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kurt-wagner-official · 4 months

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Post #106: XF issues 24-26

Finally we're here, starting with X-Factor. They've just been teleported onto Apocalypse's ship, where he greets them and says he's been watching them and is planning to test them. Scott tells them to go with plan 383 and they attack. Simonson often writes Scott in battles like this, like a coach calling out plays. It's a small detail that for me adds a lot both to Scott's personality and to the history and familiarity between these people. As he takes them all down, Apocalypse monologues about how he's been sowing destruction in the world for thousands of years to push evolution forward. He commends X-Factor for sowing hatred between humans and mutants. They're appalled that a villain is so proud of them and declare once and for all that they'll give up the mutant hunter ruse. Honestly, I think that development has been too dragged out, but I get why Simonson wanted to wait until the Fall of the Mutants to make it happen. Apocalypse brings out the Horsemen, minus Death. As Hank faces Pestilence again, Apocalypse tells him that her touch, combined with the experiments Artie's dad did on him, are slowly increasing his strength while damaging his mind. Although she didn't know it here, Simonson is setting the direction for Hank's character for the entire 21st century- a genius driven by the fear of mental regression. Finally, Apocalypse reveals Death. Scott is disgusted, saying that Warren stood for peace and life, and Death's wings are an insult to his memory. But then Death takes off his mask and reveals the truth. Unable to fight their friend, X-Factor is quickly defeated by him and imprisoned until they agree to serve Apocalypse. Caliban takes the offer, joining up with the villain in exchange for the same power enhancements he gave Warren, so he can kill the Marauders. The rest of our heroes watch helpless as Apocalypse sends the Horsemen out into the world to destroy Manhattan.

Apocalypse keeps on monologuing, taunting the heroes with how Hodge manipulated them. He says that what made him finally come out of the shadows was the Mutant Registration Act, which he views as a call to war between humans and mutants. He believes Xavier's dream has failed and they must give it up to survive. Unfortunately for him, when he designed the shackles that hold X-Factor he didn't realize how much Hank and Bobby's powers have been growing, so they break free and start fighting again. Apocalypse, a petty bitch, is like "fine if you love your humans so much go save them" and hits a lever that makes the floor disappear. Hank and Bobby manage to hold on, but Scott and Jean plummet to Manhattan below, where they see the Horsemen. They kiss and spring into action. Because we have to set up tie-ins in all the other non-X books, Pestilence flees into the subway tunnels and they lose track of her. Famine beats Jean pretty badly, and as a reward Apocalypse teleports her to the Midwest so she can destroy a bunch of farms. During that brief fight she reveals her backstory, which is that her parents gave her an eating disorder so now she wants the whole world to starve, which is an absolutely wild motivation that probably should not have made it past the editors. Meanwhile, Scott is doing better against War while they debate philosophy, soldier to soldier. Simonson is really on a roll with Scott recently. He forces War into a retreat across the sky on his flying horse machine and reunites with Jean. Up on the ship, Hank and Bobby continue their attack on Apocalypse in vain, but manage to destroy the ship stabilizers. It begins to fall through the city, destroying buildings. Scott and Jean head towards it to try to stop it and run into Death. Jean begs Scott to try to reach Warren, but Scott has turned off his emotions to deal with the pain, and forces himself to view Warren as just another enemy soldier. When the ship crashes into the Empire State Building, Power Pack shows up. Jean and whichever PP member has the gravity powers (I don't remember if they switched again) hold up the antenna while Scott and the others fight of Pestilence, who's come back (she was just hanging out in a Power Pack tie-in that I guess continued directly into this). Death comes along and slices the antenna in half, making Jean lose grip. Half of it smashes into Pestilence, killing her. Scott tells the kids to go out and save lives in the city while he and Jean take Pestilence's horse back to the ship, where Apocalypse, impressed with Hank and Bobby's displays of power, has brought War and Death back up to fight them. Now with their second wind, X-Factor takes out War pretty quickly, but can't- or in Jean's case, won't- get any clean hits on Death. Bobby has an idea, and makes an ice statue of himself that Death shatters. The shock is able to shake Apocalypse's brainwashing off and bring back Warren, who turns on Apocalypse. Bobby's whole thing recently is he wants people to judge mutants by their actions, not their identity, and here he forced Warren to judge himself by his own actions instead of his vague philosophical rambling. Apocalypse is pleased with Warren's strength of mind and the conviction and ingenuity of X-Factor, so he grabs War and Caliban and flies off, leaving his ship as a gift for his enemies, which he believes will force them to continue evolving. X-Factor don't know how to fly it, but they manage to steer their crash landing to land on their own headquarters, destroying it. They invite Warren back to the team, but he tells them that he didn't attempt suicide, and Cameron Hodge actually planted the bombs on his plane. He hoped that his friends would come to find him, but instead it was Apocalypse. A bunch of reporters show up and are like "what the hell" and X-Factor officially reveals their secret. After 20 issues of buildup, half of which were basically just stalling till they could make it official, the mutant hunters organization is finally dead and buried. Thank God.

Never a moment to rest, X-Factor springs into action when a fire breaks out in a nearby building, except for Warren, who's going full edgelord and flies off dramatically. The cops approach Apocalypse's ship, which they just left there, and find that force fields prevent any humans from entering it. From one of his backup secret bases, Apocalypse, along with War, Caliban (the new death), and Famine, who has returned after fighting Captain America and friends in a tie-in, watch on their big evil screens and laugh evilly. X-Factor is racing through the city, saving lives as the structural damage from the Horsemen battle continues to take its toll. Warren swoops in occasionally, silently saving people and then vanishing back into the sky. Hank's mental reasoning is rapidly falling as his strength increases, but he refuses to sit by when his strength could save lives. Scott saves a red haired woman and is reminded of Maddie, and he and Jean finally have a civil discussion about that marriage. Scott says he never truly loved Maddie and never really wanted to retire from the X-Men, but felt pressured to give her the happiness that he felt was out of his reach. It's a necessary retcon after the terrible character work from the start of this book, but I don't like it. I actually do like the part about him never really wanting to retire from Xavier's dream, because I still think he should have stuck around as a mentor for the New Mutants who stayed out of the field when his son was born. But I hate that his relationship with Maddie is reduced to settling for what he could get, because under Claremont's pen it had blossomed into something unique and healthy for Scott. But anyway. Hank and Bobby run into Trish Tilby, the reporter who discovered their secret right before shit hit the fan. She tells them that she hated X-Factor, and now that she knows the full truth and they've gotten rid of the stupid ruse, she wants to help them get their story out. Bobby agrees that she'll get an exclusive when the city is more stable. As X-Factor continues through the city, they're getting a lot of attention, but not the kind they're used to. People love them and support them, including the mayor, who tells all the cops to lay off them. When they're too exhausted to continue working, they decide to head back to the ship and make it their new headquarters. Scott and Jean decide to no longer let any ghosts stand between them, and they spend the night together. In the morning, Bobby runs into their room telling them that a grateful tailor in the city has made them new costumes. They put them on and head out into their city, where a parade is being held in their honor. It's the first real victory in the war against human hatred for mutants, and for a moment, X-Factor gets to enjoy it.

