multi-stop trip where time is of the essence.

Worth the Trip?: Really depends how into it you are. If this is somewhere you specifically want to go, yes. If you have other plans in the next, like... rest of your life? Plan with care.

Disboard

I mean... I'm sure it's just a coincidence that so many of the places I ended up in seem to have gaming themes to them. Maybe our world is the odd one out?

The world of Disboard is a dream come true if you're one of two things: an adept gamer or a flawless cheater. If you are neither of those things, though, you might have a bad time. Disboard functions on games in pretty much any way you can think of. Disputes on anything from rulership of a country to whether you're about to get robbed are handled via bets and competitions. And it could be anything, from a hand of poker to God-tier shiritori.

If you're crazy lucky or crazy smart, you'll probably rock Disboard within hours. But if you've got my kind of luck?

It might be best to leave the gaming to the pros.

Worth the Trip?: Even if you're a garbage-tier gamer, Disboard is really beautiful. So you can at least take in the sights and do your best to stay out of trouble.

The Hidden Realm

The first thing you're told about traveling in other dimensions is not to eat the food. But you know what? I'm already in too deep. Might as well enjoy myself.

The Hidden Realm is that mysterious place where gods and demons live—and when you have a realm of gods and demons, what do you need? Come on, you've watched enough anime to know this... that's right. An inn. And inns need food. Sadly, the Tenjin'ya has some pretty boring food in its main restaurant.

But turn a few corners and go around the back of the property, and you will find the best little Japanese/spirit fusion restaurant. Seriously, it's crazy good. And it's run by a human girl who learned how to cook for spirits, so you know you're getting quality.

Worth the Trip?: Completely. I mean, okay. Whether or not the spirits will be nice to you really depends on their personalities, so you might meet a few jerks. But that food.

The Kingdom of Belfast

Belfast is part of a larger world that's accessible in one of two ways: you can either cross dimensions, or you can, uh... die. I highly recommend the first one if you have any sort of choice in the matter.

That said, dying and being reborn in this world does apparently net you some profits. There's been a case where the person reborn here was actually able to use all seven facets of the world's magic. (For reference, you're usually going to run into people who can use one or two at best.) That's going to make you popular... especially with the ladies, apparently.

Added bonus? Finally got reception again! This is another place where, if you've got any smart devices, you can make use of them once again. I'm not entirely sure what roaming charges are here and elsewhere... frankly, I've been too afraid to look.

Worth the Trip?: With good reception, plenty of magic to go around, and some frankly adorable fashions going on? I'll give it a thumbs up.

El-Hazard

And so we come (maybe?) to the end of my journey. I hope. I think. With a stop in El-Hazard, a world that's equal parts ancient tech and Arabian Nights culture. And, you know, I kind of dig it. Beautiful scenery, really cool magic and machines, and...

Bugs? Oh. Yeah. I forgot. There's literally an entire nation of giant bug people. Called Bugrom. They also might be a little at war with the humans here, and their might be some doomsday items scattered around.

But I mean besides that, it's actually pretty fun. Lots of room to wander and explore, a variety of landscapes, interesting people... and bugs.

Worth the Trip?: Depends how you feel about giant insects and ancient biomechanical creatures — conditional yes.

If you find yourself in another world (whether on purpose or through a completely honest and understandable accident Nate), stay smart. Bring a solar-powered charger. Be prepared to rule at least one kingdom or tribe while you're there. Look for sad girls with glowing necklaces, because they tend to know what's going on—and whatever you do... try not to touch anything. [EDITOR'S NOTE: I'm only okay with Kara missing the cafe coverage because she brought souvenir snacks. We good.]

-----

Kara Dennison is responsible for multiple webcomics, and is half the creative team behind the OEL light novel series Owl's Flower. She blogs at karadennison.com and tweets @RubyCosmos. Her latest book, Black Archive #21 – Heaven Sent, is currently available from Obverse Books.

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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smokeybrand · 4 years

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Smokey brand Movie Reviews: Anger Issues

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wrestlewriting · 7 years

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#10 [Kenny Omega]

Requested, #10. “Promise me you’ll stay.” (Prompt from here.)

Author note: THIS GOT AWAY FROM ME!!! It just took on a life of its own. It’s long. Smut. Fluff. Angst-y? (I hit it all, y’all.) Thank you wine/tequila, thank you. Here’s to hoping it’s good!

To the person who requested this and only requested it as fluffy: I’m so sorry. I hope you can still get behind what I’ve created here? I mean, it has fluff in it....??

Special thanks to @running-ropes for encouragment/review/support & @chasingeverybreakingwave for visual inspiration.

@superkixbaybay @hiitsmecharlie @ihtscuddlesbeeetchx3 @valeonmars @pjanina13 @spot-of-bother @bulletbaybay @bolieve-that @m-a-t-91 @chasingeverybreakingwave @not-that-kinda-gurl08 @heelturn-timesten @daintymissdevitt @imaginingwwesuperstars

He doesn’t look a thing like Jesus. But he talks like a gentlemen, like you imagined when you were young….

The first time you’d shared a bed with Kenny Omega was because you’d had too much sake thanks to Tama Tonga.

Kenny had taken it upon himself to make sure you’d made it back to your hotel room, and you’d essentially latched on to him, not allowing him to leave. Your limbs had secured him in a way that would make an octopus or python jealous. When you’d woken up the following morning, he’d been on top of the covers you’d been under, a separate blanket over himself.

You’d been able to laugh off the experience, thanking him for looking out for you, and he seemed unaffected overall by the ordeal.

The second time you shared a bed with Kenny Omega was due to sheer bad circumstance.

You’d both been in California for PWG. The booking was set for the rooms, with you sharing with Chuck Taylor, who was somewhat of a little brother to you. What you didn’t know was he had planned to film his DVD series with Trent in said room. In a desperate attempt for sleep and to get away from the chaos, you’d gone to Kenny’s room. He was one of the few people you trusted and knew wouldn’t be a part of the shenanigans set up by Chuck.

