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bluewatsons · 4 years

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Alice Bolin, The Ethical Dilemma of Highbrow True Crime, Vulture (August 1, 2018)

The “true-crime boom” of the mid- to late 2010s is a strange pop-culture phenomenon, given that it is not so much a new type of programming as an acknowledgement of a centuries-long obsession: People love true stories about murder and other brands of brutality and grift, and they have gorged on them particularly since the beginning of modern journalism. The serial fiction of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins was influenced by the British public’s obsessive tracking of sensational true-crime cases in daily papers, and since then, we have hoarded gory details in tabloids and pulp paperbacks and nightly news shows and Wikipedia articles and Reddit threads.

I don’t deny these stories have proliferated in the past five years. Since the secret is out — “Oh you love murder? Me too!” — entire TV networks, podcast genres, and countless limited-run docuseries have arisen to satisfy this rumbling hunger. It is tempting to call this true-crime boom new because of the prestige sheen of many of its artifacts — Serial and Dirty John and The Jinx and Wild, Wild Country are all conspicuously well made, with lovely visuals and strong reporting. They have subtle senses of theme and character, and they often feel professional, pensive, quiet — so far from vulgar or sensational.

But well-told stories about crime are not really new, and neither is their popularity. In Cold Blood is a classic of American literature and The Executioner’s Song won the Pulitzer; Errol Morris has used crime again and again in his documentaries to probe ideas like fame, desire, corruption, and justice. The new true-crime boom is more simply a matter of volume and shamelessness: the wide array of crime stories we can now openly indulge in, with conventions of the true-crime genre more emphatically repeated and codified, more creatively expanded and trespassed against. In 2016, after two critically acclaimed series about the O.J. Simpson trial, there was talk that the 1996 murder of Colorado 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey would be the next case to get the same treatment. It was odd, hearing O.J.: Made in America, the epic and depressing account of race and celebrity that won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, discussed in the same breath with the half-dozen unnecessary TV specials dredging up the Ramsey case. Despite my avowed love of Dateline, I would not have watched these JonBenét specials had a magazine not paid me to, and suffice it to say they did very little either to solve the 20-year-old crime (ha!) or examine our collective obsession with it.

Clearly, the insight, production values, or cultural capital of its shiniest products are not what drives this new wave of crime stories. O.J.: Made in America happened to be great and the JonBenét specials happened to be terrible, but producers saw them as part of the same trend because they knew they would appeal to at least part of the same audience. I’ve been thinking a lot about these gaps between high and low, since there are people who consume all murder content indiscriminately, and another subset who only allow themselves to enjoy the “smart” kind. The difference between highbrow and lowbrow in the new true crime is often purely aesthetic. It is easier than ever for producers to create stories that look good and seem serious, especially because there are templates now for a style and voice that make horrifying stories go down easy and leave the viewer wanting more. But for these so-called prestige true-crime offerings, the question of ethics — of the potential to interfere in real criminal cases and real people’s lives — is even more important, precisely because they are taken seriously.

Like the sensational tone, disturbing, clinical detail, and authoritarian subtext that have long defined schlocky true crime as “trash,” the prestige true-crime subgenre has developed its own shorthand, a language to tell its audience they’re consuming something thoughtful, college-educated, public-radio influenced. In addition to slick and creative production, highbrow true crime focuses on character sketches instead of police procedure. “We’re public radio producers who are curious about why people do what they do,” Phoebe Judge, the host of the podcast Criminal, said. Judge has interviewed criminals (a bank robber, a marijuana brownie dealer), victims, and investigators, using crime as a very simple window into some of the most interesting and complicated lives on the planet.

Highbrow true crime is often explicitly about the piece’s creator, a meta-commentary about the process of researching and reporting such consequential stories. Serial’s Sarah Koenig and The Jinx’s Andrew Jarecki wrestle with their boundaries with the subjects (Adnan Syed and Robert Durst, respectively, both of whom have been tried for murder) and whether they believe them. They sift through evidence and reconstruct timelines as they try to create a coherent narrative from fragments.

I remember saying years ago that people who liked Serial should try watching Dateline, and my friend joked in reply, “Yeah, but Dateline isn’t hosted by my friend Sarah.” One reason for the first season of Serial’s insane success — it is still the most-downloaded podcast of all time — is the intimacy audiences felt with Koenig as she documented her investigation of a Baltimore teenager’s murder in real time, keeping us up to date on every vagary of evidence, every interview, every experiment. Like the figure of the detective in many mystery novels, the reporter stands in for the audience, mirroring and orchestrating our shifts in perspective, our cynicism and credulity, our theories, prejudices, frustrations, and breakthroughs.