And that's that, the first prong of Fall of the Mutants over. This is by far the most optimistic of them. It's a tragic parallel to what's going on in Uncanny; as X-Factor steps into the light and finds open arms, the X-Men descend further into the darkness. It's also a really interesting role reversal, as X-Factor becomes the true mutant superhero team. For the first time, it seems like Xavier's dream might not be dead, and his first students are the ones who with keep pushing it forward into the future. It's a happy ending for most of our team; Scott and Jean finally put aside their baggage and start planning their future together, and Bobby finally has a direction in life that feels fulfilling for him. Warren's off on his edgelord quest, but at least he's free now. And of course Hank gets the short straw, losing his mind and becoming the beast he always feared he was. But that'll be good for him in the long run, and besides, the book would be boring if they were all happy at the same time. The characters were raised by Xavier to be child soldiers, fighting for his dream but never benefitting it. But now they've all grown up and grown apart. There's been a lot of tension in the team, and that will continue, but they've found a way to start fresh with each other and make the dream their own. They can be public heroes, proud of their mutant heritage and not constantly apologizing for it. Circling back to Bobby, it hasn't really been clear to me until this point but Simonson has been crafting a really interesting arc for him. He was always the fun loving one who thrived on being a superhero, but he never had a really strong personality. He's always been a follower, and though he's grown since he was a kid and now wants more out of life, he was never able to find his own path. But in this arc, he was the one who led Warren to his freedom, and now he's playing a more active role in the team direction. I'm really proud of him. And of all five of them, they deserve to allow themselves to be happy and they finally are.

#wes reads xmen

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kudosmyhero · 6 months

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Daredevil (vol. 1) #103: …Then Came Ramrod!

Read Date: March 27, 2023 Cover Date: September 1973 ● Writer: Steve Gerber ● Penciler: Don Heck ● Inker: Sal Trapani ● Colorist: George Roussos ● Letterer: Artie Simek ● Editor: Roy Thomas ●

**HERE BE SPOILERS: Skip ahead to the fan art/podcast to avoid spoilers

Reactions As I Read: ● yay, Spidey is in this issue! ● ah, we’re post Gwen’s death. I’ve not caught up to that part yet in reading The Amazing Spider-Man, but I know it’s coming… ● ok, this is a fun panel of Peter:

● Tasha’s not very good with money if she used the last of her inheritance for a mansion to house 3 people ● whoooo dafuq is this guy and why is he barging through the library walls? maybe he followed Spidey? ● guess not. he’s after the papers from Rolling Stone ● Ramrod origin story, here we go! ● so some bald aliens made him a cyborg? ok. I’m here for it. ● Spider-Man asking him if he always talks to himself that way. you’re one to talk, Spidey! just a few pages ago, Ivan caught Peter talking to himself ● Spidey’s action poses are done well by Don Heck. in his own series, sometimes it’s just a bunch of wide horse stances in mid air ● so is Ramrod dead? I like how none of the three lifted a finger to help him ● 👏👏👏

Synopsis: Peter Parker has traveled to San Francisco on assignment for the Daily Bugle to interview Black Widow and Daredevil. The wall-crawler arrives just as Daredevil and Black Widow have returned to their mansion with evidence implicating the most powerful crime boss, given to Daredevil by the writers of Rolling Stone Magazine for safe keeping until the exposé is published. Spider-Man changes into his civilian guise of Peter Parker and introduces himself to Ivan Petrovitch before continuing on and knocking on the door.

Invited in by the Black Widow, Peter Parker begins his interview with Daredevil. However, before it can even begin the mansion is attacked by a new super-powered steel-skinned villain named Ramrod. Ramrod has been sent to collect the damning evidence that Daredevil has on his employer. Smashing through the house and taking Daredevil, Widow, and Parker off guard, he succeeds in collecting the evidence and making an escape.

As Daredevil and Black Widow chase after Ramrod, Peter Parker slips away to change into Spider-Man to lend a helping hand. As the three heroes go searching for Ramrod, the villain himself looks about the city and gloats about his superiority over everyone. He recalls how he used to be a tough as nails oil rig boss who pushed his workers as hard as possible until one day some loosened oil drums toppled on him crushing all his bones. He would be kidnapped by a mysterious employer who would rebuild him into a new body with steel plated skin and the ability to fire energy beams from his hands. Told that he was injected with a deadly chemical in order to insure his compliance, Ramrod would agree to do his employers bidding.

Ramrod's recollection is interrupted by Spider-Man who snatches away the stolen evidence and makes a break for it. Before Ramrod can get his hands on Spider-Man, he is saved by Daredevil and Black Widow who tell the wall-crawler to make a break for it while they hold back the crook. However, Ramrod has other ideas and initiates an ability to fly after Spider-Man. Daredevil and Black Widow renew their fight however Ramrod gets a hold of Black Widow and makes good an escape when he drops her off a building forcing Daredevil to come to her rescue.

When Ramrod finally catches up with Spider-Man the two duke it out up the side of a building. However, during the fight, Daredevil and Black Widow arrive and land blows that send Ramrod tumbling to the ground below. The impact of the fall knocks the crook out and makes him easy for authorities to take into custody. After the battle, Spider-Man hands the evidence back over to Daredevil and swings away before they can thank him.

Shortly there after they are found by Peter Parker who finally gets the interview with the two heroes that he had travelled out to get.

(https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Daredevil_Vol_1_103)

Fan Art: Spider-Man and Daredevil by RyanLord

Accompanying Podcast: ● Josh and Jamie Do Daredevil - episode 16

#marvel #marvel comics #my marvel read #podcast recommendation #podcast - josh and jamie do daredevil #comics #comic books #daredevil #matt murdock #fan art #fanart #ramrod #black widow (natasha romanoff)#spider-man (peter parker)#the crossover that dreams are made of

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humn-300 · 3 years

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Citations

Works Cited

Amarca, Words By Nico, and Nico AmarcaFashion Editor. “Yung Lean's Style: A Complete Breakdown.” Highsnobiety, 1 Mar. 2016, www.highsnobiety.com/p/yung-lean-style/.

“Artie Vierkant.” Artspace, www.artspace.com/artist/artie-vierkant.

Danae. “Net Art, Post-Internet Art, New Aesthetics: The Fundamentals of Art on the Internet.” Medium, DIGITAL ART WEEKLY, 2 Dec. 2019, medium.com/digital-art-weekly/net-art-post-internet-art-new-aesthetics-the-fundamentals-of-art-on-the-internet-55dcbd9d6a5.

Davis, Ben. “I Looked Through All 5,000 Images in Beeple's $69 Million Magnum Opus. What I Found Isn't So Pretty.” Artnet News, Artnet News, 18 Mar. 2021, news.artnet.com/opinion/beeple-everydays-review-1951656.

Droitcour, Brian. “The Perils of Post-Internet Art.” ARTnews.com, ARTnews.com, 27 Nov. 2019, www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/the-perils-of-post-internet-art-63040/.

Han, Sean Francis. “Vaporwave: Subversive Dream Music for the Post-Internet Age.” Bandwagon, Bandwagon, 9 Dec. 2020, www.bandwagon.asia/articles/vaporwave-subversive-dream-music-for-the-post-internet-age.

“Image Objects.” NET ART ANTHOLOGY: Image Objects, anthology.rhizome.org/image-objects.

Mickey Rapkin. “'Beeple Mania': How Mike Winkelmann Makes Millions Selling Pixels.” Esquire, 1 May 2021, www.esquire.com/entertainment/a35500985/who-is-beeple-mike-winkelmann-nft-interview/.

Olson, Marisa. “POSTINTERNET: Art After the Internet.” Academia.edu, www.academia.edu/26348232/POSTINTERNET_Art_After_the_Internet.

