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vampxrebarbie · 1 year

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an entire fucking thesis could be written on the evolution of vernacular and linguistics in online social culture among the 'online generation(s)'

like. text is flat, which is why punctuation is ungodly important in written fiction. use it right and the audience will read it with the right mental inflection.

that's why tone reading falls flat as soon as you hit online social spaces--we arent narrating in places like tumblr or twitter, we're TALKING. sure we've got exclamation points and question marks and periods and all, but there isnt anywhere near enough punctuation marks in existence to properly convey every little nuance present in speech. in text you have no vocal intonation, no nonverbal communication (expressions, gestures, tics) to further clarify what's being said behind what's being actually said.

so those of us present in online social circles invented our own social intonation to help each other communicate as many of the little nuances not present in text as possible.

like, i'm putting a flat period here at the end of a sentence.

just one.

to most of us who've been communicating online for years, that 'flat' period reads as incredibly harsh and borderline hostile depending on context, so a lot of us tend to omit it entirely in casual dialogue.

the more punctuation marks you use at once, the stronger the 'tone' it conveys. for example:

this topic is so exciting??? i love it so much???

doesnt so much read as a question as the mark implies. willing to bet most people in online social circles will 'hear' disbelief, shock, or excitement from an overabundance of question marks.

overabundance of exclamation points? you are feeling A WHOLE LOT and just NEED TO GET IT OUT!!!!!! doesnt matter what it is you're feeling but you SURE ARE FEELING IT!!

periods? well they sure do draw things out...........and depending on context can function either like a comedic twist on the traditional use of ellipses or a purposeful extension of spoken Dramatic Pauses those traditional dot-dot-dots just don't properly convey.

then there are the little oddball vernacular rules such as:

using a question mark at the end of what would otherwise be a flat statement because, somehow, our brains translate that to a verbal uptick in tone, basically the text format of a shrug, and if someone asks what for all you can do is say "idk it just feels right?"

keysmashes. we all know. we just do.

you're in the middle of typing something and decide you Need To Capitilize These Specific Words. why?

and jumping off of that:

MEMES oh my god. memes. m e m e s. let's talk about memes. i love memes as a method of communication i love them so much. why?

because i can post this

and theres a good chance a majority of you who've been around online social spaces (specifically tumblr) for long enough will know exactly what This Specific Meme is saying without needing a caption or context to infer it.

you just know.

you know the origin of it, you know how it was first used or have seen it used the way it's been traditionally used before, and because of that you can pretty much context clue your way into understanding what it's conveying when used at any other time provided it's being used in a similar way.

and that brand of communication can stack!

take any meme that began with a subtitle/caption that's been in circulation long enough for your brain auto-translate it on sight, have someone else add another caption-less meme in response, and anyone who knows the vernacular of online social spaces will know exactly what the two of you are communicating without a single word being typed/spoken.

we've reinvented fucking hieroglyphics, people!!!

all because us humans are so gosh-darned SOCIAL as a species that we're willing to rearrange our own learned grammar structures and methods of speech for the express purpose of communicating as clearly as possible in a medium that wasnt originally and to an extent still isnt meant to be used for casual dialogue and interaction with complete strangers.

this is why there's such a hard disconnect in online communication between anyone who spent most of their life offline versus those of us--primarily millenials and Gen Z--who grew up online.

we are literally speaking a completely different language from older generations.

#and this isnt even getting INTO the topic of how pieces of media can influence someone's personal spoken/written vernacular #there's a reason people who've been Online long enough can pick out the people who identified A Little Too Strongly with dave strider #i fucking lOVE LINGUISTICS #language tag #ishusteedus

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theheadlessgroom · 5 months

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@beatingheart-bride

"I don't think it's silly at all."

It was completely understandable to him, for her to be a touch nervous-even with how confident he felt in their ability to get away with it, there was no denying that it was an incredibly brazen plan. How many people would be so bold as to spend the evening in the company of their secret lovers, right under the nose of so many people, people who would absolutely lose their minds if they knew the truth...