This is what makes this style of true crime addictive, which is the adjective its makers most crave. The stance of the voyeur, the dispassionate observer, is thrilling without being emotionally taxing for the viewer, who watches from a safe remove. (This fact is subtly skewered in Gay Talese’s creepy 2017 Netflix documentary, Voyeur.) I’m not sure how much of my eye-rolling at the popularity of highbrow true crime has to do with my general distrust of prestige TV and Oscar-bait movies, which are usually designed to be enjoyed in the exact same way and for the exact same reasons as any other entertainment, but also to make the viewer feel good about themselves for watching. When I wrote earlier that there are viewers who consume all true crime, and those who only consume “smart” true crime, I thought, “And there must be some people who only like dumb true crime.” Then I realized that I am sort of one of them.

There are specimens of highbrow true crime that I love, Criminal and O.J.: Made in America among them, but I truly enjoy Dateline much more than I do Serial, which in my mind is tedious to the edge of pointlessness. I find myself perversely complaining that good true crime is no fun — as self-conscious as it may be, it will never be as entertaining as the Investigation Discovery network’s output, most of which is painfully serious. (The list of ID shows is one of the most amusing artifacts on the internet, including shows called Bride Killas, Momsters: Moms Who Murder, and Sex Sent Me to the Slammer.) Susan Sontag famously defined camp as “seriousness that fails,” and camp is obviously part of the appeal of a show called Sinister Ministers or Southern Fried Homicide. Network news magazine shows like Dateline and 48 Hours are somber and melodramatic, often literally starting voice-overs on their true-crime episodes with variations of “it was a dark and stormy night.” They trade in archetypes — the perfect father, the sweet girl with big dreams, the divorcee looking for a second chance — and stick to a predetermined narrative of the case they’re focusing on, unconcerned about accusations of bias. They are sentimental and yet utterly graphic, clinical in their depiction of brutal crimes.

It’s always talked around in discussions of why people like true crime: It is … funny? The comedy in horror movies seems like a given, but it is hardly permitted to say that you are amused by true disturbing stories, out of respect for victims. But in reducing victims and their families to stock characters, in exaggerating murderers to superhuman monsters, in valorizing police and forensic scientists as heroic Everymen, there is dark humor in how cheesy and misguided these pulpy shows are, how bad we are at talking about crime and drawing conclusions from it, how many ways we find to distance ourselves from the pain of victims and survivors, even when we think we are honoring them. (The jokey titles and tongue-in-cheek tone of some ID shows seem to indicate more awareness of the inherent humor, but in general, the channel’s programming is almost all derivative of network TV specials.) I’m not saying I’m proud of it, but in its obvious failures, I enjoy this brand of true crime more straightforwardly than its voyeuristic, documentary counterpart, which, in its dignified guise, has maybe only perfected a method of making us feel less gross about consuming real people’s pain for fun.

Crime stories also might be less risky when they are more stilted, more clinical. To be blunt, what makes a crime story less satisfying are often the ethical guidelines that help reporters avoid ruining people’s lives. With the popularity of the podcasts S-Town and Missing Richard Simmons, there were conversations about the ethics of appropriating another person’s story, particularly when they won’t (or can’t) participate in your version of it. The questions of ethics and appropriation are even heavier when stories intersect with their subjects’ criminal cases, because journalism has always had a reciprocal relationship with the justice system. Part of the exhilarating intimacy of the first season of Serial was Koenig’s speculation about people who never agreed to be part of the show, the theories and rabbit holes she went through, the risks she took to get answers. But there is a reason most reporters do all their research, then write their story. It is inappropriate, and potentially libelous, to let your readers in on every unverified theory about your subject that occurs to you, particularly when wondering about a private citizen’s innocence or guilt in a horrific crime.

Koenig’s off-the-cuff tone had other consequences, too, in the form of amateur sleuths on Reddit who tracked down people involved with the case, pored over court transcripts, and reviewed cellular tower evidence, forming a shadow army of investigators taking up what they saw as the gauntlet thrown down by the show. The journalist often takes on the stance of the professional amateur, a citizen providing information in the public interest and using the resources at hand to get answers. At times during the first season of Serial, Koenig’s methods are laughably amateurish, like when she drives from the victim’s high school to the scene of the crime, a Best Buy, to see if it was possible to do it in the stated timeline. She is able to do it, which means very little, since the crime occurred 15 years earlier. Because so many of her investigative tools were also ones available to listeners at home, some took that as an invitation to play along.

This blurred line between professional and amateur, reporter and private investigator, has plagued journalists since the dawn of modern crime reporting. In 1897, amid a frenzied rivalry between newspaper barons William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, true crime coverage was so popular that Hearst formed a group of reporters to investigate criminal cases called the “Murder Squad.” They wore badges and carried guns, forming essentially an extralegal police force who both assisted and muddled official investigations. Seeking to get a better story and sell more papers, it was common for reporters to trample crime scenes, plant evidence, and produce dubious witnesses whose accounts fit their preferred version of the case. And they were trying to get audiences hooked in very similar ways, by crowdsourcing information and encouraging readers to send in tips.