“Pop Star, Producer or Pariah? The Conflicted Brilliance of Grimes.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 19 Feb. 2020, www.theguardian.com/music/2020/feb/19/pop-star-producer-or-pariah-the-conflicted-brilliance-of-grimes.

“Post-Internet: Time, Ontology and Style.” Gregory Chatonsky, 1 Jan. 1970, chatonsky.net/post-internet-time/.

Rooney, Cody. “Postinternet Art: New Media Narratives and The New Aesthetic.” Glossi Mag, 20 Mar. 2018, glossimag.com/postinternet-art-new-media-narratives-new-aesthetic/.

Vierkant, Artie. “Image Objects.” NET ART ANTHOLOGY: Image Objects, Net Art Anthology, 2011, https://anthology.rhizome.org/image-objects.

Wallace, Ian. “What Is Post-Internet Art? Understanding the Revolutionary New Art Movement.” Artspace, 18 Mar. 2014, www.artspace.com/magazine/interviews_features/trend_report/post_internet_art-52138.

“What Is Post Internet Art ?” Widewalls, www.widewalls.ch/magazine/post-internet-art.

Williams, Chris, and Chris Williams. “Rare Beeple Donald Trump NFT Sells for Record-Breaking $6.6 Million.” Crypto Briefing, 25 Feb. 2021, cryptobriefing.com/rare-beeple-donald-trump-nft-sells-record-breaking-6-6-million/.

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queen-susans-revenge · 5 years

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Ingrid Seward and her Smear Campaign Against the Duchess of Sussex

The astonishing and unabating waves of vitriol and misogynoir directed against Meghan, Duchess of Sussex in the British tabloids are really something; yesterday Elton John took to Twitter to denounce “these relentless and untrue assassinations on their character that are spuriously crafted on an almost daily basis.” He was including Harry in his remarks, but the truth is that the vast majority of the press attacks are directed at Meghan. They began when her engagement was announced, with such odious headlines as the Daily Mail’s “Harry’s Girl Is (Almost) Straight Outta Compton -- Gang-Scarred Home of Her Mother Revealed - So Will He Be Dropping By for Tea?” and they have never let up. (As it turns out, yes, the Duke and his mother-in-law visit frequently. She usually comes to them though, because they are a prince and a princess who live in a frickin’ castle--okay okay, on the grounds of a frickin’ castle--and can’t go anywhere without a paparazzi mob.) Both the elegant and impressive Doria Ragland and her equally elegant and graceful daughter have borne the onslaught in silent dignity. It has been so ugly and unjust that the American press, and many in Hollywood, are now pushing back: Vanity Fair, The Washington Post, and Harper’s Bazaar, among other outlets, have published stories that all come to the obvious answer:

One interesting thing for Sussex fans, is that when you read the latest trash hit against Meghan, it’s often the same people saying the terrible things. Which then the other tabloids will pounce on and regurgitate and spin up into a fresh cycle of “controversy.” Piers Morgan is perhaps the most obvious culprit. A lot of the Meghan-bashing stuff comes from that douchebag. But he at least has been appropriately challenged: Jameela Jamil accurately called him “a slut-shaming, fat-shaming, misogynist, irrelevant shit stain, smeared across our country.” Friends, netizens, fellow blanket goblins. I am not here to talk about Piers Morgan. I am here to talk about someone that I don’t think has been named and shamed enough, because just as many of these ugly stories planted in the press turn out to come from her. This is a callout post for Ingrid Seward.

Who is Ingrid Seward? She is a wretched fucking harpy, and also the editor in chief of Majesty magazine--which seems to be an online-only webzine with about the same production values as your local supermarket flyer? Anyway, nine times out of ten when a “royal expert” launches an attack on Meghan, it’s Ingrid Seward. Here’s a gallery of her greatest hits: * Remember that whole business when Meghan came out after Archie’s birth for Trooping the Color, and people noticed she’d changed up the band of her engagement ring? At the time Ingrid Seward had a lot of sneering things to say about that, quotes that got picked up and cycled through a bunch of different outlets: “I find it a bit odd Meghan would want to alter a ring that her husband had especially designed for her...A royal engagement ring is a piece of history not a bit of jewelry to be updated when it looks old fashioned.” The implication of course here being that Meghan is not really one of us, she doesn’t understand the significance--Harry designed that ring with Diana’s stones, she’s desecrating it! (Never mind that it’s her damn ring, and that any alterations Meghan makes to her jewelry will simply add to the heritage and historicity of the pieces.) But it gets better! * So then it came out that Harry had the band changed, actually, because he gave her a second ring when Archie was born and he wanted her to be able to wear them stacked. Was there any apology from Ingrid? No, of course not. She’d successfully planted one wave of bad stories about Meghan, and she’d moved on to the next wave--the christening. * Right, remember all the kerfluffle around how Meghan and Harry wouldn’t allow press photographers at the christening? I’m not gonna say this one was entirely orchestrated by Ingrid, but man does it have her fingerprints all over it: she was very intentional about fanning up the flames of criticism, and very successful at it too. Here’s a quote from one representative bitchy piece in the Express: “Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty Magazine, said she felt that people were becoming a 'bit jaded' by 'stylised' pictures of the newest royal. 'I think what people want and what people are used to seeing are lovely family images of the baby in the royal Honiton lace christening gown. They won't want an arty Instagram shot of Archie's foot three days later if it's left up to the couple themselves to take pictures and release them,' she said, referring to a Mother's Day shot issued by the couple of their son on social media." * She doesn’t name Meghan directly here, but it’s exactly the same implication as before--Meghan doesn’t understand the significance. Her Hollywood, Instagram, American style marks her as not one of us. * And as usual once she’d successfully planted one negative quote somewhere, it would get picked up and amplified by other outlets. E! Online ran a piece that quoted her appearance on the Today show: "I've covered five or six christenings during my royal career and I've never come across such secrecy," Majesty magazine editor-in-chief Ingrid Seward said on Today.” The headline for the E! Online article was “The Archie Christening Controversy: Why Meghan Markle and Prince Harry Are Under Fire Yet Again.” Like yeah okay they are, but at some point don’t we get to talk about the fact that it’s always the same little squad doing the firing? * Of course in the end what Meghan and Harry actually released were lovely family images of the baby in the royal Honiton lace christening gown, just like Ingrid Seward said she wanted.

* Was she happy? * No. Her success at generating negative coverage for the Sussexes has only made her bolder. “I would think it might bother William a little bit, because he might see the way that Harry and Meghan do things as being detrimental to the business of the monarchy as a whole,” Ingrid Seward revealed in the British documentary titled ‘William & Harry: Princes At War?’ as reported by UK’s Daily Mail on Monday.” * You can see how she gets the media machine to spin up and regurgitate and repackage her smears. That quote was actually from a Fox News piece: “Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s ‘detrimental’ behavior ‘might bother’ Prince William, claims royal expert.” * So one bad quote from Ingrid Seward generates negative TV and press coverage along many outlets. And she’s usually just referred to as a “royal expert,” which makes her fly under the radar more than Piers Morgan. But she is the news here! There’s no actual story about William: this entire news cycle of negative coverage is generated by Ingrid Seward, just like previous bad news cycles have been spun up by her. * She never retracts her criticisms even when repeatedly proven incorrect (as with the ring and the christening photos), and other journos never stop quoting her, either. * Here’s more from her: “And of course William and Kate would have quite naturally thought, ‘Oh, she’s been married before, she’s older than Harry, I hope she’s going to make him happy.’ Anyone would think that.” No, you fucking harpy, normal people just thought “what a lovely young couple!”

