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minisoysquares · 3 years

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As fun as the events and ideas you posted about 19days would be, wouldn’t it also just bring in more negative stuff - like fandom in general has become a field of land mines and I fear that something that’s supposed to fun will turn into some sort of battle. Like how some people get extremely heated over any other ships outside of their fave ship and they cannot possibly have other ships except theirs, etc. The last thing anyone wants is for content creators to be targeted simply for making something they thought would be fun

(This ask and answer is about this post.)

First of all thank you so much for addressing such a big and valid concern. I agree that that has indeed happened in certain fandoms - I can say I've been in the thick of it and witnessed quite the warfare - but in others it has also brought fans and readers and content creators together even closer and tighter in a wonderful thriving community.

I have the feeling this'll get quite long so please proceed under the cut with that in mind.

I believe all things are potential harbingers of both discord and harmony. There will always be people who feel entitled and who want - even demand! the audacity! - authors and artists to create for their ships and their ships alone. And there will also always be people who can appreciate the writing and the art without judgemental treatment regarding the pairings/characters depicted, no matter their preferences.

All of that happens and will continue to happen, whether we go forward with these events or not. And yet authors will still write what they want to write, artists will still draw what they want to draw, graphic designers will still make the edits they want to make as well. What we could do, in this small and close knit fandom, is take in our hands this powerful rich opportunity and try our best to make a model of positivity out of it.

In these events, there would be no bashing or shaming allowed. The content created would be to be enjoyed by those who are attracted to it, and those who do not have a taste for that fanwork in particular would be asked to remain respectful. (As it should always be.) There would be no ship wars in these spaces. Discourse, hate-speech or anti-behaviour would not be tolerated by the moderators of the event.

Creators who indulged in it would be immediately disqualified. Any unnecessary commentary or complaints from the audience would be deleted and reported as spam. Anyone instigating conflict would be only painting a target on their back, really. Because most of us - I dare say - are only here to appreciate the brilliant artwork and fanfiction woven and crafted by the talented people who share it with us.

If it came to it and it escalated, this hellsite has several tools that can be put to use to that regard. Accounts could be blocked and/or even reported. They wouldn't be able to interact with the blogs created to run these events from then on. We would be able to create a black list and post it publicly so everyone else who wished to could simply block those unruly pesky accounts and remain at peace and free to enjoy themselves to their utmost.

Let us not forget that this is all fiction and it's all for fun. Everyone's allowed to have their own opinion, likes and dislikes. There simply is no need to step on anyone else and their interests to elevate them.

Let's exemplify, for the sake of clarity:

Do I personally ship A with B? Imagine I do not. I do not search for it. If I come across it? I scroll past it. Once or twice, I may even like - and even reblog - if it happens to catch my attention and it's well written/drawn! (I have tags along the lines of 'I don't ship it but' and 'look at this beautiful art' or 'drown in the power of these words.')

It's so easy to interact amongst ourselves without coming with pitchforks at one another. Know what actually needs effort? Being a meanie and a party popper! Who in their right mind wastes their time on things they don't care for? Dum dums, that's who! Of course, we're all dummies at times... and that's okay! Let's just not harass people or crash their fun while we're at it!

If nothing else: you wouldn't like if others did this or that to you, therefore don't do it to others. It's a simple concept to grasp.

Very important: in these events, every single piece would be explicitly and properly tagged and warned for right at the very top of each post, so there would be absolutely no excuses for anyone being nasty.

We would just have to be open to the experience. Enjoy our ships and let other enjoy theirs. We do not have to all like the same thing. That would be just boring. But we can cohabitate devoid of trouble in fandom. Each one of us just has to be respectful. No need to even be nice. No one has to compliment something they don't like. They also don't have to step on what others do.

Don't like a ship/character/theme? Don't read stories focused on it. Don't put down authors who write it or readers who enjoy it. Same for art. No need to shout about how awful it is just for the simple reason that it does not fit into your personal shipping preferences. It can still be still be a tasty and wonderfully baked cake, it's just that you're not fond of vanilla or strawberries. It's okay. There are all kinds of cake for everyone's tastes!

Further examples: If a ship happens to be a NOTP for me or I don't care for the character(s)? I filter the tags. All of them. Any and every tag I can think of. It's very easy to protect ourselves on Tumblr from content we do not wish to see. (My own list is huge and just as effective.) Filtering is incredibly important.

So go ahead and filter out the ships you can do without! Filter out porte-manteaux like Tianshan, Zhanyi, Qiucheng, Tianxi, Tianyi, Lishan, Litian, Liyi, Shantou, Polydays, (...) Filter out any ship tag that doesn't strike your fancy like Q x MGS, HC x JY's mom, (...) Filter out characters that aren't your cuppa tea like HT, HT's dad, SL, JY's mom, XH, (...)

Make it safe for yourself and for others. That way you won't rage at the sight of your NOTP, won't feel the compulsive need to trash the people who ship it, no one is hurt and everyone is happy!

There are many steps we could follow to prevent rotten eggs in our coop. And many more actions we could take to throw them out if need be. I firmly believe, however, that if we're all of the same mind everything would go well and with very few bumps along the way.

If we only ever feared the possible negative consequences of our actions, never taking the risk for the possible positive ones, we'd never get anything done. I say let's not let our beloved fandom stagnate or dry out. Let's incentivate and motivate and inspire! Let's share! Let's have fun!

Think of it in these terms: it wouldn't be a competition at all but rather a charity event. Performers and spectators coming together for a common good, raising content and spreading joy! There would be no winners or losers or prizes. What would matter would be good old-fashioned participation, both by providing content and/or consuming it.

It could also a good way to get people to express themselves more. Many content consumers tend to lurk or keep to themselves even if they like the content posts. (I used to be one myself and only a couple months ago started to come out of my shell.) I myself advocate for reblogging instead of liking - if you have to choose one or the other, I mean, why not do both? - and leaving a word on every single post I like and/or reblog. Sometimes I go nuts commenting, sometimes I leave a small note in the tags.

It doesn't matter how. Even if you're shy or introverted (*raises hand*) or don't know what to say I guarantee a single emoticon or a string of disordered letters symbolising incoherence will make the creator's day all the same. Getting feedback is so important and motivational for creators and also a great way for fandom members to keep in touch and support each other.

Additionally, if a person would like more of a certain type of content here are some healthy actions they could take: a) commission a creator and pay for it if they can; b) politely make a suggestion to a creator with an open ask box; c) post a prompt publicly for possible interested creators to use; d) do it yourself and share it with others!

This turned out into more of a "behavioural guidelines" thing than I'd have liked. I am not in any way whatsoever telling anyone what to do. This is what I do, and it works wonders for me. I stay completely out of toxic arguments and in on all the goodies. I'm able to fully enjoy my fandoms. And isn't that what we all want?

Thank you again for sharing your thoughts with me. And I apologise for the long rant!

Of course, this is only my personal stance on the issue. I did go for a survey first exactly for this end, to get their opinions on the subject and see if it would be worth a shot. I shall hope many other people will think as I do, but I will wholly respect those who don't.

#answered asks #19 tian #19天 #19 days #old先 #old xian #zhanyi #qiucheng #tianshan #jian yi #zhan zheng xi #he cheng #qiu #brother qiu #he tian #mo guan shan #she li #cun tou #xiao hui

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doodle-dog-diary · 3 years

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Saltober DAY NINE: Hobby

Original post here

Technically this is a hobby that is my own but yeah couldn't think of anything else to write about

(Warning: please do not talk to me about Yarichin Bitch Club. Do not play the YBC opening song anywhere near me. I WILL rip your throat out in a very unsexy way.)

Psst.

Come closer. Closer. Yes, that's it. I have a secret to tell you (tbh it's not so much a secret as just something I don't usually go around telling people, but I digress)

I read yaoi.

No, I didn't just go through a phase when I was like 13, I read yaoi as in, I'm still doing it now. Present tense and all. NO NO PUT DOWN THAT PITCHFORK I CAN EXPLAIN

I think I must have started when I was 13, maybe 14? When a self-proclaimed-fujoshi friend of mine introduced me to it. (I feel like back then every female friend I had was either already familiar with yaoi, or into yaoi. I don't know why, it feels like yaoi was like, an integral part of the Teenage Girl Experience)

I then discovered the amazing world of free manga reader sites, and no one could stop me from then on (except maybe almost getting caught once, but still). In those early days I started out only reading yaoi that was recommended on rec lists, in an effort to filter out the icky weird toxic bullshit (It didn't always work. Remember that opinions are subjective, and sometimes someone's memories of a thing may be tinted with nostalgia). I then learnt how to judge books by their cover with some degree of success (you can tell which works are more recent based on the art style. More recent stuff is less likely to have problematic elements, like abuse and rape being portrayed as romantic)

Ok, I know how this sounds, before you say something like, "but Doodle! That sounds like a lot of trouble! Wouldn't it be a lot easier to just, you know, read something from another genre?" I will say that yaoi, just like literally every other genre of fiction in existence, adheres to Sturgeon's law (90% of everything is crap), so it's not like I have significantly higher chances of finding something that is not crap with any other genre. I would know, every time I went to the library and picked out a YA novel (the sort geared towards teen girls) 9 times out of 10 it would be the same old "boring brunnette protagonist who insists that she's ugly even though she's not has two angsty hot dudes chasing after her, everyone looks like a model, also magic and werewolves" bullshit. So yeah, I'd rather take my chances with yaoi, because…

…Second, I…like pretty boys. YES I KNOW I'M AROACE THAT DON'T MEAN I'M BLIND,…also I'm a degenerate weeb, I just like looking at pretty anime boys, what can I say

Third, I've adapted. I've learnt to embrace that So Bad It's Basically Psychological Horror Yaoi lifestyle. I mean, if you can't escape it, you might as well just embrace it, you know?

Listen, man, reading bad yaoi may be an acquired taste but is an EXPERIENCE. Especially yaoi from like, Ye Olden Days. Those are a whole different level of fucked up. I could pick some random yaoi that looks pretty old, and the title would always be something that's really cute and cheesy, like, "doki doki first kiss" or something like that, and the mc experiences violent sexual assault within the very first chapter, without fail, every single time. That shit really fucks you up, man.

Also, I LOVE how yaoi mangaka will go, "you know what would be real fucked up?" and then go and draw a whole ass comic about shit that's fucked up. But potray it in a sexy way.

(Seriously. I just read one where it's like a collection of short stories, and in one there's a guy who's a literal pedophile. Like seriously. His friend asks him "what kind of girls are you into" and he deadass stares at a group of elementary school kids and says "you wouldn't get it" like no joke for real goddamn. Same guy goes and molests his little twink classmate not two pages later. The whole thing is portrayed as a cutesy high school romance)

Before I end this, word of advice, it's something I learned from my yaoi rec list days, some people will say shit like, "oh, go give Junjou Romantica a try…go read Sekaiichi Hatsukoi…trust me it's good…really the most wholesome romance story in yaoi history…" THOSE PEOPLE ARE LYING. DO NOT LISTEN TO THEM. I WATCHED JUNJOU ROMANTICA WHEN I WAS MAYBE 14 AND IT SCARRED ME FOR LIFE. SERIOUSLY DO NOT DO IT I AM 100% SERIOUS I AM NOT FUCKING AROUND JUST DON'T DO IT

#long post #cw rape #cw abuse #i feel like i have a lot more to say but yeah #oh boy i hope i dont get cancelled for this #feel like ppl gonna call me fujoshi like its a slur #oh well #im just gonna go sleep #saltober 2021 #saltober #the short story collection mentioned here is nise x koi boyfriend in case youre wondering #yea see i told you the title would be cute #cw yaoi

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a-dragons-journal · 4 years

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So you support factkin?

I’m... currently withholding and reevaluating my opinion on the subject. I have to be very careful and clear in how I word this, so it’s going to be a long response, sorry.

Previously, I’ve stated that my opinion on factkin was that it was a term and identity created and perpetuated by trolls, and that while I wasn’t willing to say no one legitimately identified that way, I had never met one, so I was relatively certain it was purely a troll thing - and that even if someone legitimately identifying that way existed, I didn’t feel it should be labeled with something ending in -kin.

Much of that is still true. It is a term that was created and has been largely perpetuated by trolls, and I’m still not sure I agree with labeling it as -kin, though I’m currently in the process of taking in new information and reevaluating my opinion on that part.

One important piece has changed: I actually did meet an individual who legitimately identifies as factkin and was generous enough to be very honest and forthright about why they do and their beliefs on the subject. Those of you who were at Othercon may or may not remember the individual; I won’t name them here at their request, but if you’re still in the Othercon discord server (not Otherconnect, but Othercon) you should be able to search “factkin” and find the discussion we and a number of other people had on the subject during that weekend.

It was a fascinating discussion, and one that made me take a step back and reevaluate some things. A lot of what was said about the individual’s experiences sounded a lot like how many fictionkin and otherkin describe their experiences - particularly the experiences predating knowing the “source.” I did get permission from them at the time to quote them anonymously in the future, so I’ll do that:

(Me:) If I may be so nosy, and feel free to tell me I may not: why say that it's that person, and not just another life unique to you? Given that unless it's someone you know personally, you can't have the same insight into their thoughts and feelings as you would with a fictional character, and that with such a huge population of human beings it's very likely some of them will be very similar without being the same person?

(Them:) My timeline is quite different from the one on this earth, but there are several key details and experiences that lead me to believe that rather than an entirely different individual, it is an alternate version of said person. (I mean, there’s the obvious things such as sharing the same name, occupation, and having a very similar physical appearance). I’ve been having sparse memories as young as five years old, but my experiences have grown stronger in the more recent years. I can share a few specific memories, both ones that more or less occurred for this universe’s one and not, and probably will over the next few days.

And, later, in DMs:

For those of us who are factkin, there are typically two different “types”. Those who identify as someone in this universe who has already died, this is very similar and ties in with reincarnation, which is a belief accepted even by quite a few non kin. Then, there are the ones like me. Identifying as someone still living. Please put down the pitchforks. I like to explain this identity to other people as very similar to fictionkin. The only difference is that rather than the “original” source being from another universe, it’s this one instead! Many of our timelines/canons differ quite a bit from the observable lives of those on this earth. Again, we do not claim to be this planet’s version of those currently living people, that is almost universally discouraged among us.

I still don’t know how I feel about using the word “factkin” for this, nor am I sure if I personally believe in it - but even if I don’t believe someone’s right about their explanation for their experiences, I don’t feel it’s within my rights to tell them they’re wrong about themself, for the same reason I don’t feel it’s right for people to tell me I’m not “really” a dragon. I’d also like to think we can judge people based on their behavior, not their identity. If someone is acting in a way that hurts other people, that’s one thing, but if they’re being polite and generally decent while happening to hold an identity you don’t happen to believe in, that’s another ball game entirely.

