#but i will ALWAYS love knights in a more intellectual and lesbian way than you dont ever forget that

[lovebattle]

hii just thought you would all love to know that my birthname is so uncommon that i was literally able to get it as my username for my college discord account lmao.... shout out to mexicans 💥🙏and then i got the lovebattle username on discord too like oh yeah we're so back

[bssaz97]

Fun Times #1

*Atlas Academy, Recreation Room*

The RWBYNOR group have been experiencing a problem that many Huntsmen experience from time to time....boredom. They had no missions as of late and everything else was pretty much run of the mill errands to do. Something that they all either didn’t want to do or found too tame. The door to the rec room opens and comes in Jaune Arc with frizzed hair and a ‘STOP’ sign he got from his babysit- er, primary school voluntary work. He took a look at the room around him and found a spot to sit at on the end of a couch, in between RWBY and NOR. He sat down and sets the sign on his lap.

Yang: ....Ok I’ll bite, what happened to you Vomit Boy? Did those kids become rascals and tried to climb you like a tree?

Jaune: Pff, I wish, the kids were fine. It’s the mothers of those kids that I had to ward off.

Ruby: Wait what? Those ladies are still giving you trouble?

Jaune: (Rubs his face) No, it’s not that, they’re actually very friendly. A bit too friendly. I swear I had so many of them trying to ‘thank me’ for taking care of their kids that it’s really starting to get on my nerves. I think I’ve been given so many casseroles from Mrs. Lars that it’s starting to pile up in the fridge faster than we can get rid of.

Ruby: Well have you tried I don’t know......telling them to back off or that you’re not interested in their advances.

Jaune: I’ve thought about doing that but I’m worried that if I do that and they take it the wrong way, or maybe they aren’t trying to flirt with me and were just trying to be nice in a over friendly way and they’ll look at me like I’m the one getting the wrong idea.

Nora: Mmm. That’s a good point, a lot of ways they could spin it to make it seem you’re the bad guy. Thirsty moms are a scary thing.

Ruby:(Murmurs) I’ll give 'em something to be scared about....

Jaune: What was that Ruby?

Ruby: What? I didn’t say anything. I was....thinking about that casserole that you mentioned. I’m gonna go get some! (Saying the last statement very tightly then left for the kitchen)

Oscar: So, I’m gonna assume we’re going to be having casserole again for dinner?

Nora: Looks like it. I gotta say, I loved the idea of you getting more attention from the ladies because of the new haircut, but now it’s starting to become old. I miss eating other food!

Blake: Maybe we can go out somewhere to eat so that we have something to do.

Weiss: Actually that does remind me of something. Winter said that the academy was going to be holding a ceremony for a class reunion for older Atlas graduates that she’s going to be attending this evening. Perhaps we can go there.

Oscar: Wouldn’t you all need clearance for that from Ironwood?

Weiss: Nonsense, the event is open to all the Atlas students and hunters, besides it more of a formality for old friends to reacquaint with old peers.

Blake: Well that could be fun. What do you think Yang? ....Yang?

She turned to see that her partner was locked on to her scroll and was having a content smile. Yang looked to be texting someone when all of a sudden she feels a nudge on her shoulder. Yang looks away from the screen and sees everyone’s eyes looking at her inquisitively.

Yang: (Closes her scroll) Haha! Sorry guys you were saying?

Nora: Well.~ You seemed in a good mood, who were you texting?

Yang: Hmm. Oh! I was just reading a message from a pen pal of sorts.

Weiss: Pen pal? I wasn’t aware you had kept in contact with any social relationships outside the rest of us.

Yang: Well Weisscream, I’m sorry to disappoint but I do have a life outside of you all and saving the world. Plus you can’t tell me talking to the same people everyday doesn’t sometimes get on your nerves.

Weiss: Hmm. Fair point. So who are they?

Yang: Oh they’re called Nunya.

Weiss: ‘Nunya’? That’s a interesting name.

Yang: Yeah and their full name is Nunya Business!

Weiss: What kind of name is.....Hey wait a minute!

The other remaining friends starts to laugh at the expense of former heiress. While on of the more intellectual of the group, slang was still foreign to her.

Weiss: Alright! Alright! I get that I walked myself into that one. Sense you are not willing to reveal the identity of your friend Xiao-Long, I will not pry any more.

Yang: Great. Glad to hear Weisscream. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m gonna go to the dorm.

Blake: You’re not going to the ceremony with us?

Yang: Sorry Blakey but I’m gonna be flying solo tonight. Miss me too much you guys!~

With that Yang left the rec room and was out of sight from the group.

Jaune: Well sense she’s gonna be doing her own thing, maybe we should try going out someplace fun. Be nice to spend with people my age than moms and kids. By the way is Ruby back yet? She’s been in the kitchen for awhile.

Ren: I’ll check. (Walks from couch to rec room Kitchen) Ruby were you able to-

Ruby is seen looking at a burning pile of what smelt of casseroles in a trash bin. She looks at Ren and they make eye contact for a brief moment before he slowly backtracked his steps and made his way back to the couch.

Ren: Just checked with Ruby, turns out we’re out of casserole. Went bad.

Jaune: Dang it! I knew we wouldn’t be able to finish them before they spoiled.

Ruby:(Coming back from kitchen) Welp! Since we’re out of food, I vote we go do something fun! Maybe we could get Penny to join along.

Weiss: I think she maybe too busy attending the ceremony with Winter as she’s a Atlas representative.

Ruby: Oooohhh yeah. Bummer.

Jaune: Hey Ruby how about we all go see that new movie that we’ve been seeing on the posters lately?

Oscar: Can I come along?

Ruby: Oh, sure I don’t see why not? Jaune?

Jaune: Yeah that’s sounds good the more the merrier!

Oscar: Yes!

Nora: Well you can count us in too! Beats going to a snore fest like a social event. (Grabs Ren and wrapped her arm around him)

Weiss: Well I guess that just leaves you and me Blake.

Blake: You know actually I noticed that the Atlas library had a book that really seemed interesting to read-!

Weiss:(Grabbing her via summon arm) Oh no you don’t! I refuse to attend this event by myself, and you’re the only one singled out by everyone here. So dare try to weasel your way out of this!

Blake: But-! Books!

Weiss: (Dragging her friend to the exit of the rec room exit) They aren’t going to grow legs and run away, they’ll be there when we return.

Blake:(Whimpers)

Soon both W and B of team of their group left the rec room leaving only five of the eight friends by themselves.

Jaune: Guess that just leaves us. Kinda funny, this may be one of the first times we’ve had a chance to hang out as team RNJR.

Ruby: Wait really?! ....oh yeah! Oh this’ll be great then, this will be just like when we had time to relax during our time in Anima!

