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kitkatopinions · 3 years

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It feels so out of place how the narrative and the characters have always treated the Atlas military (alternatively suspicious, tyrannical or incompetent), yet when push came to shove that same military fought and died for hours against Salem's invasion to protect the tens of thousands of people trapped in Atlas BECAUSE of Ruby while Ruby sat and drank tea. How long did that battle go for? Four hours? Five? And if that wasn't enough, it only ended because Oscar was only covering the escape. 1/2

No lie, I feel like the world they invented pretty much requires the presence of a militarized force to sustain itself and it's one reason why approaching the Atlas military as 'point blank bad with no gray area' and approaching Hunters with 'point blank good with no gray area' makes no sense to me.

I've seen fans literally say that they knew Atlas, its military, and James were bad from the get go because of the use of the words army and military, and that army = bad, but ffs it's a fantasy world where the rules are one hundred percent different than the real world. The world of Remnant we're presented with is one with dark monsters thriving on negativity and attacking indiscriminately, reproducing at a fast rate, and adapting while showing intelligence and the understanding of consequences. They're known to bring down towns when something goes wrong, like a bandit raid. Single Grimm can take down whole towns. Panic stirs up Grimm activity and enough of it can bring down whole Kingdoms. The Hunter system we've been shown is A. corrupt, and B. a profession that doesn't seem to churn out a good many hunters, and many of the Hunters we see are concerned with big picture things or specific tasks, or retired or dead, due to the inherent danger level of the job. There simply aren't enough Hunters. There aren't enough Hunters to run border control, to protect the cities if they get attacked, to ferry kids back and forth from school while Grimm activity is up, to investigate suspicious activity and handle it when things go wrong, to save civilians when push comes to shove, to be parts of secret organizations while also maintaining their oaths to protect. Hunters seem more like specialists, at least from what I've seen in show. They're trained to be able to take on high level threats and go through a rigorous program, but they can't act as the only line of defense, partially due to their lack of numbers. They aren't actually the driving protective force keeping the Grimm out of the kingdoms on a day to day, hour by hour basis.

We see this over and over again in the show. Hunters get overwhelmed, towns fall, cities fall, they can't do the work of hundreds of people. Teams RWBYJNR and the Happy Huntresses never would've been able to protect Mantle from a direct attack from Salem, for example, when they couldn't even keep all the civilians safe from the Grimm that were occurring naturally due to political upheaval and unrest. In a world where demon monsters from hell will manifest and attack if too many people feel negatively at once and feelings of safety and security are needed to try and prevent the Grimm from coming in droves, an army is the only real solution here. Remnant is not the real world, the way we view armies is not automatically the way the people in Remnant view armies. And in fact, the show in the early seasons does a very strange thing; they have Ozpin express a belief that unrest and nervousness will occur due to James bringing his fleet to Vale (with every sign pointing to him having been asked there by the Vale Council,) and yet the reactions that we do see are actually the opposite, but this is still somehow heralded as foreshadowing by both the fans and seemingly the show itself. From Ruby geeking out about seeing the Atlas robots being displayed, to everyone being relieved and awed when the army showed up to protect everyone in the episode "Breach," where Atlas ships saved Ruby and she gave a grateful smile, salute, and wave, the Atlas military seems well received.

And the Atlas robotic soldiers taking down Grimm as civilians run past during the Fall is another example.

Even Oz, Qrow, and Glynda who were the only three people to express mistrust or anxiousness towards the presence of the army in Vale, are only seen either telling James to use his army (Oz,) or are seen fighting by the army's side, and then being welcoming and taking direct orders from James without being even the slightest bit suspicious of him.

We don't see the supposed anxiousness and mistrust in anyone outside of Oz, Qrow, and Glynda, who all one hundred percent trusted James anyway and were only worried that everyone else would be worried. The fact that Watts (someone everyone thought was dead) managed to hack the Atlas robots, has been the only negative effect we saw in the first three seasons, and that's not due to any corruption or mistake on the part of the Atlas army or James himself (something going horribly wrong in a way no one could expect due to the evil actions of a group of other people is not actually the fault of the person trying and succeeding to do good until the group of other people did bad.)

I could get into more reasons to not think the Atlas army is corrupt, but I don't want this post to get too long, and I want to address your very right statements about the way they portrayed their protagonists versus the army even while they were trying to push the concept that the Atlas army is corrupt and bad.

Ironwood: Desperately doing whatever he can to save lives from Salem, planning ways to bring down the Whale Grimm, trying to protect the Relics and the Maiden from Salem's grasp.

Team RWBY and co: Risking the lives of literally everyone on purpose because they don't want to be in a no win situation, preventing Ironwood from taking life saving actions because it won't save every live, expressing zero concern or grief for the hundreds dying to Salem on the battlefield.

The Ace Ops: Trying to navigate their morals while they do what they can to try and protect the civilians in Atlas who are directly in danger, trying to convince Penny to actually save people, planning to take down the whale grimm even if they have to suffer knowing a kid died in the process of protecting hundreds and likely thousands of other kids directly in danger of dying.

Team RWBY and co: Prioritizing their friends, prioritizing missions that logic says won't help people especially with the fall of Atlas making it impossible to protect everyone who's going to be in danger, picking fights with people who are trying to save others.

Team FNKI: Delving into war and battle while facing their fears, trying to protect people, trying to do the job they chose and stare floods of Grimm down.

Team RWBY and co: Drinking tea in mansions, worrying about their love lives, crying on staircases, laughing with a murderer...

Even while they were having Ironwood shoot down people that stood in his way and express that he wished he'd thought about torture and sending bomb threats, they still didn't have the protagonists actually seem like likable, convincingly good protagonists that I would want to root for. It seems like they had to try hard to make James someone people couldn't root for because they couldn't make Ruby and her team actually right, effective, and good. They really seem so selfish, immature, unprepared, and entitled. Which isn't to say that the protagonists can't have those flaws, but they're not getting treated like flaws, which is the most frustrating thing.

Before the writers needed to push their message that Ironwood is completely evil and everything he's involved with is inherently wrong, we didn't get much sign that the Atlas army was corrupted and bad, because projecting real world standards onto a fantasy world that we know is very different from ours isn't it. That's not to say that I think 'not showing us this system is corrupted early' means that there's no possible corruption, but I think it's clear that the fandom pushed narrative that the Atlas army is inherently bad and worse somehow than being a Hunter which is somehow much better is very biased, especially when we also see corruption in the Hunter profession.

Making James and the Ace Ops do vile thing didn't make the protagonists seem better. They still fell way short of adequate.

#rwde #anti rwby #rwby bashing #rwby hate #fndm hate #pro general ironwood #pro ironwood #pro james ironwood #pro IW #iw antis leave me alone

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cosmicjoke · 3 years

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Alright, chapter 133 of SnK!

I’ve got a few things I want to talk about here.

One of the things that always strikes me about Levi as a character, indeed, one of his defining character traits, is his coolness under pressure. His calm demeanor, no matter the circumstances. One of the interesting things to go into is WHY Levi is like this.

We see it particularly exemplified in this chapter, I think, and there’s a few examples. For one, they’ve all just lost Hange as their friend and Commander, and this loss particularly impacts and affects Levi, since he was closer with Hange than any of them. But rather than allowing his grief to consume and paralyze him, Levi immediately begins trying to contribute when Armin says he wants to go over the plan, bringing up Hange’s theory about Zeke and how killing him might stop the Rumbling, etc... Then Eren transports them to Paths, and everyone reacts with shock and awe, except Levi, who’s expression is duly unimpressed and unsurprised. We see this from Levi throughout the series, of course. Situations that present themselves, new and frightening circumstances which throw everyone for a loop and send people into panic, Levi reacts to with calm collectedness, a distinct LACK of surprise or fear. He really does stand in sharp contrast with everyone else in this situation. Everyone there is a seasoned war veteran, at this point, they’ve all been through and seen some truly horrific things. But they still react with a kind of frantic uncertainty here. They then begin to plead with Eren, Armin and the rest trying to convince him through any means possible, to stop the Rumbling. They try to bargain with him, show him empathy, make promises, etc... They make their desperation obvious by saying whatever they think will appeal to Eren. Levi is the only one who, I think, is fully honest here. He tells Eren that if he stops now, he’ll let him off with JUST an ass-kicking. Levi doesn’t try to placate Eren, or show him sympathy, or empathy, he doesn’t try to be gentle or handle Eren with kid gloves. He tells him flat out he’s going to beat his ass for what he’s done, but he’ll show him some leniency for stopping by not killing him outright. The thing is, I think Levi’s known from the start of this whole disaster that talking to Eren wasn’t going to work. Everyone else was holding out hope that if they could just speak with Eren, he would stop, that they could convince him through words. But like I talked about in my last post, Levi is someone who’s just seen and experienced too much of life’s brutality and unfairness to blind himself to bleak reality. When the 104th goes running off after Eren appears to them, to try and reach him, Levi just sits down in the sand and has that resigned expression once more, and his expression continues to show a total lack of surprise when Eren puts the 104th back where they started, before they could ever even get close. Levi isn’t surprised, or even dismayed, I don’t think, at Eren’s refusal to talk, because I think he always knew he wouldn’t be willing to. That he wouldn’t be interested in hearing anyone’s pleas or promises. I think Levi always knew Eren was hellbent on this course of action, and it was more or less hopeless, trying to appeal to him. And once again, I have to restate, I think it’s because Levi’s just experienced too much hardship in his life to cling to false hopes. He’s world-weary and in many ways a realist, someone not given to delusion or fancy.

I feel like Levi probably glimpsed this uncompromising, hellish bent in Eren back in Liberio, his mercenary compulsion to follow through on whatever plan he had, which is why Levi was so disgusted by him on the airship back then. He saw a lack of mercy in Eren, and it reminded him of the brutes Levi grew up with in the Underground. Not just a willingness, but a desire to take from others to satisfy himself. It’s why, when they’re all transported back to the plane, while everyone else looks horrified and in shock at Eren’s refusal to talk, Levi looks as unflustered as ever, and states with a matter of fact tone that negotiations are over, before asking Armin what it is they do now. None of this is surprising to Levi.

Levi’s look of despair throughout this final arc continues to strike me as his resignation in the ugliness of humanity and the useless, pointless suffering they inflict on one another. He’s depressed, and disappointed, because everything happening around them is only a confirmation of all the worst things Levi saw and experienced, growing up.

All this ties into another point I want to discuss, which is Levi’s relationship with Jean, actually. I’ve found the relationship between the two of them really interesting since way back in the Uprising arc, when Jean was the most vocal in condemning Levi for his violence, declaring with certainty that he would never kill another person. Jean is disabused of his moralistic superiority not long after that, when he learns first hand the consequences of sticking to ones morals uncompromisingly, nearly losing his life, and forcing Armin to take a life for him. And it’s Jean who we see, again and again from that point on in the series, grappling with and coming to terms with this difficult lesson. We see Jean’s respect for Levi, and his understanding towards Levi, grow greatly, after this incident, and Jean himself having to grow, to change and accept that sacrifices are inevitable if one wishes to protect the things and people they care about. That sometimes even one’s own comfort and moral convictions are necessary sacrifices to achieve those things.

Levi tells everyone that he’ll take care of Zeke, but admits that he’ll need all of their help to get the job done. I feel like this is Levi, once again, asking if all of them are ready and willing to get their hands dirty, just like he did before they raided the Cavern underneath the Church on the Reiss property. He knows he can’t do this job by himself (which is just further testament to Levi’s strength of character, an ability to admit to weakness), but he wants to make sure everyone else is alright with plunging in to a situation in which they’re going to be forced to kill. Jean is the first to answer, telling Levi and all of them that he’s not going to let the sacrifices they’ve already made, the people they’ve killed in order to get where they are, be in vain, and that he’ll do whatever it takes to stop the Rumbling. This shows incredible character growth on Jean’s part. He went from someone who claimed that he would, under no circumstances, take another human life, to someone who declares that he’ll do whatever it takes in order to stop the Rumbling, to achieve a greater good. And I think this growth on Jean’s part ties directly into his relationship with and the influence of Levi. Levi never judged Jean for being uncomfortable with killing, never criticized or scolded him for it. He even told Jean that he couldn’t say, one way or the other whether Jean’s beliefs were right or wrong. That Levi himself didn’t know the answer to that. He never tried to convince Jean of anything. He just told him the truth. That his failure to kill had put the lives of his comrades in danger, including his own, and that it also caused Armin to have to bear the burden of killing another, one which should have been Jean’s own to bear. All of that is absolutely true. And it was really through this lack of judgment on Levi’s part that, I think, Jean was able to grow and expand his own views on killing, and adjust and allow for there to be circumstances in his world view which would justify taking another life. He wasn’t forced by anyone to change his views. He changed them based on experience and through Levi explaining to him that there is no definitive right or wrong answer to be found, and through Levi’s simply being honest with him. He was telling Jean that it comes down to what one is willing to sacrifice in order to protect the things and people they value. And Jean learned about himself that he’s willing and able to sacrifice more than he ever realized.

