#i want this to relate to ted's sexuality so bad but to be honest it works for any sort of personal development in ted

[thedanceronthestreets]

Ok, had an outright delusional conversation with my mum about ted lasso and this is what she said: what's the point of colin coming out in the grander scheme of things? Why is trent's presence at richmond relevant to the plot? Trent ultimately being there to help colin through his coming out is sweet and inspiring but, on its own, it doesn't drive the big plot, only creates a new sideplot. So, what is it's relevance to the main plot/character? How is colin coming out and trent helping him relevant to richmond, relevant to ted? She said it implies ted goes on some sort of self discovery journey that mirrors colin's and with all the gay stuff happening it's not a huge mental leap to assume ted starts to question his sexuality too once he hears about the experience of being closeted from someone going through a coming out. And she specifically said this is seeded in ted's relationship with sassy: even though sassy seems to show genuine interest in him (whether that's romantic or purely sexual) ted always seems to go along with it mindlessly, without questioning if it's what he really wants/needs in that moment. He uses their relationship as a distraction from his depressive episodes but never genuinely seems interested in sassy as a romantic/sexual partner. So what would happen if he started to question his encounters with her? What would happen if he started to question where the selective disinterest is coming from? Would he find it's only because he just can't let go of michelle? Or is it because he can't let go of the expectation surrounding these encounters? He's never had to answer such questions because he's been with michelle from such a young age. What if he started to explore encounters he DOES find genuine interest in and what if he finds the encounters are unexpected and scary, similarly to colin pre coming out? What if trent helps colin, but ultimately, inadvertently, importantly, helps TED in his journey to self-acceptance and colin is just the spark to light the fire? It's so big brained cause it ties most of ted's struggles together so neatly: his struggle with his marriage, with who he is outside of the marriage, with why he's always felt he needed to justify his presence with 'being curious, not judgemental', his relationship with sassy and trent and most importantly his father, ESPECIALLY as we might learn about trent's relationship with his father

[kaypeace21]

The theme with “time” this season makes me think of the phrase, “wanting to turn back the clock.” And I then think of Will never wanting to grow up and wanting to go back to the old days of playing dnd in Mike’s basement.

And then I think of Will’s (speculated) reality altering bending powers. So could there be a possibility that Will may use those powers to “turn back the clock”?? Maybe rewrite how things happened? Maybe it would be after Mike’s “death” like you speculated earlier. Since he thinks Mike is “dead” he wants to go back, and that’s what he does accidentally.

ALSO, Hopper tells joyce that he was trying to runaway from his "past" trauma with sara- before he says that line in the letter about wanting to turn back the clock and then saying it's not possible to do so . (And that life life hurts you but eventually you get out of that cave and life goes on ). Similar to Will he wants to turn back the clock to better times, but a part of him isn't ready to accept his entire past/ the tra*uma that comes with that- in order to move on and heal for the future .

Like robin said about back to the future "he's stuck in the past .But he needs to get back to his time which is the future!"

HOWEVER- I DON’T THINK THERE’S ANY REAL TIME TRAVEL!!!!

I’ve mentioned  my time-theory many many many times- in relation to my DID theory.  even if my did theory is completely wrong (aka Will has powers so his alters/split personalities/innerworlds come to life)- 

We also see how memories are explored in a supernatural way in st - it’s not literal timetravel just El using her powers to explore tra*matic memories of others (Terry/Billy so far). Like NO TIME TRAVEL PLEASE-THAT’S JUMPING THE SHARK. I really don’t want it lol. XD I think hopper and Robin's lines allude to the theme that will be addressed: confronting the past/times that harmed you but overcoming it for the future because time goes on 'whether you like it or not '.

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In reference to my time-did theory. Look at the st s4 movie inspirations. In ‘what dreams may come”  a guy explores a heaven like world influenced by a painter’s emotions/created via immagination.We also have the movie ‘inside out’ -which involves “memory islands” (distinct worlds based on a child’s memories) which are influenced negatively by the kid being depressed she moved to California. The characters traveling to these memory islands are constructs of  kid’s mind -and 1 of them also has a guide helping them explore the ‘memory islands’.  Welcome to marwen- has an artist (attacked for being perceived as gay) imagining an abstract world based off his art- where the characters he made experience their own adventures (loosely based off the artist’s trauma). ‘The cell ‘ has characters explore the mind of a guy whose father ab*sed him- and the different alternative fantasy-worlds they explore are based off his memories. The cop exploring these memory-worlds, was also implied to be se*ually ab*sed by his dad . Also,in  Inception a guy says he’s a construct of a guy’s mind ( the guy who created the dream worlds that are like alternate dimensions/levels- also hates his dad). And leo’s character says he needs to help him escape the many different levels of the dream world of the mind. Movies like inception, total recall, the cell, enter the void, wizard of oz, Peter Pan, hellraiser 2, dream warriors, bill & ted’s bogus journey, the labyrinth,and welcome to marwen, all allude to this: because they involve entering simulated abstract worlds usually created/based on happy& traumatic memories/fears. While truman show/matrix are more about realizing your reality isn’t real. While in bladerunner 2044/total recall it has the theme of false implanted memories… probably relating to hopper/el realizing they’re alters of Will’s-and their memories were technically created by him.

Something some DiD suffers have are “innerworlds” .When someone has DID there can be multiple “innerworlds” that are separate from one another (and look very different from one another) .And are usually very abstract worlds that are based on the child’s memories (good &bad) . These worlds are usually created at different times and almost act like alternate dimensions (and the inhabitants -npcs/alters of those worlds usually don’t interact with one another) . So they can almost resemble alternate dimensions like how Scott Clarke mentions “Hugh Everett’s many worlds interpretation.” Russia where Hopper is- is probably one of those innerworlds.

HOPPER THEORY: 

tw:ab*se/r*pe. In s2 Nancy asks Steve how his “grandpa’s time in the war is a metaphor for your life?” And steve compares the mf to the germans in the war. Dr owens mentions Will has ptsd like “ (vietnam) soldiers’, Hopper saying he had buddies like Will . “In the 70s there was a study that compared the post-traumatic stress symptoms in Vietnam veterans and adult survivors of childhood s**ual ab*se. The study revealed that childhood s**ual ab*se is traumatizing and can result in symptoms comparable to symptoms from war-related trauma.” Hopper isn’t actually in Russia -but in one of the innerworlds (after he jumped through the rift of the machine- into Will’s mind). We’ll see flashbacks but also present circumstances of his imprisonment echo Will’s past with Lonnie (if the movies indicate anything)- being starved, guards getting payed in order to let other prisoners  r*pe a gay prisoner (than claim incorrectly because of his sexuality he wanted it) , as well as a gang of sadist men who r**e others and a warden using that as a threat to be compliant , being thrown in a dark room of solitary confinement and starved when they didn’t obey the warden, the warden being religious, etc. And the American soldiers (in Vietnam) in the movies aren’t much better and do similarly horrific acts to civilians like r**e and bragging/ happily k*lling women, children, and the elderly. The drill sergant in vietnam calling them homophobic slurs & women, and chocking one of the soldiers with one hand (like the mf/russian), slapping one for not believing in christianity. Tying up a soldier in a bed , gagging him, beating him and saying “remember it’s just a dream.” Only praising them when good in fire arms.(movies : fullmetal jacket, papillon, shawshank redemption, platoon, welcome to marwen, etc ) . My assumption is flashbacks of his life-  hints about him being an alter -the boxes in the basement are “vietnam” ,“dad”, and “ny” (and these are the memories of his we’ll see).or after escaping the prison he’s stuck in diff innerworlds of memories. And some of the bad characters in said stories will also parallel Lonnie . Like how in  the s4 film ‘peterpan’- the young girl Wendy imagines netherland and the villain -captain hook- is based off her father ( in the movie they have the same voice actors/while in all stage productions the 2 characters are always played by the same actor). Similar to the other s4 film- ‘wizard of oz’ where the wicked witch of the west from the mythical land of Oz (is played by Dorothy’s real life mean neighbor in the real world/kansas).Or in ‘the cell’- all the alternate dimensions of the dream world that were created by a guy with a ab*sive h*mophobic dad -had the same actor play the villain in each very different dream dimension. ”Not sure if they’d use Ross Patridge (actor of Lonnie) in this way . But it would be very interesting if (In makeup) Ross played many negative people in Hopper’s life.  

Also, in  s2, Jonathan mentions Indiana writer Vonnegut- In his book ‘slaughterhouse 5′- Vonnegut begins the story of Billy (William) Pilgrim, a man who has “come unstuck in time”. (time ref of Hopper saying he wants to ‘turn back the clock.’ or’ runaway from his memories.‘It accounts of Billy Pilgrim’s capture and incarceration by the Germans during the last years of World War II (Hopper captured by the russians), and scattered throughout the narrative are episodes from Billy’s life with his dad, and his own wife and kids.Billy is forced to be part of the war and similar things against his free will. The moments start from his childhood when his father throws him in the water to teach him how to swim. He was unwillingly drafted into the war. Later, he is kidnapped by Tralfamadorians  (aliens that are implied to be caused by his mental health issues/trauma) against his will. Therefore, he realizes that this concept is just an illusion.in bladerunner 2044/total recall it has the theme of false implanted memories… probably relating to hopper realizing he’s an alter and his memories are technically ‘created’ . Like in total recall- the bad ass spy is told all his memories: his wife/ years of marriage,  his name, are just implanted memories. And she says “you’re life is a dream.” We also have ‘Arrival’ -the parent’s daughter died young cause of terminal cancer- and the mother later realizes time is also just a abstract construct (a thing she can experience differently than others), but she still finds meaning/happiness in those memories/times.

I also talked about how sarah as an alter could come back and the 2 would explore the “innerworlds” of Will’s mind together (you can read the details there). 

El and Will theory 

I’m thinking of the s4 movies and 1 matrix scene comes to mind that could be an obvious hint to Did (and Will’s importance). Mr smith (the suited calm villain/ who is a literal computer program of the matrix world -cough alter/npc of Will’s) kidnaps/ ties up Morpheus to a chair (like Will in s2), injects him with drugs in the neck ( like s3 steve/ will’s arm in s2).  Then Mr smith says as everyone leaves the room “I’m going to be honest with you. I hate this place, this prison, this reality or what you call it.” (grabs Morpheus’ head and glares) “ I need to get out of here! I need to be free! And this mind is the key.”(referring to morpheus).morpheus also translates to ‘god of dreams’. Also Morpheus was wearing head gear similar to El in s1/Will in s2 . or in 12 monkeys the guy sent to psych ward -starts believing he’s just “crazy” and says “i created a world with those people in it.” “It’s not real .I’m just mentally ill, like you said ” when you know- it is all real,cause of the supernatural angle involved. in 12 monkeys a patient even tells him the fictional world he created would dissappear once his mental health was in order.

Then there’s the El stuff.  Hellraiser 2- has a normal psych hospital, but the basement floor has an evil psychiatrist experimenting on teens to open a portal to another reality. assasains creed/dream warriors -  has the psychiatric facility be similar to the s1 lab with sensory deprivation tanks, cameras, solitary confinement in dark rooms.The doctor experiments on them- and forces a character to go into the memories of another individual (we know El has memory powers).The dr reveals how the character’s reality/whole life isn’t what they think it is (and that the memories they saw with their powers-was their past life and they are that person’s reincarnation) . Aka Will is the host- and El is an alter (alters can see memories of other alters/the host irl-aka billy/terry were also alters ).

In assasain’s creed there’s 2 psychiatrists- one bad / one who is good (but influenced by the bad dr). One dr annoyed at the lack of progress, says about the patient “he doesn’t want to remember his father.” While one dr doesn’t want to rush the therapy/ the other dr wants the patient to go back into his memories regardless of how it affects him. (which could be Brenner & maybe Owens referring to Will’s dissociative-amnesia and not remembering all the ab*se Lonnie did. And Owens not wanting to rush it/hurt el by making her go into said memories …but Brenner not caring.

also other hints : Cough s4 using the movie wizard of oz refs “we’re not in Hawkins (kansas) anymore”-hint at russia. David on instagram posting st stuff and captioning it with and quotes, pretending to be dorothy from the film. Hopper in s1 saying hawkins lab was “emerald city” (referencing El- it’s also why they reference El entering our world in ep 1 and the alice in wonderland song plays) . Murray says about the supernatural “no one wants to see behind the curtain” (what was behind the curtain in wizard of oz-was a wizard aka Will). Or you know right before Will sees the mf for the first time -a clock turns rapidly/ he  has goosbumps at the back of his neck. Which he later grabs/states  are from “memories” he can’t remember that are like a “dream”. 

If i’m right-not sure how much of this may happen in s4 vs s5, though. But I think something like this is possible.  For all we know-Will/El being trapped with Brenner while Hopper escapes ‘russia’ could be how the season ends? The timeline i’m a bit iffy about-tbh.

[luparaneo]

so because it’s Pride Month I feel like I should talk about my own sort of small (compared to others) but weird journey, but it’s my journey

long post and ultra personal talk under the cut, you have been warned

I’ve always known I was asexual of some kind, I’d never felt any sexual attraction to others or hell never even felt a need to date. Those kinds of desires everyone else I met seemed to have but all I have is one great big black hole for both. Even well into my teens I found sex scenes in media gross and unnecessary, and I’d often feel repulsed and look away for romantic scenes in movies even if all they were doing was making out. I still do this though I try not to make it as obvious as I used to.

Growing up I was repeatedly slapped in the face by media with the message of “you MUST have a relationship and it MUST be a man and you MUST have sex with him on a regular basis or something is WRONG with you” and because of that I felt like I was broken, though nobody ever told me this to my face I just eventually internalized there was a problem with me. Like I was a child that never completely grew up, or I was afraid I was going to grow up a serial killer because I couldn’t emphasize with those kinds of relationships (I still wonder if I’m neurodivergent other than ADD, but that’s a topic for another day). To be completely honest it still kinda fucks with me on bad days. But then I started seeing others in the same boat, that maybe I’m not broken or maybe they're broken like me but we’re all free because it has a Name now and names are powerful. Something with a name can be grasped, understood. I didn’t fully understand the term, I might have even mocked it a little (I’m pretty sure I used the “lol like a plant?” joke at some point), but eventually the term “asexual” settled in my little brain and like with many things this shy little bean does I quietly embraced it and hid it away. And that’s how I discovered asexuality!

But, here’s where I recently fell down another rabbithole.

The ace banner is good and all, but I realized at some things just didn’t add up for me. I do actually enjoy adult games, read dirty fics, insert myself into fantasy situations when I’m not using an OC, and uh, “solo act” as it were because I still have a need to scratch that itch too. But like, real people? In meatspace? No, absolutely not, the mere thought makes all that shrivel up and recoil in horror. Buut then I found the term “aegosexual” and everything makes even more sense now.