Of course the producers of Serial never did anything so questionable as the Murder Squad, though there are interesting parallels between the true-crime podcast and crime coverage in early daily newspapers. They were both innovations in the ways information was delivered to the public that sparked unexpectedly personal, participatory, and impassioned responses from their audiences. It’s tempting to say that we’ve come full circle, with a new true-crime boom that is victim to some of the same ethical pitfalls of the first one: Is crime journalism another industry deregulated by the anarchy of the internet? But as Michelle Dean wrote of Serial, “This is exactly the problem with doing journalism at all … You might think you are doing a simple crime podcast … and then you become a sensation, as Serial has, and the story falls to the mercy of the thousands, even millions, of bored and curious people on the internet.”

Simply by merit of their popularity, highbrow crime stories are often riskier than their lowbrow counterparts. Kathryn Schulz wrote in The New Yorker about the ways the makers of the Netflix series Making a Murderer, in their attempt to advocate for the convicted murderer Steven Avery, omit evidence that incriminates him and put forth an incoherent argument for his innocence. Advocacy and intervention are complicated actions for journalists to undertake, though they are not novel. Schulz points to a scene in Making a Murderer where a Dateline producer who is covering Avery is shown saying, “Right now murder is hot.” In this moment the creators of Making a Murderer are drawing a distinction between themselves and Dateline, as Schulz writes, implying that, “unlike traditional true-crime shows … their work is too intellectually serious to be thoughtless, too morally worthy to be cruel.” But they were not only trying to invalidate Avery’s conviction; they (like Dateline, but more effectively) were also creating an addictive product, a compelling story.

That is maybe what irks me the most about true crime with highbrow pretensions. It appeals to the same vices as traditional true crime, and often trades in the same melodrama and selective storytelling, but its consequences can be more extreme. Adnan Syed was granted a new trial after Serial brought attention to his case; Avery was denied his appeal, but people involved in his case have nevertheless been doxxed and threatened. I’ve come to believe that addictiveness and advocacy are rarely compatible. If they were, why would the creators of Making a Murderer have advocated for one white man, when the story of being victimized by a corrupt police force is common to so many people across the U.S., particularly people of color?

It does feel like a shame that so many resources are going to create slick, smart true crime that asks the wrong questions, focusing our energy on individual stories instead of the systemic problems they represent. But in truth, this is is probably a feature, not a bug. I suspect the new true-crime obsession has something to do with the massive, terrifying problems we face as a society: government corruption, mass violence, corporate greed, income inequality, police brutality, environmental degradation, human-rights violations. These are large-scale crimes whose resolutions, though not mysterious, are also not forthcoming. Focusing on one case, bearing down on its minutia and discovering who is to blame, serves as both an escape and a means of feeling in control, giving us an arena where justice is possible.

Skepticism about whether journalists appropriate their subjects’ stories, about high and low, and about why we enjoy the crime stories we do, all swirl through what I think of as the post–true-crime moment. Post–true crime is explicitly or implicity about the popularity of the new true-crime wave, questioning its place in our culture, and resisting or responding to its conventions. One interesting document of post–true crime is My Favorite Murder and other “comedy murder podcasts,” which, in retelling stories murder buffs have heard on one million Investigation Discovery shows, unpack the ham-fisted clichés of the true-crime genre. They show how these stories appeal to the most gruesome sides of our personalities and address the obvious but unspoken fact that true crime is entertainment, and often the kind that is as mindless as a sitcom. Even more cutting is the Netflix parody American Vandal, which both codifies and spoofs the conventions of the new highbrow true crime, roasting the genre’s earnest tone in its depiction of a Serial-like investigation of some lewd graffiti.

There is also the trend in the post–true-crime era of dramatizing famous crime stories, like in The Bling Ring; I, Tonya; and Ryan Murphy’s anthology series American Crime Story, all of which dwell not only on the stories of infamous crimes but also why they captured the public imagination. There is a camp element in these retellings, particularly when famous actors like John Travolta and Sarah Paulson are hamming it up in ridiculous wigs. But this self-consciousness often works to these projects’ advantage, allowing them to show heightened versions of the cultural moments that led to the most outsize tabloid crime stories. Many of these fictionalized versions take journalistic accounts as their source material, like Nancy Jo Sales’s reporting in Vanity Fair for The Bling Ring and ESPN’s documentary on Tonya Harding, The Price of Gold, for I, Tonya. This seems like a best-case scenario for prestige true crime to me: parsing famous cases from multiple angles and in multiple genres, trying to understand them both on the level of individual choices and cultural forces.

