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hexalt · 4 years

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CW for discussion of suicide

- She's the crazy ex-girlfriend - What? No, I'm not. - She's the crazy ex-girlfriend - That's a sexist term! - She's the crazy ex-girlfriend - Can you guys stop singing for just a second? - She's so broken insiiiiiide! - The situation's a lot more nuanced than that!

There’s the essay! You get it now. JK.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the culmination of Rachel Bloom’s YouTube channel (and the song “Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury” in particular where she combined her lifelong obsession with musical theatre and sketch comedy and Aline Brosh McKenna stumbling onto Bloom’s channel one night while having an idea for a television show that subverted the tropes in scripts she’d been writing like The Devil Wears Prada and 27 Dresses.

The show begins with a flashback to teenage Rebecca Bunch (played by Bloom) at summer camp performing in South Pacific. She leaves summer camp gushing about the performance, holding hands with the guy she spent all summer with, Josh Chan. He says it was fun for the time, but it’s time to get back to real life. We flash forward to the present in New York, Rebecca’s world muted in greys and blues with clothing as conservative as her hair.

She’s become a top tier lawyer, a career that she doesn’t enjoy but was pushed into by her overprotective, controlling mother. She’s just found out she’s being promoted to junior partner, and that’s just objectively, on paper fantastic, right?! ...So why isn’t she happy? She goes out onto the streets in the midst of a panic attack, spilling her pills all over the ground, and suddenly sees an ad for butter asking, “When was the last time you were truly happy?” A literal arrow and beam of sunlight then point to none other than Josh Chan. She strikes up a conversation with him where he tells her he’s been trying to make it in New York but doesn’t like it, so he’s moving back to his hometown, West Covina, California, where everyone is just...happy.

The word echoes in her mind, and she absorbs it like a pill. She decides to break free of the hold others have had over her life and turns down the promotion of her mother’s dreams. I didn’t realize the show was a musical when I started it, and it’s at this point that Rebecca is breaking out into its first song, “West Covina”. It’s a parody of the extravagant, classic Broadway numbers filled with a children’s marching band whose funding gets cut, locals joining Rebecca in synchronized song and dance, and finishing with her being lifted into the sky while sitting on a giant pretzel. This was the moment I realized there was something special here.

With this introduction, the stage has been set for the premise of the show. Each season was planned with an overall theme. Season one is all about denial, season two is about being obsessed with love and losing yourself in it, season three is about the spiral and hitting rock bottom, and season four is about renewal and starting from scratch. You can see this from how the theme songs change every year, each being the musical thesis for that season.

We start the show with a bunch of cliché characters: the crazy ex-girlfriend; her quirky sidekick; the hot love interest; his bitchy girlfriend; and his sarcastic best friend who’s clearly a much better match for the heroine. The magic of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is that no one in West Covina is the sum of their tropes. As Rachel says herself, “People aren’t badly written, people are made of specificities.”

The show is revolutionary for the authenticity with which it explores various topics but for the sake of this piece, we’ll discuss mental health, gender, Jewish identity, and sexuality. All topics that Bloom has dug into in her previous works but none better than here.

Simply from the title, many may be put off, but this is a story that has always been about deconstructing stereotypes. Rather than being called The Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, where the story would be from an outsider’s perspective, this story is from that woman’s point of view because the point isn’t to demonize Rebecca, it’s to understand her. Even if you hate her for all the awful things she’s doing.

The musical numbers are shown to be in Rebecca’s imagination, and she tells us they’re how she processes the world, but as she starts healing in the final season, she isn’t the lead singer so often anymore and other characters get to have their own problems and starring roles. When she does have a song, it’s because she’s backsliding into her former patterns.

While a lot of media will have characters that seem to have some sort of vague disorder, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend goes a step further and actually diagnoses Rebecca with Borderline Personality Disorder, while giving her an earnest, soaring anthem. She’s excited and relieved to finally have words for what’s plagued her whole life.

When diagnosing Rebecca, the show’s team consulted with doctors and psychiatrists to give her a proper diagnosis that ended up resonating with many who share it. BPD is a demonized and misunderstood disorder, and I’ve heard that for many, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the first honest and kind depiction they’ve seen of it in media. Where the taboo of mental illness often leads people to not get any help, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend says there is freedom and healing in identifying and sharing these parts of yourself with others.

