#photo discourse

[dear-ao3]

I saw this and thought the crossover was too good not to send you

can’t believe people on twitter are just discovering that fanfic exists. this is why tumblr is superior.

[ancanthus]

wait- what was that

okay-

james

[feketeribizli]

dug up my old sketchbook just to make sure the biblically accurate destiel confession piece was a real thing. happy húgeci mi a fasz ez day 🫶

[ekebolou]

There are (at least) two layers to humanities research.

[There probably should be at least two to scientific research in the same vein, but I don't want to talk out my ass about stuff I don't do - so, humanities it is!]

This is part of why it takes so long to train humanities researchers. Honestly, it's such a massive return on the extremely cheap investment to train humanities scholars, it's insane. But that's a point for another day.

The first layer is what you spend basically the entirety of schooling (I suppose I should say in European/Western-influenced education systems) up until college/university-level education doing. That is learning to read things written for you to read.

Granted a fair amount of this time is spent on just the 'learning to read' part, but by at least teenage years you ought to be on to the 'understanding things written for you to read' part. A huge amount of this is learning to suss out fiction and non-fiction; learning to interpret imagery, metaphor, allusion - all that good stuff that happens in both fiction and non-fiction because language be like that; learning how to take apart and [VERY VITAL] put together language to achieve A Purpose whether that be to Understand or to Convey Understanding (and perhaps even just EVOKE).

It's not easy. That's why it takes a long time. A lot of it is Boring and Hard unless you're lucky and it's Your Thing so it's not Boring and Hard. On the words-reading website it's probably good to acknowledge that yeah, it's Boring and Hard when it's not Your Thing and you've still got to deal with it all the time, as opposed to like, advanced math, which you can kind of avoid, I guess (but don't! Advanced Math is actually Cool and Everywhere, too).

It is critical to understand that this first layer is a skill, in need of honing in its own right, and worth training everyone in. It should be obvious but very frequently is not that even when a thing is written specifically for you to read, there's a lot going on under the hood.

When you get to college/university level education (should you choose to, and you don't need to if you don't want to), this is going to be more or less lumped under secondary source research.

Maybe this is language more specific to history than other disciplines, but in general you might see 'literature review' or 'state of field' or 'preliminary research' (in history, it's often 'historiography') - but it's all broadly secondary source work.

Aha! Isn't that a tell - that they're called secondary sources?

It should be.

Your average popular historical product that does any research at all - podcasts, YouTube videos, TikToks, popular history books, documentaries, newspaper articles or special interest magazines, etc - is doing this kind of research. Secondary Source Research. It's reading stuff written for you to read.

It's very, very important.

It's about half of what all that time, labour, blood, sweat, and tears that go into a humanities degree is about. It's why it takes forever and your friends drop off the face of the earth and become book hermits that cry when a restaurant menu is too descriptive (and also because they make no money - they should make more money, but that's another issue).

But it's only half. The function that this half serves, however, is making the other half possible. Laying the groundwork. If it were, say, fifty to eighty years ago, I would confidently say that the purpose of that layer of the research was to read, as much as is possible, everything written on a given subject of study so that the researcher was able to properly process the next half of the research. Used to be that even included bodies of work in a few other languages. These days, that's simply not possible for most subjects. There's too much been written specifically for you to read. You still ought to have at least two other languages under your belt, but you're not always reading scholarship extensively in more than one. There's too much to read in one language, and that goes for a whole lot of languages.

So nowadays, you're typically reading a selection of really influential secondary sources (stuff written for you to read) and a decent swath of the 'modern' conversation (within the last twenty-five years or so), and a deep selection of whatever your very deliberately outlined specific subject of study is. It's still a lot. It's necessary.

Because the second layer of research is reading stuff that was not written for you to read. Maybe it was written for some audience to read - a letter to a friend is for a friend, a circular for a society is for society members, a broadsheet is for whoever happened to be walking by that wall at that given time - but that audience is not you. It was written for them. You're somebody else, living somewhere else, and some-when else. Not for you.