I know there’s a lot of debate whether aegosexual is just another term for grey-ace, or even if it’s under the ace umbrella at all, but we’re just gonna wave that away for the moment. How my brain works is the more specific something is, the better I can wrap my brain around and understand or relate to it; otherwise I actually panic. Asexual and greysexual are not specific enough for me so I started worrying if I was wrong about being ace all this time, but then stumbled onto this term. Aegosexual in a nutshell as I understand it is “functioning libido but not with another/irl” and fantasies can be detached and/or extremely unrealistic. It still falls under the asexual banner since there’s a distinct lack of sexual desire with others. Kinda helps explain my monsterfuckery/furryism because you really can’t get more unrealistic than those lmao. I suppose I’m also some flavor of fictosexual because when there is attraction it’s 110% going to be a fictional character, but I legit feel like if that character ever somehow became real my ace brain would kick in and go “NO, NO SMASH, ONLY FRIEND >:C” fhdjklsjfs. I literally have no interest in meatspace shenanigans, at all. But aegosexual sounds much less childish imo so if anyone asks, I’ll tell them I’m ace or aego. Funny enough I don’t feel that I’m aegoromantic though I’m probably somewhere under the aro umbrella, but I think I’d be down for trying a QPR someday.

holy shit this turned out longer than I thought, my bad

anyway thanks for coming to my Ted Talk, if you feel I’m talking out my ass about anything feel free to DM me here or wherever your local friendly Lupa can be found

if you felt this was TMI, well, too bad fuck you there was a warning for a raisin

On a much shorter note, sometimes I also wonder about my gender because I’m not sure where it falls anymore. I’m a cis female, I’m perfectly fine with being referred by female pronouns, but some days my brain is like “wow imagine if you didn’t have those awful sacks of fat called tits?” because I have never liked having female physical features for some reason. I want to bind, I want to dress up in fancy suits over flowing dresses, it’s like my brain is going “imagine, androgyny” or something but I’ve never been too sure what I should call this. I blame growing up a massive tomboy for this confusion, lmao.

ok that’s it go home, I have nothing else for you, shoo

[gothamstreetcat]

Please share your thoughts based of the bingo cards below because I wanna know 👀

i am absolutely going to be talking about all things controversial below the cut: ᵖˡᵉᵃˢᵉ ᵈᵒⁿ'ᵗ ʳᵉᵃᵈ ᶦᶠ ʸᵒᵘ ᵃʳᵉ ᵃ ᶠᵃⁿ ᵒᶠ ᵇᵃʳᵇᵃʳᵃ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵗᵃᵇᶦᵗʰᵃ 

season one

there isn't much I think is super controversial in season one, but I will definitely be talking about selina, the batcat kiss, and the overall season itself

on selina i have to say i was a little nervous before the show aired. it’s silly but also understandable for me because i always find myself getting nervous whenever someone new takes on a character I love. but honestly, i think camren is the best selina kyle we could have asked for. there is just always something about each catwoman/selina kyle i didn’t like, but with camren i think we get the most true and genuine portrayal because gotham shows her childhood—a obviously important part to selina’s character. it’s a side of her we never get to see much of in the comics or in films, and i just find it a very important part to her character. 

sometimes I think people are too drawn into making selina something more (holy tim burton, batman! she’s got cat powers!). and I hate to throw tim  under the bus with this, but over time the whole cat powers thing really pissed me off because part of what I loved about selina was how she was a regular person. she didn’t need cat powers to be great or special. it also kinda makes me sad when people compare cam’s selina so much to pfeiffer’s because a. camren is her own selina and shouldn’t be put under that kind of pressure and b. I really can’t see someone as tough as camren’s selina becoming some old man’s assistant with “corndogs” as a (cat)chprase(?) 

i know it’s silly, but another thing about cam’s selina is how much i just love her. i just grew up wanting to be her and be like her. i wanted to be hardened by city streets and i know it’s dumb but i don’t think i have to explain why i feel such a strong way about her. we all have our favorite characters. **more of this hot mess in the tags

moving into the batcat kiss i was initially really uncomfortable and disappointed with it. david and cam were young at the time, therefore, so were bruce and selina, and i just honestly feel like it was too soon. however, i know in an interview they talked about it and were okay with it—cam saying how she was able to separate herself from the character—so I have grown to be more tolerant of it (is it dumb to say i was a little embarrassed for them because that’s how i would feel if it was me?) i am also not innocent because i did make a gifset of the kiss but it was also paired with selina asking for bruce’s consent, and i only made it because i liked the parallels (queue a young me making gifs on makeagif.com) Now, I will highly advocate for that gifset because to me it really shows how much selina went to get bruce’s ‘okay’ before she kissed him. i feel as though we are always advocating so much when it comes to a woman’s consent but never when it is a man’s and both are equally as important but we’ll get into that later in this post. 

another thing i want to add, is how i’d like to believe i have some idea as to why they did the kiss in the first place. i want to believe it had something to do with the trauma of the day, or the fact that bruce is a boy who showed selina genuine kindness when she is clearly someone who has gone without. god forbid it only to be seen as ‘cute’ but perhaps, because selina wanted to know what it felt like to be touched in that sort of way. by someone like Bruce (who was innocent and had never been kissed) maybe it was some sort of way to thank him or a parting gift, to which i’m sure people would say that’s wrong but i feel with selina’s background it makes sense. as if it was a way for bruce to remember her by. now, i personally wouldn’t know what any of that feels like so maybe that throws all my credibility out the window but these are just my ideas.

the season overall i hold onto dear, i know we all have our favorites and this isn’t controversial, but you can’t beat the first. sometimes, i do feel like shows lose their way and loose that little spark when they first got started. and to be honest, i did feel that a little with gotham. not only that (and i’ve said this before so i’m sorry if i’m a broken record) but with gotham it gaves us these characters we are so used to seeing a certain way. the show took these seeming monsters and turned them human and we as watchers related to them. edward nygma was a nerd working at the gcpd. oswald was a guy holding an umbrella, turned dishwasher who then became the king of gotham. poison ivy was just a kid. everything was so new and fresh and exciting. so yeah, i think that’s a wrap on season one

season two

the only thing i am really going to talk about from this season was ‘babitha.’ again, i am sorry for anyone who follows me, is reading this and is a fan of them but in all seriousness: their relationship was toxic as hell. first off, i really didn’t like barbara nor tabitha before hand. barbara always felt whiny and needy while tabitha was played like some ditzy woman for her brother. together they were highly annoying, and i almost hate say that because independently tabitha was a really strong character. i still didn’t like her but i see and appreciate her without her brother. 

going into that i really think there where times barbara dragged her down. times where barbara was unstable, power-hungry and it just seemed like tabitha was not enough unless she had more. barbara also didn’t seem to like the idea that butch had a special place in tabitha’s heart (and then later killed him). i mean this is a funny way, but barbara can come off like that kid who was never told ‘no’ in her life.

not to mention when tabitha died and barbara went and fucked jim for the sake it of, i guess. i know everyone grieves differently and holy batgirl, batman! but it doesn’t seem right.

i wish i had more to say on them with better examples, but i honestly have way more to say regarding the sirens so i’m gonna let you read that instead.

honorable mentions include: bridgit pike deserving better because that girl could never catch a break. and the true ending of herself and karen jennings meeting, falling in love, and leaving gotham together. it honestly makes me sad i made up this ship and it feels like i’m the only one keeping it afloat. 

season three

again, i have my issues regarding the siren’s team up, so i was unhappy when they decided to make tabitha galavan selina’s mentor. i personally would not want to pair someone as vulnerable as selina with someone who physically and mentally abused her, but okay gotham. so that is where my ted grant comment came in, i assume you’ve read the comics and know that ted was one of the few who originally trained selina before becoming catwoman. therefore, i was disappointed they didn’t use him as i find him a better canidate for a mentor but also such an important person in her story. he would have been a great addition to the show. 

of course my first honorable mention must go to the batman returns scene because you’re only hip if piggy-back off of tim burton. as i mentioned above i don’t like how much cam’s selina is compared to pfieffer’s. i don’t understand why they had to re-create something i already think is over hyped when gotham is already a great show on it’s own, it would have been redeeming if they had not done the ‘cat power’ thing in season five but thankfully they didn’t really use it.it really pisses me off how much they really tried to make that scene frame for frame. 

my second honorable mention is going to be given to selina not knowing five was bruce because of his scars & alfred and maria respectively. i could talk a lot about why i love maria and alfred--i understand why people don’t like her and they’re right to do so, however, i do think they are right for one another. they both have jaded pasts, and yeah, the show was teasing love-interests for alfred a here and there but how can you not be happy for him when he saw selina’s mom? i think people should be redeemed and i honestly think maria was at least changed by her time at wayne manor and if you want i wrote a fic about alfred and maria but it’s totally bad writing wise so don’t read it. also. i’m sorry it’s dirty and i couldn’t go through with it. it’s kinda bad

as for selina and five i think there is something imamate about selina knowing bruce’s scars (not gonna lie,i was honestly going to talk about this but i’m too tired and don’t think i have anything meaningful to have)

season four

this is probably going to be the hardest season for me to talk about. and the only two things i’m going to cover are the toxic manipulation and abuse between the sirens team-up, as well as the sexual abuse bruce endured.

on the sirens i just wanna say i hopefully plan in the future to make a master-post involving this trio. i want to be as clear as possible and include the episodes but in case i don’t i’m just going to try my best. keep in mind i made this post regarding this topic a long time ago if you want the quick version. if you do check it out it’s been a while since i read it so it is probably messy and ugly. i also want to point out i’m going to try and talk about how much of the adults in selina’s life failed her. barbara and tabitha hit this mark pretty hard since at least barbara was there in the beginning stages of her life, and the trio themselves were made to appear as some sort of strong power-house.

i get on a surface level why fans like the barabra/tabitha + selina team-up (because girl power i guess), but i honestly can’t get over the abuse selina endured to even get to the point of being in a group. much of their relationship seemed more about tabitha and barbara loving to have her rather then love her, period. there were times during their involvement that it was clear selina was not an equal, and times where being with them made selina weaker (speaking about when she called upon them for help in that one episode where she was trapped, yet you’re telling me this is the same girl who took out that guy’s eyes from season one?) several times, selina appeared to be talked down to and treated as though she couldn’t handle tasks, yet has been homeless her whole life and has broken in and out of prison. 

the interaction between barbara and selina from season one haunts me a great deal for the way barbara spoke to selina and was objectifying her. i made a long-post/ask about it here which i encourage you to look at. this is particularly hard for me to talk about for the simple fact of selina being a child of the streets and barbara speaking to her like she’s trying to pimp her out *for lack of a better way of saying it* i just don’t think this is something an adult should be saying to selina because the truth is that barabara is the adult and should do better. her and tabitha even dressed her up for that club commercial (in which selina was clearly unhappy) and had her running a club full of underage kids developing a drinking problem and one very small boy being taken advantage of. 

people hate it when alfred slapped selina but when tabitha punched selina unconscious and kidnaped her for barbara it’s no big deal

and the episode “to our deaths and beyond” hits deepest and is a clean sign of manipulation when they both tricked selina into bringing bruce so they could mutilate him for his blood. even when he was crying and panicking barbara help him down and tabitha held selina back from helping him. 

here is a gifset about the scene and *lex i’m sorry for using your set if you happen to see this (but please don’t see this because i don’t wanna make anyone feel bad and i just want to speak freely about what i believe) 

again, not treating selina with respect, and when she straight told them she would have not brought bruce BECAUSE HE IS HER FRIEND, tabitha got defense and questioned her loyalty. first off, you are an adult and should know how to act better. she knew selina wouldn’t have brought bruce otherwise because they knew what they were doing was wrong. they knew how much bruce meant to selina and for them to try to guilt her is awful in itself. tricking and manipulating bruce is awful. mutilating him is awful. and holding selina back from helping her friend after you lied to her is awful--this is honestly one of the most sickening things for me to watch *not to mention why you would not want selina to be friends with bruce when he’s clearly a great guy* (but the gifset is pretty no question. shout-out to lex for being so talented)

in addition to this, the entire selina getting shot storyline is right up there too. i understand the writer’s didn’t have enough time to flesh everything out but it wasn’t even mentioned once that barbara and tabitha went to visit her. i believe tabitha might have mentioned it but it was only to get revenge over jeremiah, but they never visited her or checked on her, and she tried to kill herself and still nothing. 

now, i’m not trying to be all biased for bruce wayne because he was there for her every singe day and never left her side. nor would i ever mention that idea of bruce physically helping selina care for her own body when she couldn’t. how he got her that medicine to heal her pain and held her while she screamed that she wanted to die. all the while doing everything he could to help her not feel that way again.

you can say a lot of things about bruce wayne. people love to talk shit about him. but at the end of the day you can never say he was a bad friend, because he was the best. and you can’t say that for barbara and tabitha (not only to add how all the abuse was never brought up nor apologized for)

now, onto something that i am a big advocate for and particularly boils my blood. bruce’s alcohol problem and constant physical abuse by the adults in the show. 

i am mainly speaking about ivy (peyton list) however, while reading a reddit thread someone said that grace’s actress as twenty-one years of age, also kissing david (who i believe was sixteen at the time). someone else, also said that it wasn’t really illegal but i honestly do not care. if the roles were reversed and it was a young girl vs an older man, people would be in outrage and i don’t think that should change be it david.

the scene with peyton particularly bothers me because she is substantially older, and while you could argue it might not be david based off how the scene was shot, i highly doubt it. it’s wrong no matter how you slice it and it particularly bothers me because the abuse surrounding men/boys is taken so lightly. i’m not trying to put presidency over female abuse, as i believe both are equal in how awful they are, but there is evidence behind males being mocked. something that is at a higher volume, and it makes me wonder the number of rapes that go unreported or those who can’t talk about it because they won’t be believed. i’ve already seen it but i would be lying if i said i wasn’t worried for david to be conditioned to think what happened to him was fun or cool.

on top of all the kissing in the club scene followed by waking up in bed with the two girls--i would not hesitate to think he was taken advantage of in some way. i also can’t even think of his drinking days and not think of all the people who potentially abused him.

i obviously can’t speak for david and perhaps i’m grasping at straws but this is something that bother me and no one talks about enough.

season five

nothing to add here except while i did miss cam in the final and it wasn’t complete without here, i very much respect her for her choice to walk away. i think it shows a high level of intelligence and integrity (something i wish i had). and i most admire her for passing on the torch when she felt she wasn’t ready, which i think speaks volumes of her and her character. again, selina one selina will always be my favorite so i love the idea of my favorite staying a young girl before she was ready. i don’t think the show was ready. and as much as i would have loved for her to have a cameo like david did, it isn’t here or there and she said she favorite scene was on the staircase. so as far as i’m concerned, that’s the best place to leave on (even though that wasn’t the last scene but we’re ignoring that)

i hope this wasn’t too wordy or long!

[strawberries-n-sugar]

I just want to talk about why I love Schitt's Creek

I have always been a huge Eugene Levy fan, since Cheaper by the Dozen when I was little, he is a amazing actor

Catherine O'Hara actually portrays a decent character and decent mother who is trying. I love Beetlejuice, always have, but I hated her character in it, I also hated her character in Home Alone, they were both garbage mothers

Daniel Levy, oh my God, I've never seen him in anything else but I love him. I love David Rose. He is a "bebe".

David, I love David and respect him and I relate to him. I also look up to him. He has no shame or doubt in his sexuality and is up front and honest about it. He doesn't let his financial status define him. He is so pure. He is so romantic. I relate to how he is afraid and cautious with love because of being hurt, and him not having a plethora of friends. I love how he is pan but he's not overly flamboyant or a femboy or any of that, he is him, he is a guy who just loves and he's not trying so hard like Wade Wilson XD. I relate to how he had to be hurt a lot to find happiness. I relate to how he had to care for a pill popping mother. I love his style, fashion wise and romance wise. I relate to his battle with anxiety and over thinking.

I like Alexis. She bettered herself and I admire that

I love Johnny and I relate to him too

I love how there aren't a obnoxious amount of Christmas episodes like on most sitcoms. I also relate to how Johnny feels about it. How it is a bad time for him and lonely but still he holds out hope for a better one. I relate to how he strives for it to be perfect and gives up and gets hurt when it isn't , and I just really see where he comes from because I'm the same way that holiday and he and I generally want the same one thing for similar-ish reasons

The David and Stevie relationship, as someone in David's boat, it shows realistically what it's like to have little to no one friend wise

I love how they handle relationships on the show. How they handle the drama is so much better than how it is on most shows and in real life, unfortunately

Moira, she's not perfect but she tries and I love that, again, I can relate to having a mother like that

Uhm, hot guys, hello Mutt and Ted and David and Eugene (personally I like Mutt clean shaven or full beard but did not care for that midway thing he did lol) but like David though

I like how the gay relationship is realistic in comparison to others I've seen on TV and movies

The character development is great

Johnny remains down to earth and I love that

The strained sibling relationship, I can relate

It is hilarious

It holds my attention

David. Just David. Did I say that?

Johnny, did I say that?

I love the Dom/sub vibes David and Patrick both give off. That's weird I know 🤷🏻‍♀️

Realistic small towns. Most of the time on TV shows if theyre in a "Podunk" town the characters just seem to always have everything they need like wtf no, this show is actually like "yeah fam, you gotta go over to this town"

David's birthday and how he reacts to people forgetting it,I feel that. It is realistic. When people forget, speaking from experience the only ones who remembered my birthday most of my life were my parents, but, when people do that, you really feel like dying or popping pills and going to bed early. Realistic. His dad remembered, I feel that. Christmas and my birthday are my two least favorite holidays

Patrick knew he his sexuality but never kissed a guy until he was a grown man. I'm grown and I'm bi. I've known I was bi since I was about 15, with my first girlfriend. However, I have only been kissed by a girl once very quickly for a nervous game of truth or dare, I've never been with a girl, I never kissed or was with my ex girlfriend. It's realistic

I love how Johnny is okay and accepts David as his dad for his preferences. Like I just said, I'm bi and I've known for a while. When I was with my ex girlfriend I tried to come out to my dad. We were talking about her and I said, "What if I like her as more than my friend, I definitely like her more than my sister's" to which he responded, "Nah, you ain't like that, she's like your sister" so from that time until I was 22 he never knew, neither did my mom. My dad passed between father's day and my birthday last year and he never knew I was bi, my mom still doesn't. He went to his grave with me never telling him but here I am saying online to everyone else. Parents acceptance is important. I'm the kind of person who believes who you sleep with isn't your parents business but they should be able to know who you love and accept that. Sure, Johnny did express it would be easier for David to pick a gender, but ultimately, it doesn't matter. David brought the people he loved to Johnny and Johnny loved them in return

The in law situation with Stevie and Johnny. I know they aren't in laws but she did sleep with David once, that's not the point. I love how he steps in as a parent for her much like my mom in law did for me, she's like a friend and the parent I go to if I need something wether it be help or otherwise, I go to her for grown up stuff

The town is a big family, I love that and again, kind of relate

That's a few reasons I love Schitt's Creek

[antoine-triplett]

The way they handle relationships on Shitt’s Creek makes me SO HAPPY. ALL OF THEM! Even Roland and Jocelyn.

In this essay I will...

DAVID AND PATRICK! It’s so nice and refreshing to see a overall positive take on someone coming out. The angst mostly comes from relationship milestones like being nervous on a first date or trying to find privacy together when you’re busy adults instead of just their sexual orientation. Patrick describes him realizing he’s gay like a “weight being lifted” and finally “feeling right” and his parents are immediately supportive and lovely. He talks about feeling comfortable with David’s family. It’s just a positive, supportive relationship from day one. Once he realizes his feelings, he goes full-tilt for it.

