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sleepy-achilles · 2 years

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Hi. I feel like after reading your Ric Flair posts, I would love to hear your input on this, as I feel the need to discuss it with you. Hulk Ho(e)gan's long, long line of lies and deception. I'll try to keep this short, but I'm afraid this is going to be a longer ask, and for that, I sincerely apologize.

Now, this is no secret, we all know this by this point in time. If there happens to be someone in this world who doesn't know this, they are either lying their ass off and defending Hulk for whatever reasoning, children, naïve, or just fucking stupid, to put it bluntly.

Ho(e)gan is a continuous liar. It seems to be all that this man ever really does. He's lied about so much shit, it is astounding.

Like how he says he discovered Undertaker while he was in a movie called Suburban Commando with him, and that he was the one who brought him to Vince McMahon (which isn't true. Paul Heyman was the guy who discovered Undertaker while he was in WCW and those stupid fucking idiots told him that he wouldn't be able to make money and put asses in seats.)

He's lied about how The Undertaker and The Rock injured him (which did NOT happen. He was already injured before the matches, he just pinned it on the fucking Undertaker and The Rock because he was just so butthurt that The Undertaker and The Rock were just taking the world by storm, and God forbid anybody else but the Hulkster have the attention)

He's lied about Elvis Presley being a fan of his (which was impossible, seeing as Elvis was long dead and gone when Hulk rose to fame and popularity)

He's lied about outdrinking John Belushi (which also is impossible, seeing as John was also deceased at the time of Hulk Hogan's peak. And even if Hulk and John were ever able to hang out sometime before his death, which I seriously highly doubt, Hulk sure as FUCK did not outdrink John Belushi. If he had, I'm sure he'd be 6 feet under with him rn)

He has even lied about giving a British kid from Make-A-Wish tickets to Summerslam 1992, (I think it was 1992, please correct me if I am wrong. It was either 1992 or 1993) when he wasn't even fucking there. Matter of fact, it wasn't even him who gave the kid the tickets, I believe it was Goldberg. He even goes as far as making a fucking song about it in an atrocious album called "Hulk Rules" the song's name being "Hulkster in Heaven" (which is fucking deplorable & disgusting of him to do that. How fucking dare you.)

It seriously makes me beg the question. Why? Why is Hulk so quick to lie about so many things? Why does he feel the need to lie about everything? Why does he feel that it's necessary to tell stories that can be easily disproved? Hell, you wouldn't even need to do that much research in order to debunk this shit. Why? He doesn't need to do that! he's Hulk fucking Hogan, for fucks sake! He's one of the most iconic wrestlers of all time! (for whatever reasoning. Call me rude, but from what I've seen, his wrestling promos and moves are uh... Questionable, to say the least.) But point being, he doesn't need to do this.

Oh, but he does, doesn't he? because he's gotta stay relevant somehow. So, what's a few tall tales gonna hurt, huh?

A lot. That's who. I swear, it's almost as if he lives in some fantasy land with some of these lies. That's probably due to all the concussions, most likely.

No need to apologise for it being long.

I'll even do a readmore to save people's feeds

I'm not one to shy away from my opinions especially on this blog. I've made it clear from day one that I hate hogan.

I hate his wrestling, I hate his attitude, his look and his voice.

However, I didn't know about all the shit he put on undertaker. One would think he just didn't like taker.

The anger I had towards this guy as a kid was huge. I hated him for screwing Shawn michaels over. For those who don't know, him and shawn were set for 3 (maybe more) matches where Shawn would be able to win one. He asked for shawn to be the heel so shawn delivered. But he backed out after one of shawns promos, thought it was disrespectful and he was taking the piss or something. You asked for heel shawn, you got heel shawn. Shawn over selling was beautiful and perfect. Hogan deserved every bit of that. Piper didn't deserve the kick he got, but he was defending hogan at the time so I get why it happened.

I also hate hogan because of the fact he's a racist. At one of the raw celebration shows it was advertised that shawn would take part in the speech with hogan, Austin and mick I believe. Shawn refused. He stood by hunter the entire time. You can even see Hunter and Shawn giving him dirty looks. Also shawn disappeared from the ring celebration. Like I can never see him in the ring. Weird but not relevant. Hunter bascially demanded hogan apologise before coming back. Hogan did not. So yeah. Shitty.

Also my poor child eyes accidentally ended up seeing his porno when I was trying to do research on him for a school project. It was about celebrities and the media. I actually got to do some research into the mental health issues of wrestlers like the Rock and well physical health issues of mick foley. Which was fun. But yeah, my teacher told me to do a part on hogan because he was a 'big' wrestler in his eyes. I didn't want to. Wish I hadn't. Traumatised for life now. Shout out to my so called friend who sent me it saying it was a official article on hogan's personal life. (Guess they weren't really wrong)

But anyways, this is not a hogan or flair friendly blog. I will 100% shit talk them because they deserve it. I'm tired of people brushing it off or defending them just because they were a 'big part of wwf'. To those people maybe. The new generation, hart, diesel, shawn, sid, sunny (sadly), sable, etc you get my drift, all of those 90s lot. They were a big part of wwf and wwe. Not those old hags.

Hogan is not it. And the fact the list of shitty stuff about him gets longer, I'm wondering why he's a wwe hall of famer and why people like chyna aren't.

We all know she deserves it a hell of a lot more. So what she did porn? I believe that's the reason on twitter. Vince didn't want kids searching her up and finding it or something. Well I didn't want to find hogan's porn but I did anyways, and yet he's in your hall of fame. Sort it.

Idk why I'm addressing vince. Not like its his company anymore.

Nah I just checked the list. Donald trumps still in the hall of fame.

Jesus christ.

I have no faith sometimes.

#wwe #wwf #the undertaker #hulk hogan #the rock #ric flair #shawn michaels #hunter hearst helmsley

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styrofauxm · 2 years

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I wanna talk about Eternals....

Okay. So. I have...opinions. I'm putting them in a non-cronological, non-sequential, non-ranked numbered list for your enjoyment (or anger, or other emotion, or lack of emotion)

(also spoilers for Eternals)

(also it is ludicrously long)

1. The plot was great. I loved it

2. The pacing was off. There were parts where it flowed well, parts where it felt stagnant, and parts where it felt rushed

3. The character relationships were great...until they weren't. For the first half of the movie, I loved the way they interacted. It felt natural and made sense for a bunch of people who have known each other for ~7000 years (I'll come back to that "about). BUT then the writers started saying what those relationships were explicitly. And apparently I was wrong about 90% of them. Which was really, really, really annoying

and yeah sure I can be wrong. That's not the issue. The issue is that they didn't develop the relationships they wanted to, so instead of letting that flow naturally, they named the relationships in a half-baked effort to fix it. (yes that is all opinion-based and conjecture. please take it with a grain of salt. Or five). (Major exceptions being Phastos and his husband and Gilgamesh and Thena, because those were introduced explicitly, not built up ambiguously then made to seem like they changed)

4. I am still confused about the time frame. Was it 7000 years on earth? Was it 7000 years since they split? How long ago did Sersi and Ikarus break up? Was it 5000 years in or was it 6000 (based on Sprite's century comment)? That was frustrating and needed to be cleared up

5. The characterization of each character? Impeccable. Except for Sprite. But still mostly amazing. I tend to be more invested in plot that characters but I AM INVESTED IN THESE CHARACTERS. I am eagerly awaiting what will happen to them. I am THEORIZING. I am OVER ANALYZING. Basically, stellar characterization, mostly consistent characterization, 9.9/10

6. So. Sprite. She...uh...yeah. Sprite in the first 4/5th of the movie and Sprite in the last 5th of the movie felt like different characters. Her "crush" on Ikarus felt like it came out of nowhere (another reason I was frustrated they explicitly stated the relationships). Her frustration with not being able to grow up is clear from the first scene, but the way she ACTS seems to fundamentally shift, even though her motivation remains the same

7. Ikarus's character development In Particular was great. (turn away now if you really don't want to be spoiled but read this far anyway). I just thought he had main character syndrome or something for the whole thing. But No! He's actually the epitomy of an asshole cishet white man. You've got the "obsessed with 'protecting' women who are perfectly capable and dismissing their valid complaints that they're competent", you've got the "cannot accept personal error or fault", and you've got "just kind of a jerk to people for no apparent reason". Basically he was a good final villain particularly because those types of characters tend to be main characters and paint those attitudes as normal

8. Okay. hear me out here please. But if the characters were there close to the dawn of human civilizations, and they had accents that didn't exist yet, does that mean they just kind of stayed with specific groups of people until those people adopted the accent of that particular Eternal? Was it a respect thing? I don't know but this is basically canon to me now

9. A few weeks before it came out, my friend was super happy that they were finally having a Latin American superhero in a mainstream marvel movie. She was legitimately really excited for what they were going to do with Ajak's character. And then she was killed off with barely any screen time as compared to the others. Which I noticed when watching and gave me an icky feeling (I like to think I would have noticed if we hadn't had that conversation before, but in all honesty, I probably wouldn't have). However, after watching, my friend (same person) pointed out to me that they had a white man kill her, right after they condemned the genocide committed by white people in the Americas. Which to her was not great. (I am really just relaying her opinion there but I think its valid, and it should be said (and she doesn't have public social media accounts)). (Also, random person, I agree that that does not take away from the other GOOD representation, that is not what I am saying)

10. Kingo kind of just disappeared? Like where did he go? Why were only Sprite and Ikarus mentioned as having joined the unimind? He was my second favorite character (after Gilgamesh) and he just wasn't there for the climax why? IDK that just bothered me

11. this is a blank spot for me to reserve more opinions that I was thinking of when I started writing 20 minutes ago so have since forgot

#eternals #marvel eternals #eternals spoilers #caps #PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE keep in mind that this is just opinion #honestly if I get a response saying my OPINION is wrong I'm just going to block you #feel free to disagree and say so loudly #but that is also your equally unfactually based opinion #if you point out things in the movie to try to disprove my opinion I will also block you #in fact here is my preemptive response: the movie should have made it clearer if I didn't notice that or get that vibe #I had this argument with my sibling already and I'm really not interested bc that felt really shitty #(it wasn't their fault they didn't realize what they were saying and neither did I for a while and we worked it out...#...and then we spent an hour and a half talking about warrior cats bc this is what our lives have come to)#but yeah this is not a personal attack on you or your opinions I promis #also with the sprite thing I might elaborate thats just a super condensed version of my thoughts

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musclesandhammering · 3 years

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Loki (2021) Positivity from an Anti

Ok so all of my mutuals know I’m extremely anti-Loki (2021), anti-sylki, and anti-sylvie. But at a certain point, even we antis get tired of all the negativity. So! Here’s some Loki series commentary in the opposite direction! This is a list of all the things about the show that I loved :)

Also adding a disclaimer that all of this is just my opinion and some of my fellow antis (or even people who liked the show) might disagree, and that’s fine! I’ve been planning this post for awhile. I always say in my other posts that I don’t entirely hate the show and I wanted to be a little more specific about what I think are its good aspects. Feel free to leave your thoughts!

• Mobius is a gem (Owen Wilson owns my whole heart) and his relationship with Loki is so so great. He’s not one-dimensional at all, he has conflicted loyalty and is morally complex, and he has the tragic backstory- which makes him a perfect choice for eventually becoming Loki’s first genuine friend.

• The casting was really really great. Lots of women and people of color. Most of the female actresses (as well as the males) are over 30, which isn’t very common and is fantastic!

• Superb acting all around. I can’t think of a single scene where the actors under or oversold it.

• Beautiful set design, incredible cgi, and gorgeous cinematography overall. It looked more like a movie than a tv show, which is really good.

• Kang being the big bad was a huge plus for me. Johnathan Majors was perfect in the role, his vibes were immaculate, and I was honestly pretty worried that the man behind the curtain would end up being another Loki variant, which imo would’ve been boring and predictable and counter-productive, so it was a big relief when that didn’t happen.

• I like that it sets up a bunch of future marvel movies, rather than being contained to its own little world. It gives it more importance and (hopefully) will encourage writers to not just toss Loki’s character aside in future projects.

• All the Loki variants were delightful. All of them except Sylvie. Kid Loki has my heart. Boastful Loki is a fashion icon. Alligator Loki is a savage. President Loki is the superior variant. Classic Loki became my fav character in less than half an episode.

• It showed some more variety in Loki’s magic. A lot of his powers we’ve seen before, but it feels like they were portrayed a bit more blatantly in the show. The energy blasts, the telekinesis, the teleportation… Outstanding.

• It also implied that Loki has the potential to be waaaay more powerful than he knows he is right now, which? Yes.

• Some of the quotes- and the themes behind them- are just profound as hell. Such as:

“I think we’re stronger than we realise.”

“It’s never too late to change.”

“You can be whoever you wanna be, even someone good.”

“We’re Lokis. We survive. It’s what we do.”

“Loki, God of Outcasts.”

“The universe wants to break free, that’s why it manifests chaos.”

• Technically Loki was Marvel’s first canon lgbt (bi) character, which is a win. His genderfluidity is also technically canon, even if it wasn’t really acknowledged on-screen.

• There were a lot of throwback references to Thor 1, Avengers, and Thor The Dark World. Which I loved.

• Sylvie’s so pretty. Her hair and makeup and costume were all perfect.

• Big fan of Loki finally getting Laevateinn.

• Sufficiently slutty imagery, courtesy of a female director (Loki in a collar, kneeling to Sif, President Loki looking down into the bunker, the hair flips)

• The music was Excellent Wonderful and Superb.

• I love that Loki being a good singer is now canon.

• I love that Asgardians having their own language is now canon (even if it’s basically just Icelandic).

• I also love that they disproved all of those “Loki was a shy nerdy wallflower pre-canon” theories in Episode 3. The drinking/eating/singing scene was fun, if a bit wacky.

• There’s a million different reasons why Loki does what he does, especially in regards to the New York attack (I’m literally writing a huge meta on them), but somehow I never considered that Loki being desperate for control was one of them. It makes a lot of sense, and I always love getting new insights into his motivations.

• I love that Loki finally outright acknowledged that he doesn’t enjoy hurting people. We Been Knew™️ but it’s still nice to hear it out loud from his own mouth.

• The TVA outfit wasn’t as hideous as some people make it out to be. It could’ve been A Look, even. You know, if he’d just accessorised a little better. And kept the jacket on. And not gotten sweaty. And not gotten dirty. And maybe had at least one other costume change… But it had potential, though!!

• Even though I despise the Obvious One, I did actually like some of the other romance crumbs they tossed us (sifki, Loki x the flight attendant).

• The whole DB Cooper thing was iconic idc idc.

• Loki’s hyper sort of overly excited puppy attitude in episode 2 was actually pretty refreshing and funny (for awhile). And now I can headcanon him as adhd, yeehaw.