Some of it isn't for anybody to read. Or wasn't meant to say anything in particular. Or wasn't even deliberately created in the first place. It's just there. A ledger. A calling card. A particular winding or color of thread. A broken bit of pipe. A thousand trade beads. The thumb-shaped worn spot on a rock or blackened stone of a wall by a stairway. The kind of paper of a torn note.

This second layer of research is why people who say they have 'done their own research' are very often not worth taking seriously. It's a trick of the word 'research', that it really means several things at once, one of which is very different from the other, despite appearing to be superficially the same. It can be hard not to take it personally, when you're excited and have done a lot of work and put your whole heart in learning about a thing to have that effort derided as 'not real research'.

It isn't, though. Not in that thorough-going meaning of both layers. It's one layer. A very intensive and difficult layer, but not both. To be an expert - to have expertise - is to do both. You can think of it like doing a practical skill versus reading about it. You can read a lot about how sailing ships work, you might even be a skilled model builder, whose experience can contribute to our understanding of ship construction, but you're not a ship-builder or a sailor. You don't have to be those things, it's not like you have nothing to contribute to those things, but you're not those things.

Likewise, until you do primary source research - read things not written for you to read - you're an expert in what people have said about a thing, not about the thing itself. It's very easy to be misled when confronted with a thing not written for you to read, when all you've done is read what people have said, which is why you don't go from doing all your secondary source research straight into publishing books. There's a long (fuckin' loooooooong) period of a kind of 'apprenticeship', where you join the conversation and get a lot of feedback (and fuck some of that feedback, what assholes are out there! but some is great) before you put something out there on your subject officially for someone else to read.

Hell, it's super easy to do all that and still be shit at actually interpreting the primary sources. Or you could be presenting something entirely new and different, and so everyone treats you like a crank until some more stuff comes forward, in years, decades not unusually being the timeline required. Sometimes it's hard to tell which way the needle will jump, which is why its so important for authoritatively written work to be as transparent as possible with the wheres and hows and whys of its logic and argument.

(Which is another big thing you'll notice - something based on secondary source research will often have minimal or no evidence of where it got its information. Citations. Citations are real important for the credibility of an interpretation. you should be able to find exactly the sources the argument relies upon just in case you want to make your own evaluation.)

But transparency is not clarity. Ideally, clarity is there, but if it feels like something is incredibly dense and hard to read and its supposed to be an authoritative source written for you to read - well, it has to be transparent, not necessarily clear (oh, language! How wonderful you are).

So that's how it stacks up. That's why when you get to those college/university-level courses, they seem to be asking you for entirely different outputs - they are! They're trying to get you to practice different skills. That's why you'll see an uncomfortable look on an academic's face sometimes, or a 'fun fact' being passed around encouragingly online will get a rock thrown its window from time to time (I fuckin' hope it does, anyway). That's why a "special interest" isn't the same as "expertise," despite how fun it can be to talk about our encyclopedic infodumping foibles. That's why "the SECRET that THEY never wanted to know," "a HIDDEN HISTORY," "the UNCOVERED/RECOVERED/UNEARTHED/UNSILENCEDetc story," are better signs of marketing than reality, rigor, or even truth (they are the "EXPERTS hate PERSON for THIS ONE SIMPLE TRICK" of non-fiction marketing).

It's not because people hate fun (though some them do, the spoilsports), but because "research" and "research" aren't the same, and blurring the line between them is really, profoundly unhelpful. The idea that we can continue to have our fun pop-history posts and takes without the fun pop-history books is a minor scale of delusion compared to the idea that we can continue to have fun pop-history books without understanding the need to continue to training, fostering, and supporting the immense amount of work that goes into producing regular ol' (boring, hard) expertise. The new stuff comes from the person that looks at the ledger of a plantation and sees people in the numbers, and understands what those numbers are trying to do - and that's not obvious, or easy to work with.

