#and circled right into satire of reality

[anonymoushouseplantfan]

Steph the Alter Nerd is reading Omid’s new book.

Following the live read:

I joined late so Steph was already reading. She was starting the Sophie section. Seriously, why pick on Sophie who just puts her head down and focuses on work? That’s strikes me as unnecessarily vile.

Omid apparently thinks Charles hasn’t modernized the monarchy. Dude is an environmental icon and we now have a blended family in BP. That may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but you can’t deny that it’s modern.

Apparently Omid writes pages and pages about Charles’ “leaky pen” incident. It’s just a pen, Omid. Omid thinks this means Charles may not be up to the job, lololol. I’m dying. Mind you, Omid worships Harry who stripped in Vegas, wore a Nazi uniform, and called his fellow soldiers names. But yes, the leaky pen is far more significant than all that, somehow.

Really boring part about government stuff. Charles negotiates and reaches compromises with the government and that’s apparently bad? Also, Charles didn’t know what to expect after he became King??? Lolololol.

Charles lost sympathy for the Harkles after the documentary. Well, duh. We all did, Omid. That documentary was a huge own goal.

He blames the Royal Family for the documentary’s melodrama? Seriously? Who was crying on Oprah? Who was crying in a rented Vancouver mansion with her head wrapped in a towel? Who dropped hot, salty tears on her Hermes blanket? That’s the person responsible for the melodrama.

Anne supposedly kicked them out of Frogmore. I suspect this is fanfiction, but I love it. I want it to be true. This is my headcanon now.

And I do thin fanfiction is the right term for this book. The BRF is super popular right now so the book thesis itself (that the BRF is in trouble) is pretty fantastical.

This book seems very, very boring. Omid seems to be desperately trying to argue that Charles’ first year went badly, but that’s just not reality. Omid used to be better at spinning than this.

Make the Royals Great Again? Uh, that was done in 2011. Everything we are seeing now was planted way back then, down to Kate’s leafy crown. There’s a general lack of both self-awareness and historical awareness in this book. Omid writes like someone who first became a “royal reporter” in 2016…which is exactly what he is. Too bad, because I do think there’s an interesting analysis that could be made regarding 2023 and it’s place in royal pr. That’s above Omid’s pay grade though.

Lol, Omid discusses UK politics and it’s every bit as much of a disaster as one would expect. Stick to gossip, Omid.

Ok, Steph’s hydrating, so let’s step back for a minute and recall what this book was supposed to be. This was to be “Finding Freedom 2.0,” a chronicle of the Harkle post-Megxit success story. The publishers clearly didn’t like that and they made Omid write a book about the family as a whole. That’s because there was no Harkle success story and the publisher didn’t think another Harkle book would sell. Unfortunately, Omid is a Harkle specialist. He can’t write a book about the family (let alone successfully argue for its imminent demise). He simply doesn’t know enough.

Back to Steph. We’re now in Harry’s military service? Er, why? We jumped from 2023 to 2016 and now to the Afghanistan War?

I agree with Steph that Omid’s trying to associate the royals with MAGA and I can’t even articulate how stupid that is. Completely different countries, completely different cultures, completely different iconography. Just doesn’t work.

Now we’re at the Coronation Concert? The royals are in trouble because Elton wasn’t at the concert! Lolololol. The Harkle bubble is out of this world. Basically, if their inner circle wasn’t centered (Oprah, Elton, Omid, etc…), it’s because of a MAGA conspiracy that will bring the royals down.

Something, something throne. Charles looked awkward again. Constitutional crisis!

I feel like I’m grading student briefs. There’s a way to argue this and there is evidence you can cite for this argument, but this isn’t it. You shouldn’t write pages and pages about a leaky pen and then minimize the bags of charity money as “perception.” You should start with the bags of charity money then use the leaky pen to bolster the “perception” argument.

Another disagreement with the government. Aargh! That should be lumped together with the other arguments with the government. Or it shouldn’t be mentioned at all. You’re arguing that Charles is and old-fashioned idiot who is not a good king, so why make him look like someone who is aware of current social issues and engaged with his government?

Racism. Finally! No wait, it’s boring.

Charles had an affair with Camilla. Lol, that’s not exactly news, love. The time jumping is driving me nuts.

Took a break to let the dog out and now we’re in Andrew’s interview. Of course we are.

Will exiled Andrew. I hope this is true. Wait, that’s the famous “power struggle”? Andrew??? I don’t think that’s a power struggle. That’s just Charles passing the buck.

Oh, lord. More Andrew. That’s it. I’m going to bed. I’ll tune back tomorrow.

[amphibious-thing]

If you don't mind answering, what exactly makes something macaroni?

A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785) defines macaroni as follows:

An Italian paste made of flour and eggs; also a fop, which name arose from a club, called the maccaroni club, instituted by some of the most; dressy travelled gentlemen about town, who led the fashions, whence a man foppishly dressed, was supposed a member of that club, and by contraction stiled a maccaroni.

To put it simply a macaroni was a fop. That is a man who is too interested in fashion. Because interest in fashion was considered a frivolous female trait men who were "foppishly dressed" were often ridiculed for their gender nonconformity. The Natural History of a Macaroni describes the macaroni as follows:

There has within these few years past arrived from France and Italy a very strange animal, of the doubtful gender, in shape somewhat between a man and monkey, which has generated so much within that time, that they form at present no inconsiderable groupe in most of the public circles about town. Its natural height is somewhat inferior to the ordinary size of men, though by the artificial height of their heels, they in general reach that standard; the face is quite effeminate, but sometimes distinguished by a little hair growing on it like a beard; the fore legs, or arms, are disproportionably long, the hind legs of a slender make. Its dress is neither in the habit of a man or woman, but peculiar to itself, and varying with the day; at present it is principally discovered by an Indian flesh-coloured cloth, or silk, clasped all over with broad shining steel, and buttoned at the neck with a large black collar;

~ Walker’s Hibernian Magazine, July 1777, p458

The term macaroni really just means effeminate if someone or something was perceived as effeminate it was macaroni.

However as the term was predominantly used in the 1770s and 1780s it's associated with the fashion from those decades. So while there isn't strict rules dictating what is and isn't macaroni there are certainly some key aspects to the fashion that come up a lot in satire.

The Hair Probably the most iconic aspect of macaroni fashion was the height of the hair. This was mocked in the satirical print What is this my son Tom. However in reality the hair was not worn that tall. Compare the caricature to Richard Cosway's self-portrait in which he is depicted wearing the fashionable style.

[Left: What is this my son Tom, print, c.1774, published by Sayer & Bennett, via The British Museum.

Right: Self-Portrait, Ivory, c.1770–75, by Richard Cosway, via The Met.]

The Suit Menswear of the period consisted of the same basic elements; shirt, stockings, breeches, waistcoat and coat. At a time when English menswear was characterised by plain monochrome broadcloth macaroni fashion was disguised by the fabric, cut, colour and trimmings of the suit. Fashionable were the tightly cut French style suits known as habit à la française. Popular were brocaded and embroidered silks and velvets, sometimes further embellished with metallic sequins, simulated gemstones and raised metallic threads. In contrast to the black suit worn by many Englishmen, macaroni wore pastels, pea-green, pink, purple, red and deep orange.

[Left: The Illiterate Macaroni, print, c.1772, by Matthew Darly, via Lewis Walpole Library.

Middle: The Sleepy Macaroni, print, c.1772, by Matthew Darly, via Lewis Walpole Library.

Right: The Catgut Macaroni, print, c.1772, by Matthew Darly, via Lewis Walpole Library.]

The Accessories But a macaroni's ensemble was not done without accessories. Some examples of popular accessories include red heeled shoes, shoe strings, dress swords, canes, nosegays and muffs.

[Such Things Are, watercolour, c.1787, by Captain Mercer, via Lewis Walpole Library.]

If you want to learn more about macaroni I highly recommend reading Pretty Gentleman by Peter McNeil.

[wack-ashimself]

Nathan Fielder is the most uncomfortable person who ever existed...

"The Curse." His new show.

If you don't know who he is, he is a dry/deadpan/semi monotone comedian, who takes everything seriously, then throws it in the face of those who don't. He's....mr irony/satire personified.

<He was famous for his fake starbucks if you remember that.>

His new show...well, it doesn't cross a line, but it's gonna piss off a lot of people.

It's him and his newly wife doing a house flipping reality show. BUT a-they flip the houses to make them eco friendly. b-they take profits from sales & give back to the community. c-the way they give back, tho, is more like a band aid (still perpetuating a broken system) than fixing it. d-the wife is related to unliked slum lords e-the director (of the fake reality show) is SCUM. Wants to set up fake scenes to make more drama.

Why will this piss people off?

a-fans of ANY reality show, let alone home ones, will realize HOW FAKE, STAGED, and exploitative they are. Nathan NEVER fakes reality. Satires it, but, like the onion, reality is so fucking broken, his satire is usually right on the nose.

b-makes these real life shows look BAD. Honestly, if this gains even a little traction, I bet reality shows take a hit. BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT REAL. If 1/2 of the set up is staged, how is that fucking reality? From reshoots, locations, clothing, reaction shots, etc..

c-This also makes charities* look bad. It's basically saying 'you're helping this way, because you hurt (or allowed hurt) this other way.'

I'm just saying this show will make everyone who watches it uncomfortable. Like all his work. But to me, his past work was mocking he regular joes. This seems to mock....hollywood, ENTIRELY. Fairly....he had to pay his dues to hollywood to get the green light for this to happen. Had to be hollywood to take it down.

*I say this all the time, but no one listens. If charity donations were not able to be written off in taxes, almost no one would do it (at least individually). "I donated this 50 million dollar art piece to the local museum." WHO THE FUCK said that POS is 50 million? I bet it's 300 bucks, but written off as 50 million. No wonder they stay on top and so rich; LYING will do that. Then they just bribe other people to accept their lies with money gained from lying. FULL CIRCLE!

[eightyonekilograms]

Cringe as anti-vigilante social technology

(this a beta edition thought and may contain many bugs)

So @tanadrin made that poll a couple days ago about "which emotion would you choose to erase? fear/shame/anger", and like the plurality of voters I immediately picked shame. It's obvious, right? In my circles there's widespread acceptance of ideas like "kill the cringe that exists within you", "cringe only exists for normies to enforce conformity", etc.

But the speed with which I picked that option made me suspicious, and made me think I need to try and at least steelman the case for shame as useful. If I tried as hard as I could, what is the best defense of shame as a social technology I can mount? I mean, I know what its purpose is as far as enforcing social norms, that doesn't need any explanation, and I'm not on principle opposed to having social norms that people enforce. But as a general believer in modern atomized social liberalism, I'm generally in favor of replacing vague, unaccountable social forces with laws or market mechanisms in most cases, unless this isn't possible. What, in that view, is the cause for shame, or rather, what does shame do that is difficult or impossible to accomplish any other way?

There may be multiple answers here, possibly better than the one I've come up with, and if you know of one please share. But the answer that came to my mind is that this: people have an innate urge to dispense vigilante justice, and that shame (and more specifically, cringe) is the only successful weapon I have seen against this tendency. The others don't work, because vigilantism exists in the first place because people think society is failing to enforce some necessary rule, and so most attempts to rein in this tendency that are dispensed by society only harden the vigilantist resolve instead.