"They do say that sometimes, the best place to hide is in plain sight," Dorian continued, rubbing his chin as he gave it some thought. "And I think that turn of phrase will prove to be very true tonight: As I said, I believe that everyone will mostly be so busy schmoozing and making nice that their eyes will hardly be on us. I'm sure we'll have to come over and shake hands with Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so who will be at the wedding tomorrow, accept the congrats of Mr. and Mrs. What's-the-name, kiss up to the Something-or-others, but I think we can manage that."

As he listened off these imaginary guests, Dorian flashed her a little smile, in the hopes that his playful names would make her laugh, help her relax a little-humor was oftentimes his way of alleviating stress, taking the edge off, and he hoped it would be the same for Emily as he finished confidently, "We'll go around, roll out the proverbial welcome wagon, perhaps answer a few questions here and there, but overall, I'm sure we'll be able to slip away and spend the evening with those we'd most enjoy it with."

#((i love that idea! without thinking she namedrops something MUCH older than her))#((something that might be more from june and wilhelm's generation; and they express pleasant surprise))#((not expecting someone of her age to be familiar with that-maybe emily's able to wave it off a little))#((as being an 'old soul'; interested in older media as a means of covering for herself?))#((i think she'd defidently have picked up on a lot of pop culture and slang over the years))#((and so i could see those older piece of media/turns of phrase bleeding into her vernacular!))#((honestly; i get it: i'm not up on my modern pop culture and slang!))#((who's the hottest movie star right now? beats me. who's got the hottest album right now? how should i know?))#((i admit that i don't listen to the local yokel radio station as much as i did; i got sirius xm now))#((so i find myself listening to the older music channels; and i watch a lot of older movies))#((more than i do what's in theaters with some exceptions; so that's probably why i'm so lost!))#((also: happy turkey day!))#outofhatboxes #beatingheart-bride #V:Days of Future Past

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chaos-has-theories · 11 months

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instagram is wild man

#downloaded actually social media for the first time in my life and i DON'T LIKE IT ONE BIT #algorhythms everywhere. 'snooze recommended for 30 days'. and i can't even whispertag #i don't speak this vernacular please pick me up mom I'm scared #It's like the masking of social media #But blah blah i barely see some of my friends i want to at least know what they're up to #and who know maybe I'll even be brave enough to show them some of the things i actually care about #but if they really wanted to know about me they'd need to move here. Mask Off #...mostly #chaos rambles

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zakziki · 10 months

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Hhh

#maybe since all these vernacular internet spaces are turning into wastelands i can use my pillowfort for att posting of some sort.#tbh o miss Deviantart but i stopped trusting ghem long ago #their posting system was so good in the early 2010s. groups were great. i liked ghst i could just upload doodles to a 'scraps' folder #all posting media has an equal level of importance for every post now though.#like i cant just post a doodle and it be stowed away from the rest of the portfolio.#i miss old DA

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pattern-recognition · 1 year

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one thing cyberpunk media is missing is pidgin vernacular. you mean to tell me that a century in the future where borders are even more irrelevant and great masses of every ethnicity congregate in giant megalopolises that the protagonists are only going to be speaking english. white boys are already saying inshallah

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mcmansionhell · 1 year

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this house may or may not be real

on grayness in real estate

Allegedly, somewhere in Wake Forest, North Carolina, a 4 bed, 5.5 bathroom house totaling more than 6,600 square feet is for sale at a price of 2.37 million dollars. The house, allegedly, was built in 2021. Allegedly, it looks like this:

A McMansion is, in effect, the same house over and over again - it's merely dressed up in different costumes. In the 90s, the costume was Colonial; in the 2000s, it was vague forms of European (Tuscan, Mediterranean), and in the 2010s it was Tudor, dovetailed by "the farmhouse" -- a kind of Yeti Cooler simulacra of rural America peddled to the populace by Toll Brothers and HGTV.

Now, we're fully in the era of whatever this is. Whitewashed, quasi-modern, vaguely farmhouse-esque, definitely McMansion. We have reached, in a way, peak color and formal neutrality to the point where even the concept of style has no teeth. At a certain moment in its life cycle, styles in vernacular architecture reach their apex, after which they seem excessively oversaturated and ubiquitous. Soon, it's time to move on. After all, no one builds houses that look like this anymore:

(This is almost a shame because at least this house is mildly interesting.)

If we return to the basic form of both houses, they are essentially the same: a central foyer, a disguised oversized garage, and an overly complex assemblage of masses, windows, and rooflines. No one can rightfully claim that we no longer live in the age of the McMansion. The McMansion has instead simply become more charmless and dull.

When HGTV and the Gaineses premiered Fixer Upper in 2013, it seemed almost harmless. Attractive couple flips houses. Classic show form. However, Fixer Upper has since (in)famously ballooned into its own media network, a product line I'm confronted with every time I go to Target, and a general 2010s cultural hallmark not unlike the 1976 American Bicentennial - both events after which every house and its furnishings were somehow created in its image. (The patriotism, aesthetic and cultural conservatism of both are not lost on me.)

But there's one catch: Fixer Upper is over, and after the Gaineses, HGTV hasn't quite figured out where to go stylistically. With all those advertisers, partners, and eyeballs, the pressure to keep one foot stuck in the rural tweeness that sold extremely well was great. At the same time, the network (and the rest of the vernacular design media) couldn't risk wearing out its welcome. The answer came in a mix of rehashed, overly neutral modernism -- with a few pops of color, yet this part often seems omitted from its imitators -- with the prevailing "farmhouse modern" of Magnolia™ stock. The unfortunate result: mega-ultra-greige.

Aside from war-mongering, rarely does the media manufacture consent like it does in terms of interior design. People often ask me: Why is everything so gray? How did we get here? The answer is because it is profitable. Why is it profitable? I'd like to hypothesize several reasons. The first is as I mentioned: today's total neutrality is an organic outgrowth of a previous but slightly different style, "farmhouse modern," that mixed the starkness of the vernacular farmhouse with the soft-pastel Pinterest-era rural signifiers that have for the last ten years become ubiquitous.

Second, neutrals have always been common and popular. It's the default choice if you don't have a vision for what you want to do in a space. In the 2000s, the neutrals du jour were "earth tones" - beige, sage green, brown. Before that, it was white walls with oak trim in the 80s and 90s. In the 70s, neutrals were textural: brick and wood paneling. We have remarkably short memories when it comes to stylistic evolution because in real time it feels incremental. Such is the case with neutrals.

Finally, the all-gray palette is the end logic of HGTV et al's gamified methodology of designing houses with commodification in mind: if you blow out this wall, use this color, this flooring, this cabinetry, the asking price of your house goes up. You never want to personalize too much because it's off-putting to potential buyers. After twenty years of such rhetoric, doesn't it make all the sense in the world that we've ended up with houses that are empty, soulless, and gray?

A common realtor adage is to stage the house so that potential buyers can picture their own lives in it. In other words, create a tabula rasa one can project a fantasy of consumption onto. Implied in that logic is that the buyer will then impose their will on the house. But when the staged-realtor-vision and general-mass-market aesthetic of the time merge into a single dull slurry, we get a form of ultra-neutral that seems unwelcoming if not inescapable.

To impose one's style on the perfect starkness is almost intimidating, as though one is fouling up something untouchable and superior. If neutrality makes a house sell, then personality - at all - can only be seen as a detriment. Where does such an anti-social practice lead us? Back to the house that may or may not exist.

In my travels as McMansion Hell, I've increasingly been confronted with houses full of furniture that isn't real. This is known as virtual staging and it is to house staging as ChatGPT is to press release writing or DALL-E is to illustration. As this technology improves, fake sofa tables are becoming more and more difficult to discern from the real thing. I'm still not entirely sure which of the things in these photos are genuine or rendered. To walk through this house is to question reality.

Staging ultimately pretends (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) that someone is living in this house, that you, too could live in it. Once discovered, virtual staging erases all pretensions: the house is inhabited by no one. It is generally acknowledged (though I'm not sure on the actual statistics) that a house with furniture - that is, with the pretense of living -- sells easier than a house with nothing in it, especially if that house (like this one) has almost no internal walls. Hence the goal is to make the virtual staging undiscoverable.

If you want to talk about the realtor's tabula rasa, this is its final form. Houses without people, without human involvement whatsoever.

But what makes this particular house so uncanny is that all of these things I've mentioned before: real estate listing photography, completely dull interiors and bland colors all make it easy for the virtual furniture to work so well. This is because the softness of overlit white and gray walls enables the fuzzy edges of the renderings to look natural when mixed with an overstylized reality. Even if you notice something's off in the reflections, that's enough to cause one to wonder if anything in the house is real: the floors, the fixtures, the moulding, the windows and doors.

This is where things are heading: artifice on top of artifice on top of artifice. It's cheap, it's easy. But something about it feels like a violation. When one endeavors to buy a house, one assumes what one is viewing is real. It's one thing if a realtor photoshops a goofy sunset, it's another to wonder if anything in a room can be touched with human hands. I won't know what, if any, part of this estate costing over 2 million dollars actually exists until I visit it myself. Perhaps that's the whole point - to entice potential buyers out to see for themselves. When they enter, they'll find the truth: a vast, empty space with nothing in it.

The better this rendering technology gets, the more it will rely on these totally neutral spaces because everything matches and nothing is difficult. You are picking from a catalog of greige furniture to decorate greige rooms. If you look at virtual staging in a non-neutral house it looks immediately plastic and out of place, which is why many realtors opt to either still stage using furniture or leave the place empty.

Due to the aforementioned photography reasons, I would even argue that the greigepocalypse or whatever you want to call it and virtual staging have evolved simultaneously and mutualistically. The more virtual staging becomes an industry standard, the more conditions for making it seamless and successful will become standardized as well.

After all, real staging is expensive and depends on paid labor - selecting furniture, getting workers to deliver and stage it, only to pack it back up again once the property is sold. This is a classic example of technology being used to erase entire industries. Is this a bad thing? For freelance and contract workers, yeah. For realtors? no. For real estate listings, it remains to be seen. For this blog? Absolutely. (Thankfully there is an endless supply of previously existing McMansions.)

The thing is, real estate listings no longer reflect reality. (Did they ever to begin with?) The reason we're all exasperated with greige is because none of us actually live that way and don't want to. I've never been to anyone's house that looks like the house that may or may not exist. Even my parents who have followed the trends after becoming empty nesters have plenty of color in their house. Humans like color. Most of us have lots of warmth and creativity in our houses. Compare media intended for renters and younger consumers such as Apartment Therapy with HGTV and you will find a stark difference in palate and tone.

But when it comes to actually existing houses - look at Zillow and it's greige greige greige. So who's doing this? The answer is real estate itself aided by their allies in mass media who in turn are aided by the home renovation industry. In other words, it's the people who sell home as a commodity. That desire to sell has for some time overpowered all other elements that make up a home or an apartment's interiority to the point where we've ended up in a colorless slurry of real and unreal.

Fortunately, after ten years or so, things begin to become dated. We're hitting the ten year mark of farmhouse modernism and its derivatives now. If you're getting sick of it, it's normal. The whole style is hopefully on its last leg. But unlike styles of the past, there's a real, trenchant material reason why this one is sticking around longer than usual.

Hence, maybe if we want the end of greige, we're going to have to take color back by force.

If you like this post and want more like it, support McMansion Hell on Patreon for as little as $1/month for access to great bonus content including extra posts and livestreams.

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#architecture #design #2010s #mcmansion #mcmansion hell #nc #2021 #essay

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qazastra · 2 years

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127 stealing onlyoneof’s swagfulness for this comeback first it was haeil on lyrics then it was a song called designer that uses clothing metaphors to talk about being into someone and then it was 80% of them shirtless onstage lmaoo

#IM JOKING. half joking #the other half is interested in knowing the impact ooo is having/has had on other bgs??? or even the trends that they take part in #media studies brain is awake NOW #also im sorry for using 'swagful' one of my discord acquaintances does it and its made its way in2 my vernacular and decided it lives there #m #kpop

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pokemoncenter · 2 months

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Akira Toriyama passed away.

I wonder if anyone can really understand just how influential he was? Dragon Ball shaped so much of the modern anime and manga landscape, but that's not all he did.

Without Toriyama, there was no Dragon Quest. Dragon Quest pioneered the modern RPG, and Dragon Quest V introduced the idea of taming monster buddies. Without Toriyama, there is no Pokemon.

Without Toriyama, there is no Toei Animation. Without Toei Animation, there's no Precure. The modern magical girl genre is fundamentally different, and much, much smaller.

Without Toriyama, there's no Dragon Ball. With no Dragon Ball, there's no Sonic. Without Sonic, how long could Sega have lasted?

I don't normally make posts like this, but I don't have a personal tumblr, only this one, so I'm just putting my thoughts down here for a bit.

Akira Toriyama shaped everything. The use of 'Super Saiyan' has entered the common vernacular as shorthand for that kind of power-up. But "power levels"- Whenever we joke about hiding our power level to interact with normal people, that's a Dragon Ball reference. The Vegeta, for that kind of rival.

He was unparalleled in his character design skills. No character he drew could ever be mistaken for another. Every character had supremely unique silhouettes, so you could identify them all at a glance. The one time he broke this rule, it was for Androids 17 and 18, and he did that on purpose, to inform you about the characters. Cell's first form, even if he hated drawing it, is one of the most iconic monster designs I've ever seen.

It's weird to say, but I didn't even think of him as mortal. I thought, somehow, I'd get old and die, and Toriyama would still be there, shaking up every genre he put his hand to.

Even if you're too young, even if Dragon Ball Z was already over before you started watching things, it's impossible to escape his influence. He is everywhere. Toriyama's influence can only be compared to the likes of Osamu Tezuka. He single-handedly shaped the entire media landscape today, even if you don't know it.

Maybe I'll replay Chrono Trigger.

#ooc post

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hailmaryfullofgrace55675 · 6 months

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This is a tempting parallel to draw, but it doesn’t tell a whole or accurate story.

The idea of autogynephilia isn’t just the idea that lesbian trans women transition because they think lesbianism is sexy so they want to be lesbians for sex reasons.

Autogynephilia is part of a larger sexological theory, dreamed up by a specific individual named Ray Blanchard, that there are two types of trans woman: the “homosexual transsexual”, who is male-attracted, and the “non-homosexual transsexual”, who exhibits autogynephilia - a sexual fetish for being a woman that’s also a romantic orientation toward oneself-as-a-woman that’s also a type of fantasy about female embodiment or crossdressing or doing traditionally feminine activities like having sex with men.

The theory of autogynephilia comes loaded with a bunch of other particular and nonsensical ideas, including but not limited to the idea of the “erotic target location error” and “erotic target identity inversion”, the idea that all erotic crossdressing fantasies are fantasies of being the gender one dresses as, and the idea that bisexuality in trans women is attributable to “meta-attraction” in which the women are not actually attracted to men but only to the sense of femininity that sex with men can grant them.

Blanchard and his associates J. Michael Bailey and Anne Lawrence have been responsible for propagating this concept of autogynephilia across numerous academic journals articles and multiple books over the past 34 years, including Lambda Award nominee The Man Who Would Be Queen.

The idea of gay trans men transitioning because they like BL

mostly manifests as the idea that young people who were assigned female at birth are experiencing a form of social contagion or susceptibility to media influence rather than a deep-set paraphilia (the way autogynephilia has traditionally been theorized),

has mostly emerged in a vernacular way inside of trans communities and as an explanation for offspring’s transgenderism by transphobic parents, rather than as a formal sexological concept (Blanchard didn’t pick up the torch on “autohomoeroticism” until something like 2018, well after trans people had been commenting on the idea for years), and

has not had the reach or impact the theory of autogynephilia has had.

It’s not the worst comparison in the world, but assuming 1:1 mirroring between the situation with autogynephilia and the situation with gay-tboys-are-just-doing-it-because-they-read-too-much-yaoi would produce a lot of incorrect assumptions about whichever the thinker is less familiar with.

