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ro-written · 1 year

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Who Killed Markiplier?

Episode 1: *Thunder Crash*

A/N: This is basically a remake of the first WKM video but with the reader/viewer's thoughts and actions lol

Warnings: Cussing, Second Person POV, spoilers???? if you havent watched WKM go do so now lmao, someone dies, light angst, you're a simp for Damien

Word Count: 4.6k ... Blame Mark

I felt tired.

Drained.

Worn out.

I felt…

Fuck I didn’t know what to feel anymore.

Only if he dictated it.

He had me running here and there, playing all types of roles. My head felt as if it was spinning at all times.

All this running about and yet I still can’t run away from him.

—

The mansion was…grand. To say the absolute least. Tall, sprawling, intimidating. Something you would only see in films. Fitting for an actor, I suppose.

You wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for Damien.

You wouldn’t be at the party if it weren’t for Mark’s invitation, yes. But Damien was the only reason that truly sold you on going. You knew Mark by…proxy…of sorts. He seemed like a well-enough guy, if not a bit full of himself at times, but not a complete jerkoff. At least, not when you were around him.

Damien dragged you along to a few of Mark’s parties in college. They had been childhood friends and Damien had been your closest friend in the entirety of the school, having met in a Political Science class. You knew going to these parties would make him happy to see his best friends, but also made him nervous. Therefore, you would attend with. Just as someone to be next to him so he had someone at all times. Even though I am not a party-goer either…

“Oh bully!” A booming voice shook you out of your thoughts. You were suddenly face-to-face with a man in what looked like safari expedition gear. He had quite an impressive mustache, as well as a shining monocle. “And here I thought I was gonna be the last guest to arrive.”

You gave a gentle smile as he put his hands behind his back and bowed a bit.

“My friends call me the Colonel. You’re welcome to do the same, should it please you.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Colonel.” You have heard of him before. Damien’s eccentric hunting friend. He was part of the trio of best friends that Damien was a part of. You had also heard that he…well, it was better to not poke around in other people’s business I suppose.

“After you.” He gestured towards the door, inviting you to enter the lavish mansion.

The grand door opens, and you are met with a young man who seemed to be around your age.

“Ah, bonjour! Welcome to Markiplier Manor. Your invitation please.”

His hand stuck out, awaiting the letter you had received only a few days ago. On it had your name written with a title. District Attorney. I will never get used to it.

“Very good, very good. Right this way. Good luck at the table tonight. I shall fetch you a drink forthwith.” His polite smile graced his features as he nodded and turned away. Looking forward you could see Damien talking to a man you were unfamiliar with. Just seeing him was enough to relax your shoulders and allowed you to take a deep breath.

“Oh,” he noticed you walking towards the two of them. “There you are, old friend. How are you settling into your new office?”

You smiled at his concern. Always watching out for everyone. It’s what makes him a good mayor.

“It’s a little…new. But I’m just glad the hard work paid off.”

“Now, I know it’ll take some getting used to, but there’s no one I would rather have alongside me to protect this great city of ours.”

His words make your face burn. Ever since you two were in undergrad, he always had to say these little comments that made you flustered. You just always chalked it up to the fact that it’s hard for you to simply take a compliment. So you simply nod and smile, giggling slightly at his enthusiasm and the wave with his cane.

“Now, I’ll see you at the table soon, but try not to rob me blind again.” He rolled his eyes in exasperation as your eyebrows shot up.

“Maybe be better at the game and you won’t lose so much Damie,” you laughed. He smirked and nodded.

“We’ll catch up,” he leaves you as he walks off, probably towards the Colonel that had walked in behind.

With his presence gone (something that left a piece of you feeling disappointed, although you would never admit such a thing) you took it as an opportunity to explore around a little. Every piece of furniture, every bit of decor, every inch of the house was elegant. It screamed “money” right in anyone’s face who walked in. The lights and color template of the room made you feel warm and cozy. Or maybe it was the lingering excitement of being in Damien’s presence.

You moved from the entry room into the dining room, where someone you could only assume was Mark’s chef was working in silence. You walked up to him, ready to introduce yourself, when he moved to speak before you could.

“If you’re looking for hors d’oeuvres, I’ll get ‘em when I’m good and ready!”

Your smile immediately fell as you jumped back away from the man. He began to walk away, and as you walked behind him to move on to the next room, he swung back around.

“And stay out of my kitchen!” His grating voice threatened.

“Now, now,” A voice came from behind. “Let’s not be rude to our guest.” The butler had returned with a tray of drinks and stood giving the cook a very disapproving stare. He turned to you and put a hand up to offer his apologies.

“So sorry about that,” he grabbed a glass off the tray. “Here’s your champagne.”

“Um, it’s quite alright. You would be surprised how often I get yelled at in my line of work.” You lightly laughed and grabbed the offered drink.

“Enjoy your evening.” He smiled and turned to walk away.

Right before you could continue exploring the house, a voice came from atop the stairs.

“Welcome, welcome, one and all!” He was dressed in a red robe with his hair gelled back. “My name is Markiplier. Thank you for joining me on this auspicious evening. So good to be surrounded by such close and trusted friends.”

His posture stood confidently, slowly stepping down the staircase closer to where you were standing. He is exactly how I last remember him. So confident in front of an audience. It was like he was born to play this role.

“Now, this evening, it’s not all about the poker. It’s not all about me. It’s about you.” He pointed towards you and smiled. It took you aback for a second before you realized he was referring to everyone, but you just so happened to be standing the closest to him.

“So drink up and be merry! Life is for the living! And who knows? I could be dead tomorrow.” He laughs out, and you laugh lightly, surprised at his dark humor. It wasn’t something you quite remember…but people change over the years. Especially when you haven’t seen them in a while. You took down your champagne as the night’s festivities commenced.

Through the haze of all the alcohol, you rinsed Damien at poker, watched as he did a keg stand, lost at beer pong, flipped off the butler (and can not remember why for the life of you), and were suddenly smacked by the man Damien had talked to before. That’s what put you on the ground, staring at the paintings on the ceiling. Your head bobbed around until Damien’s figure came into your line of sight. You blinked and suddenly, he was right in front of you, lightly patting your face.

You blink again, and this time you were falling into your bed, facing towards the clock.

Onl–…only 1 am?????? The paarrrrty needs to keep go-going……..

—

You woke up to an annoying ringing and a killer pounding headache.

Groaning, you sat up, reaching over to turn the alarm bell off. You stretched your arms out above your head and moved side to side, attempting to wake your body up and cure its soreness. Standing, you quickly changed before heading out to greet everyone, and definitely not make fun of their hangovers.

Right outside your door stood the butler from before, holding a tray with one glass of…some mixed substance.

“Ah, good morning. Hope you’ve had a good night’s rest.” You wiped the sleep from your eye a bit and smiled at him and his thoughtfulness.

“I’ve prepared for you a seltzer with cocaine. Best thing for the morning after, if you ask me.” Your smile dropped and your eyes widened a bit. You took it, out of courteousness and held it as he moved away.

Behind him, looking over the rail, was Damien. He stood in front of the enormous windows, casting a glow around his body. He was fully dressed with his hair gelled back and his cane at home in his right hand. He turned around to look at you, a smile on his face.

“Ah, there’s our little monster! You really knocked ‘em dead last night.” Your face heated up at his words, smiling and shaking your head as you set the…concoction the butler gave you on a side table. “I haven’t seen you go wild like that since our days at university.”

“Well, the little monster doesn’t get to let loose like that very often I suppose.” You cocked your head to the side as you look into his bright eyes.

“Good to let the beast out every once in a while, eh, old friend?” You let out a little huff, glancing down at the white rose pinned into his suit jacket. “Then again,” He started, looking down at the ground in confusion. “I’m-I’m still not exactly sure as to what we’re supposed to be celebrating here.” You nodded, agreeing with the sentiment. It did confuse you, but you were just an outsider. The fact that Damien seemed to be confused about the party piqued your interest.

“I mean, it’s good to have the gang back together, but…out of the blue like this seems…” He trailed off, getting lost in his thoughts as he looks over the banister downstairs. “Anyway, now is not the time to become conspiratorial. Life is ours to choose, as I always say.”

“Yes, you’re never-ending motto. I remember you frequently telling me in university.” You laugh, eyes twinkling. You pick on him for it a lot but, if you were being honest, it was something that got you through the toughest of days.

“I have some work to finish, but I’ll meet you at breakfast. We’ll all catch up soon.” With a nod, he walked off to do whatever executive work he decided to bring along with him. Always busy, that one.

You reflected on his last sentence. We’ll all catch up soon. It felt heavy to think about. After everything that happened between Mark and the Colonel, and Damien attempting to play mediator, the statement held much more meaning than one may realize.

Suddenly, you find yourself at the bottom of the stairs. You glance around at the lavish manor, hands behind your back to keep from knocking into anything. One of these portraits must be worth my pay for the next five years. You turned around to eye a knight’s armor that gave you an odd feeling being near. Like it was watching you just as you watched it. You started to back up when a sudden noise made you swing around. Before you knew it, a body was dropping right in front of your eyes and landed on the ground with a resounding thud.

Your heart dropped to the very pits of your stomach.

Mark.

Thunder crashed throughout the mansion as you stood staring at his gaping face.

“Did anyone hear that lightning?” You turned to come face-to-face with the man Damien had been talking to before, the one that had hit you last night.

“OH MY GOD! THERE’S BEEN A MURDER!” Another clap of thunder resonated off the walls.

“Excuse me,” the butler came around the corner. “But did you hear light–OH MY GOD MURDER!” Crash.

“Did you–? MUUUURDER!” The chef yelled, pointing at Mark’s lifeless body. Crash.

You were suddenly being pulled closer toward the first man, wearing a Sherlock Holmes deerstalker hat.

“What the hell happened here? Who’s in charge around here? Trick question: the guy. And he’s dead now, which makes ME in charge. So you better listen up good, bucko. ‘Case you haven’t been paying attention, there’s been a bit of a…killin’.” Everyone looked around, waiting for the next thunder crash.

Silence.

“And you’re my prime suspect. So you better get to explaining right quick as to the what, where, when, and why you happen to be here upon this man’s death!”

Your mouth opened and closed repeatedly, trying to create the right words to tell this guy it wasn’t me. Your brain was short-circuiting, with no thoughts except the image of Mark falling right in front of you.

“Sir,” the butler cut you off before you had a chance to speak. “The body is cold. He’s been dead a while.” You blinked in awe as, who you assumed to be, the detective laughed.

“A likely story! That I happen to believe completely. All right, you’re off the hook for now, but I’m a detective, and–”

“Oh yeah?” the chef interrupted. “Prove you’re a real dick!” The detective pulls something from his robe.

“Here’s my badge. Asshole.” He turned to you, a series of pictures falling from the badge. “Ah, those are my old partners. Don’t ask me about them. Fine! I’ll tell you.”

Damien, where are you?

“Each one of them died. Each death more tragic than the last. A few of them even died in ironically hilarious ways.” You cocked your head, looking towards the cook who gave you an ominous wide-eyed stare.

“Which made it all the more tragic. But hey, you look like you’re up to the task. You’re my new partner.” Your heart lept from your stomach to your throat, as you shake your head violently. He just laughed.

“That’s what all my old partners used to say. Right before they died.” You glanced at the cook again, and he seemed nervous for you.

“All right. Hand me that fingerprinting kit behind you, partner.” You turned to grab it but it was nowhere to be found. Turning back around to ask where it was, you found that the detective already created a closed-off crime scene.

“Thanks, partner!”

You squatted underneath the police tape, watching as the detective inspected the body. A pair of footsteps signaled to you another presence entering.

“What the hell happened here?” Damien asked, face and voice riddled with concern.

“Oh! Mr. Mayor. I’m so sorry. There’s been a murder.” A crash echoed as the butler informed Damien of the previous moments.

“A murder?” Clap. “Who?”

“It’s Mark.” The chef broke it to him. You looked at Damien, eyebrows drawn. You didn’t want to know how he felt. They were childhood best friends.

“I’m afraid he’s telling the truth.” The detective inputted from his squatting position. “Mark’s been…killed.”

“Why? Who would do this?”

“That’s exactly what me and my new partner here are here to find out.” You squinted at the detective as he looked toward you.

“Um, excuse me. I feel like we should call the authorities for them to handle this matter.” The butler chimed in.

“Look, buddy, as far as you’re concerned, I AM the authorities.” The detective once again pulled out his badge.

“The fact of the matter is, I believe the killer is right here amongst us in this very house. With that freaky lightning storm outside, none of us would get very far, anyway.” You nodded along with him, lips pursed together.

“In the meantime, we’re stuck here. But I’m gonna get to the bottom of this. The rest of you, get back to your rooms, hunker down, and pray to God you’re not next to be murdered.” Crash.

“I’ll…I’ll check on our other guests.” The butler notes, walking away.

“I’ll get back to cooking. All this death made me hungry.” Odd man.

You moved to go toward Damien, still staring at the white sheet on the floor. His mind seemed to be racing a million miles an hour.

“I…I-I need to talk to the Colonel about this.” He gripped his cane as he stepped backward, then proceeded to walk purposefully away. Your chest hurt seeing him that way.

“All right, partner. It’s time to get to work.” You squatted down in front of the detective. “Judging by the temperature of the body that I measured rectally…which is obviously the most accurate way to get the inner body temperature of a corpse. That’s a fact, totally procedure. Don’t tell anyone I did it.” Man, this guy talks.

“I am sure Mark was killed around 1:30 a.m. last night.” He stared off into the air as if reading some sort of clue written in the room. Suddenly, he jumped up, finger-pointing toward you.

“So what were YOU doing at 1:30 a.m. last night?”

“I…I was in my bed. You had knocked me down, Damien checked on me, and then I was laying in my bed. I remember seeing the clock as I fell asleep.” You managed to rush out, your authoritative voice switching on just as it would do in a courtroom setting.

“I’m gonna ignore the strange fact that you sleep with your eyes open.” You stood up, shaking your head and rolling your eyes. “But it checks out. So, we need to figure out where everyone was and what they were doing around that time or, at the very least, who saw Mark last.” You nodded in agreeance.

“You need to get out there. See if you can piece together the story of what happened last night. I’ll stick around with the body and run more…tests.” You watched the strange man as he went down, sniffing his fingers. Where the hell do Damien and Mark find these people?

You duck under the caution tape, walking towards a room that seemed to have quite a commotion stirred inside.

“Oh, how can you be so flippant?”

“Flippant?! I’m taking this matter very seriously.” You peeked through the crack in the door to see Damien standing there yelling at a familiar voice.

“Oh, don’t give me that horseshit! I know you hated him, but…goddammit, he reached out to you!” Damien’s voice, the pleading tone behind it, made your heart clench.

“Oh, what do you want from me, then?” The voice inquired back lackadaisically.

“Wh–I want you to care!” The sudden shift in his voice made you jump. You had never heard Damien yell in that way before, especially not toward his friends. It scared you, making you realize how there’s still a lot to the man you have yet to learn.

“Just because I’m not weeping like a child doesn’t mean that I don’t care.”

“I can’t believe you.” Damien pointed his cane at the other man. “You come find me when you pull your head out of your ass!” He suddenly turned and almost walked right into you, stopping just at the door. You took a step back, scared at how you were just caught eavesdropping.

“S-sorry…”

Damien aggressively grabbed the door open and brushed past you, not saying anything past a whispered: “Excuse me.”

You decided to muster up your courage and step into the room to face the man he had been talking to. The one that was causing him so much strife. You turned the corner only to be met with the Colonel sitting in a chair, hat down.

“Damien, I don’t–oh.” He looked up to realize exactly who he was talking to. His entire tone shifted. “Ah! Good to see you again! You were quite the rapscallion at last night’s festivities.” He stood from his chair to greet you.

“But…you’re probably here to help the detective with his ‘investigation of murder.’” Crash. “Anyway. I’ll help you, I’ll tell you what happened to our dear friend Mark.” He seemed to be exaggerated in his movement. As he flailed his arms around, pretending to be Mark from last night.