* I think it is honestly very reasonable to ask why the editor in chief of Majesty magazine appears to be orchestrating a smear campaign against the Duchess of Sussex. Isn’t she supposed to be a royal fan? Aren’t we all supposed to be celebrating the pretty dresses and the sparkly tiaras? Because that’s what I’m here for. But not Ingrid. Ingrid is here for something very calculated, and very ugly.

#this is an ingrid seward hateblog #duchess of sussex

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devoutbrother · 5 years

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NAME: ARTHUR ERNEST HASTINGS .

NICKNAME(S):

Percival Hastings , Artie / Arty , Victoria’s Pet , A “Friend” Of Miss Boyle’s .

THEIR PROFESSION:

This is very verse dependent!

PRE - GAME : Redactor at the Department of Archives, Printing, and Recycling, working to rewrite history and working to hide anything from the public that may cause mayhem, downer outbreaks, chaos, or general sadness.

DURING - GAME : Technically various, including a butcher’s assistant, collector, runway star, temporary and/or interrum Simon-Says Priest / “Nick Lightbearer”, and other such ones. However on record, he has none, because rotten downer’s don’t get so lucky!

POST - GAME ( REMEMBER , PERCY DEAD ) : A journalist for the local newspaper, wherever he has settled in the Mainland.

POST - GAME ( REMEMBER , PERCY ALIVE ) : Percy’s botanical assistant, helping him manage the money of his self-grown business. An article editor on the side, fixing any mistakes when not watching after his brother.

POST - GAME ( FORGET ) : Unknown. [ though i believe that since his old boss at the O’ Courant is dead / has become a downer, he would start handing out papers on the streets. he would have forgotten being a redactor, and wouldn’t go back unless offered the job again. ]

WHERE THEY CAN BE FOUND:

This is also very verse dependent, however as in-depth. If it’s pre-game, anywhere within the village, though typically in the Parade / Emerald City.

If it’s during game, he would be literally anywhere in Wellington Wells. He’s quite the sneaky bastard, so locating him might be difficult.

Post-game is anywhere in the Mainland / Britain.

FAVOURITE FOOD TYPE:

Arthur canonically seems to enjoy things raw. He especially loves to eat mushrooms raw, believing they’re quite tasty! He also has an affinity for chocolate and fruits, having quite the sugar tooth.

However, since he’s quite malnourished and has grown to realize he’s been eating rats for years, he’s willing to eat anything not to starve. So long as it’s not any sort of rodent. Never again.

FAVOURITE ALCOHOLIC DRINK:

Anything that’ll give him any sort of buzz. Though, he does like drinks that are much more dry or bitter, as opposed to sweet. He likes his tea and coffee unsweetened, too.

FAVOURITE TRAIT(S):

In others, I assume? Loyalty , Compassion , Devotion , Big-Hearted , Strong-Willed , Listeners , Honesty .

WHERE THEY WOULD GO ON A DATE:

Arthur tends to pay attention to what his lover enjoys. He often went sneaking into places with Sally, as well as started smoking because of her, and got into science because of her as well.

He will almost always go wherever where they want to go, as long as it’s not something odd or outrageous.

He, however, would love a good movie date. If not that, a nice evening walk in the park. He adores the evening breeze and the peace that comes with night.

IDEAL GIFT:

Papers, papers, papers! Arthur loves to write little notes everywhere, or little poems or ideas he gets. If not that, notepads, pins, books -- he is a very literature / english / writer-esque person.

He also would love nice clothes! He usually only wears suits and the like.

WHEN WILL THEY DRINK ALCOHOL:

Though he will slightly indulge during parties or events, he tends to drink heavily, especially in excess when something unfortunate comes about. He’ll down as many as he can so he can forget, pass out, and wake up the next day with the past all flushed away. That’s what he did before Joy came out, after all.

HOW MANY DATES UNTIL THEY GO TO BED:

It depends on how close he is to his woman. If he knows he can trust her, than he’ll do it as soon as they want to! Arthur loves to feel pleasure, but he also wants to make sure his woman is extra comfortable before they take that step.

TAGGED FROM: @radioreign ( i hope you learned more about arthur, thank you ) ! TAGGING: @missinghastings ( did you like the thing i added to the post-game occupation ) , @morning-glcry , @theketchupspy , @deutschag , @gxthic--days ( for bobby ) , and anyone else who wants to !

#💊 ❀ ✿ ❦ MEMES. |

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poisoncorncob-and-thefrogs-blog · 5 years

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A Brief History of Jazz in the United States

By Tony Astarita

It is probably impossible to study Kerouac’s On The Road without observing Kerouac’s fascination with jazz. If there is an element that is invariable throughout the text, it is jazz’s continual influence, driving Kerouac on both an emotional and physical level. But jazz’s influence was not singular to Kerouac, and in fact, it was one of the artforms for which most of the Beat generation of poets shared an interest. John Clellon Holmes writes in “Go” that “In this modern jazz, they heard something rebel and nameless that spoke for them, and their lives knew a gospel for the first time. It was more than a music; it became an attitude toward life, a way of walking, a language and a costume; and these introverted kids… now felt somewhere at last.” Needless to say, in seeking to better understand the Beat generation of poets, it only makes sense to investigate the thing that proved to be one of the greatest sources of inspiration.

For years Jazz has been called one of “the United States’ finest exports” and referred to by intellectuals as one of the only true American artforms (“What Is Jazz?”). But jazz’s beginnings are actually more humble than these titles suggest. Many historians point towards the end of the 19th century as the beginning of jazz, when the musical idiosyncrasies of many different cultures collided in New Orleans to form this new genre. The city was really unlike any other in the world at the time, with a diversity of ethnicities, cultures, and people unseen in any other city of the 19th century. The fusion of diverse cultures, in addition to New Orleans’ large population of previously enslaved people, lead to music with heavy African and French-inspired rhythmic and tonal styles. The origins suggest that African American culture is intrinsic to jazz– and in many ways inseparable (“Jazz Origins in New Orleans).

The jazz movement in post-reconstruction New Orleans continued to develop between 1900 and 1910 in the form of early brass-band marches. The first widespread and widely accepted jazz record was written and produced by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. Other white producers, like Paul Whiteman, are given credit for bringing Jazz to the mainstream in the 1910s, in the form of big bands, jazz troops, and white orchestras (Britannica). At this stage, jazz groups were racially segregated, when the separation of jazz from its black origins was the driving force of the movement. Throughout the late 20s and early 30s, due in part to the rising popularity of black musicians and soloists, the borders began to drop. At the same time, jazz underwent some fascinating changes. One of the biggest changes in jazz occurred with Louis Armstrong, today considered one of the most influential figures of jazz. Born and raised in the heart of the jazz movement in New Orleans at the turn of the 20th century, Armstrong became noteworthy for his work that transitioned jazz from exclusively a group-oriented art to one that also favored soloists (“Louis Armstrong”).

Black and white people alike were both attracted to the new type of jazz, another noteworthy moment in jazz history. Armstrong was one of the first popular black entertainers in an America that was extremely racially divided. Up until 1947, Armstrong was playing with Big Bands, which began to lose popularity throughout the 1940s due to changes in public tastes. Louis Armstrong and His All Stars was formed in response to this, which is an interesting point in jazz history as it shows the combining of black and white musicians, although some musicians criticized Armstrong for still playing in front of segregated audiences, and for not taking a strong enough stand in the American civil rights movement (Louis Armstrong: an American Genius).