#autogynephilia #autohomoeroticism #blanchardianism #transphobia #transgender

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thefunkfactory · 18 days

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Putrid Profession

You were sitting at your desk well after most of your staff had gone home. Earlier today your assistant Max informed you that Noah, a new employee you just hired for social media marketing, has been not meeting deadlines and has been showing up to work late. Reassuring Max you told him to go find Noah and ask him to come into your office at eight thirty that night. As he walked out of your office you could hear him saying under his breath “I don’t want to go talk to that gassy oafs cubicle. Why couldn’t this just be a email” and so off Max went. Oddly Max came back with watery eyes and his hair looking like it had just been blown back with a leaf blower, groggily telling you that Noah will be in at eight thirty Max told you that he “wasn’t feeling very well” and proceeded to ask to go home. You granted permission for your twinky little assistant to have the rest of the day off and told him that you would just get someone else to go out to get your lunch later. Now, hours later, you were waiting for Noah to come in so you can have a chat about getting him back on the right track with the company.

(Your assistant Max)

Hearing your door open, you look up from your computer and see “Noah” standing in front of you. You were a little shocked because this isn’t who you remembered hiring, he was much beefier now than just a few weeks ago. “I heard you wanted to uhhhh like talk to me boss man” Noah said, his vernacular was dumber too than it was when you hired him. “Take a seat Noah, I don’t want to make you stand for too long”, you told him, “Uhhhh is this gonna take long bossman? I have to hit the gym in a bit, my bros are expecting me”, Noah dumbly said as he scratched his behind. “Oh, no this shouldn’t take long” you said obviously surprised that he was being a bit disrespectful. Noah sat down and leaned back, spreading his legs super wide. You began to talk to Noah about his failure to meet deadlines and his tardiness when it came to work. As you were going on and on about this you caught a whiff of something foul-smelling permeating the air, “Aughh that reeks! Do you smell that?!” you asked Noah. You watched as a devilishly grinned, “Smell what bossman? My fart fumes?” he chuckled as he let out a loud, echoing fart. Utterly shocked you covered your nose with your shirt collar, “Huhuhuh that cute assistant of yours tried the same exact thing when I butt blasted him!” Noah tauntingly said. “This is utterly disgusting and unacceptable behavior in the workplace Noah!” you yelled out, “Eh” he shrugged “you won't think like that soon” and then under his breath he said “if you’ll be able to think at all”. You began to cough and as you were coughing, you tried to fan the fumes away from your face. “Might as well get comfy” Noah said taking his shirt off. The first thing you thought was “I need to call HR immediately tomorrow” immediately followed up with “But I shouldn’t do that to someone who is this sexy”, shaking your head you knew you would never, in a million years, think that in a situation like this, he was being essentially a gross teenage boy, how was that hot? you got up and said “I think this talk is over Noah” and started heading for the door, “I think it is too” said Noah fiendishly. As you we’re walking around your desk towards the door, Noah let a massive fart rip, “Ahhhhhhh” he moaned, “That's been brewing since my burrito at lunch”. The fart was absolutely rancid, capable of knocking someone out, you felt your knees get weak and you collapsed. You picked yourself up onto your knees and as you looked up you saw Noah…

“Bombs away bossman” you heard from Noah as the most putrefying funk blasted out of his smelly ass and right up into your nose. You watched Noah lean into the long fart as his ass got less than an inch away from your nose. Feeling your strength completely drain out of you, you passed out on the floor. You woke up feeling groggy and weak but you got yourself to your feet. Noah was nowhere to be seen and you couldn’t exactly remember what just happened. Collecting your thoughts, you walked to the bathroom as a sudden urge to take a dump came over you. Bursting into a stall, you pulled your pants down and let out a boisterous cloud of flatulence into the toilet bowl. Feeling sudden relief you got up and walked to the mirror, relishing in your own funky fumes clouding the bathroom you looked into the mirror and made eye contact with your reflection as you let another fart blast out of your ass. Dumbly guffawing you heard a notification from your phone, pulling it out of your pocket you saw it was a photo from your assistant Max