So, I’m currently withholding judgement and keeping tabs on the new @ama-factkin blog that’s recently shown up. I’m rather strongly of the opinion that anyone who calls themself "serious 'kin" has to also be willing to take in new information from someone who's clearly being serious and honest about their experiences and revise their opinions based on that. Taking in new information and evaluating & modifying your views, beliefs, and opinions based on that is a hugely important part of life and generally being a decent person.

As for why I reblogged their post, I reblogged it largely because I know a lot of the people who follow me are probably pretty strongly anti-factkin, and I’m curious to see both the arguments against it and how ama-factkin responds to those arguments.

So, take what you like, leave what you don’t from that, I suppose.

#rani talks #asked and answered #anonymous #factkin #yes this reevaluation period has been going on two months now and i'm not expecting it to be done anytime soon #i try to take a long damn time to make up my mind about complicated things bc once i have an opinion its hard for me to change it #so i want to take a long time to evaluate as many angles as possible before i settle on an opinion #so i'm as confident as i can be that i'm being fair #also i've ALWAYS been clear that if i ever met someone who legitimately identified that way i'd be curious to talk to them so there's that #that part shouldn't be surprising #i like talking to people with different worldviews from mine (within reason ofc we're not talking bigots and nazis here)

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tsarisfanfiction · 4 years

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Pulse IV

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Angst Characters: Alan Tracy, Scott Tracy, Virgil Tracy, Kayo Kyrano, John Tracy, Gordon Tracy, EOS

Part 4 of my entry for @gumnut-logic‘s SensorySunday: Touch. Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Okay, so before the pitchforks (and candy cannons) come my way, I would just like to inform you that this is @mythicalviper-fr‘s fault, because I hadn’t even considered doing this until they mentioned it. Once the idea was planted, however, it was just too good not to use.

“What do you mean, you can’t find them?”

Alan winced as the furious words spat out from his comm. Not that it wasn’t good to hear Virgil’s voice again – of course he was delighted that one of Gordon’s designated lifesigns had turned out to be one of their missing siblings, even if Virgil was injured and having to sit the rest of the rescue out with bad grace – but the loud and sudden outburst as either John or Gordon filled him in on the entire situation just served as a reminder that there were still two of their family missing.

“Virgil don’t you dare get out of that seat,” John said. No doubt the family bear was at that very moment preparing to dive back into the rescue, broken arm or not. “Your comms and telemetry are damaged; I can’t guide you around the danger zone and I refuse to have you off my radar again.”

It was going to take far more than that to keep Virgil in one place, but Alan left his older brothers to their argument over who was needed where as his Mole Pod once again did what it did best – dug a hole towards people in need.

“There is one lifesign at reference point eight five six one,” EOS informed him. “The optimum angle of approach would be twenty eight point three degrees from your current course.”

“F.A.B.,” he acknowledged, and made the shift. It felt weird having EOS in his ear now, when it had been John the entire rescue so far, but John was needed to wrangle Virgil – as best the middle child could be wrangled mid-mission when family was in danger and the rescue wasn’t over – and they couldn’t afford to wait until Virgil was pacified.

Alan knew his brother well enough to know that he wouldn’t be pacified until all five of them were on board Thunderbird Two and being subjected to full medical checks prior to flying home. Honestly, Alan didn’t think he’d stop shaking until then, either. The advantage of having a full-cover uniform designed for primary use in space meant that anyone would have to be looking really closely to see the tremors wracking his body.

He was scared. John was scared, Gordon was scared, and now Virgil was scared, and that made Alan more scared, because his big brothers were supposed to be the steady ones. But his biggest brother was missing, and Kayo, too, and until the teenager he tried to put aside during missions had given Scott a big hug and punched Kayo’s shoulder (and got a harder one in return), he was going to be scared.

The Mole Pod lurched and he tightened his grip on the wheel, gritting his teeth and lowering the speed. Focus, Tracy. One lifesign ahead. One alive person who needs you to hold it together.

The one person was a little girl, clutching a battered old teddy with tears pouring down her cheeks and nasty scrapes all down her arms.

“Hey there,” he soothed, cautiously picking her up and settling her in the passenger seat of his pod. “My name’s Alan and I’ll get you out of here, okay?”

She sniffled at him, said something intelligible that Alan thought might have been “I want my Mommy,” and closed her eyes for the journey back.

“Okay then,” he said, mostly to himself as he set the pod into reverse and hit the comms, injecting himself into the still-going debate between Virgil and John. It sounded rather like John had remotely locked Virgil inside Thunderbird Two, and was overriding the overrides Virgil was throwing at him to escape. “Virgil, I’ve got an injured girl here, she’s maybe six or seven. Think you can bandage her up and find her family?”

There was silence for a moment, as the medic in Virgil presumably warred with the brother. Injured girl. Missing siblings.

The medic won out, as Alan had hoped it would.

“I’ll take her,” he agreed with a loud sigh. “If John stops turning my ‘bird against me.”

“I’m doing no such thing,” John said, thoroughly unrepentant. “I’m simply preventing you from doing the sort of reckless activity you scold Scott for and going into danger with no back-up.”

“But what about Scott and Kayo?” Virgil demanded. “You can’t expect me to do nothing.”

“No, I expect you to do your job as a medic and trust the uninjured members of the team to continue their jobs.” John sounded all but scathing, and Alan suspected he was getting tired of the debate.

“They’re not just your siblings, remember?” Gordon chipped in suddenly as daylight filtered through the pod windows and Alan surfaced, turning the nose cone towards Thunderbird Two and medical aid for Virgil. “We’re all worried, and Alan and I won’t stop until we find them, okay?”

The large module door lowered as Alan approached and Virgil stepped out. Helmetless, and with one arm in a sling, he certainly didn’t look like he should be going anywhere near the danger zone, in Alan’s opinion. Still, it wasn’t until the little girl and her teddy were being carefully lifted out by Alan that he stopped frowning.

“Hey there, sweetheart,” he heard his big brother say as he headed back to the pile of once-a-group-of-buildings under EOS’ directions. “My name’s Virgil, what’s yours?”

“There are two lifesigns together at reference point eight five six two,” EOS informed him, cutting off the world above as he once again dug his way in, following his previous path for most of the way. The two were just a little further on, a little deeper down, and as soon as his headlights illuminated their silhouettes he knew what he was looking at.

“John! I’ve found them!”

He didn’t wait for any acknowledgement before he was leaping out of the pod and scrambling the rest of the way through the low pocket of space towards them. Kayo didn’t look too terrible – her helmet was missing, and her face and hands seemed to be bloody – but her face was pale.

“Alan!”

Forget responsible member of International Rescue. Forget being an adult. Alan hugged her tightly, and was relieved when she embraced him back, just as tight.

“Al..?”

Immediately, Alan knew something was wrong. Scott’s voice sounded tight, like he was in pain, and when he pulled back from Kayo he saw that Scott hadn’t moved at all. He was still lying down, despite not being pinned by any rubble.

“Scott?” he asked. His big brother was also missing his helmet – knowing Scott he’d taken it off for some stupid reason, but Alan was going to leave chewing him out over that to Virgil or John. Or both.

“Hey, kid.” He still didn’t move, even though he had pulled his face into what was probably supposed to be a reassuring smile. Alan had learnt to see through his fake ones years ago.

“Stay here with him,” Kayo said, dragging herself around and facing his abandoned pod. “We’ll need Virgil and a stretcher.”

“Virgil’s- Kayo what happened to your ankle?” Her boot was gone, as was her sock, and in the light from the pod he could see some bruising and swelling. It looked pretty bad.

“It’s nothing,” she shrugged, hauling herself into the driver’s seat. “You can’t take us both at the same time and we can’t leave Scott by himself.”

“Yes, but-”

And she was gone, leaving them with just the light from Alan’s helmet.

“Kayo!” Predictably, she didn’t reply. “Thunderbird Two?”

“Alan! John said you found Scott and Kayo?”

“Scott’s right here,” Alan confirmed. “Virgil, Kayo’s coming back to you with the Mole Pod. I think she’s busted her ankle, but that didn’t stop her from hijacking my pod. I’m still down here with Scott.”

“Injuries?”

“Too dark to see, but he’s awake. Kayo says we need a stretcher, though.” And you, he didn’t say, assuming that she’d change her mind when she saw he was injured, too.

“I’ll have one ready by the time she surfaces,” Virgil promised.

“F.A.B.,” Alan acknowledged, before turning his attention back to his eldest brother. Scott was too slow to hide the look of fear with another fake grin, and Alan scrambled even closer. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing, Alan,” Scott tried to tell him, but Alan didn’t believe him for a second.

“Scott? What’s wrong?”

“Seriously, Alan, it’s nothing.” But it wasn’t, Alan could see that, could tell from the fear Scott wasn’t hiding as well as he thought, from the way he hadn’t moved at all since he’d arrived.

“Scott!” he snapped, and if there was water in his eyes he was ignoring it. “Don’t lie to me. We’ve got to get you out of here so if there’s anything that’s going to affect that, I need to know.” Scott opened his mouth to protest but Alan steamrolled right over him. “You don’t get to treat me like a kid right now, Scott. I’m a member of International Rescue, and like it or not, you need rescuing right now so let me do my job, dammit!”

“Language,” Scott scolded weakly, but Alan was having exactly none of it.

“If you, my big brother, don’t trust me to rescue you, who will? You let me join the team because you thought I was ready. You don’t get to take that back the moment it’s you I’m saving!”

For a moment there was silence, punctuated only by Alan’s own ragged breathing, loud to his ears. Then Scott sighed.

“You’re right,” he admitted. “I’m sorry, Alan. To be honest…” He trailed off, pausing for so long Alan wondered if he’d even continue. “I can’t move. There’s some pain in my back, I think it twisted badly when I got knocked over, and-”

Alan wanted to cry, wanted to pretend he didn’t have to deal with this. This wasn’t fair. Why? Why?

“-and I can’t feel my legs.”

Part 5

#sensorysunday #sensorysunday2020 #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds are go fanfiction #tsari writes fanfiction #alan tracy #scott tracy #virgil tracy #john tracy #kayo kyrano #gordon tracy #eos #pulse

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musicollage · 4 years

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Atlas Sound. Logos, 2009. Kranky (USA) / 4AD (UK). ( Lyrics & Music – Bradford Cox ) ~ [ Album Review | 1) Pitchfork + 2) Pop Matters + 3) Drowned In Sound + 4) NME + 5) Prefix Magazine ]

1) As we've gotten to know Bradford Cox over the last couple of years through shows, interviews, and blog posts, one of the Deerhunter frontman's most appealing qualities is his deep and nuanced appreciation of the music of others. Some musicians listen to records to see how they work, check out the competition, or trawl for ideas; by all available evidence, Cox feels records, deeply. If he was born without musical gifts and couldn't sing or play an instrument, one can imagine him working at a record store, amassing an enviable collection while driving people on a message board crazy with the sureness of his detailed opinions. Whatever you think of his exploits as an indie rock media figure, Cox's music fandom is easy to identify with and also offers a portal into his own work.

Atlas Sound, Cox's solo alias, in one sense serves as a sort of laboratory for figuring out what makes some his favorite music tick, away from the expectations of his main band. Two collaborations on Logos, the second Atlas Sound full-length, are excellent examples of how music listening can be absorbed into original work. First is "Walkabout", a track Cox wrote and recorded with Noah Lennox from Animal Collective, whom Cox got to know during a European tour. Though Cox's music shades dark and Lennox's is often flecked with uncertainty and doubt, "Walkabout" is the sunniest pop tune of either of their careers. Coasting on a buoyant, twinkling keyboard sample, it is a starkly catchy and irresistible, a clattery post-millennial Archies tune that straddles perfectly the border between simple and simplistic. Interestingly, it also sounds very much like a Panda Bear tune.

Then there is Lætitia Sadier of Stereolab, who wrote the lyrics and sings lead on Logos' "Quick Canal". The song opens with some gorgeously textured organ chords and soon a steady-state beat and drums rise up in the mix, setting the kind of relaxed-but-propulsive neo-krautrock scene that Stereolab perfected very early on. Here Cox gets to play the part of the late Mary Hansen, adding "la-di-da" trills behind Sadier as she intones phrases in her unfailingly lovely, for-the-ages voice. He even throws in a "Jenny Ondioline"-style rupture about halfway through, sending the track into a breathtaking shoegaze section for its final four minutes, wherein it floats magisterially on a pillow of shifting guitar feedback. "Quick Canal" is almost nine minutes long and it doesn't waste a second.

On these tracks, the confidence Cox shows in melting his aesthetic into the soundworld of other musicians is striking-- both are unqualified successes, very different from each other but among the best things Cox has ever done. But they also sound a lot like the music his collaborators are known for. Cox's sympathetic support and sense of how to construct songs with others suggests a desire to expand the parameters of what Atlas Sound can be. And given his willingness to let others take the microphone on an Atlas Sound project on these cuts, I can't help but go back to Cox's words on Logos before the album was released, which suggested that this was to be less introverted and that was "not about me."

And then I remember that the cover of the album consists of a photo of Cox with his shirt off and the lyrics in the first two songs start with the word "I", which suggests that we probably shouldn't take these statements very seriously. While the songs may or may not be "about" Cox in the strictest sense, the overall vibe is at least as introverted as 2008's Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel, and every note bears the same signature. With its strummed guitars, hushed double-tracked vocals, and tunes more reliant on ambiance and feel than melody or rhythm, Logos feels every bit as diaristic and personal, but with Cox, that's a plus. At this point, we're not looking to this guy for commentary on the outside world; we want to hear him wrestle with private demons in the sanctuary of his bedroom, bathing every sound in reverb to give the illusion of space and as a sonic balm against loneliness and figuring out how to make music as affecting as the stuff he loves to listen to.

So tracks like "The Light That Failed", "An Orchid", and "My Halo" (the latter two, though different in tone, are further entries in Cox's growing line of melancholy waltz-time shuffles) function primarily as the kind of eerie, blown-out mood music he has become very good at. They are amorphous sketches that still manage to convey feeling, capturing the sort of sad, exhausted, and fragile emotional state that is Cox's area of expertise. "Shelia", a taut pop song with a great chorus hook, is a change-up, though the repeating refrain "No one wants to die alone" fits with the rest of the record's themes. And "Washington School", with its dissonant chime of metallic percussion that sound like gamelan or evilly out-of-tune steel drums, contains the record's most interesting production, with thick drones reminiscent of Tim Hecker and menacing rhythm track.

