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percontaion-points · 3 years

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King’s Men chapter 4

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Chapter 4

"If we knew what Andrew had against us, we could try to fight it," Dan said.

JFC, I don't think that three books is enough to cover all of Andrew's psychological issues in the depth that Dan is asking about.

And I say this as a casual psychology hobbyist.

"Feels like we're right back where we started in August," Matt agreed.

"If we knew what Andrew had against us, we could try to fight it," Dan said.

[…]

"I can try. But," he continued, with a glance between them, "someone needs to work on Aaron. Nicky wants to be your friend and Kevin knows the team is stronger as a whole, but Aaron's almost as dead-set against us as Andrew is.”

It's like the second book literally never happened. What was the goddamned point of it even if the second everybody comes back following the winter break, and everybody hit the “character reset” button?

That was one of the things reporters had liked harping about most when Kevin became a permanent fixture at Andrew's side: Kevin was raised at Evermore, surrounded by the best and practically born with a racquet in his hand, whereas Andrew learned Exy while he was locked up in juvie. Neil had a page-long article about it in his notebook. It was crassly titled "The Prince and the Pauper", and its focus was on how doomed their friendship was. The writer thought their attitudes toward Exy too incompatible and their backgrounds too different for them to stay together long.

Imagine getting the assignment of writing about the bromance between two college sports players.

Like looking down at what you'd just finished writing and going “Haha, I got a journalism degree.”

"I'm not a striker by choice, either," he said. "I was a backliner in little leagues. Riko remembers because I scrimmaged with him and Kevin.”

I think the weirdest thing about Neil's personality is just that... it was already established that he played literally one game of exy when he was little, on orders of the mob boss to see if he couldn't turn Neil into an exy puppet, like Kevin and Riko. And then his mom took him and they went on the run.

Like literally one game. But Neil decided to turn this singular game into a goddamned personality trait.

"Exy is the shiny object of your sad little world. You know you're being hunted and you know the hounds are closing in, but you won't let go to save yourself. You once told me you don't understand why a person would actively try to die, but here you are. I guess that was another lie."

I think that the worst goddamned part of this stupid series is how AWARE that it is.

Yet, it makes lines like this constant, about how sports isn't a personality, etc etc... BUT IT DOES NOTHING TO ACTUALLY FIX THE PROBLEMS THAT IT'S HIGHLIGHTING.

At the end of the day, the only thing that this line will be will be a throw-away line. Not a moment for self-reflection, not a reason to want to change, not a warning to the reader not to turn a hobby into your sole personality.

Nope. Just a dumb moment of being too self-aware yet not aware enough to do anything about the problem being highlighted.

“Aaron cut a deal with Andrew at juvie: if Andrew stuck with him until graduation, Aaron would stick with Andrew. No friends, no girlfriends, nothing. Aaron couldn't even socialize with his teammates."

Part of me gets it.

But most of me is just sitting there being “wow. Do you see how shitty and abusive that this is? If he was a boyfriend, we'd all be screaming for the one to get away from such a toxic situation. Why the hell is this somehow different?”

"You were right. They made a promise. Aaron and Andrew, I mean. That's what Aaron told Katelyn, anyway. Aaron cut a deal with Andrew at juvie: if Andrew stuck with him until graduation, Aaron would stick with Andrew. No friends, no girlfriends, nothing. Aaron couldn't even socialize with his teammates."

Neil combed his fingers through his hair and tested the bandage on his cheek. "Aaron would have meant high school graduation. They renewed it when they signed a contract to play here."

"Now Katelyn's in the picture, but Aaron won't fight for her."

Okay... So is Aaron just going to continue to put his life on hold for Andrew's mental illness forever? Literally none of this is remotely healthy.

"This is a joke," Dan said, grabbing Neil's chin. "Neil?"

"He told me to transfer to the Ravens," Neil said. "He said I could finish this year with the Foxes but that I'd move to Edgar Allan this fall. They inked me in preparation and I couldn't stop them. I wanted you to know in case Riko says something about it. I'm still a Fox no matter what he says. I wouldn't sign his papers."

WHY THE FUCK DID THEY NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS. THEY LITERALLY PUT MAKE-UP ON HIM EVERY DAY TO COVER HIS BRUISES.

"You never had any plans to go home for Christmas, did you? That whole mess about your uncle flying to Arizona—you made that up so we wouldn't ask too many questions or wonder why you weren't going to New York with Kevin."

Nothing quite like being a day late and a dollar short.

"Nightmares," Neil echoed. It wasn't the turn he'd thought this conversation would take but he could guess what was tearing Aaron apart. "About November, you mean."

"He doesn't want it to bother him," Katelyn said.

My usual sentiment of “THERAPY?! LOL WHAT'S THAT?!” is way too on the nose with this. Please refer back to the previous chapter commentary for my full opinion on this matter.

He got up and left, and she didn't call after him.

Chapter 4 summary: Some time passes, and Neil is given the approval to continue playing again. After practice, he talks with some of the others over how the team had been together towards the end of the fall semester, but now it's like that never happened.

Back at the dorm, Neil randomly thinks about how Andrew hates exy so much. He thinks about some of Andrew's background, of how he'd been introduced to exy while he was in juvie. Kind of the opposite of Kevin, in Neil's opinion. Andrew and Neil then have a long-ish conversation about what exy means to them, but again, the two of them are kind of polar opposites about the entire thing. Andrew keeps telling Neil not to make the game his singular personality trait, but Neil... doesn't listen. What else is new. Immediately following this, Neil leaves to return to his usual nighly practices with Kevin. Who promptly reminds both Neil as well as the reader that Kevin has exactly one personality trait, and it's exy. (Granted, there is a history of Kevin's abuse, but the book literally never goes into that. Oh no, the only one we gotta talk about is Andrew.)

The next morning, Matt tells Neil that the twins made an agreement when they were in high school to stick together. However, when they signed at the university, they basically renewed their promise. And the short of it is that Andrew is holding Aaron emotionally hostage, as well as the idea of Aaron's future (ie a wife and kids). They're positive that if Andrew found out about Aaron's secret relationship with Katelyn, Andrew would hurt her. Neil decides to play dirty and get them into the same room together to talk it out with Betsy, and Katelyn would be the leverage against Aaron.

Later, the girls randomly find out about Neil's tattoo, despite them being up close and personal with his face because of make-up. They then piece together what Neil actually did over his break, which... again... a day late and a dollar short.

Neil later meets up with Katelyn in the library to rope her in on getting Aaron the help he needs, and to get him out from under the manipulative thumb of his brother. He convinces her to stop being the victim caught in between the Aaron/Andrew situation, but she doesn't exactly give an actual answer right away.

#All For The Game #The King's Men #chapter 04 #Aaron and Andrew Minyard #Danielle Wilds #can we not #Neil Josten #okay but why #UGH JUST UGH #Kevin Day #playing sports is not a personality trait #self-aware novels #toxic relationship #shitty family is shitty #i'm done goodbye #HEADDESKING #go to therapy

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theteablogger · 5 years

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Andy writ large

Several people have sent me links to the New Yorker article in which Ian Parker exposes author/editor Dan Mallory as having lied, gaslighted people, and engaged in other manipulative behaviors for many years in order to further his career. When confronted, Mallory tried to blame it all on mental illness. Anons have been discussing this on tf-talk and FFA, noting that Mallory sounds a lot like "the prestige drama version of Thanfiction", and I have to agree. I've written several times in the past about people who reminded me and others of Andy (Aiden Sinclair/Richard Outhier, Travis Aaron Wade, Kevin Spacey, Teri Hoffman and Tyler Deaton), and the similarities in this case are even more striking than any of those. So here are the things that stood out to me in Parker's article. This is a pretty long list, so I've broken it down into several sections for readability.

Generally manipulative behavior:

Tom Scott described Mallory, at their first meeting, as being self-assured and nonchalant in a way that (to me, as a reader) seemed studied. He also said that Mallory casually bragged about his success in a way that left him feeling charmed rather than nonplussed or annoyed. This matches up with several accounts I've read of people’s first impressions of Andy when he was in the LotR fandom.

Both Andy and Dan Mallory tend to get personal with strangers quickly and to overshare – e.g., the "lighthearted debate" at a festival in which Mallory abruptly got serious and spoke frankly (lying) about his alleged history of ECT. This kind of oversharing tends to elicit sympathy from listeners and to make them feel that this person is being genuine and vulnerable with them, which makes them more inclined to open up in turn. This is something that Andy was doing as recently as last year, but he misjudged his audience some of the time and they just found it off-putting.

They frequently engage in self-deprecating humor, which is endearing and encourages others to let down their guard. These days, Andy incorporates glib, jokey references to his past into this part of his shtick (e.g., "someday over a glass of wine, I'll tell you about the time I accidentally started a hobbit cult"), so it also serves to inoculate listeners against anything negative they might hear about him from other people.

Both tend to zero in on and exploit good-natured people who give others the benefit of the doubt.

Both pride themselves on (and brag about) using charisma and "wit" to talk their way into places/situations for which they are underqualified, that they can't afford, etc. See Andy’s remarks about getting "gorgeous service" at high-end boutiques based on charisma alone, and the commencement speech in which Mallory bragged about talking his way into a thesis program without doing the qualifying work.

These men hate to be in anything that could be construed as a subordinate role, although this is one area in which Andy is arguably more subtle than Dan Mallory.

Both enjoy hiding in plain sight—in Mallory’s case, through his novel.

Both have long histories of engaging in gaslighting, lying, and manipulation for their own benefit and/or entertainment.

Acquaintances have described both men's behavior as performative and calculating.

Neither could let go of their former victims, but instead kept contacting them to try and draw them back in—Andy did this with Abbey after she left him in Virginia, and Mallory did this with his former colleagues in London.

Lying liars who lie:

Both men have lied repeatedly and extensively about their physical and mental health histories, and can't be bothered to keep their stories straight. In Andy’s case, this has included claiming various psychiatric diagnoses with symptoms corresponding to their Hollywood portrayals, telling stories about allergic reactions and injuries that were wildly exaggerated at best, and more. Mallory told ever-changing stories of psychiatric treatments that worked either very well or not at all, blamed his chronic lying on Bipolar II (a claim that would be ludicrous if it weren't so offensive), repeatedly claimed to have brain tumors and/or cancer, and told a variety of lies over the years about family members' illnesses and deaths that never happened.

Both have lied about having mysterious, incurable ailments that would definitely kill them within a set number of years—which was prone to change—but that conveniently didn't stop Mallory from working when he felt like it, or Andy from traveling anywhere his friends would pay for.

Each of them has told a multitude of easily disprovable lies about his education, his family, and his personal history.

Both claimed to have been abused as children, though Andy told long, graphically detailed stories about it and Mallory doesn’t seem to have gone further than making an implication.

Each has lied about a younger sibling's identity: Mallory impersonated his brother in a long series of emails to former colleagues about his alleged ill health, and Andy told his friends that his sister was responsible for everything he'd done to people as Amy Player.

Both have inadvertently revealed themselves via verbal, syntactical, or spelling idiosyncrasies when impersonating others online.

Both impersonated other people to chronicle their fake or severely exaggerated illnesses and to describe their plucky/humorous behavior during alleged hospital stays.

Both faked accents—Andy was "Irish" and Mallory was "British".

Both have claimed, directly and by implication, to have connections and insider knowledge of Hollywood, the film industry, and/or screenwriting.

Aside from all the outright lies they've told, both men have engaged in lies of omission, deliberately not correcting others' misunderstandings or misperceptions about them.

When their lies were exposed, both claimed that their accusers were lying because they were sexually attracted to them and had either been rejected (as Mallory said of the CEO of a publishing house), or were disturbed by the attraction (as Andy said of Turimel).