That morning, you’d woken up with your limbs tangled together with his. You certainly hadn’t fallen asleep that way, you were sure of it. You’d managed to slide out of the bed and make a quiet getaway, your jet-lagged companion staying asleep, much to your gratitude. Kenny had said nothing about it to you when you saw him later that day at the venue. And you definitely hadn’t brought it up.

The third time you’d shared a bed with Kenny Omega was because you had asked it of him.

On tour with New Japan, you’d ended up roommates, given the evenness already present with the Young Bucks and Guerillas of Destiny. It was nothing for you to share a room with a man, but you’d never shared with Kenny before on purpose. You walked on eggshells as you’d gotten ready for bed, scurrying into the bathroom to change and go through your nightly routine. After Kenny had done the same, emerging from the other room in just a pair of basketball shorts, you’d forced yourself to continue looking ahead at the TV.

Falling asleep had come easy enough, as you’d taken a large dose of melatonin to help. Unfortunately, you hadn’t stayed asleep. Whether it was your own subconscious ruining your night, or the aid of the medication, you found yourself having the oddest dream. A nightmare really.

When you’d finally come back to the present, Kenny was beside you, his hand tight yet soft on your shoulder, as he gazed down at you. Your wild eyes and racing mind took more than a few seconds to take stock of the situation, and realize what was going on.

“Hey, you OK?”

“…I don’t know,” was your practically sighed response, your subconscious still affecting you somatically, an odd fogginess surrounding your senses.

“Breathe….” His directive seemed odd at first to you, until you realized how tense and still your body was, and your brain made you aware of the lack of oxygen you were taking in. You basically gasped in a breath when your body caught up to your mind, causing your back to arch ever so slightly. Kenny’s hand remained on your shoulder.

“I’m OK,” you whispered, with what little strength you had.

“Are you?”

God, when did he become so adept at mood reading? Why was he challenging your answer anyways?

“…yea….”

“Hey….” His response was gentle in tone but made you highly alert all the same. “It’s alright. We all have nights like this, don’t we?”

Did you? Did everyone? You couldn’t remember the last time you had a nightmare, let alone one that had required you to be woken from your sleep. Honestly, you weren’t sure you’d ever had to be woken from your sleep before.

“Can you lay with me?” The request you’d made of him felt intrusive and unwelcomed, but you asked it anyway. You were good friends, definitely, but you didn’t think you really had the right to ask him to purposely share a bed with you. But you needed something. You didn’t feel safe in your own skin at the moment.

While you had developed a small, and ridiculous, crush on Kenny…you knew he didn’t reciprocate it. You were certain his heart still remained with an adorable Japanese man that was too far away to be real, but also present enough to be impactful.

“Of course.” His answer made your chest tighten just enough to be an issue. Kenny had agreed so easily, so genuinely. You are far too nice of a human, you thought to yourself as he climbed under your covers. Without prompting, he grabbed you and gathered you into his arms.

It took you a few moments to relax in his hold, your own arms curled against his side, your leg laying over his. He had one arm around your shoulders, hand soft against the back of your head; his other arm was across himself, with his hand secured on your side. He was warm and solid, but somehow soft and soothing at the same time.

His fingers moved lightly against your hair and head, and you had no clue how he had any idea to do such a thing to comfort you. But you were grateful.

You tried to recall what the nightmare had been about, but by this point, it all seemed fuzzy and unknown. You did remember being in some eerie woods, and your best friend from back home was with you. There was something wrong with her though, and she had blood all over her. The only other thing you could recall was some high-pitched wail or scream, that felt like it had been right next to you.

“Wanna talk about it?”

How had he known you’d been thinking about it?

“Not really,” you replied. Kenny didn’t push you further, and you appreciated him even more.

“Then, we’ll just lay here till you sleep,” he eventually decided.

“I’m way too awake now to sleep.”

“Wanna go run a few miles?”

“Fuck no.” Kenny’s laugh was instant at your response, and a smile ghosted at your mouth.

From there, an easy conversation started, with you explaining your detest for running. It moved on to other things you both disliked, and liked, from food to movies to colors.

You found yourself moving from your initial position at his side to laying on his chest, your chin resting on your hand. He had an arm behind his head, moved up a bit more, allowing you two to see each other as you talked.

Kenny was currently telling you about the animals he left back home in Winnipeg, a menagerie that his poor parents had to look after in his absence. There was a sparkle in his eyes as he talked about his life there, and you got the sense that when his wrestling career was over, he’d go back there and never leave again.

“Are you still in Chicago?”

“For now,” you answered. Kenny’s eyebrows went up a bit at your answer. “I…am not good at…uh, staying in one place, I guess.”

“Why?” You just moved your shoulders upwards, biting your lip. “Good explanation.” The look you gave him wasn’t one of amusement. “C’mon. We’re in some weird ‘honesty hour’ moment here. What keeps you moving around? What even is your hometown?”

“Technically? Some small bullshit place in Montana. But I was out of there by my teenage years, into California. And from there it’s just been…I don’t know. An adventure?”

“So, you just…leave places? How do you decide when to do that?”

“I don’t know,” you replied. “When it just…stops feeling right. I, like, I can’t explain it. I just…there’s always a point where I feel…just, I feel uncomfortable where I am. So…I leave.”

“Do you think you’ll ever be comfortable somewhere?”

“I’m pretty comfy right now,” you stated, a slow smirk coming to your face. Kenny’s response was a small, huff of a laugh.

“Well, I’m glad.”

“Me too.”

It was a brief pause between your words and when his lips met yours.

The kiss was soft at first, tentative. You didn’t let your brain override the moment, and made sure to take some of the hesitance away by bracing your hands on his shoulders firmly. Kenny’s hands were on your back, moving upward, your shirt going with them. It was soon after that you were topless entirely, and skin to shirt with Kenny, your kisses far more firm and purposeful now.

Your hazy, and exhausted, mind put little emphasis on your own actions and more emphasis on what you were feeling from him.

Like the way his hands moved over your sides to your yoga pants, and how gently he moved them down enough to help you kick then off. And how it felt to push his own shirt up off his torso and watch him shed it, landing somewhere in the room.

