#im not mentioning names because i would rather not direct any more harassment there way

[spitefulcrepechan]

I feel like you're missing the point with your post about the whole lesbian thing. Someone was receiving hate anons by invalidating their trigger. Even if that trigger seems stupid to you or to some just because it's a ship, it's STILL a trigger. And a valid trigger at that.

We just have to understand and respect that lesbians will get gatekeepy around characters who are heavily-implied/canon lesbians. These characters get sidelined a lot, and it becomes irritating when you see lesbians in m|w ships with asshole fanbases invalidating their w|w ships just because it's "funny" to see them writhe in anger.

People are free to like and dislike everything, we all have our own opinions. No one's stopping you from shipping an ocean cookie and a ball of fire together. What needs to be stopped is shitting and laughing at people for calling out problems that needed to be called out, like the blatant lesbophobia and why shipping them with men can be a problem. It's important to be informed with a variety of issues we see in fandom spaces. That way, shitty fans get called out for their behavior.

Alright so it is like 3 in the morning as if writing this so my answer might be a little shit please forgive me-

I wasn't talking about that situation in my post, I was just generally talking about the notion that people will blindly follow the words of minority voices in order to seem woke. It was shitty for those anons to be attacking someone all for voicing their trigger, and I hope that person is okay, but I wasn't talking about that.

Like im not saying we shouldn't be listening to people when they point out things thay are actually offensive, hell it took a few tumblr posts for me to finally learn that goblins have antisemetic roots. Shit like that should be absolutely called out and when it is, it should be stopped.

Though the problem very much arises when it comes to just- Actually very mundane stuff. Ships that involve sea fairy are a very mundane things. Can they hurt people? Absolutely, I won't argue that. Should it be a topic of this level of debate where it should call into question homophobia? No, it shouldn't.

Speaking as someone who actually adores Seamoon, I genuinely can't find any reason why just the action alone of shipping sea fairy with, say, pirate puts other lesbians to the sideline. Even other lesbians say that this whole dilemma is bullshit, and yet THEY get sidelined themselves in this whole debate because cishet white men would rather listen to the one's that say that their favorite ship is amazing, all others be damned, in order to appear "woke", while ignoring the lesbians that actually don't care and know that stuff like seafire and seapirate aren't actually that big of a deal-

Now, I must reiterate, you CAN dislike the ships you can be TRIGGERED by the ships, but there are also people who equally are triggered by Seamoon as well, not because of homophobia (as some slags would want to believe) but because of just how rabid these people can get when it comes to defending their ship-

The whole debate just seems to be only taking one side into account, and its for a damning reason that generally ends up being lesbophobic itself. You are ONLY taking the words of a lesbian BECAUSE they're a lesbian, not because they're a genuinely human being. With any other debate that doesn't involve ships, you will most likely ignore whatever they have to say, and that's what I'm fearing.

Minority voices can be WRONG, minority voices can be BIASED, some things that may see offensive are SUBJECTIVELY offensive, others are more objective, like the racism-

Again, I am sorry that person has been getting harassed, they genuinely don't deserve it, as much as I hate gatekeepers, I won't debate if something actually triggers you or not, but that doesn't mean I'm going to blindly take their words into account because I KNOW they are only saying Seafire is bad because its a personal trigger and not actually an underlying issue. I won't show it to them, I won't force them to view it, I will simply just keep my distance, since I know that due to be being so lax about sea fairy ships (except the ones that involve children, obviously those are horrible), I'm not gonna fucking around them. Because that's like- the most rational thing you can do? If someone doesn't like a ship or voices their opinions about a ship you don't like just block them? You don't have to go into their asks and fucking- spam their askbox telling them to kys?

This applies to both those who do and don't ship Seamoon, because both sides equally have like the same level of toxicity as shown in this situation and the other-

Though I will also reiterate this.

My post was not talking about triggers or anything like that.

It was about BIASNESS. It was about blindly following the words of someome all because they're a minority. The words "a lesbian said it's offensive, so it IS offensive!" should never be uttered in this debate because, again, it very much implies that they are only being listened to because they're a minority.

I didn't listen to that person being harassed just because they were lesbian themselves. I listened to them because they had a trigger, as do I, and they were voicing that trigger, so I left them alone. They deserve their human rights respected, and so I am respecting them by not fucking putting them on a pedestal and seeing them as the spokesperson of all lesbians, because like- they're a person too, they can be wrong, and they also can be actually mentally distressed by a ship like how I and many others are.

So like-

Stop using "a lesbian said it was offensive!" as a reason to agree with a side of an argument. Find out why its being viewed as offensive and why the lesbian might be saying it is, then come to your own conclusion. That was my only problem. Not every lesbians the same, anon.

[bigskydreaming]

Continuing on that observation because I forgot to add this part, as a gen z I'm glad you understand that we or young people don't invent new ways to be evil, but it's not completely true. You aren't seeing new forms of online abuse in every platform, I doubt second hand information is going into details as well. Also the fact that you are a white man, there are things being said and done to poc in various online communities that I don't expect you to be privy to. Harassing fans of color and poc media has become a lot more common and normalized which parts of the fandom at large will never see. I don't know if anon did all of the thinking before saying "gen z bad" but they're not completely wrong looking at the kind of mass bullying behavior literal kids are exhibiting. They are learning from or being encouraged by older people but that shouldn't take the focus away from them to blame only the older people.

And my ask regarding Barbara, you assumed I hadn't thought about if my disdain for the character could have come from ableism. I had tho, granted you couldn't have known that and it was surely a possibility, so I'm not saying I'm mad about it, I was at that time a little bit. But you could perhaps give your anons a little more credit sometimes. Sometimes people know what they're talking about, you don't need to explain other possibilities to them each time.

Once again, sorry if this came off as very rude I just needed to share that observation and among many other instances these two were really highlights and kept bothering me. My issue with Barbara goes in a different direction than anything to do with her appearance and I've personally faced online abuse from people younger than me in ways that technologically, even politically, wasn't possible or as easy a few years ago, so you can maybe see why...

Please keep in mind that whatever context you have for yourself or your ask when you come into my inbox on anon......I have none of that. You have an awareness of yourself relative to whatever you asked me. I literally only know an anon by the words they put into my inbox and nothing else.

Also please keep in mind that every anon I answer, I do so in the larger context of my own interactions with tumblr overall. I have a lot of precedent with things I say being taken out of context, misrepresented or even just me not conveying myself as well as I like.

