#i wrote about that in my fucking critical reflection. at length!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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the marker of my final piece this year has so spectacularly missed the point of my story that i want to fucking scream
#sami rambles#what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck#i got a B which may not seem bad but that story is the best thing i've ever written hands down and i poured my heart and soul into it so :D#for context its a story following the lives of 4 queer people at one night in a queer bar in 1950's LA#and this straight white cis woman told me 1) that i should consider using a less cliche and overly-used space like the gay bar#which ?????? bitch in what world do films use gay bars that much i can think of 3 things ive watched that have had gay bars in them#and most of those are modern#then secondly she said that i should introduce more tension into each of the stories when the whole fucking point of this#was to let these queer characters exist and breathe safely for one fucking night of their lives#i wrote about that in my fucking critical reflection. at length!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#how fucking DENSE to you have to be#and then the other thing that brought my mark down was something my tutor told me to do which ?????#HAHAHAHAHA#i'm so fine its not like my entire identity and mental health depends on my ability to write no siree!#definitely not feeling super depressed rn or anything !!!!#anyway sorry. i needed to vent.
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Courtney going on tour right after?
Theres a misconception that after Kurts death, Courtney went straight on tour right away. This is false. The album was already set to release a few days after and they couldnt change that on such a short notice. Promotion for the album was cancelled and she pushed back the tour 4 months.
“Live Through This was supposed to provide Love an opportunity to step out from her famous husband’s shadow. “It’s annoying now, and it’s been annoying for nine years, Love said in a 1999 Jane Magazine interview of always being connected to Cobain. Released four days after Cobain’s body was found, the album’s promotion was put on hold. Rather than retreat from the public eye, Love openly mourned and helped fans of Cobain and Nirvana make sense of the singer’s death. She sat with grieving teenagers gathered outside the couple’s Seattle home and recorded a reading of parts of his suicide note that was played at the singer’s memorial that gathered near the Space Needle. In the days following his death, Love showed a very raw and emotional side and admitted that, like many fans, she didn’t have all the answers.
It was, and still is, impossible for people to discuss Live Through This without noting the irony of the album’s title. Love has said the name was not a prediction at all, but instead a reflection of all she had endured in the months leading up to its release, including a very public custody fight with the Los Angeles Department of Family Services over daughter Frances Bean. Rumors suggested that Cobain had written much of Live Through This (it’s Miss World, not Mister, just FYI). “I’d be proud as hell to say that he wrote something on it, but I wouldn’t let him. It was too Yoko for me. It’s like, ‘No fucking way, man! I’ve got a good band, I don’t fucking need your help,’” was Love’s response to critics in Spin’s oral history of Live Through This. Love and Cobain often shared notebooks and lyrics with each other, and while there is talk of Cobain’s influence on Love’s work, or the writing of all of it, less is mentioned in the press of her impact on his lyrics and music. Rather than sucking all the life out of Nirvana or threatening the success of the band, like many assumed she would do, she inspired Cobain. Fun fact: In Utero, Nirvana’s last album, was named after a line from one of Love’s poems.
Sadly, songwriting rumors would be replaced by other rumors. Women are often vilified and condemned for the deaths of their male partners. Love, like all women, was supposed to save her partner from death and addiction. Fans of Cobain projected all their anger and resentment over the loss of the Nirvana front man onto Love, and soon she was blamed for not only his addiction but also his death. There are even two movies devoted to the theory that Courtney killed Kurt: the awful Soaked in Bleach (2015) and the equally awful Kurt & Courtney (1998). If you think we’ve come a long way, baby, sadly we haven’t.
One year after Anthony Bourdain’s death, Asia Argento is still being blamed, and in September 2018, Ariana Grande had to take a break from social media after fans blamed her for the death of her ex Mac Miller. A few months later, she would be blamed for new beau Pete Davidson’s mental health and addiction issues. It’s amazing she finds the time to write hit songs what with all the dude destruction she has going on. When women are not being blamed for the deaths of the men in their lives, they are being attacked for not grieving properly. “She wasn’t crying. She’s got $30 million coming to her. Do you blame her for being so cool?” a hospital staffer said of Yoko Ono following John Lennon’s murder in 1980.
About four months after Cobain’s death, Love went on tour to promote her new album. Some questioned and judged why she would go on tour so soon, but Love has said it was a necessity. She had a young daughter to support. She needed to work. She also, sadly, still needed to prove herself. “I would like to think that I’m not getting the sympathy vote, and the only way to do that is to prove that what I’ve got is real,” Love told Rolling Stone in 1994.
