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kats-kradle · 4 years

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This is fucking awful and also late but here’s day one of Whumptober

Ronon woke with a start, his arms exploding in pain. It took him a moment to realize he was chained to a ceiling. He glanced around, taking in his surroundings. It was a smallish, dank cell with light coming in through a small window. There was someone else chained up across from him- Carson, he realized. The events of the past few hours came flooding back- they had gone to Vraerkon to trade for... something. He supposed they were trading medical services and supplies for whatever it was. He had gone along as protection, but they were ambushed by a small group of rebels.

“Oh good, you’re awake,” Carson commented in relief as he spied Ronon looking around, “how’s your head, lad?” Ronon moved his head back a forth trying to test the mobility of it. A wave of dizziness and nausea swept over him.

“It’s good,” he lied through his teeth, trying to orient himself again. He could sense the other man rolling his eyes.

“I might not be able to check ye myself at the moment, but I’m still a doctor, and ye are terrible at lying. How’s your head?” He asked again, in a ton that left no room for argument. Ronon looked away as if he was child being scolded for something he wasn’t supposed to do.

“It hurts and when I move it fast I get dizzy,” he admitted. Carson nodded.

“How does it hurt? Just in one area or is it like a throbbing pain everywhere?” He asked. Ronon thought for a moment.

“The second one,” he decided. Carson nodded again.

“Well, ye might have a concussion but I’d have to check ye myself to be sure.” The door opened and in entered a Vraerkon whose face was disfigured with dozens of scars.

“Welcome, Atlantians,” he greeted with mock hospitality, “I am Ulbar. Who would like to be first?” Ronon wisely kept his mouth shut, and hoped that the doctor would have to sense to do the same.

“First for what?” Carson asked. Ronon groaned internally, his head still spinning. Ulbar grinned, pulling a rod out from behind his back.

“Why the torture, of course! And look, a volunteer!” He said cruelly. The blood left Carson’s face in a second as Ulbar began approaching him with the rod held threateningly. Ronon’s mind worked frantically, unable to stand the terrified look on his friend’s face.

“Agh, that’s gross,” he called out. Ulbar threw a glance at him, a scowl on his face.

“Something you wish to say?” It was more of a threat than a question. Ronon shrugged, hoping he wouldn’t convey much emotion.

“It’s just that you’re even uglier from the back,” he commented. He knew how vain the Vraerkons were, and was hoping that his comment would enrage Ulbar enough. It didn’t, and the other man simply rolled his eyes and started back towards Carson. Ronon’s heart leap in his chest.

“You know, I think your face reminds me of a disfigured pig,” he called out. Despite his best efforts, a tone of desperation worked its way into his voice. Ulbar paused, turning slowly. A foul grin formed on his face and he wandered across the room casually.

“Do not think for a moment that I do not know what you are doing,” he commented, using the rod to lift Ronon’s chin, “and I must say, you are truly foolish, young one,” he hissed. Ronon could see Carson from behind Ulbar, and the terrified look on the doctor’s face spurred him on.

“And you’re really, really ugly,” he said honestly. Ulbar laughed- a horrible, grating sound, like someone regurgitating gravel.

“I speak true when I say that I will enjoy watching you break,” he growled. Ronon grinned, although it was more of baring his teeth.

“Strong words from a man who smells like a pile of-” the swift punch to his stomach managed to catch him off guard and he sagged in the chains as the air left him. Ulbar watched him in sick satisfaction, and Carson jolted forward.

“What was it you were saying?” Ulbar taunted, pulling Ronon’s head back abruptly by his hair. Ronon let out a grunt, fighting the wave of dizziness and nausea.

“That all you got? Come on, I thought this would be more fun,” he taunted.

“Ronon, what are ye doing?” Carson hissed from the other side of the room. Ulbar smirked, staring down Ronon, who held his stare unwaveringly.

“The young one thinks he can protect you,” he commented lightly to Carson, not breaking the stare, “but do not worry, once I break him, you will be next. That is, unless you want to go first, hm?” He asked, looking away from Ronon to gesture threateningly with his rod. Ronon took the opportunity to kick him as hard as he could, knocking him over. He was up again in a minute, searing rage twisting his ugly face even further.

“You will pay for that, boy!” He yelled, backhanding Ronon with such force that his whole body was jerked in that direction. Before he had time to recover, Ulbar unleash his fury and blow after blow rained down on his defenseless torso, leaving behind stinging welts, each one bringing forth a grunt of pain from Ronon.

“I’ll make you scream before the hour is over,” he promised menacingly, pausing to switch out the rod for a heavy metal pipe. Ronon slumped forward in his chains, panting. “What, getting tired already?” Ulbar taunted. Ronon glared at him and spat a glob of blood onto his face. Ulbar roared in anger and swung the pipe, catching Ronon in the side and making him swing in his chains with a cry.

“Stop it! Please, you’ll kill him,” Carson yelled, straining his chains. Ulbar laughed cruelly, swinging the pipe with more force. A sickening crack and a nauseating scream followed. Carson could tell that Ulbar had just cracked, if not broken one of Ronon’s ribs. Ulbar stood with a surprised and amused smile forming on his face.

“Who knew that a simple pipe would be all it takes to make you scream?” He said in a way that one would comment on the weather. Ronon didn’t answer, every exhale coming out in a pained groan. Carson knew that Ronon truly would die before telling anything, and he couldn’t stand by and watch Ronon get himself killed.

“I’ll tell ye anything ye want to hear!” He burst out. Ulbar paused, mid-swing.

“What?” He asked, turning his attention away from Ronon, who struggled to stand.

“No- doc, don’t-” he yelled again as Ulbar hit him without even looking at him.

“I can tell ye anything ye want to know, just please stop!” Carson begged, pushing down his guilt. Ulbar approached him slowly, sinking down to his level.

“I am terribly sorry, but I only want to hear it from him,” he said in mock apologetic tone. Carson’s heart sank in horror as he threw a glance at his friend- he knew that as strong as Ronon was, he couldn’t last much longer.

“But I know more than he does, I can tell ye about how-” Ulbar quickly stuffed a foul tasting cloth into his mouth and secured it with another.

“Come now, we cannot have you spoiling anything. And we were just starting to have fun, weren’t we?” Ulbar asked Ronon. Carson screamed uselessly as Ulbar marched back across the room to Ronon and began his ruthless assault once more. Ronon swung like a piñata at a birthday party. He seemed to no longer have the strength to hold himself up or control his screams. Each cry of pain seared Carson’s heart and he knew the sounds would haunt him until he died. Ulbar danced around Ronon, laughing like a crazy man as he beat Ronon over and over.

The sound of gunfire interpreted Ulbar mid-swing, and suddenly the door was flung across the room, narrowly missing him. Carson felt as though he could cry from joy as John ran in and immediately filled Ulbar with holes. Teyla and Rodney were right behind him, and Rodney ran over to Carson as John and Teyla went to Ronon.

“Are you okay? What happened? You guys didn’t check in at the right time- or at all, for that matter,” Rodney rambled as he tore the gag out and got to work on the chains that held Carson. He almost fell without the support of the chains, and his arms shook as the circulation was resorted.

“I’m fine, just get me to Ronon,” he insisted. Rodney quickly complied, helping him cross the room. Ronon had been eased to the ground, his head cradled in Teyla’s lap. Carson dropped to his knees beside the other man.

“What happened?” Teyla asked him. He only half heard her and immediately began to check Ronon for a concussion, feeling around his head- there was some bleeding, but it didn’t seem to be anything that would cause him to bleed out. He moved on the the ribcage. Bruising was already starting to form, and it seemed there wasn’t an inch of skin that wasn’t covered in an angry welt. He heard Teyla gasp and John let out a muttered curse, but ignored them, trying to assess the damage. Ronon cried out as he pressed on his broken ribs and Teyla ran a hand across his hair in a soothing motion.

“I’m sorry, lad,” Carson murmured apologetically. Ronon didn’t reply, his eyes squeezed shut.