So the combination of those two things is that a) I literally just don't KNOW what any anon does or doesn't know and b) If I'm going to answer an anon, I tend to want to answer as fully and clearly as possible.

I can understand it coming across as being talked down to, so I'll work on that, but I would ask people to remember the above and keep that in context too when weighing my responses.....am I actually being condescending in every case, or does it simply feel that way because I'm including stuff you already know in my response? And if its the latter, is THAT something I COULD know about you without knowing who you are or you as a person and not just a paragraph sent in anonymously?

I'd rather be safe than sorry, and so from my POV since there's no harm in somebody seeing someone cover information they already know as PART of their overall answer or response, like, there's no reason for me not to include whatever I think is relevant and just expect readers to decide for themselves what about my response, if anything, is helpful, and like....just ignore the rest, y'know?

Also, just for the record, I am ADHD and I save my medication for when I'm working or writing or have stuff I absolutely need to get done, which doesn't include my usual blogging. So I'm usually posting while not on my ADHD meds at all, hence the rambling tendencies and the length. Another aspect of ADHD that doesn't get talked about much ime is we tend to over-explain, part out of just excitement/interest in whatever it is that has our attention, and also in part because we're used to people not necessarily following the leaps our minds take when jumping around rather than proceeding in an orderly thought pattern.....so, part of why I break things down so incrementally is I literally just don't know where my way of looking at things diverges from the way neurotypical thinking views things, so I want to draw as detailed a map as possible in order to ensure the most people possible can follow my thought process, just in case.

(And again see, this is something you might already know, and hell, you could have ADHD yourself, I just literally have no way of knowing that so rather than just mention it and be like "oh and also I have ADHD and so that's something to keep in mind" I'd rather explain WHY I feel that's particularly relevant to your question, since I'm kinda like, why not answer as fully as I have the spoons for? People can stop reading at any time if I go on too long. Its fine).

As for the specific asks you're referencing - my response to the gen z anon was not meant to convey that the sort of things you're describing don't occur among gen z, so sorry for giving that impression. Its actually the opposite of my point, which was simply that I don't think its a generational thing, or that anything is gained by treating it as a generational thing. This kind of behavior exists in gen z, yes, but it also existed before gen z. Its not gen z SPECIFIC, or limited to just that generation. That's all.

And the other ask, the one you made about Barbara - to be honest, I don't have anyway of knowing for sure which one you meant, and there are a couple it could have been, but if its the one I THINK you're referencing, I believe you asked how to stop people from assuming you dislike Barbara for reasons rooted in ableism when its because of other things? If that's the one, then I mean, the thing is....I DID answer your question, in as much as anyone could. I addressed the perceptions other people might have of your stance there, but basically - there IS no way to ever ensure people take you at your word or any kind of guarantee you can present your POV in a way that won't be misrepresented or misunderstood. So ultimately, I just had no real useful advice for that?

And so I expanded into the only thing I think anyone CAN control, aka their own thoughts and words, and suggested that you just double check to be sure of your own possible biases that others might read into your words without you being aware you were putting them in there. That wasn't meant as an insult or to suggest you hadn't already examined yourself for possible ableism - it was simply saying it never hurts to check again, y'know? We don't always catch everything every time we do a self-review, and internal biases are inherently tricky to pick up on ourselves. And it just loops back into the fact that I really had no way to know what you had and hadn't already considered, you're essentially a blank cipher to me....and in my experience, a lot of people are a lot more ableist than they realize.

And this isn't an insult either! It applies to me and I'M physically disabled! I'm constantly to this day unpacking new realizations about how I still have more ableist views and opinions than even I realize, even after about five years of living with chronic pain, vertigo, nerve issues and associated problems stemming from only half a working mouth lol. I'm not trying to insult people by asking them to just do what I do every day and just like....make sure I'm not the problem when other people have a problem with me. Because sometimes, even after reflecting as fully and genuinely as I can, I think they're still wrong! I don't have to agree with their conclusions! But that doesn't mean that they're never right.

And for the record, I do think its still worth examining on your end, because I don't love that you said your issues with Barbara have nothing to do with her appearance, when we're talking about ableism specifically. It very well could be just a poor word choice on your part and not a reflection of your actual views, but it could also be a suggestion that you tend to think of physical disability as something that's limited to there being a visual sign of, and there's a lot of invisible symptoms and changes to the ways a disabled person interacts with society and society with them that don't alter a disabled person's appearance in anyway...and many of these things are the exact stuff a lot of unacknowledged ableism revolves around.

So I'd like to give you and other anons more credit and the benefit of the doubt and assume you know what you're talking about and don't need things broken down as much as I tend to break them down to - but keep in mind I don't OWE you that, and its a lot to ask someone to take you on faith when you've already made the conscious choice to present yourself to them anonymously, and deliberately limit how much a person even CAN know about you before answering, when you have an equal opportunity to present yourself by name, allowing someone the full context afforded by your blog, that they can use to familiarize themselves with you and what you likely do or don't know before answering. I don't think its entirely reasonable to anonymize YOURSELF and then expect people to still give you the benefit of the doubt.

Especially when not giving you the benefit of the doubt only really results in me over-explaining something you don't think you need explained in certain ways or in as much depth. Its not hurting anyone, and you're not going to be the only one reading this response and maybe that over-explanation ISN'T something other people know and it could still be of use to someone else, y'know?

But lastly, please keep in mind that you came to me, and I just answered in the way that made the most sense to me. If that didn't work for you or wasn't what you're looking for, that's fine, but like. You knew way more about me going into this interaction than I could possibly know about you, and assuming good faith of you and your interest in my response and giving you as much of a response as I did in the first place, let alone now, IS giving you the benefit of the doubt in the sense that I'm assuming you can find some way in which these responses are of use to you.

And if not, like....just don't send me more asks? LOL. I kinda feel like you just didn't expect the answer you got, and that's sitting weirdly with you. Which I get, to be honest, but I don't particularly think that's a me problem, because that has nothing to do with anything I can control.

I can only give the answer that occurs to me when I read and think about an ask. I can't guarantee it'll ever be the answer the asker actually WANTS.