But it’s still a struggle, and something all of them, even at this point in the story, continue to battle themselves over. We see Connie struggling in particular this chapter, looking anguished over what he had to do back at the port. It’s only Levi who accepts that brutal reality of kill or be killed with a calm understanding, and I think this is probably because, unlike the rest of them, who all had peaceful, probably relatively easy and happy childhoods, without any exposure to violence or real cruelty, Levi, I think it can be safely assumed, probably took his first life while he was still a boy. And doubtless, that was due to desperate circumstances. Levi’s life has been one filled with uncertainty. Growing up in extreme poverty, he never could have known with any certainty where his next meal would come from, or when. Never knew with any certainty whether he could find proper shelter for the night, or a safe place to sleep. Never knew with any certainty whether he would be assaulted, or robbed, or if someone would attempt to take his life. Levi’s life has been one of desperation and a true, unforgiving struggle to simply survive. And so while all of his comrades have seen and experienced the horrors of war with him, none of them can know with the same level of understanding that true kind of desperation of simply trying to live day to day, that kind of awful and overwhelming uncertainty and fear of not knowing if you’ll be alive from one day to the next. It’s those kinds of experiences in life that really separate Levi from the rest of his comrades, and in a lot of ways, isolate him from them. It’s why the extremity of their circumstances and the desperation of their situation in this final arc continually shocks and overwhelms them, but Levi regards it all with his usual, if deeply saddened, calm.

#attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #Levi Ackerman #jean krischtein #snk 133 #meta #thoughts

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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I'm sorry, but as someone who can't stand how Yang acted for 80% of Atlas, saying "her feeling like she had to help raise Ruby is demeaning and unempathetic to Tai" is a HORRIBLE take. If Yang held it against Tai that'd be one thing, but she doesn't, least not as far as we've seen.

And "she decided he's an unfit parent"? That's literally just headcanon. Where is this stated or supported in any way? Literally everything, from the show to the comics to the manga, shows she absolutely values her father and his guidance. Her providing similar guidance to Ruby at some point doesn't change that, she's stated to be Ruby's mother figure, a woman in her life she could seek advice on in regards to things as well.

Like anon I get you're frustrated by how empathy and morality are handled in this show, I am too, but this just ain't it.

I have simillar feelings on the Weiss scene too but that's another story, you already kind of covered it.

Agreed, though I don't want to rag on the other anon. As said, I can very easily see how someone would come to that conclusion, especially given how often we discuss parts of the show without actually re-watching those scenes, leading to iffy interpretations down the line. A fandom pretty heavily focused on a "Tai is a bad dad" reading + Yang's unfair criticisms of others from Volumes 5-8 (notably her most recent characterization. The one fresh in everyone's mind) = an easy opportunity to mistakenly slam the two together. It happens. That's why I try, whenever possible, to re-watch moments, or at the very least re-read transcripts. I'm well aware of how easy it is to get sucked into how the fandom discusses scenes and take that interpretation at face value, when in fact what's canonical has gotten pretty warped across, in this case, six years of content and discussions.

But let's talk about Weiss a bit more! I think it's worth re-emphasizing that, yes, I'm well aware that she was the victim of that dinner party. My own criticism lies less in that specific moment and more the conceptualizing of our heroes as a whole, which leads to some missed opportunities in that moment, some quite important. For example, most classically heroic characters would be horrified at nearly hurting/killing someone, regardless of whether that was intentional or not. That's a crucial part of what makes them heroic: cherishing life and shouldering responsibility for others' safety, even when it's clear from the audience's more objective perspective that they weren't at fault. There's a happy middle ground here between acknowledging Weiss' horrific panic attack and acknowledging Weiss' responsibility moving forward to ensure that her trauma doesn't endanger others—given that her trauma is drawing on literal, combat techniques—highlighting her desire to do right by the people of Remnant, even when they're snobbish, rich assholes. Any reading that boils things down simply to "Weiss is the only victim in this situation and besides, why do we care if a racist Atlesian bites the dust 😒?" is a small representation of the much larger writing problems of Volumes 7 and 8: acting like Mantle is full of only good victims, Atlas only evil perpetrators, and a defense of the latter isn't worth anyone's time—certainly not the heroes who never, ever make mistakes with massive consequences. Weiss' near attack also carries with it the beginnings of a lot of themes that RWBY never capitalized on, but pretended were an important part of the story by the end of that Atlas arc, like Ironwood's supposed propaganda, or Whitley's question of whether power should be solely in the hands of a few, individual huntsmen. Weiss' situation might have been reframed into something that looks intentional: Here's not just a girl, but a Schnee girl, attacking a poor, defenseless civilian with her scary powers. Are we really going to leave the safety of our kingdom—the world—in the hands of people like her? You should be backing the army, people who have your real interests in mind, led by the man who saved that woman's life—General Ironwood! And the audience would rightly be going, Hey now wait a fucking minute. That's not what happened! It was an accident born of trauma and abuse. How can you manipulate the people into thinking otherwise? Into thinking Weiss is the enemy here? Like, if you're going to write Ironwood/Atlas as the awful, propaganda spewing antagonists... actually write that story.

So the party scene could have been the launching point for a lot of important work, both in terms of Weiss' characterization (a hero learning to balance flaws with her people's safety; taking responsibility for her mistakes, no matter the initial intention) and the world building (what does it mean for a Schnee to (mistakenly) attack a civilian when tensions are this high and faith in huntsmen is beginning to fail?) But for the purposes of what we actually got, that lack of reflection on Weiss' part, as said, reads badly when pit against her actions in Volumes 6-8. Because my brain is super focused on Star Wars atm, I think Anakin is a decent comparison to all this. Meaning, we know where he ends up—super scary Sith Lord who is going to do All The Bad Things Ever—and that will, naturally, color our reading of everything that happens in prequal material. When Anakin gets pissed and cuts the limbs off a Separatist, it produces a "Yikes" reaction in the audience because we know that anger, grief, frustration, and fear are going to lead him down an awful path. In contrast, when Obi-Wan is challenged about his no killing unarmed men policy and cheekily looks to Rex to kill him instead, we don't really go "Yikes" because we know Obi-Wan remains true to the Light for his entire run. All their actions have the primary reading of "They were justified that time/they made a mistake/they're allowed to be human/etc." But only Anakin has the secondary reading of, "That action is REALLY BAD—more bad than Obi-Wan's—because we know where it leads. It reads as setup for his inevitable fall." That's basically where the RWBY group is at the moment, provided you're unhappy with their lack of empathy in the later volumes. If the group had remained more compassionate then yeah, we'd continue to shrug off past moments that sorta imply otherwise because we know that's not who they really are. Weiss never grappled with nearly hurting someone only because, hell, RWBY doesn't let her grapple with anything! She didn't even get to respond to getting speared through the gut. But knowing where they end up—knowing that Weiss will be party to Ozpin's treatment, will help betray Ironwood, will accuse Marrow of abandoning her city only to do nothing for it in turn, will threaten her brother, will give the wish to destroy her entire kingdom and displace all its people, etc.—creates that "Yikes" response whenever we see something earlier that even somewhat aligns with her current characterization. It doesn't erase the 100% correct reading that Weiss was the victim and made a totally unintentional mistake in that moment. It doesn't erase the knowledge that RWBY rarely capitalizes on the implications of scenes like this anyway. It only adds another reading in the form of, "Well, knowing where she ends up... I can kinda see that future version in her here too."

#rwby #mymetas

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tigerdrop · 3 years

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hey i just wanna say the long posts genuinely make my day. also can you talk more about gordon freeman character because the way you write him makes me quake in my gay little boots

i would love to talk about gordon freeman. thank u for the opportunity

the first thing i need to communicate about gordon is that this dude sucks. and i say this in the fondest way possible. he is a bitch from the moment he drops into the world until the moment he goes out. if you dont believe me, give it another watch! gordons mouthy and rude for no real reason, at least so far as “being a regular dude on his way into work” goes, and this dude goes around calling his coworkers names with zero provocation. (of course, we all know that the reason is because its a funny guy improv stream that borrows a bit from freemans mind, but im talkin from a character sense.)

but my argument isnt just that gordon freeman sucks. its that he sucks in a very specific way that i find insanely endearing. i love this dude. i love to hate him. hes awful in a very mundane sense - weve all known a guy like this, at least if youve spent too much time online - and its cathartic to watch him suffer because of it.

gordons a smart guy. as written, hes gotta be - hes a recent MIT grad, on his way to work at a top-secret research facility to do weird shit with crystals and theoretical physics. but the thing about smart guys is that theyre often......selectively intelligent. we can see this in the way that he has a hard time navigating his surroundings, and needs the science crew to guide him through it and keep him alive.

this is one of those things that is a natural consequence of somebody going through the game for the first time, but that i am interpreting as “gordon is kind of stupid sometimes”. its uncharitable but its not like he doesnt deserve it. he likes to boss around the crew as if he knows what hes doing, when he often very much does not, and is fond of demeaning their intelligence. hes real bad about this with tommy in particular, treating him like hes a kid whos playing at being a scientist when tommy is actually a decade older than him. all i am saying is that gordon ought to stay humble. hes awful cocky when he perceives himself as better than others.

which, i think, tracks with how cocky he gets when he gives up on the whole “well-meaning citizen” thing and just unloads bullets into people. he puts up a front of being a Nice Guy, you know, just some dude caught in a bad situation who doesnt like seeing his companions obliterate every NPC they come across, but that doesnt stop him from cackling like a fucking madman and mowing down aliens (and soldiers) every once in awhile. when he stops seeing himself as helpless and starts seeing himself as the one in control, the gloves come off. he gets mean. and i think thats very sexy of him

this, among other things, is why i am insistent that gordon freeman is a control freak. he desperately wants to be in control of the situation at all times, shepherding around the science crew primarily by bitching at them, but its of limited success. its futile. sisyphean. tommy, coomer, bubby, and benrey exist almost to torment him with exactly the thing that would make him suffer the most: a gaggle of people running around causing problems for him, but he cant go anywhere without them b/c hes reliant on them to make it out alive.

its perpetual suffering, and its cathartic to watch. and funny, too. and if youre a little weirdo like me, its very, very enjoyable. how twisted up he gets when nobodys listening to him! how sweaty and frazzled he must look. its cute, and it also makes me want to reach through the screen and shake him and tell him to just be a little nicer. he wants control but he doesnt know how to attain it, he doesnt know how to play nice like a real leader. i think its a neat contrast to gordon freeman as we know him in HL2, where he literally is the leader of the resistance and has to live up to it. this is gordon freeman but if he was moe through helplessness.

“helpless” is, i think, a great way to describe him. a core bit of imagery in half life is this sense of railroadedness and helplessness, with gordon freeman being put into play like a chess piece and having no choice but to move forward. and this iteration of gordon leans into that by being totally dependent on the science crew in order to make progress and Not Die. and hes also subject to the whims of benrey, local eldritch weirdo who has basically made it his life mission to fuck with gordon.

gordons anxieties dont help with that. if he wasnt so fun to stress out and fuck with, the science crew probably wouldnt do it so much! too bad for him that they like fucking with him so much that he was driven into a panic attack (multiple times, even, depending on your interpretation). hes got that real neurotic mindset. always worrying about shit that could go wrong, and attempting to exert control over his surroundings in an effort to control the anxiety.

