#because if he somehow avoided it in 2017

[usafphantom2]

Legendary Pilot Bob Pardo, Who Pushed A Damaged F-4 With His F-4 Over Vietnam, Has Died

December 20, 2023 Military Aviation

Bob Pardo

Bob Pardo in a 2017 photo by Senior Airman Ridge Shan. In the background, Pardo's Push in an artwork by S.W. Ferguson.

Bob Pardo passed away earlier this month at the age of 89. With his Phantom, he pushed a crippled F-4 outside the enemy airspace in one of the most heroic missions in the history of military aviation, known as “Pardo’s Push”.

“Pardo’s Push” is the name of an incredible maneuver carried out during the Air War over North Vietnam that, over the years, has become the symbol of heroism and a demonstration of courage and contempt for danger.

March 10, 1967.

Captain Bob Pardo is flying in an F-4C with Weapon Systems Officer 1st Lt Steve Wayne. Their wingman is the F-4C flown by Captain Earl Aman with Weapon Systems Officer 1st Lt Robert Houghton. The two Phantoms of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing, based at Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand, are assigned the task to attack a steel mill in North Vietnam north of the capital Hanoi.

During the approach to the target, both F-4 is hit multiple times by enemy’s anti-aircraft fire. The North Vietnamese flak causes significant damage to Capt. Aman’s aircraft whose fuel tank begins to leak fuel forcing the crew to abort the mission. While hit too, Pardo’s F-4 is able to continue its mission.

On their egress route, at 20,000 feet, Aman and Houghton determine that they do not have enough fuel to reach a tanker or Laos, where they could eject and avoid capture. Although his F-4 is still efficient and has enough fuel to reach a tanker, Pardo decides to remain with his wingman.

At a certain point, while still inside North Vietnamese airspace, Aman’s Phantom flames out. To save Aman and Houghton, Pardo decides to do something he believes no one has ever done before: he attempts to push the other F-4 to Laos.

Initially, Pardo tries to push the other F-4 by gently making contact with the drag chute compartment. However, turbulence interferes with the maneuver and after several failed attempts, Pardo opts for an extreme solution: he instructs Aman to lower his tailhook, then he positions his F-4 behind the other Phantom leaning his windscreen against the tailhook. The contact is made but the “solution” is quite unstable and, as a consequence of turbulence, Pardo needs to reposition his F-4 every 15 to 30 seconds. Nevertheless, the push works and rate of descent of Aman’s Phantom is considerably reduced.

As if the situation was not complicate enough, Pardo’s F-4 suffers an engine fire, forcing him to shut it down.

Try for a second to visualize the situation: a flame-out F-4 is somehow pushed by means of its tailhook by another F-4 powered by a single engine. In enemy airspace. Incredible.

Ezoic

Pardo pushes Aman’s F-4 for another 10 minutes until his Phantom runs out of fuel too. With both planes safely inside Laotian airspace, at an altitude of about 6,000 feet, the aircrews of both F-4s ejects (they will be rescued by SAR helicopters and evade capture).

Although he saved another aircrew, Pardo was initially reprimanded for not saving his own F-4. Until 1989, when the episode was re-examinated and both Pardo and Wayne were awarded the Silver Star.

Retired Air Force pilot Lt. Col. Bob Pardo poses in front of a static display model of an F-4 Phantom II, one of the many fighter aircraft he has flown, at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., Dec. 12, 2017. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Ridge Shan)

Pardo and Aman both continued serving and retired from the U.S. Air Force in the rank of lieutenant colonel. Years later, after learning that Aman had lost his voice and mobility because of Lou Gehrig’s disease, created the Earl Aman Foundation that raised enough money to buy Aman a voice synthesizer, a motorized wheelchair, and a computer. The foundation later contributed to raise funds to pay for a van, which Aman used for transportation until his death. In other words, Pardo never left his wingman behind, not even after retiring.

Ezoic

Noteworthy, as told by John L. Frisbee in his 1996 article for Air Force Magazine, Pardo’s push was not the first time a U.S. pilot pushed another jet out of enemy airspace: in 1952, during the Korean War, fighter ace Robbie Risner pushed his wingman out of North Korea in an F-86. However, pilots were ordered to refrain from attempting the hazardous maneuver again, and the episode had faded from memory and was almost completely unknown within the Air Force by the time Pardo and Wayne pushed Aman and Houghton outside of North Vietnam’s airspace.

Bob Pardo passed away aged 89, on Dec. 5, 2023. His courage and ingenuity, along with the legendary “Pardo’s Push“, will be remembered forever.

About David Cenciotti

David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

@Aviationist via X

[edenfenixblogs]

I don’t think most non-Jews understand how disappointed we are in the left right now. How completely abandoned we’ve become. How our contributions to progress for other groups have been erased or disavowed or hidden. How the actual tangible things that Jews have contributed to black rights and civil rights are being ignored. How we’re being told we contribute and have contributed nothing.

How we are being told that the world has been kind to us when it never has. As if my mom didn’t grow up getting called a Kike and getting beat up for being Jewish. How I thought I had friends until I caught them saying “xyz was beautiful until Jews showed up.” How people told me I was pretty “for a Jew.” How I grew up hearing stories about bombs being set off in Israel in buses and markets. How I couldn’t even go two weeks without hearing that and how nobody cared and somehow, every time that happened, the whole world became more hostile to me for some reason.

I just don’t understand. I don’t understand what leftists are doing. Or why. I hate that I have to say—of course, I support a free and self determined Palestine (which I truly do)—in order for you to decide I’m worthy of care and support.

We showed up for you. All of you. And the entire movement is abandoning us at best or targeting us at worst. Celebrating our deaths. Saying we deserved it. How are we supposed to trust you ever again? How are we supposed to feel safe ever again?

A very few select people who are in my life have taken the chance to actually learn about and dismantle their own unconscious antisemitism during this time. And I’m eternally grateful for them. But most people haven’t reached out at all. Most people are still sharing hateful things that could get me hurt and they don’t care. Most people Reblogging my posts are still Jews. Because we are alone. And it sucks. You need to be as loud about antisemitism as you are about Palestine or you’re an antisemite (unless you’re Arab/Muslim/Palestinian—I totally get that these groups are also doing damage control in their own communities just like Jews are).

But we are all in tremendous pain right now.

This moment will pass. And when it does, I will remember how many people let me down. I will remember that when I needed support more than I’ve ever needed it in my life, people fucking vanished. They pretended violence against my people wasn’t happening. They ignored and rewrote the history of Israel to suit their own narratives.

You don’t know what it feels like to be hated this much for opposite things. PoC hate us for being too white. White supremacists hate us for not being white enough. Europeans hate us for being middle eastern. Middle easterners hate us for being western/European. Everyone hates us for being settlers but continually kicks us out of their countries so that we have to settle somewhere else.

I saw a post going around from a Black person who said that the reason he and his fellow black activists go protest for Palestinians instead of fighting antisemitism (as if it’s a binary, which it’s not) is that Jews don’t show up. Muslims and Palestinians do. And honestly? Fuck that guy. Heather Heyer died standing shoulder to shoulder against racism in 2017. [CORRECTION: When I first wrote this post I was under the impression that Heather Heyer was Jewish. I want to correct to avoid spreading misinfo. She was just the first (and incorrect) Jewish civil rights activist I thought of. However there are plenty of other actual Jewish civil rights activists to choose from. If you have reblogged this post from me, please feel free to add a link to the permalink version of this post with my correction to your reblog.]I have devoted substantial time and effort and money that I don’t even get paid a lot of because I don’t get paid a living wage. I have continually reached out to PoC people in my life of all religions to ask how they are doing and what I could be doing to help more—both for them personally and how they would best like me to help their community. I have elevated their voices at every opportunity. And not one person I checked in with has done the same for me or for my community.

And it’s bone chilling. It’s awful. And it’s even worse knowing that when it’s over, people will want to go back to normal. They won’t apologize. They won’t self reflect. They’ll just live their lives, maybe a little more aware of how much they hate us and completely indifferent to the harm they’ve caused us. How disposable they made us feel. And the thing is…it’s not hard for you to know. You just have to ask.

Too many people are cowards. Too many people care about looking good than actually learning something or making the world better. And to those people: you should be ashamed of yourself.

I don’t have any hate in my heart. Truly. Not a drop for any group of people. But I have a tremendous lack of trust that anyone would actually lift a finger to keep me safe.

[w3bgrl]

90 degrees!

synopsis: hyunjin and jisung, with a habit of arguing, make the poor decision of starting a fight the night before evaluations. not just evaluations - but evaluations for jyp’s new trainee survival show; stray kids. this doesn’t go over well for them, but in hindsight, it was the best decision they could’ve made that day.

date: circa late 2016 to mid 2017

word count: 1.3k

featuring: kang juyeon, hwang hyunjin, han jisung, bang chan, lee minho, seo changbin, lee felix, kim seungmin, yang jeongin

warnings: hyunsung being mean to each other

a/n: all members mentioned without shoehorning it in fuck yeah (also not sure how i’m feeling abt this -.- )

it was in the early hours of the morning when juyeon finally said “last time!”

the boys behind her sighed a mixture of relief and distain for their last run of the choreography details before evaluations. they had been polishing it up for hours now and the members honestly couldn’t see a difference in the moves anymore. yet minho, the skilled dancer who stood the closest to her in order to help with monitoring the weak spots, was the only one who actually seemed up for the last round. the rest of the boys were understandably exhausted and ready to be in their beds, but if they wanted to be the trainee group to make the show, they needed to be the best. and being the best took a lot of practice.

“minho, do you want to lead this one?”

the older boy agreed with a toothy grin and took her spot in the middle as she stepped to the side, squatting down to rest her legs while she watched. minho counted them in with the smile lingering on his lips and the second he began to dance a serious look plastered over his previously enthusiastic manner. it was like the choreography just took over - his aura totally changed.

juyeon pulled her eyes from minho’s obvious expertise with hopes that he would help lead future practices and focused for a moment on jeongin, eyeing the sequence he struggled with the most - but the jarring misstep beside him ripped her eyes away.

jisung seemed to have stepped on hyunjin’s foot during their transition and said something to him, resulting in hyunjin saying something back. juyeon huffed. hyunjin had a habit of somehow starting arguments out of nowhere, specifically with jisung. they had a hard time getting along most of the time and had a few altercations in the past, such as the time hyunjin may or may not have ‘accidentally’ spilled his drink on jisung. but because of their frequent quarrels juyeon had gotten good at putting them in their place - especially when they’re doing the last runthrough.

“excuse me.” she used a stronger voice than usual to make sure they heard her but not loud enough to disturb the members actually doing the choreography. however, the arguing pair were too caught up in their tantrum to think about the other people in the room and continued making remarks toward one another.

“i wouldn’t have to dodge you if you could do it correctly” hyunjin snapped

“boys.”

jisung’s lip pulled into a sneer, “oh, yeah, cause you’re such hot shit.”

“better than you, that’s for sure.”

“hey.” juyeon was now speaking in her chest voice, projecting enough that the other members were stealing glances while still trying to keep up with practice.

“at least i can rap! it’s a real good thing you’re pretty because if not you’d be nothing more than a backup dancer your whole career.”

jisung’s retort was finally the last straw, as now she was more angry that they were ignoring her. juyeon stood, and for the the first time ever - even for chan, the members heard her shout.

“hey!!”

the bickering boys whipped their heads in her direction, as did the ones who had been practicing diligently. all eyes were on juyeon as she walked in quick, swift strides to the door, holding it open with an unfaltering glare toward the accused.

“go.”

still steaming from the words exchanged, jisung and hyunjin slumped out the door, hands in pockets and gaze avoiding the older girl. juyeon then shut it behind them swiftly without slamming it on the hinges leaving the rest of the boys with their mouths open.

“i’ve never heard her shout before” changbin muttered

chan sighed and rubbed his eyes with the back of his thumbs. “me neither”

the boys fell completely silent as they listened in to hear her scolding them. but honestly, the more they tried to listen, the more they couldn’t really hear anything.

“what do you think she’s saying?” seungmin asked openly for anyone who had an answer

“probably laying down the law.” minho chuckled and took a gulp of his water “i wonder if she’ll come back without them.”

silence fell over the room again as they leaned in to listen once more. still, nothing. with a grumble from his stomach, felix pulled his attention from the door and sat on the floor next to his bag with sweat still dripping down his temples. he really never thought he’d ever see juyeon so mad - she was so well-mannered and typically pretty peaceful. all he could think is how relieved he was to not be on the receiving end of her discipline. maybe she wasn’t so scary, but having let her down would be enough in itself.

little did he know - his intuition was stronger than he thought.

juyeon stood wordlessly in front of the younger boys with her arms folded tight against her chest, eyes more annoyed than enraged. babysitting is tough enough, it’s even worse when they’re moody teenage boys.

“noona, i have to look out for him -” juyeon interrupted him.

“i don’t care. i didn’t ask.”

hyunjin’s courage fell along with his gaze and he opted to watch the laces of his shoes instead.