Twenty-five years later, Cobain’s death still hangs over Live Through This. In the days leading up to the anniversary of Cobain’s death, former Hole bassist Melissa Auf der Maur wrote an open letter to music magazine Kerrang saying she “would not stand for Kurt’s death overshadowing the life and work of the women he left behind this year.”
“We were extremely well designed for each other,” Love has said of her relationship with Cobain. In a letter reprinted in Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love, she calls him “my everything. the top half on my fraction.” The two had similar upbringings, both came from broken homes and spent childhoods shuttling between relatives and friends. They both grew up longing for love and acceptance. When we tell the story of Kurt and Courtney we talk about drugs and destruction, but we don’t talk enough about love.
The two also shared an intense drive and ambition. “I didn’t want to marry a rock star, I wanted to be one,” Love said in a 1992 Sassy interview. Evidence of her drive can be found in the many notes and to-do lists she kept, some of which are collected in Dirty Blonde. There are reminders to send her acting résumé to agencies, to write three to four new songs a week, to “achieve L.A. visibility.” A scene in the documentary Kurt & Courtney features an ex of Love’s reading from one of her to-do lists, which has “become friends with Michael Stipe” as the number one task to complete (not only did Love do this, but he is her daughter’s godfather). This ambition is not surprising from a woman who, when she was younger, mailed a tape of herself singing to Neil Sedaka in hopes of getting signed. Love knew what she wanted at an early age, and what she wanted was fame.
She was certainly living by the “do not hurt yourself, destroy yourself, mangle yourself to get the football captain. Be the football captain!” motto she championed in the 1995 documentary Not Bad for a Girl. Ambition is often a dirty word when it is used to describe women and Love is no exception. She has been repeatedly described as calculating and controlling when she should be rewarded for her blond ambition and viewed as an inspiration. Critics and the press often call her a gold digger who only married Cobain for fame and money. They fail to mention that when the two met Pretty on the Inside was actually selling more copies than Bleach, Nirvana’s debut album. Even post-Kurt, Love’s intentions were always under scrutiny. On the Today Show to do press for The People vs. Larry Flynt, Love refused to talk about her past drug use, despite the host’s repeated questions, saying the topic was not an appropriate fit for the show’s demographic. She was right, but it didn’t stop a writer from describing the move as “calculating” in a 1998 Spin piece.
Cobain was ambitious too; he was just much slyer and more secretive about it. He was known to call his manager and complain when MTV didn’t play Nirvana’s videos enough, and he would correct journalists who misquoted the band’s sales figures in interviews. While success is typically celebrated and rewarded for men and it certainly was for Cobain, he also had to be mindful of the slacker generation that loved Nirvana and greeted success — and especially mainstream success —
While female celebrities like Love are criticized for their rebellion, male celebrities, like Cobain for example, are celebrated and mythologized for it. Cobain and Love both struggled with addiction, but it is Love who is repeatedly vilified for her drug use. “She was vilified for being a mess, for being a drug addict, for not being a great parent — in other words, all of the things we expect in a male rock star,” said Bust magazine in a piece in the magazine’s 20th anniversary issue, which featured Love on the cover.
We make jokes about the drug antics of male celebrities from Keith Richards to Charlie Sheen, idolizing their debauchery and depravity. The new Netflix/Lifetime movie by Jack Daniels, The Dirt, about Mötley Crüe, takes the band’s excesses to almost comic levels. Check out crazy tourmate Ozzy Osbourne snorting a line of ants by a hotel pool! Such zany antics! I would love to see Lindsay Lohan try to get away with that. We never allow women to live down their arrests and their addictions, but we repeatedly allow men to have a redemption arc. Robert Downey Jr. was in and out of jail and on and off drugs for much of the mid to late ’90s, but we rarely, if ever, talk about his past.
When Love isn’t being attacked for her addiction issues, she is being judged for her parenting. Love’s first unflattering press was “Strange Love,” the much publicized 1992 Vanity Fair profile by Lynn Hirschberg. While the piece talks at length about Love’s drug use and constantly questions her parenting ability, it doesn’t paint Cobain in the same light. “It is appalling to think that she would be taking drugs when she knew she was pregnant,” says one close friend in the piece. Hirschberg relies on many unnamed sources and focuses often on the tabloid-like aspects of Love’s life and addictions. “Courtney has a long history with drugs. She loves Percodans (‘They make me vacuum’), and has dabbled with heroin off and on since she was eighteen, once even snorting it in Room 101 of the Chelsea Hotel, where Nancy Spungen died,” she writes. “Reportedly, Kurt didn’t do much more than drink until he met Courtney.” (Even when it is reported by Kurt and Krist that Kurt tried heroin in 1989, way before Courtney, It was also known that he smoked weed and used caugh syrup to get high in 1989 and 1990.)