• “We’re all villains here.” That quote was iconic, my favourite one in the show. And the entire theme that it summarised was really great as well. When you think about it, every single main character in this series has been the villain at one point or another. I mean, I know all marvel characters do bad things etc, but none of the Heroes are ever narratively categorised as Bad. This show did just that with all of them, though. . Loki was framed as the psychopath that attacked New York. Sylvie was framed as the murderous fugitive. The TVA/Ravonna/Mobius were framed as the murderous fascists. Kang was framed as the crazy totalitarian. It’s made clear that all the Loki variants were the villains of their stories.

However, every single main character in the series is also framed as the Hero at a certain point. Loki is framed as the main protagonist who throws a wrench in the TVA’s dastardly plans. Sylvie is framed as the persevering freedom fighter who wants to take down the fascists. The TVA/Mobius/Ravonna are framed as the ones who maintain order for the greater good. Kang is framed as the weird but ultimately benevolent wise man who’s just trying to prevent something worse from happening. The Loki variants are framed as generous allies who befriend the main character and help him on his journey.

Everyone in this equation is openly acknowledged by the narrative to be morally corrupt, but not entirely morally bankrupt. There are no Straightforward Hero Figures (like the Avengers) in this entire scenario at all, and that makes for a super interesting dynamic that marvel has never done before. So yes: “We’re all villains here.” But also: “No one bad is ever truly bad, and no one good is ever truly good.” I loved that.

• Even if it wasn’t really enough imo, I still treasure the crumbs we got of Loki being competent and capable (him putting the collar on B-15, him figuring out Sylvie’s hiding place, him teaching himself to enchant on the fly while fighting a giant cloud beast of eldritch proportions).

• I love that B-15 was the one who stepped in and saved the day in Episode 4, when we all thought it was gonna be Mobius. What a queen.

• Marvel usually has a bit of a problem with creating compelling and memorable side characters. But aside from Sylvie, I genuinely got attached to every single character in this show. Like Casey, C-20? I was seriously emotionally invested in them and they were only in like 2 episodes. Wtf.

• Introducing the TVA storyline in the Loki series specifically was a really good move. I’m not saying they executed it well, just that it had a ton of potential. A lot of people have wondered why marvel even thought to put those two (the TVA and Loki) together, when they had literally nothing to do with each other, nothing in common, and essentially no connection at all. But when you think about it, it’s a really interesting twist on both of those stories. Forcing the embodiment of destructive chaos and the pillar of rigid order to interact could make for some seriously entertaining and compelling television. And as far as meshing these two completely unrelated entities together goes, I thought they did it pretty well- at least just the bare bones of the story (loki being arrested by the TVA and being one of their most common variants).

So that’s it! If you guys (fellow antis) wanna add stuff you liked, feel free. If anyone wants to discuss (or debate) my list, feel free to do that too!

#loki series 2021 #loki laufeyson #anti sylvie #loki meta #loki odinson #loki #loki series

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elucere · 3 years

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Sad Late August Quarantine Thoughts 2.0

Last year, I wrote this. Basically my thoughts on how I felt in my life up to that point and what quarantine had illuminated. It felt cathartic then, so hopefully it’ll feel cathartic now. A part of that probably had to do with the fact that the last part was complete bullshit, but we’ll get into that later.

At nearly the slightest inconvenience now, I’ll say “I’m at my limit”. Technically, that isn’t really true because if I was really at my limit, at the next inconvenience I would completely lose it. But no, I’m just simply reminding myself that while I’m constantly met with a series of unfortunate events, I haven’t broken down yet. I might feel like I’m there, but I’m not. I’m just at my limit. Things are bad, but they aren’t the worst they could be yet. So keep in mind, I am very much at my limit as I’m writing this.

Last year I talked about my struggles with my job. Yeah, I got fired in February. It was not pretty either. I knew I wasn’t doing well performance wise, and they invited me into a zoom call that they said was a project meeting a week before my year anniversary and fired me. My supervisor (or I guess, ex-supervisor) cried on call. I didn’t cry until afterwards. It was an entire year of me trying to get better, him promising that it’ll come with time, and then getting sacked because “we didn’t see improvements”. Really, really fucking sucked. And it messed with me for a long time because I kept replaying those last few weeks, trying to decipher what I could’ve done differently to prove my worth and keep my position. There was a lot. I felt really guilty.

I think the worst part is that I got a performance warning in December and realized at that point I’d become so apathetic about my job that I needed professional help. I’d been trying to go to therapy for a long time, but it never panned out. My mom forbade it when I was in high school, it was practically impossible to get an appointment at my college’s mental health facility unless you were considered a threat to yourself and others (which I most certainly did not want on my record), and after school life happened so fast with the pandemic and the fact that I live in a 2 bedroom apartment with my mom and my brother with very little privacy. Even now that I’ve convinced my mom that therapy is okay, actually, she still highly disproves and sees it as some sort of psychological failing on my part. Which is. Sure. Whatever. Why not.The reason I did not enroll in therapy that December is actually because my dad lost his job and with it, his health insurance, and with that, my health insurance. That means I had to enroll in a health plan through my employment, which became an unanticipatedly long process. I actually got my new-but-useless health insurance card in the mail a few days after I got fired. They actually fired me on the last day of the month, so my benefits wouldn’t extend beyond that month. That’s a bit of fun irony.

To quite a few of my friends, this story solidified the idea that insurance=therapy. As soon as I got insurance again, I’d be able to finally get some help. This was a couple of people’s first response to me when I got hired again (yay, I know I don’t have to worry about that anymore but I’m also afraid that I’ll just inevitably be fired again so I don’t let myself have the victory). I know my friends only want the best for me, and I can’t expect them be able to emotionally support me like a professional, but I’m afraid that they think that therapy will be some sort of magical fix of sorts. I don’t mean in the sense of just getting better mentally, but I think being a tolerable person. I know that sounds like I’m just being self-depreciating, but let me explain.

A few years ago I was at dinner with one of my friends. I don’t remember exactly what we were talking about, but she goes “name three things you actually like” because I was probably being negative or something. I said a few things and whatever, but that comment stuck with me for a long time. I thought it was especially poignant or something. Am I so unhappy all the time because I fixate on things I don’t like? It could be connected to the attitude of social media to be outwardly negative. Casual wisdom, you know.

Well, that was the fact until I was out with that same friend and we visited Barnes and Noble. I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading this year and got more involved in the book community, so I have many Opinions. Some are good, some are bad, some are just me being annoying. After an hour of browsing the shelves, we drive home. I start talking about a series I really like in the car and she goes “It’s nice to hear you talk about a book you actually like.” Which kind of stunned me because I had just did a lot of talking about books I liked. How happy I was that kids were still reading Rangers Apprentice, going out of my way to see how many Brandon Sanderson books I could find in the Adult Fantasy section, and more reminiscing in the Young Adult section about books I liked recently or as a teen. The truth is, I talk about stuff I like all the time to people who will listen. Ask me about my favorite books! My favorite movies! My favorite musicals! I promise I will not shut up. It’s one of the few things I have that lift my spirits when I talk about it, I just don’t get the opportunity to much because it’s hard to find people who want to listen.

The thing is, I’m naturally a critical person, I think. I love tearing things apart, in good and bad ways. I also love gossip. I’m an okay gossip, but I know at this point that I’m a good critic. I’m really good at identifying faults and commenting them on an insightful or constructive way. I edit a lot of my friends’ writings for this reason. I don’t find that to be anything negative, it’s just something that’s interesting to me. Basically what I’m saying is, what if it’s not mental illness and I’m just annoying and I’ll not be able to meet the expectations of other people’s idea of progress for me and I’ll be a disappointment. I’m kind of tearing up while typing that out while listening bopping to Disturbia by Rihanna but this is the third time I’ve been on the verge of crying today so yaknow maybe it is just mental illness.At this point, I can either talk about criticism in relation to the particular way I dish it, or I could talk about how I want to receive it. I think the former will take less time to elaborate, so I’ll start with that.

I mention last year how I got an unpaid gig as a critic for DiscussingFilm. Embarrassing at times, I joke with my friends that “DiscussingFilm Writer” is a slur, but it’s cool at times as well. I got a press pass to go to Sundance and gorged on an entire family sized bag of peanut M&Ms while I watched like 14 movies in one weekend. I’m trying to say positive things about this until I start ragging to prove that I’m not an overwhelmingly negative person, but I don’t think that’s working well. Whatever. The point is, if I didn’t like it I would quit, but if I did quit it wouldn’t be because I didn’t like it. It would because there was an…event. I had quite a falling out with one of the higher-ups that run the site and in response my work has taken a hit. I won’t go into too much detail, but I don’t get assigned anticipated releases anymore. My work is often delayed going out and, in turn, I feel less motivated to turn in my work on time. And then on top of that, it’s rarely promoted. I have examples on top of examples, but this stupid thing is getting long enough. To summarize the DiscussingFilm situation, I feel like shit. I have one of the lowest view counts on the site. I’m told that my work is good and it’s valued, but not enough to get reposted, I guess! Why bother. And also because the person I do not work well with is quite up in the food chain, I’ll never see a promotion. I wanted to become an editor so bad (I do editing on the side for my friends and enjoy it), but now it will never ever happen. I don’t have the opportunity to prove myself, it’s just completely off the table by nature of leadership. Ass. Complete ass. I’m doing quite a bit of work for DiscussingFilm including creating the standard for the Instagram, making graphics for the Instagram, performing interviews and writing reviews for the site, and co-hosting a DiscussingFilm branded podcast, and I will never see neither a dime for my work or recognition in any meaningful or significant way. I don’t have a say in anything, and I feel like an insignificant cog whose opinion does not mean much.

I still get insecure with my reviews, but not as much anyways. Sure, I can’t compare to the great writers at trades who do this for a living and have been doing so for years. But, I am better than a lot of writers at my level. Sometimes I try pitching to other publications, but so far I’ve only been met with rejection. It kinda stings to know that my work is not worth enough to be paid for, but I’m kinda over it. I still pitch. I try my best. That’s the thing about me, I just keep going. Rejection hurts like a bitch, but whatever. I don’t want to quit just yet, so I guess I won’t. There isn’t anyone in my corner who’s actively spurring me to keep going, I’ve just decided that I’ll get paid for my work one day and so now I will.This connects with the criticism I want to receive which unfortunately very much is not of the nonfiction variety. Ew I fucking hate talking about this but I need to get it off my chest.

After I got fired, I was slipping into quite a bit of a depression. I started a podcast at this time with my friend to try and prevent that, but I knew that I probably needed another project. I wasn’t watching movies anymore, DiscussingFilm was not publishing my shit, and all I was doing all day was reading (which I don’t anymore, I’m in a slump and it’s definitely connected to the idea I have in the next sentence). So I had the brilliant idea of “hey, I could do that. I could write a book. I should do it to do it.”You see, this has not been my only attempt at writing a proper book. I tried when I was 13, I tried when I was 15 and into online literate roleplay, I tried when I was 18 by doing NaNoWriMo in college (also, I was actually more depressed then). I also tried to get into a short story class in college that you had to submit a story to get into and didn’t even make it on the waitlist. Nothing stuck. But hey, I was unemployed and I came up with a funny premise that I wasn’t too attached to, so why not?

The book is not funny. It was supposed to, but it’s changed a lot. I’m very comfortable writing in camp. It’s difficult because I know sometimes I have my moments, but often I don’t. I also chose to write it in a genre I’m not super familiar with (Young Adult contemporary, I read Young Adult and Adult fiction primarily). I didn’t expect it to be easy, but the things I thought would come easily did not come easily. I have a lot of male friends, so I could certainly write the male characters as real people, right? Right? I’m funny, so the humor would come across well, right? Did I anticipate that after years of pretty much only analyzing films critically I’d subconsciously structure my story using dialogue-driven storytelling similar to a screenplay? No! Not at all, actually! This journey of self-discovery has been ass at every corner!

I recognize that first drafts are shit and authors hate their writing, but also I’m built different, your honor. By 15k words in, I realized I needed an outside perspective. I hated my own writing and I was afraid none of the characters were coming off right. I needed feedback, and I still do. But I hate being perceived. As long as no one reads my writing, they think that I know what I’m talking about and value my opinion on their writing, but once they figure out I’m just an Imposter then it’s game over. They’ll lose respect for me. Logically, I know this isn’t how this works, but I feel physically nauseous whenever someone reads my writing.

Anyways, back to my much-needed criticism. To make a long story short involving several English teacher that caused me to quit pursuing writing altogether in my formative years and decide to switch to a STEM track, I have very little tangible self-awareness of my own writing and how to improve it. I need the outside feedback, or at least I did. I’m 60k words into my first draft now and I’m cripplingly self aware of all my errors, but it feels too little too late. 60k words are a lot of words, and it feels not great knowing that most of them are trash. I really needed this kind of feedback earlier in the process so I could make tweaks early on. I know that writing is like a muscle and you need to work it out and practice to get stronger, but fuck man, FUCK. 60k words is a LOT of words. And I still need people to read it and give me feedback and I’m literally willingly asking people to read shit. It’s so humiliating. I guess I’m just at a point where I wish I could look at it and find something of value in what I’ve written.

I see other authors and I get so jealous. At their confidence, at their lyricism, their mastery of the art, their enthusiasm for their story, their love of their characters. I don’t have that. I’m not even talking about imposter’s syndrome. I know what that feels like. This is something else. I just wish I was the kind of person who could openly be creative without wanting to die. I’m 100% sure if I could be enthusiastic about the story I want to tell, the entire thing would be better. It’s crazy how I noticed that I’m not writing any metaphors into realizing that’s directly connected with my inability to be vulnerable and that I’m detaching myself from my work. That, and the fact that I’m fucking shite at writing metaphors apparently.

It also doesn’t help that I don’t have a writer group of friends and very little people to talk about this with, none of which are like… enthusiastic. It’s not their fault. I attract people into my life who are very much like me. They’re supportive and wonderful but I need someone who’d be excited to talk to me about it. I just feel like such a huge burden all the time. Everytime I bring it up I feel terrible, but it’s occupying so much of my brain space and I have no outlet. But also, getting that group of friends would require me to be vulnerable online and be willing to share what I have so far which I might actually throw up.I think it’s very fun that “crying and throwing up” has become a saying on Twitter considering that I’ve counted a countless amount of times this year and thrown up from stress four times since last November. It might also be connected to coffee consumption, but if that’s true I’m ready to off myself because coffee is one of my few joys. Honestly, it’s probably a mix of both. I’m very healthy, very much okay.

I don’t know. Last year, I ended my little essay on a hopeful note. Here’s the thing, this may seem like very much just stream of consciousness bullshit but there is quite a bit of structuring I do and omissions I make. I didn’t talk about my struggles reconnecting with people and subsequently taking their irregular replies, because there’s a lot to get into there. There’s a lot I could’ve talked about, but no room. There’s a very specific flow, and I feel like any story, it needs a conclusion. So last year, through tears, I wrote a hopeful ending. It was as much for me as it was to the people reading it. Unfortunately, I don’t have it in it for me to conclude in the same fashion this time around.

The truth is, I need to feel okay. I need to feel like I’m good at something, anything, and be recognized for it.

