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nanowrimo · 3 years

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5 Tips for Fast Drafting from a New York Times Bestselling Author

NaNoWriMo is basically an exercise in fast drafting: getting as much of the first draft of the story as you can on the page as quickly as possible. Today, bestselling author J. Elle is here to share some pro tips for fast drafting: My first middle grade novel took me nine days to write.

The first draft was about 40,000 words or so. And yes, it needed to be revised before it sold to a publisher. But the meat of the story was on the page in just over a week’s time. I’d never drafted anything quite that fast before. Within a single month I’d written an entire novel, revised it a couple times and readied it for sale. A few months later that novel sold at auction and will be on shelves May 2022.

I still look back on this feat with a bit of shock and awe. To date I’ve sold five novels to major publishers, two young adult, two middle grade and one non fiction and my experience fast drafting has forever altered the way I approach writing. I should mention, fast drafting isn’t for everyone. Writing is such a personal thing and each storyteller has their own process, but in the event getting the first draft out is the biggest hurdle for you, like it is for me, I’m going to share five tips for knocking out that first draft in record time.

1. Start with a SHORT story pitch.

Pitching a story in a few words is tough. But it’s a worthy effort and the best use of your time before you get any words on the page. Why? Because it helps you hone in on the core of your story and its hook. A good short pitch involves the character, their dilemma, and a hint of the stakes. In October of 2018 I pitched my YA debut novel in a tweet which then blew up. Not many words can fit in a tweet, but by choosing the right set of words, I was able to convey the heart of my story and it really resonated. (From that tweet, I signed with a literary agent and sold my debut novel to a Big 5 publisher in a six-figure-deal.) The biggest favor you can do for yourself is understand the story—its essence, its core—you’re trying to tell before you start drafting. And that’s hard. But the more you play around with creating a short pitch, you’ll begin to see a clear snapshot of what your book is going to be about. That’s your jumping off point.

2. Expand your pitch into tent pole beats.

From your short pitch, spend some time deciding on what your major beats are. Now, yes this is a bit like outlining. And for you pantsers out there, I empathize with you. I was a pantser and still am in many ways. But I still do this step because this step ultimately saves me time. The beauty of fast drafting is that you know what you need to do when you sit down to type. So a lot of these steps are about doing pre-work so that when you sit down to type you’re not spinning your wheels to figure out what to type. Instead you’ll have a clear goal and you’ll be ready to execute it. Also, note that the goal isn’t to perfect each of these steps, but instead to try to do each step, to the best of your ability, and in a way that makes sense.

I could write an entire piece on beat sheeting novels (which I love and do for all my books), but for the purposes here, I’ve organized the main things you want to know below in a series of questions. Simply answer each, make a chart if you like that sort of thing, and once you have each question filled out in a way that logically makes sense, move on to the next step. (NOTE: It’s a good idea to get feedback on this step if you have critique partners and fellow writers you trust.)

Opening Scene - Who is the character before the world changes?

Inciting Incident - What happens that forces them to make a choice, changing their lives forever? What are they choosing between?

“A” Plot - What is that choice they make? What are they pursuing or working toward? Finding information? Going on a quest? Uncovering the truth behind a murder?

Stakes - What are the stakes of the “A” plot? What’s at risk if they fail to accomplish whatever they’re pursuing? It should be something that personally affects them or someone / something they care about.

“B” Plot / Character - Who or what is the theme of the story? What character in your story is going to embody that theme and play a key role in helping the main character change?

Midpoint - what happens in the middle of the book to change the character’s direction. Usually it’s some bit of new information or they realize things are not as they seem.

Stakes Raise - How do the stakes (what’s at risk if they fail) raise after the middle of the book?

Character Arc - what does your character believe about the world in the beginning of the book that by the book’s end they will no longer believe? (An extension of this question is: what things can happen in this character’s life to facilitate them incrementally learning this big truth? If you don’t know this question right off, that’s okay. But this is a question you want to go back to every now and again, even after you finish the first draft, to ensure your character is actively involved in a plot that is resulting in their change.)

Failure - How will your character fail big? This happens at about the 75% point of the book and it's the final moment of failure, usually, before they pick themselves up off the ground (figuratively or literally) and learn the lesson they’ve needed to learn. There forward they act on their new belief to the end of the book, demonstrating how they’re changed.

If you’d like a more in depth look at how to beat sheet a novel, I strongly suggest reading Jessica Brody’s Save The Cat Writes A Novel.

3. Flesh out your beats into a detailed synopsis.

Now the fun part! This step is the most helpful thing you can do to enable yourself to fast draft.

Write a mini version of your story, also known as a detailed synopsis. The key to writing synopses is not to worry about the voice, but instead what happens. Try to convey what happens and its impact on the character to show how the story moves from tent pole moment to tent pole moment (per the step above). This takes some trial and error and you may get annoyed with yourself because it’s not as easy as it seems. But, I’ve seen that if you can write a compelling and cohesive synopsis, the draft that you execute will be far stronger and more efficiently executed.

Definitely get beta feedback on your synopsis from writing friends you trust. It’s worth going over this a few times to get it right. In terms of length, aim for 3-4 pages for a middle grade novel and 5-10 pages for a young adult or adult novel. These are just general guidelines. My latest YA novel required a fifteen page synopsis and I am very glad I did it because it conveys the tone, arc, and plot of the novel and the main plot threads quite well, which allowed me to draft the first 23,000 words of the story in five days.

4. Summarize each scene.

(Note: a chapter can have more than one scene.)

Okay, we’re getting really close to writing! Now that you have a mini version of your story, consider how you will break it up into scenes. This doesn't need to be perfect, but spend some time figuring how to stretch your synopsis into a full novel. Give each scene a short summary. Aim for a few sentences, no more than a paragraph, just so you know what needs to happen in that scene (or scenes). Do not skip this step. I repeat, do not skip this step. This step allows you to sit down and execute the scene without figuring out what to write. The “figuring out” part is where a lot of writers slow down. Do that in the summaries so when it’s time to draft you are ready to execute, not sort out details.

5. Write with a goal in mind.

Plan your writing days. I’m not talking anything extensive here. Just grab your phone calendar or a post-it note and write down which days you want to do which scenes. Then on writing day re-read that summary and execute it. If you’ve done all the pre-work the words will fly from your fingers. Don’t worry about grammar, typos, reading back what you did. Insert fillers such as, “TITLE” or “NAME” for details you haven’t worked out yet. Just get the scene that you’ve summarized out. The goal is to finish the draft. After that is when you make sure it all works together through revisions and fill in the details. Right now the goal is finishing the draft. It literally just needs to exist!

If you’ve done all five steps, pat yourself on the back because congrats, you’re ready to fast draft! Don’t hesitate to tag me on socials if you try this method out and it works for you. I’d love to hear how it goes!

J.Elle is the New York Times bestselling author of Wings of Ebony. Elle has a Bachelor’s of journalism and an MA in educational administration and human development. She grew up in Texas, but has lived all over, from coast to coast which she credits as inspiration for her writing. These days the former educator can be found mentoring aspiring authors, binging reality TV, loving on her three littles, or cooking up something true to her Louisiana roots.

Website: WingsOfEbony.com

Twitter: @AuthorJ_Elle

Instagram: @AuthorJ.Elle

TikTok: @authorjelle

#nanowrimo #writing #amwriting #writing advice #first draft #nano prep #camp nanowrimo #by nano guest #j. elle

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scintillatingshortgirl19 · 3 years

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My official post about the romance, I guess?

So I’m trying real fucking hard to not put too much stock in analyzing things and I truly can't afford to get my hopes up for any of this to ultimately mean anything - but I need to at least talk about it. I wanted to list out all the reasons I can think of that indicate the romance thing is actually happening, as well as the signs it might not be. Even though I don’t have much hope I guess I just want this on record, or something? Tagging @thelightofthingshopedfor @iamanartichoke @delyth88 in case you find this at all useful or if you can think of anything I missed?

Reasons it's happening:

Loki's "she's irritating and difficult and hits me all the time" line sounds to me like a VERY typical "enemies to lovers and one of them is realizing they're in love" kind of line.

Mobius saying they're in love = the narrative saying they’re in love

Loki denying she’s his girlfriend. This happens a lot with enemies to lovers too, and romance plots in general - the whole “Character A: ‘lol she’s your girlfriend’ and Character B: ‘ahh she is not, how dare?!!’” and then - shock! - by the end of the romcom they are in fact dating. If this is the case (and it probably is) the lazy and cliche storytelling ALONE is enough to drive me up the wall, even if Loki wasn’t involved.

At the end it definitely seemed like Loki was going to make a love confession - very typical "about to confess but gets cut off" trope

The biggest one for me is this fucking interview

And also these tweets from a writer about how it was apparently a serious option to have them kiss on Lamentis

Reasons it's not:

Cast/crew previously said it wouldn’t be romantic

Tom literally said Loki wouldn’t have a relationship yet?? I mean he did use the phrasing “the first stable relationship you have is with yourself” so I guess you could argue Sylvie counts, but he also said “Loki’s still working on that”? And the Sylvie thing is confusing because they’ve also emphasized that she’s a different person - and there eventually comes a point at which you can’t have it both ways, especially in terms of how a relationship works? Even though being with Sylvie involves self-love on Loki’s part, it also involves being in a relationship with a separate person, which Loki clearly isn’t ready for (and Tom said as much). Overall the interview gave me the strongest impression it definitely wasn’t happening yet and was the thing that made me turn off any anxiety about there being a romance which was evidently a mistake; Tom ily but whyyyy *sobs*

The fact that they have such clear platonic chemistry and not romantic

The narrative sense it makes for it to be platonic/self love - it seems pretty clear it’ll be a self love metaphor either way, but bringing a romantic aspect into the self love concept is so unnecessary and makes no damn sense

Mobius saying they're in love is actually a point here too, because it could be a setup for that to not actually be the case

And Loki’s denial is also a point here, because it’s possible this isn’t just the cliche “person in love denying their feelings” and he genuinely doesn’t think of her that way

The fact that the final scene so clearly seemed like a love confession could mean they're doing a twist to surprise the audience

A bunch of jumbled up things that could go either way:

Like...there are so many cliche love story things. SO MANY. Either the writing is just that shamefully bad and unoriginal (probably) or they’re setting up a twist.

Mobius going on and on about it being a twisted romantic relationship is probably a setup for something, I’m just not sure what. I think it’ll be one of these two: A) They're going so hard on the love stuff because it's going to be a twist that they're in platonic love, not romantic. Or B) the narrative is still going to have it be romantic, but make the point that it's not actually twisted. Unfortunately, I have to expect it’ll be this one.

I also feel like the things that have been said in tweets and interviews could mean one of two things. Option A is that, while they've been talking about it being romantic, the reason they've only been like 95% clear about it (such as writer Eric Martin's "guess you’ll have to stick around to see" when asked if they'll have a love relationship, and saying Loki “was going to have a stilted, but honest conversation about his feelings for her” in that final scene) is because even though they're clearly going the romance direction and everyone knows it, they still technically can't "spoil" anything. Option B is that this is part of them being purposefully misleading to set up for a twist. They're talking about the romance but like I said for Option A, they aren't quite 100% confirming it. The (probable) love confession scene was SO damn cliche, and everyone is expecting it to be romantic at this point, so for the casual fan who doesn't analyze everything, it would be a surprise. The cast/crew has said things about how they made this show in a way that people will continually start thinking they know what's going on, but it turns out to be going a different direction. I highly doubt this applies to the romance thing, but I’d probably cry tears of joy if it did.

So anyway, I guess the TL;DR is - either this is all a setup for a twist or the writing is really that bad.

#my money's on the writing just being bad #but hey loki series if you wanted to surprise me now's the time!#just saying #i mean all the love story cliches do remind me of all the clear signs the tva was bad #so this could be another instance of something being a twist to the casual audience #but completely obvious to the fans #BUT it also reminds me of analyzing all the weird lamentis moments #and how those went precisely nowhere #so I DUNNO #loki series speculation #the nexus event #loki spoilers #loki tv series #eric martin #tom hiddleston #michael waldron #kate herron

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sinceileftyoublog · 3 years

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Riot Fest 2021: 9/16-9/19, Douglass Park

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Much like Pitchfork Music Festival earlier this month, this past weekend’s Riot Fest felt relatively normal. Arriving at Douglas Park every day, you were greeted by the usual deluge of attendees in Misfits t-shirts and dyed hair, the sound of faint screams and breakneck guitars and drums emanating from nearby stages. The abnormal aspects of the fest, at least as compared to previous incarnations, we’re already used to by now from 2021 shows: To get in, you had to show proof of vaccination and/or a negative test no older than 48 hours, which means that unvaxxed 4-day attendees had to get multiple tests. Props to the always awesome staff at Riot Fest for actually checking the cards against the names on government-issued IDs.

For a festival that dealt with a plethora of last-minute changes due to bands dropping out because of COVID-19 caution (Nine Inch Nails, Pixies, Dinosaur Jr.) or other reasons (Faith No More/Mr. Bungle because of concerns around Mike Patton’s well-being), there were very few bumps in the road. Whether Riot Fest had bands like Slipknot, Anthrax, or Rise Against in their back pocket as replacements or not, it very much felt like who we saw Thursday-Sunday was always supposed to be the lineup, even when laying your eyes on countless “Death to the Pixies” shirts. Sure, one of the fest’s main gimmicks--peeling back the label on Goose Island’s Riot Fest Sucks Pale Ale to reveal the schedule--was out of date with inaccurate set times and bands, and it still would have been so had Faith No More and Mr. Bungle stayed, since Fucked Up had to drop out last minute due to border issues. But the festival, as always, rolled with the punches.

The sets themselves offered the circle pit and crowdsurfing-inducing punk and metal you’re used to, with a few genre outliers. For so many bands of all styles, Riot Fest represented their first live show in years, and a few acts knew the exact number of days since their last show. For every single set, the catharsis in the crowd and on stage was palpable, not exactly anger, or elation, but pure release.

Here were our favorite sets of the festival, in chronological order.