Media often uses suicide for comedy or romanticizes it, but Crazy Ex-Girlfriend explored what’s going through someone’s mind to reach that bottomless pit. Its climactic episode is written by Jack Dolgen (Bloom’s long-time musical collaborator, co-songwriter and writer for the show) who’s dealt with suicidal ideation. Many misunderstood suicide as the person simply wanting to die for no reason, but Rebecca tells her best friend, “I didn’t even want to die. I just wanted the pain to stop. It’s like I was out of stories to tell myself that things would be okay.”

Bloom has never shied away from heavy topics. The show discusses in song the horrors of what women do to their bodies and self-esteem to conform to beauty standards, the contradiction of girl power songs that tell you to “Put Yourself First” but make sure you look good for men while doing it, and the importance of women bonding over how terrible straight men are are near and dear to her heart. This is a show that centers marginalized women, pokes fun at the misogyny they go through, and ultimately tells us the love story we thought was going to happen wasn’t between a woman and some guy but between her and her best friend.

I probably haven’t watched enough Jewish TV or film, but to me, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the most unapologetic and relatable Jewish portrayal I’ve seen overall. From Rebecca’s relationship with her toxic, controlling mother (if anyone ever wants to know what my mother’s like, I send them “Where’s the Bathroom”) to Patti Lupone’s Rabbi Shari answering a Rebecca that doesn’t believe in God, “Always questioning! That is the true spirit of the Jewish people,” the Jewish voices behind the show are clear.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend continues to challenge our perceptions when a middle-aged man with an ex-wife and daughter realizes he’s bisexual and comes out in a Huey Lewis saxophone reverie. The hyper-feminine mean girl breaks up with her boyfriend and realizes the reason she was so obsessed with getting him to commit to her is the same reason she’s so scared to have female friends. She was suffering under the weight of compulsory heterosexuality, but thanks to Rebecca, she eventually finds love and friendship with women.

This thread is woven throughout the show. Many of the characters tell Rebecca when she’s at her lowest of how their lives would’ve never changed for the better if it wasn’t for her. She was a tornado that blew through West Covina, but instead of leaving destruction in her wake, she blew apart their façades, forcing true introspection into what made them happy too.

Rebecca’s story is that of a woman who felt hopeless, who felt no love or happiness in her life, when that’s all she’s ever wanted. She tried desperately to fill that void through validation from her parents and random men, things romantic comedies had taught her matter most but came up empty. She tried on a multitude of identities through the musical numbers in her mind, seeing herself as the hero and villain of the story, and eventually realized she’s neither because life doesn’t make narrative sense.

It takes her a long time but eventually she sees that all the things she thought would solve her problems can’t actually bring her happiness. What does is the real family she finds in West Covina, the town she moved to on a whim, and finally having agency over herself to use her own voice and tell her story through music.

The first words spoken by Rebecca are, “When I sang my solo, I felt, like, a really palpable connection with the audience.” Her last words are, “This is a song I wrote.” This connection with the audience that brought her such joy is something she finally gets when she gets to perform her story not to us, the TV audience, but to her loved ones in West Covina. Rebecca (and Rachel) always felt like an outcast, West Covina (and creating the show) showed her how cathartic it is to find others who understand you.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the prologue to Rebecca’s life and the radical story of someone getting better. She didn’t need to change her entire being to find acceptance and happiness, she needed to embrace herself and accept love and help from others who truly cared for her. Community is what she always needed and community is what ultimately saved her.

P.S. If you have Spotify... I also process life through music, so I made some playlists related to the show because what better way to express my deep affection for it than through song?

CXG parodies, references, and is inspired by a lot of music from all kinds of genres, musicals, and musicians. Same goes for the videos themselves. I gathered all of them into one giant playlist along with the show’s songs.

A Rebecca Bunch mix that goes through her character arc from season 1 to 4.

I’m shamelessly a fan of Greg x Rebecca, so this is a mega mix of themselves and their relationship throughout the show.

I’m in a TV group where we wrote essays on our favorite shows of the 2010s, so here is mine on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, I realized I forgot to ever post it. Also wrote one for Schitt’s Creek.

#crazy ex girlfriend #crazyexedit #cxg #ceg #crazy ex gf #writing #mine #mental illness #bpd #mental health #spotify #music #playlist #essay #*

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almostreading · 4 years

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How I Use Notion

It has been asked and I finally have enough things to do for this to make at least some sense. This is going to be long so strap in.

I used to have way more things on notion, but I have really pulled it back to just the essentials that I actually use and need, because I felt like if I was trying to use too many pages, I ended up using none of them. My number one rule for notion is to just try everything out and do what works for you

My home page is very simple, and also the categories are very arbitrary and probably only make sense to me. But the point of notion is to do what works for you.

