#this is not a fucking game! your vote is not just a statement! it carries the power of life and death!

[d-andilion]

fyi anyone i see even SUGGESTING that we shouldn't vote in november is getting blocked. i'm not playing fucking games this time, vote or die.

[archivalofsins]

Common Amane Innocent talk because no I won't shut up about her and nobody can fucking make me. Look at all the prisoners wielding weapons in the new minigram that they all have access to within the prison!

Scissors something everyone canonically has access to due to Amane's voice drama.

A fucking icepick?!

Why the hell is this here? Oh, the minigrams aren't canon, some will say. They aren't canon to the timeline we're in currently. However, the prisoners are still the prisoners, and they are still in Milgram. Also, Es has confirmed there is a supply closet with an unknown amount of items in it in Amane's second voice drama. All of these are things that would commonly be found in a supply closet or a toolbox that would also commonly be found in a supply closet. Explaining how they managed to fix the sprinklers and make sandbags when the water malfunctioned in that one minigram.

Literally, everyone here, including Shidou, has access to everyday tools that could be used as weapons. Which is fucking wild considering Mu is shown to kill someone with a box cutter that is shown to be a common everyday school supply she carries in her bag. Like everyone is literally screwed this intermission and voting anyone guilty twice in the hopes of getting them restrained could very well lead to that prisoners death.

It's important to think about both Amane and Mikoto's cases seriously.

Restraint doesn't just mean they can not hurt others but that they can not defend themselves as well. Something that is necessary for both of them as they've both had their safety threatened by Kotoko,

20/06/18

Amane: Thank you very much for teaching me. ……but, though I realise it’s strange me saying this after I asked you, I must admit it’s kind of unexpected. You give off the impression of someone who wouldn’t want to get involved in things like this.

Kotoko: ……well, you’re not wrong. I’m surrounded by people who could all be murderers, so I don’t plan on going out of my way to talk and make friends. I can’t let my guard down. But I like ambitious people like you. If you want to study more, then I’m happy to teach.

Amane: I see…… You look scary at first impression, but I quite like the way you treat everyone equally regardless of whether they’re older or younger than you. You don’t just treat me like a child or anything like that.

Kotoko: Treat you like a child? Hah, you’ve got to be kidding. Back when I was your age, I was already the person I am today. I don’t have any plans to let you get away with something just “because you’re a child.” ……remember that. There, I’ve finished marking. 83%. How do I put it… Even though you act like this, it’s not like you’re super brilliant at studying or anything, huh.

22/12/15 (Kotoko’s Birthday)

Mikoto: Ah, Koto-chan. It’s been a while. Both of us have kinda split off from the group, but how’ve things been? A lot’s happened, but fr now let’s try to get along. I mean, it’s your birthday today, right? I got the feeling nobody else was going to do anything, so I came to celebrate.

Kotoko: ……how carefree. It doesn’t matter, a villain like you won’t be forgiven next time either. And when that time comes, it’ll be the end for you. I’ll make sure of it myself.

Mikoto: Ahh?? Just try and do it, you nutjob. I’ll crush anyone who hurts me…… You’re gonna be totally beaten at your own game……!

[TN: The word “me” here uses first person pronoun “boku”.]

Kotoko: Hm. The border between the two is getting a lot vaguer. Your entire existence is a crime. And I will see you’re punished for it. That is what Milgram, and Es, and I have chosen.

X

And, they are surrounded by multiple people who have been implied to have killed individuals their age. From the beginning of Milgram.

From Shidou saying it's fitting that a child would be the one to judge him in his first voice drama, seeing Haruka's statements on not being good with children Amane's age turning into I'm no longer afraid of children along with being visually shown his victim was a little girl. Combined with his statements regarding Amane in his first voice drama, it is implied that his victim was around or Amane's age. Kotoko jumps a guy who doesn't seem much younger or older than Mikoto and is shown attacking people older than herself. Everyone here has killed, and they all have access to weapons.

So, I find it very interesting to see who's treated as a threat and not by the fandom.

[freshie44]

Disventure Camp All Stars Episode 18

Disventure Camp All Stars is the WWE of Disventure Camp. I've just lost hope. I glad the writers are enjoying what their writing at least, I'm just in apathy at this point. Jake - "I feel great, I stand by the move I made and ready to vote". You know what good for you kid. Shit like this is why you'll get @ by randos on the internet with the Ellie speech from season 1 on a constant basis. The endless Jake & Ally feud is god awful. It literally just the never ending 2009 John Cena v. Randy Orton feud. I despise sacrificing characters to prolong this stupid feud. Also statement like above just fuel the hate, because I've seen your early game, your mid game, and your late game and Jake, honey, you've been playing like SHIT. Insta falling for any lie you've been told, throwing challenge for yourself just to fuck over someone else, and starting random ass feuds to put yourself in the crosshair of the votes. Your own story says you SHOULDN'T BE PROUD OF HOW YOU PLAYED THE GAME! So you sir, even in your wishy washy petty confidence don't get to say SHIT like that and get my backing. Ally - "yeah I'm confident it probably me tonight. I know these people consider me a huge threat" No, NO, NO! You are not a threat, you've been an afterthought. You got carried to the merge. They got rid of Ashley because she was the biggest threat among the heroes, Tom because he a challenge king, you got lucky with Yul & Gabby, got carried by Grett to go over Aiden and Alec. Only to be an afterthought to Grett. You are HERE because you aren't a threat! You had wishy washy writing who can't decide if you a heel or face because consistent booking is overrated. Your story line been the bonus song they throw in, not even making the A or B side. The only threat you've ever been is as a flipper. So nah, not wanting to back you. Riya - She 2015 Roman Reigns, she the BIG DAWG, she got the DAWG in her, she the ultimate survivor because she the BIG DAWG. She can do whatever she like because she always figure a way out. Karma, no she beat Karma in the ring, made it tap out. She is a "COMPLEX" Character that we just have to maximize her screen time for. She so obviously going to win because fun went and died. Conner - speaking of 2015, Danial Bryan at the 2015 Royal Rumble. Now start the booing.

[brittlebonesguy]

alright time for season 9

oh boy another men v women season. the sexism isnt as upfront immediately like it was last time so thats nice. and that one guy who was like "thank god. its so much easier to trick men im so happy". and then going off about how men are evil and manipulative. damn who hurt you? rory's "walking like a bunch of ladies" i have my eye on you sir. taken reasonable breaks eliza? i have not even seen you near the shelter once. chris is such a man hater lol. i hope he keeps this up. actually if chad were to win its because it's not an idiot and not because of his prosthetic. first immunity challenge and once again these men just can't get through the balance beam. i dislike brady already. im sorry you guy's didn't appreciate chris's balance joke. cool now we're whipping out the "females" shit. why does jeff always do this? can we not talk about the women like they are a commodity? thank you for the bare minimum bubba, i appreciate it. thank god chris didn't go, i need some sort of lifeline.

i hate the intensity in JP's eyes. piercing into me, i fear they will haunt my sleep. and the way he talks? serial killer. and that guy was lying to JP about his....."good looks". sarge defending the ladies with their wni against rory, thank you sir. it's always an age divide, every season. the men did so much better this season than the last one. they only lost 2 challenges instead of 7 consecutive.

twyla is....a lot. "barbie's gone" i'll rip your face off, once i remember your name (is it sarge?). i have confirmed it is sarge and i rescind my earlier thank you. eliza....eliza please he said he had all the info he needed to know please stop talking. the way jp spelled rory.....oh no hes so stupid. (royry). thank god JP got voted off i wouldn't be able to stand him for too much longer. oh here we go with the "i just never got along with women" bullshit from twila. and her pushing back on very reasonable statements. really want her to go honestly. judging women for being "feminine" is just so low. yeah yeah we get it you're a tomboy *eye roll*. scout's on my shit list as well now with that "good luck with finding a husband who will put up with you" comment at mia. and now she's leaving? BOOOOOOO

it's about time the fatphobia came out john i was waiting for your shitty side to show. idk why the men always fall apart during puzzles. it's not that serious guys. now the real question men, could rory not figuring out the puzzle or did you guys not even let him try? now i don't like rory or brody (if that's his name)(edit: it wasn't it was brady) but i would love it if sarge left. i'm glad brady left though because i kept confusing him with that john guy. oh they ditched the men vs women pretty quick. idk it feels like a favoring for the guys by dropping it considering jeff was concerned that they were all playing an individual game so early on (as he said during tribal). just thinking....

twila is so irritating. not sure why ami thinks annoying the four women on her tribe will encourage them to continue with their 5 alliance. its just a coconut, i promise. oh bubba was stupid with that "chris think about the merge", hes for sure going home next. and him having to play the macho man and carrying the entire gate by him self. so far i'm really hating bubba, eliza, and twilia the most. and sarge when I can remember him. and bubba lying through his teeth about his "mouthing and hand signaling" like dude we all heard you said "chris think about the merge" out loud in front of everybody. yeah i also almost drowned as a kid bubba, i don't give a shit about the sob story and i swear if it works.... bye bubba i won't miss you!

sarge tripping over himself to assure us that he's better than women and he doesn't NEED them around camp he just LIKES them around camp....shut up. eliza is so useless its crazy. i hate twila's "those prisy girls didn't want to get their fingernails dirty" like fuck off, also the only one who didn't try was eliza. sarge what the hell is going on? i can't figure out his feelings towards twila but please keep them to yourself. honestly i'm glad lisa went. I'm so glad scouts gay! makes me like her more.

"I've been a threat since day 1" john they hate you what are you talking about? so happy yasur won immunity because I like this tribe right now. jokes on me I no longer like them. and I'm back at hating rory 🥰. I know if I went on survivor I too would have a temper but it really isn't fun to watch with him. unlike sandra <3. this might come back to bite me almost immediately but I'm liking twila more now. rory is officially annoying again and I hate his guts. and now ami is getting targeted because she wants the woman to stay together. 🙄 hope she wins! the men can all honestly fuck off. also is this the season of gaslighting or something? because why are we acting like Bubba didn't say all that merge shit at full volume? see I know ami is gonna go because she wants a woman's alliance too much and apparently people canr handle that. so sarge is allowed to rule over the men ans that's fine, we're allowed to pick off the women one by one and that's fine, but the moment it's reversed?

these men are so dramatic 🙄. rory with his "no one has endured more than me on this island" and "im the victim of a gender war right now" be fucking serious!!!!! and then chad and chris talking shit at the camp like twila and julie don't know they are at the end of the pecking order with both groups? they have a better shot eith the women than the men because NONE of the remaining 3 men are bringing a woman into final 2 obviously. they're such fucking children and I hope they all burn 🫶🏻 "it must be a woman thing" 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄hate you Chris and sarge! the men are so stupid. the woman are already considering sending eliza home but they're sitting here like "WE'VE got to convince them" why the FUCK is twila so content to be in 4thnplace amongst the men. THAT MEANS YOULL LOSE TWILA! like a number 4 spot isn't good why are we acting like it is??? you want 1st or 2nd in this game. okay sorry I jumped the gun on that, she did not in fact do that. oddly enough I actually do like twila and eliza and that's really it for this season. fuck off sarge! won't miss you.

love that chris is just jumping right into stirring the pot now that he's the only man left. TWO LESBIANS IN ONE SEASON?? this is such a win, love you scout and ami <3. I knew I liked ami outside of the game for a reason. so annoying that chris is acting like the wishy washy shit at the end of the game is a woman thing as if plans dont change all the time with EVERYONE in survivor. really happy eliza jumped ship because it's not fair that they kept trying to vite her out. eliza won the car....now she's completely lost her chance to win this game smh. but ami is still in the running! nvm :( she got voted off.

I'm getting real nervous that chris is gonna win this season. fuck OFF I really hate that chris voted off julie, I do. stupid move that somehow is still gonna work out for him. BOOO 🍅🍅 not loving this final three...... eliza please live through this tribal, you're my only hope. I'm swung back to twila is okay I guess? chris is burning so many bridges by voted out every woman who thought they had an alliance, dumb moves honestly. I just dont want chris go win because that man is so annoying. praying for your win twila! love how if the woman vote for twila it would be "out of spite", fuck off tool bag! and yeah the woman's alliance did in fact work asshole, do you see how many woman are in the jury? I can't stand this fucking guy. he talks like a politician 🙄🙄🙄 I just respect twila so much more honestly. sarge just.lying that he was gonna vote for twila? eliza.....why?

oh how I've missed this long winded unnecessary jeff getting back to America sequences bsjabaka. I hate that chris wins, I really really do fuck that guy.

5.9/10 season

[the-river-sage]

can't say that i'm particularly a fan of the new Macklemore song that everyone seems to be clamoring about, given that he felt the need to include a couple lines with the lazy (and inaccurate) take laying the blame for the situation almost entirely at Biden's feet and also boast about the counterproductive inaction he will be taking this election by not voting for him. you don't like Biden? fine. you're upset about the situation in Palestine? absolutely justified. but can we fucking NOT with the moral grandstanding to such an extent that it actively causes more fucking problems?

whether you like it or not, come election time you have two options to help shape the direction of this country: you vote Democrat even if you (mistakenly) believe that Biden is a bad candidate, or you vote Republican and support everything that that entails. you don't vote or go third-party? congratulations, you've accomplished nothing other than to feel as if you made a statement by throwing a tantrum when there are tremendous stakes at play. frankly, get off your high horse and check your privilege, cause the difference between a 2nd Biden term and a 2nd Trump term would be massive

some of y'all really out here acting like "there's no difference" between the two candidates and i'm sick of seeing this childish, edgelord apathy. it is 2024 and if you're spending hours on Tumblr or TikTok then you have access to so much information that very clearly demonstrates how false that tired old rhetoric is. and it pisses me off, cause here's how that mentality is going to play out: half a dozen months of "Trump/Biden are the same" and/or "Biden's not worth voting for" or similar -> Trump winning the election and these people being shocked that this happened despite deliberately contributing to sabotaging Dems' chances over this single issue which they are divided on -> acting surprised at the horrific agenda that WILL be carried out under a repeat Trump administration while fully ignoring the role they played in letting it happen -> everyone loses.

and if you think i'm being heartless and just don't care about what's happening in Palestine, kindly go fuck yourself. i've been pro-Palestine since some of y'all were still shitting your diapers and sucking your thumbs. this isn't about not caring about Palestine, this is about recognizing the very real additional harm that would come about if large groups of people decide that "they'll never vote for a politician who supports genocide!" and while you're patting yourself on the back for taking that stance and collecting all the social capital and internet points you get from talking about it constantly, other folks will literally be dying at the hands of freshly enacted Republican legislation.

do not let perfect be the enemy of good. do not pride yourself on some bullshit moral purity of doing nothing wrong by avoiding actions that may not always be 100% good. please, do not be fucking stupid. recognize that politics are not a game and have significant consequences. some of y'all been talking like you really want to fuck around, and i just hope that when November comes... the rest of us aren't gonna have to find out.