“I need to look at his back. Help me roll him onto his side- gently, we don’t want to hurt him more,” he told the others. Rodney and John were quick to obey. Ronon’s back didn’t look as bad as the front had, but it still looked painful. Carson finished with a sigh, signaling for Rodney and John to roll Ronon back over.

“From what I can tell, two broken ribs and three cracked ones, and he definitely has a concussion,” he reported. Rodney let out a soft “oh, God,” that sounded halfway between a curse and and actual prayer.

“What happened?” John asked firmly. Carson sighed and gave them an overview of what had transpired.

“And before any of ye say anything, I do not take back the fact that I would have told him everything if it would make him stop,” he said with a defensive glare.

“I do not believe any of us would have withheld information were we in your place,” Teyla said with a sad smile. Ronon shifted from the ground, making as if to sit up, but sank back with a groan.

“Hey- uh, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Rodney asked him incredulously.

“We have to get moving, don’t we?” Ronon tried again, sucking in a breath as his ribs shifted. John pushed him back down again gently.

“There’s a med team on its way. You are not moving, and that’s an order,” he said sternly. Ronon glowered at him, but laid still.

“You just took a beating, I do not think you would get very far,” Teyla added.

“And it was a damn stupid thing to do, I hope ye know that,” Carson snapped. Ronon gave an attempt at a shrug.

“Someone... someone’s gotta keep you in business,” he rasped out. Carson let out a laugh that bordered on hysteria, dropping his head into his hands.

“I’m going to strangle ye myself one of these days,” he choked out. Ronon grinned and was about to retort when they heard hurried footsteps in the corridor. John sprang up and ran into the hall brandishing his gun, but dropped it in relief as the medical team entered.

“He’s in here, and be careful,” he directed. Carson briefed them on Ronon’s condition and the team was quick to load him onto the stretcher. They offered one for the doctor as well but he declined in favor of walking next to Ronon’s.

“Hey doc,” Ronon muttered as they traveled down the hall, “we should hang out more. I don’t mean- not hang out like hang out, but... yeah,” he finished. Carson huffed a laugh.

“Don’t worry, I understand. I’d like that, lad,” he assured, giving Ronon’s shoulder a squeeze, “just please promise me ye won’t do anything stupid like that again.” Ronon shrugged, his eyes starting to droop as the IV he had started to kick in.

“I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” he promised. Carson sighed in frustration, but he couldn’t deny that he was touched.

“You’re impossible,” he accused.

“I know.”

#whumptober2020 #whumptober day one #stargate atlantis #Ronon Dex #carson beckett #Rodney McKay #teyla emmagan #John Sheppard #torture #writing #my writing #like i said this is fucking awful but who cares #i have more lined up that are better and will be on time #maybe

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amphtaminedreams · 4 years

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J.K Rowling & The Echo Chamber of TERFs: Why Nobody Wants your Transphobic “Opinion”

TW// Discussion of Sexual Assault and Transphobia

SO...

I’ve seen the term “allyship fatigue” going round a lot lately on Twitter, since the issues of police brutality, institutional racism, and now transphobia have taken central stage.

And it’s weird. To be honest, hearing other white cis people calling themselves “allies” has always sounded kinda self-congratulatory. Taking this to the level of martyrdom that the phrase “allyship fatigue” evokes makes me want to heave. It’s shit that anyone even has to be saying Black Lives STILL Matter, but it does seem to unfortunately be the case that every time there is a highly publicised murder of a black individual by police, the explosion of us white people calling ourselves allies and retweeting and reblogging statements of solidarity only lasts so long before half revert back to being complacent with and uncritical of a world seeped with casual racism. Is that what “allyship fatigue” is? The excuse for that? Not only does the term take the focus off of the marginalised group the movement is centred around but it makes supporting equal rights sound like some kind of heroic burden we’ve chosen to take on rather than addressing a debt we owe and being not even good but just plain decent human beings. WE are not the ones shouldering the weight here, and if your mental health is suffering, that is not the fault of the people asking for their rights. Log off. We have the privilege to do that. It just doesn’t need to be a spectacle.

At the same time, this public onslaught of ignorance and hatred that the coverage of the Black Lives Matter movement has triggered (that let me again emphasise, black people have had to involuntarily be on the receiving end of their whole lives) and the frustration and anger that comes from seeing these absolute trash takes from people with no research into the subject who build their argument purely on “what about”isms is do-I-even-want-to-bring-children-into-this-fucking-world levels of miserable. In terms of earth beginning to look more and more like the prequel describing the events which lead up to a dystopian novel, the chaos of the last 4 weeks or so (2020 has not only shattered the illusion of time but also danced on the shards, I know) is the tip of the iceberg. I saw a thread about what’s going on in Yemen at the moment, which I had no idea about, and immediately felt consumed by guilt that I didn’t know. With the advent of social media, there’s been this sudden evolutionary shift where we’re almost required and expected to know about, have an opinion on, and be empathetic with every humanitarian crisis at once. I think young people feel this especially, which is why I say that sometimes it’s worth talking to an older person before you brush them off as a racist or a homophobe and see if they’re open to hearing different opinions-in general, I think we’re a generation that is used to being expected to consume a huge amount of information at once. They are not. For a lot (NOT all) of the older, middle-class, white population, ignorance isn’t a conscious choice, it is the natural way of life. The parameters of empathy until very recently have only had to extend just past your closest circle of friends to encompass people you “relate to”. That doesn’t mean they aren’t capable of caring about other things, and sometimes we owe them a chance to change their perspective first, if for no reason other than to advance the cause of, well, basic human rights for all.

So where does J.K Rowling come into all this? I hear you ask. Why doesn’t she just stop rambling? You potentially wonder. Well, I’m getting to it.

J.K Rowling isn’t an unconsciously ignorant people. She is what I would call consciously ignorant. And of all weeks to flaunt this ignorance, she chose a time when people are already drowning in a cesspit of hatred. The woman whose whole book series supposedly revolves around the battle between good and evil didn’t even try to drain the swamp. She instead added a bucket of her transphobic vitriol into it.

Let me preface this by saying that I wouldn’t wipe my arse with the Sun. What they did with the statement she made regarding her previous abusive relationship, seeking out said abusive partner for an interview and putting it on the front page with the headline “I slapped J.K”, whilst expected from the bunch of cretinous bottom feeders who work there, is disgusting. That being said, the pattern of behaviour J.K Rowling has exhibited since she first became an online presence is equally disgusting, and just because the Sun have been their usual shithead selves, doesn’t mean we should forget the issue at hand, that issue being her ongoing transphobia and erasure of trans women from women’s rights.

As I’m sure is the case for many people on Tumblr, J.K Rowling has always been such a huge inspiration for me, and Harry Potter was my entire childhood. My obsession with it continued until I was at least 16 and is what got me through the very shit years of being a teenager, and that will forever be the case. I’m not here to discuss the whole separation of the art from the artist thing because whilst I ordinarily don’t think that’s really possible, at this point the “Harry Potter universe” has become much bigger than J.K herself. I was so pleased to see Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint all affirm their support for trans rights-I was raised on the films up until the 4th one which I wasn’t old enough to see at the cinema, and the DVD was at the top of my Christmas list. They were always my Harry, Hermione and Ron. It was only between the fourth and fifth films that I started to read the books to fill that gaping in-between-movies hole, but as I grew up, I read them over and over and over again. Any of the subtext that people are talking about now in light of her antisemitism and transphobia went completely over my head, though who knows, whilst I can sit here and write that I’m certain I didn’t, maybe I did pick up some unconscious biases along the way? The art/artist discussion is a complex one and I don’t know if I’ll ever read the books again at this point.

There was absolutely no subtext, however, in the “think piece” on J.K’s website addressing the response to her transphobic tweets. There wasn’t all that much to unpack in the first tirade, they were quite openly dismissive-first that womanhood is defined by whether or not one experiences menstruation (I currently don’t due to health issues but I’m betting this wouldn’t make me any less woman in her eyes), and second, regurgitating an article which furthers the fallacy that trans women simply existing erases the existence of cisgender lesbian women. Rowling’s initial response to the backlash was to blame it on a glass of red wine, I think? Which is such a weird go-to excuse for celebrities because not once have I ever got drunk and completely changed my belief system. If you’re not transphobic sober, you don’t suddenly become transphobic drunk. What you are saying is that you’re not usually publicly transphobic (which isn’t even the case with Rowling because this is hardly her first flirtation with bigotry via social media) but that whoopsies! You drank some wine and suddenly thought it was acceptable!