So, I guess, I just wanted to point out that there's at least two layers (two layers, at least) - and I think understanding that can help make sense of things. Or at least I hope so.

[roscoehamiltons]

roscoelovescoco: Stay’s clean’s folk’s 🫧

[911bts]

Deleted my last post because the crypticness wasn't helping anyone.

The photos were leaked. Not official. So I deleted the post because I personally don't want to share that content.

(There's other personal layers to it too that I won't get into it. But it's nothing that concerns the fandom or anything that people should worry about)

[arcane-machine]

Omg I love Marks new white and gold suit in season 3 of

[namu-the-orca]

I don't know how "ask box trick or treat" works, but hi, I bring you a photo of my most beloved plushie since I was about 4, in return for a trick or a treat perhaps? Their name is Finke

(Pls excuse the fact that I managed to accidentally unfollow for a moment while trying to send an ask, whoops)

Ohh thank you for the trick or treat, you did perfectly! I love your little plushie, they are so cute and the name Finke is really sweet. I also have a very old killer whale plushie however they don't have a name. For you I made this painting as a treat:

"You were my friend"

It's about the killer whales from long ago who lived under human care, when marine parks were just starting out. And the things they went through because people back then didn't really know what they were doing yet. Pools too small, healthcare very subpar, training not up to modern standards. Whales were regularly manhandled for procedures, or the pools simply drained for cleaning or vet checks. And yet these animals placed their trust in the people they met. Even if those only stayed a while, came and went, put them through painful procedures, took care of them only as a summer job.

It is strange, looking at those old grainy black and white photos. Like a different world back then. All these whales. All these people. The blurred face of the trainer is supposed to represent the anonymity of the people they met. Contrasted with the delicate trust they received from the whales regardless.

[cosmicyeen]

Kind of a half-rhetorical, half- genuine question because I'm perplexed and don't want to cause a fuss in the original threads, but this dress:

the comments are full of people agreeing the dress is terrible taste. I don't give a shit about defending rich people here but in a note of pure aesthetic curiosity, I can't see what' wrong with this dress. I have to be missing some kind of understanding of wedding dresses & fashion, but like, if I saw someone wearing this I would have absolutely zero follow up questions.

Is it the material? I see people saying it looks cheap but I can't really tell. what about this is so bad that it has people dunking on it and saying they want to rip their eyes out. Is it purely a case of the dress being associated with the Bezos' or is this somehow a huge wedding dress sin?

One thing I can pinpoint is that it looks very impractical to walk in but I don't see how that would impact the aesthetics. The lace at the top of the bust also looks excessive but again, I wouldn't think twice about this in any other context so i'm just confused

[bi-chimneyy]

Is Buck Blond?

Entirely based off of my own colour perception.

Qualifications: I'm not colour blind and I have had blond hair, I now have light brown hair that sometimes goes slightly blond in the summer.

Red/Light Brown - The only way you think this is blond is if you don't know any blond people. The lighting is decent, not too shadowy, so unlikely that it's making his hair appear darker.

Mostly Light Brown, a little bit Red - Doesn't look particularly blond but I can maybe (*maybe*) see an argument. Quite bright lighting, indicates his hair in this pictures probably appears lighter than usual. Not in favour of him being blond.

Light Brown - Genuinely this is one of the few images I can think of where people might've gotten the idea that he's blond. However it seems pretty light out so I don't think his hair appears any darker than usual.

Brown (Medium-Light side, maybe a tiny bit of Red if you squint) - Lighting seems decent in this shot, though from what I remember the scene overall was fairly dark, could be some shadowing but nothing massive.

Straight Up Brown. - Reddish tint where the light hits it but no one blond has sides that brown.

Light Brown (Red Tint) - Practically has a skin fade, that isn't the colour of his hair it's the colour of his face on the sides there. Blond Buck truthers are clearly stuck in s2, this is the lightest his hair has ever looked and it's definitely not gotten lighter since. The top (aka his actual hair) is light brown and looks red in some lights.