[your-world-with-nct]

💌 • 4:35am

“you know, i swear, if you’re the impostor, i just won’t come over to yours tomorrow. wait, it’s already tomorrow ‘cos it’s past midnight, right? yeah, okay then, i won’t come over today,” you spoke into the mic of your earphones, quickly diverting your attention back to the round that was about to start.

“what? your brain is barely functioning right now, i don’t trust anything you’re saying— what’s that even supposed to mean?” boyfriend!yangyang questioned you through the phone, baffled at your sleep-deprived nonsense.

ignoring his confusion, you finished customising your character, ready to play yet another round of ‘among us’ with your avid, competitive gamer boyfriend, “shhhh, the game’s about to start, mute your mic, baby.”

he simply chuckled at your cute command, muting his mic, and smiling to himself as his role appeared on the screen.

you both continued to play, silence coming from both of your phones, not only from muting one another, but also from the sheer concentration of trying to win the game. before you knew it, someone had called an emergency meeting, leading you to return to your voice call with yangyang.

“so, how has it been faking tasks, mr impostor?” you giggled, disguising your suspicion with lightheartedness.

you heard the boy scoff from the other end of the line, “oh come on, y/n, if it was me, you would’ve been killed first, or maybe that cyan guy because his hat is really ugly.”

“o-okay then... bit random if you ask me,” as you clicked on the chat, it seemed as if nothing needed to be addressed, and the player who called the meeting had assumed incorrectly.

“yangie, skip the vote,” you prompted, as you did the same and waited for the round to carry on, “don’t forget to—”

“yes, yes i know, mute the mic,” he finished your sentence for you, amused at the fact that you two were still so connected even though you weren’t together at the moment.

just as you were about to finish your last task, another emergency meeting interrupted you, you sighed and turned your mic back on, before checking the chatroom.

an exaggerated gasp escaped from yangyang when he realised what was posted in the chat and once you discovered for yourself what exactly had caused him to react as if had seen a ghost, you were in hysterics.

“‘guys how do i jump in the vents like white did’ why would you ask that? do you want me to get caught, stupid cyan!!” your lover ranted in between your breathless giggles, cursing out the clueless noob both in real life and in the chat.

soon after, he was voted out, then rage quit the game, begging you to leave too, “okay, fine, i’ll leave, but, my god, you didn’t even get to kill anyone,” you returned to your uncontrollable laughter, switching from the ‘among us’ app to the video call you were on with the fuming yangyang.

“i just got out of the vent to kill purple because they were on their own but then cyan came out of nowhere? ugh, i could’ve won that as well,” he pouted, as you found his childish sulking adorable.

“aww, it’s okay, babe, we can always play another time, hopefully we’ll get a good server without that cyan player,” you grinned at yangyang, immediately making him momentarily forget what he was yelling about.

he ran his hand through his hair, sighing, “if i ever encounter ‘mark’ ever again i swear i’ll snatch that egg hat right off of his stupid blue head! i’m sorry but i don’t think i can touch that game for another few days, i need some time to recover.”

you rolled your eyes, shuffling further into the multiple blankets draped on your bed, “you’re so dramatic, yangie.”

“says the one who wanted to eat a different restaurant because that guy you used to like when you were like twelve was there—”

“we don’t speak about huang renjun!!! i’m gonna hang up now, byeeeeee,” your hand hovered over the bright red ‘end call’ button, although you both knew that you weren’t going to press that any time soon.

“okay, i’m sorry, i’m sorry, y/n, don’t hang up!! i didn’t want you to have the last word of me being dramatic. why were you so scared anyway, you were with me in that restaurant, your boyfriend, what was he gonna do?” yangyang smiled at the memory of you hiding in his shoulder, aggresively whispering to him about how you wanted to get the fuck out of there.

“i don’t even know, i was just so... surprised that he was even there,” you laughed at him bringing up your pathetic self, temporarily being distracted by the chirping bird that flew past your room’s window, “y’know, i wish we could go out again, like, normally.”

your boyfriend took note of the sad undertone of your statement, feeling the urge to give you a massive hug, but wincing when he knew he couldn’t, “i know, me too, baby, but we can’t really do much about how the world is right now. at least we can call like this every night and play together, right?”

it wasn’t the most comforting thing to hear in the world, but only because it was yangyang saying it to you, your heart burst with adoration as if you could feel his sincerity through the phone, “hmm, yeah, you’re right, babe. even if the world came crashing down on us, i would be content if i had you.”

yangyang was overwhelmed with your words, it was evident in his ear-to-ear gummy smile and the way he covered his reddening cheeks with his sweater paws, “you really mean that, y/n?”

“i do,” you nodded, suppressing a yawn to smile back at your blushing lover, “i’m probably gonna go to sleep now yangie, i love you.”

despite being left speechless by your nonchalant confession, yangyang just managed to respond before his heart leapt out of his chest, “i love you too, sweetheart.”

finally ending the call, you placed your phone on your bedside table, tossing to your other side to shield yourself from the rays of light indicating the start of a new day.

so what if you messed up your sleep schedule to talk to yangyang for hours on end? you really did mean what you said - he was your saviour, your hope in the midst of a global crisis. and you would rather experience the end of the world with him, than this pandemic without him.

[itsclydebitches]

Is buying the new Harry Potter game supporting transphobes because I've been seeing a lot of that on twitter? Not playing it. Pirating is fine, but actually paying for it.

Hi, anon!

I’ve seen a lot of the same and had initially thought to post my thoughts on the issue… before I got a very angry ask condemning me for a post where I admitted that I thought the game looked great and was excited to play it. I can no longer link to that post because I deleted it: a late night, impulsive decision made in an effort to try and protect myself from further flaming. Thus, I considered ignoring this ask under the same justification… before realizing that it might not matter in the long run. The Harry Potter: Legacy trailer has been out for just a few days and already I have gotten that furious ask, been told off by a friend for mentioning the trailer, and was questioned (antagonistically) about why I had added a Harry Potter related book to my Goodreads list. They’re small and potentially coincidental anecdotes, but it feels as if any engagement with Harry Potter is slowly coming under scrutiny, not just the (supposed—more on that below) crime of purchasing the new game. Given that I will always engage with Harry Potter related media, if there’s any chance such subtle criticism will continue regardless of whether I make the “right” choice to boycott the game or not, I might as well explain my position. Especially for someone who asked politely! Thanks for that 💜. 

Which leads to the disclaimer: Any anon hate will be unceremoniously deleted. This is a complicated issue and I intend to write about it as such. I ask that any readers go into this post with good faith and a willingness to acknowledge that this situation isn’t as black and white as they may prefer it to be. If that’s not something you can emotionally handle—which is 100% fine. Some subjects we’re simply not inclined to debate—or if you’re just looking to get in a cheap shot, please hit the back button.

Right. Introduction done. Now here’s the tl;dr: saying things like “Buying this game is inherently selfish/transphobic” isn’t the hot take people want it to be. Is boycotting Legacy one (very small—we’ll get to that too) way of showing support for the trans community? Yes. Is buying the game proof that you’re a selfish transphobe?  No. This isn’t a bad SAT question. Legacy boycotters are to trans supporters as Legacy buyers are to  ___? The argument that someone is selfish for buying the game is basically that you are choosing a non-essential video game over the respect and lives of trans individuals, but the logic breaks down when we acknowledge that purchasing a game has no real life impact on a trans individual’s safety, support, etc.   

“But Clyde, you’re giving Rowling money. She is then using that money to support anti-trans organizations. Thus, you have actively put more harm into the world.” Have I? I’m not going to get into whether/how much/what kind of money Rowling is receiving from this project because the fact is we don’t know and we’ll likely never know. Suffice to say, she probably will get some portion of any $60/$70 purchase. The real question is whether those sales have any meaningful impact. Reputable information on Rowling’s net worth is hard to come by, but it seems to be somewhere between 600 million and 1 billion pounds. Or, to put it another way: a fuck ton. And money keeps rolling in from a franchise that is so, so much bigger than a single video game. It literally doesn’t matter how much money you might put in her pocket via Legacy because she’s already so goddamn rich she can do whatever she wants. If Rowling wants to give a million dollars to the heinous “charity” of her choice, she can. She will. You are not directly contributing to this horror because that money may as well already exist. Every person in the world could refuse to buy this game and she’d shrug, going about her disgusting life because it literally does not affect her in any meaningful way. You’re refusing to give the murderer a knife when they’re got direct access to a knife-making factory. Horrible as it is to hear, you can’t stop them from doing something horrific with that tool. 

For me, this is the straw argument of the Harry Potter world. Not straw as in strawman, but literally straws. Remember how everyone was talking about plastic straws, swore off them, and subsequently deemed anyone who still used one to be selfish people who didn’t care about the environment? It didn’t matter if you had a certified “good” reason for using one (disability) or a “selfish” reason (carrying straws everywhere on the off chance you wanted a drink is a pain in the ass)—you’re a horrible person who wants the planet to die. Same deal here. If you can swear off straws, great! Do what tiny bit of good you can. But if you can’t or even don’t want to give them up, the reality is that your “selfishness” doesn’t make a significant difference in the world. The amount of plastic corporations are pouring into the ocean makes your actions inconsequential. It’s not like voting where every small, individual act adds up to a significant total. This is your lack up against others’ staggering abundance. It’s not adding a few drops of water until you have a full bucket, it’s trying to un-flood the boat with a teaspoon while someone else is spraying it with the hose. Have you, on the most technical level, made a difference by moving that teaspoon of water out of the boat? Yes. Is it a difference that holds any meaning in regards to the desired outcome? Not really. Now apply all that to Rowling. She is so phenomenally wealthy—with additional wealth coming in every day—that your purchase of Legacy is a teaspoon of water in her ocean of funds. It’s inconsequential.

“But Clyde, buying this game would support her and supporting her sends the message that what she believes is okay.” Exact same argument as above. JKR’s fame is so astronomical that no video-game boycott could ever make a dent in it. For every 100 people who swear off her work there are another 1,000 who continue to engage with both her writing and the writing related to her world because she is that prominent. Harry Potter is one of the largest franchises of all time, second only to things like Pokémon and Star Wars. This isn’t some indie creator who you can ignore into silence. The reality is that Rowling is here to stay and we have to take far more substantial acts to counteract that influence. 

Even more importantly, buying the game is not evidence that you support her views and the black and white belief that it does is an easy distraction from those harder “How do we improve the lives of trans people?” questions. I started compiling a list of stories with problematic authors only to realize the number of incredibly popular texts with awful histories attached to them unnecessarily increased the length of an already long post. Everything from Game of Thrones to Dr. Seuss—if you love it, chances are one of the authors involved has a history of misogyny, racism, homophobia, etc. Which I don’t say as a way of excusing these authors, nor as a way to silence the justified and necessary call outs on their work. Rather, I bring this up to acknowledge that engaging with these stories cannot be concrete evidence for how you view the minority group in question. The reasons for consuming these stories are incalculable and at the end of the day no one needs a “correct” reason for that consumption (my teacher forced me to read the racist book, I only watched the homophobic TV show so I could call out how horrible it was, etc.) If fiction were an indicator of our real life beliefs we’d all be the most horrifying creatures imaginable. I may be severely uncomfortable with the queer baiting in Supernatural, but if a friend says they bought the DVD collection my response is not, “How dare you support those creators. You’re homophobic.” In the same way, someone purchasing Legacy should not generate the response, “How dare you support her. You’re transphobic.” There’s a miles’ worth of pitfalls in connecting the statements “You purchased a game based on the world created by a transphobic author” and “You yourself are transphobic.” 

So if buying Legacy does not add additional harm to the trans community from a financial perspective, and it doesn’t make a dent in Rowling’s platform, and playing a game is not evidence of your feelings towards the group the author hates… what are we left with? “But Clyde, it’s the principal of the thing. I don’t want to support a TERF” and that is an excellent argument. Your morals. Your ethics. What you can stomach having done or not done. But the “your” is incredibly important there. People need to understand that this is their own line in the sand and that if someone else’s line is different, that doesn’t mean they’re automatically a worse person than you. For example, I have made the choice not to eat at Chick-Fil-A. Not because I believe that me not giving them $3.75 for a sandwich will make a difference in their influence on the world, but because it makes a difference to me. It helps me sleep at night. So if not purchasing Legacy helps you sleep at night? That’s a fantastic reason not to buy it. But the flipside is that if someone else does purchase it that is not a reliable reflection of their morals, no more than I think my friends are homophobic for grabbing lunch at Chick-Fil-A now and then. Sometimes you just want a sandwich. 