Now what is her excuse for the formal response she wrote to the backlash, dripping with transphobic dog whistles and straight up misinformation (UPDATE: and as of yesterday, blocking Stephen King quite literally for replying to her with the tweet “trans women are women”, in case you thought that this whole thing was a case of her intentions being misconstrued)? Drunk tweets are one thing but if she managed to write a whole fucking essay whilst pissed I imagine there’s a lot of university students out there who’d pay her good money to learn that skill.

Here is the bottom line. TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN. There is no discussion around that. And if you don’t understand why, at the very least, you can be respectful of the way a person chooses to identify, especially when that person is an already targeted minority.

Obviously, sex and gender are complex things. Based on the fact that we don’t walk around with our nether-regions out, we generally navigate our way through the world using our gender and the way we present our gender. Gender of course means many different things to many different people; some see it as a sliding scale kind of thing whereas some people can’t see themselves on the scale at all, and choose to use terms other than man or woman to express how they identify. But, whatever gender one chooses to identify as, we live in a modern world-with all the scientific advancements we’ve made and all that we now know about the brain, using what is between people’s legs to define them is an ignorant, outdated copout. You’ll find that a lot of transphobes can live in harmony with trans women who conform, who have classically feminine features, maybe facial feminisation surgery, trans women who keep quiet about how they’re seen by cis women and don’t kick up “too much of a fuss” (which is in itself still a perfectly valid, brave and understandable way to live your life after years of feeling like you don’t fit in btw). The trans women that Joanne and her friends take the most issue with is the ones who want to expand what womanhood means and stretch the boundaries of what is and isn’t acceptable, destroying the confines of simplistic model that TERFs feel comfortable operating within. The ones who fight to be recognised as no “lesser” than cis women. Calling a person a TERF is quite literally just asserting that they are someone who wants to exclude trans women from their definition of womanhood, or in other words wants to cling to the old, obsolete model. If J.K Rowling cannot let the statement “trans women are women” go unchallenged (which we’ve seen from her response to Stephen King’s tweet she cannot), then she is by definition a TERF. It’s not a slur. It’s a descriptor indicating the movement she has chosen to associate herself with. Associating the descriptor of the position you so vehemently refuse to denounce in spite of all evidence and information offered to you with the concept of a “witch hunt” when trans women are ACTUALLY brutally murdered for an innate part of their identity is insulting, at the very least.

Let’s get this straight: despite transphobes trying to conflate sex with gender and arguing that sex is the only “real” identifier of the two, our existence on this planet and our perception of this world is a gendered experience. It is our brain, where the majority of researchers agree that gender lies, which decides and dictates not only who we are and how we feel but also how we interact with everyone around us. I don’t think it’s an outlandish statement to say that when it comes to who we are as people, that flesh machine protected by our skull is the key player. PSA for transphobes everywhere: when people say penises have a mind of their own, they are NOT talking literally. The more you know.

Gender is obviously a much newer concept than sex-it is both influenced by and interacts with every element of our lives. It’s also much more complex, in that there are still many gaps in our understanding. I assume these two factors combined with the familiarity of the (usually) binary model of biological sex are a part of why TERFS fundamentally reject the importance of gender in favour of the latter. Yes, most of the time, we feel our gender corresponds with our sex, but not always, and nor is there any concrete proof that this has to be the case. Most studies tend to agree that our brains start out as blank slates, that we grow into the gender we are assigned based on our bodies. In other words, our sex only defines our gender insofar as the historical assumption that they are the same thing, which in turn exposes us to certain cultural expectations. To any TERFs that have somehow ended up here-if you haven’t already, I suggest looking into the research of Gina Rippon, a neuroscientist whom has spent a large portion of her professional career analysing the data of sex differences in the brain. Whilst she originally set out to find some kind of consistent variance between the brains of the 2 prominent sexes to back up the idea that the brains of men and women are inherently different, she found nothing of significance-individual differences, yes, but no consistent similarities in the brains of one sex that were not present in the other. Once differences in brain size were accounted for, “well-known” sex differences in key structures disappeared-in terms of proportion, these structures take up the same amount of space in the brain regardless of sex. Her findings are best summed up by her response to the question: are there any significant differences in the brain based on sex alone? Her answer is no. To suggest otherwise is “neurofoolishness”. Not only does her research help put to bed the myth that our brains are sexed along with the rest of our bodies during development (this is now believed to happen separately, meaning the sex of our bodies and brains may not correspond), but also the idea propagated by the patriarchy for centuries that basically boils down to “boys will be boys”-a myth used to condone male sexual violence against women and even against each other on the basis that it is inherent and “can't be helped”. That they are just “built differently”. Maybe at one point in human evolution, men were conditioned to fight and women were conditioned to protect, but whilst the idea remains and continues to affect our societal structures (and thus said cultural expectations), we’ve moved on. I mean we evolved from fish for fuck’s sake but you don’t see us breathing underwater.

Gender identity is based on many things and admittedly we don’t fully have the complete picture yet. The effects that socialisation and gender norms in particular, as much as we don’t want them to exist, have on our brain are huge; there’s evidence that they can leave epigenetic marks, or in other words cause structural changes in the brain which drive biological functions and features as diverse as memory, development and disease susceptibility. Socialisation alters the way our individual brains develop as we grow up, and as much as I’d love to see gender norms disappear, they’ll probably be around for a long time to come, as will their ramifications. The gap between explaining how socialisation affects the brain of cisgender individuals compared to the brains of transgender or non-binary individuals is not yet totally clear, but as with every supposed cause and effect psychology tries to uncover, there are outliers and individual differences. No, brains are not inherently male or female at birth but they are all different, and can be affected by socialisation differently. In one particularly groundbreaking study conducted by Dick Swaab of the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, postmortems of the brains of transgender women revealed that the structure of one of the areas in the brain most important to sexual behaviour more closely resembled the postmortem brains of cisgender women than those of cisgender men-it’s also important that these differences did not appear to be attributable to the influence of endogenous sex hormone fluctuations or hormone treatment in adulthood.

Maybe dysphoria is something that evolves organically and environmental factors don’t even come into it. Like I said, we don’t have the whole picture. What we DO know is that for some people, as soon as they become self-aware, that dysphoria is there, and the evidence for THAT, for there being common variations between the brains of cisgender individuals and transgender individuals, is overwhelming. You can be trapped in a body that does not correspond with how your brain functions, or how you wish to see yourself. Do individuals like J.K Rowling really believe it is ethical to reinforce the idea that we are defined by our sex and that our sex should decide the course of our lives, should decide how we are treated? That we should reduce people to genitals and chromosomes when our gender, the lens through which we see and interact with the world, could be completely different? Do they not see anything wrong with perpetuating the feelings of “otherness” and dysphoria in trans individuals that results from society’s refusal to see them as anything more than what body parts they have? In a collaboration between UCLA MA neuroscience student Jonathan Vanhoecke and Ivanka Savic at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, the statistics collected pointed to what trans activists have always been trying to get at-the areas of the brain responsible for our sense of our identity showed far more neural activity in the brains of trans individuals when they were looking at depictions of their body that had been changed to match their gender identity than when this wasn’t the case; when they saw themselves with a body that corresponded with their gender identity, when they were “valid” by society’s definition, they felt more themselves. When J.K Rowling tells trans people that their “real identity” is the sex they were born with, she is denying them this right to be themselves and due to her large platform, encouraging others to do the same. YOU are doing that, J.K. And who knows why? Where does your transphobia come from? Peel back the bullshit layers of waffle about feeling silenced and threatened, which you know you are directing at the wrong group of people, and admit it’s for less noble reasons. Taking the time to unlearn the instinct embedded into your generation to see people according to the cultural status quo of biological determinism is effort, I know-but you wrote a 700+ page book. I’m sure you can manage it. Or is it an ego thing? You don’t want to admit that you may have been uneducated on gender and sex in the past, and now have to stick by your reductive position so your image as an “intellectual” isn’t compromised. I don’t know. Only you do. But your position is irresponsible and dangerous either way. You can make up bullshit reasons as to why the link between trans individuals and the incidence of suicide attempts and completions isn’t relevant or representative of the struggle that trans people face due to the hatred that people like you propagate but it is there, and you J.K Rowling, someone who has spoken in the past about the horror of depression, should know better. You should know better than to CLAIM you know better than the experienced researchers who have found the same pattern time and time again-that the likelihood of trans individuals committing suicide is significantly higher than that of cis people.