[healieas]

levels of beholding feeding; aka, will this successfully feed me or the eye?; aka, there are actions that beholding avatars are likely to take that may not constitute life-sustaining feeding; aka, the illuminati food pyramid.

the post where i break down what i personally consider feeding the eye to entail, including things that fall under the eye’s “jurisdiction” ( remember that fears are malleable and bleed into each other, and the eye especially tends to overlap with everything else bc it is a gratuitous voyeuristic sack of fuck, but for the purposes of this post i am going to try to focus on what in and of itself is eye fear and if it overlaps well that’s just fun and sexy isn’t it ) but do not feed it, things that engender beholding behavior but are not in and of itself feeding, things that eye avatars need to do to maintain themselves, and things that make the eye sigh and go “ah yes that was great food.” also this does not detail beholding powers. i’m just talking about the food, man. the gifts the eye grants its avatars is another story.

first and foremost, what qualifies something as feeding the eye? how does the eye “eat”? if something falls under the following categories, it feeds the eye: fear of being watched, fear of being exposed, fear of being followed, or fear of having your secrets known to somebody else. if something falls under the following categories, it is eye-related behavior likely performed by avatars, but is not in and of itself “eye food”: pursuit of knowledge, especially at the cost of one’s own health or sanity. obviously the latter can enable the former if that pursuit of knowledge is at somebody else’s expense, but what separates the two categories for me is that, to keep the eye as an entity from spreading so thin to the point where anything can be construed as capital-b Beholding because it involves observation or information, is holding fast to the eye being a fear entity. i.e., something can technically be in the eye’s territory of knowledge, but it does not become eye-related unless there is an active element of horror. of course, what constitutes “horror” is subjective, but i think that narrows down the options and removes, say, doing a book report from beholding. tma has a tight thesis of beholding being the horror of watching something terrible and doing nothing to intervene, or the inherent evil of inaction when one is witnessing an atrocity. 

therefore i’m going to make my grading for eye food the following. ( note that like... there’s grey area in between each level where, by taking a lower level to an extreme, you could slide it up to the next, etc. )

level one: are you watching in an obtrusive way? i.e., is this something you should be seeing? are you an active participant? or are you eavesdropping. things that fall into this category include people watching, listening in on conversations, or reading private correspondence. this is the fear of being watched / known against one’s will at play, but only one person ( the avatar ) knows the secrets, so it’s low-level feeding. just hoarding secrets unto oneself gives the avatar what i’d consider a steady drip of water, necessary for life and remaining active, but after an extended period of time with just water, you’re going to want for food. 

something like following someone and making them feel watched as more than just a prickling on the neck for an extended period of time would probably start to actually feed the eye a bit, as was the case with the cursed mirror; someone with a constant and perhaps debilitating fear of being watched, facilitated by the actions of a beholding avatar, would advance to feeding the eye. 

institutionalized watching in an obtrusive way, i.e. the lack of privacy afforded to inmates in a place like millbank, ratchets up to full eye feeding. again, the longer and more intense the watching, the more intense the fear produced, the more likely it’s going to drift up into actual feeding territory. but as a casual action, it’s not sustainable.

level two: are you revealing to the person that you know their secrets? to distinguish this from the above category, i’m talking about the situation with elias and daisy / martin / melanie -- digging out someone’s secrets and then throwing them in their face, making them feel the despair of being peeled open for examination. what puts this at a lower level than mass exposure is the fact that it is probably only the beholding avatar who’s getting anything out of this. this is semi-solid food to the eye, like a gelatin or pudding or other soft hospital food. you can sustain yourself on it, but try to go for any extreme period of time just doing this and you’re probably going to suffer from malnutrition ( if you want to talk to me about malnutrition and how it actually works, aka you’re getting plenty of calories but not all of the components you need, and historic examples of mass malnutrition, we can totally do that; but i want to make it clear for those that might think malnutrition is just like starvation lite, it’s not -- you can be eating a ton of food every day and if you have no variety and if it lacks the proper nutrients, you’re still going to suffer the adverse effects; all this detail to say that’s what happens to an eye avatar who only feeds by privately exposing someone’s secrets to their face, a slow and conscious wasting ). 

constantly harassing someone about their secrets might make your diet a little more diverse, metaphorically, but this category really doesn’t have the same mobility as the previous one.

level three: are you making other people aware of the information you’ve gleaned? this is fear of exposure, where somebody is going to face the fallout and consequences of having something unsavory put on display for an audience. ( yes, this covers body image fears of people in the public eye, which is imo a flesh fear that the eye can also feed upon, but that’s an intense discussion for another post that needs to be handled with nuance. i only mention it to make it clear that like... it doesn’t even have to be something objectively horrid that’s exposed; if the person who is being put on display has a fear of being seen, that’s enough to put it in this category, because it is producing anxiety or discomfort. ) no need for bullet points! this gets more and more intense the wider the audience and the more people talk about it. this is solid beholding food with good nutrition! you could make a beholding career out of this! i’m certain that elias does some feeding by allowing students in to read the dirty laundry of named statement givers ( in addition to slurping the despair of visitors who aren’t going to be helped at all by the institute ). after all, statement givers frequently express fear of being pegged as “insane” or having experienced the denial, pity, or avoidance of their friends and family after their experiences. judgement cast upon vulnerability? eye food.

level four: taking a statement. this is sort of disconnected from the rest and may exist alongside them rather than above them, but canonically, reading and experiencing ( getting into character, allowing yourself to feel the presented emotions ) a statement feeds the eye. notice how jon works through tons of “statements” a week, documents gathered by the institute, but only reads one true statement a week on average. he “steps into the shoes” of the statement giver and re-experiences the terror, often while learning something about another entity and how it functions, increasing his own knowledge of the fear world. in my opinion, this is where we get into the eye simultaneously feeding on what’s offered and feeding on the avatar. jon is exhausted after reading a statement and needs to rest. multiple people state that it seems to take a lot out of him. he needs them to survive, but he also finds the experiences draining. this is a solid cooked meal, and the eye has the digestion of a snake, so if you get one of these a week? you’re good. 

level five: taking a statement directly from another subject, though? that’s just feeding. cutting out the middle man and the mental transportation of reading a literary piece ( or listening to a tape, or watching a recording ) means that you just get to feed off the person’s fear, because you are peeling them open and knowing them. this does relate a bit to level two, which is why i said it’s probably more of a horizontal relationship, but the difference for me is that you are forcing them to give an account of their encounter with a fear, thus accumulating knowledge of a lived experience and of the other deities, and you are making a person feel known and exposed, often ( in canon ) in a way that’s abrupt and uncalled for. willing statement-givers do not seem to have the same reactions as the poor people jon yoinks in public. taking statements seems to be compulsory for archivists in particular. whether or not it impacts administrators ( elias ) in the same way is hard to discern. maybe not, or maybe that’s solved by having the institute function the way it does, because all those statements are technically elias’s. ( i also have opinions on how elias feeds every single day but we’ll get to that later. the fear machine of the institute. ) this is good food. this is gourmet. this is why the eye stans jon. feeding just off of direct statements is going to cause your own power to skyrocket because you are eating so well.