Life is suffering and I’m just constantly going through the motions. I promise you, this stupid thing is 3k words and the second I’m done I’ll go back to working on my b**k even though today I literally started crying thinking about how shit it is. I’m just a tenacious individual. I persist. I don’t feel good about it, and I’m done with being genuinely hopeful, but there’s nothing to do but keep moving. I don’t know if my writing will get better or if I’ll ever get published or if this story is worth it. I don’t fucking know anything and I feel like shit. But what else am I going to do? I’ve been holding onto this hope that I’ll feel better about things for just so long and it hasn’t happened. But I’m not giving up lmao I’m just working with what I have. I am at my limit.

#mine #bean spews

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dutchdread · 2 years

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If it's supposedly not the "best use of your time" retyping things that you've said many times to people then why do you continue to do it? Would you like it if you shared your opinion about which couple is canon and had someone reply to you with an essay saying you're wrong and that Cloud's in love with Aerith? People aren't upset at you because you disagree they're upset at you because you're trying to pick a fight. If someone doesn't agree with you, why don't you just scroll past and move on?

If it's supposedly not the "best use of your time" retyping things that you've said many times to people then why do you continue to do it?

Cause I'm just a helpful dude. But like I said, I try not to, that's why I have this blog, so in the future I will have to do that less and less.

Would you like it if you shared your opinion about which couple is canon and had someone reply to you with an essay saying you're wrong and that Cloud's in love with Aerith?

If their argument was correct, then I'd like it just fine, or at the very least I'd stop saying whatever it is they disproved, allowing me to fine tune my own stance. For instance, one of the reasons I like Advent children is because I've defended it so much. Doing that forces me to really examine what's happening in the movie from a deeper standpoint. I can't just subjectively go: "I hate this, this is shit. Why? Because I just do", if I said that, it would get picked apart, so when I talk to someone I have to really make sure that what I am saying makes sense, that it's factually correct, that there is nothing I missed. All of that requires me to look at the subject from different angles. Any time someone comes up with a new point or argument, or presents an argument in a new way, I have to slightly alter what I am saying. By working through my own thoughts again and again I learn how best to vocalize them, that then allows me to understand my own position better. In my opinion anytime I talk about stories I understand stories more, and since I love stories, I want to understand them as much as possible. Same thing goes for everything. Any time I talk about ethics, I understand ethics more, and I become a more ethical person. When I talk about politics, I understand politics more, and my political standpoints become better informed. Engaging people you disagree with isn't just valuable if you change their worldview, the first benefit comes from improving your own. Every alternative stance you come across broadens the pool of knowledge and experience that you use when forming opinions and arguments. Which allows you then to be more certain of your positions, and understand them better. But this doesn't happen if you just sit in your own echo chamber and listen to people who already agree with you. Be it politics, or shipping, the people who don't want to engage with those who have different opinions will never really be able to defend their own. They can't be certain that their position is solid, because they've never subjected it to rigorous scrutiny, they can never be certain that their position is complete, since they've never let people point out whether or not things might be lacking. Eventually that leads you to where I am now, where I've heard every argument a thousand times in a thousand different ways, and in 999 times out of those 1000 the things people say as a rebuttal aren't so much a counter-argument as much as they're different ways of saying "I've clearly never talked to someone who disagrees with me on this, because this has been addressed time and time again". Now, bringing up an old topic isn't always a bad thing, you may think that you can refute the traditional counter-points. But that would mean you know what the counter-points are, and if you're refuting them you'd say something along the lines of "I know most people say ....., however, I think that refutation is fallacious because of....." But from my experience that rarely happens. The most common example is people bringing up Cloud being unhappy in Advent children, the reasons for that have been discussed ad nauseam. Now, if someone were to have a counter argument to disprove the idea that Clouds issues stemmed from his guilt and fear of failing then they'd acknowledge that this is the common reply, they'd bring up the quotes stating that Clouds actions stem from guilt, and they'd address all that. That would be the second step, as it were. But they never get there. They're always stuck playing checkers while the rest of us are playing chess. Yeah, sitting in a circle reading the writings of other Clotis can be fun, I like a bit of confirmation bias as much as the next person, but what I like more is confirming my positions by throwing them into battle. However, I've long since stopped receiving new interesting viewpoints, so now I feel confident enough in my position to just formalize it, and link it, instead of going through the motions.

People aren't upset at you because you disagree they're upset at you because you're trying to pick a fight. If someone doesn't agree with you, why don't you just scroll past and move on?

Well this is funny, are you not on my blog? Did you not come to me? I think my blog is very open to discourse, and I don't force people to come here. The reason I "pick a fight" as you put it, is because I like these conversations, the main reason I need to make a more definitive version is because there are only so many hours in the day. I like these conversations, so I have no reason to avoid them. However, if, as you say, these people are upset because I am trying to pick a fight....then why don't they just scroll past and move on?

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iam93percentstardust · 4 years

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Wave a Magic Wand Over this World

First of three fics for @heamarvel‘s Hallmark event prompt 11, in which Tony wonders if his relationship with Steve moved too fast:

“Don’t bring Steve,” Sunset says. “He’s boring.”

“Don’t bring Steve,” Ty says. “He won’t understand.”

“Don’t bring Steve,” Justin says. “He’s holding you back.”

And Tony tries to argue. He likes Steve, he wouldn’t have married him if he didn’t. But as it becomes more and more apparent that his friends don’t like Steve and Steve doesn’t like most of his friends (with the exception of Pepper and Rhodey, both of whom live out of the state), he stops asking his husband to come along. He wouldn’t say that it bothers him exactly. He doesn’t expect Steve to ask him to come along when he hangs out with Bucky and Sam (neither of whom much care for Tony) and he knows that spending all of their time together isn’t healthy for their relationship. It’s just that—

Well, it does kind of bother him a bit.

Maybe it’s that, when he goes out with his friends, they spend so much time bashing on Steve. He tells them to stop, and they do for a bit, but then they pick it right back up after Tony’s got a few drinks in him and isn’t entirely thinking clearly and so doesn’t have the wherewithal to tell them to stop again. Maybe it’s that, most of the time, when he goes back home, Steve easily disproves whatever his friends were saying about him. But sometimes, Sunset says that Steve’s boring and Tony goes home and crawls into bed beside Steve and Steve says that he wishes Tony wouldn’t drink so much. Sometimes, Ty says that Steve won’t understand and Tony looks up from babbling about his thesis to see Steve staring into the distance with glazed eyes. Sometimes, Justin says that Steve’s holding him back and Tony thinks about how his patents and the money left to him by his parents are the only thing keeping them from sinking below the poverty line.

Sure, Tony was the one who had encouraged Steve to leave football behind and go into art. He was the one who’d seen that Steve was miserable playing sports, seen that his passion lay in painting. He was the one who’d urged Steve to quit the team, change his major.

And maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if they didn’t fight all the time. But they do. Steve and Tony are two very opinionated people, who rarely share the same opinion—at least, not on the important stuff. They’re always on the same wavelength about the important stuff. But they don’t want to eat at the same places or watch the same movies or go to the same places. For god’s sake, they don’t even have the same friends! Isn’t that supposed to be the hallmark of a couple, that they share the same friends? And they’re both so terribly passionate that their differing opinions lead to knock-down, drag-out fights that end in either Steve or Tony sleeping on the couch before the other one gets too lonely in their bed.

They never say that they’re sorry. It’s just not something that they do. Sometimes, Tony wonders if it would be better if they did. But they’re both too proud to admit that they were wrong, so they just say that they’re lonely and they go on from there.

Tony doesn’t even know what set them off this time.

No, that’s not true. He knows exactly what set them off. They’d been decorating the tree. Every year, no matter how busy they are, they always decorate the tree while some sort of Christmas movie plays in the background. They’d left it late this year until Christmas Eve. It had been Tony’s turn to pick the movie, except when he’d turned on Die Hard, Steve had groaned.

“Die Hard isn’t a Christmas movie,” Steve had said.

Tony had maybe gotten a little too deep into the eggnog and so he’d childishly insisted, “Is too,” and the fight had gotten worse from there.

Steve had yelled. Steve never yells—he knows how much Tony hates yelling—but he’d yelled today. Tony had flinched, the way he’d always done when people yelled, and the ornament in his hand had dropped from numb fingers and broken neatly into nearly a dozen pieces. It had been one of Steve’s, an ornament from his childhood made by his late mother. Steve had been furious, had accused Tony of taking such good care of everything that belonged to him but never of Steve’s things. It had gotten worse. Steve had raised his hand too quickly, too sharply. Tony knows—he knows—that Steve would never hit him but in the heat of the moment, when he was already thinking of Howard, he hadn’t thought. He’d just reacted and so he had flinched back and raised his own hands to protect himself.

The look in Steve’s eyes had gone from fury to horror so fast. He’d started to stammer something out; what, exactly, Tony doesn’t know because he’d fled the apartment.

And now, hours later, he’s sitting in a bar pouring out his sorrows to the bartender, Louis or Lockley or—he peers closer at the nametag—Loki. He feels like he’s burning so he presses his glass, cold from the ice, to his forehead.

“Maybe I made a mistake,” he mutters. “Maybe we moved too fast.”

Loki hums and sets another drink in front of him that Tony promptly knocks back. “Would you do it differently?”

Tony stares at him. “What?”

The bartender gives him a very thin smile. He says more slowly, “If you could do it over, would you do it differently?”

“I heard you the first time,” Tony snaps. He thinks about it. “Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. How do I know it would be better?”

A shrug. “You wouldn’t. That’s the game, I suppose.” He sets one more drink down in front of Tony. Tony goes to grab it like he’s done the last five but Loki catches hold of his wrist. “Don’t drink it yet. You need to think about this. If you tire of that life and wish to come back to this one, you’ll have to find me again.”

He releases Tony’s wrist. Tony grabs instantly for the drink. He doesn’t know what Loki’s talking about and he doesn’t really care. He just wants to forget that the last several hours happened so he tips his head back and swallows the drink in three gulps. It tastes different, burns different, and the way the light caught the liquid was odd but he’s more than a little tipsy by this point and the comparison doesn’t register in his befuddled mind.

Loki’s smiling sharply at him. Tony doesn’t register that either. “So is Loki like a family name or something?” he babbles. “Like the god of mischief, right? What kind of—“

He doesn’t get to finish his question as Loki snaps his fingers and the world dissolves around him.

Someone is knocking on his front door.

Tony groans and slowly blinks his eyes, immediately throwing his arm over his face. Someone—Steve probably—left the curtains open last night and the morning sun is streaming through the windows. He rolls over closer to Steve’s side of the bed.

“Steve, honey, can you get—" He stops and then props himself up on his elbow. Steve’s not there. In fact, Steve’s entire side of the bed is cold. He sits up further. He doesn’t know this bedspread. Where’s Steve’s mother’s quilt? Did he—is this someone else’s—oh god, he couldn’t have.

He throws the sheets off of himself and breathes a quiet sigh of relief that he’s still in his clothes. He takes another look around the room. It’s still his bed, still his dresser, the closet’s still in the far corner, and above him—yep, still the same old water stain. But he’s missing Steve, missing Steve’s things. The quilt’s the first clue but the easel under the window’s gone too and the jewelry box on the dresser. The painting Steve had done of a sleeping college-aged Tony’s been replaced with a photograph of the Brooklyn Bridge.

The knocking on the door gets more insistent. “I’m coming, for fuck’s sake!” he shouts.

There’s a pause before the next knock. Then—“Anthony Edward Stark, that had better not be you!” Pepper yells back.

He strides to the door, ignoring the pain in his head, and flings it open. “Who else would it be?” he asks, completely nonplussed.

Pepper’s all but vibrating with anger. “You promised me,” she snaps. “You told me you wouldn’t check yourself out of rehab again.”

That gives him pause. “Rehab?”

“Yes, Tony. Rehab.” She pushes past him and drops a stack of paperwork on his kitchen counter.

He’s still stuck on—“Like rehab rehab?”

She glares at him. “For the third time this year. I get that your ‘friends’ like to go out partying but do you have to go with them?” He can all but hear the air quotes around “friends.” He tries to move on from the rehab thing though he’s still turning it over in his brain. He’d only ever been to rehab once, during the first few months he’d been with Steve. Steve had said it was the scariest moment of his life, seeing Tony in the hospital because he’d given himself alcohol poisoning. Tony had poured every drink in their apartment down the drain the next day and then checked himself into a clinic. He still drinks but it’s nothing like what it used to be. Three times in a year is… a lot and doesn’t make any sense.

He glances at the paperwork. “What’s all this?” he asks, trying not to sound as lost as he feels.

“For the board meeting tomorrow,” Pepper says brusquely.

“Board meeting?”

The angry line between Pepper’s eyes disappears. Her frown now is more concerned than upset. “The end of quarter report?” she asks. “Tony, are you feeling okay?”

He can’t let her know that he has no idea what she’s talking about. “Are you sure I have to be at this meeting?” he asks, brushing off her other question. He thinks it’s a much better idea that he stays home tomorrow and try to figure out what’s going on.

Pepper snorts. “You’re the CEO. Yes, you have to go.”

That can’t be right. He’s not the CEO of anything. He’s a grad student, living off of what little bit of money his parents left him after they died until he can get access to his trust fund. He’d let Stane take SI in return for being left alone for the rest of his life.

“Oh. And why are you dropping off my paperwork?” he asks, hoping it’s not a weird question.

Pepper frowns again. “How much did you drink last night? It’s my job, come rain or shine or even Christmas.”

It’s Tony’s turn to frown. “I made you work on Christmas?”

“It’s okay,” she assures him though the twist to her mouth says otherwise. “Not like I have anywhere else to be.” She straightens the stack on his counter. “Those need to be signed by tomorrow. Will that be all, Mr. Stark?”

This, at least, he knows. Obviously, it means something different in this world—universe—whatever. But back home it’s an inside joke. “That’ll be all, Miss Potts.”

She bows her head and starts to go.

“Pepper,” he says suddenly. “What happened to Steve?”

“Steve? Do I need to track someone down for an NDA?” she asks.

He shakes his head. “No. Sorry. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?”

She smiles. Tony gets the oddest impression it’s a rare thing. “Merry Christmas, Tony.”

The moment she’s gone, he dives for his tablet. It’s a lot sleeker and more technologically advanced than what he’s got in his world. In fact, it kind of looks like something he’s got in planning stages right now. He flips it over to see SI’s symbol adorning the back. That would explain it he supposes. It’s his idea put into development. He flips it back over and powers it up.

He starts with SI. There’s a wealth of information on what happened four years ago when Howard and Maria Stark. He reads headline after headline: “Prodigal Son Comes Home,” “Obadiah Stane Arrested for Murder,” “Tony Stark Heads Stark Industries.” He’s more hesitant to search for Steve but he does.

To his immense surprise, there’s just as much information about Steve as there is about SI. Steve, it seems, didn’t quit playing football. He’d been recruited right out of college to play for the New York Giants and never left. It doesn’t seem right. Surely, someone must have seen how miserable Steve was playing football but when he turns on his TV, there’s Steve giving an interview with Jimmy Fallon about his latest season.

Steve’s smiling but he looks absolutely dead behind his eyes. It’s clear that he holds no love for the sport no matter what he says.

“Oh Steve,” Tony murmurs, utterly heartbroken. Steve had loved being an artist and Tony had loved that Steve had loved it.

He resolves to figure out what’s going on, not for himself but for Steve. He knows that he doesn’t deserve his husband, knows that Steve’s far too good for him, but Steve doesn’t need to be in a world where he’s this miserable.

But before he can really get down to research, his phone rings. He debates picking it up. As soon as it stops ringing though, it immediately starts again.

“What?” he snaps into the phone.

Justin Hammer’s smarmy voice comes through the speaker, cheering, “Tony!” Tony’s never much liked Justin, too sycophantic for his tastes. But he’d come with Ty and Sunset and Tony does like both of them so he’s stuck with Justin.

“What do you want?” he says wearily.

“Heard you got out of rehab. Good, good,” Justin simpers. “Listen, me and the gang—you know, Ty and Sunset, maybe a couple other people—are going out tonight. You’re coming with, right?”

Tony frowns despite knowing Justin can’t hear it. “Don’t you have other people to hang out with tonight?”

“No. Why would we?”

“It’s Christmas,” he says slowly.

Justin laughs like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. “Such a kidder!” he says to no one in particular. “We’re better than that, Tones.”

Automatically, Tony says, “Don’t call me that.” No one calls him Tones, except Rhodey. Not even Steve calls him that.

Justin just laughs again. “This is why we’re such good friends.” Tony gags. “So listen, Ty’s got a new bar for us. Totally not our usual style but he says the waitresses are tens all the way.” And then he hangs up before Tony can tell him no.

He wants to tell him no. He does. He’s been thrust into a new world with new rules, a world without Steve in his life—and god how much that hurts—and he wants to take the time to ease his way into it. But he wants to know who this Tony Stark is, this Tony Stark without his Steve, without his great love. This Tony Stark who relegated his Pepper to a mere assistant. This Tony Stark who’s in and out of rehab. He wants to adjust to a life without Steve but he wants to know who he’s become more.

Maybe it’s because he’s thrown off balance that he sees it this time. Maybe it’s because there’s no Steve to be a buffer here. But he sees it now and he wonders how he could have ever missed it.

How could he have missed Sunset’s cattiness? “I love your dress!” she gushes to a girl at the bar, who glows with a compliment from the Sunset Bain, and then promptly turns to Tony to tell him how ugly she really thinks the dress is, no matter if the girl can hear it or not.

How could he have missed Justin’s lechery? Justin leers and touches and grabs for what isn’t his and the waitresses shy away but it doesn’t stop him. Why would it? He’s rich. They should be grateful they’re getting attention from him at all. Or, at least, that’s what he sulkily tells Tony after the owner comes to tell him to either sit his ass down or get thrown out.

But worst of all, how could he have missed Ty’s…everything? How could he miss Ty putting drink after drink in his hand? How did he miss those dark blue eyes watching him hungrily? He feels…slimy every time Ty’s eyes linger on him.

It’s then that he realizes—Steve’s not the one holding him back. These three are. He’d be willing to bet just about every last penny that he has that they’re the reason he’s spent so much time in rehab.

“I can’t do this,” he says suddenly and stands.

“What?” Ty says and stands with him.

Tony takes two steps away from them. “I can’t—I don’t—" He stops. “I’m going home,” he says firmly. And he is. He’s going to find that bartender—because it has to be him who put him here—if it’s the only thing he does this Christmas.

Ty tries to walk with him but Tony backpedals away quickly. “I can get back on my own,” he assures them.

He’s not entirely certain about the last part but he’s far more certain that he doesn’t want Ty anywhere near him when they’re on their own. He doesn’t know if Ty would actually try anything. He hopes not. Judging by that hot gaze though, he’s pretty sure that he would.

He turns and starts to make his way out of the bar but stops almost immediately. It can’t really be, can it? There’s no way that Ty actually picked this bar, this one out of the thousands in New York. But there’s no denying that raven black hair and flashing green eyes. He gets closer to the bar, hears Ty shouting after him that he’s an alcoholic, which is certainly true in this universe. He’s got no intention of buying a drink though.

“I don’t know what you are,” Tony snaps, “but you had no right to do this to me.”

Loki sees him approach and smiles smugly. “What do you think?” he asks, not even bothering to deny it.

Tony sneers at him. He’s sure that there are universes out there where he never even meets Steve and does perfectly fine. But he lives in his universe and in his universe, he has Steve and the truth of the matter is—he doesn’t want anything else. Sure they fight but he loves Steve dearly, certainly more than he loves anything else. He thinks that, if he were to be rid of the poisonous influence Ty and company have become, he’d probably be a lot happier, a lot more content. Steve should have been enough for him and he doesn’t know why it took him being thrown into another world for him to see it.

“I hate it,” he says flatly. “Send me back.”

Loki nods absently. “You’ve made your decision, then?”

Tony’s nod is a lot more decisive. Loki holds up his fingers and snaps them.

Tony doesn’t even wake up. One moment, he’s in the bar talking to Loki and the next, he’s standing outside his apartment. He goes to unlock the front door but it doesn’t click when he turns the lock. It isn’t locked. Cold fear sluices through him. This isn’t like when Tony was growing up; he doesn’t live in a great section of town anymore. But he has to know what happened so he pushes the door open.

“Steve?” he calls softly.

The lights are still on. The ornament is still broken on the floor. The only thing that’s changed is the absence of Steve’s jacket from the hook by the door and his keys from the bowl in the kitchen. He tries to call his husband but immediately hears the phone ringing from the bedroom so he hangs up. Steve didn’t even take his phone. He must have left in a hurry.

Tony’s pretty sure he knows where Steve went.

Or, at least, he hopes. It would be pretty shitty for him to come back after this whole thing only to realize that Steve’s gone out to Sam or Bucky’s tonight instead of out looking for him.

Best he can do right now is wait. He takes another look at the broken ornament. It’s not so bad as he’d first thought. There’s a lot of pieces but none of them are little and they’re all pretty straight cracks. With a little bit of superglue, he’s pretty sure he could fix it enough so it doesn’t even look broken. He sits down to start repairs, ending up so engrossed in his work that he doesn’t even hear the front door open, just that it closes. Instantly, he looks up.

Steve looks utterly wrecked. Red-rimmed eyes, hair so tangled it looks like a bird’s been nesting in it, the whole works. He’s gaping open-mouthed at Tony working on the ornament.

“Hello,” Tony says quietly.

Steve abruptly shuts his mouth and runs his fingers through his hair, messing it up more. “You came back,” he says hoarsely.

Tony quirks his head in confusion. “Why wouldn’t I?” he asks honestly. Yeah, he’d mused to Loki about whether they’d moved too quickly but he’d never once entertained the thought of not coming back.

Steve huffs out a laugh but it comes out entirely unamused. “Why would you?” he counters. He looks down at his feet and takes a deep breath. “Sweetheart, I yelled at you. I promised you I’d never yell at you and I did and honey, I wouldn’t blame you if—you fixed the ornament.”

The sudden subject change throws Tony off but he follows Steve’s gaze to the repaired ornament. He feels a small glow of pride as he looks at it. He knows he’s detail-oriented, that he’s got steady hands but this—this is the best work he’s ever done. The ornament looks good as new, like it had never fallen from his hand. It sits there, still sealing from the repair work, but as beautiful as it’s always been. He smiles as he looks at it and then looks back up at his husband.

“I did,” he agrees. He stands and moves to take Steve’s hands in his. They’re half-frozen. He gently rubs them to start warming them up. “Your mother made it. Of course I’d fix it.”

“But I—”

“Steve,” he says simply. Steve shuts up. He leans up on tiptoe to press a soft kiss to the corner of his husband’s mouth. “I was always going to come back.”

He’s not sure if it’s the words or the kiss that does it but Steve slumps against him, arms encircling Tony’s waist and burying his face in Tony’s neck. Tony wraps his own arms around Steve’s big shoulders, feeling him shake under him. His neck’s getting a little wet and he just knows that Steve’s crying. It’s a little terrifying. Steve always seems like this big stoic, strong type of person. It’s always Tony who’s the emotional one and, as a result, he’s never been very good at comfort but he’s going to try for Steve.

“I know we’ve had a bad couple of months,” he murmurs. “But I’m not giving up on us. We’re better than this.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve sobs into his neck. “I promised I wouldn’t yell.”

“Steve, baby, you can’t possibly hold yourself to that. We’ve got seventy years together. You’re bound to yell at least once.”

“You thought I was going to hit you.”

“No,” Tony says firmly. “I never thought you would hit me.”

“Honey, you flinched.”

Tony hesitates. “Yeah, I did,” he says reluctantly. “But that wasn’t because of you.”

“It was because I reminded you of Howard,” Steve says dully, knowing Tony so well. “That isn’t any better.”

“It’s not like I’ve been perfect! God, Steve, the things that Ty and Sunset would say about you and they wouldn’t listen when I told them to stop so I just stopped telling them and I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have let them talk. I should’ve shut them up.” He stops, realizing that Steve’s gone tense against him.

“But I’m done listening to them,” he continues quieter.

“You don’t have to ditch your friends just because of me,” Steve says, pulling back to look at him.

“They’re not my friends. They never were. I gave them passes because we grew up together but they’re as toxic as Howard was and I’m done with it.” He presses his face into Steve’s chest. “I don’t want to be around people who don’t like you,” he sniffles, starting to feel a little emotional himself. He pities the Tony Starks who don’t have a Steve in their life. Steve’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him, even if these last few months have been kind of bad.

He can hear the hesitancy in Steve’s voice when he asks, “Am I as toxic as Howard was?”

Tony shakes his head emphatically. “You’re so good. I don’t know what I did to deserve you but I’m so glad I did it.”

“I yelled,” Steve reminds him again.

“Yeah, you did. But, Steve, it’s the first time in four years you yelled at me. You know how long it took Rhodey to snap? Three days. Steve, honey, baby, we can work through this. I know we can. Come on, it’s Christmas. Isn’t this supposed to be about new beginnings and shit?”

Steve laughs, a deep rumble that Tony can feel under his cheek, and he knows that they’re going to be okay. “I think that’s New Year’s.”

“They take place within the same week. We might as well just roll them into one.”

Steve pulls away entirely. “They’re not the same.”

And Tony grins because he can sense the beginnings of an argument. But it’s okay because they’re going to get through this one and the next and the one after that. But first—

He darts back in and presses a lingering kiss to Steve’s lips. “I love you,” he says, leaning back just far enough to feather the words across his husband’s mouth.

Steve beams and kisses him again. “I love you more.”

“Well, I love you 3000 so there,” Tony says childishly and dances away when Steve tries to grab for him.

“Put on a Christmas movie,” Steve tells him, “and if you insist on Die Hard, then fine, and let’s finish the tree and then, Mr. Stark-Rogers—” He pauses and drags a heated gaze down Tony’s body. Tony thinks of how Ty had stared at him and how dirty he’d felt afterward. This is nothing like that. This sends shivers up his spine and makes him squirm where he stands. “Then, I want to see you put on what’s in that box you think you’re hiding under the bed.”

“Steve!” Tony squeals. “That was supposed to be a present!”

Steve looks entirely unrepentant and frankly rather smug. “Should’ve picked a better hiding place then.”

Tony picks up one of the popcorn strands and throws it at him. Steve catches it easily, tosses it aside, and then tackles him to the couch. He runs his nose along the length of Tony’s, hands fitting to the sides of Tony’s hips.

“I love you,” Steve murmurs, placing tiny kisses along his jawline. “I love you so fucking much. I’m going to spend the rest of my life proving that to you and it’ll be the best thing I’ve ever done.”

Tony hums and loops his arms around Steve’s neck. He closes his eyes, relaxes his head back into the throw pillows, and lets Steve litter kisses across his throat and what little bit of his shoulders he can reach before his shirt stops him.

“Tree,” Steve says finally, regretfully, and rolls off the couch.

“Or, and hear me out here, we could not and just go straight to bed,” Tony says, stretching. God, he’s so fucking happy. He didn’t know that just getting rid of the trash in his life could make him this happy.

Steve’s eyes catch on where his shirt rides up but he still shakes his head. “Tree and then—”

Tony hops up. He presses one last kiss to Steve’s lips and agrees, “And then.”

#alle writes #mcu #heamarvel #stony #stevetony #angst with a happy ending #tw: alcohol

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isitandwonder · 4 years

Note

Have been a charmie and at some point you stopped shipping them? I’m curious, why did it happen? If that’s the story actually... 😘

Hey nonnie, I’ve never called myself a charmie, I find this monicer rather ridiculous - but I did ship A/T and I still read a few authors who write for that ship... but I’m not super passionate about it or invested in it anymore, that’s true.

Why?

Because it stopped being fun and became a toxic cult.

You know, in the beginning (for me that was late summer 2017) T and A seemed rather cute together. They were goofy, had chemistry, they were kinda opposites (Tim lanky and dark and the newby, Armie tall, muscled, more experienced in the business), they were in this movie together that looked beautiful so... why not ship them?

Shipping, to me, means imagining two people being together and writing stories about it, chatting with friends, making stuff up, joking around and fantasize a little. It’s not real but something I imagine. And it’s being taken with a wink, with humor. Everyone involved knows it’s made up shit. And as long as it stays in fan spaces, I don’t see any harm done.

Well, that is not the case anymore.

So called fans or ‘shippers’ (they don’t ship, they KNOW, therefore the air quotes) harrass the real life partners and friends and associates and business partners of A and T. That is one thing I really don’t like. Keep stuff in fan spaces fgs!

But these people also harrass fellow fans who don’t agree with them. Like, wish them or their kids death, call them homophobes, call them all kinds of names, try to dox and mob them. Why should I be in a fandom that’s so full of hate and toxicity? I don’t have time for shit like that.

I still follow a few people on here who get it (you know who you are) but it becomes increasingly hard to find them.

That abyssmal state of the fandom shows esp in a field that’s really important to me and that I usually enjoy most: fan fic. I only still read about 5 authors. About half the people writing for the fandom are part of this toxic swamp I try to avoid like the plague (can we still say that?) on here and I wouldn’t touch their stories with a ten foot pole if you paid me money. Most of the other stories circle around things that simply don’t interest me or explore issues for the umpteenth time. I’m not saying that’s bad - write what the hell you like, create the 100th high school AU, whatever - but it just bores me (that is my problem. I also remeber a time when we had so much variety and creativity... go take a look at the older stories from 2017/2018, there are some true gems to be found!). It’s also a small fandom and maybe that’s the reason it becomes rather apparent that 80% of all WIPs get abandoned? Which is disappointing for a reader (I might be guilty of that as well, I don’t blame the writes, I blame the general atmosphere of this fandom that’s becoming less and less inspiring). I guess that only reflects the state of the fandom in general.