This double standard was common in coverage of the couple. In Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, the 2015 documentary by Brett Morgen, Love asks her husband, “Why does everyone think you’re the good one and I’m the bad one?” Later in the film we see a scene of Frances Bean’s first haircut. The child sits on Cobain’s lap while Love searches for a comb and scissors. The camera shows Cobain nodding off, and while he maintains that he is just tired, it’s clear he’s not. The scene is painful to watch, especially because those around Cobain carry on like nothing in wrong, giving the feeling this is just like any other day in the Love-Cobain household. The scene is a reminder of how the press treated Cobain’s addiction when he was alive. They just carried on like nothing was wrong, instead directing all their judgement at Love.
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Author’s Note: Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve done this but here goes. I originally wrote this as a writing exercise with different characters in mind but decided it would be the perfect piece to test out my fic writing skills again. Please be kind but also don’t be shy with the criticism or love.
“I never imagined myself in a wedding dress,” you say. You study your reflection for a moment in the floor-length mirror before your eyes drift towards Calum. He’s kneeling on the floor in front of you, pushpins balancing dangerously in between his lips. You can tell he’s trying not to look up at you, his eyes trained on the hem he’s working on. You stifle a sigh and push on. “I always thought if I got married, I’d just show up at the courthouse in jeans and a t-shirt. Oh! Maybe a bikini fresh from a dip in a hotel pool!”
The pushpins scatter, flying in all different directions as Calum lets out a hearty laugh. “You’re something else, you know that?” He drops the hem of the gown and runs his now free hands through his hair.
“You’d be so bored without me,” you pipe.
Bored doesn’t even begin to describe it; he thinks as he steals a glance at you for the first time. He thinks back to the moment he first laid eyes on you, all those years ago. You guys were seven, and you were hanging upside down on the monkey bars, pigtails grazing the wood chip-covered ground in the breeze. He was drawn to you instantly, even when you let out the most menacing, Wicked Witch of the West style laugh.
Calum’s so lost in the memory he doesn’t even have time to process what you’re doing until it’s too late. You’re on your hands and knees, helping him pick up the stray pins. His heart nearly stops when the delicate lace on the bodice catches on the crystal appliqués of the floor-length mirror.
“Would you please just stand there and look pretty,” Calum hisses, shaking his head.
His words may be harsh, but you know there’s nothing but love underneath them. There’s never been anything but love underneath his words. Even that time he told you to “fuck off” when you barged into his dorm room freshman year, moments before he lost his virginity. You shake your head, willing the memory to go back into its box in the deepest, darkest corner of her mind.
You stand, looking down at Calum with a pout forming on her face. The Y/N Pout™ as Calum has come to refer to it as. “Am I not always pretty?”
Calum lets out an exasperated sigh. This is what he gets for asking you to fill in for a bride-to-be who had to cancel her fitting for a “venue emergency.” As if the wedding venue was more important than the wedding dress that cost the same as several month’s worths of rent at his shitty studio apartment.
“You’re gorgeous, Y/N; you don’t need me to tell you that.”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t like hearing it,” you say, sticking your tongue out. Truthfully, he’s the only one who has ever called you gorgeous, but you’re not about to tell him that. It’ll just make him blush. And if there’s one thing you can’t resist, it’s a blushing Calum. Instead, you make a big show of getting back onto the pedestal, picking the bottom of the gown up as if you’re an eighteenth-century Princess who has just let the love of her life walk out on her. “How does she expect to dance in this thing?”
Calum reclaims his spot, kneeling in front of you. One hand holding the delicate fabric, the other working a pushpin through it for the seamstress. “She won’t. That’s what the reception dress is for.”
“A reception dress?” you choke out. “But she spent,” you pause, looking at the receipt on the small side table. “$10,000!” You fan yourself and turn around. “Ty, I don’t think I should be wearing this dress.”
Calum grunts in response, pushpins back between his lips. If there’s anyone who should be wearing this dress, it’s you. He quickly shakes the thought away, steadying his hands as he works the pushpin through.