Both tend to double down when confronted about an obvious lie, and then try to steer the conversation to other topics.

Miscellany:

Each is the eldest son of affluent parents.

Mallory's fascination with Tom Ripley is reminiscent of Andy's admiration of Frank Abagnale.

Both were involved in their college theatre departments. For Andy, this is true of his attendance at VCU, at Thomas Nelson Community College, and at Christopher Newport University almost twenty years ago. (I’m not sure what he did at George Mason. He wasn't there for long.)

The work of both men is, shall we say, "derivative". In Andy's case, this applies more to his art. I am not familiar with Mallory's work other than The Woman in the Window and a handful of quotations from essays and e-mails he's written, but it appears that in TWW, he may have ripped off a novel by Sarah A. Denzil that was published six months before he started trying to sell his book, and has almost certainly ripped off "Copycat", a movie from 1995 (see New Yorker article).

Mallory’s focus on process and strategy in writing, the way his own voice overwhelms that of the narrator, and Parker's description of TWW as "a thriller excited about getting away with writing a thriller" all reminded me of the experience of reading DAYD and the way Andy has often talked about writing and storycraft.

Many former associates of each man were at least somewhat aware of how sketchy they were, but were unable or unwilling to call them out.

A surprising number of people, despite knowing they've been lied to repeatedly and at great length, still like both of them quite a lot.

Both Andy's and Dan Mallory's parents seem like kind, decent people who love their sons and want to believe the best of them.

Specific lines from the "New Yorker" article that made me think of Andy:

A former colleague on Mallory: "'If there was something that he wanted and there was a way he could position himself to get it, he would. If there was a story to tell that would help him, he would tell it.'"

"He’d begin with rapturous flattery…and then shift to self-regard. He wittily skewered acquaintances and seemed always conscious of his physical allure."

Author Sophie Hannah: "Mallory 'renewed my creative energy,' she said. He had a knack for 'giving feedback in the form of praise for exactly the things I’m proud of.'"

"Speaking in Colorado last January, Mallory quoted a passage from Kay Redfield Jamison’s memoir, 'An Unquiet Mind,' in which she describes repeatedly confronting the social wreckage caused by her bipolar episodes—knowing that she had 'apologies to make.' … In more recent public appearances, Mallory seems to have dropped this reference to wreckage. Instead, he has accepted credit for his courage in bringing up his mental suffering, and he has foregrounded his virtues."

Mallory: "It's been horrific, not least because, in my distress, I did or said or believed things I would never ordinarily say, or do, or believe—things of which, in many instances, I have absolutely no recollection."

#andrewmblake #andythanfiction #thanfiction #dan mallory #andy blake #andrew blake #hiding in plain sight #mental health

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traviswritesaboutstuff-blog · 6 years

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I Have a Confession To Make - 10/18/18

I’m a musical theatre junkie. I 90% of the songs on my phone were first sung on the stage, and my workout playlist will make any normal person wonder what the fuck is wrong with me (I found this out when my friend commented on the fact that Do You Hear The People Sing from Les Miz isn’t a pump-up anthem, to which I say, you’re wrong and also stupid). But I have a confession to make. It’s a secret that I’ve been harboring for three years now, and I’ve only ever discussed with my closest of friends. I’m afraid that revealing this secret will ostracize me from the rest of the musical theatre junkies out there, but it’s something that I can’t keep quiet anymore. It’s crushing me, and I need to let it out.

I don’t like Hamilton.

I know, I know. Something is wrong with me. But hear me out. It’s not that it’s a bad show. For what it is, its phenomenal, and I can see WHY people like it. I just don’t like it.

Let me just say that this has nothing to do with the show’s creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda. In fact, I really frickin’ love him. Miranda’s first show (and the show that got him his first Tony), In The Heights, is one of my top ten favorite shows in all of musical theatre. That says a lot considering two of the ten shows are Sondheim shows, one is a show about anarchists at the end of the millennium that ushered in the age of musicals with any kind of gravitas, and my number one favorite show is about a family dealing with the toll that mental illness can take after the death of a child. BUT. In The Heights is a wonderful little show full of fleshed-out character arcs, heart-wrenching plot twists, and the single best love song ever written (“Sunrise”). And “Breathe,” the second song in the show, never fails to make me at least tear up (at worst, full-on ugly crying for an hour while I contemplate my life’s decisions). The show follows the various residents of Washington Heights as they navigate life, love, and heartache in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the country. It’s funny and witty and honest and raw and emotional and sad and hopeful and I never fail to walk away from the soundtrack without having gone through every single stage of that emotional journey. It was also one of the first musicals to successfully incorporate hip-hop and Latin music into a score that still felt very theatrical and moving. In more ways than one, it set the stage for Hamilton, and I think a lot of people aren’t even aware of its existence.

Hamilton is... fine. But, honestly, that’s it. The music is catchy, I’ll give it that, and while I’m admittedly not the biggest fan of hip-hop, it does a good job of telling its story through this method. But so did In The Heights, and to an even better degree, I find. My biggest issue with Hamilton is that so many people view it as some sort of quintessential immigrant story. But here’s the thing: it’s not. Sure, the rags-to-riches aspect plucks some part of our hearts that still long for that American Dream, but Hamilton’s journey is so far off from anything that’s frankly even remotely possible today. A poor white (really, look it up. He wasn’t even remotely ethnic) orphan from an island in the Caribbean moves to a big city in a burgeoning new country to try and establish himself as a main player in history. Quite frankly, I just find that concept kind of boring, especially compared to the story of actually racially diverse people just trying to get by in a poor neighborhood in a system that systematically discriminates against them. What’s the personal goals of one individual when pit against the way of life of an entire community? There are just far better ways to tell an immigrant story, and it’s so frustrating to me because Lin-Manuel Miranda knows this because HE HAS DONE IT BEFORE.

Then of course, there is the show’s motif of “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?” I like the concept, but the execution is questionable in my opinion. It’s not even that the story doesn’t present it in a compelling way, it’s just that I find it hard to care. Before going into the show, anyone who has graduated middle school can answer each one of those questions. Who lives? Aaron Burr. Who dies? Alexander Hamilton. Who tells your story? Well, if memory serves correctly, every single American History textbook printed after 1800 (Oh, and the $10 bill). And anyone who has somehow not heard of Alexander Hamilton has answers to all of those questions after the show’s first number. So why keep watching?

The music also drags on at far too many points in Hamilton for my liking. Somewhere after My Shot, the songs all kind of start to just blend together. Sure there are some stand outs (“It’s Quiet Uptown” comes to mind)And I don’t find any of the characters aside from the titular one and Aaron Burr particularly fleshed-out or worthy of note in any special way. It’s almost as if they’re just a hurdle we have to jump over in order to get to the main plot of the show.

Again, I can see why people like this show. The music can be catchy, I’m sure it’s a story that appeal to some, and its creator is one of the most charismatic and likable people alive today. But I just can’t get into it. And I refuse to be ashamed of it anymore. And having said that, I’m gonna go sit in my car and listen to In The Heights again. I could use a good ugly cry.

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violetganache42 · 6 years

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My Thoughts on the Logan Paul Controversy

WARNING: The following post contains descriptions of the graphic material that was recorded on Logan’s most recent vlog, which was thankfully taken down. It also consists of opinions on his and Jake’s unforgivable actions prior to this incident, as well as cursing and the possibility of some heated rage, in which I would like to apologize for in advance. If I also come off as rude in some aspects, then I’m sorry for that too. No one ever thought 2018 was going to start off like this and leave them with intense fury over it. I would also like to apologize if the topics of depression, mental illnesses, and suicide upsets or triggers anyone who is reading this. That is not my intention whatsoever. This is my overall opinion on a very controversial issue and I don’t mean to upset or trigger anyone in doing so. With all that said and done, reader discretion is advised.

Okay, I never talk about them, but because of what recently happened, I want to quickly address the elephant in the room: I hate Jake and Logan Paul. Actually, “hate” is not the right word to describe them; how about “loathe?” Maybe “despise?” “Spite?” “Resent?” Whatever the word choice is, the two are both terrible celebrities together and individually for a variety of reasons.

As you already know, both Jake and Logan achieved their fame back in 2013 when Vine was around, achieving 5.3 million and 3.1 million followers respective by the time of its shutdown. When they switched over to YouTube on November and September of 2016 accordingly, it all went downhill from then on. In general, they spew diss tracks at each other, churn out frantic videos in order to gain viewership and consume free online content, and sell merchandise from their clothing lines instead of being TV actors. The only problem is kids between the ages of 8 and 15 aren’t necessarily part of America’s economy, so combining their focus on this specific demographic with their insatiable thirst for fame and greed, it’s basically a lose-lose situation for them. But that’s not all I have to say about them because looking at them individually, they have their own brand of problematic behaviors and content.

In Jake’s case, he endured the most controversy because he’s been exposed as nothing but an annoying douchebag who did the following: made racist remarks on his minor characters in his videos, accused of emotionally abusing and manipulating his ex-girlfriend Alissa Violet, cyberbullied and brought down people online, constantly disrupted his peaceful neighborhood and his neighbors with his stunts and pranks, delivered pop culture phrases in an obnoxious manner during an interview that came off as—how the kids describe stuff nowadays—“cringey.” Not to mention his atrocious music video for his song “It’s Everyday Bro” dealt some serious damage to his career by receiving over 3 million dislikes on YouTube. He even got fired from Disney mid-season of Bizaardvark on July 24 for acting like his fame gives him the freedom for doing whatever the fuck he wants. What grinds my gears about him is he made all these apology videos and keeps claiming that he’s changed and moved on, but there is strong evidence that proves otherwise.

As for Logan, he has managed to escape controversy up until now by having roles on films and TV shows like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Weird Loners, Airplane Mode, the YouTube Red film The Thinning, and in the upcoming movie Valley Girl, taking part in a partnership with Dwayne Johnson, and opening his own brand called Maverick. Heck, his diss song, “The Fall of Jake Paul,” had managed to gather better reception from his fans, scoring only 173,000 dislikes, which is far less than the 3 million dislikes from “It’s Everyday Bro,” because of the actual effort put into it and the massive controversy Jake currently has. Of course, it still doesn’t change the fact that he is still a horrible person when you consider the info above, and his newest vlog helps showcase it. Without further ado, it’s time for me to stop talking about the past and focus on the present… and boy, do I have a lot to say about this.

For those of you who not aware or are just hearing about this, allow me to explain what exactly happened; however, I am generously giving you the choice to skip this because what I am about to describe may make you feel uncomfortable. For those of you brave enough to read the issue, please keep scrolling.

Earlier this week, on New Year’s Eve, Logan and three of his friends were traveling in Japan when they stumbled upon Aokigahara, which is best known as the country’s “Suicide Forest.” They all ended up going in the forest when they discovered the corpse of a man who hung himself, one of the most common methods suicide victims use to kill themselves in there. One of the friends was feeling uneasy about what they were witnessing, and despite his seriousness, Logan laughed it off and soon referred to it as “a moment in YouTube history,” only for him to get one hell of a reality check. As of now, so many people via YouTube and Twitter have reacted in absolute anger and/or disgust at what he had done and have been calling out on it, including Robyn from Anime America, Joey the Anime Man, Gaijin Goombah, Lost Pause, Game Theory, Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul, Game of Throne’s Sophie Turner, JackSepticEye, Stefan Karl, and even PewDiePie of all people. The immense amount of backlash had gotten to a point where he deleted the video and posted two apologies, one each on Twitter and YouTube. I will get to those later, but for right now, let me give my input on this.

First off, let’s break down the group’s reaction. Since the video was removed, I was able to find snippets of their dialogue from it thanks to CNN, which can be found here.