IMO the real way to nail the Neurotic Gordon Freeman Experience is to combine the ever-present anxiety with his pervasive sense of self-loathing. he openly states that he has no friends and nobody seems to like him, and to that, i really gotta say, i wonder why. he doesnt really seem to factor in that hes kind of a bitch, and has way too high an estimation of his own intelligence relative to everybody elses. its really one of the worst ways to be: aware that people dont like you, but unaware of exactly why. if he was like, 10% nicer, he probably wouldnt have had half as many issues getting through black mesa, but also, its funny to see him squawking his way through the game. so, you know.

its stuff like that that makes me headcanon him as a dude with low self-esteem in general. convinced that hes not likable, not attractive, out of his element......impostor syndrome, except that theres some truth to it. this is a guy who truly does not realize how good he has it: he really is just an average shitty dude, and yet, somehow, benrey took a shine to him. some poor motherfucker out there actually likes him and wants to suck his dick. thats dedication

also, i keep bringing up “repression” when i talk about gordon. and hopefully, what ive been talking about helps explain why. he has a strong desire to be a regular dude, not just murdering his way through black mesa, but if hes pushed hard enough he leans into it. gets bossy. picks up a cigar off a dead soldier and takes a long drag, before smacking forzen around with a pistol and ordering him around. gordon freeman is a regular, kind of anxious guy who likes competitive swimming and streaming on justin.tv and making anime references, and he is also a guy who takes a filthy pleasure in making a trained soldier his bitch. and i didnt make up any of this shit - this is purestrain canon, baby. this is a guy with problems

to me, this screams the kind of guy who represses a lot of shit b/c he doesnt feel like its morally decent. you run into this guy a lot online: the wokeboy, the online leftist, the guy who spends too much time on social media websites. (like reddit. i think he would actively use reddit and he would never get any appreciable amount of karma but he never stops posting. its sisyphean! cathartic.) from the way he talks about “bootboys”, i think it tracks. he knows about imperialism, he knows about feminism, but at the end of the day hes your average american white dude who struggles with internalizing it.

a lot of those dudes struggle with sex and gender issues. (dont we all.) when youre trying to be a Good Person(tm), you spend a lot of time thinking about your own relationship to sex and kink and all that shit. and i maintain that a too-online dude who buries a lot of his control freak tendencies would also try to bury a lot of weird sexual shit in an attempt to seem Normal and Well-Adjusted and not like a little freak. i justify this by the sheer number of times gordon blurts out weird sex shit as a joke. there are only two outcomes to making that many piss jokes: either youre secretly a piss guy, or you lathe-of-heaven yourself into becoming one. i will stand by this

ive talked a lot about why this dude sucks. now, let me talk to you about what makes gordon so much fun to write. first things first: hes funny! a subjective evaluation, yeah, but both in- and out-of-character, hes aiming to be funny. and being the straight man to everybody else plays into that whole “helplessness” thing.

secondly: underneath it all, there is a good dude under there. gordon worries when his companions get hurt, he tries to clean them off and patch them up, and hes got his lil leftist heart in the right place. you could even read a lot of his bossy, bitchy demeanor as him wanting to make sure everyone gets out okay and doesnt hurt themselves. when it comes to animals and anti-imperialist sentiment, gordons a pretty good guy.

hes the kind of guy who would probably see a dog on the street and get excited and play with it, but would get really prickly about the correct way to put dishes in the dishwasher. control freak tendencies.

finally, subjecting such a miserable, tormented guy to even more psychological anguish is really, really fun. you feel a little bad for him, but he kind of deserves it. so many problems he goes through are purely of his own making, and if gordon would just relax and quit trying to hard to maintain control - of himself, of the people around him - and own up to having Problems and Issues, he would be a happier guy. but thats why its fun to bend him until he breaks. being a little control freak myself, putting gordon freeman thru psychosexual torment is cathartic.

when it comes to writing his thought processes, the fact that he is canonically some kind of psychotic (yes, i am boldly claiming this. suck me) and i am also canonically some kind of psychotic makes it easier to write what i think his thought processes are. i just give him my brain issues of “getting lost in thought” and “overthinking fucking everything”. a touch of paranoia helps. even if i dont explicitly label him as schizophrenic please know that i am writing him as a paranoid little nutcase at all times because, uh, you write what you know.

paranoid. anxious. of the mindset that everyones out to get him (which isnt helpful when everyone is out to get him). repressed and deeply Not Normal but trying so very fucking hard to be normal and well-adjusted. a control freak with sadistic tendencies who also really, really likes getting bullied by his best frenemy. a hapless little nerd who sounds really cute when his voice starts to break from nerves. and, most importantly, a dumb jock. do not ever forget this.

thats gordon freeman, babey. hope that helps

#asky #careposting

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nclkafilms · 4 years

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The reality we decide to ignore

(Review of ‘Joker’. Seen in Nordisk Film Biografer, Aalborg on the 6th of October 2019, in Biffen Art Cinema, Aalborg on the 8th of October 2019 and at home on the 11th of January 2020.)

What do you get when you cross a comedy director with no previous directing experience with other genres with one of Hollywood’s finest character actors and the perhaps most famous and notorious comic book villain? When that director is Todd Phillips (of ‘The Hangover’ and ‘Road Trip’), the actor is Joaquin Phoenix and the villain is Batman’s The Joker, you get one of the most surprising film achievements of 2019. ‘Joker’ is a gritty, poignant and surprisingly profound character study that is telling us much more about the society we live in than it does about Batman’s arch enemy. As such Joker becomes a haunting reflection of a society in which virtues such as love and empathy have been long forgotten and replaced with fear, division and egocentricity.

In the film, we follow Arthur Fleck, who works as a clown-for-hire while he lives at home taking care of his ill mother, Penny. Arthur is in psychological and medical treatment for a - to us - unknown mental illness. He dreams of becoming a stand-up comedian and as we are quickly shown in a dream sequence he also dreams of being acknowledged and feeling valued; in this particular day dream: by his idol, talk show host Murray Franklin. But this version of Gotham - set in what seems to be the early 80’s - is no place for dreaming. Garbage strikes have been going on for weeks, the streets are being overrun by thugs and ill-adjusted citizens in line with an increase in the split between the top and bottom of society. In the opening credits, Arthur is attacked by a group of young people, but it is him who gets in trouble for losing a sign rather than them being punished for their attack. As Arthur points out: things are getting crazier out there. What follows is a thought-provoking and morally challenging journey to the bottom of Gotham City.

The main attraction in ‘Joker’ is Joaquin Phoenix. The character of The Joker has produced some amazing performances from Jack Nicholson and, especially, Heath Ledger, and it must be quite the role to take on for any actor. Phoenix puts himself right up there with the best, though, with a manic, nuanced and deeply human portrayal of Arthur Fleck. His physical transformation and performance alone is awe-inspiring: not only did Phoenix lose a lot of weight, no, he manages to infuse Fleck with a crippled physicality that mirrors his mental state. The way he runs, the way he laughs and the way he stares. It all highlights the state that Arthur is in.

The idea of giving Fleck a physical condition that causes him to laugh in certain situations is clever, and Phoenix takes it to the next level in the scenes where this laughter causes him physical pain or alienation from his surroundings; his eyes convey a different story than his laugh and it is deeply fascinating to study. However, it is in the gradual change from being socially awkward and unresting to becoming more calm, more cynical and more unpredictable, that Phoenix truly manifests his qualities. The scene in which he calmly goes from panic and despair to an almost trance like dance in a worn down and darkly lit public bathroom is as beautiful as it is alarming; one of the single most memorable scenes from any film in 2019. A scene that is only made stronger by the beautiful score - but more about that later.

While ‘Joker’ is Phoenix’ film, it still boasts a high quality gallery of supporting roles with brilliant performances from Robert de Niro as talk show host Murray Franklin, Brett Cullen as Thomas Wayne, Frances Conroy as Arthur’s mother Penny, Glenn Fleshler and Leigh Gill as Arthur’s colleagues, Shea Wigham and Bill Camp as two police officers and finally Zazie Beetz as Arthur’s neighbour, Sophie. Common to them all is that they all highlight different aspects of how society - in Arthur’s eyes - is letting him down. Murray mocks him on live tv, Wayne distances him and everybody beneath him, Penny neglects him, the police hunts him and Sophie is not the girlfriend he imagines her to be. The fascinating thing here is, though, that Phillips is telling the entire story from Arthur’s perspective. He is not a narrator per se, but with him being present in every scene it is clearly his version of the story and, as such, he is highly unreliable if we are looking for the objective truth. And to be fair, I do not think that is what the filmmakers set out to do either. Here, the important truth lies both in Fleck’s imagination and reality and as such the ending is very fitting even though it has caused a lot of criticism for being a “cop out”.

In stead, Todd Phillips and Scott Silver want to give a voice to the people who are being shut out of society. The people we tend to look away from or distance ourselves from on the bus. The people who we laugh at when their weird mannerisms or actions are filmed and exposed on TV. The people who governments often find it easier to ignore or talk down to in stead of reaching out to or accommodating. The people who sadly sometimes end up causing unbearable tragedies. It’s a daring choice for Phillips and Silver to write their screenplay with this perspective but it pays off by creating one of the best films of the year.

This, of course, demands more than a brilliant ensemble as well as a daring director and screenwriter. When it comes to the quality of the crafts, ‘Joker’ is also right up there with the best of 2019. The cinematography is stunning as it really manages to show us the devastation of the state Gotham City is left in, but also in the way it centres on and helps Phoenix’ performance. Let me once again highlight THAT bathroom scene and the films use of mirrors. The film’s cinematographer, Lawrence Sher, rarely leaves Arthur out of sight whether it is in intimate close-ups or montages through the city. Equally as impressive is the production design, which manages to make Gotham feel alive and very real; dark and gritty when we are in the streets and colourful and exuberant when we are among the top of society. Additionally, you have to raise your hat to editor, Jeff Groth, who has created a tightly composed film from an excessive amount of material as Phoenix did a lot of different versions of each scene.

The most impressive aspect of the film’s technical aspect is, however, the score by icelandic Hildur Guðnadóttir. Her score is haunting to say the least with its deep and towering string sections combined with an ominous vibe that makes the score sit heavy on your shoulders as if it is the burden carried by Arthur. Guðnadóttir worked with Johan Johansson before his death and you can hear his influence, but make no mistake! Guðnadóttir is an artist on her own terms; her score has a unique sound that has landed her nominations at all the major awards and for which she hopefully will receive numerous wins too. The next strongest thing in the film after Phoenix’ performance. The score blends perfectly with the great overall sound design and it is perfectly balanced with the well-picked songs such as “Smile”, “That’s Life” and “My Name is Carnival”. I cannot count the times I have listened to this soundtrack since watching the film the first time.

I have seen the film three times now and I have been really unsure whether it was a 4,5/5 or 5/5 film, but considering it has stayed in my head for many days after every viewing, I have to say that I see it as a masterpiece. A film that I would never have expected to see from Todd Phillips. ‘Joker’ is a ruthless and brutally honest depiction of some of the deepest issues in modern society and a grim look at the possible consequences! From its core (Phoenix’ electric and mesmirising performance) it forces us to look at, to acknowledge and to reflect upon and discuss issues that popular culture and governments are normally too afraid to face and handle. In such, the entire discussion about the film in America is nothing but ironic and poignant. The film does in no way glorify violence or murder, nor does it convey unambiguous sympathy towards Arthur and his ultimately repulsive actions.

What it does, however, is that it dares to show us the person - the human being - behind the tragedies and horrific events that sadly are becoming more and more “normal” in the world today. The people in the periphery of society that we are letting down when medical centres are closed, when we don’t support them, when we expect them to behave like everyone else. That is tough to watch, and it is - of course - easier to just condemn these people as clowns or cheer on a caped crusader as he battles this evil. But in ‘Joker’ there is no Batman, there is no cartoonish villain, there is no looking away. There are only humans and their nuanced nature.

5/5

#Oscars2020 #OscarsWarmUp #OscarNominee #Academy Awards #Joker #Todd Phillips #Joaquin Phoenix #Robert De Niro

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betterthedevilyouknowuk · 5 years

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“Michelle Remembers”: The story of the literary hoax that started a tragic moral panic

Written by Sean Munger

If you were a child in America in the 80s, especially the early 80s, you probably remember Satanic Ritual Abuse. This was a fear, especially prevalent among white middle-class suburbanites, that groups of Satanic cultists were going around kidnapping children for the purpose of abusing them in the course of bizarre and evil rituals. It sounds incredibly far-fetched–and it is–but millions of otherwise rational parents were terrified that their kids might be targeted by pedophilic Satan worshipers who supposedly had some kind of organized network in North America.

SRA fears were so prevalent that they were the subject of various mainstream media reports on shows like 20/20 and Oprah Winfrey. There are few starker examples of a “moral panic” in modern history.

The entire SRA scare can be traced to a single source: a book called Michelle Remembers, written by Lawrence Pazder and published in November 1980, billed as a true story. In the book, Pazder, a psychiatrist from Victoria, BC, Canada, documented his therapy with an adult patient named Michelle Smith, who while under his care recovered repressed memories of horrifying sexual abuse in her childhood in Victoria in the 1950s. Under hypnosis Michelle recalled strange rituals, many occurring in a basement room and in a cemetery, involving knives, masochism, rape and murder. At one point Michelle said she was bundled into a car with the corpse of a dead victim of the Satanists, and the car was purposely crashed. She also claimed she endured 81 straight days of abuse in a marathon mega-ritual in which the cultists summoned Satan himself. Michelle fingered her mother as one of the instigators of this abuse. The mother, Victoria Proby, died in 1964.