You were both without clothes and pressed against each other soon enough, with him hovering above you, his mouth everywhere his hands weren’t. There was no talking, just accelerated breathing and occasional gasps, mostly from you.

Until Kenny changed that.

“Hey….” Your eyes snapped open at his voice, his lips leaving where they’d be on your collarbone. “Are you…. Is this OK?” Fuck, stop being so considerate and wonderful!

“Of course,” you replied, reaching up to thread your hand into his hair at the base of his neck, pulling him back down into a kiss. Your body recognized his hand moving down to meet your clit, his finger gentle but firm. It caused your hips to curve ever so slightly up towards him, your hand tightening in his curls.

“You….” His sentiment, whatever it was, trailed off into nothingness, as his mouth sucked on your neck, his fingers moved down to acknowledge the slick between your legs.

He was as good with his hands as he was with his mouth.

When your body was just the right amount of taught and buzzing, he stopped what he had been doing, trailing his hand up your abdomen to your breasts.

“Fuck,” you groaned, hating how close you’d been to release, and how quickly he’d denied you.

“Patience, beautiful,” Kenny murmured, his hand skimming gently at over breast as his mouth came back to yours. In the spirit of reciprocity, you moved your own hand down to grasp him. His cock felt warm and heavy in your grasp, and you immediately realized what you were in for. The almost pleasurable hiss of a breath he let out at your skin to skin contact made you relax a bit. He was clearly as into this as you were.

“Ken….” It was less of a moan and more of a plea.

“Yea?”

“Please,” you whimpered, your fingers dancing along his hard length.

“What?” You could feel the smirk on his lips where they were against your shoulder. He kissed up along the column of your neck, across your cheek, and to your lips again. You groaned into the kiss as his hand skimmed down your side to your hip, where he dug his fingertips in just enough for you to realize how strong he was.

“Stop teasing,” you requested, gently grasping at his flesh in your hand. It got you the desired reaction from him, as you felt the rest of his body tighten ever so slightly against yours.

“Back atcha,” he whispered, his mouth leaving yours. In response, you let your fingers move up then back down, grinning to yourself at the hiss he expelled. “I swear….”

“Hmmmm?”

“You’re gonna regret it,” Kenny finished, a smirk appearing on his face.

He was only partially wrong.

A second later his hand had removed yours, and he had taken over guiding himself into you. You clenched your eyes shut at the feeling, your body adjusting the best it could to the situation. It wasn’t that you had never had sex, it just had been a bit or so. And Kenny was thicker than you were used to.

The sharp breaths that Kenny was taking indicated he hadn’t anticipated the feeling either.

“Fuck….” It was a whimper from your mouth, as he took the time to fully push inside your body. His mouth was against your cheek, on your neck, on your chest.

There were a few moments before he settled, and a few more before you moved your body up towards his. The pace was slow to start, a small roll of hips meeting hips, mouths meshing together.

You were the one to escalate it further. Breaking your mouth from his, you went down to his shoulder, sinking your teeth in just enough to get the point across.

“God damn it….” Kenny’s voice was strained at best. You felt a brief moment of pride that you had caused that. He had one hand planted just above your own shoulder, and the other went down to your hip, then your thigh. He moved your leg just enough that your knee bent and he was able to have more control in the situation. And when he moved your leg further to the side, widening you, you twisted up against him almost instantly.

The moan that came from you was probably the most unholy of noises you’d ever made.

And it only encouraged Kenny further, as his hips moved against yours faster, harder. Your eyes immediately closed, as he moved his hand from your leg to your clit. It took far more strength than you knew you had to keep your leg in its place, as you felt all of your muscles start to tighten at his ministrations.

“Kenny….” His name was a whine at best from your mouth. Everything he was doing was becoming too much.

“You…feel amazing.” His words were breathed against your shoulder, where his head currently laid, the rest of his body still in motion. You couldn’t stop your hips from moving up against him more, as your orgasm built. You knew he could tell by the way he started to move his finger on you.

Even though you’d felt it approaching, your orgasm was stronger than you had anticipated. Your body moved against his, bringing him closer. Your head was pressed back against the pillow, your leg no longer splayed open but wrapped around his back.

It was less than a minute later that you felt Kenny groan out curses against your mouth as he too finished. The kisses continued throughout, going from intense and needy, to languid and satisfied.

No words were spoken when he moved off of you and to your side. Closing your eyes, you took in a deep breath, your heart rate high, your body filled with a pleasant buzz.

This had been a very unexpected night. An enjoyable, interesting, night…but unplanned all the same.

You were grateful that you were physically exhausted at this point. It was the only reason you knew you’d finally get some sleep.

Don’t you wake up yet, ‘cause soon I’ll be leaving you. Soon I’ll be leaving you, but you won’t be leaving me….

When you’d woken in the early morning, Kenny was asleep on his stomach beside you, the blankets stopping right at the small of his back. As your mind woke up further, the night came back to you.

You’d had sex with Kenny.

Like, really good, great sex.

It had not been whatsoever a thing you’d anticipated to happen last night…but it had.

And now the question was, what would today bring? If you hadn’t expected it, then neither had he most likely. You were friends, definitely, close friends for all intents and purposes. But sex was the biggest catalyst to change in relationships.

What were you now?

There was a chance that Kenny would be pleased with what happened the night before. There was an equal chance that he wouldn’t be.

You didn’t want to know where he landed. In your gut was a deep, heavy tightness that told you he wouldn’t be content with the situation, that he would either regret it or ignore it. Neither of those you wanted to hear or see. Both would hurt more than any nightmare ever could.

So there was only one option. You needed to get out before he woke up, before the awkward ‘morning-after’ conversation occurred.

Setting your mind to your plan, you oh so very carefully started to slide one leg from beneath the covers and down to the floor. You carefully shimmied your body to the edge as well, slowly pushing the covers off your torso and gently laying them on the bed. In a move that almost seemed like you were melting, you slithered the rest of your body off the bed, limb by limb, until you were practically crouched on the floor.