there are probably more examples of ways to feed, and if people wanna shoot me ims or asks like “is this proper eye feeding?” i’d be happy to answer with my own takes on the situation ( because these are my own takes lol you do not need to live or die by this headcanon I Just Think My Theory Is Sound Enough For This Blog ). but now we’ll look at behaviors that may indicate a propensity for beholding, or that keep a beholding avatar in shape without feeding them; the exercise counterpart to a healthy diet. presented in bullet point form because these are not as in-depth as the above.

an inclination towards extensive research. not just looking up what you need for a book report and nothing more, we’re talking about going down a rabbit hole of research frequently out of a desire to know more. because this does not necessarily produce a fear response and does not necessarily deal with witnessing horror, it is not feeding ( i think about the idea of true crime beholding avatars and i get a little woozy because like... could it work and be canon compliant? certainly. is it therefore a valid take? it sure is. is it something i’m willing to get into? no, because it makes me personally uncomfortable sadly, because i feel some kinda way about the glamorization of serial killers and so on, and though i think an interest in true crime can be pursued tastefully, it’s so nuanced and so Not Me in particular that i just don’t want to get into it, even if i acknowledge that it’s something that probably exists in the tma universe because the tma universe is uncomfortable horror! )

being a nosy bitch. are you always involved in other people’s business, especially drama? do you subscribe to tea spill youtube channels? are you prepared to drop a hot tweet about something shady a celebrity did? ( THIS IS NOT A CRITIQUE OF OR COMMENTARY ON CALLOUT CULTURE INB4, PLEASE I BEG YOU. ) you have the beholding inclination to dig and reveal secrets! awesome!

a desire to organize and preserve information. i think often about this one because one of the things about the ceaseless watcher is that it knows but does not comprehend. it is not interested in understanding or exploring the nuance of what it observes, which is what makes it so horrific. it doesn’t care, the only thing it’s invested in is watching fear and accumulating knowledge so that it can “say” it has more information than anybody else. this, i think, is why beholding tends to center itself around academic institutions. the idea of gatekeeping knowledge, of an ivory tower, is so beholding-appropriate because if you think about the implications then yes, it’s bad. hoarding knowledge and not allowing other people to learn is not a good thing, and that’s why beholding is so very into it. HOWEVER, I AM ALSO DEEPLY INVESTED IN THE IDEA THAT THIS IS WHAT SEPARATES THE FEAR GOD BEHOLDING FROM ITS HUMAN AVATARS. because the avatars are painfully human! michael is proof enough of that i think! even if avatars consider themselves a different species, at the very least “formerly-human” categorically, they were humans and still have human flaws and inclinations. one of these, for beholding avatars, is organization. it’s putting the puzzle pieces together ( unless you’re bad at it, i’m so sorry jon you’re really trying and i love you, but in this case i think that has more to do with jon’s tendency to shoot himself in the foot / put himself at a disadvantage because he is afraid than a beholding-wide thing ), because the human brain usually wants to understand things. it wants to draw meaning from things. even elias, probably the least human of the beholding avatars we see, has to organize the information he has and put separate stories together to form a larger picture, because functioning in the human world just necessitates doing that! you want to stop another ritual? you can’t just gather different pieces of information and not relate them to each other, you have to categorize them and draw conclusions. and, imo, this is what separates the human world from the post-apocalyptic world. the post-apocalyptic world does not require analysis or organization, it can simply be; that is reality as warped and controlled by the fear gods.

there’s probably more to this but i have talked so much, i think that’s enough for now. anyways i care so much about beholding and how it functions and this is actually my least academic bullshitty piece on it, so yay for that. usually i’m all “voyeurism and The Gaze and how it functions in society and especially media!” but today? today we just talk about good eats.

[edwad]

If you had to choose 10 marxian econ books for someone who has only read marx, what would you recommend

by “marx” i have to assume you mean capital because that really is the root of “marxian econ”. it won’t suffice to just have read the manifesto or something like that and i don’t want to recommend books that will be saying things that you’re totally unfamiliar with because you’re skipping straight into the secondary literature which already largely assumes a reader which is familiar with capital. anyway, heres a list, which isnt in any particular order and which includes a few things that i’m still working through for myself:

1. essays on marxs theory of value - isaak rubin 

hugely important book which essentially all value-form theory derives from. written by an extremely knowledgeable marx scholar who had a much better idea of what marx was doing in capital than most marxists today. last month brill published a book called “responses to marxs capital” which includes some of rubin’s other writings, most of them being published in english for the first time. hes a huge figure in the literature and definitely worth looking in to. 

2. marx, capital, and the madness of economic reason - david harvey

i was obviously going to put something of harvey’s in here and i think his last book is a fairly good summary of the best of what hes done up to this point with some welcome additions (the visualization of capital, the stuff on anti-value, etc). not perfect but he definitely provides a good framework for how to understand the geography of capital which doesnt require necessarily agreeing with him on everything. honestly, if you keep up with harvey at all you’ll be able to tell that its mostly just typical harveyisms with the inclusion of some stuff from his recent talks (which have all been almost exactly the same). 

3. in the long run we are all dead - geoff mann

maybe this looks more like a book on keynesian rather than marxian econ, but its real argument is that keynesianism as a long historical project (meaning long before and after keynes himself) has been an immanent critique of liberalism and revolution and that keynes is to us what hegel was to marx. a really great book that covers a lot of ground which isnt always explicitly economic, but definitely worth the read if you have the patience. if you want a longer review, i left a pretty lengthy one on amazon a few months ago where you can get a better idea of what i got from this book, what its limitations are, and why i think its so important. 