Logan: This is a first for me. This literally probably just happened.

Friend: I don’t feel good.

Logan: What, you never stand next to a dead guy?

Friend: No.

Logan: *laughs* It was gonna be a joke. This was all a joke. Why did it become so real?

Friend: Depression and mental illnesses is not a joke. We came here with the intent to focus on the haunted aspect of the forest. This just became very real.

Oh, boy. Where do I even begin with this? Logan, your friend is absolutely right. Depression and mental illnesses are not jokes, let alone FUCKING suicide! This was his first time seeing an actual dead body with his own two eyes and you laughed it off like it was nothing! For all we know, this could’ve been your first time seeing like this too, but why the fuck would you joke around like that if you were originally planning to explore the Suicide Forest’s haunted atmosphere?! It completely depletes the initial intent of your plans for your vlog all because of your “humor” in this! On a side note, whoever his friend is, can we please give him a round of applause for having the knowledge to understand what is and isn’t a joke? Because at least he gets the situation they were in.

And that brings me to another point I want to bring out: why he was joking around with what he saw. After they all ran out of the forest and into the parking lot, Logan said this that really caught my attention:

Logan: “…the smiling and laughing… is not a portrayal of how I feel about the circumstances. Everyone copes with shit differently… I cope with things with humor.”

WHAT?!

I’m sorry, but no! That is utter bullshit! Using humor to cope with something such as fear is fine, but using it to deal with the fact you stumbled across a REAL corpse?! That’s crossing the line! It helps illustrate that what you did was inhumanely wrong, and you know what?! The backlash proves it! When it became known to the public with around 6.5 million views, the viewers were repulsed by what you did! You showed them, from fans and people who don’t like to YouTubers, celebrities, and the media, that you have zero respect for the suicide victims through your insensitivity and voyeurism of this seriously important subject!

Not even your “Viewer Discretion is Advised” banter helped prevent this from happening, which leads me to readdressing your target demographic! For all we know, there could have been little children watching this and they would have either been scared that they saw the same hanging corpse or influenced negatively as shown by this tweet below!

“The other day my 7 year old sister showed me logan pauls video on the dead body and i was disgusted and told her to turn it off.My sister is 7 YEARS OLD and loves and watches logan paul all the time. later we went outside to do painting and she painted a hanging man in a forest” — Aoife Dormer (@aoife_dorma)

If anything, you could have emphasized your warning on how there are graphic material that are not suitable for children/minors, replaced “Advised” with “Recommended,” and made the video 18+ so that they would’ve been unable to watch it! Even so, it still didn’t change the fact it broke one of YouTube’s policy: prohibiting the depiction of violent, gory, or graphic material in a shocking, sensational, or disrespectful manner unless the footage is used for educational or documentary-based purposes. I’m not gonna touch upon how the staff aren’t pressing this forward or why they didn’t react sooner, but I digress. In my opinion, not changing the rating of your vlog—and having it violate a YouTube policy regardless—was part of a completely careless move on your part.

Oh, and this doesn’t end there; this actually leads into my next point: the apologies and the aftermath.

In the midst of the swift outcry of the enraged public, Logan deleted the video and tweeted an apology on New Year’s Day at exactly 10 PM about what he posted, but instead of taming the flame, it made things worse… and I can easily tell why. Much like the last remark, this one contradicts what he says.

“I didn't do it for views. I get views. I did it because I thought I could make a positive ripple on the internet, not cause a monsoon of negativity. I intended to raise awareness for suicide and suicide prevention and while I thought, 'if this video saves just ONE life, it'll be worth it,' I was misguided by shock and awe, as portrayed in the video.”

Dear God, there is a shit ton wrong with this tone-deaf apology it makes me want to scream! What pisses me off the most is his claim and there is strong proof in not only this tweet but also in my thoughts on the vlog that highlights how that is bullshit as well!

You should’ve thought about your actions ahead of time! You were given multiple choices on what to do when you and your friends encountered the hanging dead body in Aokigahara: “Should I keep this vlog?” “How should I feel about or respond to this?” “Should I edit it out or leave it in?” “How will everyone else react?” At the end of the day, you chose the wrong choices and it resulted in heated negative consequences.

You were NOT raising awareness for suicide prevention, which is the main reason why this tweet makes me livid! The vlog proves you laughed at what you saw and cracked jokes about it, despite your friend’s input on this unsettling discovery! A lot of people, even YouTube, agree that the material was shocking for the viewers, you sensationalized at said material, and you were outright disrespectful about it by treating suicide like a fucking joke through your “coping mechanism!”

You were not “misguided;” basically, this third reason ties in with the second one.

Because of this, an insane amount of criticism was unleashed, with Sophie calling Logan “an idiot,” his claim “mocking,” and his apology “self-praising,” Aaron referring to him as “pure trash” who can “go rot in hell,” and surprisingly Rebecca Black stating that how someone with “such power and influence could intensify “an entire family’s grief beyond measure.” And guess what? She is right! One of the people calling out on him was Anna Akana, who and her brother both had to deal with the loss of her sister after she committed suicide! Not only that, but there are also people struggling with depression and have contemplated suicide, especially in Japan, who are infuriated and sickened by what they watched/heard because they knew what he did was an epitome of bad publicity... No, “bad” isn’t the best way to describe this; what they discovered was appalling publicity! It’s even worse when you realize publicity is one of the main contributors to suicide contagion, especially when a young age group is exposed to it! Given Logan’s fanbase mainly consists of children and young teenagers, that vlog was a repulsive influence on them and would most likely worsen suicide contagion despite it being removed from YouTube, which reiterates Aoife’s tweet about her younger sister painting a lynched man! The damage has already been dealt and it pisses me off so much that he would influence minors like that!

And that is just the tip of the iceberg because he posted a longer apology video on YouTube the next night amid the rampaging counteraction. Did it do anything to at least settle this dispute? Let’s find out.

“I've made a severe and continuous lapse in my judgment and I don't expect to be forgiven. I'm simply here to apologize. So what we came across that day in the woods was obviously unplanned and the reactions you saw on tape were raw and they were unfiltered. None of us knew how to react or how to feel. I should have never posted the video. I should have put the cameras down, stopped recording what we were going through. There's a lot of things I should have done differently but I didn't and for that from the bottom of my heart I am sorry. I want to apologize to the internet, I want to apologize to anyone who has seen the video, I want to apologize to anyone who has been affected or touched by mental illness or depression or suicide but most importantly I want to apologize to the victim and his family. For my fans who are defending my actions, please don't, they don't deserve to be defended. The goal with my content is always to entertain, to push the boundaries, to be all inclusive. In the world I live in I share most everything I do. The intent is never to be heartless, cruel or malicious. Like I said I made a huge mistake. I don't expect to be forgiven. I'm just here to apologize. I'm ashamed of myself. I'm disappointed in myself. And I promise to be better. I will be better. Thank you.”

*frustrated sigh* Oh, dear Lord. There is a reason why posted the transcript of his apology than share the video itself, which I’ll get to after I give my two cents on this. ...Ever since last night, I had a difficult time trying to find a way to reply to this. I read a couple articles saying the video was emotional and somber because of how he was on the brink of tears and it left me at a point of uncertainty; I kept asking myself if he really does deserve to be forgiven or not, but after seeing other posts and getting an update on his newest video, it snapped me out of my state and told me that forgiving Logan would mean defending him, just like his fans... and there was no way in hell I would succumb to a level as low them supporting him. So with my spark reignited, it’s time for me to break this shit down once again!

Logan, let me start this bit off by saying this: it is far too late for you to apologize. What you did was irredeemable, vulgar, disgraceful, and plain rude of you to not only those suffering from depression, mental illnesses, or suicidal issues, but to the entire country of Japan. During your trip, you behaved immaturely by making a complete racist jackass out of yourself in front of foreign tourists/residents while wearing a kimono and made a complete fool out of Americans and Westerners, but your vlog on New Year’s Eve took it too far! You desecrated a corpse, went through him to see if he had any of his belongings with him, laughed and joked about it, and showed no remorse or empathy about what you and your friends came across! Because of you, Japan is now coated in anger; you made them hesitant on us being part of the 2020 Olympics, Tokyo tweeted at you to get out, and you’re now denounced by the Japanese Suicide Prevention Group all because you ridiculed their strict laws and significant efforts into helping lower suicide rates and gave a giant middle finger to country in general by treating it like it’s a fucking playground! What you did was an act of pity because of the imminent backlash and I will never. Forgive. You.

That’s not all; as it turns out, even though Logan clearly said he doesn’t expect forgiveness, his fanbase—like I’m gonna call them by their referred fandom name—still forgave him because they believe “he didn’t mean it” and even had the audacity to attack a Japanese vlogger named Reina Scully in a racist manner all because she criticized his Suicide Forest vlog. ...Okay, first: WHAT?! Second: THE FUCK?! Like before, I apologize for suddenly snapping, but that’s NOT how you defend someone! You do not make harass the harasser by sending them racist remarks, let alone telling her and the Japanese to kill themselves! That is just sick and inhumane! No wonder people are telling others to stop supporting the Paul brothers; their fans are worse than the commonly known bad fandoms! *sigh* Well, at least it was best of me to not apologize to Logan because there was no way I was going to stoop as low as them. It was also perfect timing on my part because I recently discovered on that his apology video was monetized; in other words, he made thousands of dollars off of it...

Holy fuck! This is all kinds of despicable and messed up! Making between $8.5K and $68.1K off of a simple apology?! Now I am so glad I ultimately kept to my opinions about this sicko instead of accepting him like his other fans because this is one of the many examples of being greedy and money-hungry.

Because of this, people immediately took to Twitter to repeatedly slam him until it was promptly demonetized. Shortly thereafter, conflicts began to surface regarding YouTube; a petition opened up calling for Logan to be banned from the site (which now has over 130K signatures) and many are giving the website and its staff flack for being hypocritical of the way they review the content of videos. To be honest, I don’t blame them. Although I’m glad they commented on the issue, it obviously wasn’t enough. What used to be a site that got its start from cat videos has become its own economy with terrible decisions they’ve made, from the Fair Use dilemma to labeling LGBT+ videos as “mature content.” Seeing how significant the past few days has become, they really need to wake up, get their humungous sticks out of their asses, and actually contribute than just simply stating what rule Logan violated. Regardless, with all of these factors combined into one, it is easily safe to say this second apology was typically a clear bust.

And what does Logan do now that both apologies were shown to be practically useless? He announces his hiatus last night on Twitter, stating he is “taking time to reflect.” Of course, and not surprisingly, there is a long thread which consists of a division between his effortlessly influenced fandom of youngsters and those who despise him for what he has done, both over the years and on New Year’s Eve.

...I’m done. I’m fucking done. I’m not dealing with this shit anymore. Everything about this is wrong and I am certain I am going to get a headache out of this. I don’t care if he is “reflecting;” knowing him, he is still going to be the same idiotic frat “celebrity” that he is, especially when Maverick Apparel came forward today to say they lost $4 million in profit because of him… and Jake dissed in him in one of the most inappropriate ways ever. Ugh!… Can this nightmare end already?! I swear, it keeps finding ways to make me want to continue this rant! Well, guess what? Not. Anymore. I am concluding this right now and I don’t care what will happen to these two sickos in the near future.

*sigh* Well, to wrap things up, Logan is nothing but a stupid, inane, thick-skinned, money-hungry, thoughtless jackass who only cares about getting richer and, much like Jake, using his fame to do whatever the fuck he wants because he believes there is no such thing as “bad publicity…” until now, that is. He may have been able to dodge controversy in the past, but thanks to his obnoxious, immature personality, he has made him a danger to three important fields after his trip to Japan; he has demonstrated how much of an inadequate influence he is to juveniles countless times in the past and has managed to do so once again with his now-deleted vlog, he has made the entire Japanese country hate him for even stepping foot on their cherished land, and he has sparked yet another battle against YouTube’s policies and regulations.