Brown - There is absolutely no argument for this being blond under any circumstances. You can see the red undertones but no blond. Lighting is slightly shadowed but not a huge amount, darker than it looks in some photos but not so much that it would change his hair colour completely.

Brown - Strong lighting from what I can tell, it's honestly not even that much lighter than Eddie's in this particular image. But still slightly lighter and redder at the top. Maybe light brown if you reach.

VERDICT: LIGHT BROWN WITH RED UNDERTONES - NOT GETTING ANY LIGHTER

(P.s. pls don't take this seriously or as a personal attack, I was just bored)

[ingravinoveritas]

If at this point you still think Michael and David would somehow be uncomfortable with people shipping them after they've just created their own actual couple-themed Christmas card, I don't even know what to tell you...

[arcanegifs]

(original post)

[glitternightingale]

Happy Progress Day!

"Jayce and his Fumbled Speech"

This meta is inspired by this discussion between @iwillmissourtalks and @mercutio-the-velaryon about Mel's intentionally ambiguous framing when she leaves during the Progress Day speech.

For fun, I tried to retrace the events leading up to it and piece together Mel's possible perspective and involvement. This isn't completely Mel-focused since many other characters appear which caused me to raise some questions surrounding the timeline and the characters' motivations (as well as add a few anecdotes).

For consistency's sake, let's start with the first Progress Day scene.

Jayce and Heimerdinger talk in his lab about Stanwick Padidly and the Progress Day speech. H: "The Council has recommended you give the Progress Day speech this year." J: "What... But you always give that speech. I... I could never take your place." H: "I agree with them. Your Hexgates have done wonders for our city."

Then Heimerdinger acknowledges that Jayce giving the speech was a very recent decision. From what we later learn of Mel's softly-worded political proposals, we can infer that this recommendation was most likely her doing (and backed by Cassandra due to how much she also profits from Jayce and Hextech). The speech holds incredible symbolic weight since it's Piltover's bicentennial which also explains why Jayce hadn't been encouraged to hold it before despite already being an established celebrity who has revolutionized science and the arts (directly and indirectly).

In short: Mel was in the previously mentioned Council meeting and suggested Heimerdinger let Jayce take charge of the speech (which is apparently such a break in tradition that Caitlyn doesn't believe Jayce at first when he tells her). Heimerdinger probably ruminated over this for some time until he ultimately told Jayce the very morning of Progress Day. It is unknown at what point Mel knew for sure if Jayce would hold the speech but at the very least, she was sure enough of it that she "already spoke to several potential investors" throughout the day (while Jayce was at the Kiramman tent in the morning/noon and in the lab with Viktor in the afternoon).

Speaking of the lab scene:

V: "You think he will approve?" J: "Heimerdinger believes science should be used to improve lives as much as we do. We just need to show him it's safe." V: "And what about the Council?" J: "We stabilized the crystal like they asked. Built the Hexgates like they asked. It's our turn to decide the future of Hextech."

They demonstrate to Heimerdinger that they have, in fact, finally managed to stabilize the crystal, and Heimerdinger's reaction shows he's impressed, which implies that they haven't officially notified the Council of their project's completion yet. A smart move, because they plan on breaking the news together with immediate practical applications, applications Jayce and Viktor can steer in their preferred direction before the Council can distort Hextech again by, let's say, inserting the Gems into obsolete luxury machinery that would never, ever trickle down to benefit lower social classes.

However, Heimerdinger's ethical criticism sows doubt in Jayce's mind. He doesn't want to cause harm but he certainly notices how upset Viktor is. (It is likely they vented to each other a bit after this.)