4. monopoly capital - paul baran & paul sweezy 

an older book which hasnt exactly aged well, but its thesis has become extremely popular again since the crisis. written by baran and sweezy, the fathers of “the monthly review school” of economics, its played a huge role in the direction of marxian debates from the 1960s up until today. the authors were both tending in the same intellectual direction in their earlier works (sweezy’s theory of capitalist development and baran’s political economy of growth, the former still being considered one of the best introductions to marxs work and its relevance to the 20th century, with much controversy of course) and this was the result of them coming together to talk about what they saw as a monopoly capitalism which was fairly different in character than the “competitive capitalism” of marx’s day and therefore had to be dealt with differently. 

5. capitalism - anwar shaikh

probably the most ambitious work the left has seen in a long time which tries to thoroughly critique neoclassical theory and develop an alternative economics which is rooted in what shaikh calls the “classical” school (”classical-marxian” would probably be more appropriate but i think hes trying to downplay his reliance on marx). in it, shaikh takes a good look at many of the competing schools of thought (neoclassical, post-keynesian, sraffian/neo-ricardian, etc) and sees how they stand up analytically and empirically, taking issue with their underlying assumptions and the inevitable problems which arise from building a theory on false foundations. 

one of his bigger points is that the neoclassical theory of “perfect competition” is nonsensical but wasnt thoroughly combatted by heterodox economists, who only made it so far as asserting the “imperfect” nature of competition, which, in shaikh’s eyes, is to simply add imperfections after the fact into the theory which necessarily begins with the absurd assumption of perfection. the book’s argument is that the theorists of “imperfect competition” still rely on the theory of “perfect competition” as their starting point and never really manage to escape the latter because they havent actually created an alternative way of thinking about competition, they’ve just inserted a complication into a theory which was a completely unrealistic assumption to begin with. much of his attack is directed at the monthly review school and the idea of a “monopoly capitalism” which is supposedly different in form than the allegedly “perfect competition” of capitalism during marxs life. in this sense, this book serves as a counterbalance to the MR approach and is also probably the most successful attempt at situating marxs TRPF within an empirical study of kondratiev waves. 

hes also got a website with a bunch of resources and a lecture series from a course he did on the material in the book which is pretty interesting, but it assumes a good deal of familiarity with economics. 

6. a history of marxian economics - michael howard & john king (2 volumes)

this is a pretty thorough history of the internal debates among marxian economists ever since the death of marx all the way up to 1990. it covers a lot of ground and doesnt shy away from controversies where marx didnt come out on top. of course, a good amount of this is subject to the interpretation of the authors and they definitely have a great deal of input, but its a very impressive work which i frequently use as a marxian encyclopedia of sorts. 

7. the making of marx’s capital - roman rosdolsky

despite some problems, rosdolsky’s classic book on the development of marx’s critique of political economy is easily one of the most important marxological works ever written and it still holds a lot of sway. taking the grundrisse as its starting point, the author unpacks marx’s project and constantly asserts marx’s method and in particular his explicit reliance on hegel’s logic, pitting marx (as he was in his drafts) against the then contemporary thinkers and critics which were prone to misusing or misunderstanding the arguments in capital. as a disclaimer and partial criticism of rosdolsky’s portrait of marx, i dont believe that we can simply say that marx in the late 50s was identical to the marx of the 60s and 70s that wrote and published capital, but i also dont think that means we necessarily have to discount the grundrisse (or theories of surplus value, etc) simply because they werent written at precisely the right time for marxs thinking. 

i only just got my own copy a couple of weeks ago so i cant say too much more but i have skimmed through chunks of the pdf and its totally unavoidable in the secondary literature so im not totally unfamiliar. its one i plan on tackling in full very soon.

8. moneybags must be so lucky - robert paul wolff

another marxological one, this tiny book is a literary analysis of capital and in particular the first part of volume 1. wolff does a great job of deconstructing the arguments in chapter 1 to try and clarify what marx is doing and why with a lot of humor and philosophical tangents. one of his biggest points is that marxs heavy reliance on irony was the only adequate way of capturing the contradictory nature of capitalism and is therefore part of the theory itself, rather than simply being a way to dress up the theory and make it more palatable to readers. i approached this book after id already “read marx” too, but it was extremely useful because it wasnt until i read it that i finally started to actually understand marx. for that reason, i dont feel particularly bad about recommending it to anyone thats already familiar with capital because it does a great job of making the most difficult part of volume 1 infinitely more exciting and comprehensible – especially since its never enough to just read capital once. 

9. the production of commodities by means of commodities - piero sraffa

against my better judgement, i’m putting this on the list knowing full-well that i’m going to be harassed by an anon which has been on my ass for about a year now ever since i first recommended sraffa’s book in a reading list despite the fact that ive never finished it (barely even read it to be more precise). i do, however, know that its had a huge influence on the trajectory of marxian thought since 1960 and that many of the thinkers are still trying to recover from the theoretical displacement implicit in sraffa’s thesis. 

its a math-heavy book (which is why i havent been able to wade through it) and its status as a work coming from the “marxian” approach is hotly contested, but its certainly had its way with the marxian school (not to mention the neoclassical school, which has an easier time simply ignoring sraffa entirely), generating countless debates among scholars, many of whom simply wish that this book had never been written. for a short summary of the debate and whats apparently at stake, ive got an old post where i worked out some of the initial responses to sraffa and how this has snowballed into the controversy that it is today. ive got it on this list because of how unavoidable it is. you cant go into the secondary literature at anything resembling an intermediate level without knowing sraffa’s name and why everyone feels so strongly about him.

10. an introduction to the three volumes of karl marxs capital - michael heinrich

i dont quite like that im ending this list with a book that presents itself as an “introduction” when we’ve already established that this is a bunch of recommendations for someone thats already acquainted with capital, but sadly this is the only full-length book that heinrich has in the english language and its reading of capital is so unorthodox that it feels totally alien against all the traditional interpretations of marx. honestly, it doesnt feel like an introduction in the first place, reading more like a challenge and an intervention into the secondary debates about what marx is saying in capital which derives from the german debates which constitute the parameters for the “neue marx-lekture”, or “the new reading of marx”, which sits uncomfortably among the more typical marxisms that surround it on all sides, especially among non-german theorists/readers. 

as far as the dominant reading of marx goes, nearly everything this book says betrays marx’s project, but heinrich knows marx very well, better than most of us (as even his biggest critics readily admit). this may be considered reflective of a “new reading”, but that doesnt mean the old ones are any better or that this one is necessarily a “revisionist” project as many claim (or at least, i wouldnt consider it to be revising marx even if its guilty of revising “marxism”, which is by no means necessarily a bad thing). on the contrary, i think heinrich has the best understanding of marx out of pretty much everyone else right now and thats why i wanted to end with this one. yes, you should read all of the others, especially since you cant understand the way we read and think about marx without coming across the work of people like sraffa and sweezy, but that doesnt really change the fact that heinrich points to a big problem with the way we read and think about marx, that the debates have been getting it wrong all along and largely misunderstanding marxs actual project, miscontextualizing it and falling into dogmatism for various political or academic reasons. 