Logan, I’m going to say this once and only once: it is your fault you showed Japan just how disgustingly inhumane you are by not only fucking around with their cherished laws, traditions, culture, history, and landscape. It is your fault for recording the footage of the corpse, laughing and joking about it, and not giving a single shit about suicide, depression, and mental illnesses. It is your fault you unleashed hell on earth that pitted most of the social media users against you. It is your fault for creating your half-hearted apology tweet and your equally monetized apology video that only added fuel to the fire. It is your fault Japan hates you for treating them poorly. It is your fault you’re now facing serious consequences after showing the world what you did in front of that dead man. It is your fault for ending 2017 and starting 2018 on abysmal notes. I hope your multi-millionaire empire crumbles by having the YT staff banning your vlog channel. I hope the actions you—and Jake—have illustrated over the years and the consequences you face will deal more major blows to your precious careers.

To everyone reading this, I want to say I am genuinely sorry that you saw that vlog or heard what has been going on. I am even sorry at myself for subjecting myself to this horror of learning who the Paul brothers are just to get this rant out of the way. They have a horrible sense of humor and none of the stuff they do is funny, let alone how serious suicide is.

Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the US, claiming an average of 44,965 American lives every year, and for every 25 attempts that are made, it annually costs the country $51 billion. In Japan, despite now having over 21,000 people claiming their lives every year—with the majority caused by men—and its suicide rate declining, it still remains as one of the highest rates when compared to other countries. The most common place for the Japanese to kill themselves is in Aokigahara, which has received its infamous nickname, “the Suicide Forest.” It earned its name and has become the 2nd most suicidal place on Earth because around 100 Japanese residents travel there to commit suicide because of its thick trees and its seclusion; two of the frequent ways they kill themselves is through drug overdose or by hanging themselves though other methods are not uncommon. Since then, Japanese officials have been putting their best efforts to decrease the suicide rate.

Suicide is an urgent situation, with depression being the #1 cause of it if left untreated, undiagnosed, or ineffectively treated and mental illnesses, disorders, and contributors such as physical ailments, previous suicide attempts, limited access to mental health treatment closely following suit and cannot be left unnoticed. If you or a loved one is experiencing suicidal thoughts or actions or have had a series of suicidal thoughts or actions, it is not too late to seek help. Whether it is in America, Japan, or anywhere else in the world, call the numbers below based on what country you live in:

United Kingdom: 116 123

United States: 1-800-273-8255

Canada: 5147234000

Mexico: 5255102550

Ireland: 116 123

Brazil: 212339191

Argentina: +5402234930430

Spain: 914590080

Portugal: 225 50 60 70

France: 0145394000

Greece: 1018

Germany: 08001810771

Italy: 800860022

Poland: 52770000

Holland: 0900-0113

Denmark: +4570201201

Sweden: 46317112400

Finland: 040-5032199

Norway: +478153300

Belgium: 1813

Austria: 017133374

Switzerland: 143

Egypt: 7621602

South Africa: 0514445691

Israel: 1201

India: 8888817666

Australia: 131 114

New Zealand: 045861048

Singapore: 1800 221 4444

Philippines: 028969191

Russia: 0078202577577

China: 85223820000

South Korea: 112

Japan: +810352869090

You can also donate to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the Suicide Prevention Lifeline, or any resourceful suicide prevention organizations you know because your gifts will serve them as a reminder that you are contributing to fight against this worldwide epidemic.

Don’t wait. Call now or donate to help save a life.

#my post #rant #logan paul controversy #anti logan paul

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derstheviking · 4 years

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On the Liberation of Mental Illness

The mental health system is exactly where the ruling class wants it. A neoliberal political system needed a neoliberal form of therapy for the elites of capitalist society to continue their ideological subjection of the lowest strata of the working class, unemployed and lumpenproletariat. This imposed behaviorist worldview takes the form of an intra-personal therapeutics rather than a social, political, or historical analysis of the conditions which lead to the alienation of the individual in their unique social context. The institutionalization of cognitive-behavioral therapy within psychotherapy is directly opposed to any sort of political program for the liberation of the mentally ill, has no political basis whatsoever, and can hardly be called a “social science” by any stretch of the imagination. Abandoning key psychoanalytic concepts such as the unconscious motivations behind the transference neurosis, the repression inherent in the individual, and the ego’s defensive operations, we can only use terms like “irrational thinking”, “cognitive deficiencies”, and “cognitive distortions” to describe the needs of the client. These terms assume that there is a version of “reality” that can be unproblematically adapted to and which stands as an objective measure of health. To understand why cognitive-behavioral therapy is incompatible with any sort of structural change, just look at CBT’s cognitive triad where “negative views about the world” lead to “negative thoughts about the future” which lead to “negative thoughts about the self”. Not only is this relationship not clearly causal, but if political ideology leads to negative thoughts, then we have effectively eliminated any form of resistance against the conditions which enslave us.

Abandoning key psychoanalytic concepts such as unconscious motivations, the transference neurosis, repression, and the ego’s defensive operations, we can only use terms like “irrational thinking”, “cognitive deficiencies”, and “cognitive distortions” to describe the needs of the client. These terms assume that there is a version of “reality” that can be unproblematically adapted to and which stands as an objective measure of health. To understand why cognitive-behavioral therapy is incompatible with any sort of structural change, just look at CBT’s cognitive triad where “negative views about the world” lead to “negative thoughts about the future” which lead to “negative thoughts about the self”. Not only is this relationship not clearly causal, but if political ideology leads to negative thoughts, then we have effectively eliminated any form of resistance against the conditions which enslave us.

A disturbing number of psychiatrists align themselves too closely with prevailing alienation and invalidation that society imposes upon the patient in the psychiatric setting. This well-intentioned act of betrayal refuses to engage in critical awareness, becoming engulfed by the day-to-day indoctrination in the hospital or psychiatric clinic. A great number of people do not go into psychiatric treatment willingly, and those who do are often disillusioned, especially those seeking a form of spiritual guidance. David Cooper notes that psychiatric treatment imposes a paradox; on one hand the patient is expected to conform to the passive identity of being a patient, while on the other hand, every act, statement, and experience of the person is ruled invalid according to the “rules of the game” established by his family, and later by the psychiatrist, nurse, therapist, etc. Within capitalist society, there ranges forms of control from “insinuated degradation”, to exclusion from certain schools and jobs, to total invalidation, to mass extermination. The public conscience however is so strong that it demands an excuse for such forms of exclusion.

When Deleuze and Guattari shook the foundations of psychoanalysis with their criticism of psychoanalysts as “sinister priest-manipulators” in the 1972 Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, they had little idea that the paradigm that would come to dominate psychotherapy in the 21st century would be that of a far worse adversary, behavioral modification. The very idea of behavioral modification completely invalidates or denies the existence of the complex inner world of the individual in their unique social context, the social dimensions of existence exerting an affect on the individual and the reciprocal relationship between the environment and psyche, as well as ignore the importance of past experiences in general; this would all be abandoned for the cognitive-behavioral focus on the then and now. It has been written in biographical accounts of Aaron Beck, the founder of cognitive-behavioral therapy, that he had no mental illness himself, had no bad memories, had no traumatic experiences, and when he trained as a psychoanalyst, ignored these basic teachings, and instead theorized concepts such as automatic negative thoughts which existed only here in the present moment. Aaron Beck had the nerve to ask his patients during sessions, “What are you thinking right now?”, if there was a silence in therapy. Deleuze and Guattari write, “The death instinct is pure silence, pure transcendence, not givable and not given in experience…it is because death, according to Freud, has neither a model nor an experience”. Moreover, it is not an easy task to teach someone to think differently, instead Freud’s metapsychology consists of catharsis, resolving dynamic conflicts, making structural changes to one’s environment, and to find an outlet for psychic energy. While CBT follows the lead of ego psychology and speaks of the “adaptation” of the individual to “reality”, Lacan says that psychoanalysis is the “exact opposite” of anything to proceeds by adaptation. Jung identifies four types where adaptations become problematic: adaptation entirely and exclusively to the outside, while entirely neglecting the inside; a disturbance from a preferential adaptation to the inside; adaptation to inner conditions, exclusive adaptation to the outside; and neglect of the outside in favor of adaptation to the inside.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy’s psychopathology is centered around the failure of the individual to engage in “reality-testing”. Lacan spoke of the Real as that which defies signification, and according to Lacan, language fails to function as a transparent medium for the flawless communication of intersubjectivity, the Real of excessive jouissance continually threatens to disrupt the balances and compromises between the reality principle and the pleasure principle by overriding the superego and the mediating structure of representations; structuring subjectivity contains intrinsic impasses, contradictions, and instabilities. However, Lacan speaks of the point de caption at which the signifier and the signified are united at an “anchoring point”; he says that in the normal individual exists several of these anchoring points at which reality is subjectively constituted and the signifier (with punctuation) stops the otherwise endless movement of signification, producing the necessary illusion of fixed meaning.

The pitfalls of the cognitive-behavioral paradigm are much more pernicious than simply rejecting the basis of Freudian psychoanalysis. From a sociopolitical perspective, CBT is brainwashing an entire generation of people to believe that they have no power over problematic social conditions in their communities. Paulo Freire argued, with his school of critical pedagogy, that a ‘critical consciousness’ must be developed by the student and that education was fundamentally a critical process; as we cannot escape the idea that Cornelius Castoriadis prominently outlined of the intercourse between psychoanalysis, pedagogy, and politics. He gives his account of the efficiency of the unconscious: “I mean animals never do stupid things; they do the things they have to do, right? They are instrumentally efficient and we couldn’t say that they are conscious in the usual sense of the term. And humans are conscious and, at the same time, monstrously irrational. All of human history is there, from the beginning to this very day.”

Perhaps Freud’s greatest contribution to psychiatry, the unveiling of the unconscious, drives and instincts, is grossly simplified by the cognitive-behavioral technique, the unconscious meaning to them simply “thoughts or actions that are below our conscious awareness”, a complete debasement of the actually existing metapsychological topology of the human psyche, and a further rejection of existing dynamic conflicts which manifest themselves. Cognitive-behavioral therapy specifically teaches that negative emotional states do not actually arise from “negative activating experiences” but are due to irrational or negative beliefs about the self. How can cognitive-behavioral therapists be so blatantly deceiving and nullify the entire sociological idea of social context? It almost resembles the Orwellian notion of “doublespeak”.

The reality of situation we are facing is that involuntary mental health treatment is the norm of society, and in a large number of cases people are committed by their families against their will. Therefore, many individuals have no choice but to “go along” with mental health treatment. While most diagnosed individuals are not criminals, the county jails are the largest providers of mental health treatment in the country; this fact allows us to speculate that it is the conditions of oppression that lead to pathological consequences. How many of these individuals did not need medications before they were institutionalized? The same sort of paradox can be seen with those held in mental hospitals involuntarily, where the institution itself creates a form of negative transference that often enrages the patient to the point that they act out and are placed in restraints or forcibly given medication. These patients which may be agreeable outside the mental hospital, suddenly become extremely disagreeable inside the mental hospital. And finally, the family situation exerts an enormous influence of the individual.

Yet we are experiencing a great revolt against these forms of biopsychiatry which tell us that we have “chemical imbalances” in our brains. Wilhelm Reich and Lacan both understood that whole societies have pathologies and unlike Freud, they believed in no form of normalcy, saying that neurosis (as opposed to psychosis) was the most normal form of mental structure that exists. Foucault realizes the many forms of power, and anarchism has since long before revolted against all forms of power, authority, exploitation, domination, hierarchy, etc. How can we create a critical public consciousness based on forms of universality, which allows people on the individual level to greatest realize their true human potential, their existential life-project, and an end to their suffering?

The neoliberal mental health system has proved inadequate in treating the vast pathology of society in many ways. First of all, involuntary hospitalizations are completely unethical and hordes of people are deemed “a threat to themself or others”, roughed up by the security staff, held against their will, possibly taken in by the police or their family; we must always give people the option of staying at a hospital voluntarily. The 1960s saw a cultural revolution across China, Europe, and the United States, and with the mental health clinics at La Borde, Kingsley Hall, and Villa 21, it shows that it is possible in a revolutionary sense to change the existing forms of control that the mental health system propagates, as isolated as these examples are.

What we need is a revitalization of the classic trajectory of anti-psychiatry, excavating for ideas about a better future for our current mental health system than the bio-cognitive-behaviorist paradigm that dominates Western psychiatry and therapy. The path forward is obvious, we need the institutional critique of the institutional psychotherapy movement in France in its radical communist fashion to change the circumstances of the masses, but we need to change the way we look at the diagnosed patients of mental health facilities, stop enforcing stigmas against the disabled, and a communist program is the way forward for the liberation of this group fully, because until all people are equal and guaranteed a job and their needs met at a fair standard of living with the formation of new organizations of power politically that give direct participatory power over ones surroundings to the individual, with delegates that act to facilitate deliberative, organizational, and administrative tasks, but subject to direct recall if circumstances change. From the micro-politics of the mental health clinic to a political revolution, to finally achieve equality and cooperation between people, and the rising up of the proletariat to the ruling class.

Many therapists make clear that political issues such as electoral politics are “off limits” and that personal issues are what is to be dealt with in treatment. What frightens therapists most about political discussions within therapy is the fact that they are responsible for taking an ethical position; Lacan says that there is “no such thing as an ethically neutral position”, therefore disclosure about one’s own political beliefs becomes inevitable. There has been an increase in the amount of clients who want to talk politics. What is to be argued, is that sociopolitical topics not only have a determining influence on the patients unconscious, but that ideology has unexpectedly overwhelming effects on the patients experience and therefore must be dealt with in therapy. It becomes apparent that it is not so easy to separate what is ideological from what is personal.

Originating in the 1960s as a second-wave feminist slogan, “The personal is political”, is in a phrase the basic argument for why psychoanalysis has revolutionary potential in changing the social order. In 1913, Otto Gross declared “The psychology of the unconscious is the philosophy of revolution: i.e. this is what it is destined to become because it ferments insurrection within the psyche, and liberates individuality from the bonds of its own unconscious. It is destined to make us inwardly capable of freedom, destined to prepare the ground for the revolution.” Gross, an early colleague of Freud and Jung, held that the main conflict in the psyche is the conflict between the self and the other, an idea that he credits Nietzsche with discovering, the pathogenic influence of society on the individual.

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e-vacstation · 7 years

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The Invisible Battle: Intro

What is mental illness? Being sad. Not getting out of bed for days at a time. Keeping a smile on your face. Seeming "normal". Surprisingly it’s all of these. It’s more than just feeling sad or blue, despite what people will think. Even if they acknowledge it at all.

"Keep your chin up"

"Just go outside or do yoga"

"Smile more"

"You just have to choose happiness"

Up until recently have we started to see more awareness about mental health. Though we still have far to go. While people may not mean to dismiss someone's feeling with words like this or similar to it, it's still dismissive. When we're physically ill or have a sprain generally people know what to do to help heal it. Take medicine. Self-care. How is this so different from mental health? It is because people don't know what to do? Over the years that's just we've been trained to say to someone who expresses those kinds of emotions. A little understanding as small as it can be can be helpful. Even just the fact of effort being put forth, even if it feels like nothing at all. It's sometimes that little bit of light in the darkness that can pull someone out from the darkness they feel like they're drowning in.

If you're new the channel or even just this tumblr thanks for showing up. Bit of real and sometimes downer opener, yet these feeling are real if not for you then someone you know or care about. As some of you may or may not know I am the co-host of the E-Vac Station, Nicole.

Just a little history: I joined Aaron about two years ago with the help of Erin aka "Bird Lady" to bring about the new era of E-Vac with our talk about Korra. Since then we've worked together to create content and evolve this channel. I'm sure Aaron would say he couldn't have done it without me, but we did it together.

Last April I just seemed to up and disappear from the channel and podcasts. No explanation or word from me. It's not because I didn't care or just gave up. Remember back up there with the talk of mental health/illness. That's what happened. It's not the whole story but a simple version, events in my life led to me mentally breaking. It wasn't just the channel I couldn't keep up with, it was a struggle to live day to day life. Constant worry if I'll have another panic attack. Could I fight it this time? Will I cause more worry with someone coming home to me having an attack or just locked away?

Mental illness doesn't just affect you but everyone around you in some way or another. It may feel as if you're alone, fighting a never ending battle alone and with no end in sight but even remembering there are those who care about you can help as hard as it may be to think like that. I know. I spent months of my life "living" in a dark fog where each day blended with the next and all I could was fight my own mind, thoughts and feelings.

I may be coming back to the channel slowly does not mean my battle is over. From my years of having mental illness I’ve found a smile doesn’t always mean what you think it would. Sometimes it hides the cracks and pain within.

My hope with these blog entries is to not just tell people “hey I’m mentally ill” or “hey check out the channel”, more so to help people and spread awareness. There’s still a stigma around some mental illnesses. People generally don’t understand because it’s not out in the open. People tend to know physical illness, “oh because they kill people”. Well so does mental illness random straw man I just made up. It tends to be glossed over, or in cases it is reported on in the news has a feeling of being downsized. “Yea they ‘committed’ suicide but look at this other thing [insert bullying, racism, attention seeking, etc.]”.

Sometimes the biggest hurdle is coming to terms with the reality that these thoughts you’ve had are necessarily “normal” or as I’ve come to know them being called distorted. There is no one single definition of “normal”, it's can unreachable standard. “Normal” is different from everyone, it's finding your own “normal”. My hope is to spread awareness and maybe even reach out to some people. Even if it's just sharing in similar events, thoughts or feeling. Maybe something I say will help you or someone you know/care about.

We’re all alone yet not alone, we’re connected by our experiences.

Co-Captain signing off for now.

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artificialqueens · 7 years

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Stonewall (Katlaska, Biadore): Chapter 1- Landfill

Author’s Note: So, as someone very involved in LGBT rights stuff in the UK, I’ve wanted to write something around this for a while, so I did. Set in 1968 onwards, this fic follows the lives of a collection of LGBT people living in New York in the lead up to the Stonewall Riots, finding love and finding themselves (I like cheesy stuff.) There will be twists… So I can’t give away all of the characters’ gender identities yet but it centres around Brian/Katya, Justin/Alaska, Danny/Adore, Roy/Bianca, Aaron/Sharon, Brian/Trixie and possibly others… Oh and Cory because why not? Not all are here from the beginning.

Brian always aimed to stay unnoticed when he was in school. Keep his head down, only speak when spoken to, hand in good enough grades to get by not not good enough to draw attention to himself. Unless he was in competitions of course, it’s hard for no one to spot you when you’re walking towards them on your hands and knees, belly to the ceiling, back in a sharp arch. But that was necessity, gymnastics was the only thing he’d decided he couldn’t just give up out of fear. It was the height of the Cold War, and being an oddly flexible, skinny Russian boy had already put him at risk of harm. If they found out his secret, or just generally how weird he could be when he got talking, he would be thoroughly screwed. Let me know if you enjoy it, and if not, where I can improve xxx

All that changed on the morning of October 28th 1968, when some force from above compelled him to step out of the shadows. The day started like any other Monday, showering, pulling on a shirt, tie and blazer, glancing in at his passed out father and then heading off to school. He walked, for several reasons. The first was that he liked to keep fit, the second was that on a sunny day, the New York streets could almost pass as beautiful (if you ignored the half dead junkies seeping between the cracks) and the third was that the school bus was the exact sort of place one could find themselves getting noticed in the kind of way that Brian completely did not want to get noticed.

His first and second classes of the day had gone as smoothly as he could have hoped, the hitch coming at class number three- History of Comedy (Literature) with Mr Haylock. He always enjoyed the lesson, it was one of the few he shared with his friend, Daniel Noriega. Danny, unfortunately, was not quite as good at keeping his head down as Brian was, his feminine voice and wavy hair never ceasing to get him in trouble. It also didn’t help his case that he seemed completely and utterly devoted to his Literature lessons, though of course Brian knew that this wasn’t the case. The two boys had been friends since they were 11, when Brian’s family both moved to the city. Danny’s mother, Bonnie, ran a daycare centre, and often would end up taking the leftover children home when nobody came for them at the end of the day, until somebody managed to get in touch with their parents. Since his father fulfilled the stereotype of Russians loving Vodka, Brian spent more than a few nights sharing a room with Bonnie’s son. When they were 15, they had found themselves in the same literature class, ran by the very same Roy Haylock that Brian found himself say in front of that Monday morning, and Danny was instantly transfixed. After a few months of Danny’s blushing and not meeting their new teacher’s eyes, Brian finally managed to get the truth out of him.

“Wait a second… Noriega… Are you telling me that you’re, you know… Gay?” Danny looked away from him, clearly afraid his friend was going to reveal his secret. In 1965, it was still considered mental illness to be homosexual, and the treatments were less than pleasant. In fact to be with another man was still considered criminal, and at this point both boys were still very afraid of the law. Not to mention the way he would be treated by the people around him. There was a reason the gay community in New York was so closely knit, and that was that they had all been rejected by everybody else. What Danny didn’t know was that very soon, he would find himself a part of that community, fighting for liberation with Brian right beside him. But that’s a story for another time. To 15 year old Danny’s surprise, Brian’s face broke into a grin.

“I knew it! I knew it!! Me too!!! Oh god don’t tell my father.” The two of them sat together all of that night, hugging, crying, and talking about how good Roy Haylock’s arse looked in tailored pants. That was when they became inseparable, and when Danny became the first person to ever hear the truth about Brian’s childhood in Russia.

Back to that Monday morning in 1968, where the two teenagers sat absorbed in the lessons of one Roy Haylock, both for very different reasons. Brian tried to contain his smile, looking at the boy next to him, who gazed forlornly at the older man’s brown eyes from where they sat. Mr Haylock turned to write something on the blackboard and Brian whispered to his friend “Noriega you’re hopeless.” Danny didn’t manage to contain his laughter and their teacher span around.

“Something funny Noriega?” Brian struggled not to smile at the blush creeping up Danny’s neck.

“No Sir, nothing. I was just… Thinking about… Comedy, Sir, because this is a class on Comedy… And comedy is, y know… Funny?” He hadn’t meant it to come off as talking back, but he had an unfortunate habit of keeping his foot in his mouth, and the poor excuse landed him a detention at lunch. Brian sagged at the thought of eating alone, but then remembered that there was a school baseball game on that lunch and he decided just to loose himself in the crowd. As he turned to leave at the end of the class, Danny whispered in his ear “Alone time with the love of my life… Maybe you’ll get lucky today as well? Find someone to get you over that Aaron dude? I know, I know, you guys are friends now and it’s all fine, but you need to get out there!!”

Brian only rolled his eyes and walked away, but something told him that he might just be right. While he went to go and find himself a place amongst the benches, Danny walked up to the front of the class and leant against the front desk.

“You know, Noriega, you could at least try not to stare?” Roy let out a laugh at Danny’s blush, watching the younger boy loose his confidence, knowing he’d been caught.

“Oh relax, I don’t mind, it’s quite flattering, I was almost afraid I was growing too old for my students to be hitting on me, though I must admit it was usually the girls.” Taking a seat, he patted the place across from him. The younger man sat, looking like he was half tempted to bolt. His face gave away nothing, but inside his mind was racing. How long had Roy known? For the two years he’d been studying with him? Would he tell? Was he interested in Danny or did he think the boy was nothing more than a joke? He decided his best bet was to avoid finding the answers to these questions, and to avoid giving his teacher any more ammunition with which to tease him.

“Do we need to have this conversation, Sir?” His hands clutched at each other in his lap.

“No, we don’t, but can we at least be honest with each other? You should call me Roy. Since you’ve spent the last two years ignoring my lessons in favour of my behind, I feel calling me Sir is rather thankless, unless you’re into that, since you haven’t yet learnt anything about Literary History and as such I can’t really consider myself your teacher. So, Danny, may I call you Danny? We need to talk about what you’re going to do after next year. As far as I’m aware, you’re one of the few students who hasn’t yet presented any sort of a plan, and that worries me. I mean some have rather dubious goals, such as professional gymnastics, but at least it’s a starting point. Do you have any ideas?” The younger boy looked at him with a rather guarded expression, confused as to what his teacher’s angle was. He didn’t seem to want to expose him, ridicule or punish him, but he wasn’t necessarily flirting either. For a man in his thirties in their social climate, his approach to the subject was astoundingly frank.

“Um… Well… I sing. I’m not planning on going to college, I’m not really good enough at math to excel, and manual labour doesn’t really suit me, more because I’m not exactly accepted in the work place than not being capable of the work itself, but I sing pretty well. I think I’m just gonna try and do that in bars, Sir. Roy. Sorry. And sorry about… That… I’m not very good at being discreet I guess.” He smiled carefully, looking up at Roy through lashes that the older man noticed upon looking were thick and coated in mascara. Roy smiled for a moment, before his eyes turned sad. He held out his hands to the younger boy, an offer for him to take him. For a moment they were left empty, but slowly Danny found himself placing one of his small hands within Roy’s two. The two men’s eyes met, and Roy made sure they locked this time. His brows were furrowed with concern.

“I worry about you Danny, I don’t mind in the least that you’re a flirt and that you wear Mascara outside of the clubs, but there are a lot of men who would, you were lucky with me. You’re vulnerable, living the life that you… That we lead. We’re vulnerable. When your very existence is considered wrong, you need to learn how to tread carefully, and dare I say it, be subtle. Either that or you need to learn where you are and aren’t safe. I don’t want to see you hurt, kid. You may be annoying as hell but you have a good heart.” The boy’s eyes blew wide as he listened to his teacher’s words, unable of stopping himself from leaning forwards.

“You’re gay?” Roy smiled and rolled his eyes.

“Clearly it’s not going to be easy to get the message through to you, if that’s all you got out of my deeply moving soliloquy. For starters, keep your voice down!! I could loose my job!” Danny drew back his hands and blushed a little. It made Roy’s heart beat a little faster, realising that he’d been disappointed to see the boy’s smile drop.

“Sorry, Sir.”

“It’s okay, kid. I know you don’t mean any harm, you’re young, you haven’t seen what the world can do to people like us yet, and I’d really rather you didn’t. Now I want you to know that I’m here if you need my advice on anything, this is my house address and phone number. Please don’t just come over for a booty call, this is for emergencies only. You seem like the sort who might just get himself into trouble every now and again. Now off you go, you’d better find Mr McCook, he looked more than a little lost when he went to eat without you.” Danny stood, he knees brushing against the other man’s as he did so, and looked down at the address and phone number in his hand. Looking more serious and contemplative than he ever had before, he turned and walked away. Just before he left, he looked back and said quietly

“Thank you, Roy.”

While all of this had been happening, Brian had been having a confrontation of his own. He’d been walking over to get a seat when he saw one of the team members, Cory, and a bunch of his friends, picking on a tall, skinny boy with a skin tight shirt, blazer and bag on the floor. One of the boy’s pushed him down, and he heard Cory use the word “fag.” On some ridiculous impulse, he ran and stepped between them. The only though running through his head was ‘Brian, what the hell are you doing?’ Before he rattled off the first comeback he could think of, hoping the confidence of his voice would mask the fluttering of his breath and shaking of his hands.

“Hey Cory, how’s your dad? We didn’t have much opportunity to catch up last time I saw him due to the fact he had my dick in his mouth.” Cory turned as red as a beet, his friends loosing it at the look on his face before they were all called away by the coach. Brian turned to help the boy up, surprised to see that he looked angry.

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Look, I’m sorry if I made you look weak or something but those guys shouldn’t be speaking to you like that, I had to say something. I’ll just leave it next time.” He turned to leave, but was stopped by a bony hand closing around his wrist.

“No, that’s not what I meant. It’s… Complicated… Can I talk to you somewhere private?” Brian’s first instinct was to draw away has arm, but looking up at the other boy he found himself hesitantly agreeing.

“Okay, fine. I’ve already screwed up my reputation of not existing for you, so why not? I’m Brian by the way, Brian McCook.” They started walking together, Brian allowing his companion to take the lead, and the older boy laughed quietly at the comment.

“Oh I know who you are, Brian, but… McCook? Seriously? What with your Russian Gymnast status I was expecting something harder to pronounce for a last name!” He was shocked. Not a single person other than Danny and one or two of their teachers had ever noticed him enough to connect his talent to his first name, nor to wonder what his last name was.

“Well… I changed my name when I was 11, my last name used to be Zamolodchikova. In case that makes you feel any better! Also how did you know who I was?” By this point they had found themselves sitting comfortably in an abandoned classroom, side by side on a rather small desk.

“Zamo- what now? What was your first name?” Brian’s smile faltered on his face.

“Oh we don’t talk about that. I’m Brian now, that’s all that matters. What about you? Am I allowed to know the name of the man who has dragged me away from a lunch with my adoring fans?”

“Justin Honard, pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Brian blanched hearing the name and almost forgot to shake the hand that had been held out to him.

“Wait, Justin as in Cory’s older brother? Man I’ve really put my foot in it haven’t I?” The other boy, Justin, let out a quiet laugh at Brian’s embarrassment and nudged him slightly until he began to smile again.

“It’s alright, you didn’t know. But yeah, complicated as I said. Cory wants a scholarship, he needs to stay on good terms with his teammates. He knows for sure I’m gay, and doesn’t care in the slightest, but if the rest of the team knew that he’d be in deep shit. So every now and again he joins in. I can see it bothers him, and he always spends ages at home trying to make it up to me, but there isn’t much else he can do.” Unconsciously, Brian’s hand snaked around Justin’s waist in a vain attempt to offer comfort.

“So… I have to ask, what the hell motivated you to step in there? None of us have ever had the slightest inclination you might be… You know… So why would you imply that you are when you’re not? And you don’t even know me!” Justin’s drawl had begun to make itself more and more known through the conversation as he started to relax, and the two found themselves smiling at each other’s odd habits.

“Well, for starters, I am. Totally. Full homo. So is my best friend Danny, but I suspect the whole city knows that.” He laughed at Justin’s surprised expression.

“But I don’t know what hit me really, I’ve never spoken at all to anyone here but Danny other than in answer to a question, so that was quite unexpected for me. I really do try not to get noticed. I don’t know, I guess it was just something about you. I never thought anyone as gangly as you could look graceful slumped in the dirt…” Their conversation went on for the rest of the hour’s lunch, and a little longer. During this time they learnt that both had briefly dated Aaron Coady and had kept him as a friend, and agreed that the three of them, plus Danny, really needed to hang out, maybe that night. Justin suggested a bar he knew, and Brian agreed, nodding excitedly.

“Why don’t we make it a date, plus two friends to make sure we don’t do anything… Regrettable?” Justin added, his cool exterior betrayed by the fact that he was very gently biting his lip, not that Brian had the slightest problem with the gesture.

“Sounds good, pick me up at 9?” With absolutely no warning, Justin leant forward and gave him the gentlest of kisses, pulling back to see a shocked and flustered Brian, cheeks turning pink. He grinned at the response and began to walk towards the door.

“Oh and Brian? As for how I know who you are, however could I forget a man with your show stopping flexibility? I try to keep track of these things.”

Yep. Danny was definitely right, this meeting was fate.

#landfill #stonewall #katlaska #biadore #sharon needles #trixie mattel #katya zamolodchikova #alaska thunderfuck #adore delano #bianca del rio #tw homophobia #tw transphobia #rpdr fanfiction #submission #m/m au #historical au

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theshadowsnetwork · 7 years

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FIONA BRADSHAW, COMPLETE DISCLOSURE I am aware, and have been for some time of the gaze that has fallen on Fiona Bradshaw's head on my account. I'm not stupid or naïve enough to believe that this a mere, general act of information gathering on the part of my colleagues – Fiona is a key element, in my life, and as such the lives of others because of my actions.

So, I'm holding my hands up. I know there's plenty of dirt on my side of the street but in the hopes of some peace of mind I will enclose in this document everything I know about Fiona. This feels like a violation. But it is less of a violation than the idea of Fiona being woven or otherwise observed or interfered with.

With this I plead only that Fiona be left alone, and should she become signifiant for any reason, that I am the first to be consulted.

FULL NAME : Fiona Bradshaw GENDER : Female CURRENT AGE : 33 PLACE OF BIRTH : Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, England PARENT'S NAMES : Georgina and Luke Bradshaw (Father deceased, Mother aged 78) SIBLINGS : Aaron Bradshaw (14 at time of death) SEXUAL ORIENTATION : Homosexual

PHYSICAL TRAITS

HEIGHT : 5'4 inches WEIGHT : 99lbs EYE COLOUR : Brown HAIR COLOUR : Dark Brown BUILD : Slight DISTINGUISHING FEATURES OR MARKS: N/A

EARLY HISTORY Fiona grew up in Cambridgeshire, with both parents living in the family home. She had one younger brother, Aaron who was born when Fiona was 7 years old. She attended school up until the age of twelve when her teachers began to report disruptive, paranoid behaviour. Fiona was suspended from school for a year. At fourteen years of age she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and taken out of school. At her doctors recommendation her family pursed a heavy handed drug regimen consisting of Lorazepam and Olanzipine. When she subsequently began displaying depressive and negative affect symptoms she was also medicated with a number of antidepressants.

For a short time, about six months, Fiona seemed to regain some function, even briefly returning to school, but entering her late adolescence her symptoms worsened and she would lapse into catatonia for days at a time. She was hospitalised twice in this time, for four months aged seventeen and for a year aged eighteen. On the second occasion, at Fulborn Hospital in Cambridgeshire, she attacked a male nurse. She strangled him into unconsciousness, nearly killing him.

One night on a supervised visit home, Fiona started a fire in her family's house which killed her younger brother, Aaron. The rest of the family were uninjured, even though they had all been in the house at the time.

It was at this point that Fiona was transferred to Broadmoor secure Hospital. Her diagnosis remained unchanged over the years, and in large part resistant to therapy or medication.

I met Fiona When she was 22. To be short, I fell in love with her, and my feelings drove me to better understand her state of mind.

Even without any medical training, and only in my late teens it became glaringly obvious to me that Fiona not only suffered with schizophrenia, but PTSD.

I would later confirm through careful observation and investigation and by interviewing her mother and friends of the family that Luke Bradshaw was an abusive man. He had been mentally and sexually abusing his daughter at least since the onset of her illness at age twelve, but possibly earlier. Accounts from Fiona herself are sometimes varied, but certain events and times correlate enough to make me confident.

I first believed that Fiona burned her family's home down in an attempt to kill her father. But I now feel this act was more of a desperate cry for help – and an attempt to erase a history too horrible to recount.