“‘Oh, look at me! My name is Markiplier now! Forget all my friends or the people that helped me along the way; just look at my money! Oh, I need to pay people to be my friends! Ha ha ha! You like me? Too bad! Oh, glug glug! Oopsie poopsie! I can’t hold my booze. Gotta go off to the little boys’ room. Who wants to join me? I’m gonna go up there upon my stairs. MY house has more than ONE staircase. Oh, look at me and how great I AM! Oh no, I'm falling! Aaah, I’m dead.’”

You stood staring at him as he finished up, what you could only assume to be, a little ranting session about his frustrations toward his once-friend.

“And that’s what happened. Probably, anyway. So, if you need to corroborate this story with anybody else, just be on your way and investigate the entire house. Go now. I’ll be here when you’re done.” With his hand flicks, you made your way out of the room, very confused to say the least.

Just before you left the room, however, the butler pops out from the doorway.

“Come with me. I need to show you something. Now, if you’re looking for answers, there’s really no mystery at all.” He winds you down a hallway, walking with purpose towards…something.

“There’s not a single detail of this house that I'm not privy to, and not a single guest that I have not personally vetted.” He stepped to walk in front of you, leading the way. When suddenly, he jumps around toward you, finger out in front.

“Now I warn you: what you are about to see is not for the faint of heart. A domain of evil this is…” he leads you to a set of stairs descending into what seemed to be some sort of basement or dungeon. “...but in we must go. … You first.”

You stepped down the stairs into a cellar. There was an entire wall dedicated to holding wines, with some bottles sitting on the center shelves. Your heart raced as you looked around, looking for any clues as to what may have happened last night. Looking down, you found a broken wine bottle.

“Why did you–”

“AVERT YOUR EYES!” The butler came rushing in around you towards the shattered glass. “I’m so sorry you had to see this! Master would be so displeased! If only he were still alive!” A sobbing came from the man as you slowly stepped back towards the stairs. Then, finally deciding it was okay, you ran up them to get far away.

Making it to the top of the stairs, you turn to your left to see the chef in the kitchen, chopping away at something. You decided to question him about where he was last night.

“I thought I told you to stay out of my kitchen!” You jumped, stepping back, a knife held tightly in his hand.

“I’m just…helping the detective question people.” Your eyes flicker between the man’s eyes and his knife.

“Oh. You’re helping that dick with his little investigation, huh?” You nodded, hands in the air to show you were unarmed. “Well, I might look like a sweet and innocent man, but some people with short lifespans might think otherwise. I can’t imagine why, can you?” You shook your head, jumping back a step.

“Last night, after I got rid of all of the evidence…” You held your breath.

“...of that delicious meal I prepared, and wiped down all the fingerprints…” Your eyes widened.

“...from those filthy dishes. And sopped up all that blood…” Your teeth clenched.

“I retired to my room at 1:00 a.m. and left my little buddy in charge like I always do.” He turned to present the lifelike statue sitting on the counter. He gave it a little kiss on the cheek before putting his arm around it like an old friend.

“He sees everything. Why don’t you ask HIM what happened last night?” You shifted toward the statue and began to watch the video from the cameras in him.

—

The footage flipped back further and further in dates and moved locations around the manor til it finally found something of value. The detective talking to Mark.

“Abe!”

“Mark! Good to see ya.”

“Great to see ya. Look, I’ll cut right to the chase. Chef, butler, good?”

“Chef's an asshole, but he’s clean. Uh…butler, he’s a new guy. Also an asshole, but he’s clean.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

The footage cut.

—

You stepped away from the “Little Buddy.” Looking around the kitchen, the chef you had expected to be staring you down was no longer around, having seemingly disappeared into thin air. Skeptically, you stepped out into the hallway to see if you could find anyone. Passing by a set of double doors, you decided to walk outside to get a bit of fresh air.

The day was so beautiful. The sky was clear and the birds were chirping. You could see over the entire town. The town that you and Damien were in charge of keeping safe. The realization has hit you more than once, but every time it hits you with a baseball bat right in the gut.

You could hear someone’s footsteps pacing around nearby, and you followed the sound over to where Damien was swinging his cane around, deep in thought. He finally turned to you, startled. It was the first time you had seen him since he snapped earlier. He let out a gentle sigh as he walked towards you.

“Look, I’m sorry you saw that argument with the Colonel. I lost my temper and it wasn’t right and…he must be in shock.” He looked down to the ground as if trying to figure out his words.

“Don’t apologize Damien. You are under a lot of stress right now. I can’t imagine how it all feels for you.” You offered him a smile as you rubbed at your palms, a slight nervous tick.

“The Colonel’s an eccentric; it’s his best quality and his worst. But he’s my friend, and…so was Mark.” You looked down, at a loss for words on how to comfort him.

“I know I’m supposed to be a leader in this scenario, but I can’t help but feel lost!” His voice shook as he continued. “I’ve known Mark for years, since we were kids! … And he’s just gone?” His eyes pleaded to you. They were begging you to say something, but you didn’t quite know what to say or offer him. His face firmed.

“I don't have any answers right now. I just need to be alone…to process all of this.”

“Of course Damien…take your time.” Your hand twitched, aching to reach out and rub his shoulder with some sort of semblance of sympathy. But you held back.

“We’ll talk soon, but I need to think.” He walked away, head hanging.

A sudden whisper from behind you made you whip your head around to a bush.

“Hey! Partner! Get over here, now! Hurry up!” You raced forward as the Detective started walking into the manor.

“You’re not gonna believe this; I can barely believe this! The body: it’s gone. It’s just fucking disappeared. Look!”

Sure enough, as you walked into the gathering room, the taped outline of the body was all that was left. Nothing else remained as evidence of the crime.

Mark was gone.

#markiplier #who killed markiplier #damien x reader #damien x da #markiplier egos #markiplier fanfiction

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this-world-of-beautiful-monsters · 2 years

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films/tv episodes not intended for education or based on books we read in the curriculum that my middle and high school teachers nonetheless played for us during class, ranked

(this isn’t an attack on that practice, btw, because I feel like I learned as much from some of these films as I did from actual class, even my teachers were probably taking the opportunity to check out as well)

Selena (middle school, Spanish): 8/10, J.Lo wears a sparkly bustier and bungee jumps, we saw the scene where the lady who shot her holds a gun to her own head because that’s definitely a child-appropriate choice on the teacher’s part, tbh probably did deserve to be in the Library of Congress, I distinctly remember somebody joking there should be a “Selena 2: The Revenge of Chris” because that’s how middle schoolers handle death

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (middle school, English): 10/10, SO GOOD, made my parents get it so we could watch it at home, monsters and homicidal teenage girls and post-apocalyptic destruction, what more could you want, people were singing the dream-sequence song at each other for days

Spirited Away (middle school, English): 9/10, took a point off for scaring the shit out of me, the pig was scene was frightening as fuck, gorgeous and full of magical little critters, girl meets dragon boy, the baby was definitely the weirdest fucking one of them all

Star Trek (middle school, English): 9/10, Episodes from the OS including "The City on the Edge of Forever," "The Doomsday Machine," "The Trouble with Tribbles," terrible physical combat scenes as pointed out by my teacher, I sadly missed out on gay subtext at the time, yes my teacher did wear a Kirk shirt for Halloween

Unguarded (high school, Health): 7/10, took a shit ton of notes on that thing because the teacher wanted us to take notes, really don’t remember that much of note now, Chris Herren’s wife was a saint to hold out that long

Intervention (high school, Health): 4/10, frankly there have got to be better ways to make money than off something like this, wasn’t as interesting as the teacher’s own stories about his family struggles with alcoholism, because some teachers aren’t really teachers until they regale you with some vaguely fucked-thing from their own past

The Core: (high school, Earth Science): 6/10, only f-bomb dropped came right before the guy using it blew up, mindless indulgence but we had to answer questions, scientist MC sets an apple on fire while teaching some suits a lesson about the core and that’s probably the closest thing to actual science in the film, had a teen hacker character nicknamed the Rat that the class was obsessed with for a while

Deep Impact (high school, Earth Science): 4/10, teachers made us answer questions about the film’s plot, which included a point where a teenage boy marries his girlfriend in an attempt to get her a pass to the underground bunker, didn’t think Morgan Freeman could be more above anything until the White House Down series, also included Elijah fucking Wood

Contagion (high school, Biology): 10/10, surprisingly good, badass soundtrack, great acting, great camera work and whatnot, Horny Teen character had the same name as one of the kids in the class, proved way too prescient several years later,

House: 8/10, various episodes, thankfully not the “curing asexuality” one, don’t remember their names but I remember one is where they agonize about whether to murder an African dictator, one with a disabled kid’s sister getting sick, one where this guy’s wife dies giving birth as a result of office politics, and one where House drugs everything at Thanksgiving.

(reblog with films your teachers showed that weren’t intended for educational purposes or based on books the class had read, if you want. I might add more to this later)

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honeyrisuke · 2 years

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I just made a realization

when I was in 8th grade, our history teacher, who was a complete and total bitch, made us all watch "Im Westen nichts Neues" (All Quiet on the Western Front) in class. That's a movie from the 1930s about young men being recruited into world war 1 and all dying there tragically. In good classic film style you just see unaltered long-shots of them bleeding out in trenches, exploding themselves with grenades or lamenting about pain in their foot while they die on a cot in the medics tent after both their legs got amputated.

back then I was not in a great emotional spot, I went through a lot of really bad stress at home, and I was not in the right headspace to be watching something like that, so I asked if I could leave and instead read about it but the teacher forced me to sit through it. She really couldn't stand me and dropped sentences like "I don't know if you are smart enough to read up on it in the first place"

After we were done watching the movie, the teacher asked us what we learned and I, being an absolute shitbag, just yelled into the classroom: "WAR IS SHIT. DONT FUCKING ELECT FASCIST GOVERNMENTS AND DONT FUCKING ENLIST. ITS A LIE. DONT BE A PATRIOT, THEY WANT YOU DEAD. EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT. WE ARENT IDIOTS. THIS WAS COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY AND YOUR ATTITUDE ABOUT IT IS ENRAGING"

after which I of course received a strike and had to go to detention, but for years I was still SO pissed off about it because that was literally the whole point of why we watched that. To teach us that running into war like this is a bad thing, actually. That governments who start wars do not have our best interest at heart and that theres nothing heroic about being in the military.

And I just realized that yeah, it was clear to me because I have my head screwed on right and have been a big leftist and anti-patriot since forever, but most people,,, aren't. Most of my former classmates weren't. And especially: that teacher wasn't. She was very open about her support of the more right-leaning wing of the christian democrats. She was very open about teaching history so she can "stop the misinformation about germany being all bad"

That woman held enough fascist ideology that she found it NORMAL to be a patriot and thought she has to teach kids to not mindlessly run into war because otherwise we would all be hailing our next dictator. She thought this would bring nuance into her teaching. She thought this would actually help make us reflected 'liberal patriots'. She was the kinda person to want the ideology and patriotism but without the war and the nationalism, which is some right-liberal bullshit that's going on in germanys boomer generation.

idk like. Realizing this turned this memory from "she did that to us for no fucking reason and then gave me detention for picking up on everything she was trying to do and telling her off about it" to "that woman is just extremely fucking dense"

#rant #i dont have a lot to do at work today okay im just thinking thoughts

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lamome10 · 2 years

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A Night Out (1915) + The Curse of Quon Gwon (1916) + some thoughts about Hollywood Chinese (2007) 9/21/2022 Evelyn Lee

It was an interesting experience watching these two one after. It’s like creating a parallel. Two movies from the same era. A male director and a female director. Western culture and eastern/Chinese culture. A bizarre and funny one(being drunk, acting stupid, fighting with others) and a traditional one with heavy heart(marriage, mother/sister-in-law relationship…).

First of all, Chaplin is always one of my favorite director. Whether it’s a nonsensical one that could be viewed purely as a comedy, or a film expressing social issues such as The Great Dictator (1940). there’s always something magical about his films that put me in a good mood. People moved their bodies naturally but at the same time awkwardly without regard for their own safety, as if they would not hurt when they fell or hit each other. Alhough it’s not that impressive due to the time length, I still enjoyed watching A Night Out.

Speaking of The Curse of Quon Gwon, I can hardly tell a detailed/precise summary. The subtitles were missing, but it was still a pleasure to watch it. The way the camera moved made the whole movie looked like a stage show. The fade-out transition looked clumsy, still, it gave me goosebumps when the necklace suddenly became a chain. I repeated about three or four times while thinking: “What a beautiful scene!”. Besides, both rise of female consciousness and the moralization of tradition(the statue) were featured in this movie. (Digression: The main actress’s hair was so thick which made me envy🥹)

From the aspect of film history, it was the earliest Chinese film we knew of and was filmed by a Chinese American woman. While I haven’t done a more in-depth research about women filmmakers, what were showed in the class and what I have seen recently, including The Curse of Quon Gwon, have already made me realize that there was a great negligence in film history other than male directors. Objectively speaking, the structure and storyline was not outstanding enough compared to other movies in the 20th century, but its historical significance still made it a meaningful film to watch.

Moreover, it revealed the morale at that time, and it more or less created a stereotype just as what’s been said in “Hollywood Chinese”, the imagination of China Town and Chinese society. Those clips and films we watched this week, in some way forced me to reflect and rethink. Compared to western society, eastern/Chinese culture was relatively introverted which advocated forbearance, tolerance, average…We could find depression of the entire social atmosphere in many Chinese, Korean and Japanese movies. That kind of mental oppression gradually led to a collective madness, which could be discovered in Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (Nagisa Ōshima, 1984, Japan). The pursuit of excellence, leading to contempt and misunderstanding of the disadvantaged groups, which can be seen in Oasis (Lee Chang-dong, 2002, South Korea); or the pursuit of noble but hypocritical life due to vanity and greed, which can be discovered in Parasite (Bong Joon-hi, 2019, South Korea). These films may, to a certain extent, create different stereotypes for each society. Take Disney for another example, since watching Disney’s animations, we’ve had an impression that The United States(western countries) was a place to dream and make dreams come true. There’s no right or wrong. Though I wish people would know more Taiwanese/Asian films since there’s much more than what people normally know of. In my opinion, the sound and the images making people quickly enter the situation can be the reason for stereotype brought about by films, but what’s more is that films provides a shortcut, or an one-sided interpretation for people to experience a certain life styles shaped by different eras, cultures, habits, customs, and perspectives.

Closing this week’s screening report with my favorite review of Vagabond (Agnès Varda, 1985, France) I saw on the internet:

The good thing about movies is that, for a few hours after, you would not care what you wear at all. You talk and act freely without being cautious. Watching movies is simply the best way to hypnotize. After leaving the theater, the protagonists live in you for a while. All you can do is keep going to movie theaters to get some hypnosis, to live, and to experience someone else’s life.

（Original: 看電影的好處是看完後的幾個小時裡，你根本不會在乎自己身上穿了什麼，說話肆無忌憚。電影根本就是催眠的最好手段，走出影院後主角們在你體內暫活一陣子。於是你只好不斷走進電影院去搞點催眠，過點別人的日子。）

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let-me-luve-you · 3 years

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Almost a Goodbye

Tom Holland x Sister (with Sam and a little bit of Paddy)

Summary: Your brothers interrupt you before you make a life changing decision.

Warnings: attempted suicide, angst, comforting brothers, difficult talks, vulnerable reader

A/N: This is a very triggering story, so please do not read if you think you will be effected by it.

MASTERLIST

Three months. That’s how long it’s been since your family had been fully together. Tom and Harry were in the States filming for the new Spider-Man movie. They were set to return in a little over a month. Being the only Holland girl within the siblings, you were protected and worshiped by your brothers. Yes you had your fights with them, but at the end of the day, you were family and you all loved each other. Even though Tom took Harry with him all the time, Tom was actually closest with you.

Recently you had been quiet. You stayed in your room more. Only went to school and home. Everyone just thought it was school since finals were coming up. But what no one knew was all the hate you got online and in person. People kept saying how you were using your brother to try and make your life easier. Thought you were using his name to get good grades by bribing the professors. The list of things people thought about you were endless.