Standing up slowly, you tiptoed to the edge of the bed, finding your pants and shirt. You didn’t bother putting them on, instead going to your suitcase and carefully extracting fresh clothes.

It was then that you realized you couldn’t sneak out. You were sharing a friggen room with Kenny!

Shit shit shit, idiot, what the fuck do I do now?!

The idea of crawling back into bed with him and pretending you hadn’t tried to sneak off sounded amazing. But, again, you didn’t know how Kenny would feel when he woke up. And that anxiety and fear of the unknown were your driving force at the moment.

You made your decision quickly. Pulling on fresh clothes, you grabbed your toiletry bag and gear suitcase. The venue had showers, and that’s all you needed. Quietly, you made your way to the door and slipped out of the room, leaving your sleeping companion where he laid.

It turned out your sneaking out and fleeing had been for naught.

Kenny had found you at the venue during the day, and ever the gentleman, immediately asked if you were OK. He had feared that what the two of you had done had crossed a line with you, and he’d damaged you in some way or form. Once you’d assured him you had taken off for your own reasons, he seemed to relax. His assurances that you were still great friends, and he still wanted you around, were bittersweet to hear.

On one hand, you were happy that your friendship hadn’t been ruined by sleeping together. On the other hand, you did not enjoy having to be around a man you wanted that did not really want you the same.

So you settled for what you could get.

Over the weeks, you fell into a strange routine of spending nights with Kenny every few days; sometimes more, sometimes less.

Each time together would start the same, with casual conversation or video games or movies. And then one of you would touch the other in just the right way, innocent on the surface, but suggestive in motive. It always led to kisses being shared, gentle and exploratory, before moving into pressured and measured and leading. Somehow you always ended up on top of Kenny at that point, hands all over one another, clothes being pulled and pushed off.

The sex was always great, not just physically, but mentally as well. There was a…ease, to your being together. It was nothing for one of you to crack a joke in the midst of your actions, Kenny being the usual culprit. You liked that though, that it was just as easy to laugh together as it was to enjoy the other’s body.

About three weeks after your arrangement started, things changed.

This time, Kenny had made his way to your hotel room. The usual activities of food and chatting took place, but he had been the first one to directly make any type of move, using his hand on your cheek to draw you into a lingering kiss. There was no guessing or suggestion in his motive; it was clear what he expected to come of tonight.

You couldn’t explain it, but you felt like he was almost taking his time in his actions with you. In his every movement was a…tenderness? It was hard to put your finger on what it was. But every time a piece of your clothing came off, he kissed you thoroughly after.

When it came to the sex itself, he spent time enjoying every part of your body as he moved languidly against you. Your heels were dug into his thighs, your hands pinned above your head by his own. Each time he placed a deep, sucking kiss against your neck, or chest, you chewed at your lip.

The moment his finger pressed against your clit, you knew you were done for. He’d been moving into you, slow and steady and deep, for so long that you were on edge without question. But as he rubbed gently, your muscles tightened more and more, until you couldn’t stop your hips from curving upwards. As your body rolled through your orgasm, your toes curled and your heels pressed harder against him.

Your own orgasm was still sending small shocks through your body as his happened. The way he pressed his head against your chest and the firmness of his legs told you everything about how he was feeling.

When both of you started to go lax, Kenny removed himself from above you, all but flopping down at your side. You closed your eyes, taking in a shaky breath, your endorphin-riddled mind unable to work through what had really happened. All you knew was that you were still coming down from the high, and you felt like not only was your body flustered, so was your head.

“Promise me you’ll stay.”

Your breath caught in your throat at his request.

“You always leave…. I never wake up to you…. And just, uh, given how we are and…I want you to still be here when I wake up.” Kenny’s almost confused, but honest words, put your mind into overdrive.

When had he realized this weird pattern you’d found yourselves in always led to you leaving? Did it genuinely mean something to him to have you next to him, given your essential friends-with-benefits status? You figured leaving in the morning was always the best course of action for you to take, for both of you. It had never occurred to you honestly that he would want you to still be there when he woke up. He’d never really made any indication towards the idea at any point in any of your other interactions.

“Why?”

“Why what? Do I want you to stay?”

“Yea.”

“Because…I want you to,” he repeated. You turned your head, and he did the same, your eyes meeting in the dark. He searched your face for a moment, a small and almost awed smile coming to his mouth. “You are so beautiful.”

“Stop,” you groaned, your cheeks warming. “Answer the question, Ken.”

“I like being with you. Not just in bed, but at any time. I mean don’t get me wrong, I really like everything that goes on here.” You rolled your eyes, making him grin. “But it’s the other stuff too, maybe even more. The hanging out, the conversation. It’s never been just to get in your pants. It’s mattered, a lot to me. And I just…like you, like having you, like being with you.”

Was this another dream? Would his next sentence be ‘just kidding’? That would turn it into a nightmare for you. The irony that this all started because of a nightmare wasn’t lost on you in the moment.

“Say something,” he requested, your brain snapping back to the current moment. Your gaze met his again, and you felt the rate of your heart become faster, almost irregular.

“I wasn’t expecting this.”

“Why?”

“Figured you were OK with how things were,” you shrugged ever so slightly, your eyes going downcast.

“But you aren’t,” Kenny supplied, his assumption entirely too accurate. You shrugged again. “Tell me.”

“Having you somehow is better than not at all,” you spoke softly.

“That…that is just bad logic,” he decided. “I…I didn’t set out to put you in this position. It wasn’t…uh, I guess it should have been addressed long before this moment.” You said nothing, your silence enough of a confirmation he was right. “Just, tell me. Am I alone in this?”

“No,” you murmured.

“Then…stay. Tell me you’ll stay.”

“And then what?”

“What do you mean?”

“OK. I stay. We’re here tomorrow. What comes from it?”

“…hopefully morning sex.” You rolled your eyes, looking back up to him, struggling to not let your serious face crack. Kenny looked pleased with his response. “C’mon. Give me something for that one.”

“You’re dumb,” you mumbled. Gazing at him, taking him in, you eventually leaned over, kissing him softly. Kenny’s hand came up to cradle your cheek, his head lifting up slightly off the pillow to deepen the kiss. The kiss trailed off into a few soft, short ones before you separated from him.