I considered taking action on account of Luke Bradshaw, but when I asked Fiona about it directly she was ambivalent, so I did nothing, not wanting to go against her wishes. He died of natural causes not long after.

In the years I spent with Fiona before I became a Shadow she seemed to improve. She would have whole days where she was lucid, creative and fluid. In these times she would express her love of words and poetry through writing, singing and reciting whole complex passages from memory. She is, and remains even now, one of the most natural poets I will ever know. Notably, and to the great joy and amusement of everyone around her in Broadmoor she would recite Edward Lear's 'The Owl and the Pussycat' first forward then backward, word for word.

When I left Broadmoor to join the Weaving Shadows I initially left Fiona behind. Getting her out of the hospital would have drawn a difficult amount of attention to myself in the days following the death of Damian Peers. But I visited frequently, with the promise of getting Fiona out of the hospital.

She seemed to regress again, but little did I know at this point that I had in fact been spotted by a figure from one of my earliest assignments. The husband of Laura Donaldson. He acted in vengeance, and in turn as did I. Both of these acts are a point of record so I shan't detail them at length. But the resulting fallout left Fiona the victim of a vicious attack.

She endured six sessions of ECT at levels considered potentially lethal. Reviewing her MRI and PET scans I saw that she had been left with considerable damage to the frontal cortex of her brain, particular in the left hemisphere.

PRESENT SITUATION Eventually I moved Fiona out of the hospital and into a private residence with care staff, I began treating her with an experimental mixture of psychiatric drugs and cell regeneratives in the hopes of improving her condition.

I have made some progress, but she remains labile and at times quite difficult to control. Not that that is my aim. Eventually I hope that Fiona will be functional enough to care almost completely for herself but I understand that this is some ways off.

When London fell, I brought her with me to Panem, to the mountain stronghold. I did not see any other option. I needed to be here, and I couldn't leave her behind again. I promised I wouldn't. So she will remain here with me, under careful supervision and maintaining a rigorous drug regime with a view to curbing her most intense outbursts and improving her cortical function.

If any of you should like to get to know her I would not be against it, in fact I would even welcome it – we have a wealth of expertise at our disposal, and I am not so arrogant as to believe someone else wont spot an approach I have missed.

But I caution each of you now. Fiona Bradshaw will remain unwoven. She has been thrust unfairly into our world on my account, and I wont have any more harm come to her.

-Floss

#Fiona Bradshaw #Florence Upton

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funface2 · 5 years

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Best Dick Jokes Through History – Why Sexual Comedy About Men Is Important – Esquire.com

Blake Griffin landed a dick joke about Caitlyn Jenner at the Comedy Central Roast of Alex Baldwin, which aired last weekend. “Caitlyn completed her gender reassignment in 2017, finally confirming that no one in that family wants a white dick,” he said to roars of laughter. Was the joke offensive? Racist? Hilarious? All of the above? For her part, Jenner took the dick joke in stride. “Caitlyn was down for it,” one of the writers of the roast said. “She was like, ‘Well, you know, I’m gonna hit hard. I want them to hit me hard.’ And so we did.”

Dick jokes have existed throughout history in nearly every culture known to man, from the greatest literature of all time—Shakespeare and James Joyce—to ancient graffiti. “Weep, you girls. My penis has given you up. Now it penetrates men’s behinds. Goodbye, wondrous femininity!” some anonymous guy scrawled on the wall of a bar in the Roman city of Pompeii around 2,000 years ago. They have been staples of comedy for millennia for a reason: They’re nearly universally appealing.

“Whether you’re rich or poor or black or white, everyone laughs at a dick joke,” says comedian Aaron Berg, who hosts a recurring show at The Stand in New York City. (Berg also hosted a somewhat controversial, entirely satirical show called White Guys Matter that addressed some aspects of white male inadequacy.)

One comedian has elevated dick jokes to poetry, launching them into the realm of high art: Jacqueline Novak, whose one-woman off-Broadway show about blow jobs, Get on Your Knees, manages to make the dick joke both hilarious and high brow. She’s not the first woman to tell a dick joke, nor will she be the last, but she is perhaps the only one to devote a show almost entirely to the penis (with a few minutes sidetracking to ghosts) and be feted by The New York Times for doing so.

Novak, who has been called a “deeply philosophical urologist,” may represent a tipping point in dick jokes, because her show is finally allowing people to see the wisdom (yes, wisdom) in penis humor.

“I don’t even think of myself as like, interested in telling penis jokes. I certainly wouldn’t sit down and go, I’d love to do a show about penises,” Novak says. “I think it’s more like an investigation of my heterosexuality. Does [being heterosexual] mean I love the penis? I’m interested in the language that I’ve been expected to use or accept as legitimate about the penis. Here’s all the reasons that that’s ridiculous.”

Novak’s show is replete with riffs on our “ridiculous” penis language, from the fact that we say the penis is “rock hard”—”No geologist would ever say, this quartz is penis hard“—to the idea that the penis penetrates a woman—”You penetrate me? Fine, but I ate you, motherfucker! I chewed you up! Spit you out, and you loved every goddamn second of it.” In some ways, Novak is the perfect teller of the 21st century dick joke, not only because she is chronicling our hangups about the penis, but also because without a penis of her own, perhaps she is able to see the dick more clearly for what it is, in all its ridiculousness and beauty.

“You penetrate me? Fine, but I ate you, motherfucker! I chewed you up!”

But for the most part, phallic culture remains incoherent. Men are pilloried for exposing their dicks, while Euphoria is celebrated for its 30-penis episode; dick pics are critiqued like Picassos or seen as a public menace; judging a man by the size of his penis is perfectly acceptable or grossly objectifying; porn covers every inch of the internet, yet Facebook won’t accept ads for dildos. Dick jokes are still looked down on as cheap—to be fair, some of them are blatantly bad—but some comics say that isn’t always fair.

“Dick jokes, if you craft something amazing out of them, could be the funniest thing someone’s ever heard. And funny in a way that like, opens your mind up even,” says comedian Sean Patton. “That’s the most important kind of comedy, where you laugh at something to the point where you’re now a little more accepting of it. And that can range from anything to other people’s sexual orientation to accepting your own mental illness.” Patton’s own extended dick joke, “Cumin” on Comedy Central’s This Is Not Happening, has been viewed over 2 million times on YouTube.

Jacqueline Novak performs at the 2019 Clusterfest in June.

Jeff KravitzGetty Images

Novak uses the blow job to critique cultural expectations of masculinity and the pressure women feel to become skilled at sexually pleasing men. “The teeth shaming starts early, of course,” she says in her show. “If you have your full set of teeth…don’t go into a room where a penis is. It’s not safe for him. Why would you put him at risk?”

Patton likens the dick joke to a “Trojan horse” of comedy. “You make them laugh hard at dick jokes, now they’re listening,” he says. “Then you can throw in something a little more meaningful, and they’re on board.”

Not that all dick jokes need to be intellectual to be taken seriously. The song “D*** in a Box” by The Lonely Island, featuring Justin Timberlake, won an Emmy. It turns out the concept wasn’t exactly new. “Decades before The Lonely Island, B.S. Pully was doing that in the ’40s and ’50s,” comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff says. “Pully would be holding a cigar box at his groin, walking down the aisle. [He would] start a show saying, ‘Cigar, would you like a cigar?’ Then he would lift up the lid, and there was a hole cut in there, and his dick was hanging out. The audience would go crazy.”

Dick jokes continue to thrive off audience reactions, according to several comedians I talked to. Bonnie McFarlane, who is best known for her appearance on Last Comic Standing and her Netflix documentary Women Aren’t Funny, began telling dick jokes when she started out in 1995. “You tell dick jokes because it’s a very male audience, so that’s what they want to hear about,” she says. “It’s been a thing since comedy started. People can really kill if they’re just doing dick jokes.” But there is a double standard, she says, when female comics are made fun of “for talking about their vaginas too much.”

That Novak, a female comic, is revolutionizing the dick joke makes sense, considering that historically, “the vanguard for so-called dick jokes and sexual material comes first and foremost from women rather than men,” Nesteroff says. He points to female comics Rusty Warren, Belle Barth, Pearl Williams, and LaWanda Page as “probably the four quote-unquote ‘dirtiest’ comedians of the ’50s and ’60s, more so than Lenny Bruce, more so than Redd Foxx.”

LaWanda Page performs for The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast in 1978.

NBCGetty Images

He also says African Americans pushed dick jokes further than any other ethnicity. African-American comedian Page’s albums from the 1970s were rich with dick jokes, referencing “the size of the man, the endurance of the man,” Nesteroff says. As Page recites in her 1973 comedy album Pipe Layin’ Dan: “Husband, dear husband, now don’t be a fool/you’ve worked on the night shift ’til you’ve ruined your tool/you’d better go hungry the rest of your life/than to bring home a pecker so soft to your wife.”

“LaWanda [told] dick jokes for the same reasons a lot of black comics do, because they had to come up in the chitlin circuit, which is basically comedy clubs or bars or places where only black audiences mainly go,” says comedian Harris Stanton, who has toured with Tracy Morgan. “When I started comedy [in 1999] I started in the chitlin circuit,” he continues. “Urban comedy became this big explosion in the United States. A lot of the young black comics couldn’t get into a lot of mainstream clubs, so they would have to perform wherever they could, and dick jokes were welcome to those places.”

African Americans were pioneers of the dick joke, but they definitely weren’t the only ethnic group telling them. Three of the other female sex-joke pioneers Nesteroff mentioned were Jewish. Pearl Williams was known for roasting overweight men when they entered the comedy club by asking, “How long has it been since you’ve seen your dick?” Lenny Bruce, one of the most famous Jewish comedians, was arrested for saying schmuck on stage in 1962. Seven years later, another famous American Jew, Philip Roth, published Portnoy’s Complaint, which is essentially a 274-page dick joke, or so some claim.

“How long has it been since you’ve seen your dick?”

“I probably owe a debt to Philip Roth that I’m not even fully aware of,” says Novak, who is Jewish. She references him directly in her show, joking, “I went off to college feeling good. It’s a Catholic-ish college. Lots of virgin boys scurrying around, scrambling for sexual experience at parties. Not me. I’m a Jew and I did the coursework in high school, so I felt like a Philip Roth figure. A Jewish pervert ready to teach.”

Jewish male comics may be drawn to dick jokes, according to Berg, who is Jewish, because, “the fact that our penises were intruded upon at a very young age probably gives us a fixation on it and makes us want to talk about it more.”

Dr. Jeremy Dauber, the Atran professor of Yiddish language, literature, and culture at Columbia University and author of Jewish Comedy, traces Jewish dick jokes all the way back to the Bible. The earliest case of laughter in Jewish tradition is Sarah’s laughter when she’s told that her 100-year-old husband Abraham will give her a child. It is “a laughter about male impotence,” Dauber says.

But comedians aren’t just laughing at penises anymore. Novak is going in the opposite direction. “I’m trying to restore [the penis] to true dignity.” Will her intellectual blow job jokes allow the dick joke to be taken more seriously? Will future comedians have to deal with the flack that Patton still gets in his reviews?

“Even like positive reviews, sometimes they’ll still point out there’s also a lot of cock, cock cock,” he says. “Why do you have to make sure everyone knows that you thought some of the subject matter was lowbrow?” He thinks reviewers roll their eyes at his dick talk because “everyone constantly is terrified that those around them don’t think that they’re that smart.”

Comedy is one of the only art forms that allows us to talk about male genitalia so openly and democratically. Whatever form the dick joke takes, from idiotic to intellectual, from poetry to prop comedy, as long as it gets a laugh, it should be celebrated. And there’s no better way to diffuse the angst surrounding the modern-day penis than a well-crafted dick joke. The more we laugh about penises (and not just at them), the happier the world might be.