At first you ignored it. Especially when it was only online. Then it started to happen in person and it slowly started to get to you. You didn’t want to believe them, but the more they said it, the more you did.

After weeks of constantly looking at the hate on social media and hearing people whisper about you at school, you finally hit your breaking point. People who had been your friends stopped talking to you. You couldn’t do it anymore. You decided that morning that today would be your last day.

You skipped school. Found a quiet, isolated place in the park. You pulled out your spiral to write your final words. Writing a note to every single person in your family except Tom. That was going to be the hardest one. He would be so disappointed in you. Hate you for giving up. You couldn’t write one. At least not yet.

After walking in the house, you quietly declined the food your dad offered you. Saying you grabbed food on the way home. You went to your room and shut the door. You sat your backpack down and sat at your desk. Deciding now would be the time to write your letter to Tom.

What seemed so hard, flowed so easily. You expressed how hard it had been. How you tried to ignore it and fight. That nothing was getting better. It felt like your whole world was falling around you and trying to bury you. Tears fell on the paper. You didn’t even know you had started crying. You finished the letter with an “I’m sorry. I love you.”

You went to your bedside table and grabbed the over the counter pain pills. You sat on your bed staring at them. You didn’t realize you had been sitting there for so long until you heard Sam.

“Hey Y/N/N, I made a new dessert. Want to come try it?” Sam asked. You looked up startled. You quickly moved the pain pills to the side where Sam couldn’t see them. “You okay?”

You panicked slightly knowing you had tears still falling down your face. “Yeah. I’m fine. I’ll be down in a bit. I’m not very hungry.”

Sam moved to sit by you. “Y/N you know you can talk to me.” He said as he saw Paddy in the doorway. “What’s going on? Is it school? Friend problems?”

“You can talk to me too. I always listen.” Paddy added as he walked towards your desk to sit down. He looked at the note that still lied on your desk. “What… What is this Y/N?”

Your head snapped up to see Paddy holding the letter to Tom. You shot off the bed to grab it from him but he ducked your advance and showed it to Sam. Sam started reading it and then saw the pain pills on your bed. He teared up finally understanding what was going on.

“Y/N/N baby…” Sam said as he looked up at you. “Talk to me.”

“I.. I uh..” You stuttered. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Make me understand.” He almost pleaded.

“I just…” You sighed as you sat on the bed. You grabbed your pillow and hugged it close. “I just can’t do it anymore. I have no friends. Everyone just talks crap about me online. I’d be doing everyone a favor if I was just gone.”

“You’re wrong.” Paddy spoke up. “I wouldn’t be able to fully function without you. You help me so much. You’re always looking out for me. Making sure I do my homework, or helping me with it. You fix me dinner when Mum, Dad, and Sam are working.”

“Paddy anyone can do that for you.” You sighed. “I’m never going to be good enough. I just want to be good enough.”

“Y/N you are the best damn thing that has happened to this family. Between us siblings, you’re the glue that keeps us going. You are the one that helps all of us.” Sam said as a tear fell down his face. “You give and give and give but you never take. Let us take care of you for once. Let us take away some of the pain you are feeling. Talk. to. us.”

“I can’t.” You whispered.

Sam sat down on your bed next to you. He wrapped you in a hug and kissed your forehead. “You can. You know why. You’re the strongest person I know.”

“Ca-… Can I just wait for Tom to come home and talk to him? I promise I won’t do anything stupid.” Sam sighed. Sam knows Tom is coming home early to surprise you, but it was still a week away.

“Tom won’t be home for a month. You know this Y/N. We can’t let you sit on something like this for that long.” Paddy said.

“How about this? Tonight we don’t talk. We just hang out and watch a movie. We can sit here and when you are ready to talk to us. We can talk.” Sam said.

“Just please don’t tell anyone. If I have to talk to you, please don’t tell mum and dad. And please please please don’t tell Tom or Harry. I don’t want them to worry. They have enough on their plates.” You begged.

“Okay, for now this is between us.” Sam lied.

“I’ll go get the popcorn, dessert, and pick out a movie for us. Meet in Sam’s room.” Paddy dictated. “Also wear your onesies I got you for Christmas last year.” You and Sam laughed at his bossiness.

The next week flew by. It was Friday afternoon and you didn’t have any classes. Your parents decided to take a small vacation to Ireland for the weekend to have time for themselves. Sam was working. Paddy was at a friends house. You sat in the living room watching tv.

He had told Tom that night after you had gone to bed. He had to get Harry to stop Tom from missing his last week of work. He tried to tell him he was watching you like a hawk and getting small bits and pieces out of you. Finally, one night you blew up. You were so angry at everything that day, that you just exploded on Sam. He finally understood.

He talked to you about deleting the social media apps from your phone and not getting on any of the websites on your computer. You easily agreed after you calmed down. Sam had noticed the difference in your attitude. He knew you still had work to do, but it was getting better.

Tom and Harry had just landed. Sam had texted when he left for work that your plan was to watch tv and movies all day since you had the house to yourself. Tom hopped into the driver seat of his car with Harry in the passenger seat. Tom dropped Harry off at home, knowing this was a conversation that needed to be had between just him and his sister.

As Tom pulled into his parents driveway, he started to get anxious. He sat there for a minute trying to gather his thoughts. He sighed as he got out of the car. He went to the back seat to get the bag of things he had bought for you. He always brings back something from each movie he films, but this time he went a little overboard when he was at your favorite shop.

He quietly walked in the front door. He walked towards the living room where he could hear the movie playing. When he peaked in, he saw you cuddling up with your favorite blanket asleep. He gently put the bag down next to your head as he sat down next to you. He pushed some of your hair behind your ear. He looked at you for a moment just to try to remember every detail he can. He almost lost you and he isn’t willing to risk wasting anymore time not embracing the moment.

“If you keep staring, I won’t grow a second head like I’ve always wanted.” You said as you started to wake up.

Tom laughed, “Just wanted to see how long it took you to wake up.”

“Well I’m awake now.” You acted annoyed as you sat up. “I really missed you Tomothy. Why are you home so early? I thought you weren’t due home until next month?” You said hugging him as you said his nickname.

“I missed you too, Goofy Goober. We wrapped early. I told everyone else and asked them not to tell you so I could surprise you.” He gave you a kiss on your head. “How have you been? How’s school?”

“Everything’s great.” You lied.

“Please don’t lie to me.” Tom sighed.

“I’m not.” Another lie.

“Sam told me.” Tom said. The color left your face as you heard what Tom said. “I’m not mad. I just want to talk about it. He also told me what you guys talked about a few nights ago. Thought it would be easier to have this conversation.” You looked away from Tom.

“I’m sorry.” You whispered. “I swear I’m getting better now. I even scheduled an appointment with a therapist. Sam doesn’t know that though. I regret what I almost did. I’m going to get better. I promise you that.” You felt tears fall from your eyes. You tried to avoid looking at Tom.

Tom put his hand under you chin and turned your head towards his. “Look at me Y/N/N.” You refused to meet his eyes. “Come on. You can do it.” You slowly lifted your eyes to his. You noticed he was tearing up.

“I’m going to be with you in this fight. This isn’t something you have to fight alone.” He whispered. “No matter what, I will be here for you. I don’t care if it is 3 am and I’m on the other side of the world. I will answer a phone call or I’ll be on the next flight out. Nothing is more important than family. Not work, not Spider-Man, not anything. You are one of the most important people in my life.”

You started to cry harder as Tom continued. “When I got that phone call, it scared the living life out of me. I was on my way to ask for sometime off when Harry stopped me. He said Sam was helping you. That if I focused, the week would fly by and I could get home to you sooner.” You smiled at him.

“I’m really glad you’re home. I’m sorry for scaring you.”

“Don’t worry about that now. Now we focus on getting you healthy and winning this battle.” Tom said wiping your tears from your cheeks.

“But I’m healthy.” You said confused.

“Mental health is just as important as physical. It’s okay to not be okay. But together and with the help from Sam, Harry, Paddy, Mum, and Dad, we are going to get you back to your normal self. Help you learn how to cope with thoughts like that.” Tom said.

“I’m trying to learn to ignore people. They don’t know me.” You said. Tom smiled.

“Exactly. And for the hate you are getting from my fans, I’ll be saying something about that. I’m not going to stand by and watch them hurt someone I love.” Tom said.

“I love you Tom. Thank you for being the best big brother.” You said wrapping him up in a big hug. “Okay time for the important question, what present did you bring me?”

“I love you too Goofy Goober.” Tom said kissing your forehead. He laughed at your last question. “It’s all in the bag right there.” He pointed at the bag that now sits by your feet. You moved to start looking through it. “Now, what movie are we watching next?”

#tom holland #tom holland sister #tom holland x sister #tom holland x holland!reader #tom holland x y/n #tom holland x sister!reader #tom holland x reader #tom holland imagines #tom holland fanfic #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland one shot #tom holland imagine #holland!reader #holland!sister #brother!tom holland #brother!tom holland x sister!reader #tom holland angst #tom holland rpf

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tilbageidanmark · 3 years

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Movies I watched this week - 25

Was 1973 the greatest year in cinema?

Besides the ones below, 1973 was also the year of The Holy Mountain, Day for Night, Mean Streets, Badlands, La Planete Sauvage, Paper Moon, Scenes from a Marriage, Amarcord, Oh Lucky Man, American Graffiti, Enter the Dragon, The Sting, The Exorcist...

✳️✳️✳️ 1973: The Spirit Of The Beehive (El espíritu de la colmena) - one of the most beautiful Spanish films of all time.

It’s 1940, and six-year-old Anna lives with her family in an isolated Castilian village. A mobile cinema truck bring Frankenstein to the village.

Quiet, symbolic and deeply moving.

The trailer.

✳️✳️✳️ 1973: The Last Detail, written by Robert Towne, with Jack Nicholson at his peak and with cameos by Gilda Radner, Nancy Allen and Carol Kane. 9/10

“Welcome to the wonderful world of pussy, kid..”

Going to watch the few other Hal Ashby films again.

✳️✳️✳️ 1973: Critically-acclaimed Robert Altman’s anachronistic neo-noir The Long Goodbye, with chain smoking Elliott Gould as unconvincing and bumbling Philip Marlowe.

Also, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first movie appearance.

✳️✳️✳️ 1973! I don’t know why I haven’t revisited Don’t Look Now for at least 15 years: I always considered it to be Nicolas Roeg’s best film, but it’s actually one of the greatest films I ever saw! Cinematically, emotionally, with extraordinary sound editing (The first 8 min.! The dressing / undressing scene!)..

With Renato Scarpa as the police inspector: ”AH! MIS-ter BAX-ter!”

Simply perfect!

✳️✳️✳️ 1973: In La Grande Bouffe four friends, Marcello, Ugo, Michel and Philippe (played by Marcello Mastroianni, Ugo Tognazzi, Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret) decide to binge-eat themselves to death on fine cuisine. A decadent and perverted food and sex orgy, full of excess and anarchy that doesn’t end until the last one shits himself to death. But why?

Bon appétit!

✳️✳️✳️ 1973: Honest cop and whistleblower Serpico fights obsessively against systemic corruption at the New York Police Department.

With Who’s Who of the time in small parts: Hank Garrett, ‘The Mailman’ from ‘Three days of the Condor’, Jack Kehoe, Midnight Run’s ‘Jerry’, James Tolkan as Steiger, M. Emmet Walsh, F. Murray Abraham, John Randolph, Allan Rich ...

✳️✳️✳️ 1973 / First watch - The Wicker Man, a British folk horror number about a Christian copper vs. a Scottish village of pagan heathens. With younger Christopher Lee in a hippie drag.

It had a unique way of combing folk songs, sung by the characters, nearly like a strange musical.

✳️✳️✳️ 1973: Westworld, the robots malfunction and revolt at a futuristic, adult-themed amusement park. Yul Brynner as the original Terminator. 3/10.

✴️

Queen of Hearts, a complex erotic drama by Danish-Egyptian director May el-Toukhy. An illicit affair between gorgeous Trine Dyrholm and her stepson Gustav Lindh (From Riders of Justice!). Shockingly explicit sex and unexpected third act reverse expectations and sympathies.

Best film of the week!

✴️

Jackie Chan’s 1985 Police Story, a “broadly” choreographed slapstick / martial arts film. With young and chubby-faced Maggie Cheung, before she became world-class gorgeous.

✴️

This isn't a rental car - it's privately owned.

How come I’ve never seen David Byrne’s True Stories before? Written by Ned Ryerson himself. Kooky characters in small town Vernon, TX. inspired by actual supermarket tabloid stories. Like Nashville for the 80′s..

✴️

Crimes and Misdemeanors, a classic Woody Allen nihilist drama with a dual storyline that still holds its power.

“The eyes of God are always watching us” .

Toddler Dylan Farrow appears in a cameo at the wedding, and a distinct sub-plot has Allen wooing his teenage niece by taking her to see old movies and buying her art books... So, yuck to that part.

✴️

“It’s good to be king.”

Mel Brooks’ 40 year old class-conscience History of the world, Part 1 - narrated by Orson Welles, with cameos by John Hurt as Jesus and Hugh Hefner, who also supplied the harem of vestal virgins. While ‘The Meaning of Life’ which came 2 years later was about philosophy, this was about history.

But everybody had such pearly white teeth.

✴️

I started watching Jojo Rabbit 3 times before I could finish this pretentious Holocaust comedy of revisionist Nazi-chic cuteness. A ten-year-old Hitler Youth boy finds out that his mother, Scarlett Johansson, is hiding a Jewish girl in their attic. Kitschy, cowardly and lazy. This is not ‘The Great Dictator’ or ‘The Producers’, or even ‘Look who’s back’. It’s Hitler 101 explained to 10 year olds who never heard of him.

I wonder how they got the rights to The Beatles and Bowie songs.

Also, Hitler was not a smoker. 2/10. (Photo above)

✴️

Picked up a random Apple’s TV series, Home before dark, about a 9 year old girl playing a journalist. I tried to get into it, and saw 2.5 episodes, but it was so ordinary, and soul-less, and full of teenager flick cliches, that I had to quit. Even the Jason Robards quotes from ‘All the President’s Men’ couldn’t help it. PASS!

✴️

✳️✳️✳️ Woodward and Bernstein X 2

So, prompted by the series above, I watched All the President's Men again (for the 10? time). What a masterful film! Romancing investigative journalism never looked so good.

With a script by William Goldman, cinematography by Gordon Willis, and Robert Walden playing Donald Segretti.

The sparse score by Michael Small, who was Pakula’s go-to composer (and which I already mentioned here earlier)! Compared to his Parallax View theme.

True fact: Frank Wills, the black security guard who discovered the break-in, was fired without explanation a few days later. He was out of work for three years until he played himself (one day's work) in this film, and never had a full-time job again, until his death in 2000, at the age of 52.

✳️✳️✳️ Also, All the President's Men Revisited, a 2012 documentary featuring all the players, and just before Trump, so they all could comfortably predict that Watergate will happen again, but none of them realized how terribly soon it will be.

✴️

The company Men is about 3 senior executives trying to survive during the financial crisis of 2010 after getting fired, downsized, becoming redundant.

The Corporate-speak sounded fake, and Ben Affleck is not a good actor, so it wasn’t too engaging. 3/10

- - - - -

(My complete movie list is here)

#movies

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 3 years

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Teen Witch

Controversial opinion: stories about witches are the best stories. Just look at WandaVision - bitches ate that UP because it’s about WITCHES, which means it’s ultimately about loss and trauma and female (literal) empowerment in the face of those tragedies (and I mean there’s some complicated stuff in there about inflicting trauma upon others, even accidentally, and that’s kind of a witch thing too). And Sabrina is all well and good and everything, but what if you want your witch story to be a little less Dark Arts and a little more candy-coated? Have I got the film for you! Wes requested Teen Witch as part of his quest to expand my cheesy 80s cult classic knowledge, and boy did this one deliver. How 80s-tastic are we talking? Well...