No, Rowling’s transphobia has never been as upfront as saying “I don’t believe transgender people exist” but she continues to imply that when she makes claims such as womanhood being defined by whether or not one experiences menstruation, and the completely subjective concept of whether an individual has faced sex-based violence from cisgender men. I’m sure she’d be out here taking chromosome proof cards like Oysters if it wasn’t for intersex individuals throwing her whole binary jam into a tailspin. Yep, there’s even suggestions that the binary biological model might not be so binary these days-just because two people have, say, XY chromosomes, does not mean that these chromosomes are genetically identical between individuals-the genes they carry can, and do, vary and so their actions and expressions of sex vary.

Ideally, what TERFs want to do with their language of “real womanhood” is create an exclusive club that trans women are left out of when they too suffer under the same patriarchal society that those who are born female do. Yes, they might not experience ALL the issues a person born with female genitalia do, but no two women’s life experiences are the same anyway. Trans women also have their own horrible experiences with the patriarchy, and are often victims of a specific kind of gendered violence that is purported by the idea of “real womanhood”. Don’t throw trans sisters under the bus because you’re angry about your experience as a woman on this planet-direct your anger at the fucking bus. Don’t claim that “many trans people regret their decision to transition” when the statistics overwhelmingly show that this is the EXACT FUCKING OPPOSITE of the truth (according to British charity organisation Mermaids, surgical regret is proportionately very low amongst gender affirmation outpatients and research suggesting otherwise has been broadly disproven) because you’ve spoken to a selective group of trans individuals probably handpicked by the TERFS you associate with to confirm their biases, and then have the nerve to claim that trans-activists live in echo chambers on top of that. Don’t use anecdotes and one-off incidences where “trans women” (I say trans women in quotation marks because we’re pretty much talking about a completely statistically insignificant group of perverted cis men who have, according to TERFs, somehow come to the conclusion that going through transition will make their already easy-to-get-away-with hobby of assaulting women even...easier to get away with?) have committed sexual crimes to demonise and paint as predatory group who are largely at risk and in 99.9% of situations, the ones being preyed on. It’s a point so disgusting that trans activists shouldn’t even have to respond to it, but the idea that an individual would go to the pains of legally changing their gender and potentially the hell of the harassment that trans people face, the multiple year long NHS waiting lists to see specialist doctors, just so that they can gain access to women only spaces is ridiculous. It’s worth noting here just how sinister you repeatedly bringing up this phantom threat of cis men becoming trans women in order to assault women in “women only” spaces is. The implication here is that they should use the toilet corresponding to the sex they were born as, right? Because it’s all about safety? Well, statistically speaking, far more trans women are abused whilst having to use men’s toilets than when they use women’s ones and the same goes for trans men, and yet you don’t mention it once. Your suggestion also puts people born female who identify as women but maybe do not dress or present in a typically feminine way at risk of being ostracised when THEY need to use the women’s bathroom. The idea that by ceasing to uphold values like yours we are putting women at risk is quite simply, unsubstantiated; the legislation to allow individuals to use the bathroom corresponding to whichever gender they legally identify as has been around since 2010 in the UK and yet we’ve yet to see the sudden spike in the number of women being assaulted in bathrooms you imply will exist if we create looser rules around gender identity and let people use whichever toilet they feel the need to. Similarly, in a study of US school districts, Media Matters found that 17 around the country with protections for trans people, which collectively cover more than 600,000 students, had no problems with harassment in bathrooms or locker rooms after implementing their policies. If cis men want to assault women, they will. They don’t need to pretend to be trans to do so. Don’t pretend to be speaking as a concerned ally of LGBTQ+ individuals when you’re ignoring the thoughts of the majority of individuals who come under that category.

(Just Some of the Trans Women Murdered for Being Trans Over the Last Couple of Years, L-R: Serena Valzquez, Riah Milton, Bee Love Slater, Naomi Hersi, Layla Pelaez, and Dominique Fells)

Trans women are not the threat here. Bigots like you are the threat. HOW DARE you use your platform to reinforce this rhetoric that gets trans people killed when there are so many much MUCH more important things going on right now. Two black trans women had been murdered just for being black trans women in the week you wrote your essay defending those initial tweets. This is an ongoing issue. As a cis woman, my opinion should read as sacred texts to you right, Joanne? Because I’ll say with my whole chest that I feel far more threatened by bigots like you who do not care for the harmful impact of their words than I do by trans women. I do not feel threatened by trans women AT ALL. And yeah, to me, unless they tell me otherwise that they like to go out their way to affirm their trans-ness (which I completely respect-it takes a lot of courage to be proud about your past in a world that condemns you for it), they’re just WOMEN like any other. Yes their experience of “womanhood” may be different to mine but no two individuals experiences are the same anyway and our gender related suffering has the same cause. As a rich, white, cis woman, it’s wild that you are painting yourself as the victim in this debate when trans people can face life in prison and in some places a death sentence for openly identifying with a gender different to their sex in a lot of countries. Nobody is saying that you can’t talk about cis women. Nobody is saying you can’t talk about lesbian issues either, though it’s a bit of a piss-take that you like to throw that whole trans women erase lesbian existence argument out there as a kind of trump card to say “look, I can’t be a transphobe, I’m an LGBTQ+ ally!”, an argument akin to the racist’s age old “I can’t be racist, I have black friends!”. You know from the responses you get to your transphobia that majority of the LGBTQ+ community are very much adamant that trans women are “real women” and that the same goes for trans men being “real men”, so don’t claim to speak for them. You cannot simultaneously care about LGBTQ+ rights and deny trans people their right to live as who they are, however veiled your sentiments around that may be. The whole gay rights movement of the 60s and 70s exist partially BECAUSE of black trans women such as Martha P Johnson if you didn’t know, and though it’s kinda common knowledge I’m doubting that you do because very little of what you tout is backed up by any kind of research. The articles you retweet, echoing the views of lesbians who also happen to be TERFs do not count-the idea that trans people existing simultaneously erases the existence of lesbians only applies to individuals such as yourself who don’t see trans women as women in the first place. That is the problem! Most people don’t have an issue with the fact that you may have a preference for certain genitalia, but I would argue that ignoring exceptional circumstances related to trauma or some other complex issue, relationships are supposed to be with the person as a whole, not their “organic” penis or vagina and it’s kind of insulting to anyone in a same sex relationship to reduce their bond to that.

Back to my point though, of course there are issues that cis women and lesbians face that need talking about, but trans people are affected by the same patriarchal system. You don’t need to go out of your way to mention that they’re not included in whichever given specific issue when there are also cis women who may not have experienced some of the things TERFs reference. You especially don’t need to act as if trans women are the reason we need to have these discussions in the first place. As I’ve said, as MANY women have said, repeatedly-they are NOT the threat here. It is disgusting to see someone I once had so much admiration for constantly punch down at a group that is already marginalised. It’s 2020, J.K, there’s so much info out there. YOU’RE A FULLY GROWN WOMAN. There’s no justification. We get it, you had a tomboy phase. You weren’t like “other girls”. You didn’t like living under a patriarchal system. So you think you understand the mindset of people who want to transition. You think you’re not doing anything wrong by helping to slow the advancement of trans rights because well, you turned out fine? But you clearly fundamentally misunderstand what being trans is. It’s not about your likes and dislikes and having issues with the experience of being a woman (god knows we all do but I doubt anyone truly thinks for one moment that being trans would be any easier), it’s about how you think and feel at your core. It’s such a complex issue, and all the majority of trans people are asking you to do is LISTEN to them. You may be determined to live in binaries, yet the bigger picture is always more complex and fluid and it’s ever-changing, so all we can do is keep an open mind and keep wanting to know more and gather more evidence. If you’re capable of the mental gymnastics required to retcon the piece of work you wrote in the 90s to make it seem as if you were “ahead of the diversity game”, to the extent that you are now claiming Voldermort’s snake has always actually been a Korean woman and see nothing wrong with that when paired with the fact that the only Asian character you originally included was called Cho Chang, then well…I’m sure you can put your ego aside and do the groundwork to understand what trans people are trying to tell you too. You inspired a lot of children and teenagers and even adults, and got them through some very difficult times, taught that the strength of one’s character matters far more than what anyone thinks of you. You claimed you wanted to stand up for the outcasts.