“What kind of monster spends $10,000 on a dress she’s not even going to wear the whole night! I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Don’t you dare,” Calum warns, working the final pushpin through the fabric, securing the hemline. He stands, wiping his hands on his pants before offering you his hand. “Come on queasy, let’s get you out of that dress before you do something stupid.”
“I don’t think anything is stupider than spending $10,000 on a wedding dress,” you say, accepting his hand. You try to ignore the static shock that jolts through your body at the contact. He’s helped you up millions of times, and this should be no different. Before you have time to dwell, you carefully make your way back to the small dressing room.
Calum cleans up as you wrestle with the gown in the dressing room. A thread of profanities falls from your lips before you emerges a moment later in a bright pair of jeans and a polka-dotted sweater. You gently hand the gown to Calum, who gingerly hangs it back up on a rack full of white dresses — none of which sparkle quite like this one.
“I feel human again!” you shout, dancing around the room. “Next time you need a fill-in bride for a fitting, do me a favor and don’t call me.”
It’s Calum’s turn to pout, brown eyes growing three times the size. “But whatever are best friends for if not for trying on ridiculously expensive wedding dresses?”
“Fine,” you say, giving in. “But I expected a proper proposal next time. None of this five am emergency text nonsense.”
Calum grabs your hand and immediately drops to his knees; a playful glint dances across his eyes. You look at him wide-eyed, lips tugging up at the corners. “Y/N Y/L/N, will you be my fake bride from now until eternity?”
You clap your free hand over your mouth. “Oh, Calum,” you say, taking on a British accent for reasons not even she knows. “It would be my honor.”
Calum laughs so hard he loses his balance, sending you both tumbling to the pearly white floor. “What was that accent?” Calum manages to get out between laughs and gasps for air.
“I don’t know!” you shout, eyes brimming with tears from laughter. “It sort of just popped out.”
“Don’t you mean it, popped out?” Calum says, delivering the last part in his own take on a terrible British accent.
You shove him away before quickly pulling him back towards you. You bury your face in the crook of his neck. “I hate you.”
“Hate you too,” he says as his smile spreads across his face revealing a dimple on his cheek.
You stay like that for a moment. A tangled web of limbs, laughing and enjoying each other’s closeness. It’s been a while since you’ve just reveled in each other’s company even though you both live in the same city. Calum’s been busy, working crazy hours to prove himself at Something Blue, the wedding gown boutique that specializes in outrageous, occasionally blue-dyed wedding gowns. And you’ve been holed up in random libraries, working on your dissertation. You do text throughout the day. You send him various gifs of a person jumping off a bridge, and Calum responds with various pictures of glorious diner food items you’d miss if you did it. And you try to FaceTime at least once a week, but it’s not the same as being in each other’s presence. When the two of you are together, it’s almost like you’re two sides of the same person. You complete each other.
Neither of you is ready to pull apart, but your stomach doesn’t get the memo, sending an echoing growl through Something Blue. You move from the crook of Calum’s neck and instead muffle your laughter in his chest. Calum does his best to keep his heartbeat under control.
“Come on. I think I owe you and your Hungry, Hungry Hippo stomach breakfast.”
“Frankie’s breakfast extravaganza?” you ask, pulling away from Calum so you can look up into his eyes. It takes all your might not to reach out and poke the dimple on his cheek.
Calum gasps dramatically, “I’m offended you have to ask!”
Just as quickly as you fell, you’re back on your feet and standing a safe distance away from each other. The loss of contact is immediately felt between both of you but neither wants to admit it, out loud or to yourselves. Calum runs a nervous hand through his hair as his cheek dimple disappears. You tug at your sweater that had ridden up before you turn towards him, smiling again.
“Shall we,” you ask, British accent back in full force.
Calum shakes his head before offering you his arm, “Lead the way, m’lady.”
#5sos#5sos fic#calum hood#calum hood fic#5sos fluff#calum fluff#calum fic#calum x reader#i literally have no mutuals to tag anymore so this is going to be interesting#mine#ch mini blurb#mini blurb#are these even my tags? who knows
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[Image ID: A screenshot of an anon asking saying “I just wanna say that your tags whenever you rb art and fics are so cute 🥺 you reblogged something of mine the other day and the tags were just so nice and innocent??? It’s like watching a little kid at an aquarium 😝so as an artist I thank you, hope you don’t take it as cringy” End ID]
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Cringey?? nonononono I may be a young kid watching the pretty fish swim aimlessly in the aquarium but I will
recklessly enjoy other people’s content don’t test me
I try to keep it in the tags cause I don’t wanna take away from the op’s original work, plus it makes it easier for other people to rb it from me, but I will amp up the love and appreciation when the situation calls for it. You could straight up come into my inbox or messages and just ask me to give you a reblog and I will do it, I do not care I love you, content creators.