A weekly page is probably the most common and at least my most used page. At the beginning of the week I dump every single class, event and meeting I have in my calendar on here. On top of that I write down possible deadlines, and then start working around all of those to figure out what I need to get done and when. I add to this as the week goes on.

I really prefer breaking everything down to the smallest possible task. That’s why I have things like “read p&d material” and “make p&d notes” instead of just “do p&d”, because small and specific tasks are much easier to start and get done.

For some reason my weekly plan also includes my course schedules, even though they probably belong somewhere else. I color code the different subjects to make it easier to keep track of em. I usually try and plan all my semesters in advance at the beginning of the year to have at least some idea of what I can do and well. The planning is also usually done at 3 am but let’s not talk about it. Most of the time these plans change a lot, especially the ones done for the spring semester, and they are always more ambitious than what I can actually handle, but my (probably very bad) philosophy is to take more courses than I can do and then just drop them when I know which ones I actually like and which work for me.

My to-do page might seem very similar to my weekly page, but this is where I dump literally everything, not just things I need to do that week. The tasks are a little bigger, and it’s just to give me an overview of what I need to get done and when, and a little bit of what that might include. This is mostly uni related things because I have so many courses it gets hard to keep track of them sometimes.

Under the to-do page is also the love of my life aka this calendar where I mark down literally every deadline I have. I Usually give every course an emoji so that I don’t have to write down “political communications essay”, I can just write essay and add the emoji to that page, and it’s much easier to get an overall view of what needs to get done for which course and when. Believe it or not, this August view is actually pretty chill, and during the actual semesters this tends to be way more full.

The uni page is somewhat of a dumping ground for everything university related. It has my thesis sub page, which I would show you if it wasn’t such a clusterfuck. Basically I put everything relating to my thesis except the actual text I wrote in there. I had links to all my sources as well as detailed descriptions of all of them and tags of what each of them included, as well as direct quotes.. I had all my sourcebooks, descriptions and citations and every note I ever made. I also dumped all the text bits I took out of the final thesis in there because I couldn’t be bothered with making a word doc. It’s truly a mess.

The sources sub page is a dumping ground for every interesting history related website and database I find because.

The actual bulk of the uni page is just my whole degree laid out in checklists, so that I can keep up with what courses and course codes I still need to do, as well as which courses I am including in which codes, as sometimes history courses can be included in several different ones and I need to keep track of which ones I am using for which.

Food is a very rarely used pages which has links to restaurants I like and ones I want to go to because every time we wanna go eat none of my friends can come up with anything. It also has some dinner plan recipe ideas, though most of my recipes just live on pinterest

Jobs is somewhat similar to uni in that it just has everything relating to that topic. I have to-do list with all the interesting job listings and the dates when they close. I also have a massive list of different organisations and sites that have jobs for history students that I mostly just use to help my friends. I also screenshot every job listing I apply for to use at the job interviews, and all of those live on that page as well so that they don’t clutter my computer.

I think this is more of a “what my notion looks like” rather than a guide to using notion, but maybe it helps someone? Or at least you get a little sneak peak. If anyone wants any more specifics/advice on how I set anything up just sent me an ask/message and I’m happy to help.

#Notion #university #studyblr

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iammariatsmith · 4 years

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How To Add Creativity In Your PhD Thesis

A Ph.D. thesis is one of life’s greater accomplishments, and there is a lot to be said to people who have gotten far enough in their education to be doing their PhD thesis. These people have worked laboriously, day and night, missing vacations and major family time to achieve this. For those of you who don’t know, PhDs are hard and require ten times more effort than you probably ever put into college. There are many reasons why PhDs are so challenging, but one of the major reasons is the thesis. In order to complete your Ph.D. you need to submit a thesis that showcases your research into the field and sheds light on some information that can contribute to the field of your Ph.D. like a new discovery.

When writing an online essay writing or thesis at that level, it can be very difficult to write in a manner that can be understood by laymen, because the work must show academic integrity and the concepts that the work may aim to explain might prove to be too complex. That is why adding a new layer of creativity might seem a very difficult task. In order to make your thesis sound different, and in order to make it stand out you might feel compelled to add some creativity to it but you might also be afraid that you might undermine the actual value of your own work.