Michelle Remembers made a huge splash when it appeared on the literary scene in 1980. By now Pazder was married to Michelle Smith, and the husband-and-wife team went on a publicity tour to promote the book which was very successful, garnering articles in mass media publications like the National Enquirer. The allegations of an organized network of Satanists throughout North America, who abducted kids and did these horrible things to them, were too explosive to tamp down. Pazder began consulting on other cases where people came forward and claimed to remember sex abuse from their childhoods. Suddenly it seemed there was a wealth of corroborating evidence to prove that indeed organized rings of Satanists had been running around the U.S. and Canada for decades and committing horrible acts with children.

Ross Bay Cemetery, in Victoria, BC, was identified in Michelle Remembers as one of the places where the abuse took place. However, the descriptions of what happened there make no sense in light of the real place, which is shown here on Google Earth.

At the same time, however, a second story was developing. Even before the book came out an investigative reporter in Canada went to Victoria to interview Michelle’s surviving family and friends and investigate the now 25-year-old allegations. Michelle’s father, who was still alive, refuted every allegation made against his late wife. Curiously the book contained no reference to Michelle’s siblings; why weren’t they also targets of the cult? There was very little corroborating evidence for the abuse and no witnesses directly supported her story. Some news outfits were squeamish at reporting the Michelle Remembers claims as truth.

Many, however, did–and with tragic consequences. By 1983 the country was awash in SRA allegations. The most awful of them came from a preschool in southern California, the family-run McMartin Preschool. One woman claimed, upon pretty flimsy evidence, that her young son was abused by the woman’s ex-husband, a teacher at McMartin. The woman was later found to have been insane at the time she made the allegation. Authorities investigated and called in social workers to interview the school’s students. Ultimately 360 of them claimed they had been abused. However, the investigators’ methods were quite sketchy; the claims seem to have been coaxed out of very young children through extremely leading questions and spurious interpretations of sometimes incoherent testimony. One child identified a photograph of actor Chuck Norris as one of his abusers; Norris never had any conceivable connection with the case. Other children talked about underground tunnels under the school and watching the teachers fly around the room–obviously impossible. Clearly something was wrong, but the prosecution forged ahead anyway.

Seven people associated with McMartin Preschool were charged with child abuse. An excruciatingly long investigation period led up to the trial; during this period one district attorney called the state’s case “incredibly weak” and dropped charges against five of the seven defendants. The case against the remaining two went ahead. Lawrence Pazder and Michelle Smith were consultants to the accusing children’s parents. By the time the incredibly long and expensive trial ended in 1990 the number of victims whose claims were asserted had dwindled to only 48. The jury acquitted one of the defendants, Peggy McMartin Buckey, and was unable to reach a verdict regarding the other, Ray Buckey; eleven of thirteen jurors voted to acquit him but two were intransigent. The media focused on these two jurors. Eventually the state gave up trying to convict Buckey who had already spent five years in prison despite not being convicted of anything. The trial cost $15 million–still the most expensive state criminal trial ever–and ruined countless lives. In the years after the trial, the children accusers grew up and many stated plainly that their testimony had been coerced, that they knew it was wrong at the time but wanted to please their parents and the investigators.

Shockingly, even as the trial was nearing its end, the news media was still treating Michelle Remembers as fact. Oprah Winfrey had Pazder and Smith on her show in 1989 and repeated the allegations uncritically. (Oprah would later get burned by another fake memoir, James Frey’s infamous A Million Little Pieces). In 1990, as the McMartin disaster was ending, another round of press investigations probed into the book, demolishing its claims. The car crash Michelle claimed to have been involved in was never recorded by the papers or the police of Victoria. Furthermore, someone pulled Michelle’s school records from 1955 and found she was attending school during the period of the alleged 81-day ritual marathon. No evidence has ever come to light suggesting the existence of a vast Satanic conspiracy to abuse children. Lawrence Pazder responded to these revelations by saying that whatever really happened was less important than what Michelle Smith believedhappened–not a very ringing defense of what was supposed to be a memoir. He died in 2004.

Some incidents of mass hysteria, such as the great windshield-pitting epidemic of Seattle in 1954, are relatively harmless, even amusing. Satanic Ritual Abuse, by contrast, is an episode of mass hysteria that was horribly damaging. A few people out there still believe in SRA, though their numbers are small; most of the world recognizes it as having been discredited long ago. But the whole sad saga of Michelle Remembers demonstrates the old adage that a lie can circle the world while the truth is still putting its shoes on.

#satanic panic #satan #satanism #satan panic #panic #satanic #satanist #michelle remembers #80s music #ritual #ritual abuse #satanic ritual abuse #SRA

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blessuswithblogs · 5 years

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Katsura Hashino is a Big Fat Creep and Other Observations

(for the record all uses of the word “queer” in this post are meant in the academic sense as shorthand for a wide umbrella group of gender and sexual minorities and not as a slur i hope that is evident from my past history and status as Big Gay Bitch Who Loves Girls but let it never be said i don’t cover my ass)

A few weeks ago, Catherine: Full Body Edition or whatever gross subtitle it got was released. Catherine has had a very checkered history as one of those games that is just kind of slimy, though it has endured with a cult following and a surprisingly successful competitive community by way of the game's multiplayer mode where you compete to see who can climb The Dream Sex Tower the best. Honestly, I don't know that much about Catherine because it is difficult to think of a game that repulses me more on a visceral level, but I want to do my due diligence and not talk out my ass. One of Catherine's initial claims to fame was that it was by Atlus Japan, specifically the same people who made the much beloved Persona games. This is evident in the game's art, music, overall style of delivery, and being basically hate speech.

The original Catherine was a greasy, misogynistic mess with some really vile politics about trans people in particular. Deadnaming your own fictional character in the credits is some next level petty malice. Full Body returns with, stupendously, a double down on this ideology that is actually kind of comical in how convoluted it gets in trying to decry the Degenerate Queer Lifestyle. The game adds a scene with Rin, who is apparently a gay crossdresser from space(???????), getting slapped away and running away crying from their love interest after he learns The Terrible Truth. In another game, with a different writing team, this could have been a teachable moment about the destructive consequences of taking too narrow a view of human sexuality and gender expression, but as it stands it's just another tiresome example of Trans Panic with a sheepish admonishment from the other characters that gosh maybe slapping their hand away was a mean thing to do.

So we're already firing on all cylinders here, but the best is yet to come. The bulk of the outcry comes from the addition of a weird "true ending" cutscene where Catherine, who is also from space, goes back in time to make everybody's life better. Or something. This is already pretty stupid on the face of it because its Fucking Time Travel Out of Nowhere, but the scene then depicts a pre-transition Erica, the game's trans character who got deadnamed in the credits the last time. There has been a lot of exceptionally tedious discussion about exactly when this scene takes place in the game's chronology and what it means for Erica, and some brain geniuses have tied their thinkmeats into pretzel shapes to prove definitively that all this means is that she delayed her transition in this Better Timeline, that might not actually be better, because Catherine is weird and selfish, maybe. And. Fine. Sure. Okay. Let's accept that for now. Given the game's previous track record, and continuing insistence on using Erica's pretransition name in the credits even in the rerelease, it is meanspirited at best to show her before her transition at all (many real life trans people would be utterly mortified for such a thing to happen to them) and overall just in poor taste and pretty lousy writing at that because it's so unclear what any of this actually means. Since the game has not yet received an official english localization, the context of this scene is to begin with muddled by amateur translators on the internet all with slightly conflicting interpretations of the scene. It's a fucking mess, by and large.

So I would disagree that this is a fake controversy manufactured by those damnable essjaydubyas. Even with the most charitable interpretation possible, it's still just really sketchy and gross. Erica's english voice actress, who seems to be very fond of the character, has been vocal about her dissatisfaction with the new scenes on twitter and has recently come out to say that the localization team is going to try and take some steps to make things less blatantly hateful. Between this and Jennifer Hale's recent tweet about it being time to grab our pitchforks in response to Activision-Blizzard's mass layoffs, I'm starting to think that voice actresses are pretty cool. I mean honestly I always thought that but we're getting off topic. One of the top competitive Catherine players, who was by all accounts really hyped for the release of Full Body, just straight up said on twitter that he was quitting the game because he couldn't support something like that in good conscience. I don't know if he's remained consistent on this position since, but it was a bold statement, to say the least.

Now, whenever an incident like this happens, the inevitable string of More-Progressive-Than-Thou white boys who watched an anime once and thought the bouncing titties were a little much appears to start pontificating about the cause of such untoward elements in media. And it's basically all just a bunch of Orientalist bullshit. Every time. For whatever reason, people still really love to be racist towards Japanese people because it's still sort of socially acceptable when couched in the language of "oh japan!!! ecks dee" and so the neverending procession of softboi neckbeards declared with confidence that Atlus's continual inclusion of Actual Hate Speech towards LGBTQ+ people was the result of the inscrutable Japanese Mind and its Mysterious, Antiquated Culture. Many mentions of the philosophy of Wa, wherein the nail that stands out gets pounded down, and lots of very lovely psuedointellectual claptrap. Evidently, people just seem to think that queer people don't live in Japan, or that they don't fight just as hard as we do for equal rights and protections under the law. They do live there, and they do fight as hard as we do. Obviously. You fucking imbeciles.

In their quest to clearly illustrate their moral and intellectual superiority to the backward, collectivist Asiatic Peoples, these highly reasonable and enlightened manboys forsook a very important logical principle: Occam's Razor. Sure, you could blame jApAnEsE cUlTuRe for Atlus's impropieties and just conveniently ignore all of the fantastic queer media it has produced in recent years like My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness, Horou Muskou, Nier Automata, etc. Or you could go for the simpler and more logically consistent option: Katsura Hashino is a big fat creep. Who is Hashino, you ask? He is the director of every Persona game since 3, as well as Catherine, and all of these games' gross shit and self-contradictory themes of self-acceptance and rebellion against an unust society (unless you're gay, ew) can probably be traced to him and his gaggle of accomplices. In addition to the fact that Atlus games not by Hashino's team tend to just. not have these problems to nearly as large a degree or even at all, Hashino himself has gone on record saying some really kind of hilariously backwards shit. Most infamously, when asked why in Persona 3 literally all of your social links with girls ended up with Hot Makeout Sessions regardless of like. Previously Committed to Relationships. Hashino simply said he couldn't imagine friendships between boys and girls. So that's where his brain is at. Since subsequent games in the series graciously allowed the player the option to not be a Huge Cheating Bastard, one can assume either his moral development has progressed past early puberty or somebody on the team convinced him this wasn't actually a normal thing to think. Given the man's output, I would say it's probably the latter.

It is because of this man's decisions and behavior that so many people are simply unwilling to give Full Body the benefit of the doubt. The game's director is, quite simply, a well known louse, and not in the endearing, Roger Smith way. Once again, it requires far fewer leaps in logic to assume that Hashino is just being a bigoted creep again than to go through some fuckin galaxy brain Kingdom Hearts-esque dot-connecting to justify it as just a LITTLE BIT bigoted not REALLY SUPER bigoted, or simply blaming the whole ordeal on some strange ineffable property of the Japanese Character. He's a gremlin! An overgrown manchild with a warped view of human interaction and society put in charge of games about exploring those concepts for.... reasons. My bet is that his dad knew somebody and then Persona 3 was successful enough for the rest of Atlus to just go "alright fine let him do it while we do mainline games". Unfortunately, Persona became so popular that the mainline games sort of switched places and became side-projects, at least in the eyes of the Western consumer base (which let's be real is the only perspective that any of these Serious Online Commentators even pretend to care about).

So I would once again caution everyone against just assuming that Japan is some sort of quaint anachronistic country of weird gameshows and backwards social mores. This is both a gross oversimplification of an entire culture and the struggles of their own subgroups and minorities and simply a grand display of lacking self-awareness. Like have you fucking seen the guys in the White House? The preposterous media that gets routinely greenlit on prime time TV, theaters, and digitally? Don't make me laugh. The West has no claim to any sort of progressive superiority to anybody else. The white cishet bubble of comfortable middle class affluence might distort what you see of the rest of the world, but believe me: we got problems too. Big ones. Even the presupposed bastions of Demsoc Virtue like Sweden have an awful track record of discrimination and eugenics. But Dazzlyn that's different, you cry! All of these groups and forces don't represent the entirety of Western culture! Yes. Exactly. Oppression is not culturally bound like cuisine or art. It is a nasty, universal thing that worms its way into everything, and it will use any excuse it can find to murder and exploit. It's against Christian values! It represents a genetic defect that must be purged! It's ostentatious and immature! The list goes on. And every time you giggle and go "oh those silly japanese" you're just being another expression of the same vile ideas.