STEVIE! MY GIRL STEVIE! Here’s a modern woman that we can all relate to - a little lost, often horny, very sarcastic. I just love her and the way she’s portrayed as someone who, while preferring her own company, has friends and boyfriends. She’s not your stereotypical small-town “goth girl”. She’s not afraid to admit that some nights she just wants to get it and that’s totally cool. Sex doesn’t always have to be a big deal as long as everyone is on board. Sex also doesn’t ultimately have much impact on her relationship with David which I was super happy about. Other things are more important - like trust and friendship. As with Alexis, she has so much awesome personal development outside of her romantic life. Even moments of romantic strife for Stevie are done well, like the episode with the Hospies where Emir turns out to be a d-bag but Johnny is so supportive. It highlights the fact that she has a family now. She’s not alone. They managed to turn a sad moment into a nice one and the final scene between she and Moira where she gets the script for Cabaret is the perfect cherry on top. As Moira says, in the end it’s “his loss”. You end the episode feeling like Stevie is starting something new and exciting instead of being depressed over having been dumped. A fresh take that we all need in our lives!

ALEXIS AND TED! Alexis’ journey with Ted has been slow burn at its best. What they have now NEVER would have happened in season 1. They gave them time to grow as friends and cultivate the non-physical side of their relationship while developing Alexis’ professional and personal life. It’s clear that the attraction is still there when she starts working for him, but Ted is there for her as a friend and they are arguably even closer than when they were first dating. When they were first together, they didn’t quite get each other. Ted put Alexis on a pedestal and she didn’t take him or his feelings seriously. They never listened to each other. Although Alexis was technically the one that ended it, they both contributed to the end. Alexis was clearly in no place to get married and had Ted not proposed (right after she told him she was leaving without him which probably should have given him pause?) they might have stayed together.

But I’m so happy they didn’t. Some of my favourite moments in their relationship and for their characters are from when they weren’t dating. The scene where they show up at Mutt’s barn and have that insanely awkward encounter with him and his GF? Basically the epitome of “we’re not together but we’re really bad a it”. I love nothing more than a couple judging people together and their reactions to the “pinecone harvest” is my favourite thing. Or her being comfortable enough to ask her his help with the lice? Or her pure joy at him showing up to her grad? Or them going to David’s store opening together like an old married couple (once again proving that they fail at not being in a relationship). So many winning ship moments.

Even when they kiss after Alexis finds out that she passed high school, that spark they keep ignoring peeks out for a moment and it would be so easy for them to get back together, but Ted isn’t ready yet and he’s honest about it. Alexis is completely understanding and their friendship stays strong, allowing them to continue building the foundation that leads to their MUCH healthier relationship in season 5. Now they acknowledge and accept each other’s shortcoming now and are patient with one another. They are close friends and not just two attractive people with chemistry. They really know each other.

The ep is season 5 where they decide to go to the Galapagos shows how far they’ve come and I’m so proud. Originally Ted dances around what he wants to ask and it backfires, not unlike some of their fights in season 1 (Ted not being direct and Alexis being self-absorbed), but this time they come back together and talk it through. Also, bonus points for her saying that the trip is equally about doing something for Ted and doing something for herself. It’s not just about his job, she’s prepared to do some “Eat, Pray, Love” self-reflection.

Them getting back together also says a lot about how Alexis sees herself. She admits in Singles Week that part of the reason she didn’t give him a chance in season 1 is because he was “too nice”. She self-sabotaged with Mutt because she didn’t feel like she deserved the “perfect boyfriend” (and because she understandably wasn’t ready to commit, of course). Now she has grown and is proud of all that’s she’s accomplished personally and she feels like she deserves to be loved by the person she really wants. It’s so nice!

NOT TO MENTION ALL THE “FOUND FAMILY” ACTION IN THE SHOW WHICH IS MY ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE ALWAYS.

ITS ALL SO NICE.

WATCH IT.

[nickireadstfc]

The King’s Men, Chapter 12 – Highway To Hell

In which things go really beautifully well, and then really fucking horrible.

Sounds good? No, it doesn’t. It’s time for Nicki to read The King’s Men.

You guys warned me about this one, and for the entire first half of the chapter I was like “what are they on about, this is wonderful, there’s so many great things happening”, like I was genuinely considering y’all might have had your chapters mixed up.

And then.

Oh god.

Oh god.

Let’s take it from the top, shall we? Let’s go back to a time where things were easy, chill and beautifully gay.

(Also, welcome to yet another 3k word dump, because this chapter is an absolute monster.)

The Foxes are on the road to Binghamton, their next big opponent before semi-finals. And less than half a page in, the first miracle of the day happens – or rather, the first miracle of the Day:

The monsters voluntarily and easily socialize with the rest of the team, led by none other than Kevin.

Granted, it’s to talk Exy strategies which, as we know, is Recommended Kevin Bait, but my teamwork-loving heart is not gonna complain.

The best thing about this, though, is that Neil actively refuses to join their sweet sweet Sportsball Talk just to make sure Andrew won’t feel left out.

Excuse me while I cry into my rainbow-coloured jersey.

Linked to that – and we’ve not had these in a while, so I’m proud to present you – Today’s Casually Mentioned, Yet Heartbreakingly Sad Neil Fact is:

             Neil had spent his entire life drifting by on the outskirts, looked over and looked past. It’d made him happy, or so he thought, because being ignored meant he was safe. He hadn’t realized how lonely he was until he met the Foxes.

Uhmm, cue my tears.

Kevin, though, isn’t so happy his favourite minion in training isn’t cooperating:

             “You gave me your game. You don’t have the right to walk away from me when I am trying to teach you.”

             “I gave my game to you so we could get to finals,” Neil sent back, “but you said yesterday you don’t expect us to make it there. You’ve given up on us, so I’m taking my game back. I don’t owe you anything.”

Damn, you tell him, Josten.

Neil has exactly -3 fucks left to give and it’s absolutely glorious.

In other news – we’ve reached the end of the Suspicious Countdown (shoutout here to the anon recreating this in my ask box, you sly fuck).

             Every night since his birthday he’d gotten a number texted to him. Today’s sobering “0” had arrived during lunch. Neil didn’t know what to make of it. (…) It was as anticlimactic as it was nerve-wracking.

Same, my boy. This shit is unnerving.

Well, I’m sure this is absolutely harmless and nothing will happen at all.

To distract himself from the Slight Feeling of Impending Doom, Neil engages in his new favourite pastime:

Adoringly gazing at Andrew’s handsome features like a love-sick pathetic idiot.

             Neil didn’t know what he was looking for. Andrew looked as he always had, and Neil knew his face as well as he knew every iteration of his own. Despite that, something seemed different. Maybe it was the sunlight streaming through the window, making Andrew’s pale hair shine brighter and his hazel eyes seemed almost gold. Whatever it was, it was disorienting.

Oh boy, oh my sweet innocent summer child, I can tell you right fucking exactly what it is.

Your ass is the fuck in love.

             “I’m not doing anything,”

             “I told you to not look at me like that.”

             Neil didn’t understand, so he let it slide.

…… //looks into the camera like I’m on the office.

Any time I think this boy is done being oblivious, he instantly goes back on his bullshit.

Although maybe –

             “I didn’t say anything [when we were talking about zombie apocalypses] because I knew I’d look out for only me when the world went to hell. I don’t want to be that kind of person anymore. I want to go back for you.”

Uhmm, EXCUSE ME WHILE I CRY.

Can these idiots like – fucking stop being sappy and gross, I did not expect this bullshit from them, give a girl some fucking warning.

Jesus fuck.

And they keep going, of course – being on the road to Binghamton reminds Neil of his time Being On The Road, and so he casually tells Andrew all the shit that happened to him on his travels, which of course he never told a single soul before.

Natch.

             It passed the time, though, and Andrew let him ramble. He never once took his eyes of Neil’s face or looked like he was mentally tuning out of the conversation.

Oh yeah, also of course Andrew is a love-sick pathetic idiot as well.

Natch.

And Neil uses that to get Andrew to open up about his travels between foster homes and his time with Aaron, which he also never told anyone before.

Fucking natch.

             [Andrew took] care of Aaron’s addictions. He stocked the upstairs bathroom with canned food and barricaded Aaron in there until he had finished withdrawal. Luckily (…) there were no neighbors close enough to hear Aaron’s best attempts at breaking out.

Andrew Minyard, putting the ‘love’ in ‘tough love’ since 2010.

These brothers are everything, haters please exit in a left-directed fashion.

When they make their next pit stop, Coach doesn’t even make any attempts at separating Andrew and Neil, which brings on one of my favourite bits in this chapter:

Neil’s oblivious ass comes to the realization that Coach Knows™.

             “I really want to know when Coach figured this out.”

             “It isn’t a ‘this’,” Andrew reminded him.

Oh yeah, please also know that every time I’m shouting at Neil to stop being so oblivious this of course also extends to his smaller, deadlier counterpart.

            ��Last November Neil put Andrew’s hands to his damaged skin and asked Andrew to believe in him. Somehow Wymack had seen right through Neil’s crushing guilt and Andrew’s grudging trust.

Well, if I saw two idiots that have been radiating tension all semester anyways suddenly fumbling under each other’s shirts, I would get suspicious too.

             “How did he see it when Aaron and Nicky still can’t?”

             “Coach doesn’t care for rumours and bias,” Andrew said. “He sees what is, not what people want him to see.”

Which is the reason why David Fucking Hufflepuff Dad Wymack is the best damn character in this series, no questions asked, no other opinions accepted. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

I need more Wymack love in this fandom always.

In related news, though – apparently the upperclassmen are betting on Neil’s sexuality, which is just about the best thing ever. Also, heck yeah, I called it.

Apparently, they’re split down the middle. In my book, this means Matt and Allison betting on Gay Neil, while Dan and Renee bet on Straight Neil.

(You’d think Renee would bet on Gay Neil since she’s subject to Andreil Pining every practice break, but nope – you can’t tell me Allison Reynolds, Lipstick Bisexual and Bad Bitch Extraordinaire doesn’t have her gaydar on lock.

I rest my case.)

             “It’s a waste of time and money. They’ll all lose. I’ve said all year I don’t swing and I meant it. Kissing you doesn’t make me look at any of them differently. The only one I’m interested in is you.”

I’mma go fling myself into the fucking sun.

Brutally Honest About His Feelings Josten is a very, very good Josten.

Also, someone finally teach this boy the definition of demisexual, please.

             “Don’t say stupid things.”

             “Stop me,” Neil returned. He buried his hands in Andrew’s hair and tugged him in for a kiss.

Happy to report the gays are back at it again.

Nothing like some fun backseat fondling before a big game, because sooner than thought they’ve arrived at Binghamton and their asses are in for a fun game of Orange Spotsball.

Did I say fun? I mean fucking stressful.

Almost-cards left and right, balls thrown in unholy places, all remaining chill has fucking evaporated.

But as always, when Sportsball Times get tough, there is one thing we can count on:

Andrew’s willingness to do kind of everything if Neil asks nicely.

             “I’m asking you to help us,” Neil said. “Will you?”

             Andrew considered it for a moment. “Not for free.”

             “Anything,” Neil promised, and stepped back to take his place in line again.

             Neil didn’t exactly know what he’d gotten himself into, but he honestly didn’t care, because Andrew delivered exactly what Neil wanted him to.

Which, in this case, means trashtalking every opposite player that comes close to his goal and fiercely fending off Exy balls as if they’re straight thoughts.

HEEEELL YEAH.

Also, I’m totally sure this promise won’t come back to haunt us ever again.

With Andrew kicking some major Bearcat butt in the back and Neil and Kevin fucking shit up in the front as per usual, the Foxes reign home a glorious close win! Celebration all around!

Girl dancing gif

And I’m sure there is exactly nothing at all that can go wrong now.

             Neil was halfway to the door when his phone hummed (…) He didn’t recognize the phone number, but he didn’t have to. He knew that 443 area code.

             Baltimore was calling.

Well, tits.

             “Hello?”

             “Hello, Junior. Do you remember me?”

             Neil’s heart lurched to a sick halt. (…) It was Lola Malcolm, one of his father’s closest people.

LOLA.

I’ve heard that name before. I swear to fuck I’ve heard that name before. Was she mentioned already? Did I just read it somewhere on tumblr? Whatever it is, I know that she’s not fucking fun.

We’re in deep, deep shit, people.

             “Are you listening? It is time to go. If you make this difficult for us, you will regret it for the rest of your very short life.”

Hell fucking no, lady. You can take that dramatic ass attitude and stick it right up your ugly butt.

Neil agrees with me:

             Fast on the heels of fright was an irrational and wild anger. He was halfway of winning Andrew’s trust, a weekend  from his first vacation, and one month from semi-finals. There were only four matches left in championships. Neil was so close to everything he wanted and Lola was here to steal it away.

             “Put a hand on me and you’ll regret it,” Neil said.

HELL YEAH.

Fuck this, fuck all of it, she is not getting us this easily.

We came so close, so close, and we are not here to have this taken away.

             “[Your father] is in Baltimore,” she corrected him. “His parole hearing was on your birthday. (…) We can’t kill [the Foxes], but we can hurt them. You’ll see.” (…)

             Jackson Plank was in the locker room with his team. A second later Romero Malcolm stepped into view in a similar [security guard] getup.

… Maybe we are here to have this taken away.

Hey, remember how literally a few pages earlier Neil said he wouldn’t save the Foxes, only himself, in an apocalypse scenario?

I’d like to call heartfelt bullshit on that.

             The five feet between Neil and his team could have been five thousand miles.  Looking at them all, Neil was as sad as he was proud. (…) He was sorry to leave them with all of his lies, sorry they’d have to get the truth from Kevin after the fact. They were all right here with him still but he missed them with a ferocity that threatened to turn him inside-out.

Also known as: The moment literal tears started to form in the corners of my eyes.

I say “omg I’m crying” a lot, but I very rarely shed actual tears. This was a moment that came close.

The last moment Neil gets to look at his team before being literally kidnapped, the moment he loves them more than ever, ever before, and they all have absolutely no idea what’s about to happen.

And it gets worse.

             Only Andrew saw the strain in Neil’s mask. (…)

             “Thank you,” Neil finally said. He couldn’t say he meant thanks for all of it: the keys, the trust, the honesty, and the kisses. Hopefully Andrew would figure it out eventually. “You were amazing.”

I’m so emotional. I’m so, so goddamn emotional. I can’t handle this.

I feel like this is as close to a love confession as we’re ever gonna get, and I’m not handling anything right now.

Deep breaths, Nicki. Deep breaths.

(Disclaimer: I’m not actually expecting Neil to die in Baltimore. I know this book has five more chapters and I know Nora is not killing off her protagonist, come on. But I am expecting some awful, awful shit to go down, like “way worse than the Raven’s Nest” shit, like “changes the game forever” shit, like just some majorly fucked up shit that I am very much not here for. And so let me treasure those last moments – not because we won’t come back, but because we won’t come back the same way we’re leaving right now.)

And with that, we’re off – kidnapped away in a whirlwind of fan riots outside, handcuffed and chained to the inside of a car, zooming along the highway off to god knows where, and now comes the moment where I understood why y’all were warning me about this chapter.

Aside from beginning to cut up his fucking hand as soon as they get in the car (really, what the fuck is it with this mob and knives), Lola has certain opinions about Neil’s facial tramp stamp.

             “I can’t take you before your father with such a stain on your face. Rome?” (…)

             Soon enough the dashboard cigarette lighter popped free of its lock with a metallic cling.

WHAT THE FUCK.

WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK.

And with that – the bitch burns Neil’s tattoo off.

SHE BURNS.

NEIL’S.

TATTOO.

OFF.

And not enough with that, she also presses her knife into his other cheek so he can’t draw back without literally cutting himself open.

What the absolute everloving shit. I literally sat shellshocked for a good ten seconds that that.

But oh, my friends, it gets worse – because apparently they also gotta question Neil about the whereabouts of his dear mom, and “she’s dead” of course isn’t a satisfying answer.

And when they’re done with his mom, they move on to questions about the Foxes.

And when they’re done with his face, they move on to his arms.

I will never, never be able to look at a car cigarette lighter the same way again.

             He didn’t want to think about this, didn’t want to feel this, so he thought about thr Foxes instead. He clung tight to the memory of their unhesitating friendship and their smiles. (…) The memories made him weak with grief and loss, but they made him stronger, too. He’d come to the Foxhole Court every inch a lie, but his friends made him into someone real.

More wet eyes. Such wet fucking eyes over here right now.

I’M NOT HANDLING THIS.

STOP IT.

             He’d hit the end of his rope before he wanted to and he hadn’t accomplished everything he’d hoped to this year, but he had done more with his life than he’d ever thought possible. That had to be enough. He traced the outline of a key into his bloody, burnt palm with a shaky finger, closed his eyes, and wished Neil Josten goodbye.

Oh my god.

             Nathaniel Wesninski let the last few miles fly by unnoticed.

OH MY GOD.

This is both super painful and super genius and I am FUCKING SHOOK.

STRONG YELLING, YOU GUYS.

             The worst injuries were the ones on his face, but the mess Lola made of his hands was the most inconvenient. It’d be hard to fight back when even the slightest twitch of his fingers made his hands ache.

Oh yeah, also by now we’re back to being Human Punching Bag Neil Josten.

Well. It’s rather Human Punching Bag Nathaniel Wesninski now, right?

             Nathaniel closed his eyes against the pitch black that threatened to swallow him whole. Lola smiled against his cheek and bit at his burns.