Steps to Write a Doctoral Thesis

When writing a doctoral thesis, you have to take into account the academic and scientific nature of the writing of the same, since the presentation of the results achieved in the research requires accuracy, clarity, and precision. In this sense, management of the rules of writing and spelling of the language in which the doctoral thesis is to be written is required, as well as the management of written submission standards in correspondence with the University where the study is being conducted. On many occasions, there are prejudices at the time of the writing of the doctoral thesis, although it is true it is arduous and complex work, it is also true that it is a pleasant work since it is about making your contributions in the field of science or in any discipline.

Research topic selection:

This is the fundamental step when starting to write a doctoral thesis since research depends on it. To carry out this step you must identify yourself with the research topic, so it must be born from the author’s need to transform, study, intervene, interpret, describe, etc. An existing reality that justifies the elaboration of the doctoral thesis in that field.

Tutor Selection:

It is very important that the tutor you choose to accompany the preparation of the doctoral thesis, has the knowledge in the subject addressed, but at the same time know about research methods and methodology, so that he can advise you in the preparation of the thesis.

Private Internal Regulations:

There are internal regulations in the many of the universities that describe the profile of the tutor, investigate what that profile is so that you choose a professional that fits this requirement. The choice of the tutor is essential since he is the one to guide you in the preparation of the thesis and, like the author, are responsible for the research.

Take these elements into consideration when starting with the writing of your doctoral thesis, do not lose sight of the requirements and requirements that your university has to do your doctoral thesis and always keep in mind that writing a doctoral thesis is a job that demands time, depth and dedication, but that leaves great satisfaction for having reached a high academic level.

If you want to solve your academic writing problems visit bestessaywritingservice.org

What is a Creative Thesis?

It is a common notion that creativity and academia do not belong together, if you believe in this too, then you have no business reading the rest of this article. Because here we will try and explore the various ways in which a Ph.D. thesis can be made creative without undermining the value of its academic contributions. It will be a very difficult task but it is not impossible. A creative thesis is really just you expressing your understanding of your doctoral subject and research through any medium necessary. While 10 years ago creative thesis was not that common, today there are several examples of creative thesis all around. People have submitted their thesis in all forms, some have made an entire thesis on video while others have created a web-based thesis, and others still have been able to submit their thesis in forms of comic books. So there really isn’t any limit to how far you can go, if your supervisor allows it.

What You Should Know

The first thing you want to do is find out your department’s policy on the medium of submission, and how open your supervisor is to the whole idea of bringing something new to the table. If your supervisor isn’t in support of you trying something different, consult other supervisors on the matter. Try and get an idea of just how rigid these rules are.

You should also understand that the more creative a thesis the greater the risk involved. You should be absolutely certain that you can express the ideas of your thesis clearly and articulately. If you can’t be absolutely certain of your expression, then don’t waste your time on it. You have probably worked hard on your thesis and you do not want to lose that knowledge you have gained over time just because you couldn’t express it properly.

You should also know that creating a creative thesis will take time and effort, and it will require planning ahead. This means that if you are already short on time you should not be trying to pull off a creative thesis, because it can do more harm than good. All in all, according to Helen Kara, more and more people are submitting a creative thesis and more and more faculty is supporting the notion of it.

How to Add Creativity

There are literally millions of ways to get creative with your thesis, and it really just depends on you and your creative energies. Remember Minecraft — the game, it too was a thesis submission. Can you imagine the possibilities you might have, here’s what we want you to know:

Deepen understanding of your topic:

In order to express yourself effectively, you need to make sure that you understand completely what you are going to be saying. The panel which will judge your thesis will probably have more experience than you and will criticize your work. In order to be able to defend your expression of it, you need to be sure that you understand what it is that you will be expressing and just how it can affect the subject. You might break new ground, or you might not, but you are going to have to be able to live with the consequences.

Deepen understanding of the form you will be using:

In order to effectively express yourself, you need to make sure you understand the art form you will be using. If you are going to be making a video documentary than you need to make sure that you understand all the elements that go into it. For example lighting, quality of audio and video, how best to capture your defined elements, etc. Understand the art form you will be using to ensure that you can defend your stance. Again, your method is unconventional and will need more defending than usual.