Cringe Culture is dead it’s time to gush plus if I do this often enough people might do it more for me so it’s a win win hehe
Legit, I got a super sweet comment on one of my fics quoting something I wrote and it made me so happy so I was like “huh, guess I’ll do that more often then” and now I’m doing that, that’s how impressionable I am asdfghjk
Also hello?? specifically *my* tags helped you out?? I am a nobody, CLEARLY not enough people are doing this smh, allow me to teach the masses for a sec here
How To Make A Content Creator Happy: the world’s simplest guide to spreading serotonin through a keyboard
Step fucking one) You reblog it. I mean, that’s a given. You’ve all seen those “reblogs help creators out and likes do nothing” posts so I won’t rant too much. Likes are good, but reblogs are like handing someone a stack of a hundred dollars and all it takes is one click!
(PRO TIP: Hold down the button and swipe for mobile, and hold the left alt button and click once for computer [though it will only rb to your main blog. if you want it for a side-blog then you’re stuck with two clicks but HEY two clicks to help out a creator you like is nothing!])
You share it! Just share stuff. Share the ao3 like, please do it. Don’t repost, don’t just mention it, give the links especially when you’re just in conversation or talking about it around plz I swear it does wonders
Ok moving on to the super simple stuff for commenting and putting stuff in the tags because I guarantee that the op will read them
write A N Y T H I N G and I literally mean anything just fucking:
!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
sdjflksdjfkjh
?!?!?!?!!?
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhghghhhhhhhhh
:OOOOOOOOO
prettyyy
<33333333333333333
just fucking go ham, go nuts, it doesn’t need to be coherent it just needs to EXIST the very existence of someone enjoying someone’s content gives so much serotonin so stop being silent cowards and give us a smiley face from time to time
uh what else what else....hmm [golden rule is treat others the way you want to be treated, so if you’re a creator yourself, just give whatever you would want seen in the comments of your stuff! I mean that’s how I came up with all this...]
Point out the details! I mentioned earlier about quoting stuff from fics (that stuff is just 👌👌👌 so delicious) but I’m pretty sure (I’m not an artist myself don’t quote me) that the exact same effect is present when you talk about details in art or something. So talk about that pretty snowflake in the background! Or that piece of dialogue that made you laugh. Just a simple nod to the details is a big difference between saying “I like this” versus “I like this thing that you took the time to make the effort you put into the details did not go unnoticed”
just ALL the feedback please and thank you
this might vary from person to person, though personally I love when people are like “The way you write imagery is so good please do more!!” so just give a little nod to someone like “The way you draw this character is amazing please do more” or something like that
I wouldn’t go as far as to give criticism (although personally I’m the type of person that loves the occasionally critique for future reference, cause it means that you care as much as I do about the quality of my work)
But along the same lines as the details thing, a nice nod to a creator about what they’re doing right is sooooo good! makes the butterflies flutter
~~~~~~Did that post give you emotions?~~~~~~
G O O D
~~FUCKING TELL US~~
THE ACT OF SOMEONE WRITING A SET OF LETTERS, OR SOMEONE SKETCHING A BLOB MADE ANOTHER DISTANT HUMAN BEING DEVELOP CHEMICALS IN THEIR BRAIN?? SURE WOULD LOVE TO KNOW THAT BECAUSE WOW THAT’S AMAZING!?!??
just go “I’m so happy” or “I’m so sad” just “TT__TT” just fucking “:OO” or just “I hate this” [HUMOURISTICALLY] and “I can’t believe you’ve done” just give it yes tell us the emotion that you have felt we love it
I don’t think enough people understand how amazing that is???? You were once in a normal, neutral state, and then a piece of content that I created just made you smile or laugh or cry like WHAT that’s amazing omg
Ok so that’s pretty much the simple stuff right, that’s your elementary classwork right there
Just give something, literally anything and just go “I love this so much!!!!!” bam done, you just murdered the op with your love, great job
So yeah, that’s that. Pretty simple stuff, no?
...but you wanna graduate to master class?