WDRL

Last October, WDRL (which, amazingly, stands for We Don’t Ride Llamas) announced themselves with a Tweet: “y’all been looking for an alt black band,, well here you go”. A band of Gen Z siblings, Chase (lead guitar), Max (lead vocals), Blake (drums), and Kit Mitchell (bass guitar), WDRL is aware, much like Meet Me @ The Altar (who, despite my hyping, I couldn’t make it in time to see) that they’re one of too few bands of POCs in the Riot Fest-adjacent scene. Their set, one of the very first of the weekend during Thursday’s pre-party, showed them leading by example, the type of band to inspire potentially discouraged Black and brown folks to start punk bands. Max is a terrific vocalist, able to scream over post-punk, scat over funk, and coo over slow, soulful R&B swayers with the same ease. The rest of the band was equally versatile, able to pivot on a dime from scuzzy rock to hip hop to twinkling dream pop. Bonus points for covering Splendora’s “You’re Standing On My Neck”, aka the Daria theme song.

Joyce Manor

Joyce Manor’s self-titled debut is classic. The best part of it as an album play-through at a festival? It’s so short that you can hear it and you’ll still have half a set for other favorites. So while the bouncy “Orange Julius”", “Ashtray Petting Zoo”, and ultimate singalong “Constant Headache” were set highlights, the Torrance, CA band was able to burn through lots from Never Hungover Again, Cody, Million Dollars to Kill Me, and their rarities collection Songs From Northern Torrance. Apart from not playing anything from Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired (seriously, am I the only one who loves that record?), Joyce Manor were stellar, from the undeniable hooks of “Heart Tattoo” to the churning power chords of “Catalina Fight Song”. After playing “Christmas Card”, Johnson and company gave one final nod to the original fest cancellation, My Chemical Romance, who were slated to headline 2020, then 2021, and now 2022. If you ever wondered what it would sound like hearing a concise punk band like Joyce Manor take on the bombast of “Helena”, you found out. Hey, it was actually pretty good!

Patti Smith

Behold: a full Patti Smith set! After being shafted by the weather last time around, a sunglasses-laden Smith decided not to fuck around, leading with the inspiring “People Have The Power”, her voice as powerful as I’ve ever heard it. Maybe it was the influence of Riot Fest, but she dropped as many f-bombs as Corey Taylor did during Slipknot’s Sunday night headlining set. After reluctantly signing an adoring crowd member’s copy of Horses, she quipped, “I feel bad for you have to cart that fucking thing around.” It wasn’t just the filthy banter: This was Smith at her most enraptured and incendiary, belting during “Because The Night” and spitting during a “Land/Gloria” medley, reciting stream-of-consciousness hallucinogenic lyrics about the power of escape in the greatest display of stamina the festival had to offer.

Circa Survive

“It feels good to dance,” declared Circa Survive lead singer Anthony Green. The heart and soul of the Philadelphia rock band, who cover ground from prog rock to post-hardcore and emo, Green was in full form during the band’s early Friday set, his falsetto carrying the rolling “The Difference Between Medicine and Poising Is in the Dose” and the chugging “Rites of Investiture”. While the band, too, can throw down, they’re equally interesting when softer and more melodic, Brendan Ekstrom‘s twinkling guitars lifting “Child of the Desert” and “Suitcase”. Ending with the one-two punch of debut Juturna’s introspective “Act Appalled” and Blue Sky Noise’s skyward “Get Out”, Green announced the band would have a new record coming soon, one you hope will cover the sonic and thematic ground of even just those two tracks.

Thrice

Thrice played their first show since February 2020 the same day they’d release their 11th studio album, Horizons/East (Epitaph). To a crowd of fans that came to hear their favorite songs, though, the Irvine, California band knew better than to play a lot of the new record, instead favoring tracks like The Artist in the Ambulance’s spritely title cut and Vheissu standout “The Earth Will Shake”. Yeah, they led with a Horizons/East song making its live debut, the dreamy, almost Deftones-esque “Scavengers”, and later in the set they’d reveal the impassioned “Summer Set Fire to the Rain”. But the set more prominently served to emphasize lead vocalist Dustin Kensrue’s gruff delivery, on “All the World Is Mad” and “in Exile”, the rhythm section’s propulsive playing buoying his fervency. And how about Teppei Teranishi’s finger tapping on “Black Honey”?!? Thrice often favor the slow build-up, but they offered plenty of individually awesome moments.

Smashing Pumpkins

William Patrick Corgan entered the stage to dramatic strings, dressed in a robe, with white face paint except for red hearts under his eyes. He looked like a ghost. That’s pretty much where the semi-serious theatricality ended. The Smashing Pumpkins’ first Chicago festival headlining set in recent memory was the rawest they’ve sounded in a while, counting when they played an original lineup-only set at the United Center a few years back. It was also the most fun I’ve ever seen Corgan have on stage. Though they certainly selected and debuted from their latest electropop turn Cyr, Corgan, guitarist James Iha, drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, guitarist Jeff Schroeder, and company more notably dug deep into the vault, playing Gish’s “Crush” for the first time since 2008, Adore’s “Shame” for the first time since 2010, and Siamese Dream barnburner “Quiet” for the first time since 1994 (!). Best, every leftfield disco jam like set opener “The Colour Of Love”, “Cyr”, and “Ramona” was quickly followed by something heavy and/or recognizable, Chamberlin’s limber drum solos elevating even latter-day material like “Solara”. At one point, Corgan, a self-described “arty fuck,” admitted that years ago he would have opted for more experimental material, but he knew the crowd wanted to hear classics, the band then delving into a gorgeous acoustic version of “Tonight, Tonight”. And while Kate Bush coverer Meg Myers came out to sing Lost Highway soundtrack industrial ditty “Eye”, it was none other than legendary local shredder Michael Angelo Batio who stole the show, joining for the set closer, a pummeling version of Zeitgeist highlight “United States”. Leaning into the cheese looks good on you, Billy.

The Bronx

Credit to L.A. punk rock band The Bronx, playing early on a decidedly cooler Saturday early afternoon, for making me put in my earplugs outside of the photo pit. Dedicating “Shitty Future” to Fucked Up (who, as we mentioned, had to drop out), the entire band channeled Damian Abraham’s energy on piercing versions of “Heart Attack American” as well as “Superbloom” and “Curb Feelers” from their latest album Bronx VI (Cooking Vinyl). Joby J. Ford and Ken Horne’s guitars stood out, providing choppy rhythms on “Knifeman” and swirling solos on “Six Days A Week”.

Big Freedia

The New Orleans bounce artist has Big Diva Energy, for the most part. After her DJ pumped up the crowd to contemporary Southern rap staple “Ayy Ladies” by Travis Porter, Big Freedia walked out and showed that “BDE”, firing through singles like “Platinum” and “N.O. Bounce” as her on-stage dancers’ moves ranged from delicate to earth-shaking. At this point, Freedia can pretty much do whatever she wants, effortlessly segueing between a cover of Drake’s “Nice For What” to “Strut”, her single with electropop DJ Elohim, to a cover of Beyone’s “Formation”. Of course, the set highlight was when she had volunteers from the crowd come up and shake and twerk--two at a time to keep it COVID-safe--all while egging them on to go harder. Towards the end of the set, after performing the milquetoast “Goin’ Looney” from the even-worse-than-expected Space Jam: A New Legacy soundtrack, she pulled out the beloved “Gin in my System”. “I got that gin in my system,” she sang, the crowd singing back, “Somebody gonna be my victim,” a refrain that compositionally not only leaves plenty of room for the thundering bass but is thematically a statement of total power--over sexism, racism, the patriarchy--even in the face of control-altering substances.

Les Savy Fav

During Les Savy Fav’s set, lead singer Tim Harrington at various points--*big breath*--went into the crowd, deepthroated an audience member’s mohawk spike, found a discarded manikin head with a wig on it, revealed the words “deep” and “dish” painted on his thighs and a drawing of a Red Hot on his back, rode a crowd member like a horse, made a headband out of pink tape, donned ski goggles, surfed on top of a door carried by the crowd, squeezed his belly while the camera was on it to make it look like his belly button was singing, and referred to himself as a “slippery eel.” Indeed, the legend of Les Savy Fav’s live show starts and ends with Harrington’s ridiculous antics, as he’s all but out of breath when actually singing dance-punk classics like “Hold On To Your Genre”, “The Sweat Descends”, and “Rome (Written Upside Down)”. We haven’t heard much in terms of new music from Les Savy Fav in over 10 years--their most recent album was 2010′s Root For Ruin--but I could see them and the extremely Aughts genre in general become staples of Riot Fest as albums like Inches, The Rapture’s Echoes, and !!!’s Louden Up Now reach the 20-year mark. Dynamic vocalists, tight bands, and killer grooves: What’s not to love?

State Champs

This set likely wins the award for “most immediate crowd surfers,” which I guess is to be expected when you begin your set with a classic track 1--album 1 combination. “Elevated” is the State Champs number that will cause passers-by to stop and watch a couple songs, the type of song that can pretty much only open or close a set. And because they opened with it, the crowd immediately ramped up the energy. It’s been three years since the last State Champs full-length, Living Proof, so they were in prime position to play some new songs. As such, they performed their bubblegummy “Outta My Head” and “Just Sound” and faithfully covered Fall Out Boy’s “Chicago Is So Two Years Ago” (releasing a studio version earlier this week). But the tracks from The Finer Things and Around the World and Back were, as usual, the highlights, like “All You Are Is History”, “Remedy”, “Slow Burn”, and set closer “Secrets”. At the end of the day, it didn’t entirely matter: The crowd knew every word of every song.

Bayside

Putting State Champs and Bayside back-to-back on the same stage made an easy decision for the many pop-punk bands at Riot Fest. Bayside’s been at it for twice as long, so the breadth of their setlist across their discography is more variable. Moreover, they’ve thrice revisited their discography with acoustic albums of old songs, so even their staples are subject to change. They provided solid versions of Killing Time standouts “Already Gone” and “Sick, Sick, Sick”, Cult’s “Pigsty”, and older songs like their self-titled’s “Montauk” and Sirens and Condolences’ “Masterpiece”. For “Don’t Call Me Peanut”, though, they brought out--*gasp*--an acoustic guitar! It was a rare moment not just for one of the most popular pop punk sets but the festival in general, a breather before Vacancy shout-along “Mary”.

Rancid

“Rancid has always been anti-fascist and anti-racist,” said Tim Armstrong before the band played “Hooligans”. It was nice to hear an explicit declaration of solidarity from the street punks, reminding the crowd what really matters and why we come together to scream and mosh. The band expectedly favored ...And Out Come The Wolves, playing almost half of it, and they perfectly balanced their harder edges with more celebratory ska songs like “Where I’m Going” from their most recent album Trouble Maker (Hellcat/Epitaph). My two favorite moments? The breezy, keyboard-laden “Fall Back Down” from their supremely underrated 2001 album Indestructable, and when they asked the crowd whether they wanted the set to end with “Time Bomb” or “Ruby Soho”. “We have 4 minutes left, and it’s disrespectful to play over your set time,” said Armstrong. It’s easy to see why Rancid continues to make an impression--instrumental and moral--on touring bands new and old.

Run the Jewels

The brilliant hip hop duo are masters of balancing social consciousness with the desire to fuck shit up for fun. Live, the former tends to come in between-song banter, the latter with their actual charismatic, tit-for-tat performances of the songs. However, Run the Jewels also are probably the clearest live performers in hip hop today, Killer Mike and El-P’s words, hypersexual and woke alike, ringing in the ears of audience members who don’t even know the songs. (Looking around, I could see people smiling and laughing at every dick joke, nodding at each righteous proclamation.) Some of the best songs on their most recent album RTJ4 (Jewel Runners/BMG) are perfect for these multitudes. Hearing both RTJ MCs and the backing track of Pharrell Williams and Zack de la Rocha chanting “Look at all these slave masters posin’ on yo’ dollar” on “JU$T” as the rowdy crowd bounced up and down was the ultimate festival moment. For those who had never seen RTJ, it was clear from the get-go, as Killer Mike and EL-P traded bars on “yankee and the brave (ep. 4)” that they’re a unique hip hop act. For the rest of us, it was clear that Run the Jewels keep getting better.

The Gories

It felt a little weird that legendary Detroit trio The Gories were given the first set of the final day--I’d have thought they’d have more draw than that. No matter what, they provided one of the more satisfying and stylistically varied sets of the festival, showcasing their trademark balance of garage punk and blues. Mick Collins and Dan Kroha’s guitar and vocal harmonies were the perfect jangly balance to Peggy O’Neill’s meat and potatoes drumming on “Sister Ann” and “Charm Bag”, while folks less familiar with The Gories were treated to their fantastic covers of Suicide’s “Ghost Rider” and The Keggs’ “To Find Out”. Smells like time for the first Gories album in 20 years!

FACS

I thought it would be ill-fitting to watch a band like FACS in the hot sun, early in the day. Their monochrome brand of post-punk seems better suited for a dimly lit club. But the hypnotic nature of Brian Case’s swirling guitar and Alianna Kalaba’s slinky bass was oddly perfect in a sweltering, faint-inducing heat. Just when you thought you might fade, squalls of feedback and Noah Leger’s odd time signatures picked you back up. Songs from their new album Present Tense (Trouble In Mind) such as “Strawberry Cough” and “XOUT” were emblematic of this push-pull. And everything from the band’s red, white, and black color palate to their lack of stage banter suggested a cool minimalism that was rare at a festival that tends to book more outwardly emotional bands.

Alex G

On one hand, Alex G’s unique combination of twangy alt country and earnest indie rock makes him an outlier at Riot Fest, or at the very least a mostly Pitchfork/occasional Riot Fest type of booking. On the other hand, like a lot of bands at the festival, he has a rabid fanbase, one that knows his back catalog hits, like “Kute”, “Kicker”, and “Bug”, as much as if not more than hyped Rocket and House of Sugar singles, like “Bobby” and “Gretel”. Backed by a band that knows when to be loose and when to tighten up--and the instrumental chops to do so--Alex G was better than he was a Pitchfork three years ago. He still sings through his teeth, making it especially hard to hear him on louder tunes such as “Brick”. But when the honesty of his vocals combines with the dreamy guitars of “Southern Sky” and circular melodies of “Near”, it’s pure bliss.