“If you wake me up before like, 7AM, I swear….”

The only response Kenny gave was to pull you back down into a kiss, which you both were smiling into.

It turned out it wasn’t the sex that was changing your relationship with Kenny. It was going to be waking up beside him the morning after, and waiting for him to wake up too.

These nights never seem to go to plan. I don’t want you to leave, will you hold my hand?

#kenny omega imagine #kenny omega fan fiction #kenny omega fanfic #kenny omega fan fic #wrestling fanfic #wrestling imagine #wrestling fan fiction #wrestling fan fic #kenny omega

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tessatechaitea · 7 years

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Detective Comics #957

Let's all read a bad comic! Let's all read a bad comic! Let's all read a bad comic! And curse James Tynion V!

This right here is at the heart of what's wrong with the modern age of comic books. Superheroes are supposed to be inspiring! They're supposed to save people. Fuck this cynical bullshit where dozens of people die while the hero saves the day after which their relatives become super villains and blame the heroes. Then they attack the heroes and keep the cycle going because writers are lazy and/or think they're being clever by questioning things like "What if Superman had to fight in the real world instead of a stupid made-up world where he saves the day and makes people happy and causes readers to feel better about their lives and the world around them through the hope and inspiration of their actions?"

If I hadn't read so many James Tynion IV stories in which Batman was portrayed as being wrong while his youthful sidekicks all knew what was right and how to do things better, I might just think, "Spoiler will surely learn a lesson here! At the end, she'll be thinking Batman is the bee's knees!" But I'm fairly certain this will end with Spoiler proving something to Batman while Batman eats crow and admits he could probably be a better person. Because that's what the Patriarchy should be doing, right?! Shutting up and listening! Although I don't know how they can shut up and just listen if the shit they have to listen to is akin to the shit coming out of Spoiler's mouth in this comic book. By declaring she's no longer a superhero, Spoiler decides that her way is better and it'll allow her to save people from becoming innocent victims of Batman's war on crime. After Spoiler Narration Boxes her speech to whomever the fuck she's speaking, it's time for Wrath to do the same thing! He's also going to explain how Gotham City works and he's going to agree a bit with Spoiler. He agrees that the first thing you have to do as a super villain is to defeat Batman. You can come up with a criminal plan after that! Wrath is the anti-Batman. He's usually used in Batman comic books to show what Batman could have become if he allowed himself to use the tragedy in his life as an excuse. I bet this time he'll be used to show that there isn't really any difference between Wrath and Batman at all! Even as I was typing that, I was thinking, "Don't type that! That's such a stupid conclusion to make! There's not way even James Tynion IV would write that story!"

You mean you attempt to solve the hardest problem first and then you spend the next few years in Arkham Asylum wondering why you just didn't rob a bank on Staten Island.

At the beginning of the Wrath scene, he kills one of his own men. Later, he threatens to kill one at random for every minute they go over a deadline he gives them. Who would work for this asshole? The pay and benefits must be unfathomably generous!

So you constantly lose? Because there's no way you got through the level of Arkham Asylum that I grew bored with and quit because you have to be stealthy or you start over! And I'm fairly certain some levels of Thief, even when playing on the "Oops! I've been noticed and have to now murder an entire castle full of guards!" difficulty still forces you to be stealthy on some levels.

That previous caption was where I exceeded my "This comic isn't too bad!" threshold and decided I needed to vent. Spoiler continues to mention how so many innocents got hurt due to Batman and his Bat-Family stopping crime. She thinks (or Narration Boxes, actually), "Who's there to stop my friends when they go too far?" Um, you could be, you coward. She continues, "To say how many losses are acceptable?" Have you met Batman? Zero losses are acceptable! I mean, you know, in Bat-Theory! If anybody dies, it's not because Batman did something that caused their death. It's because somebody else did something that caused their death and Batman wasn't able to save them. I suppose in the world I described earlier where lazy writers only ever have villains attack Batman directly, you can, if you want to be a dick about it, put the blame on Batman. But once more: that's not Batman's fault! It's the fault of shitty writers! Spoiler's conclusion is that super heroes brought about super problems. Fuck you, you idiot. This is the worst hot take in comic books and it has continued to hang around for decades. Writers who continue to use this trope should be shunned from the comic book community. Spoiler is all, "I'm going to use my super training to prove that Gotham doesn't need superheroes!" And Batman will, hopefully, be all, "Fuck you, dummy!" The last story arc was to show that Cassandra was better than Batman. This one is to show that Spoiler is better than Batman. How is she better? I'm not exactly sure since she takes out Wrath pretty much exactly how Batman would have taken him out. I mean, if Batman were being written by somebody who didn't have a grudge against the Patriarchy. I mean Batman! I suppose Tynion's Batman would have exploded all of the walls and toppled the building with his raging hard-on to battle Wrath and all of the hostages would have died. Afterward, Batman would have been all, "It's a shame that Wrath killed so many and it wasn't my fault at all! I had to stop him by any means necessary!" Which totally isn't a Batman thing to do so I don't actually know how Spoiler thinks her version of stopping Wrath was better than the way Batman, being written honestly, would have done it. Spoiler's entirely plan is to save the day and let the police take the credit. So she's trusting that the police will be dishonest bastards who lie about their jobs? That's a great message! Anyway, she somehow thinks that if super villains think the cops are stopping all the crime, they won't want to do crime anymore! Especially since — thanks, again, to the lazy writers — all they actually want to do is beat up super heroes. She'll see how stupid her plan is when super villains continue to do whatever they want (even more so!) when they think all the heroes have left Gotham. Anarchy shows up at the end to be all, "That was great! What a great idea! This story wasn't stupid at all! Spoiler isn't a terrible character with stupid thoughts after all!" That's when I throw up. The end!