what heinrich does is to show how the way marx is read and interpreted often misses or downplays the most crucial elements of what marx is actually trying to get across. marxs critique of political economy simply gets converted into a newer, more correct political economy which simply builds on the classical school (shaikh), or it suffers in the hands of those that believe its foundations need to be updated as if it isnt all that relevant anymore (sweezy and baran), or that many of its categories are lacking utility and can simply be done away with (sraffa). rubin’s work plays a big part in establishing the NML reading and harvey draws on heinrich’s scholarship a lot, but nobody really does it as well as heinrich himself and i genuinely think hes lightyears ahead of everyone else. a lot of people are starting to agree and i was one of the most recent converts on the heinrich hype train which has been growing for the last couple of years. 

any day now, we should be getting one of his older books, the science of value, in english and i plan on devouring it as fast as i can, but sadly its been in limbo for several years, with its initial release scheduled for 2014 (if i remember correctly). in the mean time though, we’ve only got his introduction to capital and a bunch of shorter pieces/videos.  

so i guess thats my list of 10 things to read after marx with some explanations on why i think theyre important, culminating in ideologically correct heinrich-worship. this was sorta fun and if you have any other questions feel free to ask. 

[cathousemelbourne-blog]

Joshua Harry Hall interview

Short interview with audio visual artist and producer Joshua Harry Hall as a preview for Berlin Calling LIVE techno this 23rd of March at The Sub Club Melbourne.

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Joshua Harry Hall. I guess I would categorise myself as an Audio-Visual artist. Biggest interest is in music, but even when I am just focussing on audio there is always a visual aspect whether it’s like film clip stuff or visuals for live. So, that’s what I like to do.

Tell us a bit about your music career and what influences you:

I actually grew up on metal and hardcore, I came from an area that was pretty dominant. Actually, I used to yell at people [laughing], I used to front a progressive hardcore band. I play guitar, so came from writing music, but for some reason ended up yelling at people.

How did you end up making your way to electronic music?

Outside of performance, I was always interested in sound design, how music comes out. I think alternative/heavier music has a lot more freedom for it to be much more experimental, because you don’t have mainstream society directing the outcome of the music. I think metal is a really good gateway to hearing songs that have a lot of content in the highs, mids and lows - really rich, and that’s found in electronic music as well.

I love almost everything. If it interests me, I don’t care what the genre is. Like psytrance, drum'n'bass, techno.. they all have their ways to present a platter of music, even if it’s minimal or there’s a lot going on, there’s more focus in sound design, so that's always attracted me. That’s what I was always interested in recording; how to make something sound good. When you’re used to metal where there’s a lot of tracks, you’re trying to fuse it all and make it sit well, from like really heavy vocals, complicated drum patterns, how you get the bass and these crazy kicks to come through multiple guitars.. trying to get a perfect mix, to me, that inspired me listening to electronic music cause it’s like people sitting in their rooms being fanatic about sound. Also, I just like heavy stuff.. there’s a lot of heavy electronic music!

What's your motivation behind playing live and not as a DJ?

I really respect DJ's, they're artists in terms of curating a whole set and taste making, taking an audience on; but for me, probably because of a background with tangible instruments, I never got interested in DJing.

I went through a time with electronic production everything was in the box. I guess financially, especially when you’re younger or whatever, just pirating stuff and having all those palettes to play with was interesting, but then I never felt connected or wanting to perform that music, even though I loved getting on stage and interacting with other artists in a band context, and delivering that to an audience. For me, creating something [...] in a studio, I can get really into creating songs - now I just want to play the songs. Seems a bit weird but I have no interest in grabbing all the other songs that I did and mixing them together. Not because I don’t like the format, I think I just respect it - people already do that. I’ve poured enough hours into other aspects of music to then go DJ.

That said, I like using the format of a DJ mixer even with live machines. I’ve got effect pedals in my chain, I’ll actually put them into another channel, [...] you can create loops and extended reverb and treat them like a different channel in the mix. But the more I got into sound, I bounced to asking 'what is the hardware?' or 'where are these sounds coming from?' I just got obsessed with synthesis.. as obsessed as finances allow!

Which has been your best live gig, where and why?

Aside from this kind of music, it was actually to like 40 people somewhere in W.A. just with a guitar [...] at a time the band I was in was going pretty well; but that set for some reason, even though it was super tiny, it was just a really humbling moment & realisation that I'd rather the emotional response of just one or two people, just destroying their world, or making their day or whatever, as opposed to pleasing a lot of people.

I’d already done that with the band as a way to not get shy if the crowd was very big; just sort of pick one person or a couple of people that were engaged, even before playing to just be like 'cool..it’s for that person' ..try to develop like a one on one relationship [...] then the rest of the crowd would feel it. But this gig.. there was this middle-aged lady and she was in tears when I was half way through a song, and by the end of it I realised most of the rooms energy had shifted like crazy. I literally walked away from that and within a week had plane tickets booked and had flight cases with all my gear ready. I was like: actually, there’s nothing holding me here anymore, this band is going really well but I wanna re-evaluate what Im doing with music, is it affecting people? And realised that particular project wasn’t able to get people the way I wanted.

That’s where I'm at now, unfolding and sort of presenting what I've been going through musically and trying to share that with people, just starting at the bottom again. If I can’t affect one or two people in an intimate setting then I don’t have much desire to make some crazy song in my studio and give it to a DJ to go play everywhere. I wanna effect people on the spot. I think that ties in to why live is important; engage in your present and you can have an idea of a song and go into it but maybe the way it comes out is totally different. If you’re actually engaged with the people there, or if you’ve got that one or two people that are really present then you’re having an intimate experience. It can shape the way that song comes out, then you get this really beautiful thing you don’t get in a studio. That song is the best! The opportunities in live are greater, and scarier.

What is your opinion about the techno scene in Melbourne and how do you see it in the future?