HEALTH

The formula for the LA industrial noise band has pretty much always been Jake Duzsik’s soft vocals contrasting John Famiglietti’s screeching bass and pedals and BJ Miller’s mammoth drums. Both in 2018 and Sunday at Riot Fest, the heat affected Famiglietti’s pedals, which were nonetheless obscured by tarp. Or so HEALTH claimed: You wouldn’t know the difference given how much their sound envelops your whole body during one of their live sets. Since their previous appearance at the festival, the prolific band has released two new records on Loma Vista, Vol. 4: Slaves of Fear and collaboration record Disco4: Part 1. Songs from those records occupied half of their excellent set, including battering opener “GOD BOTHERER”, “BODY/PRISON”, and “THE MESSAGE”. It was so wonderfully loud it drowned out K.Flay’s sound check drummer, thank the lord.

Thursday

Last time Thursday played Riot Fest, Geoff Rickly was battling heroin addiction, something he talked about during the band’s triumphant late afternoon set on Sunday. He mentioned the kindness of the late, great Riley Gale of Power Trip in extending a helping hand when he was down and extended his love to anybody in the crowd or even the world at large going through something similar. To say that this set was life-affirming would be an understatement; after 636 days of no shows, Rickly was at his most passionate. He introduced “Signals Over The Air” as a song the band “wrote about men beating up on women in the pit,” that a record exec at the time told them that it wouldn’t age well because he thought--no kidding--sexism would eventually end. Rickly’s voice, suffering from sound issues last time around, simply soared during Full Collapse’s “Cross Out The Eyes”, No Devolucion’s “Fast to the End”, and two inspired covers: Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” and Texas Is The Reason’s “If It's Here When We Get Back It's Ours”. The latter the band played because TITR guitarist Norman Brannon’s actually on tour with them, though Rickly emphasized the influence the NYC post-hardcore greats had on Thursday when they first started. Never forgetting where they’ve come from, with self-deprecating humor and radical empathy, Thursday are once again a force.

Devo

Much like the B-52′s in 2019, Devo was the set this year of a 70′s/80′s absurd punk band with some radio hits that everybody knows but with a swath of die-hard fans, too. It’s safe to say both groups were satisfied. You walked around the fest all day wondering whether the folks wearing Devo hats were actual fans or doing it for the novelty. By the time the band actually took the stage after a career-spanning video of their many phases, it didn’t really matter, because it was clear the band still had it, Mark and Bob Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale’s vocals booming throughout a massive crowd. They ripped through “Peek-a-Boo”, “Going Under”, “That’s Good”, “Girl U Want”, and “Whip It”, which caused the fans waiting for Slipknot (and presumably some Devo heads) to form a circle pit. And that was all before the first costume change. Mark passed out hats to the crowd, fully embracing converts who might have only known “Whip It”. The feverish chants of “Uncontrollable Urge” and synth freakouts of “Jocko Homo” whipped everyone into a frenzy. And the band performed the “Freedom Of Choice” theme song for the first time since the early 80′s! I had seen Devo before, opening for Arcade Fire and Dan Deacon at the United Center, but the atmosphere at Riot Fest was more appropriately ludicrous.

Flaming Lips

“The Flaming Lips are the most COVID-safe band in the world,” went the ongoing joke, as throughout the pandemic they’d give audience members bubbles for their bubbles to be able to play shows. The normally goofy and interactive band scaled back for Riot Fest. Before launching into their traditional opener “Race For The Prize”, Wayne Coyne explained that while the band is normally proud of where they come from--Oklahoma City--they’re saddened by the local government’s ignorant pandemic response and wouldn’t risk launching balloons or walking into the crowd because they might be virus spreaders coming from such an under-vaccinated area. To his and the band’s credit, they wore masks during the performance, even when singing; Coyne removed his only when outside of his bubble that had to be deflated and inflated many times and that sometimes muffled his singing voice even more than a mask. Ever the innovative band, they still put on a stellar show. Coyne autotuned his voice on “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1″, making it another instrument filling the song’s glorious pop melodies. Less heavy on props, the band favored a glitchy, psychedelic setlist that alternated between beauty (”Flowers Of Neptune 6″, “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate”, “All We Have Is Now”) and two-drummed cacophony (“Silver Trembling Hands”, “The W.A.N.D.”). They’ll give a proper Lips show soon enough, but in the meantime, it was nice to see them not run through the motions.

Slipknot

Apart from maybe moments of Slayer, I’ve never witnessed a headliner at Riot Fest as heavy as Slipknot was. Even the minor ethereal elements present on their most recent and very good album We Are Not Your Kind, like the chorus of voices during “Unsainted”, were all but abandoned live in favor of straight up brutality. Sure, there were moments of theatricality--Corey Taylor’s menacing laugh on “Disasterpiece” and pyrotechnics in sequence with the instrumentation on “Before I Forget” and “All Out Life”--but for the most part, Slipknot was the ultimate exorcism. Taylor’s new mask, with unnaturally circular eyes, seemed like it came from a particularly uncomfortable skit from I Think You Should Leave. They bashed a baseball bat to a barrel during the pre-encore performance of “Duality”. And the songs played from tape, like the gasping-for-breath “(515)”, were designed to contrast Slipknot’s alien appearance with qualities that were uncannily human. For a band whose performances and instrumental dexterity are otherworldly--who else can pull off tempo changes over a hissing, Aphex Twin-like shuffling electronic beat on “Eyeless”--the pure seething emotion on songs like “Psychosocial” and “Wait and Bleed” shone through. Like Smashing Pumpkins, and like so many other successful Riot Fest headliners, Slipknot abandoned drama for pure, unadulterated dirt.

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fyeahhozier · 5 years

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The Irishman is deeper and darker than he's maybe been given credit for... but the geniality and swoon factor remain high.

Variety: Hozier Proves He’s a Career Artist in Gratifying Greek Show

At Hozier’s sold-out show at L.A.’s Greek Friday night, one of the first things you couldn’t help noticing on stage —because it’s still an anomaly — was that his eight-piece lineup was half-male, half-female. Knowing his penchant for socially conscious songs, his decrial of “the anthems of rape culture” in his lyrics, and a general female-friendliness to his appeal, it’s easy to figure this gender parity is a conscious one and think: That is soooo Hozier. Which it is … and so effective, too, like just about every choice he’s made so far in his short, charmed career. On the most practical level, if you can bring in that much female harmony while also getting ace players in the bargain, why wouldn’t you? But it also makes for a good visual emblem of some of the other dual energies Hozier is playing with in his music: darkness and enlightenment; romantic hero and cad; raw blues dude and slick pop hero. He’s got a lot more going on than just being an earnest do-gooder. (Although he does do good, earnestly.)

During Friday’s hour-and-three-quarters set, Hozier focused largely on material from this year’s sophomore album, “Wasteland, Baby!,” which sounded good enough on record but almost uniformly improved in the live experience. Sometimes the upgrade came from making full use of the multi-instrumentalists on hand. The first album’s “Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene” now had Hozier on guitar facing off against violinist Emily Kohavi, trading solos — and if it’s hard to hear an electric guitar/fiddle duel without automatically thinking “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” it was one of many welcome moments making use of the MVP skills of Kohavi, the newest addition to the band. Other times, the improvements on the album versions just had to do with Hozier allowing himself louder and gutsier guitar tones. He’s a bit like Prince, in that way — someone you’d happily listen to playing a very nasty-sounding six-string all night, although he has so many other stylistic fish to fry, which in this case means a still slightly greater emphasis on acoustic finger-picking.

For somebody who made his name on as forlorn but powerful an anthem as his 2014 breakout smash “Take Me to Church,” and who can milk that melodrama for all it’s worth, Hozier has a lot of other modes he can default to. He treads very lightly into the area of soul with songs like “Almost (Sweet Music),” the lyrics of which consist of either name-checking or alluding to some of the great jazz vocal classics of the 20th century, in an idiom that’s not so much jazzy itself as folk-R&B. You could almost cite it as the subtle kind of Memphis-swing thing Justin Timberlake should aspire to, if the tricky polyrhythm and oddly chopped up meters Hozier adds as wrinkles weren’t so un-replicable. Bringing up Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the City” as the night’s sole cover also established that early ‘70s era and sound as an influences he’d like to make perfectly clear. At the other extreme, this son of a blues musician can hard back to those roots so well, in noisy numbers like “Moment’s Silence (Common Tongue)” and the brand new “Jack Boot Jump,” that he could give the Black Keys a run for their money.

“Jack Boot Jump,” which is scheduled to go on an EP of completely fresh material that Hozier said he plans to put out before Christmas, was possibly the highlight of the night, even though — or because — it stripped his excellent band down to just him and longtime drummer Rory Doyle. Having earlier played the current album’s “Nina Cried Power,” which is maybe more of a tribute to other historic protest songs than one of its own, Hozier gave a lengthy introduction to “Jack Boot” indicating that he’s aware of the traps that come with the territory. “I do have some reservations about the words ‘protest song’ and ‘protest music,’” he admitted. “But if you’re familiar with an artist called Woody Guthrie, he wrote the evergreen anthem ‘Tear the Fascists’ down. I was kind of looking into songs in that sort of tradition, that singing out, and I was worried that this is 2019; it’s a very unsubtle way to approach songwriting.” But, he added, “it was a funny few weeks, with 70 people shot in Hong Kong and arrests obviously in Moscow; Chile now at the moment also. And I was thinking, forget about subtle art — what is not subtle is this murder of protesters, and what is not subtle is the jack boot coming down in Orwell’s picture of the future: ‘If you want to imagine the future, imagine a jack boot stomping on a human face forever,’ that chilling quote from ‘1984.’ Anyway, I was just thinking, yeah, f— it, it’s not subtle, but let’s do it.” His electric guitar proceeded to be a machine that kills fascists, and also just slayed as maybe the most rock ‘n’ roll thing he’s written. (Evidence of the new song on the web is scant, or should be, anyway, since he begged the audience “in good faith” not to film it.)

If there’s a knock people have on Hozier, it tends to be the sincerity thing. He’s a nice guy who’s finishing first, which doesn’t necessarily help him become an indie-rock darling or Pitchfork favorite. (Predictably, “Wasteland, Baby!” got a 4.8 rating there — that’s out of 10, not 5.) At the Greek, there was an almost wholesome feeling that would’ve been an immediate turnoff to anyone who insists on having their rock rough, starting with his graciousness in repeatedly naming the band members and repeatedly thanking his opening act (Madison Ryann Ward, a fetchingly husky-voiced Oklahoman filling in on this part of the tour for a laryngitis-stricken Freya Ridings). That extended to a sense of uplift in many of the songs that doesn’t always match the themes of the material. But then, there was the impossible good cheer and attractiveness of the young players, to match Hozier’s own; this is a group where everyone looks as if they could be in Taylor Swift’s band or actually looks like Taylor Swift. The swoon factor in Hozier’s appeal is undeniably high, and it’s safe to say no one left Griffith Park less smitten.

But ladies (and gentlemen), do be aware that Hozier has some dark-side moments that can almost make Leonard Cohen look like Stephen Bishop. The only time he really overtly accentuated that in concert was in introducing and playing the new album’s “No Plan,” a love song that is also an amiable statement of atheism in which Hozier reminds his beloved that the universe is going to collapse upon itself someday. This may be rather like the gambit in which the ‘50s boy gets the girl to make out with him in a fallout shelter, but in any case, Hozier didn’t stint on the end-of-all-things aspect of it, even putting up on screen behind the band a statement from astrophysicist Dr. Katie Mack pointing out humankind’s and the galaxy’s ultimate fate. (“Honestly I never really imagined I’d end up being name-checked in a song for talking about how the universe is eventually going to fade out and die so this is all very exciting for me,” Mack tweeted in replay earlier in the year.) Suffice it to say that with that soulful a vintage ‘70s groove and that fuzz-tastic a guitar line, many babies will be conceived to the tune of “No Plan,” whether it foresees generational lines ending in a godless black hole or not.

Other Hozier songs reveal darker gets more estimable the more you dig into it. With its bird talk, “Shrike” sounds sweet enough, till you realize that a shrike is a kind of bird that impales its prey on thorns, which does add a rather bloody metaphoric undertone to what sounds like a reasonably pacifist breakup song. “Dinner & Diatribes,” meanwhile, is just deeply horny, not thorny. The most brooding song of the set, “Talk,” has verses where Hozier sings in lofty, literary terms about the romantic myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, only to reveal in the chorus that he’s talking to this woman in such high-minded terms because he just wants to charm her into the sack. As a piece of writing, it’s hilarious, establishing a devilish side of Hozier it’s good to hear. As a piece of performance, it’s just sexy.

But as enriching as it is to realize Hozier has a healthy sense of humor in his writing, bad-boy wit is never going to be what you’re going to come away from a Hozier album or show with. The main part of Friday’s concert ended, as expected, with “Take Me to Church,” his outraged take on abuse and homophobia in the scandalized Catholic church — which just happens to be easily taken as a lusty hymn to sexuality. Following that, the large band returned to a stage that had now been decked out in some kind of ivy, as Hozier talked about his love for the late Irish poet Seamus Heaney (whose last words he has tattooed on his arm) and, “since I’ve come this far,” went ahead and recited his poem “Mint,” sharing his hero’s affection for the plant and its “tenacity for life.”

Tenacity is likely to be a buzzword, too, for Hozier, given his leaps and gains as a writer-performer and seeming level head atop his tree-top shoulders. Taller still of voice, musical dexterity and good will — and still just 29 — he’s somebody the swooners and even some cynics should feel good about settling in with for a very long Irish ride.

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makeste · 4 years

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BnHA Chapter 260: GOD IS A WOMAN

Previously on BnHA: Virtually all of the known pro heroes in existence split into two big groups (each with its own weenie hut junior subgroup) to launch a massive surprise attack on the League of Pliff. Endeavor’s group, in Jakku, stormed the hospital where Ujiko works, which amazingly seemed to catch him completely off guard, so I guess we’ll see how that goes. Meanwhile off in the woods somewhere, Midnight’s group (ostensibly this is Edgeshot’s group, but I call it like I see it guys) prepared to attack the villains’ main HQ at the Overlook Hotel, while my infant son Kaminari Denki complained too loudly about being stuck on the front lines. Meanwhile the rest of 1-A (sans Tokoyami) is either tucked away safe in the woods, or perched just outside of Jakku ready to begin the citizen evacuation. I suggest that everyone enjoy this brief period where the good guys appear to be safe and victorious while it lasts.