Perhaps the most significant contributions to post–true crime, though, are the recent wave of personal accounts about murder and crime: literary memoirs like Down City by Leah Carroll, Mean by Myriam Gurba, The Hot One by Carolyn Murnick, After the Eclipse by Sarah Perry, and We Are All Shipwrecks by Kelly Grey Carlisle all tell the stories of murder seen from close-up. (It is significant that all of these books are by women. Carroll, Perry, and Carlisle all write about their mothers’ murders, placing them in the tradition of James Ellroy’s great memoir My Dark Places, but without the tortured, fetish-y tone.) This is not a voyeuristic first person, and the reader can’t detach and find joy in procedure; we are finally confronted with the truth of lives upended by violence and grief. There’s also Ear Hustle, the brilliant podcast produced by the inmates of San Quentin State Prison. The makers of Ear Hustle sometimes contemplate the bad luck and bad decisions that led them to be incarcerated, but more often they discuss the concerns of daily life in prison, like food, sex, and how to make mascara from an inky page from a magazine. This is a crime podcast that is the opposite of sensational, addressing the systemic truth of crime and the justice system, in stories that are mundane, profound, and, yes, addictive.

#true crime #adnan syed #media #ethics #The Way We Live Now #culture #andrew jarecki #james ellroy #criminal justice #detective fiction

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silverline3 · 7 years

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Footprints of the beastly soul|| Steroline Fanfic|| Ch 2

Pair: Stefan Salvatore/ Caroline Forbes

Genre: Angst/ Romance

Word Count: 2450

Summary: “After seven minutes, when the clock hits 12 in the midnight, my time will be over, and in this moment all I want to do is, to be here with you. So, let me be here.” The urgency in his voice was crystal clear, because he knew the cost of everything he was going to do, the cost in unleashing the beast in this world.

Previously : Chapter 1

Chapter summary : It is because I love you so much, without knowing the answers to the questions of how, or when, or from where. The simple answer is I have fallen for you unconditionally.

She had lost the track of time, for the past few days, or is it months, she didn’t know. All she knew was to focus on one thing, her work. Thus, effortlessly she kept typing on her laptop, replying to the mails, getting new shows on her channel. It’s been a long time since she opened the branch office of her channel in Mystic Falls, her home, and yet, something felt odd, out of order. Today she had managed to not think about the odds, until now. The sounds of the typing keypad stopped at the same time she closed her eyes, pushing her brain to stop thinking, to concentrate on the work in front of her.

She can do it, if she won’t think about it, it won’t hurt anymore.

She reminded herself once again the mantra she had been repeating from the time since her world torn apart.

“Is it a good time, Caroline?”

She heard her secretary peeking from her cabin’s door, and she was relieved to see her. Maybe this can distract her.

“What is it Sonia?”

“I have got the briefing for the new segment that launched this week that you asked for today.”

“Perfect, let’s go over on this in the conference hall. Call everyone for the meeting. I want to discuss about the ratings, and contents for the upcoming segments with the team,” Caroline said while walking out of the door.

“I am already on it. By the way, that’s a really cute jacket,” commented Sonia, which stopped her on her way out.

“Is it your boyfriend’s?”

She slowly looked down on the black sweater she was wearing, a bit longer and big for her size. She didn’t care though. It didn’t go with the work attire but she didn’t worry about it much. She rubbed her nose softly on the material of the sweater on her left shoulder, and inhaled deeply. It was like she almost breathed him, as if he was standing right beside her, she could feel his essence, but the warmth was missing. She could feel the fabric of his sweater, but it wasn’t the same. She could smell his cologne dispersed deep into the woven wool, but it was not the same. Nothing felt closer to the reality because her reality wasn’t the same. She wore that sweater in a hope, that it might ease her mind. She was wrong though. She isn’t crazy, and that’s exactly what she reminded herself, it didn’t feel the same because he wasn’t there to hold her and just by the touch make her feel sane again.

“Caroline?”

Her secretary called her again, and she cursed under her breath. “No, it belongs to my fiancé.”

“Yes, I keep forgetting it, when is Stefan coming back?”

She wanted to laugh on the lightness in her Secretary’s tone. For the world he was out for some work, a small lie for people. But, she knew better than to live in that lie she told her co-workers.

“It might take some time.”

One year to be exact.

She crossed her finger, in a hope that she will see him once again sooner than she thinks.

“Oh.”

She heard Sonia mumbled behind her.

“What?” she asked her confused secretary.

“There was a sticky note on this vase,” replied Sonia.

Her confusion made Caroline curious to take that note out of her hand.

“Not that you need any wishes, but all the best for the upcoming segmentJ”

“Who is this from?” Sonia asked once she saw her smiling, the smile that she saw on her boss’s face after almost a week now.

Caroline stood there staring at the wall, as if she could almost see him, standing there, smiling at her.

Funny that he has an eternity to live the life, an immortal being he called himself, and yet he didn’t have much time to finish up as much as he wanted to. He moved his marker in a curve finishing up the scribbles on that sticky note, and put a thrust on the wall, making it to stick there, and hoping that she will find it one day. Her studio was empty because of the holiday season, so not many questions for him, and he didn’t have to compel anyone. He never wanted to it to be like this, to be away from her, and it hurts badly just by thinking about leaving his life behind like this. Maybe this is his punishment of all those sins he attempted. A tormented soul for the rest of his life, as his brother wished for him. He closed his eyes, as if he could see her reading the scribbled notes, a spark in her eyes, glowing like the celestial objects, and that whole image was enough to make him smile back in that empty hallway.