I'm going to relate some of my own personal experiences, because as a noted Big Gay Bitch Who Loves Girls, I feel like maybe I have some authority on the matter? Just a little? Enough that if I make a well reasoned argument it can't be dismissed out of hand? Let's hope. So, what's the gayest game I've ever played? Final Fantasy XIV Online: A Realm Reborn. Look yeah I know I'm talking about it again but come back this is important. Final Fantasy is a series that has had a lot of LGBTQ+ undertones pretty much since forever, and while they have largely been in keeping with the times in terms of tact and representation (the Crossdressing Cloud debacle is a deeply bizarre, uncomfortable sequence in a lot of ways but there's also some genuine Good Gay Shit in 7 like Cloud's surprisingly cute and genuine date with Barret. I think. It's... it's been a while.), by God, it was at least there, and 13 had honest to god Lesbians, Harold in Fang and Vanille. I don't want to say it has pedigree, but the series has dabbled. XIV continues on the tradition with a vibrant world that's actually got a lot of characters and NPCs that are just incidentally there and kind of gay. The adventurer couple that befriended the Tonberries in Wanderer's Palace, a vendor that appeared in the Rising cosplaying as Minfilia at her wife's behest, a miqote lady bathing in the oasis that lets on she wouldn't mind having cute girls stare at her instead of grabby boys, every horny Elezen in Ishgard, Samson and Guydelot (shoutouts to Lulumi Lumi), and probably more that I've missed. More than that, though, is that because FFXIV is an MMO, it is by necessity a social space, and in my experience it has been one that has gone out of its way to be inclusive to everybody, from the GMs handling reports of abusive behavior right up to the top decision makers who made same sex player marriages a thing just immediately on its implementation and letting boys wear the gold saucer bunny costume too (albeit after quite a bit of pleading). The game's got a huge queer community of which I am kind of part of sort of. It's one of the reasons I keep coming back to it. Hell, they've recently partnered with a pride group in Australia to have an FFXIV float in a parade. I usually turn my nose up at such things as meaningless corporate grandstanding, but it does seem to be more meaningful than two boy pastas getting married or rainbow colored oreos because like. Cheesy as it sounds, it's more than just a brand to a lot of people, it's a place, sometimes the only place, they can go to feel safe and accepted in a community. Having official, vocal support from the dev team means genuinely a lot, I think.

Now, there is one quality about this game of which I am speaking that might strike you as noteworthy: it is Japanese. It's made by Japanese people, in Japan, under a Japanese company. A middle aged Japanese man goes up on stage in Gunbreaker cosplay to speak in Japanese about the upcoming expansion, while a meme obsessed gremlin translates for him. It's not perfect, there are problems, etcetera, why do I even need to qualify that in 2019, when everything sucks, god. But it's better than most things. I hope that it serves as an example to people that even in the supposedly regressive countries of the world, queer communities are still living, fighting, and sometimes even being heard, and that the only thing you're enriching by dismissing them wholesale as socially backwards is your own internet penis. And nobody fucking cares about that you simpleton. I expect 5.0 to be gayer than ever before because they're taming up with Yoko Taro to do a Nier themed raid and by the 12 Warrior of Light Dazzyn Reed is going to kiss 2B or an equivalent model right on the robot lips.

#catherine #persona #ffxiv #lgbtq #final fantasy #nier #japan

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pjbehindthesun · 6 years

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chapter 19: it's not a joke

Wednesday, October 31st, 1990

“Cora? Hey, uhm, can we talk?”

Shit, I wish I hadn’t whirled around so fast, I’m fucking dizzy now. But even through the neon lights of the bar and the shafts of light from the disco ball and the crazy colors of everyone’s costumes flying across my field of vision, it’s hard to miss the sight I wanted to see most. One pair of Stone eyes, two pairs of Stone eyes, four pairs of Stone eyes, eight pairs of Stone eyes, kaleidoscoping around disobediently, STOP that... okay okay, now four pairs of Stone eyes, two, and finally just the one pair, sparkling with amusement. His hand stays on my elbow, steady and firm, the only electrical signal reaching my brain that allows me to figure out where to look in order to ground myself.

“Uh huh.” God. Smooth, Cora.

I feel his fingers slip down my forearm and interlock with mine before he turns around and gives my hand a gentle tug. His grip stays tight as he pulls me through the crowd, and I allow myself be towed in his wake, letting the image of him walking in front of me steady my senses, wondering how in the hell I’ve known this man for almost six months and never noticed what a great ass he has… and just what am I supposed to do with that information, god damn it, stop staring at him like an object, he’s a human being, he’s your friend, he’s --

“Ow, Jesus! Personal space!”

He looks over his shoulder with a grin after stopping short at the door, because I’ve just collided hard with his back.

“Sorry, just sudden. A little warning would have been nice,” I grumble.

“That's what she said.”

“Aww, my sympathies to all your ex-girlfriends.”

He offers no retort because he's still too busy cackling at his own cleverness, so I abandon him and find a spot on the curb a little ways down from the door where I don't think we'll be tripped over too much. It takes a little bit of a fight to get the pleats of this stupid little skirt arranged so that I don't flash all of Seattle, though, and in my current state of inebriation it's not a graceful battle… how did I let Lucy talk me into wearing something so short, this is all her fault…

“I like that skirt, is it new?”

In my preoccupation, I hadn't noticed him sitting down next to me. Fantastic, so he's been watching my struggle this whole time with that stupid smug look on his face.

“Ohhhkay, fine, out with it.”

“Out with what?”

“Don't play dumb, Stone.”

“I'm not…” his brow creases.

“I know, I know, this skirt’s ridiculous, I can't wait to burn the damn thing tomorrow, I’ve been fighting with it all night, so of course you’ve got some devastating sarcastic crack to unleash about it, come on… out with it.”

“Oh, of course, it would be inconceivable that I might actually pay you a compliment free of irony.”

“First time for everything.”

“You're such a sweetheart,” he sneers.

“You have no room to talk. Speaking of talking…?” I raise my eyebrows expectantly.

“Huh? Oh. Uh, it was just getting kinda stuffy in there. I don't know, it's nicer out here.”

“Suit yourself, but I was winning an argument.”

“What the hell were you guys talking about, anyway?”

“Whether free will exists. What do you think?”

He blinks and crumples up his features, shaking his head in exasperation. “This is what you think about when you’re drunk?”

“Excuse me,” I adjust my skirt again and straighten up, “I am not drunk, I’m just ethanol-enhanced.”

“Yeah well, you’re pretty enhanced right now, if you get what I’m saying...”

“You underestimate me, Stoner, I can hold my whiskey. So, what do you think?”

He frowns. “About free will?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Shit, I don’t know… help me out, where did you guys leave off?”

“You’re not getting off that easy, what do you think?”

He sighs and narrows his eyes at me, pursing his lips in a resigned smile. “Well, I’m willing to bet you don’t believe in anything that can’t be explained scientifically --”

“-- that’s because everything can be explained scientifically --”

“-- oh, stop being so modest… and Kim probably thought that was hilarious and wanted to play devil’s advocate with some kind of metaphysical bullshit.”

“You’re about up to speed, yeah.”

He sighs. “Okay, uhm… I guess I just don’t see why it matters.”

“How so?”

“I mean, I think the whole idea of free will really just exists to punish people for not doing what they’re supposed to. Like, if we look at it your way, then everything we do, whether it’s the tiniest reflex or a big life decision, has an explainable cause, so we’re not really in control of anything, tough shit. My dog has as much freedom to decide to run after the stick I throw as to decide whether or not to have a seizure, which is to say none at all.”

“Aw, you really do have a geriatric dog, huh?”

“Yeah, she’s a senior citizen,” he says sadly. “But like, if we want to talk about freedom, then isn’t it really just to create some ownership of certain kinds of actions but not others? I guess I care less about whether free will exists than why people want it to exist.”

“Right. At what point does an infant stop being this blameless, innocent little potato and start being a kid that their parents can blame for misbehaving?”

“Yeah, or like, addiction. We talk about it like it’s a big moral failing, like there’s some kind of choice involved, and maybe at some level there is, but like, I don’t know if you know any addicts…” he sighs, looking terrifyingly fragile all of a sudden, “but I think the whole reason society wants to hold people responsible for shit like that is to be able to, like, impose consequences for ‘fucking up,’” he frames his words with air quotes.

“Like there aren’t enough of those already,” I add quietly, hating myself for clumsily letting the conversation steer into such a painful topic.

“Right. I mean,” he shifts his posture, and some of his normal composure returns, “I guess there’s something kind of romantic about feeling like you’re the master of your own destiny, but I think we mostly use it as a stick to beat people with.”

“What the fuck does ‘romantic’ even mean, anyway?” I snort.

“Uh uh, nope, you’re cut off -- we need several more drinks before we solve any more of life’s mysteries.”

“Now you’re talking,” I hook my arm in his and start to stand up, pulling on him to join me, but he resists, so I let go of him and sit back down. “What’s up?”

“Well, uh, I actually did want to talk to you about something.”

Of course. He’s suddenly engrossed in watching his own fidgeting fingers, which is all I can stare at now as well. Damn it, Stone, you're making me nervous...

“Okay, shoot.”

“I was talking to Jeff just now, he thinks, uh… he was thinking… there’s something going on.”

My mind goes blank. I'm not ready for this. Too drunk. Not drunk enough. “Going on… between us?”

He scoffs. “No, actually, he wants to cover the song on the record. You know, Frida? I knowww there's something going onnn…”

“You're such an asshole,” I elbow him, but he's occupied rocking out to the beat in his head and playing air guitar.

“But like, super heavy, crunchy, distorted guitars… it’d be pretty sweet, right?”

“I think that's a little out of Eddie's register!”

We both collect our laughter gradually, not rushing back to the topic, because we both know damn well that we’re not sitting out on this curb because Jeff Ament harbors a burning desire to cover Frida.

“Yeah, between us,” he concedes when he's finally straight-faced again. “He thinks something's up here.”

He’s right, isn't he? I want to ask, but the words are lodged somewhere in my throat in a thicket of panic. Of course Jeff’s right, I’m not an idiot, I know that Stone and I are not just friends. I know that. I’ve known that for a while now. I just don't know what that makes us, or what the hell I’m supposed to do about it. I’ve been hiding from this thing for way too long, and now it’s out of control. The options blur around and around my mind, as if on a carousel. Deny it? The thought is physically painful… Laugh it off? No, that’s even worse… Come clean? But I can hardly admit it to myself, let alone him. The thought of owning up to all of this, disentangling it, is just too much to handle tonight, there’s not enough whiskey in the world… I decide to let simplicity win, or maybe it's just cowardice.

“What did you tell him?”

“I told them they should mind their own business,” he says bluntly.

“Them?”

“Yeah, well, I kinda got the sense Lucy had the same idea.”

“Ah.” My heart starts to ache. I should have talked to her. God, I’m the worst friend, I should have talked to her about this days ago, I know she of all people would have listened and tried to understand, and maybe she could even have helped me figure out what I’m supposed to do about it.

“Well, and… Mike's brought it up once or twice. Chris said something a while back.”

“Are you kidding me? Did I miss a newsletter or something? God, they’re so full of shit.”

His shoulders shake with a single silent laugh, but his eyes are focused on the asphalt. “Nothing new there.”

“Fucking ridiculous,” I add, figuring that if we’re going for denial then I might as well commit, although it’s just as painful as I thought it would be.

“Right, I mean, just because we’ve been spending a lot of time together doesn’t mean… shit…” his hands begin to fidget again, and we’re both watching them like they’re a sideshow.

“Right,” I echo, feeling like my chest might cave in at any moment.

“Right? You’ve got a boyfriend. Like, nothing could ever happen, I would never…” he trails off, shaking his head.

“No, I know, me either!”

“But like… we have been, you know, getting a lot closer, especially over the last week, and I’m not gonna… I won’t pretend like that doesn’t mean anything to me.”

I can feel him watching me, waiting for me to affirm that this evolution between us has been mutual. And of course it has. But what am I supposed to say? That yes, this has been the best week of my life, and it’s all because I’ve been pretending that this suspended animation we’re in is actually real life, but I know that in one way or another it’s all about to come crashing down? Admitting that doesn’t make anything easier or simpler. I love you for climbing out on this limb, Stone, I just can’t join you.

When I finally find words, I hear myself saying the only thing I can think of that’s both true and safe.

“You’re one of my best friends.”

“You too.”

But the look in his eyes and the hush in his voice is anything but safe. Feeling increasingly frantic to scramble back to familiar territory, I cast around for a way to turn our situation into something we can laugh at.

“Well, I think we’re looking at this thing all wrong.”

“Really?” he arches an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I mean, here’s a gift-wrapped opportunity to fuck with our friends, if we wanna take it. You know, really follow through on the whole scandal.”

A smile curves one half of his mouth as he says hesitantly, “what’d you have in mind?”

“Oh, I don't even know,” I think for a moment, letting the whiskey do the talking for a change, “just like, conspicuously disappear together into a supply closet for a pretend quickie and come out five minutes later looking all disheveled, just to see what they do?”