Hallie Lieberman Hallie Lieberman is a sex historian and journalist, and the author of “Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy.”

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Bài viết Best Dick Jokes Through History – Why Sexual Comedy About Men Is Important – Esquire.com đã xuất hiện đầu tiên vào ngày Funface.

from Funface https://funface.net/best-jokes/best-dick-jokes-through-history-why-sexual-comedy-about-men-is-important-esquire-com/

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uniteordie-usa · 7 years

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Assange Warns About Vegas Shooting: ‘Almost All Terror Plots are Created by the FBI’

http://uniteordiemedia.com/assange-warns-about-vegas-shooting-almost-all-terror-plots-are-created-by-the-fbi/ https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/554310471486939136/UDpaZHsW_bigger.jpeg Assange Warns About Vegas Shooting: ‘Almost All Terror Plots are Created by the FBI’ By Jack Burns WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange weighed in on the deadly mass shooting in Las Vegas, and he pointed out that the FBI has a sordid history of targeting mentally ill and emotionally unstable individuals. “Almost all ‘terror’ plots are created by the FBI as part of its business...

By Jack Burns

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange weighed in on the deadly mass shooting in Las Vegas, and he pointed out that the FBI has a sordid history of targeting mentally ill and emotionally unstable individuals.

“Almost all ‘terror’ plots are created by the FBI as part of its business model,” Assange wrote.

5 Oct

Redacted Tonight @RedactedTonight

CASUAL REMINDER that the FBI preys on lonely vulnerable people + convinces them to create terror plots, then takes credit for stopping them.

Julian Assange

Almost all “terror” plots are created by the FBI as part of its business model.

What is the business of the FBI? Extracting tax. What does it need to do that? A stable threat. Prob? Real terrorists are sporadic & make FBI look weak. Solution? Make them.http://uk.businessinsider.com/fbi-is-manufacturing-terrorism-cases-2016-6?r=US&IR=T …pic.twitter.com/qMrkbFKMJe

6:35 AM – Oct 5, 2017

Arguably one of the world’s most respected journalists, whom members of the federal government want to label a spy, Assange linked his comments to a Business Insider story written by Caroline Simone titled, “The FBI is ‘manufacturing terrorism cases’ on a greater scale than ever before.” Simone wrote an echo piece from the New York Times which indicated that 67% of terrorism criminal cases also involved evidence provided by undercover FBI agents.

Simone wrote an echo piece for the New York Times, which indicated that 67 percent of terrorism criminal cases also involved evidence provided by undercover FBI agents.

Sami Osmakac is one such poor and emotionally unstable individual, also referenced in Assange’s tweet, who the FBI groomed to be one of their nabbed terrorists. Democracy Now covered the Osmakac case and provided a synopsis:

“How the FBI Created a Terrorist.” That’s the subtitle of a new exposé in The Intercept by Trevor Aaronson, a journalist who investigates the FBI’s use of informants in sting operations. The article tells the story of Sami Osmakac, a mentally disturbed, financially unstable young man who was targeted by an elaborately orchestrated FBI sting in early 2012. The operation involved a paid informant who hired Osmakac for a job, when he was too broke to afford inert government weapons. The FBI provided the weapons seen in a so-called martyrdom video Osmakac filmed before he planned to deliver what he believed was a car bomb to a bar in Tampa, Florida. His family believes Osmakac never would have initiated such a plot without the FBI.

The New York Times‘ Eric Lichtblau wrote:

The F.B.I. has significantly increased its use of stings in terrorism cases, employing agents and informants to pose as jihadists, bomb makers, gun dealers or online “friends” in hundreds of investigations into Americans suspected of supporting the Islamic State, records and interviews show.

Unfortunately, the list of individuals the FBI has entrapped, as some have charged, also includes dozens of individuals who are either mentally ill or emotionally unstable.

“They’re manufacturing terrorism cases,” said Michael German, a former undercover agent with the F.B.I. who researches national security law at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. In many of the recent prosecutions, he said, “these people are five steps away from being a danger to the United States.

Critics such as Michael German should know, he used to work for the FBI as an undercover agent. German charges that if left alone, those so-called terrorists would likely not hurt anyone. However, the FBI disagrees. They contend if they wait around and do nothing, those individuals with terrorist leanings will act on their plans and impulses.

READ MORE Las Vegas Mass Shooting Eyewitness: There Were “Four to Five” Shooters Attacking Multiple Hotels

Ironically enough, Fox News’ Judge Napolitano agrees. He addressed the FBI’s controversial practice of latching on to emotionally unstable individuals, befriending them, giving them a terror plot to conduct, empowering them to conduct it, and giving them the final pushes needed to carry out those terror plots. Here’s the segment below:

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Napolitano accurately reported that all of the attempted terror plots the FBI has interrupted, were, in his words, “created by the Feds.” In other words, they manufacture a terror plot, locate a willing participant to be characterized as the bad guy “terrorist,” and then foil the plot just as it is about to be carried out.

Do you remember the “shoe bomber,” the “underwear bomber” and the “Times Square bomber“? The individuals at the heart of those foiled terror plots were, in Napolitano’s words “bumbling fools,” or bad actors in the FBI’s planned foiled terrorist operations, but who were stopped concerned citizens—not the FBI.

But Napolitano calls the “more curious cases,” the ones who the FBI groomed, empowered and unsurprisingly nabbed just before they carried out their attacks. The judge charges the FBI “befriended, cajoled, and persuaded them” to attack Americans. Doesn’t that make them a State-sponsor of terrorism, albeit foiled terrorism?

Unfortunately, there is inherent risk involved with arming potential terrorists for a FBI-sponsored terror sting. Sometimes those plots don’t go as plan and there is always a potential for the bad actor to actually be successful with going through with the terrorist attack.

It is still too early to know if Paddock was one such bad actor in an FBI terror sting operation gone bad. According to the lead FBI agent in the “1-October” case, Aaron Rouse, the FBI is tracking down every lead both in the U.S. and overseas, and if people want to report any information, they should contact the FBI directly.

Taken together, Assange’s tweet, combined with the accurate reporting of left-leaning New York Times and right-leaning Fox News, a vivid picture emerges. The left, the right, and the independent are all becoming aware of just how dangerous the FBI’s anti-terrorism stings can be, especially if Paddock’s murderous rampage is revealed to be the work of an FBI sting operation gone bad.

Bad actors are needed, after all, to continue the endless War on Terror, and they are useful in creating revenue for the FBI, Assange contended. He wrote that they are especially needed for “taxes” and represent a “stable” and legitimate “threat.” Assange also added the plot, execute, intercept model the FBI currently uses is their “business model.” Without it, presumably, their business fails.

Courtesy of The Free Thought Project

#Julian Assange

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wionews · 7 years

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Las Vegas gunman stockpiled weapons over decades

The Las Vegas gunman who killed 58 people and himself in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history stockpiled weapons and ammunition over decades, and meticulously planned the attack, authorities believe.

But what led Stephen Paddock, 64, to unleash the carnage he did remains largely a mystery.

"What we know is that Stephen Paddock is a man who spent decades acquiring weapons and ammo and living a secret life, much of which will never be fully understood," Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said at a news briefing on Wednesday night.

Lombardo said he found it hard to believe that the arsenal of weapons, ammunition and explosives recovered by police in their investigation could have been assembled by Paddock completely on his own.

"You have to make an assumption that he had some help at some point," Lombardo said.

Some 489 people were also injured when Paddock strafed an outdoor concert with gunfire on Sunday night from his 32nd-floor suite of the Mandalay Bay hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. He then took his own life.

There is evidence that Paddock tried to survive and escape. He also may have scouted out the location, renting a room at the Ogden, a nearby hotel, during the Life is Beautiful festival a week earlier, Lombardo said.

Police recovered nearly 50 firearms from three locations they searched, nearly half of them from the hotel suite. Twelve of the rifles there were fitted with so-called bump stocks, officials said, allowing the guns to be fired almost as though they were automatic weapons.

Lombardo said investigators were examining the possibility Paddock's purchase of more than 30 guns in October 2016 may have been precipitated by some event in his life. He did not elaborate.

There remained no evidence as yet "to indicate terrorism" in the shooting spree, said Aaron Rouse, FBI special agent in charge of the Las Vegas field office.

Paddock's girlfriend Marilou Danley was questioned by the FBI on Wednesday and said in a statement she was unaware of the Paddock's plans.

"He never said anything to me or took any action that I was aware of that I understood in any way to be a warning that something horrible like this was going to happen," Danley, 62, said in a statement released by her lawyer Matt Lombard.

Danley returned late on Tuesday from a family visit to the Philippines. She is regarded by investigators as a "person of interest". Lombard said his client was cooperating fully with authorities.

A Federal Bureau of Investigation official in Las Vegas, meanwhile, said no one has been taken into custody.

Australian citizen

An Australian citizen of Filipino heritage, Danley said she flew back to the United States voluntarily "because I know that the FBI and Las Vegas Police Department wanted to talk to me, and I wanted to talk to them".

Danley, who was twice married before her relationship with Paddock, became a focus of the investigation for having shared his retirement community condo in Mesquite, Nevada, northeast ofLas Vegas, before leaving the United States for the Philippines in mid-September.

FBI agents met her plane at Los Angeles International Airport before interviewing her, two US officials briefed on the case told Reuters.

Investigators questioned her about Paddock's weapons purchases, a $100,000 wire transfer to a Philippine bank that appeared to be intended for her, and whether she saw any changes in his behaviour before she left the United States.

Danley said Paddock had bought her an airline ticket to visit her family and wired her money to purchase property there, leading her to worry he might be planning to break up with her.

Paddock's brother Eric told reporters the $100,000 transfer was evidence that "Steve took care of the people he loved", and that he probably wanted to protect Danley by sending her overseas before the attack.

She arrived in Manila on Sept. 15, flew to Hong Kong on Sept. 22, returned to Manila on Sept. 25 and was there until she flew to Los Angeles on Tuesday night, according to a Philippine immigration official.

Discerning Paddock's motive has proven especially baffling given the absence of the indicators typical in other mass shootings. He had no criminal record, no known history of mental illness and no outward signs of social disaffection, political discontent or extremist ideology, police said.

Earlier in the day, US President Donald Trump visited Las Vegas, marking the first time since taking office that he has had to confront a major mass shooting.

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funface2 · 5 years

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Best Dick Jokes Through History – Why Sexual Comedy About Men Is Important – Esquire

“You penetrate me? Fine, but I ate you, motherfucker! I chewed you up!”

Jacqueline Novak performs at the 2019 Clusterfest in June.

Jeff KravitzGetty Images

LaWanda Page performs for The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast in 1978.

NBCGetty Images

“How long has it been since you’ve seen your dick?”

Hallie Lieberman Hallie Lieberman is a sex historian and journalist, and the author of “Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy.”

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funface2 · 5 years

Text

Best Dick Jokes Through History – Why Sexual Comedy About Men Is Important – Esquire.com

“You penetrate me? Fine, but I ate you, motherfucker! I chewed you up!”

Jacqueline Novak performs at the 2019 Clusterfest in June.

Jeff KravitzGetty Images

LaWanda Page performs for The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast in 1978.

NBCGetty Images

“How long has it been since you’ve seen your dick?”

Hallie Lieberman Hallie Lieberman is a sex historian and journalist, and the author of “Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy.”

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Source link

Bài viết Best Dick Jokes Through History – Why Sexual Comedy About Men Is Important – Esquire.com đã xuất hiện đầu tiên vào ngày Funface.

from Funface https://funface.net/best-jokes/best-dick-jokes-through-history-why-sexual-comedy-about-men-is-important-esquire-com/

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