Y’all for real what the fuck is wrong with this woman.

Petition for her to decease right this very second, thank you.

And after that, Lola chloroforms him and drags him into to the house of his father, a literal Abusive People-Butchering Mob Head.

You guys. You guys. We’re in completely new uncharted waters now, and I have no idea what the hell is about to happen.

I both don’t want this to continue and really, really can’t fucking wait for this to continue.

If you like what I do here and you want to help me through the heartbreak of this chapter, why not buy me a coffee? Every lil bit helps, getting me through uni and all that jazz. Thanks so much!

[hellyeahheroes]

Ten Winners and Losers of DC Rebirth:

DC has dropped the Rebirth logo out of their titles. That is usually the sing they consider that the transition period for their books is over. They have built their status quo and what they have built during it is the new DC Universe. While I doubt fans will stop calling DC books Rebirth titles from now on (same as they didn’t stop using New 52 name long after DC dropped it from the covers), I want to look at what they managed to fix and bring to new fresh in this period, this last 1,5 year and also on what has failed. What were the winners and losers of DC Rebirth. Enjoy:

Winner: Superman Family

Out of all lines, I don’t think any has made as much of an improvement as Superman’s. While there were good stories in New 52 Era, that time’s take on Superman has been generally seen with negative reception. Bringing back married Superman and Lois AND their son Jon has been a brilliant move, that quickly launched both Superman and Action Comics to some of the most popular in the era. The emphasis on Superman as a father made him more relatable to growing audience, several well-written Lois moments helped remind people why she is a belowed character and Jon quickly gained love of older fans and kids alike. That success was then quickly capitalized on with Super Sons, giving the spotlight to Jon and his new friend, Damian Wayne. The return of classic Superman villains like Eradicator, Metallo, Doomsday, Hank Henshaw, Mr. Mxyztplk, Manchester Black and General Zod with a new, interesting antagonist in Mr. Oz, helped make it an era that will certainly be remembered. 

Adding to it three new books - Superwoman, Supergirl and New Super-Man only cements the lines’ status as probably the best quality-wise of the entire Rebirth. While Superwoman was sadly the shortest-living of them all, it still left us with Traci Thirteen and Natasha Irons as a couple, a move fans approved so much we now hope for Traci’s sexuality to be addressed in her upcoming show and Young Justice Season 3. Meanwhile, new take on Supergirl, taking clues from the show, but making Kara a high-schooler with adopted parents, has been well-regarded by the fans and New Super-Man became a minor fan-favorite, to the point DC took back the decision to cancel the series and let it continue as New Super-Man & the Justice League of China. 

Loser: Blue Beetle

Poor Jaime. One of the few characters that Rebirth set to fix after New 52 made him into a hot mess. The premise was solid - Jaime getting a mentor in form of previous Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, written by Keith Giffen, who shaped Ted into a comedic character and helped launch Jaime’s 2006 book. It had the potential for success. But the creative team (which J.M.DeMatteis joining in the middle) clearly didn’t believe in it and tried to launch a stealth team book they should have pitched in the first place. This resulted in a chaotic story that has lead to Blue Beetle’s cancellation and many plotlines left unresolved.

Winner: Damian Wayne

Rebirth was a good time to be Damian fan. Between his appearances in not one but two books, leading new Teen Titans and forming great friendship with Jonathan Kent as well as having a handful guest issues, be it in Nightwing or Superman or Batman, Damian has received a tremendous push. While the quality of some of these titles remains debatable among the fans and some are unhappy with him not being pushed as Batman’s partner, it is undeniable they have a lot of fresh Damian content to choose from.

Loser: Tim Drake

By contrast with Damian, Tim Drake has spent most of the Rebirth imprisoned by Mr. Oz and presumed dead. While his spirit was hanging over his friends in Detective Comics and his perceived loss affected them greatly, he himself was almost not present at all, really having a chance to shine only in two stories, Rise of the Batmen and A Lonely Place Of Living. In a way it feels as if James Tynion IV even knew he likes Tim too much and moved him away to give everyone else the spotlight - spotlight they undeniably needed, may I add.

Winner: Batman

It’s bizarre for me to even put him on this list. Batman is the golden child of DC, the fortunate son, the star, the fan-favorite. He always gets best writers, the spotlight, the books, the guest appearances. And yet, DC Rebirth did something unbelievable, something I would never bet to see with Batman. They let him be weak. When over the years Batman has amassed reputation that earned him nicknames and memes like “Prep Time”, “BatWank” or “Batgod” over how perfect, always right and invincible he became, in Rebirth this feels toned down. 

Batman in Rebirth was allowed to have flaws and vulnerabilities. His moments of super-competence are now contrasted with his emotional vulnerability. Batman was allowed to be a father who needs his children maybe even more than they need him, he was allowed to take serious beatings from Bane and Reverse Flash, to grieve after Tim, to seek happiness in marriage with Selina, to see his fears and regrets exposed in monstrous forms of Seven Dark Knights. All these things like tiny woodpeckers chipped little bits away from the image of BatGod and brought back Bruce Wayne, Batman the human. And boy did he needed to come back and remind people why this character is popular, to begin with. I mean, if even my bitter and cold heart started feeling a bit more sympathy for the guy whom last few decades made me despise, you know DC is doing something right.

Loser: Raven

One of the biggest mistakes of DC Rebirth was Marv Wolfman’s Raven book. Not the book itself, but the fact it was only a miniseries. Being limited to only six-issue format have visibly constrained the potential the story had and forced the writer to rush things. The fact that in January DC launches new Raven book only makes it that much more infuriating. DC had little faith in the character and while I’m grateful they were willing to try at all and they clearly are testing waters for her potential ongoing, I wish we could see how things would turn out, had she been given one in the first place. Or at least a twelve-issue miniseries, I’d rather have that than 12 issues of Chuck Dixon slamming his head against the wall in Bane: Conquest.

Winner: Green Lanterns

That was the book I doubt that many people believed in. Two relatively new members of Green Lanterns being given their title that early and made to work together. A book written by Sam Humphries, who didn’t gain that much of a good reputation for his works at Marvel. And yet...it worked. The series earned peoples’ love with an honest approach to subjects like anxiety disorder and extremely relatable portrayal of main characters. Jessica Cruz, in particular, seems to have grown into a fan-favorite to the point she’s going to be Green Lantern in DC Superhero Girls Universe and may even find a way into DC Comics Bombshells. This book opened a path of bright future to both Jessica and Simon, seeing how it still steadily continued as a bi-weekly series when other books with seemingly more famous character have been reduced to a monthly series. It opened Sam Humphries a way to his dream work at Nightwing. It thinks out of all Rebirth books this one might be one of the biggest breakout hits.

Loser: Gotham Academy

It feels cruel to put Gotham Academy in that category. The creative team truly gave their all to this title. But sadly, the second book they got managed only last for twelve issues, enough to wrap the dangling plot threads. While other DC books benefitted from a new beginning, this one seems to have suffered what restarts did to Marvel books - diminished sales. But I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again - the combined amount of issues Gotham Academy had is an impressive number of 38. Let the fans never allow anyone tell them this title failed. I need to also praise DC for the amount of faith they’ve put into this series and how hard they tried to make it take off and become popular. This effort is worthy of respect. And something that I’d never been expecting from Marvel, so kudos for trying to do better.

Winner: New 52 Wally West 

When Old Wally West from before Flashpoint came back, many people feared this means his New 52 counterpart, now revealed to be a cousin with the same name, will drop into comic book limbo and never be mentioned again. Thankfully DC had a better idea - they kept both of them around. And through a string of writers who wanted to use him, Young Wally has not only been prominently featured as a supporting character in Flash but also joined Teen Titans, had appearances in his cousin’s book Titans and even managed to become a cast member in Deathstroke’s series. While I have complained his life probably sucks with an amount of bad stuff happening, he did leave his mark on larger DC Universe, had a chance to win fans’ love and established relationships with other characters. Hell, he even managed to send Raven’s heart...racing.

I’m sorry, no more puns, I swear, don’t hurt me!

Loser: Conner Kent and Bart Allen

Another case where it feels outright cruel to call them losers. Both of them were erased with the reboot and replaced with versions that can be respectively called a hot mess and an outright identity theft (no, seriously, New 52 Bart turned out to be some asshole using his name). Since Rebirth launched the books started to tease fans with their returns. First, it was who might be in Mr. Oz prison next to Tim Drake’s in Detective Comics. Then the very clear erasure of Conner from Superman’s memories of Reign of Supermen, with Clark noting something is missing on the same page. Then Batman of Tomorrow bringing up Conner and finding out present Tim doesn’t remember him. The Murder Machine telling Barry there was a Bart in his reality. James Tynion IV and Joshua Williamson being very clear they want them back. And of course that Geoff Johns himself seems to want pre-flashpoint Conner back. And now the upcoming appearance of their evil future selves, Titans of Tomorrow in Super Sons of Tomorrow crossover. On the one hand, it appears DC wants to play a long game with setting up their return. On the other, many fans are probably having enough of constantly being shown a carrot on the stick and I hope DC will manage to bring those two back before fandom’s patience runs out.

Winner: Christopher Priest

If you read his essay The New Black Mambo, you will know that Christopher Priest has a complicated history with Big 2. After his successful, character-defining, run on Black Panther, he started to feel the publishers are seeing him as “black guy to write black people” and he felt they’re denying him their A-List characters and jerking him around whenever he tries to pitch a non-black book (he tried to launch an all-female Avengers series almost a decade before A-Force, for example). He also felt his books that do feature black and other poc protagonists are thrown to the assholes on the Internet, even back then ready to declare them a “black propaganda” and other bullshit, which killed his project the Crew before the first issue was even out. This had led him to reject offers on DC and Marvel books for nine years. 

Thankfully, during Rebirth DC was pulling its collective head out of its collective ass so well, they finally noticed why he keeps saying no and pitched him a different character - Deathstroke. On that book, Priest not only managed to rebuild mythos destroyed by New 52, but also built around Slade a diverse cast of complex, multi-layered characters and showed exactly how much of an awful, destructive person somebody like him would be. This opened him the door to Justice League, which he is currently writing, glad he can finally get his hands on all those characters he was always denied. 

Loser: Cyborg

The news on Christopher Priest taking over Justice League was quickly followed by reveal he will make Cyborg the new leader of the team. This sadly quickly became ironic, as DC announced the cancellation of Victor’s own series. Cyborg was another one of those characters DC tried to push even before Rebirth, during DC You, but to no success. Cyborg still retains his role in Justice League so his fans can see him there, but it’s a shame Rebirth didn’t manage to save his book.

Winner: Stjepan Sejic

Stjepan Sejic has become fairly popular on the Internet and in indie in the last few years. Yet, despite years of outstanding work and even solid portfolio of Image Comics books he worked on, he never managed to land a work for the Big 2 outside few covers for Marvel. In Rebirth DC has changed that by giving him not only an arc on Aquaman but bi-weekly Suicide Squad series as well. Hopefully, this will finally give him the spotlight and help land more prestigious jobs in the future, both of which he certainly deserves.

Loser: Frank Cho and Jonboy Meyers

Not all artists managed to capitalize on the success of Rebirth and made their own. Incredible talented Jonboy Meyers was on his way to make his art become the face of new Teen Titans, with his animesque style and modernized designs of the team members gaining a lot of attention. Yet he fell off the project due to “creative differences” after just a few issues. While creators leaving DC books and cursing the editorial was a common occurrence in New 52, it didn’t follow his departure. What’s more he also quickly had the same thing happen to his job at Marvel’s series Royals. I have not been privy to what were his reasons, but I just hope it wasn’t any serious health issues, as he gives an impression of a man too nice to lose two jobs due to acting like a primadonna, unlike some creators in the past.

Frank Cho, on the other hand, DID lose his Rebirth gig due to acting like a primadonna. Being put on variant covers for the first 24 issues of Wonder Woman, he has quit after just six, because Greg Rucka asked him to remove a pantyshot - a reasonable request especially during the time when DC tried to avoid controversies that haunted New 52. Cho, however, decided Diana’s underwear is a hill he will die on and threw a colossal temper tantrum that made him look extremely immature. Ever since his output involving Big 2 characters was a series of “fan” pinups of the same woman in different costumes with some characters screaming “OUTRAGE!” in the background, a sad attempt at pissing people off to feed his persecution complex.

Winner: Jack Kirby

In the seventies Jack “the King” Kirby gave DC several books and characters who maybe never rose to the popularity of their core heroes or his Marvel creations, but became iconic fan-favorites none the less. Were he still alive, 2017 would be his 100th birthday and DC went out of their way to honor him. Kamandi Challenge, Mister Miracle, Bug! the Adventures of Forager and Demon: Hell is Earth all are limited series that allowed some of King’s creations shine once again. Then DC gave others special issues that are now collected in a sweet trade. Not to mention some of those titles featuring Kirby’s heroes meeting each other (I mean, Forager outright went and resolved cliffhanger of Kirby’s original OMAC series) and his other characters and concepts are being featured in ongoing books like Superman or Green Lanterns. DC went out of their way to celebrate Jack Kirby during Rebirth. This is especially poignant at the time when all Marvel managed to do are some cheap variant covers and putting a bunch of his Monsters into one event because they were too busy spending most of the year shitting on one of his most beloved characters in Secret Empire.

Loser: Justice Society America and Legion of Super-Heroes

These two teams have been on everybody’s mouths ever since DC Rebirth Special teased their return. Yet outside of occasionally throwing us a bone here or there, teasing their returns in Batman and Flash, nothing had materialized out of this. I heard rumors there was a plan to launch JSA book, but it appears to have fallen through. Meaning currently both teams are in Comic Book Limbo with Shazam and Martian Manhunter.

Winner: Grant Morrison

Rebirth has become a time when you could notice more and more references to works of certain creator popping up - crazy Scott, Grant Morisson. Be it use of his characters like Aztek in Justice League of America or Doctor Hurt and Professor Pyg in Nightwing or concepts like Hypertime or his Multiversal ideas. With writers like Joshua Williamson, Tom King, Scott Snyder, Gerard Way, Tim Seeley or James Tynion IV it is clear that right now DC Universe is put in hands of creators who have been influenced by Morrison’s body of work and even others, like Gene Yang, while not directly touching on his ideas still add more pieces having similar feel. I’ve been saying Grant Morrison would be proud several times during this era and for a good reason. It feels he has achieved a similar position Warren Ellis had at Marvel for some time before 2015 - maybe not directly affecting the company, but having enough people who learned from or were inspired by him working on it, that he is present in spirit even when he isn’t writing anything.

Loser: Eddie Berganza

This might be a bit cheating since this has little to do with DC Rebirth itself. But it needs to be pointed out that during this era position of Eddie Berganza, an important editor and a serial sexual harasser who was seen as too big to be dealt with, started to tremble. Greg Rucka made DC ensure his new Wonder Woman book will not be edited by Berganza and neither he nor any member of his team will have to even interact with the guy. I like to see it as the first sing the industry was ready to deal with this pathetic, painful ulcer of a man. A thing that indeed has happened, when on the wave of allegations of sexual harassment in Hollywood his name has been brought up. DC and Warner decided to take a look at his case and he was promptly, in their own words, terminated. Good riddance. 

Winner: Imprints, Crossovers, and Elseworlds

One of the greatest successes of Rebirth for me was that DC took serious attempts at bringing back Wildstorm and Vertigo characters, whom they have mistreated by forcing into one Universe with rest of DC in New 52. Warren Ellis’ Wild Storm rebooted the 90′s Universe in a new flavor, giving us a fantastic science-fiction take on their heroes.Gerard Way brought back the feel of early Vertigo in his imprint Young Animal with great series like Doom Patrol, Shade: the Changing Girl, Mother Panic, Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye and Bug! the Adventures of Forager. They are not stopping there, seeing how they are working on the return of Milestone Media, launching Dark Matter and working on an all-ages imprint.

At the same time DC launched an imprint for reinventing properties under their Hannah-Barbera license. Which, admittingly, gave us two baffling books in Scooby Apocalypse and Wacky Raceland but also fan-favorite Future Quest, Flinstones or new Dastardly & Muttley. DC seems to have enjoyed working on those books so much they made series of one-shots crossing over other HB characters with their heroes. And enjoyed THAT so much they did it again with Looney Tunes, which were much more entertaining I think anyone would have suspected. Speaking of which, DC has a blast with doing crossovers and you can always see them doing some sort of it - He-Man/Thundercats, Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Shadow/Batman, Wonder Woman/Conan, Justice League/Power Rangers or several Batman ‘66 crossovers. It seems to have even rubbed on their games, with Hellboy and Turtles making their way to Injustice 2.

And finally, DC had a lot of fun with Elseworlds lately. Including Nightwing: New Order, Green Lantern: Earth One, Gotham City Garage, DC Superhero Girls, DC Comics Bombshells or Batman: White Knight.  All of it contributed to a new image of DC as ever-expanding as both the world and the publisher. Which I feel greatly helped their success.

Loser: Marvel Comics

Oh come on, you’ve seen this one coming. When DC wins, Marvel is the biggest loser and vice-versa. But to say that DC suddenly cleaning their act caught Marvel by surprise would be an understatement. It might even be said that their own behavior allowed Rebirth to succeed - after all the big plot twist if Rebirth Special, the big reveal that could have easily turned people against DC, has been overshadowed by Marvel turning Captain America into a Nazi. Compared to THAT what DC did seemed much less outrageous and many people seem to be more open-minded to the Rebirth as a whole as a reason. 

After consistently losing in sales for months, Marvel tried to desperately try to shift the blame on diversity, bloat their sales, copy Rebirth with Legacy, while also making a ton of fuckups and see their bad past decisions finally catching up to them. It is shocking how badly they took the beating, culminating probably with a kick to the balls in form of DC nabbing Brian Bendis, Marvel’s best-selling writer - and even he was just one of the many creators who jumped ships by that point. Things have gotten so bad at Hosue of Ideas they let go their Editor-In-Chief Axel Alonso and replaced him with C.B. Cebulski. And even in that, they manage to come under fire. 

While in general, both companies seem to be in the constant back and forth, when one is on top and the other starts fucking up, how drastically had the landscape shifted from New 52 era, when Marvel was seen as a dominant one even if DC was beating them at sales is, to me, a testament to how big success DC had with Rebirth. Now the question remains if they manage to keep it up going forward - which I sincerely wish to them. Because let me say something - DC Rebirth made me fall in love with so many aspects of DC Universe I didn’t care about before and it even made me seek some older DC titles. And that, I feel is the best testament to Rebirth’s success.

If you feel I have missed any winner or loser or just want to call me an idiot for something I’ve said, comments and reblogs are welcome.

- Admin

[jillmckenzie1]

Tempest in a Teapot

Cuties is streaming on Netflix

 Take a seat. Better yet, make a nice, hot cup of tea, pull up your nearest fainting couch, and get ready for some information that is sure to blow your mind. Ready?

You sure?

Okay…here goes. *takes a deep breath*

Americans are really, really stupid when it comes to both art and nuance. An example is the kerfuffle that sprang up regarding The Last Temptation of Christ. It all began with the 1955 novel written by Nikos Kazantzakis that examined the life of Jesus. Specifically, it posited the concept of Jesus briefly succumbing to temptation while on the cross and imagining a normal life. One that involved sex, love, and a family.

As you might imagine, a certain stripe of Christian was very angry with the book. This anger turned to incandescent rage in 1988, when Martin Scorsese adapted the novel into an excellent film. Now, you would think people who were taught the Gospels, to live with a love for others, to turn the other cheek, you would think those folks would either try to see the spiritual message inherent in Last Temptation* or love the people they disagreed with in brotherhood.

Nope! Thousands of people called for the film to be banned. Television evangelists denounced Scorsese. In fact, Scorsese received numerous death threats which, unless I missed big chunks of the Bible, is antithetical to the message of Christianity. There was even an attempted terrorist attack on a theater in Paris. A group of radical Catholics (Yes, seriously) set off an incendiary device that wounded thirteen people.

So based on the preceding paragraphs, I must think that conservative Christians are a bunch of gullible nitwits, right? Well…no. As much as I’d like to take a moment to clown on the right-wing outrage machine, the fact remains that both liberals and conservatives tend to live in a black and white space when it comes to artistic expression, and that space is not where nuance lives. Don’t believe me? Let’s talk about the new film Cuties, and why the controversy around it is mostly nonsense.

Amy (Fathia Youssouf) is eleven, and she has just moved from Senegal to a neighborhood in Paris. Things are very different for her. She’s in a new place with new customs and new faces, and she’s expected to help care for her two younger brothers. What about her parents, you might ask? That’s where things start to become complicated. Her mother Mariam (Maimouna Gueye) is already struggling to keep the children stable in their new home. Mariam tries to live as a righteous Muslim woman and feels pressure from her Aunt (Mbissine Therese Diop) to do better. The pressure gets worse when she receives a phone call from Senegal and the news that her husband has taken a second wife.

This is all an enormous amount for Amy to process. She needs support, and unfortunately, Mariam doesn’t have the bandwidth to provide it. So, she seeks out a support system elsewhere, and boy howdy, does she find it. A pilfered smartphone introduces her to social media and the endorphin rush that comes from likes and comments.

A chance encounter at school pinballs Amy’s life in a radically new direction. She meets the Cuties, a group of girls in her grade. They are her neighbor Angelica (Medina El Aidi), the snarky Coumba (Esther Gohourou), and the combative Jess (Ilanah Cami-Goursolas). The Cuties move through the world with the kind of bulletproof self-confidence that only exists within tweens and rich, white men. Their goal is to enter and win a dance competition, one that emphasizes barely-there costumes and dance moves that are…well, let’s go with “suggestive.”

The realization hits Amy like a thunderbolt. The Cuties are everything she isn’t and like nothing she’s ever seen before. At least, that’s what she thinks. How to get in with the cool girls? Proving yet again that the internet was a mistake, Amy dives online and immerses herself in videos. Her plan is to imitate the moves of dancers much older and copy their routines, routines that are wildly age-inappropriate. They don’t just push the envelope, they rip through the damn thing. It’s all in service of social medial likes, realizing a vague dream, and learning that actions have consequences.

A number of prominent individuals have accused Cuties of either being child pornography or sexually exploitative. Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley railed against the film. An op-ed in the conservative website The National Review wrote, “Thus, whatever their artistic intentions, in making a social commentary about the sexualization of children, the filmmakers undeniably sexualized children.” Christine Pelosi, daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, tweeted, “Cuties hypersexualizes girls my daughter’s age, no doubt to the delight of pedophiles like the ones I prosecuted. Cancel this, apologize, work with experts to heal your harm.” It was all outrage, but it never came from a place rooted in liberal or conservative ideology. It was only reactionary.

By now, I imagine you’re probably thinking, “Don’t keep us in suspense, is Cuties offensive trash that comes straight from the Second Circle of Hell?” No, but it is designed to make viewers feel uneasy.

Director Maimouna Doucoure has made a clear-eyed and nuanced film about the raging desire of a child to fit in, and the poor decisions they can make that blow up in their faces. She knows exactly what kind of film she’s making; one about perspectives. When the girls practice their routines, we hear pulsing pop music as they emulate what they have seen elsewhere. I’m not sure they’re fully aware of the meaning of these suggestive dance moves, but they know on a subconscious level that they have raw power. However, watch the same routine later when adults observe. You’ll see some skeezy guys who are into it, but far more adults who are repelled and appalled. In the end, the gaze of the camera is entirely dependent upon context. There are also tiny moments of surrealism that pop in and out, such as a dress that Amy is given to wear at her father’s wedding. Watch how the shape and color of the dress slightly changes depending on Amy’s mood. It’s filmmaking that’s smart and subtle.

Doucoure based her screenplay on her own experiences as a refugee, as well as eighteen months of research regarding how social media influences the behavior of children and young teens. More relevant is her prior experience as a girl. The script is a coming of age tale in which Amy bounces between the expectations of her culture and religion to be a submissive wife, an onslaught of online images lacking in context, and the age-old growing pains we all go through. She ultimately wants to find her people and her place in the world while simultaneously wanting to rebel against the world she’s growing up in. The tragedy is that she makes decisions from the perspective of a child and is judged as an adult.

I think I was most impressed by the natural and honest performances that Doucoure was able to draw out of her cast.*** The younger actors do solid work, and I was particularly impressed with Fathia Youssouf as Amy. She’s asked to do some extremely heavy lifting from an emotional standpoint, and whether she’s about to break from pressure or giggling as she crams gummy worms into her mouth, she always feels believable. The stealth MVP of the cast is Maimouna Gueye as her mother Miriam. She has an astounding scene where she takes a phone call and learns of her husband’s decision to take another wife. Gueye’s tone of voice is all business on the phone. We can only see her feet as she hangs up the phone. For a moment there’s only silence, then we see her feet shaking as she sobs.

You’ve probably heard a variation of the old saying that depiction doesn’t equal endorsement. Odds are that the vast majority of people hysterically shrieking over Cuties either haven’t seen the film or are reading it in the most shallow manner possible. Cuties made me extremely uncomfortable. Since it’s a critique of society’s rampant sexualization of children, it’s supposed to.**** Maimouna Doucore’s film is intelligent and nuanced, and I fervently hope that her next project is viewed with more open-mindedness. Odds are, it won’t be.

  *Whether you agree with the central message of the film or not, consider that the central message is that initially Jesus profoundly does not want to take the suffering of the world entirely within himself. He wants what everyone else wants, but decides to sacrifice himself anyway. That’s far more inspirational and relatable than a savior entirely free of doubt.

**While the film isn’t exploitative, holy hell is the advertising! Someone in Netflix’s marketing department made a series of Very Bad Decisions. You can read more here.

***It bears mentioning that there was a child psychologist on-set during the shooting, as well as officials from France’s child protective services.

***In fact, I think Cuties is far less offensive than some of the odious reality TV programs like Toddlers and Tiaras.

The post Tempest in a Teapot first appeared on The Denver Guide.

from Blog https://ondenver.com/tempest-in-a-teapot/

[thepermanentrainpress]

THE PERMANENT RAIN PRESS INTERVIEW WITH CONNOR FRANTA

“I think people in this generation are the most aware of the uniqueness of humanity than they have ever been before. It’s very important that we continue to preach equality amongst everything besides just sexual orientation, religion, race, gender equality... and I thoroughly believe that this generation is and will change that into a very equal future for everybody.”

A strong statement from a passionate young artist—one who himself, inspires a flourishing generation of creators, dreamers and advocates. Connor Franta is no stranger to the Internet and its powers. Following his first YouTube video upload in 2010, his channel has amassed over 5.5 million subscribers. Labelled the “Next Millennial Mogul” by People Magazine in 2015, Franta’s debut novel, A Work in Progress, was a New York Times bestseller. Late April marked the release of his sophomore book, Note to Self. A more vulnerable, inner piece of dialogue in comparison to its predecessor, Franta writes about his experiences with clinical depression, anxiety, and acceptance.

“I find myself over an interesting point in my life writing down my thoughts, experiences, and my quite literal, words of wisdom to myself for cathartic purposes. 6 months after I began, I realized I had such a large collection of these different things. I felt like I could put it into a book, and hopefully it would relate to other people in some sort of small way,” he says of its contents. Writing from the heart, Franta is candid in each little “note to [himself]” and involved in all aspects of Note to Self’s composition–including its stunning visuals.

A newer aspect to his writing, and dispersed throughout the book, is short-form poetry. Described as one of his favourite parts of the writing process, sharing the poetry with others was new territory. He uploaded a spoken word reciting of poem “frames” on YouTube, not knowing how it would be received. “Poetry always makes me dive deeper into topics that seem so simple. It was the first real poetic video I uploaded and it’s all about the words. It was very vulnerable and quite difficult for me to upload, but I think that’s always a good thing–to push yourself and feel uncomfortable.” Listing “perspective” and “depth” as 2 words that illustrate what poetry means to him, Franta plans to continue developing his passion for the art form, whether it’s shared in text or video form.

As I speak with Franta on the phone, he is in Houston, Texas for a book signing. Shortly after the bookstore run, he will be heading on an 18-date North American tour in support of the new novel. It begins in Vancouver, and will mark his first appearance in Vancouver since his visit in 2014 with YouTube group Our2ndLife. “I always say that the Pacific Northwest... I feel incredibly comfortable in and I feel like at one point in my life, I will live somewhere up there, whether it’s Portland, Seattle, or even Vancouver. Every time I go to any of those places I’d always felt that utter peace. I don’t know if it has something to do with the nature, but I just look forward to existing in Vancouver once again,” he says of his return trip to the Canadian city.

Aspiring to give his audience less of the traditional, archaic tour experience, the Note to Self Tour is noted as being “a sensory installation of visuals and voice.” “I thought my book was so visual and since I’m trying to place [readers] in my footsteps as I’m going through my journey, we created a moving art installation that essentially puts you in the book,” he explains. A walk through the 3 rooms will greet guests with moments captured from the pages. Each event will conclude with an interactive dialogue session with Franta. “It’s going to be pretty relaxed, there will be Q&As, me speaking and giving a TED Talk-esque speech, and interaction with the audience. There will be ups, downs, it will be happy, sad... all the things.”

Emotions have been a constant driver for Franta, who is vocal about being both a member, and advocate for the LGBTQ+ community. Speaking about the expansiveness of the online community and its global reach, he is quick to point out that people are interconnected now more than ever. “Millennials... such a buzzword,” he quips. “This generation is very accepting of all differences, seeing others as equal purely because of the exposure of awareness.” Having active participation in this discussion is crucial. “I think it’s an essential part of life, of growing up, and of being a human, which is interacting with all types of humanity.”

It’s a spirited outlook taken into all aspects of Franta’s life, including his lifestyle brand, Common Culture. Originating as a premium coffee line in 2015, the brand has thrived, now offering trendsetting apparel and music compilations. He looks forward to continued development in each of its 3 avenues, singling out fashion as a primary goal. “Common Culture clothing has definitely been the part that I’m the most passionate about, and I think the audience is the most passionate about as well,” he shares. “I see expanding that [lane] as far into the future as possible.” On the music front, the popularity of the music series propelled the creation of Heard Well, a label that partners with social tastemakers to release compilation albums, elevating both the artist and influencer’s voices in the process. Founded with Andrew Graham and Jeremy Wineberg, the label is currently working with close to one dozen YouTubers. “We’re looking into working in different formats of the music industry, hopefully actually signing an artist and doing some distribution as well,” he says of their future plans. This past week, Heard Well Radio launched on TuneIn, allowing listeners to stream its curated content 24/7.

As for artists who Franta is looking forward to hearing more from, he names Oh Wonder and Betty Who as 2 acts on his radar. “Oh Wonder has a new album coming out in June, so I’m really excited for that. They put out one in the past and I enjoyed every single song on it, and I’m always looking forward to what Betty Who is doing.”

We talk briefly about his rise to fame, put into perspective in a March encounter that saw Franta seated at a table next to Beyoncé, Jay Z and daughter Blue Ivy during brunch. “It was great for many reasons, but I did feel bad for her. They were being watched every second... people were taking photos of them like they were animals at a zoo. It just felt very strange,” he says. A dehumanization aspect of celebrity status, he agrees upon. “I definitely struggled with [fame] by no means even one one-millionth of what Beyoncé does, but I think it just roots back to my childhood. I grew up in a small town in Minnesota where I never wanted the spotlight or attention, I was always by myself.” Doing YouTube and being in the entertainment industry for nearly 6 years has been a learning curve, but has taught Franta how to cope with the notoriety – including how to avoid it if need be.

“To be honest, there are so many more upsides than downsides. I get to communicate with others on a daily basis, and be a voice of a generation [where] a voice is so important to have.” Knowing when to unwind helps keep him grounded. “Like every person, the way I unwind is just by unplugging from anything that feels stressful, anything work-related. Typically there is a lot going on on my phone, so I unplug and go hang out with my friends, even if it’s just sitting in their living room doing nothing. That’s where I find my joy, laughing with my friends or being with my family in any capacity.”

As we close with our signature question, Franta is playful in his response describing himself as an ice cream flavour. “Oh god, this is such a ‘me’ answer,” he laughs. “I’m going to say espresso chocolate chip because there’s a little extra-ness to me, and I’m also very energized and happy.”

Visit http://www.connorfrantabooks.com/ for information on where to purchase Note To Self, full tour dates, and how to keep updated with all things Connor Franta. 

Written by: Chloe Hoy Photos provided by: Core PR

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Three Utterly Unconnected Books With Gay Protagonists

by Wardog

Thursday, 13 January 2011

Wardog fails at themes.

By accident, rather than design, I just read three young adult books with gay protagonists. They're not really thematically related at all, nor do they have anything in common, but I found the coincidence harmonious enough that I've decided to review them in a bunch regardless.

Boy Meets Boy

I picked this up from a discount bookshop, remembering absolutely nothing about it except that someone might have told me it was good once, well, either this or a different completely book, which is the sort of thought process you find yourself having when you're unleashed in a space where everything is £2. Things you pick up in discount bookshops because there's no reason not to, rather than because you had a set reason for wanting to read them, can be surprisingly delightful. They can also be unbearably dreadful but I'm glad to say that Boy Meets Boy fell into the former category.

It's basically a coming-of-age tale, and a love story, so simply and straightforwardly told that it's almost banal – the message here seems to be that the experience of being a teenager is universal, and that sexuality shouldn't be something that marks difference between people who might otherwise find points of connection. Because of this, and setting elements I'll address later, it subtly addresses issues of acceptance and tolerance. The book itself is a vehicle for them, but mainly it tells a story about a recognisable teenager undergoing recognisable teenage experiences who just happens to be gay. Its very existence, in a way, emphasises the normality of gay experience, while leaving the book at liberty to simply a story in an entertaining way. To be honest, though, the story of Boy Meets Boy didn't interest me all that much, although I did care enough about the protagonist (Paul) to want a happy ending for him. But then it's self-unconsciously unremarkable – as the title itself suggests it will be – and charming enough to carry its own deliberate ordinariness. One of the things I did very much like about Boy Meets Boy is that it successfully creates a transitory space (being a teenager at school) that both owns its own transitiveness and yet doesn't undermine the importance of events and experiences within that space. So, for example, we are never expected to believe that Paul's love for Noah is Forever, but we still recognise its value, and even savour it because there is something uniquely delicate, perfect and intense about that kind of teenage romance.

Boy Meets Boy inhabits its adolescence almost to a fault – it's told in the first person, by Paul, so we are rather trapped in his often rather limited and flawed perspective. It struck me as being so realistically teenage that I found it rather stifling sometimes – his arty whimsicality strays perilously close to pretension. But as close as I came to rolling my eyes on occasion, self-irony is something adults impose on the excesses of adolescence and Paul's earnestness is genuinely endearing. Part of the problem with the book being so grounded in Paul was the less flamboyant characters don't really come through as clearly as they need to – Paul has an interesting circle of friends, including his bisexual ex, Kyle, who is working through his own confusion, and Tony, also gay, who is struggling with the restrictions of his parent's religion. Noah, Paul's love interest, never really develops his own identity – yes he is charming, like Paul, and whimsical, like Paul, and arty, like Paul, and somewhat vulnerable from a relationship gone wrong, like Paul, but although I believed in Paul's attraction to him, I found it rather difficult to believe in Noah as a person in his own right. But, then, I think Boy Meets Boy is more interested in love in general, than the specifics what makes a particular relationship work, so there's an extent to which it doesn't really matter.

The thing I loved most about Boy Meets Boy, however, was the setting. Because I didn't quite realise what I was reading, the fact that it is essentially set in a utopia of complete equality, where all sexualities are accepted, came at me completely unexpectedly. Basically the text presents you – in a very delightful way – with an increasing level of tolerance, up to the point at which it becomes absurdly unrealistic and then you feel deeply sad that what should surely be a basic level of human decency comes across as ludicrous idealism. It's never really “explained” in the text why this small town in America has embraced so wholeheartedly the tolerance it should not be unreasonable to expect from society as a whole but equally that shouldn't require explanation. This setting comes absolutely shining out the book, and some of my favourite passages are when it allows for things like this:

It was with Joni's help that I became the first openly gay class president in the history of Ms Farquar's third grade class. Joni was my campaign manager. She was the person who came up with my campaign slogan: VOTE FOR ME... I'M GAY! […] My biggest opponent was (I'm sorry to say) Ted Halpern. His first slogan was VOTE FOR ME … I'M NOT GAY, which only made him seem dull. Then he tried DON'T FOR HIM... HE'S GAY, which was pretty stupid, because nobody likes to be told who they can (or can't) vote for. Finally, in the days leading up to the election he resorted to DON'T VOTE FOR THE FAG. Hello? Joni threatened to beat him up but I knew he'd play right into our hands. When the election was held he was left with the rather tiny lint-head vote while I carried the girl vote, the open-minded guy vote, the third-grade closet case vote and the Ted-hater vote. It was a total blowout and when it was all over Toni beat Ted up anyway. The next day at lunch, Cody O'Brien traded me two Twinkies for a box of raisins – clearly an equal trade. The next day I gave him three Yodels for a Fig Newton. This was my first flirtation.

Or when the universal tolerance of the setting is playfully juxtaposed against the general intolerance of high school society:

Infinite Darlene doesn't have it easy. Being both star quarterback and homecoming queen has its conflicts. And sometimes it's hard for her to fit in. The other drag queens in our school rarely sit with her at lunch; they say she doesn't take good enough care of her nails and that she looks a little too buff in a tank top. The football players are a little more accepting, although there was a spot of trouble last year when Chuck, the second-string quarterback fell in love with her and got depressed when she said he wasn't her type.

It seems to be telling us we have enough to worry about it without also stressing about other people's sexualities. I'm also just glad there's a bisexual, and a real bisexual, in the book. And although his confusion ends up causes a bit of conflict, it is sympathetically presented.

There were a few aspects of Boy Meets Boy that fell a little flat for me – Noah, as I have said, and I was a bit sad that the story of the straight best friend is essentially one of loss. Joni gets into a relationship with an apparently rather controlling guy but we never really get any into her side of things (because Paul doesn't have any) and Paul is never quite able to reconcile with her. For a book about love, in all its forms, this is fair enough, since love and loss travel hand in hand, but it does mean that the one straight person in the entire book abandons her friends the moment she gets into a relationship. This is even more problematic because Boy Meets Boy is dependent on archetypes, rather than characters – what Boy Meets Boy, hopefully unintentionally, seems to be saying through arc is that gay-straight friendships are impossible to sustain, especially since the friendships he maintains, and the new ones he forms over the course of the book are all with gay people. The other thing that made me a little uncomfortable was the fact that Gay Tony's parents, who are unable to accept his sexuality, are highly religious. Of course lots of people who are religious have trouble with teh gay but it always seems to end up being a short-cut for blind homophobia. To Levithan's credit they are not obviously evil, and genuinely love their son, but just as there are problems in your only straight person fucking off into an unhealthy relationship there are problems in having your only homophobes be people of religious conviction.

Minor issues aside, Boy Meets Boy is basically an adorable piece of fluff. It is a hug in a book and I really enjoyed it.

Hero

I feel really bad about Hero because I honestly expected to love it, but as it turned out I just didn't get on with it. Thom Creed's father used to be a super hero but following a National Disaster (the collapse of the Wilton Towers while fighting off an alien, apparently) he's an outcast, a single father trying to raise his son. Thom is gay, and starting to manifest a superpower, two things he knows his father can't stand, and both of which are aspects of himself he feels he has to hide from his father for lose his love and respect. Unexpectedly, Thomas receives an invitation to try out for the League, the official syndicate superheroes, and finds himself on probation with a bunch of other aspiring superheroes.

One of the first books I reviewed for Ferretbrain back in the day was

Soon I Will Become Invincible

, the first superhero “novel” I'd ever read, which I ended up rather enjoying and is told from the perspective of a supervillain. I remember that Jamie and I had a rather tangled discussion – enacted from a perspective of mutual confusion – about the very concept of a superhero NOVEL.Soon I Will Become Invincible was clever and stylish enough that the inherent problems of the form Jamie articulated in his comments didn't become more than a minor issue. Unfortunately, they bugged the crap out of me in Hero. I felt that the narrative was constantly straining against itself – it wanted, and needed, to be a comic. Or about something else. Equally, the tropes of the genre, which are a vital part of any superhero story, are primarily visual, and largely present to bridge the gap between the images and the words. When there are only words these tropes come across as clumsy and lacking in subtlety – instead of bold, dramatic and exciting.

There is a lot to find likeable about Hero, really. The being-gay arc is nicely paralleled by the being-a-superhero arc; in fact as far as metaphors go it works pretty well, feeding into similar feelings of difference, and a pressure to conceal aspects of your identity. I also thought Thom was very well portrayed, in all his confusion, his foolishness and his charm. The scene in which he first meets Goran is particularly effective. Thom works for a mentoring programme for encouraging literacy:

I turned round and saw one of my new students, about my age, standing behind me. “You scared me.” I shut the file cabinet. “What are you doing in there?” He had a thick accent, so his family must have only moved here recently. One of the many English-as-a-second students who came to the centre to learn English … I always felt bad for the ESL students. I couldn't imagine what I'd do if I had to take chemistry in Bratislava... “Oh,” I was just looking for something for us to read tonight,” I said, slowly enunciating each word. “Do you like books?” He stared at me. He didn't blink. “See, that's the great thing about learning English. You get to read some cool books and stuff, so it's not all about boring homework.” He still didn't blink. “Books and stuff?” He repeated the words like he was spitting out poison. “Yeah,” I said. “It's pretty fun when you get into it. Reading and all.” Phyllis hurried back in the room... “I see you've met Goran,” she said. “Yes.” I smiled. “I have the feeling he's going to pick up English in no time.” Phyllis looked at Goran to see if I was serious and then looked back at me. “Thom, Goran founded the literacy programme for the older kids here two years ago. I asked him to show you the ropes tonight.” […] Goran, arms folded, stared at me with contempt. Sometimes I am the world's biggest loser.

I did, in fact, really like Thom. He's unflinchingly presented with all his flaws and vulnerabilities, right up to and including his mushy fantasies about Uberman, the most famous superhero in the league. He's nicely complex too, so he's always a very real person, not a stereotype. I liked the fact his fantasies about Uberman are as romantic as well as sexual (heh, being gay is not ONLY about sex), that Thom is quite athletic and his with Goran friendship develops over the course of basketball games, and that his first kiss is something he shares with a stranger because he's basically gone out to pull, and that it's okay that he does this. He doesn't come to any harm as a consequence, he doesn't have a horrible time, and it isn't presented as anything other than the act of a hurt and bewildered teenager.

What didn't work for me at all were the superhero aspects of the text. Although they function well enough on a metaphorical level, in practice I found them banal, overwrought and unsatisfying. It's possible I just missed the point. There are plenty of comic-related in-jokes and references – Uberman is clearly Captain Planet, Justice is Superman by way of Dr Manhatten, and his alienness and loneliness is rather affecting in the few scenes he dominates – and it's amusing enough, I suppose, but the dark-man-dark aspects don't sit very well with the more comedic ones. For example, Thom has a team-mate called Typhoid Larry and I think we are expected to care about him as a person, but Moore doesn't put in the effort necessary to make him anything more than a one-dimensional joke about hilariously unpleasant superpowers. Miss Scarlet, equally, is an angry bitch because her superpowers have horrendous side-effects but she's also incredibly boring. It's a shame because the style and complexity with which Moore depicts Thom, his father and, strangely enough, Justice is completely lacking in the supporting cast. They little more than dull, sub-Watchman stereotypes who obligingly die when it is time for us to feel sadness.

I initially liked the fact that Thom's superpower (healing) is a second-order power – it is far from traditionally glamorous and it is also not the sort of power we might instinctively associate with a man. It also ties in nicely to Thom's development from a self-conscious, self-absorbed teenager to an empathetic adult who cares about the people around him. Unfortunately it soon turns out that super-healing also comes bundled with aspects of super-blowing shit up – so something that could have been genuinely interesting and a little bit subversive basically becomes standard superhero fare. Blah.

The other inherent problem with the superhero format is that it's embedded in short-term, dramatic gestures. Thom's father is another example from the “excellent” spectrum of Moore's characterisation – as a disgraced superhero, the guy clearly has issues, and I thought the complicated, messy and frustrating relationship he has with his son was depicted with sympathy and subtlety. He manages to be an admirable man, a good father and a terrible father all at once; he is also, of course, homophobic but he never becomes a strawman bigot. Thom's father eventually comes to accept Thom's homosexuality but only directly before plot requires him to make the traditional superhero self-sacrifice. This was all very moving but I actually thought it was a cop-out. It is probably pretty easy to come to terms with your own internalised homophobia if you're about to die. Acceptance and tolerance are long-term prospects. They are not about short-term gestures. I would have been much happier if Thom's father had shown his commitment to these values through living with his son, not making an "i wuv you" speech and conveniently dying. I know this probably sounds perilously close to counter-factual criticism but since these issues are a major theme of the novel, it is frankly cheap to offer resolve them via trope.

There's a lot of really good stuff in Hero, and I did enjoy it when I wasn't being frustrated with it. But it really is its own worst enemy and the superhero trappings interfere with the story I was interested in reading.

Ash

This book is so utterly different to the preceding books that makes even more of a mockery of this review collection than it is already. Oh well. Ash is basically a Cinderella-retelling. It's charming but I found it rather insubstantial, but then there's also an extent to which fairy-tales are supposed to be insubstantial. The writing is elegant but in many ways it's a very suppressed book – Ash, is after all, subsumed in grief and despair, following the death of her father, and spends most of the book essentially trying to escape her own life. Left at the mercy of her stepmother she is not horrifically abused, but she is reduced to servant status and her wants and needs become completely irrelevant to those around. As a consequence of this, she is a rather difficult character to find in the text – she is, essentially, suicidal for most of the book - and the overall effect makes reading Ash is somewhat alienating. I did, however, appreciate how anti-dramatic is is. With such a depressing take on the material, it would have been easy to turn it hysterical - but, bleak though it is at times, Ash is very controlled, almost too controlled, since we come so close to losing hold on our central character.

It was not quite what I was expecting in a fairytale retelling but it did grow on me. And though it may be subdued, it is thankfully not self-consciously dark-man-dark about it. There's quite a sophisticated world underpinning this simple story, although it's incredibly lightly sketched, it's less world-building than world-suggesting, which I actually rather enjoyed. The magical elements of the story become entwined with Ash's desire to escape, rendering them both sources of solace and threat. Ash yearns to become part of the fairy world, a world not meant for humans, because the human world offers her nothing, and she sees the annihilation of herself as being a release from pain and grief and loneliness. Her fairy godmother is actually a rather sinister fairy called Sidhean and although her attraction to him, and his world, is understandable, and he is certainly fascinating, it is also never portrayed as anything but unhealthy.

Ash's “handsome prince” is not, however, a prince; it is actually the King's huntress, Kaisa. There is a handsome prince in the story, and Ash does end up dancing with him, but he's delightfully incidental. The romance between Ash and Kaisa unfolds beautifully – the fact they are both women is neither here nor there. Ash is very much framed as a love story, not a coming out out story. Being gay is very deliberately Not An Issue. I liked Kaisa very much, she is strong and sensitive, and clever and, quite frankly, she could have me any day. Unlike Sidhean, and, initially, Ash she is very much a part of the natural, human world. As her friendship with Ash develops, it is significant that one of her first acts is to teach Ash to ride, drawing her back towards the world she wants to leave. For all Kaisa's strength and love though, Ash must ultimately choose to rescue herself.

As I said above, Ash was not quite what I was expecting – a fairytale about a depressed girl who must choose whether to reject fairytales and live in the real world. I appreciated it more, in retrospect, since it is rather a slow and quiet read. On the other hand, the relationship between Ash and Kaisa is awfully romantic. And yay for lesbians.Themes:

Books

,

Sci-fi / Fantasy

,

Young Adult / Children

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Frank

at 04:09 on 2011-01-14

Hero

is likable. It was easy to escape into without thinking too hard on any possible reveals though the main villain was obvious from the get go. Moore's Aquaman family is sickly funny, and his Superman's (Justice's) superolfactory is a cool twist. What was way unlikable and absolutely did not work in the story was the writing because suddenly I found myself counting how many times Moore used 'suddenly' in the text and was suddenly struck plum dumb after reading it twice in the same paragraph.

I couldn't read it again. But I would see the movie or mini-series if it ever came about.

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Robinson L

at 03:02 on 2011-02-19Oh dear,

Perry Moore, author of Hero has died

, and at a ridiculously young age, too. That's sad.

I might read his book sometime, or one of the others. They all sound moderately-interesting-but-not-essential-reading. (I might read

Boy Meets Boy

just for the writing style, if it's all like that.)

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Wardog

at 11:20 on 2011-02-19Oh no - I feel kind of low key guilty now, for not liking his book.

I'm kind of with Frank actually - I didn't really fixate on it but the writing style was incredibly pedestrian.

Yeah, they were all likeable books - not amazing and essential but definitely a pleasant way to pass an afternoon. In order of liking for me it would be: Boy Meets Boy (I believe he's written a

book for adults

recently, I'm curious), Ash, Hero.

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valse de la lune

at 07:17 on 2011-05-02I'm plodding through

Ash

slowly. The writing style's actually easy to read, but I'm having trouble with how anvilicious the author is; your review does suggest it gets better, or at least subtler.

Lol at a fairy named "Sidhean," though.

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valse de la lune

at 11:56 on 2011-05-02Okay I speed-read through it like a thing that is speedy, but what exactly did Ash do to get out of the bargain with Sidhean? "I'll be yours for one night and the curse will be broken because if you REALLY love me you'll set me freeeee" makes sense... how?

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Wardog

at 19:21 on 2011-05-03I guess I just saw that as typical fairy-tale logic, and didn't really worry about it. Although truthfully I wasn't paying much attention by then, just hoping the Huntress was okay :).

Ash was one of those books I liked more retrospect than while I was reading it - Ash's frozen despair doesn't exactly make it easy or lively to get through.

I think there's a second book out now (Huntress?) and I'm almost tempted. I didn't feel massively passionate about Ash, but I'm starved enough for decent fiction with non-straight female characters in it that I'm happy to go along for the ride.

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valse de la lune

at 19:53 on 2011-05-03

Huntress

is certainly on my to-read list, but before I get to it I'll probably read a bunch of others first. For what it's worth, here are books I've read or which I'll soon read that include gay female characters:

Disturbed By Her Song

, Tanith Lee (nominated for the LAMBDA award, even, though I'm still surprised because Lee's straight and I thought their rule was "author must be LGBT")

Daughters of a Coral Dawn

, Katherine V Forrest

The Female Man

, Joanna Russ

Child Garden

, Geoff Ryman (author is a gay man)

Fire Logic

and

Water Logic

, Laurie J. Marks

And obviously, some of Catherynne M. Valente's stuff (author being herself bi, I believe) particularly

Palimpsest

and

The Orphan's Tales

if you haven't read those already.

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Wardog

at 21:42 on 2011-05-03I find Lee pretty variable, to be honest, although I haven't read that one (adds to list). Some of her stuff I really really love and some of it, well, not so much. Valente is one of those authors I've been meaning to get round to for ages, but I've read (and liked) quite a bit of her critical stuff so I'm terrified I won't like her fiction.

The only examples I can remember off the top of my head are Kushner's The Privilege of the Sword in which the heroine is maybe a lesbian if you squint a bit and cross your fingers, the dreaded oh god no Green, and, well shit, that's it.