Well, stand up for the outcasts. Now’s a better time than any. And once again: TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN AND TRANS MEN ARE MEN. They shouldn’t have to hear anything else.

Lauren x

[DISCLAIMER: shitty collages are mine but the background is not, let me know if you are aware of the artist so I can credit!]

#transisbeautiful #trans pride #trans lives matter #blm #black lives matter #jk rowling #trans rights #gender identity #gender studies #trans women are women #politics #socialism #safe space #all are welcome

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thecourtreportersportedjorts · 6 years

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Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2017

In December of each year, Billboard publishes its list of the 100 biggest hit songs of the last 12 months. In response, I take it upon myself to decide which of these songs were the real hits, and which were the biggest misses. As always, I’m starting with the worst. Let’s get started:

10. “Do Re Mi” by Blackbear

If you’ve read my earlier lists, I’ve made it no secret that I’m a big fan of The Weeknd. I’ve been enjoying his relentlessly bleak brand of R&B for years, so I was more than ready to celebrate his ascent on the pop charts with multiple spots on my Best Hit Songs lists in 2015 and 2016. Apart from choosing “Can’t Feel My Face” over Taylor Swift’s incomparable “Style” as my favorite hit song of 2015, I stand by all of it. Unfortunately, any great, successful artist is bound to generate a wave of cut-rate imitators, and thus we now have to deal with blackbear.

When blackbear first appeared on the Billboard Hot 100 last spring, I probably had the same reaction as anyone previously uninitiated: who the hell is this? Prior to this year, the rising R&B singer-songwriter had written and produced for such personality vacuums as G-Eazy and Machine Gun Kelly. He also co-wrote “Boyfriend,” one of Justin Bieber’s biggest and most embarrassing singles to date. If any of that suggests that his breakout single “Do Re Mi” would be a noxious whinge replete with countless fuckboy-isms, you’d only wish it were that good.

Blackbear unfortunately goes the extra mile, topping off his insufferable whining at his “crazy” ex with a failed attempt at wit. “Do, re, mi, fa, so fuckin’ done with you,” the chorus taunts, which becomes awkward when you notice that he’s singing up a minor scale, and the minor solfege progression is do, re, ME, FE, etc. All this is accompanied by a perfunctory Gucci Mane feature and a chord progression that’s eerily similar to The Weeknd’s “Wicked Games,” which is where my issues with the song clicked: when Abel made songs like this, he at least had the good sense not to cast himself in the moral high ground or center his hooks around laughable wordplay. And I thought Bryson Tiller was bad.

9. “Believer” by Imagine Dragons

I’ve been writing these lists for five years now, and while I wouldn’t say that my music taste has changed dramatically since then, it’s certainly expanded enough that I could rewrite my Best Hit Songs lists from 4 or 5 years ago and include songs that weren’t even on my radar before. With that said, doing this for such a long time leads you to wonder if you were ever too quick to heap praise onto something that ultimately didn’t deserve it. And while I wouldn’t say I suddenly dislike any of the songs Imagine Dragons landed on my previous lists, I can no longer call myself a fan when they keep churning out crap like this.

I first mentioned Imagine Dragons in 2012, when I saw them as an innovative new force in rock music, alongside the likes of Gotye and fun. While Gotye still hasn’t followed up his album Making Mirrors, and fun. guitarist Jack Antonoff has made even better music with his Bleachers project, Imagine Dragons doubled down on their stadium-ready sound to diminishing returns. After the sophomore slump Smoke + Mirrors failed to produce major hits, they somehow managed to notch one of their biggest successes yet with “Believer,” a dreary, un-catchy slog of a song.

There are a lot of things that I find deeply annoying about “Believer,” like singer Dan Reynolds audibly straining his vocals on a flat hook, the utterly dour and depressing music backing what should be an uplifting (if not esoteric) set of lyrics, or the “first things first” lyrical structure that gives me Iggy Azalea flashbacks. But my biggest problem with Imagine Dragons in 2017 is that their songs seem entirely calculated to fit into trailers and commercials, and I’ve heard “Believer” in these spaces far more than anything more organic. I don’t believe that rock is inherently more valuable or authentic than pop, rap, etc., but it has no chance of being so if this is the way “rock” is represented in the mainstream.

8. “Tunnel Vision” by Kodak Black

If there is a theme to my lists this year, it’s that content doesn’t exist without context. 2017 has seen countless powerful men rightfully fall from grace as allegations of sexual assault and harassment continue to come out of the woodwork. As somebody who loves to share music, this puts me in an interesting position. Was I right to top my Best Hit Songs of 2014 with “Do What U Want,” Lady Gaga’s infamous collaboration with R. Kelly? Can I, in good conscience, still call Brand New’s Science Fiction one of the best albums on the year? Despite my own investment in this music, I have to second guess whether or not I can actively recommend any of it when such information is readily available. These are tough questions, but at least I don’t have to ask them here since I never liked Kodak Black in the first place.

Horrific legal charges aside, I never understood the appeal of Kodak’s music. Sure, he may choose solid beats once in a while, and he may speak on the gritty realities of the street life, but so many other rappers have done so by using a more intelligible and far less grating voice. So many other rappers have done so without resorting to tired, juvenile punchlines like “That money make me cum, it make me fornicate / I’m the shit, I need some toilet paper.” And so many other rappers at least know that “winning” doesn’t rhyme with “penitentiary.”

Even if you somehow liked this song and wanted badly to separate the art from the artist, you can’t really do that in this case. The edited line “I get any girl I want, any girl I want” originally ended with “I don’t gotta rape,” which is eventually followed by “I need a bitch who gon’ cooperate.” YIKES. The only reason this song is so low on this list is because the beat, provided by the ubiquitous Metro Boomin, deserves so much better. Metro, please stick to working with Future and Migos and stay away from this little shit.

7. “Bad Things” by Machine Gun Kelly feat. Camila Cabello

Overall, I considered 2016 to be a pretty weak year for the pop charts. It’s not that everything was terrible that year, but I remember struggling to put together both of these lists because I was so indifferent to most of the hits. Still, one of the most damning trends to dominate the year was the rise of mediocre white rappers. Both Gnash and Post Malone ranked high on my Worst list, and I probably should have included G-Eazy’s tedious “Me, Myself & I” as a dishonorable mention. This trend hasn’t entirely disappeared, as Malone had a surprisingly successful 2017, but it really should have ended with Machine Gun Kelly.

The first of the many bad things about “Bad Things” is the generous sample of Fastball’s 1999 hit song “Out of My Head.” I already have reservations about songs with such recognizable samples - even in songs like “Anaconda” that I otherwise like - and this is no exception, since the sample doesn’t really add any personality or texture to the song. The chorus just gets witlessly rewritten and clumsily regurgitated by Camila Cabello, who only sounds slightly less like a goat than she did on “Work From Home.” Of course, the song also borrows Fastball’s chord progression, which sounds like ass when paired with this Marshmello-lite production.

Even worse is MGK, who’s trying his damnedest to sound like the personification of white alpha male posturing. The only time his delivery suits the track is when he attempts to add a melody in the pre-chorus, and even then it results in serious tonal whiplash. There’s also a baffling R.E.M. reference in his second verse, as if desecrating one 90’s alternative rock band wasn’t enough. I would call the title of the song truth in advertising, but it’s more of an understatement.

6. “Swang” by Rae Sremmurd

I first discussed Rae Sremmurd in 2015 when “No Type” made the #9 spot on my Worst list. And while I still stand by the song’s inclusion, I don’t have much against these guys. Sure, SremmLife had more misses than hits - including the milk-aged, deeply regrettable “Up Like Trump” - but I can take solace in that they earned their biggest success with “Black Beatles,” their best song. On top of that, collaborations with French Montana and Jhene Aiko could position Swae Lee as a breakout solo star with a charismatic (if amateurish) vocal presence.

It’s for that exact reason why “Swang” is such a failure. Critics have routinely praised the duo for their infectious energy, but for the duration of the song, very little of that energy really translates. The production from P-Nazty trades the thunderous, off-kilter synths that made “Black Beatles” so invigorating for something much more warbly, cheap and lifeless. Swae Lee spends the majority of his time droning on words like Alaska Thunderfuck on quaaludes, and by the time Slim Jxmmi attempts to liven things up, it’s too little too late.

“Swang” isn’t an entirely sleepy affair, however. The track has one truly memorable trick up its sleeve - and that’s when Swae leaps into his falsetto during the hook. And it sounds hideous. It’s not quite as ear-splittingly awful as the drop on “Starving” last year, but it doesn’t even have that song’s sense of momentum. It almost sounds like the shower scene from Psycho, only without any real buildup leading to the aural carnage.

5. “Shape of You” by Ed Sheeran

Overplay doesn’t tend to factor into my selections for these lists, a fact which is evident when you see that my Best list for 2015 included songs like “Hello” and “Shut Up and Dance.” This is because I don’t listen to the radio or randomized pop playlists very frequently. I’ll seek out the most popular songs once, and whether or not I keep hearing the song usually depends on how much I like it. That said, sometimes a song becomes inescapable, and the more you hear it, you notice more and more problems with it.

This takes us conveniently to “Shape of You,” Ed Sheeran’s first ever #1 single on the Hot 100. Admittedly, I thought this song was decent at first, and so I’d listen to it once in a while when I needed to scratch the itch. But when I decided I was done with it after a few weeks, I started hearing it pretty much everywhere, and then it clicked: this song is incredibly stupid.

First of all, Ed Sheeran is somewhere among the final few names on my hypothetical list of people I want to hear making songs about sex. “Shape of You” is certainly more competent than I’d imagine a sex song would be coming from Danny DeVito, but it’s also weirdly lacking in personality, which makes sense since he didn’t write this with himself in mind. Like “Cheap Thrills” last year, “Shape of You” was originally intended for Rihanna, who’s probably getting annoyed by all these white songwriters trying to pitch her such watered-down, vaguely Caribbean sounding pop tunes.

Of course, I could just be wishing that the song lacked personality, because Ed can’t resist using his same Sheeranisms that have soiled so many of his stabs at pop. In addition to an out-of-place Van Morrison shoutout (which he couldn’t even confine to one song), the song has a host of clumsy, overwritten lyrics. “Your love was handmade for somebody like me.” “We talk for hours and hours about the sweet and the sour.” That whole chorus. “Shape of You” scans as an OkCupid message from a dude with no social skills. Now imagine getting that same message about 500 more times, and you’ve got one of the most overplayed trainwrecks in recent memory.

4. “Don’t Wanna Know” by Maroon 5 feat. Kendrick Lamar / “Cold” by Maroon 5 feat. Future

For this entry on the list, I’ll be doing something different - I’m giving it to two songs. Sure, this is occasionally done as an excuse to avoid making a concrete decision, but there’s a genuine reason this time. The songs in question are “Don’t Wanna Know” and “Cold,” both by rock band-turned-space-wasters Maroon 5. These two songs are essentially minor variations on each other, and all the more evidence that Adam Levine and his producers band need to go away.

“Don’t Wanna Know” was released late last year, while the charts were still saturated with so much half-assed tropical house. The lyrics feature Levine at his most petulant and unlikeable, harping on an ex so much that the characteristically repetitive chorus just sounds more like a failed defense mechanism. As awful as all this is, it’s nothing compared to the fact that these guys managed to rope in Kendrick Lamar - arguably one of the most important and talented artists of this decade - and make him suck. It’s a brief 8-bar verse, and yet half of the bars feature words rhyming with each other. There’s one thing I do wanna know after hearing this dreck - what Kendrick’s paycheck looked like.

Oh-so-cleverly released on Valentine’s Day this year, “Cold” effectively treads the same water as the other song. It’s more turgid tropical bullshit, only at a slighter quicker tempo. The lyrics are even more bitter, bordering on misogynistic at points. Another A-list rapper features, but this time, it’s Future, and while his verse is pretty average by his own standards, he sounds incredibly uncomfortable over this beat. Nothing about this song disappoints me as much Kendrick’s verse on “Don’t Wanna Know,” but it might be slightly worse by virtue of being more of the same.

Both of these songs were released well before their cluelessly titled album Red Pill Blues was even announced, and they were formally left off the standard track listing. Still, because of their chart success, they were included on the deluxe edition of the album, if only to represent the death of tropical house as a viable trend and an enjoyable sound in pop. And, of course, the death of Maroon 5 as anything resembling an actual band.

3. “JuJu on that Beat (TZ Anthem)” by Zay Hilfigerrr and Zayion McCall

Since Billboard first put a greater emphasis on streaming in their calculations, it’s been interesting to see how songs perform on the charts. As a whole, album tracks chart longer than ever, and the last two years have seen such unexpected chart-toppers like “Panda” and “Bodak Yellow” thanks to the popularity of hip-hop on streaming services. Unfortunately, this also means that songs are also more likely to become genuine hits off of viral novelty than quality. It happened with the execrable “Watch Me” in 2015, and it nearly two years later, it happened with “Juju on That Beat.”

In retrospect, I may have been a little too hard on “Watch Me” when I named it the second worst song of 2015. I mean, we were still in the middle of Meghan Trainor’s window of relevance when it came out, and 2017 has seen rappers draw even more attention to their distinctive ad-libs. “Watch Me,” while still pretty grating, seems quaint and harmless now. The same can’t be said about “Juju on That Beat,” which is just as annoying and insulting to the intelligence as it was a year ago.

Let’s start with “That Beat,” which is lifted wholesale from Crime Mob’s crunk staple “Knuck If You Buck.” Forget what I said about the “Out of My Head” sample in “Bad Things,” this is particularly lazy. While rappers have used pre-existing beats in the past, this is clearly a dance song. Aren’t dance songs were supposed to have a unique musical identity to make up for inconsequential lyrics? The only audible difference is that the beat is transposed to a higher key, which makes sense if it’s meant to suit aspiring one hit wonders Zay Hilfigerrr and Zayion McCall’s more youthful voices.

It’s too bad that their voices still don’t sound remotely good. Hilfigerrr (not that the name matters) is particularly irritating, his out-of-breath yelps cracking like his balls just dropped mid-recording. And while I may have critiqued “Watch Me” for lacking actual rap verses, maybe it was for the better, as the other guy attempts to freestyle, only rhyming the first two of his eight bars and dropping such gems as “if I compared me and you, there wouldn’t be no comparings.” The only good thing about this song is that it’s mercifully short, perhaps the shortest hit song of 2017 that wasn’t by XXXTentacion or Lil Pump. By comparison, “Watch Me” is a masterpiece in minimalism.

2. “Say You Won’t Let Go” by James Arthur

I’m pretty sure my decision to name “Treat You Better” the worst song of 2016 might have been strange for some. Sure, I’ve seen the song on several similar lists (including one that has it in the same position), but the general public actually seems to enjoy the song a lot. Maybe that has to do with the fact that the music is so blandly inoffensive that most people wouldn’t bat an eye at the content. But apart from the patronizing lyrics and the laughable singing, that was part of my problem. White-guy-with-acoustic-guitar songs tend to piss me off because they’re churned out by dudes with aspirations to Real Musicianship whose compositional skills are limited, so the lyrics tend to be transparent in their douchebaggery. And while very, very few things are as bad as “Treat You Better,” James Arthur’s “Say You Won’t Let Go” fits this mold to a T.