The basic story is this: Louise (Robyn Lively) is a typical teen girl who occupies the nerd level of the high school hierarchy. You know the type - soft-spoken, nerdy best friend, has a crush on the cutest guy in school (Dan Gauthier), made fun of in gym class by all the cheerleaders. One day she crashes her bike in front of a psychic’s home/place of business and goes inside to use the phone, but gets her palm read first. The psychic, named Madame Serena, (Zelda Rubenstein, playing, I’m assuming, herself) tells her she will soon come into some witchy powers on her 16th birthday. When Louise’s birthday rolls around, you guessed it - witching aplenty. She gets the popularity, she gets the cute guy, she ditches her nerdy friend; it’s basically The Princess Diaries without Queen Julie Andrews. But then, y’know, she learns a valuable lesson about the high price of popularity and how important it is to be true to yourse--wait, no she doesn’t, she takes off her magic necklace and smooches with the boy she likes at the school dance and that’s how it ends.

Some thoughts:

This slow motion credit sequence is incredible. See, we just don’t have this anymore, where the movie starts and you have no fucking idea what’s going on. The 80s really knew how to draw an audience in. Is this a dream? Is this a music video? No one knows! That’s why it’s exciting!

Why are tv and movies so obsessed with a completely made-up depiction of what takes place outside a high school’s entrance before the first bell? Apparently there’s a busker festival going on at this high school every day - there’s guys doing BMX tricks, an all white rap group, I think I saw some jugglers.

I’ve actually taught in both middle and high school, so I know this English teacher (Shelley Berman) wouldn’t be fired for being such a shitty teacher, but he should be.

Is this like...a musical? First there was the terrible rapping, now there are cheerleaders doing “the new cheer” which is literally a song just saying “I...LIKE...BOYS!” and there’s a dance routine on top of lockers - there’s a lot of towel choreography. It feels like a musical in the sense that it’s nonsensical, but I don’t actually think it IS a musical. Genre-defying!

It’s kinda creepy that Louise is watching an extended montage of Brad (Gauthier) working out shirtless from the shadows but like...same, girl. Damn, Brad.

Aw, at least Brad is reasonably nice. Louise, show some backbone! You shouldn’t have been too proud to let him drive you home after he ran you off the road on your bike accidentally!

I am just mystified by the market for roles that were appropriate for Zelda Rubenstein in the 80s. What is this niche? Which came first, Zelda Rubenstein, or these characters?

I am also mystified by this gremliny little brother (Joshua John Miller) who seems to be obsessed with eating cake and never washing his hair. He’s like a goblin trapped in a diminutive nonbinary body made of pizza and spite. [ETA: I now feel a little bad for finding him so repellent in this, as the actor wrote one of my favorite meta horror movies, The Final Girls, in 2015. So at least he grew up and made something cool of himself.]

OMFG did Brad just hit the soda machine for her like the fucking Fonz?

There is (temporarily) a Very Good Dog who is not harmed in any way.

In what universe does Louise see what her date, David (Jared Chandler), is wearing and be like “he’s such a geek” when she looks like an extra from Leave it to Beaver.

The DJ just said “OK guys, grab your wallets, it’s a slow song.” What...does that even mean? Is he implying that slow dances are expensive? Ooh or even more nefarious, that there’s a rampant pickpocketing problem during slow dances?

Did Louise...just imply that the number of light years away a star is dictates how soon a wish you make on that star would come true? Listen. I’m no astrophysicist. But I have read enough Neil Degrasse Tyson tweets to know that that’s not how any of this works.

OK I take back what I said, David is a fucking CREEP. Drag his ass, Louise. However, I think she may have straight up murdered him by making him disappear. David is never seen or heard from again in this film.

Obsessed with the dad’s sweaters both because they are ridiculous and because he is the lesser Darren from the original Bewitched.

It feels weird that Louise’s revenge involves forcing Mr. Weaver to take his clothes off in front of the class.Who wants that? Like I get that it’s humiliating for him, but really, you’re only punishing yourself here Louise.

There is a rap-off that is meant to convey electric sexual tension between two nerdy ass white kids.

I don’t know what it was like at your school, but I can tell you for sure that at my high school no one ever applauded when the most popular girl in school walked into the classroom like she’s Kramer making an entrance on Seinfeld.

Why is Brad taking her to an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere? And why is she wearing heels?

Oh god she took the heels off and now she’s barefoot in this decrepit house, that’s so much worse! TETANUS EXISTS LOUISE.

Wait are they going to fuck in the abandoned house? Brad has a girlfriend! You brought heels, but did you bring condoms?? I guess she has bigger concerns than tetanus now. Also I feel so bad for these actors, they are both DRIPPING sweat. That must have been a miserable shoot.

I’ve said this before, but the 80s were such an incredible time for himbo fashion. Crop tops, those tank tops with the giant holes for the arms, teeny little basketball shorts. In the 90s all we had were JNCOs and weirdly “urbanized” Looney Tunes characters on baggy t-shirts. Gen X has no idea how good they had it re: male fashion.

I’m genuinely obsessed with the idea that popularity means the school just has banners all over that say “LOUISE” and she gets like, cards and fan mail that say “Louise U R the best.” This feels like if you ask a kindergartner what being popular means.

Madame Serena just said “the real magic is believing in yourself” which is exactly what Louise’s dad said like 15 minutes ago, but I guess he wasn’t a 3-foot-tall witch so no one paid attention when he said it.

Y’know for an 80s prom outfit, Louise’s dress is pretty cute.

I cannot stress enough that Brad’s girlfriend is at this dance while he and Louise are kissing! Does no one care? Were high school attitudes toward monogamy just way more flexible in the 80s?

Did I Cry? Shyeah, right.

This is such an odd, mostly charming, but wildly perplexing little movie. There was no antagonist or real conflict here, at all. Louise barely struggles with any sort of tension or remorse about having her powers and what it means for her life, she just kind of decides at the end that she’s over it, and she still gets the guy and no actual negative consequences from bending the entire school to her will for the past few months. I mean, in The Craft, when people use magic for their own gains, other people fucking DIE. I was definitely entertained, but a lot of it was due to me saying, “What? How? What?” loudly at the screen. I can see how this has gained a cult following in much the same way that other oddball 80s fare like Better Off Dead or Girls Just Wanna Have Fun did. Watch it once, then watch it again while you get drunk with your friends (in a post-Covid world, obviously) and you’ll probably have a pretty great time.

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

#121in2021 #teen witch #teen witch review #robyn lively #dan gauthier #zelda rubinstein #movie reviews #film reviews #patreon review

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artificialqueens · 3 years

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Pretty in Pearls, Chapter 6 (Jankie) - Plastiquedoll

read on ao3 💄| previous chapters

A/N: hi! it took me a while but here's a new update I hope you enjoy it! thank you for reading it! <3

-6-

“I can’t do this anymore,” Jan complained.

Jackie lifted her gaze from the book she was reading.

“This is the third time you say that… algebra can’t possibly be that bad.”

“For your consideration, there aren’t even numbers on these exercises, it’s Math… there should be numbers… where are the numbers?” She whined.

“Don’t look at me, why do you think I chose Art History? After high school, I promised myself my relationship with calculus was over.”

Jan sighed but focused on the assignment once again.

“Okay… I’m done… that was the last exercise of the sheet. I refuse to keep using my brain for what’s left of the day.”

Jackie chuckled.

They were alone in the copy room. It had been one of those quiet days; it was raining outside so Jan’s practice had been canceled but luckily her friend enjoyed her company while she did homework as well. In the past two hours, only a lost student walked in begging for a copy of a study guide for a mid-term for the following day. Jackie had the radio on and she had let the younger chose the station, Jan had picked a bubblegum pop radio that kept playing songs from the ’00s and the 10’s –to which she had found Jackie mumbling the lyrics a couple of times.

As much as she hated to miss her practice, she had to admit it was the first time in two weeks she had a moment to breathe. With her responsibilities and new hobby involved, she barely had time to take a break.

Jackie had her eyes on the book and one hand on the computer’s keyboard. She had been writing notes non-stop since her meeting with the dean. As she had explained it to Jan, her complaint had been discussed, and even when she presented a well-written note and had some witnesses to back it up, the only thing the university was doing was reprimand him and, –since it was the first time someone had said something about the professor’s behavior- let him continue his classes with a warning.

In terms of Jackie’s situation, they had dictated that she’d be able to present a final assignment that would include several –if not all- units of the program, and it would be evaluated by a panel of professors from similar backgrounds, to make it fair. The thing was that her former professor was the one that had formulated the questions and, aside from being a lot, they were pretty gimmicky and for all those reasons, she had started the assignment way earlier than the semester was over, just to be sure.

“Okay, I’m done for the day too.” She closed her notebook. “I feel like there’s smoke coming from my ears or something.”

“Oh, was it you? I thought it was one of the machines.”

Jackie scrunched her nose. “Anyway, it seems like it’s a slow day and I have ten more minutes here so… Do you want to go watch a movie at the cinema?”

“At the cinema? Whoa… I haven’t thought about it but it’s been ages since I went to watch a movie…”

“Is that a yes…?” Jackie did her best to hide her nervousness behind the question.

“Sure. But I have to warn you, I’m not good with horror movies.” Jan shrugged.

“I saw that coming… But there’s this old cinema called Bellamy, we could ride the subway and would be there in no time. They play random movies every day so we could just get there and grab a couple of tickets for the next feature. What do you say?”

“Sounds good to me. Oh! I’ll put it on the group chat in case anyone else wants to tag along.”

Jackie’s lips turned into a thin line. “Okay… you do that and I’ll finish here.”

Jan hadn’t even noticed the shift in the girl’s mood, she was way too excited typing the message on her phone.

“I hope you’re not upset but it seems it’s going to be just me and you,” Jan mentioned while Jackie closed the door of the copy room. “Everyone’s plans or they are studying or… I don’t know.”

“Oh… no… it’s fine by me if it’s fine for you.”

“Of course! It’ll be fun!” She smiled.

It was still raining outside so they shared Jackie’s red umbrella that matched with her rain boots.

“What’s with this downpour?” Jackie wiped some drops from her clothes once they got underground. “Okay, here we go.”

Jan seemed amused. “I have never ridden the subway… well, back when I was like four I’m sure my mom took us me and my brother but I have no memories of it whatsoever.”

“You’ll get used to it quickly. Honestly, it’s one of the easiest ways to travel when it’s not packed.”

Without objecting, Jan followed Jackie’s lead up close. They almost coordinated steps to avoid puddles while running; the comical situation got them laughing at loud all their way to the subway station.

“I’m out of breath.” Jackie leaned against one column before closing the umbrella.

They shook some drops out of their clothes and waited for the subway to arrive. When it arrived not even five minutes later, they rushed to climb onto the wagon before they got pushed by others passengers. At least with the rain, there was place to move and even some seats available.

Jan had decided she liked riding the subway, it was a great place to observe the diversity of the fauna of the city. There were all kinds of people around probably heading to their works or their homes or to meet friends or just somewhere different. It was exciting, to consider the unlimited possibilities.

She looked at Jackie and displayed a giant grin that had the other girl blushing lightly and looking away.

“So how did you find this place?” Jan asked after a couple of minutes.

It caught Jackie out of guard. “Huh? What do you mean?” She frowned lightly.

“I was wondering how did you find this place since it’s not near the campus.”

“Oh that… I actually discovered it a couple of years ago. Things at home with my mom after the divorce weren’t precisely on the best terms so after school I never got straight back there. Instead, I started wandering around and taking the subway or the bus to go anywhere really.” Her voice threatened with breaking but she quickly cleared her throat. “One of those times I ended up in this old building, a theatre with so much history and they played these movies I had never seen before so… I stayed there ever since.”

“Whoa… that’s…” Jan wanted to reach for her hand but the older girl hurried to jump off the seat.

“This is our stop.” She pointed out.

“Alright. We’re here.”

“We are.” Jackie showed her a smile and grabbed the umbrella, ready to face the rain. “Let’s go.”

They had arrived just in time for Carrie but since Jan had stated she didn’t enjoy horror films, they waited ten minutes for the next movie to start. Coincidentally, it was My Fair Lady with Audrey Hepburn so it would also work for research purposes –or that was what Jan said- aside from the fact she had never watched it.

Jackie couldn’t say she was a newbie to Hepburn’s movies, she had watched all of them at least once but having company was new to her. Since getting into college she had stopped needing the cinema as an escape, a way to avoid reality at least for a couple hours; it was after meeting her friends and starting her classes that she eventually had less time to go there or simply, didn’t need it anymore.

Now, it was a whole different scenario. She had Jan next to her and it was a bit magical to see her in the dark with the light of the screen reflecting on her face, something that made her heart race. She would’ve died to hold her hand at that instant but it was true that she’d also die if she touched her as if Jan held the power of burning her with a mere contact.

Then, the screen went black and the credits started rolling, the movie was over.

They waited until most people had left the room and then they walked out.

“So, did you like the movie?”

Jan tilted her head. “Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a period piece from time to time and the costumes were iconic but… Professor Higgins is awful!” She gestured with her hands to emphasize her displeasure. “He spent all this time torturing Eliza… changing her to the point where she couldn’t go back to her life. That’s a psychopath.”

“Oh thank God, we agree.” Jackie sighed with relief.

“No wonder Rosé and her classmates changed part of the plot because…”

“Yeah. I’m dying to see that. How are the rehearsals going by the way?”

“They are great, I have a small part… the equivalent of one of those ladies on the horse races and I appear in two numbers but the rehearsals are so much fun with everyone. It's a nice group of people that are passionate about musicals.��

They got out of the room and saw the people already gathering for the next feature. The smell of popcorn was strong in the air just like the humidity of the rain on the carpet.

Jackie spotted a familiar face and her eyes lighted up. “Oh my God, Sophie!” She waved toward a short old woman with white hair and giant round glasses. “Jan, you have to meet Sophie”

“Jackie, darling.” She shuffled toward them. She pulled Jackie for a tight hug. The woman barely reached her waist.

“Sophie, this is my friend, Jan.” She introduced them.

“Hi-” Before Jan could say something else, Sophie also hugged her.

“Sophie is the owner of the theatre,” Jackie explained once the old lady let the younger breathe.

“Oh! That’s awesome. It’s really nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you too. I have waited for ages for Jackie to finally bring a special someone…”

“No!” Jackie shook her head. “It’s- It’s not like that at all… We’re friends.”

“Pardon me, it’s only that when you introduced me to this lovely young lady I just thought… maybe someone had finally melted your cold façade.”

“Oh, Sophie… what are you saying?” She laughed nervously, her face was completely red. “Don’t listen to her… she’s old.”

Jan giggled. “It’s alright. I adore Jackie, she’s one of my best friends.”

“I haven’t seen this one in a while, you’d think she vanished or something.” The woman pointed.

“I’m sorry, Sophie. I should’ve called you at least.”

“For sure.” Sophie nagged.

“It won’t happen again… I’ll come back more often after the midterms, I promise it.”

“Oh darling, you haven’t heard, have you?”

Jackie looked puzzled. “What?”

“The Bellamy is going to be demolished.”

“What?!” The girl’s jaw dropped to the floor.

“How?” Jan asked, in disbelief as well.

“Well, a group of rich people has decided this is the perfect location to build one of those department stores.”

“No, no, no… this can’t be. This place is sacred, part of the cultural heritage of the city, it can’t be destroyed to build a mall.”

The old lady shrugged. “There’s not much I can do about it, it’s already written.” She patted Jackie’s shoulder. “Listen, honey, the important thing is that this place served its purpose for a long, long time and we got to enjoy it.”

Jackie was on the verge of tears. “How can you say that? How can you give up just like that? Without even putting a fight? The Bellamy is not just another cinema.”

The girl stormed out of the theatre before anyone else could say something.

“Wait! Jackie!” Jan shouted but she lost the girl in the crowd. “I’m sorry, I’m sure she didn’t mean any of that.” She softly explained to Sophie.

“You don’t need to tell me, I know. Now go after her, she needs a friend right now.”