So some things are different, some are the same, but all of it works well together. It's true that every time Cox ventures out of his comfort zone on Logos, you wish that he'd go even further and embrace extremes-- of tunefulness, tradition, noise-- that don't necessarily come to him naturally. He may yet take a big leap with Atlas Sound, but here the steps away, though rewarding, are tentative. For the rest of the record, Logos feels familiar and assuring, another affecting dispatch from a corner of indie music that is increasingly starting to seem like one Cox pretty much owns.

2) Take a quick gander at Deerhunter's discography and you'll notice a clear stylistic trajectory. From the confrontational noise of "Turn It Up Faggot" to the ambient preoccupations of Cryptograms to the straight-up indie-pop of Microcastle/Weird Era Cont., it's plain to see that as the band has evolved over time, its songwriting has increasingly tended toward the more accessible end of the spectrum. Unsurprisingly, it appears that Bradford Cox's other songwriting vehicle, Atlas Sound, is following a similar arc. On Logos, his second album under the Atlas Sound moniker, Cox provides us with 11 songs that are far less insular, though no less dreamy, than those he has penned in the past. While his fractured compositions still evoke the myth of the bedroom pop auteur, the songs on Logos sound considerably more refined than the lo-fi sketches being churned out by many of his peers. This, as it turns out, is a very good thing.

To wit: "Walkabout", the track that had the blogosphere buzzing with anticipation for the better part of the summer. Built around a squelchy organ sample lifted from the Dovers "What Am I Going to Do", the song simultaneously recalls both the acid-tinged psychedelia of Black Moth Super Rainbow and the technicolor pop of Brian Wilson. Of course, it's impossible to mention "Walkabout" without acknowledging its co-creator, Noah Lennox, a.k.a. Panda Bear. In many ways, "Walkabout" bears Lennox's fingerprints more than it does Cox's, with Lennox's wistful vocal harmonies echoing throughout the track's four-minute runtime. It's easy to see why Cox chose to leak "Walkabout" well in advance of the release of Logos; bright, bubbly and infinitely catchy, the song perfectly captures the mood of a fleeting summer afternoon and stands as one of the year's best singles.

"Walkabout" is obviously a standout, though it's also an outlier when approached within the context of Logos. While some may feel as if they've been misled, the good news is that the rest of the album is no less rewarding, if not quite as instantly gratifying. Take, for example, the opening suite that leads up to "Walkabout". Pitting disjointed acoustic guitar strums and distant, reverb-soaked vocals against a backdrop of aqueous noise, "The Light That Failed" succeeds at drawing the listener in while still keeping her at arm's length. "An Orchid", meanwhile, presents the listener with a dreamy ballad that feels like an indistinct outline for a Deerhunter song. Cox's vocals and the song's guitar hook are buried just deep enough in the mix to force the listener to dig a little. When "Walkabout" finally hits, it feels like a reward well earned.

Luckily, "Walkabout" isn't the only nugget of pure pop bliss to be found on Logos. "Shelia", a disarmingly straightforward slice of jangly college-rock, proves hard to shake, with its Pixies-esque melody and sun-bleached three-part harmonies. Lyrically, the song serves as a world-weary rejoinder to the sweetly nostalgic refrain of "Walkabout" ("What did you want to be / When you grew up"), with Cox explaining, "No one wants / To die alone", before promising the song's titular subject, "We'll die alone / Together." It sure goes down easy, though.

Cox has publicly acknowledged that Stereolab were his favorite band in high school, so it should come as no surprise that given the opportunity to collaborate with Lætitia Sadier, he puts his best foot forward. On "Quick Canal", he lovingly builds up and tears down a cathedral of sound for Sadier to inhabit, layering a deep bass groove, tambourine hits and a wall of gently panning organs atop a steady, shuffling beat. Midway through, the song falls apart, briefly taking a detour into glitchy noise before giving way to a squall of fuzzed-out guitars. Try as Cox might to obfuscate the vocals, however, Sadier's voice proves indefatigable. To her credit, she sounds right at home here, bouncing her voice off of the song's jagged edges to produce a track that's equal parts haunting and triumphant.

With regard to electronic composition, on Logos Cox sounds more confident than ever before. Samples and electronic instrumentation form the underpinnings of many of the album's songs, though not to conspicuous effect. Penultimate track "Washington School" illustrates this point better than perhaps any other on the album. Opening with a loop built from fragments of a minor key piano line, the song soon piles on a pounding, bass-heavy beat, chimes and a playful synth line, blossoming into a full-on folktronica number that recalls Four Tet circa Rounds. Somewhere in the distance, Cox's disembodied voice rings out: "Shine a light / On me."

If Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel was the product of Cox's willful isolation, then Logos is the sound of the auteur stepping outside of his bedroom to engage the world outside. Though it cedes little of the hazy delivery that made Let the Blind… so compelling, Logos brims with a wide-eyed energy all its own, conveying a palpable sense of optimism that's all too rare in Cox's oeuvre. This isn't too surprising when one considers the circumstances; the path that led Cox to the album's creation -- globetrotting tours with his idols, collaborations with some of the most distinctive voices in indie rock -- is the stuff of dreams for hermetic music nerds. Perhaps that's why Logos sounds as vibrant as it does: it's the result of Bradford Cox living out his dreams rather than just dreaming them.

3) One of many unsatisfactory things about end-of-decade retrospectives is that musicians are rarely so accommodating as to plot their careers in nice, convenient ten year cycles. Nonetheless, that’s how posterity tends to remember them, regardless of finer details. Thus the Kinks are Sixties artists, the Clash a Seventies act, Talk Talk an Eighties band, Nirvana from the Nineties, and you’d comfortably stick a punt on The Strokes and Sufjan Stevens ending up defined by this decade we’re exiting.

But what of Bradford Cox? Even if you were aware of Deerhunter's raucous 2005 debut ”Turn It Up Faggot” at the time, you're a wizard or a liar if you foresaw how their frontman was going to fill the years 2007 to 2009. That is to say: three Deerhunter albums (‘tis a fool indeed who views Weird Era Cont. as anything other than a record in its own right), two EPs, and a solo project as Atlas Sound that’s yielded God-know-how-many free downloads, as well as last year's Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel, and now – an epic 22 months later - Logos. That all of this bar the odd freebie has been good to exemplary is simply astonishing, and points to an artist whose profligacy and cult popularity has him nicely set up to be a defining artist of the next decade.

And yet... anomalous as ”Turn It Up Faggot” may seem, such scabrous origins are indicative of a palette that has been cooling and quietening ever since Cox first intersected with the limelight. The soundbite-friendly ‘ambient punk’ aesthetic never really lasted beyond Cryptograms, with Microcastle canning the abrasiveness in favour of reasonably straightforward shoegaze set off with dreamlike Fifties flourishes. Having arrived at something like a commercial sound, another artist might have stopped there; however, Cox has ploughed right on through, this year’s Rainwater Cassette Exchange far and away Deerhunter’s most introverted work, a retreat into quiescent childhood reverie.

Logos has much more in common with Rainwater... than Let the Blind..., for the most part ditching the dissonant electronics in favour of delayed acoustic guitars and old-time pop structures. On the face of it, it sets out Atlas Sound’s stall as simply being whatever Cox may do sans Deerhunter. Yet in a way the 'ambient solo project' tag still kind of makes sense. Strictly speaking ambient music is defined not by instrumentation, but by its evasion of the consciousness. Whole swathes of Logos are blurred and indistinct - technically melodic, hooky songs treated and delivered in such a way that they all but self-negate, leaving nothing but fleeting impressions: the winsome viola that arrives in ‘Attic Lights’, just as Cox mutters ”maximum pain, maximum effect”; the gay singer’s unsettling yearning for traditional marriage on ‘Sheila’ ("we’ll die alone, together"); the barely discernible mantra ”all is love” that briefly ghosts through ‘Washington School’.

This might sound like a way of romanticising an unmemorable album, but that's far from the case. These songs are bunched together into two dreamy, fog-like passages that serve as a backdrop for a handful of the most tangible tunes Cox has ever written, soaring atmospherically above the misty dreampop. Opener ‘The Light That Failed’ roots itself in the consciousness through eerily torpid glitching, Cox’s disconcerting use of something approaching a falsetto, and the doomy langour of its titular lyric. It sets up an album that frequently drifts into disquieting areas, yet never quite follows through on this early moment of dread. Indeed, delightful Panda Bear hook up ‘Walkabout’ serves as definitive proof that the light hasn't failed at all. While much of Cox’s early pop obsession speaks of a desire to creep out of the now entirely, ‘Walkabout’ is far more tangible and good natured, thanks largely to Panda Bear’s high, comforting tones and the appropriation of the hook from actual vintage Sixties pop gem ‘What Am I Going To Do?’ by The Dovers. Ironically for a song built around a 40-year-old tune, nothing, else on Logos has ‘Walkabout’s immediacy, though the excellent title track comes close, a rattling Strokes-alike number slightly removed from the world by Cox’s arsenal of floaty FX.

As we’ve known ever since last year’s leak of the Logos demos, the centrepiece is the eight and a half minute, wholly electronic ‘Quick Canal’. Though tamed a little from the leaked 13 minute instrumental, this more mannered, Laetitia Sadier-sung incarnation is a better fit here, and still towers above the skyline. The Stereolab singer adds an inescapably Enya-ish quality to the gentle early stages, but by the time the song’s swooshing, snowy motorik has kicked into full gear she fits in immaculately, an aloof Old World passenger on a song charged with haughty European electronica. It perhaps doesn’t sound so jaw-dropping as it did in isolation, but a lot of that can be attributed to an intentional effect of the surroundings. Those short, subliminal songs serving to filter away reality and focus, like half remembered dreams that leaves the senses baffled and feverish.

Logos is a gorgeous, hallucinatory and somewhat sickly outing. While there's every chance he'll wrong foot us, and soon, this record is entirely in keeping with the increasingly self-erasing route Bradford Cox has taken as a musician; it's hard to stifle a shudder at that blanked out cover image. Maybe Cox will go on to be a star next decade - he's a gregarious, prolific man liked by critics. But listen to his music, and that doesn't feel quite right. Maybe he'll become an icon. Or maybe he’ll finally make his escape from our timestream entirely, leaving us to wonder if he was ever there at all.

4) Much like Starbucks, Bradford Cox has become a ubiquitous presence. What with his work with art-rock outfit Deerhunter, his involvement in Karen O’s official soundtrack for Where The Wild Things Are, and now this, his second solo offering under the Atlas Sound banner, you’d be forgiven for thinking that such familiarity will start to breed contempt. But you’d be way off the mark.

There are two things you should know about this unlikely lo-fi hero of gangly deportment (he has Marfan Syndrome, a genetic disorder that stretches his limbs and strains his heart) and a girlish speaking voice (the affliction for this is yet uncertain). Firstly, it is impossible to dislike him (just see Wayne Coyne’s spoof argument with him on YouTube, branding Cox a “dick”). Secondly, his creative output has proved him to be one of – if not the – most forward-thinking and inspiring musicians of our generation.

So, as Cox takes time out from Deerhunter, along comes ‘Logos’. Less of an experimental minefield than its predecessor, ‘Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel’, it sees Cox weave in and out of dream-like sequences, such as the sombre ‘The Light That Failed’ and ‘Quick Canal’, the latter featuring the sweetly masculine vocal of [a]Stereolab[/a]’s Laetitia Sadier; while ‘An Orchid’ pitches in as the aural equivalent of a David Lynch storyboard, guided along with looped noises and whimsical vocals.

It’d be easy to overlook Cox’s lyrics when the soundscapes are this rich and ornate, but there’s a delicate exploration of the most human of sensibilities and yearnings on ‘Logos’. He opens up the emotional vaults on ‘Sheila’, pining softly that “no-one wants to die alone… we’ll die alone together”. Likewise with ‘My Halo’, where Cox reveals “My halo burned a hole in the sky/My halo burned a hole in the ground… so I wait for polarity to change”. There’s much warmth and playfulness to be found here too, the unfeigned honesty and childlish desires expressed on ‘Walkabout’ – featuring the falsetto of [a]Animal Collective[/a]’s Noah Lennox – with its lyric “What did you want to see?/What did you want to be when you grew up?” being a case in point.

Cox may have tagged Atlas Sound as just another side-project, but ‘Logos’ is a clear indication that his solo creative output is just as richly rewarding as what came before.

5) For a project originally started as a way for Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox to give a voice to his despairing isolation (he records completely alone) as a teenager, Atlas Sound is starting to sound like an arena-filling, widescreen pop project. Logos, Cox’s second proper solo album, takes the dense, gray worlds of Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See, But Cannot Feel and puts them through a rainbow, delivering a splendid album.

If there’s one word to describe Logos, it’s “watery.” And in that regard, Logos shares a lot in common with Merriweather Post Pavilion (and Deerhunter’s Rainwater Cassette Exchange from earlier this year). Both albums trade in dreamy avant-pop landscapes buoyed by soggy atmospherics. “Criminals” sways like a shipping vessel in choppy seas, while the album’s great closing third (“My Halo” through the title track) sounds like it was transmitted from that underwater base in the third season of Lost. Cox is still reliant on the general ambiance that envelops his solo work, but here he’s willing to let his vocals float above the mix. And while musically this is brighter, he’s still all Debbie Downer. Old standby lyrical tropes of growing old (on “Sheila” Cox sings “we will grow old” like he’s reassuring someone else), loneliness (“Attic Lights”) and lost hope (“The Light that Failed”) show up repeatedly, and he still sounds like he’s on his deathbed when he sings.

But for an album created largely by one guy alone in his room, the guest performances shine the most on Logos. Stereolab’s Lætitia Sadier wrote the lyrics for “Quick Canal,” a sprawling, shoegazey track that never loses its motorik motion, peaking repeatedly in its eight minutes. The bubbly “Walkabout,” the high-profile track with Animal Collective’s Panda Bear lives up to all the hypertext spilled about it this summer, delivering the best of both Panda Bear’s effervescent youthful innocence and Cox’s wistful yearning.

Logos, while just the second solo album from the frontman for a band of marginal fame, represents the latest and greatest chapter in Cox’s ride to indie stardom. He rose to prominence mid-decade as a confrontational trickster riding blog-hype (circa Cryptograms), continuing with a solo album to build his brand (Let the Blind), an indie-rock masterwork (Microcastle) and a solo album of nearly as high repute (Logos). As for what’s next, Cox has remained mum (though Deerhunter might be taking a hiatus), but with Logos, he ensures we’ll all be waiting.