As with seemingly all music this year, some context is necessary. James Arthur won The X Factor in 2012 (which should tell you everything about this guy’s musical persona) before signing to Simon Cowell’s Syco Records imprint and eventually releasing songs in which he used homophobic and Islamophobic insults and compared himself to a terrorist. He left Syco in 2014, but two years later, he released Back from the Edge, an album whose title practically begs for sympathy for his lack of a filter. “Say You Won’t Let Go” was the immensely successful lead single, which somehow lasted on the Hot 100 for a full year.

Perhaps knowing all this before hearing the song colored my distaste for “Say You Won’t Let Go” from the jump, but I think this song is fucking terrible. Over acoustic strumming and an infinitely recycled chord progression, Arthur recounts when he first met the love of his life, including a deeply unflattering line where she vomits (again with that filter!). The rest of the song delves into the same territory that Ed Sheeran already exhausted with “Thinking Out Loud,” and the whole thing just scans as incredibly disingenuous coming from him. Hell, he even describes the song as “really calculated” in his annotations on Genius.

Truthfully, the content and the context are the least unpleasant things about this song. James Arthur nearly mumbles through the verses before bringing his voice up another octave for the chorus, which sounds like a drunken bro singing “You’re Beautiful” at Karaoke. A lot of people have praised his vocals, but I might just hate them even more than “Swang” because at least Swae Lee sounded like he was enjoying himself. James just sounds ready to throw up, which is probably karma at work after that lyric in the first verse (not to mention pretty much anything this guy has said that put him at the edge in the first place).

Before I unveil my pick for the worst hit song of 2017, here are eight dishonorable mentions:

“Chained to the Rhythm” by Katy Perry feat. Skip Marley: 2017 was not a good year for Katy Perry, whose self-awareness seems to be diminishing with each album cycle. “Chained to the Rhythm” was the ever-so-obviously co-written by Sia lead single, which boasts an extremely out-of-place guest verse from Bob Marley’s grandson and perhaps one of the clumsiest hooks of the entire year.

“Thunder” by Imagine Dragons: At least “Chained to the Rhythm” had an actual hook, not just chipmunked repetitions of a single word. Because it’s an Imagine Dragons song in 2017, it’s also padded out a with a trap beat, more vague nothings in the verses and grossly manipulated vocals in place of any actual instrumental tones.

“Mercy” by Shawn Mendes: It’s nowhere near as condescending and misogynistic as “Treat You Better,” but it’s every bit as whiny and overwrought, even sharing the same warbled vocals incessant drum beat. Really, it’s a damn shame he didn’t actually drown in the music video.

“Drowning” by A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie feat. Kodak Black: Speaking of drowning, isn’t a song with this title and these piano chords supposed to be about something more interesting than bragging about jewelry? Also, an accused rapist shows up to mumble and make awful jokes about farts. Let’s move on.

“Look at Me!” by XXXTentacion: Oh yeah, there was also this guy, who’s been accused of some extremely disturbing stuff (seriously, trigger warning). I can appreciate some more aggression in the beat and even X’s flow, but the distortion makes everything nearly incomprehensible, which is probably alright since the lyrics amount to little more than edgelord crap. Fuck this.

“Down” by Marian Hill: “Down” doesn’t really have any personality to speak of, driven almost entirely by a woman’s breathy voice, which later gets manipulated into a boilerplate trap beat. Seriously, what is it about this kind of pretentious “indie” pop wallpaper that attracts such an audience?

“Issues” by Julia Michaels: I’ve talked a lot of shit about Julia Michaels and her frequent collaborator Justin Tranter in the past, but “Issues” is actually a pretty compelling exploration of mental health and relationships, and Julia is a distinctive vocalist in her own right. Unfortunately, the song does have issues, and one of them is how bad it needs to pick up the goddamn pace.

“All Time Low” by Jon Bellion: Jon Bellion has a lot of potential as a songwriter and producer, but his vocals sound a lot like Adam Young with slightly more testosterone. The lyric about masturbation is questionable too, but I simply can’t hear that chorus without thinking of this video.

And now, for what I consider worst hit song of 2017:

1. “Body Like a Back Road” by Sam Hunt

Choosing between this and “Say You Won’t Let Go” for the bottom slot on my list was admittedly much harder than usual, but the decision ultimately came down to one thing. Sure, James Arthur’s song disgusts me on a very primal level, to a point where I can’t really listen to the chorus without wincing. But would the song really bother me that much if Arthur weren’t a total dick with a horrific voice? Probably not. Thus, I had to choose a song that was so unequivocally bad that literally nobody could make it work. I had to choose a song in which the awfulness was spelled out right in the title: “Body Like a Back Road.”

Before we open the can of worms that is this song, one thing needs to be addressed. Yes, this is a bro-country song. In 2017. I could maybe see the appeal if this were released in 2014, which was not only the saturation point for this embarrassing subgenre, but also for the DJ Mustard production style that this song clearly takes its influence from. But in 2017, country music has thankfully been working back towards a more organic sound, and DJ Mustard has been replaced by guys like Metro Boomin and Mike Will Made It as hip-hop’s guiding hand. From the word “go,” this song is dated and lame.

Of course, lame is a huge understatement for the lyrical content. You can infer a lot of things from the title alone, and it’s even worse than you might expect. Sam Hunt seems to dedicate this song to his fiancee, which is perhaps one of the most misconceived gifts imaginable. For fuck’s sake, Sam, you’re a country singer. It’s par the course that you’ve been on a back road before, you should know damn well that this comparison is insulting. As if that weren’t bad enough, he attempts to elaborate, waxing unpoetic about her “curves” (a word he draws out in a particularly grating manner) and how the two of them “go way back like Cadillac seats.” While the imagery is more consistent than Train’s abominable “Drive By,” it’s just as gross.

But really, the most egregious crime “Body Like a Back Road” commits is just flat-out sounding like ass. Hip-hop and country don’t exactly have a lot of aesthetic common ground to begin with, so when the rap producer this guy attempts to emulate is DJ Mustard, the whole track ends up sounding as cheap and awkward as his early abortions like “Rack City.” There’s also the weirdly lightweight live drums, not to mention whatever the hell is playing that melody in the intro and bridge. The whole song is so out of touch with the times that I’m convinced it wasn’t just a Montevallo demo. Sadly, it seems the bro-country trend never really went away, and maybe it still has legs to stand on (legs that, at some point, it’ll probably try to compare to the confederate flag or something). But last year proved that mainstream country can be so much better than this, so let’s just hope that this subgenre finally dies for real this time.

Thanks for reading my list, I should be uploading the Best Hit Songs of 2017 later this week!

#billboard #pop music #pop #opinions #long post #year-end hot 100 #billboard year-end hot 100 singles of 2017 #2017 #worst of 2017 #year-end #not tagging the artists cause while i don't respect these songs i do respect the people who enjoy them #carson's writing

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magpiewritingthing · 5 years

Text

where the girls run

Series: flowers

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Summary: With her twin missing in the Henbane, the second Junior Deputy steps foot back in Faith’s domain.

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Warnings: mentioned past child abuse & sexual assault & harassment, nongraphic violence, canon character death, one use of the c word

Other notes: not entirely sure on Faith's voice here tbh lmao 8);;;;; concrit would be welcomed in that area mostly

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Jemima remembers nothing of prayers, only the fear she used to feel when the old man used to rant and rave and the old man’s wife would only sit with indifference (or fear, she doesn’t know, and doesn’t care, anyway). Mom and Dad are agnostic, and raised her and Jason that way, instilling a sense of polite scepticism; at the very least, they were polite with Jerome and Joseph equally -- before they’d left to see Mom’s sister in Indiana for the week. Thinking of them now, as she steps a booted foot into the Henbane River, she hopes they’re still there, and didn’t return early to this hellhole.