Caroline didn’t need any explanation or another sight to confirm the writing. She looked around in a hope that he might be there. Even though it seemed unreal, her heart wanted to dream about his presence. Just a moment ago, her every nerve was feeling like dying, and one singe note made her feel alive, bringing back that spark, all of a sudden.

His jaws were sore and paining when he dug his fangs deeper into the soft porcelain skin. It was the good pain, and he enjoyed it very much. The crimson red on his lips was absorbing bit by bit into his taste bud, and it felt like he was flying, almost an euphoric lunatic. He wondered how he resisted to be so glum till now. Heads off to that poor soul. He chuckled at the inside joke he was having with himself, as slowly he tore his victim’s head out of her lifeless body which was hanging straight because of the support of his body.

This isn’t you.

That voice again.

He growled back because of noises in his head. It wasn’t a clear and deep voice, but a murmur and an echo at the same time.

Please, Stefan… you need to stop.

He ignored it, and went back to his business, and just like that, all was done. Another name in the lists of names had been added, and one more soul provided to Cade. But, he didn’t care about it, as long as he gets to have the good parts.

You are stronger than this.

He heard that voice yet again, and this time it irked him more than it did last time.

“Oh, shut up!” he groaned in the abandoned alley in the middle of the night.

“I didn’t say anything,” Damon replied while walking towards him.

Stefan groaned once again, and this time it wasn’t because of the voices in his head, but the one coming out loud from his brother’s mouth.

“I think I told you that I don’t need your meddling in my ways,” Stefan replied, walking away from Damon.

“And Cade told me to keep an eye on you.”

“I don’t need babysitting, and since you are free of all this, why don’t you go and waste your life on someone else?”

“Hey, I am just doing my job. Cade wants to make sure you are keeping your side of the deal, brother,” he smiled the way he usually does when he tries to smirk. “Plus, where is the fun without my ripper brother?”

Stefan rolled his eyes at his bothersome brother.

“Look at the pile of pieces of the dead bodies, and get it straight in your meddling head, that I am not even near to breaking that deal. Also, why would I, if I take an enjoyment in all of this?”

Damon shook his head, staring at Stefan. “You see, that’s where you are wrong. You can fool others, but not me. You can never stop being that human self, and there will always be that part hidden inside you which will bring you back to that sappy version of yours.”

Stefan ignores him.

“You talks to yourself like a lunatic, and I wonder why that is?”

“Don’t make me kill you too,” replied Stefan.

“Can’t! Are you forgetting we can’t die anymore?”

“Doesn’t mean I won’t, and one more step by you following me, and I swear I will pull that heart out of your chest.”

Stefan didn’t wait for him to respond. He doesn’t care about anything. If killing can shut his mouth, he would certainly do it.

The problem wasn’t his brother though, but the voices he had been hearing in his head.

He cursed himself under his breath. This is insane, he doesn’t have any emotions on, and yet why does he feel that emptiness in the middle of his chest.

You are better than this, and I know this, even if you are unable to remember it.

He laughed at the ghost.

“Keep dreaming,” he whispered back heading for a lodging place He was tired after chasing and feeding, and now he wanted to have a good sleep.

It’s not like he never really had a visit by Cade, but every time this dude comes in front of Damon, he could feel the chilly air around him.

“Since, you called me so soon; I am assuming you have what I asked you for?” Cade asked.

“Of course,” Damon said while getting out the wallet from the inside pocket of his jet black leather jacket, and handed over to the devil in front of him.

He saw Cade observing and looking amazed with the wallet as if it was very precious. Only thing that Damon knew was it belonged to Stefan, and apart from that, he didn’t know anything about anything.

“If I may ask-”

“No, you can’t,” Cade replied, cutting him off in mid-sentence.

“If it pleases you.” Damon shuts his mouth off.

“Keep having an eye on Stefan,” stated Cade, while taking out a piece of paper from Stefan’s wallet.

Even though he was standing almost two feet away from Cade, he could clearly make out the words jotted on that tore piece of paper.

“When did you notice me?”

You had asked me a similar question once, and I remained silent. I Think of that question still, and yet I remain quiet. It’s not because I don’t have any answer, nor because I don’t love you. It is because I love you so much, without knowing the answers to the questions of how, or when, or from where. The simple answer is I have fallen for you unconditionally. I once thought, I knew what love is, but you made me realize what being loved actually felt like. I thought I found love every time I felt attracted to the idea of being in love, but in the end it remained just an idea, until I realized the core truth. You know the things that I don’t admit about myself, you see me as I am, and yet you found a place in your heart solely for me. You inspired me to love what I am now, to be the reformed version of myself. And I don’t think I would have done it without you, to become the better version of myself. You hate me now, but trust me when I say that I hate myself more than you right now, because I have hurted you, because I have made you cry, and because I left you behind, and if I could get a chance back in this life, my only wish would be to see you smile again. One day, I will be no more, there will be a time, when the name Stefan Salvatore will fade away, but I can assure you that my love for you will grow till the end of this world, till the sun dies, till the tides stand still. I have never mentioned it to you, probably because I never really realized it myself. But, now that you are not here, beside me, I know what you mean for my existence.

Damon stood silently there, staring down on the words. A vampire with it’s humanity off shouldn’t feel anything, and that’s a fact. And if that’s a fact, what should he call the sensation of heavy stone sinking and thumping hard in the pit of his stomach? He had been reading Stefan’s journals about his love and his feelings for almost when he took the pen in between his fingers and started moving on the sheets. It wasn’t anything new. Yet, for some reason, something felt different. Maybe it was just the sappyness of those words, or maybe it was because for some reason, it reminded him of Elena. After all, things felt almost similar for both of them. Difference was, Damon had lost it to his fate, accepted what came in his way, gave up on his love. And yet , there was his brother, still carrying that piece of paper as if he still cares. Maybe he still does.

Guilt built up in his mind to get Stefan under the truck along with himself, ruining his life along with his own. Elena would never forget what he had done, and neither would Caroline.

“Interesting.” Cade commented.

Damon heard Cade murmuring to himself. By the words, he could see whom his brother wrote it to. What he couldn’t understand was significance of all this to him.

“What’s interesting?”

“Your brother and his attachment to this woman.”

“It’s probably something he wrote way back. How does it matter now?” asked Damon.

“Well, I have had an eye on your brother for a long time now, and yet he looks different than his old self.” Cade’s eyes never left the paper, still observing it, and Damon wondered what was going in his head.

“Make sure you give me a timely update about the progress,” Cade stated and dissolved in the thin air in front of Damon.

Would Elena forgive him for ruining everyone’s life along with his? He has been wondering about it since he got the memories of her back, and the only answer he could come up with is she wouldn’t. He closed his eyes off, trying hard to shut the shreds of humanity coming back to him, making it stop to feel angry for his brother, for taking it happiness away from him, ruining every single person in his way.

Shut it off, and everything will be fine again. No emotions, no pain. He thought, and in an instant he was back to being the soulless vampire.

If keeping Stefan in this deal is what he has to do, then that is what he will do to get the job done.

#steroline #steroline fanfic #steroline drabble #Stefan Salvatore #Caroline Salvatore #stefan x caroline #sterofic #steroline shippers club #footprints of the beastly soul #chapter 2 #the vampire diaries #fanfic

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theworstbob · 6 years

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yellin’ at songs, week forty-four

reviewing the billboard debuts from 11.08.1997 11.10.2007 11.11.2017

11.8.1997

32) "Spice up Your Life," by Spice Girls

There was a Spice Girls movie made. We don't talk about this enough, but at one point, someone looked at Spice Girls and came up with an idea for a feature-length film. We don't do this with modern pop stars, but I'm sitting here listening to this song I never wanted to listen to, and now I'm wondering, what would a Lil Uzi Vert movie look like? I may find him uninterestingly dark, but I at least find something in him worth remarking on. I think that's enough for a feature-length film based on his works. It'd be the black Donnie Darko. That might be worthwhile, certainly more worth exploring than any of his songs, or this Spice Girls song you already knew was bad.

60) "Breaking All the Rules," by She Moves

This is the shallow bouncy pop music I signed up for. I never wanted 21 Savage. I just wanted subtly sexual pop songs I'd forget about seconds after listening to them. I wanted songs by artists for whom the dance moves mattered as much as the vocal work. Not Imagine Dragons, never Imagine Dragons. This. Solid stupid fun. I'm going to write my Congressman a link to this YouTube video and urge him to do something.

73) "At the Beginning," by Richard Marx & Donna Lewis

I'm sorry. I'm sorry! I didn't realize, months ago, when I started whatever this was, that I would have to opine on the fucking love theme from the seventh-best Don Bluth movie. I wasn't prepared to think about Anastasia in any way, form, or fashion, ever, for any reason, in my life. Anastasia was a VHS buried deep within the linen closet. I'm pretty sure it was an Easter basket filling. Did anyone else's family do Easter presents? We got chocolate, yeah, of course we got chocolate, just because my parents didn't love each other doesn't mean they were heartless, but my parents said, "I mean... We can't just give them chocolate. They should also get a present. But the present can’t be more than like $15. Hey it's a cartoon about a girl, have fun girl children." This was an afterthought, and now it's a duringthought for me. I don't. It's fine? It's the love theme from a Don Bluth movie, which means it's less well-written and has slightly worse singers and is a degree cheesier than the love theme from a Disney movie, and in the live-action reboot it’ll be covered by the seventh-place finisher from season seven of The Voice and either Nico or Vinz.

76) "I Don't Ever Wanna See You Again," by Uncle Sam

you have no idea how happy it makes me that this is a 1997 joint and not a 2017 joint because a song with this title with this credit would be sooooooooooooooooo much worse. it's bad? but it's not politically bad, it's just bad because an R&B man got a letter. so many '90s r&B songs begin with someone receiving a letter. the dude is now vocalizing over an orchestral swell, if anyone's wondering in what specific way this song is bad.

88) "All of My Days," by Changing Faces ft./Jay-Z

this is cool in the way a lot of '90s r&b is cool. like, there's the over-emotional uncle sam r&b, but then there's the hyper-chill stuff like this, music to which you can kick it, just settle into a groove and listen to again and again. stuff like this is so dope. like, it's chill, but it's compelling enough that you wanna stick with it.

92) "Baby You Know," by The O'Jays

this is the most disappointing thing i've ever heard. you see the artist name, you think, hey, this is gonna be a throwback jam. you don't think that this is going to sound like '90s r&b slo jamz because why would you think that, no one would want to think that because it would be a bad thing. but. that's what this ended up being. this song is what they did instead of buying a leather jacket and a motorcycle.

95) "Kiss the Rain," by Billie Meyers

I needed this after The O'Jays. I'm just gonna try my best to articulate something about the actual music, because gosh the drums on this track do some work. From the start, it's a really cool drum part, but the transition to the guitar solo and then the drumming under "As you fall over me, think of me, only me" are absolutely insane, really sell the climactic moment. Obviously, Billie Meyers is a phenomenal singer, she has as much to do with the moment as the drums, but I just really like drum parts. Apparently the drummer on this track also did the drums for one of the two Avril songs I like. I wish there were more dedicated Wikipedia editors who'd make full discographies for studio musicians, because I'm now curious how many pop songs I enjoy feature Kenny Aronoff's work.

96) "Da Joint," by EPMD

This was OK! I would like to take this time to note EPMD's discography. That is... certainly a thematic throughline. Do you think they got the idea to follow up Strictly Business with Unfinished Business and then felt they were kinda shoehorned in to putting the word Business in every album title? I feel that's what happened. Like, there's no going back after naming album three Business as Usual, and by the way, Business as Usual? HORRIBLE album title. Way to tell fans, "Yeah, this is the same shit as the first two albums. Y'all know the drill." I suppose it's a better title than None of Your Business, but I'd go with something like New Business or Business Is Boomin' or, if they wanted to do a collab with Jeezy, No Business Like Snow Business.

11.10.2007

89) "Watching Airplanes," Gary Allan

just another pop/country song with the word 'truck' in the first line

91) "Low," Flo Rida ft./T-Pain

There are people out there who don't like this song and those people are living the worst lives. What a joyless, horrible existence, feeling anything about this song other than "this is a hot party jam." Like, even when I was a pretentious 18-year-old trying to convince himself and others he liked Bright Eyes, I knew this was an undeniable banger. This is a perfect pop song. It's loud and dumb in all the best ways, disposable without being forgettable, and that hook. That's the sort of hook where, once you come up with it, you have to know you've got something great on your hands.

94) "Winner at a Losing Game," Rascal Flatts

What's the shelf life on a song like this? I'm not trying to make fun of country music here, I'm trying to make fun of any mid-tempo ballad. How much mileage can you derive from some slow song about a break-up? You can find ten or eleven of these on the chart at any given moment, and you can definitely reach a few hundred people who're going through a break-up at the exact time this song comes on, but time passes, and you think about the ex less, then think about the song less, and this isn't the sort of song people are gonna dredge up at karaoke or something ten years later unless they're REALLY not over it, nor are any country stations gonna throw it into any sort of classics bloc because there are, going by Billboard, 21 songs from 2007 alone more notable and the classics bloc only gets an hour, so what life did this song have after 2007? Is this the first time anyone has talked about this song in any way in the last ten years? Again: "Low" was disposable, but it was disposable like a Kodak, you throw it away but keep the memories. This is a wet wipe. It does one thing for three seconds and is flung into a pile where it rests forever.

96) "I'm Like a Lawyer with the Way I'm Always Trying to Get You Off (Me & You)," Fall Out Boy

I love that funk-tinged guitar in the verses, that's a dimension of musicality heretofore unheard from Fall Out Boy, and that line "I only keep myself this sick in the head 'cuz I know how the words get you off" is kind of tragic. There's a lot more to this song than being the first Fall Out Boy song to sound like a love song (even if it's not quite that), but I'll save the deep dive for the other, dumber blog I've fallen behind on updating.