Conclusion

Writing a doctoral thesis becomes an act of learning, the product of an exhaustive investigation of a subject; as well as its permanent reflection. Writing a doctoral thesis is not simply an administrative requirement, but quite the opposite becomes an exercise of appropriation of knowledge, of appropriation of research techniques, where the coherence of ideas, its argument to communicate is expressed through its writing to others the results obtained in the investigation. For this reason, developing a doctoral thesis is an original and unprecedented act resulting from the confrontation of the reality of the object or subject of study, therein lies one of its importance and its contribution. At the same time, it is of the utmost importance, not losing sight of its scientific and academic character at the time of writing. To write a doctoral thesis, one of the rules in its writing, is that its writing is impersonal; so the third person singular is used; as well as its concrete and precise writing, this means bluntly in the manifestation of the ideas of the author of the thesis. That allows him to understand the reader as the jury evaluate the results achieved by the author. The creative thesis is becoming increasingly accepted in all fields, and If you feel like pulling one off, give it a shot by all means, but do understand the risks involved in it. With a creative thesis, it might difficult to get help by simply saying “write an essay for me” You will have to do better.

Read More: https://bestessaywritingservice.org/blog/add-creativity-phd-thesis/

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scuttleboat · 7 years

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tbh, I think the list scene was more about Bellamy and Clarke acknowledging their guilt and self-loathing than it being about not being able to live without the other. Bellamy hates himself enough that he flat out doesn't believe he should be on the list and Clarke couldn't even write her name down. Do you think it's a shipper interpretation to see the List scene being about them refusing to live without the other?

((I got the ages ago and never replied for whatever reason, but I’ll give it a shot today.))

The List Scene

That’s a pretty layered question, anon, and I’m gonna try to unpack it in a couple different ways. First let’s go with your opinion that the list scene is about their own self-loathing, being unable to put themselves on the list so they put each other. I think this is definitely the major thrust of the scene–particularly for Clarke. Bellamy accepts without argument that she wrote him down–in a way he probably was prepared for that because of her insistence in the earlier scene. He is willing to accept it if Clarke makes it so, because he trusts her. Clarke, for herself, CAN’T write her name because she feels so strongly that she’s taking away a seat from a more worthy person. But doing the list is her task, and she _wants_ to live. That’s why her guilt and conflict is so intense here, you can see she was listening to people work outside and looking at Bellamy (who in this moment is a symbol of her future with her loved ones if she writes her name). All of that is compounded and it breaks her heart, because she believes she’s not worthy, yet she wants to live. But also her wanting to live at the expense of others surely must be a selfish choice, thereby making her even more unworthy and creating a negative feedback loop.

Bellamy steps in then and does what she already did for him–he unburdens her. He makes the choice so that she doesn’t have to, going as far as taking the tool and completing the task on her behalf. It’s not a power thing, it’s a gift of emotional mercy. He is returning the gift she gave him by writing his name. It’s every bit as dramatic and magnetic as the choice to pull the lever together in Mount Weather. At that time, he was sharing the load she was determined but terrified to take on. In 403, they both take on the burden for each other. This lets them excuse each other from that final step of guilt–from the outside it probably looks selfish, like they’re just saving each other. And they ARE! We know that because someone in the crowd called out as much in 404, asking why Bellamy was listed. So this was a mutually selfish act as much as mutually generous. But…they’re human, and this is a terrible thing Clarke has been asked to do.

Fumbling through that pain and shame together is the best they can do, and it’s hard to condemn Clarke or Bellamy for wanting each other to live, or for wanting to live themselves. Especially on The 100, it’s a motive we all understand. The fact that Clarke and Bellamy both need outside validation that they still deserve to live is incredibly tragic and unfair. Life is a right.

That feeds me into my next point which is about not wanting to live without each other. This is tough because with two characters as emotionally entrenched as bellarke are, how do we draw the line between “he insists she must live” and “he can’t imagine a future without her in it”? Whoevers name goes first and the question becomes moot for the next. Clarke writes down Bellamy’s name because she sincerely believes that a) he deserves to live, b) he is of great necessary value to the group, and c) she cannot bear the idea of him not getting to live. Then its Bellamy’s turn and all those a, b, and c reasons stand for Clarke’s case too. He thinks she is worthy and he cannot tolerate a situation where she dies. Not because he needs her for his own happiness, but because he wants her to LIVE. Him being in the picture is valuable in as much as it gives him grounds to insist that she lives. They both use their influence to save the other.

We see this same scenario play out in 411. Clarke arranges for Bellamy to be kidnapped and taken inside the bunker (on the list). When he pushes her to open the doors, Clarke knows she can save her mom, herself, and all their other friends and loved ones but three people (3 out of 500, and 1 likely dead already). Clarke can tolerate the other two dead people being Kane and Octavia but she can’t handle if it means the third person who has to die for their safety is Bellamy. The person she prioritizes, the person she trusts, the person she loves. His death is a price she can’t pay, so she gives up and lets him decide.