The sickly-sweet stench of the Bliss irritates her nose. She sneezes, and does her best to wipe her nose, keeping her eyes beady. Hallucinations are likely, which she knows well, Solomon’s image outlined with hazy and glittering green imprinted on her brain for the foreseeable future, as long as her memory never starts to deteriorate. A baby’s cry hurts worse, of course.

She knows that Jason came here not long after returning from the Mountains, blood having formed patterns on his shirt. The Resistance had trusted him to take care of Faith, after having dispatched the Whitetail region of Jacob (despite the deaths of several Whitetail Militia, and especially their leader, Eli Palmer, staining his shirt and his hands just as much), and Jemima had to focus on John, and getting Hudson out of that rathole bunker. Jemima had finished with John (and would’ve taken the Baptist’s head -- for herself, for Mary May, for Nick, for Kim, for Carmina, for Joey, for the entirety of Holland Valley, for her brother, and God, if there is a God, she’d swear by that cunt’s hypothetical existence that she would’ve taken Jacob’s head, too, if Jason hadn’t told her to stay far away from the mountains), and had immediately set off in search of her brother who no-one had heard from in two days. Complete radio silence conjured up nightmares of Jason as an Angel, and more of him shooting himself in the head.

A Bliss bullet hits her in the leg. Natch!

Faith scares her. Joseph does too, in a way, with his hold and influence, a human epicentre of doom and disaster. John -- oh, John enraged her more than she could be scared of him, but she was, and was scared of Jacob although she never met him. The potential of their power (those that were alive) was something that gave her pause, made her think about wanting and wishing to turn back, redo this arrest business, get the National Guard involved, for fuck’s sake -- but one has to be brave, be very brave, to fight evil things. Oh yes, like a knight in shining armour fights a fearsome dragon. Of course, of course, Jemima is that exact kinda knight, isn’t she? Delusions of grandeur! It was a toss-up between PRIDE or WRATH on her chest -- the latter won out. At least later, if she survives long enough, she can turn it into something cool. Easier to minimise these horrible things rather than to face them with real bravery, she finds.

“Hello, Jemima.”

“Hey, Faith. Girl time?” Just two young women hangin’ out in a bunker, ya know.

“Sure! That’s why you came back, right?”

She doesn’t like the way that’s phrased, but then again, Faith scares her the most out of the Seeds. Ah, your would-be sister. She needs to stop thinking like that, in wistful would-bes and coulda-beens, but it’s difficult with the Bliss starting to take a real hold. The after-effects, the way it still lingers after the initial shot.

“I guess.” Playing along, and slurring just a touch. She’d come here for that? Or to kill Faith? And upset Joseph some more? If he even gives a flying shit about Faith, and not just what she means to the Project. But then the same might come into question about his brothers. Her mind’s going to fast to pin these thoughts down and pump them full of that sweet-ass coherence juice, though. Shame. If she weren’t drugged up to the eyeballs, and drowning under it still with every minute passing, she’d probably be able to outline a neat little essay-style thing about it all. Arguments and counter-arguments and all.

Faith seems to be enjoying this, of course, kicking her legs off the desk. Yeah, of course she’s the kinda girl to sit on desks. Jemima would to, if she weren’t tied to a rather sturdy chair (without wheels!) and starting to slouch in it. Does this Bliss shit just jellify your bones? The fuck?

The sister laughs. Faith (or Rachel?) or Jemima or both (all three), it’s not immediately clear, but Jemima is smiling because she heard it and it sounded good. “Did I say that out loud?” she asks.

“Yes, you did. And you should know already,” Faith says, slipping off the desk and booping Jemima on the nose, which is kinda annoying because now it feels like she has to rub it but she can’t because she’s tied up and wow! that's annoying! But Faith keeps talking, like her brothers: “It doesn’t turn your bones to jelly, but it can do that to your mind if there’s too much.” Angels. Ah. For a moment, she’d forgotten about the real horror of what can happen, having been lost in a good ol’ laugh with Funny Faith.

“Oh yeah,” she says quietly, then asks, suddenly panicking as a spark of memory stabs through green fog: “Where’s Jason? And Sheriff Whitehorse?”

And now Faith looks disappointed. It makes Jemima want to shrink into a ball. Reminding Faith about Whitehorse brings up what he’d said before, and what everyone else had regurgitated before him: that Faith was a liar and a manipulator and nothing she said could be trusted. Tracey, she thinks, is the only person closest to the truth about Faith, but even then, that was more about Rachel Jessop from before. A manipulator and a liar -- Jemima believes that, but it can’t be about everything. Not when she knows about that kinda truth.

Not personally. Or at least, not close enough to count it as such. Or is it? If it were anyone else who's heartrate spiked up when someone had presumed enough familiarity or boldness or confidence to not face consequences of any kind, Jemima would argue so. A hand on the hip -- what is that? Just flirting. It’s only ever “just flirting”. It’s the only most-dangerous thing anyone had dared try with her. College: what circle of Hell is that? Jemima counts herself lucky that she could choose, that she chose Solomon. Sweetest Solomon, too good for her, too kind, too understanding, and he would’ve been all that still if she’d chosen the other choice. She might’ve still had him.

“They’re elsewhere.” Short answer, and she worries more about her twin than about her boss (a girl is a liar only, and a girl is dispensable, it’s only trouble not worth getting into, only lies and manipulation and attention-seeking from a little girl with glaring bruises in a nice house and a nice town and a nice fucking county), but Faith’s recovered with a smile that Jemima will pretend she’s not questioning. “I heard you were coming to see me,” her voice is sickly-sweet, the sound translation of the smell of Bliss, “so I made sure they weren’t in the way so we could have our little girl talk in peace. Boys, you know?” Hands clasp on the arms of the wooden chair, and the stench of Bliss is so strong this close-up it makes Jemima’s eyes water, and she turns her face away to avoid looking the other girl (woman, she’s an adult woman now, she’s older than you for fuck’s sake, barely but still) in the eye. “They take up your time, they waste your time, they want to make your time all. about. them.”

Is this Faith? She is so angry. It’s not very Faith-like to be angry, is it? Not so viscerally.

“They do,” Jemima agrees, finally meeting Faith’s eye again, knowing and remembering several who fit the bill from school and college. Some of the guys at the station, too, come to think of it. Then she blurts out, “I believe you.” It seemed important to say, because Faith knows what everyone else is saying, and has said, and will continue to say about her, from way back then until the day she dies. Faith is not blind nor deaf to this.

It makes Faith lean back, looking more like Rachel might when faced with someone taking her side for once (Tracey did, Tracey tried, you must remember this, you are not unique to knowing Rachel and Faith), before it washes away again under a plaster smile, pearly teeth on display. “I know you do,” sounds like I knew you would, and it sounds like relief, but not quite trust. Forehead-to-forehead, she repeats, “I know you do.” Jemima closes her eyes then, leaning into this physical contact that Faith's allowing, because Faith might need this, something soft even if momentary.

Peace is spoiled by a baby’s crying, and Jemima whips her head away, this way and that, raw panic strangling her as she pulls and rattles at the rope that’s tight around her arms and torso. “Where is she?” she shouts, starting to cry and thrash in her chair.

Faith looks at her with odd fascination, like watching an insect. Then there’s more noise outside -- gunfire -- and Jemima howls because she can’t find her, and then Faith is gone yet again, and Jemima is left with Rhoda’s screeching cries in her ears, and fear for Jason's safety.

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Jason couldn’t bring himself to kill again, not even now when he was still wearing the same clothes unwashed. Not even a smart remark would seem to snap him out of his seemingly lasting stupor. It’s the shock, she tells herself. So it’s Jemima who takes to drowning instead. She’s not sure it’s worked, because when she turns to look back at the body, it’s disappeared. She has an hysterical thought: maybe Faith was never real.

She decides it doesn’t matter, since Joseph releases two barrels full of Bliss in front of the church.

#mine #my writing #mw: far cry 5 #mw: rp related #wc: 1000 – 2000 #series: flowers #ch: jemima flowers #ch: faith seed #sft #/ again;#/ it's not a series yet but yeet lmao

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