97) "Empty Walls," Serj Tankian

Something you realize while watching a music video with very, very subtle references to the Iraq War: there haven't been any political songs in 2017, despite the fact Trump is a significantly worse president than Bush. No one's making protest music. And that's fine, I guess, maybe we don't need pop stars at the vanguard of political change, and we have seen strong performances from Kendrick and Kesha who maybe aren't making protest music but nonetheless are expressing strong beliefs in their music, but there's not a "none of this is OK" song like this. It's kind of a bummer.

99) "Dreaming with a Broken Heart," John Mayer

imagine having to tell yourself that this is a song you are proud of having written and a song you want attached to your name and a song you want people to associate with you from now until the end of your cultural relevance. imagine wanting to be known for making this song. if you're not sure whether or not you're a psychopath, i would recommend closing your eyes and picture yourself receiving a royalty check for this song. what emotion did you feel? if you felt pride, seek therapy.

100) "Another Side of You," Joe Nichols

at least this pop/country song doesn't have the word 'truck' in it. it even says that the girl traded in her sports car for a minivan, and this acknowledgement of a woman's ability to drive makes this maybe the most feminist country song there's ever been by a male artist.

11.11.2017

13) "Gorgeous," by Tay Tay

"There's nothing I hate more than what I can’t have/I guess I’ll just stumble on home to my cats.” Fuck off, dude. I’m glad there’s a Tay Tay single in 2017 that's mostly good, but that line just throws it completely off track. "I'm just a regular girl who's intimidated by hot boys! At least my kitties understand me!" That schtick doesn't work when there's reason to believe you haven't felt an honest human emotion in five years.

50) "Patek Water," by Future & Young Thug ft./Offset 62) "No Cap," by Future & Young Thug 68) "Feed Me Dope," by Future 77) "All Da Smoke," by Future & Young Thug 92) "4 Da Gang," by Future 100) "Three," by Future & Young Thug

I was kinda excited for Super Slimey, but having listened to the album I realize it is wrong to ever be hopeful. The problem with this collaboration is that the two personalities are dissimilar in ways that don't feel complimentary. Future isn't the most unconventional artist; he has a sound of his own, but it's a sound with a clear place in hip-hop's evolution, part of a direct line, whereas Young Thug is just his own thing. Future's great because he's direct and blunt, you never leave a Future song unsure of what the song was, and Young Thug is great because he's completely out there and doing his own thing, and these are not complementary traits.

61) "Meant to Be," by Bebe Rexha & Florida Georgia Line

i wished so hard and so long for a duet, i must have made a thousand wishes on a thousand monkeys' paws, and the ONE TIME i forgot to make sure the paw wasn't cursed is the time the wish came true

84) "Candy Paint," by Post Malone

"God damn, I love paper, I'm like Michael Scott" "Baby I'm the boss, like I'm Tony Danza" Someone get Post Malone more current pop culture references. I also find "You don't know me, homie, you don't want war" to be a toothless threat given that Post Malone's songs to this point have all been about how he loves to smoke weed and feel bad about himself. Like, I don't doubt that Post Malone could take me in a fight, I'm weak and my leg sometimes hurts for no reason, but I do doubt his willingness to actually fight me. You could poke Post Malone in the arm for at least 20 minutes before he half-heartedly tried to swat your hand away, then he’d immediately resume napping because there’s nothing in this world he cares about except getting enough sleep.

88) "Wolves," by Selena Gomez x Marshmello

"I've been running through the jungle/I've been running with the wolves/To get to you." ...Um? Hey. Guys? Look. I know, we're all just trying to have fun, this is pop music, we're trying to keep it light, trying to keep it breezy, these are just sounds we're hoping will please as many people as possible, could you PLEASE not say wolves live in the jungle. Could you not do that. Could you find a better animal for this line in the song.

98) "Bedroom Floor," by Liam Payne

I liked this. It's not like the best song in the world, but it's breezy, it has a nice line in the chorus, and Liam Payne makes a telephone noise multiple times and I think that's delightful. Not everything can be a titanic, world-changing pop music event. Sometimes, you just want a hot boy to make telephone noises. This song hits that incredibly specific spot in my heart.

Who won the week?

Not 2017 because the best song was the “hot boy makes telephone noises” song. Um... I hate to be uncreative here, but I think 1997 had the best total offering. I’d be willing to hear an argument for “Low” deserving much more consideration than I’m giving it, but you also have to argue that everything 2007 offered is better than everything 1997 had to offer, and if you gave me a choice between Spice Girls and the three 2007 country songs, I am cursing whatever put me in this position and going with Spice Girls. 1997: best overall song this week, least bad support.

Current standings: 1997: 18 2007: 12 2017: 14 With five wins in the last six weeks and eight weeks left in this incredibly essential project, 1997′s starting to pull away. But there’s hope for the other years yet, as 1997 offers no classics, whereas 2007 has one song I remember! 2017 has very 2017 things. 2017 is gonna 2017 it up, no doubt.

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