“listen to me.” the older girl spoke with such authority “i don’t care what happened or why it happened, and i also don’t care what your problem is with each other.” she divided her stern glare evenly between them “what i do care about is this team, and there is no room for whatever your problems are. if we make-”

juyeon completely stopped for a second before correcting herself “when we make evaluations tomorrow and go to the show, we are proving to jyp that we deserve to debut together as a team. and when we do, you two will get to be together every minute of every day for at least the next 7 years. so here are your choices: you can either apologize to each other now and resolve your issues by tomorrow, or you can let the trainers know that you will not be attending the evaluation. does that make sense?”

the boys nodded silently with their eyes down, hoping - praying that juyeon would just lighten up a bit. it was very uncommon for her to be this…unfriendly - it was very uncomfortable. she didn’t look like she had this brazenness in her, and yet the younger boys now cowered before her. still, she stood in front of them expectantly.

“well?”

jisung was the first to speak as he hadn’t been directly berated like hyunjin did. “right now? i-in front of you?”

she nodded.

jisung and hyunjin looked at each other with an emotion that couldn’t be described in one word; a mixture of annoyance, cowardice, shame, and regret. in unison they began to say sorry, tipping their heads toward each other in a weak excuse for a bow - at least in juyeon’s book.

“90 degrees”

the boys heeded her word and quickly bent at the waist, the crowns of their heads nearly knocking each other as they bowed.

“thank you.” she let out a breath, the stern look on her face ceasing just a hint. she then nodded toward the practice room “now for them, too.”

the crack of the practice door being opened stopped all the boys in their tracks, halting conversations between the members as they all waited for the culprits to emerge.

jisung entered in front of hyunjin while juyeon stepped off to the side. the humbled boys walked toward the center of the practice room with pink cheeks from embarrassment. they looked akin to puppies with their tails tucked between their legs. together, they bowed - 90 degrees - to the members.

“sorry for how we acted. it won’t happen again.”

the rest of the boys were stagnant until the pair stood back up and all eyes shifted to juyeon who had waited quietly with her hands clasped in front of her. once she noticed everyone looking at her, she bowed as well.

“i’m sorry for yelling. i shouldn’t do that.”

jisung and hyunjin took note of her 90 degree bow.

[jowrites]

"If I buy a car, will you take me on late night drives?" - Part 2

Jake Sim x Fem!Reader. Where 2 neighbors befriend one another because of his dog, and she doesn't have any friends.

Part 1.

TW: LOTS of fluff, Isolation(?), mentions of being a lone(r), mentions of parent death

You were very odd indeed. It’s not like anything was really wrong about you, just social cues and norms weren’t your expertise and so you avoided it as much as you could. Growing up, your parents sheltered you. You remember how your mother would brush your hair at her vanity and express her unconditional love for you. How you were her precious doll and she needed to protect you at all costs. Your father loved to paint with you, every time you had painting lessons or piano lessons he would sneak in and join you, praising how his little Princess was doing so well. They were all you needed in life. When you told Jake this you avoided his eyes and he could see the tears start to spring in the corner of your eyes. He never pushed you.

He learned you were 2 years older than him and you actually went to school and graduated with a Master’s in Architecture. He was always shocked when you mentioned little facts here and there, especially your age as you seemed to be like this lost child, always curious and not aware of the dangers of the world. He had built this incredible sense of wanting to protect you always, and longing. It had been 7 months now and he was feeling himself fall deeper and deeper every time you were around. He just didn’t know how to break that barrier he knew you put up.

“Do you have any other dreams?” he asked you. The two of you were sitting next to each other drinking beer on your balcony. It was late at night and the moment Jake got home he ran straight to you wanting to just soak in your existence. 

“Hmm, yes. I have them here, hold on!” You quickly got up and ran inside, he watched as you scurried around looking in a drawer before finding a small journal. It looked extremely worn out so he figured it must be pretty old.

“My dad gave this to me on my 10th birthday, it was right before they got in their accident. He told me it was a dream journal and I’ve been writing in it since,” you held it out to him and he took it from you opening the first page.

Sell my first painting.

On this very day October 23, 2017 I sold my first ever painting to Keith Boulder. Mom and dads longtime partner. Thank you, Keith!

Move out of the Estate.

On this day January 1, 2018 I am moving out of the Estate. Jonah said it would be good for me and he helped me make arrangements to leave. I’m going to miss everyone but I can’t stay here anymore. Everyday I’m reminded of them and I need to get out before I drive myself mad with grief. Here’s to the next…

Play Bingo at a Casino.

Get my license.

I realized something: I hate driving!

Own a pet snake.

I got a snake. It somehow escaped. Don’t know where it went. Lesson learned: don’t get a snake.

Touch a cloud.

Make a new friend.

Her name is Layla. And Jake.

Have my first kiss.

Go to Paris.

Paris is a lot dirtier than I thought it was going to be, the people are pretty mean too. Was a bit disappointed but the Countryside was beautiful and next time I’ll just spend my time there.

Fall in love before it’s too late.

‘Fall in love before it’s too late’. Jake looked over at you and saw you looking out into the City. He could easily check this off for himself, but this was your dream and he hoped he could fulfill it someday just like he did with some of your others.

“You lost a snake in your apartment?” he asked.

“Yeah, it just went poof! Gone,” you shrugged.

“How?” he raised an eyebrow, suddenly looking around scared the snake would show up now and attack him. That’s just his luck.

“I don’t know. It’s been like 3 years, I never see mice or rats around the place so I assume it’s doing well just…being a snake, I guess,” you said.

“You guess? You mean to tell me it could still be alive in this building?” He couldn’t believe it.

“Hey, the risk you made when moving in,” you shrugged it off.

“Yes, a very strange neighbor and her lost snake was something they must have forgotten to mention,” he said, making you laugh.

“You are very much welcome!” You smiled, finishing off your beer and taking his and drinking his as well.

“And she takes my things!” He liked to joke, you always laughed at his jokes and it was better than seeing you cry so he wanted to make you laugh as much as possible.

“Hello??? JAKE!!!!” Suddenly the two of you turned and looked towards your door. You both could hear banging and his name being called by voices you never heard.

“Oh, shit!” Jake quickly got up and walked out into the hall, you soon followed suit. 

“Ah, there you are!” One of the men said.

“You lived there? And we have been banging on this stranger's door! Oh I’m so sorry to whoever lives there,” one of the other’s said.

“What are you guys doing here?” Jake asked, suddenly opening his door for them to go inside.

“We wanted to surprise you, wait, so you do live here?” The other said.

“Oh! Are you Y/N?” One of the guys pointed at you, realizing you were present.

“Oh, so you DO exist, we were starting to think Jake was seeing things,” the other jokes.

“No, you’re seeing things. I don’t exist,” you played along giving them a sly smile.

“Guys, this is Y/N, and Y/N this is Sunghoon, Jay, and Heeseung,” Jake introduced.

“Jake talks about you all the time,” Jay said.

“He literally doesn’t shut up about you,” Sunghoon chimed in.

“It’s nice to meet you, Y/N. Don’t mind them, they can be annoying,” Heeseung came over and held his hand out for you to shake. You gave him a fist bump instead, causing a bit of confusion.

“You can’t just show up unannounced, next time call or something,” Jake said as everyone ushered into his apartment. Layla was with you the whole time and you silently took a seat on his couch just watching Jake and his friends. 

They began rummaging through his kitchen looking for things. They brought things to make dinner and Jay looked like he knew what he was doing so you trusted him for now. Jake almost forgot and looked around suddenly before spotting you on the couch. He gave you an apologetic smile and you smiled assuring him it was okay. He really did not want his friends scaring you off.

“So, Y/N, how’s our boy Jake over here? Is he treating you right?” Jay asked and Jake mentally face palmed.

“Oh no. He can be quite annoying sometimes, like for instance he doesn’t leave me alone,” You started off and Jake’s eyes got wide.

“Hey! I can say the same to you, Missy! You literally wake me up sometimes so I can drive you around, guys she doesn’t drive so I have to drive her,” Jake defended.

“Yeah, but you promised me you would and so you have to no matter what,” You said back. 

“You’re just as clingy as I am! Guys yesterday I was in the shower and she literally just came in without a hi or hello! Just barged in while I was taking a shower. Who does that?” Jake said.

“I told you I just found out Betty White died and I was grieving!” You defended.

“She died years ago!” Jake spoke up.

“Wow, you two are cute!” Heeseung said.

“Are you sure they’re not married?” Sunghoon whispered to his friends.

“Mhm, tell me more, Y/N, how he is! Love to hear it,” Jay nodded as he was chopping up some vegetables.

“What else is there? Jake is my best friend,” you shrugged and Jake immediately got soft. “He doesn’t leave me alone but I like it. I got to him because I want to be around him. He brings me food and paints with me, he drives me around because he knows I don’t like to drive. I know I am not that easy to get along with and I’m very weird. I don’t know how to talk to people and he doesn’t judge me. He’s always nice to me and makes me laugh. He eats meals with me and lets me play with his dog. When he has a hard day he doesn’t complain and still comes and hangs out with me. What else is there to say other than he’s the best person in this whole world.”

It got quiet and everyone suddenly stopped what they were doing and looked between you and Jake. Your eyes were on Layla as you petted her and Jake’s eyes were on you, soft and full of love. He suddenly walked over to you and grabbed your hand and started walking out, “Be right back!”  walking you two across to your apartment.

“Did I overstep? Sorry, I just-” You began to say but Jake cut you off.

“No, no you didn’t. I’ve had feelings for you for a while now, Y/N, I’ve been completely head over heels and I had been so afraid to tell you,” he started to say and your heart skipped a beat.

“You have?” you whispered.

“Yes, yes. I wasn’t sure about you and your feelings but now I am, you like me too,” he said.

“I do? How do you know?” you asked.

“I didn’t until a minute ago, but now I’m sure you feel this spark too,” Jake said. “Let me in. Let me love you.”

“Okay,” and that was all Jake needed before crashing his lips to yours. The kiss was soft and sweet, Jake didn’t want to be overwhelming but it took everything in him to hold himself back. You kissed him back and he kissed you with passion hoping you could feel his emotion. You began to giggle and he pulled back, putting some of your hair behind your ear.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“You made another one of my dreams come true,” you said.

“Oh, love, I plan to make many more of them come true for you.”

[noisytenant]

what was ur trajectory for getting into hardcore?

Short answer:

Vocaloid -> Tumblr mutuals give me a taste of hardcore -> hardcore touhou arranges and lolicore -> hardcore autism -> 4lung links me a copy of FL studio -> Perpetuates the cycle

Long timeline below the cut:

c. 2009-2011: get into vocaloid because a high schooler TA at art camp plays World Is Mine and a few other classics, and i think it's just the coolest thing ever.

c 2012-2013: still really into vocaloid. it's my special interest. finding myself enjoying electronic stuff but not knowing anything about genres. going on youtube deep dives, listening to anything i can find reuploaded off niconico. i have a bookmark folder from around this time with a good hundred or so songs in it lol

2013-2014: introduced to things like wolfgun, pendulum, and more experimental electronic like osamu sato by tumblr mutuals. some of my mutuals make their own music. they and quite a few others i follow are into lapfox but i never went out of my way to listen. the callout drops and i have no idea what anyone is talking about but i avoid the subject.

i want to get into making music. i had a tiny bit of background when i was in elementary school, but i still struggle to read sheet music, i don't know shit about playing the piano, and i don't know what programs to use. i watch Cakewalk videos in mystified awe, unable to read anything on it. i am very bad at searching for information online.

somehow, i get myself into using UTAU, mostly just converting USTs, doing a little tuning, and trying to edit in Audacity. I start using Famitracker. While I struggle with the interface, I finally for the first time understand music. The process of synthesizing a sound makes sense for me, and I want more.

2014-2015: i'm into 8tracks and i like, like fucking, electroswing and glitch hop and shit. i'm just listening to random dancey electronic. i don't know. i liked the hotline miami soundtrack

2015: old vocaloid producers are retiring and moving on, the slump is starting to hit. i get a new computer, i deleted my old tumblr coinciding with losing most of the people i spent time with on there, i focus more on school. but i'm on twitter and soon i've remade my tumblr.

i start making new friends. i get invited to play nekodancer with one of them, and get introduced to their friend (hi ein). i think he put on like a goreshit song or a touhou arrange or something but it just really cracked my brain open.

i get into touhou, i get into touhou arranges, and this is when i meet gabber and breakcore. i'm also pretty into lolicore but i have a hard time talking about it due to it being called lolicore (oh, how time changes a person)

2016: at this point, hardcore is my special interest. i'm collecting things in youtube playlists, i'm getting really granular about genres. i'm slurping shit off of lolicore.ch

i want to make hardcore but i don't know how. i try doing things in sunvox to no avail. i try playing around in audacity to no avail. but the hardcore spirit is within me

additional events of note:

2016 or 2017: i don't know when or how i ended up finding out about 4lung, probably a twitter mutual. i like her stuff and she puts out a lot of it. the fanbase is friendly.

if you ask, 4lung will send you a pastebin with a link to FL studio, sample packs, and tips on getting started making breakcore. so i get FL studio. i'm still busy at school, but i make some practice tracks for assignments.