#rock music #art rock #atlas sound #bradford cox #kranky #4ad #2009 #2000s #2000s rock #pitchfork #pop matters #drowned in sound #nme #prefix magazine #review

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spineofdeathwing · 4 years

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A Post I should Have Made A Long Time Ago

Hello Spine and anyone who may be reading this at the moment. My name is Jerry, but most people know me as Gallowsfall. I am also well known - regrettably - for who I used to be: Burzgrim Blacksnarl/Gulghash back when I was associated with a group of habitual trolls/nazi shitlords in two guilds ran by the ringleader, Grom/Obombration/Scorching/Mooncakes/whatever he goes by now - and YES we are two completely different people. These guilds were called <Demagogue> and <Clergy of the Great One>, they were a small group of nationalists/fascists/trolls that enjoyed causing great amounts of harm and turmoil in the WoW RP community. I fully accept and HATE who I was at this time and all the fucking AWFUL things I did to so many people that I’ll never really remember or be able to properly apologize to or make it right again. Some of you I have met, we have reconciled and moved on. Some of you that I have met did not find comfort or reconciliation in confronting me or hearing my apologies - often because of the fact I can’t remember anything from those times beyond vague outlines of things I did but never to WHO and I’m sincerely sorry I cannot remember you to properly personalize a heartfelt apology to you beyond what I will say in this most likely very long post. I am sorry, from the deepest reaches of my heart, I am so fucking sorry. I now know the fullest extent of the horrible grief and fear I cultivated in all of you during those two to two and a half years I was lost and letting shitty people shepherd me down the entirely wrong path. I AM NOT TRYING TO EXCUSE MY BEHAVIOR OR SAY I DID NOTHING WRONG. I fucked up on a level no one should ever, EVER go to and every day since I’ve truly found myself I have HATED myself for it, I have PUNISHED myself for it. I have fucking WEPT in frustration and shame on a regular basis for having taken so long to figure out what I was doing to people and what I was doing to MYSELF. If I could go back and change everything and never have become that person, never had let that horrible fucking person manipulate me into thinking he and his cronies actually gave a shit about me - I would in an instant. I would give anything, even my own LIFE to try and take all of that hurt that I sowed into the world back… but I can’t. No one can. I can do everything in my power to try and put positivity and good vibes out into the world to try and make up for what I’ve done, but it doesn’t change and it doesn’t excuse and it doesn’t remove what I’ve done. I never expected it to, I have never expected to just magically be accepted by the entire community with open arms. The only thing I ever asked for was just a CHANCE. I wanted a chance to just let me be a part of the community again and prove I’d changed and to never stop trying to improve myself and help the community I once actively destroyed. But that was inherently wrong of me to want/think as well - not everyone is comfortable or willing to give me that chance and that is FINE, I accept that. My mother always told me, “Not everyone is going to like you, and that’s okay.” You have a right to feel angry, and I am sorry that I was the one who put that seed of anger, of hate into your heart from my abuse. I am sorry, I can never properly put into writing how sorry I truly am - but I hope this can at least give some kind of inkling of how sorry I truly am. But that’s not all I have to say here, and some of you will probably roll your eyes at what’s to come and sneer… but it needs to be said, and not just for me but anyone who’s been in my shoes and HAS GENUINELY MADE AN EFFORT TO BE A BETTER PERSON. If they have just made a half-assed apology post on twitter or here on spine, then continued the very next second to spew bullshit and hurt people - don’t you DARE try to have the audacity to compare them (or yourself if you the reader are one of these kinds of people) to me or others like me who are desperately trying to atone for the sins they’ve committed against their fellow human beings - not even just as roleplayers - to move past the oppressive shadows of their past. It can never go away, of course - it’ll always nip at my heels now and then... but I’d rather it be that than a darkened storm hanging over my head 24/7 until the day I die. It’s why I’m also here to make this statement that will no doubt incite more rage at me, but you know what? I’ll gladly take that abuse because I will stand up for others when others are too afraid to do so for fear of witch-hunts. It is absolutely toxic and abusive behavior to single out people anywhere and everywhere they go refusing to let them live down things they don’t do anymore - if they’re still doing bad things then only bring up those things that they are STILL DOING. It is absolutely toxic and abusive behavior to punish FREELANCE ARTISTS who are just trying to make ends meet for taking commissions from people who are “problematic”. If you do this kind of thing, YOU are in fact a piece of shit, and are effectively punishing an innocent person - taking away their LIVELIHOOD/INCOME in order to push your own subjectivity. This is absolutely unacceptable, and everyone should unanimously agree with this, no matter if it’s me saying it or some random person who isn’t taboo! I have lost friends, I have lost access to fantastic artists I LOVED to support with what little money I can come by due to this abhorrent practice and I gotta say it’s extremely fucking disgusting - especially when you consider that this behavior comes from people who CLAIM to support each other and support the working class/freelancers. Congratulations what you did is called censorship, and that’s a tool of the communist and nazi parties! THE MORE YOU KNOW~* Another thing I want to address is the very real fact that there ARE groups of very popular RPers/Artists who seem to be the unspoken kingpins of this community and if they decide one day that you’re no longer useful to them/become a liability for them to associate with - they will offer you up as the latest scapegoat for them to rile up the masses and send them after you with torches and pitchforks… ESPECIALLY if you so much as DARE to call THEM out for their own shitty behavior or business practices. Anyway, as no doubt many of our parents or parental figures have instructed us throughout our lives: “TWO WRONGS DO NOT MAKE A RIGHT.” “IF YOU HAVE NOTHING NICE TO SAY, DON’T SAY ANYTHING AT ALL.” “ANYONE WHO WILL GOSSIP TO YOU, WILL GOSSIP ABOUT YOU.” I am not trying to say “Oh, I am holier than thou! Truly I am but a poor victim!” No, I am just as guilty as anyone reading this of doing these things but every day I try to consciously remind myself more and more not to do them, that THEY DON'T HELP ANYONE - THEY MERELY CAUSE MORE PROBLEMS AND MORE PAIN. In conclusion, I would like to make it abundantly clear that I am completely and utterly, emphatically, sorry for anything I have ever done to hurt anyone - whether intentionally or unintentionally due to my own traumas and mental disabilities. I don’t WANT to hurt people anymore, any time I learn I am hurting someone I immediately want to do nothing but hurt myself and hate myself. But I’m not looking for pity, I’m looking for some reconciliation and the right to be apart of this community even if it’s just so much as being able to play the game and not have people whisper hurtful shit to me or post inciteful and extremely upsetting things about me on anonymous pages or even right out in the open.

I AM NOT A NAZI. I AM NOT A RACIST. I AM NOT A HOMOPHOBE. I AM NOT A TRANSPHOBE. I AM NOT A BIGOT OF ANY KIND.

I am just one broken and maladjusted man trying to make things right and move on with his life - to try and heal, but I can’t do that with people lying about me or just constantly bringing up my past to me and everyone around me, this is only re-traumatizing me and anyone else that past involves. You’re not helping anything or anyone, you’re just making more problems and hurting more people and the cycle begins again. I shouldn't have to say this, some probably won't care or believe it but: While I was with those groups, I was constantly called a "Sp*rg" or "R****ded" I was ridiculed and bullied for liking anime or furry shit. These people ruthlessly bullied me and tore me down and apart everyday to maintain their influence over me. Some of you might say, "Why did you even stick around, why didn't you leave?" I was trapped, by own fear of being alone and my great flaw of needing/desiring validation from someone anyone - even if it was these shitty fucking people. Anyway, thank you for your time if you have bothered to even read this entire thing, I know some won't and that's okay. To those who do, whatever your opinion may be of me afterwards is completely and totally valid and fair - whether it be negative, positive, or indifferent.

-Gallows

#Story #world of warcraft #Wyrmrest Accord #Abuse #Harassment #nazis #submission

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docfuture · 4 years

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Princess, part 7

[This story is a prequel, set several years before The Fall of Doc Future, when Flicker is 16. Links to some of my other work are here. Updates are theoretically biweekly–next update is scheduled for February 16th.]