He gapes at me. “Five minutes?? You think that's all we’d need? Jesus, Cora… I’m insulted.”

“My mistake. Stone Gossard, the Sixty Minute Man, I presume?”

“Try me,” he smirks.

“Pass,” I laugh.

“Hey! I mean it! I can provide references!”

“Come on, haven't those poor girls been through enough?”

“Oh, you're in so much trouble,” he grins, looking away.

“We’d make a terrible couple, you know. We’re too similar. We’d fight all the damn time.”

“Yeah, but I bet the makeup sex would be off the charts,” he dodges the swipe I just aimed at the side of his head.

“Why do I hang out with such perverted filth, ugh.”

He lets his eyes zone out as he intones, “one of us, one of us...”

“Lucky me. Hey, it’s freezing out here, you wanna get back inside?”

We stand up and brush off the dirt from the curb before he turns to me, rubbing my arms vigorously with his hands and wearing a broad grin.

“I think it’s really adorable how easily you get cold.”

“I think it’s really adorable how easily you get patronizing.”

I stick my tongue out at him, he readjusts the cat ears in my hair, and it almost feels like we're back to our normal bullshit before he looks intently at me and pulls a deep breath.

“I actually think we’d do alright, for the record. At the whole couple thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, come on, we’ve probably both dealt with worse.”

“If this is your application to be considered boyfriend material, you might want to aim a little higher than ‘you’ve seen worse.’”

“I’m totally boyfriend material. I did your dishes,” he says slyly, holding the door open.

“Yeah, and to spare your feelings, I conveniently left out the part where I had to wash them all again the next morning.”

He forces a little pout, but that half-smile I love so much washes it away without too much effort. “I never said I did them well…”

***

The first person I make eye contact with when we’re back inside is Jeff, which comes as no surprise because I’m positive he and Lucy have been watching the door like hawks ever since Cora and I left. Cora’s got the right idea, though: without another word or glance in my direction, she makes a beeline for Lucy, wraps her up in a back-breaking hug, and the two of them are rapidly absorbed in a conversation I can’t hear from this side of the room.

I should follow her lead. Partly because I need to get my nosy fucking bassist to stop staring at me, and partly because I need to drink that conversation out of my head as quickly as possible. I chickened out, I hate to admit. I know we need to figure this shit out sooner rather than later, but it’s just so much easier to keep joking with her about it. But I meant what I told her about what she means to me, it’s not a joke…

Eddie saves me from myself with a beer, followed by another one bought by Chris, and I lose sight of Cora in the crowd for most of the night. Well, that's not entirely true. I spent an agonizing several minutes talking to Jeff while trying my level best not to openly stare over his shoulder at Cora while she and Lucy were dancing over by the bar to Iggy Pop. Jesus, that purple skirt is definitely my new favorite...

But I'm more or less successful at seeming disinterested until until we’re all congregating by the cars and figuring out how everyone plans to get home.

“Where’s Mike?” Lucy, the only sober one in the group, cranes her neck to peer back inside.

“You didn’t see him stumble out of here with Selene a while back?” I answer.

“No way!” Jeff shouts.

“Oh yeah. The two of them were quite a sight. The KISS makeup definitely wasn’t kissproof, let’s just put it that way.”

“Okay, so that’s one lost lamb accounted for,” Lucy muses. “Stone, your car’s back at our place? You wanna take the couch?”

I thank her and take her up on the offer, and Jeff and I are busy making plans for another mountain biking trip this weekend when Cora materializes from somewhere behind me. I try to keep my voice as casual as possible because I know Jeff's watching closely.

“What about it, Red? Duthie Hill, Saturday? They have some good trails.”

But she bites her lips in, which with all of her facepaint makes the cat look like it’s grinding its teeth, and Jeff speaks up. “She can’t, man, she doesn’t have a bike, remember?”

“What??” I realize I’m shouting when Eddie's head whips around sharply to frown at me, so I try to tone it down.”Yes you do, the green one, that was a really nice bike! What happened to it?”

She cringes. “I sorta… gave it away…”

“When did that happen?” I ask her in a much lower voice, trying to be conscious of my volume.

“I gave it to Patch,” she says simply.

“She’s being modest, she’s the best big sister in the world and she didn’t want her kid brother to move to a new city without some way of getting around.” Lucy wraps Cora up in another one of their tight hugs, and despite the makeup, I can see my amazing, giving, kindhearted girl blushing as she gives me a “kill me now” look. I’m sure my own expression is entertaining too, but I couldn’t care less. The feeling in my chest as I stare back at her is the kind of thing that crowds out any self-consciousness. I didn’t think it was possible to love her more, but here we are.

“Cor? You around tomorrow? Lunch date? Cyclops?” Lucy asks, and from within the headlock, Cora nods enthusiastically in response to each question.

“Okay, enough standing around, it's freezing,” she says in a muffled voice around Lucy’s forearm before she breaks loose and bolts towards the Corolla.

Jeff obviously takes shotgun, since no one would dare try to argue him out of sitting next to Lucy, and anyway I’ve got no interest in sitting up front. Eddie sits behind Jeff and immediately leans forward, striking up an animated conversation about basketball, which is perfect because it leaves Cora and me completely undisturbed.

All I want to do is restart our conversation somehow, try for a do-over, tell her that it’s not really a joke, that I want to know how she feels, that I want to give this a try, that I really do care what an impossible position that puts her in and I want to talk about it and try to figure it out together, that yes, she is one of my best friends, but what if that’s not the end of what we are but the start of what we could be…

Of course, we’re both too drunk for that conversation to happen tonight, and there are way too many witnesses. And anyway, she’s determined not to look at me because she’s too busy pretending to care about Jeff and Eddie’s speculations for the start of the NBA season. I’ve almost resigned myself to joining her when I feel her thigh drift over towards mine and apply a steady pressure. And now I know that none of it matters. None of the equivocation, none of the bullshit jokes, none of the obstacles. Only this person matters. We’ll figure the rest out as we go.

I reach over to her lap and brush the back of her hand with mine, hoping to tell her just a fraction of what I should have told her outside, but I’m not prepared for how quickly she turns her hand over and laces her fingers into mine. Feeling like I’ve just had the wind knocked out of me in the best way, I look sideways at her and am rewarded with that warm, open smile of hers, beautiful even through all the facepaint. It's not a joke. This is enough. Just holding her hand in the darkness, smiling at her and seeing her smile back at me as the streetlights flash past us, this is all I need right now.

***

Thursday, November 1, 1990

“So on a scale of one to ten, how hungover were you this morning?”

Cora screws up her face. “I mean, it wasn’t an apocalyptic experience, and it was definitely nothing like the Bushmills night --” she chuckles as I fake a gag “-- but it wasn’t pretty. Maybe a six?”

“Oh yeah, hissing at daylight and shunning all human contact? Good thing you’re not working this shift, I’m betting you wouldn’t set a new personal best for tips earned.”

“Not unless they’re pity tips. I didn’t even realize until I’d already walked over here that I’d missed a spot of the paint when I washed my face. How did the guys do?”

“Jeff and Ed were still out cold when I left for work. I think they’re probably in a world of hurt by now, though.”

“And Stone?”

Her voice is neutral, and her attention seems to be focused on her quesadilla, but she doesn’t fool me. I know exactly what’s going on inside her head. She’s in that place where you think about someone so often that you start to become embarrassed about how often their name pops out of your mouth, so you start to wait for strategic moments to bring them up, like when we’re already twenty minutes into our lunch.

“He left before I got up, so either he was the most bright-eyed and bushy-tailed of the bunch, or he felt the overwhelming urge to crawl off somewhere isolated to die alone.”

She nods but doesn’t reply, so I decide to wait a little longer before I push her to tell me what’s going on there. We kill time talking about work while we polish off the rest of our meals, and then decide that the hangover gods require an additional sacrifice, so we order a plate of fries to split, and I switch to her side of the booth so we can slump pathetically on each other while we demolish it. After a long pause, Cora leans her head on my shoulder and I lean my head onto hers.

“Lucy?” she says quietly, twirling a fry in the ketchup.

“Mmph?” I respond around an undignified mouthful of fries.

“Have you ever… liked someone you’re not supposed to like?”

Fighting the urge to gasp, because I know that if I do I’ll only choke, I swallow my food and ask her in my calmest, most innocent voice, “who do you like that you’re not supposed to like?”

“I don’t know,” she sighs, “it’s just a hypothetical.”

“Cora?”

“Can you just answer first?”

“Okay… well, I think first of all, it depends on what you mean by ‘like.’”

“Don’t be a 6th grader about this, Lucy, you know what I mean. Like-like.”

Like-like? And I’m the 6th grader?? I’m thankful she’s still resting her head on my shoulder and can’t see the incredulous look I’m struggling to wipe off my face.

“Okay. Then I think it also depends on what you mean when you say you’re not supposed to like them.”

“Someone… off limits.”

“Not the person you’re with,” I elaborate very carefully.

“Exactly. And it’s not just hormones, either,” she continues, “I mean… really connecting with someone. Someone else.”

“So, there’s this person --”

“-- hypothetically speaking --” she cuts me off.

“Fine, there’s this hypothetical person you like. Are they a good person?”

“Really good.”

“Makes you laugh, listens to you, cares about your feelings, always calls you back, all that good stuff?”

“All of it.”

“And you’re attracted to them?”

“Hypothetically… yes. Very.”

“Think they’re attracted to you?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Okay, I see. That sounds pretty great. And what about the person you’re with, hypothetically? Do they make you feel the same way?”

After a long pause, all she has to say, in a frighteningly small voice, is “no.” I’m done playing games now.

“Cora?”

She sits up and regards me with a completely miserable expression but doesn’t respond, so I brush her hair out of her eyes and say simply, “just tell me what’s going on.”

“Okay okay I don’t know how the hell any of this happened but I think I’m falling for Stone,” she says in one giant breath before biting her lips back in, as if she regrets letting the words past them.

“I think maybe you already fell.”

“It’s an ongoing process,” she mutters, flushing.

“I know what you mean.” Wow, she’s got it bad. “Well, if it’s any consolation, I’m pretty sure Stone took the same fall you did.”

“You knew, didn’t you?” she huffs.

“Oh, sweetie… yeah, it’s been obvious for a while.”

“Sounds like it was obvious to everyone but me,” she grumbles.

“Have you guys talked it through yet?”

“No… I think he wanted to talk about it last night, but I just couldn’t do it. I wish I’d told him, though, there’s just… it’s complicated, but I know we need to air it out. I get that.”

My heart swells with gratitude for Jeff for doing his part. Now it’s time for me to do mine.

“You guys really clicked, didn’t you?”

“It’s insane, Lucy. I’ve never felt this way about someone before.”

“Yeah, but you and Alex fell in love pretty quickly, didn’t you?”

“That was totally different,” she shakes her head. “Alex and me, we kinda just… happened. Like, I met him, we hooked up that same night, we just sort of stuck together after that, and I was so excited to have a boyfriend that I don’t think I really thought about it all that much. I don’t know what to call that, looking back, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t love. Not right away.”

I take a deep breath and ask her the most obvious yet most painful question of all. “And do you love Alex now?”

She slumps in the booth, leaning her head back with a thud. “I don’t think what we have now is love either. It used to be, but… I don’t know, not anymore.”

“For how long?”

“How am I supposed to know? I just know he’s been checked out for a long time now, and I’m starting to realize that I have been, too. Like, what are we even doing? We hardly spend any time together, he hates all my friends… except you,” she adds quickly, “and he hasn’t even called me once since he’s been on this trip, not even to return a call.”

“Really?” I have to fight not to shake my head in disgust. That’s shitty, even for Alex. What’s so goddamn important about a conference that you can’t find time to call your girlfriend? Not once, the entire week? My urge to beat him bloody with my shoe returns with a vengeance.

“Really. I’ve called him every day, and I get nothing back. At first I was kinda worried, but like… this is just what he does. I don’t think he even cares. I left him a message the other night to see if he wanted a ride home from the airport, but it’s just radio silence.”

“You don’t deserve that,” I affirm. “Whatever else is going on, that’s just cruel. He should care enough to call you back, at the very least.”

Her face contorts. “Yeah, but I’m not much better… my boyfriend goes away for a week and I fall head over heels for that idiot??”

“That idiot has a name, and you’re obviously pretty important to him. That’s not some new development in the last week.”

“Still, Luce, I just feel like such an asshole. How did I let this get so out of hand?”

“Sometimes this stuff happens, Cora. Sometimes a relationship runs its course, and you don’t always get closure wrapped up in a pretty little bow before somebody’s ready to move on. I just think you’ve got to talk to Alex.”

