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#i mean its definitely just because of some stupid self imposed standards
akioshiwarrior · 3 years
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hi yes i am an ARTIST
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levihantrash · 3 years
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new chapter update!
Summary:
Levi’s pragmatism pulled the brakes. “I’m not about to dedicate my life to become a broke comic artist.”
Levi Ackerman, a gruff cleaner with an appetite for toilet humour meets the unabashedly friendly creative writing professor, Hange Zoë, who somehow ropes Levi into working on a comic with them. While the comic’s title remains undecided, Hange knows that it’s going to be set in a world where giant, human-like creatures devour other humans. Erwin Smith, the comic’s self-appointed editor, unironically thinks it’s going to be a hit. All Levi knows is that he wants to indulge in drawing this comic while hanging out with a certain writer who just won’t stop talking to him.
Where Hange, Levi, and Erwin are the creators of Attack on Titan.
Chapter 1: Free Bread
Chapter 2: New Friends
Like routine, Levi found himself waiting for a certain professor to show up. When Erwin called out to him, he couldn’t help but search behind the tall, imposing figure.
“I haven’t seen Hange this morning either,” Erwin said. Levi found himself irritated by Erwin’s discernment and by his own discrete uneasiness.
“Good morning, Erwin,” Levi greeted, nonetheless.
Hange was late, which Levi figured wouldn’t be out of the ordinary.
The morning passed without a single sign of Hange.
“Sorry, are you Mr. Levi?” A nervous-looking person approached him, holding on to a well-wrapped steamed bun. A twinge of hope stirred in Levi.
“Levi will do,” he said.
“Dr. Hange said I should pass you this,” the bread-holder blurted out.
Levi’s gaze softened. “Where’s Hange?”
“Oh! She’s rushing a deadline and insisted that I pass you this bread.”
The inexplicable rush of relief made Levi dizzy as he grasped the bread limply. “Huh. Sorry that you have to be an errand boy today.”
“It’s no trouble!”
“Who are you?”
“Sorry! I didn’t introduce myself! I’m Moblit, their teaching assistant! Dr. Hange helps me out with my master’s thesis because they’re my advisor. This is just my way of saying thanks. Dr. Hange also treats me to meals, gives me detailed comments for my work… though they might go overboard when it comes to giving speeches about the importance of world-building and honing your craft, it’s inspiring how dedicated they are in what they do.”
Moblit took a deep breath, making up for lost air in between the lengthy, whole-hearted sentences.
“Is that so…” Levi said, suddenly contemplative. “Do you want some tea?”
“Are you getting it from the staff pantry?”
“No, that stuff’s stale as shit. I have better tea, wait here.”
Levi recalled Erwin asking him in front of everyone in the staffroom if he wanted the staffroom snacks. Hange followed up, speaking at a volume that was clear enough for most of the staff to overhear, orchestrating a deliberate conversation with Erwin.
“Since there are no hard rules as to who the snacks and drinks are catered for, and technically, Levi is a staff member, he should have access to the snacks!”
None of the professors objected. It was probably because open prejudice would be socially unacceptable, Levi thought.
Begrudgingly, he accepted Erwin’s offer, and in full view of everyone, took a candy bar.
Hange gasped. “Just one?” Levi glared at them.
“Aren’t the snacks for your little sister?” Hange asked. He nodded, sensing the collective spike in sympathy for him in the staffroom.
After the whole stage, the trio huddled conspicuously in a corner outside the staffroom.
Hange whispered to Levi, “You could have played along better!”
“Erwin’s tired of your skit,” Levi said, overwhelmed and annoyed at the turn of events.
“No he’s not!” Hange said sternly, before gulping down half a bottle of water.
Erwin, standing in between them, told Hange to keep it down.
“Thanks, you two.” Levi found himself staring at the floor, embarrassed that his two friends had to construe him as a pitiful character for him to get a few snacks, even though he had been informed of the plan prior.
“I’m sorry, Levi,” Hange said, their lips compressed into a hard, grim line. “It’s ridiculous that you can’t even get snacks and refreshments as part of the staff.”
“I’m used to it.”
“If anyone’s giving you a hard time, you have us,” Hange said, still put off.
They squared their shoulders impressively. “Right Erwin?”
“You can rely on us, Levi,” Erwin surmised, equally sombre.
Growing more ruffled by their declarations, Levi hissed, “I don’t need two bodyguards.”
“No, you definitely don’t,” Hange joked. “Some people have told me about the deathly aura you emit that I must have missed…”
Fixing their attention at a vague distance, Hange’s playful jibes dwindled into an idle pondering, “I wonder if you found some joy in our companionship at least.”
They’re talking about joy and friendship again… Levi thought.
He found himself back in the present, handing a cup of black tea to Moblit, guiding him towards a bench.
Moblit squeaked out, “Thank you!”
“How did you find me?” Levi asked, betraying none of his real curiosity.
“Hange gave me a description…” Moblit began, not making eye contact with Levi.
“Did they? What’s the description?” Knowing Hange’s brand of humour, Levi braced himself.
Moblit shuffled in his seat, terribly reluctant. “They said to look out for a cold, black-haired man with an undercut, wearing an apron, gloves and brandishing a mop while scolding people to not step on wet floors.” Levi made a mental note to strangle Hange.
Moblit quickly supplemented, “You’re not actually cold though!”
“How would you know that?”
“Um… you’re offering me tea?”
Levi clicked his tongue. “That’s a low bar for human decency. You should have higher standards.”
“You’re right, Mr. Levi… I mean Levi.”
Levi noted Moblit’s jittery manner when he briefly checked his phone for a message and let out a small groan.
“Hey, you look worried sick. You didn’t receive a death threat, did you?”
Moblit laughed weakly, running his hand through his hair. “Uh, you see, I’m one of the editors for the bi-annual literary magazine and we’ve been looking for illustrators…”
“I take it that you haven’t been successful?”
“Yes… I just received someone’s rejection. It’s okay, we’ll find one,” Moblit said, although his panicked lip-biting ran contradictory to his optimistic statement. Levi’s hands twitched again. He folded them promptly into his apron pockets.
Upon finishing the tea, Moblit stood up and gave a tiny, polite bow. “It was nice meeting you Levi. Thanks for listening and for the tea!”
“Good luck,” Levi said, in time before Moblit rushed off.
Bagging up the rubbish, Levi heaved the load on his shoulder easily, only to be startled by the appearance of Hange.
“Fuck! Can you stop jumping out of nowhere?” Though momentarily disconcerted, the tension built up from the day unwound instantaneously, leaving his body loose and feeble.
“Levi! Did you shit yourself?” Hange sang. They accidentally bumped into the gigantic rubbish bag, falling butt-first onto the ground, phone in hand.
“Be careful,” Levi said, in the same monotonous voice he used regardless of the situation. Unless the situation involved Hange leaping out of nowhere. He looped his free arm under their armpit to pull them back up. Hange, flushed from running, placed their phone in his hands with ill-contained excitement.
“Look at what I found!”
“Oi, what’s this—” Levi scanned the phone, his mouth running dry.
“I’m going to recruit this artist. For my comic.”
It was a sketch of a cat being patted by a person with messy, tied-up hair, their hands stroking its head.
“Don’t you think the person looks familiar? Isn’t the cat cute… remember how I told you I have one at home?” Hange released their brown hair from a voluminous ponytail, biting the rubber band in their mouth.
He swallowed. “I drew that.”
Hange’s mouth hung open. “You’re kidding!”
“Do I look like I make such shit jokes?”
“Personally, I find your shitty jokes very funny. This is exciting news! Why didn’t you tell me you’re an artist when I was trying to find one for my comic?”
Levi found her question preposterous. “You could easily find a better one. I’m inexperienced.”
“I’m also an inexperienced writer. I barely wrote one book and a few articles!”
“You’re a professor. You have the title for a reason. I just draw for fun.”
Hange spared him a baffled look. “Please. You have no idea how many great writers never become professors. And how some professors never write great books. I thought you of all people would know that a title doesn’t mean anything.”
“I thought you of all people would know that titles hold their value here, even if we think they’re stupid and don’t mean shit.”
“I know that, Levi. I’m saying, drawing for fun doesn’t make you inexperienced or unworthy of being the artist for my comic. Besides, I chose you before I even knew it was you!” Hange said triumphantly.
Locking the phone screen, Levi reiterated, “I draw for fun.”
“Then this will be our fun project!”
Levi’s pragmatism pulled the brakes. “I’m not about to dedicate my life to become a broke comic artist.”
“You won’t be broke.” Erwin slipped into their conversation as though he had always been there. It was uncanny.
“What do you mean?” Levi stared questioningly at Erwin.
“You’ll be paid for your work, Levi. Hange as well,” Erwin said simply.
“You’re paying us?” Hange and Levi asked, in unison. One, in disbelief, and the other, in delight.
“A publisher will be paying you. I’ve secured funding.”
Levi gritted his teeth. “A publisher wants to sponsor a comic that hasn’t even been written?”
“I told you, Levi,” Hange interrupted. “I’ve already submitted a draft!”
“Yes,” Erwin said.
Levi had so many questions. “How?”
“Because it’s a good story.”
“Did you bribe them? Threaten them?”
“It is a risk,” Erwin admitted.
“It’s a fucking gamble,” Levi emphasised. “Don’t know why you’re so invested in this comic.”
Hange had other worries. “Levi, did you think I wasn’t going to pay you?”
Levi hesitated. “I don’t know. Isn’t this just a fun side-project?”
Hange’s face came closer to his. With the enhanced proximity, Levi stopped breathing altogether. Their face was deadly solemn.
“Listen, Levi, creating art is hard work. Your hard work. Any artist deserves to be paid. It’s not because our relationship is transactional. It’s because it’s only right.”
Erwin added, “We’re not going to accept your art for free.”
Pushing Hange back firmly with his hands on their shoulders, Levi argued, “Plenty of people have access to my art online for free.”
“That’s your choice. We insist.” Hange grinned. “And we think we deserve to be paid too. Even I’m surprised that my project has early compensation.”
Part of Levi’s resolve ebbed away. “I’ll think about it.”
“Good enough for me!”
“First, you have to tell me what your story is.” Levi gathered up the last of his self-respect. “And if we’re going to be working together, I’ll need your number.”
Erwin raised an innocent eyebrow. “Wouldn’t you need mine too?”
“Stop teasing him, Erwin,” Hange said, grabbing the rubbish bag from Levi, struggling to balance its weight over their shoulders.
Just as Levi felt a shred of gratitude, Hange remarked, “What if he doesn’t agree to do the comic together?”
Patience running thin, Levi stomped on both their feet in a fit of unrestraint that diverged from his unaffected demeanour.
Eyes twinkling, Hange couldn’t help but feel immense glee at the prospect of working with Levi. What was probably Levi’s withheld strength made them certain that he only wanted to dirty their shoes, not bruise their toes. Like Hange would care about the cleanliness of their battered sneakers.
In front of an ordinary apartment door, Hange dug into the depths of their bag to fish out a ring of keys. The size of the ring was unprecedentedly big; the choice of keychain most definitely random, a freebie handed out to new staff that blatantly displayed the university’s name.
Without that much bribery of tea, bread, and friendship, Levi found himself standing beside Hange as they busied themselves in finding the key to their apartment. Erwin had bailed due to having another Important Meeting with Important People, even during a weekend, but encouraged Hange and Levi to take time to discuss the comic.
Hange hadn’t expected Levi to agree so readily to kickstarting the project, and with the generous reception Levi gave (a curt nod and a follow-up question), they thought it’d be best if they invited him over to their apartment. Just so he wouldn’t mistake Hange as a mere business partner. Now that would be upsetting.
Hange pushed the ludicrous speculation out of their head. Levi was first and foremost, a good friend. His bored appearance revealed glimpses of surprise, satisfaction, moodiness, and suspicion. Hange held on to these pieces with the determination to collect them all. Surely, Levi must have figured them out by now. This endless, unabashed interest Hange had taken in him.
“Why are we meeting at your place? Do you need to take a huge shit? Does the toilet at home have a better flush?”
Although Levi had no qualms about visiting Hange’s apartment, he found it unnerving to have a work discussion in someone’s living quarters. It felt too intimate, too casual. He wasn’t sure if he could handle being sucked in further into Hange’s life. They asked so many questions, yet barely answered any about themselves.
Whether intentionally or not, Hange was someone shrouded in mystery to Levi. He couldn’t ask questions either—he wouldn’t—because he was unaccustomed to expressing himself in front of people. More than that, he could envision Hange’s sharp wit poking a clean hole through his muted facade. “You’re interested in my life, Levi?” Damn that four-eyes for being so perceptive. Or was he so easy to read?
“It’s more fun,” Hange said, eventually stuffing the correct key into the keyhole, a smooth click welcoming them. “Plus, I want to introduce you to my friends! Part of the reason why I took up the position at this university.”
“Friends?” Levi asked, slipping out of his shoes to step into the apartment.
“Hange!” A voice rang, and Hange was wrapped in a hug.
“Onyankopon! I saw you yesterday—”
“Three days ago, to be exact, since you always sleep over on the lovely desk at the university.” A smooth voice entered, coming from a woman standing comfortably against the wall.
As the tallest body let go of Hange, it allowed Levi to take in the congenial features of a man whose shoulders rivalled Erwin’s towering, well-built stature. While Erwin’s smile was measuredly cordial, Onyankopon’s was candidly sincere. Watching Hange and Onyankopon, Levi felt as though he were intruding into a family reunion that had invited the entire neighbourhood. Here, he was the guest who came for the free flow of food and drinks.
“I’ve missed you too Pieck!” The woman named Pieck ruffled Hange’s hair, offering them an embrace.
Hange pulled Levi by the elbow, pointing to the new people. “Meet my roommates and college friends, Onyankopon and Pieck!”
“Hi,” Levi said, uncertain as to what else he could affix his terse greeting with. Hange resolved that predicament for him, going into further details about their friends.
“Onyankopon is a researcher and engineer! I can’t tell you the technical specifics of what he does, though, I always get them wrong. Oh, and he’s religious, but he won’t try to convert you.” Onyankopon nodded, affirming Hange’s unflattering introduction.
“Pieck… Pieck is a gardener, florist, and avid gamer! That’s why she’s always bent over, whether it’s tending to her plants or her high score in front of the monitor.”
“It’s not why I need the crutches though,” Pieck said. Hange squeezed her shoulders in response.
“Seems like my friends are all nerdy. Maybe that’s why I like them?” A sheepish smile graced Hange’s lips.
Onyankopon gestured towards Hange, imitating their dramatic flourish. “And this is Hange Zoe, the nerdiest of them all. Obsessed with words. Recently obsessed with science fiction. They’re always reading or writing, and once they start on something, their butt doesn’t leave the chair.”
Levi’s eyes flitted around the apartment—it was relatively tidy, with a couple of framed photos and artworks. A blanket on the couch made it homely enough. His inspection didn’t miss Hange’s notice.
“Like what you see?”
“It’s neat,” he replied.
“That’s a compliment!” Hange took care to disclose this to their two friends.
“All your previous partners don’t take off their shoes, Hange. I hope he isn’t one of those.” Pieck said, using their crutch to relocate Hange’s haphazard shoes to a corner, flipping them the right side up. Levi liked her already.
“That’s gross,” Levi said apathetically, wiping away the horrifying image of dirt-smeared carpets and tiles creeping into his consciousness.
“He’s very clean, don’t worry,” Hange said easily. “Some might even say it’s his obsession.”
“I’m the cleaner at the university.” Onyankopon and Pieck turned towards Hange with patented disapproval.
“Levi, you know that’s not what I meant.”
“I think we’ll make good friends,” Pieck said, bemused.
Hange beamed at Levi. “You’ll love Pieck! She’s really quiet most of the time, just like you. Not to mention she pretends that she hates me. Just like you.”
“Good to know,” Levi said, enjoying the banter a bit too much.
“Hange says she’s going to get you to draw me, as a titan,” Pieck said, evidently sceptical.
“What’s a titan?”
“The giant, naked people I told you about, Levi! They’re called titans!”
“Why are they called titans?”
Hange landed on the sofa with a plop, patting the seat beside them for Levi to sit. “In Greek mythology, titans are immortal giant gods who were banished to the underground.”
Levi, who had little knowledge of Greek mythology, made a mental note to search for references online.
“Therefore, the titans are kind of like vengeful giant gods from the underground who have come to earth to wreak havoc on what the gods have built, which is human civilisation, basically.”
“Basically, I am wonderful enough to be titan-material,” Pieck drawled, propping their crutch at the side of the couch, sliding onto the cushions.
“A special titan that walks on all fours! Um, that’s the plan for now,” Hange said brightly.
Onyankopon, who had been content with listening, clapped his hands together in sudden realisation. “Hange, now that you’re finally home, you can take a shower.”
“I should, right?” Hange scratched their head, feeling the slickness of unwashed neglect.
Levi crinkled his nose as Hange reluctantly made their way to the bathroom. “That’s disgusting.”
“And here you are, still.” Pieck’s amiable statement prickled at his skin like a light warning before impending exposure.
“Hange must really want to make a good impression if they’re showering now,” Onyankopon said, chuckling to himself.
“It’s good to finally meet you.” Onyankopon pushed a newly made cup of tea towards Levi, with the steady confidence that could only come from having known prior that it was the beverage that Levi would desire. “Make yourself at home.”
Levi said his thanks, to the hospitality of two people he scarcely knew, and to Hange, who likely told them about the tea.
Cold water blasted them in the face, as Hange became cognizant of the necessity of showering more regularly. It wasn’t like they thrived in the dirt. Hypothetically, showering wasn’t that troublesome. The shower kept forgetting itself until it was three days later and Hange stank with regret and mild self-loathing. Still, the shower felt good, giving them new clarity about the fact that they had invited Levi into their inner social circle. How would he fare? Would he be uncomfortable? Hange massaged shampoo into their hair, recalling their conversation with Pieck and Onyankopon.
After much elaboration on adapting to a new university, their visits to an amazing bakery, and the fostering of daily encounters with new friends, Pieck had caught on that every other sentence from Hange contained a sliver of Levi-sized anecdotes. The new university was so much bigger than the one Pieck, Onyankopon, and Hange had attended together; it stretched endlessly, and Hange estimated that Levi would have walked 393700.7874 steps to clean just the faculty building. The bakery near the university was fragrant, its selection marvellous, and choosing a new bread for Levi every day was a tremendously delightful task. Moreover, Hange had met so many unique characters since getting to know the people in their faculty, people like Levi whose abhorrence for social etiquette was admirable, and with whom she was eager to share their mornings and lunches. Together with Erwin, of course.
Pieck let out a tinkle of a laugh at Hange’s obliviousness. “Why are you friends with Levi?”
Thinking hard, Hange answered, “I don’t know if he thinks of us as friends.”
“Well, friendship status aside, how’s he like?”
“He’s kind. He doesn’t sound like it, but he’s kind.”
“That’s nice. How’s he kind?”
Confusion coloured Hange’s usual confidence. “Hmm. It’s gut-feeling, I guess.”
“That’s unlike you, to rely solely on instincts,” Onyankopon said, stroking his chin. Hange was a person with an abundance of rationale, a reason for everything, with justification for any ideas. Their reasoning this time fell flat.
Pieck prodded on. “You said that he doesn’t sound kind. Then what does he sound like?”
“Grumpy, sarcastic, serious. He looks like he’s annoyed with everyone. Most people find him scary, I suppose? It’s like he wants people to think he’s an asshole.”
Pieck perked up. “Oh, so you’ve become enamoured with broody, misunderstood people who’re rough around the edges?”
“Pieck, come on, I’m not writing my own romantic trope! I don’t know… he’s a good person. I can tell. He doesn’t say much though.”
“You’re a mind-reader now?”
Hange ignored her. “His art… it’s so evocative. Melancholic. Hopeful. Angry.”
“What was the artwork you last saw of his?”
“A cat,” Hange said immediately.
Onyankopon brought Hange back to reality. “What about him? What do you like about him? Not his art.”
Hange pursed their lips. “Do good people need to prove themselves to show that they’re good?”
“There could be reasons as to why you’re so adamant about his golden character,” Onyankopon said.
“He’s reliable. And his shit jokes aren’t so bad once you get used to it.” Hange surprised themselves with that comment—Levi’s relentless toilet humour was infecting their brain. The corrosive force of the word “shitty” had already moulded itself permanently into their vocabulary.
Gazing up at the ceiling, Hange bent their arms behind their head. “It’s hard to find people to truly get along with.”
Onyankopon and Pieck shared a knowing look.
With their eyes trained to the white ceiling plaster, Hange mumbled on, “it would be nice if he’d talk more openly about what he’s feeling. It’s all guesswork and I’m afraid I’m constantly reading him wrong.”
“Maybe you should take your own advice…” Onyankopon said gently.
“But I do talk about my feelings!”
“Monologuing in your room and reposting vague lines of poetry and sending us memes to cope with your avoidance is not the same as talking about your feelings,” Pieck said, spending the subsequently long moment of silence to snip off a yellowed leaf from the potted Monstera deliciosa next to the kitchen counter.
“Wow.” Hange, for once, had nothing to muster.
Onyankopon’s approach was less incisive than Pieck’s. “You know, I don’t think you need a reason to be friends with someone. If he’s making you happy, I think it’s a good sign.”
“Thanks, Onyankopon,” Hange said gratefully.
“But Pieck’s right about you being deliberately evasive with your own emotions. Introspection shouldn’t be so strenuous, right? Don’t you write about your characters’ internal turmoil often?”
“It’s different when you’re reflecting for yourself,” Hange contended.
“We’ll see how Levi’s like anyway, when we meet him,” Pieck said, grabbing the scissors, going towards another deadened leaf.
“Don’t bully him!”
Another snip. Another leaf fell. “Isn’t he supposed to be scary?”
Hange smiled wryly. “But you two are scarier.”
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ocpd96 · 4 years
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Confessions from a mind in disarray...
It's like I’m at war with myself. My mind is a fucking battlefield, there is so much screaming and agony. I feel like my head is going to explode. I’m constantly thinking of everything and anything all at once, all the time, never ending. I’m beyond exhausted, my brain is running at 10000% capacity and I can’t live like this anymore, I just want to make it stop! My psych was right in describing how contradictory I am. I know it fuels the chaos inside me, but I don’t know how to change it.
My OCPD has unachievably high standards for everything I do. It thrives on perfectionism and mastery, and the idea of failing any task directly correlates to me failing as a human being and having no worth or purpose. It pushes me to an all or nothing way of living; especially with uni. I will study to the detriment of my social life, and my mental and physical health. Despite my voice of logic screaming at me to stop, the OCPD behaviour takes over and I will keep going until I literally drop unconscious or end up hospitalised. But somehow, I also suffer from impostor syndrome, which means that despite the ridiculous amount of effort and dedication I put into my work, I genuinely believe all of my accomplishments and good grades are a fluke, that, in truth, I’m incredibly dumb and somehow just got lucky and I really don’t know anything. I’m terrified I’m going to get to my graduation and receive my diploma and still feel like a failure, because I don’t believe I’ve earned my GPA or my qualifications, and everyone is going to find out its just been one big lie... I’ll just fester in shame and guilt.
My psych made it very clear that I have an unhealthily dichotomous nature when it comes to appraisal. For example, due to my deep seeded belief that nothing I do will ever be good enough, I have a burning desire to prove to everyone what I’m truly capable of... I desperately seek other’s approval of my work ethic, I want them to see how hard I push myself, but the moment anyone acknowledges it out loud, I immediately assume they’re lying to me, just trying to make me feel good. And on top of that, I perceive any form of self-confidence, or self-pride as narcissism (which is stupid, because once again my voice of logic knows that is not the psychological definition of narcissism, or even remotely close to it). So I could make some amazing achievement, something that actually makes me happy, but I self-impose a silence rule, because if I even acknowledge I did well, or that I am fundamentally a hard worker, that is cause for immediate self-guilting for being too ‘up myself’.
I don’t know how to live like this.
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donnerpartyofone · 6 years
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movie review fan lady here. I know it’s not yet BLOGTOBER, but in advance of that, what are some of the worst tropes of recent horror films, in your opinion? Of course, use whatever definition of “recent” suits your answer best! seems like you’re busy with new projects these days, hope all is well and that you have plenty of time to watch however many horror movies you like this fall!
(first of all, sorry for my uneven typing but i’m using a new laptop that has a really intrusive but also totally inconsistent autocorrect thing and I’m just sick of fucking with it) thanks for saying hello! I have been pretty dormant lately, and it’s encouraging to hear from people who enjoy reading what I write. the mental illness got me bad this summer. this was made unnecessarily difficult by the fact that I had arranged a month-and-a-half-long personal leave from work, during which time I expected to be able to return to “myself” and replenish my inner strength by doing only things that I care about, and most importantly, see what kind of life I lead when I’m not being crushed under the heel of my extremely demanding and shameful job–a perspective few individuals will ever have the privilege of gaining. of course, a lot of what actually happened amounted to a painful reminder of how little I’m really capable of as a person. this has been especially hard to recover from with the restored stress of being at the office. I had my first full-blown panic attack on my first day back. although I suffer from anxiety, I have always been hesitant to describe my episodes of escalating, wracking panic as “attacks”. this is because once when I was young, I witnessed someone going into a panic attack after confessing to me her history of childhood trauma; she went into a total fugue state, dragged her limbs, spun in circles, and made faces until she collapsed, never to remember anything about the experience. I thought, “so that’s what a panic attack is. basically, if you are aware of your surroundings, have basic control of your face and limbs, and can recall the event, then you don’t really have any kind of real problem to complain of.” my “panic attack” was still not as bad as that, but it did involve an interesting lapse of motor control on top of everything else, so I guess I’m giving myself credit for it.
I never stopped watching movies, of course, but I almost totally abandoned letterboxd, save for a weird stint where I reviewed every single pre-Zombie HALLOWEEN movie; I actually suspect that for some reason, letterboxd only sent two of them into the activity feed, so no one even saw them all. so I stopped writing, and then I developed all this self-imposed guilt about failing to maintain my entirely voluntary pleasure-oriented routine, and my feelings of completely meaningless shame around this made it very difficult to start again. I think there’s also a sub-problem where, in actually recording my viewing habits, I started to get really stressed out about how much of my life I just waste on things I don’t even enjoy, just in order to kill time until I get to go to sleep again. for instance: yesterday I watched FATHER FIGURES, an ed helms-owen Wilson road movie that I was not even slightly intrigued by. in it, helms and Wilson are twins on the hunt for the dad they’ve never known, and they basically plod through a series of dopey vignettes: what if he was a MOVIE STAR? what if he was a FAMOUS FOOTBALL PLAYER? et al, ad nauseam. you can imagine what it’s like. *I* could have imagined what it was like. …but actually, there’s this weird sequence like an hour into the movie where (spoiler alert I guess), at the end of a string of dovetailing red herrings, the twins believe they’ve finally traced their real dad to a Boston suburb. they arrive at the guy’s house, expecting to meet a legendary supercop, only to find out that they’re at his wake. to make matters worse, the house is filled with young Irish American thugs who seem to be constantly on the verge of orgiastic violence, and who are already in a dangerously elevated emotional state. meanwhile, in this context, ed helms discovers that the woman with whom he had a one night stand two scenes ago is actually his sister. his and Wilson’s true identities, in addition to this sexual horror, come tumbling into the light of day at this worst of all possible moments, and the dead man’s own identical twin brother has to lay bare the sordid details of their family history to straighten everything out. I was embarrassed to find myself totally riveted to this sequence, which was something like THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW or THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE: ordinary people are absorbed into a secret, separatist subculture that is ruled by its own perverse systems of honor, incest and violence. I thought, “wait a minute, is this movie GOOD now??” of course the answer was, no, absolutely not! but it had me going for a second there. …but my point is, now I’ve seen that, and I still haven’t seen one single Eric Rohmer movie. part of the reason is, I’m afraid they’ll annoy me. don’t I have any kind of consistent thought? don’t I ever do a single thing with purpose?
god, remember when I used to use the anhed-nia blog to work out all kinds of really intense personal problems? I guess I stopped because I started feeling weird about what I was doing with the format, like I felt bad for people who followed during blogtober and weren’t expecting that kind of thing, which is so stupid, I mean it’s my blog and barely anyone follows it for me to worry about anyway. also the mental illness got me. I started feeling like, “why am I even writing this down, like what’s the point, I’m basically just masturbating and being pretentious and I’m not even having any revelations or whatever.” that feeling persists in my whole life, like a lot of people with depression. the constant why-ness of everything. it can be really extreme, like, “ok, I put my left shoe on, but is that REALLY a compelling reason to put my right shoe on? I mean I could just as easily be doing NOTHING instead!” anyway, watch out world, I might start putting personal problems on anhed-nia again.
but uhhh none of that answers your question. I don’t know if I have a proper answer! like, some things come to mind that are not necessarily “tropes” but I do consider them modern problems:
SETTLING UP WITH REALITY: we have this really sad situation now where, in order for a horror story to be compelling, every single movie has to suddenly slam on its brakes and examine what’s going on with everybody’s cell phone. did it get lost? is it broken? poor connection? as soon as this starts happening, all I can think is, “I’m watching a movie. this is the part where the writer has to take a number of laborious, repetitive steps, the conclusion of which I already know for sure, in order to explain to me that whatever is about to happen in the movie could definitely really happen in real life, for real, because the convenience of cell phones could not have prevented it. the writer knows that I have heard of cell phones, and so now we have to make a dry, methodical accounting of the status of all of the cell phones in the movie. once this has been finalized, the actual story may proceed.” I hate this so much. whatever inherent horror there may be in the failure of our phones in times of peril is completely negated by my awareness of the writer’s felt obligation to go around disabling each and every cell phone right in front of me before we can even begin to address the point of his story. let me put it a little bit differently: when we have a home invasion movie in which the villains cut the phone lines, that evokes a horror that is native to this genre. the protagonist feels personally violated, imprisoned, completely separated from their fellow humans, separated even from the form of reality they enjoyed before their victimhood began. the very definition of “home”, as a place that is private, safe, comforting, and under one’s one sovereign rule, is painfully inverted. that is the point of that specific story, in which the telephone has defined semiotic and psychological significance. on the other hand, the problem of cell phones is completely generic. now, in every horror movie of every subgenre, no matter where the characters are or what they’re doing or what we suspect will become of them, nothing can even happen without this dutiful address of the phones. this is only happening because of an absolutely ludicrous obligation people feel for their fantasies to resemble their reality as closely as possible, which flies in the face of the whole idea of having metaphors that help us explore our emotional and spiritual conditions. PS if you’re the kind of person who can’t watch even a really great movie without holding everyone in it to the standard of your own personal pragmatism and logic, then maybe you should ask yourself why the fuck you even watch movies in the first place.
BICKERING AS DRAMA: this may not be a specifically modern problem, although I *feel* like I encounter it most in horror movies from the last two decades. in any horror story with an ensemble cast, an important source of danger is the dissolution of personal relationships. under the strain of their predicament, people who desperately need to trust and protect each other become volatile, angry, cowardly, irrational. fearing for their lives, they lose their ability to cooperate, or even to agree on one most-hopeful solution to their shared problem. in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, the ongoing fight over whether to hide in the basement or the attic is agonizing, and helps to underline the preexisting, banal political tension between the main characters–in fact, the corrosive social forces of the 1960s are key to this film’s subtext–which now compounds the mortal threat posed by cannibalistic monsters. alternatively, you can have a movie like John carpenter’s THE THING that is mainly composed of protagonists in-fighting; in that case, the irresolvable conflicts strengthen the movie’s message, which is specifically about betrayal, alienation, and loneliness. what I see in a lot of movies now, instead of a focused, purposeful conflict like those, is a deteriorating situation of multiple characters incessantly bickering with each other over the details of their circumstances. no one is making a salient point, or contributing to our understanding of their conundrum, or revealing something particular about themselves. they’re just yelling and sniping and sulking and badgering each other about minutiae, or about the key problem in such broad strokes that their arguments cease to have any meaning. I actually think that this is a consequence of that same boneheaded obsession with realism of which I complained previously. I often feel like these protracted scenes of petty fighting about granular details are a way for the writer to paranoiacally defend themselves against persnickety viewers who complain about “stupid” characters who apparently fail to exercise heroic levels of sober judgment and practicality. these viewers, who are so happy to hurl accusations of “UGH HE SHOULDA JUST _____” at the screen, as if there is anything “just” simple and obvious about the story unfurling, are progressively ruining storytelling for everyone, necessitating these grueling character discussions about the potential consequences of every hair-splitting potentiality of every situation. 
EFFICIENCY AND ECONOMY, OR LACK THEREOF: …this is sort of a different kind of point that I want to make, so bear with me. as a (secret, amateur) writer myself, I am plagued by the neurotic urge to explain exactly the way things happen in as comprehensive a fashion as possible. like, I don’t know, if I were writing a story about how someone inherits an old house, I’d probably start stressing out ridiculously about the bureaucracy of how this property changed hands, what kinds of officials would have to be involved, how the new owner evaluates maintenance needs, and EXACTLY how long everything would take. i have an irrational fear of leaving things out, when I absolutely need to leave things out in order for the story to simply be about whatever it is about–which is NOT property transactions. it’s not even that I’m anxious about “realism” precisely–this could apply to a fantasy framework just as well–I just lose track of which details are actually important, and which details I should give the audience credit for intuiting (or not even needing to know). because of this, I try to really notice when a writer deliberately, elegantly leaves a big gap in the action, in order to stay faithful to the story’s spiritual identity. I wish I could think of a good example! but I at least have a good anti-example, which is: I rewatched TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE NEXT GENERATION this year for TEXAS CHAIN SAW (sic) MASSACRE Day. that’s a really crazy fucking movie for a whole lot of different reasons, but one thing I noticed about it is, the DP shows EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS. this became absolutely hilarious to me pretty quickly. is somebody talking? point the camera at them! is somebody reacting facially to the person talking? point the camera at THEM! did someone just walk in the door? now point the camera RIGHT AT THEM, and make sure you get the door in the shot and show the whole thing until the door closes and something else happens! it’s so crazy and nervous. there’s a scene where leatherface has to put a character into a cooler where there’s already another character trapped, so he has to pick up the big hunk of machinery that he used to hold the door closed, and then find a place to put that thing down, and then put the character in the cooler, and then turn around and pick up the thing off the place where he put it down, and then turn around and put the thing back on the thing again, and they show ALL OF IT. it really cracks me up, it’s so unnecessary. I mean, the scene is already in chaos, you just have to show a bunch of motion with the piece of machinery coming in and out of frame, but instead you get this like anal retentive breakdown of exactly what happens to every object in the scene. anyway, I try to notice when I’m feeling compelled to do that kind of insane accounting of everything that happens, and I also try to notice when someone else is really good at NOT doing that!
anyway, thanks a lot for the question! it’s really good for me to get a prompt like that. blogtober is coming after all, and I need to Get Amped. this fall I have horticulture classes at the local botanic garden three nights a week, so it’s going to be tough! if you (y’all) have any movies I haven’t reviewed that you’d like me to talk about, I would be very open to hearing about it, I often get stuck. also feel free to follow me on letterboxd to help pressure me into continuing to use it. https://letterboxd.com/donnerpartyof1/
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solacekames · 6 years
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Insurgent Supremacists – a new book about the U.S. far right By Matthew N Lyons |  Sunday, April 01, 2018 
My book Insurgent Supremacists: The U.S. Far Right’s Challenge to State and Empire is due out this May and is being published jointly by Kersplebedeb Publishing and PM Press. It draws on work that I’ve been doing over the past 10-15 years but also includes a lot of new material. In this post I want to highlight some of what’s distinctive about this book and how it relates to the three way fight approach to radical antifascism. I’ll focus here on three themes that run throughout the book: 1. Disloyalty to the state is a key dividing line within the U.S. right. For purposes of this book, I define the U.S. far right not in terms of a specific ideology, but rather as those political forces that (a) regard human inequality as natural, inevitable, or desirable and (b) reject the legitimacy of the established political system. That includes white nationalists who advocate replacing the United States with one or more racially defined “ethno-states.” But it also includes the hardline wing of the Christian right, which wants to replace secular forms of government with a full-blown theocracy; Patriot movement activists who reject the federal government’s legitimacy based on conspiracy theories and a kind of militant libertarianism; and some smaller ideological currents. Insurgent Supremacists argues that the modern far right defined in these terms has only emerged in the United States over the past half century, as a result of social and political upheavals associated with the 1960s, and that it represents a shift away from the right’s traditional role as defenders of the established order. The book explores how the various far right currents have developed and how they have interacted with each other and with the larger political landscape. I chose to frame the book in terms of “far right” rather than “fascism” for a couple of reasons. Discussions of fascism tend to get bogged down in definitional debates, because people have very strong—and very divided—opinions about what fascism means and what it includes. Insurgent Supremacists includes in-depth discussions of fascism as a theoretical and historical concept, but that’s not the book’s focus or overall framework. As a related point, most discussions of fascism focus on white nationalist forces and tend to exclude or ignore other right-wing currents such as Christian rightist forces, and I think it’s important to look at these different forces in relation to each other. For example, critics of the Patriot/militia movement often argue that its hostility to the federal government was derived from Posse Comitatus, a white supremacist and antisemitic organization that played a big role in the U.S. far right in the 1980s. That’s an important part of the story, but Patriot groups were also deeply influenced by hardline Christian rightists, who (quite independently from white nationalists) had for years been urging people to arm themselves and form militias to resist federal tyranny. We rarely hear about that. 2. The far right is ideologically complex and dynamic and belies common stereotypes. Many critics of the far right tend to assume that its ideology doesn’t amount to much more than