2017: i make the first E-R0 MAID.f track.

and then i just kept going. my music-related special interests wax and wane with my ability to focus on them compared to other things going on in my life but they never really fade completely. in early 2023 i started djing so that's brought it back.

so yeah that's roughly my trajectory thanks for listening

[goldensunset]

it’s breath of the wild’s 7th anniversary can i get sappy and vulnerable on main real quick cuz it completely changed my life

so it was christmas 2017 when my brother received a nintendo switch and breath of the wild. i remembered watching him play a bit the day he got it and funny enough my first thought back then upon seeing the opening cutscene was ‘wow this animation is janky’ because i thought we were watching an animated movie. the moment i realized it was a video game i was shook. bc for a game WOW how beautiful. anyway i watched him mess around and die horribly and it was funny but i didn’t think much about it

flash forward a few months later. in april of 2018- a nice spring day, must’ve been a weekend or some other time i had time off bc my friend was over- my brother came home from college and brought his nintendo switch and this game over. he had me make a file and i didn’t know what i was doing at all because i was not only unfamiliar with the game and console, but largely unfamiliar with the concept of this type of video game at all

see, i was not a gamer at all. i had played mario kart/party and some random stuff on the ds but nothing resembling an action adventure game aside from super mario 64 ds. and i never got past like the first level or so on that game bc i was bad at it as a kid and also like.. scared? of games? like a game in which you had to fight enemies and could take damage and die. even something really simple like a goomba was actively stressful to me somehow. (to this day i still kind of have the hyper-empathy mindset where letting the video game player die feels like letting a real person die i have to treat a fun work of fiction like a real life-or-death situation so i just prefer not to get into danger when i can avoid it. all that’s changed is i have the skill to face danger and accumulate ways to protect myself now lol)

soooo i don’t know what manner of madness convinced me to even try a game like breath of the wild, which is immensely more complicated and difficult than super mario 64 ds. but maybe it’s bc i was older then or bc my friend was over to help me and we were like trading the console? but you get what i’m saying. as one might expect, i was pressing the wrong buttons, getting overwhelmed by basic enemies, falling off cliffs bc i lacked precision skills in my motion, etc.

and as one might expect, i eventually got frustrated and bored. i remembered my brother asking me what my long-term strategy or plan was for playing the game, and that question sort of overwhelmed me because i was thinking ‘do i really intend to keep playing at all?’. when i put the game aside that day (after having only reached/fallen off the great plateau tower, i mean) i wasn’t really interested in continuing, and i figured i could probably never be good at it anyway.

but for some reason, and i wish i remembered why, i picked it back up again not long after. me, who had never been willing to commit to a game. maybe it was my desire to correct my failures and figure out what i was at last doing. i felt ready for a good challenge and i got the sense this was the sort of game that was more skill than luck. maybe it was the beautiful scenery and ambience. maybe it was that sense of peaceful melancholy. maybe it was because i could see so much on the horizon, so many mysteries around me, that i just had to be able to reach someday. in such a massive open world in which the plot wasn’t spoonfed to me but i had to discover it, my interest had been piqued.

or maybe it was because i was bored and depressed. i was close to the end of freshman year in high school, which had been pure misery. difficult to understate just how awful life was for me during that point in time (but it was just the terrifying cocoon stage of becoming a butterfly). so yeah, why not pick up a new piece of media? why not dive into this world? i think we all know just how powerful it is to develop a new interest when going through a rough patch- it can turn absolutely everything around. (even if it ends up distracting you from the work you need to do lol. but in my case i consider that a necessary tradeoff for giving me the serotonin my brain doesn't naturally produce enough of)

and i think there's something to be said about the medium of a video game, which was basically new to me at the time- i think it's something about the ability to have control over what's happening. in tv shows things just happen. in real life i felt like i had no control over anything. so i was suddenly able to express myself in a way that i had never gotten to before, and it was powerful. especially in an open-world game with so much to do and discover. (something something the adhd-er's wild fantasy of being able to complete tasks and make progress).

i quickly became addicted- i could play for hours on end and barely put a dent in the smallest section of the map. i couldn't believe how genuinely massive the world was and i just wanted to explore more and more, but without skipping anything i came across. i still remember in my mind exactly where i was in my house when reaching many of those early-game checkpoint places, curled up in a chair in the corner, listening to my mom make dinner in the other room... etc. the definition of nostalgia. (which is something i only have so much of given how most of my interests i didn't get into until significantly later in life. i was 15 when this was happening whereas most people's childhood nostalgia type stories are from when they were like 5 to 8. but this was such a foundational time in my life y'know?)

i remember hours of getting lost in the wilderness (i truly had the worst habit of either not getting the maps or not heeding them) and never going on the clearly marked roads bc i was convinced i could take a shortcut by just taking a straight line to my destination. which often involved attempting to scale a ridiculously steep and tall mountain with like one and a half wheels of stamina. live and learn, right?

i remember the way it took absolutely forever to reach zora's domain (the fact that i didn't get the tower map beforehand probably significantly contributed to that) so the absolute joy and relief i felt when i got there and was safe at last. i adore all the champions so much but mipha is for sure the one that messes up my heart the most to this day, as both the first one i got and the one with objectively the most emotional story. something about water levels has always unsettled me- no matter what, to me they're always associated with being cold, wet, and uncomfortable, even if it's supposed to be beautiful (and vah ruta sure wasn't meant to be for obvious reasons). especially if the player has to swim- whether there's limited breath or not, i can't help but imagine how stressful it would be to dive deep and be under pressure like that. but on the flip side, once you're finally done with those levels and back on dry land, it feels comforting. warm, dry and stable again- sort of like how you feel after you're finished crying. you had to endure the drowning and the suffering and now you're safe. that's how the vah ruta quest feels to me.

each new ruin, or quiet little settlement, really just lodged its way into my heart, but i think the location that makes me the most emotional is the flight range- its beautiful broken melody, the howling wind and snow, its position in the middle of the wilderness like a little safe haven in the mountains, the faint memory of revali... i used to just go there and sit for hours. it's just gorgeous and it hits so hard. once again, it's all about that quiet, solemn peace after a tragedy has occurred- the sadness lingers, but you learn to live again. botw just excels at this in pretty much every aspect, enough said

which comes to the central conflict of the premise- our titular heroine, zelda, and her struggles to complete her duty, her guilt complex, the pressure and loneliness she felt, etc. i have identified so closely with her for the entire time i've known her. (done a fair amount of projecting too but listen. listen) the way she felt weak and powerless and just wanted to find a way to make people happy, especially her overbearing father who didn't care enough for her happiness... that hit so hard as an emotionally volatile teenager with similar issues. to this day my dad only talks to me to nag me about something important i need to do but he's never cared about my personal interests. he acts more like my manager than my parent. throughout high school especially i just kept falling back to zelda's story every time my dad was being awful and i needed to escape him, listening to him call me lazy, behind the ball, etc when i was clearly going through severe depression that would have never even occurred to him. and while unlike zelda i still have my mom she's always been incredibly emotionally distant so there was no looking to her either. i blamed myself for everything that went wrong even though i never could've done anything without the kind of help i needed, similar to zelda

for me personally the theme of failing to succeed in the role other people were pressuring her into resonated with me and my undiagnosed... whatever it is. i am positive i am not neurotypical. i've always more or less self-identified as adhd (my parents would laugh if i suggested that) and i've never received support or treatment or anything. that plus the undiagnosed and untreated depression. the way zelda just couldn't do something that she had no idea how to even begin trying to do, the way going through the rituals that worked for other people did nothing for her... that hit hard as someone just barely trying to stay alive in high school, who always felt alienated from others and never could understand exactly why, who was bad at a lot of things... but my dad only cared about results

and in turn. the emotional catharsis of her finally unlocking the latent power she'd been struggling to reach inside her. it's never been established exactly what it was that was wrong with her that prevented her from unlocking it but i think we all know it had something to do with her heart not being free until the moment she had the courage to do something brave, dangerous, and important through her own free will- going against the grain, standing up for someone she loved, etc. that's an essay for another time tho. to me that's what makes it so powerful- yeah this (back)story is still a tragedy, but there's hope. she found her own path. she still had to undergo lots of suffering afterwards but she had what she needed to succeed. and she got her happy ending in the end. i probably don't need to explain why that's so meaningful to me as someone who loves her so much and relates too hard. also her dad died (i am NOT wishing that upon my dad to be clear). i mean for her that's a bad thing bc he did regret his actions and never get to apologize to her and she wishes she had gotten to see him again but also that's in the fantasy world where one could reasonably expect their father to change. i've kind of given up on that but maybe someday after we've gotten some distance... idk

in short. botw hits me like a truck with the way it brings you so, so low, in the pits of despair, and then brings you back up. not everything is fixed and perfect at the end, the characters who died stay dead, but they finally get to pass on and rest in peace. we free zelda. we bring back the most significant parts of link's memory. we watch the broken and scattered world begin to grow and breathe again. perfectly cathartic and hopeful and powerful for someone going through such awful things. i'm not out of the woods yet with all my ten thousand problems but i'm in a much better place now. i've typed way too many words here and it's still like not enough to express just how much this game means to me. i could go on forever and ever about the things i find objectively good about this game but this ramble was meant to focus on the subjective meanings i've found within it. breath of the wild has been nothing short of a blessing for me. thank you nintendo, truly.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I’m about halfway through the audiobook of The Holy Vible, the book that Elis James and John Robins published in 2018. It’s really varied, with each chapter being on an entirely different subject (they went with one chapter for each letter of the alphabet, which was a gimmick I thought I’d find annoying, but in fact find myself looking forward to seeing what they get into next every time they finish one). John wrote some of the chapters and Elis wrote others, but they both jump in on each other's chapters with little commentary.

A lot of it is, to be honest, not objectively great literature. Listening to Elis spend an entire chapter talk about how great his favourite band is is only interesting if you’ve listened to a lot of Elis James already, and you happen to really really enjoying hearing people tell you why they like their favourite thing so much. Luckily both those things are true of me so I’ve enjoyed this. I probably wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who’s not already really invested in their radio show.

Anyway, I’ve managed to hold off for a while on doing another post about how listening to John Robins is bringing up mental health-related stuff for me, but then I got to chapter L in this book, which they have rather convolutedly titled “Living – Grief Is” (because they couldn’t make “Grief Is Living” Chapter G, as they had to use G for Elis’ favourite band, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci). It’s a reference to episode 191 of their Radio X show, the time in October 2017 when John Robins came on the radio to explain how the night before, he got drunk alone in his house, ate ten bags of something called Space Raiders (I’ve Googled them, they’re like chips – crisps – I think), and decided he’d do some writing, but due to being too drunk just wrote the words “Grief is living” in a notebook and then found it in the morning next to the chips wrappers. This story caught on with listeners and led to a bunch of people emailing in with their stories of vaguely harrowing shit they’d done in the middle of the night after drinking too much.

I liked how many people connected with the story, because that’s pretty high up on my list of experiences I’ve had frequently but never tell anyone about (or wouldn’t have – now that I’m making an actual effort to stop drinking, I feel like I don’t have to try as hard to minimize how much I was drinking, and being freed of those mental gymnastics is one of the few upsides to what’s been a mostly shitty process so far). When I’m drinking I’ll hit a point where I’ll start feeling things more and think I need to share this, but also be conscious of how much I will fucking hate myself if I start sending anyone drunk messages (not that I never have done the drunk messaging thing – I used to do it a lot when I was young enough for it to be almost acceptable, like early twenties – but especially in the last five years or so, I’ve started getting so paralyzingly mortified at realizing that anyone could ever hear or read my drunk thoughts that I’ve started avoiding getting too drunk around other people and definitely avoiding sending any messages while drunk), so I’ll open a Word document and just type out whatever I’m thinking. And figure that if any of it makes sense in the morning, I can do something with it.

I also have the quite common habit of eating terrible food in the middle of the night while drunk, so that image – of waking up and finding wrappers from the shitty food you ate and something you wrote that’s harrowingly depressing but also cringe-inducingly stupid – is an experience I’ve had many times, leading me to immediately delete everything and throw everything in the garbage and try to forget I ever did that because I hate the person who did that. Somehow, waking up to find something I wrote in a Word doc about something that was making me sad – I somehow find that almost as mortifying as waking up to find I’d sent those thoughts to someone in a message, even though obviously writing stuff in a Word doc that I don’t send anywhere should be no big deal. But it’s always something I wrote about some emotional thing that’s there when I’m sober and that I try to be an adult and ignore, and then I see how horribly I laid it out when drunk, and I can’t stand to look at it. And obviously I also feel guilty for ordering Subway at 1 AM or whatever I did.

Like I said, pretty high on the list of things I have done regularly but don’t even let myself think about, much less share with anyone else. And it was kind of cool to hear John Robins recount a similar story, and then get all those other people writing in to say “Oh yeah I do that too.” I mean, obviously it’s a bad thing to do and all of those people should stop, and John Robins has stopped, and that’s good. But it is nice to hear it’s not just me. It’s up there with that one chapter from Michael Legge’s book, which described the specifics of a post-drinking morning in harrowing detail – for the most painfully accurate description of this that I’ve heard in comedy. And what do we look for in comedy, if not painfully accurate descriptions of substance abuse problems?

Anyway, John Robins named The Mental Health Chapter in his and Elis’ book Grief Is Living, because he explained that that story resonating with other people is an example of why it is worth sharing these things. I got to this chapter while on a break at work, listened to the first five minutes or so, quickly realized that this was far too emotionally heavy a thing to listen to while being at work, but by the time I worked that out it was too late, it had made me feel too many things. I did even really feel in a place to put on some other more lighthearted podcast, so I tried music instead, played the Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy album that was referenced in the chapter, which was a terrible way to try to make myself feel less emotional and more ready to work. The last session I had to run that day was a rather tough.