Nora: Oh yeah Team RNJR is back baby! Wait a minute, we have Oscar with us so that does kind of chance the name a bit.

Ren: So what should we call this arrangement then?

Nora:Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

Jaune: Guys we don’t need necessarily a new name for the group, we’re just going to see a movie, not fight a final boss Grimm.

Ruby: Besides, it’s just like Jaune said, doesn’t matter what we’re called. As long as we’re together. (Smiles)

Nora: Yeah you’re right. I’ll think of something later. Anyway let’s make this night a killer!

Ruby/Jaune: Yeah!

Ren/Oscar: Yeah.

*RWBY Dormitory*

Yang entered the room and sighed. That was a close one, she almost didn’t think they would let her leave that easily. Before she could think about the matter further she felt her scroll vibrate as her friend had messaged her once more. She opened the scroll to view the message.

White_Knight: Are you still up for tonight? I didn’t rush you too soon did I?

White_Knight: I could always reschedule!

Sun_Dragon: Nah . You’re good, just my friend was trying to be nosey.

Sun_Dragon: Anyway, you still want to go see that new horror flick that’s out now? Heard it’s supposed to be intense.

White_Knight: Most definitely. I’ve reserved private seats for us on top where we won’t have anyone being ‘nosey’ as you say it.

Sun_Dragon: Really?! Dang I thought reserving a seat was hella expensive on primere night!

White_Knight: Never to fear, I have good connections so the seats are very much legit.

Sun_Dragon: ....bet?

White_Knight: On everything.

Sun_Dragon: Geez Knight, keep tryin’ to impress me and you might get yourself a girlfriend by the end of the night cutie~ ;-)

White_Knight: I like to impress my dear. But let’s keep it slow before we start talking about relationships. Or you might come off as desperate ;-)

Sun_Dragon: Ok see you tonight <3

White_Knight: Can’t wait! <3

Yang smiled after the chat with her pen pal. She originally started talking to Knight after download Instaspam on her scroll when she took that selfie with Blake. Originally she got a lot of likes for how the two looked like a cute lesbian couple but she put a plug on that real quick. While she and Blake we’re getting back to better times, she wasn’t really interested in starting a full on relationship with her partner. Kind of brought bad thoughts about her own family dynamic so that was a no-no. Of course she did lose a few subs for the apparent ‘queer baiting’ from some of the ruder people on the app, but others were actually glad that she made the clarification early on so that people wouldn’t make inaccurate assumptions.

It was actually how she met Knight, through a personal message saying how brave she was to tell the truth and not to take the fake friends words seriously. Yang was a bit suprised about the message so she thanked him later and one thing lead to another and they were talking almost everyday whenever she wasn’t on missions. She got a look at his profile and it looked like he was a music enthusiast and played multiple instruments like the piano and violin. She of course teased him of being a nerd for apparently liking classical music for being a young man. However to her suprise he sent her a link to one of his tracks of his music and while not of fan of classical, he was very good at playing piano covers. He didn’t have a profile picture so she asked if she could send her a picture, she had to be sure he wasn’t a creepy old man or something. To her suprise he did send a picture. Granted he was wearing a hat and a pair of glasses but he definitely looked young. Maybe a bit too young. She was a bit uncomfortable about this little tidbit about Knight, but she knew he was definitely only two years younger than her.

Yang’s sisterly instinct was too let Knight know that he shouldn’t try to flirt with girls older than him but the more she thought about it....it couldn’t be that bad. They stayed only as friends and besides casual teasing it wasn’t anything excessive that would send people the wrong message. So she kept in contact with him. Besides her own sister had a massive crush on a guy two years her senior so it wasn’t that bad. Besides Knight was a nice guy, always polite, never vulgar or tried to ask for body shots of her. What really got her was his respect for women. He apparently had a family mostly consisting of women so that put some insight. So Yang was very glad that Knight didn’t turn out to be a creep. Who knows, maybe she might give him a reward if this first outing goes smoothly.

Yang: Guess I’ll see you tonight Mr. Knight.~

*Schnee Manor*

Whitley has been rereading the chat for the past two minutes and couldn’t believe how far Sun_Dragon and him have come from complete strangers to good friends. He originally gotten Instaspam as a way to entertain himself and share his musical taste to other musical enthusiasts. When one of his recommended came up one day and he saw a picture that immediately took his breath away. That was when first was introduced to Sun_Dragon. He saw at the time how people were bashing her for the honestly miss assumptions about her relationship with a friend. He couldn’t believe how others could be so ignorant and uncouth behavior they were treating the poor dear. He normally doesn’t try to engage in these types of topics but he knew he needed to say something that would let her know that not everyone was like these wolves who just enjoyed to harass her. From their their interactions developed then blossomed into the first genuine relationship he’s ever had.

Truthfully if he had to say, Sun_Dragon may have been his only friend. A friend that he had grown especially fond of. Whitley tried to reason that he was only had a small crush because of her majestic beauty, but soon he began to realize that he found everything about her wonderful, her personality, her casual attude and her plain honesty she told. He had never met a more genuine person than Sun_Dragon. The only problem he was worried about was if his age had worried her some, because being a underage minor made some who were female admirers scared off because of fear of being called a pedophile. However she seemed not too worried about the age gap as she was only two years older than him. That made his whole day when she told him that. Whitley was content for the most part with the screen conversations they had but soon he desired to step up the pace, to meet in person. Whitley was sure she would turn down his advances but surprisingly Sun_Dragon favored the idea as well and now brought him to this moment. In a mere few hours he will meet the woman of his dreams. So naturally he only had one response.

Whitley: YES!!! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes yes, yes! Whitley you’re a genius! Oh my gods! Thank you! Oh......this is officially the best day of my life.

So yes, he was excited.

*Trying something different just a bit of a side story, not canon to anything just a spoof or omake if you will. More for comedy than anything. Hope you all enjoy!*

[sleemo]

Jedi master Mark Hamill geeks out with Bill Hader

— Interview Magazine Nov 9, 2017

From the time of the ancient Greeks, humanity has been fascinated by the struggle between good and evil, often led by an archetypal chosen one who blazes a path of glory by separating himself from the pack. As a young actor toiling between auditions, Mark Hamill’s moment of destiny came when he took a break from TV fare such as General Hospital to read for a role in a little sci-fi film helmed by a young director fresh off an Oscar-nominated hit called American Graffiti (1973). When Hamill was cast in the original 1977 Star Wars as Luke Skywalker, an orphaned farm boy growing up on a desert planet, no one—chief among them Hamill himself—knew that the film would become one of the most influential and profitable franchises ever made.