Techno in Melbourne is interesting. I think it’s thriving as much as it’s not. It’s confused a little bit. There’s definitely like a scene that isn’t confused, and is sort of pile driving a certain movement. But on a whole, I think there's a greater lot of people that hear the word 'techno' then have completely different ideas of what’s going on. [...] I think a lot of clubs and events in the south are really shallow and not in the pocket for the right reasons - not saying they’re not good and there aren’t people having the times of their life every single week again and again and again - but [...] it unfortunately doesn’t help the more intentional events because you have others that might actually like some forms of techno that just hear the word and think of ‘typical Revs' or something; or what techno offered 5 years ago or something. They recoil like “nah, that’s shit” or they might not connect to a certain stage or festival that they think signifies techno.

I don’t know, I know that’s going off on a tangent, but I think there's some really beautiful shit going on and unfortunately some people will never go to those gigs because they have another idea of what techno can be. Then on the other side, there is this whole facade of people that think they are going to these epic techno events that're actually detrimental and not good for the culture and the scene at all.

I can’t really talk too much about where I’m at with techno because there’s a million more people that are out in the front of the field [locally], like people I work with on a weekly basis for Sub Club and I wouldn’t say "I'm a techno artist" but [...] there's a lot of subsets of music that I do like to make, and get lost in - like ambient and drone - that's more accepted in the techno community.

For the future: I'm really interested to see what happens this year, cause a lot of venues have closed down for one reason or another. Really iconic places, or places that haven’t existed for that long but have created amazing atmosphere and communities around them. There’s actually a whole bunch of more challenges for any new places to pop up too. Like, insurance [for nightclubs] just went up by about 4 times this year. Not to mention the music licensing changes with One Music Australia that will impose astronomical costs for places that are venues for live music, from band rooms to clubs. So, on one side you got all these iconic places shutting down, on the other you’ve got this tidal-wave of reasons that it’s gonna be impossible to start anything low-key or left-field. If it was like that 5 years ago for Sub-Club, it wouldn’t exist. [...] I think, unfortunately it’s gonna be really hard for an authentic, small-scale, genuine club to open, but it’ll happen and I’m excited to see where the pieces lay.

Otherwise, it could be that downfall where all these amazing artists and gigs are pushed to clubs that generally play pretty shit stuff, but at least they can pay the bills every other night of the week and then therefore have these great intimate, awesome gigs happen there as well. But then, that’s weird because then you’re in an environment that usually has harassment and all the other stuff..

What do you think of this only-live techno concept and what would be your set-up for Berlin Calling Live night?

I think there should be more live electronic music in general in Melbourne. I think there’s heaps of artists out there that don’t see that as a viable thing because they don’t see it enough at gigs, or something. Like, people might have equipment but they’re more focused on “I'll finish this up as a track and play it in a DJ set” ..if more [live artists] are included lineus then [...] there's more people comprehending actually playing live, then it becomes normalised.

I think having set a whole night built around it being live is also awesome, especially at the moment if there’s smaller amount of people in your genre-umbrella then it means it’s not gonna be confined to just one sound [...] you have 6 artist who’re gonna be slightly off because of the gear they use, because of their own taste and stuff, I think it's a really good idea. I definitely wanna see it more in different venues around the city cause it opens the door for more collaborations.

Logistically it’s hard to balance if you don’t have the right people behind it, and the right idea of how it’s going to work. [...] It’s easier to have a whole lineup of DJ's and maybe one live set to start and one thrown in somewhere else. But hopefully there’s more full-live set ups. Personally, I really wanna see live setups with different artists all collaborating and playing a set together and that won’t happen until [we] start being normalised to gear [...] whether that’s someone through their laptop, there’s still that live interaction, doesn’t have to be all analog gear. That said, I love seeing modular, it’s beautiful - someone interacting with this whole beast, but I wanna see everyone come together, play together and go off with each other and take that time, the whole night [...] and taking the whole audience through. Hopefully a night like what you’re doing is gonna help pave and get us closer to maybe more people who want to do that.

I’ll be using a balance of digital and analog gear. I'm not gonna be taking too much. I think a Moog and a Deepmind, an Octatrack is gonna be the main basis of it and an iPad for looping stuff and my mixer. I actually use a mixer as an instrument a lot more, and a Strymon delay pedal [...] I like having like an aux send on the mixer that goes through the pedals, so with any instrument I can choose what gets affected and that comes back through a seperate channel, so if I turn that channel down, nothing is wet. I can bounce an idea or a certain sound to the effect pedals and have it turned down and be able to create that soundscape and move on, but know that the pedals are still stuck in that world and I can pull back to it. I really like looking at a mixer likes it’s an instrument as well, as opposed to something that controls volume.

Whereas the synth house project that I’ve done for festivals is like a whole cabin with everything that’s in [my studio], and guitars and other instruments I have; all in one big thing. I won’t be able to do that in the club. That setup takes a 22 channel mixer.

Berlin Caling LIVE techno:https://www.facebook.com/events/385381668931138/

Video editing:

Melissa Rodriguez

https://www.instagram.com/melipeggi28/

https://vimeo.com/user40165237

#techno #melbournetechno #berlincalling #cathousemelbourne #technofamily  #deeptechno

[louisfeatharry]

Ok so right now im re-reading Have You Coming Back Again for like the billionth time bc i love it so much!!!! Do you know any other fics that are similar in the way of being in denial/oblivious to dating each other? Doesn't have to be Louis/Harry! You have the absolute best fic rec :)

so, when looking through my fic rec page for “denial” type fics, i may have gone a bit overboard, and some of these fics may not entirely fit into what you’re looking for - but for the most part, there is some aspect in these fics where one of the characters is oblivious or in denial to their feelings / being in a relationship with the other.

with that said, most of the fics are larry (since that’s what i p much read the most of) unless stated otherwise.

first off, here’s a link to the fic mentioned in your ask, anon, since some people might not know what fic you’re talking about! the rest of the fics are under the cut! :)

Have You Coming Back Again by whoknows (31k)

It’s five o’clock in the morning. Louis has a lecture at half eight. He could be using this time to study or to do his readings or to go to the gym, but - well. He doesn’t have any exams coming up, he’s not going to his seminar today anyway and he hates the gym.

Instead he’s using this time to fuck with Harry Styles’ poor little brain.

Louis jogs across the street and jabs the key into the car door. It opens easily, not that he was expecting anything else. He copied the key for a reason, after all.