John Robins acknowledges early in the chapter that he feels awkward and a bit cringe-worthy doing a “Mental Health Chapter”, and I feel similarly about picking out “The Mental Health Chapter” as the one to make a Tumblr post about. Feels like it’s saying “This chapter is the really significant one in the book, because they Talk About Mental Health”, and I feel weird saying that. If it helps at all, this isn’t the first post I’ve written about that book. I actually wrote a really quite long post rebutting all of Elis’ points in Chapter F – Football, because he spends so long explaining why football is better than other sports and all he does is list things that can apply to any sport, football is not special because it has drama and excitement, that’s just what sports are, and listening to him explain the justification for Popular Team Sport Playing With a Ball And a Net Supremacy did make me feel a bit like I was back in high school having my objectively much bigger athletic accomplishments in a much less popular sport superseded on the announcements for the junior boys basketball team making the regional semi-finals or whatever. I wrote a long and detailed post explaining point-by-point why Elis’ argument is not specific to football and actually lots of other sports do that better, and then I looked at it, said “This is overly defensive high school bullshit”, and deleted it all without posting it.

So here’s my second post about the audiobook I’m listening to, and it is on The Mental Health Chapter, though I’m going to touch on the couple of chapters around it as well, because honestly the best cure for listening to something that makes you feel too many things is to write them down and say them into a void and then they’re gone and you can move on with your life.

When I got home from work, I re-listened to the first few minutes of that chapter, and I started transcribing as I listened because I thought I'd include some of it in this post. I didn't go in with a plan for how much to transcribe, and ended just continuing to write until I'd covered the whole introduction. So here's that:

When Elis and I began broadcasting together, it never occurred to me to be anything other than as honest with him on air as I was in person. If he asked me how I was, and I was sad, I would say so. If he asked me, “How was your week, John?” and I’d had a tough time, I might exclaim, “Awful!” before playing Green Day. It soon became clear that this wasn’t very common in the world of commercial radio. And, as a result, over the years, our Radio X show has contained many references to, stories about, correspondence concerning, all kinds of things one might place under the broad heading of mental health.

I must admit I’m even slightly uneasy using terms like “mental health”, or depression, maybe because I worry that other people – whether rightly or wrongly – might cringe, or tense up, or think, “Oh, this isn’t about me,” or, “I don’t want to hear someone being all open about stuff.” So thank the Lord for our old friend Elis James, who, with a common touch like no other, coined the term “the darkness of Robins”. Little did that man on the street know that not only was he predicting the title of the 2017 Perrier Award-winning show (sorry Fosters, if.com, lastminute.com – that’s what I’m calling it) – and, by extension, predicting that one day I would be crowned the funniest comedian on Earth (plus Australian support) – but he had found the only word I felt totally comfortable using to describe my vibe. (Note to self: potential game show title. Get Elis to pitch it to one of his TV friends?)

I was reluctant to write about darkness. I’m far more comfortable describing how it manifests itself, and then having a laugh about it. I would never want to suggest that my experience was in any way unique, or that my take on it was in any way authoritative. I think perhaps, what I feel most acutely is a fear that anyone suffering from any form of mental health problem may read what I write and think, “That’s not my experience. Maybe I’m even more unusual or alone or weird than I thought.” What I have learned is that the more subjectively one talks about such things – eg. “I ate ten bags of Space Raiders before writing ‘grief is living’ in a notebook” – the more people can see themselves in those stories. Yet, when you try to speak generally – eg. “Depression is like running up a hill through treacle” – you immediately exclude most people. Because our experience of mental health is as varied and individual as our experience of physical health. Just because I get pains in my left hamstring after long drives doesn’t mean your eczema isn’t real. (The sole downside of being one of the world’s most accomplished clutch balancers.)

I wouldn’t say I’m depressed, or suffer from depression – I don’t think I do. However, I do feel dark at times, and my general outlook and baseline mood is often one of darkness. I felt a connection to the word when I first heard Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s masterpiece: I See a Darkness. It’s a flawless album, and the title track speaks to me very personally, as I’m sure it does to everyone who has heard it. Have a listen, and then a read of the lyrics. It’s not as bleak as it first sounds. It’s a song of honesty, friendship, and hope. But it’s still sad, mournful, and dark. I love that balance. There is light in the darkness, but also darkness in the light.

There’s an interview with Will Oldham – aka Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – on music website Pitchfork. It’s a characteristically stupid interview, where, hilariously, the interviewer begins by asking why Will Oldham doesn’t like interviews. And, having heard his reasons – nuance impossible, detail glossed over, interesting topics rushed or edited, complex topics not pursed – he then spends the rest of the interview proving Will’s point. There’s a great bit where he asks if Will Oldham has had much experience of karma. He answers, “Tons and tons.” To which the interviewer simply responds, “Johnny Cash played I See a Darkness on his last album. What was that like?” I mean, come on! Maybe dig a little deeper into the interesting thing he just said. It’s like that bit in Knowing Me, Knowing You where Alan Partridge asks the racing driver if he gets bored of the same old questions, before asking, “When did you first want to be a racing driver?” Anyway. If you don’t want to be annoyed, don’t go on Pitchfork.

But there’s one really cool thing Will Oldham says in the interview. He’s asked, “Do you think that you’re more depressed than most people?” Which, speaking as someone who has given a few interviews over the last year, is a really horrid question – and I’ve had some stinkers. (No, it’s not about her and she’s not seen the show and yes, we do speak.) There’s no way out of that question without A) your answer becoming the story – eg. “Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy has depression!”, or “Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s melancholic persona all a lie” – or, B) sounding self-important. Answering either yes or no would make him sound like he thinks he’s somehow special, and separates him from his audience. If you fudge it, it sounds like you don’t want to engage with depression or mental health. And, in fact, it’s impossible to answer, because how do you know how everyone else feels? Such a dumb, unanswerable question.

However, somehow, the brilliant Will Oldham finds the perfect answer: “Not today.” I absolutely love that answer. I love it so God damn much. Because in one exchange, something of the experience of mental health is captured, without anyone claiming ownership of what that experience is like. Everyone has mental health – both positive and negative experiences of it. And everyone’s experience is not only different, but different day to day. In that answer, we have a world where everyone is depressed and not depressed. We’re all experiencing emotions in different ways, at different times.

First of all, I need to acknowledge that in the first part of that, John Robins says much more clearly and precisely something I took way too long to try to explain in a post I made last month, after I listened to him and Elis on the Comedian’s Comedian podcast, about why I like their term “darkness” so much. I like that they don’t set out to explicitly “talk about mental health”; they just tell stories about their lives, and those stories often (this mainly applies to John) involve things that indicate deviation from the platonic ideal of a psychologically healthy person. In 2014, Elis James made an offhanded comment about how John should someday write a show called The Darkness of Robins, cataloguing all these deviations because clearly they resonate with people.

The term grew from there, John started referring to his issues with the vague term “darkness” (ie. “Pretty tired this morning because I couldn’t sleep last night, woke up at 2 AM with a case of the darkness”), listeners started writing in to say this show has helped them with “the darkness”, and nobody has to actually say the words “mental health”. And as John acknowledges in that chapter, that can be a good and a bad thing – maybe in some ways bad because properly naming mental health issues can be important, in some circumstances. But I don’t think a commercial digital indie radio show has to be one of those circumstances where that’s required. “Darkness” is a word that makes it so much easier. It’s a word that can be used to include people who have a whole range of different mental health diagnoses, or multiple diagnoses, and who don’t want to get into all the specifics but do want to be included. And it includes people who are undiagnosed, and people who wouldn’t be diagnosed because their issues don’t meet clinical diagnostic criteria, but they still lay awake feeling terrible and would like a word to describe that.

It’s also a word that strikes the perfect tone. Obviously naming a show “The Darkness of Robins” is ironically grandiose, and there’s something just slightly ironic about it every time they use that word. Obviously they’re being a bit intentionally silly by calling day-to-day psychological struggles something as dramatic as “darkness”. But it’s only a very small touch of irony – just enough irony to take the edge off and make you feel like you’re not formally Talking About Mental Health, but not so much irony that it starts mocking or minimizing the struggles.

I said basically all of that in a post I made last month, and now I’ve said it all again here, and I enjoyed listening to John Robins say pretty much the same thing, but say it much better than I have, and confirm that I was reading it right. They really did hit on a good thing with that word.

I also find that last bit of the above quote really interesting, about the impossible interview question. I’m pretty sure a really difficult part of life is figuring out what bits of your experience are normal and what you should assume is an exception. I’ve gone through phases where I was convinced that everyone’s basically depressed, I don’t think anyone identifies as being “normal” or “happy”. And I’ve gone through other phases where I’ve thought everyone except me is basically normal and I have nothing in common with anyone.

I think during most of my twenties, I leaned more toward the former way of thinking, possibly because I spent most of my time around people who all had something so wrong with them that they felt best when doing a sport where they could literally throw themselves at other people and either physically overpower them or be physically overpowered and being able to do this five or so times a week is all that kept them functioning. If you spend all your time around people like that, you start to think any issues you have are probably normal, everyone has issues, I’m no more messed up than anyone else. On the other hand, last year I started an in-person job for the first time in ages, and either my coworkers are a lot better than I am at being normal and functioning humans, or they’re a lot better than I am at pretending to be normal and functioning humans. I suspect it’s a bit of both.

One time in 2019, my best friend and I had been in an argument for a while about something that does not matter now, and I went over to his house and we ended up getting into it again. He told me this was upsetting, and if I hadn’t come over we’d have avoided all this and would have both have enjoyed our evenings much more, so there was no point to doing this. I said that as shitty as this was, if I’d stayed home, I’d have just spent all evening feeling bad about how we were fighting and worrying about the issue at hand, so for me, this was an improvement on if I’d just stayed home. And he told me “Well that’s the different between us, because my default state isn’t sad. If we didn’t have this argument, I’d have spent the evening feeling fine, because I don’t just feel bad all the time the way you do.” We resolved that fairly unimportant argument pretty quickly, but that sentiment’s stayed with me. Most people’s default state is not sad. It’s possible that I am, in fact, more depressed than most people. Most days.

Not knowing whether you’re “normal” compared to other people isn’t just an issue when it comes to issues of darkness, either. I’m in that cycle of “I’m pretty sure no one is like me” and “I’m pretty sure no one is special and everyone is pretty much the same” with everything. Like people who identify as being really nerdy – we joke about that, but surely we know everyone jokes about how very nerdy they are, so no one is really more nerdy than anyone else, right? Everyone has the thing that they’re a big nerd about, and they think it makes them different from other people, but it doesn’t, because everyone else also has a thing. I mostly thought that, but in fall 2022, I got stuck in a meeting at work where they had an “icebreaker game” of saying your name and a topic on which you could easily give a 30-minute speech. You didn’t have to give the speech or anything, you just had to say what topic you could easily do. There were eight people besides me in that meeting, and seven of them said this was a really difficult question and they struggled to think of anything. One person said Taylor Swift, and that is fine because I am a very non-judgemental person who has no opinion on that (the last clause of this sentence was of course sarcasm, though to be honest, I do genuinely have more respect for someone who could take for 30 minutes about a subject I think is stupid than I do for the people who didn’t have that strong an interest in anything). Maybe that’s a sign that my level of nerdiness does significantly set me apart from most people. Or maybe all those other people were just doing the same thing I was, which is going through the massive list in their minds of subjects they could explain for half and hour, and trying to find one that wouldn’t sound too weird or niche, and not coming up with anything. I hope it was the latter.

I’m thinking of that Daniel Kitson bit where he said you assume other people’s mentalities are basically the same as yours, but then you remember that some people hang their coats up on a train, and the illusion of shared experience shattered. I really like that one because it’s such a specific thing, but he did nail it. I cannot imagine hanging my coat up on a train. It’s such a small, insignificant thing, it’s not against my moral principles or anything – it’s just something it would never occur to me to do. And yet, I have been on trains and seen coats hung up on those little hooks. Some people just go through the world differently from me.

I think the smallest, least important thing in my life that gives me that feeling Kitson was describing – that “Oh shit, the baseline assumption I made that we approach life in basically the same way is incorrect” – is when someone recommends some media to me, and then lets me know what paid streaming site it’s on, as though that will have any bearing on how I watch and/or listen to it. I think the biggest, most important thing that gives me that feeling is that some people have children on purpose. Some people out there think “I find getting out of bed in the morning and tending to my responsibilities so easy that I could probably still do it even if you added a lot more noise and stress, as well as a huge number of additional responsibilities, and raised the stakes to the point where an innocent child's life depends on me getting it right every single day for many years, even at this higher level of difficulty.” They don't just think they're mentally and physically functional and will likely stay that way for the next eighteen years - they're so sure of this that they think it would be fine for a child's life to depend on it. The massive gulf between my mentality and the mentality of a person who could do that – the deep fundamental level on which that gulf exists – makes me sometimes think I don’t have any common experience with almost anyone. And then I listen to a story about someone getting drunk alone and writing something stupid like “Grief is living” in a notebook, and I say “Okay, there are some common experiences.”