“Yeah. I know. I know I do.” Her eyes are starting to look a little red as she leans her head back on my shoulder. “It’s over, it’s been over for a while, I just… I can’t be the one to…”

I only speak up when I’m sure she can’t finish her own thought. “You feel like you can’t be the one to leave.”

“Right.”

I wrap an arm around her and pull her into a hug. We don’t talk about her dad a lot, but I know that’s where this bullshit about not leaving people comes from. From the inner eight year old who was left behind once and can’t stand to leave anyone else the same way.

“Cora, it’s not the same. People grow apart. You’re not married to Alex, you don’t have kids, we’re young… you don’t have to do this to yourself forever if you’re not happy with him. Are you happy?”

She sniffs and shakes her head.

“You deserve someone who makes you happy.”

“I’ve got to talk to Alex.”

“Yeah. You do. He gets home tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow night.”

“You can do this, Cor. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

I give her shoulder another big squeeze, and we finish our fries in silence.

***

After my afternoon classes are done, I drop my books by the front door of the apartment and notice that the answering machine has something to tell me. When I press play, the unexpected sound of Alex’s voice makes me jump.

“Hey babe, I got your message last night,” oh, and what about the ones I left every other day? my brain asks him bitterly, “don’t worry, I don’t need a ride from the airport, you’re the only one who cares about that shit, haha. No but seriously, I can get myself home. Anyway, yeah, I’ll seeya when I seeya, hope you had a good week, bye for now.”

I sink down onto the couch, wincing at the dismissiveness of the message. After a week of not hearing your voice, this is all I get? I’ll seeya when I seeya? What am I, your drinking buddy? Some random acquaintance? I used to think I was going to spend my life with you, you asshole, and even if we’re drifting apart, even if we’re breaking up, don’t we deserve a better ending than this? Lucy’s right, this can’t wait any longer, I’ve got to talk to him as soon as he gets home…

You’re the only one who cares about that shit… his laughter keeps ringing in my ears. Laughter. After what happened a few weeks ago? When I asked you to pick me up at the airport, hoping you’d at least pretend that you gave a damn, and you fucking forgot? Really, that’s a joke to you now? It’s not a joke! It’s not a joke to me! God, how can it be a joke to you?

And you know who actually picked me up? You know who was there when I needed him? Stone. A shard of guilt pierces my chest when I think about Stone trying to have a sincere talk with me last night. Yeah, okay, he had terrible timing, it wasn’t something we needed to discuss while drunk. But he tried to tell me and I brushed it off. That wasn’t a joke either. Suddenly all I can think about is how much I need to tell him, and it can’t wait. I dial so quickly that I’m almost confident I hit a wrong number, but the voice on the other end of the line is exactly the one I wanted to hear. I don’t waste any time.

“Hey... can I come over?”

#it's terrible sorry #chapter 19 #behind the sun #fanfiction #fanfic #stone gossard #eddie vedder #jeff ament #mike mccready #pearl jam

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Text

Online Trolling in football transfer rumours.

Online trolling is typically thought of to be of a nature of offensiveness and generally being unpleasantries (Cheng., et al, 2017). However, what needs to also be considered is the troll who is creating fake news rather than a person who is merely commenting hurtful things. Football is the biggest sport in the world and one of the biggest attractions about the sport is the transfers from club to club, the value of the European transfer market is €5.6 billion as of summer 2017 (Uefa.com, 2018). When there is news about a transfer it will instantly become big news in the football world, what is difficult however is to distinguish whether it is true or not. Because fake news can start from anywhere and from anyone and then start gaining influence through shares on social media creating a big game of Chinese whispers which can amount to something that can appear true (Lazer, 2018). Football journalists are popular on sites like Twitter because they can “cover stories that the mainstream media often ignore” (Schultz & Sheffer, 2010, p.4). This craving for transfer news about the biggest players has however led to the rise of untrusted online news sources gaining popularity whereby on social media any account can produce unverified football content (Caled & Silva, 2018). This is because “news content is continuously published online, (and) the speed in which it is disseminated hinders human fact-checking activity” (Caled&Silva, 2018, p.1). A recent example of this is a fake account (LibertadDigital, 2018)(translated from Spanish) posing as a French journalist called Baptiste Ripart confirming Kylian Mbappe the French football stars move to Real Madrid for €272 million:

Then a statement from the clubs official website stated that :

“Given the information published in the last few hours regarding an alleged agreement between Real Madrid C.F. and PSG for the player Kylian Mbappé, Real Madrid would like to state that it is completely false.”

(Source Real Madrid C.F-Web Oficial, 2018)

These lies once circulated enough times will be picked up from actual news stations and harm the brands such as Real Madrid were harmed here and thus had to put out a statement otherwise this had potential to upset PSG the club of Mbappe. Fake football news is an ongoing problem in football since the rise of social media since it gives everyone a voice including liars. Furthermore, these trolls thrive on the reactions of the ones whom they are distressing because for a troll the art of success is to get the fish to bite (Bishop, 2014). Consequently, the trolls get more success on transfer rumours because online news broadcasters will want to share these big stories in order to attract viewers to their site(see below). Because “It drives up advertising revenues for news websites desperate for visitors in the face of dying print editions” (Planetfootball, 2017, para. 18).

However awful this may seem fake news in football transfers is here to stay as according to planetfootball(2017) agents of players will encourage the fake news to continue and even entertain the rumours because it can raise their players profile which in turn means their transfer fee could augment.

Trolls have an increased amount of power due to the rise of social media and when there is a medium which craves news as football transfers troll will be able to thrive. Due to interest from external source who have credibility such as news websites or football agents the power of the troll is reinforced and as shown football clubs have to respond in order to shut down the rumour which is a victory for the troll whose primary goal was to provoke a reaction.

Word Count: 609

References

Bishop, J. (2014). Representations Of ‘Trolls’ In Mass Media Communication: A Review Of Media-Texts And Moral Panics Relating To ‘Internet Trolling’. International Journal of Web Based Communities, 7-24.

Caled, D., & Silva, M. J. (2018). FTR-18: Collecting rumours on football transfer news. arXiv preprint arXiv:1812.00778.

Cheng, J., Bernstein, M., Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, C., & Leskovec, J. (2017, February). Anyone can become a troll: Causes of trolling behavior in online discussions. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM conference on computer supported cooperative work and social computing (pp. 1217-1230). ACM.

Goal.com. (2019). Transfer news: 'We don't want Mbappe or Neymar' - Perez says Real Madrid haven't spoken to PSG | Goal.com. [online] Available at: https://www.goal.com/en-kw/news/we-dont-want-mbappe-or-neymar-perez-says-real-madrid-havent/1kqsw86xpn5f31l944h5rustea.

Lazer, D. M., Baum, M. A., Benkler, Y., Berinsky, A. J., Greenhill, K. M., Menczer, F., ... & Schudson, M. (2018). The science of fake news. Science, 359(6380), 1094-1096.

Libertad Digital. (2018). Un fantasma se mofa de la prensa deportiva espaola y hace trabajar al Real Madrid. [online] Available at: https://www.libertaddigital.com/deportes/liga/2018-07-04/una-cuenta-falsa-se-mofa-de-la-prensa-espanola-y-del-real-madrid-1276621549/ [Accessed 29 May 2019].

Planet Football. (2017). Fake transfer news and how the power of repetition creates belief - Planet Football. [online] Available at: https://www.planetfootball.com/in-depth/fake-transfer-news-power-repetition-creates-belief/ [Accessed 30 May 2019].

Real Madrid C.F. - Web Oficial. (2018). Official Announcement | Real Madrid CF. [online] Available at: https://www.realmadrid.com/en/news/2018/07/official-announcement-2?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=organico [Accessed 29 May 2019].

Schultz, B., & Sheffer, M. L. (2010). An exploratory study of how Twitter is affecting sports journalism. International Journal of Sport Communication, 3(2), 226-239.

Uefa.com. (2018). [online] Available at: https://www.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/Download/OfficialDocument/uefaorg/Clublicensing/02/53/00/22/2530022_DOWNLOAD.pdf [Accessed 29 May 2019].

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dicecast · 7 years

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Blast to the Past: The Trouble with Evil Choices

So a lot of Westenr RPGs are really interested in the question of morality and the option of moral virtue. Roleplaying games are about choice and so it makes sense that so many of these games make said choice be be focused on morality, after all in our lives today morality is one of the greatest choices we struggle with on a regular basis. However the vast majority of these are....terrible. The REputation system in Baldur’s Gate, the Open Palm/Closed Fist morality system, Good/Evil in Neverwinter Knights, Fame/Infamy in Fallout, the Light Side/Dark Sign Dichotomy, Paragon/Renegade, and to a lesser extent some of the approval choices in Dragon Age, they are all suffering from the fact that morality just isn’t very complicated.

Now there is a whole series of articles i can write about the problems with video game morality, but i want to focus on something that often goes unremarked. That by the very nature of playing a video game, a great deal of the incentive for real life evil choices are removed. Specifically I want to focus on five of the most common motivations for evil in real life that just aren’t present in most video games (though not all it varies on the game) For example

1) Fear. Fear is one of the most powerful motivators in real life, a lot of people will do truly horrible things if they are afraid of death, or harm coming to their families, poverty, or simply fear of uncertainty, these all serve as firm justifications for evil in our world. I mean to take the torture debate we have had recently wasn’t really about weather it got results or was an effective deterrent because....it wasn’t, torture just doesn’t work as an interrogation tool. But people supported it because they felt scared and it made them feel better. Same with the War on Drugs, McCarthyism, the Reign of Terror the Wall or the Japanese Interment camp, people will do horrible things because they are fucking terrified, even if it isn’t rational. But Video games tend to encourage a sort of hyper pragmatic mentality, you are mechanically trying to win the game and you are going to make choices that incentive you winning, and irrational fear just isn’t much of a factor. Like if something is objectively not true, which is easy to determine as a player who is only visiting the world, why bother.

But even fully rational fear, in most video games, the game might be scary in a fun sort of way, but you rarely are going to be in a mental head space where you are really terrified for your life, because a video game is designed to be beatable. So sure, I could murder that girl for the really great armor to help me survive the boss, but the game is designed so that everybody can beat that boss so I don’t need too. I never have the level of desperation that really forces me to to commit violence in order to win. Like in Dishonored, the argument is suppose to be Evil is Easy and Good is Difficult in regards to the super powers, but you can beat the game as good really easily, the game has to be designed so I can defeat it without the evil powers, thats just good game design. And finally above all, I can reload my game. So if I have to kill a child in order to unlock the super powerful magic spell, I am not going to do it because I can just fight the giant crab boss until I kill it normally. But if my life was actually at stake, I might consider otherwise because you know..I can’t reload that. The very design of video games removes the moral argument of fear right away

2) Luxury. A lot of people do horrible things because they want to live comfortable, and we understand that because a lot of us can fantasy living comfortably, eating great meals every day, being able to afford every video games, or for people my age, being able to sleep on a nice bed, not having to worry about crippling debt and being able to wake up in the morning knowing that I actually own something. But video game protagonists don’t really have the physical needs of a human except in survival games and those implementations are very clunky. In Baldur’s Gate for example, my mercenary can just sleep on in the woods all day long and nobody cares, its fine, its cool, he never feels any burning need to have luxury because that is a very physical sensation which can’t really be replicated in a game. Or to use another example, people will do truly horrible things for sex in real life, but in a game sex is effectively meaningless. Like in real life, sex trafficking happens because people want sex/power and are able to dehumanize and ignore the needs of their fellow human beings because they value their own pleasure, but in a video game you don’t really have that urge. And no, I am not saying we need to have a sex trafficking morality choice in RPGs, please like..don’t do that.

3) Ignorance. In real life, most people have no fucking clue what is going on around them most of time, and so they do evil thing because they don’t realize the consequences. But in a video game, not only do you have far more understanding and awareness of the world though the wiki, game manual, and just being able to look at the whole situation from a more removed perspective. But also again, the reload function, if I trust this person and then he betrays me, i can just reload, my understanding of the world is so much firmer than most people making these decisions would be. Also I have time to think over my choices which most people do not, so you don’t see as many panic decisions in most video games

4) Social influence.

A lot of evil is reinforced by social norms, i mean look at slavery, it was seen as normal so people just didn’t recognize it as wrong. But most video games you the player are an outsider, often times your character is, so you don’t really get that sense of normality in regards to unfair treatment of people because you often aren’t immersed enough. Even if the fantasy society says that slavery is ok, you the player clearly have a conception of slavery as evil (or you fucking should), because it isn’t our normal. A game can get around it, but it is very very difficult

5) Insecurity/Uncertainty

People do really awful things because they feel powerless or upset in some other part of their lives, I mean look at the Trump Administration, Gamergate or Brexit, but in a video game, your character doesn’t necessarily have those thoughts guiding their actions. Or people who panic, like shooting an unarmed black man because you are really twitchy and trigger happy. I mean, Commander Shepard is never going to shoot a civilian because of something like PTSD or because he thought she made a funny movement and shoot accidently, but you don’t have that kind of emotions in a video game.