As the grounders take back the bunker in 411/412, we see this again, where Bellamy assures Abby that no matter what he’ll make sure Clarke is safe inside the bunker once Octavia takes control. At this point, Clarke must have low expectation that she will make it through even if there’s a peaceful transition. Luckily the bloodbath she feared doesn’t happen. But Abby, and Bellamy are of course going to ensure she has a place. Because–this literally is not news–they love her. That’s not a shipping statement that is a reality of the characters. Bellamy’s love for Clarke is just as powerful as Abby’s love for her, or as his love for Octavia. Clarke’s love for Bellamy is a powerful as her love for Abby, or she would have taken that kill shot. Clarke and Bellamy are at a point now that to let their family member die or to let each other die is a zero sum game. They are both deeply and profoundly loved and it’s trust that saves them… Clarke decides it’s better to trust Bellamy’s call than to lose him because of fear.

So… I’ve wandered off topic, let’s bring it home. Yes, they both believe they don’t deserve to live. Yes, they both believe the other does and will fight for it, even letting that believe in each other outweigh their doubt in themselves. The big question then: is that the same as being unwilling to live without each other? It almost feels like we’re blurring the source vs the symptoms. The cause vs the consequences. When it comes down to it, I think Clarke’s love and Bellamy’s love are pure, unselfish loves. Bellamy is fine being off the list bc he’s confident she will be on it (as will his sister.) Clarke writes his name confidently because she wants him to have a future regardless of where she ends up (oh, that’s some for shadowing for the finale maybe). The love and faith that drives each of them to write down their names is unselfish—but the desire to also stay, to prioritize themselves, that’s the part where wanting a future with the other person comes in. And it’s there, in the wings… that hope of future with someone you love.

Ultimately I don’t know if their choice in the list scene is about worthiness or about love–i think it’s both. I think the two topics are so deeply entwined in Clarke and Bellamy’s approach to relationships–with each other and with themselves–that trying to parse all that is ultimately fruitless. Their refusing to live without each other is a consequence of them both being intolerant of a world where the other doesn’t get to survive. Love is unarguably at the root of both.

Shipper Interpretation

There’s one final part about your reply that I wanted to talk about. See beneath the cut…

You mentioned a “shipper interpretation”. There’s a thing in fandom that this phrase epitomizes, which is the idea that people interpret the scene(s) differently if they ship the characters or if they don’t. And the subsequent implication is that the POV of the acknowledged shipper is a biased POV, tainted by a preconceived assumption. The thesis there is that shippers can’t interpret the show objectively because they go into the show with expectations. That the opinion of shippers will always be somehow opposed to and inferior to that of non shippers. I believe part of that stems from “our ship must be canon bc then we win”, which makes the non shipper fan assume that the shipper doesn’t want to acknowledge story elements that suggest a situation where it’s not canon (and they don’t win). But that is a HUGELY inaccurate assumption, because “becoming canon” only matters to some shippers, not all. Depending on the fandom, it may not even be the majority. It’s true that the loudest online voices in The 100 fandom are obsessed with being canon (hi, it me!), but that doesn’t make us the biggest group. It just means we’re the loudest.

But back around–is it true that a “shipper interpretation” is automatically biased? Why? Certainly I’ve been in situations in all my fandoms where I think “shipper goggles” is a real thing. It seems like it’s real for The 100 a lot of the time. AND YET…. those shipper interpretations are proved right just as often as they’re proved wrong. Let’s look at Clexa for instance. Some people said that Clarke loved Lexa and others said that was a shipper interpretation–but in 307 and 316, the show makes it clear that Clarke did love Lexa both romantically and intensely. So… was believing “Clarke loves Lexa” a shipper interpretation? Or just accurately watching the show? Then take Clexa again–many people who weren’t shippers saw the heavy for shadowing of her death. But the shipper interpretation was that their love was “endgame” and it would be resolved somehow and even that Lexa would become a series regular. In that case… the shipping interpretation of all the 302-306 Clexa scenes was wrong. Lexa died, and their romance won’t be the one that the series ends on.

So if shippers can watch the show and be wrong and yet shippers can watch the show and be right, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN??? *Oprah_whatisthetruth.gif*

I think maybe it just means that people are people, you know? Watching a show from a shipping context doesn’t make your opinions any less valid than the next person. My brain didn’t get sucked out from between my ears once I started reading bellarke fic, and I’m sure yours didn’t either. I still would make the same story predictions even if I was not invested in a screen relationship, and at times I even triple-check my own reaction just to be sure that I’m not overly biasing myself.