“Yeah… I will…” Jan turned around.

“Oh, and Jan, one more thing,” Sophie called. “keep an eye on her, she seems inscrutable sometimes but she’s sensitive underneath.”

Jan displayed a tiny smile. “I know.”

“Jackie! Jackie wait!”

As if it didn’t matter at all, it had stopped raining.

She found the elder laying against the wall, next to a Casablanca poster that had been there since… well… probably since Casablanca first premiered.

Jackie’s cheeks were wet and her eyes reddened but she had wiped all the tears before Jan got closer.

“Hey… I’m so sorry.” Jan looked at her with soft eyes.

Jackie closed her eyes and sighed loudly. “I can’t believe it… this theatre is a home to me.”

“There must be a way to save it, we’ll figure something out.”

“I don’t know… it seems impossible… even Sophie has renounced.”

“Then we’ll convince her as well.” Jan grabbed her wrists. “We’ll find a way, there’s always a way.”

“Okay, Disney Channel Original Movie motivational speech.”

Jan chuckled. “What do you say if –for now- we go home and pick something to eat? I’m starving and... is it me or popcorn buckets are getting smaller?”

She got a smile from Jackie, that was a win.

“Plus, if I want to become a subway expert I’m supposed to ride it again, right?”

“I suppose that’s correct.”

“I’m telling you, I know this vegetarian place that has the best eggplant tacos and veggie sushi…” Jackie was commenting when they returned to the dorms.

“Sounds amazing, just let me pick some money from my room and we’ll be ready to go. You can come with me if you want.”

“Alright.”

They climbed the stairs until Jan stopped in her tracks making Jackie almost bump into her.

“Hey, careful there…”

But the brunette was petrified, watching the scene that happened on the very same floor of her dormitory. It took Jackie a moment to locate the event that had caused such commotion but as soon as she saw it, she just wished her friend hadn’t.

There he was, Nathan, the object of her affections, walking out the room of a girl that lived in the building. A different girl, it wasn’t the girl from the first day or another girl she had seen him with before. This was a gorgeous girl –like the others- but there was something different about him -him with her- the way he put the missing lock behind her ear and got closer to press a chaste kiss on her lips, the way they smiled after their lips touched.

Jan felt sick to her stomach, her face got pale and she barely could hold the tears.

The couple returned to the room and right when the door closed, she ran directly to her room. She desperately searched for the keys.

“Jan? Are you…?” Jackie touched her shoulder.

Jan sobbed. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine… I just… I need to find the keys… it’s like I can’t find them anywhere.” She kept rummaging her backpack without result.

It was too late, she broke into tears, her knees gave in and she ended on the floor.

“I’m sorry, this must look so stupid in comparison to the theatre but… It hurts so badly.” Her voice broke into pieces. “I keep telling myself it’s just another girl but there’s always another girl… It's exhausting.”

“Oh, Jan… no…” Jackie kneeled next to her and embraced her in a hug. “It’s not you.”

“I know that… it will never be me.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.”

She finally found her keys and got up.

“I’m sorry, Jackie. I’ve lost my appetite.” Her voice sounded weak, distant.

“No, wait… you don’t have to be alone right now.” Jackie hurried to stand up.

“I really… really… want to be alone.” She sobbed harder. “I don’t want you to see me like this.” She closed the door on Jackie’s face as soon as she got in.

“Jan!” Jackie knocked on the door. “Jan… please don’t do this. Jan, please… open the door.”

She tried for another five minutes but finally gave up. Jan wasn’t opening the door and the best Jackie could do was texting Rosé hoping the girl would come home earlier to take care of her.

It broke Jackie’s heart to see her like that, especially for a guy like Nathan, one that wasn’t worth the tears.

The following day, it surprised Jackie to find a text message from Jan early in the morning –earlier than any of her classes.

From Jan 🐻: Meet me at Lucky’s before class. It’s important.

Jackie jumped out of bed and rushed to get ready as soon as she read it, after a night of poor sleep she was waiting for that text message.

She walked straight to the diner and found her friend sitting on a table with her computer open and her pink-haired roommate sitting in front of her.

“Hey...” She approached the table.

“Jackie, you’re here!” Jan greeted with the same energetic tone she had –even that early in the morning. Although she looked hyped, the bags under her eyes told a different story.

“Uh… Are you okay?” Jackie asked before taking a seat next to her. She also eyed Rosé who just shrugged.

“Peachy.” She smiled. “Would you like a cup of coffee maybe? Waffles? Pancakes? French toast?”

“The waffles are really good.” Rosé pointed.

“Thanks… I’ll have some eggs maybe but… what’s going on? Yesterday…”

“Yesterday was yesterday and today is today.” Jan gestured with her hands. “I texted you because I have something super important to show you.” She pointed at her computer's screen.

That was it? They were going to pretend the Nathan incident hadn’t happened at all? Well, at least for Jan, that was the case.

“Alright… tell me.”

“So, I did some research and I believe it is possible to save the theatre if we gather enough evidence to prove it has historic importance for the city.” The page of the culture ministry was opened along with at least fifty different tabs on the subject.

“And how exactly are you going to do that?” Jackie raised an eyebrow.

“I was hoping you’d come with an idea since you know the place better than me. Maybe Sophie could tell us some story or we could do our own research.”

Jackie sighed. “I guess it could work but we’d need to invest hours on this and… are you sure you want to do it? I feel like you have a lot on your plate already.”

“Oh no, she devoured the pancakes the second the plate touched the table, trust me.” Rosé assured.

“I was hungry and I didn’t eat them right away, they drew a face with the blueberries so I took a picture and posted it on Instagram first.” She shook her head. “As I was saying, this is important for you, Jackie and I want to help.” She stared at her, hoping she would convince her with those arguments.

“Jan, I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t even try it.” Rosé mumbled. “I already did and she chose to ignore me categorically so I followed her here to make sure she didn’t jump from a bridge or something.”

“She’s also here to hit on my coworker so it’s really a win-win situation.”

They high-fived.

“That’s lovely… but we should talk about what happened last night…”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Jan stated. “I’m fine.”

“Yeah, I don’t think…”

But Jackie was interrupted by Denali.

“Hi, how’s it going over here? Do you guys want something else?” She had her eyes fixed on her notebook.

“Can I get a cup of Americano and scrambled eggs?” Jackie asked. She needed some coffee to go through it.

“Right away. Do you girls would like something else? More coffee?”

“We’re good.” Jan smiled.

“Oh, Jan, I have your check over there if you want to collect it right now.”

“Thank you, Nali. I’ll be there in a second.”

Rosé cleared her throat. “I’ve been meaning to ask you…”

But it was like the cat had caught the pink-haired girl’s tongue.

“…if you can pour more coffee for me?”

“Sure.” She smiled politely but it was clear that Rosé was melting inside.

Once the waitress left, all the eyes were on Rosé.

“What? I got paralyzed. I can’t do it. I can’t. It is physically impossible for me to ask her out, my body reacts like that.”

“I believe, as science people and Twitter users have once referred to it, that's a case of gay panic. Have you tried in a different way?” Jackie asked before sipping some of Jan’s coffee. “What is this?” She winced.

“Decaffeinated.”

“Ugh…”

“Bitch, I have tried… I even left my number written on a $20 bill when I went to the bathroom earlier, hoping she’d see it but it’s like I’m invisible.”

“That’s not right. Denali loves to flirt and she’s single so I don’t see why she wouldn’t say yes. Oh, I know, you could invite her to the play's opening night.”

Jackie looked at the younger, Jan had dodged the conversation about her but there was no way her friend wasn’t going to dig into it later.

“Maybe I can pave the way for you… find out if she’s having a rough morning or something that affects her response.”

“Would you do that for me?” Rosé didn’t sound so sure about it.

“Of course, I have to pick up my check… my first check here.”

“Congratulations.” Jackie smiled at her.

“Thank you.” She then touched her roommate’s arm. “Leave it to me. I’ll be subtle.”

“Jan…” Before Rosé could say something, she was already heading toward the counter.

“Was it bad?” Jackie asked once the brunette left.

“Girl… You have no idea.” Rosé sighed.

“Thank you, Nali.” Jan held the check proudly in her hands.

“Is your name correct?”

“Yes, it’s perfect.”

“Remember you work tomorrow so have a moderate amount of fun with it and stay away from ice skates and acrylic nails hot sales… Huh… I guess that only applies to me.” Denali turned around.

“Denali… I was wondering…”

The raven-haired girl dropped a pile of napkins.

“Shit. Don’t tell anyone but I forgot to put my contacts on this morning and basically, I can’t see shit without these giant glasses.” She murmured before quickly putting a pair of dark frame glasses on. She grabbed the napkins and after typing something on the computer, took them off immediately.

“Oh… that explains a lot actually…”

“What do you mean?”

Subtle Jan, subtle.

“So my roommate likes you.”

Denali almost tripped. “Wait, what?”

“She’s been trying to ask you out for the past weeks but she feels like you’re ignoring her.”

Denali dragged Jan behind the counter with her and kneeled before putting the glasses back on.

“Which one is your roommate?” She whispered.

“The one with the pink hair that comes here often… is a regular. You can't ignore her she's like one of those anime main characters with the funky hair.”

“Oh my God, Fine Wine is your roommate?”

“What?”

“She’s always singing that Kylie Minogue song and I thought it was a joke since you guys call her Rosé but…”

“That’s her name.”

“Well, she is fine wine.” Denali pushed the glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Are you sure about this?”

“Yeah? She even left a $20 bill with her number as a tip for you?”

“That was her?! I thought it was one of the creepy guys from table six. Oh my God…” She grabbed the jar of tips and started searching for the bill.

“Bitch if I’m missing a single dollar from that jar I swear to God…” Kandy yelled from the other side of the diner.

“Shut up, I’m in the middle of something here…” Finally, she pulled out the bill with pink glitter ink.

“It says XOXO Rosé.”

“What part of «I’m not wearing glasses» you didn't catch?”

"Is that a yes, though?

Denali nodded. She removed the glasses and waved toward their table. “Hey Rosé, if you’re not busy tonight, I’ll call you!”

Rosé blushed instantly but she nodded with a smile on her face.

Jackie, behind her, just shook her head, acknowledging that the shenanigans of her friend had worked out once again.

#rpdr fanfiction #jan sport #jackie cox #jankie #rosnali #college au #lesbian au #slow burn #pretty in pearls #plastiquedoll #concrit welcome

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thenightling · 3 years

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Were schools actively trying to make us hate reading?

Tonight I got to thinking of all the unpleasant works of literature I was made to read as a kid. Sure, Charlotte’s web teaches about life and death but there was this phase where everyone wanted to write the next Charlotte’s web and schools fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.

It got to a point where I fully ANTICIPATED the assigned reading to be gloomy, depressing, or end in Death.

Let’s look at some common examples. Chocolate Wars, To Kill a Mockingbird, Charlotte’s Web. On my Honor.

Anyone else subjected to On my Honor? A kid watches his friend drown and then spends the rest of the story wandering around in shock and no one else knows the other kid is dead. It’s pretty f--ked up.

Not every children's’ literature needs to be bleak and depressing. Thankfully I became a lover of books DESPITE what I was assigned to read as a kid, not because of it. In fact if I was to judge books solely on what I was assigned I would assume that all works of great literature are innately bleak and depressing.

Even the ones that weren’t tragic were incredibly boring. In fifth grade half the class got to Mrs. Brisby and the Rats of NIMH (The Secret of NIMH). But the other half (my half) had to read Sarah Plain and Tall. Sarah Plain and tall was BORING to me. It literally felt like a Hallmark movie (and surprise, surprise, it was made into one!) It wasn’t fair that half the class got to read about the super-intelligent laboratory mice who got a Don Bluth film adaptation.

And I hated The Old Man and the Sea so much that even today I still have a resentment for Hemmingway. Watching a bio film about him when we were done and seeing how abusive he was to his family and his obsession with being manly and macho didn’t exactly help.

It wasn’t until high school when we were assigned Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and I was actively DISCOURAGED from reading ahead. “You’ll forget what you’ve read and then be lost when the rest of the class reads that part.” I read ahead anyway and was never lost. But that shows how little faith these teachers have in us being able to read for enjoyment and retain what we’ve read, doesn’t it? That was ninth grade.

In tenth grade I was made to read the Joy Luck Club. Another depressing book, about the struggles of immigrant woman. It wasn’t a bad read but why were there so few fantasy, horror, scifi, or even just hopeful stories being assigned? Why did everything have to be so gritty?

I was always bad with names so guess what we were assigned with that one? A test where we had to match the quote to the character. I am convinced I was being taught by sadists...

Maybe I’m being paranoid but every time I think of what schools banned like Goosebumps (which were extremely popular when I was a kid, as this was pre-Harry Potter) and then later some schools banning Harry Potter, and the Scary Stories to tell in the dark books (which I took on all my sleep overs as a kid) it almost feels like a conscious and active effort to discourage a joy and love in reading. Anything fun and magical seemed forbidden. Anything hopeful was discouraged or “not real literature.”

As I said, I developed a love of books DESPITE my assigned reading, not because of it.

Despite being in a normal English class I was in the vision impaired program in high school because I have very poor eyesight. The class room for the “Vision program” had two shelves loaded with large print illustrated editions of classic literature from Frankenstein and the Invisible Man to Treasure Island. The head of that program thought it was a great idea to make it where I could read what I wanted IF I wrote a report on each book I read and only then I could read the next.

These book reports entailed buying expensive portfolio binders (teachers insisted on them in Jr. Highschool onward). My family was poor and did NOT have a car, thankfully we had a party supply store only a few blocks away (across a very busy triple Intersection) that carried school supplies. it also entailed printing up most of the report on computer (I was very poor and didn’t have one and the class computer cost five cents per sheet of paper and twenty five cents elsewhere. I couldn’t even afford that and the teacher didn’t seem to believe this). I would have to sneak-read and lie about what I had or hadn’t read just to avoid having to make these book reports. It’s not that I disliked writing. I’m actually quite good at it. It’s that it was f--king expensive for me. I literally couldn’t afford it. Sometimes she’d accept hand written reports but “only if it’s very neat” and since my hand writing is very poor I’d have my mother write it for me while I dictated to her because she never read those books.

A combination of so many assigned books just being miserable, sad, or boring, and lacking any whimsy or charm, some teachers telling me not to read ahead, interesting books being banned, and forced book reports it makes me amazed I managed to grow into a book lover.

If I hadn’t discovered books I love on my own I think I might hate literature right now based on how it was “taught” to me in school.

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verifiedaccount · 4 years

Text

25 more movies (and one miniseries) you can watch on youtube

I posted 11 movies that are on youtube yesterday (Part 1) but since things are really starting to get shut down here’s more worthwhile movies and a miniseries you can watch for free on youtube right now

Leave Her To Heaven (1945): Gene Tierney is Ellen, a woman whose only crime is “loving too much,” and also all the other crimes she commits to make sure there are no competitors for husband Cornel Wilde’s affections in John M. Stahl’s incredibly lurid and entertaining technicolor melodrama.

M (1931): Fritz Lang’s masterpiece is the basis for every subsequent movie about hunting a serial killer and it’s still the best one.

The Naked Kiss (1964): Here’s the jacket copy from Criterion: “The setup is pure pulp: A former prostitute (a crackerjack Constance Towers) relocates to a buttoned-down suburb, determined to fit in with mainstream society. But in the strange, hallucinatory territory of writer-director-producer Samuel Fuller, perverse secrets simmer beneath the wholesome surface. Featuring radical visual touches, full-throttle performances, brilliant cinematography by Stanley Cortez, and one bizarrely beautiful musical number, The Naked Kiss is among Fuller’s greatest, boldest entertainments.”

Underworld USA (1961): Dave Kehr on the film: “Sam Fuller's harsh, obsessional 1960 crime drama is narrated in the style of a comic book gone berserk. Cliff Robertson is the neurotic hero, bent on avenging his father's death by infiltrating and destroying a crime syndicate that operates under the redolent name “National Projects.” Corruption is all-pervasive in this vision of America, and Fuller disturbingly suggests that only a madman can make a difference. One image from Underworld—of a heavy striking straight at the camera—prompted Jean-Luc Godard to describe Fuller's films as “cinema-fist.” There is no more apt phrase.”