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t do morality stories in gaming you absolutely should, you just need to be aware of these issues.

#Blast to the past

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cashcounts · 6 years

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Why Did an NPR Show Lie About YouTuber Abby Vapes?

Like just about every news outlet in the country, Boston public radio program On Point led its April 5 vaping segment with the two biggest vaping news topics: e-liquid flavors, and the supposed epidemic of teenage vaping, driven by use of the JUUL.

And, also like just about every other news outlet, On Point host Jane Clayson got the vaping facts wrong. Very, very wrong.

“We’re turning now to the dangerous trend of teen vaping,” Clayson said in the program’s intro. “Devices like e-cigarettes and the new brand JUUL, with flavors like candy cane and gummy bear, and a lot of nicotine. Teenagers — even middle-schoolers — are getting hooked. Here’s a teen on YouTube, teaching a vaping trick…”

http://vaping360.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/NPR-lies-about-juul-and-abby-vapes.mp3

Clayson then played a 2014 clip from the YouTube show Abby Vapes. Host Abby (who prefers we use her first name only) is a young woman, but clearly not a teenager. On Point is syndicated by Boston University station WBUR and heard on more than 290 National Public Radio stations around the country. Potentially millions of NPR listeners heard Clayson misidentify Abby as a teenager.

Abby wasn’t especially surprised. “Other media outlets have used my videos and images to condemn vaping,” she told Vaping360. “My immediate reaction was anger and worry. I was angry that they chose to classify me incorrectly as a teenager and use my audio in a broadcast.

“I’m also worried that, if this broadcast is not retracted quickly, there will be public backlash from my fans. I do not create content for teenagers, nor are they my peers — which is what WBUR’s broadcast would like you to think.”

But why would WBUR want to make anyone think that vaping is a teen activity?

Why are JUUL and flavors the top targets?

Abby was the only person directly hurt by the On Point broadcast, but she wasn’t the target. The coordinated campaign against JUUL has reached just about every American by now, through newspaper and magazine articles, local and national TV news broadcasts, live seminars offered to parents by local anti-drug groups, and grandstanding speeches by politicians.

The frenzy around the JUUL is being stoked by longtime vaping opponents like the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the Truth Initiative, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Their other target, of course, is e-liquid flavors, which are under review by the FDA. The FDA attempted to ban flavors in 2016, and there’s no reason to think they don’t still have that intention.

Those groups are all part of a new lawsuit against the FDA aimed at forcing the agency to reinstate its original August 2018 deadline for vape manufacturers to submit premarket tobacco applications (PMTA’s) for their existing products. They may be hoping the campaign against JUUL will give the FDA an excuse to take action sooner than the scheduled 2022 deadline.

A flavor ban would kill most of the independent American vape industry, leaving only JUUL as an obstacle to eliminating vaping. It’s important that all vapers support JUUL — and likewise for JUUL to show solidarity with the smaller vaping companies. No one in the vaping industry is marketing to kids or selling to them. Rather, the forces lined up against vaping are terrified that vaping might actually now be threatening cigarettes in a real way.

Defensive much? Also, “just ask media”?

That’s a very strange thing to say.

Please show us the data. https://t.co/RFt1CX87U5

— Oliver Kershaw (@ojkershaw) April 14, 2018

The goal for anti-vaping forces is to whip up enough fear, uncertainty and doubt among parents and school staff that they will help pressure the FDA to ban flavors and restrict the sales and marketing of vapes. There are Reefer Madness-like elements to the mania over JUUL, with authority figures like high school principals and pediatricians breathlessly counting down a list of terrible consequences for our children if we can’t stop the awful threat.

The only problem is that there is no actual evidence that teen use of the JUUL is exploding, as they keep insisting it is.

“The media reports of a teenage juuling ‘epidemic’ do not add up with population studies that show regular use of these products by never smokers to be very low,” University of Waterloo (Ontario) sociologist Amelia Howard told Vaping360 in a recent article. “The juuling stories have the classic hallmarks of a moral panic: widespread fear based on exaggerated risk.”

Listening to the On Point show, Abby agreed. “It felt very rushed and didn’t have much solid evidence or content about Juul use in schools,” she says. “They focus on the fact that these pod vaping devices use nicotine salts (they don’t use that term though), which provide a rush or buzz similar to a cigarette and say that’s what gets underage teens addicted.

“However,” she added, “this is also what helps many adults quit smoking cigarettes.”

Is YouTube going to dump vaping?

In the early years of vaping, YouTube reviews were a primary source of information for many vapers and smokers. Excited newbies hooked up webcams and reported on their latest gear and e-liquid purchases. Countless smokers found the information they needed to switch to vaping on YouTube. And manufacturers in China used reviewers’ praise and criticism to learn what vapers wanted from their products.

“I smoked for 11 years and quit with vaping five years ago,” Abby told us. “I’ve been creating vaping-related videos on YouTube for four years. I started my YouTube channel because there wasn’t much information available about vaping. I had a lot of questions about hardware, e-liquid, and coil building! I wanted to document my experience as a beginner and share troubleshooting tips that I found helpful.”

But being a YouTube vape reviewer nowadays is becoming less and less attractive. The Google-owned site recently made it almost impossible for vape-related content providers to monetize their posts. And YouTubers say the company’s algorithms no longer favor their videos.

“I am greatly concerned about YouTube restricting vaping content,” says Abby. “I have seen a significant drop in viewership of my channel over the last six months. I believe YouTube has already taken some steps to ‘hide’ some of this content on their website. Our videos are less likely to show up as recommended or on the front page.”

youtube

Abby has shifted her focus to Twitch, an online gaming site owned by Amazon. Her weekly (Friday, 8:00 p.m. ET) live show gets edited down for her YouTube channel, but like many concerned online vape figures, Abby seems to be preparing for a post-YouTube world. That’s significant, considering that she has more than 112,000 YouTube followers.

And vaping has more than just a YouTube problem. Almost all of the major social media platforms have made moves that affect vaping content. Reddit recently banned all e-liquid commerce. Facebook and Google restrict advertising, with Facebook even preventing advocacy groups from paying to promote their posts. That’s because they follow the FDA’s definition of vapes as tobacco products, they say.

Social media companies are being pressured by the same groups that are fighting to ban e-liquid flavors. A recent study from activist Stanford professor Robert Jackler — famous to vapers as author of an unintentionally hilarious study on unicorn imagery in vape marketing — hammers Facebook for allowing vape businesses to even have pages with links to their websites.

“The good thing is especially with all this stuff going on – the privacy breaches and content issues around hate speech and fake news – this is low-hanging fruit for Facebook, I would think,” Jackler told CNBC. He’s essentially demanding Facebook get rid of vaping content, restricting speech and free association for vaping enthusiasts

What’s next?

If vapers and the vaping industry can’t mount a serious response to the FDA’s planned flavor ban and the ruthless attacks on JUUL, we may soon witness the end of a beautiful moment. For more than a decade, smokers obsessively built their own solution to cigarettes — and now, all the groups and organizations and industries that are threatened by vaping are hitting back hard.

They’re desperate to save the thing that pays them all: cigarette sales. And they don’t care who gets hurt. They want to silence our voices on social media, and take away the things we’ve built for ourselves.

Meanwhile, WBUR has edited their online audio to remove Abby’s voice and the reference to her being a teenager. But the station hasn’t issued a correction, or apologized. “I don’t know yet what kind of effect this will have on me as a content creator in the vaping industry,” Abby says.

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trendingnewsb · 6 years

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The arm vagina Hollywoods latest form of female self-flagellation | Gaby Hinsliff

Beyond Jennifer Lawrence and the red carpet, its teenage girls who suffer, writes the Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff

It all started with the muffin top, that telltale spillage of flesh over the top of a tight waistband. Then came the bingo wing, the supposedly shaming droop of flesh beneath middle-aged arms; or maybe it was the cankle (chubby ankle), or the saggy knee. I forget now.

Its hard for women to keep track of which specific body part is currently being shamed to death, when it seems to be open season on all of them. But even by the demented standards of female self-flagellation, the emergence of arm vagina aka the slight fold of flesh created where the average arm meets the average body is a low point.

If youre reading this in a public place and unable immediately to check whether you have arm vagina, then let me help; you almost certainly do. Everyone does. Its basically a normal human armpit, which tends to involve some spare capacity in the flesh department, what with it being difficult to raise your arm otherwise.

But in Hollywood, having a freakishly fat-free underarm, as taut and smooth as a plastic Barbie dolls, is apparently the new goal. In a long list of mad things female actors are conditioned to worry about exposing on the red carpet, arm vagina is the one that comes up all the time, as the celebrity stylist Rebecca Corbin-Murray told the Times this week.

Merely having abs that could crack walnuts and a face betraying no sign of human ageing isnt good enough any more presumably on the grounds that nothing is ever good enough for women making a living in the public eye, and consequently for self-conscious teenagers striving to copy them.

Spend hours in the gym diligently removing all possible vestiges of flesh beneath your arms and the snipers would only move on to something else, although God knows there isnt much left to pick on. Eyebrow pudge? Overweight elbows? Do the back of my knees look big in this?

In fairness to Corbin-Murray, she wasnt arguing that ordinary women should panic about the beauteousness or otherwise of their armpits, or that doing so was in any sense rational. She was merely pointing out, as a person who gets paid to protect women from public shaming on the red carpet, how freakishly difficult that has become.

But she was doing so as part of one of those fluffy what not to wear this Christmas spreads aimed at perfectly normal, intelligent women who read stuff like this at the end of a long day because fashions meant to be fun, a cheery distraction from worrying about Donald Trump accidentally starting a nuclear war. And the trouble is, this isnt fun. Its cruel, and it goes way beyond projecting an ideal of female beauty in the way the movie industry always will.

Men in real life dont go around sexually rejecting women solely on the grounds that their armpits could have been a bit more toned. No sane person ever chose a film to watch on this basis. All moral qualms aside, theres not even an obvious commercial imperative to making actors feel quite this paranoid. So why do the fashion, film and media industries still contrive to make women feel theres something gross and hateful about their very flesh, the space they occupy in the world?

The way Hollywood exercises power over women has been a hot topic since the first allegations against Harvey Weinstein emerged, and yet we have in some ways been slow to join the dots between individuals behaviour and the culture in which this power came to seem almost normal. Its striking how many of Weinsteins victims say that before he lunged, he would tell an actor or model that she could do with losing a few pounds.

The inference was that she was lucky even to be invited to his hotel room, given how embarrassingly short of the ideal she fell. There is more than an echo here of the way abusive men chip away systematically at a partners confidence until she feels worthless, undeserving of better treatment.

But in treating women like lumps of meat, Weinstein was in a way simply doing what his industry has been doing to them for years: fuelling insecurity, and using it to keep them in their place. Its hard to be assertive when youre constantly terrified of getting one tiny thing wrong and being publicly humiliated for it.

If the only victims of such warped expectations of perfection were women paid handsomely to appear on screen, that would be bad enough. But these expectations filter down so alarmingly fast through the culture. Complimented a couple of years ago by a female reporter on the strapless dress she was wearing, the actor Jennifer Lawrence responded by tugging nervously at it and apologising because I know I have armpit fat, its OK armpit vaginas, its awful! And the reporter responded in the self-deprecating way women automatically do, by tugging at her own dress and saying that now she was worried about her arms. What lesson does a watching teenage girl draw from that?

From size zero to the thigh gap, or having legs so stick thin they dont touch in the middle, todays freaky A-list neurosis so easily becomes tomorrows fitness bloggers goal, and next weeks impossible aspiration for your daughter. This stuff is infectious, and it stops being a frivolous issue when over half of British teenage girls say theyre unhappy with their looks, and when a smaller but still heartbreaking number feel driven to starve and punish the flesh that they have begun to seeasrepulsive.

Somehow we need to get across to girls that this is bonkers, unreal, insane: twisted norms that have nothing to do with their own lives or with the boys they will encounter. They need to know theres no party worth being red carpet ready for, if that means systematically eliminating every last fold and crease. They dont need any more insider fashion tips. If anything, this is an industry that needs to hear a bit more sanity from the outside.

For the truth is that audiences dont care quite as much as performers have been made to think. The world wouldnt end if actors came to premieres flaunting actual creases where their arms join their bodies. Frankly, they could show up in jeans and it would look refreshing. The only real ugliness on display here is buried deep within an industry that long ago jumped the shark when it comes to norms of female beauty. And that really is the pits.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist