#frank was kinda weird about women but he still wrote them and wrote them as interesting whole people.

[weirdgirlfriend]

tbh i think i like dune better than lord of the rings (audible booing and hissing from the crowd)

#weird.txt #duneposting #number one lotr doesn’t have chairdogs. so minus points for that. #and lotr doesn’t have interesting female characters TO ME #frank was kinda weird about women but he still wrote them and wrote them as interesting whole people. #books

[stocious]

bisexual carl thoughts

so listen, we got robbed of some bisexual content in the show with fiona’s exit so me and nosho ( @creepkinginc ) got talking and you know what? bisexual carl. we’re here for it. so we made him a boyfriend. meet ben.

carl brings his first ever actual boyfriend to sunday family dinner and at first the gallaghers are kinda confused because ben looks like a nobody. he has a boring name and a boring look, very average, nothing special about him. carl has had a slew of very interesting women and he’s with this guy? makes zero sense.

until ben opens his mouth. it makes sense then.

they learn he’s a baker and works at a bakery close to the police station and that’s how they met (”cops and dounts, huh?”) but ben had to give his number THREE times before carl got the hint. because why would a guy flirt with him? it took him a minute alright.

but ben also tells them he’s been a park ranger in new mexico where he’s from, a construction worker, for a while he worked with removing snakes and shit from peoples houses, you know, normal ben stuff.

at which the gallaghers tell him the story about carl killing the bald eagle hoping to get a laugh outta the guy

but he looks dissapointed and says he wishes he was there so he could show them how to prepare it properly. which then send him into a story about that time he killed and ate a poisionous snake.

the gallaghers just stare but carl nods and looks like its the most normal thing ever. ben informs them that they have to remember to bury the head should they ever have to do that because you can still step on it and get poisoned.

he then goes on to tell them about other wild animals you can eat. seagulls, snails, bugs, possums. and how to best prepare them.

alright so ian spots his tattoo and asks about it. its a ruler on his forearm and ben just shrugs and tells them he uses it to measure fish he catches sometimes. you never know when you have to measure something. its handy at ikea and when you gotta make sure a hole is deep enough. a hole for what? oh you never know when you need a hole with just the right size.

they keep talking and frank/monica/parents comes up and ben tells them about his survivalist father who dropped him in the woods one time with a swiss army knife and a lighter and he had to find his way back home. by himself. at 12.

(thats also the time he ate the snake. ya boy had to eat)

there’s just this distinct feeling ben could build you a house and do your taxes, but he’s also the typa guy who could tell you the best way to make a body dissapear and how to make a deadly weapon out of a paperclip and a stick. mcgyver style.

eventually it turns into this thing where everybody just waits for him to piggyback of whatever story they tell with a ”that reminds me of that one time…” and they all just KNOW its gonna be something outta the left field. just ben stories.

ian voices his concern about ben being a red flag to mickey but mickey’s like ”firecrotch, you married ME. if we turned out fine im sure ben and carl will be fine too. he’s weird as fuck but i kinda like the dude. good for carl the little pyschopath”

eventually they wanna add him to the gallagher group chat but he doesnt use facebook. or any social media sites. but he does have 17 different apps for hiking trails and apps for identifying plants you can eat or not eat and a compass app and— all the apps but not facebook. sorry.

so yeah, ben looks like he wouldnt make sense with carl but they get it now. he makes total sense with carl.

(i wrote this on my phone and didnt spellcheck so take it for what it is)

#as written by someone who paid very little attention to carl overall #but still #petition to bring ben alive #carl gallagher #shameless #bisexual carl gallagher #shameless us #just carl x ben stuff

[neverwritewhatyouknow]

Fuck it, here’s a post about Ted Malawer.

Playwrite, trained opera singer, literary agent, and co-writer for RWRB.

I knew nothing about him prior to about fifteen minutes ago.

He wrote one play called Daddy Issues: a gay romp through history starring Adolf Hitler!

The synopsis: Von Blergh is an aspiring Jewish artist in New Rochelle. Adolf Hitler is an aspiring artist in Germany. As they mature, their lives intertwine in ways neither of them thought possible, leading to the discovery of love, the pursuit of passion, and their own coming-of-age and ultimate destruction. A fast-paced, dark comedy set against a historical re-imagining of the early-to-mid twentieth century.

The reviews say it’s a lot of fun.

Now, when I think Hitler, I don’t think “lots of fun.” Call my opinion unpopular, I guess. And I’m not immune to comedy, The Producers had an entire thing about a Hitler musical (Springtime for Hitler, anyone?), but that was the joke. The Producers made fun of people making Hitler shows because it’s weird, it’ll make money, but it’s weird and harmful. Ted’s play is tagged as being a satire… but that doesn’t matter, it’s still a play about Hitler finding love and then starting the Holocaust over a breakup. Ted said, let’s downplay the entirety of a genocide that killed 6million people, because I can make it gay and funny.

Anyway so Ted made gay Hitler fanfiction. It starred Robin De Jesús, who I personally really love and have seen basically every film he’s in, but uh, were there no gay Jewish actors in New York who wanted to play Hitler’s love interest? Hmm… wonder why.

Next!

Ted wrote a little thing and described the Jewish character as the following: “He is neurotic and hungry — in other words, Jewish.”

Ah, yes, the classic “Jews are neurotic” thing haha. While you’re at it, why don’t you make a joke about women staying in the kitchen and someone taking your wife. Calling Jews neurotic is dead. It’s a dead joke. It’s dumb, it’s untrue, and it’s old. It’s a stupid, stupid stereotype joke that has become literally the biggest way Jews can be presented in media.

He then uses the whole “First they came” poem(?) as the basis of the opening, but changes all the words. First They Came is a WW2 writing about how they come for the groups you’re not and if you don’t speak out, by the time they get to you, there’s no one there to help you. It’s powerful. Anyway, he says “they came for the Jews but I didn’t speak out because I had a nose job, a good one, so I could pass.”

Ah, yes, Jews have big noses, but once you get yours ripped off you can hide your Jewishness and no one ever has to know you were a Jew. Isn’t it so great to pass? What the fuck, Ted. Come on, man.

More, the character refers to himself as Anne Frank on PrEp.

Says that he would rather be buried in a Jewish cemetery than get a tattoo. In some places you can’t be buried if you have a tattoo since it’s technically against religion rules, but that’s pretty relaxed nowadays from what I’ve seen. Like, pretty sure only the really religiously places might reject someone on tattoo basis. It was in the context of saying that the main character made a group of friends, but they dropped him when he wouldn’t get a tattoo, because he’d rather be buried in his family plot. So basically saying that by picking his religion, he loses all his friends. Basically Ted is saying that if you pick being overtly Jewish over fitting in, you lose out.

But then it talks about, of course, the overbearing mom wanting her son to be a doctor and never leave home. Because of course all Jewish moms are overbearing and want a doctor in the family. I’m literally so over these stereotypes.

Mention about temple membership being expensive. That made me laugh, because it is kinda expensive. Butttttt also, you don’t have to pay for weekly services. Those are free. You can join a temple and pay, you get better high holy day tickets that way, your kids can go to Hebrew school, etc, but the majority of temples just let you walk in. Because we’re not, like, a money making organization. But obviously Ted had to make sure the audience knew that Jews have a whole money thing going, so he made sure to talk about how expensive going to temple is. Tell us more how you feel there, Teddy!

Talk about low self-esteem and a bad stomach.

I think Ted has low self-esteem and takes it out on himself by writing some…interesting…stuff.

Ha ha ha another classic Jew™️ moment. A bad tummy. 1. There are genetic things (I’m not a doctor don’t ask me) that make Ashkenazic Jews more prone to gastrointestinal problems, but NOT everyone!!! 2. I repeat not. Every. Jew. Has. Stomach. Trouble!!!!!!!!! Every race/ethnicity/group of people has shared genetic markers, that’s how DNA works, and different races have different issues. But, god, it’s so damn annoying for this to be what Jews are known for. I swear to god I’ve had people ask me if I should be eating something because I’m Jewish, like, what the fuck? Anyway, Ted thinks Jews are only a collection of stereotypes.

Hasidic drag queen named Torah Portion murdered someone. First off, lazy name. You can do better than that. There’s like a bunch online. Regardless. Torah Portion is a terrible drag queen name. And is more telling that Ted is saying that the Torah killed someone. We’re seeing his inner thoughts here for sure. This is a man who does not like his Jewish religion or being seen as visibly Jewish. Plus, Hasidic being specified really shows what he thinks of the other branches of Judaism.

Lastly, the Jewish character says he’s done a lot of mitzvahs, like selling a blind girl to the zoo.

Because Jews love money and are awful people haha, right Ted?

So what’s the point of this post, I’m sure you’re asking. It’s to show that self-hatred is big in the Jewish community. It’s the whole “I’ll punch myself so you don’t have to” thing. It’s why there’s so many Jewish comedians. We can make fun of ourselves so you don’t. It’s a survival thing. But, there becomes a time when it stops being for survival or for comedy, and it becomes believed by society and by that Jew themself. Ted wrote these things because it’s what’s expected of a Jewish character. To be full of stereotypes. He wrote a gay Hitler play, I don’t even have any idea where to go with that. So, it’s easy to see that Ted is someone who is embarrassed by who he is, and hides that in self-deprecation on stage. It’s literally the self-hating Jew trope that some Jews use to pretend that they’re not different, they’re not like those other Jews, they’re cool Jews. Well, Ted, imho you just seem kinda like you hate that you were born Jewish and, like, kinda gross with your Hitler fanfic

When RWRB erased their only Jewish character for the screen, was it Ted saying to do so? Because I don’t want a man who thinks exploring a Hitler romance is funny or saying that a nose job means a Jew isn’t really a Jew anymore because they can pass, making the calls for which Jews get to exist and which don’t. Like, Jews are so little good representation, and based on Ted’s past stuff and the fact that RWRB literally erased their Jewish character, it really looks like the brain trust there (Matthew, Casey, Ted) don’t think Jews are worthy of anything better. That Nora couldn’t possibly be Jewish onscreen, because she’s not riddled with stereotypes (I mean… not any more than usual and easily changed), instead she was a strong character first and Jewish second. Which, to Matt, CMQ, and Ted, I guess they don’t think a Jew can be that

So, Ted, what the actual fuck?

#rwrb movie #red white and royal blue #red white royal blue movie #red white and royal blue movie #ted Malawer

[the-blind-geisha]

Happy Pride ♥

So it's pride month! Happy pride month. ♥

When it comes to me, personally, I was a teenager when I had a feeling something was off about how I felt about relationships and people in general. Granted, even at a young age, I stuck my head into fantasy and hyper fixated on that one guy toon that I loved. I'm sure that didn't help my perception either. lol Fantasy people > IRL people.

Fully going to put that out there: I have (and still do) people in my life who adopted me and raised me with their own ideas that homosexuals were wrong and weird. What's funny is, even being a kid, I remember thinking 'what is so wrong with them?' It didn't compute that anything was wrong to be with the same gender.

Thank the heavens the internet existed, so I could go online and find out all about this—including even going onto a free to play pixel game that had 'gay bars' where I just sat, talked to people, and got to know them as... well... people.

Nothing was wrong with them in my eyes. They just loved differently.

I wrote a small fanfic of Oreana with Malon from LOZ OOT when I was in my early teens, but at the time—I was writing it because I knew my adopted guardians would hate it if they found out about it. I just wanted to do something that was very 'against the rules'. Needless to say, these people always got under my skin to the point if they told me 'no', I would ignore it. xD; But, the story didn't resonate with me like I thought it would. I just thought it was a nice 'fuck you' piece to the people around me who were so hardheaded.

It wasn't until I was 19 I dated a woman for the first time. It was... a very, very rocky relationship to tl;dr it, but I still found myself far more in love with her than any other man I could think of being with. It made me question my sexual identity, because shortly after our breakup, I was with another woman for 5 years.

But I know I wasn't a lesbian. As much as men can trigger a bad PTSD response if they raise their voices, I know I could still easily love one depending how they treated me. I've been horrifically abused by the 'father' figure in my life to where he even threatened to kill me if I dared reported him to my school for nearly throwing me down the stairs by the skin of my neck so yeah—fun times lol. Men just kinda scare, me because I'm reminded of all those times. It's no doubt why I love writing/drawing more hetero stuff than homosexual, because I can live out the part of myself that loves women just fine, but the other part that wants to enjoy men? It's... challenging. But I don't want to be that asshole that says 'all men', because no—not all men. Not all men are assholes like my adopted father.

To be frank: I've never come out about my sexuality to my family. All my girlfriends that came out to see me? They were just 'friends' to them. These people I have to call 'mother/father', they are as southern as southern can get... I'll leave it at that. I know I would be outcast from them. While I've mentally outcast them from myself anyway, I don't want to deal with the crap that can come flooding at me that'll guilt me about my sexuality. To be honest, I don't think I'll ever come out about it to them. It's none of their business, and they don't need to know every detail of my life.

But, back then, I was still confused as to what I could even identify as or tell people I was, so I went with bisexual for a long time. I was introduced to the word Pansexual in my early 20s, and so for a while, I thought that was what I was. But then I was introduced to Demisexual... and I just... don't know.

To be honest, I don't care about my personal labels. I put them there to make others comfortable. I know there are some that demand they have it pinned to their chest with pride, and I think you guys are awesome to have yourselves figured out. But me? Myself? I'm not sure. It doesn't bother me much.

In short: I just love people and the soul they have. Your soul is who you are. Your body is just housing it. I can love a soul easily because it doesn't change unless you will it to. I've loved many people with many different sexualities and identities—each person just has a soul that resonates with me differently.

I don't know what I'm looking for in my life, but whether I find it or not, I don't know. I seem pretty happy with how I choose to live my life and love. ♥

#pride month #lgbtqia+ #mod talks #personal

[octothorpetopus]

I Forgot That You Existed (Part 1)

Link to part 2

"Yeah, we're not so worried about you not 'getting some.'" Frank put air quotes around the words.

"Well, we kind of are. It's just that the 'some' we're worried about you not getting is emotional fulfillment."

"True." Richie looked back and forth between his friends.

"Guys, I'm not getting a fucking online dating profile. I'm not forty. Stop bugging me."

"Richie, we're worried about you."

"What the hell are you, my mother?"

"Just download the fucking app, Tozier." Frank snatched the phone out of Richie's hand and held it just out of reach. Nina held Richie back as he reached for it.

"You motherfucker, give me my phone back!" Frank didn't respond.

"Say cheese!" He snapped a picture of Richie, who had sat sullenly back down. He typed speedily for a few moments (Frank's typing skills were the envy of all rapid-fire texters), then pressed a button. There was a soft whoosh as the profile was posted, and Frank tossed Richie his phone back.

"Fuck you, Frank." The phone chimed and all three of them gathered around to look at it.

"Holy shit," Nina said softly. "You got a match."

Meanwhile, in an LAX waiting room, Eddie Kaspbrak's phone buzzed in his back pocket. He ignored it, focusing instead on the pitch he was mentally writing and the steady sound his suitcase made as he rolled it back and forth in short paces. He hated investor meetings, but it was his company, and he had to get it off the ground if he ever wanted to be anything more than a 34-year-old asthmatic business major with no friends, no life, and no idea where he was going. Metaphorically. Literally, he was going to the Los Angeles Hilton, if his cab would ever get here. His phone buzzed again. He sighed and pulled it out.

YOU HAVE ONE NEW MATCH read the notification. He swiped and opened the phone. The wheel in the middle of the screen spun for what seemed like hours. Shitty airport WiFi. Finally, a profile popped up. The guy in the picture was... alright, he guessed. There was something a little oddball about him. And a little familiar, too. But then, maybe he just had one of those faces. Or, he realized, maybe he was a stand-up comedian that he’d seen in New York last year. Eddie smiled to himself, amused by the coincidence. At the time, he had no idea just how deep that coincidence really went.

“He’s kinda cute,” Nina offered and shrugged.

”I don’t know. He’s got sort of a sad puppy look. It’s a little off-putting.”

”Nobody asked you, Frank.”

”Nobody asked you either, Nina.”

”Both if you shut up.” Richie held up a hand to silence them. “Look, if I go on this one date, will you promise to get off my ass about getting a date?” Nina and Frank looked at each other and nodded.

”Deal.”

”Fine, then.” Richie’s thumb hovered above the LIKE button. “But what if-?”

”Oh, just shut up!” Nina exclaimed, and pushed the button for him.

Eddie considered it briefly. He was only in LA for a few days, maybe a week. There would be no second date, no relationship to come from this. Still, he couldn’t quite shake the voice in his head telling him yes, that this was important. And besides, what was the harm? Lots of people only went on one date. He pressed the LIKE button too.

”Fuck me,” he whispered as a message popped up on the screen.

CONGRATULATIONS!

Both of you liked each other!

Now you can start chatting.

Make a date, and hopefully, a connection.

Eddie rolled his eyes. This was the exact kind of cheesy bullshit he hadn't wanted when he had signed up for this app a year ago on a whim. A chat window opened up.

This is the start of your messages with RICHIE TOZIER

RICHIE TOZIER IS TYPING...

Richie had sent Nina and Frank away. He was tired and annoyed and frankly, talking to strangers on the internet (something he vaguely recalled his mother telling him never to do) sounded far more appealing than trying to deal with his friends at the moment. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, hesitating. What could he... say? "Hi, you're kind of hot?" "You ever date a comedian?" Maybe he'd just skip words and go directly to emojis. And then it came to him, a line he used to use on girls all the time back in school (girls who were well-above his league, and he knew it).

This is the start of your messages with EDWARD KASPBRAK

RICHIE TOZIER: I could use some spare change, and you're a dime.

He felt stupid even as he wrote it, but he pressed send before he had a chance to give it a second thought. Well, he thought, there goes that idea. And then, Edward Kaspbrak started typing.

Eddie was in his cab now, staring down at the absolutely asinine pick-up line he'd just been sent by a man who was at best a 6 and a half. But once again, he had a sense of déjà vu. Not just like he had heard that line before, but like it was somehow meaningful. If it had been anyone else, he was sure he would've ignored the message and moved on. But it wasn't just anyone, and even if Eddie didn't quite know why he remembered Richie Tozier, he wasn't giving up quite yet.

EDWARD KASPBRAK: You use that line on all the boys?

RICHIE TOZIER: I've got a whole library full of them, I don't need to reuse that one.

EDWARD KASPBRAK: Hey, this might sound weird, but have we met before? I have the weirdest feeling that we have.

RICHIE TOZIER: I'm pretty sure I would've remembered meeting you, dude.

Eddie flushed scarlet in the back of the cab. He couldn't remember the last time someone had said something like that to him. Truly, he couldn't.

EDWARD KASPBRAK: I'm probably wrong. Anyway, are you free tonight?

Richie thought for a moment. He was supposed to go get drinks with some other comedian buddies of his, then maybe crash an open-mic night that they had frequented in their early comedy days. But then he looked back at the man on his phone, the one who looked just a little bit sad even though he was smiling as widely as can be in his picture, and typed out a quick reply.

RICHIE TOZIER: I actually am. I know a good place, pretty quiet. I'll text you the address. You eaten yet?

EDWARD KASPBRAK: Yeah, why?

RICHIE TOZIER: The drinks are good, but the food... it's good that you already ate.

Eddie fussed with his hair one last time in the hotel mirror. It just... wouldn't sit right, even though it looked exactly like it always did. And his clothes, all he had was what he’d brought for business meetings and casual dress, nothing like what he’d normally wear on a date. He checked his watch again. He had given himself fifteen minutes to get there, even though the concierge at the hotel told him it’d take maybe ten, if traffic was bad, and since it was a Wednesday it probably wouldn't be.

To say Eddie hadn't been on a date in awhile would be an understatement. He hadn't been on a first date in seven months. He hadn't been on a second date in a year and a half. He hadn't been on a third date in three years. And as for his last real relationship... well, Eddie had never been in a real relationship. Not that he could remember, anyway. In college, there had been a four-month thing with a girl, but that was mostly just to please his mother. He and the girl (Rosa was her name) had been good friends, and still were, but their whole relationship had been something of a friendship with a few awkward makeout sessions thrown in for good measure. The fact that he didn't like women was probably a factor in his disastrous relationships, both with women and with his mother, but she had been dead for three years this October and he was finally living the way he had always meant to. He just... hadn't gotten around to it when she was still alive.

He took one last look in the mirror. He wasn't satisfied, but then, when was he ever? It was a warm early summer night, so he thought he'd walk. Or maybe he shouldn't. There would surely be people smoking outside, and with his asthma...

Similarly, Richie was trying on his third outfit. He had tried just the Hawaiian shirt, then just a T-shirt and leather jacket, and then all three simultaneously. Funnily enough, the multi-layered look was his favorite.

"You got this, Richie." He looked himself in the eyes (through the mirror, not any kind of crazy witchcraft shit), and cracked a grin. "Except that you're talking to yourself. Fuckin' weirdo." But he grew sober, and his fingers tapped nervously against the side of his leg.

Richie didn't date, per se, but he went out a lot, and then went home, usually with a different guy, although he had been known to call up an old flame from time to time. He had dated, and he wasn't necessarily opposed to the idea, but he was, not to toot his own horn, famous. And usually, famous guys, especially ones that weren't classically hot, didn't get dates. They got laid.

His Mustang was parked in the driveway, and even before he started it the wind off the ocean whipped his hair into a frenzy. As he sped off into the Santa Monica sunset, the butterflies in his stomach began to dissipate. This was going to be different. He could feel it.

Eddie had been waiting outside the bar for almost ten minutes. It was his fault, of course, for getting there so early, but the pacing outside the front door did nothing to calm his nerves. Nor did the gentle roar of the cherry-red Mustang that pulled up next to the curb, nor did the profoundly familiar face that got out of it. Richie Tozier walked two paces towards him and stopped in his tracks, his eyes even wider behind his fishbowl glasses than usual. Eddie spoke first, his vocal cords hardly functional.

"Holy-"

"-shit," Richie finished. All of a sudden, everything clicked into place. Why the name had sounded so familiar, and the face had been even more so. Why he had been so nervous in the first place. Eddie fumbled in the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a gray piece of plastic. His inhaler. He took two quick puffs of it and shook his head, as if in a stupor. Richie, who had screeched to a halt upon seeing his childhood friend (and first love, but that was another story), started again, and hugged Eddie with a force he didn't know he had in him. Eddie hugged him back, just as tightly.

"Holy shit, man," Eddie repeated.

"Yeah." They finally released each other and Richie took a step back, looking Eddie up and down. "Damn, Eds. You're looking good."

"So are you." Richie shook his head.

"I feel like such a fucking moron, but... I didn't even realize it was you until I saw you just now. You're going by Edward now?"

"Not... not really. And to tell you the truth, I only thought I recognized you because I saw one of your shows when you were in New York last winter." Richie laughed, deep and warm.

"Shit. Was it any good? Wait, don't answer that."

"It was great."

"Well, um... since we're here..." Richie gestured at the bar's frosted glass doors. "Want to get a drink?" Eddie smiled, and his dimples were craters in his cheeks.

"Yeah. I really do."

#reddie #it chapter ii #it stephen king #stephen king #it chapter 2 #it chap 2 #it 2 #it 2 movie #eddie x richie #richie x eddie #richie tozier #bill hader #finn wolfhard #seth green #eddie kaspbrak #james ransone #pj ransone #jack grazer #jack dylan grazer #dennis christopher #fanfic #reddie fic #fic #fanfiction

[saintheartwing]

The Worst Commonality in IZ Fandom

I’ve come to realize something.

All of the fanworks for the Invader Zim realm I hate have a few big things in common. They’re primarily Zim and Dib stories about them taking over Earth and/or killing off lots of people, involving horrific cruelty, torture, violence, sometimes outright RAPE, and they’re all dark, dreary, depressing, misanthropic, and yet somehow attract tons of attention, usually just because it’s ZADR, the same way that plenty of people still went to see the Michael Bay Transformers series because EXPLOSIONS and big-breasted women and slow mo action and all that. It’s appealing to the lowest common denominator.

And you know...people can like what they like. People can write basically anything they want online. But I get, in turn, to say,

THIS IS CRAP AND I WANT SOMETHING BETTER!

I mean, the worst story I read, Aloft in the Airway, featured...I remind you...Dib not only HELPING Zim by betraying his people, he sells his sister out and HELPS ZIM DRUG AND RAPE HER! And it’s treated as a GOOD thing. I remind you, THEY’RE THE PROTAGONISTS. And the author is treating this...this DISGUSTING shit as something good because of “protagonist centered morality”. It’s just assholes getting away with being assholes. Nothing comes back to bite them in the ass. Not even fuckin’ GUILT.

I HAAAATE stories like this. Because I really owe so much to Invader Zim.

Seriously.

I owe much more than most. I'm not bragging. I'm trying to explain.

It was because of Invader Zim that I was inspired to make so many stories. It helped define me as an author and a drawer and renewed my love for cartoons.Invader Zim's creation meant I met with friends here on DA and upon forums who shared my love. The art they made inspired me, entertained me...made me happier than I could have ever imagined. I hope they're reading this: no matter how flawed your work might have been, it was yours, and it was mine too, it was part of ALL who read it, and it made us happy, no matter whether it was silly, weird, unusual or even kinda stupid. It's a part of us, good or bad, and I look back upon it as good.

Thank you for that, Invader Zim.

And...Invader Zim helped me meet the love of my life. She saw my work on Fanfiction.Net. We began to speak over review replies and personal messages. Then we talked more here on DA. And then we actually met each other. We are in love...And this happened because I wrote about Invader Zim. If it didn't exist, I wouldn't have met her. And for that, I will always be grateful to the show.Be it fandom or canon, crossover or slash, I find something to love in all facets of Invader Zim. I can acknowledge it's many faults, but I still accept it and love it, faults and all. No matter how weird things can get, no matter how frustrated I might become with it...it's still a part of my life, a part of my history that helped make me who I am and made me so dang happy.

So......thank you. To Jhonen. To Rikki Simons. To Eric Trueheart. To Andy Berman. To Richard Horvitz. To Melissa Fahn. To To EVERYONE who worked on the show. Thank you to GIR and to Gaz and to Zim and Dib and all the characters.Thank you. From the bottom of my heart. For everything you did. Thank you for what you made. Because you helped make ME.

That’s why I’m so invested in the Invader Zim series. And that’s why it HURTS...to read stories like Aloft in the Airway. And why I get so mad when stories like that get praised. It’s the same reason I can’t read “To Kill A Mockingbird” anymore after reading “Go Set A Watchman”. Why I can’t look at any of Frank Miller’s old, great comics after reading his most recent stories like “Holy Terror”. I can’t look at the things I knew and loved anymore without thinking of that...that TRASH!

And I know some might argue “Well...don’t like don’t read”.

1. How am I gonna know I’ll like something IF I don’t read it or play it or watch it?

2. How will I know it IMPROVES if I just abandon it? It could get better.

And I also know some might go “Why can’t you just appreciate the craftsmanship that went into the tale? Even if the protagonists and characters are awful, if the writing or directing or acting is good, who cares?”

Because that’s secondary to me. When I approach stories of ANY kind, fanfiction, games, movies, cartoons, comics, tv shows, ANY story, my first question is “What is the story about” and “Do I want to see these people succeed”? I put my ethical center and my morality at the forefront almost all the time. Unless it’s porn, since porn’s almost entirely about just being wank material. It isn’t trying to tell a story. But if something IS trying to tell a story, I don’t wanna read about awful people doing awful things and getting away with it! I see enough of that on the EVENING NEWS! I don’t need it in my ESCAPIST FICTION!

And I know some might go “Well what about stories of redemption?” If a story takes, say, 99 chapters for a character who’s done disgusting, awful, sick, FOUL things to finally turn around...fuck the author. You wasted my time showing me all this shit and now you expect me to cheer you for the character being a basic decent human being? No. They should have known to be decent from the start, or have actual redeeming qualities. And no, “being smart” or “cool”, isn’t “redeeming”. Those aren’t moral traits. They’re neutral traits.

You wanna like whatever you like? Fine. But I still think it’s cruel and nihilistic and dark and evil. And I want something better. I see more than that in so many stories, and it’s a damn shame so many others do not, and are just fine with the same old cruel stuff again...

And again...

...and again.

#invader zim #fanfiction #fanfic #fandom #misanthropy

[ismael37olson]

The World Has Gone Mad Today

Many of Cole Porter's lyrics are incredibly -- even savagely -- topical. The songs of Anything Goes reference the latest news, gossip, pop culture, and celebrity sightings of 1934, and yet in a way that's fully organic to the characters and story. There's no question Reno Sweeney and Billy Crocker would be making jokes about this stuff. From our vantage point today, close to a century later, we're apt to miss some of that wicked social satire, because so many of the original references are now obscure to us. So subsequent revivals have tinkered a lot with the lyrics to "You're the Top" and "Anything Goes," in particular, worried that contemporary audiences won't get all the original references (they won't), and as a result, exploring these lyrics sometimes requires a lot of digging. But this kind of research is so much fun. This show brilliantly captures some of America's craziest cultural impulses, most of which are very little different today from what they were in 1934. Anything Goes wasn't really telling a love story; it was telling the story of America awkwardly struggling with the huge social and technological changes that were transforming our nation from a rural culture to an urban one, and consequently a more diverse and socially liberal one; and from a social-status culture to one based on economic status. Though it was surely unintentional, I could argue that [Spoiler Alert] Reno marrying Evelyn is a clear metaphor for the way, for the first time in the 20s and 30s, Americans routinely combined "low culture" and "high culture." In fact that mashup essentially defines American musical comedy. Today, some frightened conservatives long to return to a mythical, nonexistent 1950s that's whiter, more Christian, and less complicated; and so too did folks in the 1930s fear the massive changes reshaping America. This show, its title, and its title song are all about that. Every version of the show starts the title song the same way.

Times have changed, And we've often rewound the clock, Since the Puritans got a shock, When they landed on Plymouth Rock. If today, Any shock they should try to stem, 'Stead of landing on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock would land on them.

It's a double joke, built on the two meanings of land, and comically comparing the relative shocks of finding the New World, versus those same 17th-century pilgrims finding the wild nightlife of 1934 New York. Kinda sounds like a Bill & Ted sequel.

There's actually a lot going on here. The times do change and when they do, some people fear that change, and they react by trying to turn us back to an earlier era ("we've often rewound the clock"), a time perceived to be more innocent, more faithful, more moral. With Ronald Reagan and some of the conservative movement today, the 1960s so freaked them out, that ever since then they've been trying to turn American back to the 1950s. The same thing happened in the 1920s and 30s. It's telling that Porter invokes the Puritans -- the symbol of social ultra-conservatism -- as a comic measure of the wild times we find ourselves in "now." No, the Puritan's likely would not have been big fans of speakeasies or The Ziegfeld Follies... As the first verse of the song begins, we set up this comparison. Once upon a time, so long ago that the days are not just old, but "olden," America was really moral. Except that the use of the archaic "olden" (Porter originally used "former" in that spot), and the extremity of just a "glimpse" being shocking, gives the whole thing a layer of smartass irony. Who'd want to live in "olden days"...?

In olden days a glimpse of stocking Was looked on as something shocking, But now, God knows, Anything Goes.

Women's modesty was a big issue as skirts got shorter, arms got bared, and dresses got more form-fitting. The androgynous, body-disguising, chest-flattening fashions of the 20s were gone. Throughout history, there's always been this weird impulse to hide women's bodies for fear men can't control their sexual urges (this is what the final scene of Grease is about). It's only now that we're concluding it's the men who need to control themselves. I think we've become numb to the title phrase of this song. It's just too ubiquitous, too embedded in our culture. But think about that phrase -- anything goes, anything is okay, nothing is off limits, there are no rules, no norms, no constraints anymore.

Good authors too, who once knew better words, Now only use four letter words Writing prose, Anything Goes.

What was Porter talking about here?

James Joyce’s 1922 masterpiece Ulysses, was banned in England till 1930, and the United States Post Office reportedly burned any copies of the book they found. Finally, in 1933 (a year before Anything Goes opened), the case of Ulysses was re-opened, and the Supreme Court ruled that because the book was not "pornographic" it could not be banned or censored. D.H. Lawrence’s 1928 novel Lady Chatterly's Lover, about an aristocratic lady who has a sexual affair with her groundskeeper was also banned over its frank discussion of sex (and the importance of orgasm), and its frequent use of the words fuck and cunt. One U.S. Senator exclaimed, “I’ve not taken ten minutes on Lady Chatterley’s Lover, outside of looking at its opening pages. It is most damnable! It is written by a man with a diseased mind and a soul so black that he would obscure even the darkness of hell!” Erskine Caldwell's 1933 novel God's Little Acre was about a dysfunctional farming family in Georgia obsessed with sex and wealth. The novel's sexual themes were so controversial that the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice asked a New York state court to censor it. In 1934, Henry Miller's semi-autobiographical novel of his sexual escapades in Paris, Tropic of Cancer, with its frequent use of the word cunt, was banned in the United States shortly after its first publication in France. The ACLU tried to sue the U.S. government, but lost its case. Finally, when the novel was published in 1961, sixty obscenity cases were brought in twenty-one different states. Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Michael Musmanno wrote that Cancer is "not a book. It is a cesspool, an open sewer, a pit of putrefaction, a slimy gathering of all that is rotten in the debris of human depravity.” Porter wasn't kidding about four-letter words. This really was a sea change in popular literature. "Anything Goes" has three bridges, each with a different purpose. The first lists examples of "immoral" acts which lead, in the second bridge, to a general moral chaos, which leads, in the third bridge, to how crazy that chaos makes us all. It's an ironic jab at all the experts of the time warning about the dangers of Modernity. The song's first bridge lists a bunch of morally sketchy things that "you" (so interesting to put this in the second person!) might enjoy if you live a Fast Life, things which will no longer be off limits in our topsy-turvy culture...

If driving fast cars you like, If low bars you like, If old hymns you like, If bare limbs you like, If Mae West you like Or me undressed you like, Why, nobody will oppose. When every night, The set that's smart is Intruding In nudist parties In studios, Anything Goes.

Before we get to the content, let's look at the craft here. The bridge has seven lines and five of them start with "if," and six of them end with "you like" -- and in between an AABBCC rhyme scheme. That's some really skillful writing. Then we return to the verse, and of those six lines, three start with "in," and those same three lines all have an "-ood" in the middle of the line. But also "smart is" makes a kind of subliminal rhyme with "parties," and to top it all off, the last line of the bridge rhymes with the last two lines of the verse that follows it. In terms of content, much of this lyric references current events. In 1930, twelve states still did not have any speed limits; it was an automobile wild west. The "low bars" (i.e., speakeasies) of Prohibition were disappearing by the time Anything Goes opened, a year after the repeal of Prohibition. The reference is a joke on the two meanings of the word low. Here the word means disreputable, but also, literally lower in height. According to a 1946 Life magazine article, before Prohibition, bars were 46-47 inches high, but during and after Prohibition, so many more women were drinking that they lowered many bars to 43 inches.

The "old hymns" reference may be a joke about how many hymns were set to the music of drinking songs because those tunes were already popular. Why else would liking old hymns be subversive like the rest of the items in this list? Maybe the joke here is just that "you" like drinking in taverns, where they sing old hymns that have been converted into drinking songs. Of course, "bare limbs" were still pretty new in women's fashion and still considered shocking by some. Mae West was still a new movie star in 1934, but she already had been writing plays, starring in them, and getting arrested for her plays' "obscenity." After the Hollywood Production Code was established in 1933, West simply perfected the double entente, with famous lines like "When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better." Nudism / naturism spread throughout Europe in the 1920s and got to America in the 1930s, due in part to sociologist, political theorist, and liberal social critic Maurice Parmelee’s 1931 book Nudism in Modern Life. Also, "the set that's smart" refers to the phrase "The Smart Set," meaning the cultural elite, usually fashionable and wealthy. It was also the title of a literary magazine that published from 1900-1930. The song's second bridge is more general than the first, more a catalog of the fallout. Here, the world is just fucked up, backwards, upside-down, disorienting...

The world has gone mad today And good's bad today, And black's white today, And day's night today, And that gent today You gave a cent today Once had several chateaus. When folks who still can ride in jitneys Find out Vanderbilts and Whitneys Lack baby clo'es, Anything goes.

No revival has used those last four lines because no one would understand them today. Jitneys were independent taxi cabs or small buses, so the joke is that the middle-class folks who can still afford to take a cab, here in the middle of the Depression, would be shocked to find out that some of the richest Americans (in this case, the Vanderbilt and Whitney families) had lost nearly everything -- due to the creation of income and estate taxes not too long before, the effects of the Depression, and the weirdly profligate spending of the Vanderbilts and others. The "baby clothes" might refer to Gloria Vanderbuilt, who was a child at the time. The Whitneys went broke through corruption. The third bridge of "Anything Goes" returns to the second person -- you -- acknowledging everybody's feeling that the world has gone crazy and it's making us all crazy. Much like right now. And notice this very early critique of the mainstream media...

Just think of those shocks you've got And those knocks you've got And those blues you've got From the news you've got, And those pains you've got (If any brains you've got) From those little radios.

According to the PBS website:

For the radio, the 1930s was a golden age. At the start of the decade 12 million American households owned a radio, and by 1939 this total had exploded to more than 28 million. But why was this ‘talking telegram’ so popular? As technology improved radios became smaller and cheaper [hence the "little" radios]. They became the central piece of furniture in the average family’s living room, with parents and children alike, crowding around the set to hear the latest installment of their favorite show. News broadcasts also influenced the way the public experienced current affairs. When the Hindenburg airship exploded in 1937, reporter Herb Morrison was on the scene, recording the events to be broadcast the following day. But above all the radio provided a way to communicate like never before. Franklin Roosevelt’s ‘fireside chats’ helped the population feel closer to their president than ever.

There's yet another bridge section, with an early lyric that was not used in 1934 but restored for the 1987 revival:

If saying your pray'rs you like, If green pears you like, If old chairs you like, If backstairs you like, If love affairs you like With young bears you like, Why nobody will oppose.

And yes, "young bears" meant then what it means now; it's a gay reference that a fair number of New York theatre-goers, "the smart set," probably had heard. "Backstairs" was surely a reference to brothels or speakeasies. But what of these other lines? Though several of these references seem oddly random, two of my friends, Mark Cummings and Michael Dale, suggest that the whole stanza is about acceptance of varying sexual tastes, and I think they're right. After all, anything goes. We know Porter loved to joke in code...

If saying your pray'rs you like = Good Girls If green pears you like = Young Girls, Virgins If old chairs you like = Older Women If backstairs you like = Hookers (or Servants?) If love affairs you like With young bears you like = Young Men Why nobody will oppose.

In other words, Free Love. That does make a certain Porter-esque sense, both in terms of his writing and his biography. With that in mind, this sure does feel like Cole's quirky take on "chacun à son goût." And if we're right about this, that may explain why it was cut in 1934... This last version of the bridge was written by P.G. Wodehouse for the first London production, and it's been used in all the revivals, because so much of the original 1934 lyric is unusable today.

When grandmama whose age is eighty In night clubs is getting matey With gigolos, Anything Goes. When mothers pack and leave poor father Because they decide they'd rather Be tennis pros, Anything Goes.

But this lyric is way too British for this show and these characters. Americans don't use the word "matey" because we don't use "mate" to mean friend; and most Americans don't say, "grandmama." Also in America, "father" and "rather" do not rhyme. Also, Porter rarely inverted sentences as awkwardly as these first two lines. Still, this stanza does get at another cultural phenomenon of the 1930s. While the trend up to that point had been for the divorce rate to increase, that got interrupted in the early 1930s. Due to the Depression, many couples stayed together because they couldn't afford divorce. It wasn't until the unemployment rate went down that the increasing divorce rate trend continued. Unemployment was at its highest in 1933, and as the unemployment rate declined throughout the 30s, the divorce rate increased. At the same time, women's tennis greatly increased in popularity. While Cole may be suggesting a connection -- a lesbian joke? -- I am not. This cheat rhyme was written for the Act I finale of the 1962 revival:

They think he's gangster number one, So they've made him their favorite son, And that goes to show. Anything Goes! Anything, Anything, Anything Goes!

But "show" doesn't rhyme with "goes"! A different alternate Porter lyric I found corrects the bad rhyme with "And that plot twist shows..." Like I said, there is no single definitive version of this show or most of its songs.

Much of the original 1934 lyric for "Anything Goes" would just baffle today's audiences, with references to Mrs. Ned McLean (a socialite who was the last private owner of the Hope Diamond), Eleanor Roosevelt's radio broadcasts sponsored by Simmons mattresses, extravagant Broadway producer Max Gordon, movie studio head Sam Goldwyn, Ukrainian movie star Anna Sten, actor and socialite Lady Mendl, and others. When Anything Goes first opened, the title song worked because it reinforced a feeling the audience already had -- that the world is spinning madly out of control, and that sometimes that can be fun. (Or as Little Red might put it, "excited and scared.") As proof of the show's thesis, the songs "Anything Goes" and "You're the Top" (the latter mocking our love affair with celebrities and brand names), offer up example after example ripped from the headlines (and society pages) of 1934. Today when we see Anything Goes, all those examples suggest the craziness in 2018, without literally referencing any of it. But it still works. Crazy is crazy. In 1934, Americans were grappling with the massive, disorienting changes our country was going through. It did feel to many American as if all the rules had been ripped up, that literally anything goes. Today in 2018, we're grappling with much the same thing, here in the early days of the Digital Age, at the start of huge demographic and social changes in America, when the very nature of truth is up for debate. Life today is just as crazy as it was in Reno Sweeney's America, maybe crazier. Today, all these references may serve only as metaphors, but still pretty potent ones. I've been telling people that the reason "the bad boy of musical theatre" decided to produce Anything Goes is that it's built on two central themes that fit our kind of work perfectly -- the American habit of making religion into show business and criminals into celebrities. But now, after taking such a deep dive into the title song, I realize those two themes are just the results of the show's true central premise, which is literally "anything goes" -- the world is upside-down. Every element of this story is testament to this one idea. All the couples are wrongly coupled at first, the clergyman gets arrested and the gangster gets a cruise, the passengers deify a fake murderer, the real gangster is as nervous as a fucking cat, the worldly-wise speakeasy hostess falls for the dorky Englishman... Everything is up for grabs. None of the rules apply. We're in Shakespeare's woods. And anything goes! Now, the next time somebody tells you Anything Goes is just silly and mindless, I give you permission to tell them to shut the fuck up. Long Live the Musical! Scott from The Bad Boy of Musical Theatre http://newlinetheatre.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-world-has-gone-mad-today.html