Then a few hours pass, Jayce gets dressed (while Viktor probably arranges the equipment to be brought to where the speech will be held). But instead of actually writing his speech, Jayce goes to the "Fundraiser" soirée, hosted by Mel herself (due to the Noxian-inspired architecture, the miniature Hexgates model on the desk where Mel picked up the puzzles before the time skip, and the familiarity with which she holds herself combined with Elora's comments), to specifically get her advice (would he even have attended it otherwise? He's zeroing in on her the moment he steps into the room). Jayce is looking for reassurance from someone who has proven level-headed and rational (which excludes Viktor in this case, whose opinion is already obvious to Jayce and tainted by personal affront).

Mel and Jayce walk into her office for privacy. M: "To what do I owe the pleasure?" J: "It's Heimerdinger." M: "When is it not?" (...) M: "Piltover needs a leader who looks forward. Someone like you." J: "You really believe that?" (...) M: "It's your speech. Give the people a glimpse of the future."

This exchange tells us that:

This is far from the first time that Jayce has complained to Mel about Heimerdinger and his restrictions.

Mel is honest about her belief in Jayce and the ways she supports Hextech (she has procured a stage for Jayce, invited representatives from all over the world to a Fundraiser as well as the other Councilors --safe for Heimerdinger, it appears--, and probably convinced them with the Hexgates model paired with only the future notion of a stabilized Hexgem in the back of her mind). She is amassing money and influence without a goal that goes beyond Jayce because she trusts him.

She reassures him that she wants him to take the reins and see his dream through in any way he sees fit. She is not micromanaging him and his decisions. The Council gives the Hextech team broad directions and sees what comes of it, while Mel encourages Jayce as a person to become The Man of Progress and realize his potential. She leaves its definition entirely up to him.

We cut away from a contemplative Jayce until we see him again backstage in the evening/at night, seemingly upbeat and confident, with a Man of Progress cup of coffee in hand while Sky is following him with a clipboard (she likely helped him with the speech on their time crunch, which looks hastily constructed with scribbles and crossed-out words, as to not upset Viktor further, who is clearly stressed either way. Jayce knows this, hence his false bravado.).

Jayce is called to the stage by Cassandra and doesn't shy away from the light. People who had mocked and looked down on him only years prior are now sitting in the front rows, cheering for him and his inventions. The camera swerves over them, capturing their expressions of pride and awe. Mel has the same expression as all the others. The only reason why she is alienated from the crowd is due to how she (and Elora) are given a whole shot. This is to remind us that she has personal stakes in Jayce's decision. She has put time, thought, energy, money, and emotional availability into this man. For seven years.

Jayce starts his speech, lighthearted but nervous with how he grasps the clipboard. Then he picks up, speaking from the heart and of his story, humbling himself and his origins. He doesn't frame his personal achievements, he underlines Hextech's success; a project multiple people are involved in. He doesn't speak of "I", he uses "we", acknowledging everyone's efforts. Then Jayce praises the Hexgates that Mel funded, and who does the camera cut back to?

The Vastaya whistling surprises Mel, but her gaze lingers on the Hexgates that have been running for "a few years".

Their achievement.

Can we take a quick detour and appreciate how they brought a huge Talis anvil to the stage (it's probably not the one from their lab for logistical reasons, although they look identical)? Jayce and Viktor really wanted to show off just how stable the Gem is. They appear to have agreed on this, at least.

Unfortunately, we can't say for sure if the Atlas Gauntlets or the Hex Claw were there too. I assume Jayce and Viktor stored them away safely since Jinx would have either stolen or at least scribbled all over them when she broke into the lab. Maybe they were in the boxes backstage (a box Viktor was sitting on, perhaps)? Did they abort the plan of presenting them beforehand and was keeping them from Jinx simply a happy accident?

Anyway, Jayce continues with his speech but swallows with uncertainty. His words become more deliberate and cautious.

J: "This year, we've created something new for you."

Mel smiles unexpectedly wide with pride and excitement that Elora looks at her with a smirk while Heimerdinger raises a warning eyebrow at Jayce (and Salo looks bored, haha).

J: "Something that... um..."