#Detective Comics #DC Comics #James Tynion IV #Christopher Sebela #Carmen Carnero #Karl STory #Richard Friend #Javier Mena

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sage-nebula · 7 years

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PokéAni Office AU

So it’s 5:30 in the morning and I’m about to go to bed because I’m tired / have work tomorrow, but as I was eating a very late dinner I was watching some webisodes of The Office that I had somehow never seen before (including a music video made by Kelly, Ryan, and Erin, and a series of ten short webisodes in which the accounting trio tried to find a missing $3000, pure gold), and that got me thinking about a PokéAni AU of The Office.

Now, to be clear: When I went through and made these selections, I was not matching characters by personality. In other words, when I picked three accountants, I wasn’t trying to pick three PokéAni characters to be Angela, Oscar, and Kevin. Rather, I picked three PokéAni characters that I felt would make good accountants. This is a bit silly in that I included both Max and Bonnie in this AU, even though they should be way too young---but then, pretty much all the characters in this AU would be too young to work in an actual office, so. You just kind of have to roll with it.

My idea for this is---somehow, all of these characters got roped into office jobs, in which they are also being filmed as part of a documentary (mockumentary, in this case ;D). Maybe they somehow got roped into working for Silph---or Devon Corporation, like, somehow Steven Stone roped them all into working at one of the Devon Corporation’s branches. That would also allow him to make appearances from time to time as a member of corporate, yessss. So they’re all working in an office, and pokémon still exist, then (good, because honestly, Pokémon AUs without the pokémon are just not for me), and they’ve all been given jobs that, in theory, they should be able to do well. I say “in theory” because, well . . .

Co-Manager: Jessie

Co-Manager: James These are the two that are probably the most unqualified for the position they hold, tbqh. (And yes, pokémon still exist and so Meowth is there as well, he just doesn’t officially hold the position of third co-manager.) How or why they were made the managers of this branch no one is really clear, but you can imagine how they’re running this place. I mean, sometimes they do a halfway decent job! Sometimes! Aaaand other times they spend a decent amount of time throwing things at Ash because his desk is right in front of the door to their office. :/ Either way, there needed to be some way for shenanigans to be afoot in this office, and what better way than to make Jessie and James co-managers? (Though to be fair, the shenanigans are why I put them in that position. Who knows why Steven gave them this position. Steven, what were you thinking?! Unless . . . unless it wasn’t Steven, but was his father instead. That makes more sense. In that case, Mr Stone, what were you thinking?!)

Office Administrator: Alan As the office administrator, Alan is the one who actually keeps the branch afloat while Jessie and James . . . be Jessie and James. (And again, sometimes Jessie and James can do legitimate work, but like . . . those times are rare.) Office administrators have a pretty wide arrange of duties, which can include everything from coordinating office operations (particularly in ways that ensure efficiency), to supervising staff (including administrative staff, and god knows Jessie and James need someone to at least try to keep them on track), to giving support for bookkeeping and other accounting duties. Alan would have a lot of responsibility around the office (particularly given who the managers are), but I think he’d be a good fit for handling it. I also think he would be one of the most frequent offenders of giving deadpan looks directly at the camera. He also facepalms as a result of the shenanigans around the office (he facepalms in PokéAni canon, so it counts), and is definitely a member of The Coalition for Reason™ when things get really out of hand. (The Coalition for Reason™ doesn’t really have a leader, per se, but since he’s office administrator it often falls to him anyway.)

Receptionist: Bonnie Bonnie is a bright ray of sunshine and I think she’d make a fantastic receptionist. She always gets really excited whenever she gets to put new candy out on the desk, but she has a bad habit of asking visitors to the branch if they would care for her brother by marrying him. Clemont’s desk is right on the other side of the divider from reception, so he overhears this, and he is never amused.

Salesman: Ash

Salesman: Gary

Salesman: Misty

Salesman: Dawn

Salesman: Iris Our all-star sales team!! A few quick notes on them: - Ash is the other most frequent offender for looking straight at the camera when things are happening in the office. The main difference is that while Alan’s looks are usually deadpan, Ash’s tend to be more sassy. (So like, think of all the times Jim looks at the camera on the office; Alan has Jim’s deadpan looks, while Ash has Jim’s little grins and whatnot.) - Gary is top salesman; he brags about this with fair frequency, especially to Ash. - Ash and Gary prank each other. A lot. Things escalate very quickly. Sometimes others in the office get in on it. Iris frequently teams up with Ash to double team Gary. - Iris and Misty are two other members of The Coalition for Reason™. (Usually, anyway, because there are occasions when they get wrapped up in the shenanigans, too.) - While Gary is top salesman and he often brags about this, Ash and Misty get in more friendly, heated competitions over sales than anyone else. They’re also one of the best sales teams in the office (though Ash and Dawn are also fantastic at sales, and Arceus help any client who happens to be met with the Ash - Misty - Dawn triad. They have no hope of avoiding closing). - Likewise, Gary and Iris are a very adept sales team. Something about them just clicks. - Since Misty, Iris, and Dawn are all in the same desk clump, they coordinate Halloween costumes together.

Quality Assurance: Cilan Cilan is the perfect person for the quality assurance job because he can tell you exactly what flavor the products need to be, and if the flavor is working, or if the taste is all wrong, et cetera, you get the idea. He is a connoisseur, this is what he does.

Supplier Relations: Serena Likewise, Serena is great at supplier relations because she can always get suppliers to give them discounts on product, and yet at the same time is great at finding deals and seasonal bargains, et cetera.

Accountant: Clemont

Accountant: Max

Accountant: Tracey The accounting trio, and not just because two of them happen to wear glasses, haha. Rather, it’s because they’re all smart and on top of things, and I think they’d make great accountants therefore. A few notes: - As mentioned, Clemont’s desk is right on the other side of the partition dividing accounting from reception. He always hears when Bonnie is trying to find him a spouse and he often has his Aipom Arm reach over the partition to pick her up by the scruff. - Max is actually the head of accounting, technically, and he’s very particular about his books, even as he tries to find shortcuts to get things done faster. Clemont usually suggests they invent a new calculation device and Max has to put the kibosh on that. To that end, Max is another member of The Coalition for Reason™. - Tracey would much rather go to art school than be an accountant. His books usually have doodles all over them. He and Max have agreed that this is fine so long as the numbers are still legible.