At a similar time as Armstrong was furthering the jazz movement, the 1930s saw some musicians like Duke Ellington resisting America’s growing obsession with swing. The 1930s belonged to popular swing big bands, lead by people including Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Fletcher Henderson, Earl Hines, Harry James, Jimmie Lunceford, Glenn Miller, and Artie Shaw. But with the great depression, the 30s also saw the degradation of the original big bands. Kansas City Jazz marked the transition from big bands to the bebop influence of the 1940s. It also saw the extension of jazz overseas, where it was popularized across Europe, also suffering economically (Verity).

Bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging “musician’s music,” played at faster tempos with more improvisation. Bebop emerged from Kansas City, Mo, considered to be the center of the 1940s jazz movement. Charlie Parker was perhaps one of the most noteworthy figures to emerge out of Kansas City during this time period, becoming a defining figure of hipster culture. The Beats were closely connected to jazz figures of the 1940s, especially Charlie Parker, praising jazz musicians as both artists and intellectuals (Schnabel). Stanley Crouch notes in his book The Rise And Times Of Charlie Parker that “musicians of Charlie Parker’s era to create a new experience of time … a kind of control of the present.” Interestingly, the rise of the Bebop movement contributed to tension within the jazz community, with several more established musicians of the time, including Armstrong, openly objecting to the radically different techniques and styles.

The 1950s saw the emergence of free jazz, and in the mid-1950s, the emergence of hard bop, which introduced influences from blues and gospel. Modal jazz was also a development of the 1950s, where musical scale became the basis of structure and improvisation. The developments that occurred in the 1950s set the scene for the rock genre, which appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s (Tyle). Perhaps the most commercialized version of jazz, still referred to as smooth jazz, proliferated the music scene in the 1980s under artists including Kenny G, Grover Washington Jr., and Boney James.

Understanding the origins and the evolution of jazz certainly conveys the sense that jazz is the backbone of all American music to come out of the 20th century. Yet in tracking jazz’s progress over time, it is less clear if its title of America’s Original Art Form remains valid. The next blog, “Appropriation and Jazz: An Intertwined Story,” investigates the role of appropriation in the history of jazz.

Sources:

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Paul Whiteman.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 25 Dec. 2018 www.britannica.com/biography/Paul-Whiteman.

“Jazz Origins in New Orleans.” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 14 Apr.

2015, www.nps.gov/jazz/learn/historyculture/history_early.htm.

“Louis Armstrong: An American Genius.” Louis Armstrong: an American Genius, by James

Lincoln Collier, Oxford University Press, 1985, pp. 317–320

“Louis Armstrong.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 6 July 2005,

www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/louis-armstrong-about-louis-armstrong/528/.

Schnabel, Tom. “Jazz Musicians the Beat Poets and French Existentialists Loved.” KCRW,

KCRW, 21 Nov. 2016, www.kcrw.com/music/shows/tom-schnabels-rhythm-planet/jazz-musicians-the-beat-poets-and-french-existentialists-loved.

Tyle, Chris. “Jazz History: The Standards (1950s).” Jazz Standards, JazzStandards.com,

www.jazzstandards.com/history/history-5.htm.

Verity, Michael. “How Jazz Gave Rise to Swing in the 1930s.” Thoughtco., Dotdash, 5 May

2017, www.thoughtco.com/jazz-by-decade-1930-1940-2039541.

“What Is Jazz?” National Museum of American History, The Smithsonian, 9 Feb. 2016,

americanhistory.si.edu/smithsonian-jazz/education/what-jazz.

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rubmonday70 · 2 years

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Content Material Growth

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gisapot · 2 years

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life check! (i got published.)

hello!

i haven't been updating this blog for a while because of writer's block my job i shifted to talking a lot more than writing when it comes to processing my thoughts because i find that it is faster to do that so you can find me on youtube absolute self-hatred all of the aforementioned reasons that i've lined out. hahaha. because this is the only free time i've ever found for myself in a while, i thought of coming back to fix up the themes on my main blog, this one, and this other project i'm working on for my friend's christmas gift that's super overdue. then i thought maybe i should post an update for posterity.

i've been meaning to come back for a while, but a lot happened to me externally (half of it out of my own doing, from what i understood in the aftermath. aly says it's not really. the other half aly and i agree are not of my own doing) that i had a lot of internal shame, remorse, and pent up rage for, so i buried myself in my work to forget about it, since the people i've wronged are no longer available to me so i can offer my apologies and the people who've wronged me i no longer speak to. there was a lot of learning how to mind my own business, isolating, and interacting only when i'm desperate to. yes, i do not have access to therapy so it's better this way. it's so high school, noh? i know that much about myself. self-awareness +5.

while i was looking at this blog to start cleaning it up, i realized there were things i wrote that were forced. so arty-farty. writing for the sake of writing, writing for a deadline i could never meet, posting things i am not proud of, just so i can keep this blog running. i am barely inspired anymore that i constantly reflect back on the past ten years of my life (wow, i've always imagined to myself how it would feel like to reach a point in your life where you say 'the past ten years'. feelsbadman) and wonder how i was so motivated to keep writing and how i was so quick to bounce back from writer's blocks. i had over 50 word files at a point, just ideas and plot bunnies and lines of poems i hear in my dreams saved in various folders, meticulously organized and labeled, 'FIC' 'POEMS' 'ONE-SHOTS' 'CHAPTERED'. while i appreciate the hard work younger me put in to become better and better that now i write the way i do, i wonder where the motivation and inspiration went.

maybe inspiration died when i got to college and i noticed that writing was not about putting your imagination into words and hope it sticks like my childhood led me to believe. in reality, literature is so tactical and precise that you have to make sure everything sticks. that there is reason for everything. there are editors that are your second eye and tell you to close holes you never even realized were there. everything is circular. i am so afraid to write now that even if i did it for myself i just stay in the planning stage and turn in for the night since i had my fun and now i have to do the grittier thing, which is to describe it with adjectives and verbs. milan kundera never did that and he wrote the dry-but-wonderful "the unbearable lightness of being", while if i do that i feel like i'm doing something wrong. something inherently lazy. and if i am too vivid, i am toeing the line of exposing myself as someone with roots in fanfiction writing and admitting that harry potter was pivotal to my adolescence, which is always looked down upon in mainstream literature communities as "kiddy" and "underdeveloped". there is shame wherever i go. i wonder if this is because of tiktok teens - the younger half of generation z - constantly expressing their disdain for everything and anything even when they professed their love for it not more than two months ago. i wonder if me feeling this way is my way of wanting to fit in. why do i always want to fit in? why is it such a shame for me to stick out?

i wonder how people like ursula le guin did it. she woke up early and sat down to write complex and critical tales the whole day with such precision, minded her own business without humans and shallow drama, then retired for the night at exactly eight and did it all again the next morning. i want to say it is a luxury; i have been made a slave of capitalism and i do not have the capabilities both mentally and financially to spend most of the day hating myself for not writing words onto paper or my computer screen.

speaking of computers, i am so easily distracted like a goldfish in a fishbowl. when i was 11 years old and so full of life, time, and inspiration, whenever i was on a computer the first instinct i had was to open up a word file to finish up whatever daydream i had that i decided was good to post on fanfiction.net (god bless that site, i hate it). now that i am 24 (and a month!) and those things seem so abstract, so out of reach, i turn to something easier to digest: videos. not brightly colored ones. i open a tab of youtube, find a video essay to watch, switch to a different tab to open twitter while someone talks my ear off about how the upward trajectory of lindsay lohan's career led to her mental breakdown. i don't even like lindsay lohan. (that's not to say that i am a hater. i just stand on the line of indifference because while i was aware of her and i've seen herbie and mean girls, i am not american so i've never held or cared enough about the monthly j-14 or people covering her breakdown of whether or not paris hilton was her best friend.

i've also turned to making my own videos, especially since it's much easier to make if you have a webcam and a microphone. what takes me days to write and edit is easily rambled in an hour of total silence in front of a camera. what's great about videos as well is i don't plan any of them. it's like an hour-long impromptu podcast that i just stitch together and upload for the culture.

this was not the future i imagined for myself.

while i always knew i wanted to write, to be alone with an occasional friend, i constantly fuck up by doing everything else but write and talk to people that aren't aly. i have two and a half different friend groups (because kim and i are only two people) that i am very dedicated to. i never thought i was a social person. i used to be an extrovert as a child but things happen during your upbringing that make you think your thoughts don't matter and inculcate this belief that people hate you and talk shit about you in secret. (never project your insecurities onto your kids, they will project it onto their friends who they will lose because they cannot believe the adults in their life were putting things in their mouths.) on top of being a strangely social person, i'm chatty. hence the channel.

i never realized my mouth was constantly open and i would talk someone's ear off if they were just willing to listen.

i fell in love, too. she's one of the people i constantly talk to about everything, even if she's never really considered those pieces of media before (the same way i never really considered her interests before). we've just hit a year together and all i do is talk to her about everything that's on my mind. and i think a lot and i get excited a lot about the things i read in books and articles online, so she's like, the net to catch all my thoughts. i told her the story of joseph and his colorful coat last night because it just popped into my head after i made a joke about selling my baby brother because of that meme on facebook.

i found a draft i wrote for this blog dated march 25, 2020. it's been a year and it will be another one older this coming march. i talked about wanting to write a book over the quarantine. i never finished this book, and i never wrote the book either. i had plans and people can attest to this if they're in my workspace server on discord (another place where i realized i was chatty as hell and i actually am social, just forced to isolate and into silence because of eldest asian daughter decorum). they see my notes. countless rows of them: original stories, poems, personal essays, character studies, fanfiction that i never finished. there's a parallel to be drawn here between unfinished stories and the unfulfilling lives we lead now that we are entering the third(? i'm weak at math) year of the pandemic. i don't know if i am good enough to write it.

sometimes there is an ego boost. in the early half of last year a call for contributions was posted on katitikan, an online literary journal for the southern philippines. it was for the pride month issue for the month of june. it was preferred that stories about queerness and coming into being and the concept of the closet were submitted. like a person with the impulse to get attention, i geared myself to submit a very vulgar piece about a gay (as in mlm) couple written in second person that i wrote years back when i was helping someone do their homework. of course it fit the theme, i didn't think of submitting that story just because it was gay. when you submit something to a literary journal, it's much more stringent, since literature is tactical and precise, not whims of fancy to bring on the kilig factor and gain likes and comments like how wattpad writers operate. and i know that for a fact, i was once one of these teeny-bopper writers. i still am, to be honest (well, not wattpad, but ao3 now).

the original work contained a lot of religious imagery in it. there was implicit discussion on the dichotomy of good and evil and how the way sex feels as well who does it puts the act in a grey area. it was below a thousand words. that kind of story with that kind of word count is already a feat for me, i'm generally stuck in establishing exposition within the first 1000 words and barely no plot in, especially if i'm writing something original. that story, despite being so crude, was full of everything a creative writing teacher would love, i think. they would cry reading it. (see. ego boost.)

i remember the experience of writing that story. the kid i was helping out was a senior high kid i met online who was taking a creative writing class. while helping her (both of us were close to tears at this point because she did not understand my point), i came to the realization that writing stories isn't easy. that creativity is not a cute skill to have. writing is deliberate, choices in names, items, places are not arbitrary. they always stack up to create this effect that doesn't topple down one way like a line of dominoes. it ripples outwards like a drop in stagnant water.

before i submitted the story, i sent it off to aly and asked her to comment on it. the first thing she said that was very pivotal for that story to morph into the body of work it is now was that while she understands that i'm used to writing fanfiction with mlm pairings, we don't have a lot of wlw stories to go around, certainly not cebuano ones (this was before i met doc jhoanna cruz, a professor from UPM and an author. shes a lesbian who writes short stories and personal essays about wlw experiences). it would have been better if i rewrote this entire thing to be about a wlw love story.

i was thrown for a loop, to be honest. i've never written a wlw story before. but then again, i genuinely thought writing for journals and calls for contributions were challenges to your writing capabilities because they had themes that you had to abide by (and there's a deadline to meet). they wouldn't even pick you if you didn't fit the theme, that's generally the first criteria. but i took aly's words to heart because she was my best friend, and started.

of course like a lazy piece of shit i ctrl+f'd that story and changed the names and pronouns of the original characters to names generally perceived as feminine. i know i wanted the "top" (good god) to have the same name as a saint, so immediately i thought of st. alexandria and st. cecilia. st. anna was also an option, and st. elizabeth. i chose cecilia in the end. you'll know why i chose cecilia later on.

i started building cecilia as a composite of my girlfriend, who used to be a beauty queen for minor pageants in her city, and the new money chinita girls from cafa i've gay-panicked over the years while at college. someone straight-passing. someone pretty and tall, with pin-straight black hair, pale, had nice hands... yes, i'm describing my type (who also happens to match very well with my girlfriend hahaha, di mo ana? standards = met). as they say, write what you know. write the world around you.

i tried rewriting the original piece to fit with the wlw idea that aly presented me and fitting cecilia in it, but in all honesty, it seemed pretty hard because in my opinion, while wlw can be promiscuous in their own ways, i had my own reservations and despite writing gay smut taking place outside surrounded by religious paraphernalia, i'm pretty conservative about sex. i'm guessing it's because i was raised catholic and educated in catholic institutions. i personally couldn't imagine a pair of lesbians going at it in a living room that looked very much like a pope's mausoleum.

it reminded me of a conversation i had with a co-teacher before the quarantine hit in 2020 and i was still teaching humss students. for some reason we got to the topic of him getting shamed for getting laid before marriage on his own personal facebook profile (we were in a faculty room and we were not surrounded by any students, i wouldn't have this conversation otherwise if i was in campus). he noticed that i flinched slightly, and he asked if i was conservative. i explained to him that it was a product of my upbringing, but i do know a lot about sex and... other sex-related things that start with the letter k. (just a disclaimer: while i am conservative, i've been aware of my bisexuality since i was three years old. i'm a prude, not a homophobe.)

this same co-teacher was also a bit of a somebody in the cebuano literary community. he had his own writing group, he had a book he co-wrote, he was sought after as a speaker and all that fancy jazz. he was way elevated compared to me who's stagnant and writes like, once a year, if i'm lucky to be hit by motivation. i had a personal essay i wrote. i don't remember which piece it was that i had, but i sent it to him to look it over because i couldn't bear for my personal essays to be rejected by literary journals again, taking them personally as if refusing publication was invalidating my pain (sidenote: why do people apply for universities that require admissions essays? don't you also feel as if rejection from those universities is also an invalidation of your childhood trauma? why do you wave your trauma around on paper and hope your story is painful and scarring enough to award you a spot in archaically ranked institutions?).

after he read it, he got back to me: "you really like the vignette style." "it's easy to write. i have a hard time writing continuously."

the conversation somehow shifted to the books he ordered from book depository taking forever to arrive, but my brain was still processing. vignettes. vignettes. individual scenes. is this a vestige of my past as a fanfic writer writing one scene per chapter, each chapter around 500-800 words? i don't know, i don't want to analyze that. vignettes.

play to your strengths. write in vignettes. write what you know.

if i were to write what i know about the girls i've crushed on as the basis for cecilia, i decided that the main character, who is still nameless at this point, was going to be based on me. teacher persona, conservatism, socio-political opinions, music taste, judgmental personality and all. if i was going to write what i know, i was not going to continue writing the architecture major that the original main character was. it was going to have to be more familiar. play to your strengths, and all.

if you've read the story prior to this blog post, you'd realize that the main character is annoyingly perceptive. she is quick to make judgments on the people around her and writes mental essays about how to dismantle the person she's talking to with all the knowledge she possesses of the world. i am the same way, to be honest. i don't know a lot about science and math, but i do know how to read and listen and i'm quick to judge based on what i hear. it's both a toxic flaw and yet a golden quality, i think. it's easy for me to know who is worth talking to. (but to be honest, wag tularan. or do. don't get into cars with tinder dates who genuinely stan the chainsmokers. i'm looking at you, sty.)

there is a scene in this story where the main character, cecilia, and MC's friends are gathered together to discuss the limited availability of lesbian films that do not sexualize women or lesbian films that depicted women in poverty or living an honest low middle-class life. i've always held this opinion after i watched the movies baka bukas, blue is the warmest color, and that one lesbian film where they just stayed in their hotel room and had sex for all two hours of the movie before they broke up at the end. i've resolved to write about my hatred for lesbian movies but i never really found the words, much too irritated to ever articulate myself in a clean fashion. more things i wanted to write in a more formal, academic manner is why queerness in media is only chalked up to coming out, having crushes on straight people, and just plain boring. there is no kilig factor like there is in het or mlm romances. i never cry during lesbian movies.

i decided to express these opinions in this story because my lack of eloquence and my self-perceived shallowness will make it difficult for me to express this distaste. i was always going to sound shallow and childish whenever i wrote academically. i wrote a rant as i would have said it myself, put it in quotation marks, surrounded it with more gossipy judgmental shit about how MC cared about how people perceived her when she's in her angry activist mode, and signed it off with MC's name.

to be honest, i was afraid of writing this part for many reasons, one of which is that ranting in fiction is kind of childish, especially if a writer doesn't know how to write dialogue. the message would be so ineffective. i remember ayn rand's john galt speech towards the end of atlas shrugged being the same way. i had that part read through by many people like aly, zai, aliyah, kuya toff, and my girlfriend, because i was so afraid of sounding preachy or, god forbid, like ayn rand herself. i have some fears.

this scene was also very important to me, as it introduced the people in MC's life, her queer friends. this part of the story was intended as a platonic love letter to my college friends. they were my first queers-only friend group. i personally do not have straight friends. that's a flex, i know. i just don't continue talking to straight people unless it's for work. i made it the same way for MC, and these characters were modelled after my friends that aly and i met in college. in that friend group i was the only linguistics major in a friend group of literature majors, and i built my socio-political opinions while listening to them discuss the philosophical theories they learned in their lit theories classes that they could anchor their literary analyses on. i don't know a lot of literary theories, only being able to read on them in full (as opposed to hearing about them in conversations) when i started teaching literature for senior high school students, but being friends with them gave me a headstart in that direction.

this scene also helped me paint a contrast between cecilia and MC. in a deleted scene from this story, MC asks cecilia where her friends are. they do not appear in the story until the very end (the ending was not deleted, it was the fuente crossing scene), but cecilia explains that she doesn't have many gay friends, and if she does, they're usually her pageant handlers or her makeup artists or stylists, and they're strangely lesbophobic or biphobic. i do not know much about the pageant community, but this is from stories from my girlfriend's own experience. they're catty in the backstage and make comments that they think do not hurt. while MC has a support system consisting of only queer people who challenge each other intellectually and personally, cecilia's circle of queer "peers" consist of other side of the coin, the stereotype of what queer people are as presented in reality and in media: mouthy and ruthless.

there is so much bitterness in cecilia's life, i don't know how a person like that manages to keep living. while expanding the world of this story to be more fitting to a wlw pairing and to include as much of my immediate world as i see it now, i thought of keeping the "prop" of religious paraphernalia in the household, and introducing cecilia's mother. if i was going to make cecilia the composite of my girlfriend, she had to be someone finishing up university while still living with her mom who was projecting her fears of a queer daughter and religious promises that go unfulfilled, only fulfilled for appearance's sake, or only because they were afraid of going to hell, not because they truly loved God and were thankful for their lives. i immediately modelled her after one of my friends' mothers who was also pretty conservative to the point where she would combine both religious and homophobic tirades in one breath in front of her closeted lesbian daughter (whose name i will not include in this post to protect her privacy). while her mother's cooking is lovely, not every human is perfect.

it made me think of my own parents while writing. they do not live in the country, and i rarely share to them about my love life. while they know of my sexuality, we treat it with a "don't ask don't tell" policy. my mother rolls her eyes whenever i bring up my sexuality. my father, i don't know what he feels about it, but he does care about his niece who is proudly out with a girlfriend who's butch. while i'd like to take that positively, there might be a possibility that he's only ok with queer people if it's not his own children. but in a way it works that they aren't present in the country, so i reflected that too in the story. in the story, the main character makes only few mentions of her parents (one being a reflection on where she thinks she inherited her judgmental personality from), but they never truly appear.

the title, and subsequently, the plot trajectory of this story with focus on its ending, came to me in two different ways. first, it came from a youtube video of a youtuber reviewing the books she read that month, one of them being "they both die at the end" by adam silvera. i haven't read the book, but the title did help me decide the ending. it was going to be tragic. of course, no death involved because i hate that kind of thing (from a writing standpoint i think it's a copout , and as a reader i try my best to filter it out of my ao3 results), but it was going to be a bittersweet ending. while formulating the story in jagged pieces, i was having a hard time picking out the music i wanted to write to. of course zayn's mind of mine album is a staple in my writing playlist, but there is only so much of the same songs on loop i could take before i got bored of myself, of zayn, and my own characters. i got distracted quickly, ending up looking up k-pop songs on youtube. even if they were difficult to write with because i just end up dancing to what little choreography i know from repeated watches of the live stages, at least it was something different. autoplay started from itzy's not shy, to ateez's wonderland, to loona's so what, butterfly, then vivid.

vivid is a song about putting color into the world, and it pushed me to write the first scene of the story in one sitting: the MC is at a bar that's very obviously basic in mango, behind the national bookstore, with her friends. strobe lights were described. i remember my own experience at basic. it was too loud to have a conversation, tall straight people were around, the lights were too bright, the bathroom was literally on the stage. i wondered in that moment, as i mulled over this idea much like a writer of speculative fiction, what if my friends brought me someone to meet? it flowed from there. part i. part ii (now a deleted scene). part iii... i decided then if i wanted to start with vivid, this story would have 12 parts, as 12 members of loona. each vignette will be vaguely inspired by their solo projects. if the first girl was heejin with vivid, the next vignette would be inspired by hyunjin's around you. the last vignette would be inspired by olivia's egoist. wouldn't it fit so well too, with the idea that the ending was going to be bittersweet? love myself today... let you go today...

i decided then the title would be "they don't end up together".