We never know what’s going on in someone else’s thoughts. If they see the show a certain way, we can’t magically know if their perspective is biased or not. That’s life. We do our best to manage our own output; that’s all we truly can know. ….And yeah, we may get judgy at times. We’re all human and sometimes we read a post by an individual and think “OMG that POV is stupid and biased.” But that doesn’t mean that all shippers are wrong just bc they’re shippers. It’s easy to generalize fandom groups but it’s never wholly accurate to do so. People are people, individually and within communities.

#bellarke #bellarke fam #clarke griffin #the 100 meta #bellamy blake #the 100 fandom #if i'm on that list you're on that list #I'M SORRY THIS IS SO LONG #I ALMOST MADE TWO POSTS BUT THERE WAS A LOT I WANTED TO ADDRESS IN THIS ASK #ANYWAY IT'S UNDER A CUT NOW SO BEAR WITH ME #SOMETIMES I WRITE ESSAYS FROM MY PHONE

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pisati · 5 years

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I feel like I want to write something, but I don’t know what.

my thoughts always stray back to that one year, and those few years that followed, but not out of any kind of longing anymore. it was a lot that happened that was entirely new to me. there’s been so much nothing lately. and my tendency for the last few years to think back on the few good things had me replaying them over and over. it seems kind of hashed out at this point. what good does it do me to remember?

I barely remember it, at that. I barely remember yesterday. the only thing keeping my memory of 5 or so years ago fresh is timehop. I don’t even remember tweeting half the shit I tweeted last year. maybe since I’ve spent the last few years re-reading everything from years previous, that’s slightly more ingrained. most of each day going by is complaining about school work, trying to let out my thoughts on my metaphysics assignments so I could work through them (since I had nobody to talk to about it). the few tweets alluding to things that happened. I’m about to come up on 5 years since T and I were anything. timehop reminded me that this time two years ago he’d called me in an effort to stay more connected to his friends, and I was gutted to realize that I’d made his contact picture the picture of us at point state park, sitting on the edge of the fountain. charlotte had taken the picture; both of us blinded by the sunlight and the wind whipping my hair back across his face. I didn’t like the picture itself much but I looked so goddamn happy; of course I kept it. I had no recollection of even setting it as his contact photo, though, and I probably wouldn’t have remembered anyway, since what conversations we did have anymore were mostly through facebook messenger. but then he called.

I’m a little embarrassed now, thinking back. feeling so strongly over something that only lasted, what, 5 or so weeks? we hardly knew each other. we wouldn’t have worked out anyway. I spent so long in such a melancholy over him. I guess it’s just like that when it’s the first time anyone genuinely seems to give a shit about you. I really wasn’t keen on letting it go. going back to this. what has been this for the last 5 years. 5 years now. geez.

maybe a little bit of a weird analogy, but there’s that scene in that one old episode of spongebob where squidward travels forwards and backwards in time and when he tries to escape he breaks the time machine; things get real noisy and weird for a few seconds before it all disappears and goes silent. and there’s nothing. that’s kind of what this contrast feels like. so much, then nothing. it can feel like a relief at times, but at others the silence is deafening. the aloneness is so intensely magnified in it. where’s the time machine? where’s anything? where, where, where?

I do almost miss that filthy little house on 10th street. I had bought slippers with puppy heads on the fronts to wear around the house because I would have wanted to chop my own feet off touching those floors in bare feet. the day I moved in was the first time I saw it, and I cried, ha. I did what I could with it. I had moved in two days before my 19th birthday. I was so anxious I made myself sick from not eating. my one housemate was kind enough to take me to the store to get light foods I could eat, plus ginger ale. I could barely walk, I remember. we may have taken a walk on my birthday, and I felt so weak. once I got my room settled, though, it started to feel better. I remember everything still being a mess; I had hardly had the energy to put clothes away, and I had to go buy light-blocking curtains from walmart because the streetlight outside my window made my bedroom glow orange at night. but I remember curling up in bed next to my overflowing nightstand, and pulling out my copy of The Book Thief. I laid there and read and read. I latched on to the main character, seeing her through new eyes. she was so strong through so much adversity, at such a young age. she was frightened too. imagine having your whole world upended like that. that’s kind of what it felt like to me, anyway. she could do it. I could be like her.