Human Resources: Brock I mean, who better to be the human resources representative? Brock is great at settling quarrels around the office (usually) and does his best to keep the peace. He also does his best to rein in Jessie and James, but. Well. You know how that goes. He’s the final member of The Coalition for Reason™ provided there isn’t a very pretty girl visiting the office, but at that point either Misty or Max (who, if you’ll remember, are also part of The Coalition for Reason™) will drag him off by his ear, so. Don’t worry, the Coalition keeps its members in check. =P His desk is in the annex.

Customer Service: May May tends to be rather upbeat and positive (if a bit eccentric), as well as sensitive to others’ feelings, and so I think she’d make a great customer service representative. As the CS rep, she’s also the one in charge of managing the sales team’s customer reviews. She takes full advantage of this fact and reminds everyone what her favorite types of cookies are whenever it’s time for reviews to come through. Her desk is in the annex, next to Manon’s.

The Temp: Manon As the temp, Manon handles whatever extraneous tasks around the office need to be handled. Team Rocket sometimes tries to take advantage of this by trying to send her off to do ridiculous things (such as fetch them breakfast at ridiculous hours). Alan usually puts a stop to that by giving her something real to do, and then reminding Jessie and James that they’re supposed to be running the office. Alan also gives her real work to do when she decides that, instead of doing work, she’s just going to wander around, help create shenanigans, and also bug him tbh. Her desk is in the annex, next to May’s.

You’ll notice I talked about desk positions, and I’ve drawn up floor plans! These are based exactly on the floor plans for the Dunder-Mifflin office in The Office. They’re not the prettiest in the world, but:

Here’s the first one. I forgot to add it, but the door to enter the floor is straight down from Bonnie’s reception desk. Anyway, so there should be a bit more space between Alan’s desk and reception / the partition (that’s where the printer goes, in that space, and there’s also space to walk), but you get the general idea. The accounting cluster is on the other side of reception; Cilan and Serena are desk buddies; Ash, Gary, and Alan are all in one desk clump, and Ash’s desk is in the perfect position for Jessie and James to hassle him during the day (at least until Pikachu shocks them to get them to knock it off); Dawn, Misty, and Iris have another; and the conference room is where pointless meetings, parties, and talking heads / confessionals with the doc crew are usually held.

Then you have the kitchen (which is right behind Dawn’s desk), which also leads back to the annex:

There are only three characters back here (as in canon), so it’s a lot smaller, haha. The break room has the vending machines, and yeah, Brock is separated from May and Manon by a partition. It doesn’t matter, they all still chat anyway.

At any rate, this was just a silly little thing I drew up real quick. Idk about you guys, but I would watch this show. Imagine all the talking heads / confessionals. The conference room meetings. The very heated Serious Business™ debates over things. All the birthday parties. It would be awesome. Even if it was just, like, a special they did, instead of a full series. Hell, make this a 20th anniversary special. Would it be silly nonsense? Yep. Would it be entertaining to see these characters in this kind of setting, trying to run a company? You betcha.

Anyway, this was just a silly little thing. I need to go to sleep now. =P

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soulcrazy2017-blog · 7 years

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Ought to you be a star blogger or vlogger?

New Post has been published on https://soulcrazy.org/ought-to-you-be-a-star-blogger-or-vlogger/

Ought to you be a star blogger or vlogger?

“I need to be genuine on my weblog. I don’t want to put in writing about products I’m now not the use of myself,” says Izy Hossack, 18, creator of the baking blog, Pinnacle With Cinnamon.

She’s most effective just finished her A-levels but has been going for walks the blog for three years – which now attracts about 200,000 readers a month. Oh, and she or he’s simply had a book published too, following the weblog’s success.

Intelligent bloggers and vloggers – video bloggers, typically using YouTube – are balancing the differing requirements of advertisers and target audience, to make cash from their virtual content material.

Brands are keen to paintings with college students

Young audiences have an excessive industrial value, so makeup bloggers and vloggers could make large sums of money to make-up smoke make up their star research, says Kate Ross, coping with the director of virtual advertising enterprise 8&four, which advises Manufacturers on the way to paintings with bloggers.

Student lodging businesses and the financial industry were particularly keen to grow their student audiences at the moment, she says.

“If you could generate successful content and feature a faithful and developing target market, they’re not going to be concerned which you’re a makeup makeup.”

Making the most of your blog

bloggers

Brands frequently attain out to bloggers and vloggers to sell themselves. Product placement, for instance, entails them sending unfastened samples to be reviewed and given away via competitions. Hossack these days collaborated with Teapigs for a subsidized giveaway, which healthy seamlessly right into a recipe makeup.

Sponsored posts are also increasingly more famous, with bloggers participating with Brands to create content material that both parties are glad about.

Ngoni Chikwenengere, 21, a fashion design student at the College of Northampton, says backed posts are the most “organic” manner to monetise her weblog, IAMNRC. She has labored with the Swiss Tourism Council, Nike, and Samsung.

Before your following is big enough to draw huge call Manufacturers, you may monetize your content material independently. Banner ads, which you can sell to advertisers for a hard and fast price, are a fundamental way of doing this. Associate marketing schemes also are famous among bloggers, who can earn a rate from make-ups – via an employer which include ShopSense or RewardStyle – if someone clicks onto their web page or buys their product after clicking via from your weblog.

Amy Mace, 18, an English literature student at the College of Bristol, makes use of banner commercials and Associate linking on her blog, Style Junkie.

The income from these hasn’t been “life-converting,” but she makes sure only to promote Brands her readers may be interested in, in preference to just those that pay the very best commission.

Google AdSense is another great manner to get advertisements on your blog. Google displays customers’ ads for your website and will pay you for each click on your power.

Monetising your motion pictures

There are fewer cash-making opportunities for bloggers, but they could still be beneficial. Regular make uploaders with massive audiences can come to be YouTube companions, that means you share the sales generated from ads – which can be positioned Before or inside your videos.