Previous: Part 6

Full intragroup and intergroup relative advantage simulation run started. Estimated time for results: 6 hours at current background priority. Flicker finished her third high speed assessment of Practical Power Dynamics and supporting information on people and organizations that had used it. It had sparked insights--it was full of interesting social science--but it was also full of traps. Many of them seemed to be associated with naive scaling--the book's advice seemed unusually hostile to the incentive structures of large organizations, such as major corporations, government agencies, and international organized crime. She didn't yet have the context to follow the social changes the book had inspired, other than the notable de-fetishization of gratuitous killing. A long model run would help, but it would also take a while. Flicker's focus was more on the personal. Some of the advice on managing anger was intriguing, but it was unclear how applicable it would be for someone whose emotional processing was not entirely human. What she had found most useful was the window into the thinking of a smart, astute human who had done serious work on the problem of long-term functioning with a large personal reservoir of anger. She slowed down, moving herself back into squishy brain again, with active senses other than sight and touch. Human senses, hearing and smell, for the sound from the high speed workstation fans and the cooling pumps for the server room, and the faint smell of the oil she'd used on a stuck robot earlier in the day. She flexed her hands, which tingled as the normal flow of blood returned after a long bout of speed typing. Her emotions shifted back to as normal as they ever got as well. Journeyman was still watching. It had been about a minute for him--and almost a day subjective for her, some of it spent thinking on her own while she waited on resource intensive bits of Database analysis. She stood up from the high speed workstation and moved to the other end of the couch. "The book's perspective on anger is useful," she said, "and there are some techniques that may end up helping with management--but that will probably take a while. DASI is analyzing it and running simulations. There is lots of subtext, and quirks because it wasn't really intended for someone with my level of power. And we still have to sort through some of the traps, so I'll take my time, and it's securely recorded and backed up." She handed the book back to him. "Thank you for the loan." "No problem." Flicker exhaled slowly, releasing a bit of the tension she had built up. "My level of background anger seems to be pretty high compared to most humans. But not compared to the author of the book, apparently. The way she talks about normal humans getting angry and calming down sounds like an anthropologist documenting weird alien behavior. It's kind of funny because I find some of the same things weird. So I can see why someone with normal human anger might find mine scary. Like you do." Flicker waved a hand. "It's hard to explain because a lot of it isn't conscious. It's just what I do, I don't know any other way. But I can tell you something I know I do differently. A lot of the things I see at high speed make me angry. How could they not, if I care at all? And my speed mind is wider than my squishy brain--it has way more short-term memory. That's why I need to forget so much when I sleep--to keep the human part of me sane. But some of the anger from the memories stays. Only a little for each one, but it adds up. More than anything I can do to calm down does. "I have ways to dump that kind of anger, but only down to a certain point. So I tend to be at or above my background anger level most of the time, unless I'm completely concentrating on something. And new things can interact with the background and make it seem like I'm reacting disproportionately when I'm really not. Does this help you understand better?" Journeyman glanced down at the book, still in his hands, then put it back into his vest pocket. "A bit. I hope you're ready for some things that will make you angry, because I can't put them off any longer." Flicker studied him. "Speaking of traps and subtext, there was a bit in the book about not setting traps for yourself with unresolved conflicts. We have one. Have you been avoiding it to sustain your load-bearing social fiction? Or because you were worried I'd be angry?" "Both. The spying you did the next time I was gone after scrambled memory day had some serious consequences." "It was research on your background I needed to do because you didn't leave me any other options, and you never elaborated." "You'd already stopped by the time I found out about it, and I didn't want to have that fight while you were my backup for the dicey mess I got myself into." Journeyman spread his hands. "You uncovered information about a fair number of my contacts. One of them was a Diviner. Doesn't matter how careful you are if you hit a canary secret from a prepared Diviner. If the number of people who know it is small, and goes up, they can tell. After I got back, I found a message from her telling me it had been fun, but she didn't want to die finding out the hard way that my new girlfriend was the jealous type. She'd already disappeared. I can't blame her--she knew you were my partner and correctly guessed you were the one digging. Diviners that aren't paranoid about being hunted don't generally live to get old." "But I wasn't--never mind." She planned ahead based on plausible assumptions. "Yeah. My contacts don't know everything, and neither do you. And that's the way it has to stay." Flicker frowned. "Okay, but I still don't understand the rules for how your magical communities function. The information quality about them in the Database was really low: A lot of implausible junk, some weird and disturbing stuff--most of it probably untrue--and occasional records of conflicts that left a body or bodies. I wanted to find a good enough set of connections and opinions of you so I could see where you fit. I was not trying to endanger anyone. That was why I put so much effort into preserving anonymity for everyone but you when I was digging. And stopped when I realized it would fail. I learned a lot of things I didn't expect. Including how justified so many of the people you know are in fearing databases. But only the Database knows who they are, I don't." "They don't know that. Limiting access to personally identifiable information can be a matter of life or death for them." Journeyman smiled humorlessly. "The torches and pitchforks crowds and burn-the-witch-itis have always interacted with privacy loss in ugly ways. One consequence is that internal safety is an issue, and yes, that's something I have to balance. I try not to make things worse. But I did, when I became your partner. I needed backup for too long, and you stopped waiting and started spying." "I wanted to know about you, and if you'd been willing to sit down and talk to me--" Not productive. Redirect. "I use the Database as a social prosthetic to keep from screwing up even worse than I do already. You were being evasive. I didn't know enough to tell if you were trying to get me to take a hint, so I used it to try to find out if I was taking the right hint. There were Database privacy blocks keeping me from finding out what I wanted, and that stupid superhero social taboo against asking directly. How else was I supposed to find out? Telepathy? Osmosis? It was OSINT, active hacking and monitoring, or ghosting around to spy in person, and I picked the least intrusive option." Journeyman nodded. "That's what the Database told me, when I learned about the urgent trust hazard you'd created. I understand. But even open source intelligence is qualitatively different with your level of Database access. Perceptions count for what I do, and it doesn't matter what you or I think, if my contacts start avoiding me because they're worried about a frighteningly powerful 16-year-old with high level Database access who is perceived as immature." "How did this become common knowledge? Did the Diviner tell people?" "I did. I knew there would be others, so I asked the Database for a list, got in touch with those I still could, and apologized." Calm. "Without telling me." "I told you I'd handle the fallout--that it was a social problem, not a speed or power problem. Remember?" "Yes, but this was something I needed to know to correctly evaluate consequences. And isn't it still a problem, just from us being partners?" "At the moment, yes. It's going to take time for me to rebuild trust." Flicker shook her head. Staying angry at him for concealing an apology would be both unhelpful and unfair. "I see," she said. "Any other unpleasant surprises you want to get out of the way?" Journeyman clasped his hands and looked down at them. "Several. I've had time to think a little more about Doc not telling you things. And you make assumptions based on what you think he must know. But there is something I've picked up as a magician that you probably haven't. Diviners tend to be paranoid and secretive, for good reasons. A lot of Seers have serious trouble staying mentally healthy. And true Oracles have to take extreme measures to stay sane and alive, and be really careful how they talk." "What definitions are you using? The Database says 'Seer' is used so broadly and vaguely it's almost meaningless." "Ah, sorry. Magicians can be sloppy with terminology, but what can you do? A Diviner is a magician who specializes in information magic. Seer is a catch-all label for anyone who sees or perceives things not accessible to normal senses that are at least sometimes accurate--they don't have to be trained and Seeing often isn't voluntary. Breakpoint is an example of a Seer who isn't a magician. An Oracle is a Seer who can see the future, know it's the future, and possibly affect it. They are frickin' dangerous. And rare. And Doc comes across to me as an Oracle doing a very good job of hiding it." "He isn't an Oracle, he's just good at long term extrapolation. He does do some pretty weird analysis and debiasing tricks with Database projections, though." "I think there's more to it, but it might not matter. There are quirks he has, ways he talks about certain things, that make me wonder if he has a future-vision-o-mat down in the vaults. And a way to stay functional as an Oracle is extreme compartmentalization--literally putting some things completely out of your mind. That's risky if you get attacked, and I think Doc has been. But he does have the Database, and the support for the kind of compartmentalization he would need was already there when I needed some of it, for the data I just put in escrow." Journeyman looked back at her. "So don't assume he has to know something because he knows other things. And be careful about dismissing warnings if he can't share direct evidence. Oracles can know without being able to show." "That sounds pretty speculative," said Flicker, "but I'll keep it in mind." "That's all I can ask." Journeyman nodded slowly. "And now for something else you'll probably consider speculative, but sure doesn't look that way to me. Did Doc ever tell you how an Oracle duel works?" Flicker sped up briefly to check the Database, then slowed again. "No, but it sounds like something theoretical called a dual loop virtual time travel instability. Does it involve nothing you can really see except strange apparent coincidences?" "Yeah, that's what Doc called them. I'm pretty sure now that the entire mess I got dragged into over a year ago--the deciding factor for my agreement to become your partner in the first place--was tangled up with a long running Oracle duel involving at least two sides. And that's not even counting whatever indirect effect Doc's projections might have. When I started to realize something was weird, I didn't think it had anything to do with you. Aaand... I was wrong. Figured that out last night, but it doesn't help much. Even if you know you're caught in the gears, it's way too easy to tie yourself up in self-delusion, seeing things that aren't there..." "Confirmation bias?" "And a bunch of other kinds. Multiply the problems in Doc's rant about using Bayesian analysis to catch a probability manipulator by a hundred. And I'm fairly certain I was targeted to get at you." Flicker frowned. "Why? Why am I not targeted directly?" "You are--that would be Hermes. There are multiple things going on, which is what makes this such a pain to try to unravel. But you have a lot of protection from direct probability manipulation. A bunch of older magicians that lived through the Cold War still cast regular little blessings against nuclear annihilation. You get part of them because you can--and would--rip apart a nuclear war with thrown rocks. And Doc and I still argue about the origin of some less obvious buffers for you that definitely exist. But there's lot of hostile probability manipulation, too. Like, everyone who can do it who wants to destroy the world or part of it, because you're pretty good at stopping that, and the easiest way to get it to happen is to trick you into doing it for them. Now I'm not defenseless. But it's like..." Journeyman paused to think, then looked up at her. "Suppose I'm somewhere with bullets and shrapnel flying around. I'm better off than the average bystander because I have an anti-bullet ward. But if I'm standing next to Armadillo and a bunch of machine guns are shooting at her, I'm in danger, because bullets miss and bounce, and my ward can only handle so much. And if some of the gunners get the bright idea to shoot at me instead, I'm in real trouble, because what might only annoy her can kill me. I'm the weak point." He pressed a hand to his forehead. "I think I'm your weak point. In more than one way. And yeah, there are things we could theoretically do to try to handle it all, but you know what those machine gun equivalents are very effective at preventing? Calm, uninterrupted consideration of anything personal or contentious." "I think we're managing okay," said Flicker. "I mean, it's not exactly fun, but..." "We haven't gotten to the contentious part. And, uh... I'd kind of like to move somewhere neutral for that. This is your home, and you may suddenly prefer I be elsewhere." "I may even more suddenly need to talk to the Database, and the latency is lower here. If I want you to leave I'll tell you. And you can port out any time, if you stop feeling safe." "I'm not feeling particularly safe now. But I promised I'd stop evading, so... Do you still want to go ahead?" Flicker briefly consulted her reminder list, much of which now seemed outdated or inappropriate. "I had a plan, but you derailed it by bringing up other stuff--important stuff--like you're afraid we won't ever get another chance to talk." A steadying breath. "So I'm wondering if I even should, with everything you say is getting in the way. And you aren't acting or sounding okay. When you came back to Earth yesterday, you'd been through something horrifically bad. Forgot you'd been stabbed in the back bad. Paranoia turned up, reliving things under cover, not all the way back yet bad. I changed the subject to Hermes, then later botched my sleep-fuzzy attempt to help. Partner, can you tell me what's wrong? And how we might go about fixing the Oracle thing if you think it's interfering with you too much? Because I can wait a little longer if I have to." Journeyman laced his hands together behind his neck and shook his head. "You're right that I'm not okay, but waiting isn't going to make it better. I think bad shit would just keep happening. And I know you hate incomplete answers, but I've told you as much as I can about what's wrong. As for fixing things... I don't think there is any quick fix. I put details in Database escrow just in case, but I sure don't want you going off on a rampage in another dimension because I suspect some of the inhabitants might be responsible for some of our problems." "Then why bring it up?" Journeyman smiled wearily. "Doc's old rule: Tell you what not to do clearly and first, because there may not be a chance for a 'wait, stop'. And with the way things have been going..." "Fair. So you think we're just going to have to live for a while with incomplete information, bad luck, unfortunate misunderstandings, inconvenient interruptions, and so forth for everything we do together?" "No." He took a deep breath. "We aren't going to live with it because we aren't going to be together." "...Until?" Journeyman spread his hands. "Don't wait around." Flicker stared at him with a hollow feeling in her stomach. "What does that mean?" He looked down, then back up at her. "First: You're 16. I would not be okay with starting anything before you're 18. Next: Even if all the interference went away, I still couldn't be Make-Everything-Better Man for you," he said. "I'm glad I was able to help you as your partner. But it's not a healthy basis for a relationship. And those aren't the only problems, but going through a list with the implication that the goal is to find a way around them all would be a bad idea. Some of the issues are mine. Getting together with you would not work, and I don't know when, if ever, that might change." He shook his head. "You have your own life. You should feel free to grow, and learn, and become... whoever you're going to be. And right now there's too much I can't tell you, you have too many good reasons to be angry with me, and I don't want to be used as a weapon against you." Flicker stood, and looked over at the entrance to the server room. "So you'll just blow everything up yourself. It sounds like you want to drop our joint duty shifts, too?" A pause. "I wasn't kidding about the load-bearing thing. At least for a while, I think they would just make things worse for both of us." "Now that makes me angry. I put a lot into our partnership, and trusted you to maintain it. But okay. It's not like you need your partner's backup anymore." The hollow feeling had given way to the grim disgust of seeing a tangled mess she couldn't possibly have helped, because it was wrecked before she even started. But it was best to be sure. She sped up. DASI? Does Journeyman appear to be suffering from mental sabotage, mind control, or anything else relevant? I do not have sufficient data to judge the soundness of his decision process, but his actions are consistent with his prior behavior. He is showing signs of prolonged stress. As are you. Thanks. I knew that last part already. Amelioration measures are still in progress. Please do not do anything precipitous. Yeah, yeah. She slowed back down and shook her head. "I just don't understand your thinking. Why even agree to our partnership, if you were going to do this? And if your model of an attack on me is right, and not just a paranoid overreaction, why pull away... everything I thought we had, without even trying to help?" "I do intend to try to help, after I spend a while recovering," he said. "I'll stay in touch through the Database. But first I need to see if I can track down some Diviners, because half the ones I know are indisposed or missing, and the other half are getting 'future not found' errors or disturbingly ambiguous signs of some sort of global catastrophe that may or may not be happening the day after tomorrow." A sudden frown. "You weren't planning on doing anything drastic to the planet that day, were you?" "Not particularly. I'm not even going to be on Earth for some of it." "What." "I'm going to the Moon to run Speedtest, finally. Scheduled it with Doc this morning." "Ah," said Journeyman, his face noticeably paler. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to reschedule?" "No. As you said, I have my own life, and things to learn. If you are seriously convinced some entity is actively trying to sabotage something specific that I've put off for too long already, tell me where they live, and I'll visit them with some physics. Before catastrophe day. Then you can find those other Diviners and see if the problem has cleared up or there is someone else who needs a visit. An Oracle should be able to tell if their personal future is about to become very short, right?" Journeyman looked down. "I... don't think that's a good plan." "Then maybe you should have raised your concerns before dumping your partner?" "Priority interrupt," announced DASI from the wall speaker. "A candidate psychological expert has been located." Flicker sped up to read a summary on her visor. It was good news that DASI had managed to identify and contact someone. But she had conditions for her help and an unusual background... Flicker puzzled over some of the details, then slowed down to frown at Journeyman. "All right, if you really still want to help, the Database profile of this person is weird. There seem to be rumors that she has some kind of magic resistance. Have you ever heard of a Dr. Stella Reinhart?"

Next: Part 8

#FallofDocFuture #FallMisc

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grimes-claireboucher · 5 years

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GRIMES | WHO KNEW WORLD-BUILDING WOULD BE SO DIFFICULT?

BY SID FEDDEMA

APRIL 23, 2019

You can hear it, can’t you? The pulsing, panning synth bass, ingenious and instantly memorable. A gossamer coo, almost a sigh. And then a voice in an unusually high register singing  lyrics full of menace, at odds with a calculated syrupy-sweet, faux-naive intonation: I never walk about after dark / It’s my point of view / If someone could break your neck / Coming up behind you always coming and you’d never have a clue.

Seven years later, its power remains unmitigated. “Oblivion” turned horror into art, and, while drawn from a personal, particular experience, it spoke to a universal pain, a sense of predation and vulnerability all too familiar for women. Most importantly, it is a defiant act of resistance, a steadfast insistence on Grimes’ ownership of her own experience, and a refusal to be silenced. Pitchfork named it the best song of the decade so far. NPR named it one of the “greatest songs by 21st Century women.” Grimes was suddenly a cultural touchstone, a feminist symbol, a cherished member of the resistance. Everyone was watching.

They still are. Look at the Twitter fusillades, the talmudic readings of even the most flippant utterance, the team-joining. Feuds! With contemporaries, the media, her label. Gossip! A storm of it, following her spacetime-warping appearance with Elon Musk on the Met Gala red-carpet. And to hear Grimes tell it, being caught up in all this has been excruciating. She’s said that 2018 was one of the hardest years she’s endured.

When we speak, Grimes is in flux—emotionally, artistically, career-wise. But that’s nothing new. If I was to describe her with one word, I think it would be '“mercurial.” Or “protean.” She never stands still, never settles. She feels less like one person than like a collection of occasionally-combative creative spirits inhabiting one body. Hence the wide cast of characters in her albums, the fashion experiments, the accretion disk of material spanning mediums and genres. As I was writing this article we got word that she has changed her name—to c [lowercase italic], rather than Claire Boucher, and that the Grimes identity she’s built up over the course of her career could be next to go. For a journalist, she’s a tough subject: not only is she encyclopedic in conversation, but by the time you finish your draft, half of what you’ve written may no longer be true. While this capriciousness is a powerful creative resource, it can also make things difficult. She is a hell of a lot of fun to talk to, though—a whirlwind of ideas, opinions, wisecracks, and puckish self-deprecation.

I was given four tracks from the new album to prepare. But when I bring up the first, the disarmingly raw, strange, and lovely “Shall I Compare Thee,” she laughs. “I hate all these songs now. I might even replace them all. I’m supposed to be finishing the album this month or whatever, but I’ve been making a shit ton of new music instead. Which is a really bad idea.” She sighs, thinks for a moment. “But I’ll probably put out the songs that I said I’ll put out.” I tell her that her fans would surely appreciate seeing what she’s been working on. “Maybe, maybe not,” she replies, grinning. “I think the fans want me to stop making metal, nu-metal. Which I will! I have, I have stopped making metal!” Meanwhile, she’s dropping demos for an augmented reality side project under the moniker “Dark,” scribbling away on a novel, and thinking about a suite of “hymns, like glossolalia vocal music,” but which she “probably won’t release as ‘Grimes,’” as she explains it. She has changed her artistic approach, and is intent on unshackling her creative impulses. “I read a book on speed painting, about how you just lay it down and become satisfied with it. So I’m trying to do a bunch of stuff like that right now. It does feel better, because it just contains more life,” she explains. “Shall I Compare Thee” embodies this speed-painting creative methodology: DIY production, recorded in “like, two hours.” But the other single from the album, “We Appreciate Power,” is the opposite. It’s polished to a shine, conceptual, accompanied by a well-produced video. “‘Power’ is sort of the end of the old music I was making,” she says. “This era of super-produced and perfected sound—it’s sort of a thesis on that, a bookend.”

She’s eager to explain the concept of the new album. However she feels about the songs at any given moment, she’s clearly excited about the story that they’re telling. “Miss Anthropocene” is a character, essentially an anthropomorphization of the concept of climate change. The name is a witty pun on “misanthropy” and “anthropocene”—the geological era defined by humanity’s irrevocable impacts on the planet. “All the media about climate change is like one big guilt trip. It’s super depressing, like, here are some facts that make you wanna go home and kill yourself. It sucks and it sucks to look at, so people just kind of look away from it,” she says. “I want to change that. In ancient Greek culture you have these gods that represent abstract, terrifying concepts. Like a God of Death. So I wanted to make Miss Anthropocene this idea of, like, the God of Climate Change. She wants the world to end and she wants to bring about the end of humanity, but she’s fun. She’s fucking fun and evil!” Grimes laughs. “Also, climate change is beautiful, even if it’s terrifying. It’s so nice to look at. The sunsets are brighter and more beautiful. Volcanoes, oil rainbows, hurricanes... destruction is gorgeous—people are drawn to it.”