As Jayce falters, Mel's expression falls as well and she looks troubled. She is worried about the speech, but more appropriately Jayce's sudden blunder. She likely wonders why he's suddenly stuttering. Is he feeling unwell?

J: "That we will share with you... when the time is right."

Mel's eyes flicker away from the stage and she pouts when reality sets in, causing Elora to once again check in on her. It's interesting how Elora always gauges Mel's reaction to what Jayce does. She has known Mel for years and can feel that Mel's interest in Jayce goes far beyond her typical pursuit of material and reputational gains. Jayce is a personal investment.

This makes it more frustrating that Jayce didn't even announce the Hexgem, a project Hextech developed on official order of the Council, with permission. (Would Jayce have pulled through if Viktor had gone up with him, I wonder?) Even the Enforcers stationed outside remark on this later: "That it, then? I thought the Talis boy was some kind of genius."

Jayce continues to give the audience an emotionally appealing nothing burger as Mel stands up and walks out together with Elora without looking back.

Understandably, Mel has feelings about this. She is angry or at the very least annoyed. Who wouldn't be if someone you trust tells you one thing and then does the complete opposite the next time you see them? (A parallel to the aftermath of the... Sextech scene where she wakes up alone and takes her frustrations out on a canvas, instead of Jayce.) Mel quickly leaves to save what can be saved and salvaged.

However, I believe the real crux of the issue isn't Jayce's decision to hide Hextech's progress from the public but that Mel didn't know at what point Jayce decided to not heed her advice. He brought a prepared speech to the speaker's stand. He had papers in front of him that he read out loud. When Mel holds a speech (see the memorial in season 2) she has crafted every single line well in advance. Who's to say Jayce hadn't planned on making her appear like a fool in front of all the investors she charmed, investors she told him about? Jayce (accidentally) humiliated her. He undermined her integrity and influence while also presenting Hextech, the company, as a fragmented assortment of goals and ideas (something investors consider massive uncertainties).

However, Mel is aware that she knowingly took this gamble, and she lost. She miscalculated. No perfectionist who wants to prove herself worthy of Medarda standards and who tries to grab power where she can to impress her family would ever feel good after this. It scratches at her ego as her way of diplomacy seems to have failed, and we all know how stubborn Mel can be when her principles are challenged by circumstance.

Anyway, Jinx sets the Kiramman tent on fire in the square, breaks into the lab (at which point the Gem had been returned to the anvil? Whose idea was it to store it right there smack in the middle of the lab? Why not store it among the other two that were visible in the lab scene when Heimerdinger visited? But I digress), and demolishes it, while Jayce and Viktor are probably at the "cocktail party" Caitlyn was supposed to attend before Marcus punished her with the "graveyard shift", or they went home, I suppose.

Then we see the fallout of Jinx's attack: an empty anvil = "The Gemstone is gone"

(Makes me wonder if Jinx would have still managed to pocket it if Jayce had actually presented it to the world. The fortified Gemstone would have surely been the talk of the town and definitely not been let out of sight, right? Ah, what could have been... This would have changed the course of the entire story.)

An emergency Council meeting is held the morning after. It's unclear if Mel and Jayce have spoken before this (perhaps at the "cocktail party"). The point is that Mel realizes that Jayce didn't have any malicious intent. He takes responsibility for the incident and recommends shutting down all Hextech operations (laboratories, the refinery, and the Hexgates). The Council members disagree for various reasons.

J: "But shouldn't the safety of Piltover be our first priority?"

Mel knows this is Heimerdinger-talk and she becomes aware of the sheer magnitude of the ancient being's influence over Jayce. To move forward, Jayce needs to be freed from such outdated concerns (who knows when Noxus will come knocking at Piltover's walls, after all?).

As an investor and Council member, it would have been so easy for Mel to seize complete control of Hextech right then and there. She could have been petty and wrathful and pounced on the ludicrous recommendation Jayce just made to frame him as a foolhardy hothead, or a threat to the other Councilors' interests (especially the ones that are dealt with behind closed doors), embarrassing him for his misguided mistake and getting her revenge.