Pickup on South Street (1953): Another Sam Fuller. Here’s Georgia Hubley of Yo La Tengo on the film: “Richard Widmark manages to portray himself as twisted, conniving, pathological, sleazy, tragic, vulnerable, and handsome all at once in most of the movies I’ve seen him in, and never more exquisitely than in this, one of my favorite film noirs.“

Journey to Italy (1954): Richard Brody on the film: “One of the most quietly revolutionary works in the history of cinema, Roberto Rossellini’s third feature starring Ingrid Bergman (his wife at the time), from 1953, turns romantic melodrama into intellectual adventure. [...] From Rossellini’s example, the young French New Wave critics learned to fuse studio style with documentary methods, and to make high-relief drama on a low budget.”

The Spook Who Sat By The Door (1973): A satirical thriller based on the Sam Greenlee novel about the CIA recruiting a token black agent who quickly realizes they have no intention of letting him advance to a meaningful position and decides to head back to Chicago to teach the black revolutionaries all the latest guerrilla warfare tactics. Despite playing to packed houses the film was quickly pulled from theaters with little explanation and remained out of circulation until a DVD was issued in 2004.

The Big Combo (1955): Dave Kehr’s capsule: “This 1955 film noir borders on total abstraction for most of its length and then achieves it in an astonishing final scene—a shoot-out in the fog that suggests an armed and dangerous Michelangelo Antonioni. Where the usual noir takes place in a nightmare world, this one seems to inhabit a dream: there's no longer fear in the images, but rather a distanced, idealized beauty. With Cornel Wilde, Jean Wallace, Brian Donlevy, and Richard Conte; the director is Joseph H. Lewis (Gun Crazy).”

The Stranger (1946): Orson Welles’s film concerns an FBI agent (Edward G. Robinson) tracking Nazi war criminals whose search takes him to a small Connecticut town where the local schoolteacher (Orson Welles) is not what he seems. It’s the most conventional Welles film, reportedly intended to prove he could turn in a movie on time and on budget, but it’s still plenty entertaining.

F For Fake (1973): Orson Welles documentary/essay/whatsit about forgers and frauds, specifically Elmyr de Hory, who became famous as an art forger because instead of forging existing paintings he painted new ones in the style of famous artists, and Clifford Irving, who wrote a best-selling book on Elmyr and then was busted for a fraud of his own, the fake Howard Hughes autobiography. A wildly enjoyable, incredibly edited, one of a kind mindbender.

Citizen Kane (1941): It’s Citizen Kane. You just have to put up with hardcoded Korean subs.

Detour (1945): Roger Ebert on the film: “Detour is a movie so filled with imperfections that it would not earn the director a passing grade in film school. This movie from Hollywood's poverty row, shot in six days, filled with technical errors and ham-handed narrative, starring a man who can only pout and a woman who can only sneer, should have faded from sight soon after it was released in 1945. And yet it lives on, haunting and creepy, an embodiment of the guilty soul of film noir. No one who has seen it has easily forgotten it.”

A Woman Under The Influence (1974): Dave Kehr: “John Cassavetes's 1974 masterpiece, and one of the best films of its decade. Cassavetes stretches the limits of his narrative—it's the story of a married couple, with the wife hedging into madness—to the point where it obliterates the narrator: it's one of those extremely rare movies that seem found rather than made, in which the internal dynamics of the drama are completely allowed to dictate the shape and structure of the film. The lurching, probing camera finds the same fascination in moments of high drama and utter triviality alike—and all of those moments are suspended painfully, endlessly. Still, Cassavetes makes the viewer's frustration work as part of the film's expressiveness; it has an emotional rhythm unlike anything else I've ever seen.”

Opening Night (1977): Another Cassavetes masterpiece, again starring the great Gena Rowlands, with Gena as an actress mentally disintegrating as she tries to prepare for an upcoming play. Easier to start with this one than A Woman Under The Influence. Richard Brody on the film: “Though there isn’t a movie camera anywhere to be seen—and Cassavetes, with his tightly sculpted, uninhibitedly intimate images, is a master of the camera—Opening Night captures with astonishment and boundless admiration the uninhibited ferocity of the art that brings life onto the screen. (In fact, Cassavetes had originally planned to take the role of the play’s director.) It’s one of the greatest tributes ever paid by a director to an actress.“

Magnificent Obsession (1954): It’s not necessarily Douglas Sirk’s best technicolor melodrama but this adaptation of Lloyd C. Douglas’s ridiculous bestseller is the most melodramatic one. From Cine-File: “Produced in the wake of Henry Koster's CinemaScope adaptation of Douglas' THE ROBE, Sirk's 1954 remake of MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION is, by any standard, an absolutely batshit movie. (It's the kind of film where a lecture about the radical power of kindness compares the crucifixion of Christ to the act of turning on a light bulb.) It's not so much an adaptation of Douglas as a third-hand amplification of his aura. "Ross Hunter gave me the book," Sirk recalled, "and I tried to read it, but I just couldn't. It is the most confused book you can imagine.” As Geoffrey O'Brien asserts in his essay for the film's Criterion release, Sirk earnestly examines that which he admits to finding absurd, forcing such questions as, "What if this weren't crazy? What if it were real? What sort of a world would that be, and how different would it be from the one we inhabit?" Therein lies the genius of Sirk's glorious melodrama, one certainly worth seeing in all its Technicolor magnificence.

All That Heaven Allows (1955): Geoff Andrew on the film: “On the surface a glossy tearjerker about the problems besetting a love affair between an attractive middle class widow and her younger, 'bohemian' gardener, Sirk's film is in fact a scathing attack on all those facets of the American Dream widely held dear. Wealth produces snobbery and intolerance; family togetherness creates xenophobia and the cult of the dead; cosy kindness can be stultifyingly patronising; and materialism results in alienation from natural feelings. Beneath the stunningly lovely visuals - all expressionist colours, reflections, and frames-within-frames, used to produce a precise symbolism - lies a kernel of terrifying despair created by lives dedicated to respectability and security, given its most harrowing expression when Wyman, having given up her affair with Hudson in order to protect her children from gossip, is presented with a television set as a replacement companion. Hardly surprising that Fassbinder chose to remake the film as Fear Eats the Soul.“

Written on the Wind (1956): Dave Kehr: “One of the most remarkable and unaccountable films ever made in Hollywood, Douglas Sirk's 1957 masterpiece turns a lurid, melodramatic script into a screaming Brechtian essay on the shared impotence of American family and business life. Sirk's highly imaginative use of color—to accent, undermine, and sometimes even nullify the drama—remains years ahead of contemporary technique. The degree of stylization is high and impeccable: one is made to understand the characters as icons as well as psychologically complex creations.“

His Girl Friday (1940): Geoff Andrew’s capsule: “Charles Lederer’s frantic script needs to be heard at least a dozen times for all the gags to be caught; Russell’s Hildy more than equals Burns in cunning and speed; and Hawks transcends the piece’s stage origins effortlessly, framing with brilliance, conducting numerous conversations simultaneously, and even allowing the film’s political and emotional thrust to remain upfront alongside the laughs. Quite simply a masterpiece.“

Bringing Up Baby (1938): Ignatiy Vishnevetsky on the film: “Possessed by an overwhelming sense of comic energy, Howard Hawks’ screwball masterpiece heaps on misunderstandings, misadventures, perfectly timed jokes, and patter to the point that it’s easy to overlook how rich and fluid it is a piece of filmmaking, effortlessly transitioning from one thing into the next.”

Underworld (1927): Dave Kehr: “The first full-fledged gangster movie and still an effective mood piece, this 1927 milestone was directed by the master of delirious melodrama, Josef von Sternberg. George Bancroft is the hard-boiled hero, granted tragic status in his final sacrifice. Ben Hecht wrote the script, and many of the same ideas turn up, in a very different moral context, in his screenplay for Howard Hawks's 1932 masterpiece, Scarface.“

Q - The Winged Serpent (1982): In Larry Cohen’s cheapo classic, Quetzelcoatl terrorizes New York. Michael Moriarty plays a bumbling, unlucky small time crook (the robbery he participates in goes hilariously wrong; losing the keys to the getaway car is just the start) who accidentally discovers the monster’s nest and realizes he’s stumbled into the opportunity of a lifetime. He’s willing to help the authorities, including cops played by David Carradine and Richard Roundtree, but they’re gonna have to pay for it. Very goofy and very fun.

Stalag 17 (1953): Billy Wilder’s classic mixes POW drama with comedy as a group of prisoners in a German POW camp try to figure out who in their barracks is a rat while they plan their escape.

Hellzapoppin (1941): Ignatiy Vishnevetsky: “The opening reel may be the most manic stretch of go-for-broke gonzo comedy to come out of studio-era Hollywood, with the zoot-suited duo of Olsen and Johnson introduced tumbling out of a New York taxi into the bowels of hell (“That’s the first taxi driver that ever went straight where I told him to!”) in the midst of a musical number about how “Anything can happen / And it probably will.” Dozens of throwaway gags—including the first Citizen Kane reference in film history—and an argument with the projectionist (once and future Stooge Shemp Howard) follow, before the movie snaps into something vaguely resembling sanity. From there, Hellzapoppin’ finds Olsen and Johnson wandering in and out of a musical comedy that’s seems to be on the verge of falling apart and tussling with such comedy ringers as Martha Raye and Mischa Auer, the latter cast as a real Russian nobleman who’s trying to pass as a fake Russian nobleman. It’s like a Marx Brothers movie playing at triple speed; it eludes easy summary—it’s a real “you have to see it to believe it” kind of movie—and often stretches the limits of the Production Code. True to its absurdist sensibility, Hellzapoppin’ ended up getting nominated for an Oscar by mistake, for a song that doesn’t appear in the movie.”

Outrage (1950): Directed and cowritten by Ida Lupino, this was one of the first Hollywood movies after the implementation of the production code to deal with rape and one of the first to tackle its psychological aftermath (the censor office actually made them take the word “rape” out of the script so it’s never uttered in the film). Richard Broday on the film: “Outrage is a special artistic achievement. Lupino approaches the subject of rape with a wide view of the societal tributaries that it involves. She integrates an inward, deeply compassionate depiction of a woman who is the victim of rape with an incisive view of the many societal failures that contribute to the crime, including legal failure to face the prevalence of rape, and the over-all prudishness and sexual censoriousness that make the crime unspeakable in the literal sense and end up shaming the victim. Above all, she reveals a profound understanding of the widespread and unquestioned male aggression that women face in ordinary and ostensibly non-violent and consensual courtship.“

The Hitch-Hiker (1953): Another Ida Lupino joint, this one a lean and mean film noir. J. Hoberman on the film: “The “Hitch-Hiker” script, written (uncredited) by the socially conscious journalist Daniel Mainwaring, was inspired by an actual case: Two buddies (Frank Lovejoy and Edmond O’Brien) pick up a murderous psychopath (William Talman) who forces them to drive him to Mexico. It’s a brutal story handled by Ms. Lupino, one of Hollywood’s very few female directors, with the same steely determination and emotional sensitivity found in her strongest performances.”

And the miniseries:

The Singing Detective (1986): Here’s the entry from the BBC’s list of the top 100 British television programs, where it placed number 20: “For many Potter's masterpiece, this extended six-part filmed drama series mixes flashback and fantasy to create a psychological profile of a writer of detective fiction hospitalised by a crippling skin disease. Though not, the writer stressed, autobiographical, the drama features many elements from both Potter's own life (the disease, the childhood setting) and his body of work (particularly the use of popular music from the war years). As usual with Potter, it also caused controversy at the time for the frankness of its sex scenes, though its position as one of the most challenging and inventive of all TV dramas is secure.“

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bnhco · 3 years

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Mindset

“What do you consider art?”

To Bees & Honey Collective member Virgil Lesaca, art should be shared, experienced by someone other than the creator; it should be analyzed.

“Isn’t art just expression? Even if no one sees my painting, isn’t it still “art?”

Virgil: Sure, I can agree with that. But everyone is different. To me, my mindset dictates that I share my work, that I give myself the opportunity to receive an outside perspective, feedback. I am open to the philosophical question, but the answer will always be it depends on who you’re asking. No one is right or wrong.

“What do you consider good or bad art?”

Virgil: My taste varies. I grew up watching B movies, cowboy, war, action movies my dad would rent every week, movies that played on Saturday afternoons with the curse words bleeped out, and I grew to appreciate foreign movies, cult classics, classics in general. So I don’t really go by what critics say. I won’t have an opinion on something unless I experience it for myself. For instance I don’t care for the movie “Citizen Kane.” It’s like the Tim Duncan of movies; fundamentally great and something to watch for fans of technique and the history of film. But is it entertaining? I would rather watch something else, let’s just put it that way.

But when a peer/contemporary asks me for my opinion on their work I ask them what they plan to do with it. If they plan to share it with the public then it doesn’t matter what I think. I ask them what they think. If they are in doubt about something specific, I ask them questions and give them suggestions to bring that element closer to what they want. Because if they plan to share it with a large audience, they have to sort of adopt that mentality anyway, a mentality that it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. It only matters how they feel.

If they aren’t going to share it with a large audience, if they just want to know what I personally think, I’ll tell them what I think. If they want a why for my opinion, why I feel that way, I give that to them as well. It still doesn’t matter what I think, though. That’s how I truly feel.

“What is your approach to creating? Do you know your way around the kitchen so to speak? Are you confident in your abilities? Are you overly critical of yourself?”

Virgil: I’m very confident in my abilities as an artist. I have my process. It’s there to guide me, keep me focused during the journey, but I’m careful not to let it restrict me. To me, creating is a journey. So my approach is practical. When you wanna travel you usually have an end destination. “I wanna go to New York.” So, do I wanna fly or drive? If I drive, what route do I wanna take? Where should I make my pit stops? Creating is similar to me. I try to map out my journey so that I at least have an idea of where the ship is moving.

I’ve made enough mistakes and tried different methods to know I have to be able to pivot when necessary, to change course when there’s a boulder in the road. The work is the priority, creating my best work, not my comfort, and not my process. Sometimes the best ideas don’t reveal themselves until later in the process and I have to stay open to those opportunities.

“Are you fearful?”

Virgil: Most definitely. But I think it’s how I react to that fear that defines me. I don’t allow the fear to stop me from moving forward, from doing what I want. I see things like this: I don’t take creating as seriously as making sure my daughter has food to eat. I mean, come on, this is all made-up stuff. This isn’t a class project or a prompt. I have an idea and I have the freedom to go wherever I want with it. I can literally do anything I want in that space. To me that’s true freedom.

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impressivepress · 3 years

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Charlie Chaplin: Jewish Or Goyish?

As nearly as can be determined, Charlie Chaplin is virtually part Jewish almost most of the time. John McCabe, Charlie Chaplin

In March of 1978, Charlie Chaplin’s body was stolen from his tomb in Switzerland and held for ransom. Two months later it was discovered buried in a farmer’s field and returned to his wife Oona, who remarked, dryly, ‘Charlie would have found this ridiculous.’ According to rumour, the Swiss government suspected that his remains had been stolen by anti-Semitic groups, upset that a Jew should be buried in a Christian cemetery. Chaplin’s Jewishness made him an enemy of the FBI and put him on the Nazi’s list of international targets. He is perhaps one of the most famous Jews in American history hence it is all the more surprising to learn that he was not, in fact, Jewish. Since his early days as the Little Tramp, a role he assumed in 1914, Jews had believed Chaplin was secretly Jewish. The fact that his name was not Jewish was irrelevant; it was common practice for Jews to change their names when entering show business (Al Jolson was born Asa Yoelson). In the 1948 edition of a Jewish encyclopedia, Chaplin is listed as a Jewish movie star, and the name ‘Israel Thonstein’ is mentioned alongside the claim that he was from an old Eastern European Jewish family. As proof, the encyclopedia cited a 1931 article from the New York Herald Tribune, which commented upon the way Chaplin’s eyes could convey both sadness and joy in a uniquely Jewish fashion, and a Budapest Jewish paper which claimed to trace his Jewish ancestry (as Thonstein) back to Hungary.

More important than birth records and names was the fact he looked, acted and ‘felt’ Jewish. To Jewish eyes, Chaplin told Jewish stories. Famously, one critic recalled watching The Gold Rush (1925) next to a middle-aged Jewish woman: ‘Oy!’ she wailed, as the Tramp tried to escape from his on-screen tormentors, ‘What do they want with him, the goyim?!! What has he done to them?’ The Tramp, small and powerless, was taunted and hounded by authorities who hated him without reason, in what appeared to American Jews as the enactment of the Jewish condition. Hannah Arendt wrote in 1944 that Chaplin symbolised the ‘effrontery of the poor ‘little Yid’ who does not recognise the class order of the world because he sees in it neither order nor justice for himself ’. Meanwhile, in Sholem Aleichem’s 1916 story, ‘Motl in America’, the hero spends his time watching Chaplin films and extolling the virtues of free America in which a Jew like Chaplin can become rich and famous.

For film scholar Patricia Erens, the Tramp is a variation on ‘dos kleine menshele’ or ‘little man’ of Yiddish literature, the poor and long-suffering antihero, the shlemiel (a little man with no luck), and the luftmensch (the ‘man of air’ who lives on dreams). Erens cites the numerous Jewish references in Chaplin’s oeuvre, in particular the prevalence of skullcaps and Yiddish newspapers as props, and a scene in The Vagabond (1916) in which the Tramp finds a Jewish man eating pork at a buffet and helpfully changes the ‘ham’ sign to ‘beef ’. Many of the characteristics we associate with ‘acting’ Jewish—the nasal voice, the New York accent, and the verbal wit a‘ la Groucho Marx—were unavailable to the makers of silent pictures. Chaplin, however, was a dancer, an acrobat, and a pantomime extraordinaire and able to communicate other, non-verbal cultural indicators to a savvy audience—the comic shrugs, the outdated black coat, the facial pathos combined with frantic body movements, the chaotic presence that mocks the establishment. Above all, Chaplin achieved a subtle gender inversion through the graceful, almost balletic eluding of his macho tormentors. Jewish audiences recognised this physical portrayal from the Yiddish stage and read it as a visual metaphor for the disempowered Jew in a hostile world.

Across the world this misconception raged, gaining him enemies to the left and the right. The German-American Bund helped spread the rumour that Charles Spencer Chaplin was born Israel Thonstein and in the book that accompanied the Nazi propaganda film The Eternal Jew, Thonstein is cited as the maiden name for the mother of ‘The Jew, Chaplin.’ In 1948 the US Navy investigated Chaplin on suspicion of Zionist activity: shipping guns to Palestine, as well as around 36 tanks. But it was the FBI under Hoover that became Chaplin’s greatest political and legal enemy. Chaplin’s FBI file is a comprehensive laboratory for identity construction that began in 1922 and remained open until after his death. The file chronicles Chaplin’s downfall, the suspicion of Communist activities, the Mann Act trial for transporting unmarried women across state lines for deviant purposes, and further rumours and innuendo that led to his expulsion from America in 1952. Chaplin is continually described as ‘of Jewish extraction,’ given the name of ‘Thonstein’ as an alias (though there is no proof that Chaplin ever used this name himself), and assigned attributes such as ‘Jewish accent,’ ‘talks with hands,’ and Russian birth.

Crucially, it was not Jewishness that alarmed Hoover but ambiguity. According to Omer Bartov in his compelling work The Jew in Cinema, Jewish characters are often portrayed as slippery and protean, possessing an insidious ability to obscure their Jewishness and blend in. The emancipation of the Jews from the ghettos of Europe at the turn of the last century had left them free to shave and dress in modern clothing, making them impossible to detect. This new found ambiguity of Jewish identity made them, in many gentile eyes, the most dangerous minority in civilised society. Ambiguity was the dominant paranoia of Cold-War America, which felt itself threatened by the enemy within—the Communists, Jews and homosexuals who were so hard to detect. The insistence on Chaplin’s Jewishness helped reinforce the notion of an ‘authentic American’ by establishing firm conceptual borders through identity construction and categorisation.

Not only did both Jewish and gentile audiences see him as a Jew, but Chaplin himself very nearly became convinced of his own Jewishness. While he did not officially doubt his mother’s version of his parentage, in which her legal husband, Charles Chaplin, Sr., a non-Jewish pop singer, was his biological father, there were times when he clearly wondered if the questions surrounding his lineage were true, and if they were more scandalous than imagined. His step-brother Sydney had a Jewish father and the world’s insistence on Chaplin’s Jewish origins prompted him and many others to wonder whether their birth stories had in fact been reversed.

‘All geniuses,’ Chaplin was heard to remark,‘have some Jewish blood in them.’ Flattered by the widely held misconception about his Jewish identity, his understanding of Jewishness was simplistic and stereotypical: Jews were blessed with superior intellect and financial acumen than non-Jews. Further, he believed that his physical attributes compounded the myth: he was short with curly black hair, ‘Oriental facial features’, and a prominent nose. In footage taken of famed British comedian Harry Lauder’s visit to Chaplin Studios, Lauder draws Chaplin on a chalkboard. Chaplin makes great show of stopping him, pantomimes ‘too Jewish,’ and re-draws the nose. Quite how to interpret this is unclear, but Chaplin either believed himself to be Jewish or was making fun of those who did. In the absence of confirmed roots, Chaplin may have sought to align himself with a group that, although outsiders in mainstream society, seemed to him possessed of an ancient and mystical national bond. When the great cantor Yossele Rosenblatt visited Chaplin’s studios, Chaplin told him that he owned all of the cantor’s recordings and that ‘Whenever I feel a little blue, I take them out and play them. They do something to me. They unite me, oh so closely, with my Jewish ancestors.’

Chaplin was an actor, and he played one role after another all his life. He occasionally told people he was Jewish, which sounded better to his director’s ears than ‘poor English gutter trash.’ But sometimes, including in his interviews with the FBI, he denied it, once commenting, ‘I am afraid I do not have that good fortune.’ Of his anti-Nazi picture The Great Dictator (1940) Chaplin said, ‘I made this film to show my unity with all the Jews of the world’. While American politicians and agents worried about the film’s ‘Communist’ message, the American Jewish establishment feared that an anti-Hitler film made by a Jew might make things worse for Jews in Europe. Chaplin’s own response—‘How can they get worse?’—indicates his own fearlessness. For the Jew in America, it was as if, as Stanley Kauffmann put it, ‘a David had arisen—a comic David—to fight Goliath!’

Holly A. Pearse · Oct 19, 2018.

Holly A.Pearse holds a PhD in religion and culture, and specializes in the representation of Jews in art and media. At the moment, her research delves into the portrayals of Jewish-Gentile romance in American film, and she currently teaches at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada.

#film #Charlie Chaplin #history article #jewish quarterly

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wexlerkimberly · 3 years

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oh god, yearly round-up.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

side note: this is my TENTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! year of doing this!!!!!!!!!!!!! i have been on this website for OVER 10 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!! jesus christ.

ok. on a completely personal level, last year was so fucking dreadful that i remember falling asleep at my friends house on new years eve and thinking: “well, at least this year can’t be any worse”. HMMMM. in all seriousness though, despite everything, i have had a mostly decent year. i’m very lucky in lots and lots of ways. i’m lucky none of my closest family or loved ones have been effected too deeply by covid. just mild inconvenience, at most. i am lucky that i live in a house with such a large garden, so i could enjoy fresh air and family-free time if i needed to. i am lucky the weather has been mostly nice this year so i could go for plenty of walks. i’m lucky that i’m naturally a very quiet, anti-social person anyway so i haven’t felt the strain of isolation as severely as others.

most of all, this year has been boring, if anything. but there’s still been things that have made it nice. january - birthday!!! i don’t usually go hard or anything for my birthday but it stands out to me as a really lovely day. i went for a walk to one of my favourite hills with my dad & dogs during the day. in the evening, i had badminton with my friends as i used to most thursdays (INDOOR SPORTS?!?!?!!? REMEMBER INDOORS SPORTS?!?!!?!?!) and then, as per our tradition, i went back to their flat for take-away chips and halloumi burgers. because they are so unbelievably generous and lovely, my friends bought me a new badminton racket for my birthday. i feel like i’ve barely got a chance to use this year, for obvious reasons, but i can’t wait to use it so much more as soon as possible. the following day, i went to work as normal but then went out to a really nice italian place with my family for a meal and we did birthday cake & candles when we got home. feeling stupidly grateful for so many thoughtful people in my life. february - again, this year has been so dry that a trip to the cinema could be considered a high point. but it was my only cinema trip of the year and just a really nice day. me & my friend saw jojo rabbit (which was great, if you haven’t seen it already) and afterwards we ambled around town looking at things in shops. it sounds so simple but i haven’t done any of that stuff since really, so it feels so exciting and exotic when i think back on it.

february - stayed at my grandma’s house for the weekend. we do that as often as we can, usually, and it’s always nice. but - obviously - we haven’t been able to see my grandma much at all this year. it was nice to sit in front of the fire with her and watch tv and be given access to all sorts of baked goods and walk up the hills around by her. on the sunday, we managed to pop-in on my nana & grandad too and eat many baked goods there too.

march - meal out for my brother’s birthday. i feel like a lot of my “special days” this year revolved around someone’s birthday this year. but i think this was our last day of ‘normalcy’ before things went a bit crazy here. my family went to a caribbean pub with my brother and his gf and we had lovely tasty food and a nice night out. i think that was the last day i wore anything other than pyjamas or leggings for a long time.

april - no joke, i remember going to the vets during the peak of lockdown when the whole country was essentially shut down and it felt like THE most exciting day of my life. my cat was fine (she’d been bitten and needed painkillers for an infection but she was absolutely fine!) but i remember being near giddy in the car. my sister came with us too even though she didn’t need to because of how exciting it felt.

may - my brother’s birthday. the other one. the first of our lockdown birthdays. we popped in to drop a card off at a friend’s who shares the same birthday as him. then we drove (DROVE! IN A CAR!) to a stretch of really lovely canal that my brother likes to walk on and had a great walk. in the evening, we ordered in an indian take-away and my sister had made a FAT four-tiered chocolate cake to celebrate.

may - ok this is very dumb but i finished breaking bad this year and i set aside a special date to watch el camino. i made a very sickly millionaire’s cheesecake and my whole family gathered round the tv to eat and re/watch el camino. it’s so dumb and silly but i was so excited, it felt like a special cinematic event. i cried.

june - my dad’s birthday. my dad, my brother & me (plus dogs) drove out of the county (rogue fugitives!!!!!!) to meet my grandad for a socially distanced chat and picnic. it was a bit weird not being able to hug him and sitting on separate benches but it was still great to see him. we had a takeaway chinese for dinner and a chocolate cake for dessert.

july - my sister’s birthday. we technically celebrated it 4 days earlier because she had to move into her new flat but we had a nice indian take-away and another bloody chocolate birthday cake.

july - my mom’s birthday. i honestly cannot remember what we ate - i think we had homemade pizzas in the garden??? it’s weird when food dictates the differences between days. anyway, i definitely made another birthday cake.

july - went for a socially distanced walk with a friend i haven’t seen in ages. it was lovely and the weather was very kind to us and it was great to go walking across fields and to a reservoir i hadn’t been to in years and years.

august - my brother got his GCSE results and we ate pizza in the garden to celebrate. after the monumental government fuck-up with results, we were a bit nervous about how badly they’d ruin his chances but he did very well.

september - went to visit my grandma. she had been living by herself for the entirity of the pandemic (she doesn’t mind, she’s loves to garden and she does online latin and pilates classes, she’s a very busy lady) but i think she enjoyed seeing us. we were plied full of food once again. we went for a lovely evening ramble on the hills right by her house. on the sunday, my dad went for a walk with a friend he hasn’t seen in ages while me, my brother and my grandma went for another hill walk elsewhere. i think my grandma really enjoyed that because she hasn’t been able to go walking much because she was so anxious about tripping and being completely alone, or being rescued by someone carrying The Virus. so it was nice to accompany her. after that, we had a nice socially distanced meeting with my grandparents in their garden. it felt very risky to me because i am insanely anxious but my grandma, my grandad and my nana are all very safe and healthy.

october - halloween!!! i never celebrate halloween BUT this year, i was so sick of being the house every single day i decided to organise something different. so in the evening, me, my dad & my brother went for a halloween walk in the countryside through a graveyard, then through a field where there used to be an old abonnonded saxon village, and then finally through hagley wood where bella of wych elm was found. my dad & my brother were completely uneffected but i was absolutely shitting myself at every tiny little thing. my dogs had their little flashing colours on and we all had torches but i was still so pathetically spooked by everything. after the walk, we met my mom in the car (i had to get changed in the car from my walking stuff to vaguely presentable clothes) then we went to a goddamn PUB!!!!!!!!! to eat a meal!!!!!!!!!!! i went a bit overboard making my family santise their hands every 5 minutes but we definitely had a lovely meal.

november - did a bonfire in the garden for bonfire night. ate homemade vegan chilli and then apple crumble. it was freezing cold and we tried to stay out there for as long as we could. i even managed to find some sparklers and me & my brother waltzed around the garden with them, likesay we’re not an adult and a child-grown. the others melted marshmallows on the fire and i just enjoyed watching the fireworks i could see and throwing balls for the dogs.

november - we’re brits lmao but when joe biden’s presidency was finally confirmed, we celebrated with an indonesian take-away because fuck it!!!!!!!! gotta celebrate where we could this year!!!!!!!!!!

december - christmas!!!!!!!!!!!! we usually have christmas every year at my grandma’s house with my aunt and her boyfriend. it’s a fairly decent sized house out in the countryside and she has a wood-burning fire and it just Feels more christmassy there, especially as i’ve literally only ever spent one single christmas at home before. but we still managed to make it very special this year i think. my sister came on the 13th and we got quickly into a routine of watching christmas films in the evening. on christmas eve, i made vegan gingerbread biscuits and vegan mince pies and my sister made a chocolate yule log cake and then we watched a film. on christmas morning, we all opened our presents in our own living room which felt weird but was still lovely. afterwards, we went for a family walk. my mom pretty much single-handedly (me & my sister helped) cooked a whole christmas dinner for the 6 of us with all the trimmings. usually it’s my grandma, my aunt and my mom but the fact my mom managed to cook such a goddamn feast with our shitty oven where the grill doesn’t work and you have to slam the oven door at least 5 times before it shuts.......... i’m convinced she Might be superwoman?!?!!?!? and it was SO good. in the evening, we had cheese & crackers and my sister’s tasty yule log and we watched many a film. boxing day was much the same but still nice. this whole stretch between christmas and new years day is usually painfully boring but this year has been good, i think. i have consumed an entire army’s worth of cheese and chocolate and i have definitely enjoyed the snow we’ve had here recently.

so. yeah. this is very basic and boring. none of these things would usually end up in my write-up of the year. but i haven’t been to a single concert or theatre trip or even really left the midlands at all. in my round-up last year, i wrote some stupid sentimental bullshit about romanticising “the most basic and boring aspects of life” and never has that been so apt. on the face of it, this year has been SO boring. but i’ve managed to make it enjoyable in the tiniest ways.

for example, i enjoyed every single sunny day. i would jump on the trampoline and listen to podcasts. i would go running and listen to podcasts. i would go walking and listen to podcasts. i owe a lot to podcasts, i think. but i definitively owe a LOTTTTT to walking. i walk for a living (i’m a dog-walker lmao) but i would still go out for walks with my own dogs in the evening or go out for walks with my dad in the morning where i could. if we thought we made good use of the pizza oven last year, this year has been insane. i have made and cooked SO! MANY! pizzas this year and they were all excellent. i feel like food has been really important this year. like i said, it helps distinguish the days, especially “special” or “treat” foods. like everyone i have done a lottt of baking this year. especially when it’s been such a great year for fruit!!! there’s a field near me and there’s just simply shit loads of blackberries and raspberries that grow there. i remember one evening sat in the garden eating some mango sorbet my sister made with some raspberries i picked from the field and thinking that life simply does not get better than that. idk. it’s nice to take pleasure in the smallest things i think.

but, like i said, i have been so lucky this year. i was only off work temporarily and none of my immediate circle have been directly impacted by the effects of covid. as annoying as they are, i’m very lucky to have spent so much time with my family - as opposed to be being by myself - because it’s nice when we make food for each other and watch tv and films together or go for walks together.

god. this is long and waffley. if you read all this: what the fuck is wrong with you? but also: thank you! i know 2021 is definitely going to start off rocky but i strongly believe - and i’m a massive pessimist - that things are going to get better. love and strength to everyone. wishing you peace and comfort x

(again: i cannot believe i have been writing up this silly little incoherent things for a decade!!! sometimes i like to go back and read the earlier ones and remind myself of old fun times and cringe at teenage me. here’s to... 10 more years??? hahahahaha. anyway:here’s the other 9 years of nonsense: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, and, finally, 2011.)