Consider this post I made a while back, about how most attempts to satirize or deconstruct the Badass Vigilante archetype fail, because they still portray the vigilante as cool and sexy, so no matter what an obvious psychopath they are, the audience goes either "whoa, awesome!", or "they may be bad, but they are Doing What is Necessary and their exclusion from society only demonstrates how corrupt and far gone that society is". So far as I can tell, the only way to successfully convey a message that Badass Vigilantism is not something we should encourage or aspire to, is to do what e.g. Lego Batman does, that is, portray the vigilante as a cringey loser whose Dark and Serious Brooding is something to be laughed at.

Another example: there is a general sense that we are in the middle of a Vibe Shift (1, 2 - subscription only, full text here, password is zn9XzYFMYu) that the kind of Culture War progressive anti-liberalist bombthrowing we associate with e.g. mid-2010's Jezebel (or for that matter, mid-2010's Tumblr) has peaked, and while it is not going to disappear entirely anytime soon, we are now on the downswing. And while I would like to believe that this is happening because everyone involved had a long session of introspection where they went "huh, this was its own form of vigilante justice that accomplished very little of substance re: dismantling systems of oppression, while causing extensive misery to people who in no way deserved it", the reality is most people don't think like that. The internal sensation of the people involved is probably a sense of "wow, I can't believe I was ever into that" embarrassment, and indeed, society's memetic immune response supports this theory: we have created pejoratives like "terminally online" to label this behavior as cringe, and that has probably done way more than all the well-meaning essays in the world with appeals to our better natures and the high ideals of liberalism. I wish it wasn't the case! But it probably is.

And again, it's hard to see how it could have been anything else: all the arguments I've seen since like 2012 as to why it was a bad thing to form SJ mobs were just easily handwaved away with "I don't have to listen to you because you're part of the Patriarchy/System/whatever, and so my vigilantism is justified and correct", cringe appears to be only weapon (apart from maybe just exhaustion) that successfully penetrated this defense.

To me this is the strongest case for cringe: I don't see what else can deflate the sense of righteous anger that fuels vigilantism and mob justice. So if we want to continue to discourage those things, for the time being it will have to stay.

[cor-ardens-archive]

northanger abbey is actually one of my least favorite books by austen, but it has grown on me with time. i've never quite agreed that it's a satire of gothic novels, and the more i think about it the more i wonder about austen's opinion on gothic literature. austen's books were always very precise, very realistic, even proper, and she was extremely aware of boundaries and the social reality of high class women. her books are contained, as are her heroines. but they also display an awareness of that containment, a keen understanding of the limitations placed on women of a specific social circle (high class, white).

catherine morland supposedly allows fantasy to rule over her senses, although imo the book ultimately proves her "fantasies" right. she perceived a reality for which she had no vocabulary other than what she found in her gothic books, in which patriarchal tyranny was an openly recognized threat. austen's works all seem very aware of the dangers of patriarchy and female dependency, but they discuss this in proper, contained ways. many readers barely give it much importance. certain realities can't be fully disclosed in the language women like austen were allowed to speak.

of course many gothic writers were women. perhaps 'allowed' isn't the right word. it might also not be such a gendered issue -- austen deliberately mentions both male and female writers in northanger abbey, and an important male character is an appreciative reader of the novels. so i'm not entirely sure what i'm saying here, i'm just interested in how catherine's love for gothic literature gave her a framework through which she could understand certain power dynamics. her vocabulary & perceptions are "corrected" eventually, but in fact she had always perceived the truth (perhaps clearer than any of the other characters). this somehow also relates to persuasion (both were written/published in 1817), and how the narrative rewards emotion over sense, and recognizes the limitations of a certain kind of socially acceptable "understanding" of reality.

really have no idea where i'm going with this tbh!

[pocima]

K-pop fandom related rant, feel free to keep scrolling (keep reading if you’re nosy 🥸)

A lot of international K-pop fans are complete and total hypocrites. They have this moral superiority complex against incel K-nets who dunk on idols for dating and living their love lives and wanna advocate for idols being seen as real human beings with their own emotions and thoughts, but when an actual dating rumor pops up related to an idol they’ve formed a deep parasocial relationship with, what kind of “jokes” do we see? “Nooooo my fave is dating someone, I’m gonna jump off a cliff!”, “Wdym they aren’t xyz sexuality, they’re for abc group of people, we’ve got let down 😔”, “What happened to that post where they were clingy to this groupmate of theirs, we got tricked 😭”. They may be haha funny for the first, like, 5 minutes, but not only do they often escalate to being extremely strange and dehumanizing, we need to question the roots of these jokes altogether. Call me unfunny, miserable, a cupcake, a blind defender, tell me to unclench and laugh a little or whatever, but first of all, if you played along with fanservice enough to feel even the slightest bit of disappointment that it’s not reality, what can I say except you’re probably birdbrained enough to hop in a sketchy stranger’s car for an expired lollipop like a 5 year-old? Secondly and more importantly, of course this doesn’t apply if the rumors are also tied to someone disgusting and the idol in question is horrible for dating them (the reactions will be different as well), imagine being so invested in this obviously fake and “ironic” fantasy to the point where your warped perception of them turns so stale you’re deprived from the ability to act normal about the new couple and wishing them well, let alone bearing happiness for them and the fact that they’re cherished and appreciated by someone in real life. K-pop fandoms have always been doomed in that aspect, both Korean and overseas, but you could distinguish between the normal fans and the truly delusional crowd, because due to internet humor being debatably cornier in the past, these comments looked freakish right at first sight. With the current jokes, irony and self-deprecation, the lines between “satire” and reality have become more blurred than ever, and you need to possess a level of reading comprehension and critical thinking to raise an eyebrow at these responses. K-poppies worldwide possess neither! They’ll only consider calling out the comments infringing personal life if they’re laid out caveman style like “my idol dating bad, making fans sad bad, idol no date no club no different gender friend, idol only love fans and make fans happy”. No sense of nuance or depth, no appreciation for these ARTISTS’ artistry and work, only a desire to project their lack of a social circle onto singing and dancing pretty dolls thousands of miles, or rather a screen away. I get it, they couldn’t give a monkey’s about the music, about the talent, about the performances no matter how much they pathetically pretend to. The hell depth of the barrel is checking yourself for your behavior and comments, and either admitting you’re severely unwell and not much different than the K-nets you get a high out of criticizing or fixing that attitude and getting a damn life. It’s clown behavior for us international K-pop fans to yap about the select group of emotionally unstable Korean fans when we’re faced with the exact same problem within our own side of the fandom! Trash vs garbage, coleslaw vs potato salad, Wish vs AliExpress. Get real. 

I can’t believe I’m staying in this hellhole even though I’m very distant from fandoms, for long years every other day has presented me with signals to leave for once and for all, but unfortunately I’m too invested in my faves’ future music projects so I don’t see myself quitting soon.

[derekjarmanlifework]

Jarman's early life and career

Derek Jarman, born on January 31, 1942, navigated his formative years during what he later described as a 'grey decade' in the 1950s. The dullness of his surroundings, such as the monotony of his school uniform and the lacklustre broadcast television of the time, shaped his early perceptions of normative British culture, and contributed to his career as an artist. In an attempt to avoid the dreary environment provoked by adherence to English traditions, Jarman spent a lot of time in art studios, where he found a profound love of art.

In an interview, Jarman mentioned that he knew he was queer as a young boy. The criminalization of homosexuality made it very challenging for him to be open about his sexual orientation during his adolescence and young adulthood. Homosexual acts were legalized in Britain in 1967, when Jarman was 25. This marked a significant milestone in gay liberation, however, this progress was made complicated by the subsequent era of Thatcherism (1979-1989).

Jarman was starkly and openly opposed to Margaret Thatcher's conservative government, and he considered her his enemy. Many of Jarman's film's portray Thatcher as a monstrous figure, and much of his art was a rebellion against the heteronormativity and homophobia emblematic of the Thatcher government.

Jarman's bold stance against Thatcherism persisted throughout her tenure as Prime Minister, and he found satisfaction in witnessing her fall from power in 1989. His life and art were inextricably linked to the sociopolitical landscape, making him a trailblazer in the fight for queer visibility and rights in a conservative era.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1978: Jubilee

Derek Jarman embarked on the creation of his avant-garde cinematic venture, Jubilee, amidst the tumultuous backdrop of London during the spring to summer of 1977. This period, marked by Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee and the controversial release of the Sex Pistols' single "God Save the Queen," inadvertently positioned Jubilee as the inaugural British punk feature film. The film unfolds as a quasi-documentary, blurring the lines between reality and invention, responding creatively and critically to the burgeoning punk scene in 1970s London. Jarman's distinctive approach, characterized by a script resembling a dense scrapbook and casting drawn from his social circles, aligns with his broader artistic methodology.

Structured as a collage, Jarman described Jubilee as "parochial, too particular, juvenilia, and at times silly." The film's unconventional nature contributed to mixed reviews upon its February 1978 release. Figures like Adam Ant expressed initial embarrassment, and Siouxsie Sioux dismissed it as 'hippy trash'. Vivienne Westwood, a punk icon, went further by openly criticizing the film on a T-shirt, denouncing it as the "most boring and disgusting film" she had ever seen. While accusations swirled that Jordan's character, 'Amyl Nitrate,' was a satirical jab at Westwood, the critique resonated on the theme of self-indulgence in Jarman's work.

Jubilee provocatively features a distant and desolate Queen Elizabeth II, left for dead on a derelict site, an object of fleeting curiosity for the time-traveling Queen Elizabeth I. This irreverent treatment aligns with Jarman's disdain for the modern British royal family. The film's audacious portrayal of the 'New Elizabethan' age prompts reflection on Jarman's motivations to desecrate the reigning monarch. A plausible explanation lies in the film's engagement with the 1950s celebration of the New Elizabethan age, intertwined with a resurgence of social conservatism and sexual repression. The official 'Moral Rearmament' campaign in 1950s Britain, framed as a post-World War II moral cleanup, provides a backdrop for Jarman's subversive exploration of sexual morality and family values. In Jubilee, pretentiousness becomes a deliberate choice, prompting viewers to confront societal norms and Jarman's challenging, avant-garde vision.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1979: The Tempest

Jarman's 1979 adaptation of Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' serves as a unique exploration of the classic Renaissance revenge play. Created before the onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the film not only anticipates but also reflects Jarman's distinct political and activist viewpoints that he continued to convey through his art, even after his diagnosis. Diverging from mainstream media norms, Jarman's low-budget approach and traditional use of "masters, mid-shots, and close-ups" distinguish his adaptation.

This rendition of 'The Tempest' showcases Jarman's bold choices, including the introduction of a same-sex relationship between Prospero and Ariel, a thematic decision that resonates with his intended audience — members of the British counterculture, particularly punk and queer communities. Departing from the traditional Shakespearean adaptations of its time, Jarman's manipulation of the original script involved rearranging and omitting sections, creating a distinctive cinematic experience.

Critics have praised the film as an "outrageously invigorating breath of fresh air" in stark contrast to the "stale, safe atmosphere" of the BBC Shakespeare productions. Jarman's fearless deviation from societal norms, evident in his reshaping of this classic piece of British literature, becomes a potent political statement, cementing his role as a boundary-pushing artist unafraid of challenging conventions.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1984: GBH Series 

In 1984, Derek Jarman's installation at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London marked the apex of his fascination with apocalyptic themes. By revisiting and reshaping Christian notions of apocalypse, he aimed to challenge the repressive sexual climate in British culture. Jarman, known for critically engaging with contemporary threats like the AIDS epidemic, nuclear weapons, and environmental devastation, consistently viewed these issues through an apocalyptic prism. Jarman never specified what the acronym GBH stood for, however he did state that it means “whatever you want it to: grievous bodily harm, great British horror, gargantuan bloody H-bomb.”.

The GBH series comprises six monumental works. Displayed in a contemplative space within the ICA, these towering pieces, reaching almost three metres in height, featured a map of Britain painted in acrylic. Swirls of charcoal, gold, and fiery red pigment enveloped the map, creating a visually striking effect. Executed on a hand-laminated base constructed from linen layered with torn newspaper saturated in glue, the dense and undulating surface added complexity, obscuring the aerial view of Britain. The visual elements evoked imagery of smoke, flames, and burning, presenting viewers with a visceral vision of apocalypse. Circles inscribed over each map, reminiscent of wartime bombing sights, further contributed to the overall impression.

Jarman's inspiration for the series arose from his observation of Britain's shape in an atlas, noting its resemblance to an H-bomb explosion, reinforcing the apocalyptic interpretation of the artwork. By showcasing these artworks, he highlights a specific juncture in Northern Ireland and the political history of the UK, emphasizing the parallels between the political struggles of that time and the present.

[fettesans]

Top, Yutaka Matsuzawa, Untitled (White Circle Collage), c. 1967, Cut-and-pasted paper on printed paper, 29,2 x 30,9 cm. Via. More. Bottom, Bassem Saad, To my mother and to a protester detained on November 15th, 2019, Aluminum, hyperextension Conwell spine brace, dimensions variable. Photograph by François Lauginie. Via.

--

INDIANA: I think about the novella that Mary McCarthy did, The Oasis. Everybody knew who everybody was in that novella. It was considered really harsh, satirically very pointed, but if you read it today, you’d have absolutely no idea who those people were. And yet it’s still a really good work of art.

KRAUS: Because the types remain the types.

INDIANA: Absolutely. If I thought about it at all, I thought that the people in the book were containers for certain kinds of pathology and characterological flaws. But it is a satire. It’s not meant to be a full portrait of anybody’s inner self.

KRAUS: I’ve always thought the job of fiction is to do just that, but people today are so squeamish about reality.

INDIANA: Alexander Kluge told me many years ago something that has always stuck in my head. People hate reality, and they will do anything to defend themselves against it. But the reality we are in right now is so daunting. People feel so vulnerable and powerless, that maybe that kind of honesty has become intolerable, because they need to defend themselves against everything now.

Gary Indiana and Chris Kraus in conversation for Interview Magazine, April 12, 2023.

[brucewhite]

Sunday, November 26 – The Final Labor: Based on the final task for the labors, write an AU featuring all your characters in a role. Choose an AU, set out a list of goals for yourself based on tropes within that AU (ex. a red shirt has to die if you’re doing Star Trek or someone in the group gets bitten by a zombie and doesn’t tell the rest if you’re doing an apocalypse), then write to your heart’s content! To count, each character must have a role and your tropes must be laid out beforehand. 

Dark Academia/Horror AU

TW: Blood, murder, references to drunkenness and blacking out, extreme amounts of bullshit related to ancient rituals don’t come for me I don’t know what I’m talking about this is a SATIRE ok

Inspired by: The Secret History, Ninth House, Saltburn, the discography of Vampire Weekend

**For the purposes of this AU, anyone who is a student is aged 18-22**

ROLES

Lightning McQueen as the dumbass interloper/roommate

Tiana Truitt as the nerd research person

Aquata Triton as the rich party girl

Bruce White as the poor innocent boy who is a stranger to this world but observes everything

Anastasia Tremaine as someone’s rich wacky mom 

Tanya Tiwari as the evil spirit they summon

Mirabel Madrigal as the framing device 

Phineas Flynn as the golden boy

Mr. Smee as the enigmatic professor

Roz Peterson-Boggs as the evil dean pulling the strings all along

TROPES

Takes place at an elite school/university 

Written in the first person

Illegal activity

The Pursuit Of Knowledge (™)

References to classical history

Some kind of hedonistic ritual that invokes dark magic

People in the group are hooking up

A plot twist

MURDER!

***

“Wait, so… then what happened?” Mirabel chewed the end of her pencil, fixing Bruce with a concerned stare. This interview had gone on for nearly two hours, but she was engrossed now. It wasn’t even about the story she was writing for the Gryphon anymore. Now, Mirabel just had to know how this story ended.

Bruce sighed. “Then… well, Monday was the beginning of the end.” He hesitated. “If I tell you all of this, it’s off the record, right?”

“What do you— oh, yeah, completely.” Mirabel glanced down at her notepad and then slammed it shut. “Won’t even take me notes. Just… tell me everything.”

Maybe he should, Bruce thought. Maybe it would be nice, finally, to get it off his chest. Maybe he’d finally be free of it all. Or maybe recanting it to the student journalist would only plunge him deeper into the darkness.

Then again— how much deeper could one go?

***

Monday began badly. It began with a splitting headache, with a merciless ray of sunshine forcing its way through my window. It began with Aquata Triton in nothing but Monty’s T-shirt, her eyes smudged with dark makeup. I didn’t remember anything that had happened the previous night, and I didn’t remember how Aquata had ended up in Monty’s bed.

“Bruce…” she said, hands visibly trembling. “Do you remember what happened last night?”

“No…”

“Bruce.” Her voice sounded even graver, and as I looked more closely at her hands, I realized they were streaked with dried blood. “I think Monty’s dead.”

It came back in flashes, though I couldn’t piece them together if I tried. Or maybe I didn’t want to try, because the reality of what I’d done, what I’d participated in, was too gruesome to face. I remember wine, a lot of it. I remember blood, or maybe it was wine. I remember Professor Smee. And I remember Monty was there, even though he shouldn’t have been.

Monty was never a part of the circle. He was my roommate, and I generally tried to keep him in the dark about what went on in Professor Smee’s study group. This was due to his general lack of competence; I knew he wouldn’t be able to keep up with the pace of the group— Tiana with her photographic memory, Phineas with his encyclopedic knowledge of ancient history, and Aquata with her matchless wit. And then there was me, I suppose. I don’t know what they saw in me, but perhaps the truth was that I was ashamed of Monty. I was afraid of what they might assume about me based on him.

I always knew that my place in the group was tenuous, after all. I was smart, yes, but not remarkably so, not the way Tiana was. I wasn’t charming like Phineas or connected like Aquata. And I wasn’t rich like the rest of them. Maybe that’s why I went along with things for as long as I did.

What those things were. Ah. Sorry, Mirabel. I promise, I’ll get to it… i just first need to… where were we? Right. Yes. Aquata was in my room, Monty was dead.

“We need to find Phineas and Tiana,” I said, my voice strangely disconnected, like it did not belong to me. “We need to find out what they know.”

***

Phineas and Tiana were an odd pair, but for some reason, they stuck together. An outside observer might have paired up our group differently— Phineas’s bombastic personality with Aquata’s party-girl ways, Tiana’s bookishness with my quiet tendencies. But Aquata and I were never close the way the other two were. The only time I saw her outside of the group’s seminars and study sessions in Pluto House was the occasional moment when we would cross paths, her stumbling home from a party with Monty at dawn while I headed out to the library.

Sure enough, though, when the pair of us reached Pluto House, Tiana and Phineas were there, their heads practically touching from how closely they sat, whispering to one another. Tiana looked matter-of-fact and grave, while Phineas’s jaw hung open, his eyes wide.

“Hey, fuckers,” Aquata drawled, crashing into one of the plushy chairs in the House’s parlor. She’d showered before coming here, and now she looked strangely… clean. It was a little unsettling.

I took the other chair, my usual place, saying nothing. There are plenty of rumors about this house. Mainly that it’s haunted, because it used to be a dorm or a medical building or a laboratory or a madhouse or some other such place. I don’t deny that it could be haunted, but as far as I know, it has always been Pluto House: home to the one-man classics department and Professor Smee’s small, elite study group.

At Aquata’s greeting, Tiana and Phineas looked up. Tiana shot her a dirty look, while Phineas just looked scared. That was another unsettling thing. Phineas never looked scared.

He finally spoke. “Heeey, I don’t know if anyone told you yet, but—”

“Yeah, we know,” Aquata interrupted. “Monty’s dead. So who did it?”

Tiana took a long, deep breath, looking a bit like she was fending off a headache. “We don’t know.”

“You don’t know either?” Now Aquata looked a little scared, too. “So all of us blacked out?”

Phineas and Tiana nodded gravely.

“Then there’s just one person left who was there last night,” I said quietly. “Professor Smee.”

Everyone seemed to take a breath at the exact same time. Professor Smee seemed to be more of a friend than a professor sometimes. But at the end of the day, he did work for the university. And he had the power to have us all arrested, or worse, expelled. And maybe that’s morally reprehensible, that my first thought went to those consequences instead of the fact that it was very possible I had killed my roommate last night. Pluto House tends to do that to a person, doesn’t it?

***

And as though speaking of the devil would make him appear, the door to Pluto House swung open before any of us had the chance to make a plan, or even really process this new information. “My young protegés,” Professor Smee greeted, just as he always did. “Got up to a bit of mischief last night, didn’t we?”

I noticed, despite his smile and relaxed demeanor, that his hands were shaking. I doubted anybody else did.

Phineas cut in first, standing up so abruptly he almost knocked his chair over. “Professor Smee, I just want to say, I have no memory of what happened last night, and so my behavior was entirely, entirely—”

“Mr. Flynn, I assure you, you’ve got nothing to worry about. It all went according to plan.”

“To plan?!” Aquata interrupted.

I locked eyes with Tiana. The wheels were turning in her head. I just knew it, from the way she remained quiet and focused while Phineas and Aquata fell apart. And while I didn’t know what she was thinking, I had a terrible feeling about it.

“The Summoning,” Tiana said in a low voice. She looked up at Smee, her tone slightly accusatory, slightly bewildered. “That’s what happened last night, isn’t it?”

The Summoning. Professor Smee had been talking about it for weeks. An ancient ritual of drinking, dancing, debauchery… and blood. Yes, there had to be a sacrifice. The idea was to drink so much wine that nobody would be able to remember the next day what had occurred. And the result was murky— nobody really knew what the ritual was supposed to Summon. Only that it would make one very powerful. Some believed it to be a demon.

I’d always thought something was strange about the way Professor Smee talked about The Summoning. His attitude was almost reverential rather than simply academic. 

Still, part of me wished it were not true. That Professor Smee would deny it. Instead, his mouth curled into a slow smile.

“Very sharp, Miss Truitt. I always knew you were very bright,” he said approvingly. 

So that settled it. That meant that any one of us, truly, could be the killer. The fear settled in my stomach like concrete, heavy and solid. I had never particularly liked Monty. He was oafish and dim, clumsy with his words and with his feelings. He never seemed to care very much about Aquata, whom I could tell was in love with him (though she would never admit it). But he didn’t deserve to die. If I had killed him, as I very well may have… well, didn’t I deserve to answer for it?

“So what’s going to happen next?” Phineas blurted out. “Like, we always said, we don’t know what the ritual actually summons. And I don’t think any of us feel any different, right? We can’t suddenly fly or anything. So what was it? Did it work?”