The chapter before “L: Living – Grief Is” is “K: Keeping it Session”. This is John Robins’ expression that means sticking to session ales when drinking, which means under 4.5% (basically, weak beer). He goes into great detail about how this improves both the experience of drinking, and your life in general. It’s another thing I’ve described before on this blog, which is that it’s a sneaky thing that seems like it promotes responsible drinking, but actually it’s just a sign of a drinking problem, someone who loves the act of drinking alcohol so much that he’s found a way to make it last longer, because if each drink is weaker then you can have more of it, all else equal. That chapter made so much sense as I listened to it, and I was thinking, once again, that maybe I could try this as a way to satisfy alcohol cravings. Until I got to the very end of the chapter, which I’ve also transcribed:

Having banned spirits in my house from April 2017 – due to factors – the power of my moral hangovers has lessened. Yes, I still have the odd cloudy day that I have to write off, and spend ignoring the self-doubt and seeking emergency crying nooks in central London. (Unused studios at Radio X HQ are an absolute Godsend for any tearful digital DJ caught short welling up in public – for example, after watching the film Arrival at a central London cinema in Jan. 2017). But these days are rare. I have had to admit that spirits, rum especially, had a large part to play in the end of every relationship I’ve ever been in, numerous shame wells, and all my major career failures/plateaus, 2007-14. But I’ve now reached a happy medium where, by sticking to session ale and having the odd day off booze, marked in red Sharpie on my official Queen calendar, I’m genuinely able to enjoy my drinking and my life. So, go forth, dear friends. Spread your alcohol over longer nights, extended chats, and deeper nooks. Forgo wasteful units, erase shame from your mornings, and keep it session.

That bit reminded me that – oh right, this is all bullshit. That is a man who, since writing that, has admitted he had a significant alcohol addiction that was not, in fact, resolved in 2018. That man just explained to me, in 2018, that he has now figured out his drinking habits and is able to do it in a healthy and responsible way and it’s all fine. That’s just lying, I’ve done it too. I don’t know how many years in a row I’ve said “I think my drinking was reached problem levels last year, I’m glad I have it under control now.” Don’t take alcohol advice from people who are lying. (I mean, obviously cutting back is better than not cutting back and drinking weaker alcohol is better than drinking stronger alcohol. I just mean, if you’re having ten drinks in a night on a regular basis, there isn’t a way to make that a good idea, no matter how much I – and apparently John Robins – would like there to be. And if an alcoholic tells you there is a good way to do that, they're probably lying.)

Later in the Grief Is Living chapter, John Robins gets more into discussing how mental health problems manifest and what he’s learned about how to deal with them. To his credit he is very careful about this, he keeps saying he’s not an expert, his experiences will not necessarily apply to anyone else, and the vast majority of his actual advice consisted of referring people to experts, or relaying things he’s learned from experts.

He breaks down lifestyle things into categories that he tries to take care of for the sake of mental health – food, sleep, drink, exercise. And then goes into detail on each one, acknowledging that sometimes you can’t get it all right and sometimes people aren’t capable of following advice on this and sometimes it’s not enough, but it tends to help. He then added that while this doesn’t apply to him, the other big everyday lifestyle factor in mental health for half the population is menstruation, as a huge number of people find their mental health fluctuates significantly with that cycle. And then he talks about how many women he’s known who suffer horribly from this and how they try to manage it, and gives some advice about taking it to a doctor if it’s bad and demanding to see a specialist if you get brushed off or told there’s nothing they can do because it’s not right that women are expected to just “live with it” when there are medical treatments that can help with that.

This of course made me think of the routine in his 2014 Edinburgh show, about his girlfriend’s PMS/PMT. I wrote about this before too, how I do see where he was going with that. The routine is less bad than any one-sentence summary (like the one I just wrote) could make it sound, because he was clearly trying to be more nuanced than just “women be crazy on their periods”. He was approaching it with sympathy for how frustrating those feelings are for the woman experiencing them – but at the same time, he was also making a joke about how those symptoms look odd from the outside. Sara Pascoe did almost the same thing in her show LadsLadsLads – said she suffers from clinically bad PMT and then told some stories about times that led to getting emotional in ways that were amusingly disproportionate and that looks odd.

Obviously, the giant, glaring difference between the two situations is she gets to make that joke because it’s her experience. I guess it’s a double standard, but it seems fair enough given the trade-off of who has to actually live with it, that people who get periods are allowed to make the joke and people who don’t should be very, very careful if they try doing the same thing. John Robins was more careful than most cis men throughout the history of stand-up have been, when it comes to writing a “women be crazy on their periods” routine. But still, not careful enough. That routine is the bit of Robins stand-up that I think is least defensible (aside from that other bit about Sara Pascoe at the end of Darkness of Robins – it’s fine, she hasn’t seen the show and they do speak, it’s hopefully fine and he hopefully ran it past her), I cringed through it when I re-listened to his 2014 show recently and I think including it was a bad call. However, I do like that hearing this bit in the book confirmed the way I read that routine, which is that he doesn’t actually think the primary victims of people suffering from PMT are their male partners. That he was trying to talk about how it’s a genuine issue that people suffer from and that sucks for them, but also, we can make lighthearted fun about it! He just… didn’t do it nearly well enough to justify touching a subject that has such a terrible history of cis male stand-up comedians being dicks about that.

Anyway, I don’t want to get into detail here (or anywhere, talking about it makes me extremely uncomfortable and that sort of thing is why destigmatizing and normalizing discussions about it are good, ie. a cis man including it on a list of lifestyle factors that affect mental health because it’s a huge one even though it doesn’t apply to him – normalizing it through jokes in stand-up sets is also good, but probably best to leave that to the people who experience it), but the fact that I have this cycle every month has a significant detrimental effect on my mental and sometimes physical health, as well as in some ways my overall quality of life, and I appreciate hearing it mentioned so casually. To be honest, that’s another situation where I used to think I’m worse off than most people, but now think I’m not. Every person I’ve ever known well enough for them to have told me about their experience with that cycle has had horror stories that should not be normal, but given how common they are, I think that is normal. My ex-girlfriend had that issue described in the book, of doctors brushing off her terrible, abnormal symptoms because this is just what women are expected to go through. My mother had an emergency hysterectomy at age 48 after experiencing so much blood loss over so many years that it gave her permanent disability issues, and it took until that point for anything to get done because women bleeding a lot is assumed to be normal. It is a good thing to talk about and differentiate between common and normal, I think. Sorry about the tangent, I just figured I’ll package all my oversharing in this one post and then we can move on.

I need to get into another part from later in the Grief Is Living chapter of the book, when John Robins talks about the gambling addiction he used to have, and relays some things he learned from the Gambler’s Anonymous meetings he attended for a while. He explained: “I haven’t gambled since the sixth of December 2002. If you’d told me, on the fifth of December, 2002, that I would go sixteen years without gambling, I would have thrown up at the horror of that idea. Slash burst into tears, slash started gambling.” I wrote out that quote just because I found it helpful. Thinking about giving something up forever is overwhelming and impossible and will immediately make you turn to that thing just to cope with the thought of living without it forever. But you can do it a little at a time and someday it’ll add up.

I’m going transcribe one more quote from that chapter:

My point here is this: You are enough. You did something. Too often, we feel like we aren’t in control, aren’t capable of things. And it doesn’t matter whether it was writing a symphony or emptying the dishwasher, you did it. And hold onto that for dear life, because when it’s all you can do not to bang your had against the wall, or stay in bed all day, or drink into oblivion, emptying the dishwasher is a symphony. And it’s with these small, seemingly insignificant handholds that we can begin to pull ourselves out of the swamp.

I included that because it made me think of that blog he wrote for Chortle (which John and Elis' book described as "comedy's Bible/menu/tabloid", which I found quite funny), during the 2007 Edinburgh Festival, that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. I made fun of one particular entry in it, which I mostly stand by, because it was so fucking pointlessly intense in such a Classic Robins way. Firstly, he writes glowingly about a Phil Kay show he saw:

It does begin, however, with some of the most beautiful prose I’ve heard in a comedy show. So much so that I have to take out my notebook to write down the statement “the law of love says ‘you are enough’”. Unfortunately Phil sees me do this and takes me for a reviewer. “He might be a journalist” I look up “bang, you’ve missed a bit of the show” he says. I’m wearing headphones round my neck and he riffs on that for a while then moves on. But by now my face is burning and I become his point of focus after delivering set pieces. I feel terrible for the pressure he now seems to think he’s under when there is no need, “I’m not a reviewer Phil! I’m a fan! I’m a worshipper!” but I stay quiet, sit back, and enjoy his remarkable talent. I was going to give him a review, just for neatness, but I don’t think you can really review his shows, just him. He walks a line of personal confession that any self proclaimed storyteller, myself included, is simply miles away from. Of course it’s an intensely personal thing, but for me, as nice as it is to make badges, this style of comedy is where i find hope for the new wave, or whatever you want to call it. The amazing thing is that Phil’s been doing it for nearly 20 years.

So adorable, so annoying, so pointlessly intense, so pretentious but earnest, so sweet – a 25-year-old inexperienced comedian taking out a physical notebook during a show because he was so moved by the line “The law of love says you are enough” that he just had to write it down. But then, he writes about how the night unfolded later on:

After the Zone, which pretty much sold out and was really good, (a high point was Carl telling a woman with an annoying laugh ‘it’s like being heckled by the Lilt ladies’), we went to the Brooke’s Bar. It was rammed and hot. I met a person I’ve not met before, and it was he who made me realise that Phil Kay is not the only one off up here this year. I won’t mention his name because of what transpires later, but he’s like a cross between Chris Morris and Peter Cook circa ‘Derek and Clive get the horn’, drunk, breakdown era, vitriolic Peter Cook. He’s bounding about the bar vomiting all forms of obscenity out onto an unexpecting audience, save those who know him, who reliably inform me that this is normal behaviour. It’s ‘what’s the worst thing you can say to a stranger’ stuff, captivating as much as it is abhorrent. When it crosses the line into straightforward assault I keep my distance. But he reminds me of me, in a way. Not the assault, but the tractor beam of desperation to perform that throws you round a room of strangers and leads you to ruin their evening.

First of all, I need to acknowledge that this does not sound anything like Chris Morris. And I know Peter Cook had issues, but surely there’s a less dramatic simile than that, that John could have used to explain that some comedian was being a dick in a bar. Anyway, the story escalates very fast after that. Weirdly fast. The guy who is not Chris Morris or Peter Cook leaves, and then John and his friends leave, and they find the guy again in a chip show, where he's shouted verbal abuse at some locals and picked a fight with them.

He is chased out by 6 or 7 very rightly angry men, they knock him to the ground and begin to beat him. It’s the kind of thing you only imagine doing when you’re brain won’t sit still at night; “God, imagine if I shouted ‘Fuck you all’ at a funeral, or went to a Millwall game and called them all fags”. It’s not just social suicide, but increasingly physical suicide that I am watching. As the punches and kicks are thrown we wade in to stop the trouble, in the slightly awkward position of being totally sympathetic with the people who are kicking the shit out of him. One minute they were buying chips, the next being called “foreign cunts” and being told to “speak English” in their own country. He didn’t mean these things, but says them to achieve the desired effect: self destruction. As Burgess said, and never truer than now, “destruction’s our ode to joy”.

As we break it up, and shelter our colleague away from the gathering crowd, tears fall from his battered face, and now I properly see myself in his little boy lost eyes. I know that burning need to feel something, anything, other than what you’re feeling inside. In a former life I’d have put my fist through a door, or smashed a bottle or jumped through a shop window, something more controlled than letting half a dozen drunk Scots administer the punishment. “We need to get on top of this”, I say to him, and beating in my head is that statement, like a fucking beacon; “the law of love says ‘you are enough’” to be honest this guy is more than enough. But somehow I need to show him that like Phil suggests, he himself, is all he needs to do whatever he wants. That release, the blessed release that comes from being half killed by an angry mob can be found inside you, the law of love says so.

You definitely should not shout racist abuse at people who have graciously allowed thousands of annoying performers and tourists to take over their city for an entire month (though you also shouldn't beat people up in the street even if they deserve it, and if you see other people beating someone up in the street you should try to stop it if you can, even if they deserve it). And it's pretty fucking intense to quote the likes of Anthony Burgess to Phil Kay while describing the tear-stained face of a man who just picked a fight in a chip shop. I certainly wouldn't call it pointlessly intense this time - that situation got pretty fucking dramatic. But John Robins' narration also got pretty fucking dramatic, and I made of fun of that in another post a few weeks ago, and I mostly stand by that.

But I have to admit I did feel a bit bad after writing that, because of course I know exactly what he's talking about, I spent over ten years of my life unable to function unless I could go into a small room and physically throw myself against people until I knocked them down or they knocked me down and something hurt enough to stop me feeling anything else. And I realize that is also a pretty dramatic thing to write, it's the sort of thing I'd wake up to find written in a Word doc on my laptop next to a Subway wrapper and an almost empty whiskey bottle (which is, obviously, also a way to achieve that feeling of catharsis), but it is an experience I know well and is probably worth talking about. Maybe if more people wrote their feelings down in overly dramatic blog entries, fewer people would feel the need to go pick fights in the street.

And I thought of that old Chortle blog entry when I heard that line in The Mental Health Chapter of his audiobook written 11 years later: "My point here is this: You are enough." He remembered that line. Or he forgot it and it's a coincidence that he repeated it, that's probably more likely. But it did make me think I should be less of a dick about a twenty-five-year-old comedian contributing even more spelling errors to Chortle, while trying to express the way he connected to someone's emotional experience, in the hopes that it might turn out this one doesn't set him too far apart from other people. After all this, I really don't have grounds to make fun of someone else for doing that (although, in my defence, I at least keep my spelling errors/convoluted connections to an emotional experience on this website/gremlin network, and don't sully the highly respectable Bible/menu/tabloid of comedy with them).

Okay I'm done the dramatic parts now. The next chapter is "M: Mind Scenarios", which is much more lighthearted as it looks at the things he thinks about when trying to sleep, although that chapter does contain the line: "I find falling asleep sober so difficult that I’ve twice called NHS Direct because I thought I was having a heart attack," because it's John Robins, so even the fun little ones can get fairly dark. But that chapter is mainly not un-acknowledged alcoholism, it's mainly Sherlock Holmes fanfiction. That is not a joke, it's not something I'm taking out of context to make it sound weird. It's a very literal description of the chapter.

He explains to us that he likes to invent Sherlock Holmes mysteries while falling asleep, and then he spends quite a bit of time - a significant portion of the chapter - reading out an example. I kept waiting for there to be some twist or double meaning that would connect to other things from the book, but no, he just wanted to read us his Sherlock Holmes fanfiction. When he finished the Sherlock story, he didn't add any analysis or explanation of why he'd done that, he just immediately moved on to discussing the cognitive benefits of fantasizing about a nuclear apocalypse.

...Like I said, I'm enjoying the book, but I recommend it to people who are already on board with James and Robins and their whole thing, and I recommend it no one else. I'm having fun though. The vast majority of the book is much more fun than this post.

[thevaudevilledemon]

Duck Musings: Just How Lucky is Gladstone?

Let’s start this Musings Post off by talking about one of my all time favourite Mickey Mouse shorts, Mickey’s Trailer. For those of you who haven’t seen it, it’s on Disney+, you can probably find it online somewhere if you don’t want to support Disney (No judgement there), but long story short, about half-way through Mickey and Donald are sent down a dangerous road after Goofy accidentally dislodges their trailer from the back of the car.

During this time, Mickey manages to Stop the trailer falling off a cliff twice, uses a fence to get past a truck moving along a one way road, and avoids both getting hit by and ramming into a train by the narrowest of narrow margins. So, clearly, Mickey is lucky, and since we know Donald Duck is eternally unlucky, we can only assume that Mickey’s luck somehow cancels out Donald’s bad luck, since if it was just Donald in that trailer, he would have fallen off the cliff, gotten hit by a large truck and a train and then run into the train and be carried off somewhere far away. Which is interesting, because Donald is very familiar with ungodly lucky beings, but the problem is that the other guy’s luck actually makes his bad luck worse.

Okay, so maybe Mickey isn’t actually really lucky, and maybe his luck doesn’t cancel out Donald’s bad luck, but this was the thought I had before I began trying to make sense of Gladstone Gander’s... Absurd? Ridiculous? Absolutely effing Bonkers? Unnaturally good luck.

Because here’s the thing, Gladstone’s luck, might not be your everyday luck. This is, advanced luck!

The Oxford Dictionary defines “Luck” as; “success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions”, while Merriam-Webster defines “Luck” as “A force that brings good fortune or adversity”, and “favoring chance”. But this is all often just happenstance, like for instance, you find a flower that someone wants to buy for a thousand dollars, well if you just happen to stumble upon it then that is really just happenstance. However, if you were to find a whole field of them where they normally wouldn’t grow, that might reach into the supernatural.

We’ve seen in “The Solitude of the Four-Leaf Clover Part 2″, (No I will never stop bringing up that beautiful comic) that Gladstone’s luck was so good that, if we took it all as happenstance, he returned to Duckburg right at the end of a terrible storm, and the Earthquakes that fixed everything had nothing to do with his luck, they were just earthquakes that put a lot of things back where they were, that were moved by the earthquakes. Okay, clearly Gladstone’s luck had something to do with all that, even Professor Ludwig Von Drake hypothesizes that Gladstone is the city’s good luck charm, so his luck clearly isn’t just unusual amounts of happenstance.

Of course, Gladstone’s luck could be predominately magical in nature, as proven by the time his luck was stolen by Magica De Spell in both “A Gal for Gladstone” and “Gladstone The Unlucky Duck”, and when it was syphoned by The Phantom Blot in one episode of DuckTales 2017 (The Phantom and the Sorceress), so that does kind of completely explain everything else. A wise(-ish) man once said “Because Magic is a better reason than Because Potatoes”, and magic does seem to be a good explanation for Gladstone’s superior luck, but it doesn’t quite answer the question of how strong it is.

We know that for a while Gladstone had the worst luck on his birthdays, thanks to a mishap that happened on his birthday thanks to the Triple Distelfink or whatever he was born under, some lightning, and his cousin Donald, and it is theorized that one one such Birthday, he lost his parents. However, on the one birthday he managed to reverse this curse, his bad luck didn’t seem to hinder him... for the most part. He got in a taxi to drive away from Grandma Duck’s farm, but the taxi got spun around, he gets on a train but the car he’s in derails and lands on a boat on a river that he instinctively knows leads to Grandma Duck’s farm, and then he gets on an airplane but a meteor hits the side, sucks him out and he lands on a hot air balloon and gets taken to Grandma Duck’s farm. So, it seems that even his bad luck, isn’t all that bad.

In fact, this leads me to the question, can Gladstone manipulate his own luck? As seen again in “Gladstone and the Solitude of the Four Leaf Clover Part 1″, when Gladstone was trying to form a new identity in the country, and his new friends took him out truffle hunting, not only did he not find any mushrooms at all, he also had such bad luck that his new friends commented on his bad luck. So, either he is so lucky that he can become unlucky when he needs to be, or he can somehow manage to turn his luck off.

We do know that others can manipulate his luck, as seen in the DuckTales ‘87 episode “Dime Enough for Luck” where Magica De Spell managed to hypnotize Gladstone in an attempt to steal Scrooge’s number one dime, and we can also assume this is how he managed to get trapped in Toad Liu Hai’s casino in the 2017 series, that the Luck Vampire managed to manipulate Gladstone’s luck to keep him trapped for several years. On top of all that, if Gladstone’s luck wasn’t able to be manipulated or was infallible, then his bad luck birthdays would never happen.

This has led to a lot of people making headcanons and theories about how exactly Gladstone’s luck works, does it give him what he needs when he needs it? Does it give him more? Does it give him less? Is it trying to communicate something to him? Is it all just happenstance? Is it actually magic? Is his bad luck actually bad? Is his good luck actually good? Does his luck even effect Donald? Ultimately, Gladstone’s luck does have its limits, but just what those limits are is anyone’s guess.

I dunno, maybe we should just let ModMad write the rules for Gladstone’s luck.

[joesalw]

Reading your transition from fan to critic of Taylor is basically how I feel. I became a fan of her in 2017 right before reputation came out. I somehow missed how “hated” she was. I really didn’t pay much attention to her beforehand other than knowing her hits. Her earlier albums were not my music taste (I did listen to Red TV and loved it though, aside from a few songs I’m sure you can guess lol). And even reputation I didn’t love right away. It took me some time and then I heard All Too Well and really started appreciating her songwriting.

Since then I have really enjoyed her music, absolutely love folklore and evermore, and saw her in public but she never felt like a huge popstar with how she lived her everyday life which I really respected. Flash forward to now…I think a lot of us who became fans around 2016 are struggling the most to remain fans. The way she has acted publicly since the breakup has really turned me off. It’s giving mean, popular girl in high school. I thought if anyone would not get the ex treatment it would be Joe. While she hasn’t said much about it, other than You’re Losing Me which sounds like a very normal song to articulate problems in a long term relationship, her actions have spoken volumes. I can’t even talk about the Matty Healy thing lol I knew at that point I would look at her differently forever. Which is very dramatic but sounds fitting when we are discussing Taylor.

The way fans are treating Joe now is disgusting and spews immaturity. I really don’t know how he stays quiet. He must have a great support system. I would love to see some spiteful behavior with some PDA with someone but he’s better than I am haha While I don’t think Travis is a bad guy, I think a lot of us can see the writing on the wall that this scenario doesn’t seem to have a lot of foundation to be a long-lasting relationship. She has not healed and wants to avoid her feelings and keeps jumping into situations where she can distract herself because she thought Joe was the one. And now she’s embarrassed. So the only way she can sing these songs about her love for him on tour is if the public thinks she doesn’t care and is over it. Totally get that but come on girl we have all been there and see through it lol The sympathy for her gets older along with her. Anti Hero seemed to show that she got it but then she refuses to break that pattern. All I know is if I’ve ever seen anyone needing a therapist it is her lol

exactly!!! 👏👏👏

[tigre-edi-rawr]

a gentle reminder?

so here's a little love life update.

i am doing very well, making all my plans of spoiling myself come true because that's what i deserve. so far i have taken myself on a date, spoiled her with some new shoes and slides, bought her skincare products, given her the books she only dreamt about when she's young, given her most of my time to evaluate everything in her life then willingly argue with her to make everything seemed aligned, reasonable and logical. in short, i am totally nailing this.

sa sobrang tagal kong hindi naging single, naging uhaw ako na isipin lang yung sarili ko lang. my thoughts, opinions, wants, needs. i wanted everything to be about me.

i have never been single for this long since 2017, i could not be more proud of myself. i used to be in a relationship then convince myself i'm better off. without even realizing it, i am talking to a brand new person, entering a brand new relationship then eventually gets hurt. i was so eager to prove that it was not my loss and that i could just move on easily, replace my ex and start a new life with someone, then repeat.

I AM ABSOLUTELY TRYING MY BEST TO STOP THAT HABIT.

but.

there's always a but.

so, it's my TOTGA.

the one i mentioned many times here on Tumblr, somehow the universe played me well again. initially, i refused to play a part, i knew my goal and priorities. even tho i firmly believe that the universe will fuck me up again this hard, i am unwilling to moan. so this has been me for weeks now, i strongly wanted to cut the connection, and avoid uncontrollable after maths......... but some days i think "what if this is the last chance the universe will allow me to give this a fair shot and make things right?" and "what if i choose myself and lose this person that i want to be with for good?"

TAPOS KAHAPON NG GABI, i felt like i was affected by a certain situation. i was sensitive. do i care? if yes, then why? suddenly, i realized, i hate feeling these emotions. i hate anxiety in a relationship, the overthinking, the fear, the hurt, the compromising, the changing of myself so we could work, and all the bad situations where i will be forced to just suck it up, forgive and love them harder.

and decided to stop replying to my TOTGA from now on.

look, if i have to lose him for good, so be it. i lost him a long time ago, why does it matter now? if he's not for me, then okay, i will feel certain things about that but eventually i will heal for sure. if i'll never meet someone like him or better than him, i'll be okay with staying single.

i will not make myself suffer again just because of "love" and i won't settle for anything less ever again. if ever i will love again, i hope to find someone who worries so much about how i treat myself right.

good night, earthlings.

[johnnysuedejr]

BLADE RUNNER 2049 (2017): REVIEW

I am a huge fan of the original Blade Runner film (to clarify I mean the Final Cut anytime i refer to "the original"). I couldn't see this in theaters during its initial run and in some ways avoided the film because I didn't want to be potentially disappointed. The marketing at the time was (rightfully) vague and I wasn't sure if Denis Villeneuve had the chops to pull it off. But after seeing Dune in theaters in 2021 I knew I needed to finally give this one a shot but continued putting it off. My brother brought it up this week while I was visiting family and I agreed we should watch it while I was there... well, I am happy to say that I absolutely am impressed and floored by the sheer magnitude of this film and the only thing that would have made it better is to watch it on the IMAX screen it was clearly intended for.

For a film like Blade Runner to get a "legacy" sequel at all is honestly wild to me, but for it to work in the way it does is fucking insane. It pairs perfectly with the first film and doesn't try to recreate the magic of it but instead building upon what was already established while forging its own tone and pacing. Villeneuve's approach to capturing the visuals of that universe is so eloquently executed that it's hard to imagine anyone else (even Ridley Scott himself) being able to bring that universe back to life in a way that feels organic and real, especially 35 years after the fact.

The story is so fucking clever and it's inspiring to see a legacy sequel not rest on the laurels of the past but instead organically take it to an interesting place that doesn't feel forced or unwarranted. They also could have easily phoned it in, easily could have made Harrison Ford a focal point instead of letting Gosling lead the story, they could have easily just made a beat for beat remake of the original film. But they didn't. They took risks, they subverted expectation, and we got an incredibly inspired film because of that.

Gosling is phenomenal here. He's phenomenal in anything he does but his performance here is so grounded and real. He has the chops to have one on one scenes with a legend like Harrison Ford and seem comparable to him. The entire cast is brilliant and I'll even hand it to Jared Leto in that he was selling the sinister nature of his character without overselling it, which I feel can be more of a testament to Villeneuve's direction more than anything but still. Sylvia Hoeks... Ana de Armas... That is all.