When ‘fans’ or ‘shippers’ are more into the private lives of the folks they stan (which might seem ‘natural’ for a real person ship but crosses a line when it’s carried into these peoples’ real lives), up to the point where it becomes harrassment, delusional, crazy, dangerous, rude, insulting, embarrassing and destructive, instead of supporting their faves - then it’s no wonder that this negativity creeps into other parts of fandom, driving writers and creators away.

(I recently came about a post re Tim where I had to read in the tags that he’s a great actor and that it’s sad that he has such a terrible fan base; that hurt.)

It has come to the point where I’m embarrassed to be associated with this ship - due to the very vocal delusional bunch of so-called ‘fans’ who are only interested in how much dick T gets from A. Like, for real REAL. In this fandom, a big chunk of people truly belief to KNOW that A and T are fucking like rabbits, that A will get a divorce soon (apparently since 2017; what are these people even hoping for???) and that T will only live for his daddy’s dick after that. And they go to ANY length to state and proof this and shout everyone down who might disagree. (Maybe they should masturbate a bit more to get these highly sexualized fantasies out of their systems? It also shows a lot about them, the way they view gender and sexuality, how they assign roles in this ship and what kind of behaviour/personality traits they depict over and over again. I could go on about the blatant, toxic heteronormativity that shows in this gay ‘ship’ that pretends to support LGB sexualities but this is already way too long lol).

I mean, if you want to rearrange your life around something like this - knock yourself out. It’s just not for me. There was a point I was really disappointed about these developments. Then I was angry for a few ‘bad apples’ destroying a place I loved. Now I only laugh about these people, though with some I really have pity because you can see in their posts how hard these mostly young, heterosexual women project and that they truly have issues in their lives they should rather tackle instead of harrassing some other women on the internet who have the privilege to share the beds of the people they pretend to stan for real.

Oh, but it’s absolutely no use to talk to these so-called hardcore charmie ‘shippers’ - they are so deep down the rabbit whole they can’t and won’t come out of it or even listen. If you only say you don’t care who A or T are into for real you are a traitor, an anti, a homophobe, dumb as shit, dense, blind... That’s not a fun place in this fandom.

I mean, I was tempted to believe, too, for about 4 weeks late 2017. I was drawn intot hat dynamic of being privy to some insider info, feeling important, being in the know... But I’m so glad I was told that Liz was in Crema almost all the time during the filming - so the little stories A and T told were promo and nothing more. That was my moment of waking up. It took me like three days to come to terms with the fact that all I imagined was truly only a fantasy - but I’m so grateful I accepted that early on and was spared a lot of disappontment by that. I know a lot of people who weren’t so lucky and are now spending their days spinning more and more delusional theories to keep the world they built together...

Rn I see huge parts of the fandom trying to ‘disprove’ things they won’t belief or accept because it goes against their ‘knowledge’ of ‘what’s really going on’. So much energy goes into arguing that posts are fake and people lie etc etc. I can’t keep up with all this nonsense. And why should I? This is not fun. This is madness. This is negativity. This is destructive. Besides, most proofs are tarot readings and the analysis of pics and vids taken out of context (or are even manips). But I suppose these people find some kind of validation in their behavior? It just eludes me. I’ve deleted most of my fics, blocked and unfollowd almost everyone, and be warned, if you have charmie in your header that’s a sign for me to keep my distance...

But all of this is only my opinion, you are welcome to disagree, carve your own happy place out here, do as you please. I would never go on anyone’s blog to lecture them or police them but you asked so here’s what I have to say.

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kob131 · 4 years

Text

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1q5Hk7u9aw

Ah FMF, even when you’re not Genwunning RT writing, you’re still not good. So Why am I covering his video on a ‘bad review’ of Netflix’s Death Note? Well this was used in the video of a Youtuber I once respected and I’m pretty sure he started adopting FMF’s bullshit so I’ve decided dissect the video to showcase that he’s bad at this no matter what the subject and why he shouldn’t be listen to.

Before we even begin, FMF begins his video with saying ‘this is just my opinion’ even though his video is titled ‘A response to a bad Death Note review’ and he has a visual counter system for what the original video gets wrong called ‘Wrong/Illogical’ which aren’t opinions. Honestly, it comes off as FMF using this as a shield to prevent criticism.

So his first point against Cosmonaut Variety Hour is that he complains about the pacing, talking about how Netflix Light gets the Death Note 2 minutes in, meets Ryuk 8 minutes in and kills his first victim a little later. FMF says that the anime had Light following a similar path. Which is true...only because FMF cuts off Cosmonaut’s final part: where he states a short while later Light gets a girl friend (Misa/Mia). This completely changes things, as how many minutes into the anime does Light get a girlfriend?

Well, each episode is about 22 minutes long with episode 1 being 23. Light and Misa part ways about 3 minutes 15 seconds into Episode 14. However, about 2 minutes 40 seconds of each episode is opening and ending. So let’s do the math.

22 * 13 + 4.25 = 290.25

2.66 * 13 + 1.5 (the opening is about 1 minute 30 seconds) = 36.08

290.25 - 36.08 = 254.17

Each .01 is .6 seconds. so 17 X .6 is 10.2

the time to getting Misa is 290 minutes and 10.2 seconds. In the movie? Let’s just say 30 minutes for simplicity’s sake (it’s more like 27 minutes and 11 seconds). That’s a net difference of 260 minutes and 10.2 seconds. WELL over double the length of the movie. So Cosmonaut’s point makes sense, if a bit ill explained.

Also in this point, he says it doesn’t make sense because Cosmonaut said ‘I like it wasn’t two hours’ ... when anyone with awareness could tell that wasn’t an actual like, it was a potshot at the movie’s poor quality that it was short.

The next point is that Cosmonaut complains about the movie not fleshing out Light, Mia and Ryuk. FMF says the exposition before finding the Death Note is about explaining Light’s life situation. ... This is a really dishonest response because he cuts off Cosmonaut explaining himself, up to and including how he would have found the few scenes with Light, Ryuk and Mia interesting if they were all more fleshed out. Not only is this stuff not helping because only one third of his point is addressed- Light’s life situation is mostly technical and meant to build up his motivation whereas Cosmonaut is talking about Light and the others as people. It’s reliant on FMF either missing or misinterpreting the point, neither of which is acceptable.

Also, in the bit he doesn’t show, Cosmonaut says ‘I’m not saying make this two hours. For the love of God, don’t make this two hours long’ with an image of a man having a heart attack, which should have informed FMF than part of his previous point was based on taking a blatant joke seriously. ... Yeah.

Next point is...Nothing. No seriously, Cosmonaut says ‘spend some time making your main character likeable or relatable in any way’ and FMF just says ‘You can’t just say there’s nothing to like.’ He doesn’t even give an example whereas Cosmonaut does, showcasing that infamous scream of Light’s (given, FMF cut that part off.) He also considers this wrong by the way. Not in my words, his ‘Wrong’ counter goes up.

His next point is about when Cosmonaut says the logic of the movie is being dumb because Light chose the name Kira. FMF claims that the logic is sound because Light makes a dumb decision and he gets immediately figured out. Issue is that A. He cut Cosmonaut mentioning that Light in the anime never actually choosing the name (setting up how the name choosing is dumb) B. That it doesn’t get immediately figured out until L figures it out (a character meant to be smart) and C. The movie itself never treats the name as being a dumb decision, in fact the police are stated to have fallen for it. Nothing here functions.

The following point is ... another dishonest one. Cosmonaut says that L finding out that Kira’s name is a misdirection doesn’t make him look smart, it makes him look dumber than Light. And FMF responds by saying ‘that doesn’t make sense because L used the death of the first victim to find out where Light was, like the anime version did!’. Thing is, Cosmonaut is saying it makes him look dumb, not that he is. You normally don’t notice this because both involve discussing L’s intelligence, never realizing that FMF is talking about something different. This is a fallacy called ‘pivoting’: you see politicians doing this a lot. He’s being dishonest again.

Before we move onto the next point, I wanna point out that he skips Cosmonaut bitching about the movie giving L a reason to eat candy and how it doesn’t make sense. Thing is, Cosmonaut says that the movie is stating candies can keep you awake for 48 hours but the clip he shows doesn’t say that. It was 41 hours and the topic was keeping his mind focused. You’d think FMF would jump on this since he IS wrong here...but no, he doesn’t. Trust me when I say this becomes important later.

fMF;s next point is another case of cut context. He shows a clip of Cosmonaut saying some scenes were likely cut with an example of Ryuk saying he’s disappointed and that he said Light should give up the Death Note while FMF responds by saying Ryuk already informed him. Thing is, Cosmonaut is talking about Ryuk SAYING Light should give it up instead of INFORMING Light he can give it up like FMF says, playing a clip where Ryuk says as much (’I asked politely but you didn’t hear me: let the note go!’) and Cosmonaut even rebutes FMF’s point, saying what Ryuk did before was inform him of an option but not insisted on it (in fact egging Light on). Again, relying on cutting off his argument.

His point afterward is short but correct: Cosmonaut says L should be surprised Light knows his name and FMF shows that they revealed it earlier. I think it’s also the only point so far that he hasn’t cut off.

The next is one that FMF doesn’t cut off but is still rather sneaky. Cosmonaut says the movie is making the case for Light Turner being smart and FMF says the movie is making the case that Light is poor, has iffy morals ect. This is the scene that most people point to saying the movie says Light is smart here. FMF is trying to disprove that by giving an alternate interpretation. Thing is, why would anyone pay to have their homework partially done by a dumb person? That...doesn’t make sense. And Light has 15 customers at least, since he was found with at least 15 people’s homework on him when he was found after being punched (something FMF tries to use to say ‘see? He was punched for trying to be clever! The movie’s not saying he’s smart!’) so he should know this.

Afterward, he tackles Cosmonaut’s point about Light cracking under pressure by saying the pressure is mounting on him. I could understand this (ignoring how I’ve made this same point to him about RWBY...) except that in the anime even more pressure was on Light and he never cracked like this. Is Light Turner a different character? Yes...but no one mentions this.

“‘Lust for power’ is one of the most basic human motivations in the world.” is his next counter argument against Cosmonaut, who says ‘we never learn why Mia wants to kill everybody.” I’m afraid I can’t let the RWBY thing directly slid anymore because this standard could really affect his work: Cinder has the EXACT SAME motivation and no one buys that shit. We don’t buy it because there has to be a reason BEHIND the lust for power. Even Dio had this (he wanted power because of his fucked up childhood.) So he really should be calling this out himself. ESPECIALLY if he’s called out Cinder before.

Next up is FMF going on and on about how the movie shows Light isn’t smart (Err, no. Getting punched was suppose to show how crooked the system was) and how L is making this a game for his ego (he...never prove this beyond showing L refer to this as a game. Nothing for ego) in response to Light being called dumb... And why wouldn’t he be considered smart? He outright says L refers to him as smart and while he says it’s for his ego, not only is the homework thing logically about him being smart but the character Turner is adapted from is notoriously smart so that’s just...logical.

Next one is fucking weird. Cosmonaut says the rule about the Death Note’s burning page makes no sense and FMF says that while he agrees with it, he tries to insert a counter by saying that ‘taking Ryuk at face value, it might not work at all.’ ... The rule wasn’t said by Ryuk, it’s said in the Death Note. Ryuk was saying that he can only do it once. He fucked up a point he says he mostly agree with.

Next part is Cosmonaut saying it’s stupid that Watari only has one name and is using his real name and FMF says that it makes sense as Watari needs to be contacted to get to L...ignoring that you could just have a private number. And before someone complains at me since he says its an opinion: that ‘Wrong’ counter goes up and that ain’t an opinion so I’m not buying it.

The next part brings up that Light got Watari’s name from his dad, something Cosmonaut says L should have known better because L wasn’t a suspect yet while FMF points out that Light wasn’t a suspect yet. ... This is still calls L’s intelligence into question as he was giving out his partner’s name out so it can be researched...and he has the man undisguised with him in the open (which is how Light gets his face).

Next part I’ll give: This version of L is emotional so FMF is right...if he had taken the time to establish this is suppose to be a video looking at the movie on it’s own. FMF, you need to give context.

Next two are basically the same: Cosmonaut bitches about Light not giving a reason for not wanting to killing Watari and FMF cities ‘we don’t kill people’ and ‘survival instinct’ for why he would want to kill L as reasons...which brings up: wouldn’t killing Watari also fall under ‘survival instinct’? Kill L’s ally/possible avenger?

The next point is really stupid. It’s bitching about the moment where Watari dies, Cosmonaut saying that it doesn’t make sense that Watari doesn’t reveal L’s name while FMF says that Ryuk could have interpreted his ‘dealer’s choice’ to kill him without revealing the name to fuck with Light...Ryuk’s never acted to fuck with Light like that before (could have interpreted the names being written to mean [Reveal Light’s name to the world] too) and ‘dealer’s choice’ refers to the type of death, not what everything in it means.

He then mocks Cosmonaut for saying a scene of Ryuk saying ‘dealer’s choice!’ disproved what Cosmonaut said before. Ignoring that I have personally seen him pull this on RWBY- He does this same thing here NUMEROUS TIMES with Cosmonaut. It still doesn’t make sense because Ryuk, when Watari’s circumstances are written down, mentioned the cause of death SPECIFICALLY. That’s why there’s an issue.

Afterward Cosmonaut bitches that Mia can’t get the Death Note because he needs to live it alone for seven days while FMF corrects him as he shows Light can just give it up. Nothing really bad here (in a vacuum). Same with the ‘finding Light’ thing that comes after (in a vacuum).

Next is FMF being suspicious again. He cuts up Cosmonaut’s argument about why there is so many police at the pier and why the are there that he cuts out a part of Cosmonaut’s point (that they found L so there’s no reason for so much force there). And his ‘within reason’ thing pops up again even as he doesn’t afford Cosmonaut that. Same with the ‘L said Light is Kira and he took my gun’ counter to Cosmonaut even though in any other circumstance he would have ignored that.

Next is...confusing AND bullshit. Cosmonaut says that, with Light writing that if Mia takes the Death Note she dies, the Death Note is never shown to have these kinds of deaths. And FMF says that...it wasn’t the Death Note. ... Even though the end, Light did write that down. FMF tries to justify this by saying Mia was forced to do it by the Death Note by referencing her saying ‘I love you so much’ and looking shocked when getting the Death note...what he DOESN’T show you is Light saying ‘If you love me, you gotta trust me. Don’t take the book’ before her line, Light getting distracted by his dad afterward, panicking when she takes it THEN her looking shocked as she said ‘What?’. FMF is pretty much LYING at that point.

Cosmonaut has this really big point about Light’s plan from the movie’s climax where FMF attacks some of the aspects. One is him saying Light needed to discredit L to get off the hook (even though he never shows the part about the criminal being brainwashed into doing Light’s dirty work to clear his name.) He brings up Watari not knowing where L’s orphanage is...even though he could have learned about it off screen.