“That’s precisely what we’re going to study today. That's what we're all here for, aren't we? To push the boundaries of academic study.” Professor Smee said pleasantly, like this was any other meeting. I felt a bit nauseous, and I could see that the rest of the group was, too, the slightly green tinge to their faces and the way they froze in their chairs. Phineas slumped back into his own.

***

“You see, now, why this is off the record?” I raised my eyes heavily to meet Mirabel’s.

She didn’t answer. She was frozen, too. The Summoning tended to have that effect on people.

***

We were only twenty minutes or so into class (read: the world’s most tense brainstorming session, in which we went around making guesses about what the Summoning could have summoned) when Professor Smee stopped. “Mr. Flynn,” he said abruptly, though pleasantly as ever. “You know the rule. Phones away.”

Mortified, the redhead slipped his phone into his messenger bag. He looked extra guilty as he did so, as though he weren’t simply scrolling on social media. Had he been recording? Now fear was beginning to replace the guilt. When the police investigated what had happened to Monty, would Phineas rat all of us out?

It wouldn’t be an improbable conclusion to jump to. I’d always known Phineas Flynn was a coward. He was beloved, yes, and this is why I would never say so aloud— his admirers would fervently disagree with me— but I knew the truth.

“I’ve got to use the restroom,” he said suddenly, about five minutes later. 

“You can wait,” Smee replied, clearly onto him. 

“It’s an emergency. I’ll go right outside, in the bushes,” Phineas promised, and then bolted for the door before anyone had a chance to stop him. But we tried. We raced after him, because I don’t think I was alone in my suspicion of Phineas. When we opened that heavy oak front door, though, it was not the police who greeted us. 

It was a woman, mid to late forties, with bright red hair and an expensive coat and an expression forced into a permanent frown thanks to, no doubt, a generous supply of Botox. She looked a little unsteady.

“Mum?” Phineas said uncertainly, like he was putting on an act. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to pick you up!” she said. “Since things got a bit… dicey.”

Wait a second. Had Phineas called his mom to pick him up?

“Absolutely not,” Professor Smee said. “Everyone, back inside!”

And then there was a great boom. Or, more accurately, a great “BOO!”

A girl came tearing out of the nearby woods, with wild hair and ripped jeans and dark makeup. Around her, the air seemed to swirl with magic. She cackled. Phineas’s mom collapsed and he rushed to her side. 

“Hey fuckers,” she breathed, looking around. “Someone summon me?”

Aquata looked like she might pass out, too. 

“Actually, I did.”

And in that moment, every (conscious) head turned to see none other than Dean Peterson-Boggs standing in the wake of the demon’s destruction, smiling in a self-satisfied way.

“Welcome, Tanya,” she said, looking at the creature of chaos who stood in the center of the group.

“Thanks!” she replied casually. “Man, why is everyone so glum?”

Professor Smee looked horrified. “Dean Peterson-Boggs, did you…”

“Yes, of course. This is why I asked you to complete the ritual. Finally, with a being as powerful as Tanya on our side, the administration will have to listen to our pleas for better wages and pensions.”

“That’s what all of this was for?!” Aquata blurted out. “Fucking pensions?”

“You wouldn’t understand, darling, you have a trust fund,” the dean replied sardonically. It wasn’t false. However, I couldn’t help but wonder if it would have been effective simply to rally the faculty into a collective bargaining structure rather than murdering my roommate.

It would appear, however, that the murder had not stopped. Because Dean Peterson-Boggs let out a blood-curdling scream before collapsing on the ground, her eyes frozen in a panicked stare.

“Sorry for the noise. She was getting on my nerves,” Tanya said with a shrug. “Man, you all look so scared. It’s kind of funny.”

In that moment, I knew we were in over our heads. Tanya could target any one of us, at any moment, and there was nothing we could do to stop her. I couldn’t even tell what her motivations were. And I always knew what everyone’s motivations were. It was why Professor Smee had chosen me to begin with.

I could see him now, looking at me, waiting for me to say the right thing. But I didn’t have it. All I had were those magic words that seemed to save any situation with these terrifying, beautiful, unknowable people:

“Would you like to come in for a cup of tea, Tanya?”

She considered it. “Sure, why not?” Then, the demon whirled around. “None of you leave. Or you’re going the same direction as her. And don’t even think of trying to use me to get what you want. I’m my own demon, baby.”

***

“But you got rid of her, didn’t you?” Mirabel asked, her eyes as wide as saucers now.

“Not exactly…” Bruce admitted.

“Then how did you…”

“She’s taken a liking to me,” he whispered. “I don’t know how long I can keep it up. I need your help, I need a demonologist, I need… I don’t know, I just need to get her back to her realm. I’m only able to sneak away for a few hours…”

Bruce trailed off, realizing that Mirabel’s terrified stare had less to do with the contents of his tale and more to do with a presence behind him. Slowly, very slowly, Bruce turned around.

“Well, I was wondering when you were gonna notice me,” Tanya said with an evil grin. “What to do with you, Bruce White?”

[psyandtech17]

“Secrets are lies. Sharing is caring. Privacy is theft”

The fictional movie “The circle” satirizes the values and trends of internet culture and evokes the question what privacy is worth in a world where more and more data is shared online.

The story revolves around Mae Holland, a young woman who recently graduated college. When she gets a job at the big technology company “the circle” she is very excited. The Circle has taken over big companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter and has therefore become one of the most influential and successful companies in the world.

Mae starts to work in customer service and becomes more and more absorbed by the ideology and the work environment of the company. Everyone around her is promoting the idea that making knowledge and information accessible to everyone will make the world a better place.

During her first weeks at work Mae is pressured into sharing a lot of information about her life on her social media accounts. When she does not post anything about her boat trip on the weekend, her co-workers get really upset. It is suggested that by not sharing she is in a way hurting other people because she missed the opportunity to connect to others and to allow them to experience the boat trip with her."Sharing is caring".

Actually there are a lot of good reasons to share things online. Studies show that people like to share to connect to other people, to show who they are, share information and also simply to entertain themselves or others. Nevertheless, sharing online can also have its downsides.

The movie is challenging the viewer as the ideologies of the circle get more and more extreme and Mae herself gets more and more absorbed in it. She publicly states that everyone should have the right to know everything and that everything should be shared and becomes "transparent", having a camera on her at all times.

Now thousands of people are watching her life and engage with her online. But while having so much people following her, she is quite isolated and distant from people in real life. People are starting to turn away from her, knowing that everything they do will be watched by her audience Her family is also criticizing that she is not happy, because she is living her life not mainly for herself but for her audience.

What seems to be very futuristic and exaggerated at first, is in fact not that far away from reality. People are already posting about every aspect of their lives and some are even vlogging their lives for millions. It is often discussed that using social media can make people feel very isolated because everyone is presenting only well curated glimpses in their lives. It can feel like people are performing their life online for their audience.

All in all, the movie is a cautionary tale, that gives an interesting perspective on how dangerous and out of touch the social media culture can get. Maybe the value of privacy and real life experiences is more valuable then we think.

[demonboyhalo]

Techno: Us rich people only commit financial crimes.

Karl: Yeah! It only counts if we let it!

Techno: I’m in the electoral college :)

THEY REALLY SAID EAT THE RICH HUH

[byzantiumshades]

Pairing: Choi Beomgyu (TXT) x fem!reader

Genre: Smut

Contains: Dirty talk, hand job, blow job, the use of cock ring, creampie, vaginal sex, masturbation, exhibitionism

Word count: 3344

___

“Are you sure you’re feeling well?” you ask eyeing him with concern.

It’s already the third time you asked him this question during the last twenty minutes.

“Y–yeah, I’m fine, really,” Beomgyu answers with a rather tense smile on his face.

He doesn’t look fine at all in your opinion: his cheeks are deeply flushed, he’s constantly licking and biting his lips, not to mention that he’s sweating quite noticeably. Since you don’t want to come of as nosy, you don’t inquire further, but something seems to be off about his behaviour today.

“Are you ready to discuss the next paragraph then?”, you ask deciding that it’s better to change to subject to your shared work.

The fact that he looks deeply relieved makes you feel even more confused. You can’t tell what he’s thinking at all, and it sparks your interest: you want to be able to read him.

“Sure. Frankly speaking, no matter how many times I read it, I absolutely cannot agree with those statements,” Beomgyu answers leaning back against the chair.

His posture looks like he’s trying hard to appear relaxed, but you can see that his muscles are way too tense for it to pass as such. Sighing internally you decide to ignore it: you have a project to do, so it’d be better to focus on it.

“Why?” you ask tilting your head slightly, curiosity evident in your voice.

If there was something you liked in group projects, it was learning about the perspective of people you usually didn’t have much contact with. Choi Beomgyu was especially interesting in your eyes because of his public image: a kind and polite young man always ready to help others, not a party type of guy but with a wide circle of friends from different backgrounds, deeply interested in music and literature. Most of the time people spoke about him like one could spoke about a talented and well-behaved child which made you feel intrigued: is he truly such an innocent person as they say or is there something that outsiders don’t notice? Is his public image the same as the one reserved for those who are close to him?

“To put it simply: in my eyes those characters are completely unrealistic. They’re one–dimensional with their uncomplicated thoughts and defined views on what’s right and what’s wrong, while it’s obvious that the reality is much more complex than that. I’d be perfectly fine with that if it was philosophical fiction such as Voltaire’s satires, but it’s not. The personalities of people are much more complicated.”

You smile nodding slowly as you think about your answer carefully. It’s barely your third or so project with him, but you like to work with Beomgyu. That excitement and curiosity in his expression, as if he’s genuinely interested in your opinion, it makes you feel more motivated to properly analyse things out and truly understand the problem.

“To be frank I’m not sure what this story was aspiring to be, or even what the author wanted it to be. To me that story only shows that you can write thousands of words and still say nothing interesting nor smart,” you say rolling your eyes good-naturedly.

“However, in case of the creations of the characters I agree with you only partially. Yes, most of them are rather boring to put it mildly, but there are also those that deserve to be looked closer at. Take the brother of the female protagonist for example: don’t you think his motivations are not exactly as moral as he believes them to be?”

It’s Beomgyu’s turn to nod now. His eyes lose focus as he turns your words over in his mind – it seems that you just gave him a perspective he didn’t thought of before.

“But what does it mean to you to be moral?” he asks tilting his head with a smile on his lips.

He looks quite provocative this way, and you have to admit that you like it. It almost feels like he’s testing you, but you can’t tell on what exactly. Maybe it’s about you self-control because every time he does that you feel like your patience is being tested. Even though you try to ignore it, you can’t help but imagine him in situations that are suggestive no less.

“Well, not to be that person, but my morality isn’t exactly a model one,” you chuckle leaning back against your chair.

“There are things I’m more prone to do than the majority of the people.”

Beomgyu smiles slightly at your words and looks down at his book clearly lost in thoughts. Once again you can’t tell what he’s thinking, and it frustrates you: what’s happening in that pretty head of his?

“My morality isn’t a model one either,” he starts slowly as if not sure if he should continue.

“But I think it makes people more interesting, you know? When you can’t tell right away what they’d do, where are their boundaries. They can surprise you thanks to that.”

You can’t help but smirk hearing his words.

“And with what you could surprise me, Beomgyu?” you say resting your elbows on the tabletop and leaning towards him.

It’s so easy to make him blush, really. Your mind starts to wander: how flushed would he become if you played with him a little? You have to press your thighs together just from the very though and to be frank you find your body reactions quite ridiculous. Yeah, you want him, but to this extent? Maybe you overestimated your self-control after all.

“Did you read the fifth paragraph already?” he asks pulling you out of your dirty thoughts.

“Sorry, give me a sec,” you answer with an apologetic smile before looking down at your book.

You can’t focus on the words at all: not only is your body acting out because of the man sitting in front of you but also said man started to act weirdly again. You can hear Beomgyu squirming in his sit uncomfortably, his breathing accelerated and shallow once again.

“Holy fuck,” he moans softly all of a sudden.

You simply look up at him raising a brow in question. He gapes at you with the expression of absolute horror on his face in return. The pink on his cheeks deepens slowly as you just stare at him wordlessly until he finally breaks and answers your unsaid question.

“It’s nothing, really,” he murmurs with eyes glued to the tabletop but even the tips of his ears are flushed bright red now.

Your patience must be at its limit: his behaviour irks you way too much to just let it pass now. In fact, you’re simply way too frustrated with him to do so, so you decide to set things straight here and now.

“I don’t think so,” you huff folding your arms.

“You acted weirdly from the very start of our meeting today. Just spill the tea, for the love of god, so we can finish our work and go home.”

Even though the tone of your voice sounds unaffected, irritated even, you’re screaming inside. Your underwear’s surely quite damp already, and you feel more and more uncomfortable as time passes. Damn your vivid imagination and his goddamned moans, really.

“W–well, I, um,” he manages to say before he falls silent, his face resembling a ripe tomato.

You sigh deciding to call it a day when he whimpers quietly and his eyes roll back as if involuntarily. Finally, you get it – you saw enough guys acting like that to know that right now Choi Beomgyu is being pleasured in some way. You can’t help but smirk – an innocent child, huh?

“I–I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s happening, um, let’s just finish this and go home like you said,” he babbles nervously tugging at the hair on his nape, not looking at you.

But you can’t. You can’t just let it go like that. Just as Beomgyu said: life’s not a Voltaire’s satire and people’s personalities are complex. With those very words in mind you decide to chance your luck. After all, in the long run there’s nothing to lose and a lot to gain, you tell yourself.

“Beomgyu,” you say in a calm voice that makes him look up at you carefully.

You make sure to look him straight in the eyes before saying:

“Stand up.”

His breath hitches audibly at that unsubtle command, and you can barely sit still as he slowly does as you told him to. A thrill of excitement runs down your spine: you didn’t expect such obedience from him, but you’re absolutely delighted to see it. What makes you feel even more delighted is the fact that even though the fabric of his pants is of good quality it leaves nothing to the imagination outlining his cock just right for you to see. And it’s not like his dick’s half-hard or so, no, it’s fully erect judging by the way the fabric of his pants is bulged.

“D–don’t look,” he murmurs quietly covering his crotch with his hands, but you can tell he’s excited too.

It’s the way his upper body’s leaning in your direction, the way he’s observing you from under his eyelashes – it’s as if he was waiting, hoping even, all this goddamn time for you to take the action, to call him out. But you can’t speculate freely like that about his thoughts – you have to confirm your suspicions.

“Come here, please,” you say simply gesturing to the space next to you.

It’s so quiet that you can hear the rustling of his clothes as he rounds the table and stands where you told him to. He stands over you, towers over you in fact, yet somehow it feels like you’re the one looking down on him not the other way around.

“May I?” you ask looking up at him with a smile.

“Yes,” he answers breathlessly.

It takes Herculean effort to reach out towards his belt in your own sweet time, to appear unaffected by the tension in the air as you unbuckle it and slowly unzip his pants. You can’t help but huff out a laugh at the sight.

“And what do we have here?” you hum quietly looking up at him with a smile playing on your lips.

No wonder you could see the shape of his cock this clearly – he didn’t have any underwear underneath his pants to begin with. What surprised you more, however, was something else: a thin purple band around the base of his cock was something you definitely didn’t expect.

“Naughty, aren’t we?” you laugh shaking your head slightly before hooking your fingers over the hem of his pants and pulling the fabric further down his hips.

Beomgyu’s quiet, so you look up at him once again and that’s enough to learn that he’s clearly enjoying the situation. His pretty face’s flushed adorably, pouty lips slightly ajar as his chest rises and fall rapidly under his white shirt. The way he looks at you makes you feel even more aroused than you already were: almost as if he wants to devour you here and now.

“Ah, fuck,” he moans throwing his head back, his hips bucking slightly as the quiet sound of vibration finally reaches your ears.

No wonder he looked uncomfortable before: you can’t even imagine what it must have to feel like to him to wear a vibrating cock ring in public, a hard cock trapped in tight trousers. You hike his shirt higher to take a better look at his crotch and to your surprise he immediately grabs it to hold it up for. What a good boy he is, your sweet Beomgyu.

“It appears to me that you don’t like it easy,” you say softly as your fingers curl loosely around his swollen shaft.

Beomgyu shivers visibly when your fingertips wander over the popping veins.

“W–well, it’s not as pleasant when you can get it right away,” he murmurs bashfully as his grip tightens on fabric of his shirt.

“Yeah, I get it,” you chuckle before wrapping your lips around the flushed tip without any warning.

Beomgyu cries out your name sweetly in the answer, and you can’t take it any more – you slip one of your hands past the waistline of your skirt. Your clit must be already swollen, but you aren’t really the type to go for it as fast as you can, no, you like to drag your pleasure out as long as possible. After all, what’s better than teasing yourself while simultaneously teasing a gorgeous man?

“Please, it feels so good, don’t stop,” he begs quietly, his knuckles white from the effort of keeping his hands to himself.

“I love how responsive you are, love,” you sigh happily before placing a kiss on the swollen head.

“Just for you,” he chokes out in the answer.

“None else can make me moan like that.”

You can’t help but smile hearing that and lick his cock from base to the tip in a sign of appreciation. However, his choice of words sparks your interest.

“Tell me, love, have you planned this?” you ask spiting on your hand before spreading your saliva over his swollen length.

“Um, no, not exactly. Although, oh, I can’t say that I wasn’t hoping for, um, similar outcome.”

“So you thought about such situation before,” you muse as you start to pump his cock lazily.

Even though you’re still playing with yourself with your free hand, you can already tell that it won’t be enough to come. Despite the fact that you’re highly aroused right now, you need something stronger than that to get the orgasm you want. Something like a dick you’re currently playing with.

“Yeah,” he answers shyly as his hands rise involuntary to cover his face, white fabric falling down his waist.

“You can tell me, you know. I mean, I’m currently giving you a handjob, Beomgyu, I hope you’re not going to get shy now,” you chuckle twisting your wrist around his reddened head.

He moans your name sweetly, and you speed up the tempo of your movements just a little as a reward. He looks at you for a moment as if lost if thoughts before he starts talking.

“The vibe you give off makes me go crazy, you know? I can’t help but, ahhh fuck, but wonder what it’d feel like to be your man, to have you look at me like you used to look at your ex when you were together. Um, damn, to have your hands all over my body, your lips, ohh, pressed against my skin, your words, your praises, fuck, directed only at me.”

“Is that why you decided to wear a cock ring to a meeting with me?” you ask almost innocently as you grab his shirt in one of your hands before pulling it up.

Beomgyu laughs in the answer rubbing the back of his neck bashfully.

“I wasn’t exactly prepared for that outcome but yeah, I was hoping you’d notice at some point. And, well, you did, and you took charge of the situation just as I imagined you would if that were to happen.”

You look up to take him in properly and to be frank he’s as sweet as always: all that adorable blushing and flustered expression, the way he’s toying with his fingers nervously as if he’s afraid of your reaction to his words.

“People like to say that you’re such a sweet young man and I have to agree, however, I don’t think we’d be thinking about the same thing,” you say with a smirk before carefully taking him into your mouth.

As you take him deep into your throat, the cock ring vibrates mere centimetres before your eyes, and you can’t help but wonder who’s controlling it, if anyone. The pattern of vibration seems to be quite random – Beomgyu must really like surprises.

You bob your head up and down in a rather fast tempo until your jaw hurts, swallowing around him from time to time and making him moan sweetly. Beomgyu’s thighs are trembling from the effort as he tries his best to not thrust into your mouth, and you cup his balls gently into your free hand as a sign of appreciation. Judging from his fucked out expression, he’s definitely loosing it already, so you move away slowly.

“Although I really like your cock,” you start after clearing your throat.

“I like my pussy even more, and let me tell you that it’s practically dripping now. Not to mention that it’s all because of you, love.”

Beomgyu just breathes heavily, observing wordlessly as you stand up from your chair with a smirk before motioning for him to sit on it instead. You can hear him swallow thickly when you slip down your legs the shorts you always wear underneath your skirts along with your underwear. His big hands immediately find your hips when you straddle him after hiking your skirt higher up your waist.

“I honestly cannot believe this is happening right now,” he pants out, his trembling hands caressing your sides gently.

“If not, you have really pleasant dreams,” you answer smugly as you position the tip of his cock at your entrance and slowly start to slide down.

Thankfully both your pussy and his length are slippery enough at this point for this to be more or less comfortable, otherwise it’d have been pretty painful ride down. You embrace his neck tightly, marvelling over the feeling of his dick filling you up as you finally bottom out. It feels so good to have him inside you that you can’t help but teasingly tighten your muscles around him.

“Ah, fuck, fuck,” he whimpers hugging you tightly in the answer.

It’s just so easy to tease him.

“I’m going to move now, is that okay?” you whisper into him ear as you rake your fingers through his hair.

“Yes, please, I don’t care as long as you feel good,” he chokes out into your hair.

“I appreciate your need to satisfy me, but there are two players in this game, love, and,” you start, but your words are cut off by a moan that escapes your lips when the cock ring starts to vibrate against your pussy.

“Goddammit,” you sigh bucking your hips at the pleasant sensation.

“See? I told you! Surprises are great,” he huffs with a laugh, and you can’t help but follow.

“If it means that I get a pretty man with a pretty cock then sure, why not,” you murmur rising your hips until only the tip of his dick is inside you only to bottom out again mere seconds later.

Beomgyu starts chanting your name like some kind of mantra when you find a steady rhythm of riding him that satisfies both of you. His fingers immediately find their way under your skirt and quickly localize your clit: his soft fingertips start to draw patterns on it that make you lose your mind in no time, and he’s definitely aware of that judging from his smug expression. It doesn’t take long for either of you to orgasm – after all you were teasing each other for quite some time before getting to the penetration. Beomgyu comes inside you with a soft moan, and the cock ring starts to vibrate once again just as you reach your own high. An additional source of stimulation makes your body tremble from pleasure as you slowly ride down your orgasm.

“How was it? Better than what you were hoping for?” you pant out trying to catch your breath.

“My fantasies cannot hold the candle to that, believe me,” he laughs softly hugging you.

“But worry not, we’re not finished yet. After all, I have to clean up your pussy.”

You have to admit: Beomgyu’s indeed a really good boy, just not in the way people think he is. Thankfully, you’re perfectly fine with their lack of knowledge on that matter.

Copyright © 2020-2024 by byzantiumshades. All rights reserved.

[kaypeace21]

Analyzing the 5 plays in this drama club poster .From the bts pics of stranger things 4.

So... some of ya’ll know I'm going through the st s4 films given to us by the official st twitter + the films reffed in the show itself or mentioned by the Duffers in interviews .

So I decided to look at the plays mentioned here. Because even if we don't see the monologues in the show directly - the Duffers wouldn't name drop anything unless it inspired them in some way. Similar to films name dropped in the show. Tw : for some dark themes .

This is just a quick little analysis I decided to do since we probably won't get any new st content today (3/22). Nothing too deep. Just mentioning things that caught my interest especially cause these plays have a lot of narrative connections to the st s4 movies I've been watching.

Invitation to a march (Authur laurents)

Reminds me of the stancy/jancy love triangle. "A young woman is having second thoughts about doing the right thing and marrying a respectable , rich, kind, young man with good prospects.By way of a prewedding diversion, this woman becomes interested in the passionate but poor and entirely unsuitable son of a local landlord.Basically, the plot concerns the efforts of Norma Brown to choose between a conventional fiance who "puts her to sleep" but is wealthy (like what her own mother did) or go for this new-poor guy. The play is principally interested in how this youthful love triangle affects the three mothers involved (whether the kids like it or not)

12th night (Shakespeare)

 - viola (el) wrongly assumes a family member (hopper) is dead. She dresses up as a man named 'cesario'. A girl named Olivia falls for 'cesario' (violet dressed as a man). "Finally, when 'Cesario' and Sebastian (violet's twin brother: assumed to have drowned - Will) appear in the presence of Olivia there is more wonder and confusion at their physical similarity. Taking Sebastian for 'Cesario', Olivia asks him to marry her, and they are secretly married in a church. Cough if Olivia is 'straight' cause she fell for Viola (as a doppleganger dressed like her twin brother).Mike being into el who multiple characters in s1 said looked like a boy and specifically like Will is...suspish and a hint he's not straight lol. just like Olivia they're both into guys . plus, this play just has a butt load of love triangles (ugh i hated that aspect). There was also romantically coded letters (which was in the s4 films) . One character is also thrown into an insane asylum and framed as 'insane'.'Pretending that Malvolio is insane, they lock him up in a dark chamber. Feste visits him to mock his insanity'. We all know the psych hospital will be narratively important- talked about it more here.

The seagull (Anton Chekhov-russian)

similar to how I believed s4 will show m*#even already broken up since the months between s3-4 : act 3 (s3) ends with Nina begging for one last chance to be with Trigorin before he leaves/moves away. They kiss and make plans to meet again in Moscow.And in act 4 there's a timeskip where it shows they've been broken up for a long time between acts- and its established they never actually loved eachother. Do i even have to spell out why this parallels the m*#even ending in s3? There is also a play within the play (this is common in a lot of the st films- they have plays- or a story within a story- which illustrate certain themes or emotions of the characters within said film : blackswan, children of paradise, highschool musical, Rushmore, book of Henry, welcome to marwen, never ending story, romancing the stone, wet hot American summer, etc).The play is Konstantin's latest attempt at creating a dense symbolist work. There is also alot of love triangles in the seagull. TW!: for se#ual ab*se/su*cidal thoughts/ inc*st (here and in other play segments). The seagull motif reminds me a lot of Jonathan's rabbit story.Konstantin romantically into Nina shows up to give her a gull that he has shot. Nina is confused and horrified . Trigorin sees the gull that Konstantin has shot and muses to Nina on how he could use it as a subject for a short story: "The plot for the short story: a young girl lives all her life on the shore of a lake. She loves the lake, like a gull, and she's happy and free, like a gull. But a man arrives by chance, and when he sees her, he destroys her, out of sheer boredom. Like this gull."  This immediately reminded me of jon's rabbit story and some of the movies on the s4 list . Like in forrest gump- Jenny (who is poor) was se*ually ab*sed as a very young girl by her father. As a child she runs away into a field-away from her alcoholic father yelling at her -there she prays that she can "be a bird so I can fly far far away" .

Jenny as an adult struggles with this unresolved trauma- being with ab*sive partners, doing dr*gs, and having su*cidal thoughts . She as an adult when contemplating su*icide, jokes 'you think i can fly like a bird ?' while looking down at a bridge.God-i'm worried about jonathan (Jenny was also a musician sort of like jon). In another s4 movie example ' mystic river ' :(in the 80s) a preteen baseball playing boy is r*ped by men in the woods. He later says he wishes he could become an undead monster to not feel the pain of that experience - cause quote " if I'm not human anymore maybe the pain will stop" (Will) . slightly off topic but he also has another personality, imagines a alternate word that dissappears when he turns his head. And as a less direct animal parallel to the play - the boy from the film also imagined his perpetrators as monsters and wolves to cope.In 'getout' the photographer character sees a dead deer in the woods and it represents a parent/his own childhood tra*ma relating to his past. similarly in 'prince of tides' the 2 siblings as kids were ra*ed by men. The older brother remembered it and the younger sibling developed DID (so didn't remember but she would draw wolves- as the perpetrators/villains in her picture stories she created . In the film they also had an ab*sive dad and were very poor. She also tried k*ling herself multiple times-but started to get better after remembering the source of her pain and trauma.  There is also the theme of multiple attempted su*cides in the play- and the play ends with yet another attempt- and the audience is left unaware of the artist's fate at the end of the play.

The tempest (Shakespeare)

Prospereo - (the perceived antagonist) is a wizard with monstrous looks, storm powers , and ability to create monster-dogs

He wants revenge on a man who tried ra*ing his family member & revenge on his other family member who wronged him years ago. I mean... pretty much my did theory.But in the end.Prospero decides to show his enemies the mercy that they did not show him twelve years earlier. He tells Ariel to bring the men to him, he will restore their sanity and then renounce magic forever.Prospero breaks the spell that the men are under .

Diary of a scoundrel (Alexander Ostrovsky-Russian)

-  I suppose this could loosely relate to Jonathan? Glumov, is a young man from an impoverished family lacking status seeking entrance into society's pampered class. A 19th-century Russian scoundrel must scheme his way out of his meager life in a small apartment -whatever it takes.He has a quick mind and some talent for seeing through the hypocrisies of people around him ( Jonathan does make a lot of social critiques about society). That gives him some advantages. A tale of one man's mission to finagle his way into upper-class society and find a cushy job. Set in 1874, this social comedy follows Glumov, a Russian youth who begins his ambitious ascent to social esteem. He progresses by wit, guile and rhetoric. Pitting one stupid person against another, he soon gains his ends. To reach these goals, Glumov will lie, flatter, and cater to the vanities of the wealthy. Unable to contain his disgust with his victims, Glumov decides to relieve his unvoiced satirical comments by recording his schemes in a diary. But he is tripped up by his uncle's wife, to whom he has made passionate love on his way to success. At the end of the play, his diary is stolen and his duplicity exposed, but he can nevertheless suceeds. The author is much more critical about the high society itself than about the main character, so the play keeps attracting generations of directors by opening possibilities for political criticism while also avoiding naming names of the current rulers.The play's aim was to overthrow bourgeois tradition and establish a class-conscious art called eccentricism giving a deliberately comic portrayal of reality.

I suppose I notice some possible commonalities-  besides s3 critiquing the wealthy/capitalism in comedic ways . jonathan since s1 has worried about his family's finances / had some resentment toward the rich . In some of the s4 movies ‘orphan’ & ‘ girl interrupted’ someone reads their diary out loud to get at them (in girl interrupted the winona character’s diary even had critiques of her new friends).  Alot of movies also have someone (usually a teen/young adult) making a documentary about their life -which could narratively replace said diary? A few movies have a poor guy adjusting to snobby rich social circles (or being poor and then getting money)- titanic, kingsmen, karate kid, the craft , godfather,  wardogs,into the spiderverse,flashdance, and many others . And movies like wardogs has a poor-young-character do shady things to finacially support his family . There’s also that whole uncle’s wife thing- which makes me uncomfortable for obvious reasons (but I’m just thinking of Lonnie’s creepy gf who was into him). A few movies had the guy’s step mom innappropriately hit on him- orange county & you got mail. And him trying to avoid her advances. Or...not to mention ... it may be a problematic coincidence /trope. But in enter the void -the guy who needs to finacially support his sibling/ does dr*gs -hooks up with his dr*g dealing friend’s married mom (who would give him money).  Or in gilbert grape- the poor teen-who has to finacially support his siblings/single mom-has his endgame relationship be a girl his own age. But before that he h*oked up with a married woman -who would give him money. Don’s plum -young film guy-propositioned by older female film director (for dream job). Not even mentioning the other films that have the guy hooking up with toxic older women (like ‘the graduate’). Or analyze this-where the therapist accuses him of having an Oedipus complex (not touching that one... but the guy in ‘enter the void’ a 100% had one). It’s possible those movies were just- inspo for s3?  A coincidence? Or s3 was foreshadowing for this in s4- but unlike s3 it will accurately be played as wrong  and a sign of Jonathan recreating past tra*ma caused by Lonnie (cough like the photos) /being desperate for money. And not played ‘comedically’ like how it mostly was in s3. But shown as self destructive  (for Jon) and immoral on the Woman’s end. Like... Billy and Jon are character foils. Both are older siblings into rock music, with ab*sive dads who shoved them into walls. Both lose it (and beat steve to a pulp when Steve accidentally triggers their daddy issues). In s3 it’s established womanizer Billy has mommy issues, than he tries ho*king up with someone his mom’s age, and the characters ref ‘back to the future ‘ and Steve incorrectly says it’s about “alex p keaton trying to bang his mom.” This could illustrate his subconscious issues with parental figures/adults cause of Lonnie’s  possible past se*ual ab*se . One film the friend even says to the guy “you don’t have friends!” guy b: i have friends! him:  no you have acquaintances! ADMIT IT! YOU’RE AFRAID OF MEN!I mean-Jonathan liked Nancy- but he initially hooked up with her cause he wanted to prove he didn’t have ‘trust issues’ from his dad. Also it’s prob a bit of a reach (and maybe a coincidence)- but the fact Murray in the same breath compares Steve (Nancy’s then bf) and Lonnie  ... uh... if you think too long about it ... it’s very sinister .  Especially because in s3: muray tells Joyce  that despite her wanting to be with a nice guy, she’s curious about “the brute” Hopper despite him reminding her of a past “bad relationship”(aka Lonnie). Like- yeah connect some dots.  Quite a few films (other than forrest gump) also have the character who (as a kid) was  r*ped by their dad/parent-  begin to do dr*gs/be pr*miscuous as adults since they never learned to properly cope with their trauma (’girl with the dragon tattoo’,  ‘black swan’, and ‘magnolia’). Unfortunately the whole relative doing such things to kid-relatives is in at least 30+ movies. 

Personally, i would be MUCH happier if Jon had a age appropriate romance- and had not a single creepy adult near him. A few movies actually imply Lonnie gets yet another ‘new model’  replacing his gf in her 20s with a new gf- who is ‘barely l*gal” and just turned 18. so there’s that possibility as well- that she’s jonathan’s age.I just want Jonathan-happy &safe. GOD. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?

[thoughts-on-bangtan]

Three Asks

It’s been a while since we answered some asks so today and maybe tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, we’ll collect some and answer them since we’ve gotten while a few in the last two or three weeks.

In today’s post I picked out the three most recent asks we’ve received, two of which are ones I’d usually just delete because answering is pointless but one of them showcased a popular pattern so we decided to reply just this once. So this time around the questions are about Namjoon and Seokjin, next time we’ll do ones about Tae and Jimin (and vmin), and so on.

Ask 1 - Did Namjoon have to bring up the criticism he received in 2015/16 in the Juju Chang interview?

Ask 2 and 3 - questions from either diet solos (someone who isn’t quite a solo stan just yet but exhibits the same thought patterns as solos do) or full on solo stans.

From anon: So you must have seen their interview alongside the President right on a news show? Most of it was fine and I liked how involved they were especially JK, but a point Namjoon made is what I'm kinda dicey about. He addressed that they were called out for WoH lyrics but the thing is I'm not sure if it needed to be brought up. Especially in American media and the way they contextualize things..

Obviously he meant that they grew from it but not sure if that was the way to put it I guess?

I will admit, there aren’t many times when asks that get sent to us annoy me, but this one in conjunction with the absolute nonsense that took place about this on twt just made my blood boil. Let’s look at the question and answer so we have full context when it comes to the interview and then, after that, we’ll look at the greater context of why Namjoon saying what he did is significant and a big deal.

Juju Chang: You guys are an all male band and, let’s face it, Korea, historically, has been a very male dominated culture and yet here at the UN one of the core values in Sustainable Development is educating women and having gender equality. You have a lot of female fans. What would you say to them about gender equality and working towards that?

Namjoon: Personally, I received a lot fo criticism regarding misogyny in 2015 and 2016, which led me to get my lyrics reviewed by a women’s studies professor. That experience, in turn, was an opportunity for me to self-reflect and question whether I’d been insensitive toward gender equality. I want to do the best I can to take interest in the topic, learn and make improvements. That’s my perspective now. 

Namjoon used a personal story as framework to showcase that even someone like him, a man in a position of power/influence from a country which, as the interviewer explained, is very male dominated can learn, grow and, in the long run, contribute to change. It takes tremendous bravery to do something like this, to not only admit that you made such a mistake, but also to take it and grow from it, take the time to reflect and strive to better yourself to never repeat it again. And also talk about doing so not only during an international broadcast but also while your own president sits right there next to you.

Perhaps there are a relatively big number of countries in the west where equality is much closer to being a reality, where it is a core value to respect woman, one that you are raised with, but here the context was specifically BTS and their background, their country and their culture. From K-ARMY we know that things have taken a turn for the worse in Korea when it comes to women’s rights and the behavior of men toward them, how feminism is treated essentially as a dirty word and you will get hunted down for using it or for behaving in a feminist manner. Namjoon himself was placed on some list made by misogynists labeling him as a dirty, dirty feminist. The same men who even went after the military to get them to stop using a hand gesture which could, if you really want to, be used to make fun of a man for a small d*ck. In polls men in their 20s and 30s have voted being against feminism and I don’t mean just like 10 or 20% of voters, but rather 50-70%, even some presidential candidates have apparently been revealed as anti-feminists.

Circling back to Namjoon, having this context, do you now get why it was a big thing for him to say this, why it makes him a role model and why it was important to do so? Besides this isn’t just about the WoH lyrics which, to be frank, were never an actual issue but instead were made into one (the line I know that usually get’s brought up most is “The girls are equations, and us guys are solutions” which, if you think about it, actually means that boys and girls are equal since 2+5=7, the equation and the solution are the same, and also the song is satire about hormonal boys and their behavior which people have decided to ignore for the sake of sitting on their high horses instead). Namjoon wasn’t even the only member credited for the lyrics yet he took the blame upon himself, used this to better himself even though we know 2015 was an extremely dark time for him. But he is the leader, he took responsibility and he grew from it. He stands as example of how change is possible even in a country that is male dominated and misogynistic.

From anon: Reading your post about My universe I can’t but be heavy hearted. 

It’s such a beautiful song but Jin not having almost any lines ruined the experience for me. He deserves so much more than being a mere backup vocal. Same goes to Jimin but I’m not as effected as Jin, since we’ve all seen a pattern there. 

We know the boys decide collectively decide LD and how it fits their personalities and voices but I can’t but feel icky about Dynamite, not today, BS&T and now MY. 

I truly hope this doesn’t continue and BH decides to respect Jin more as an artist. He’s one of the biggest reasons the group is where it is now.

Though I can’t say with 100% certainty that this comes from someone that has consumed too much solo stan “content”, it does very much feel like it and the only reason why I’m even answering this is that I’d like to highlight something, a pattern we've seen a million times over for years now in regard to line distribution but that is even more glaring and flawed in this case, after we’ve seen how My Universe was recorded:

“We know the boys collectively decide” and yet “and BH decides to respect Jin more”, with this you’re basically saying that you know all the members, including Seokjin, are involved BUT since giving him and the others slack for it would make you look bad, you instead throw blame at BH, which in this case had no say in the line distribution. That choice was Christ Martin’s to make. If you already complain about line distribution, at least have the guts to direct your hate at the people you just said yourself make the choice--the members. Solos already belittle Seokjin’s efforts as it is, and constantly demand an acting debut of him which basically, to me, just comes across as them wanting him to act because they don’t value his singing and music, so would it be really that farfetched for them to also hate on him for, what, not speaking up and demanding more to satisfy you?

Seokjin was so happy and excited while recording My Universe, while meeting Chris Martin, someone he’s admired and been a fan of for so long. He gave his best while recording and sounded absolutely marvelously, and yet instead of celebrating him, his voice, and what we do hear of him, you just focus on the negatives.

BH isn’t perfect by any means, don’t even try to come into our asks calling me a company stan or whatever because I’m far from it, but in this case they had nothing to do with it. Coldplay and Chris Martin did. We saw all the members record the chorus, and we heard it, we saw and heard Seokjin sing absolutely beautifully and get praise for it, and we saw how happy this collab has made him. Why can’t you just let this be a happy time, why must you immediately search for things to be negative about?

Would I have liked so hear more of his voice on My Universe? Obviously, I even said as much in my post about the song. I love Seokjin and his voice a lot, he is my bias wrecker for a reason. But the song has already happened, been recorded, mastered, and released. What will a negativity parade change? What? Absolutely nothing except for make him feel bad because you can’t just say “Seokjin did amazingly, I love his voice”, no, you have to go around yelling “OMG he is being cut from the song because BH hates him”. What does that do for him? Like really, tell me, because I don’t get it.

And if my opinion isn’t valid enough for you, it is, after all, just an opinion, take Seokjin’s opinion about the collab instead:

Or asks such as this one:

From anon: I honestly can’t wait for Seokjin to go solo one day. Go where he’s appreciated for his talents and musicality, not cuz he’s just a “hyung” or “comic relief” or “WWH”.

Where, tell me, has he ever expressed an interest in going solo? No, I’m serious, where, because all I know is that he is happy with his members, with what he does, that he enjoys making music and getting more involved than he used to. Just the other day during the interview with Juju Chang he spoke about how he misses the old times where he could go for soju and food with Yoongi to spend some time together.

And just a few years before that Yoongi said that Seokjin has been good from the beginning, and there are tons of other examples of the members praising Seokjin in terms of his voice and musicality. When he was going through burnout last year, Bang PD encouraged him to channel his thoughts and feelings into music, recommended him a producer he thought work well with him, and Seokjin said it really did help him. And we got Abyss as result from it all, a gorgeous and raw song. 

Yes, he gets praise for being a good hyung, because guess what, he is a good hyung. Maybe for you that’s not good enough, but he’s proud of it, has always taken the fact that he’s the eldest seriously even when goofing around with his members. How is that a bad thing?

Seokjin loves his members and they love him. Seokjin loves ARMY and we love him back tenfold. Just because solos hate the members and aren’t satisfied with Seokjin, how is that my issue or even his? If you’re a genuine fan of his, support his hard work, support all his contributions to BTS’ music, their performances, their dancing, and everything else. Because he is part of BTS regardless if you like it or not, and as far as we are aware, he doesn’t plan on changing that any time soon, or at all. 

[mrmallard]

There's a lot of talk rn about how The Satanic Temple are making headway in protecting abortion under religious freedom laws, and on one hand it's like "fuck yeah satanism rules" in a funny irreverent way and it gives people hope in a hopeless situation and stuff - but on the other hand, there's more to The Satanic Temple to consider before jumping headfirst into representing their party line.

This isn't a knock against Satanism, like I live in a culture that's been heavily influenced by Christianity and I value the philosophical and satirical values of Satanism as a counterpoint to a powerful institution that informs my day to day life. I'm interested in Satanism.

Rather, this is a knock on The Satanic Temple as an organisation.

I follow a blog called queersatanic who's one of four people being sued by TST. They've basically been hit with a SLAPP suit, and in lieu of having anything to go forward with, The Satanic Temple are stretching the case out for as long as they can to inconvenience these people. queersatanic does a lot of coverage on TST.

Here's the thing about The Satanic Temple:

They fucking suck in court, and they pull stunts like this to get eyes on them for the sake of getting more funding and more members.

This whole "abortion as a satanic ritual to use religious freedom laws against the people abusing them for conservative means" angle is a fun thought, but there's no precedent in practice. The Satanic Temple has gone to court twice about this, and they've lost both times.

And yet they advertise on this idea, like "become a Satanist to have an abortion under religious freedom laws!", despite knowing full well that's not a reality yet. It might never be a reality, because they keep losing in court.

If they can do that? That's a net good. I'm not shitting on the ploy itself, if it goes through I'm going to be happy. But for all their bluster, it hasn't happened yet and they've already tried twice.

The reason why this is such a sticking point is because they have a history of being litigious for the sake of bothering others, or to get attention. As much as it might serve a noble end, this is free advertisement in the same way their failed Sabrina lawsuit was.

Much like the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina lawsuit over the Baphomet statue, I think this is a publicity ploy. It's a scummy org using the situation as a recruitment drive.

Here's why I think that's the case.

A while back, The Satanic Temple tried to advertise that by joining the temple, your right to reproductive health would be guaranteed under religious freedom laws. The billboard company they went to said that they wouldn't put the ads up, because they weren't accurate.

The Satanic Temple sued them on the grounds of religious discrimination.

They tried to advertise under false pretenses, and they sued when they weren't allowed to. And it got them a bunch of coverage.

queersatanic and a bunch of other people are kicked out and sued for making pro-BLM posts on TST accounts? Not a peep. One is good publicity, one is bad publicity.

Speaking up about their efforts to make abortion a religious "ritual" in the wake of Texas's criminalisation of abortion? Good publicity.

Like I don't doubt that they want abortion being a religious freedom under the TST to be the case, and if they can get this through the courts, it's undeniably a blow to the religious right who've criminalised abortion. But I don't have faith in The Satanic Temple, because I think they're a shitty org doing this for attention and potential revenue than anything else.

And on that note - Doug Mesner, known professionally as "Lucien Greaves". One of the co-founders of The Satanic Temple.

In 2013, he was on a podcast to discuss a reprinting of a book called Might is Right. This book is popular in white supremacist circles, and The Satanic Bible - a book attached to an earlier form of Satanism known as LaVeyan Satanism - takes a lot from it. You can read about this podcast here.

During this podcast, a man named Tom Metzger comes on and starts dropping a ton of antisemitism.

Tom Metzger was in the KKK. I say "was" because he died recently.

He explicitly says "if you're Jewish, I'm not breaking bread with you", then starts talking about bloodlines. Doug Mesner tries to defuse the situation by calling himself an Aryan king, and then lets his co-host's wife talk at length, uninterrupted, about how she thinks the Holocaust is overstated.

Later on, Doug Mesner begins talking about eugenics, which he supports. His co-host's wife starts dropping blatant racism towards black people off the back of this. No-one moves to refute this or be like "woah", they just let this shit air out.

This co-host was Shane Bugbee, who's a co-founder of The Satanic Temple with Doug Mesner.

So we have a guy shilling for a book that's big in white supremacist circles, talking to a KKK member about holocaust denial and how it's okay to hate jews - direct quote from Doug Mesner, by the way - who also expresses support for eugenics. We have another guy whose wife is a virulent racist and holocaust denier.

These men started the Satanic Temple. These are its figureheads. And they can say "that was in 2013, I'm not like that any more" - but they had a pro-eugenics website up until 2017, and they kicked four people out of the group and sued them on trumped up charges following a string of pro-BLM posts made on social media. Those four people are still in court.

And like I get it - the thought of a group using religious freedom laws to legalise abortion is a beacon of hope in a very dark time for reproductive rights. But I'm making this post because people should be more informed on The Satanic Temple. It's a measure of hope, and I don't blame people for latching onto it. But this is a situation where you should look behind the curtain a bit.

Like I said before, I'm cool with Satanism. This isn't a refutation of Satanism - I think it's a really cool philosophy, and I think the stated goals of progressive satanic orgs are great.

Satanism makes for a great troll against the religious right, and you can use Satanism to criticize and dissect institutional religion. And yet there's nothing explicitly theistic or anti-theistic about Satanism - it's not a cheap trick you can pull to justify bigotry, though I'm sure that there are people who do. Satanism is basically a postmodern take on religion. I'm into that.

But The Satanic Temple has a lot of baggage that people should know about. This push to make abortion a religious act is one way of fighting a tyrannical piece of legislation that's completely fucking evil, but let's look at The Satanic Temple's track record. Because it belies a shallowness, a kind of shock-jock mentality, mixed with hypocrisy.

Love the action, hate the org. That's my stance on this, and this post has been an explanation of why I feel this way.

[dramaticviolincrescendo]

So. Ryan.

I’m going back to s4 for a minute because the wonderful @damngcoffee and I were discussing fleeting yet fascinating Ryan, and I wanted to put my thoughts out into the universe. I hope you don’t mind.

I’ve never thought too deeply about the dynamic between Ian and Ryan before. Even in planning out “In Pieces,” analyzing Ryan’s motives wasn’t strictly necessary because it’s not really something Ian would pick up on based on his perspective in this situation. Ostensibly, it’s quite simple: during his club days, Ian is swinging with a new and visibly elegant circle in a drastically different part of society than he grew up in. That’s why Mickey is so out of his element there, whereas Ian expertly camouflages himself the way he always has. On the surface, there’s nothing out of the ordinary here. Just a party. Just Ian, manic and feeling on top of the world and in his element. Just another red flag missed amidst a sea of them. What happens at the party, however, really seems to potentially indicate that there’s more to this and more to Ryan as a character than merely acting as a clever setup for Mickey to indicate that he and Ian are officially in a relationship.

Up to that point, all we’ve seen surrounding Ian from Mickey’s point of view are real slime balls—older men preying on someone that they don’t necessarily realize is underage, but they definitely know is very, very young and vulnerable. There’s the lap dance guy, the one who can’t run to save his life, and the dude who’s just asking for his fingers to be broken one by one. Mickey alludes to two in particular over breakfast that first morning, and when Ian mentions a regular inviting them to a party, Mickey is focused on a rather specific image of what one of Ian’s regulars must be like.

Then they go to Ryan’s loft, and...it’s classy. Sophisticated. This isn’t a raucous after-party, but a very different atmosphere, full of upper-middle to upper-class ladies and gentlemen who are clearly professionals. Many of them are in suits or dressed nicely, having a late-night drink and speaking tastefully. They’re also substantially older than Ian and Mickey, who are only nearing seventeen and nineteen respectively at the time. These people have careers and, in the case of the sociologist Mickey speaks with, are working on advanced degrees. The only visible drugs are the ones on the table in front of Ian while he’s asleep the following morning. This isn’t the kind of party that we’d expect, knowing where Ian is mentally at this time like we do.

We tend to focus a lot on what Mickey’s response to all this is, but I’d like to use it as a diving board for analyzing a few dimensions of Ryan’s character that appear to indicate that, through the encroaching darkness of Ian’s as yet unacknowledged illness, there are people who are possibly watching out for him. So, here are a few things that stand out about our encounters at Ryan’s loft:

Ian says that Ryan is one of his “regulars.” Based on what we’ve seen so far, this immediately has us thinking there’s a level of sexual interest on Ryan’s side, even if only as something of a voyeur who enjoys watching Ian dance at the club. There’s no physical manifestation of that interest, though. Ryan noticeably doesn’t behave like the skeevy guys we’ve already seen, Ned included. That doesn’t exclusively mean that he’s on the up-and-up, of course, but I found it worth noting that their hug is just a hug, and he doesn’t step out of his role as a cordial host for a second. He treats Ian the same as he treats Mickey: with kindness and social acceptance, albeit with more familiarity. And when Ian goes with him to see what drinks are available, there aren’t any apparent undertones. Ryan immediately heads towards the open kitchen, and Ian follows at a polite distance. Host and attendee—those are our initial vibes as far as Ryan is concerned. It’s jarringly different from our other forays into Ian’s current lifestyle.

Enter the sociologist. What a fascinating individual for Ryan to interact with. He immediately asks if Mickey is with Ian, which is nothing special in itself and serves as a way to engage Mickey in conversation without simply asking what he does. The fact that he moves into that, however, is very interesting to me because he’s so straightforward about it. It’s not an interrogation, yet there’s an element of investigation to it. Perhaps he’s just a curious guy making conversation with someone who looks uncomfortable; perhaps he’s familiar with Ian from these parties and is doing a bit of research into who it is that Ian brought with him, as it is arguably the first time that’s happened. Either way, what he says that he’s studying is a “blink and you’ll miss it” sort of reference. It also flies under the radar for anyone who isn’t familiar with the field of sociology. We end up like Mickey: lost and confused by “transgender sex work and symbolic interactionism within the framework of hustler-client relations,” but generally understanding that he’s studying sex workers and pimps—emphasis on the sex workers. Something we know Ian was at the time, working the front and back of the club as he later admits.

Now, for the uninitiated, symbolic interactionism is a theoretical perspective in the field of sociology that focuses on how our social interactions with other people, social institutions, and the world around us both facilitate our construction of reality and alter or solidify our perceptions of our existing reality. While there are many directions his study may be taking him in, this sociologist is writing a dissertation on the meaning that is made between hustlers and clients—what symbols emerge that define each side, their roles, their meaning to one another, the dissemination of the values and norms that guide their relationships, etc. In short, he’s studying the socially constructed meaning of the relationship that specifically transgender sex workers and pimps have with each other and their clients.

On the surface, that has no bearing on this situation. Mickey’s confused, and it’s an ironic bit of writing to connect him to this group he’s uncomfortable with by showing that South Side Mickey is the pimp that the upper classes of society are studying for their Ph.D. It’s pure satire, a brief commentary on just how different classes of society can be and perhaps even a nod to how lower classes are inside the fishbowl that upper classes are peering into but will never truly experience. To the viewer, however, what a sign that may be, depending on your interpretation. Ian has clearly been around this group of people enough that he’s known. They’re familiar enough with him to say that he’s great and how lucky Mickey is to have him. If Ryan is one of Ian’s regulars, then they know where he came from. They know he’s young, and they know what he does for a living right now. There’s no way this sociologist—studying what he’s studying, asking what he’s asking—doesn’t have some professional interest in Ian’s circumstances. Enough, perhaps, to check in on who this person he’s brought with him is. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t read so much into that, but this isn’t the only time it happens.

The next morning, Ian is asleep and Ryan chooses to wake Mickey first. He knows Mickey wasn’t comfortable with him the night before, which I thought he handled with a lot of grace and good-humor. In most cases, I’d expect more disdain, but not with Ryan. It’s interesting, then, that he didn’t go to Ian first given their familiarity. Sure, he knows Ian worked the night prior. He may just have impeccable manners and want Ian to sleep a bit longer. If he’s a regular, he knows Ian needs it. (He probably also sees the drugs on his coffee table and figures he definitely needs it, but I digress.)

So, he wakes Mickey. He makes a casual joke. Then, when Mickey says he’s not Ian’s keeper, his demeanor shifts just slightly. His expression grows hesitant—tentative, like he’s been meaning to ask something but hasn’t quite worked up to it. For someone who should just be a regular, who shouldn’t care much outside of Ian dancing, whose interest has been that of a polite acquaintance thus far, his gaze is more intent than I’d have expected as he waits for Mickey to tell him if he’s a boyfriend or if he’s someone who is a one-night deal. Are they together, or is Mickey just a fleeting fancy for Ian?

Are they together, or is Mickey taking advantage of this very, very young sex worker that Ryan has conveniently invited to his home after work instead of him going home with some stranger?

Are they together, or is Mickey some stranger?

When Mickey says they’re together, the intensity ebbs and casual Ryan is back. He offers a contented reply and heads off to get breakfast for Mickey, still not knowing what Ian wants. If that was his prime motivation for approaching them in the first place, wouldn’t he have woken Ian up at that point? Wouldn’t he have completed his task of taking breakfast orders? It makes me wonder if that’s not why he woke Mickey at all. It makes for a good excuse when he was delivering food to others who stayed overnight, but the more I rewatch their interactions, and the more I read into how dissonant his position as “a regular” and his behavior are, the more I wonder if there’s something else to Ryan.

A regular who doesn’t seem all that interested in Ian as anything other than an acquaintance—a person, not a dancer or object like literally everyone else in Ian’s new life that we’ve seen so far.

An engineer and photographer Ian says with absolute certainty doesn’t want or expect anything from him.

A professional with professional friends who are studied in the fields of sociology and sex work.

A man somewhat older than them who checks in with Mickey—after someone else has already done so and discovered that their sex worker guest is there with a self-proclaimed pimp—to inquire after his relationship with Ian in a relatively non-invasive manner.

Ian was taken advantage of by so many people as a kid and especially during his initial spiral. I’ve always thought of this as being a lonely time for him even though he certainly felt like he was a part of everything and surrounded by all the wonders of the world. He abandoned the military and his dreams. He flitted into and out of Ned’s home. Monica flitted into and out of his life yet again. His family wasn’t looking until Lip’s hands were tied by the MPs, and even then they were almost immediately distracted by the situation with Fiona and Liam. Mickey was married and seemingly out of reach. He’d left his friends and connections behind.

But maybe, just maybe, there was a guy who saw him at work and saw him. Maybe there was a guy who was a little older, a little more educated, and a little more savvy about the scene Ian was involved in when he noticed this kid dancing on a stage in a place he had no business going to.

And maybe this guy decided that he’d look out for this kid who was in way over his head, indirect and not at all obvious about it, yet someone who cared at a time when Ian unknowingly and unintentionally had to rely on the kindness of strangers.