Today on BnHA: MIRUKO!!! Okay lol. A lot happens in this chapter. Aizawa uses his quirk on Ujiko, who immediately starts melting away into a crispy-fried old man because apparently this motherfucker had the immortality quirk all along. And then Mic and Aizawa yell at him, and the other doctors are all “pardon us but what the fuck” and the heroes are all “NO TIME TO TALK, HE’S EVIL” and then we find out that Ujiko is a fucking Twice clone, so that’s just great. And the real Ujiko is of course down in the basement, along with LORD EVEN KNOWS HOW MANY HIGH END NOUMUS, and for a moment it honest to god looks like we’re screwed. But then MIRUKO, YOUR NEW FAVORITE CHARACTER, KICKS DOWN ALL THE FREAKING DOORS AND FLATTENS POOR JOHN-KUN AND IS ALL “BOOM, YOU LOOKING FOR THIS?”, and let me tell you guys, FOR A MOMENT I SAW TRUTH. Anyway so next chapter she’s probably going to have to fight zombie Jeanist or something, but for now? Life is good. REMEMBER THIS DAY.

so just like last week, before I get started I’m gonna do a quick follow-up on chapter 259. really, Viz’s version wasn’t all that different from the fan scanlation this time around, so this will mostly just be reactions to things I didn’t notice and that other people pointed out

first off, a couple people mentioned that the thing Mic is holding up appears to be some kind of throat spray. which seems to track, so I’ll just say again that I have a very morbid curiosity about whether or not Mic could actually kill someone with his quirk. and this curiosity has only intensified since my google search

so yeah. will we ever get to see something like this?? STAY TUNED

also, I got a couple of conflicting answers about Naomasa’s quirk. someone said his quirk was lie-detecting, but another person said that’s actually his sister’s (LOL I HAD NO IDEA THERE WAS A NAOSIS, I REALLY SHOULD JUST READ VIGILANTES) quirk. and I never actually followed up on that lol sooooo. let me just do that real quick

okay so he doesn’t have a quirk listed on the wiki, but it says that his codename (??) is “True Man.” so that does seem to imply that his quirk is similar if not identical to his sister’s quirk, which is indeed a truth quirk (Polygraph). although the “she can’t detect a lie if the person is relaxed” seems to call this ability into doubt a bit. still pretty powerful though I guess

moving on now, last but not least let’s discuss the most relevant and controversial thing that happened this past week. (incidentally, I added an ETA about this to the previous chapter recap a couple hours after I first posted it, so in case you don’t what the asks below are referring to, it’s that.)

so... I have mixed feelings about this. thing is, after reading up on it, it seems like the fans who were most upset were those from China, Korea, etc., which is actually completely understandable given the historical context. Japan doesn’t exactly have a great track record with being sensitive about all of the horrific shit their military got up to during WWII, so while I still believe that Horikoshi wasn’t intending to be disrespectful, I can understand them not being inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt

that being said, I keep thinking about this tweet by aitaikimochi:

and despite what Horikoshi said in his apology tweets (about how he didn’t intend for the name to be associated with that particular historical connection), I still can’t help but think that he absolutely did intend to reference Unit 731, with the intent of (a) linking it to this vile, disgusting piece of shit character as a commentary, and (b) perhaps subtly pushing some of his Japanese readers who have never heard about this particular part of history to learn more about it. like, I know he offered up some dubious explanation about it being a reference to Ujiko’s rotund nature, but that seems really iffy to me tbh. that’s one hell of a coincidence if that’s really the case. idk

and you know what else -- and here’s where I’m really whipping out the conspiracy goggles -- I also can’t help but suspect that the decision to go back and change the name in the volume release is coming more from Shueisha (who I half-suspect weren’t themselves aware of the “maruta” name association until this blew up) than from him. because unfortunately this seems to be the standard Japanese PR response any time this subject comes up -- offer a vague statement of regret, and immediately proceed to wipe any mention of the subject from existence. because god forbid people actually talk about this or acknowledge that it happened

and so ultimately, while I do empathize with those who were upset by the name, I think it’s unfortunate that this is just getting swept back under the rug so quickly and will no doubt be forgotten about within a couple of months, because my gut feeling is that Shueisha was ultimately more concerned about what their Japanese readership might think about the controversy than what the Chinese and Korean fans thought. I could be wrong about that, and maybe also giving Horikoshi too much benefit of the doubt, but meh :/

anyway! so now that we’ve gotten that topic out of the way, let’s see how many pages it will take before the heroes finally realize just how much of an “oh fuck” situation they’ve gotten themselves into!

so the cover page is Hawks and Endeavor, but more importantly (to me), it establishes that this is indeed a hotel/resort and not a mansion, as the readheroaca team randomly translated it as last week. like does that look like any mansion you’ve ever seen. come on now

anyway so now my question is what happens if someone actually tries to stay at this hotel. do they just book that shit on trivago and enjoy a week up in the mountains surrounded by very strange but seemingly nice people, and just never suspect a thing? like, Gigantomachia lives in the basement here. I’m just saying. how dense can these hypothetical travelers be

also the hotel is apparently 80km from the hospital, or about 50 miles for us troglodytes who still use the imperial system. so pretty safe to say neither team will be able to provide backup to the other in this case. I will try not to think about this

so now Ujiko, the man without a name, is screaming while Endeavor and his group just STAND THERE LIKE TWENTY FEET AWAY. what the fuck

I swear to god he looked so much closer in the previous chapter. WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING. HE’S GOT NOUMUS IN THE BASEMENT!! CAN YOU FUCKING ARREST HIS ASS ALREADY

YESSSS AIZAWA

what are the odds that the next panel features Aizawa Shouta looking more pissed off than we’ve ever seen him. oh my god. it’s probably going to be hot af. I’m not sure I’m ready

booooooo

that is more or less the opposite of hot af. Horikoshi why you gotta do me like that

well well WELL!

you mean to say Mr. Innocent Quirkless Philanthropist isn’t actually quirkless?? even though he wasn’t actually innocent?? and he wasn’t actually a philanthropist either?? well I am just SHOCKED. who saw this coming. how could this happen

also for real this is creeping me the fuck out though

it does make sense though. I just can’t picture AFO entrusting so much of his operation to this dude if he actually was quirkless. because he’d view someone without a quirk as being lesser/inferior. so Ujiko almost had to have something up his sleeve. although it’s possible he could have been granted a quirk, rather than being born with one I suppose

!!!!

DO NOT TELL ME THIS MOTHERFUCKER HAS THE FUCKING IMMORTALITY QUIRK. WHAT THE FUCK. IS HE JUST GOING TO SHRIVEL UP INTO NOTHING. NO FUCKING WAY HE GOES DOWN THAT EASY WHAT THE HELL

(ETA: and does this mean that if Aizawa ever visits AFO and uses his quirk on him, AFO will also instantly age like 200 fucking years? could that actually kill him?)

duuuuude. Nao’s speculating about whether the Noumus’ regeneration ability actually stems from this quirk. ...but that can’t be the case, can it? otherwise AFO would have been able to heal his injuries from the battle with All Might. we know for a fact he’s known Ujiko for at least 15 years. but still, either way it’s still one hell of a powerful quirk

which now seems to be unraveling before our very eyes. uh...

anyone else getting Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade vibes? “he chose... poorly”

oh MY GOD!!

do it Mic do it do it do it

oh my god. well he’s not killing him with his voice, but instead this is happening

nooo Mic. I need you to be less anguished and more murdery. I don’t want feels yet!! goddammit

I mean it’s not asking for too much, is it? I just want a teensy little bit of satisfaction before the shit hits the fan. just torture him a little bit. just a little!

oh hey some doctors are intervening because the heroes look like psychopaths right now

s2g if one of these fuckers gets in between Ujiko and Aizawa’s line of sight and he fucking gets away -- !! oh my god. I can’t fucking take this. ffdffjjjk I’m so anxious you guys, I could never be a hero the stress is too much

so instead of explaining it to these rightfully concerned people, the heroes are just pushing them aside and telling them to stand back. and like, on the one hand I get it. they’re on the clock, they have to eliminate John-kun before the hotel villains get wind of the attack, and they don’t have time to explain an entire series’s worth of backstory to everyone who asks about it. but on the other hand, I also just want them to shout “HE EXPERIMENTED ON CHILDREN AND CORPSES AND CREATED THE NOUMUS!” or something. just so they know. I need them to know goddammit

but at least the patients seem to all be pretty chill about it lmao

-- holy shit. okay, three things

that panel with them moving the beds is my favorite

the panel with Tora holding this one guy who’s suddenly IN LOVE is also my favorite. oh man. Tora you are the manliest

combat with the WHAT DID YOU SAY NOW

so they knew?? well that sure fucking explains why Endeavor made the executive decision to keep his son and the other kids as far away as possible. but also, what? so like they must not realize that there are more high ends, then. right? or else they surely would not be so casual about this

holy shit?!

just how thorough was this investigation?? I really need to stop underestimating the heroes huh. should have learned my lesson after Kamino. these guys do their homework. it’s just that there’s always some one last thing that they failed to account for

so what is it going to be then in this case? Tomura is the one controlling them now? shitttttt

oh god. yeah, Miruko’s just casually kicking down the mortuary door and she’s all “we know who’s controlling them!” so I assume they believe that it’s Ujiko. which is honestly what I myself assumed up until about ten seconds ago, so fair enough

SDKFJLSKHGLK THERE IT IS

hot. a. f. just like I said. excuse me sir but there are laws against smoking in a hospital. because you’re smoking. get it. ...it’s because you’re hot. ...yes sir I’m sorry sir I will stop now

so Ujiko is sobbing and screaming “let me go!!” and okay but where is Present Mic? do you see, Mic. this is what I wanted, okay. but it’s all right, I understand that you were upset

ohhhhhhhhhh ffffuuuu

Endeavor with a worried look and lots of dots followed by an exclamation point, and then a closeup of Ujiko’s mouth looking surprisingly sinister as he reiterates for them to let him go. I’M SURE THIS IS ALL FINE. WE’RE ALL FINE. THAT’S OKAY HORIKOSHI, YOU CAN END THE CHAPTER HERE, IT’S GOOD. WE GOT LIKE WHAT, EIGHT PAGES? THAT’S PLENTY, REALLY

FUFFFFFFF NO MIRUKO DON’T GO FLYING INTO THE VOID! THE VOID IS BAD

HOLY SHIT

jesus christ. Miruko does the exact same thing as Katsuki where she sees a wall and she’s all “FUCK YEAH.” goddamn. it honest to god gave me a boost of confidence even as I watched her announce that THE NOUMU ARE DOING THE EXACT FUCKING THING SHE JUST SAID THAT THEY WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO DO

and also that is 100% a black Noumu there on the right side. so confirmed, the big guns are here too

HOLY SHIT TIMES TWO

THIS FUCKING HOSPITAL REALLY HAD THE FUCKING ASTEROID WORM FROM EMPIRE STRIKES BACK IN THE FREAKING BASEMENT, AND YOU ALL COULDN’T FUCKING DETECT THAT?? GET BETTER DETECTING TECHNOLOGY YOU DUMB HEROES

but nice save, Aizawa!! I personally would not have had such quick reflexes upon being confronted by a giant monster lunging out of the floor to stick out its multipronged DRILL TONGUE WHICH IS ALSO ITS BRAIN, haha. can someone please check on Horikoshi to make sure he is doing all right. I have some concerns about the mind that drew this

holy shit the drill tongue Noumu is actually drilling into Ujiko. like there’s blood and stuff

-- SHIT

THIS IS WHY YOU HAVE THE DAMN GOGGLES YOU ASSHOLE!! “BUT MAKESTE YOU WERE THE ONE WHO WANTED ME TO TAKE THEM OFF SO THAT I COULD LOOK HOT.” WELL JUST LOOK AT HOW WELL THAT TURNED OUT! THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER LISTEN TO ME

(ETA: well it turned out not to matter BUT STILL.)

lmao Endeavor looks so fucking mad

“THIS IS WHY YOU HAVE THE DAMN GOGGLES YOU ASSHOLE.” I know, right?!

...aaaaaand this is happening

lol. good job @blessedgirthma you called it. it’s a clone! hahaha, fuck

and so the bad man lives to see another day. bets on who will eventually be the one to take him out? just remember how long that list is. lots of enemies, Ujiko. you’ll get yours

but right now I guess we have some other things to worry about

by the way we best pray to god that it was Twice who made that clone and not Ujiko himself, because if Ujiko has managed to replicate that ability on top of everything else, we can truly kiss the world goodbye

but anyway! so that’s Noumu!Tomura confirmed then, in my book. and there are the 11! does this mean they’re not at the hospital?? all I know is they had better not be out on the outskirts of the city where my babies are

also is Ujiko talking to himself here. it almost seems like his words are coming out of the clone’s mouth. but Twice doesn’t have that kind of clone puppeteering ability. so then who is this guy bragging to. -- oh my god can he see us

lmao he’s plopping into his science chair and zooming halfway across the room

don’t misunderstand me though, one panel of being super relatable does not make up for a lifetime of horrific and nauseating crimes

-- THERE ARE MORE VATS!!! HOLY SHIT

THERE ARE MORE VATS. THERE ARE MORE VATS

there is at least one more row than I recall seeing in that previous chapter way back when. so even more high ends. in addition to the 12 (11 considering Endeavor subsequently fried one) we previously saw

and also I just realized, he did say “this” hospital. meaning he is still in the basement? so these guys are still right under their noses, then? oh god oh god so much to process and all of it is terrible god

GAAAAAAASPPP

MILADY!!!!!

holy shit. you guys. what the fuck. the hell was All Might thinking going to U.A. to pick a student successor when Miruko was right fucking there. like I’m just saying??

and also, fuck me he is getting away

OH MY GOD

SHE FUCKING MURDERED POOR JOHN-KUN JUST LIKE THAT WHAAAAAT. YOU GUYS I CAN’T BELIEVE MIRUKO IS THE NEW MAIN CHARACTER OF BNHA, TIMES ARE WILD

lmao and that’s the end of the chapter. holy shit. all I need is for her to say “I am here!” and I’m set. I leave it in your capable hands. why was she not in charge to begin with. number five hero my ass!! smdh for real though guys lol

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bigskydreaming · 4 years

Note

A good description. For my part, I don't like talking about it because of my own experiences. I can, however, see Batman, a story where nearly every memorable villain and even the protagonist himself is a Svengali, could attract a disproportionate number of rape apologists, though fandom is full of them. (Oh, hey, that's the other thing with Jason. Talia.)