at the time i wrote this story i was exposing myself to new kinds of music as well, just to expand my library a little bit because i was kind of getting sick of the same brockhampton album on repeat even if my playlist was on shuffle: lil nas x, taylor swift's folklore and evermore albums, and a kpop girl band called dreamcatcher that specialized in rock metal type music (of all the genres a girl band could do). with that, i added more songs to my writing playlist.

during one of my writing sessions for this story, taylor swift's evermore played in the background. i wasn't too familiar with the music on that album quite yet, but the ambiance of it just felt right for the general idea of writing. in my periphery, i could hear her crooning, "my house of stone, your ivy grows, and now i'm covered in you."

at the expense of sounding very zoomer, i was like, "f e l t, omg." so i opened my minimized spotify window and found out the title was ivy.

ivy, as in i literally have a bisexual character named ivy in my sims 4 game (that is also heavily based on zai and her personal aesthetic).

are you fucking kidding me? this is perfect. it's like, poetic justice or something. ivy is the name of the main character of a wlw story, perfectly encapsulating the way she is "haunted" (a bit of an overstatement on the impact of cecilia on her) by cecilia's coming and going in her life. and the song that shared her name was accurate in its lyrics to describe my character too.

it made me remember the name choices i had for cecilia. i initially wrote her as an alexandria around this time, but it honestly didn't stick for me because 1) i had a friend named alexandria, and 2) i found it a bit ostentatious, very twitter-roleplay-name. when i found ivy's name, it was also around the time my favorite ateez member hongjoong was talking about the filipino-american musician dominic fike, and he recommended the song "why". hongjoong and i have very similar tastes in music, save for the fact that i also listen to girl band music while his music taste is very curated to the theme of "i am a 2006 myspace emo" with linkin park and the vamps... whose meet the vamps album i used to listen to in high school. one of the lead singles of that album was a song called "oh cecilia (breaking my heart)" (whose chorus sampled/lifted from simon & garfunkel's "cecilia"). isn't that also a saint? by the end of it, i decided to go with cecilia not just for the purposes of religious imagery, but also because it sounded more "rich old money filipino" (see, i told you literature is deliberate and tactical). the moment i started using the name cecilia, her whole backstory for that character flashed through my eyes. her pageant experience, her mother, her opinions on coming out, her ignorance on queer politics, her very large xpander-like car that i just lazily called a "Jeep".

with the names finally established for both cecilia and ivy, i threw myself into writing this story with various songs sprinkled in references here and there; music is pivotal in this story. as i said in an earlier paragraph, ivy shared my music taste, so not only are my favorite songs reflected in the story or used as names, but they are also part of the symbolism that contributes to the building of the plot. there was a lot of k-pop included, mostly songs that were easily misunderstood as queer. we always see what we want to see, and if MC (and by extension, me) wanted to see queerness in the k-pop songs she listened to (despite south korea being a homophobic ass country for no valid or religious reason but are misogynist as fuck), then so be it. heart attack by loona's chuu, jazz bar by dreamcatcher, all night by f(x), and satellite by loona (as a group).

the deadline for the piece was nearing. i was nowhere near done, and i was way past the maximum word count of 4000 words. i was inching into 5000-word territory. i started crying to aly that i was unhappy with where i am at and i feel like the story isn't done. i had every intention of writing this story as something that would be kilig as hell like how fanfiction would be, palatable to young zoomer readers, something that, if they wanted, could be characters for fanfiction. i hated literature at this point. i hated that there was elitism in the community, that established writers shit on the young adult genre and we try to quash it out and invalidate it because it's "fanservice". we end up dissuading children from reading because we force them to read "the classics" whose, while their lessons are timeless, language is archaic and dry and difficult to digest or relate to if you are under the age of 17. we laud ayn rand's masturbatory speeches and her selfish objectivist perspective because it's literature as if our realities are not represented in the presumed "braindead" young adult fiction. and i wasn't able to do that, because i was running out of time and i was cramming for more words to fit.

i had to delete the haseul vignette. the vivi vignette. the jinsoul vignette. the yves vignette. the chuu vignette. the gowon vignette. i don't really feel bad about the gowon vignette because it wasn't my coming out story to tell but i did feel like it was important to add because something someone said to me was very important to help ivy move on from the travesty that was her not-relationship with cecilia.

in the end, fuck it. i submitted the work a day or two before the deadline, and i pissed myself not knowing if i got in or not. i don't know what impostor syndrome is and i like to believe i never got it ever in my life, but i did get bouts of insecurity where i was sure that what i sent in was trash, they hated it because it went past 4000 words and it was a crime and i was going to get in so much trouble because they didn't have the word space... i was so afraid. i've been rejected twice by two different journals and i never talked about it. those were the first two times i was ever rejected from a journal before. this was my third try over the pandemic. if i didn't get in i was completely done for. pandemic depression and losing my job wasn't enough. i was going to be doomed to be talentless for the rest of my life. why did i think writing was a good talent to keep practicing? why didn't i continue with singing?

Inbox (1) - s*****

oh my god. *i'm_gonna_fuckin_k*ll_myself_tiktok_sound.mp3*

open the damn email, you loon, what does it say!?

oh my god, i'm GAY FUCK AAAAAAAAAAAAAA- IM NOT A JOKE I CAN WRITE OH MY GODDDDDDDD

Here's the link if you want to read it in full!

anyway, we are nearing the end of my most stressful pride month of my life (and i snuck out in junior high to go to a pride parade!) working on a short story that could have been shorter if ivy just wasn't so much of a bitch like me. christ, i need water. this is my first ever fiction piece too. i always get by with poetry, and i also coast through with personal essays because not a lot of people do it here in cebu that i always manage to pass by just to put my name on a certificate printed on fancy glitter paper. i'm considering a shift in genre, to be honest! i didn't think this was possible for someone like me with roots in fanfiction, whose characters were pre-made and i never had to describe their physical attributes to help my reader imagine who they were. i didn't think i would get here.

the story of ivy doesn't end here despite getting published. the one up now is only the abridged version with many vignettes from their love story cut out. i still have the full unabridged version of their story that i want to finish and publish, and there are so many people in ivy's universe whose stories i want to explore, kind of like the novel let it snow by maureen johnson, lauren myracle, and john green. i want to write a short story collection about all these people, people like mia, valerie, simon, ate alex, kuya seb (and an unmentioned other friend who i'm not sure how to name yet) - the people in the queer friend group who have their own queer stories to tell. kind of like friend fanfiction. like i said, this was a platonic love letter to the friends i had in college. if only i can find my motivation to write; these characters are so vivid in my mind and i know the stories i want to tell.

today is january 15. it's been 6 months-ish since they don't end up together was published but i'm still riding the high of that publication because i am mindblown that the first time i deigned to write fiction professionally is also the first time that i get published. suddenly it no longer matters to me how many times i'm rejected and how far behind i am compared to my writer peers, but the one time that it mattered to me, i wasn't. i have such low self-esteem. but i know as i should that putting yourself out there is the only way for reward to return to you tenfold. the world is difficult to please. effort sometimes will go unrecognized. but trying. trying never fails. i'm reminded of something aly and i call "the goat essay", more professionally known as "i know what you think of me" by tim kreider and published on the new york times. the last paragraph, the way it ended, aptly put how i feel towards this entire situation. it went like this:

Years ago a friend of mine had a dream about a strange invention; a staircase you could descend deep underground, in which you heard recordings of all the things anyone had ever said about you, both good and bad. The catch was, you had to pass through all the worst things people had said before you could get to the highest compliments at the very bottom. There is no way I would ever make it more than two and a half steps down such a staircase, but I understand its terrible logic: if we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.

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