Rosie Bea, 17, is an A-degree make-up makeup with over 80,000 subscribers to her style and splendor YouTube channel, MsRosieBea. She earns money from the advertisements at the beginning of her movies, with the quantity varying every month depending on what number of people view and click on on them.

“The cash enables me to be a bit extra impartial,” she says. “It’s been helpful as I’ve just started 6th form and have needed to buy new garments. I’m additionally saving makeup for my personal automobile, which goes to take a long term!” How a whole lot Should you earn?

Excessive-Profile vloggers on YouTube can make up to £4,000 per point out of a product and can charge up to £20,000 a month for banner advertisements and skins on their internet pages, consistent with eight&four.

vlogger

but don’t count on anything out of your blog or channel at the beginning, advises Hannah Farrington, 20, a regulation make-up makeup on the College of Manchester who runs Hannah Louise style. “You need to placed inside the work to gain a following and Ordinary site visitors.”

Now that her weblog has make-up successful, the most effective techniques are those that require the maximum non-public enter. “A marketing campaign with an emblem related to a large time dedication or some journeying is typically greater lucrative than a make-up makeup without lots writing, which might take about an hour to put together.”

She also says Associate hyperlinks may be very worthwhile. But the sums made make-up make up the same old of the blogger’s content material, their site visitors, the variety of links they use and their conversion fee – how frequently a clicked link results in a purchase.

Bloggers can earn something from hundreds of kilos in keeping with the month to between £50 and £three hundred thru Associate schemes, says Nastasia Feniou, blogger partnerships supervisor for Europe at ShopStyle. However with ShopSense, for example, bloggers are handiest paid once the quantity reaches £100.

Blogs and vlogs aren’t a miracle therapy for college kids’ economic woes, but with creativity, dedication, commercial enterprise acumen and corporation, they can virtually ease the pain.

Pointers for monetizing your blog or channel: Content is king. Without Pinnacle excellent posts or films, you wouldn’t have a huge target audience inside the first place. “In case you try to make installation a channel or weblog just to make money, it’s not going to paintings,” says Ross. “It wishes to be organic and begin with ardor. If it’s something you like, it suggests.” Stay true to your audience and yourself. All backed content and marketing need to apply to your target market – and preferably for a services or products you’d use yourself. It’s lots harder to jot down authentically approximately something you’re now not using, says Hossack. Be honest about while a submit is sponsored, and In case you’ve been despatched a product for free. Do your research. “Spend time learning exceptional advertising make-ups,” says Hossack. This also approaches knowing what you’re worth. Don’t overcharge and remove Brands which could have in any other case provided you possibilities, but similarly, keep away from being taken for a trip with the aid of PRs who want you to make-up make up approximately their Brands for nothing in return. Speak to other bloggers can help you gauge what you should expect out of your blog. Get your name obtainable. Be direct and community with marketing departments, says Ross. “Approach virtual corporations makeup and say; I’ve were given this audience, is there something you can do with it?”. when Mace is interested in starting a PR courting with a brand, she emails them asking to be added to their mailing listing. “It’s additionally beneficial to email PR pro make makeup instead of man or woman Brands,” she says. “They’ve lots of customers and can put you in contact with Brands that they make-up will suit your blog’s content.” Be organized. Juggling retaining a blog or YouTube channel with makeup lifestyles may be tough, so you need to be continuously on Pinnacle of closing dates and emails. “some weekends I pre-film films for the subsequent week if I realize I’m going to be busy,” says Bea. She recommends sticking to a agenda for make-up make makeup content and doing college or uni work as quickly as you get it. “In no way put blogging or running a blog Before schoolwork, as you In no way know what the destiny holds.” If the phrases “digital ambassador” suggest not anything to you, “blogger” will suggest even much less. For simplicity, then, Zoella is a writer, whose books – Woman Online and sequels – had been named the country’s favorites, leastways among secondary faculty kids. Her Online presence is by way of some distance the extra crucial, but: she commenced as a teen in 2009, filming herself giving b6fd8d88d79ed1018df623d0b49e84e7 Suggestions in her bedroom, and went on to – nicely, to preserve doing precisely that (one of the curiosities of bloggers typically is they In no way make makeup over). She has been blamed, at the side of other pedlars of unchallenging fiction – Jeff Kinney, of Diary of a Wimpy Kid – for declining teen literacy. She shouldn’t take this personally because it changed into ghostwritten. Her blogging paintings, with the aid of evaluation, is all her very own. In Zoella’s maximum current video, she is sifting thru old pics of herself. “I look so gothic stroke emo here,” she says. “My hair’s so darkish.” She finds any other image, then discusses that. She’s technically very adept, if through “very proficient” you suggest “able to do things I wouldn’t recognize how to do.” The image comes make-up in a frame within the nook of the display. “Oh my God, I loved that necklace. I make makeup I wore that necklace in each video.”

She sometimes segues into the third character, even though it’s uncertain (to me, at the least) what it’s far inside the problem count that necessitates the tools alternate. “I was 14 in that picture … She’s got Orlando Bloom on her wall.” The shape itself is the endpoint of narcissism, a degree of self-enthralment so whole that there is nothing too trivial to a percentage. But there may be surely effort and artistry to it: Zoella has the paced, artfully bogged down delivery of an Only a Minute contestant, racing every sentence to permit no hesitation, no repetition. Digression might be not possible to spot since it’s Never clean what the situation is. The Trekkies didn’t like JJ Abrams’ recent sci-fi sequel Star Trek Into Darkness, voting it the worst Celebrity Trek movie within the entire canon at a current convention. Now Simon Pegg, who stars as engineering chief Scotty inside the rebooted collection, has indicated in no uncertain phrases that the sensation is mutual, telling the hardcore US Celebrity Trek lovers who voted in the poll: “fuck you.”

star

Pegg made his injudicious comments in an interview with the Huffington publish in advance this week. After being knowledgeable by using interviewer Mike Ryan that Into Darkness had been voted the worst Famous person Trek film – below even the non-canonical Galaxy Quest – Pegg sputtered with fury and set his phaser to kill.

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