When the announcement came a few years back that Hamill would reprise his role as the Jedi Knight in J.J. Abrams’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), along with his original co-stars Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, fans went wild. But while Hamill’s screen time was relegated to a small appearance at the end of that film (Skywalker, in ascetic seclusion on a remote planet, is discovered by a young woman who exhibits strong signs of the Force), the second installment of the new trilogy, next month’s The Last Jedi, is squarely focused on Skywalker’s journey.

On a late September afternoon, the comedian, actor, and Saturday Night Live alum Bill Hader (who was a vocal consultant for the droid BB-8 in The Force Awakens) called up Hamill from the Sony lot in Los Angeles to geek out about that iconic galaxy far, far away.

MARK HAMILL: Hi, Bill!

BILL HADER: Hey, man!

HAMILL: I’m a big fan of yours. My kids tell me that you came to my house before you were on SNL.

HADER: Yes! I was a PA on Empire of Dreams, the documentary about the Star Wars movies, and I came over to pick up some pictures of you. I sat in your living room, and I believe it was your wife who brought down the pictures, and I was like, “Oh my god, Mark Hamill’s so rad.”

HAMILL: Was I not there?

HADER: You weren’t. I didn’t want to touch anything, and the whole time I kept apologizing for my existence.

HAMILL: Were any of my kids there? Nathan or Griffin or Chelsea?

HADER: No, but when I first moved to L.A. in 1999, Nathan and I ran in the same circle for a bit. I had a friend who had a massive crush on him. I remember once we had to go to this bowling thing because Nathan was going to be there. [sirens wail in the background] Sorry, I’m robbing a bank right now. Hold on.

HAMILL: [laughs] I saw your tauntaun and Jabba the Hutt impersonations on YouTube. It’s a talent of yours I had never seen. I like that you keep alive the legacy of some of the actors that I love, like Vincent Price. I’ll be talking to people your age and younger, and I’ll mention Lee Marvin [Hamill’s co-star in The Big Red One, 1980] and a lot of them will go, “Who’s Lee Marvin?”

HADER: Oh, my god.

HAMILL: It just goes to show how fleeting fame is.

HADER: I remember I was at Comic-Con once, and I looked over and there was this long line for, I don’t know, the stars of some lesbian vampire series from Mexico, and then all by himself was [stop-motion animation and special effects master] Ray Harryhausen.

HAMILL: Did you go talk to him?

HADER: Yeah! I was like, “Oh my god, you’re Ray Harryhausen.”

HAMILL: He’s always been an icon for me. I was so into that stuff as a kid. I mean, The 7th Voyage of Sin-bad [1958] and Jason and the Argonauts [1963] and First Men in the Moon [1964] and on and on and on. I lived for that stuff. I got to interview him once on the floor at Comic-Con for Comic Book: The Movie—he was the quintessential gentleman of another era.

HADER: Were you always a fan of this stuff?

HAMILL: I was a total freak for these kinds of movies. As for getting the role of Luke Skywalker, I really stumbled into it. Just last year, I saw that they included our audition tapes as a DVD extra, and I saw William Katt’s and Robby Benson’s and Kurt Russell’s tapes, and they were all great. It seems so arbitrary that I was anointed.

HADER: Was it true that they were casting for Carrie [1976] at the same time?

HAMILL: When we auditioned, it was a total cattle call, where they didn’t even tell us about the movie—we just went in and talked for a few minutes. Brian De Palma was looking for actors for Carrie and sitting next to him was George Lucas. Since Lucas didn’t speak the whole time, I thought he was De Palma’s assistant. I didn’t know what he looked like! So I did my thing, and a couple of weeks later, I went to my agent, and there were six or seven pages of audition material for me. By the time I got the part, I assumed that Harrison Ford was the lead, because he’s a traditional leading man. I thought I was going to be his sidekick, you know, like Captain America and Bucky.

HADER: Or Batman and Robin.

HAMILL: Then I opened up the script, and at the time it said: The Adventures of Luke Starkiller as Taken From the “Journal of the Whills,” Saga I: Star Wars. I just couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought, “How are they going to do all this?” Robots, the Death Star, all of it—it blew my mind.

HADER: Did you have confidence that they could do it?

HAMILL: You have to believe. But it’s always a little disconcerting—what you imagine in your head and what you see on set.

HADER: Describe a moment on set when you went, like, “Wait, these are the Sand People?”

HAMILL: The lightsabers, for a start. George referred to it as the most expensive low-budget movie ever made. At one point, Fox screened raw footage to some people, because they needed more money to finish it. Imagine it with no effects, no music, no nothing. The general consensus, because it played so horribly, was that they should just shut it down and take a tax loss. It was only [20th Century Fox executive] Alan Ladd Jr. who saw the potential and gave us his blessing. I think they gave us like a million and a half more. Do you remember seeing it when you were young? Did it scare you, or did you love it?

HADER: I remember going to see Return of the Jedi [1983] on my fifth birthday—the people tearing the tickets were dressed as stormtroopers—but the first image I can remember on a movie theater screen is that close-up from Empire [The Empire Strikes Back, 1980], of Han in carbonite. I flipped out, and my dad had to take me out of the theater. Then he told me the whole thing on the ride back; he was like, “Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s dad!” And that’s how he said it—not his father, his dad. [laughs] What was it like, back then, leading such a massive franchise?

HAMILL: It was kind of like The Prince and the Pauper, where one day you’re nobody and the next you’re partying with Andy Warhol. It was surreal. I came from a big enough family, so I didn’t let it get to my head too much or change my view of the world. The first time I went to the Oscars was like that, too. It wasn’t really me walking the red carpet. It was like watching a movie of a Hollywood premiere. You have to have an intellectual distance from it, because it’s so atypical from your everyday life. I’m sure you feel the same way. You can’t sit in the park and people watch anymore, that ship has sailed. Star Wars ebbed and flowed, but I never expected it to come back, certainly not with this intensity. Carrie and I were in Orlando, with fans. It’s just astonishing the passion and affection that they have for all of this stuff. It’s overwhelming. You can get emotional about it because it’s so personal, the way they relate it to their own lives.

HADER: Batman, too. [Hamill has served as the voice of the Joker in animated series, films, and video games, starting with Batman: The Animated Series in 1992.]

HAMILL: That’s a whole subgenre of comic book nerds who know that I’m a nerd, too. I’m one of them, so they love the fact that I’m not posing.

HADER: What is it like working with [Last Jedi director] Rian Johnson or J.J. Abrams, people who grew up with Star Wars? Is it ever weird to be told things about your character, when you know him better than anyone else?

HAMILL: With J.J. and with Rian, it’s the first time that the fan generation has grown into being in the position that they are. I was surprised in many ways how they saw not just my character, but the overall piece, because you get really possessive over the years. But Rian, what a blessing that guy is. He is unassuming and amiable. I’ve never seen him raise his voice. I’ve never heard him curse. I never heard him humiliate anybody else in front of the entire crew.