that bed was fucking awful. we could only have furniture that our landlord provided, and it was all old, shitty furniture from god only knew where. my twin bedframe was low to the ground, I had I think a boxspring and a mattress, and it was so noisy. every time I moved it creaked. mom didn’t feel like buying me a new bed set either, so I had to make do with my XL twin set from my dorm. every few weeks I’d have to take everything off my bed and re-position the fitted sheet. I had so many goddamn pillows, but it wasn’t too big a deal, since up until the end of march I was the only one in my bed. the house was designed so poorly too. sometimes I ended up using the toilet with one foot up on the bathtub, because it was so tiny that I couldn’t sit comfortably without hitting my knees or sitting at an angle. I learned to appreciate the spiders that made their webs in the corners above the tub. sometimes it smelled like cigarettes; probably because kids would smoke behind our house and my roommate would turn the fan on when he showered. I swear the kitchen floor was at an angle. the time the construction workers tore out our front stoop with no warning and we had to start using the side door that we shared with the driveway for the pizza place next door; I remember being afraid I’d forget the step down and fall on one of the delivery cars. we didn’t know when trash day was so we’d just put our trash in the pizza place’s dumpster. I’m sure we weren’t supposed to, but nobody said anything.

so many good small-town memories. just nice things to look back on, you know? so sometimes it’s nice to just sit in it. remember the uncomfortable heat. the smell of the shampoo and conditioner that came in those huge pump bottles. the apple cinnamon glade candles I used to make my room smell less like the rest of the dirty old house; that very distinct smell. how the walk to my nearest class was literally across the street, rather than 20 minutes. the walk down to carriage house at three in the morning; looking up and seeing the moon; feeling like we shared some late-night secret. drunk sheetz, hot chocolate and everything bagels from the starbucks at folger hall. so many hours in rehearsal; the echoes in the stairwell down to the bass/cello storage room. commonplace. midnight jesus cakes. the feeling of pure joy I got from knowing my professors genuinely enjoyed teaching me and that I genuinely enjoyed learning from them; how they pushed me to reach higher, even if it was away from them. how my orchestra professors were sad I was leaving; I was such a mediocre cellist but they just enjoyed having a non-major so invested in it. I can’t even describe the feeling I got when I visited my old philosophy department the fall after I graduated from UMD, and my first philosophy professor remembered me and was so thrilled that I got such a good education at the school where he got his PhD. he knew I was going to do well there; he wrote my letter of recommendation that I’m sure got me accepted. he even stopped the department director in the hall, and she remembered me too, even though she’d only taught one of my classes for half the semester, covering for my professor who’d had surgery. she knew I’d wanted to transfer, but put in the paperwork for my philosophy minor anyway. I was happy that she seemed genuinely happy to hear I’d done so well too. I couldn’t even believe she remembered me.

things are really different on campus now; they’ve torn down some old buildings that I’d had classes in and built new ones. the philosophy department is in one of the new buildings; it used to be in the administration building, and I’d tutored symbolic logic there. one day I think I was waiting in an office for anyone from my class to show up and I heard cello music coming from downstairs; there’s a recital hall in that building as well, and I knew I recognized my orchestra’s first-chair cellist practicing. I remember sitting there, smiling to myself, thinking good on you, Steve, it sounds great. that was the building I got my acceptance letter in. standing in one of the side hallways, they called each of our names and handed us envelopes with our decisions in them. it’s a very unique acceptance program; the only university I know of where you can do very early admissions, like, early October, when typical early acceptances don’t start going out until late winter or early spring, if you bring all your physical application materials to campus and they tour you around while your application gets reviewed. I remember being nervous to open my letter, even though I didn’t have a doubt I’d get in. mom started crying as soon as she saw me smile; I think it was more my baby got into college than oh thank god, at least my dumbass kid can get in somewhere, ha. I was just relieved it was over and done with. I still have my letter, I think. dated October 10th, 2011. it congratulates me on my acceptance into the school of health and human services with the intention to study interior design. how far we’ve come, hm?

these things, I remember. I’m not sure how that works. my long-term memory is better, I think. sometimes. maybe it’s because I made those memories before things got bad. they were formed properly. stored properly. at least, more so than now. I remember the topics of my midterm and final thesis papers in both philosophy of language and metaphysics, 6 and 5 years ago, respectively, but hell if I can remember anything I did three days ago.

I guess it’s time to sleep, though. I took a little nap earlier which was a mistake, so now I’m up at 5am. such is life.

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