Miss Anthropocene marks the end of an era for Grimes. When it’s released she’ll be finished with her obligations to her label, and she’s excited about the prospect of working without contractual restrictions. “I’ll never sign with another label. I’ll never have to put out another album... If I didn’t have this whole requirement to release an ‘album,’ I would have just dropped a bunch of music ages ago.” The album format, she says, feels increasingly ill-suited for her shape-shifting, experimental style. “Albums are trash unless you sit down and make a really good album. I’m not really that consistent. I feel like I would work better in like EP-ish formats.”

It’s not the only departure from musical tradition that she’s considering. Touring, she tells me, has increasingly become a stressful obligation. “I wanna retire from touring. I wanna do a hologram tour. Why do we keep doing them for dead artists instead of living ones who have stage fright?” Does she still get stage fright, this far into her career? “Oh my god, yes. It’s nightmarish. Apocalyptic. Terrifying, horrible. I can’t hear clapping or cheers—I just hear an echo chamber of death. I black out. Dissociation—I can’t tell what’s happening. After a show I’m always thinking, What happened? And people are like ‘It’s ok!’ I know people like the authenticity of live performance, and I do too. But I’m not a good performer. I’m a director who accidentally fell into this position, and now it’s too late to change. So I need to Gorillaz it—I need to find a way to not have to do the Beyoncé thing as much.”

The sense is that Grimes is finished with facades, done pretending, done jumping through hoops to meet our expectations for what a ‘pop-star’ should be. Coming to terms with all this has been a messy and difficult process, but she’s finally feeling like herself again. She’s optimistic, if wary. And she’s ready to let it all out. Her forthcoming album, to hear her tell it, is Grimes unleashed. “I feel like at times there is an extreme rage that I haven’t been able to lay down,” she says. “A rawness that I have withheld from the public, because people always told me to make it more accessible. I’ve given that up for this, and it’s been freeing.”

She’s confronting her past as well. Miss Anthropocene was written during a period of intense self-reflection, and in the midst of personal tragedy. After losing others to addiction and overdoses, yet another close friend had passed. She hints obliquely at her own struggles with substances. It’s hard for her to talk about, but she has confronted it head-on while making this album, and is ready to be honest with the public. “I had early disturbing experiences with kids coming up to me and admiring things that were self-destructive. I was like, fuck, people think it’s cool to cut yourself or vomit or do crack. That’s not good! But then it became this stifling thing,” she says. “I don’t know. I’ve lived this hard, fucked-up life. I can’t pretend I didn’t. It started feeling like I couldn’t express myself properly, because I was so worried about being a good role model. It scares me to be hyper-honest, but we never see women getting to be that way. There should be someone out there that’s messy and fucked up—for some people this is how it is. It scares me because I don’t want little kids to romanticize certain things that are not cool. But I also don’t want to lie about the reality of my existence. I can’t make super honest or super emotional art if I’m always pretending to be cool and chill all the time.”

Grimes’ fans, who love her rabidly, have expressed worry at times in the last few years. If it seems she’s been self-sabotaging, whether online or in her relationships with collaborators and partners, it’s because she really has struggled. But unlike most of us, every step of her journey has been seized upon by a fascinated public and a cynical press hungry for headlines and clicks. And her reticence to tell us what she was really going through left all the more room for speculation. “Two of my best friends died before I was 18, and I lost like five friends to opiate-related deaths. Really close friends. I had one die when I was on a shoot, and found out while filming the second day. All this stuff, fucked up stuff, is happening. Before I would just not mention any of it. I feel like I’ve been through war when I think that all these people around me are dead. In 2016, my good friend died. They were a friend of 15 years, and I felt nothing. Just nothing. And it was so weird. But, you know, there you go. So you start removing yourself from everybody because you don’t want to face it. Life becomes too shockingly fragile, you know?”

It hasn’t been easy for Grimes to engage with her past, but talking about it—in her art, in interviews like this one—is helping. “I’ve gotten better. I was really fucked up in 2016 when I wrote this album, but now I’m doing much better. When I was going through the Art Angels cycle, I was having severe PTSD, and everyone was like, ‘Don’t let the public know!’ I know there are people who think I’ve fucked up the last year, and I do need to be more organized and reasonable and thoughtful at times, for sure. But I feel my art is better.”

Grimes’ favorite part of her job comes before she records a single note. “Dreaming it up feels so easy. The making and releasing can be horrible, but the dreaming is always fun,” she sighs. And that’s why she’s such an interesting figure, right? She’s a prodigious dreamer. We may love the music—I still blast “Oblivion” on an almost monthly basis, revisit the strange and compelling world of Art Angels—but it does sometimes feel almost beside the point. Grimes is building a universe, and she’s shedding the strictures that get in the way of that grand vision—the album format, her label, even her own carefully-crafted identity. “Part of what I’m doing is setting up the world-building. Reverse Harry Potter it. Soundtrack comes first, then the fashion, then everything, everything, everything. Then the book, right before I die,” she says, not really joking. Reaching this point of liberation hasn’t been a smooth process. Grimes is unfailingly honest with herself, her own worst critic. But she feels free, she’s happy with what she’s creating, and her ambitions have only grown. We just need to get out of the way and let her dream.

#grimes #claire boucher #actuallygrimes #interview 2019 #flaunt magazine #sid feddema #2019 #zoey grossman

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objectivesubjectivity · 5 years

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Second Chances: “A” Albums

The following are “A” albums I wanted to give another shot at Top 100 Condenterdom and/or favorite “A” albums of my peers. This is their last chance to continue on in the quest.

The Beatles - Abbey Road

For what it’s worth, my mom was an avid Beatles fan and procured most of their records in her teenage years. However, a handful of these albums were met with a sharpie from her sister who decided, if her name was on the item, it was hers. I’m pretty sure Abbey Road was one of those albums because I don’t remember seeing it on our record shelves growing up. Perhaps that is one of the reasons I don’t find it to be, as a facebook friend once commented, “not so much an album as it is a magical ray of sunlight dropped from heaven to prove that perfection is possible.” Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very good album with very good songs and a killer ending opus, I just find it flawed in ways I don’t have the history to overlook.

And this brings up a larger conversation about subjectivity and objectivity. I have long held the belief that the more people agree upon a certain opinion, the blurrier the line becomes between subjective and objective. “Graceland” being a “good” album is nearly an objective fact. Motown at a wedding party: “good.” the final season of Game of Thrones: “bad.” These are purely subjective takes that have found enough consensus to almost become objectively true. But how we land on that subjectivity in the first place makes a difference. And, for my money, it seems to be a combination of personal history and social influence.

Think about it: Most of the opinions on the Beatles I come across stem from a deep history with the band. It helps that plenty of my peer group had parents who grew up in the hayday of Beatlemania and that adoration has filtered down through the generations. One might wonder, as Danny Boyle recently did, if one wasn’t to grow up on the fab-four, and was instead introduced to them much later in life, would this same reverence take hold? Or would they go down the Ben Shapiro “overrated” route?

And then there’s social influence. The more people that subscribe to a similar opinion, the wider that net becomes and the easier it is to access, often with less work. Take Nickleback for instance. I would put money down that most people who equate that band with the anti-Christ haven’t listened to more than a handful of hits. The general consensus is that Nickleback is “bad,” and so it’s much easier to stick to that opinion than to do the work necessary in actually forming it for yourself. Case in point: I personally received quite a bit of social media scorn for expressing enjoyment of Puddle of Mudd’s “Come Clean” (sorry, it’s an enjoyable listen).

So back to Abbey Road. Clearly, in the musical world, there is consensus regarding this particular album (although even the Pitchfork 10/10 review doesn’t understand the appeal of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”), which makes my subjective opinion stick out like a sore thumb. And that sore thumb feels immense pressure from the musical zeitgeist to heal itself and become part of the fold. It is much easier to plop down in the wide, comfortable hammock of belief than to bear the weight of the side-eye, scoffs, and shame when you choose the stubborn old rocking chair.

But I’m choosing to do the work on my opinions. Over 3 years worth of work. And objectively, I’m sticking to my subjectivity and leaving Abbey Road off the list.

R.E.M. - Accelerate

“Accelerate” initially jumped out at me because it accomplishes a rare feat: it actually sounds like a return to form. Mind you, the form it’s returning to is more “Monster” than “Murmur” but it’s light years away from “Around the Sun,” and to call that a welcome change would be a massive understatement. But it’s also light years away from “Automatic for the People” and “Life’s Rich Pageant.” And seeing that the latter didn’t make the cut the first time around, there’s no way this album’s gonna make it either.

U2 - Achtung Baby

This is a recent pick up and only got the second listen because a friend ranked it as one of their top “A” albums. In fact, I’ve only recently acquired any U2 albums at all. I don’t think I’ve spent enough time with them on the whole to make an opinion on which one of their albums I like the most and whether or not it belongs on this list.

Neil Young - After the Gold Rush

If you were to ask me, going into this week, what album had the highest likelihood of landing a spot on the list, I would have told you this one. I had only listened to it once (I grabbed a copy of it mid-way through phase one) but it made an immediate impression upon me and I was eagerly awaiting a second listen. So it came as a surprise that I was left feeling underwhelmed upon a second spin.

But then I happened to be at a friend’s party on Saturday and this friend put me in charge of choosing a record to play. There was a stack left on top of a speaker and hanging out underneath a stack of reggae compilations and a dusty copy of “Graceland,” there it was.

Perhaps I should add fate to that “history + social influence = subjectivity” equation because, after one more listen this morning, the contender list bumped back up to 119 again. Congrats, Neil.

Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz

This is a really good example of how loose and free I was at the start of this journey. This album is far too overwrought to warrant a possible Top 100 slot and yet, I dabbled with that thought way back in 2016. Also, he’s still got two albums on the contender list, so there’s no big loss here.

fun. - Aim and Ignite

This album is a great example of what happens when there are no wrong answers and that’s probably why it struck me so hard the first go around. But while that limitlessness brings about ample moments of unexpected brilliance, it also can feel like no one’s really helming the ship and there are only so many times I can find joy in getting lost.

Steely Dan - Aja

Ultimately, it’s too jazzy for me, but I don’t regret giving it another solid listen. And I love me some “Peg.”

Grateful Dead - American Beauty

This was a tough one. On the one hand, these are 10 well-crafted tunes that clock in at a respectable 42 minutes and make for a very comfortable (and comforting) ride. On the other hand, they’re played with a looseness and devil-may-care attitude that, honestly, feels a bit disrespectful. But then again, I’m not a dead head; I’ve never quite understood the thrill of a 10 (20? 30?) minute solo. And to someone who lives for those meandering discoveries, perhaps the sloppiness is as necessary as the thoughtful arrangement. Perhaps those moments of infallibility make it all the more human and endearing. “American Beauty,” is staying off the list for now but it’s probably not the last time I’ll give it a good listen on this quest.

Rancid - ...And Out Come the Wolves

There are only so many ways you can go from the 1 to the 4 or the 5. And the more I listen to this album, the more that sentiment rings true.

OutKast - ATLiens & Aquemini

It may be a couple years before I get to “Stankonia,” the OutKast album currently on the Top 100 Contender list, but I cannot listen to these albums without thinking about its strange and circuitous path and how that keeps its 24(!) tracks fresh. Both “ATLiens” and “Aquemini,” are stunningly forward thinking and ambitious, but their journeys’ aren’t nearly as thrilling or strange as “Stankonia.” And I can’t seem to get over that hump.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced

I don’t do enough drugs for this to make the list.

It’s also not fair to judge this album solely on the US version, seeing that the track listing on the UK one is vastly different. But both contain “Third Stone from the Sun.” And I just can’t dig it man.

What I listened to last week:

Top 100 contenders in bold.

The Beatles - Abbey Road

R.E.M. - Accelerate

U2 - Achtung Baby

Neil Young - After the Gold Rush

Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz

fun. - Aim and Ignite

Steely Dan - Aja

Grateful Dead - American Beauty

Rancid - ...And Out Come the Wolves

OutKast - Aquemini

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced

OutKast - ATLiens

Albums listened to in total: 2,283

Top 100 Contenders: 119

Next week’s album: Aimee Mann - Bachelor No. 2 (Or, The Last Remains of the Dodo)

Think I missed an album? Challenge me! The list is alphabetical by letter.

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frozenartscapes · 5 years

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Change My Mind? ...Not Really

Ok, so this is probably an unpopular opinion...

Comparing Steven Universe to something like Avatar: The Last Airbender after Change Your Mind and stating that SU comes even remotely close to A:tLA in terms of quality is waaaaaay overselling things. Spoilers below.

Change Your Mind was good. Even great, in some parts. That bit where Steven re-fuses with his gem was probably the best animation the show ever had. I enjoyed some of the characterizations. I enjoyed the new fusions, and Lapis and Peridot’s new forms. Also the CG’s new forms. And White Diamond was a very interesting villain.

But one episode does not make a show. And even something like Change Your Mind has its flaws. Numerous ones, in fact. That doesn’t make Steven Universe bad, per se, but going on to compare it to one of, if not the most, highly rated, well-loved, critically acclaimed animated shows of all time and saying they are even close to each other in quality is a bit much. Maybe calm down from the fan-hype high you have after watching the episode before making that claim.

Like, it was a good episode, but I was serious last night when I asked, “Now What?” The show has no conflict. No more unanswered questions. We went from barely getting any information or plot development to suddenly the whole main conflict is resolved in one episode. One. And even a bunch of minor conflicts and questions were thrown in there too. Will Peridot and Lapis reform with stars? Check. Will Blue and Yellow join Steven’s side? Check. Will White Diamond brainwash anyone? Check. What will the CGs reformations look like? Check. Do the Diamonds’ ships form a Voltron-esque giant robot? Check. What do the gem fusions of Steven + Pearl/Garnet look like? Check. Who is the temple fusion? Check. Does White Diamond turn good? Check. Corruption cured? Check. Sadie still in her band? Check. New version of the theme song? Check. Lars comes home? Check. Everything happened in this episode. And it made for one awesome episode, yeah, but it got to a point where it was just one thing after the next. It was like the Crewniverse watched all those rant videos about the show, picked up on the fact that every one of those videos mention how nothing happens in the show, and said, “Oh yeah? Hold my beer.”

But let’s talk Avatar for a second. Because I thought about this last night but at first thought it unfair to compare these two shows, but since seeing a post doing just that I’m gonna now. Imagine for a moment, after watching three seasons where there was a clear, defined villain and an evil force that must be stopped by a pacifistic lead, after witnessing all the oppression and suffering the Fire Nation and specifically the Fire Lord cast down upon the world, after learning how conflicted Aang was about killing him, they just...redeemed Ozai. Like, he and Aang talk it out in just the span of one episode and suddenly every evil and horrendous thing Ozai and Azula and every other terrible person from the Fire Nation has ever done is forgotten. It’s ok everyone! The Fire Nation are the good guys now! They’ve learned their lesson, and we can all just sing and laugh and be happy all the fucking time. Isn’t life great?