And we end with him making a technical error: he says that the page L has also has the rules/instructions on it...and I can’t tell what it says. So it’s as good as worthless.

Cosmonaut did make a few mistakes and FMF could have made an actual good video by addressing how he doesn’t explain the points he makes against the movie...but that isn’t what he did. Instead of going for smaller but truthful criticisms, he goes for big, flashy and ultimately fault at the VERY best and disgustingly manipulative at worst. All of this without mentioning his hypocrisy with RWBY (example: he ignores anything that doesn’t happen on screen and gives no logical concessions to the show while demanding Cosmonaut do that.) Even when giving him some credit, the man makes it so his targets always look better out of it because he’s so dishonest and manipulative.

Honestly, no one should look to him for inspiration or good points. Because even with a video as bare bones and basic as Cosmonaut, he makes it look like a work of Robert Ebert.

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janiedean · 5 years

Note

Do you think hollywood will ever get out of its “woke” phase or will it only get worse from here?

... I sat on this for a while and I honestly don’t know how to take it, because woke means absolutely nothing put on like that and it’s not like if movies address social justice issues or start caring about accurate representation or whatnot or what we mean for woke it’s automatically a bad thing, but like the problem with any hollywood production is that hollywood makes movies thinking about money first and artistic value later unless we count a handful of directors/people who can go a good movie that will make money (spielberg/zemeckis etc) or who are at a point in their career where their CV is so out of this world good that they can afford to do whatever they want and/or are huge names who made history who have their own money/circle/clout or their own production company (scorsese, clint eastwood etc). also the second contingent problem is that most people only watch mainstream movies that were released recently which means that everything that comes out these days is supposedly groundbreaking when in truth it’s not 99% of the time.

ps: this rant has very vague spoilers for the 2019 joker so like... thread carefully but it’s really really vague xD

now, since I apparently decided to go at this pseudo-seriously even if I think the question means all and everything, I’ll try to, but basically:

if by woke we mean performative representation/performative social justice themes/*insert-token-character-here*, it’s a 100% question of what the studios think the audience wants vs what makes money vs milking the thing until it’s dry. I mean, I’m talking in general about a genre no one on tumblr cares about, but as someone who loves bad/trashy testosterone-driven action movies every single time I see one with the Badass Female Character Inserted By Force Because The Studio Said They Needed At Least One Quota Because Otherwise People Say It’s Not Feminist I roll my eyes a lot because if I’m watching a genre which is the male equivalent of the female empowerment romcom (ie: if romcoms are the-empowerment-fantasy-for-girls the trashy action movie is the same for guys) I don’t need the Fake Strong Female Character in it because I’m not watching it for the feminism, but until people will worry about the bechdel test as the ultimate proof a movie is good then we’ll get the token character that makes no sense, but since these days the hype is there, you’ll get it because the studio wants the money;

on the other side, if we mean people want actual representation and should push the studios to have it/not whitewash characters etc it’s an entirely legitimate complaint and I don’t think hollywood should *get out of the woke phase* or whatever, but my issue is that most of the time it ends up turning performative as well. as in: you know the dark tower movie? (yeah, yeah, I hate it, I earned the right to trash talk it) when they racebent the lead everyone was screaming at how woke and progressive it was... except that they didn’t wanna hear/didn’t want to discuss the fact that the only reason they did that (imvho) was that they adapted seven books in one movie, cut the female disabled character who’s also mentally ill who’s actually black in the original canon and since they didn’t want to get called out on having done that, they racebent the lead so they looked progressive, but do we really think that doing that rather than adapting the actual black character they had which would have required at least some effort is more progressive? idk but I think it’s not. anyway: i’m all for people pushing for this, but they need to be coherent. in the sense that for all I don’t agree with clint eastwood’s political views, if you watch gran torino where the protagonist becomes friends with his vietnamese hmong neighbor, all the hmong characters were actually cast from hmong actors and if you look at interviews online with hmong people about that movie the opinion is that even if the script could have been better for some of them, they were delighted that he cast from their community and didn’t cast from another asian ethnicity that for any producer would have meant the exact same thing because figures if producers gaf about accurate casting when it comes to that. but like, hollywood won’t gaf about that until people are vocal about needing good and specific rep and not just generic ‘as long as it’s X it’s fine’;

that also goes for wanting more movies with minorities having a role - hollywood will go for giving minorities roles as long as it gives them good money/clout, but it won’t care for good movies about minorities or minority actors having good roles until people are vocal about it and/or it means money loss if they do it wrong;

(caveat: this obviously excludes actors from minorities whose work transcended that - meaning, for example will smith gets cast 85% of the time based on part and not on his skin color because he’s uber famous and he made his name in a specific genre and so on, but like we’re talking about the people who made the Upper Level of Superstar Hollywood)

anyway tldr: hollywood american movies were always 95% made for the money and reflect what they think the audience wants to pay for, which means that if hollywood producers think that people want fake woke movies then they’ll give them the fake woke movies.

this also goes hand in hand with the other problem I mentioned ie that people don’t watch movies that aren’t recent so hollywood can get away with pretending to be original when it’s actually not. now since we don’t wanna diss anything, i’ll mention a movie I actually did like *drumroll*... joker.

or, to specify what I mean:

tldr, I thought that joker was a very well-executed and planned and shot movie which had a good idea and went down well on it and was basically the batman movie nolan dreamed he was doing with the black knight and whose point was telling you that a sick system that abandons the weakest people in it (poor, mentally ill etc) and mocks them as if it’s their own fault that they aren’t better than that eventually breeds chaos and hurt and crime and it’s the fault of the system/the people in charge who don’t see it. now: that’s the least original idea in existence and I’ll go on it in depth later. except that..

when I go look at recs especially from american media, there’s a polarization between ‘OMG THIS INCITES VIOLENCE IT’S HORRIBLE IT’S DANGEROUS’ and ‘OMG THIS IS A NEW MASTERPIECE I’VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT BEFORE GROUNDBREAKING AMAZING NO ONE EVER DID IT BEFORE’, which to me is imvho showing very clearly where we have the issue;

as in, issue one: OMG IT INCITES VIOLENCE BLAH BLAH it’s the oldest excuse in existence that has been disproved over and over and it’s just another proof of how puritan/calvinist is the viewership because the point is not inciting violence, it’s showing that as stated not giving a fuck about people who need help means growing discontent that then explodes... which again, you don’t need to read freud’s theory about the masses to know that if the majority of the population lives in shitty conditions you get revolutions;

issue two: the only original/innovative think joker has going for itself is that it’s a movie that has a way wider audience than usual *and* an actual comic book/genre film to discuss the aforementioned issue going in depth into it and not sugarcoating it. but other than that... the deconstruction of the hero/villain in a corrupt world was already in watchmen if you want a genre movie and there have been endless others pointing that out except not that mainstream (because again everyone knows what batman is and who’s the joker, watchmen is a lot more niche), the spectacularization of THAT THING on television was already in network that came out in the year of the lord 1976 and the entire movie was basically an homage to taxi driver when it came to how it was filmed/structured and I guessed 95% of what was gonna happen in the first fifteen minutes. it’s nothing groundbreaking whatsoever, but apparently everyone thinks it is because they haven’t seen either of the above movies or any other that predated this one;

now, joker is a movie I actually liked so I don’t see the lack of originality as a bad thing because that wasn’t the point, but like just to say one, hearing people say that mad max fury road was revolutionary feminist action movie and nothing else ever happened before it when there have been four alien movies before, the valid terminator movies (one and two obviously), kill bill and so on, as in stuff that existed in the eighties was honestly meh because I did like MMFR but again it was hardly groundbreaking (maybe it is for this decade and for other reasons but not for the plot). now, both of these are good movies, but like....... 95% of nolan’s movies are hailed as top originality masterpieces and imvho he’s good but not that good and if people think dunkirk is the best war movie ever it’s because they haven’t ever seen an actual effective war movie (like I can’t even believe some people said it was like two hours of saving private ryan’s first twenty minutes, five minutes of SPR were endlessly better than all of dunkirk and SPR is hardly the best war movie out there), same for about anything he does. now, that’s way beyond the wokeness discourse, but the point is that if people don’t watch other movies and then think that hollywood’s performative woke stuff is peak progressive movie when it really really really is not then hollywood isn’t going to bother producing better stuff that’s both progressive and quality (which can happen I mean have we all seen philadelphia, even if that is like... not exactly mainstream hollywood and it was a risky movie to make but anyway not the problem). tldr: people need to stop acting like the last ten years of movies have been the only era in cinema where you got progressive movies because it’s not true and for one I can 100% assure you that for all its faults tied to the era, the defiant ones is a lot more seriously woke and effective when it comes to discussing racism in the US than 85% of the contemporary stuff I see.

so, idk what you meant with the original question, but imvho: hollywood will produce fake-performative woke movies until the audience contents itself with fake-wokeness instead of actual good material or until people decide to finally stop watching only blockbusters and also give money to indie filmmakers or like nonamerican filmmakers and anyway hollywood goes where the money goes.

which mean that if the activism irl doesn’t stop being performative and becomes serious and therefore automatically turns into people asking for serious rep and not the token character/plot, you’ll keep on getting fake woke movies. (also the day people stop saying GO WATCH THAT MOVIE BECAUSE IT’S WOKE without having even seen it and having read the summary on tumblr will be amazing, but that’s not the day.)

that said, since the idea behind a lot of the fake wokeness is actually right (ie: we need more women/minorities of every kind in movies or television/we need more rep that aren’t blonde blue eyed tall white guys/we need to cast ethnical minorities properly etc) we can hope that people actually grasp the message and we get more and more movies that cast people correctly or who have good rep for the good reasons and I’m all for it because that is a good thing. fake wokeness is not.

but anyway: hollywood stops being each single trend it is when that trend stops selling. that’s your answer. and until we all think that the oscars are top cinematography choices in existence, it’s not gonna happen.

to end it all: no one is obliged to watch hollywood movies. actually, it’s highly advised to spend your money on either foreign movies or indie movies or independent movies or riskier projects rather than hollywood blockbusters if you don’t want fake progressive stuff also because those movies usually gaf about the issues they touch and if they get money maybe it means more of them get made.

and this was my rant, idk if that’s what you wanted to hear but I guess that’s what I had to say on the topic.

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #janie rants #movies for ts #joker for ts #idek #long post for ts #Anonymous #ask post

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bereft-of-frogs · 5 years

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veliseraptor replied to your post “#SiblingAppreciationMoment okay so last night I was like ‘wtf do I do...”

I want to know more about your horror feelings (if you wanna share)

Sure! I have many thoughts!

It’s mostly that...like, horror is a massive, sprawling genre because it’s essentially based around the emotion being evoked so it can be really anything. But I feel like in the second half of the 20th century “Horror” became really so heavily influenced by exploitation films and slashers that everyone else got kind of lost, and it led to the Horror Bros, who have very specific ideas about what horror is and should be, and everything and everyone else isn’t a ‘real’ horror fan. Like, I used to feel so insecure about this that I made a list and just plowed through this list of ‘classic’ horror movies so I could feel like I paid my dues, even though I already knew a lot about other subgenres and because I’m into horror literature I usually know more about the origins and narrative trends. I’ve now seen a lot of slashers and I just...don’t like them. They don’t scare me, they don’t evoke any emotion, I’m just not into it. I’m still into horror I’m just not into that kind of horror. To each his own! It’s a preference! But every time I voice that in a situation with Horror Bros (festivals, movie discussions, tonight was a talk, wherever they have clustered) I get the like ‘well, I don’t know if you really get it” comment in response. Or like, ‘you don’t really like horror if you don’t like [insert exploitation film/popular director here].’

And from my observations from afar that seems like a lot of what the Comic Book Bros engage in: similarly to the horror genre, comics are massive and no one can possible read or like all styles and runs. But there is the ‘mainstream’ interpretations and stereotypes that seem to dominate and then the Comic Book Bro ‘well, actually...’s people who are into things that are outside that mainstream. (Without really knowing what they’re talking about; I see so many of those interactions on Twitter, of people pulling quotes and references to disprove the Bros trying to insist that their and only their interpretation of a character or event is correct.)

So I’m just. Imagining this unholy alliance of people ‘well, actually’/’well I’m not really sure you really get it’-ing me into a corner no matter how much knowledge I acquire about either genre. (And I should say, I know very little about comic books in general - I’m mostly going off of observations of interactions on the internet.) (I’ve been meaning to try and delve more into comic books because I feel really woefully lacking but it is a bit intimidating and...seems like it’s going to get expensive.)

But on second reflection, I think it’s probably not going to be as bad as I think it is, because, in my opinion, we’re entering a new golden age of the horror film which has really blown the genre and audience wide open. We have a lot of people working to subvert the tropes that became definitional for horror in the last few decades, and I’m assuming the new Dr. Strange will be riding off of that high. So it will probably be more genre bending, and just produce a couple of annoyed Bros who call it ‘kiddie horror’ (<<<<- an actual quote, about something else obviously, from a Horror Bro) or something.

Tldr; I’ve been ‘well actually’-ed enough by the Horror Bros, now they could be coming for something else I love and it will all combine into a nightmarish ‘are you sure you’re really a fan?’ imposter syndrome-producing/gatekeeping army. But it probably won’t be that bad because they’ll probably just ride on Jordan Peele’s coattails.

Sorry this turned out so long. And possible nonsensical because of how late/hot it is. XD Also, at this point, the word ‘horror’ has ceased to have any meaning in my mind because I said it so many times. XD

#veliseraptor #mcu anticipation #i think im just particularly sensitive because of this festival #which has been fun but has put me in far more contact with the Horror Bros than i usually am

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martydriscoll · 6 years

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Day 16. If the characters were youtubers who would they be and why?

Andi - Fran Meneses: Fran Meneses is an artistic YouTuber who makes money off of her work. If Andi were a YouTuber, I definitely think that like Fran, her channel would be centered around her art more than anything else. Andi is such a creative, crafty person who has shown time and time again that literally anything can be art, and I think that when she gets older, her bank account and Etsy page will thank her for that. I don’t ever think Andi will stop making art. Art is her passion. She turns to it in the good and the bad times. Like Fran, I think that art will be Andi’s career one day. I can totally see her having paintings in a gallery (maybe more collaborative pieces with her future husband, Walker?) and thousands of views on Etsy. Her YouTube channel would not only consist of tutorials and art challenges, but also of videos like Fran’s detailing her life as a career artist.

Buffy - Chiney Ogwumike: If Buffy were a YouTuber, I think she’d be less of the commercial sort of YouTuber whose brand is based around YouTube, and more of someone who does something else for a living and makes videos as a hobby. Chiney Ogwumike is a professional basketball player who sometimes makes vlogs. Sometimes they’re more oriented around her basketball career, and sometimes they’re more oriented around her as a person and her view on things. When I envision Buffy as a YouTuber, I see her as someone who makes casual videos so that others can see into her life, not as a full-time YouTuber. I can see Buffy going pro in basketball and making a name for herself in the world of sports and wanting to share who she really is with her fans by making videos. I can also see her using her platform to shake things up in the world of sports even more by calling the media out on their coverage, or lack thereof, of women’s sports, something Chiney has done.

Cyrus - Judging by his absolutley iconic English accent, if Cyrus was any YouTuber, I think his name would be Nick Crompton and his collar would stay poppin’...sksksksk nah, if Cyrus was a YouTuber, he’d be...Shane Dawson: Shane Dawson has been doing YouTube for a long time. He’s earned the title of OG YouTuber by now, and though his current videos are beautiful documentaries in which he tries helping others, specifically people who don’t really have a messy past, his early videos...aren’t that great. This isn’t trying to shade him in any way! I just mean that the skits he made in high school were made by someone who wasn’t that experienced in writing or directing or anything, his videos were just made for fun. To me, this parallels Cyrus’ script and the movie that he tried to make. As we know, it wasn’t good, but that doesn’t mean Cyrus doesn’t have the potential to make an Oscar-worthy movie one day. Additionally, that thing that Shane has inside of him that just wants to help people...Cyrus has that too. He befriended TJ and Amber even though they didn’t have that good of a track record with his friends, and though they had and still have to put the work in of being a better person, Cyrus was part of their journey to be better. On the other hand, we haven’t seen Cyrus (or Shane) really go out of the ways to help themselves and the issues that they have with themselves. I definitely think we’ll see that in the future with both of them, as sesason two saw a big build up in Cyrus’ confidence in himself and Shane said in a recent video of him that he wanted to start working on helping himself, but as of yet, we haven’t seen a ton of that from them. I definitely don’t think Cyrus would have the scandal-filled past that Shane has, but they definitely have a lot of similarities that lead me to this opinion.

Jonah - Joe Sugg: Joe Sugg is a YouTuber who makes a variety of videos ranging from daily vlogs to music to challenges. He sort of does a bit of everything. Basically, if it’s the latest trend, he’s doing it. I could see Jonah’s YouTube channel the same way: a bit of everything. I definitely think Jonah would keep up with the viral trends, but also focus a bit on hobbies of his, like music. He would have a ton of teenage fangirls and become really big on YouTube because who wouldn’t love him? And his content would be pretty general and wide, so he’d get a fair amount of views on all of his videos. If Jonah were a YouTuber, I could see him as one of the pretty it boys of YouTube with a focus on music, and I think Joe Sugg fits that bill pretty well.

Bex - Morgan Adams: Morgan Adams is a YouTuber who vlogs about her life. From her YouTube page, you would think that she’s the most laid back, relatable person ever. Though I don’t think that Morgan and Bex are exactly the same in a lot of ways, that relatable, chill energy radiates off of both of them. Bex asking, “How about some pizza?” in an uncomfortable situation and Morgan making an entire video about back to school snacks? Same. Damn. Energy. We stan relatable queens!

Bowie - AJayll: AJayll is a music reviewer who gets into every song she reviews. She has fun with her videos, and in turn, she’s fun to watch. Her and Bowie have the same chill vibes and the same passion for music. I could totally see Bowie absolutley jamming out and vocalizing along to tracks like AJayll does, and that’s why she is my choice for Bowie for this prompt.

Celia - Rachel Talbott: Rachel Talbott is a lot of things, but the most important role she feels she plays is the role of mom. Talbots’s videos are lifestyle vlogs centered around skincare, cleaning, organizing, health, fitness, and being a mom. If CeCe was a YouTuber, I feel like the role of mom would still be the most important thing to her, and like Rachel, she would post all about it. Still, even with that as her main focus, there will be the occasional travel vlog with Ham.

Ham - FunForLouis: FunForLouis is a travel vlogging channel that basically just started because of what it sounds like: Louis Cole just wanted to have some fun. Originally, the channel was comprised of videos of Louis eating shocking things, but now it’s a travel channel where he pushes others to go outside of their comfort zones and live their lives. I think Ham would be great at that. Traveling and exploring the world is something that is super important to Ham, so important that he left his family for a while to do it...it’s not a stretch to think that if Ham were a YouTuber, he would be posting the same kinds of videos Louis is.

Amber - Ava Gridley: Ava Gridley is a model who vlogs about everything from her travels to her art to her favorite music to her makeup to her girlfriend. She has a pretty diverse, chill channel that she just...shares her life in. I feel like if Amber was a YouTuber, she would definitely be a YouTuber/model, and a lot of the things that Ava is into coincide with what Amber is into in my mind.

Marty - Nathan Zed: Nathan Zed’s channel is mainly a react channel in which he shares his reactions to everything from memes to Marvel. He definitely keeps his audience laughing. I think if Marty was a YouTuber, his focus would be more on showcasing his witty banter than it would be on, say, his sports. That isn’t to say that he doesn’t sometimes bring sports into his channel, he definitely would...I just think that as a YouTuber, Marty would focus more on his “Marty from the Party” side than he would his “track star Marty” side.

Walker - Whyt Manga: Whyt Manga is an illustrator who publishes his creations through his own publishing company. Maybe I’m blurring the lines between Walker and Darius a bit, but I envision Walker as a bit of a weeb, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I could see Walker making money with art in his own way: starting his own comic book/graphic novel company and publishing his own sketches and illustrations, which is exactly what Whyt Manga did. Whyt Manga and Walker are both brilliant artists, and I believe that they both have that drive and determination to work however hard they need to work in order to make art their career. They want to make comic books? They do that. They need someone to publish them? They create a publishing company.

TJ - Definiley Matty FUCKING Smokes 🤪🤪 For real though, if TJ was a YouTuber, I think he would be...Zack Evans. Zack Evans is a YouTuber who works for BuzzFeed. Currently, Evans does commentary for BuzzFeed Unsolved: Sports Conspiracies, a series that breaks down the validity of popular conspiracy theories about the world of sports. I could definitely see TJ doing something sports-centered in his videos, and I didn’t know what exactly that could be until I saw that series. I think TJ is probably a fan of all kinds of sports and would provide very good commentary on them. He is also a history buff, as seen when he easily rebuttaled Buffy’s Machiavelli quip, so I would like to imagine that TJ has enough insight on sports conspiracies to try and disprove them.

Iris - Ingrid Nilsen: Ingrid Nilsen is a lifestyle YouTuber who dabbles in a little of everything. Books, beauty, life, activism, and more are frequently featured on her channel. If Iris were to do YouTube, I think that she would make a lot of videos about life and advice that she has for others, as well as make a lot of videos about her more “nerdy” side. I also believe that like Ingrid, she is a very kind individual who would preach acceptance and love. Additionally, though I know Iris canonly had feelings for Cyrus, I also believe that her character mirrors Cyrus in practically every aspect, and I really like the theory that Iris is lgbt in some way, which also mirrors Ingrid, as she is a lesbian.

Natalie - Brianne Worth: Brianne Worth is an Australian YouTuber who vlogs about her travels, her opinions, and just anything she wants, really. She’s a really outdoorsy person. She seems to always be going on different adventures of all sorts. Though we do not see a ton of Natalie, what we do see points to a strong, sporty girl who is always the life of the party. Those kinds of traits are what I associate Brianne Worth with.

Gus - Cryaotic: Cryaotic is a gamer who, to my knowledge, doesn’t show his face. He just...games and pretty much leaves it at that. He’s done collaborations, but because we don’t know who he is, you can’t really tell how his life outside of YouTube is. We haven’t seen a whole lot about Gus, but what we have seen is that though he wants friends, he doesn’t really have them other than Jonah, and even that friendship is only sometimes. With that being said, I think if Gus was a YouTuber, he would probably feel way more comfortable being anonymous because that’s sort of how it is in real life. Hey, I could be wrong. Maybe YouTuber Gus would be completely the opposite because he wants to make friends! In my mind though, I feel like Cry’s approach to YouTube would allign with how Gus would approach YouTube.

Miranda - Laura Lee: Laura Lee is a snake and doesn’t deserve a following. Miranda can relate.

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thevortexofourminds · 6 years

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What is a story?

Tiernan's @tiernanogphoto wonderful contemplation (found here: http://letstalkphotography.tumblr.com/post/171568318505/on-the-intersection-of-art-journalism-and) on "stories", "photo-journalism", "objectivity", and his thought-provoking question whether all kinds of photography can (or maybe even should) evoke stories (which will certainly be a topic for one of the next inConversations), made me think.

I certainly cannot add anything of value to Tiernan's "sociologist approach", because my background is largely different. I studied literature, drama, (and social-psychology), later went to filmschool, and have been working as a producer, writer, director, video-editor, and cameraman. So, what I write here, is a very different take on the subject, and rather the viewpoint of a "storyteller" and that one of a person, who has been engaged in trying to understand and to work with the "mechanics" of storytelling.

What is a story?

A story certainly is some sort of narrative. It can be based on actual events (to whichever extent), or it can be completely fictitious. The goal of a story is to interest, inform, amuse, emotionally engage, or also instruct an audience. And that unrelated to whether the story is "true" or not. Often, the most effective informative or instructional stories are not "documentaries" but are complete fiction (think of fables for instance or instructional videos which present a fictitious story based on certain information). And often "true stories" are merely told for entertainment purposes. What all stories have in common: They are communication. And communication always demands at least two parties. The person who "tells" and the person who "is told" (I'll get into that a bit later).

One of the biggest misconceptions about stories and storytelling is that there is ONE true and unambiguous interpretation of a story: Usually the one of the author. But that is not true. Never was. Never will be. Because it is not as simple as that.

Where does a story "happen"?

Since stories are always communication, the story "happens" inside of the mind of the recipient. And different minds create different stories. So there is not ONE story. But as many stories as there are minds who read/hear/watch them (plus the one of the author). The storyteller (especially, of course, the journalist) often wants to get sure that the same story they had in mind also appears in the mind of the recipient - which can be tricky.

We have no possibility of communicating in an objective way.

Communication is encoding information into a form that can be transmitted. And then this "encoded information" has to be decoded and interpreted by the recipient. Facts, thoughts, feelings, opinions - they all have to be encoded into symbols - like words or sentences - to be transmitted. And to receive "the intended message", the recipient needs to have the same understanding of the symbols, the right "decoding mechanism", often also the same background knowledge, in short: the same "context". I am aware that what I wrote might seem like a bloated, and "blown out of proportions" analysis, but actually, it isn't.

I'll give you an example: If I give you no context whatsoever, and I write that I love tits, your "story" will probably be that I like birds. Won’t it? When I continue writing: "I also love pussies", your story might change into: "Oh, Pete is not only fond of birds but also of cats. He loves animals". While this seems like a simplified example, think closer: I only threw in some words. There is no complex background story like in - say - news reporting. Every transmitted information is either based on that the audience has the same background knowledge - the same standpoint, or it ideally will give you the needed background information.

People in similar types of societies (like for example "the Western world"), certainly all have a very similar "decoding mechanism", but this is nevertheless tricky. Symbols are never unambiguous. You know that yourself. Misunderstandings in even the simplest forms of communication occur all of the time. A slightly different tone of voice, an added gesture, a missing gesture, a missing word, or a word that the person who said it, apparently uses slightly different than you do can lead to creating a whole different "story" in your mind than the "message" was intended to be.

I will not go (too deep) into the psychological part of this, and only will mention one of the (certainly one of the biggest) factors in all types of storytelling (including reporting and news media): Confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is "the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias). In short: You are more likely to believe what confirms your existing beliefs. And you will automatically interpret information, stories, behavior, etc. biased towards this. You certainly know this yourself: As soon as we're confronted with information that stands in direct opposition to what we believe or "know", we will automatically be at least skeptical, try to disprove it, or completely reject it. And the more important the subject is for us, the more likely will we reject it without even spending thought on that we might have been wrong.

And there is more: If we like someone, we are more likely to accept and believe what they say. And we don't need proof. And if we don't like someone, they can tell us the most obvious truths, but we will at least be skeptical or even try to find ways to disprove them. That's why people often only read newspapers, or watch tv shows (including news) that confirm their own beliefs.

Journalism is supposed to be objective

Yes or no? I'd say "yes". I still believe that it is not possible. There cannot be complete objectivity. Confirmation bias just being one factor. Journalists also have confirmation bias. Even though a responsible journalist should be aware of this and work against it, in favor of the "objective truth". Not only is this hard, and I certainly don't want to be in this position, I am even sure that it is impossible to be completely impartial and bias-free.

But there is more: Journalists often are freelancers. So they will get paid for their stories being published. If the stories don't get published they won't get paid. So what they do - what they HAVE to do - is to find and write stories that WILL get published. And which stories will get published? Those stories that people want to read: Confirmation bias. And that is also true for permanently employed journalists. They have to deliver stories that the "audience" of the news-outlet wants to see.

And I'm not (only) talking about the "big stories".

It's also the seemingly small things: Say, I am a photo-journalist and I have to cover a protest march. Which photos will I try to take? The ones that I can sell. The ones that have a chance to get published. While my personal beliefs and certainly also the task I was given by my employer might be the big force that drives me through the hours of shooting, there is always my confirmation bias ("Is this a legit protest?", "Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? The protesters or the counter-protesters?" etc). So I am even more likely to see things that confirm my beliefs. Granted, a good journalist should be able to be as objective as ever possible. But there is still the "get published threat". You will try to capture the best story you can get.

In almost all, if not all common storytelling theories, you will find one aspect as the centerpiece of stories: Conflict. "No conflict, no story". So you will try to find and build up the conflict. And the stronger the conflict, the more powerful the story.

Tiernan mentioned recurring "formulas" for storytelling. And yes, in (almost) every book about storytelling, and especially screenwriting, you will find "recipes" for structuring stories, for creating conflict, for constructing "interesting characters" etc. I won't go down this rabbit-hole, because I could ramble and rant about this for hours, just let me mention one point: You will find these "formulas" in almost every movie you will ever watch. Even in the ones that (pretend to) not follow formulas. You can literally predict the exact minute of a movie when one of the big events, which will give the story a different spin (the "plot points") will happen. And depending on the genre of the movie you can even predict WHAT will happen.

Every media outlet provides a certain "space" for every story. And the space is limited. Limited by time (for instance in movies) or limited by - literally - the number of letters (for instance in newspapers). So there is NO WAY to ever tell "the whole" unbiased story. There is NO WAY to be completely objective. Because we always - deliberately or not - have to leave out events, facts, and background information. And the recipient is the one who fills the blanks with their own interpretation, based on their own context and knowledge of the background information, and their own beliefs, and so create their own story.

So... if we are talking about being objective, it all comes down to Tiernan's wonderful notion: "But one can certainly be more objective"

Let me close this with a quote by Neil deGrasse Tyson, who said:

"No matter what eyewitness testimony is in the court of law, it is the lowest form of evidence in the court of science."

#storytelling #photography #journalism #writing

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towan-white · 6 years

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The Mighty Boosh/Set The Thames On Fire Theory

Merging universes ‘n’ that. (It’s gonna be a long one, folks.)

Okay, so this is kind of a 2-theories-in-one sort of deal. The second came to me before the first, but they just make a lot more sense together.