Ugh I’m so sorry to hear you can relate, and I totally understand not wanting to talk about it. I have no idea what your particular situation is, obviously, but I also want to reiterate since its been awhile since I’ve mentioned this part.....I don’t feel any like....basically, my choice to talk about this stuff is simply put, MY choice, made for my own reasons, that aren’t a reflection on any other survivor. There are a million and one reasons NOT to come forward, or to struggle with it or not to be open about what happened to us, and none of them are a reflection on any of us, but rather the position it puts us in.

Again, I don’t know your situation or what gender you might be or anything else, and this isn’t at all because your ask made me feel defensive or anything like that. This is just something I’ve wanted to put into words for awhile now seems relevant today, and here’s as good a place as any to put it down:

For myself, being a male survivor....like, there’s never really been any getting around the existence of that kinda, idk, caveat that not many male survivors come forward. Sure, we all see the posts and tweets reminding “remember, men can be raped too!” But that’s not the same thing as men sharing their stories and experiences the way far more women have come forward. And that’s why I ultimately began talking about my own experiences in order to express how I felt about my own positioning in society and how as a survivor I interact and am interacted with by others. Because frankly, there wasn’t anywhere else I could really look to in order to see others talking or sharing about similar things and see myself reflected in what they were saying or the experiences they were describing. So, if I couldn’t find what I felt I needed or could have benefited from, I figured at least I could put it out there in case anyone else who could relate could benefit from mine.

Except, ultimately I’ve come to feel that I honestly don’t believe its that men just flat out don’t come forward with their stories or experiences, its that even when we do, we’re rarely signal boosted - as you can kinda see from the fact that I can post the most inane shit and get it to a thousand notes, but in the five plus years I’ve been making posts about this subject, I’m lucky if I can get a single post on the topic to double digits as far as notes go.

People just flat out are a combination of uncomfortable with the novelty of actual discussions about and around male survivors as well as being not really sure how to talk about it because we’ve never really developed the tools for it.

And to be 100% clear, this has NOTHING to do with female survivors, as a point of comparison or ANYTHING else. It drives me up a fucking WALL when people try and compare and contrast even just how much men being raped is talked about vs women being raped, no matter WHAT their reasons are, because I promise people, I PROMISE - NO survivor, of any gender, has EVER benefitted from being pitted against other survivors to ANY degree. Its not a zero sum game and it doesn’t help male survivors to pull shit like “well at least female survivors are acknowledged” because a) eww, and b) nobody asked anyone to say that on our behalf, and c) hyper-visibility isn’t a privilege (or whatever the best parallel to that might be, I’m not trying to appropriate an anti-blackness specific term so much as its the closest comparison I have at the moment for something that isn’t even a matter of marginalized identities but rather marginalized experiences) and d) its COMPLETELY beside the point and actually misses the point by a WIDE margin.

Because what I’ve come to realize over the years, from my own experiences and talking and sharing with survivors of all genders and demographics and walks of life, is that first off....nobody really needs the reminder that hey, men can be raped too. We see it happen all throughout entertainment and other aspects of society, its not an experience that’s hidden away from the light, its just not ever really CALLED what it is, or followed up on, and talked about.

Like Dick Grayson isn’t a statistical outlier in media. Take Horrible Bosses, a summer blockbuster comedy a few years back with a cast of fairly big name comedians, and whose running B plot throughout the whole movie was Jennifer Aniston’s character wanting to rape her employee, Charlie Day’s character. Not only was this not objectionable to audiences in any sizable way, not only did this never really get called out as wtf by critics and reviews, the movie was successful enough to warrant a sequel with even BIGGER names in its cast, like Christopher Pine, and the continuation of the Aniston’s character trying to rape Charlie Day’s subplot. With zero awareness. And its not like that’s the only movie. There’s plenty more I could name.

Or then you’ve got television, where like, take Riverdale, a well-promoted, well known CW show....whose first few episodes featured the lead character Archie in a sexual relationship with his much older female teacher. Except not really a relationship, because that’s textbook, no debate, literal statutory rape.....that ended with Archie’s character being condemned for it as though he were on equal footing with the teacher, who ultimately left town, and it never really acknowledged that he was literally a victim of statutory rape, that any teacher who does that is not an equal partner but a predator. I stopped watching the show for a lot of reasons by like the fourth episode, but I see enough gifs on tumblr to know that several seasons later, this left little enough impact that some kind of Archie-goes-to-jail plotline has resulted in more memes and jokes about prison rape than I can count, and zero awareness that people are compounding jokes about a character who is literally already an unacknowledged survivor.

That’s one. Or you can take Once Upon A Time, a popular ABC show of multiple seasons, and the running subplot where Robin Hood’s character is raped by the Wicked Witch literally the same way Dick was by Mirage in the comics. She shapeshifts into Maid Marian, who ends up dead, and has ‘sex’ with Robin Hood (no, she rapes him) and ends up pregnant. Not only is this never really called what it is, later on, other characters LITERALLY CHEW HIM OUT for objecting to this baby being left in the care of her mother, aka his rapist, and for ‘not being willing to give her the benefit of the doubt/let her change’ as though him not wanting to co-parent with his rapist is no different from any of the show’s other dubious redemption storylines....except for the fact that this particular part of her redemption arc isn’t ever really one she actually needs redeeming for, because nobody ever fucking points out that she literally raped him and he was her victim. Fast forward to the end of the series, Robin Hood’s been dead for seasons, the Wicked Witch is happily redeemed and has a loving wholesome relationship with her daughter, named after Robin Hood like they were some kind of loving, happy family instead of a rapist, her victim, and the child that was born of it.

Or you can take Grimm, a fairly successful NBC show of multiple seasons WHICH LITERALLY DID THE EXACT SAME THING. The main character Nick was raped in season two by the antagonist of the time, who shape shifted into his wife and had ‘sex’ with him, with him not realizing the truth until later on, by which point she’s pregnant with his child. Fast forward to the end of the show, not only was this never really called what it was, his wife’s character was killed off seasons earlier and he is now, get this, ‘happily’ in a romantic and sexual longterm relationship with his rapist (who he by now knows exactly what she did do and what happened between them and just.....got over it without ever actually like, reacting to it)....and oh yeah, not only are they raising the child born of it together, they’ve had a second child since then.

Anyone ever hear much outcry about the male rapes in these shows? And again, like Horrible Bosses, tip of the iceberg. There’s a LOT more shows I could name, just like there are movies.

Or take comics. Its not even just Dick Grayson that’s a survivor. Or Bruce. Or Jason as you pointed out, which......I know a lot of people ignore both Morrison AND Winick’s take on Talia in order to not write her as the rapist she is in their stories, which I can totally understand as she was a well-established character of color for long before either of them got their hands on her and its perfectly valid for people not to want to have to write her as being tarnished as a rapist because two different writers wrote her that way....without.....either of them ever really acknowledging that was literally how they were writing her. I myself write her as a character of complicated and often dubious morality, but never a rapist, for that reason and many others, but its definitely there. And even in a fandom that has never lacked for acknowledgment of Dick being a survivor whose rapists were women.....a LOT of people still romanticize Jason’s ‘relationship’ with Talia as being something other than a grown woman taking advantage of a minor in an extremely vulnerable and compromised state.....with a TON of other takes out there about the two of them, in posts and fics alike, where its somehow danced around or outright called something other than “that time Talia raped Jason in the comics.”

But its not just the Batbooks. Its like how I’ve mentioned in the past, Garth Ennis wrote into one of his storylines that Kyle Rayner was raped when he went to Gotham one time.....not to make it a plot point, but to use it as a JOKE. Or take Marvel comics, Bobby Drake, one of my other all-time favorite characters....who is also a rape survivor of multiple occasions, without it ever acknowledged as such. Like, he was briefly in a relationship with Mystique, who turned out to have entered the relationship under false pretenses, shocking, and who used having sex with him to depower him and take him out of the upcoming fight between the X-Men and the Marauders, which...we don’t have time to unpack all that right now. But fast forward about a year later, and Bobby has since gotten back together with his ex-girlfriend Opal Tanaka.....who, it turns out, is actually just Mystique in disguise, having sex with him again without it ever being called rape since he was consenting to sex with Opal, not the woman who slept with him that one time just to make sure he was helpless to stop a whole lot of people from getting killed. But hey, forget about Mystique! How about that time Chuck Austen wrote him ‘having sex’ with an empath who was EXPLICITLY noted in the narrative as using her powers to manipulate his emotions to even WANT to have sex with her in the first place, and when an issue later it comes out she’s married and her husband starts beating up Bobby for ‘sleeping with his wife’ all the other characters present, all of them friends and teammates of his, condemn Bobby for this without it ever being acknowledged that he was literally manipulated into it by a superpower and he was the victim.

Again. Tip. Of. The. Iceberg.

But you see what I mean? Male rape isn’t an outlier and it isn’t an unknown....its everywhere! Its just.....never called that, really, and never really talked about, even by people who normally would, except for the fact that I don’t think we as a society have ever really forced ourselves to FIND a way to talk about it, because of the fact that like.....the very notion of it threatens and undermines the essence of the patriarchal beliefs that are hammered into us all from day one. Even when we know the patriarchy is crap, we still have so much ingrained in us from early childhood that stuff like this, which is a blatant symptom of it even if not one aimed primarily at disadvantaging women.....like, it slips under the radar because its never fully called out or spotlighted in loud enough or widely enough ways to keep us from overlooking how much its impacted our POVs.

Blatantly put, the patriarchy and sexism RELIES on the idea that men are somehow more powerful/stronger/whatthefuckever than women. And male victims - of abuse as well as rape, though definitely rape.....like, even just a widespread awareness of our existence is enough to kinda destabilize that belief that is so foundational to the patriarchy its DEPENDENT on it being upheld as unassailable truth.

Because if forced to acknowledge that men are just as vulnerable to even something like rape as anyone else in the ‘right’ situations or dynamics, it forces confrontation with the reality that no matter what the patriarchy has claimed for as long as its existed.....men aren’t inherently any more powerful, or stronger, or resistant to harm/humiliation/VICTIMIZATION as anyone else.

And the patriarchy flat out can’t afford that confrontation, so it can’t afford to acknowledge male survivors.

Again, just want to be beyond clear - nowhere here am I okay with making this about a compare and contrast between the experiences and interactions society has with male survivors and around male rape, and the same with female survivors and rape. Because I mean, we all should be more than aware that society as a whole sucks at the acknowledgment, addressing and handling of rape in any context, in any of the ways it comes up as a topic, in terms of any survivor who comes forward no matter who or when or how.....like. We suck at this topic, and at any and all discussions about this topic. Period. Flat out. So when I say the patriarchy can’t afford to acknowledge male survivors, I am in no way aiming to diminish the reality that it does just as fucking an abyssmal job at acknowledging and responding to female survivors....the point here is not the poor reception any and all survivors receive to disclosing their experiences in our society, but rather the specific why of this when it comes to male survivors just as the particular subject of focus here.

And again, like, my only credentials here are just like. My life experiences, lol. I’m not trying to claim anything more or other than that, make no mistake. I’m a literal college drop out, this is not the result of comprehensive studies or vetted by the scientific method. This is literally just “like, my opinion, man” and makes no pretenses at being other than that. Its just the conclusions I’ve formed over the years and why, completely anecdotal and not aiming to be any kind of authoritative or expert viewpoint with my personal take here. Largely because I haven’t really found anywhere that I feel the conversation has proceeded enough in earnest that its even at a point that would ALLOW for that yet. So this is all more just.....my feel of things, and why, as just kinda idk, hopefully a starting point for further ACTUAL exploration of all this. My attempts at starting the kind of conversation I feel we need to be having in order to be at all productive instead of just constantly spinning around in circles, which is what it so often feels like.

So when I say I think the patriarchy can’t honestly AFFORD to acknowledge male survivors specifically, I’m not positing some grand conspiracy or active cover-up.

Because nothing like that is even necessary.

Its built into the framework of the system itself. Its not that I believe anyone goes out of their way to “hide” male survivors from anyone, I’m saying there’s no need. Because its been so ingrained into us from such a young age and in so many ways, most of us never even think to question whether anything is even being hidden, or if its just as simple as, well men don’t really come forward, because their pride and self-esteem is so impacted by what happened to them, due to the expectations heaped on men by the patriarchy.

Its kinda stunning, actually. Even while ACKNOWLEDGING that the patriarchy does impact male survivors in ways as well, we’re kinda....led away from the ACTUAL ways and ACTUAL reasons why....because despite literally calling the patriarchy out as the bad guy in this way, it still manages to weasel itself out of this confrontation by virtue of the fact that you can’t ever really effectively address a problem when you’re being misdirected to a tangent that’s not really the REAL problem that needs addressing.

So personally, I’m of the belief that its not that men just don’t ever really come forward. Its that even when some do, like myself, we can scream our heads off for years and it just echoes into the void, because its not being heard in the ways we need to be heard in order to effectively....signalboost our stories and experiences and needs. Much like I just mentioned above, its misdirection......everybody’s too focused on addressing an issue that doesn’t actually NEED solving (ie, reminding everyone/promoting awareness that men too, CAN be raped), and thus at least feeling productive, feeling like they’re contributing to tackling the problem.....that meanwhile, the ACTUAL problem (men CAN be raped too, and are, and here are men talking about it only for the signal to get lost and fizzle out rather than get boosted)....it flies right under the radar.

Because in line with what I said earlier about how it does no good to compare our experiences, both in terms of assault and our lives in the aftermath, with women survivors - its because its apples and oranges.

Rape isn’t a gendered issue, because it can happen to anyone of any gender, at any time....its situational. Dependent on context. Rape culture, however, IS a gendered issue.

Because rape culture, how our society INTERACTS with the very idea of abuse and rape and its victims and perpetrators....spills out entirely from that core foundation of the patriarchy and sexism, and thus much like those things themselves, how it affects women survivors is always going to be totally different from how it affects men who are survivors. Our experiences are not interchangeable - that has nothing to do with being better or worse, more publicized or less, etc, etc. They just....manifest different ways. The cause of our trauma-related problems might be the same thing, but the problems it creates for us are not, and none of us can ever really benefit from it being treated as a one size fits all kinda deal, nor is it to our benefit to treat it like there’s only so much conversation about the topic available to go around.

What I mean here is, like I said, the patriarchy at the foundation of our society can’t afford for it to be widely acknowledged that men can be victimized too.

But it can’t actually stop this from happening, given that its basis for saying it never happens is an inherent uneven-ness that only exists because it made it exist, not because like....we’re innately born uneven.

So....it had to come up with a narrative, a response, for when men DID step forward and say hey, I too was abused. I was raped. Etc.

And it did.

As a result, a lot of women don’t come forward because they fear not being believed, with reason. And this is true for a lot of men as well, just as the following is true for a lot of women too....

Which is that IMO the bigger reason/more immediate reason a lot of men don’t come forward, is that our concern isn’t so much that we won’t be believed....

Its that we will be believed, but rather than this getting us the help we need or the justice we ask for, it only ever really creates more problems for us, due to the patriarchy’s go-to fix-it job for this situation:

Paint the male victim as being not so much a victim as a victimizer-in-training.

See, the lie that men are innately more powerful, stronger, more ‘deserving’ of being in charge can’t afford the admittance than men are also vulnerable, can be victimized, taken advantage of.....

But it CAN afford the idea that men can be abused/raped/etc with this going on to eventually result in us becoming abusers/rapists/victimizers ourselves in the future, as long as THIS is kept the clear focus and emphasis of the narrative.

Because after all, there’s nothing in the idea that we all inevitably take out our pain (whatever it may come from) on others that contradicts the idea that we’re stronger, more powerful, etc.

And its not like the patriarchy and its supporters give a shit if this throws even other men under the bus, because the only thing institutions and systems of power actually care about is POWER.

They’re not our friend, even if in a different life, we could have ended up wielding more of that power than we do in this one. Even if we do in other aspects of our lives gain social and other forms of power more easily/with less obstacles than other people.

They only care what we can do for them, to spread that power, perpetuate it, preserve it....so just like white supremacy will happily screw over poor white people and America doesn’t give a shit about its prison population and the LGBTQ+ community so often ignores the issues of its members of color and so on.....the patriarchy is more than willing to make male survivors from any and all groups and communities take the hit it has no intention of taking by letting it be confirmed its built on sand and bullshit.

So just as much as we’re ingrained from early childhood with the idea that men can’t be victimized the way others can, the linked lesson we’re taught is that men who have been hurt badly or in certain ways will almost certainly end up hurting others.....

With the implicit acknowledgment that there was just an admittance that we can be hurt badly/in certain ways ending up just swiftly glossed over. As the focus is instead kept on the harm done to our hypothetical future victims.

Because the easiest way to keep someone from being sympathetic, is to give people someone else to sympathize with MORE. To give people reason to feel a person doesn’t even deserve your sympathy in the first place.

And so now think about not how often we see men victimized by abuse and rape in media, or how often we see men portrayed as survivors and yes, victims of these things.....

Think instead of how often in media we see men who victimize others, who are the antagonists, the villains, the serial killer/rapist/abuser of the week.......and with it offhandedly being dropped into a scene and then never really focused on again, that these men were almost always said to have been abused or raped or victimized in the past....and this is the REASON for why they all ended up doing what they did.

Suddenly, the numbers go up, don’t they? The second you think about it from THAT angle?

Its just....the reason that angle literally exists to the extent it does in society and the messages we’re fed, the entertainment we’re given.....is because that’s the POINT.

Because its natural for us not to think of any of those men as victims when by the time we find that part out, we’ve already internalized our view of them as victimizers, and solidly put our sympathies with their victims in the present. Because what was done to them in the past doesn’t excuse what they do to others in the present. Being hurt doesn’t give you carte blanche to hurt others. We all know this. Hence....WHY IT WORKS.

Except, this isn’t actually a reflection of reality. The myth of the perpetual cycle of abuse is just that, a myth. Oh, it happens, certainly. With men, with women, quite probably more often with men than women, not much doubt about that....

But its not that it happens, we’re told. That’s not the issue here.

Its that we’re pretty much told it ALWAYS happens. Its always GOING to happen. That there’s no real point in sympathizing with a male victim who is most likely going to end up victimizing someone else in the future and thus he’s not really gonna deserve your sympathy at that point, will he? Which makes him not really worth wasting it on him in the first place. Makes it easy to come up with something to focus on more instead of his story or experiences, something just as deserving of your focus or sympathy, but that you’re less likely to end up regretting in the future like you would if a male survivor you sympathized with now ends up in the news five years down the line for having hurt someone else.

Because over centuries and generations the idea of male survivors at all has been cultivated into having this almost mythic quality, there’s just enough subtle feeling of wrongness around the very idea of it, like, that it just doesn’t quite make sense...that it ends up being almost a relief to give our minds a reason, an explanation for why they don’t have to come up with a way to adjust the paradigm there, to make room for that idea, realign a worldview into one where there’s a specific spot for male survivors much like any other subject that needs focusing on or evaluating for whatever reason.

And this point, this conclusion that no matter how tragic what happened to make a male survivor was, it will only ever ultimately end up in the same spot, with him later on passing along the harm, a warped kind of paying it forward....this is hammered home over and over. We see it everywhere, without even often realizing what it is we’re seeing and internalizing, like with the examples I cited of all the times men are raped in entertainment without it being called that. Its the flip side of that....the times that men are raped in entertainment with it being called that, but swiftly moved past that to introduce the reason not to care that that’s what it was we just saw.

And thus throughout several seasons of Law & Order: SVU we’ve had male survivors, usually teens, who at first seemed eminently sympathetic for what had been done to them.....but who by the end of the episodes, ended up becoming school shooters exacting revenge on their bullies. Or ended up killing the coach who raped them in high school and then went on to rape a dozen others. Or in the last scene of the episode is found kneeling over their abusive father’s corpse with blood on their hands and the detectives standing over them in sadness that now they had to take the boy they thought was the victim away to jail as the victimizer he didn’t have to end up becoming.

Except.....he only becomes that because they make the choice to write him becoming it! Every single time!

Like in 13 Reasons Why, where another male survivor ends up....another school shooter. Or in Criminal Minds, where pretty much every single killer throughout the series ended up with a backstory of abuse and rape and victimization as a child, making it ‘all the more tragic’ and with the protagonists often literally using the phrase “almost like the guy never had a chance.”

Well no, they didn’t. Not when it was written to BE that way.

And then we see the idea root and take hold in audiences. And spread and perpetuated. Validated.

Its why I hate the woobification thing in fandoms, where fans of (white) villain characters fill in their backstory for themselves with all the REASONS they are the way they are, and with the reasons never being that they’re just a sadistic entitled asshole, but because they were hurt. They were abused as a child, they were raped offscreen, the heroes said mean things about them in the burn book once and that’s why they just had to kill the hero’s whole family, see.

And everything comes full circle.....not only is it that all male victims are destined to end up victimizers....its equally true that all male victimizers must have once been male victims. Even if we didn’t see it onscreen or on the page.

Except, and why I loathe that fandom tendency.....

THAT NARRATIVE IS NOT AN INEVITABILITY AND NEVER WAS! The end point and point of origin presented there are NOT innately set in stone!

And all that does is just validate and accept as truth the LIE that patriarchal society puts forth in order to play smoke and mirrors with this one specific facet of human experiences that innately possesses the potential to destabilize the lie at the very rock bottom foundation of everything the patriarchy’s ever built at everyone else’s expense. The reason it offers up for why its not only allowable, its for the best that we look elsewhere from any male victims that actually step forward and say hey, can you all listen to me for a second, I want to tell you what happened to me.

And the fun irony of THIS aspect of things is if you think this woobification fandom thing benefits male survivors as a whole in some way or another, like the tendency of fans to find even villainous victimizers sympathetic means that they can and do sympathize just as much with actual male victims.....I’m fairly certain it doesn’t.

See, because with villains in fandom......this retroactive sympathy for imagined past traumas happens to only the characters that fandom has already decided they liked DESPITE the awful things they’ve done. Its made up to be used as an excuse instead of an explanation....

And like we all know damn well, even if we don’t always admit it or like to acknowledge it....

Explanations are not actually excuses. The harm you do can not be wiped away by the harm done to you.

So, because that’s still inside of us, our awareness of that, even if its ignored on the surface while defending hot white villains or whatever.....it doesn’t actually give anyone reason to ignore the narrative our society constructs around actual male survivors who it encourages people to condemn or ignore on the basis of purely hypothetical FUTURE abuses or wrongdoings.

And after all, you can’t actually decide you can look past the harms a person enacts and still view them as sympathetic if....you don’t actually know yet what those harms are going to end up being and thus whether you can make your peace with them, can you?

You just know that harms WILL be done, so....might as well err on the side of caution and assume they won’t be forgivable when deciding here and now to be thrifty with sympathies and spread any actionable effort taken on behalf of survivors in areas where those sympathies are more likely to be put to better use.

And yeah, all of this plays into why I focus so much on certain aspects of Dick’s narratives, and they usually AREN’T the rapes themselves.

Because for me, for many other male survivors I know......

Acknowledging those happened, examining how he felt when those happened....its not the biggest issue. Just like in our own lives, having it acknowledged or known what was done to us, having to face how it made us feel....that’s not really our primary concern.

Its what happens AFTER that.

How people view us and treat us AFTER their initial sympathies, whatever they are, dry up - which, we’re given reason to believe, they always inevitably will.

Because it isn’t all that different from what I frequently complain of happening with Dick in fandom, and hell, its WHY it bothers me so much, because its literally been a recurrent theme throughout my life:

The most widely acknowledged male survivor in comics, just also happens to coincidentally be....

The character most often spun as having a wicked temper, being almost irrationally angry at times, with his temper being likened to things like an eruption, an earthquake, a NATURAL DISASTER....something to be avoided at all costs, something the other characters fear, with good reason, but also impossible to avoid, because its too intrinsic to his nature. Its an inevitability. Dick Grayson WILL erupt or explode again at some point, and its going to be ugly. Like he’s a time bomb.

Even though....as I frequently go in depth on.....Dick’s never actually been shown as having particularly poor self-control either on just its own merits or specifically in comparison to others. He doesn’t really actually HAVE a track record of taking out his own hurts on others. On giving people REASON to be afraid of his temper even while they continue to take no responsibility for giving him reasons to be angry at all.

Its why I so often emphasize the discrepancy between the fact that whatever someone’s own personal character preferences, the FACT remains that Dick Grayson is the character in this family that most often bears the BRUNT of everyone ELSE’S anger.......just as the fact equally remains that Dick Grayson is still ultimately the character most often singled out in posts and headcanons and fanfics as unleashing his temper on others in unjustifable ways and usually without actual provocation.

None of this is a coincidence to me.

Its how we see over and over again that its okay for Dick Grayson to be angry FOR others, ON others’ behalf....its just when he’s angry FOR HIMSELF, for being taken advantage of, ignored, walked all over or mistreated....that’s when his anger is unjustified. Irrational.

Dangerous.

Or you guys know that one fanon about how Dick forces his hugs on his siblings, and his displays of physical affection are often unwanted, and thus violations?

Yeah, that one hits me right in the Issues too, because again, that’s not remotely supported by anything in canon....there has NEVER been an instance of Dick’s family asking him to cut it our or feeling like......IMPOSED upon because he likes to hug his family.

Its not to say people can’t feel that way about even well-meaning displays of physical affection that aren’t cleared with them first....

Its that this is something that people had to DECIDE to make a thing with Dick and his family. To actually craft the narrative that the many-times victim of unwanted touching was effectively violating his family’s wishes and boundaries every time he hugs them without being asked or invited to.

With that number being however many times a writer wants to write him doing when highlighting it as a violation.

And is this a thing we really see with any other character? Is my question there. How often do you see literally any other character being chewed out or resented for....hugging?

Just the one character most known for giving physical affection freely with his FAMILY and close friends.....

Who just so happens to also be the one character most often the guy who has his bodily autonomy violated.

The canon rape survivor has literally had HUGS weaponzed against him.

With the end result being.....every time he does it, every time this pings on a reader’s radar as Bad and Unwelcome....the linked takeaway is its one more reason for that reader to then ask themselves....well if he doesn’t care whether other people want him touching them, why should I care when he doesn’t want people touching him either?

Which ultimately just winds up another form of: why should I feel bad if bad things happened to someone who isn’t really that great of a person?

See what I mean?

Its all connected. Its not me getting frustrated with a bunch of different random things, its all the same thing at the end of the day, all so often traceable back to the same places.

I couldn’t untangle myself from so much of this and how it impacts me and my view of things even if I wanted to, to such an extent that in the end, want really has very little to do with it.

(And uh, you think those bug the shit out of me, let me tell you about just the very SIGHT of all those fics where Dick the widely acknowledged, perhaps best known male rape victim in comics.....is a rapist himself. Because yeah....even if people like to keep their incest light and fluffy or sweet instead of predatory, to someone who is y’know, personally familiar with all of this, Dick and ANY of his younger brothers is never going to appear as anything BUT predatory. As yet one more time where the linear journey of a male survivor all the way to the final evolution into male predator is born out and treated as so matter-of-fact, so inevitable, it hardly warrants noting as anything especially obscene or gross to write about a character famous for his survivor status. And its not like Dick is actually the only character in the franchise I like, so its not like its any better when its Jason painted as the aggressor in a fic, for instance....and while I will always be hugely critical of how Bruce is written as abusive in canon, that’s a wildly different thing from sexually preying on his sons so again, seeing him as his own sons’ rapists is yet again more upsetting than most people would think without connecting Bruce’s own status as a canon rape survivor, whether we like that story or not.....and plugging it into again, this pre-programmed route traveling from survivor to predator, over and over again. Victim to victimizer. Like clockwork.)

Anyway, my point is not to harp on this but rather to just lay it out there in this way. And how it plays into so much of my own personal approach to dealing with all of this when it comes up.......because the simple fact is I have to, there is no opt-out lol, and it comes up a lot, in large part because its so easy t reframe as being something else that most people who don’t have direct experience being directly impacted by all of this in its various myriad expressions are understandably not going to see it pinging on their radar and getting logged into their awareness the way it always does in mine.

*Shrugs* It is what it is. Its there. Avoiding it has never done me any favors, so.......as I so often demonstrate in a variety of degrees of Hmm Probably Coulda Done That Better, lol, I try and deal with things head-on and adjust as needed.

Easier said than done, not always pulled off, never any guarantee that I’m going about things the right way, just that like.....

There’s problems that need addressing that stem from all of this, and I know where mine lie and put a lot, a LOT of effort into addressing them and keeping an eye on them and not letting them get the better of me.

But the flipside of paying that close attention and that much means I’m also keenly aware of when and where I couldn’t take responsibility even if I wanted to, because the responsibility literally just isn’t mine to take....because yeah, I live in a society but guess what, so does everyone else, and its the same damn society, so at the end of the day, no matter HOW well or not I go about handling the matter of my rapes and their overall impact and shaping of my life.....that’s just me handling the rape part of things.

The rape culture? And how THAT affects and informs every survivor’s life in whatever way it does going forward?

That’s kinda.....only ever going to be improved upon or not, on like....a cultural scale. That’s a society thing. Not a survivor thing.

Because we are all shaped by our cultures, every aspect of our cultures, and this one is unfortunately no different. But, its shaped by us too.

But to actually shape it INTO something, or more accurately, to shape it into LESS of what it is, blunt some of its edges, lessen some of its ability to do harm to survivors, to compound the harm already done.....

Something like THAT requires intent. Conscious effort.

And intent requires like....first being able to SEE what problems need addressing.

And that’s kiiiiinda the whole point of survivors coming forward when so rarely, so MINUTELY does it EVER result in actionable justice for that individual survivor.

And I don’t for a second believe a single one ever believes or assumes otherwise.

Cuz its super not fun. It never like......I don’t fucking know how it looks to other people, tbh, because I’ve literally been a survivor since before I even really knew that I was being abused or molested, that there was something I was surviving....but trust me, I’ve thought about it, I’ve wondered, and I don’t know if like, people think a survivor ‘telling their story’ is somehow an equivalent of like, getting a book deal or something, there’s the attention it brings after all, and isn’t there that saying that no publicity is bad publicity.....

LOL. Yeah. Umm. Just saying, if you don’t have personal experience as a survivor having come forward or shared openly about your experiences, let me refer you to another saying as counterpoint: Don’t believe everything you hear.

Cuz that’s definitely not one anyone else ever forgets when ‘listening’ to any of us.

Anyway, wrapping this up by bringing it back to like.....my extremely evident mood and irration of this past week.....this is ALL connected, this is ALL part and parcel of every single time this comes up as an issue for me and its never less of one at one time than it is at another, its never a little easier this time because this reason or that....its always the same damn frustration every single time. Stuff like this doesn’t get doled out in manageable portions, its all or nothing. Its either a problem right this current second or its not, and if its not, that’s only until the next time its a problem again, likely sooner rather than later.

And that’s the part that makes me talk about this as much as I do, and get as frustrated as I do when people just do not seem to get.....

I don’t have an off switch on this matter because there IS no off switch for me. The times I get frustrated and vent about this stuff are actually only at MOST a TENTH of how often it rears its head for me to deal with.....the times my reactions or responses boil over into public view, into something you guys see, or ‘have to deal with’ are literally just the times where there is no keeping a lid on it because the pot was already full to start with.

And so it really. Epically. Beyoooooond doesn’t help matters, when despite being the only male survivor I’m aware of being consistently vocal on the matter in the only fandom I know of where a prominant male character is almost universally acknowledged as a survivor....

I usually only ever hear the response:

“Mmmmmm, I’m not really sure what makes you think there’s a problem here and that it has anything to do with us, when see, I don’t agree, and I don’t really see why you think your opinion on the matter of how this particular character is written about and viewed and depicted interacting with others and how fandom interacts with him, is like.....of any kind of real relevance? This is just like....your opinion, man.”

Me: ........have I ever claimed for a second it wasn’t? Didn’t I use those exact words at least once in all of this already?

fahsklhfaklhflakfhalffha

Cuz for the record, ultimately, that’s what this all boils down to. I’ve wanted to post about this stuff for awhile now, but make no mistake:

It literally is all just my opinion? Formed of my own personal experiences and the conclusions I’ve taken away from them. Laid out as fully and extensively as I can manage, specifically SO people can take all of that into context when deciding for themselves how much weight or not to GIVE my opinion......

In which case, y’know, the experiences I have with this matter and how they correlate to these opinions, like, have contextual relevance and seem necessary to include.

Its NOT because I’m trying to use them to browbeat everyone into agreeing with me because I think I’m the only one whose opinion matters here, lol.

No. Just that like....it DOES matter? And its kinda exhausting when people act like all of this is arbitrary and abstract to me, that its some kind of superiority complex or me moralizing from a pulpit or some shit when I’m literally saying none of it is abstract or arbitrary to me, and the louder I say that, the more people THEN say “oh so basically your opinion is the only one that matters here unless we disclose the same kind of experiences or background huh?”

*headdesk*

I just.....it seems my stance is either born of self-righteousness and nothing personal whatsoever....unless I make enough of a fuss about how that’s NOT true, in which case my stance is that apparently I think I’m the only one who is allowed to have an opinion here because I’ve made such a point about it being personal.

But its definitely not that people are just determined to invalidate anything I have to say on this subject one way or another, right?

Anyway.

So all of that’s like...whatever that was. Make of it what you guys will, but I do hope that at least for some people whom it might be a new perspective or new information to, you’ll consider asking why is it that in a fandom that prominently features a canon male survivor whose survivorhood is so frequently denoted as a key and critical part of his character....someone like me, who is frequently cited as a resource on many, many other kinds of meta about Dick Grayson......seems to have more people interested in discouraging me from ever expounding on my own experiences in this matter and any correlations I see between those and Dick’s experiences and narratives, than there are people interested in like......utilizing me as the freaking resource on male survivor experiences and viewpoints that I’ve literally been out here offering to be from day one....specifically BECAUSE of how rarely men are viewed as coming forward and being open about our shit here.

*Shrugs*

Just food for thought.

#rape cw

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bigbookofrescues · 4 years

Text

MAN. SO. I wrote a twitter thread like handful of days ago and been chatting a bit about TAG’s future a bit... just yesterday even and I can’t get over the irony the very next day then TAGHQ dropped that tweet. XDDD

Anyhoo, this is edited a bit from my initial string of tweets cause I discovered a few other things of note. XD Apologies it’s SUPER long. lol

SO. TAG's end seems to be approaching... right? OR IS IT? I've seen talk of it being cancelled, but uh... how can something be cancelled that we never had indication would go past 3 seasons? It's just not had (so far) more commissioned. lol

Unless someone's read/heard something (that’s credible!) that I haven't, that's been as far as we knew it was going so far. Series DO end, and given TAG is expensive and time consuming to make (going model/cgi hybrid def made their lives so much harder lol) it wouldn't be surprising at all to me.

There’s also some thought that it’s not continuing due to some amount of failure. But there's no evidence it's failed? It has sold to networks all over the world. ITV bragged the first chunk of S3 eps reached 1.4m people and was #1 kid show across their networks. The second chunk of eps increased to 2.2m! (These all coming from Toy World Magazine UK.) Three different networks bought the show here in Canada even! So the idea it’s failed seems like a stretch to me

So like. Yeah. If this is the end... fair enough imho. lol BUT. No one has really said THIS IS IT. That's what's strange even...

There's a cage-y-ness surrounding it. Everyone has spoken of the end of season 3, but really no one's claimed it to be absolute THE END of the show. In fact, ITV's behavior towards S3 has been downright strange imho.

In 2018, Season 3 started kinda surprisingly soon after the end of S2. Then it suddenly stopped before the mid-way point. It was bizarre at first until an article was uncovered, where a small reference to a new toy deal came to light. Then it did make sense. (Though bit strange new toys being made towards possibly the end of the show, but okay... ...Which is now even STRANGER since found out there’s even MORE toys coming.)

Fast forward to London toy fair, and reps of the toys were saying first the 'property would return in June' and that the final 9 eps had been held back for the toy launch... which was meant to be in the fall. It was a bit confusing until TAG returned even sooner with 9 more eps in May.

So then it seemed like, OKAY, so last 8 will be in Fall with the toy launch. Which would make sense. The toys... the show... before Christmas... sell ALL the toys. Right? ...Wrong apparently. This is where it starts getting kinda really weird. They claim it's scheduling etc.

But why the heck would you not want the series on (Least a couple eps even?) with your new toyline that you'd want to have sell truckloads of for Christmas??? Why the delay into the new year? Which I even questioned would actually happen in January... but now it seems it IS in fact gonna be back in January.

So. WHY? I have 0 knowledge of TV toys selling, so undoubtedly I could be entirely wrong, but my gosh, in terms of common sense? This utterly baffles me. And THEN we now know in Q1 MORE toys are even about to be released. More toys. During or just after the show, allegedly, ends? What???

What exactly is ITV's game plan here??? So that aside, some other small things I've noticed...

A lot thought that interview with both David's had David Graham confirming TAG's end... but uh... pretty sure he was saying they'd wrapped recording the voices for S3 given the Q asked. (Which of course, was done a REALLY long time ago for them when came to the second part of S3. lol)

Then digging a bit cause the Wiki was still reporting Graham said no more eps were being made, apparently a written interview with him was where he was quoted as saying that, but it was rather swiftly edited. No cap exists, unfortunately, to show so. Question is was it David being mistaken or was it an misquote by the site? (Goodness knows these things happen... Many of us older fans I’m sure recall the tiny blurb interview where Kayo’s VA suggested it was JOHN, rather than Alan, who had a thing for Kayo. It was either a slip by Kayo’s VA or a mistake by the article writer. lol) I think it says a lot that, if that DID really happen, it was DELETED rather than it being said.

Then there's an interview with the Fosters at a music event which they seemed to talk a little kinda endish... BUT when asked just after the recording for the finale of S3 if... It was THE END, the end and the reply was 'Certainly not!' and date wise, pretty sure that was after the interview at the music event was recorded. BUT then this was said over a year ago now, so who knows now.

Also in a People interview with Lee Majors he was kinda joking around but said, "If they go for a fourth season, which I hope they do, then maybe my part will have worked,” Majors jokes. “You’ll see how good I was if they don’t get picked up!”

Yeah, a 4th season didn’t seem to be happening when he was interviewed... but also making it apparent there was, at the time, some unknown-ness to TAG's future.

AND THEN there’s the plans for that theme park in Kent that they said they’d have "rides and attractions themed around ITV's Thunderbirds Are Go, and Robozuna" The later is still a fairly new show... but... TAG? It's def TAG they're wanting to use. That's AGAIN super interesting for a show that might be on the cusp of being done and would long be just in reruns by the time this park comes into being? Maybe it's not that weird at all. IDK. (Be awesome if happens!) But my common sense-a-meter is just all... *squints at ITV*

Tl;dr TAG might be over and imho it'll be understandable and doubt any failure. (Like. BTW. Richard Taylor compared making a season of TAG to making 6-7 Coraline's in a row in a year. If that's accurate... W O W. That's nuts, guys.) BUT... I've not seen commit to that's it. DONE.

Which is why my only speculation I'm really trying to present here at all is that I believe there might be some limbo going on... or least there has been. It might well be past tense at this point. There's just so many strange signals around. lol But generally towards the end of a show you see a huge loss of motivation, but we’ve been only seeing more build UP about it.

Ultimately, we’ll have to see what happens. TAGHQ is being SO specific that it is the ‘conclusion of season 3′ and well, I just posted on my main about ‘The Final Countdown’. (But if someone reading this didn’t see that... go google: final countdown europe lyrics XD I’m 99.9% sure it’s gonna be a reference to in-show happenings... not the show’s future. XD)

SO YEAH. These have been my observations. (OH and if anyone wants sources to what I've referenced, I'll be happy to provide. :|b )

#Thunderbirds Are Go #~Thunderbirds Are Go #(Observations and Speculation)#(and a whole lot of ITV what are you doing???)#(Sorry so long XD)#(There's been a lot to cover!)#(ITV's been doing a lotta things relating to TAG)#(A lotta kinda STRANGE things even)#(Things that make me squint at them lol)

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unproduciblesmackdown · 4 years

Note

let's do a classic Primez ask

thank you lol Prime Time is.....6 am is when im posting this, christ lol what else is new around here........Good Morning in advance lol and [rise and shine sailors it be monday]

2: Favorite book?

i don’t have one lol

3: Favorite fictional character?

i also don’t Properly have like, all-time ultimate Faves in these kind of categories either, but there’s still standouts at least lol......obviously lately it might show that i’m enjoying winston billions a lot, and natch that’s just One of the many wrol roles i’ve been glad to discover. natch winston, jared, and jeremy are fave raves amonth them

5: What’s your favorite fictional ship? (Canon or otherwise)

this is the same as the [fave fictional characters] thing in that like, sometimes i’ll Consume something where i don’t have any, and generally i’m out here multishipping and not like live or die by one Specific Pairing, if i like a character i’ll also probably like Many of their dynamic/s with various other characters, unless the options are That limited.......tying this in to the fave fictional character thing, re: winston, naturally tayston and benston, aka the fruits of us all combining our Genius, are top tier and here’s riawin where we don’t know for sure where it’s going but we’re getting some great Dynamic(tm) stuff anyways.....and natch re: jared i Enjoy Kleinsen (as something to make up ideas about that are outside canon and also as a perspective thru which to analyze canon) and re: jeremy.....stagedorks is beautiful, wild to have canon just give you some content that’s already as good as that

7: List 3 negative traits you have

well i can be fairly anxious about certain things, which is mostly negative for me lol.........a more negative 2-way street is that i’m just generally in defensive mode around people lol, often i’m like, just trying to avoid Attention entirely and/or like uh oh attention, gotta try to just avoid taking damage from it lol.......on a gradual journey to just being default More Unpleasant / less accommodating lmao......not that i can’t be sometimes, or that i can’t be Genuinely Friendly with randos coz i like their vibe and actually Like socializing lol.........and then re: the challenges of socializing, it seems like maybe when i’m in an interaction i get caught up in [uh oh how do i Respond a) at all b) in a way that’s Good(tm)] and it maybe makes me less attentive to the other person / a worse Listener smh

11: How do you decide when it’s time to cut someone out of your life for good?

idk luckily it’s not something i’ve had to do left and right lol.......but ime it’s Also not exactly like. usually a “ah Now Is The Time to have zero relationship with this person” and most often it’s like [gradual distancing period that is mostly passive] and/or just choosing Not to reinitiate any sort of relationship........though re: more active approaches lol it’s more like. time to try to tune into my [does this feel like something indefinitely sustainable / something you actually Want to have continue in any way] gauge or whatevs. and then still it’s like, sometimes easier if moments happen to come along that provide an [opt out?] choice presented to you kinda lol.........if it’s someone You don’t want to be involved with really but they don’t feel the same and it’s “on you” to decide to peace out at some point it’s more difficult coz such [do you want to opt out]-distilled Moments probably don’t seem to manifest but i think that’s a useful thing to be aware of in itself........i.e. that there’s not always going to be a Narrative-Friendly “point of no return” / clear Line Being Crossed and even if it Doesn’t feel like “i can’t / don’t want to deal with this for Literally one more day” that doesn’t mean you should totally stick it out / don’t have enough reason to decide that you are Done at this particular moment even if you haven’t been Done prior or think you plausibly hold off on it. don’t need to have some kind of story where you think if you Explained it to anyone or everyone it’d universally be understood and everything would applaud like “Yes, the Right Decision” lmao like. not their business....

13: What are your favorite lyrics currently?

well with our groupchat in the replies to that Eternally Crying Over The Bar Song post..........just enjoy the “stay here for a while / cuz it’s nice / cuz it’s holy” part of the refrain, a fun part of the music, and that classic iconis like, lyrics being in a sort of character Voice and yet getting the idea / feelings across effectively even when the words are sort of general or simple.......”shooting from the heart / but we’re all a lousy shot” is great lol and also “say you will always be here” ending with “for one more” is like, there’s another Broader Idea / Sentiment expressed so effectively :’|

17: If you could make a wish, what would you wish for if you knew it would come true?

i can’t do any fun answers lmao it’d just be like [political commentary] but that’s warranted lbr

19: How do you handle heartbreak? Is it something that’s easy for you to get over, or something you struggle with?

lmao i think it is like By Definition not easy for anyone to get over / Not struggle with.........can’t say i’ve had Romantic Misadventures exactly but uh yeah it feels bad to feel bad but i like......wait it out???? idk lmao you can’t really just timeskip past.....Heartbreak Sucks For Everyone Cuz That’s Kind Of The Whole Thing

23: What do you want your future to be like?

pandemic-less, fascism-less........i can’t say i’ve ever been someone like “yea i Know what i want to do and have this whole plan set out how i’m gonna do it lol” i remember when i was like 4 or 5 or whatever being asked What Do You Want To Do When You Grow Up and i was like “shit idk.......i like dinosaurs so i guess paleontologist??” and it was as much a mystery going forward.........always and still mostly playing things by ear with a few vague “if / then” type ideas......aren’t we all though ig

29: Do you think zodiac signs can influence someone’s personality to an extent?

what do i know but i Don’t like or respect the recent years trend ppl being way into it like this isn’t [being really serious about hogwarts houses] or Earnest Myer Briggs Types energy that everyone’s bringing to it......like what are you getting out of trying to be this Prescriptive based on when ppl’s parents got into it. meanwhile i’ve been on the edge of my seat since someone tweeted about “when will we get the first astrology discrimination lawsuit” re: a story about ppl wanting a housemate with a certain sign for compatibility reasons. and like again if it Is like “yes there are time-of-year Personality Types for Objective Real” like. okay, still, what is this Approach that ppl have....doing for anyone.....

31: What does ‘self care’ look like for you?

not very fancy lol i’ll be like “damn i think i haven’t eaten today” and then do it......or be like hey here i’m gonna Do A Stretch or some shit. walk around. step outside if it’s nice. both true that Self Care has inherent limitations re: like we can’t just cancel out all the detriments to our wellbeing via Personal Choices and yet also we can’t Not look out for ourselves how we can......i’ll watch something that i Enjoy. or just knock out if it’s like “christ i need a mood reset” or i’m trying to timeskip through a headache. pet a cat. i like to try to be Appreciative of everyday ordinary shit......also messing around Making Stuff whether drawings or otherwise can be a good helpful use of time, i like talking to people who i like talking to, and other stunning stuff like that lol

37: Have you ever been surprised by someone staying in your life?

not really lol coz again with how i’m pretty slow to realize that someone is like, nonzero actively interested in interacting with me on a regular basis, and then once someone’s In My Life there’s no particular point where i go “whoa....You’re still here??”......ig sometimes there’s like, Friendly Acquaintances where it’d be Unsurprising if they just sort of dropped fully out of the orbit but they do not

41: How do you show you care?

hmm i sure like to do ppl favors / give them gifts / help them out w/ whatever, hang out / generally be Around them where like, doing [parallel tasks] works i.e. maybe we’re doing different things but in the same room.....just like to Talk and all and listen to ppl and Learn Things About Them, try to pick up stuff re: ways that ppl express like “hey to me it conveys Being Cared About when ppl do ___”........food/cooking is a love language......that thing where shit you’d be way too anxious to do on your own For Yourself is like, oh i’m absolutely gonna do it on behalf of someone i care about.......all this stuff is more like, Possible in person lmao rip. i Care you guys

43: Which of the seven deadly sins do you feel represents you the most?

who is your hellsona and what is their origin story (how they got condemned to hell).........if i’m irritable / argumentative am i wrathful? you could presumably someone saying yep it is inherently the one deadly sin of lust if you’re queer.......at any given time i’m passed out and dreaming about “fuck capitalism and the protestant work ethic” and that’s sloth i guess. and okay i went “who named an animal after a The Deadly Sin as if it’s like ‘wow fuck this animal for choosing not to zoom around as though they could and i apparently think that they should’ tf” and in looking it up i immediately learned the Sloth Fact that apparently their shits are insane and also the most dangerous thing they do?? like they poop only maybe once a week and All At Once so that a single dump might knock off a third of their total weight........and it’s pretty much the only time they leave the upper branches of trees, in that they crawl down to hold on to the trunk and take this monster shit and naturally they’re not great on the ground so Pooping is like the leading cause of death for sloths in the wild. and i think they ought to be named after that.

47: What are you passionate about?

oh man [i am passionate a lot.mp3] lol.........always having a variety of Interestes which i like to talk about / potentially make things about.......decent amount of subjects i like to learn things about even if i’m bad at like, actually learning things generally lmao, what’s Not losing focus on shit.......idk it’s not that hard for me to like go off about Whatever, got these jack of all trades interests / areas of Some knowledge, i’m opinionated and probably have something (extensive) to say about anything as just part of my charm lol, and just in general i can get Enthused / worked up about things..........also passionate about various [niche gay shit] things eternally. whoms among us isn’t

#let's see if my genius plan of [lie down and try to nap and also try to wake up circa noon] works.....#employed that the other day Yet Also was like ''i Will finish this drawing today'' which entailed staying up till like 7-8am so.......

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sweetpxsin · 5 years

Text

Stray Kids As Fanboys

Request: @sy-zygy-zacker

Member: Strays Kids

Plot: Can I please have a Stray Kids scenarios where the roles are switched and you’re an idol while the members are your fanboys?

Genre: fluff

Note: should I make another one where they’re idols yet a fan of you and is your significant other? Also I made them friends in this dog if they’re mentioned in each other’s that’s why

[ Masterlist ]

[ C H A N ]

•Sorry did you hear something?

•oh wait that was Chan already arranging a cover of your newest song

•this boy is a dedicated coverist and some day hopes you’ll notice one of them

•and when you do he will actually die no lie

•other fans will probably demand a collab tbh

•but he’s also a really soft stan, that stays up just to watch your lives

•like sleep who? My ulti is calling me

•would rather go to a fan meeting and have a casual conversation with you

•but still would get lit at a concert if he had the chance to go

•gets flustered and soft when other fans ship him with you or say how they believe he has the talent to collab with you

•if he goes live on Instagram he can go on and on about how much admires you and your talent

•probably also as your music playing has background music 25/8

[ W O O J I N ]

•a real chill and lowkey fan that everyone can get along with

•and is also that one fan you can’t tell is a fan until you look into his phone

•or hear him singing one of your songs

•but he’ll post him singing one of your songs ever once and while on his instagram

•isn’t really keen on collecting albums only the ones he really likes

•and he keeps them safe and sound far from the little monsters *cough* maknae line *cough*

•probably also is the type to get decent seats at the concert like not VIP but also not the far way seats

•truly admires your talent and is probably the main reason why he stans

•but also cause he’s a whole ass hoe for you but you didn't hear that from me

•like not to be nsfw but just cause he’s a lowkey stan doesn’t mean he doesn’t rant about how much he wants to hold your hand and cuddle with you

•and if he does feel like going to a fan meet he’s totally the soft most sweetest stan

[ M I N H O ]

•I don’t know what it is about him that makes me believe he’d end up being your backup dancer (note the sarcasm)

•like he went from being a bts back up dancer to being one of your backup dancers

•and even though he tries not to show it half of the time he got heart eyes for you

•but it never gets weird because you both know how to joke around

•and mostly because you can count on walking in on him dancing’s to your dances but crackhead ver.

•uwu’s everytime you give him a signed album or when you want to take a picture with him for your instagram

•Literally that one fan everyone wishes they could be

•probably posts some shit like “Dreaming to take a pic with your fav, can’t relate”

•he doesn’t even need tickets to your concerts dafuq

•might visit you during fansigns because he missed you

•d*spatch is also ultimately confused with his relation with you

[ C H A N G B I N ]

•super soft stan but will have absolutely no problem clowning on some of your wardrobe decisions

•probably calls you dumb but only cause he loves you

•occasionally has soft hours for you

•and when he does he goes off sis, like a whole as spam story with paragraphs about how much he adores you

•”I am: devastated they’re so cute” to “why do I stan an idiot”

•is super shy and awkward during fan meets and might just use his aegyo voice on accident

•blushes so hard when you hold his hand

•and can barely answer your questions he’s so captivated

•still claims he’s a hard stan

•is also probably that one stan that performs your songs with a hairbrush in his bedroom or bathroom

•also isn’t too crazy about merch so if he really wants an album he’s gonna buy it

•otherwise he’s really saving for those VIP tickets bro

[ H Y U N J I N ]

•another pretty chill fan but it’s a bit more obvious that he’s a fan

•only because all his friends know he’s basically in love you

•one mention of your name, or look at you and he’s a shy boi uwu

•will probably get caught staring at you during a concert or fan meet with just a huge smile on his face

•and if you ask if he’s shy during a fan meet because he’s not saying anything, and make eye contact with him, he will look away shyly and freeze (y’all know how jinyoung caught his fanboy stare yeah like that)

•his friends laugh at his “misery” which is basically him uwuing at how soft, talented, rude, etc, you are

•tries to hoe around but somehow always gets pulled back to you for being his ulti

•but that’s okay because he’s the absolute softest for you

•hides his stack of merch in his closet because he doesn’t want to admit he has a problem

•probably knows all your dances and if theres back up dancers he’s gonna learn they’re part

•cause you never know man life might just be fair

•lowkey dreams of dancing next to you one day

[ J I S U N G ]

•that one fan that yells at everyone to shut up when you have a comeback

•will actually scream, cry and go through a rollercoaster of emotion only to tweet “my wig is snatched”

•it’s hard to tell if he’s a soft stan or a hard stan

•but you’re the reason for his lack of sleep, sudden drop in grades and poorness

•that one fan that’s scream crying the lyrics during a concert

•and will probably act like nothing happened afterwards

•usually the one fan screaming in your comment section

•but then tries to act cool and chic during a fan sign but is just shy

•even though he’s a lot softer for you than he’d like to admit

•dies a little in happiness when you touch his hand and won’t wash it till Chan forces him oops won’t wash it till Chan forces him oops

•probably owns more than just your official merch

•that one fan that will literally throw money at your management

•if he’s home alone you can bet he’s jamming out to your songs probably breaking his back

[ F E L I X ]

•he’s the one that makes meme/crack videos of you

•it’s his job to catch every one of your meme faces

•but that’s the reason why he stans and loves you even more

•besides the fact he could totally go on about why he loves, stans and appreciates your goofy ass he really likes your music

•and is probably that one fan that captions his instagram story with “don’t touch me” over a picture of him staring off into the distance when you have a comeback

•he’s not really afraid to admit that you inspire him and that he’s totally in love with you

•if he ever had the chance to go to a fan meet he’d be super soft and smiley the whole time

•probably might even give you a small plushie that has one of your meme faces on it

•giggles like a little school girl if you hold his hand

OH or if you mention how much you love his freckles uwu

•either way you’re both whipped for each other after it

[ S E U N G M I N ]

•makes it a know fact that he knows all your songs, eras and dances

•that one bis that will correct fans and starts it with an “actually…”

•really though he’s a soft stan that’s just trying to make covers for his fave

•but if a hater tries some shit he’ll cut a bitch

•still a really cute and shy fan tho

•he gets really excited when he meets other fans of you

•doesn’t wanna admit he probably fanboys more than he’d like to

•stutters when he sees you during a fan meet because wow your so kind and funny

•is a little too shy to have soft hours on his instagram story but when he does it’s the purest most fluffiest

•probably owns all of your albums digitally and physically

•and super proud about it but literally no one is allowed to touch them

•not even woojin

[ J E O N G I N ]

•the softest stan everyone wishes they are

•is the type of fan to post a fan picture of you on his story admiring how pretty/handsome and soft you are uwu

•and probably gets shipped with you because of it

•isn’t really that crazy for merch but might treat himself with an album or two

•if he ever got the chance to go to a fan meet he’d probably get you a cute little plushie in hopes you can keep it

•also gets really shy and can't stop smiling because he can’t believe he’s meeting his fave

•is a caring little bean and will ask if you ate or rested well •you might as well just be whipped because he’s just so cute

•might post small covers of your songs on his social

•if he’s at a concert all he’s either hyped asf or admiring you

•honestly the purest stan you could ask for

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