“But Clyde, why would you want to buy it? Rowling is such a shit-stain I don’t understand how anyone can stomach supporting her—whether that support has an impact or not. Maybe someone eats at Chick-Fil-A because it’s close to them and they’re too busy to go elsewhere, or it’s all they can afford, or they don’t know how homophobic they are. There are lots of reasons to explain something like that. But you’re not ignorant to Rowling’s problem and there’s no scenario where you have to play this game, let alone spend money on it. So why?”

The reality is that I will likely be buying Legacy, second-hand if I can, but new if it comes to that, so I’ll give some of my personal answers here, in descending order of presumed selfishness:

5. Part of my work involves studying video games/Harry Potter and as a researcher of popular culture, my career depends on keeping up with major releases: good and bad. I often engage with stories I wholeheartedly disagree with for academic purposes, like Fifty Shades of Gray.

4. I find the “Just pirate it!” solution to be flawed. I’ve spent the last four months struggling to get my laptop fixed and I currently have no income to buy another if it were to suddenly develop a larger problem. I am not going to risk my $2,000 lifeline on an illegal download, no matter how safe and easy the Internet insists it is. 

3. We’ve been told that Rowling has not been involved in Legacy in any significant manner and I do want to support Portkey. No, not just financially because I know many others have insisted that everyone good has already been paid. Game companies still need to sell games. That’s why they exist. There’s a possibility that a company with just two mobile games under its belt will be in trouble if this completely flops. Is my purchase going to make or break things? No. Same reality as whether it will put new, influential money in Rowling’s pocket to do horrific things with. But I’d like to help a company that looks as if they put a lot of heart and energy into a game only to get hit with some real shit circumstances outside of their control. Even if they’re not impacted financially or career-wise… art is meant to be consumed. I know if I wrote a Harry Potter fic and everyone boycotted it because they want nothing to do with Rowling anymore, I’d be devastated. Sometimes, you can’t separate supporting the good people from supporting the bad. Not in a media landscape where thousands of people are involved in singular projects.

2. I’m invested in reclaiming excellent works created by horrible authors. That’s fandom! We don’t know much about Legacy yet—this is pure, unsubstantiated speculation—but this new story could be a step forward from Rowling’s books, giving us some of the respect for minority groups that she failed at. That’s the sort of work I want to promote because Harry Potter as a concept is great and I think it’s worth transforming it for our own needs and desires. The reality is that as long as Rowling is alive she’ll benefit from licensed material, but if that material can start taking her world in better directions? I want to support that too.

1. I literally just want to play it. That’s it. That’s my big justification. I think it looks phenomenal and I was itching to get my hands on it the second the trailer dropped. And you know what? I’m not in a good place right now to deny myself things I enjoy. I don’t need to tell anyone that 2020 has been an absolute horror show, but for me certain things have made it a horror show with a cherry on top. Not a lot gets me excited right now because we’re living in the worst fucking timeline, so when I find something that makes me feel positive emotions for a hot second I want to hang onto it. I have no desire to set aside that spark of happiness in a traumatic world because people on the Internet think it makes me selfish. Maybe it does, but I’m willing to let myself be a bit selfish right now. 

Which circles back to this issue of equating buying a game with active harm towards the trans community. It honestly worries me because this is a very, very easy way to avoid the harder, messier activism that will actually help the queer community. When someone says things like, “You’re choosing a stupid video game over trans lives” that activism is performative. Not only—as demonstrated above—is purchasing a game not a threat to trans lives or ignoring the game a way of protecting trans lives, it also gives people an incredibly easy out while still seeming ‘woke.’ Not all people. Maybe not even a significant portion of people, but enough people to be worrisome. “I’m not purchasing that game,” some people post and then that’s it. That’s all they do, yet they feel like they’ve done their duty when in fact they’ve made no active difference in the world. Are you donating to trans charities? Are you speaking up for your trans friends when someone accosts them? Are you circulating media by trans authors? Are you educating your family about trans issues? Are you listening to trans individuals and continually trying to educate yourself? These are the things that make a difference, not shaming others for buying a game.

All of this is not meant to be an argument that people shouldn’t be absolutely revolted by Rowling’s beliefs (they should) and that this revulsion can’t take the form of rejecting this game wholeheartedly. This isn’t even meant to be an argument that you shouldn’t encourage others to boycott because though the financial impact may be negligible, the emotional impact for you is very real. I 100% support anyone who wants to chuck this game into the trash and never talk about it again—for any reason. All this is meant to argue is that people shouldn’t judge others based on whether they purchase this game (with a side argument that we can’t limit our activism to that shaming). That’s their decision and this decision, significantly, does not add any real harm to the world. Your fellow Harry Potter fan is not the enemy here. We as a community should not be turning our visceral on one another. Turn it on Rowling. She’s the TERF, not the individual who, for whatever reason, decided they wanted to play the game only tangentially related to her.  

If Twitter and Tumblr are any indication, I can imagine the sort of responses this post may generate: “That’s a whole lot of talk to try and convince us you’re not a transphobe :/ ” For those of you who are determined to simply things to that extent, there’s nothing I can say that will change your mind. Please re-read the disclaimer and consider whether yelling at me over anon will benefit the trans community. For those of you who are still here, I do legitimately want us to think critically about the kinds of activism we’re engaging in, how performative it might be, whether it harms the community in any way, and (most significantly) whether it’s actually moving us towards a safe, respective world for trans people to live in. Personally, I don’t think telling Harry Potter fans that they’re transphobic for buying Legacy will generate any good in this world, for them or for the trans community. 

At the end of the day only you can decide whether you can stomach buying this game or not. Decide that for yourself, but make that decision knowing that there’s no wrong answer here.  

[sanderssideswriting]

Youtuber Life Chapter 4

Ships: familial sleepxiety and eventual Prinxiety

Words:???

triggers: attempted suicide mention

first  last  next

Summary: Remy Sanders is a famous beauty vlogger and just moved to LA with his teenage son Virgil after their location was leaked by fans. Remy AKA CoffeeAddiction has several million subscribers. Virgil also has a secret Drama channel, where he doesn’t show his face and uses a voice modifier. He just hit a million subs and grows more everyday because of the level of production his videos have, the mystery around who he is and the fact that he ALWAYS has the latest information regarding youtube drama.

“Welcome back to another episode of “the fuck did she say now? I have a DID drama update. I’ve been waiting awhile to gather information to do a long segment. Since she first came out about having DID which has been disproven time and time again she’s tried to make it more believable in the stupidest way possible. By reviewing Chick-Fil-A’s spicy chicken sandwich, five fucking times. I watched all those videos plus others to see if she’s trying to keep up the lie. She’s really not. I swear every time I have to give her my views to tell you all what’s going on I die a little inside.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“DAD! Read the fucking sign! I’m recording!”

“Are you talking about Trisha?”

“Yes dad, now let me tell them about her.”

“She’s a total bitch! I fucking hate her!”

“WE KNOW! Damn it, now I’m going to have to edit all this out.”

“I’ve been looking into DID. And it’s actually a very interesting topic, and I encourage everyone to learn more about it. There will be links to videos and article on DID in the description. DisociaDID has not been on social media very much since all of this. I know they attempted suicide. Not because of Trisha or atleast only partly. Nin the systems host was dating someone in another system called Team Piñata who was discovered to be doing some shit I will not mention because it’ll get demonetized. I actually feel really bad for they system, it seems like they have been going through a lot recently. Now for all the OTHER shit Trisha has said and done over the past few weeks.”

Virgil edited the video and posted it, making sure to edit out the bit where his dad interrupted him and called Trisha a bitch.

Roman texted him.

Roman: You’re a meme Virgil: I’m well aware, fucking Jake Paul Roman: I thought you hated the guy, why are you fucking him? Virgil: I’m so fucking done with you

“VIRGIL!”

Virgil rolled his eyes “What?”

“I have in idea for a video get your ass down here!”

Remy was in front of the camera “K, so what if I mixed all of my eyeshadow together into one?”

“First of all Cristine did that with nail powder and polish and Safiya did that already in one of her weird make up science videos. Second, scraping the eyeshadow would kill you to watch.”

“UGH! You’re right, what else could I do?”

“A Bob Ross painting on your face. you could use only drug store products for something,”

“Bob Ross painting with drugstore shit!”

Virgil shrugged “yeah sure, you could also get lip gloss mix it together and try to make something really fucking weird, or do that with gel polish”

“I refuse to touch lip gloss, it’s fucking gross.”

“Bob ross painting not on your faces with lip gloss and other lipsticks.”

Remy nodded “thanks Virgil, you’re helping my buy it later.”

“No, people at school could see me, you can order it,”

“that’s less fun though,”

Virgil rolled his eyes “fine dad, I just need to make sure that no one can recognize me.”

He was ready pretty fast, with a light brown wig and blue contacts he also had close that where black and purple reserved for the occasion.

“Hello everyone! We are in the car today at our local Walgreens because we’re going to be buying lipstick, lip gloss and lip liner to make a Bob Ross painting!” 

“Not on your face.”

“Not on my face, fuck lip gloss.”

“I wasn’t aware that was a kink or whatever.”

Remy glared at Virgil “smartass, you can walk home.”

“Gladly, I’ll be laughing when I see you trying to film and carry everything and talk and pay the cashier. You’ll be a meme.”

“You already got memed once this week, I’ll meme you myself if I have to. Or I could turn you into an E-Girl, you did lose that bet.”

“I absolutely despise you,”

Remy laughed “no you don’t.”

“I really do, and you can’t make me e an e-girl.”

“No, but the people can, there’ll be a poll right here, vote should my intern be an e-girl for the day?”

Virgil groaned “times like these make me wish I was aborted.”

Remy laughed.

The rest of the video went ok and no one recognized Virgil.

Raccoon: I hate life Dukey: I saw, I voted yes, you’d make a wonderful e-girl hiss hiss motherfucker: so did I, suffer bitch Raccoon: you’re both traitors  hiss hiss motherfucker: at least we’re not going to be an e-girl

Virgil was pissed the whole week. “What’s up with you Dr. Gloom?” Roman asked.

“Made a bet with Remus, and lost, I’m going to commit toaster bath.”

Roman made a face “why would you make a bet with my brother? nothing good comes out of it.”

“I thought I’d win, turns out he’s totally willing to eat deodorant if it means I’ll have to dress like an e-girl for a day and make a tiktok.”

Roman laughed “I cannot wait to see you dressed as an e-girl.”

“I can, I’ll be locking myself in my room all day.”

“I’m surprised Remus didn’t say you’d have to walk around in public like that.”

“He did, but he can’t see me, so I’ll be in my room.”

Remy was in front of the camera. “Time for you to become an e-girl!”

“I’d like to say a very special fuck you to everyone who voted yes and that after this I’m going to commit toaster bath,”

“It’s one day, you’ll be fine.”

“One day in my room with the door locked and curtains closed.”

Remy laughed “oh no gurl, you’ll be going out, I suggest you make plans.”

“WHAT? That wasn’t part of the deal!”

“I thought it would go without saying you’d have to go outside.”

Virgil just glared, happy his face wasn’t in frame.

The makeover took well over an hour. when it was over he looked almost unrecognizable, thankfully.

Virgil: Hey, anyone want to hang out, my dad’s kicking me out of the house for the day says I need to be “social” whatever the means Princey: So you do need to go out as an e-girl Virgil: unfortunately, anyone free? Logan: I have to study and Patton is out at the animal shelter volunteering, Roman? Princey: I’m free, meet you at the mall? Virgil: Sure

“Dad! I’m going to hang out with Roman see you later.”

“Have fun on your date!”

“dad! It’s not a date!” He slammed the door and left.

Virgil waited in a café for Roman. He got an iced coffee as always.

Someone shoved him while he was waiting in line.

“What are you? A boy or a girl make up your mind,”

Virgil didn’t look up from his phone “gender is a spectrum and gender norms are fake and I refuse to give into toxic musicality and if you have a problem with that you can leave because I already ordered and payed for my drink and am not leaving until I get it.”

“You can’t change your chromosomes, it’.” the guy said in a feeble attempt to get back at Virgil. basic biology

“How about you stop relying on basic biology and come back when you can argue the same statement with complex biology. If you really knew anything about biology more then the basics you’d know that scientifically there are at least three genders according to chromosomes. Male, female and intersex, and that once again biology isn’t fucking basic otherwise everyone would be a biologist. I can wear a skirt if I want to.”

He grabbed his coffee and left, Roman had arrived a few minutes prior.

“Damn emo nightmare I didn’t think you’d go all out on the E-girl look.”

Virgil shrugged “go big or go home, and I was kicked out for the day so I had to go big. Dad said I needed to go outside. For some reason, no idea why. I mean last time I left the house of my own free will not for school was only six months ago.”

Roman looked at him in doubt “I’m pretty sure you’ve been outside of your own free will sooner then six months ago.”

“Outside? Yes, of my own free will? not so much. Oooh hot tpic.”

Roman laughed.

“Shut up princey, they have cool stuff, including gay stuff.”

Roman shrugged “could be gayer.”

“You’ve been in hot topic?”

Roman shrugged “a few times with Remus, he makes me go, bribing me with Disney.”

Virgil smirked “why am I not surprised you can be bribed with Disney?”

He started looking around at My Chemical Romance t-shirts and other things. He also grabbed some purple hair dye.

“Where to next princey?”

Roman shrugged “Game stop?”

“Sure,”

They hung out at the mall for awhile longer before guess what another youtuber came.

It was Safiya doing a weird makeup science vlog.

“Virgil, planning on becoming a meme again?”

Virgil rolled his eyes “no, besides Safiya’s cool, I like her make up science videos. I just hate vloggers who do shitty content and make to much money through it.”

They left shortly after going their separate ways.

“How was your date?” Remy called from the basement.

“Not a date! You made me get out the house!”

“Come down here and finish filming!”

“So, how was your day of being an e-girl?”

“Got harassed about my gender and whatnot, I fucking destroyed the idiot, that was fun.”

“And who did you hang out with?”

“I told you and again, it wasn’t a date, everyone else was busy.”

Remy looked towards the camera in doubt.

“Well I’m never doing this again, I’m going to go change.”

The video went viral when it was posted several days later.

I saw a kid at the mall dressed like an e-girl a few days ago. They got harrassed at the Starbucks.

[mnthpprt]

Chapter 37: The Thrill Of Running Away From Oneself

[TRIGGER WARNING: allusions to rape, blood and gore, violence]

I decide to walk home instead of taking a carriage. Well, to the mansion. I guess it is my home now, isn’t it? The walk takes over an hour, but I don’t mind. The cool night breeze feels pleasant against my skin as I make my way back. The outskirts of Paris are much darker than I am used to, completely lacking in artificial light beyond a couple gas lamps down the road.

I hear footsteps behind me. When I turn, I don’t see anyone, but the sound does not stop. It follows me from afar, amplified by my condition along with the chirp of nocturnal birds and the rustling of wind through the trees. I stop on the side of the road and wait, and soon enough, two men appear from beyond the point where the path curves. They must have been following me for a while to come this far out of the city.

I decide to ignore them and keep walking, slowly as to not trip on my untied laces. I should have known better than to give those men the chance to catch up to me.

“What are you doing out here all alone, mademoiselle?” one of them says, grabbing my shoulder. I brush his hand off and keep walking.

“None of your business,” I deadpan. “Leave me alone.”

He laughs, putting his hand on my shoulder again, this time more brusquely.

“Oh, but you see, we can’t do that, mademoiselle.”

“No, we can’t,” the other one chuckles. “It would be a shame for something to happen to you, all alone in the middle of the night like this.”

He joins the first man and forcefully grabs my arm. Now that they are up close, I can see that both of them are young. They look only a few years older than myself, on their late twenties at most. Still, their intentions are clear. I am overcome with the instinct to fight back and scream for help, but then I remember I am much stronger than I used to be. Meanwhile, these two are merely human, I have nothing to be afraid of. As they drag me towards the bushes on the side of the road, I let out a bored sigh.

“This? Really?” I chuckle, throwing them off. They look surprised for a second, but their grip on me remains tight. “Of all the nights you could have picked to attack me, this is by far the worst. I am not in the mood for this shit.”

“Shut up, woman,” the first one barks. He pushes me against a tree and reaches for my skirt as the other holds me down. I wait until he lifts the heavy fabric all the way up my leg to kick him in the shin, making him cry out in pain. The other hold me tight as he recovers, making sure to keep my arms still. “You’re a feisty bitch, aren’t you?” he growls before lifting his hand above my head. I give him a look of warning, but he ignores it, striking my cheek in full force. 

I laugh through the stinging pain as the man grabs my face and forcefully turns it to kiss me. I don’t budge when he does, ignoring the disgusting feeling of his wet sloppy lips on mine. The other’s hands move to my breasts, forcing them out of my corset to squeeze them painfully. However, my arms are free. A big mistake on his part.

I reach up to pull the first man’s head to the side by the hair, exposing his neck, and swiftly bite into his jugular. I wasn’t supposed to like it as much as I do. It was merely a way to fight back. But the abundant flow of fresh, warm blood that comes out, soaking both our clothes, makes me think otherwise. I feel powerful. And hungry, oh so hungry. Behind me, I hear the other man scream in horror as my victim falls to his knees. I let go of him and kick him out of the way, wiping the blood off my chin. Not that the gesture helps in the slightest; there is blood everywhere. 

“Do you have a toothpick, by any chance?” I merrily ask the other one, who seems to have frozen in place. “I think there’s some of your friend stuck between my teeth.” 

To emphasize my deceivingly lighthearted statement, I smile innocently. I can’t imagine what it would look like to him, my fangs bared and stained red from taking his fellow rapist’s life. He begins to scramble away, but I grab him by his coat before he manages to get too far.

“Please, please, don’t kill me!” he cries, falling to his knees. I let go of him and crouch before him so my eyes are level with his. “Please, mademoiselle! I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry, please!” he continues to babble. Fuelled by the rush the other man’s blood gave me, I tilt his chin up and delicately wipe his tears with my thumb. He grows quiet, seemingly calmer, although I am sure I can smell piss on his trousers.

“You should have thought about that when I warned you,” I point out. My voice comes out playful, musical, even. It doesn’t sound like my own. It belongs to another Anaïs, one that is thoroughly enjoying this massacre. I let her take over.

In an instand, I find myself straddled over this poor man’s body, ripping his throat out with my teeth. The blood continues to pour out long after he stops breathing. I drink every last drop of it I can manage, not stopping until I am satiated to the point of feeling sick.

No, I don’t think that’s the reason. As I come to my senses and my breathing slows to its normal pace, I look down at my hands. At my blood stained dress, at the man I have just murdered. I hastily stand up, horrified by my own actions. Shit, is this how Isaac felt that night? I can’t stand it. My brain is flooded with the image of two mauled corpses wearing suits, discarded on the side of the road in a puddle of their own blood. The gravelly path has been dyed red, as have my dress, my hair, and my hands. In the moonlight it looks almost black. I stumble away, but further down the path I am forced to lean against a tree to puke my guts out. Their guts. Someone’s, I can’t remember whose anymore. I retch and heave until nothing comes out, and once I catch my breath, I start running.

I sneak into the mansion through the kitchen, after having made sure that Sebastian is not there, and proceed to take my shoes off to avoid making any noise. It takes a lot longer to get to my bedroom, having to hide behind every corner of the hallway whenever I hear someone approach. I can’t let anyone see me like this. Le Comte will be furious. I rush down the hallway, only to stop in my tracks when I see Arthur standing in front of my door, preparing to knock. Shit.

Okay, I’m still fairly far, maybe I can leave before he sees me. The floor decides to creak when I turn on my heels. Apparently, I cannot.

“Anaïs?” he calls out. Shit. Fuck. He saw me. I slowly turn around and give him an awkward smile in a futile attempt to distract him from the fact that I look like Carrie. “By Jove, what happened to you? Are you alright?”

“I-it’s not my blood,” I mumble. Arthur, who was rushing to help me, stops in his tracks upon hearing the words.

“Anaïs...” he carefully enunciates with the parental tone that one might speak to an unruly child with, “What did you do?”

I sigh and push past him to walk into my bedroom and then to the bathroom. He patiently waits by my side as I remove my soiled clothing and open the faucet for my second shower of the day.

“I did something bad, Arthur,” I lament as I begin to fervently scrub my skin under the cold water, too impatient to get the blood off to wait for it to heat up. I start crying, but my tears mix with the stream washing over my head. “I fucked up. Like, really badly.”

“Where?” he asks from the other side of the curtain.

“What?”

“Where did you leave the body?”

He knows. That does not surprise me, though. It���s Arthur, of course he knows. But he has a point. If someone finds the men I killed, they might trace it back to the mansion. To us. I take a deep breath to try to calm myself so I can remember.

“They’re about a mile from Will’s house,” I manage to answer. “On that road that goes by the oat field.”

“They? Christ, Anaïs.” I don’t blame him, I would have reacted the same way. Through the shower curtain, I see his silhouette move. “Wait here. I’ll be back soon.”

“Where are you going?” I ask, holding back a sob.

“To take care of it.”

The second I hear the door close behind him, I fall to my knees on the tiled surface. I killed those men. I’m a monster. I’m no better than William. No, I’m worse. He schemes and endangers people’s lives by playing stupid games, but I just murdered two people in cold blood. And I enjoyed it.

By the time Arthur gets back, I am sitting on the edge of the bed in a bathrobe, my face still puffy from crying. He brings tea and a bottle of rouge, which I decline, at first, but the pang of hunger in my stomach forces me to take. I quickly chug it down and discard the bottle on the tray, taking a cup of tea instead. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” he softly asks. I shrug. I might as well address the elephant in the room, especially after he had to clean up my mess on the road.

“They tried to rape me,” I simply say before taking a sip of tea. It tastes richer than it used to when I was human, washing away the sweetness of the rouge. When I look up from my cup, I see pity in his eyes, and I am compelled to wave it aside. “It’s okay, it’s not the first time it happens. Women in my time might be able to vote, but we don’t have it much better.” I find changing the topic helps alleviate the tightness in my chest. However, I must keep talking. He deserves that much. “I usually carry a knife, or a brass knuckle, or something to defend myself with, but here... Well, I didn’t have any of that. I only had my fangs. And I was angry, and starving, and...” I can’t force myself to continue. I break down crying.

“Shhh, my dear, it’s alright,” Arthur comforts me, sitting beside me on the bed to rub my back. “You didn’t do anything wrong. They attacked you, you just did what you had to.”

“No, you don’t get it,” I complain. “I liked it, Arthur. I liked tearing their throats out with my fucking teeth, I liked feeling their bodies go limp in my arms as life left them. I enjoyed it too much, I-”

“I know, dove,” he interrupts me. By now, tears are flowing freely down my face, heavy with the hatred I feel for myself. “I know.” I lay my head on Arthur’s bony shoulder as he begins to stroke my hair.

“Does it ever stop?” I whisper. If this is what life as a vampire is like, I don’t think I want it. I am beginning to understand Jean more than I ever thought possible.

“It gets better. Those urges you feel now, they’ll become weaker. You’ll learn to deal with them.”

I notice how Arthur didn’t answer my question, not exactly, but I weakly nod anyway. My tears and wet hair are soaking through his sleeve, making it stick to his skin. I focus on him, on his warmth, on the mole I can see on his arm through the wet fabric, on the smell of coffee and lemongrass soap. On anything that helps me forget what I have become.

“So...” he begins, quietly, once I have stopped crying. “What were you doing at William’s house?” I exhale a deep breath when he brings it up. “Does it have to do with what happened last night?”

“Kind of,” I mutter. I let go of his arm and throw myself back on the bed. My eyes stare at the ceiling as I think of how to explain the situation. “I figured he might know something, so I went to find out... but I was wrong,” I lie. Arthur scrutinizes my face in search of a tell, but I am too tired and overwhelmed to have any sort of expression.

“Alright,” he finally decides before laying down beside me. “I’ll take your word for it. But let me know if you discover anything.”

I hold onto him, nodding into his chest, and he wraps his comforting arms around me. After laying for a while in silence, I remember something.

“How did you get rid of the bodies so fast?”

“Sebastian is no stranger to this kind of thing,” he explains. “When he first arrived, Isaac had a similar incident. He’s gotten used to dealing with unsavoury messes like that.”

“Oh.”

Soon after that, I drift off to a dreamless sleep, aided by the steady rhythm of Arthur’s breath, the raising and falling of his chest rocking my consciousness away. I truly do not deserve him.

[myhockeyworld87]

Choices - Tyler Seguin/Jamie Benn - Part 22

Word Count: 2,545

POV: Switches, starts as reader changes to Tyler

Warnings: Language, like a lot of language...haha

Notes: Sorry this is a little late, lots of personal stuff going on this past week. Hope you enjoy this Part. Don’t forget to vote!!! As always feedback is welcome! We’ll keep voting open on this one until noon on Saturday EST, since I was late getting it out.

Choices Masterlist

READER POV

You’d been mulling over what you wanted to tell Jamie in your head since the moment you found out you were pregnant with Tyler’s baby. It wasn’t like you thought you could keep this from him forever. Eventually, you were going to start to show and then you’d be answering more questions, but you really felt there was only one option right now. “I don’t know Ty, I think we just need to keep this to ourselves for a while.”

“I’ll do whatever you want (Y/N), you know that; though eventually, we’ve got to tell him something.”

“I know. I really do, and we will; as soon as we get past this first trimester.” You were so afraid you were going to jinx things if you told anyone about the baby. The second you found out that you were pregnant again, you read anything and everything on how to prevent a miscarriage. Which meant you were taking your folic acid, not drinking a drop of caffeine, and eating even healthier than normal. If it was in your power to prevent the heartache you experienced the last time, you would do it.

Tyler must have noticed where your thoughts had drifted, for his arms tightened around you just a little more. “You’ll make it there, babe, and if that means that we don’t say anything to Jamie right now; I can do that.”

“Thanks, Ty.” It was a load off your mind that he understood where you were coming. “So you’re ok with keeping this from Jamie, at least until we can figure out if it will affect his amnesia?”

“Yeah babe, I’m fine with that.” His hands kept running across your belly, looking for signs of the baby; which obviously weren’t there yet. “But what exactly does Jamie think? I mean you moved out, does he think you guys are still together?”

“Well…it’s not like I broke up with him. I just told him that I need to start living my life again. You know going back to work and singing; which I am going back to work.”

“Why? You know I’ll take care of everything. You’re not going to work once the baby’s born; are you?”

“No I suppose I’m not going to, but I can’t just ask you…”

“Yes you can, and you’re not asking me. I’m offering.” He turned you to face him, so you could see the seriousness on his face. “(Y/N), I want the three of us to be a family. Hell, if I thought for a second you’d say yes; I’d get down on one knee and ask you to marry me right now.” Tyler threw you for a loop with that statement. Of course, he’d talked about marriage and family before, but you had no idea he wanted all of that right now. “Don’t worry I’m not asking right now, but it will be soon, trust me.” Of this, you had no doubt. You just hoped you’d be ready with an answer when he did. “But there’s no point in going back to work, only to quit. Besides, I want all your free time.”

“Oh you do, do you?” He was wiggling his eyebrows at you suggestively.

“Why yes, I do. In fact, I was thinking I should probably take you to bed right now.” His fingers toyed with the hem of your shirt. Hands skating up your sides, only to stop short once he reached your bra. “Is this ok? Like it’s not going to hurt the baby or anything?”

The concern on his face was quite evident, you knew he didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize the baby any more than you did; even if it meant giving up sex. “It’s ok Ty, I talked to the doctor and there’s no link between miscarriages and sex.”

He picked you up and started back the hallway then. “Well in that case.” Tyler never left your side, until he had practice the following morning. He avoided Jamie at all costs. If Jamie was in the locker room, then Tyler went into the therapy room to get taped up. Thankfully Jamie wasn’t skating with the team just yet, so it was easy to evade him the rest of the time.

You, on the other hand, made sure to check on Jamie every day. There were nights when he would beg you to stay, and as long as Tyler was playing; you’d stay at least until the game was over. Jamie questioned your relationship all the time and it was getting harder and harder to convince him that things were still the same between the two of you, even though you weren’t having sex. But you were pretty confident that Jamie had no clue that you were pregnant, and you hoped it stayed that way.

TYLER’S POV

It’d been two weeks, since (Y/N) told you about the baby. Two long fucking weeks, where you couldn’t say anything to anyone. You knew she was still going over to Jamie’s pretending to be his girlfriend, and it was driving you insane. Every day that you saw him at the rink, you could see the smirk in his eye. As if he had the upper hand when it came to (Y/N). Which was absolutely ridiculous, because Jamie didn’t remember that you had actually dated (Y/N) before him.

It was the first day that Jamie was practicing with the team, though he still wasn’t cleared for full contact. He was skating pretty well for someone that had been off the ice for a while, and you decided to be a little encouraging to your friend. Skating over to the bench, you grabbed a drink from the water bottle before saying, “Looking pretty good out there Chubbs.” He nodded but didn’t say anything more, which seemed a little off. “All those hours at therapy paid off.”

“Yeah that’s what (Y/N) keeps saying.” You had to bite your tongue, when he mentioned (Y/N)’s name. “She’s the real reason why I’m doing so well. If it wouldn’t be for how well she takes care of me; I may have never gotten back on the ice.”

You hoped he didn’t see the eye roll that you just gave them, but then did you really care. “Yeah, she’s amazing,” Bowness called it a day and slowly everyone started filing into the locker room.

“She really is. I’m so lucky that she’s my girlfriend.” Jamie started down the hallway, still talking; so you decided to follow instead of spending some extra time on the ice. “Can I tell you something?”

“Yeah man, anything you know that.” Though the answer wasn’t completely true, there were certain things you didn’t want to know about (Y/N)’s relationship with Jamie, that’s for sure.

“I’m going to ask her to marry me.” Did he just say what you thought he said? Your heart was racing with anger. Jamie couldn’t propose to (Y/N), not when she was supposed to be your wife, besides she was carrying your child, not his.

Taking a deep breath in you tried to calm the riot of anger seething at the surface. “Are you sure you want to do that? I thought I heard Klinger say she moved out of your place or something.” You’d kept your distance from Jamie over the last couple weeks since (Y/N) had left him. It wasn’t entirely on purpose, the two of you were just spending more time together, now that she wasn’t under his roof. So there was no need to be at Jamie’s.

“I have a feeling she was just scared I wasn’t ready to commit. I mean we haven’t been dating all that long, but you know this accident has just made me realize how much I need her in my life.” By now you’d reached the outside of the locker room, and the two of you were just standing there while everyone else was inside. Jamie dropped his voice down low so no one would hear, not that anyone was around. “So like don’t say anything, but I think she’s pregnant.” Of course, she was pregnant; with your baby, you wanted to scream, yet you remained silent. When you didn’t say anything, Jamie continued. “I think that’s why she moved out, she was just scared I wouldn’t want the baby, but of course I couldn’t be happier. Once she knows this, I’m sure she’ll be moving back in as well as saying yes when I propose.”

You stood there, anger bubbling to the surface at every word that Jamie spoke. There was no way the mother of your child was going to be marrying someone else. You could almost feel your teeth grinding down to nothing, as you tried to keep your mouth shut.

“I can’t wait to see her pregnant with my baby, and then when she has it…man, it will just be amazing to hold my baby.”

That was it, you were so angry that you felt like a volcano just waiting to erupt; then you did. “It’s not your baby. It’s mine.” Jamie, flinched as if you’d struck him in the face. Then out of know where he punched you. “What the fuck….”And then he hit you again; you had no choice but to defend yourself. You grabbed Jamie by the neck of his practice jersey and pulled your arm back ready to hit him square in the face. When suddenly you stopped.

“What the fuck are you waiting for?” Jamie taunted. “Hit me. You’ve already ruined my fucking life.” You dropped your arm down to your side. There was no point in fighting with Jamie, you’d already won.

“I’m not fighting you, Jamie.”

He shoved you back. “Why the fuck not?” Another push. “I should’ve never taken you to meet her that night.” He shoved you one last time, and then you pressed up against the wall. His forearm pressed against your neck cutting off your oxygen supply. “You could have anyone you want, why does it have to be (Y/N)? Why did have to go behind my back and fuck the woman I love?”

“I love her too.” You choked out, as you noticed a few of your teammates milling about watching the exchange between yourself and their captain.

“Fuck that shit. You don’t deserve her after everything you did.” Wait what did Jamie just say. Did he have his memory back? He would have to if he knew what happened between you and (Y/N). Bringing your hands up, you shoved Jamie off of you, catching him off guard with your sudden attack.

“You remember,” You hissed out low for only him to hear. The shock in Jamie’s eyes told you that you had guessed right, but there was something else there, something you couldn’t quite put your finger on. Then it clicked. “You’ve been lying the whole time.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Jamie tried to cover.

“You bastard. You’ve been lying to her the whole time.” He tried to feign innocence but you weren’t having it. Your fist connected with his jaw before you knew what you were doing and you saw Jamie stumble back before falling to the ground. You were so filled with rage, you had no control over your body, as you landed on top of him hitting him with another blow. It wasn’t until Rads pulled you off and the medical staff came running to attend Jamie, that you could even start to see straight.

“Jesus, what the fuck are you two fighting about?” Bowness asked, grabbing you and hauling you off to the corner. “Do you know how bad this looks for the damn organization? The fucking captain and alternate battling it out. Outside the locker room no less? Get your ass in there and have someone look at your fucking eye.” It was only then that you noticed there was blood streaming down your face. You looked at Jamie’s form laying on the ground and just glared it.

It was at that moment that (Y/N) walked in, taking in the whole scene. “What the hell is going on?”

“It’s not what it looks like?” You tried to explain but you could tell how pissed she was. “What are you doing here?”

“Bish called me, he heard you and Jamie fighting.” She looked over at Jamie who was being dragged off the floor, barely able to stand on his own.

“Are you ok?” She rushed over to his side but looked at you as she said. “Did you do this?”

“It’s not what you think, let me explain.”

Jamie chose that moment to finally speak. “Who are you?” He looked down at (Y/N) as he asked the question. “Where am I?” You saw red, and it wasn’t from the blood running down your face.

“Oh my god!” (Y/N) gasped. “Jame, it’s me. It’s (Y/N).”

He tested her name on his lips as if he hadn’t heard her name before. “Do I know you?”

“We need to get him to the hospital.”

“There’s no point (Y/N). He’s been faking it the whole time.” It felt good to say it out loud. That was until you looked at (Y/N), and saw only disappointment in her eyes. Which would be ok, if it wasn’t directed at you. “It’s true (Y/N). He admitted it.” He hadn't really, but you knew it was the truth.

Jamie didn’t say a word, just held a hand to his head, as if he was in extreme pain. “I don’t want to hear it right now Tyler.” She turned her full attention toward Jamie. “I think you need to go to the hospital.” She ran a hand through his hair from where you hit him the second time. “Would you let me take you there? I know you don’t remember me, but I’m your girlfriend Jamie.” He looked at her with a blank stare, and your blood boiled. “You know what, why don’t you just let one of the guys take you?”

“No, no. It’s ok. I believe you.” He told her, now leaning heavily on her. The fact that he was taking advantage of (Y/N) while she was pregnant with your child, made you want to lay him flat out on the ground again. “I’ll go with you.”

“(Y/N) please just listen to me.” You grabbed her hand to stop her, while Jamie held on to her other one. "Jesus, would you just tell her the truth."

 "I don't know what you're talking about." Jamie pulled her closer to him, and you tugged at her again.

 "I'm done with this Jamie. Tell (Y/N) the truth now." It was in that moment that Jamie stepped forward at the same time you did, the act pushing (Y/N) and causing her to fall on the ground.

 "Argh!" She yelled grabbing her stomach and your heart dropped.

Now it’s your turn for some choices:

   A)  Tyler rushes to be at (Y/N)'s side to see how she is and take care of her first.

   B)   Jamie rushes to be at (Y/N)'s side to see how she is and take care of her first.    C)   (Y/N)'s had enough of the two of them fighting and ask someone else to take her to the hospital to check on the baby.    D)   (Y/N) loses the baby.

[dustedmagazine]

Dusted Mid-Year Exchange, Part 1: Activity to Jeff Parker

Irreversible Entanglements

Six years ago, newly moved to Tumblr, we looked for a fresh take on the mid-year best-of list idea, partly to be contrary, partly because some of us had no interest in writing about the same records over and over again. After some discussion — well, a lot of discussion — we decided to turn our mid-year feature into a sort of secret Santa exchange. We’d each nominate two records and each review two records, but, here’s the kicker, they wouldn’t be the same records. We’d trade with our fellow writers, and if it meant that we had to listen to music way out of our comfort zone, so be it.

Since then we’ve had smooth exchanges and rough ones – last year’s was especially testy, but what can you do with such an opinionated bunch—but it’s become a favorite annual event. This year was no different, except that no one was truly revolted by their assignments.

Unlike some years, there was no clear dominant pick, though Six Organs, James Elkington, Makaya McCraven/Gil Scott-Heron, Cable Ties and Irreversible Entanglements all got multiple votes.

We’ll split our individual album write-ups into two posts. Today’s covers records by artists from Activity to Jeff Parker. We’ll get to the rest of the alphabet tomorrow. On the third and final day, we’ll post writers’ lists. Participants included Tobias Carroll, Tim Clarke, Justin Cober-Lake, Andrew Forell, Ray Garraty, Jennifer Kelly, Arthur Krumins, Patrick Masterson, Ian Mathers, Bill Meyer, Jonathan Shaw and Derek Taylor.

Activity — Unmask Whoever

Who picked it? Tim Clarke

Did we review it? Yes, Tim said, “This music strains at the leash, held tightly in check by the motorik rhythms, while gaseous synths seek to permeate all corners of the soundscape.”

Ray Garraty’s take:

You wouldn’t know that it is a debut album, but then it’s a super band, so that doesn’t count. Vocalist Travis Johnson’s delivery reminds you a symbolist poet reciting some lines from his notebook, neither singing nor reading. Despite referring to violence in song titles and lyrics, this music is as far from violent as it can be. It’s too self-conscious to even carry symbolic violence but when on ‘Earth Angel’ the vocalist with the hook “I wanna fuck around” almost breaks into a scream, it turns into a whisper instead. It’s these small details that unmask the outfit’s postmodern disguise and show that Activity is the real deal, not a half-baked pastiche.

Decoy with Joe McPhee — AC/DC (OtoRoku)

Who picked it? Derek Taylor.

Did we review it? Yes, Derek said, “Decoy is a working group and a heady amalgam that recalls a dream fusion of Atlantis-era Sun Ra, Keith Jarrett’s marathon electric stand with Miles at the Cellar Door, and Larry Young circa his Blue Note moonshot Contrasts, while still relentlessly retaining its own flight plan.”

Jennifer Kelly’s take:

Wow. “A/C” is impressive enough with its wild unfurlings of trumpet and sax, its woozy meditations in bowed and plucked stand-up bass, its incendiary organ bursts, all rooted in jazz, but touching on the hot, experimental outposts of rock and soul and R&B, too. But the second side, “D/C,” is even more exciting, as the tumult of sounds gets more fevered and McPhee breaks out in song. Who can blame him? You want to join in. It’s a mind-bending swirl that boils up and over the edges, heady, excessive and exhilarating. So glad I got to hear this, Derek, and it reinforces the benefits of trading favorites, i.e. finding music that is way out of your normal circuit but, even so, exactly what you need.  

 Sandy Ewen — You Win (Gilgongo)

You Win by Sandy Ewen

Who picked it? Bill Meyer

Did we review it? No.

Andrew Forell’s take:

Experimental guitarist Sandy Ewen appears as much concerned with space as sound. On You Win, she treats her instrument as pure object to explore the minutiae of its potential. Patterns emerge like communications from distant galaxies or the gradual shift and warp of old buildings. The 5 tracks scrape and rumble as occasionally identifiable guitar sounds — feedback hum, plucked strings — flicker from the mix. Best heard through headphones, You Win demands concentration lest one misses the nuanced denaturing and subversion of Ewen’s work, which is as fascinating as it is challenging.  

Fake Laugh — Dining Alone (State 51 Conspiracy)

Fake Laugh · Ever Imagine

Who picked it? Tim Clarke

Did we review it? Yes Tim said, “These sharp, funny, warm-hearted songs are immediately endearing, yet shot through with bracingly sour ingredients.” 

Andrew Forell’s take:

Dining Alone, Kamran Khan’s latest album as Fake Laugh, is a collection of pastel Day-Glo bedroom pop songs that breeze by leaving barely a hair ruffled in their wake. Khan has an ear for a melody, a wistfully pleasant voice and a talent for arrangement that make this album an enjoyable listen but there is a nagging feeling that he is holding something back. Tracks like the finely wrought “A Memory” and Supertramp update “The Empty Party” stand out but Dining Alone feels like an intermediate step on which Khan tries out ideas and seeks a way forward although there is enough here to be optimistic about what might come next.

 Field Works — Ultrasonic (Temporary Residence)

Ultrasonic by Field Works

Who picked it? Justin Cober-Lake

Did we review it? Yes, in a May Dust, Tim Clarke wrote that “Stuart Hyatt’s latest compilation in the Field Works series is an absolute beauty — and timely given it’s being released during a pandemic whose origins may be linked to bats.” 

Derek Taylor’s take:

Most of the listening that I do in the service of reviewing music revolves around discerning who’s, what’s and how’s. Those sorts of taxonomic identifications feel superfluous, not to mention futile when navigating the music on Ultrasonic. Sources I mistook as aquatic (“Dusk Tempi,” “Echo Affinity,” “Music for a Room with Vaulted Ceiling,” and “Indiana Blindfold”) are subterranean, specifically the echolocation emissions of bats. Harp and piano sounds dapple “Silver Secrets” and “Sodalis” as instrumental signposts, but they’re outliers in a program that feels largely electronic and beyond the scope of scrupulous inventory.  

The closest, if admittedly antiquated, genre descriptors I have for these ecology-minded creations are ambient and new age. A seraphic, celestial quality suffuses most of them with sweeping washes of tonal color layering over more definable rhythms and progressions. The combination curiously reminds me of a distant temporal relic that served as childhood gateway to this sort of territory, my father’s vinyl edition of Ray Lynch’s Deep Breakfast. It’s another feeble attempt at a compass point and evidence of how difficult it can be to escape the ingrained habits that influence personal musical consumption.

The Giving Shapes — Earth Leaps Up (Elsewhere)

Who recommended it? Arthur Krumins

Did we review it? Yes. Arthur said, “You feel like you’re being carried into a dream, familiar yet strange.”

Ian Mathers’ take:

There’s just something nice about a record where, a few minutes after putting it on, your partner suddenly remarks “you know, this is very calming”. It’s not that the work of Robyn Jacob (voice, piano) and Elisa Thorn (voice, harp) is soporific or somehow uninvolving, more that there’s a somehow centered kind of deliberateness with which they approach these songs that feels oddly reassuring. The way their voices often echo lines (or slightly altered lines) back at one another can feel vaguely Stereolab-ish, but rather than the coolly pulsing, layered grooves (and transient noise bursts) of that outfit, the simplicity of the arrangements here feels direct and clean and often comforting. But it’s the type of comfort that lets you see the difficulty you’re trying to tackle head-on, not the comfort that swaddles you away from having to deal with the world. It’s more bracing than lulling, in other words, and frequently beautiful at that.

  Irreversible Entanglements — Who Sent You? (Don Giovanni/International Anthem)

Who recommended it? Andrew Forell.

Did we review it? Yes. Andrew Forell wrote, “Who Sent You? is an extraordinary statement lyrically and musically.”

Bill Meyer’s take:

I’m inclined to agree with Andrew Forell. When I first encountered the vocal-focused free jazz of Irreversible Entanglements in 2018, I was more taken by the band’s focused exchanges of energy onstage than I was by their self-titled debut LP as a listening experience. But its successor steps up their already powerful game by easing up just a bit. They’ve let more air and variety into the surging rhythms and interweaving horn lines, opening up space for vocalist Camae Ayewa’s words to land with even more impact and staying power. Ayewa, who also records as Moor Mother, is more of a poetic declaimer than a singer or rapper, and her expressions of cultural memory and existential survival in the face of remorseless racism and economic terrorism boom over the music’s ebb and flow with inspiring authority. While her words are always applicable, this record sounds like it was made to be heard in a time of plague and revolt; when people ask in years to come what record sounds like the middle of 2020 felt, a lot of people will hold up Who Sent You?

  The Jacka — Murder Weapon (The Artist / EMPIRE)

Who recommended it? Ray Garraty

Did we review it? Yes. Ray Garraty said, “this album confirms Jacka’s status among the greatest fallen soldiers of hip hop.”

Tim Clarke’s take:

Despite being a posthumous release whose title refers to the artist’s tragic death by shooting back in 2015, Murder Weapon by Bay Area rapper The Jacka is a surprisingly cohesive listening experience, largely thanks to the lush palette of old-school samples employed on many of these tracks. From the aching strings on early highlight “Walk Away” via the swinging funk of “Can’t Go Home” to the children’s choir on “We Outside,” there’s a warmth and humanity to this sad story that honors the artist’s memory.

 Ka — Descendants of Cain (Iron Works)

Who picked it? Ray Garraty

Did we review it? Yes, Ray said, “Descendants of Cain, Ka’s seventh album combines the epic bleakness of the Old Testament with Brownsville’s hopelessness.”

Tobias Carroll’s take:

Shamefully, this is my first exposure to the music of MC and producer Ka; it’s his sixth album overall, and I’ve got some catching up to do. For an album with a title and cover art that could just as easily fit on a doom metal album, what surprised me was how focused this all was. The album flows beautifully, with music that fits somewhere between sinuous soul and the art-damaged Americana heard on, say, Matmos’s The West — with a handful of cinematic samples topping it off. It’s a perfect match for Ka’s voice, which manages to be textured and beatifically smooth all at once. Some albums paint a picture for the listener; this one is wholly immersive.

Matt LaJoie — Everlasting Spring

Everlasting Spring by Matt LaJoie

Who picked it? Tobias Carroll

Did we review it? No

Ray Garraty’s take:

Matt LaJoie’s technical verbosity is on the spot here, as all the man-made sounds can be mistaken for something Nature produced out of its vast resources. Everlasting Spring is like a small water spring which flows and flows but can’t eventually flow into a river, being forever condemned to be just this spring. Everlasting Spring lasts almost for an hour (if we count a bonus track), and it’s six minutes for every string LaJoie’s guitar has. Not many men can admire nature for that long. The whole album has that New Age-ish feel, when you can start listening to it from any track, and nothing will change in your views on it.

Maybe it does give a good mimesis of what spring sounds like but we still need a change of weather from time to time.

 Mamaleek — Come & See (The Flenser)

Come and See by Mamaleek

Who recommended it? Jonathan Shaw

Did we review it? Yes. Jonathan said, “Their dominant textures are still harsh and confrontational, vocals are still howled and shouted. But there are riffs. There are melodic structures.”

Justin Cober-Lake's take:

As black metal, Mamaleek would hold their own, but there's a persistent work to stretch boundaries here. Come & See keeps a core mix of sludge and anger, but the group's inventiveness keeps the album consistently surprising. The group finds brighter tones than anticipated, even while moving away from metal more toward alt-rock at times, and post-rock at others, and generally finding expressions that require a hyphen. An occasional breakdown touches on jazz or finds its roots in rock 'n' roll. “Cabrini-Green” functions like a suite — track the movements and break the track into its separate pieces — even as it avoids a sort of linear sequence. “Elsewhere” (and, indeed, much of the album) turns out a demented history of hardcore. The record probably won't find much of an audience outside of the metal scene, but listening past the obvious trappings reveals a wealth of influences and a complexity that makes for intriguing listening across genre strictures.

 Jeff Parker — Suite for Max Brown (International Anthem)

Suite for Max Brown by Jeff Parker

Who picked it? Arthur Krumins

Did we review it? Yes. Arthur said, “Following the looped, electronic and eclectic New Breed, Jeff Parker’s latest album expands into an even greater range of off-kilter sonic experiments.”

Tobias Carroll’s take:

Before this year, my knowledge of Jeff Parker’s music came largely from his work with Tortoise. And that’s far from a bad thing; Tortoise is a fine band. But hearing Parker push further into the realm of jazz with Suite for Max Brown is its own form of delight, where precisely-played melodies meet instrumental virtuosity. It’s an eminently listenable album, and one where I’m still noticing new moments of subtle beauty in the mix.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

#1yrago Oh for fuck's sake, not this fucking bullshit again (cryptography edition)

America, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and Australia are in a surveillance alliance called The Five Eyes, through which they share much of their illegally harvested surveillance data.

In a recently released Statement of Principles on Access to Evidence and Encryption, the Five Eyes powers have demanded, again, that strong cryptography be abolished and replaced with defective cryptography so that they can spy on bad guys.

They defend this by saying "Privacy is not absolute."

But of course, working crypto isn't just how we stay private from governments (though god knows all five of the Five Eyes have, in very recent times, proven themselves to be catastrophically unsuited to collect, analyze and act on all of our private and most intimate conversations). It's how we make sure that no one can break into the data from our voting machines, or push lethal fake firmware updates to our pacemakers, or steal all the money from all of the banks, or steal all of the kompromat on all 22,000,000 US military and government employees and contractors who've sought security clearance.

Also, this is bullshit.

Because it won't work.

Here's the text of my go-to post about why this is so fucking stupid. I just can't be bothered anymore. Jesus fucking christ. Seriously? Are we still fucking talking about this? Seriously? Come on, SERIOUSLY?

It’s impossible to overstate how bonkers the idea of sabotaging cryptography is to people who understand information security. If you want to secure your sensitive data either at rest – on your hard drive, in the cloud, on that phone you left on the train last week and never saw again – or on the wire, when you’re sending it to your doctor or your bank or to your work colleagues, you have to use good cryptography. Use deliberately compromised cryptography, that has a back door that only the “good guys” are supposed to have the keys to, and you have effectively no security. You might as well skywrite it as encrypt it with pre-broken, sabotaged encryption.

There are two reasons why this is so. First, there is the question of whether encryption can be made secure while still maintaining a “master key” for the authorities’ use. As lawyer/computer scientist Jonathan Mayer explained, adding the complexity of master keys to our technology will “introduce unquantifiable security risks”. It’s hard enough getting the security systems that protect our homes, finances, health and privacy to be airtight – making them airtight except when the authorities don’t want them to be is impossible.

What these leaders thinks they're saying is, "We will command all the software creators we can reach to introduce back-doors into their tools for us." There are enormous problems with this: there's no back door that only lets good guys go through it. If your Whatsapp or Google Hangouts has a deliberately introduced flaw in it, then foreign spies, criminals, crooked police (like those who fed sensitive information to the tabloids who were implicated in the hacking scandal -- and like the high-level police who secretly worked for organised crime for years), and criminals will eventually discover this vulnerability. They -- and not just the security services -- will be able to use it to intercept all of our communications. That includes things like the pictures of your kids in your bath that you send to your parents to the trade secrets you send to your co-workers.

But this is just for starters. These officials don't understand technology very well, so they doesn't actually know what they're asking for.

For this proposal to work, they will need to stop Britons, Canadians, Americans, Kiwis and Australians from installing software that comes from software creators who are out of their jurisdiction. The very best in secure communications are already free/open source projects, maintained by thousands of independent programmers around the world. They are widely available, and thanks to things like cryptographic signing, it is possible to download these packages from any server in the world (not just big ones like Github) and verify, with a very high degree of confidence, that the software you've downloaded hasn't been tampered with.

Australia is not alone here. The regime they proposes is already in place in countries like Syria, Russia, and Iran (for the record, none of these countries have had much luck with it). There are two means by which authoritarian governments have attempted to restrict the use of secure technology: by network filtering and by technology mandates.

Australian governments have already shown that they believes they can order the nation's ISPs to block access to certain websites (again, for the record, this hasn't worked very well). The next step is to order Chinese-style filtering using deep packet inspection, to try and distinguish traffic and block forbidden programs. This is a formidable technical challenge. Intrinsic to core Internet protocols like IPv4/6, TCP and UDP is the potential to "tunnel" one protocol inside another. This makes the project of figuring out whether a given packet is on the white-list or the black-list transcendentally hard, especially if you want to minimise the number of "good" sessions you accidentally blackhole.

More ambitious is a mandate over which code operating systems in the 5 Eyes nations are allowed to execute. This is very hard. We do have, in Apple's Ios platform and various games consoles, a regime where a single company uses countermeasures to ensure that only software it has blessed can run on the devices it sells to us. These companies could, indeed, be compelled (by an act of Parliament) to block secure software. Even there, you'd have to contend with the fact that other states are unlikely to follow suit, and that means that anyone who bought her Iphone in Paris or Mexico could come to the 5 Eyes countries with all their secure software intact and send messages "we cannot read."

But there is the problem of more open platforms, like GNU/Linux variants, BSD and other unixes, Mac OS X, and all the non-mobile versions of Windows. All of these operating systems are already designed to allow users to execute any code they want to run. The commercial operators -- Apple and Microsoft -- might conceivably be compelled by Parliament to change their operating systems to block secure software in the future, but that doesn't do anything to stop people from using all the PCs now in existence to run code that the PM wants to ban.

More difficult is the world of free/open operating systems like GNU/Linux and BSD. These operating systems are the gold standard for servers, and widely used on desktop computers (especially by the engineers and administrators who run the nation's IT). There is no legal or technical mechanism by which code that is designed to be modified by its users can co-exist with a rule that says that code must treat its users as adversaries and seek to prevent them from running prohibited code.

This, then, is what the Five Eyes are proposing:

* All 5 Eyes citizens' communications must be easy for criminals, voyeurs and foreign spies to intercept

* Any firms within reach of a 5 Eyes government must be banned from producing secure software

* All major code repositories, such as Github and Sourceforge, must be blocked in the 5 Eyes

* Search engines must not answer queries about web-pages that carry secure software

* Virtually all academic security work in the 5 Eyes must cease -- security research must only take place in proprietary research environments where there is no onus to publish one's findings, such as industry R&D and the security services

* All packets in and out of 5 Eyes countries, and within those countries, must be subject to Chinese-style deep-packet inspection and any packets that appear to originate from secure software must be dropped

* Existing walled gardens (like Ios and games consoles) must be ordered to ban their users from installing secure software

* Anyone visiting a 5 Eyes country from abroad must have their smartphones held at the border until they leave

* Proprietary operating system vendors (Microsoft and Apple) must be ordered to redesign their operating systems as walled gardens that only allow users to run software from an app store, which will not sell or give secure software to Britons

* Free/open source operating systems -- that power the energy, banking, ecommerce, and infrastructure sectors -- must be banned outright

The Five Eyes officials will say that they doesn't want to do any of this. They'll say that they can implement weaker versions of it -- say, only blocking some "notorious" sites that carry secure software. But anything less than the programme above will have no material effect on the ability of criminals to carry on perfectly secret conversations that "we cannot read". If any commodity PC or jailbroken phone can run any of the world's most popular communications applications, then "bad guys" will just use them. Jailbreaking an OS isn't hard. Downloading an app isn't hard. Stopping people from running code they want to run is -- and what's more, it puts the every 5 Eyes nation -- individuals and industry -- in terrible jeopardy.

That’s a technical argument, and it’s a good one, but you don’t have to be a cryptographer to understand the second problem with back doors: the security services are really bad at overseeing their own behaviour.

Once these same people have a back door that gives them access to everything that encryption protects, from the digital locks on your home or office to the information needed to clean out your bank account or read all your email, there will be lots more people who’ll want to subvert the vast cohort that is authorised to use the back door, and the incentives for betraying our trust will be much more lavish than anything a tabloid reporter could afford.

If you want a preview of what a back door looks like, just look at the US Transportation Security Administration’s “master keys” for the locks on our luggage. Since 2003, the TSA has required all locked baggage travelling within, or transiting through, the USA to be equipped with Travelsentry locks, which have been designed to allow anyone with a widely held master key to open them.

What happened after Travelsentry went into effect? Stuff started going missing from bags. Lots and lots of stuff. A CNN investigation into thefts from bags checked in US airports found thousands of incidents of theft committed by TSA workers and baggage handlers. And though “aggressive investigation work” has cut back on theft at some airports, insider thieves are still operating with impunity throughout the country, even managing to smuggle stolen goods off the airfield in airports where all employees are searched on their way in and out of their work areas.

The US system is rigged to create a halo of buck-passing unaccountability. When my family picked up our bags from our Easter holiday in the US, we discovered that the TSA had smashed the locks off my nearly new, unlocked, Travelsentry-approved bag, taping it shut after confirming it had nothing dangerous in it, and leaving it “completely destroyed” in the words of the official BA damage report. British Airways has sensibly declared the damage to be not their problem, as they had nothing to do with destroying the bag. The TSA directed me to a form that generated an illiterate reply from a government subcontractor, sent from a do-not-reply email address, advising that “TSA is not liable for any damage to locks or bags that are required to be opened by force for security purposes” (the same note had an appendix warning me that I should treat this communication as confidential). I’ve yet to have any other communications from the TSA.

Making it possible for the state to open your locks in secret means that anyone who works for the state, or anyone who can bribe or coerce anyone who works for the state, can have the run of your life. Cryptographic locks don’t just protect our mundane communications: cryptography is the reason why thieves can’t impersonate your fob to your car’s keyless ignition system; it’s the reason you can bank online; and it’s the basis for all trust and security in the 21st century.

In her Dimbleby lecture, Martha Lane Fox recalled Aaron Swartz’s words: “It’s not OK not to understand the internet anymore.” That goes double for cryptography: any politician caught spouting off about back doors is unfit for office anywhere but Hogwarts, which is also the only educational institution whose computer science department believes in “golden keys” that only let the right sort of people break your encryption.

https://boingboing.net/2018/09/04/illegal-math.html

[bounnostra]

evening primrose O bams O chapter four trial O re: moss, scourge, gambit

What could she say? What could Bams, so on the side of all the conflicts and the clashing opinions while trying to play every field at once in the mediation game, say towards any of the barbed words being thrown around? Ivey's outburst clarifying what she meant only gained a shamed look downwards from Bams, teeth gritting on explanations for her actions that either sounded hollow or not appropriate to speak of in the current heated moment; Orwell's descent into finally taking responsibility for his own annoyance setting heavy rocks in her heart that were impossible to do anything around; Moss'... everything... 

What could she offer that might help any of this?

One thing, apparently, gaze coming up to Moss with the air of someone about to plead with an unruly child.

"...Don't you dare."

A moment to let that settle. 

"I feel for you. Really, I do. Wasn't kidding about what I've confessed about the dubious parent brigade back when. But I said it before, remember..? Back when I was trying to pull some first aid knowledge out my head for once. It's... it's not you I blame for what happened here. It's the situation you were forced into. Shrooms said it themselves, didn't they..? You two were doing just fine until your life seemed threatened- it's being dropped in here and pushed to kill each other by whoever or whatever that..."

Her words cut off, and Bams had to scramble again for another thread of what she wanted to say. It was a strange situation when she started to speak again: her words stopped and faltered, eventually failing completely- but each word she did manage to place in what sounded a reasonable order carried a lot of conviction behind it.

"Might be hypocritical coming from me, but. Don't just. Throw yourself away so easily. Quin's right, as harsh as her angle is. Is us getting to know you instead of the, uh. Cordyceps a really bad idea..?"

She left it there after a few moments more of watching Moss, Bams beginning to massage her temples like trying to physically loosen up the rusted gears of her memory. Slowly as realisation dawned her look swung back out to the centre of the trial room, flickering up to Gambit briefly for prompt.

"...Even so. If you asked me to pick between Moss and Pip for the one least affected or most resistant without being downright immune, I.... still have to go with Pip. He said it himself, now I remember. Back in the early days where Ivey dragged me in from giving myself hypothermia and Pip came back to us through the power of friendship and Ivey hugs. 'I'm pretty good at keeping control about myself. Lots of willpower and mental strength. Kind of had to given my condition.'"

For a Pip quote, that's far too deadpan.

"Presumably the pit in front of the shed was covered up similarly to the one we had to trigger ourselves to see what it was in the Graveyard. Given the indent in the middle, I'm still assuming that Ivan fell or got knocked off the horse while the killer was trying to shoot at him, tried to crawl towards the shed - whether he thought it would be safer in there or was still trying to get at the killer, whatever - and fell into the trap right in front of it. Shot at by... wild burning arrows which should have melted the snow more or..."

I don't have sprite access so let's pretend shocked realistion dawns on Bams' face to split these up.

"...Wait. Okay. Bear with me here, because this is likely very stupid, but. The fire from the firebow wasn't used to set the arrows on the fire. The coals were used to make the arrows. The burn marks were on the tips, right? Guess if you were hoping to actually do some damage with your makeshift arrows, coals would go a decent way towards getting them to a sharp point, wouldn't they. Fire hardening, sharpening, whatever. Not like I've done it myself, but... that would be. My guess. As for materials, guessing a lot of them came from the Graveyard too, whether they got taken over to that rock in Sakamochi or not. You know. Given how fucked up the trees were. Why the trunks were stripped, I'm, uh. A little less certain. Getting tree goop to stick rocks on with or something. I didn't... actually check how those were bound together. Come to think of it."

And so the galaxy brain moment sputters and peters out, Bams realising in the breath that followed her last uncertain statement just how ridiculous the whole thing sounded. Her mouth opened and closed with the starts of sentences that would never make it further than that, before ultimately she gave up, going back to playing with the voting cards on the table before her.

"...I just can't blame Mav. And I can't blame Moss. Sorry."

[borisbubbles]

12. DENMARK

Rasmussen - “Higher ground” 9th place

Ok, so somehow, in a contest with a nautical theme, the one song which *literally* started with the line “Ships in the making, bound for a distant shore” never got to open any of the live shows??? ¿¿Que??

So, Denmark. Quite possible the opposite of my previous entry, yet its greatness is just as challenging to put into words? As much as “Taboo” was a inaccessible conglomeration of every possible fucking staging trick, so simple was “Higher Ground” It is a great song, but I find it hard to explain why. It is just so much fun? 

It’s like a chapter of the Edda Saga come to life, with its Old Norse chanting, banner-swaying and feigned-drunken slrrrrring uv wrrrrds creating a truly immersive atmosphere. (I love all things Norse, so I was never NOT going to stan this) I love how one of the backings looks like precisely like Conchita Wurst’s long-lost sister. I dunno, Higher Ground just shines on its own, without the need of convoluted gimmicks (tho still bless Malta’s souls for burying “Taboo” under them for no other reason than it (barely) fitting within their ad-funded budget <3). 

So it’s of no surprise that this ended up the Michał of the year, yes?

As you are well aware of, Eurovision is in a continuous process of ‘reinventing itself’, which is code for ‘rejecting its Euroschlager roots in favour of increasedly pallid Ultratop50 knock-offs’, like guuuuurls you can do better than that. Think of an entry in this year that was actually *original*. I come up with... “O Jardim”, “Mercy” and maybe “Hvala, ne!”? Congratz 3/43.  This shocking display of self-loathing creates a power vacuum for the few -for some godforsaken reason- critically panned Euroschlager anthems which *do* make it into Eurovision proper. As the only entry in this year (out of 43) which can be described as “classic eurovision schlager”, “Higher Ground was always going to attract a lot of attention. Add in a few clear-as-crystal references to Game of Thrones (Rasmussen is literally Tormund + guyliner and a weave), a ubiquitous Viking tone and just general dramatic badassery, you’ve found yourself an audience’s fave and the bane for any jury chairperson’s existence. 

This is the long explanation why “Higher ground” is actually a great entry. It is the only entrant, in a year so widely praised as the “first serious contest in years”, that actually feels traditionally Eurovision.  For a brief moment, we are hooked up on pure Classic Eurovision, the term often used to describe the time when “Eurovision Songs Were Still Good”. 

And yes, it is highly ironic (and tragic) that the one entry that reminds many of that very murkily defined time period venerated by the critics, is also one that was critically panned by crappy self-important jurors. Would it that jurors had any self-awareness (I’m pretty shocked the EBU were able to find 43 rooms big enough to house the jurors and their egos), but oh well.

I suppose this is where I address the Melofestivalen shit, yes?

So, the jist of it is this: Two Swedes write “Higher Ground” for Melodifestivalen and get brutally rejected by Christer for reasons I can only guess, as HG was far better than anything in Melfest this year.. (Christer = Melfest’s Jeff Probst). 

Considering that Denmark has a herstory of recycling past Swedish trends- omg reminder that the 1986 Danish entry was a frame-by-frame carbon copy of the 1985 Swedish entry 😂,  please enjoy the pictorial evidence I have provided in support of this statement

 ps: I love that the Danish entry was called “You are full of lies” so unselfaware, so meta, so Denmark <3 

but I digress. Anyway,

Considering that Denmark has a herstory of recycling past Swedish trends, they of course picked up the "Higher ground”, put it in DMGP, substituted the Swedish singer with a Danish one and voila! The melfest reject wins DMGP with his fingers up the nose, cementing his place amongst the canon as an audience darling, and YES scoring significantly better than Ingrosso in the televote 😍The discrepancy shown by televote wasn’t as hilar as “Colour of your life” rising from last to sixth with one sudden stroke (given that Sweden had a higher combined score than Denmark somehow 🙄) but whatever, the ending was perfect because much like the Edda, this Viking Saga also ended with the evil trickster getting swallowed by the World’s Serpent. Sorry, Christer, should’ve taken the LEEP LAKYU WERBWND; FRR HIYRRRR GRWWWWWWND!!!!!

RANKING SO FAR:

12. Denmark (Rasmussen - “Higher ground”)

13. Malta (Christabelle - “Taboo”)

14. Cyprus (Eleni Foureira - “Fuego”)

15. United Kingdom (SuRie - “Storm”)

16. Serbia (Balkanika - “Nova Deca”)

17. Portugal (Cláudia Pascoal - “O jardim”)

18. The Netherlands (Waylon - “Outlaw in ‘em”)

19. Ukraine (MÉLOVIN - “Under the ladder”)

20. Macedonia (Eye Cue - “Lost and Found”)

21. San Marino (Jessika ft. Jenifer Brening - “Who We Are”)

22. Sweden (Benjamin Ingrosso - “Dance You Off”)

23. Austria (Cesár Sampson - “Nobody but you”)

24. Latvia (Laura Rizzotto - “Funny girl”)

25. Azerbaijan (AISEL - “X my heart”)

26. Israel (Netta - “Toy”)

27. Norway (Alexander Rybak  - “That’s how you write a song”)

28. Montenegro (Vanja Radovanovic - “Inje”)

29. Armenia (Sevak Khanagyan - “Qami”)

30. Poland (Gromee ft. Lukas Meijer - “Light me up”)

31. Greece (Yianna Terzi - “Oniro mou”)

32. Georgia (Iriao - “For you”)

33. Belgium (Sennek - “A matter of time”)

34. Italy (Ermal Meta & Fabrizio Moro - “Non mi avete fatto niente)

35. Romania (The Humans - “Goodbye”)

36. Ireland (Ryan O'Shaughnessy - “Together”)

37. Croatia (Franka - “Crazy”)

38. Belarus (ALEKSEEV - “Forever”)

39. Russia (Julia Samoylova - “I Won’t Break”)

40. Spain (Amaia & Alfred - “Tu canción”)

41. Iceland (Ari Ólafsson - “Our choice”)

42. Australia (Jessica Mauboy - “We Got Love”)

43. Czech Republic (Mikolas Josef - “Lie to me”)

FOOTNOTES

1. I couldn’t really fit it into the narrative, but the actual reason why Rasmussen is only 12th and not higher is because I found the act kind of visually underwhelming. (the snow at the end is particularly sad) Like I said, the song is great and I often have it on loop, but the act is a bit too small for a stage that big.

2. That said, “Higher Ground” is by far the song I’ve listened to the most often this season, which bodes well for any future positive morphs when I rewatch this year in the distant future.

3. Rasmussen bombing with the jury probably has more to do with the lack of gimmicks than the genre of the song. Like I said, the song pretty much carries itself, so if you stop to ponder and list all the things great about it, it all boils down to “the song is catchy and fun”, which is not what juries look at (juries love intricate acts, layered complexity and technical finesse, none of which are particular strengths of this entry)

4. Yes, I think it’s MASSIVELY hypocritical to glom onto songs such as “A Matter of time” under the pretence of “It’s a good song” when yeah it was, but everything else was shit and then subsequently ignore “Higher Ground” for being “only a good song”. wtf.  

5. While I do enjoy trashing the juries on a regular basis, be aware that during the actual Jury Era of this show, none of the juries were professional. In fact, when I rewatched 1978 and 1985, both times the hosts were ADAMANT to remind the audience that the juries were in fact NOT professionals, but 10 randomly selected civilians (Celeb and non-Celeb) with no direct ties to the music industry whatsoever. This is precisely why entries such as Riva, Bucks Fizz and Toto Cotugno managed to win a ’jury vote’ with a comfortable lead lmfao imagine that happening now. Anyway, the bottom line is that today’s “five professionals” jury system fucking sucks and has to be swallowed by Jörmundgandr also. 

6. ’Eurovision used to be good before’ is such a weird statement, yet I hear it all the time in relation to the contest (by people of my age group????) Like... what exact years are you refering to, cuz like... the 2000s were trash and I can’t honestly think of a decade as consistently good as the 2010s lol? We haven’t had a weak year since 2012!! (but of course, most of the people I’ve talked about this in person have, by their own admission, not seen a year since 2010 so how would they know lol)

7. If we assume that 'Eurovision used to be good before’ refers to the time when Eurovision was song-centric, that doesn’t make a lick of sense either? If you’re old enough to remember the late 1960s your taste is probably irreconcilable with mine anyway. And yes, while it took until #London1977 before we finally got a ‘gimmicky’ year, this also made for one of the most watchable, consistently fun contests ever, -even to this day- while “song-centric” years like 74; 75 and 78 are grueling to sit through nowadays unless you have the taste of the average Söngvakeppnin voter. Gimmicks were a part of ESC even during the Chanson Era, as the language barrier was a massive hurdle for any song not sung in French. And true, the “gimmicks” then weren’t more than “performing barefoot” or “having a key change”, but good lord it’s the sixties, flat, boring French Chansons dominated and only because everyone fucking understood French, SO GRASPING AT STRAWS HERE.

 8. The funny thing is that Denmark didn’t copy Kikki Danielsson’s evergreen once, but twice. 😂 “Hallo Hallo” (DK1990) was just a repackaged “Du er fuld af løgn“ (DK1986), which as I said, was itself just a slightly different “Bra Vibrationer” (SW1985). It’s seriously some Bra Vibraception shit.

9. I will never stop shitting on Melfest 2018. It was pure Tropical House Torture and yes, Rasmussen > literally everything in that, including the entries I actually like (which were... Jessica Anderson, Ida Redig and... um... Edvard Blom? Rolandz? Margaret? Samir and Viktor???? *gunshot*) 😂/🙄@ rescinding their roots for 2014′s musical fade. Pray that Christer never discovers reggaeton - though who am I kidding, it will dominate ESC selections in 2020, bank on it.

10. Now that I’ve mentioned them, one of “Higher Grounds” songwriters (Niklas Arn) actually was the bass player for Rolandz (who were my second faves in the finale by fucking default). Robbed twice, both in Melfest and outside of it, smfh.

11. Oh and I think “Higher Ground” in the hands of Sweden, absolutely would’ve been guaranteed top five (watch how most of these “professional” jurors suddenly would *like* it because, you know, Melfest Winner) and that’s all the humiliation I need. That said, I doubt “Higher Ground” ever would have actually won Melfest (it has the Heartbreak Hotel “dominates televote, gets screwed over by juries” label stamped all over it) but oh well, that’s just because Melfest SUCKS and the “International Juries” are a fucking farce. So it worked out for the better that “Higher Ground” was in fact not in Melfest, I think. 

12. Rasmussen is actually the first Danish ESC contestant since Emmelie de Forest that I’ve liked. Gratz? 

[mtvchallengeblogarchive]

Feel Free to Just Make Up Vocabulary Words - Episode 3

Phew, where to begin, where to begin? Well, let’s just talk about the best vocabulary words from the show first.  Devalidate and icon.  Ruthie said she didn’t want to “devalidate” Ellen’s opinion.  And then Puck said that he won the “icon.”  Interestingly, Ellen in her “argument” with Puck by the pool was in fact, “devalidating” the pop “icon” that is Puck.  Both Puck and Ellen were making very honest and true statements about one another.   While I commend Ellen for bravely attempting to call Puck out on his camera whoring invitation to all the girls (who he despises) to go to his wedding (the more cast members present, the bigger the event…didn’t Eric Nies say it was the biggest moment on reality television or something unbelievably unacceptable like that?), I think she may have done better not saying anything at all.  Everybody on the show is guilty of this camera whoredom even if it is not his or her intention.  There are ways to avoid it (i.e. hang out in the kitchen with Miss Joan or lie right beside naked tourists on the beach who will undoubtedly ask the cameras to leave), but it’s just the nature of the show.   But to call Puck of all people out on it, well that’s just Danger Zone.  Puck called her superficial, and while I don’t really know all of Ellen’s business and I do believe she genuinely means well (although crying after someone getting voted off after knowing them for less than 24 hours is just plain inadmissible), I can only go by what I saw of her with my own two eyes at the casting special way back when she said she was “a pretty pretty princess” (yes, I know my site is called Princess Melissa) and that everybody wished they had a body like hers.  Don’t forget she told Coral to kiss her baby ass (which I still laugh about to this day, and yes, I do occasionally tell Coral to kiss this baby ass to which Coral responds by saying “shut up bitch, go put some clothes on” even if I am fully clothed).  Um, longest sentence of all time. It was refreshing, almost incredible that the “argument” between Puck and Ellen was so civil.  He called her a jerk and she said she felt the same about him.  That was just weird.  I haven’t heard the word “jerk” used that way in a million years.  Jerk chicken, now I know about that.   Thank goodness for Ellen and Puck because the episode last week was so weak! Speaking of weak, let’s talk about those prizes.  Not that I want to bite the hand that feeds me but what am I, a grown ass lady of less than 30 years, going to do with a damn pogo stick?  A scooter?  No thanks.   Did you see how I wasn’t clapping?  Did you hear how hardly anyone was clapping?  The mission?  Well, that shit was frustrating.  You see, Johnny Moseley was responsible for checking to see that our houses were architecturally sound, but there’s only one Johnny Moseley so if he was dilly dallying about somebody else’s hut, your time was just clicking on by.  In order for the game to be fair (keep in mind I don’t give a damn that we lost that pogo stick), I told the co-executive producer that she needed to have a judge at every house, keeping separate times and she actually agreed with me.  They didn’t even explain the rule that you could only carry two pieces over at a time, and no piece could be “out of play.”  Lori and I were partners, and our house was taking a long time to put together.  I’ll be honest, it was fucking hot as hell (so hot I had to cuss like I’m country folk) and just demoralizing that I was playing with Lincoln Logs for a damn scooter.  Who am I?  The cast of Full House?  Plus, it didn’t help that Eric Nies kept coming over to our “completed” house going “Johnny, man, these girls aren’t done. This piece is wrong…”  I was like, “Eric, don’t make me do an OTF about your old ass, you better get away from ‘round here with that mess.”  OTF is short for “on the fly” which is a real time interview that they do with you while you are in the middle of something.  It’s more of a Road Rules technique, and I don’t care for them.  I avoided OTFs like Lisa Turtle avoided Screech (he hooked up on his Star Date, man).  I would just feign sickness, “Oh shit, there’s a particle in my eye, could you OTF Ellen?  She’s right there.”  Anyway, when Lori and I finally finished our house, I was cheering and that was real.  I cheered like a straight up child because I was just so happy it was over and I could take a break, get some water, sit in the cooler, do something!   Eric Nies needs some further exploration and discussion. I must say that I was absolutely open-mouthed and gasping when Puck told Eric that Eric wanted to bone Veronica and Eric straight sat up on his bed denying a girl.  Now, come on now. That’s not right.  Why was Eric all sweet to her up in the pink room?  Rolling up in our bedroom at ass crack o’clock with freshly squeezed and blended fruit juices.  Why was Eric quite handy with the Chinese massage book? At this time, I would like to say thanks to Eric for giving me this massage that was supposed to clear up diarrhea.  It didn’t work, but the massage was nice.  He knows he was flirting with her.  I mean, I’ve been feeling Eric Nies since Real World New York.  I had to be probably 12 talking about, “Damn, he’s cute and he’s 21 and a model.  I love him.”  And I watched The Grind too.  I also watched Dance Party USA with Princess, the girl with the tear.   Whatever happened to that show?  I like Eric Nies, but to clown a girl on TV after he really was feeling her?  That’s foul.  My feelings would have been hurt. Whoa!  Is Syrus making a cameo on this show?  Syrus got three whole lines.  Just working him right into the script.  Who was he talking to? Oh yes, Eric J.  This Eric J. character.  Phantom?  Figment of my imagination?  Did you see him?  Remember Three Men and a Baby, and that rumor that there was a ghost in the window in one of the scenes.  This Eric J. character makes me think of that.  I had to rewind to see if I really saw this person.  Eric J.?  Just doesn’t ring a bell.  Who is that?  He’s going home already?  Who is he? Jisela had me rolling.  Tampa!  She was so pissed.  “Where is that fucking Johnny?”  The funny thing is, I was getting pissed as well, just about the way the game was being officiated and I was like, “Fucking, Johnny is a fucking skier, not a goddamn game show host. This is some incompetent bullshit, and why are there only blue flavored Gatorades?   Who drank all the pink ones?  Why the fuck is this happening to me?”   This outburst did not make air, thank goodness, because it is not representative of me on a regular day. It is representative of me on a hot ass day in blaring humidity with a dog running around the mission site.  Yes, there was a little shaggy brown dog running around stressing me out.  I will admit that the doggie was cute, but his teeth were sharp.  Cool bra I’m wearing when  I try to calm Jisela down.  Gap Body, girl, $3 on sale.  I don’t give a damn.  Tampa Til Death. Hey hey. Two Filipinos on screen at the same time when I was running my hands through Ruthie’s hair (what are we lovers now?)!  A small victory in the world of Pinay.  As a matter of fact, I was wearing a yellow shirt that says Philippines 1975 and it says Romel on the back.  You Filipinos know about the names our parents be coming up with.  I almost ended up a Rufina but Shorty wasn’t having it.  No offense to you Rufinas out there, a couple of you are my cousins.   My Kneel & Duck Technique is working wonders.  I like how while Johnny is still talking at the inner circle announcements, I begin walking away.  I had a really hard time paying attention at those things.  On the first episode even, when Johnny is explaining the rules, I look so confused.  I was so confused every day I was there.  I didn’t really understand the rules when they were explained to me.  I just knew when lunch was served, where the free drinks were and how to find Termite, the local bush doctor who was hooking me up with the some remedies.   Notice no attention is paid to Colin’s ankle (or to the fact that he and Yes actually won first place, but you know, Johnny is the official of the games and we all know how that works).  That boy’s ankle is still tore up to this day.  Did you see him writing in his little book?   That’s the original quote book, man. Colin is a straight up business man, hustling and handling his business while everyone else is filming a TV show.  He talks about it on his site www.colinsworld.com.  I’ve had the pleasure of reading those quotes, and it’s out of control.  MTV would never be able to use any of it.  And I will say now that I was the person who gave Colin his next pedicure.  I removed that horrid red and blue toenail polish he was wearing.  Some of the girls painted his toenails in the very beginning, and I was like, “Those colors are ugly…”  And I took that fool aside while he was laid up in his bedroom with a big fat purple ankle and cotton swabbed the ugliness away.  Hmmm, Puck said Colin got a back rub from Ellen, huh?  I must further investigate this claim.  Colin just be getting backrubs from all kinds of lady friends, doesn’t he?  See, I believe he works deep under the radar, swooping in and out of a girl’s life.  Ladies’ Man?  Well, yes it seems he is precisely that.   And since I haven’t mentioned it because I am totally repressing it, that show open is terrible.  The director, a man who really does have vision and has done entire beer campaigns that are really successful, gave us this Beach Blanket Bingo movie, something like that.  That Annette F something cello character was in it.  We were each given a scene to re-enact, and we thought that it was going to be shot on film to look just like the movie.  Wrong.  It’s absolutely horrifying, I have to turn away when it’s on.  That demon needs to be exorcised. Those Midtown boys and I had mutual friends in New York, so we just talked about that while everyone else was watching David E. spit on people.   No speaking part for Jamie yet.  I don’t think the editors know what to do with his beard.  They can’t continue to typecast him as the “privileged white frat boy” while he has a beard, a skirt, and an aqua necklace on.  Smartest thing he could have possibly done for himself because he was never what RWNO would want you to believe he was.  He’s just a regular (well, I don’t know about regular) nice guy with some serious quirks.  I mean, he calls himself The Murtockalypse and me Melissageddon.  He is definitely on some different shit.  I like bearded Jamie all the same. This episode was way better than the last by far!  And way better than Joe Millionaire could ever be.  Alex McCleod should have never left Trading Spaces.  A dim lumberjack and an ice cold host (“Please leave the chateau” -- I am still having nightmares about that) do not make for good television.  And is every girl on the show named Melissa?  BOTS is way better than Joe Millionaire, and I say that without bias.  It’s just true.

Jan 20 2003