1. Vince & The Mighty Boosh as a whole.

So it’s a safe bet to assume that the Boosh is set in the time period in which it was made/aired (2003-’07), and is set in a warped, surreal version of London. One thing that always bothered me about the Boosh was the continuity between episodes. It’s a surreal comedy so obviously I can’t expect it to have completely airtight continuity all the time, but things like The Hitcher appearing in Eels and Vince and Howard acting like they’ve never met him before always bothered me a little. Now, I don’t want to be that edgelord who makes “what if they were in a coma the whole time” theories, but hear me out.

What if the Boosh in its entirety was made up by Vince?

Consider this: you’re a struggling musician with a vast imagination who works in a small shop with your best friend while trying to get your career off the ground. Business is slow and there’s rarely anything to do during working hours, so what do you do to pass the time? Tell stories, of course. And what happens when the stories you have to tell are just as boring? Embellish them.

Suddenly the continuity issues start to make a lot more sense when you think of each episode as being a story that Vince is telling to the audience in the real world. Why are recurring characters treated like new ones? Because Vince is telling these stories on the spot and running out of ideas for new strange characters to include, so he reuses old ones hoping no one will notice. Why is Howard the same age as Vince in some cases and 10 years older than him in others? This could be because Vince simply doesn’t remember how old Howard is so he changes his age to fit the story, or he knows that Howard is the same age as him (implied by all of the flashbacks of them being in school together) and uses the ‘10 years older’ joke as... just that. A joke. Even in real life he likes to poke fun at Howard for how old he appears to be in comparison to others of his age.

Now, I’ve heard a lot of Boosh fans say that they would have liked Party to be the final episode of series 3 as opposed to The Chokes, as it felt like a natural conclusion with a somewhat happy ending (and possibly hope of an even happier epilogue, depending on where you stand on the Howince ship). But what if Vince wanted that to be his final story too? What if he wanted to desperately to convince himself and others that that was the end, but couldn’t shake the true final story from his mind? And, most importantly:

What if Howard never came back at the end of The Chokes?

Personally, I feel like The Chokes was the story that Vince never told to anyone but himself. When Howard left to pursue his acting career, he never returned, and this only occurred to Vince after the show at the Velvet Onion. He was so absorbed with his own agenda that he didn’t even notice that his best friend in the whole world was leaving, and that killed him. He didn’t want to remember it that way, so he told himself that story over and over again, giving himself and Howard the happy ending he wanted so badly. He thought that convincing himself that Howard had come back would actually bring him back somehow, but instead just left Vince feeling even more alone than ever. The magic of his imagination started to slip away from him. The bizarre characters he so often encountered were long dead. He was just a young man living in a shared flat above a shop owned by his landlord, whom he was once convinced was a shaman, and another tenant: a rather large, hairy man who often DJ’d at clubs using a fake age.

2. The Mighty Boosh vs Set The Thames On Fire

Now then, this all sounds very depressing already, but what does all of this have to do with Thames? Set The Thames On Fire is set in a dystopian version of London after the river Thames has mysteriously risen, drowning thousands of people and sending the city into a state of panic. However, I’ve watched the movie a few times now and I haven’t actually been able to find a date to indicate what time period it’s set in. (If anyone can find any anywhere in the film, feel free to submit them). A lot of the aesthetics look like a blend of old-fashioned WWII era England and modern day, but this could simply be the result of the powers that be enforcing a war-esque sense of fear and alarm upon the citizens of London to keep the corrupt power dynamics seen throughout the movie in place. The absence of any specific dates in the movie feels like a conscious decision to make a timeless story that could happen at any point in time, hence the blending of old and new aesthetics and tech. However, for the purposes of this theory I must conclude that, like the Boosh, the film also took place around the time it was released (2015-’16). This means that there is a gap of around 8 or 9 years between the events of the Boosh and Thames, and considering that StToF is supposedly set some time after the Thames originally rose, this isn’t an unrealistic amount of time.

Going back to Vince, he was alone for quite some time after Howard left, but at the very least he still had his other friends.

But what if, when the Thames rose, it drowned his remaining friends leaving him truly alone?

One can imagine such a tragedy could be detrimental to a person’s mental health. Vince is so devastated by the loss of every friend he’s ever had that in this new, darker world he finds himself in he turns to hard drugs to drown out the memories of everything that’s happened to him. Eventually however, the price of the drugs he’s taking eventually catches up to him and with the downfall of civilisation as he knows it, he resorts to the only thing he still has going for him: his appearance. He still took care of himself in all the years after Howard left, but could never bring himself to take pride in his looks anymore. He was disgusted whenever anyone flirted with him - male or female - and disgusted with himself for being so self-absorbed for so long. With no one left to care for him, he’s lost the will to care for himself.

He sees prostitution as his only way of having an income, and he knows that most of the clients seeking out the services of a prostitute are male, so he uses his femininity to his advantage and turns it up to eleven in order to attract more clients. Perhaps many clients initially think that he is a woman until they seek his services for themselves. Perhaps those clients talk about him afterwards, and give him a derogatory name referring to his... *ahem*... ‘nether region’. Perhaps Vince, half out of despair and half of insistence on forgetting his past, adopts this name and refers to himself as such.

I think you know what’s coming. My ultimate conclusion for this theory is that Dickie and Vince are the same person.

Leading up to the events of StToF, Dickie becomes the subordinate of the highest power in London: the Impresario. Initially, it may have been an offer he simply could not refuse because of the money and protection he would get from it (prostitution isn’t the safest job going, after all). However, as time went on Dickie grew to love the Impresario and his job under him because, in some twisted way, it reminded him of Howard, and being a sidekick to someone he felt was more powerful than himself.

He continues to abuse drugs until he no longer remembers why he enjoys working under the Impresario, or any of the stories from his past life, or even his own real name. Vince Noir does not exist anymore. His job as a prostitute and his (albeit unrequited) compassion for the Impresario fill a void of intimacy that he can’t remember the cause of until his untimely demise at the hands of the man he tried to have replace the only person he’s ever truly loved.

“But what does it matter if the whole world sinks when you’ve lost your friend?”

Okay guys this certainly was a bit of a long one and incredibly grim but I hope y’all enjoyed reading it. Even though I took a long-ass time writing this up I still prefer to believe that Howard and Vince are still together and happy. (And if I could just read one fic where Dickie gets a happy ending for crying out loud...)

Feel free to leave your opinions on this theory, add to it or disprove it if you wish! I wanna hear what you guys think of this!

#The Mighty Boosh #Set The Thames On Fire #Vince Noir #Dickie #Noel Fielding #Theory #Long Post #bit dark just warnin' ya

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thecoroutfitters · 6 years

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Written by Wild Bill on The Prepper Journal.

Editors Note: This post might be better titled “ramblings from a mind turned to mush by our “information highway”. I had the luck to be on ARPANet before it was opened to the public in the great “explosion” of information (the “dis” being optional but applicable in the too many cases.) As people, and especially as Preppers we make decisions based on the facts we are presented and our interpretation of their accuracy, so this hits us at home every minute of every day.

I still tell a story I heard from a Civics Teacher in High School that goes like this – There was a horse race between a Russian horse and an American horse. The American horse won and the newspaper headline the following day at the New York Post read “American Horse WINS!” Pravda’s headline that same day read “Russian Horse Places Second, American Horse Finishes Next to Last!” – both are factual, both tell the truth. (The story was told to me with the American newspaper being the New York Times but I just could not bring myself to type that. It was awhile ago, when reporting the news was their agenda and the means by which they promoted their circulation.)

I am sure you have also all read or been told the theorem that if you put enough monkeys at enough keyboards eventually they will turn out the….Bible, or The Works of Shakespeare, or some other great historical accomplishment. I contend that the “internet, information highway” has disproved that theory.

My notes on what to point out, just the notes, are about to exceed 2,000 words so I will just put a couple in here and save the others for another day.

My Top Two: The Media and History

The Media, the Fourth Estate.

“It used to be that the media was called “the Fourth Estate” to accentuate the freedom of the press, not to be confused with the term “fourth branch” which proposes that they are not free from the government. The press is called the fourth estate in the United States usually because they observe the political process.” No longer, they are the political process, I believe they own the DNC as opposed to the other way around, but that may be the mush I alluded to earlier.

I know I am speaking to a lot of like minded people on this matter and won’t bore you reaffirming things we all know about the quality, or rather, the utter lack of journalistic integrity in America from the Fourth Estate. What you may or may not know is that it singularly poisons the world. I make no secret that I have traveled the world, been to every US state but one (Iowa), have been to 6 continents (I can see penguins in zoos), dipped my toes in the five major Oceans (though they are really just one), been to 7 Muslim ruled countries and on and on AND their news sources about America, and Americans, are AP (Associated Press) and all the alphabets – CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC and on and on as well a Reuters and all the others services.

Fox News and Breitbart and Drudge might as well not exist as they don’t really outside of North America and that isn’t 100% bad, I will expand on that in a little while. And yes, I know about Fox News Europe, and Breitbart Europe, but their market penetration in those markets is very low.

The media is a business and it sells content, period. It is just another channel on the TV or the internet trying to garner viewers to get improved Google Analytics to be used to sell advertising. Anyone who thinks that the Fourth Estate in America is doing it for any other reason is a candidate for, well, you fill in that sentence. Their are journalists with integrity, and a passion for what they do, I am sure, but if you want to succeed, you are an employee of the corporation and instructions come from the top like everywhere else. And there are shows hosted by people who care here and there, but it is still all show business and all about capturing advertising dollars. Am I cynical? Most likely but only from years of the droning, mock debates and the news outlets spinning news stories out of every current and over-the-hill celebrity’s tweets. Since I don’t spend a lot of time on the alphabets I will use Fox News and Breitbart as examples for this.

Any celebrity of any status in any industry is given the stage by them, their national pulpit as long as they can be quoted saying something that will infuriate their base, as determined by the Google Analytics they track and use as a determining factor in the generation of their SEO – Search Engine Optimization:

noun

COMPUTING

the process of maximizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine.

“the key to getting more traffic lies in integrating content with search engine optimization and social media marketing”

This is taught at the college level, degrees in SEO are available from major universities across the country. In fairness I have taken college level courses in it to bolster my market penetration to reach more people. It is a normal business practice of all media outlets to have producers write incendiary comments on their posts on social media just to increase the number or responses they get as this too is a Google Analytics measure of success. When you see a post about say a successful NASA launch you can bet the comments on the post that go right to politics and attacks on politicians and have no relation to the subject matter are that producer looking to increase the number of replies to show that their content brought value to the business. It IS that crazy. It is spin in my opinion.

Fox News just today put out posts from members of the ensemble casts of the TV shows Grey’s Anatomy and The Big Bang Theory as “news” because they sent out tweets against the NRA and against Conservative reporters in this weekends trending analysis. THIS is what is being spun as “news” and promoted as a “fair and balanced” alternative to the lock-step mindset of the mainstream’s slighted view. Just how does one fathom this as news in the first place, and, as an American, how does one defend this as the historians of our age, because that is how our history will be recorded. And to that point, I’ll go a little deeper.

When I was an avid skier I subscribed to the big industry magazines – Skiing, Downhill, Ski and on and on and like all sports they put out their “annual review of what’s new” for the coming season. For skiing this was an August release. None of the products reviewed were ever given any criticism as the advertising for that issue of the magazine and other issues as well, was from these same manufactures. The beginnings of my skepticism (Yes, I can be a slow learner.)

I could go on and on about this as I am sure we all could. My hope is that we never take things at face value, that we do our own due diligence, that we question even when we see something that “exactly” expresses what we were thinking. The enemy of my enemy is NOT necessarily my friend. Be open, but never accepting without your own due diligence.

History: What is No Longer Taught

I asked the question of a learned friend last week “Just how does one learn from the past when they are never taught the past?” The measure of an education after all is that you acquire some idea of the extent of your ignorance. By this measure our education system is excellent.

The teaching of History at every level of the American Education System now leaves a lot to be desired. I apologize to that singular history teacher that is out there a voice in the wilderness, they do exist and we should exalt those that do and try. When my two children were in high school “history” was the assistant football coach showing PBS reenactment movies of historical events and people. I almost got arrested for my reaction to this, more correctly my reaction to the stonewalling and apathy I got when I tried to change this. I lobbied in vain through the PTA and directly to the district. At the time I was a single father with two kids in high school and did not have the financial means to put them in private school, but had the sense to know when they were being severely limited in their ability to compete for college with peers who were receiving a well rounded education. In hind sight at least there weren’t taught from the viewpoint that our founding fathers were rich white elitist slave-owning murderers, that came after.

Today I come across people almost daily who look at me like “who?” when I mention some historical figure and then they go right to their smart phones and Google the information, getting those same impeachable media sources I ranted about above. My laptop has the words “Who is John Galt?” on it��s top and whenever I bring it to a meeting I can see the strangers in the room googling John Galt.

I was a scientist, I have the periodic table app on my iPad called “The Elements” which was done by Theodore Gray. The graphics are amazing. Click on “U Uranium 92” and arrow to the description and here is the first sentence “It is impossible to discuss uranium without acknowledging that the first atomic weapon used in anger was a uranium fission bomb, built in secret lab deep in the deserts of New Mexico and detonated over the unsuspecting city of Hiroshima on the Honshu island of Japan.” While it certainly is possible to discuss this element, in the same context as all the others are discussed as opposed to the author’s revisionist view of historical events, it is of interest that there are blatant errors in this first sentence alone – there was a warning, it was ignored by the Imperial Japanese Command, just when was the first atomic weapon NOT used in anger used, Los Alamos is on a mountain top in north west New Mexico, I have property near there. BTW it has one of the most interesting interactive museums you will ever visit in the town itself. I have skied Pajarito Ski Area while visiting, it is managed by the labs, both my late wife and I did business with the labs which are still owned by the University of California. And following the first sentence you get 7 more paragraphs so laced with opinion and incorrect “facts” that no one could really learn much from this other than mankind is evil. This is just one obscure writing in a iPad app that probably isn’t on a lot of devices. But it is published as the truth. I almost suspect I will find Bitcoin mentioned in the description on Au Gold 79.

We have all seen example of how revisionist history is being taught, I can only imagine what it must be like to have kids in school today and seeing what they are taught, what homework assignments they are bringing home. Weekly we can read about yet another classic piece of literature “being dropped because it is offensive or non-inclusive.” Again, I don’t want this to be an indictment of teachers as there are great ones out there.

In my opinion the REAL power in America is wielded by educators. Period. They create and control everything your child sees, hears and reads in school and are only aided by the Fourth Estate which controls everything else they see, hear or read. Parents have been reduced to the lone voice in the wilderness. Once they enter the education system the education system gets the majority of their waking hours. In order to compete they must conform. If they question they may be subjected to ridicule, or worse. Most major school districts have an almost 1:1 ratio of administrator to classroom teacher.

My point is again, “Just how does one learn from the past when they are never taught the past?”

Sometime my rants run away with me….I look forward to your comments.

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