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valse de la lune

at 06:54 on 2011-05-04I am... not fond of Kushner; couldn't finish

Swordpoint

and what I know of her collab with Sarah Monette (whose books I'm not fond of either)--

A Companion to Wolves--is that it involves gay people and an awful lot of rape. Can't we have fantasy featuring gay people that's not so rapey all the time? But I agree with you on Lee; she has written things I loved, and things that made me go "she... she can't write." Valente is one of those authors I've been meaning to get round to for ages, but I've read (and liked) quite a bit of her critical stuff so I'm terrified I won't like her fiction. Palimpsest isn't her best, IMO, though a lot of people may disagree--it's got iffy sexual politics (i.e. consent issues)--but the Orphan's Tales duology is almost universally liked. The Female Man opens beautifully, with the female narrator introducing herself and talking about her mother, her other mother, and how she loves her wife Vittoria. Aw hell yeah.

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Wardog

at 18:18 on 2011-05-04I actually quite liked Swordspoint, and to a lesser extent Priviledge. But then I think it was the first of that "type" of book I read. I might be less forgiving nowadays. I thought A Companion to Wolves was Monette and Bear (or are Kushner and Bear the same person, I really have no clue about incestuous author cults), and I read halfway through it, slightly bewildered by both the rapey and, even more objectionable (not really), the *boring*. Also I thought what was going to be an interesting examination of the mythic and the construction of masculinity seemed to just boil into who goes on the bottom ... so... yeah.

I've been trying to control my book buying habits, in that I need to read (and review) what I've already got ... but ... but ... temptation...

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valse de la lune

at 18:31 on 2011-05-04Oh shit, my bad. You're right, it is Monette and Bear.

These writers are all the same to me okay.

Not coincidentally I also don't have much patience for Bear, and that's not just because of her part in Racefail 09: I read

Ink and Steel

and kept going wryyyyyy.

(Oscar Wilde said the only way to deal with temptation is to give in to it. :))

[benrleeusa]

[Irina Manta] Judging Neomi Rao

Why college writings are complicated but the perfect solution fallacy is worse.

The legal world has been abuzz with the nomination of Neomi Rao, and my coblogger Jonathan Adler has detailed her accomplished background here. He has also criticized the focus on her college writings on topics such as homosexuality and consent. I have only met Neomi on a few occasions and hardly know her, so my observations in this post are largely those of an outsider that has access to similar information as the rest of the public.

First, I would like to point out that Republican politicians and parts of the conservative media have done Neomi no favors in comparing the accusations against her to those that Justice Brett Kavanaugh encountered. One example of this is her college classmate's Jeremy Carl's National Review piece entitled "The Kavanaughing of Neomi Rao", which manages not to reference Brett Kavanaugh by name a single time in the actual text of the article. Instead, we are served to unsubtle allusions in lines such as the one that "Rao is an outstanding nominee who, like many other conservatives, is not being attacked for her faults, but for her virtues." Meanwhile, Megan McArdle writes that Neomi "is being targeted by a similar sort of allegation — in the same family, but distantly related." In my view, whatever one thinks about the procedural aspects of Brett Kavanaugh's nomination and confirmation process, the accusations against him were significantly more serious than those against Neomi. Nobody has come forward to claim that Neomi committed sexual assault or otherwise broke the law. Additionally, Neomi admits--and states that she regrets--writing what she wrote about gender equality and the nature of sexual consent. Brett Kavanaugh admits nothing and regrets nothing when it comes to his relations with the female gender. Last but not least, Neomi is not under suspicion of having committed perjury at her hearings. Those who believe that there is any equivalence in unfair treatment of Neomi Rao and Brett Kavanaugh may want to revisit the latter's record regularly.

Second, should Neomi's college writings matter? Jonathan Adler emphatically says no, and David Lat has similarly urged for some time that judicial nominees' college writings should generally be left in the past. Lat makes very reasonable points about how people often change their views and how college should be a time for experimenting intellectually, lest we only accept what David Brooks termed organizational kids that never dare to say anything controversial. So why do college writings come up at confirmation hearings? One key reason, of course, is political opportunism, whereby both parties dig up all the dirt that they can. Another reason, however, raises more complications: judicial nominees were often less careful to hide their views in their youth than later in life when they entered the professional and especially political arena. I am therefore rather unconvinced when McArdle writes about Neomi: "If she's lying, there should presumably be some less elderly, and more relevant, evidence of deception." Given the nature of the political process, actually, no, I would not expect for there to be such evidence whatsoever because most people who have made it to the stage of being nominated by U.S. presidents are savvy enough not to produce it. At the end of the day, we do not know and cannot know for sure what Neomi or any other nominee thinks in her heart of hearts, an uncertainty that leaves us with some understandable anxiety given the great power of appellate court judges. That said, I would caution against dismissing an entire class of possible nominees because they were perhaps not raised by parents who were part of pre-existing political elites advising their children that in college they should "talk less, smile more".

Third, were the college writings that bad? I do find some of their content quite problematic, though unfortunately even when I attended Yale College several years after Neomi, in the early aughts, her past rhetoric on sexual consent was in line with what many other young conservatives believed (and some of them have become conservative commentators who to this day write similar things). I am troubled that Neomi wrote that "if [a woman] drinks to the point where she can no longer choose, well, getting to that point was part of her choice". For one, this potentially equates drunk dating with drunk driving in the sense that we should hold someone responsible (morally? legally? it's unclear) if the person gets raped similarly to how we would condemn someone (both morally and legally) for hitting someone with her car while drunk. But in the example of date rape, there is no legal offense without a rapist. Drunk dating does not make you a bad person the way drunk driving does, and implying otherwise is wrong. I don't buy that, as Ted Cruz at the hearings and conservative commentators since have tried to convince us, Neomi was simply trying to help women by giving them advice on how to protect themselves. Her statement was embedded in a moral (and potentially legal) context that unfortunately did lend itself to victim-blaming. I have explained in my scholarship on sexual fraud why the argument that someone could have done more to protect herself (even where factually accurate) is problematic because 1) that can be true of most crimes and torts and 2) it tells us nothing about what level of precaution is actually optimal at the societal level.

Fourth, that said, does this make Neomi Rao a particularly poor candidate for the D.C. Circuit? I doubt it. She shouldn't have said what she said, and I genuinely hope that she meant it when she disavowed those opinions at the hearing, but viewing her overall record, I find it hard to believe that she compares negatively in the pool of nominees that Donald Trump would realistically consider. This is where the perfect solution fallacy comes in: those who were already wiser on the topic of sexual consent in the 1990s are unlikely to be on the current political radar. Indeed, if Neomi's nomination got derailed, we would likely get a different Republican nominee who perhaps did not write anything in college newspapers but is no more likely to advance gender equality than the confirmation of Neomi Rao would. Note that this was not my view of Brett Kavanaugh and that, like Ilya Somin, I fully believe that a less problematic candidate could have been found if Kavanaugh failed to be confirmed given the gravity of his alleged conduct and behavior at the hearings.

Fifth, a broader problem remains, which is that while we are urged by some to forget what Neomi Rao said 25 years ago, that means she also had 25 years to express in a public forum that she changed her views. Monica Hesse writes in WaPo: "What I'd love is for someone to get it right. Some candidate or appointee to apologize not because a leaked photo had suddenly forced them to, but because they realized the error in their past behaviors, and they were prepared for an honest conversation illuminating America's hurtful past and the role they played in it." To be fair, perhaps Neomi didn't even remember what she wrote all those years back until it was brought up during the confirmation process. But those of us who put things in the press--even the college press--have a special responsibility to correct the record wherever possibly, a responsibility that is only increasing the more materials are available online and hence never truly become a part of the past. Of course, admitting to past intellectual mistakes can come at a (sometimes high) political price. Society can do its part in that respect by moving toward becoming more generous and hospitable toward those who step forward unprompted to say that they were once wrong and have changed their ways.

[datinglove07-blog-blog-blog]

43 Romantic Facts About Dating & Relationships

New Post has been published on https://onlinedatingloves.com/trending/43-romantic-facts-about-dating-relationships/

43 Romantic Facts About Dating & Relationships

“Dating is about finding out who you are and who others are. If you show up in a masquerade outfit, neither is going to happen.”— Henry Cloud, How to Get a Date Worth Keeping

The term “dating” has multiple meanings, but it most commonly means the period in which two people meet socially, and explore whether or not they want to eventually pursue a more serious relationship or even marriage. It is a relatively recent phenomenon, having only originated in the last few centuries, that varies from country to country, and has changed considerably over time. Thanks to modern technology, dating can now take place over the telephone, computer, or in person. Below are 43 romantic facts about dating and relationships in the past, present, and future.

43. Money Matters

More women than men say they need independence in a relationship and prefer to keep their bank accounts separate. Men tend to be less secure, and statistics also show that for every $5000 that a woman earns more her husband, the chance of divorce increases by 5%.

42.  It’s the Little Things that Count

Studies show that small acts of affection between couples can help strengthen their relationship. Actions like a giving a partner a tight hug, a kiss, a cup of tea, or even an unexpected gift can mean as much as sex.

In the US, there are an average of 100 unmarried women to 86 unmarried men. 

If you’ve ever wondered why the counter in a bar is curved, there’s actually a specific reason. Bars are designed so patrons can assess the people around them for their dating potential. Most bars will also strategically place mirrors to make them seem larger and to allow people to check out who’s behind them. 

The “chase” is the most exciting part of dating to many people, so dating experts suggest not being too “available” after a date. A “desperate dater” is someone who is free for a date no matter how last minute, who focuses too much attention on their partner, who needs constant reassurance about their relationship, who needs a lot of compliments, who abandons their friends at the drop of a hat, and who is willing to settle, no matter how badly they are treated. According to E-Harmony, people with higher standards, and who don’t make themselves as available, are more likely to find love.

38. No Kissing Cousins

Due in part to Iceland’s small population (320,000), few foreign nationals, and surnames that don’t offer many hints as to lineage, it is a concern among Icelanders that they may accidentally sleep with a relative. To combat this, Iceland has a dating app called “Bump” that can tell you whether or not you’re related to the other person just by bumping your phones together.

37. The Victorian Internet

Before the Internet, people had to find other means of finding romance. Not long after the first newspaper was invented, personal ads started appearing. In the Victorian era, the telegraph was also used as a means of finding romance. Due to its ability to quickly transmit messages across long distances, it opened up opportunities for people who had never met to communicate and fall in love.

The expression “Netflix and Chill” seems like a simple invitation to relax at home and watch a movie, but it’s become code for sex. Very chill. Or not chill at all?

35. Honesty is the Best Policy

A University of Illinois study found that when both partners were honest with each other about the state of their relationship, they stood a better chance of lasting longer. The same study also found that people in dying relationships tend to distort their assessment of how things are going.

34. When Dating Was a Felony

At the turn of the century, the concept of dating was virtually unheard of, and law enforcement officials didn’t know how to handle it. To them, a woman allowing a man to buy her food, drink or gifts and meeting in public was one step away from prostitution, and it was possible for a woman to be arrested for dating.

33. Doing Dishes Is Good for Your Love Life

A 2015 University of Alberta study showed that when couples share equally in household chores, they report being more satisfied with their relationship both emotionally and sexually.

The best time to call after meeting someone is within two to four days, and no more than four to five days. If woman doesn’t return the guy’s call after two messages, she’s probably not keen.

31. Meet Online, Break Up Online

Online daters are more likely to breakup online as well. Match Singles reports that almost half of their breakups occur over e-mail, while only a small percentage breakup over text. I wonder if the email dumpers feel good about themselves, because at least they aren’t breaking up by text!

The term dating in its current framework is a relatively young term. Its first appearance came in a newspaper column in 1896 when a young man complained that his girlfriend was seeing other people, and they were taking up all of his dates (on her calendar).

They say that opposites attract, and a lot of times, a type “A” personality will get together with someone who is their polar opposite. Although the different personalities can balance each other out, sometimes they’re too different, and they start to resent one another for those differences.

28. Dating is Big Bucks!

The online dating industry generates $1.8 billion annually, and in the US, the dating coach business alone is worth $260 million per year. Dating has become big business, and the establishment of the “dating industry” has made meeting a potential partner become something that people are expected to pour their money into, much like what has occurred with the wedding and Christmas industries.

Repeating your date’s name at least twice is a sure-fire way to create a connection with him/her, as it shows attention and involvement. Remembering bits of information about them and working it into conversations is also a way of showing that you’re interested.

26. Such a Turn-Off

Cystic acne, ragged nails, body odor and bad breath are among the top ten turn-offs for women. On the other hand, women will be more attracted to a man who wears aftershave and pheromone-based colognes. Women have a stronger sense of smell than men, and according to some studies, musk and black licorice smells are especially attractive.

Speed dating was actually invented in 1999 by a Los Angeles based Jewish man whose rabbi encouraged him to find a way to help Jewish singles meet and find partners. It’s based on a Jewish tradition of chaperoning meetings of young, Jewish singles.

24. Not so Fast!

Relationships typically don’t happen immediately after the first date. Studies show that it takes an average of six to eight dates before a dating couple decide to make their relationship exclusive. By the same token, most breakups occur after an average of three to five months.

A study by Lisa Daily suggests that women take longer to figure out when they’re into someone than men do. Men have reported recognizing their feelings as early as date three, while women report the same feelings around date 14.

22. Increasing the Odds

A study carried out by Emory University in Georgia found that the longer couples date before marriage, the more likely they are to stay together. Couples who dated for three or more years before proposing were about 40% less likely to divorce compared to those who had dated for less than a year. This feels like something that we didn’t need a study to prove…

According to journalist David McCandless’s TED talk, the most common day to announce a breakup is on Monday. Right before Spring Break and Christmas are the times of year when most breakups occur.

Expensive weddings and fancy rings are not a guarantee of a long and happy marriage. Debt stress after the wedding is a common occurrence that can severely damage a relationship. Studies have also shown that cohabitating couples who aren’t married share the same advantages as married ones, and expensive weddings are associated with higher divorce rates.

19. Broken Heart Syndrome

It turns out that being “broken hearted” is more than just a figurative condition. When a person suffers the loss of a loved one, by death or some other cause, the heart muscles can weaken and bring on a temporary heart condition. The body blitzes the heart with stress chemicals, the cells of the heart freeze, and the muscles tense up. This leads to a release of pain chemicals which travel to the brain and cause an actual pain sensation in the heart.

18. Cuddle Together, Stay Together

A study by the University of Hertfordshire found that couples who snuggle up while sleeping had much happier relationships than those who don’t. Only 68% of couples who said they don’t cuddle said they were happy.

17. Look Into My Eyes

Research shows that looking a person in the eyes plays a big role in attracting a possible date for both sexes. If a woman uncrosses her arms, makes subtle eye-contact and smiles, it makes approach more likely. Though, there seems to be plenty of evidence that doing the exact opposite won’t do much to deter creepy dudes.

16. It’s Scary Out There

Over half of the people who report their relationship status as single say they haven’t been on a date in two years. According to one poll, 40% of men said they are scared when they first make contact with a potential partner, which could help explain the lapse.

Three of the biggest dating mistakes are talking about yourself or your ex too much, being late, and seeming too willing. Men also report trying to avoid women who flirt too much, talk about marriage too soon, are too needy, party too much, are too chatty, and are too dramatic.

When both partners are appreciative of the effort put in by the other person, a relationship will probably be more successful. A simple thank you can increase oxytocin levels—a neurochemical that helps build trust and affection.

An Elle magazine survey found that 12% of women and 31% of men said they’d dumped a partner because they were overweight. In attracting a date, being thin and muscular is preferred to being overweight. Muscular individuals are viewed as brave, healthy and attractive, while thin people are seen as intelligent but nervous.

Before a man even speaks a word, his appearance and body language account for 55% of a woman’s first impression. The way he speaks accounts for another 38% of the impression, and what he says accounts for just 7%. 

11 Don’t Worry—Be Happy!

Negativity is the biggest turn-off during a first date. Studies show that happiness is infectious, and potential dates will less frequently turn away from happy people.

According to psychologists at UPenn, most people make a decision about whether or not they want to have sex with someone in the first three seconds of meeting. On the other hand, deciding whether or not to get into a relationship can be a long and involved process.

Although men have traditionally done the asking when it comes to dating, a Match.com poll found that 91% of men who use the site are comfortable with women asking them out. Match also finds that increasing amounts of Americans no longer feel it necessary for the man to pay for the first date.

8. The Right Time for Sex

Surveys show that 40% of women think one to three months is the suitable time frame to wait for sex, while 35% of men think the third date is OK. On average, sex takes place around the fourth to sixth dates, and women are increasingly making the first move.

7. She’s Just Not That Into You

When a woman offers to pay for everything on a date, the likelihood is that she isn’t really interested. Avoiding eye-contact, faking a smile or not smiling, leaning away, giving monosyllabic answers and looking at her watch are also all signs that she’s not into it.

Meeting in public for a “date” oddly used to be the best way to give suitors some privacy. Before dating, courtship involved a suitor calling on his potential partner in her home, and since most homes weren’t mansions, being “alone” was virtually impossible.

When women in a crowd are bunched together giggling, it’s a sign that they aren’t looking for men. If they’re standing together but their eyes wander, they’re interested and looking, and if they leave the group to go to the bathroom alone, they’re actively hunting.

Statistics have shown that being an entrepreneur, preferring phone calls to texting, and being anti-social media are all positive qualities in a date, while complaining on Facebook, being too involved in social media and not voting in presidential elections are negatives. It has also been found that binge-watching the same TV shows is a big plus for millennials.