Yeah, I don’t think people would be happy about that. And the thing is: in Avatar, they had a better shot at doing that than Steven Universe, because Avatar actually took the time to delve into its villains’ backstories, and revealing that while they’re still morally in the wrong, it’s not just as simple as everything being black and white. There are complications. The reasons for the things they do change, depending on the character and that character’s relationship with others and own emotional growth and personality. They redeemed Zuko, but over the course of the entire length of the show, because going from an abusive family that rewarded morally wrong behaviour and punished anything else to helping the very people trying to stop that family isn’t as simple as talking only once. Other characters like Azula were even more complicated, as she was trapped even deeper in that negative lifestyle to the point where it permanently fucked up her mental state. And then there’s Ozai, who was the end all be all of morally terrible people. Someone who could not be redeemed. Someone who could only be defeated. The only way Aang was able to do so without killing him was by physically stipping away any power Ozai had.

So compare that to Steven Universe. You have a sympathetic character from the ruling, evil dynasty that seemed the most likely to eventually join Steven’s side in Blue Diamond. You have a ruthless, goal-driven character who does the wishes of her superior even if it’s wrong because the repercussions of not following orders create a deep, pathological fear in said character, in Yellow Diamond. And then you have the end all, completely uncaring leader of said evil dynasty that has conquered thousands of planets, killed billions, including millions of its own kind, enforced a strict and oppressive social structure that resulted in mass cullings of anyone who didn’t fit, created horrific experiments with the still-conscious shards of the physical beings of its subjects, and rained down a forced mental illness that permanently disfigured their subjects minds when said subjects disagreed with them: White Diamond. Zuko, Azula, and Ozai, respectively. In Avatar, it took Zuko all three seasons to complete his full redemption arc. In Steven Universe, Blue Diamond wasn’t even mentioned by name until The Answer, 74 episodes in. Azula and Ozai didn’t even get redemptions, although Azula was given a few sympathetic moments. Yellow had, what, maybe a facial expression here or there until finally doing a 180 personality shift in the latest episode?

Now before you get your pitchforks, hear me out: I’m making this comparison because it shows the difference between doing a villain redemption right, and doing it wrong. Avatar took a long time to develop its villains. It made sure to establish them as more than just The Bad Guys - they were also individual characters on various levels of the morality scale for various reasons. They did this by establishing them as regular characters, even if only by mention, from episode one. They had some episodes that barely focused on them, but then others devoted entirely to them. There were episodes that beautifully compared them to the heroes. There were episodes that humanized them. There were episodes that highlighted what life was like from their side of things. Steven Universe did none of that. The most development we got for the Diamonds was in the last few episodes, and it only happened after they learned who Steven really was. And even then, we never got a sense of the problems they themselves were struggling with until Change Your Mind. We never really saw Blue’s emotional issues with regards to how they treat each other, just her mourning Pink all the time. We never saw just how much pressure Yellow was put under by White Diamond, nor her frustration at how she works so hard but receives next to no praise. And we certainly never got the sense that the reason White was such a perfectionist was that she herself was terrified of being labelled “flawed”. All of these things only came up in Change Your Mind. And even if there might have been hints I’m sure people are going to reach for in other episodes, it still would only apply to the very few episodes in which the Diamonds had any focus.

The result of this is an extremely rushed and forced redemption arc. Hell, even Peridot had a more developed redemption than the Diamonds. And it didn’t have to be that way, either. This wasn’t the series finale. It was just the end of this season. If they really wanted to redeem all three dictators in one episode, why didn’t they just stop it there? And then have the return to Earth kick off the new season? Why not have another special event or episode that focuses on Steven showing the Diamonds Earth? Have them finally find beauty in organic life. Have them initially be confused about it. Have then stumbling a little bit but eventually learning just how wrong they were. Have them admit just how wrong they were. And then at the end of the special, we finally get to healing corruption. Something that has been the main conflict since day one. Something that was an incredibly complicated subject. Something that had a huge impact on all the current characters in the show. Something that really should have been done in its own episode where more time could have been given to it. I know they probably will once the show gets started again, but that initial event of healing the corrupted gems is done, the Diamonds have gone back home, and any chance for conflict to arise is over. Even Jasper no longer seems like she’s going to be a source of conflict.

So, no. Steven Universe is not as good as Avatar, and isn’t even in the same league. This one episode still doesn’t change how horrible the pacing is for the rest of them. It still doesn’t change that in 160 episodes, well over half, at least, contribute nothing to the plot. And while they might establish some character, it’s always from Steven’s perspective. There was never an episode in which Steven wasn’t there to witness it, meaning the entire show is viewed from his - considerably biased - point of view. We never got a chance to see characters like the Diamonds acting without Steven present. We never got any development without Steven being the driving force behind it. Had a show like Avatar had done that with Aang? We never would have had episodes like Tales of Ba Sing Se, or Zuko Alone, or Boiling Rock, or Ember Island. And we certainly wouldn’t have gotten moments like Zuko and Azula’s Agni Kai, or Sokka asking Suki to teach him how to fight, or basically every character interaction with Iroh. Steven Universe wanted so badly to focus on Steven, and only Steven, that it shot itself in the foot when it came to character development and plot execution. It didn’t seem to know what it wanted to be for most of its episodes. And Change Your Mind was such a cluster fuck of wrapping up loose threads that people are still confused as to whether or not this was the season, or series finale.

Avatar had a clear and concise beginning, middle, and end. It knew what it was, and where it was going. It knew how to do character development and plot execution properly. Each season finale finished up the main conflicts of that season, leaving the largest arcs for the series finale. And it doesn’t try to redeem its villains all in one fucking episode through the “Power of Love”. Don’t even try to say the two shows are on the same fucking level.

Oh, and the animation was fantastic all the way through A:tLA, getting better with each season, instead of one beautifully animated scene in one episode and everything else being a hodgepodge of off-model characters and constantly changing styles.

#i'm not as mad at the show as i once was #but change your mind isn't changing my mind #steven universe is an ok show #but no where near the calibre of A:tLA #this latest episode doesn't change that #if anything it only highlights why it's not #unpopular opinion #su shows the problems with modern redemption arcs #it's often times a lot more complicated than merely talking about your feelings #and that redemption doesn't just exist in a vacuum inhabited solely by the main characters #you need to address the conflicts that can arise from a villain redemption #hell even my little pony - the show KNOWN for redeeming its villains through the magic of fucking friendship #takes time to show that sometimes there are still negative reactions even after a redemption #the way steven universe ended things it really makes it look like they're not going to do that #su spoilers #steven universe #steven universe spoilers #spoilers #Avatar The Last Airbender #a:tla

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sorbriquette · 6 years

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Tagged by @basic-banshee Thank you Ban <3

1. How did you begin writing? I was writing from childhood. My primary school tutor was really encouraging so I started posting fanfic on FF.net illegally at like age 9. It was bad. When I was about 13 I started doing online RP and fell in with a group of brilliant people who helped me keep that up for YEARS and is kinda how I got into writing properly, not my shitty childhood fanfic.

2. What was your first writing project? Tell us a little about it. Like I said, shitty childhood fanfic. First legit project though would probably be last years NaNoWriMo (where you write 50k in a month). I wrote the first draft of a high fantasy kinda thing I’m working on but like the entire plot of that has been scrapped and I’m starting from scratch this year so...

3. What is your preferred medium for writing first drafts? Oh, I use ywriter 5 (link here) it’s like a free program that lets you write (without a spell check importantly so I don’t stop) and like add in like character and location and item tabs so you can keep track of what and who appears in the story and what each scene fulfills and shit. Imma shut up before this turns into an add but it’s really good and yall should check it out (even if I basically just use the POV system myself)

4. What rituals or habits do you have around writing?

I don’t really have any I don’t think? For me it’s kinda just sit down and go for as long as I’ve got the motivation. Usually late at night admittedly but yeah there’s nothing particularly consistent about the way I write.

5. We all have a “type”– of character, plot, theme– what is yours? I feel called out.

Probably wit though. Across all my characters RP, actual story, weves, I like the snarky asshole ones. I’m weak for that banter.

Also kinda both theme/character: good characters bore the shit out of me. I like ‘em morally grey or immoral and as such I write a lot about the subjective nature of morality in my original shit.

6. Introduce us to one (or more!) of your OC’s. Right so my current original shit has 6 mains and asking me to choose between them is inhumane so you get the 4 starting ones and the other two will remain a mystery.

Ren --> Brings a knife to a gun fight because ‘you gotta live life on hard mode’, makes bad choices for fun, stupidly reckless, very loyal but issues with authority. Military deserter turned pirate. Unofficial leader of this band of misfits.

Marcel --> Brings 2 knives to a gun fight because he is both a follower and coward. Just here for a laff and a taste of freedom. Prince of a country but does not want to rule. Falls in love with the first man who pays attention to him. Alignment is chaotic dumbass.

Kia --> Supposed to be the party thief but ‘it’s easier to loot a corpse than pick a pocket’. An actual proper coward, will leave everyone else to die if it saves her. Can’t take anything seriously. Tries to life-hack everything. Thinks murder is the solution to everything.

Corvus --> Absolute pacifist regardless of the danger. RLLY into blackmail (and plants). Lowkey the token evil teammate. Perpetually rolling his eyes. Makes all the plans and then gets salty when no one follows them. Would sell you to Satan for one corn chip.

7. What’s your favorite genre to read? FANTASY! Which is why, despite only really writing fic for Carry On, I’ve not actually read any of Rainbow Rowell’s other work. Contemporary romance doesn’t really interest me.

Also I’m weak for anything featuring like crime, but the criminals doing the crime, not the crime solving.

8. Your favorite genre to write? Fantasy again! Both high and low but with a preference for high because I like to world build.

9. How do you conduct your authorial research? LMAO what?

Like I said I like to write high fantasy so I don’t so much research as like to perpetually learn and incorporating things I like in.

10. What does your editing (gasp) process look like? So in 3. I said ywriter doesn’t have spell check? For fanfic I give it a cursory read over and fix anything glaring, then I copy it into word and use spellcheck and also grammarly. Then to the betas for the final round (I should do more but also?? Just fanfic)

My NaNo project tho? Never got edited at all.

11. What are your favorite tropes? BRuh I love all the tropes. I am WEaK for tropes. So trimming down to the favs:

I have a weird thing for catagorising so I love me some Cast Calculus

I try but never quite succeed with Blue and Orange Morality

Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking barely counts but I love it

A comedic Rashomon AKA that thing where everyone is being interrogated and they all tell completely different stories

I high key love a Magnificent Bastard in any form

And I mean a nice round five would have been good but how can one resist a Deadpan Snarker

Also I don’t think this is what I was meant to do for this segment but I enjoyed it so wevs

12. Show off your writing space. ABSOLUTELY NOT MY ROOM IS A MESS

13. What is the most useful piece of writing advice you’ve ever used? Don’t write for anyone but yourself. Write what you want to read.

I know it’s been said a multitude of times but idk the first time it really resonated with me was when VE Schwab mentioned it. I can’t find the source but I think she was quoting someone, soz!

14. What is the least useful piece of writing advice you’ve ever ignored? Write what you know.

Like get fucked? What I know is fucking boring. Let me write what I can imagine.

And though I don’t consider it real writing advice cause it was just 1 dumbass post on pinterest I saw one time “when writing a woman's pov make it more about emotions than a males. Her emotions, other peoples emotions’ etc. etc. Basically a load of shit. Don’t write a gender, write a fucking character.

15. Your writing beverage/snack of choice? I drink a lot of tea but it usually goes cold.

16. How do you compile your ideas? I don’t mostly, it’s a bad habit. Sometimes I drop stuff in my phone for fanfic or I have a couple of pocket sized leather note books I used to carry around for my original shit.

But mainly it’s just left in my head to get forgotten :\

17. What are your controversial opinions ™ on the craft of writing? I’m about to get crucified but here goes:

Writing isn’t hard.

Originally and concepts and stringing together a proper story? Yeah it’s a challenge. But just writing? Nah. not for me at least. If I’m sitting in front of a blank word document it’s because I have a problem with the scene. It doesn’t happen that often but when it does I find the best thing to do is go back and redo the sequence because going off no 13. It probably means I’m not interested in the scene.

But that’s just my opinion so please extinguish your torches and put down the pitchforks.

Tagging: @mydamnsunshine @thatsbitchcraft and any of my mutals who write. Chances are if you haven’t been tagged I thought you already had so go ahead and consider urself tagged.

#tag game #this ended up being a lot longer and a lot later than intended #twas fun tho #tbh I wrote this like 3 days ago and just edited it now

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vacationcalendar · 3 years

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8/13/21

Today’s creative project, an private letter (it could have been an open letter, but who the hell is reading this besides myself and maybe the person receiving it) to Voyboy. He’s been in a rough place mentally/emotionally. He’s had some deaths in his family which is never easy, and his attempt to de-platform a twitch streamer with a known history of sexual abuse has earned him undue (and as is sadly routine, SEVERE) ire from fans of said streamer.

It’s so weird, there’s obviously people who are like, “I’m not getting involved. I don’t care enough to inform myself well enough to have an opinion.” And those people are also split into camps that either approve or disapprove of “rocking the boat” as it were. Some people think this level of calling-out is too incendiary for the offense. Some people find the subject uncomfortable and wish it would go away, with the unfortunate default to that view being an acquiescence of justice for the accused.

And some people are also hung up on the justice part in particular. This entire affair is being conducted in the infamous “Court of Public Opinion.” A forum that has been dragged out MUCH more frequently in this modern age than in history. That fact alone upsets people. Hell, it’s bothered me in the past. I see the Court of Public Opinion make a ruling, and I think, “I didn’t elect this Judge, I did not approve this jury, there is no precedent here!”

It does feel like things are moving fast. They are. Dan Harmon said in an interview earlier this month, “Progress isn’t a scalpel, it’s an avalanche.” And he welcomed it. We should be welcoming progress. Even if it’s messy. Some might say “especially if it’s messy!” I don’t know who is saying that, but I feel in my gut someone on twitter would say that and get 80.3k likes. I know my Twitter.