HADER: [laughs] When the first trilogy ended, did you feel a sense of relief? I know when I left SNL, it was a big relief.

HAMILL: It was exhilarating. It felt like senior year of high school. You know those last moments when you’re clearing out your locker? You’re going to miss all these people you know, but there’s the exhilaration of what comes next. It’s like jumping out of an airplane and hoping for the best, hoping your parachute opens. I was lucky that a lot of pressure was taken off financially; I didn’t have to do stuff that I didn’t want to do, so I indulged myself. I always wanted to do theater, so I did lots of theater. I got to do a comic mockumentary, and I wrote a comic book, and I discovered that the Joker gave me a whole new career. I didn’t expect to be the Joker, of course, but with voice acting, it liberates you to play characters you’d never do in a million years because you’re physically not right. You can show up looking like hell, you don’t have to memorize your lines because you can read them right off the page, and you get to play the most fun parts. You come in and you kick everyone’s ass and you get your own ass kicked, and then you go home.

HADER: I do animated things, too, and they’re so much fun. But do you get tired after a session?

HAMILL: Oh, yeah. It’s a real workout. But it’s so entertaining. It’s like going to a really great nightclub act and getting paid for it.

HADER: I really liked The Big Red One. What was that like?

HAMILL: I was a huge Sam Fuller fan. Within five minutes of meeting him, I went, “Holy Christ, I’ve been drafted!” He got up on his feet and he started telling me the story of that film, with the explosions and the rat-a-tat-tat, and I was mesmerized. He had such charisma, such magic. He was a firecracker, like Yosemite Sam. I was traumatized when it came out because, even though it got good reviews and takes its place among the great war films, it wasn’t what we all hoped for. They cut it down to an hour and 50 minutes, to the point where it was so incomprehensible. Now, of course, it’s been restored to its proper length. If anybody’s reading this and is thinking about watching the movie: make sure it’s the two-and-a-half-hour version! Not that truncated version. I wish Sam were alive to have seen that because that would have made him happy, and he deserved it. Like any great artist who is ahead of the time, he was not welcome in Hollywood at a certain point.

HADER: There was a great documentary about him called The Typewriter, the Rifle, & the Movie Camera. That was when I first heard about him.

HAMILL: Was I in it?

HADER: You’re not talking in it, but there’s a clip from The Big Red One in it.

HAMILL: Okay, yeah, I remember that one. I hope you and I get to work together some time.

HADER: That would be awesome.

HAMILL: I have been loyal to Saturday Night Live from the very beginning. When it first came on, I said, “We’d better enjoy this because it’s for sure going to be cancelled. This is only going to last one season.” So I started taping them all. I had no idea it would become such an institution. I guess we can both relate to getting lucky and hitting the jackpot.

BILL HADER IS A COMEDIAN, ACTOR, AND WRITER. THIS SPRING HE WILL STAR IN THE HBO SERIES BARRY, WHICH HE CO-CREATED.

— Interview Magazine

[amorremanet]

top 5 movies? and why? no no TOP FIVE BOOKS

oh gosh, both of these are hard and my answers for them are probably so boring (they also come with the, “this is just how I feel right now because ugh, I am the worst at picking any all-time faves for broad categories”) — but!!

top “five” movies:

The Prince of Egypt — has some of the most beautiful art that I’ve ever seen, anywhere, and music that sticks with you, and it really shows the human drama and human stakes of such a classic story in ways that a lot of adaptations of Biblical mythology are afraid to do

Deadpool — because I’m garbage, the characters are great, the script is pretty good, and the movie makes me laugh. It’s not really a deconstruction (in the way that some people make it out to be, by way of justifying why they like it), and it’s not super-intellectual, and in a lot of ways, it’s like a giant #SorryNotSorry that makes fun of superhero movie tropes while continuing to use them (and there are some subtle ways it plays with some of said tropes and twists them around, but it largely doesn’t) — but it’s fun

But I’m A Cheerleader — is far from perfect, and I maintain that it’s actually much more depressing than the ending leads us to believe (I mean, Meghan/Graham and Dolph/Clayton get together and escape from True Directions and homophobic parents, and Meghan’s Mom and Dad at least try to do better by their daughter, but things don’t work out that well for anybody else), but it’ll always have a special place in my heart because it was one of the only lesbian movies that I had access to as a little gay baby

Female Trouble — I wouldn’t say that it’s the best thing that John Waters has ever done, just the one that I personally like the best, and I’ll admit that it’s probably an acquired taste…… but I love how it takes on celebrity culture in the story Dawn Davenport, and it gave us great lines like, “The world of heterosexual is a sick and boring life” and, “I wouldn’t suck your lousy dick if I was suffocating and there was oxygen in your balls!” It also has a special place in my heart as one of my favorite, “gay AND weird” movies

—which probably makes sense, given that it was written and directed by the trash king of being gay and weird

……like, seriously. My (best friend who I call my) brother once asked me, “So is John Waters gay or is he just really weird?” and the only thing I could think of to say to that was, “Yes, both.”

the “Three Flavours Cornetto” trilogy — which is totally cheating, to put three in here, but I couldn’t pick between them. I do think that Hot Fuzz and The World’s End are more fully actualized than Shaun of the Dead, but I love all of them, and the reason is pretty much just, “Because they’re good mixes of being hilarious and making me FEEL things” (……less so in The World’s End, for several reasons; it’s a lot heavier on the feels, to the point that you sometimes feel bad for laughing at the jokes, but still)

and books:

Good Omens (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman) — This book was my introduction to both PTerry and GNeil, after I found a cheap copy in an airport bookstore when I was about twelve and immediately fell in love. It’s funny, the characters are vibrant and engaging, and it played right into my love of screwing around with Biblical mythology.

I’m periodically tempted to list different books for both of those men (with PTerry’s probably being one of the Granny Weatherwax books, or Faust Eric, and GNeil’s being either American Gods or one of his Sandman books — because yeah, he’s done other good stuff, but I’m more sentimentally attached to AG and Sandman. Also, Preludes and Nocturnes has some of the only non-movie or TV horror that has genuinely terrified me, so)

—buuuut then I never do, because Good Omens was my first book from either of them, and remains my sentimental fave, even though I admit that they’ve both written other books that are, “better” or, “stronger,” or whatever

Dry (Augusten Burroughs) — There’s a lot of fair criticism to be made of Augusten Burroughs, and he’s been one of the writers at the center of the debates about truthfulness or lack thereof in popular memoirs (like, how much an author is allowed to condense things before it stops counting as a, “real story,” and how an author remembers things happening vs. how other people remember them), but Dry nevertheless means a lot to me.

Like, I enjoyed Running with Scissors and his novel, Sellevision (which were the other Big Deals in his collected works, at the time I originally read Dry), but Dry fucked me up a LOT when I first read it. It has continued to fuck me up ever since.