He’s got Harry’s schedule memorized, more because the guy keeps following him around than anything, so he doesn’t bother looking around before climbing behind the wheel and setting his bag on the passenger seat. It’s a Monday, which means that Harry doesn’t even get out of bed before noon unless he’s planning on harassing Louis.

(your heartbeat) rang true inside my bones by flimsy (32k)

Harry goes as Louis’ date for a weekend wedding. He ends up taking the role a bit too seriously.

A Little Love (is better than none) by objectlesson (15k)

It’s supposed to be no strings attached sex, but Harry’s in love with beauty and tragedy and Louis Tomlinson so there might actually a few strings they’re not talking about.

Or, alternately, the four times they fuck and don’t kiss, and one time they fuck and do

Da Mi Basia Mille by StormDancer (zarry, 28k)

“An idea comes to Harry then, a brilliant, brilliant idea, the best idea he’s ever had, other than the time he thought he should grow his hair out. “New plan. I’m going to kiss you every day until you start thinking you should be kissed every day.”

Dreaming of You by Velvetoscar (68k)

The Begrudging Starbucks AU.

The world is winter and steamed milk and creamy espresso shots. The world is a never ending queue. The world is a Starbucks logo and a pink-cheeked smile from Niall and a bored scowl from Zayn and the world is Louis watching his best mate, Liam, fall in love with their newest customer, Harry. Who may or may not be in love with Louis. The world is cruel.

Gods & Monsters by Velvetoscar (201k)

The instructions were simple: seduce and destroy Harry Styles. Not once did they discuss the option of Louis actually falling in love. So, naturally, that’s exactly what he did.

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) by thedeathchamber (55k)

Harry thinks he has good reasons for avoiding relationships. Meeting Louis puts those reasons to the test.

I Had Rather Hear My Dog Bark At A Crow by sunsetmog (tomlinshaw, 122k)

The first time Louis Tomlinson kisses him, Nick is three sheets to the wind, wearing a pirate hat, and so fucking tired of Louis being a complete and utter knobhead that he’s spent the last ten minutes snapping at him.

The kiss takes him rather by surprise, all things considered.

Or: Nick and Louis don’t like each other, not even a little bit, not even at all.

Like Real People Do by moodlighting (58k)

AU. Harry is Louis’ soulmate but Louis isn’t Harry’s - it takes Harry a while to figure it all out.

Looking Through You by allwaswell16 (41k)

Just as Louis and Liam were starting out in the music industry, writing and producing for up and coming artists, a fateful meeting with new pop singer Harry Styles changes everything. Four years later, just as Harry is set to embark on his next world tour, a drunken confession causes a rift between once inseparable friends. As Harry tries to make sense of his feelings for Louis, he begins writing his next album to express them as it may be the only way to break through the walls that Louis has built between them.

May You Enjoy Your New Life by aimmyarrowshigh (264k)

It begins for them all at the bungalow –

‘Alright, time to lay out the cards. We’re in this together and hopefully, for the long haul, yeah? So I think – you know, we should just be honest. It’s deal-breakers time. That thing that like, if we’re gonna hate you or something, just tell us all now.’

When One Direction begins, Harry Styles is a sixteen-year-old boy foundering under the pressure of impending fatherhood. His ability to balance the sobering responsibility of caring for his tiny daughter, Millie, and the exhilaration of seeing his own dreams coming to fruition affects not only his future, but those of Liam, Zayn, Niall, and Louis, who never expected fealty to be the key to their success. But Liam is the first to show him how to grow up without growing old, and Zayn is the first to defend from the public what is private and precious. Louis – Louis is the first for a lot of things; for most of the moments of Millie’s life and for the moments of Harry’s that matter. And Niall is the first to toast when Millie is born: Go maire sibh bhur saol nua – 'may you enjoy your new life.’

Nameless Night by green_feelings (155k)

For their 18th birthday, every person receives a letter that reads a simple date. That is the date you’ll meet your soulmate.

Harry and Louis have different beliefs, live in different worlds and have different dreams, hopes and fears. Yet, they’re not so different from each other when it comes to love. When their paths cross, there is no doubt they belong together. Except for that one, essential difference: they didn’t receive the same date.

Or, a fic about differences that make no difference at all: Harry and Louis are soulmates. In every way possible. Featuring Niall as a role model, and Liam and Zayn as a different kind of role models.

Pinkies Never Lie by emma1234 (83k)

AU in which Louis hates his job and loves Harry, Harry just wants a distraction, everyone else wants them to get their shit together, and Louis learns the hard way that new beginnings are only possible when something ends.

Play the Odds by alivingfire (25k)

Harry and Louis are best friends since childhood who, after a night of drinking, find themselves locked in a bet: first one to kiss the other a thousand times wins. Wins what? They don’t know. Glory, Harry supposes. Bragging rights, though those don’t do much in this economy. All Harry knows is that this is one bet he can finally win. What he doesn’t expect, though, is what happens when he starts kissing his best friend on a daily basis.

Namely, he doesn’t expect falling head over heels in love with his best friend.

Now all he has to do is make sure the bet never ends, so he never has to stop kissing Louis.

say i hate you but i always stay by clicheanna (8k)

Or the one where Harry hates Louis, he’s almost sure Louis hates him, and they live together. Driving him to football practice everyday is not apart of Harry’s plans, but Louis is pretty adamant if it means annoying Harry.

Unbelievers by isthatyoularry (136k)

It’s Louis’ senior year, and he’s dead set on doing it right. However, along with his pair of cleats, a healthy dose of sarcasm and his ridiculous best friend, he’s also got a complicated family, a terrifyingly uncertain future, and a mortal enemy making his life just that much worse. Mortal enemies “with benefits” was not exactly the plan.

Or: The one where Louis and Harry definitely aren’t friends, and football is everything.

You and The Moon and Neptune (Got it Right) by alienharry (34k)

Louis has always wanted to meet his soulmate; he’s built his life around the plan that one day his soulmate would come along, and they could begin their happily ever after.

Harry has always wanted to travel; he’s built his life around the idea that nothing is permanent, and seeing the world is his only objective - soulmates mean nothing to him after all.

You’re the Light by allwaswell16 (31k)

Before beginning a new graduate school in the fall, Louis Tomlinson decides to spend the summer working in Chicago as an editor’s assistant for the Chicago Tribune newspaper and staying with his old college roommate. What he finds on his first day of work is a tall, gorgeous editor named Harry who has the most beautiful green eyes he’s ever seen—and who also happens to be his new boss.