My only gripe is the pacing of a few scenes just feeling a tad too slow in the moment of my first watch but I think I can chalk that up to pure anticipation with the story. Outside of that? This is a perfect sequel to a film I already love to death. Can't wait to watch them both back to back someday soon. Truly blown away and happy. Also happy that this film has somehow never been spoiled for me, I was genuinely taken aback at times and I would have been pissed if any of what I saw was spoiled for me before tonight. Bravo.

5/5

[tymime]

As much as I enjoy the latest iteration of Mickey Mouse in Roadster Racers and all the other related specials, shorts, and spinoffs (although I haven’t gotten around to seeing Funhouse just yet*), I’m beginning to notice a pattern that leaves me feeling a little disappointed.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the series and its cousins are a HUGE improvement over Mickey Mouse Clubhouse- especially when it comes to slapstick humor- even though obviously there’s a lot in common with that show, especially their depiction of Pete, what with his tendency to call Mickey “Mickey the Mouse” and shout “Oh, cheese weasels!” (which I’m actually quite fond of). Even the weirdness of Cuckoo-Loca doesn’t seem all that instrusive.

The main issue I have is the lack of other well-established characters- especially family members. The first thing I noticed is that Goofy’s son Max is nowhere to be seen, and hasn’t been spotted outside of the theme parks since House of Mouse in the form of nostalgia-inducing references to A Goofy Movie and Powerline. But the differences between Mickey in the 2010s and Mickey in the early 2000s become particularly obvious when you watch Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas and Mickey and Minnie Wish Upon a Christmas back to back.

You can look at those group shots and see that there are fewer characters. Again, I really enjoy Wish Upon a Christmas, especially the song Minnie sings, and it’s definitely better than the follow-up Mickey Saves Christmas. But there are five characters total that are absent in it- Max, Scrooge McDuck, and Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

Roadster Racers, etc., feels a little weird sometimes because of the way they transplanted Mickey from Mouseton to Hot Dog Hills and seem to be pretending that he’s lived there all his life, not to mention that Donald is no longer living in Duckburg and Goofy is no longer in Spoonerville, or wherever else he happens to be living. I suspect they did this to avoid the logistical complications of having Mickey or Donald driving from town to town or whatever, and keep all the characters in the same place for the sake of convenience. Not that that was really an issue before. But I also strongly suspect that they wanted to avoid using Huey, Dewey, and Louie because they didn’t want to clash and compete with the series they most wanted you to be watching in 2017- the DuckTales reboot. I won’t get into how much I hate that series, since I’ve gone into detail elsewhere, but I’m fairly certain they didn’t want viewers tuning in to one series where Donald’s nephews were younger and undifferentiated and voiced by Russi Taylor, and then tuning in to another one where the nephews were entirely different. (This doesn’t exactly explain why the Paul Rudish Mickey Mouse can somehow exist at the same time, but Disney seems to be full of contradictions these days.)

It’s for a similar reason that I think Disney suppressed Legend of The Three Caballeros from US television and kept it within the Phillipines for an entire year, and barely acknowledges its existence to this day. I don’t think they wanted viewers to see two entirely different series based loosely (and I mean loosely) on the comic books.

And personally, I suspect that the way Three Caballeros more closely resembled Carl Barks adventures and the tone of classic Donald cartoons than the DuckTales reboot could ever hope to achieve was also a factor. But perhaps the biggest reason of all for the reduction of the cast was to just simplify and streamline the whole thing for younger audiences. Not sure why they think kids can’t handle large casts when My Little Pony does it so well, if that’s the case.

“What’s your point?” you might be asking. Well, when it comes to honoring the legacy of classic Disney characters, Roadster Racers, etc. falls a little bit short, even though the humor and animation is so much better than Clubhouse. During the mid-to-late 2000s and early 2010s there seemed to be a surge of Disney Afternoon nostalgia, in the form of DVD releases and new comic books, which coincided with a renewed interest in the classic Mickey and Donald comics when Fantagraphics reprinted them. Disney seemed to care about the “Expanded Universe” of the Sensational Six again. By excluding characters like Scrooge McDuck, the nephews, and Max Goof, you’re depriving these characters of their emotional depth and complex interrelations with one another.

I often think of these moments in Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas. Scenes like this where these otherwise over-the-top and silly characters feel sadness and disappointment just don’t happen in Roadster Racers (and I guess they aren’t supposed to), and this sort of pathos doesn’t seem to occur unless their closest relatives are around. I believe that Max brings out the best in Goofy, especially. And those aren’t the only characters that are suspiciously absent. Horace Horsecollar and Mortimer Mouse, who were staples of House of Mouse, are barely present, and for some reason have different names. Pete, for some reason, has a new nephew character instead of his son PJ. ...And don’t get me started on Sylvia Marpole from An Extremely Goofy Movie, one of the most criminally underused Disney characters ever.

Once I noticed this, all the recent cartoons suddenly felt a little shallow. I still like them a lot, but ultimately I still prefer Goof Troop and House of Mouse and the rest from that era, before the characters became kinda childish and had all their edges smoothed off. (Update: I’ve seen several episodes of Mickey Mouse Funhouse now, and while the show has blessed us with some of the best weasel characters ever- Wheezelene, Cheezel, and Sneezel- I’m largely disappointed by how shallow and dumbed down it is.)

[thessaliah]

Do you think it's possible Singularity F is being used as fuel for Chaldeas or something else? In Babylonia ep. 0 we see that Marisbury and Solomon won the Grail War in a burning Fuyuki. In Singularity F Olga says no fire has been recorded in Fuyuki in 2004. So this means Marisbury somehow covered up the fire, likely by turning the burning Fuyuki into a Singularity. The only reason for this would be to either not get caught by the Mage's Association or because Singularity F has some sort of use.

Tinfoil theory-

I think the timeline didn't have Marisbury winning 2004 because he summoned the wrong Servant. There was never Chaldea, and somehow gets pruned in 2016. Like we know from Qin's interlude that someone from a pruned world can create singularities using rayshift to create a singularity which can affect later into Panhistory and become a belt or become the new Panhistory perhaps (Qin gets his singularities recurrence in case Guda fails, so means it can be done). IMO, Sion using Marisbury's theory modified the past so Marisbury can create Chaldea since she has the computing access (Chaldea does not have it initially and only does when it's completed in 2015, without activating Chaldeas, they don’t get Tri-Hermes, leaving only Sion as the prime suspect, she had access to Marisbury’s theory). There's something shifty about it pointed out by Qin and Morgan.

Fuyuki Singularity is a data crash of the previous failures of 2004, whether is Marisbury's or others. There's a bit of a hint in First Order of many data/servants reaching for the Grail and failing until a ringed brown hand does (Solomon).

It's not the issue here. Sion or whoever modified this past, did it because Chaldea could avoid the pruning of the timeline maybe. By partly solving Fuyuki, the crisis is averted but still humanity fails, and somehow now it's stretched out from a pruned timeline to the main record. There were some cases in Part 1, like USA chapter (singularity V), that Roman worries a Singularity ("point") expands in a "belt" so it def. can be done. Qin's failsafe too. Morgan also shows you can travel within a fabricated timeline and make it 'real' (from lostbelt to singularity and lostworld and hopefully to the main record, but she failed last step).

That said the cause of the crisis is not Marisbury, Chaldea, or Sion, but humanity. Their attempts to save the world just added to the doom. The Beasts manifested as a response to this. It's roughly a possibility. There's the implication the Earth now cracks possibly in 2117 at the latest, and 2017 at the soonest, depending if they switched world's eggs with Chaldeas. U Olga's black hole move is metaphorically earth after its death (that's what black holes are, celestial bodies that die and collapse on their own weight). Since part 2 is a story of a battle against the future, Kirschtaria's solution was objectively positive (mats), and the God and the Bleaching aren't as bad as we're assuming (Kirschtaria only objection isn't toward Olga, but toward Olga-as-Beast):

(IMO, He was willing to accommodate her if she had another idea).

[pinkpersonsblog]

Title: Tears at a Gravestone

Characters: Jai, Lava

Summary: Jai visits their mother's grave on her birthday and is overwhelmed by emotion as he catches up with her.

Word count: 2,931

Jai stood at the foot of the grave holding a bouquet of white roses. He was grateful the cemetery was mostly empty because he wanted privacy as he visited his mother. It would have been her fifty-fifth birthday. Jai had not visited her grave in many years. He did sometimes dream of her, and those tended to be the only interactions he had with her. In his dreams she would lend him a shoulder to cry on because he felt stressed. He hadn’t been given such an opportunity in many years, and it was only in his dreams that he felt comfortable being vulnerable.

He bent down and placed the roses against the headstone, then knelt down and sat in front of the grave. Traced her name with the tips of his fingers as though it were something holy. Although it had happened so long ago, he still felt a gaping hole in his heart due to her absence from his life. Perhaps she was the only person he had really felt affection for as a child. He’d never forget how compassionate she’d been towards him. He’d been sidelined for all his life for his damned stutter, but she’d never pointed it out mockingly. Instead, despite his being shunned and ridiculed for it, she’d told him that it made him special. She’d said she liked it because it was unique. Quirky, even. That he should like it, too.

“Happy bi-birthday, mom,” Jai said, smiling sadly. For the first time, he wished that she could see the man he’d grown up to be. Not so long ago, he’d felt a deep-seated shame that perhaps she wouldn’t be so proud of. After all, he had been a violent tyrant. A far cry from the innocent and doting son he used to be. He’d kill without thinking twice about the damage done. He thrived off of instilling fear in those around him and he’d loved it. Or so he thought.

Since sacrificing himself for Lava and Kusa, he turned a new leaf. Much had changed. It was as though the goodness in him was slowly being replenished, that he’d rediscovered a zest for life that he hadn’t had in so long. That he might even be capable of living and caring for and doing nice things for people. And liking seeing them happy because of him. It was a strange feeling...enjoying doing things for others.

Of course he still felt wary at times of exposing himself. Letting his guard down too much. He especially hated when he expressed the slightest kindness and was teased for it afterward. But he was taking things a step at a time, with his brothers’ help. Gradually opening up and allowing others to see him for who he really was—a young man with desires, hopes, and dreams. And not regretting it afterward.

“I don’t kn-know if you can hear me or not...to be honest, I don’t know if I believe in an afterlife at all. Maybe th-that’s why I’ve been so…the way I’ve been. Because I thought I’d get away with it. But if you can hear me, I ho-hope you’re at least at peace. If you can’t…then I guess I just need to pretend you’re here because I need to talk. Being the selfish ma-an I am.”

He felt awkward talking like this to his mother. To be honest, Jai wasn’t much of a talker to begin with. He tended to avoid saying more than was necessary because he hated the sound of his stuttering voice. But somehow, he’d been emotional today and felt like he needed some form of reassurance from her. He inhaled deeply and continued talking.

“I found Lava and Kusa again...it’s we-weird to say it, but it’s always so surprising how they look almost exactly like me. Sometimes I hate watching their faces when talking to them...it’s like seeing who I could have become if I’d reached my potential.” Jai paused, glanced around as though someone could overhear him. Looked back at the headstone and tried to relax. No one’s nearby, he told himself. It’s okay. “But we’re all so di-different. I’m so different.” Jai cast his eyes downward guiltily. “I don’t know how I could be so stupid to let my rough childhood define me the way I di-id. I feel like it shaped me into such a hateful ma-man.”

He felt embarrassed just thinking about how he resented his brothers so much as a child. Now that he reminisced about the past, he felt stupid for being so angry back then. Even though, at the time, he’d hated his brothers for being held on a pedestal before him. And perhaps anyone would have felt the same way, if they’d been raised as he had. Sometimes he wondered if his stutter wouldn’t have gradually vanished if he’d just been happier back then.

“I m-miss you a lot, though. You were always so kind to me. Made me feel like I wasn’t as alone as I thought I w-was. I miss...I miss your hugs.” Jai scratched the side of his head sheepishly as his eyes unconsciously narrowed at himself. Like he couldn’t even believe what he was saying. It was still so hard for him sometimes...being nice. Even when he wasn’t sure if anyone was listening.

“But I’m not the same boy you raised,” He said, eyes hardening further. “I hu-hurt so many people, mom. Even tried killing Lava and Kusa. I would have killed anyone if they crossed me.” Jai sighed shakily. “I was bad. So bad. And I th-thought I’d never escape the pull of hurting others until it was too late. I feel like I should have just died that day,” he added, almost as an afterthought. “ I sh-should have,” he decided. “I should have died.”

Tears welled up in his eyes, remembering that car with the bomb attached to it. The one with which he’d intended to instantly kill his brothers. They would have been engulfed in flames, but he would have been forced to endure a life in hell if the murder had been carried to completion. Jai blinked rapidly as his hands trembled in his lap. “I can’t be-believe I almost did that. That I could have done that to my own brothers. My brothers who are as identical to me as they are my opposites.”

Jai’s voice cracked as he lowered his head in shame, suddenly feeling like he didn’t deserve to be here sitting in front of his mother’s grave. If she’d seen the type of man he’d been up until now she’d probably spit in his face. Tell him to disappear out of her life forever. How could anyone love a monster like him? Tears spilled down his cheeks as his body was wracked with sobs. Sobs—for what? He wasn’t even sure anymore. For his mother? For the agony he’d dealt towards others? For the agony he was so close to dealing to his own brothers? For the man he used to be and that he could never fully escape no matter how hard he tried? He didn’t know for certain.

All he knew was that he wanted to change.