I digress. Some people are of the view that they can’t be the judge. Leave it up to the real judges and let me just do whatever it was that I was going to do, please. So when Voyboy does all this work to put a spotlight on this problem, people see him handing them a pitchfork and come help him kill The Beast. And some people balk at that. Some people shy away, and just stay inside (this is mostly me, I’ll admit. The inside people go, “I didn’t watch that guy anyway, this is all fine with me! Now please leave me alone”). And some say, “Hey man, I’m opposed to violence, and by the way, the Beast is a really chill guy if you ever got to know him. In fact, people like you who are so quick to hand out pitchforks to make yourself look like some noble saint are actually pieces of shit!” And then a bunch of that guy’s friend go “Yeah, he is a piece of shit!” because that’s how bullying works. And then the bullies spend all day trapped in their miserable bodies, stuck in their miserable lives. And they go on Twitch and watch their friend stream to them, and their friend makes them feel wanted for once in their shit existence. And then later they’re on twitter and see Voyboy say something about how your friend’s an abusive monster and needs to see justice, and you KNOW that it’s all bullshit, and Voyboy just trying to get points with his girlfriend or something, he doesn’t care at all. What an asshole. Fuck him. Fuck this loser. I should reply to him, since it’s the easiest thing in the world for anyone to do. And generally people don’t follow people they hate like this, so that would limit this extremely toxic interaction, but Voyboy is followed by all the LoL streamers, so people that follow league generally hear from all the content creator’s in the community. And maybe they’re streamer friend mentioned that Voyboy was a fake ass cuck or whatever on stream and told his followers to go check out the shit he was spewing.

So Voyboy says grooming is unacceptable and disgusting, sexting teens is deplorable. And we as a modern community don’t need to hear him beat a rap sheet like that in court to act, because we as a community have the power to shape it how we see fit. And under that tweet is 100 replies saying that he’s a piece of shit and should die.

And then the uninformed masses see that and go, “why is Voyboy a piece of shit?? What am I missing?” And then they see Voyboy tweet something like “this is really hard, these guys are out to get me but I won’t back down.” And if you’re like me you think, “Oh I’ve never supported this kind of drama in my life. This is boring at best and uncomfortable at worst. Let’s all stop (aka bail)!” And then Voyboy goes “I won’t!” And then everyone level-headed and sane goes “boo, I’m bored, knock this off!” And everyone that is now LIVING for this bullying. I mean, what a payout. You bully this dude every day and he feeds you attention every time? This rules! So the detractors get WORSE and the supporters settle down. And Voyboy has now learned the harsh truth of social justice. It just beats you down. Everyone’s in this game for themselves; the moment you set aside your own interest to help someone else out, you are instantly and forever outnumbered. And the whole time you’re just like, “what the fuck is so hard about this? I am proposing an objectively good idea that would make everyone happier! I only even started trying to say something because I knew I was right! This is like getting fired for hitting a home run!”

I’m learning, and I should say digesting maybe, more about power this year than I have in a long time. It’s the answer to a lot of equations that don’t add up under my current philosophies. Like if everything I think is true, then was does X Y and Z still happen? Why do I feel like ____? The answer is something to do with power. And I’m starting to figure out what that is. Ha, I think part of me is a little ashamed it’s taking this long, I guess. Like, I’M learning it, but it’s been learnt. I’m catching up. But that’s ok. That’s literally all I’m doing. Catching up. Keeping up. I’m not even trying to do something once I’m caught up. I just don’t think there’s any other place to be. Well, I mean, I would truly hate to write something that got read that was just plain not-caught-up. Something that would make a reader go, “hey, doesn’t he know better?” I SHOULD. That’s literally the goal.

Anyways, I’ve lost my train of thought, and need a bathroom break. Here’s the letter I sent to Voyboy, to try and help him through all this. Talk to you tomorrow love ;) : Hey Voy I hope you are doing better, and I hope you get a chance to read this. I started League of Legends back in Season 1 when I was in college. I remember the first time I heard of you, you were one the few people ahead of HotshotGG in the rankings, and I remember thinking, "what the hell, how did this kid get so lucky?!" lol. Then I got to see you play with RS, and mostly thought you were lucky again to be getting carried by Scarra 🤣 I'm sorry! By the time you joined CLG I finally caught wise. You became one of my all-time favorite players on the scene. Your Olaf looked like a cheat code, I swear to god. I love League of Legends so much, and back in college I spent almost every waking minute thinking about it. It was one of my great passions. And at that time I was struggling to find anything else I was truly passionate about. I got depressed in college, and by that point I had realized my goal of being an engineer wasn't something I actually cared about. So I dropped out. I was in a truly dark place. I felt like life had left me behind and that I was worthless. I still had League, but League couldn't give me what I needed. I have this distinct memory from one of my last games in Season 4 where some Ranked Soloqueue bs was making my blood boil out of my body. I literally had to stand up and walk around outside after the game. I was pissed, but I knew the real reason was because I just wasn't good enough. That was the moment I realized I was never going to get to walk the path of Voyboy or Doublelift, I was not going to be one of the great ones that League would pick up and give them an opportunity to do something great. I would need to find something of my own.

After that League stopped being as fun for me. I knew I had to do something else with my life and League was only holding me back. All my friends I knew through League started to feel less like my friends. So I quit. After almost 4 years nonstop. And the years after that only looked worse. I was still depressed, still struggling desperately to find my way, and now the thing that brought me the most joy in the world was long gone from my life.

Five years went by and over that time I moved, got a real job, and somehow became a real adult. Life was still hard work, but I was now ready for it. I bought myself a real gaming computer after using crummy laptops my entire life. And once I realized I could finally see LoL at something other than the lowest graphics setting, I decided to download it again. I don't need to tell you that coming back 5 years away made League feel like a completely new game. I might as well have been playing Dota for all I knew. And I felt terrible. I felt like the person that used to play this game was dead; I had no memory left in my fingers. "Well, it was worth a shot," I said.

And then I found your videos on youtube. "Hey I know him!" After just two games, it all came rushing back to me. Your games, your stream reignited my love for League of Legends. And now I'm healthier. Now I can play for a bit and return to a life I that I care equally about. I learned how to love League AND love myself; and the entire time, you were there. The Kid, with his million-watt smile, raising the bar.

I can't say I see the exact same circumstances with what you've been going through lately. I just know what that cloud can feel like. And maybe it's similar, feeling like League and the other parts of your life are at odds with each other right now. And the further away the game gets, the more you see the cracks appear. Hateful kids and useless trolls come to this game not for the experience, but to talk crap and feed their ego. It's so sad that our society still needs to work so hard to treat sexual abuse with the weight that it deserves. But I think because of that, it only highlights that you're doing work that's worth doing.

I don't know what you're planning on doing next, but no matter what it is, I'll support you. I don't know what it's worth, but you're genuinely one of my favorite people. You're worthy of love, you're worthy of happiness. You've worked hard, you've put your heart into making League of Legends a community something to be proud of. I've seen it time and time again. And it won't be for nothing, I swear.

Cya nerd, be well. Thanks

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notesofarichlycolorednight · 6 years

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Hi,pal! I'm loving "It's the perfect story"! However, the subject I'm talking about doesn't directly to the fic. By what I know, people don't hate Silena because she was the spy,it's more like they think her being seduced/manipulated into doing it is detracting to her character. Many posts say that's very insulting to teen girls, or her cause should be something like "her cabin was being disrespected"(out of character IMO, but I'll talk about it later)...

Continuation. Or “the demigods were being mistreated by the gods”(not a bad one,but Silena didn’t really feel the worst of the gods IMO. Not like Luke, Chris or Tori in the fic). People are entitled to their opinions, but I disagree. About the “disrespected cabin stuff”,Silena is defensive in a blunt, straightforward way when it happens. Examples: how she wanted to fight the Huntresses when they said love was worthless;or when people were surprised by her magic knowledge,and she looked offended.

Cont. Besides, those behaviors show that Silena can be quite passionate and proud, what probably made her vulnerable to manipulation(her romantic nature didn’t help). Besides, Silena herself thought she was saving lives. I believe Luke’s words would sound truer to her if she cared about him than from a dispassionate perspective. Besides, if Luke managed to lure Percy to near death with a friendly smile and soda,despite Percy’s instincts saying no,I believe he could do it to Silena…

Cont. By what I read, your only issue was the age. However, I think that was something like “death of the author” in canon,as she didn’t get one. In fact, I rather like the idea of Silena being an older camper,including than Charles(if 18 years old girls date boys in their 20’s…),both in canon and in your fic. In your fic,it could make her Tori ’ s peer. In canon,it’d fit the whole “role model” stuff we had going on HoO.

what’s up dude! thanks, i’m glad to hear you’re enjoying it!

that’s how i interpreted it when i read the books (or how i remember interpreting it, at least, i haven’t read the series in a while) like, being the spy meant she was a traitor, which is also a comment abt her character (i.e., may she’s not the greatest person–for the lack of a better word–bc she was a traitor). when clarisses declares she’s a hero, i assumed it was supposed to be juxtaposed to her being a traitor. which is a roundabout way to say that the ultimate end is the same, whereas the perspective is different? but i can see where others are coming from–that the campers would be more mad bc of the fact that she was easily manipulated by luke, rather than her being the spy

i guess i can see where ppl are coming from regarding it being an insult to teen girls (i’d really like to see those posts tho, bc i actually haven’t seen anyone talk abt that–i somehow manage to avoid discourse like we’re two opposing magnets, my d-list x-men power), bc it plays off the stereotype that teen girls are so boy crazy, they’re easily manipulated by any good-looking guy that smiles in their direction. it doesn’t help that she’s a child of aphrodite. and what i mean by that is, i think, ppl often water down what aphrodite is the goddess of. when ppl say, “she’s the goddess of love and beauty” ppl often think she’s the goddess of, “being vain and romantic/sexual love” (not true btw, fite me, i will gladly jump into that discourse)

but anyway, back to my main point, i can see how it may play off a teen girl stereotype (rick is good at doing that sometimes, which isn’t entirely his fault, bc like i said abt toxic masculinity, it’s so ingrained in our society, it’s hard to unlearn and we often fall into those stereotypes if we’re not fully aware of them and consciously thinking about them), but i also don’t entirely agree with that argument, either

now i could be wrong, esp since i haven’t read any of this discourse, so i haven’t read ppl’s reasoning or arguments, but it sounds very surface-level White Feminism™ and what i mean by that is that there are more grey areas to this argument, okay, so put away your pitchforks and put out your torches and, i mean, also that this argument is coming from ppl who want to seem like they’re woke, but then turn around and continue to do or say things that are insidiously bigoted

like i said, i can see how it plays into a stereotype, but if we’re going by rick’s canon (which we totally don’t have to, but for this argument’s sake we are) she’s young and impressionable, luke is handsome and charming–if another young person were in her position, we’d probably see the same thing. young ppl are easy to manipulate, they just are. they’re still learning abt the world, and how it works, and that maybe not everyone has good intentions. not to mention they’re still trying to find themselves, and they look to peers, mentors, and ppl who are respected (for whatever reason) for cues to how they should act and think. it’s like trying on clothes or taste-testing foods–they’re trying out opinions. if they don’t like the “taste” of an opinion, then they learn, grow, and change. some ppl instantly connect with an opinion (which could be bigoted or not) and not explore further, or could be sheltered and just not have the opportunity to experience anything else.

the opinion here: the gods are bad. the person she’s looking to for guidance: luke. plain and simple

and, as you say anon, percy even fell for luke’s charms (despite the warning signs!! and percy is most def Not Straight, so luke was also using that fact against percy as well, whether rick luke knew it or not). so, ya know, there ya go

now, i think rick chose a child of aphrodite, and a girl, bc he thought he was turning a trope on its head–you’d never expect (from the stereotype of what aphrodite stands for) silena to be a spy, to work for kronos of all ppl titans. do you see what i mean? i think he was going for an elle woods effect–except in the polar opposite direction. the ends is the same, where this girl who is often underestimated (like elle) turns out to do something no one expected of her (in silena’s case, being the spy, which takes a lot of guts, nerve, and smarts–the opposite of what ppl expect from aphrodite, based on a reductive stereotype)

and that’s where the real issue lies, not that she was a teen girl, but rather some of the decisions the author made under wrong assumptions

i agree that the alternatives aren’t as sincere or make as much sense. silena didn’t experience a whole lot of strife regarding her mom or the gods in general, so she’d have no reason to hate them as luke does–she’d have no reason to be the spy for luke if he were to simply use that argument to get her to kronos’s side. and maybe she would’ve joined kronos under “her cabin was being disrespected,” however, it was’t being disrespected by the gods themselves, right? not like the minor gods, not like nemesis or hecate. the disrespect comes more from the ppl around her–the ppl who assume the wrong things abt aphrodite when they hear the words “love” and “beauty.” so that alternative reason doesn’t hold a lot of water if you really think abt it

i also agree with you: that her passion and pride made her more easily manipulated, and also that luke’s words would mean more coming from a more passionate and personal perspective. luke fed her lines that played into her character (like how kronos fed luke lines that played into his hatred for the gods). if she felt passionate abt helping save ppl (and it’s coming from someone she likes, someone she looks up to), then she’d be the spy for sure. if she had a crush on luke, more for him to use against her, right? that’s just how it goes sometimes, ya know? her crush are her rose-colored glasses, add that on top of “you’d be saving lives” and, well, luke’s got her wrapped around kronos’s finger

yeah, the age thing is a big sticking point for me, just bc based on the timeline of things, she’s several years younger than luke (which make his kiss, in my story, really gross). if beckendorf was going to college during tlo, he was probably at the least 18, and silena was probably around the same age. by this time, luke is 23, so that means that she’s abt 5 years younger? is five years a huge deal between older ppl (like mid- to late-twenties and beyond)? not at all. but with younger ppl (teens and early twenties), it’s a HUGE gap in age, and a HUGE deal.

but like you say, i think rick is hitting that point of “death of the author” (esp with more recent events…btw, jason is totally alive and well, and if you think or try to tell me differently, then you can meet me in a denny’s parking lot at 3am), so we can totes not follow canon and age both silena and beckendorf up. not to mention, there’s no specific age that ppl go to college (just in general most ppl starting college are from 17-20) so it’s completely fine for beckendorf to be going to college at 22, 23. and a 2 yr age difference (regarding beckendorf at 20, dating silena at 18) is totes better than a 5 yr difference for sure

i really like tori and silena being peers, and i if i had been more comfortable breaking canon (and knew what i know now, then), it would’ve been fun to write (but eeeyyy, it’s fun to think abt, so there may be headcanons in your future regarding this). finally, you’re right, i think it would make “silena as a role model” so much more powerful if she had been/was older in canon

thanks for sending these in! i had a lot of fun talking and thinking abt all the points you brought up/made, and i hope to continue this discussion, if you want!

#oh god for shame! i do not even know your name #notesofananonymousnight #asked and answered #silena beauregard #pjo meta #washingdad writes

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