The pic was followed with the text, “we should give noah a promotion or something bro i haven’t felt so good in forever i cant stop hotboxing my bedroom with my fartsss you should come like see bro”

Feeling hot and horny all of a sudden you stripped off your shirt and sent Max “broooo ill do whatever you want as long as you let me fuck your fart makerrrr”

#farts #dumber #face farts #stink

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sweaterkittensahoy · 2 months

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Saw a post somewhere in the Masters of the Air tags that said Bucky Egan is Lewis Nixon if Lewis Nixon gave into his impulses, and I need to respectfully disagree.

Bucky Egan is--to use some broad terms--young, dumb, and full of come. He's not stupid. He's just 25-ish with strict ideas about what it means to be an American (he enlisted when the war broke out, not after Pearl Harbor; which is some truly Wisconsin shit), and he wants to be the coolest, hippest cat in the room (his vernacular is based on loving media about mobsters and trying to emulate them). He drinks and fucks and parties because those are things that the characters in his favorite books do. And those are things he WANTS to do. Because he's 25 and can work the Clark Gable 'stache. In episode 4, when he sits vulnerably naked in front of that big picture window in his hotel room, having bedded a woman with a dark past (again, see his love of mobster stories; she's a femme fatale in his mind), he is shattered at watching the bombs drop on London. He'd known it was happening. But to see it. It's seeing the truth of it. Understanding that he, as a pilot, knows the level of destruction being attempted, and being able to accurately guess how well it went.

There's a moment where Paulina asks why he's all the way out in Hammersmith. It's clearly not central London. When he watches the bombs, they're not close by. But then he's walking down the street in his pilot's uniform in a generally intact suburb. But someone did get hit. One person DID get hit. And she cries and screams for someone whom she can't decide is alive or dead.

That's Bucky's own thoughts about Curt. That's Bucky's own thoughts about the men who flew the day before. That's Bucky's own thoughts about every man in every fort that went down. They're alive. No, they're dead. No, they're alive. No, they're dead.

What we're seeing by the end of episode 4, is Bucky faced with the unrelenting truth of death in war in a way he hid from himself in so many ways for so long. Partly by fucking and drinking and partying.

The difference between Bucky Egan and Lewis Nixon is that Lewis Nixon went into the war believing everything was shit. And he drank his way through the war because everything was shit. And he made a truly heroic attempt to blow up his friendship with Dick because everything was shit.

Lewis Nixon, if being allowed to give into his impulses, would have drank himself to death during the war. I believe that completely. Fuck, we know he had a hard time for several years after.

Bucky Egan, until he sees the bombing in London for himself after one of his closest friends has disappeared in battle (Curt) and another close friend (Buck) goes up without him, he doesn't let the war touch him. He doesn't let the WORLD touch him.

Bucky Egan drinks and fucks and parties because he LIKES IT. And he wants to keep it up because if he can keep it up, things can't be that bad.

But they are that bad.

Meanwhile, Buck Cleven is NOT Dick Winters. He doesn't drink. He doesn't gamble. He doesn't fuck. Sure. But Dick Winters didn't do those things because he was raised in a family where those things were held up as signs of moral fortitude and self-discipline. Buck Cleven doesn't do them because his abusive father did them all and into severe excess.

But Dick Winters would NEVER slow dance with a big dog to make his best friend laugh, and Buck Cleven would. Neither Dick Winters nor Buck Cleven would ever back out of a fight, but Dick Winters would never shame a man for being scared while Buck Cleven did. And rightly fucking so, frankly.

What's so interesting to Bucky and Buck is that "two randos with very different views of the world became the closest of friends" ALSO happened in Band of Brothers (and, in fact, in Generation Kill between Ray and Brad [a reminder I haven't seen the Pacific), and it speaks to how friendship bonds form differently in different situations but there seems to be some proof that people with opposite experiences in life can find common ground with a common goal between them.

#bucky egan #buck cleven #masters of the air #band of brothers #dick winters #lewis nixon #just meta thoughts

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