crude bigotry, and if we identify a group as “Nazi” or as white supremacist, male supremacist, etc., that’s pretty much all we need to know. This is a dangerous assumption that doesn’t explain why far right groups are periodically able to mobilize significant support and wield influence far beyond their numbers. Yes, the far right has its share of stupid bigots, but unfortunately it also has its share of smart, creative people. We need to take far rightists’ beliefs and strategies seriously, study their internal debates, and look at how they’ve learned from past mistakes. Otherwise we’ll be fighting 21st-century battles with 1930s weapons. For example: because of the history of fascism in the 1930s and 40s, we tend to identify far right politics with glorification of the strong state and highly centralized political organizations. Some far rightists, such as the Lyndon LaRouche network, still hold to that approach, but most of them have actually abandoned it in favor of various kinds of political decentralism, from neonazis who call for “leaderless resistance” and want to carve regional white homelands out of the United States to “sovereign citizens” and county supremacists, from self-described National-Anarchists to Christian Reconstructionists who advocate a theocracy based on small-scale institutions such as local government, churches, and individual families. One of the lessons here is that opposing centralized authority isn’t necessarily liberatory at all, because repression and oppression can operate on a small scale just as well as on a large scale. This shift to political decentralism isn’t just empty rhetoric; it’s a genuine transformation of far right politics. I think it should be examined in relation to larger cultural, political, and economic developments, such as the global restructuring of industrial production and the wholesale privatization of governmental functions in the U.S. and elsewhere. We need to take far rightists’ beliefs and strategies seriously, study their internal debates, and look at how they’ve learned from past mistakes. Otherwise we’ll be fighting 21st-century battles with 1930s weapons. As another example of oversimplifying far right politics, it’s standard to describe far rightists as promoting heterosexual male dominance. While that’s certainly true in broad terms, it doesn’t really tell us very much. Insurgent Supremacists maps out several distinct forms of far right politics regarding gender and sexual identity and looks at how those have played out over time within the far right’s various branches. Most far rightists vilify homosexuality, but sections of the alt-right have advocated some degree of respect for male homosexuality, based on a kind of idealized male bonding among warriors, an approach that actually has deep roots in fascist political culture. In recent years the alt-right has promoted some of the most vicious misogyny and declared that women have no legitimate political role. But when the alt-right got started around 2010, it included men who argued that sexism and sexual harassment of women were weakening the movement by alienating half of its potential support base. This view echoed the quasi-feminist positions that several neonazi groups had been taking since the 1980s, such as the idea that Jews promoted women’s oppression as part of their effort to divide and subjugate the Aryan race. This may sound bizarre, but it’s a prime example of the far right’s capacity time and again to appropriate elements of leftist politics and harness them to its own supremacist agenda. 3. Fighting the far right and working to overthrow established systems of power are distinct but interconnected struggles. A third core element that sets Insurgent Supremacists apart is three way fight politics: the idea that the existing socio-economic-political order and the far right represent different kinds of threats—interconnected but distinct—and that the left needs to combat both of them. This challenges the assumption, recurrent among many leftists, that the far right is either unimportant or a ruling-class tool, and that it basically just wants to impose a more extreme version of the status quo. But three way fight politics also challenges the common liberal view that in the face of a rising far right threat we need to “defend democracy” and subordinate systemic change to a broad-based antifascism. Among other huge problems with this approach, if leftists throw our support behind the existing order we play directly into the hands of the far right, because we allow them to present themselves as the only real oppositional force, the only ones committed to real change. Insurgent Supremacists applies three way fight analysis in various ways. There’s a chapter on misuses of the charge of fascism since the 1930s, which looks at how some leftists and liberals have misapplied the fascist label either to authoritarian conservatism (such as McCarthyism or the George W. Bush administration) or to the existing political system as a whole. There’s a chapter about the far right’s relationship with Donald Trump—both his presidential campaign and his administration—which explores the complex and shifting interactions between rightist currents that want to overthrow or secede from the United States and rightist currents that don’t. During the campaign, most alt-rightists enthusiastically supported Trump not only for his attacks on immigrants and Muslims but also because he made establishment conservatives look like fools. But since the inauguration they’ve been deeply alienated by many of his policies, which largely follow a conservative script. Three way fight analysis also informs the book’s discussion of federal security forces’ changing relationships with right-wing vigilantes and paramilitary groups. These relations have run the gamut from active support for right-wing violence (most notoriously in Greensboro in 1979, when white supremacists gunned down communist anti-Klan protesters) to active suppression (as in 1984-88, when the FBI and other agencies arrested or shot members of half a dozen underground groups). This complex history belies arguments that we should look to the federal government to protect us against the far right, as well as simplistic claims that “the cops and the Klan go hand in hand.” Forces of the state may choose to co-opt right-wing paramilitaries or crack down on them, depending on the particular circumstances and what seems most useful to help them maintain social control. Insurgent Supremacists isn’t intended to be a comprehensive study of the U.S. far right. Rather, it’s an attempt to offer some fresh ideas about what these dangerous forces stand for, where they come from, and what roles they play in the larger political arena. Not just to help us understand them, but so we can fight them more effectively.
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