There are passages in this book that I can’t even be jealous of, as another writer, because they’re so good that they skip right the fuck past, “I’m angry and jealous that I didn’t write this myself” and into, “Holy shit, THIS is why I write, the ability to do THIS KIND OF THING EXACTLY with words, I need to go write something right now”

Also, it means a lot to me for sentimental, “I read this book for the first time when I was in high school, and it made me feel less lonely and sad and scared” reasons

Dynamic Characters (Nancy Kress) — This is by no means the be-all and end-all of, “how to writer better” books, but it’s a personal favorite of mine, for two reasons: 1. there are some things that Kress doesn’t cover about creating characters and doing better by them in your writing, but she’s still pretty comprehensive and offers some solid illustrative examples, multiple perspectives on this part of writing (not as many as she could, but to be fair, she only has so many pages to work with), and a good mix of “tough love” advice and gentler, more reassuring advice;

and 2. …it was the first, “how to writer better” book that I ever got my hands on. I picked it out specifically because I’d posted a completely ridiculous crack fic that was a crossover between Harry Potter and Sailor Moon, with a first-person protagonist narrator who was a hot nonsense self-insert power fantasy Mary Sue with no flaws and no nuance because, hey, I was 11.

And someone actually commented to go, “Hey, look, you have talent, but you could do better and one place to start is maybe with learning to build better realized characters” — so I picked out the Nancy Kress book and it seems like a really silly thing to call a turning point? But it was big a turning point for me

Death, Disability, and the Superhero: The Silver Age and Beyond (José Alaniz) — okay, time for me to be a loser and cite an academic book. I’m also probably a cheating loser, since I just read this book for the first time recently…… but with that said? I’ve read a LOT of critical treatments of the superhero genre, some pretty good, others pretty bad (for example, I remain Perpetually Tired of Slavoj Žižek’s heavy metal Communist, Bane in Leather Pants bullshit reading of The Dark Knight Returns), and most of it somewhere in the middle

—but there’s this trend among people who write critically about superhero junk, whether they’re academics of not, wherein we act like we have to act like superhero comics are The Most Progressive Ever and oversell their sociopolitical impact in order to make them look like ~*True Art*~ That Must Be Taken Seriously (—and like, I’m not saying that they have NO impact on people at all, because that’s objectively false. But you also can’t try to claim that Superman, Wonder Woman, and Captain America comics are why the Allies won World War II)

(this is a pointless aside to note that I deliberately left the Goddamn Batman off that list, because while Supes, Diana, and Steve were all off punching Nazis, Golden Age Bruce and white boy!Dick were running around on the home-front, rounding up Japanese Americans and putting them in internment camps. So… y’know. There’s that.)

……or we have to take legitimate criticisms of problems in the superhero genre, both historical and current, and use them to go, “Therefore, the entire genre is pointless garbage that has no redeeming qualities at all and could never ever EVER be used to tell any stories that are worth telling, and frankly, you are all terrible, horrible people for enjoying it, how very dare you enjoy that X-Men movie or that Red Hood And The Outlaws comic, you’re basically a fascist now”

—which is hilarious, to me, because the people who write that sort of criticism almost always cite Fredric Wertham’s book, The Seduction of the Innocent (aka: the book that led to so much moral outrage over the allegedly very gay and fascistic, child-corrupting content of comicbooks that the Comics Code Authority was created), and they always go, “Well, obviously Wertham was OTT and totally full of shit, buuuut…… *argument that would not have been out of place in his book*”

So, one of the big reasons I loved Professor Alaniz’s book is that is does neither of these things. It offers some incisive, and occasionally kinda damning, critique of the superhero genre and its handling of disability and mortality, but he does so from a place of love and enjoyment, and never pretends to hate the genre, nor argues for throwing the whole thing out because it has problems.

Like, his underlying mindset is very much, “Yes, the superhero genre has a LOT of problems, but people could, in theory, fix them and try to get closer to realizing the full potential of what these characters and stories can do” — while never skimping on a detailed analysis of the trends and case studies that he presents.

Sometimes, I think he’s kinda reaching (and I, personally, never want to hear anything about Doctor Doom’s Oedipus complex ever again so long as I live, though it was validating to hear that my theatre kids AU version of him — who is a ridiculous mess, obsessed with taking selfies, and perpetually acting like he totally gets everything while missing some crucial detail, which is how he ends up thinking that Loki is dating Tony Stank [a suggestion that makes both of them want to puke] — is actually a valid interpretation of his character, based on some parts of canon)

Overall, though, my biggest problem with Professor Alaniz’s book is that he can be kind of a hipster and it can get a little bit annoying. Not enough to ruin the whole book, but enough that it does stand out.

Like, his chapter on Daredevil specifically analyzes an infamous Silver Age story that basically everyone hated — the one where Matt Murdock tells Karen and Foggy that he isn’t the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, but he has some heretofore unknown identical twin brother named Mike, who is not blind but *IS* actually that aforementioned costumed hero, and carries on a charade of pretending to be his nonexistent twin brother — and okay, we get some pretty neat discussion of how passing can work or might not with disabled people

…but you can still walk away feeling like his biggest reason for analyzing that story arc was less about its value to any part of his discussion, and more about going, “Other Daredevil stories are too mainstream, I care most about this one that was so infamously ridiculous that people have said even soap operas wouldn’t have done this plot”

Likewise, I’m not saying that there aren’t very fair criticisms to be made of the X-Men and how their stories handle disability in particular… but at some points in his chapter on the Silver Age Doom Patrol comics, Professor Alaniz seems to be less, “using the pre-Claremont Silver Age X-Men stories as an illustrative foil to the Doom Patrol, especially with regard to how Charles’s paraplegia is treated vs. how The Chief’s paraplegia is treated” and more, “using this discussion as a free excuse to bash on the X-Men for being popular”

To his credit, Professor Alaniz does kinda discuss some of the ways that the X-Men’s popularity might have been affected by the fact that things like their ableist handling of Charles make them feel, “safer” and, “less sociopolitically threatening” than he makes the Doom Patrol out to be (with a pretty convincing argument, actually)

He just doesn’t do it enough for me to feel like his “criticism” of the X-Men isn’t at least partially grounded in going, “Well, it’s popular, therefore it sucks” (—as opposed to my approach to them, which is, “It’s popular, and has a mixed bag of things that it does well vs. things it does that suck, but it does not suck BECAUSE it is popular”)

Anyway, good book, and it’s written in a refreshingly accessible way (it’s still an academic book and harder to get into than, say, Good Omens, but Professor Alaniz doesn’t make a lot of the more common mistakes that leave a lot of academic writing effectively incomprehensible)

and last but not least…… Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire (we all know who wrote this, okay, come on) — because I’d be lying if I didn’t include at least one HP book on this list, considering how important those books and that fandom have been to the course of my life and to my development as a writer, and it was either gonna be this one or POA, but this one won over the other because I’m garbage

[beardcore-blog]

the day the horses drink from the trough

PRESS PLAY

lizzo SOULMATE

**********

one of the great myths in the NEO american empire of the misled is "the forever man".

this myth is literally crammed down the throats of the tiniest children in much the same way that people shove cornmeal down the throats of ducks and geese and cows to make them taste sweeter while killing them softly, lol.

the princess syndrome is so out of control now that any sense of an actual republic is long gone. but "the forever man" myth hasn’t changed.

young children are still taught that they must become parents, and i think we all know that parenting is one of the most BASIC TOOLS that the usurers can use to create loan debt. parenting is a very thankless job as well, so you get debt slavery and sht hours and there’s that baby that you can’t get rid of… or maybe you like your kid. lucky kid!!! but even though you like that kid, you will NOT be there in every moment and they will be neglected and abandoned to fate. so pray that your little one becomes a real princess or a true knight.

i’m not sure what the male dynamic is because little boys are so weaponized to create hostility that they always go for the swords and the guns to wreak havoc. nice work, parents!!!! way to create fake gender separation. pat yourself on the back for that one.

but we all got stuck with the breakage and wreckage of the "love that never dies" obligation to seek and find. i was oppressed by it as a child. it actually seemed like the coolest thing about the western dogma from religion — faith and love and unionizing.

of course, my strange and "briefly but permanently" mangled childhood proves how easy it is to destroy a child in really a mere matter of seconds. way to go, mom!!!

so naturally i have been weirdly taken with aldous huxley’s beautiful utopian dream that does not actually take place in his bitter and sad criticism of "the jews" (not to be confused with the jewish people in the same way that radical islamists are not a reflection of true path of the muslim journey — i note this because anti-semitism at that time in europe post wwi was at an all time high with printing criticism and outrage. anti-semitism was like a genre in a modern day bookstore it was so popular and had so many writings. picture that cowboy western section and the science fiction section and then the anti-semetic section.), fascist/idealistic germans and the north american noble savage.

all of that was a bitter pill for me. i literally was physically ill through sections of the book. it was a visceral experience that went beyond reading. it was an education.

but on the sidelines of the book was this curtain that had been pulled back on monumental ideas. it was like we were on the willy wonka factory tour and we’re in that massive cathedral of candy with an eternally churning chocolate fountain that sucks up agustus gloop and swooshes him away. and right at the moment every single person on the tour starts to formulate the actual "dangers" involved in this strange sugary fantasyscape.

but i was ready for the camera to ditch the sugarland phenomenon. i wanted to see where augustus gloop had gone and just how deep did this playland of machinery and artificial replication go. i was ready for a different kind of tour of the factory. talk about a psychotic dystopia…

plus, in huxley’s world, the glimpses that we get are very grown up and cool. they are not the childlike entrapping of a story for kids. it’s older, it’s stabilized. people of all people get along as one through class separatism. and a history of fulfillment through separation. we are told that each caste is trained to be content with their occupation in life and some are even dumbed down with alcohol in the birthing jars.

and this was an inceptive vision of the dawning corporate heirarchy/caste system of order/need. we are starting to experience its arrival. but in the novel, these were birth classes. everyone was born into their position.

further, these "corporatized classes" were arranged with the "controllers" and/or philosopher kings at the top and the class system below it with the alphas at the top of the class system. the alphas were all male and they were NOT clones. the betas are the female member of the caste which the alphas belong to in the novel and are NOT clones. but all the other caste systems were bred and manufactured to maintain different aspects of the system’s needs. they were all clones.

throughout the novel huxley continuously promotes the virtues of the THREE FOUNDATIONS for a great society:

identity, community, stability

and huxley presented ideas that blatantly/openly stated how evil it was to separate kids from self discovery and liberty and that by not allowing them to explore each others bodies and touch one another we were creating a repressed/suppressed curiosity that would grow like a monster inside the child — a childish expression that is encouraged through taboo.

and that’s pretty bold philosophy.

further, and logically, he presented a society that wasn’t afraid of children never having parents but rather, cherished the idea of each one growing up protected and looked over by people who loved their job of caring for little ones and they didn’t abuse them or prohibit the kids from discovery themselves.

and each one was genetically crafted and modified to fit perfectly into their role within the greater whole. this was the utopia. the novel, however, skitters all over the place like a drunken car crash. the passengers are not reflective of the society. instead they are are a TRINITY list of the "unusual suspects", the "anti-society types" through no real fault of their own, the anomalies, those who didn’t fit in — as explored through the sexual relationships of one woman. she bangs all of them.

which is weird because you never hear anyone talk about that. so my version™ would put her into the HERO BOX™ of the what used to be called a PROTAGONIST — see how lost we are?!??! a hero and a protagonist are not the same thing. and a soldier and a hero are not the same thing. unless you literally change the meaning of the word. a hero is someone who accomplishes a series of strange feats/tasks or labors. a soldier is someone who is willing to kill in exchange for commodities/livelihood.

take it up with the dictionary. i’m not making this up.

PRESS PLAY FOR MORE GOOD FUN from GALANTIS

anyway, the "star" of this series™ is not a hero because there is no such thing as heroes in BRAVE NEW WORLD. the mantra of IDENTITY, COMMUNITY, STABILITY is so deep that the society requires no heroes, no vigilantes, no protectorates, no nuclear arms.

and it would be the same story but it would be seen through her world and the experiences she was having simultaneously during the novel. like the film about jesus’ younger brother Agape who was away at college when jesus was a killed™ and the netflix film series™ would dive away from the very tiny blip of interest huxley’s novel provides.

not that it isn’t a great novel, it’s just that huxley was an intellectual surgeon and his storytelling feels very sterile, but the magnificent visions of the future that he is able to relay through description and attention to detail is brilliant even if it’s not the best writing.

and it is this world that is the skeleton of his novel. and the skeleton needs to be studied.

he’s given us the foundations and he’s created his own maps and he’s acutely aware of the beauty of the new mexican landscape and topography.

so instantly we know he’s got a crush on the noble savage whereas, personally, i’m more interested in hanging out with a beta and seeing what her best expectations are like in this fantastical land™. and the story was kind of about a beta in a very backward kind of way. and it was also about two types of failed alphas and then a hippie jesus guy from the "reservations".

but the novel does some time skipping and the tour doesn’t really take us much further than that disturbing garden that the the tour creeps up on.