But what does she do instead? Mel shows she is "merciful" as she puts him on equal playing ground with Heimerdinger and herself as Councilor, all the while avoiding eye contact with Jayce. This is one, if not the only decision she wrangles him into, one she will be called out for later on. Mel does what she thinks is best for Jayce, Hextech, and Piltover at this point in time, and that is to give Jayce a little push and yet another opportunity to finally outgrow his mentor's shadow.

She even pits them directly against each other to reinforce to Jayce that he is in no way less fit to lead than Heimerdinger himself:

B: "Does the boy have any experience?" M: "Only that of a scientist. Like Heimerdinger."

It's nothing new from what she already told him. "It's your speech." What did change, however, is the way she goes about teaching Jayce from then on. She starts to spell out cause and effect to him in a more hands-on approach (see the opera scene).

She still supports Jayce, who

was very confused by what she was gathering investors for

messed up the most impactful speech in the city's history and disappointed those whose opinions he cherishes most

couldn't fathom the broader economic and social consequences of an immediate shutdown of Hextech operations

She still believes in Jayce, who then goes on to use every tool Mel provided to ultimately outgrow her, too, in the later episodes.

Jayce, the monster she created and still loves.

[coldasyou]

I really do not get when swifties want to totally separate the stolen versions vs taylor's version in the context of things like aesthetic or fandom discussions/rankings or the songs that are on both albums...like yeah I get it if you want to talk about the songs that sound different (although tbh I think very few of the songs sound noticeably different) but other than that it's the same album with a few never heard before tracks 😭 I saw a tweet saying 1989 is new york but 1989 tv is LA and I'm like???? IT'S THE SAME ALBUM

[possessedfreak]

Love Händel gay stuff

[thefrogdalorian]

I think on this fine Saturday afternoon it's a good opportunity to take a breather and remember that there are really no ethical paparazzi pictures. Every single one is inherently exploitative.

Just because photos were taken on a movie set, when someone is 'working,' does not make the practice any less invasive and creepy. Imagine just going about your day, doing your job and having some weirdo snapping pictures of you to sell without your consent for others to endlessly repost online.

There are thousands of pictures of your favourite actor online already. Plenty taken with his knowledge and consent. I'd really like to see more of them on my dash, rather than the creeper shots.

And don't get me started how disseminating these pictures directly leads to people going to said sets. What starts off as admiring how good someone looks has real world implications.

No, hanging around a movie set and disrupting people doing their jobs is not harmless fun or a way to show your appreciation.

If you hang around a movie set, you are a stalker.

Don't tell me that it's okay to take your online admiration for someone offline. You may admire him but he does not, and will never, personally know you. He will never be your friend/boyfriend/daddy. He is a stranger.

The only way meeting your favourite actor is going to happen is at a convention or maaaaaybe a movie premiere if you're incredibly fortunate. You know, places they appear specifically to meet fans (or not in the case of premieres, where the purpose is to promote a movie. Which is also completely understandable if actors don't stop. You are not owed an interaction).

Of course, you cannot help it if you randomly run into someone you admire in the wild. Even then, consider that they probably won't be all too thrilled to be approached in public by a complete stranger. It's up to you to gauge the situation, but remember there is a person at the heart of all of this.

Boundaries and respect are a kindness which deserves to be extended to each and every human being regardless of their looks/talent/fame/wealth.

Fandoms blur those lines a little too often for my liking and I think just scrutinising what you're interacting with, or what behaviour you could be possibly falling down that slippery slope towards is nice to do every once in a while.

I mean no malice with this post and it is not directed at anyone in particular. It's something I cannot help but feel strongly about because I've seen this destructive cycle time and again in fandoms over the years. It's not healthy and it makes us all a little bit more disconnected from our humanity for it...