Jai swiped at his wet eyes, feeling lightheaded. A rush of desire overwhelmed him as he wished he could be like Lava—trade places with him, even. Lava, whose eyes were always tender and filled with love. He was so generous and compassionate. He genuinely cared for others’ well-being. Jai’s heart twinged sharply as he realized that maybe he not only idolized his brother, but also deeply envied him. Maybe even hated him for being so pure...so untainted in this harsh world. It almost made his blood boil that life had been so cruel to Jai while his brother had been able to live as a morally righteous man with no guilt weighing on him. He felt that familiar surge of desire to maim and kill the man with the power of his mind... But it really would be like attacking himself, in the end. That was what hurt the most. They were so emotionally attached that he couldn’t do it without wanting to kill himself in the aftermath. The worst of it was that even Kusa, who was a criminal as well, was still a saint compared to Jai.

“I di-didn’t think I was capable of compassion until recently. Just thinking about how we share this steely bond, how we sometimes seem to think like one, share the same mind almost…we’re so connected. I think I love them more than anything,” Jai murmured dazedly. He began admitting things he didn’t even like to think to himself when he was alone. A whirlwind of emotion rushed within him. “I ne-never felt love for anyone before. I never let myself grow close enough to someone to fe-feel it. I feared intimacy...affection. It even disgusted me.” Jai was sweating now, knowing he was admitting unspeakable things. But he couldn’t stop as the dam within him had burst, allowing him to reveal these hidden parts of himself. “And sometimes I think about things I’ve done, and I feel like I could ne-never deserve forgiveness, to be seen as an equal to others. But Kusa and Lava...they treat me like I’m their equal. Th-they forgave me for the unforgivable. When I don’t even deserve it.” Jai bowed his head as he stared at his hands. “What do I do, Mom? How can I accept such lo-love from them? When I’ve been so evil and cold-hearted? When I’m a mo-monster? A monster...I’m a monst—”

“You’re not a monster.”

Jai’s eyes widened and his heart froze at the soft-spoken voice coming from behind him—a voice that was as gentle as a breeze, yet strangely like his own rough and gravelly one.

One that could only belong to one person.

Jai meekly turned around and saw Lava standing behind him carrying a bouquet of multi-colored flowers. He had an easy smile on his face as he stepped forward to place the flowers next to Jai’s white roses. He sat across from Jai, his eyes crinkling at the edges as he smiled bitterly. “You wouldn’t be here if you were a bad guy, Jai. You need to accept the fact that you’ve changed.”

Very kind words, and perhaps what he needed to hear, but he felt like he couldn’t accept them so easily. He felt awkward and uneasy, knowing his brother had heard him expose himself to their mother. Depending on how much he had overheard, anyway. He blushed in embarrassment, realizing Lava may have at least heard him say that he ‘loved them more than anything’. He found he had trouble looking Lava in the eye, as though he’d be met by an amused sparkle.

“But ch-change isn’t easy,” Jai argued, forcing his practiced scowl onto his face. Looking mean always helped him when he felt weak. “I’ve been evil for so long. How do you know I won’t cut your fi-fingers off for disagreeing with me in the future? Because that’s something I would have done in the past. I don’t trust myself,” he added as an afterthought.

“The past is in the past and that’s where it should stay,” Lava said wisely. “But it’s up to you to make sure of that. You’re the only one being hard on yourself, so learn to forgive yourself for your mistakes. Just don’t make new ones, okay?” Lava’s lips quirked upward in an amused smile. “Or else I’ll beat you up.”

Jai forced down his laugh at his brother’s attempted joke, unable to accept his words. His scowl deepened, contorted his features as his eyes welled up with tears. “But I ki-illed people like it was nothing. I would have killed you, too. You, who were so kind to me. You both would have di-died if you hadn’t been lucky enough to learn of the bomb.” Jai sobbed brokenly knowing there was nothing Lava could say that would make him feel better. He was lucky they had survived what should have been certain death. He ached terribly, haunted by the decision he’d made that day.

Lava was silent for a few seconds as Jai heaved sobs with his head bowed. He shifted towards Jai slightly, placed a hand on his shoulder, making him tense up. “It was a mistake. A grave one, I admit, but that’s all it was, Jai. You made a mistake because you’re human. Not a monster. You’re just very, very flawed and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“I would have do-done it,” Jai said, eyes glazed as he imagined the explosion...their graves.“Because I saw it as just another couple of deaths. Another couple of ca-casualties. That’s all you two were to me. Just a number.” He shuddered at himself. “I don’t deser—”

“Shut up,” Lava said as he took hold of Jai’s rough, calloused hands, squeezing them gently. “Just shut up.”

Jai bit his lip as tears continued rolling down his face. He never allowed himself to cry in front of people, yet he almost felt comfortable doing so in front of Lava, someone who he knew wouldn’t pass judgment on him. At least not cruelly. He briefly wondered if it was possible his brother was in fact perfect. Then again, almost anyone was, compared to him. “You wo-wouldn’t even be here right now...I’m a bad guy. A bad guy...” Jai muttered brokenly, almost as though it was comforting for him to repeat this to himself. He felt tempted to rock back and forth like a madman and keep repeating it like a mantra. “Horrible…”

“Even if you are,” Lava said, pulling him into a warm hug, holding him tightly. “Even if you’re the most evil, despicable monster in the world, you’re still my brother. And I don’t see you as Raavana. Forget that name. You’re Jai. Good, kind Jai.”

Jai’s eyes widened. It was like he’d needed to hear this from his brother all along just so he could believe it. Or at least start to...it took all he had not to smile at such kind words. His lips wobbled as he struggled to control his emotions. Struggled to revert back to his sour demeanor. He felt like a mess...

“I’m here for you.” Lava paused briefly to press a kiss against his hot, wet cheek. “As long as I’m alive. Because I love you, Jai. We love you.”

And those words...’I love you’...they managed to rip a raspy sob out of Jai the likes of which he’d never vocalized in his entire life, not even as an infant. It would have embarrassed him if he were in his right mind. Instead he sobbed raggedly in his brother’s arms, wishing he could expel all of the self-hatred he felt along with his tears. He wished he could love himself as much as he loved his brothers. His mother. He wished he could free himself from the burden of being him.

“How can you lo-love me,” Jai rasped out between breaths as he clutched at his brother. He couldn’t understand it at all. He didn’t understand the concept of forgiveness. He was so used to revenge and hurting others for his benefit that it still flew entirely over his head. He felt dazed by it. “How? I don’t deserve to have your damn fa-face, let alone your love…”

Lava rubbed his back soothingly as though he were a small child. Murmured sweet things to him, trying to console him, almost as though he were their mother instead. The things he said were things Jai had always wanted to hear. And now that he was hearing them, they seemed to fill a vast void within his soul. It made him feel heard and it felt so good he could only weep at it.

“I love you,” Jai said despite himself, and the way he said it was like a revelation, like he had discovered something holy and enlightening to his core. He didn’t even regret the raw emotion with which he’d said it. “I love you,” he said again, this time just because he liked the way it sounded, him saying this. An evil monster saying it. He never felt so exposed in all his life, so open and vulnerable that his entire body felt flushed as though it were embarrassed just to be a part of him. Yet for some reason, it felt strangely nice.

Reassuring.

They sat there in front of the grave just holding onto one another for several minutes, up until it started to rain. And even then, they remained a while longer, just relishing the feel of each other’s bodies. It felt so wonderful to have someone who was like another part of him to hold onto like this. In fact, it even felt heavenly. Maybe he was the one in heaven after all. That was how it felt being in his brother’s loving embrace.

Jai unconsciously nuzzled his face against Lava’s shoulder, liking the intimacy of the act. Was this what it felt like to care about another person’s well-being? To enjoy their company and comfort? It was enthralling...it made him crave it, want to fill his heart to the brim. As he held onto Lava he wondered insanely if maybe some of his brother’s goodness was even rubbing off on him. Like he was a magical entity. It was oddly beautiful.

Love...compassion...brotherhood…

...He could get used to it.

[greentintsmyworld]

Creep 2 (2017)- Directed by Patrick Brice

Okay, so a lot of the things I enjoyed about this film I already touched on in my review of the first one (silliness, pacing, budget), so for this one I am mostly going to be going over plot/characters.

This film is very interesting because it's somehow both a lot more silly and A LOT (and I mean A LOT) less silly than the first film. I feel like this change makes a lot of sense considering the switch to a female protagonist and especially one that seems to be very comfortable putting herself in uncomfortable situations. The work she is passionate about doing is meeting strange and unique people (mainly men) off the internet and having non-judgmental and down to earth conversations with them. Unlike Aaron (the protagonist of the first film), Sara does not scare easily, which makes her dynamic with Josef all the more interesting, since he seems to get off on his ability to scare and unsettle people. We can see throughout the film that Sara does not react to any of Josef's trademark jumpscares, and she even (in a way of connecting with him) turns the act around on him and ends up scaring him a couple times. She also seems to truly want to understand and connect with him, and there are a few times where he seems to want to do the same with her, although it's hard to tell how much of what he tells her is the truth since he is known for lying a lot.

I think a really good example of this connection is the hot tub scene. In this scene, Josef is really stressed because the shooting of his documentary didn't go as planned (so real), so he's avoiding Sara, blasting his favorite song, and sitting alone in his hot tub in the dark (ALSO SO REAL). She refuses to give up on learning about him though, so she goes down and turns off his music and demands that he talk to her, which prompts him to go into a very dark retelling of the biggest trauma of his life (the one that got him into killing). He then ends his story by telling her that tonight is going to be a very bad night, but instead of becoming frightened by his honesty and seriousness and all the darkness he's showing and running away, she climbs into the hot tub with him and begins to comfort him, wrapping her arms around him and massaging him. This moment is so perplexing because it seems so strange that someone would want to get closer to a person after hearing them talking about almost being buried alive and their first murder and how that has affected them, but somehow it feels right for these characters. The moment is so raw and tangible and intimate, it's insane.

The relationship between Josef and Sara is so unique and so interesting and so oddly charming that the movie almost feels like a romance... until the very end. This is where things get to the very not silly part, when Josef tells Sara that he wants them to both kill themselves so they can die together in the grave he dug. This is when the rose colored glasses finally come off and she realizes that he really is a killer and isn't going to change, and there will not be a good ending for them. It really is such a chilling and horrifying moment to see the fear fall onto her face in that moment, and her realization that she is actually not safe with him. Nothing in the first movie was as scary as that moment.

There is a lot more I could talk about here, like the cinematography, Josef's (canon?) bisexuality, and how relatable I found some parts of this movie as a loser film major who is easily overstimulated, but I think I'll end it here.

GO WATCH THESE MOVIES NOW!!!

(Rewatched 9/28/23)

[sizzlingpatrolfox]

I agree with your anon, yeah I'm sorry jk's stalked (I'd still like to remind everyone how fans were applauding him for being a rebel for doing lives however and whenever he wanted but now no one likes to mention that) but look how he speaks out once it bothers HIM. It's so funny how similar his tone was to when th b*tched on weverse when it was smth he wanted to speak out on yet both never cared for the harm their shippers cause and lets not fool ourselves they're well aware of it all. I also agree to an extend when pjms say jm had serious criminal violation of privacy involving his documents and active death threats and he never made a victim of himself and none of those things can be said to have been fueled by his own actions either.

I personally think lives from his house are okay and shouldn't pose any danger. It all started when BTS went into hiatus and I'm sure all angles were considered, both from the company and the members themselves (about doing lives from their homes).

However, I've always said that his words and behavior was dangerous. Falling asleep on camera, the continuous and excessive flirting, help me wash up, do you want me to pick you up from work, yes this is a date, we're on a date. It's all stuff he says to the fans from inside of his house. It gives people the wrong idea. He's made himself seem available to the fans. I've always said that I don't think it's appropriate of him to make such comments.

I'm not justifying stalkers, and I've said that BTS members do put boundaries but fans usually don't care anyways and they cross those lines. People will always cross the line somehow. But I do believe Jungkook could've avoided this. Of course, he probably didn't think it was possible for something like this to happen.

Everyone knows where all the members live, yet Jungkook seems to be the only one who goes through stalking and/or invasion of privacy like this. It has happened twice already in two months? I'm sure the other members also get followed around and stalked, maybe to a lesser degree, but only going from what we know, there's a pattern.

I couldn't help thinking too that there's an element of image in rejecting the fans food. Aside from the obvious danger in eating something a stranger left at your door, it would reflect really bad on him to accept people buying food for him. Fansites used to send expensive and copious amounts of gifts to BTS until 2017. After DNA, BTS said they would no longer accept material presents from fans, only letters were allowed. I couldn't help but to think about that, too. A multimillionaire accepting food from fans. He just can't, from several moral standpoints.

There is no excuse for what happened to Jimin with his insurance issue. And yes, it was criminal. As weird as sending food or gifts to someone who didn't ask for them can be, it's not a criminal act. But having your house documents and personal ID numbers stolen and leaked, it is a criminal act. Not to mention it was apparently Jungkook stans / taekookers who leaked it. Any other company would've already had something resolved on the case but instead hybe just said "oops, my bad" and moved on. I don't think there's anything Jimin could've said anyways because the damage was already done, the information was out there already, and he isn't really one to go out and talk about his personal life like that. Even more considering that it wasn't even his fault, since the company was in charge of his medical insurance.