The practice of “ghosting” is all-too-familiar to modern daters. It’s the term used to describe when someone that a person has been dating disappears without a trace. They stop returning texts, block the other on Social Media, and basically just erase themselves from the life of their one time partner, all in an effort to avoid the breakup conversation. In contrast, when someone who tries to get back into an ex’s life through social media, it’s called haunting. The dating-world sure can get spooky.

2. Fudging the Details

A recent study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that 81% of people who fill out online dating profiles lie about details such as their height, weight or age. Weight is the biggest fudge for women (who frequently take off a few pounds), while men often add a half inch or more to their height. While some people do lie about their age, they do so less frequently than they do about height and weight.

1. Tune-In, Hook Up

Video sharing giant YouTube was almost a dating site. The domain was registered on Valentine’s Day, and was given the tagline “tune-in, hook up.” The goal was originally to give singles a virtual space where they could upload videos of themselves and “hook up” with other users. The company’s founders assumed that was the most logical use of the service, though it turned out that weird cats and fidget spinners would have something to say about it.

Source

43 Romantic Facts About Dating & Relationships

[annie-m-lima-blog]

My first book review! Yay!

So I wanted to start a new ritual where I review books that I’ve read. Being perfectly honest here, I’m not a big reader. I used to read everything I could get my hands on, but that is a long forgotten habit. I now need an obligation to force myself to pick up books again.

….And you want to be a writer?

Yes, I know. But I read a book! It was just a terrible one. And now I’m upset because my first review is going to be a rant thinly disguised as something...else? Maybe?

Anyway, “What Are You Afraid Of” by Alexandra Ivy.

Outlines, well-developed characters, and a thesaurus. Obviously.

Ok, so this is a crime novel. I picked it up for some tips on how to drag out the suspense. My Zootopia novel (about cops chasing criminals) quite frankly needs all the help it can get. However, I discovered some important don’ts rather than do’s here so let's write those down (yes, I am aware of how salty I sound right now.) (Also spoilers)

Don’t make carbon copy characters: the Main Character, Carmen, and her love interest, Griffin, are one in the same. Carmen is a gorgeous woman. Griffin has a rockin’ bod. Carmen is a driven journalist. Griffin is a skilled software developer. She made bank off her book about serial killers. He made bank off of the FBI for the software to catch serial killers. (This is how they met by the way) She watched her mom get shot. He watched his mom get shot. See where I’m going with this? I understand that a love interest needs to have stuff in common with the MC but this made them seem plain and boring. No insta love: Especially when they start off having a major conflict. She used him to get information for her book. He was furious about that for months leading up to the start of the book. The second he sees her all that melts away by the steaming, hot, lustful thoughts he has about her body and suddenly she’s perfect, and he would protect her with his life. This happened all in the first 100 pages. Which made the second 264 pages that much harder to read. This scary suspense story was halted several times to mention how hot they thought each other was and in the middle of all the drama they have sex. Like a lot. Being chased by crazed maniacs is apparently a huge turn on for these guys. But on the plus side, she can write a decent sex scene. Outlines are your friends: I understand that these types of stories are supposed to give you plot twists. I was not expecting whiplash. The premise of the novel was pretty intriguing. The book that she wrote was a nonfiction documentation of five serial killers and their victims. So when she got an envelope filled with pictures of women with their heads bashed in, she suspected that it was old pictures from one of the serial killers she interview. It was his M.O. after all so that’s pretty believable. It wasn’t until she noticed that these women weren't mentioned in her interview with the killer that she started to feel uneasy. Notice that the prologue was a gruesome death scene so I know that a) the pictures are real and b) the killers raped the woman before they killed her. I mention this because Carmen believed that the pictures were faked. Sometimes. She flipped back and forth between the “are they real or are they not” thing through 2/3rds of the book. That coupled with the fact that the “maybe they’re fake” argument only went as far as to vaguely mention the thought every few pages made it more of an annoyance than a note of suspense. Secondly. Carmen is a thin, blonde white woman - the victims are also thin, blonde, white women. It is one of the important factors showing that this is not the original killer and is, in fact, a copycat killer(s)(They don’t know there is more than one killer for most of the book). The killer she interviewed was notorious for not being picky about his women. One who reads the back of the book knows this is the way to signify that the copycat is Carmen’s stalker...because they said so. However, Griffin took a look at these pictures and immediately assessed that she was being targeted. There was no build up, no major revelation. Can the killer not just have a preference? We KNOW he’s having sex with them. So it makes it utterly gross when they try and finger her uncle for the crimes. Her uncle’s motivation isn’t even sexual. This wasn’t a crazy plot twist. It was bad writing. Speaking of her uncle’s motivation; he secretly stole her inheritance when her father shot her mother and then himself. Firstly, how? It was 3 million dollars. So nobody outside of her parents and her uncle knew about that? She sure didn’t. She’s an heiress to a line of grocery stores, and she never got any money. She never questioned any of this? Furthermore, he’s coming out of the woodwork now that her book sold. Why? Griffin said that it was because she now had money for lawyers but she doesn’t know about the inheritance and never spoke to her uncle so...why would he bother? It seems to me like it would cause more attention to himself to stir stuff up now. Right before the big climax for two pages, the author put in a countdown of victims for the five killers. So, the killers killed five women like the first killer, four like the second killer, three like the third killer. It would be intimidating but on the next page Carmen gets kidnapped, and the timeline gets messed up. Note that this wasn’t mentioned anywhere in any of the snippets from the killers pov either. The author just threw this in last second just to neglect it. Not a plot twist. Don’t let the climax suck: She gets captured. The killer unceremoniously revealed himself as her housekeeper’s son. The guy was mentioned maybe three times all together and had two lines in the entire book. He thinks that her father was his father and that they were related, confirming the creepy incest vibe. This wasn’t set up at all but really and truly I should have seen this coming because the only two things I know about her father were contradictory to each other. I know that he adored his wife and that he killed his wife. Ronnie (the brother) admitted that he was the one who killed both her parents in a rage over being denied as the son. To cope with the trauma Carmen ….suppressed the knowledge that Ronnie was there and only remembered seeing the bodies of her parents? Because someone she admits to not knowing well killing her parents is more traumatic than her father killing her mother? That is most certainly NOT a plot twist. Then the author decided to write a plot twist inside of a plot twist creating a weird plot twist inception. It turns out that Ronnie was fed information by Carmen’s cousin to make him believe that he was Carmen’s brother. He's not, but the cousin wanted to drive Carmen's father away to protect the company from going bankrupt. Because he was worried about this at 15? Why did he even think that Carmen's father would back away from his only source of income over that? This cousin, let’s call him Ted because I already forgot his name, was part of Ronnie’s team and decided to tell him all of this after Griffin showed up to save Carmen, during their daring escape. Was there not a more convenient time to do this? Really? Do you have to do this right now? At least he killed Ronnie, forcing the author to stop calling him “unstable” and “insane” every few lines. Yes, I get it. You don’t have to tell me 23 times in 10 pages. Finally, they did the classic “Tim pulled a gun on Carmen so Griffin pulled a gun on Tim” fiasco. Law and Order SVU taught me that if you shoot the guy who has a gun on your friend his reflexes will pull the trigger on your friend. So I don’t care what the author says, Carmen’s dead. Reality doesn’t just stop because you want it to. Don’t add bad plot twists in the epilogue: After this is over, Griffin starts driving to Carmen’s uncle’s house while daydreaming about marrying Carmen (a whopping three weeks after their first meet) He storms into his office and makes a show of threatening the dude for Carmen’s inheritance. (You just said you’d marry her. You’re a millionaire. Why does it matter?) He admits to having it and agrees to repay her. He also admits to trying to run them off the road into a ravine that one time. So he’s a wannabe killer now too. Cool. You just tied up loose ends. STILL not a plot twist.

Those were all just the “big issues” I had with the story. The writing annoyed me too. I was told the same information 18 hundred times throughout the story. The clues were also unceremoniously thrown in as question that a character asked him(her)self. Every time. Also, I head hopped the entire time. We get Carmen’s, Griffin’s and Ronnie’s pov’s. We also got pov’s of three of the victims. It was overly disjointed and seemed smashed together.

Decent point: Those death scenes in the pov of the victim who was getting killed was admittedly pretty chilling. Kudos.

….I don’t have a way to end this...so bye? I guess? I’ll be reading Stephen King’s “Carrie” next. So hopefully my next review will be a happier one.  

[enough-finance]

Sam Polk's For the Love of Money is an impressive moral education of equal ... Sam Polk's For the Love of Money is an impressive moral education of equal calibre as Jonathan Franzen's Freedom. It is foremost a retelling of the age-old story—magical ascent, single-minded pursuit of wealth and fame,soul-searching, guilt and redemption. He lifts every scar unflinchingly,and his clinical scalpel inadvertently points to diseases latent in most mortals—an unquestioning quest for more money,power,sex,tying self-worth with achievement. The absence of unconditional love from his parents, coupled with unhealthy relationship with his twin brother, catalyzed his wild Columbia years—a headlong race for sexual validation and substances-induced highs. Nevertheless,his rise from a self-destructive and insecure English undergrad with 3.0 GPA to an expert at distressed trading at a top hedge fund testifies to the fact that the cloistered financial underworld is far from a meritocracy. Imagine the chances that an African American or a Latino with 3.0 GPA,even at top Ivy Leagues, could get his or her foot in the doors of investment banks. Go to Amazon

Simply amazing. Buy this book. It will change your perspective. I finished this book today, and felt compelled to immediately write a review, which is new for me. The raw honesty within these pages is noticeable from the get-go, and whether you like it or not, you will find yourself relating to Sam on one level or another. I have read the articles he's written, as well as their reviews; I've also watched his TED talks and media appearances, where the responses to his values are varied, and while I thought I understood the trajectory he traveled on, it is clear after reading this book that I really had no idea. To have such hardened focus on a single, overarching goal only to shun it when finally on the cusp of achieving it - it is not difficult to wrap your head around that concept, let's say if you read about it in an article - but when you put it in the context of someone's entire life, it becomes an emotional rollercoaster, where you find yourself going from laughing at Sam's descriptions to literally crying because you can almost feel his pain through the pages, to wanting to shake the book in hopes the young man in there snaps out of it. Go to Amazon

Read in one sitting and I never do that Truly amazing. In so many ways I could relate just leaving a high paying job because I was always stressed out and couldn't stand my co workers. Polk writes with a prose that is decades beyond his age and does it with such a style that keeps you glued to the page. I am a sucker for Wall Street books and I have to say, this might be the best one out there as it reminds you of what REALLY matters at the end of the day. Fantastic read! Go to Amazon

Riveting read that will get you thinking. Not only is For the Love of Money an incredibly well-written page turner, but also one of the most honest, raw, vulnerable, thought provoking, and timely memoirs out there. We must thank Sam Polk for having the courage to share his inspiring story. Go to Amazon

Addicted to the story. This is a captivating story of how a bad childhood doesn't mean you have to have a bad life. The memior is well written and hard to stop reading. The topics of dealing with addictions, developing as a Wall Street trader , despair from bad choices and joy from good choices are well told. I recommend this story to anyone who lives for approval from others. Go to Amazon

Two Stars Not particularly good; a bit trite in fact. Go to Amazon

Read it and could have spent time reading a different ... Read it and could have spent time reading a different book. Nothing earth-shattering here - just someone's average story. Go to Amazon

Honest and Inspiring Sam shares a brutally honest account of his journey from Wall Street trader to social entrepreneur. Kudos to Sam for having the courage to find his way. Go to Amazon

Great Memoir amazing human and amazing read Addicting read. ... half way through with this book and I am bored as hell Good read. Interesting journey Five Stars The young mind that never feels good enough, the pursuit of dreams that we realize ... I absolutely loved this book and Polk's writing style Not What You Think It Is Five Stars

[omcik-blog]

New Post has been published on OmCik

New Post has been published on http://omcik.com/roger-ailes-and-the-creation-of-the-conservative-media-celebrity/

Roger Ailes and the creation of the conservative media celebrity

It can be argued that no person is more responsible for the current state of the conservative movement, good and bad, than former Fox News chief Roger Ailes.

“You can’t tell the story of the rise of the conservative movement without talking about Roger Ailes. But you also can’t talk about how it went off the rails without talking about Roger Ailes,” conservative radio host Charlie Sykes told CNN. “To the extent that conservatism has been eclipsed by shrill showmanship — he was the ring leader. He was the guy who brought the circus to town.”

Ailes, who died Thursday at 77, spent decades in Republican politics and was known as a brilliant communicator. He advised Republican presidents from Richard Nixon to George H.W. Bush. In 1984, Ailes gifted Ronald Reagan with the famous one-liner he deployed when confronted in a debate about his old age: “I will not make age an issue of this campaign; I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”

But his biggest triumph, the crown jewel of his career, was the Fox News Channel. Ailes was the founding chief executive of the network, in 1996, and he ran it until his ouster amid a number of sexual harassment allegations in 2016. During the span of those two decades, Ailes built the network into a ratings powerhouse and one of the most influential forces in American politics.

Related: Roger Ailes tapped into frustration to build an empire – and change American discourse

Ailes understood that there was a large swath of the country that did not feel served by the traditional news media. Sure, there was the National Review and the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. But such outlets had narrow appeal and their readership was largely among the affluent and elite in Washington and New York.

Ailes was thinking bigger. He wanted the Fox News Channel to have mass appeal and break through the coastal elite bubble. A showman, Ailes wanted big personalities with even bigger takes.

The result? The rise of the conservative mega-star. Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck. Ailes ushered in a generation of conservative media celebrities.

Even the individuals who didn’t work for the Fox News Channel passed through Ailes’ sphere at one point or another. Ailes served as the executive producer of Rush Limbaugh’s television show in the early 1990s. And the conservative media industry as a whole was lifted up by Fox News.

“Why is Breitbart a big deal today? Because of Matt Drudge. Why was Matt Drudge a big deal? Because Ailes and the company elevated him when he was going after the Clintons,” said Ryan Williams, former deputy national press secretary for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign and now vice president of communications at FP1 Strategies. “Ailes was incredibly successful at finding these talented personalities who put their spin on current events.”

“He created the era of conservative celebrity pundit,” Williams added. “People would appear on his network and get their own shows, write books and push a brand to conservatives. And it’s not only changed conservative media, it’s changed conservative politics.”

Whether that change has been for the better or not is a matter of intense debate.

Critics have argued that the rise of conservative celebrity culture has elevated personalities with more style than substance into thought leaders on the right — positions previously occupied by intellectual forces like William F. Buckley Jr.

The conservative celebrity, they say, wins attention and appeals to the masses, not through dry debates on public policy, but by offering up fiery takes on the issues of the day. And that’s exactly what Ailes wanted: Simple talking points that are easy to understand, rile up the conservative base — and generate ratings. 

Related: The last year of Roger Ailes’ life was consumed by scandal

“There’s no doubt Ailes had a hand in creating today’s celebrity pundits on the right, which seemed to parallel the rise of reality stars. In both cases, it was style over substance,” said Ted Newton, president of Gravity Strategic Communications and former communications adviser to Romney. “But the toxic effects on society are the same, whether it’s a Hannity or a Kardashian.”

Many of these right-wing luminaries, the critics say, demonstrated in 2016 that they were more motivated by the business aspect of political commentary than serving as honest gatekeepers of the conservative movement. When Trump — a former reality-TV star who knew how to generate ratings, perhaps as much as Ailes — came along, they eagerly jumped on board, despite his obvious lack of conservative credentials.

This led to a fissure in the conservative news media. More traditional conservative outlets, like the National Review and Weekly Standard, resisted Trump, much to the ire of the Trump-boosting cadre. The latter group, which commanded a much larger audience, seemed to win out in the end.

Nicco Mele, director of Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy, told CNN that business came first for Ailes and his flock — and Trump was good for business.

“Roger understood that divisiveness creates opportunity,” he said. “Divisiveness is a good business strategy in many ways. And he knew how to exploit that. And while that might have made for a successful television channel, I think that was very bad for the country and our politics.”

That’s not to say that Ailes doesn’t have his defenders. Mark Levin, a nationally-syndicated conservative talk radio host, vehemently disagreed with the idea that the Fox News Channel split the country apart.

“I’ve studied very deeply this issue of progressivism and statism and so forth,” he told CNN. “Ailes didn’t create divisiveness in this country. The left does that. The rich against the poor. The old against the young. Blacks against whites. These are the tactics … the bread and butter of the left.”

Levin said that Ailes simply “created a cable network that gave some voice — at least somewhere for people to go who were sick and tired of that.”

Others agreed.

John Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary magazine and a New York Post columnist, told CNN he also believes the Fox News Channel has “been a positive force in American politics.”

“In general, what it’s done is open up the national conversation,” he said. “This idea that it’s bad — that’s just classic liberal snobbery and totalitarianism at work.”

Regardless of the ongoing debate over Ailes’ legacy, the conservative media celebrity is here to stay. Personalties like Hannity have flourished in the Trump era. Viewership for the Fox News Channel has never been higher.

“Whatever you think of what Ailes has done to the state of media, there is no turning back at this point,” said Williams. “It will never go back to the way it was.”

CNNMoney (New York) First published May 19, 2017: 2:35 PM ET