aldous kind of magically skips from age four to the adults, so that’s a bit too fast on the timeline for me — where’s the COMMUNITY?!?!?! he picks up on this concept later in his book ISLAND — but i still kind of agree with him that really little kids should be allowed to discover each other physically and without the judgement parents impose and overimpose so fast. we are mistaken in sexualizing this curiosity. we make it rapey. we use our adult minds to be like "OH!!! RAPE, my baby’s a rapist", or "oh no, that little baby boy played with another little boy".

aldous suggested that this form of exploration was essential to humans understanding and experiencing themselves EARLY ON without the sexual element being present or worse, present and mature. further, that this exploration would lead toward a differnt developmental attitude which would in turn allow a society to bypass future rape and sexual misconduct breaches.

but his ideas were too radical for people in his time. they still are. considering what a powerful novel it is, when it was written and the brilliant ideas that are tossed around like a juggler who is bouncing balls and torches and chain saws of the walls of a racquetball court while teaching you squash at the same time, it doesn’t get much play.

he was, after all, such a BRIT who had been notoriously kicked out of his social life circle in england for writing hilarious tell-all novels about the people closest to him. so they’d given him the outcast card and he’d fled (as fast as a mostly blind man with a lesbian wife can flee) to new mexico in the post wwi era, near the future site of the u.s. secret city/laboratory, los alamos. and from there, hollywood by 1932, i think.

what a great story he lived as well, not just tripping out on acid as he died, but also his first wife hunting beautiful women for the two of them to share, and the screenplays, the vast library of single print editions by other famous poets and playwrights and novelists sent to him for his approval. and then his second wife, the beautiful violinist who escape that terrible canyon fire that obliterated all those never-to-be-written-again books, all those manuscripts, all those precious writings that vanished beneath the terrible heat. and she, taking only her Stradivarius, walking out knowing everything would burn. letting go. giving it up to the fire.

forever people.

we wish.

but there is no forever man. there is no living jesus. all things die.

and true love is more like paying attnention. like that nun says in "lady bird". true love isn’t sexual. true love may not even know itself. true love might just be paying attention and feeling joy? the joy of paying attention.

and i know how much we all long to feel joy when paying attention. and in an age of POST-DISTRACTION awakenings, isn’t it time you told your daughters that marriage is an OPTION. that having kids is an OPTION. that giving up your life to fulfill some fake darwinian NONSENSE is an OPTION.

but so is living your own life and having no one else that you’ve created. and so is fighting for new models of PROCREATION that don’t involve failing parents, parents that never wanted kids and people who can’t afford kids.

parents are most often the worst thing about kids. so don’t be afraid to tell your kids that you failed and how. maybe they even remember it and have blamed themselves.

and if all you can give your son is a gun or a truck or a logic game, you’re definitely part of the problem. it’s vastly unfair to use gender foolishness to masculinize a child. it distorts the idea of masculinity like a mental disorder in the same manner that physical sexual abuse destroys young children. they are both attacks against the child’s being.

we do our best to protect kids against the predators of the body, but we do very little protect our children from the predators of the mind and the consumer usurers who are taking the kids earlier and earlier.

who knows, maybe one day the movie of the book will be made. we live in a perfect time for it to just skip straight away from the book and into the BRAVE NEW WORLD right after the visitors on the tour see where the little kids are intermingling without any kind of ADULT IMPOSED intrusions.

the great thing about the BRAVE NEW WORLD was that the rapey issue had been addressed and fully considered. the society was developed around the understandings of sexual co-mingling without parentalizing adults.

since most of humanity ALLEGEDLY has a very low intellectual focus & MOST people don’t actively seek to better and improve their intelligence — this is not my fact, it’s how "they" talk about the 99%ers — it is easy to distract the general populace with "material gain" greed games and after life myths and unfulfillable promises like the forever man.

even now, fully ready to fall asleep again after being "awake" for so fking long, even now i still want the person i thought of to be my forever man.

i want him so bad. but he was never that man in real life. he was never the fake version of him that was presented. and that’s what kills me the most. i supported the lies without knowing it. i felt misled and bushwacked. not victimized, just super aware that i had participated in the set-up and had no grounds for complaint. i spent my liberty and freedom of time and it was gone. and he felt stronger and freer (which is good and i’m glad of that).

but in the process we burned through each other and the lies and the falsehoods and the deceptions and the weaknesses all became exposed and destroyed in the fire. he was never the forever man in the first place. and that’s the rub. the forever man isn’t a person. there is no forever man.

in that moment the forever man became a concept for me, a trap that so many others fall into as well. and then we fall out of it. a lot of people return to it, but that’s usually because they can’t see the permanent break.

so now, suddenly, there was this permanent break and it was known to both of us.

granted, at first i found this confusing. naively, i had always assumed the permanent break was already there. didn’t everyone know this intuitively? i hadn’t realize that this wasn’t a universal understanding. but, i only say this because i learned it from people who are born alone. they say it over and over again.

i was born a twin and i don’t think that the "born alone" perspective is "all there is" as much as it is "all that most people have access to, therefore"…

but i learned about the "permanent break" from people born alone. twins are generally super optimistic. and i’m guessing on this because i can imagine a family that takes joy in their twins and understands that they might be a little different. my parents made a permanent break with me. an unrecoverable intentional break.

and then, through a long process of hop-scotch education through the west coast public and private christian schools in north and south california, voila! aware of humans and how they formulate their kindnesses and their goodnesses.

so when i heard about the permanent break thing AT THIS STAGE IN THE GAME, i was a bit taken about. it was one of those horrible realizations where your mind goes all bird’s eye view and geomapping and speeds through all manner of timelines and conjugations and starts the "murder board" with the new thread.

you can visually see the wasted time as chunks of LIFE. tetris LIFE chunks filled with remembrances just "disappearing" the value of memories instantly. a radical cross-platform devaluation of emotional assets. worse than zero. worse than no memories at all.

and that’s when you realize that a rug has been pulled out from under you and your grand designs. it’s the dreadfulness of false manifestations, the celebrants of what you thought was genuine were really bound up in a bottomless sadness and a burning flame with their own downward spiral dance.

it’s that startling and irreversible moment when you realize that your eyes and your heart and the assurances of another had been used quite shamelessly to proliferate a bizarre and untrue fantasy.

and worse, it was TRULY the revelation that i had wanted but not with a ghost!!! not with a dancing apparition! not the hollow man!!! oh fk, not the hollow man!!

and so now i’m doomed to still want the forever man that i had created with my expectations and then with my desires and then was slowly filleted by…

or maybe it was more like the sides of my neck were slashed open to make gills. because i do feel lucky. the charade could have taken longer and bigger chunks of my life. and i had a great time in the delusion and i liked working for a relationship.

sometimes the process of aging is a vinting metaphor and sometimes it’s a venting metaphor. sometimes it’s all about the air and the breath.

either way, it wasn’t my first relationship and it gave me an opportunity to see whether or not relationshipping was even in accordance with my nature and liberty. could i be happy without unionizing?

and the answer is yes. or, at least, it’s a great position to be in.

there is a freedom to participate in life that comes from being a part of it without being forced to protect offspring and develop those kinds of natural enmities against your "greatest predator", men. that’s a lovely start to things. almost as fun as the fake "virigin" girl claiming it’s god’s baby. or worse, everyone forgetting that "god’s baby" meant bastard offspring.