#2020 #personal #text #txt #hi it's me x

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curlytemple · 4 years

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niche interests list

okay sure yes this is fun! i havent posted a thing like this in such a long time. thank you new gal pal @scottspack for tagging me!

pigs????

alright first lets throw it back to preschool! my fav childhood toys were my baby doll (snookums) and a plush pig that my grandma got me that i just called ‘pig’ ...i watched the babe movies countless times, and piglet? that anxious little guy GETS ME bro. when my preschool did a nativity play and my class got to choose an animal to be in baby jesus’ manger, my mother recalls me saying that i would be a pig because jewish people (jesus christ) wouldnt eat me. she has no idea how or when i learned about kosher foods. ironically despite my namesake i was too afraid of the movie charlotte’s web to watch it more than once because the scary farmer tries to kill wilbur for being small and the pretty spider dies.

sugar creek gang

OKAY this is a book series from the 40s-70s about a group of christian little boys in indiana who went on adventures in the woods and helped people. my dad read a LOT of chapter books to me as bedtime stories when i was little (see also the mandie series, nancy drew and the hardy boys, little house on the prairie) but sugar creek gang is one that really hit. i read all 36 books with dad and at least once again on my own. there was a series of 4 or 5 movies in the early 2000s when i was the Perfect age to have a crush on most if not all of them. this might be too much detail but i have to tell you about these boys. we WILL not be revisiting the heavy religious themes.

the narrator is bill who is Good and Kind and wants to be a doctor when he grows up. his best friend is a chubby boy nicknamed poetry because he memorizes and quotes poems, he is the Detective of the group. BIG JIM is the leader of the group who is supposed to be like, 14, which was very cool and hot, to me. and yes there is a little jim, who is the baby of the group. then there is CIRCUS who is known for his climbing and acrobatics, and his FIVE SISTERS AND BEAUTIFUL SINGING VOICE. dreamboy. i’m almost done listing boys, i promise. a boy called dragonfly who is allergic to everything and hella superstitious. later in the series a new boy named tom moves to town and tom has an older brother bob who is NOT A CHRISTIAN (bully)

tangentially, the buttercream gang, a movie from 1992 that was almost definitely made by some christians who grew up reading the sugar creek gang series which i’m guessing on vibes alone. will spare you Good Boy details but scott is in love with his best friend pete who moves to chicago and falls in with a bad crowd and scott just refuses to stop LOVING HIM. very gay christian film in retrospect.

peter pan

so i know liking disney’s peter pan isnt niche, but it was the way i liked it. tinker bell stan from day one, i watched all of those disney fairies movies, even the ones that came out after i was definitely not intended audience. there was an online pixie hollow game where you could design your own fairies and play mini games where you gathered dew drops or something. had a HUGE CRUSH on jeremy sumpter in peter pan (2003) then i got really darkly obsessed with the idea of growing up when i was 12 or 13, and everything peter pan was deeply My Shit for my entire adolescence. i read the original book and every other twisted version of the story i could find and seriously freaked myself out about wasting my youth.

shug

you’ve probably heard of jenny han now, or at least the netflix adaptations for to all the boys i’ve loved before and the sequel ps i still love you (always and forever, lara jean, coming soon?) but before she wrote THOSE, she wrote my first ever Favorite Book, about annemarie “shug” wilcox, a girl in the summer before starting middle school. it is SO engraved on my heart i cannot explain. i felt so incredibly understood and cant even tell you how many times i read it. thinking about all of the ways it made me feel SEEN is actually making me very tender so i’m gonna go on.

the summer series

on the subject of jenny han, since she was now my Favorite author, when she came out with the summer i turned pretty in 2009, i was ALL IN. it’s not summer without you, and we’ll always have summer were published the next two years. a coming of age series about a girl isabel “belly” conklin who stays at her mother’s best friend's house at the beach in the summers. i really could talk about it forever yall. i actually dont know how to be succinct about it. i will try. her mom’s friend has TWO BOYS. one brother, jeremiah, is the golden boy and her best friend who is in love with her! the older one CONRAD is her childhood crush who's just sort of around while belly is firmly getting over her childish feelings and going out and experiencing teen beach life with jeremiah for the first time and figuring out who she is and wants to be! by the end of the summer he admits he feels differently about her (hence belly internalizing this as The Summer I Turned Pretty) and they get together. this is already too much so i will just say that the next two books deal with a PROFOUND LOSS and the selfishness of grief and the SELFLESSNESS OF CONRAD and i will absolutely lose my shit if netflix picks it up for a second jenny han series adaptation.

pappyland

this was a kids show in the 90′s that features a character named Pappy Drew-It, an artist dressed like a 49er who lives in a magic cabin in pappyland. there’s tons of characters and music and life lessons but the meat of every episode is a detailed drawing how-to (pappy is actually a cartoonist, michael cariglio) and i have a hard back cover sketch book from my grandpa that i FILLED with drawings that pappy and DOODLEBUG taught me to do. there is a running gag that pappy always breaks his crayons.

boy meets world

i KNOW this is beloved by many but i’m counting it because i’m simply too young to have such an obsession with it! the show ran from 1992-2000. i was born in 1996, but reruns on the disney channel and abc family cemented it as one of my favorite shows. cory and shawn, closer than brothers, shameless homoromantics, shawn is cory’s first wife!!!!! truly showed me what a best friend can and should be!!!!!! the great love of your life!!!!! TOPANGA, the og weird feminist girl who said stop shaving your legs and start speaking your mind, ladies! the characters are so richly developed that they are real people to my heart. YES every character on this show is in their late 30s-early 40s and YES i feel like we grew up together. in season one they’re in the 6th grade and we follow them all the way to COLLEGE. countless poignant life lessons, often literally dictated by the wise and hilarious MR. FEENY, cory’s next door neighbor and somehow one of his teachers for YEARS. my love was only solidified by the 2014 girl meets world reboot, centered on cory and topanga’s daughter and her best friend. (which was literally cancelled because disney didn’t want to transition from a kids show to a teen show, something essential to the original. also because that teen show would have had CANON LESBIANS. extremely shameful move in 2017!) boy meets world lives rent free in my heart and i will never evict it!!!!!!!

i consulted my mother when i got stumped for more and she reminded me that i had obsessions with the impressionist art period and babies and ANYTHING fairies or pixies, and i was way too young when my love of the canadian teen after school special degrassi began. she also said bob ross, which i was hesitant to include because he’s been super ~trendy in recent years, but to be fair (To Be Faaairrr) she’s right! i don’t think people really watched the joy of painting as much as i have throughout my life. best sick day show of all time.

lastly i could honestly list anna herself as a niche interest, my mom actually metioned that ive always hyperfixated on my girl friends (gay) but i’ll just note that YES friday night lights, YES barry lyga novels. love to share so many things with you, niche or not, they’re niche in Our Mind.

#with the baby obsession came an obsession with adoption #my aunt and uncle adopted and when i learned that there were ORPHANS whew #i was in preschool judging people for getting pregnant when there were SO many babies without mommies #she had a good point!#also does being a niall girl in 2012 count

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keltonwrites · 4 years

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How do I become courageous? How do I stop letting the anxiety over the uncertainty of future, or the fear of other people's judgement, dictate my life's narrative?

Ten years ago, my Zoloft prescription ran out the day I had a tumor sliced out of my neck. The surgery was on a Monday. I woke up with chest pain and nerve damage in my face. They kept me until Wednesday morning. I left the hospital with a drainage bag attached to my neck, pinned to the collar of my shirt. I couldn’t move the right side of my face. I emailed my boss.“The surgery was a little more intense than I anticipated. I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it in this week.”“Please be here on Friday.”I went to work on Friday. I couldn’t brush my hair because the pressure on my neck was too painful. The blood bag seeped occasionally on my shirt. I had the kind of sleep anyone has after their ear is partially sliced off to remove a tumor burrowing beneath it. Don’t worry — they sewed it back on. (The ear, not the tumor.)On Friday, because I didn’t understand how boundaries or rights worked, I walked across the National Institutes of Health campus toward my building looking more like a patient than an employee. My boss stared at me and then didn’t speak to me again. I wrote for four hours before I went into her office.“I need to go home.”“Have a nice weekend!” She beamed, actively looking everywhere that was not my blood bag.I smiled, sort of. The right side of my face was still temporarily paralyzed, so the left side of my mouth hoisted my cursory courtesy smile by itself.“Gonna work on my face,” I said pointing to my partially slack expression.“Sorry?”“Nerve damage. Gonna try to exercise it. Do some heavy lifting while I watch TV,” I said, my face contorting from the kind of stifled laughter usually reserved for broken ribs and strict teachers.“Ok!” She almost yelled, her own face contorting with discomfort.Over the next two weeks—tumor and medication free—I lost my mind. Stop me if you’ve heard this before. I gave away my percocet. I dyed my hair. I adopted a cat. I started a blog. And nine months later, I started a challenge called Bold Moves October. I started it because so much of my day-to-day life felt defined by inaction and complacency. Plus, the October prior is when the doctors had said, “we’re really not sure if it’s cancer or not.” Followed immediately by, “we can schedule you for surgery in three months.”It was a long three months. Death all of a sudden seemed like something that could happen. In my 23-year-old wisdom, this meant I should be more proactive. For better or worse, I primarily applied this proactivity to flirting.

We can’t all learn life’s great lessons on the first go.Anyway, that blog and that mini movement of boldness changed the trajectory of my life. One thing toppled into another. Over the next few years that blog and challenge would (directly and tangentially) get me a book deal, writing contracts, sport sponsorships, job offers, the friendship of my favorite author, the adoration of my husband, and a full-time job as an editor that would be the two best professional years of my life.The period I spent working on that blog was obviously good. It was also the most derided and insulted I would ever be. I lost friendships. I received hate mail and death threats (in 2011 no less, before every Twitter account with too many numbers in the screen name became an amateur fear monger.) I allowed people to send me anonymous messages because it was a way for people to share how they were struggling without revealing their identities. But that meant I couldn’t protect myself from anonymous and un-trackable threats. God only knows what my parents thought. (In this scenario, I am God. I know what they thought.)Courage often doesn’t feel good. The only courage that exists without anxiety is arrogance. There is not a life where you, a person who wrote anonymously to an all-but-dead Tumblr, live without the anxiety of others’ judgment. But there is also not a life where you, who—again—wrote asking for advice anonymously to an all-but-dead Tumblr, aren’t a person defined by desperate chances and hope. I apologize that you sent me that note months ago, but I assure you, it is because I too was flexing courage, letting it coarse through my veins and vanquish months of chronic nausea.Like you, I was fussing about in the woods of my life, looking for something that resembled a path. Not necessarily a path without sinkholes or poison leaves, but rather one worth them.Your path, the one it sounds like you’re trying to find, will be overgrown with the thorns of judgment and anxiety. But they’re just thorns. They’re on every path. They’re hurting you just as much on the wrong path as they will on the right one.Normally I give very ethereal advice that’s difficult to act on. It’s more like a song than an action item, but in this scenario, you don’t need to listen to someone else. You also don’t need to have a tumor spliced from your insides to remind you that at some point, our chances run out. All you need is to develop the skill of listening to yourself. For a couple of months, relax with the courage. Courage is just an instagram word for having a strong inner constitution. And that is something you can develop without framing it in the same terms we use to go to battle.

To do the work, I recommend a few things.

If you don’t already, move your body. I know how much people hate this advice. But if you can hike or run or cycle or even just briskly walk (without podcasts) for a minimum of 20 minutes a day, you should. Our gut, our intuition, our inner sense of self or whatever you want to call her, she’s not going to feel safe coming out when you’re in the mental thicket of other people’s narratives. Exercise is the closest humans have to Drano for the mind.

Find a journaling exercise that feels like maybe it’s a little too much work. If it feels conquerable, it’s too easy. I go back to Susannah Conway’s Unravel Your Year. Doesn’t matter if it’s a new year. Time is a construct.

Get the book Designing Your Life. You may not design an entirely new one, but it may help in making change feel conquerable, or just possible. If that book feels too “action item” oriented, try The Artist’s Way. It’s much more about knowing yourself than it is about art.

Make a list of the narratives that you feel other people are suffocating you with. Maybe dad wants you to be a doctor. Maybe girlfriend wants you to settle down a little. Maybe boss wants you to focus on the clerical side of your job. Maybe society wants you to buy an apartment you can’t afford. Whatever or whoever it is you feel is pressuring you, write it down. You need to know your demons to exercise them. You might even find, in time, that you even like some of these visions. They’re not the enemy. Pressure is. And pressure is only defeated by self. Isn’t that annoying?

Write to me again. Impress me. Give yourself a few challenges each week. Whether it’s applying for a class, trying something you’re bound to be bad at, getting up half an hour early to dance your heart out before work, I don’t care. Do some things that are for you. Not for others, not for profit, not for your future — just for you right now. And then use me for more than an anonymous submission on the internet. Use me as a deadline. Sometimes all it takes to get over the hurdle of pressure is a little validation. I’m here for that whenever you need me.

I’m recommending these things because I just did them.

I gave myself a deadline to change my life. Not that it was bad, it just felt… well it felt exactly how it did ten years ago: full of inaction and complacency. I was on cruise control, taking few chances, taking really nothing at all. So the next thing I took was an exit. I wanted to see what life looked like when things weren’t all concrete and white lines. I quit my job. I camped around the west. I picked up a few new hobbies. I journaled more than I did all of 7th grade. My year-long bout of nausea went away. I started to dance again. I wrote songs again. I wrote in general again. And I dug around in my psyche for the truth about what I always liked doing, what the through-lines in all my good jobs have been. Very simply, the strongest through-line was the encouragement and empowerment of others.

Most of the writing I’m doing right now will be private until it isn’t. I’m writing a horror film and still working on my first novel. But I need a weekly way to interact with people via writing lest I lose my lonely mind, so I’m bringing back the one thing got me into writing in the first place: answering people’s questions.

After writing Anonymous Asked, I was too embarrassed to promote the book. I’ve never re-read it. I fell into the spiral of what other people thought: of me, of the work, of my ideas. But I’d rather be fulfilled and insulted than bored out of my mind and forgotten.

So to encourage your courage, I am flexing a little bit of my own. My newsletter (of which this essay is a part) is now called “A Little Bit Better” and the whole point is that it helps you feel a little bit better. You can subscribe to it here. It will include essays like this and other bits of things that made that week a little bit better. I hope you enjoy it. I know I will. See you there.I wrote this while listening to:It’s a Storm - Young & SickSwing - Mahmut Orhan Remix by Soki Tukker and Mahmut OrhanKissing Other People - Lennon StellaScared to Death - Jax AndersonSound of Your Voice - Griff

#advice #newsletters #courage #courageous #griff #jax anderson #young & sick #soki tukker #lennon stella #a little bit better

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