PRESS PLAY for some louder harder better from galantis

whatever, it doesn’t matter, i feel lucky to have had a forever man and to be able to write a more complicated story of "royal romance" than the childish ones we tell other people’s children and even our own children.

the corporatized children’s engineering factories are already in their late pre-testing phases.

BUT, a bit of forewarning to those who would be wise when it matters, i was punished for my childish expectations. i lost everything i gave. and i lost the time it took to give it. there was no reward. no dividends. no happy ever after. it was just business in the end.

and the whole time i had believed my eyes and my ears and listened and had tried to hold up the "we". but it was hard. there was permanent breakage from the start, not the end. he was full of grief and loss. he was too needy. but i thought he was consciously aware of all these things.

so when we were dating, i thought he knew about the permanent break. he was so far away from everybody. he was deep in the valley of the permanent break trying to find his way to sea-level. like a crushed flashcard on the side of the road in death valley.

in that there was the permanent break. we were choosing to try to have a relationship despite the permanent break that existed between people. he had come to me and plied me with the tale of his sister’s suicide. he pulled me into his sorrow spiral because i had told him several months before she killed herself that he should come out to her. she was a lesbian and felt entirely alone in the world and i begged him to reach out to her and share with her that he was gay.

but he didn’t. he had this way of never doing anything i suggested and then blaming me later about "advice" that he would get when he had come back to ask for "advice" after not doing what i had suggested after being asked. it was all a bit dislocating for me

and i give him credit for being clear and levelheaded about it in the end, but he couldn’t undo the damage that i was doing to myself for being such a fking fool.

no version of "sorry, i used you" or "let’s be friends" would ever replace the amount of time he took from my life while the veneer of his "forever man" status diminished in front of me until finally it occurred to me to ask him on the phone one day, long after we’d broken up if his current boyfriend was okay with these calls. i asked because it had also dawned on me that he’d specifically asked me to give him a call and do check-ins every couple of weeks, "are you allowed to talk to me? is your man okay with that?"

and he admitted that they had agreed that he wouldn’t call me. at which point i was like, "oh, i see, so this is like cheating. great, gotta go, man. i just wish you’d be honest. and free. you know that’s what i always wanted for you. i told you that over and over."

and we’ve never connected since. such a drag. and this is the danger of relationships.

you can lose years of your life, but even more important, you can lose WINDOWS of your life.

the years are just time, but the windows are specific ages where wonderful and amazing things can happen that cannot happen during other windows of your life.

besides, relationships TAX you. they TRULY add surcharges and time-penalties to your existence. there will no end of speed bumps and dependency is anti-liberty at its core, so the struggle to be free cannot be achieved unless all parties of the relationship are unionized. and that’s business contracting, which is an artifice. grammatically speaking, relationships are duty bound and come with obligatory submissions of personal liberty.

who’d sign up for that?

as if that isn’t enough, relationships will steal your experiences and replace them SHARED memories. and on the surface this sounds great. but that depends on the how the shared memories end up affecting the relationship.

shared memories are indeed precious and the best ones are the ones that you cherish. but after a separation, the best memories are the ones that work as triggers for your sorrow or anger or grief or devastation. the best memories become the worst.

i knew a woman in grad school who had come out as a lesbian. her name was ceebs. and she was a quirky writer with an irish background and we we’re both from san diego where her dad had been police chief or something along those lines. and she’d grown up repressing a lot of stuff. i’d done the same thing until i decided that living a lie was so ordinary and that NO ONE in the whole history of western writing had ever said, "just be a liar. lie to everybody. tell them what they want to hear. then lie about that later."

she used to often say that the thing you really liked about a person and were drawn to about them would become the thing you ended up resenting them for and perhaps even disliking about them.

so it sucks if you hear a bunch of lies up front and then they unravel around you to become the thing you end up resenting. that’s a tough one. and the irony is that lying never ends. it just keeps reinventing itself.

on the other hand, in total fairness, ALL western literature has been littered with the ruins of people’s lies and the horrible effect that lying had on so many people’s lives. and not inadvertently, heaven becomes this place where the lies are all put back together in front of you.

contemporary christianity became so zealous it started to formulate this notion (an entirely post-television & televangelistic fantasy) about how you’d stand in judgement and your entire life would be played back to you. and you thought andy warhol’s film "SLEEP" was long and boring:

"John Giorno has said Warhol asked him to star in Sleep over Memorial Day Weekend in 1963, when the two retreated to the countryside and Warhol spent the night watching Giorno sleep. “I looked over and there was Andy in the bed next to me, his head propped up on his arm, wide-eyed from speed, looking at me,” Giorno later relayed. "

born a twin, i think my big one wish would be that i DO get to this illusory JUDGEMENT ZONE where god and his posse replay my life to see if i was good enough to get in the the party called heaven.

but, typical me, i could give a sht about the party called heaven. i want access to my unknown life. i want to watch my birth and everything after like a fking drone camera that i can move around and zoom in or rewind. i want to see what happened to me when i was left unattended. i want to see the things i already have been told happened and then re-lied to about it.

i have the cobwebs of all these weird myths that humans create in order to justify PARENTHOOD.

we don’t need parents. science and the bible have proven that parents are unnecessary and obsolete.

unfortunately pedophiles and religious structures/foundations/corporations and "neo colonist governments" will want to self-protect against this accord.

they want you debt-enslaved with college loans, home loans, bundled family plan phones and car loans.

but that won’t pay for the loans after the entire shipping and distributing INTERCONTINENTAL economy lays off all the drivers and starts running AUTOKAR in a color-coded lane that only AUTOKAR (pilotless vehicle) can use.

that’s a lot of truckers nationwide all hopped on speed and suddenly without jobs?? is this part of the MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN strategy? shall we name that condition/state right now?

maybe we could call it THE AUTOKAR METH SHADOW.

so keep your eyes open. maybe it will never, ever, ever, ever happen.

or, give that "new utopia glimpse" a try. read huxley’s book BRAVE NEW WORLD. it’s a deeply fascinating look into miranda’s query: "O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in’t! (5.1.215-218) — the tempest

happy birthday. i hope you’re free and happy.

Posted by torbakhopper on 2007-04-03 17:03:24

Tagged: , like horses waiting for the gates to open , tulip , macro , flower , torbakhopper , scott , richard , photographer

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