You wanna fucking go ape shit
you wanna just
g o t o town?
I said this was gonna be a simple guide so don’t worry, I’m not gonna tell you that you have to write a full length essay on every post that you come across
[BUT IF YOU WANT TO DON’T LET ME STOP YOU THAT WOULD ACTUALLY BE AMAZING?? HELL WRITING OUT A PARAGRAPH OF A COMMENT IS ALREADY JUST *CHEFS KISS* MASTERCLASS OF MURDERING THE OP WITH LOVE JUST ANALYZING THE SHIT OUT OF THE COLORS AND SHADING AND FRAMING OR JUST POINTING OUT THE THEMES AND SUBTEXT AND CHARACTERIZATION --part of the reason I love betaing stuff so much because I can analyze shit and shower it with premature love while also helping fics to be even better than they were originally ugh so cleansing for my literature heart-- SO YEAH GIVE CREATORS A PARAGRAPH, DARE I DREAM OF PARAGRAPHS, BECAUSE WOW YES PLEASE YES]
...ahem anyway
the way to graduate from good to great as a receiver of content is
to do all this
any of this
any of this simple stupid amazing shit
and just
put it in an ask or message
that’s literally it
Let me tell you why that’s so amazing, it pumps up the already amazing dopamine dosage of these actions alone, and multiplies it by a hundred, let me tell you why
Let’s say you read a drabble. You loved it, you reblogged it, you gave it hearts and emojis and ranted for a few tags about how it made you drop your muffin on the ground. Fantastic work, you just made the op pass out.
Then you go about your day and that’s the end of that.
BUT
if you do all that
and then put it in an ASK
dare you even a direct message?? (probably not most of us on here are cowards I get that)
but an ASK, anon or otherwise?
The message you just sent to the op was “I interacted with the post you made, and I loved it so much that I went the extra mile of going to your blog to make extra extra sure you understand how much I liked your thing”
There’s a wordless wall with every post! You like and reblog the thing and move on with your day.
But the fact that YOU sent a HEART a SINGLE sentence about how you liked a thing? the fact that you BREACHED that wall and just fucking keyboard smashed in the inbox? the fact that you did that is the most amazing thing in the world
you just ambush the op with good vibes. we were expecting the bare minimum in the comments and tags, but the fact you when out of your way to make it a message or ask???? superb, outstanding, the sheer SHOCK of it will shift tectonic plates
you’re my fucking hero if you do this. you’re a godsend. I would kill for you,👏people👏would👏kill👏for👏you.
AT LEAST THEY WOULD KILL FOR YOU IF THIS ACTION DIDN’T ALREADY MURDER THEM
BE A MURDERER, NAY, A SERIAL KILLER. MURDER CONTENT CREATORS WITH LOVE
BE RECKLESSLY KIND AND LOVING YOU PIECE OF SHIT, ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO BE CRINGY TO STARVING AND DYING WRITERS AND ARTISTS WE WILL TAKE IT ALL GOD DAMMIT
YOU ARE A CHILD STARING UP AT AN AQUARIUM IN WONDER.
MAKE YOUR HAPPINESS STIR THE TIDES, LET YOUR PRESCENCE BE KNOWN PAST THE REFLECTION OF THE GLASS.
THE FISH ARE LOOKING FOR YOUR SMILE.
#I had to write this post in ANTI-ADHD format so that people would actually pay attention to it so apologies to the neurotypicals#IMPORTANT#👏give👏content👏to👏content👏creators👏#cause unlike for you guys the content we want doesnt need to be the highest quality#we just want a sentence about how it made you feel is that too much to ask?#just one keyboard spam plz#idk what else to tag this as#its 1 am and i have thoughts#art#not botw#writing#i just realized the analogy of fish and creators is a bit weird#i dont mean to imply that our entire existence relies on your feedback#i mean it kind of does#BUT#we're not animals and we don't OWE you content#so uh#all the more reason to give people a heart every now and then right?#this is getting a bit ranty#i'll leave before i embarrass myself further#long post
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Frontiers Music Srl is pleased to announce the release of 'The Flood', the new single from the Portuguese alternative metal act Kandia. The single precedes the band's upcoming label debut, due in early 2022. Kandia create raw, melodic and sensual music that delivers a positive message while retaining an aggressive sound. “We are excited and very eager about working with the Frontiers label,” state the band. "They are passionate about music and we are proud to be part of their family. Our upcoming new album definitely has our identity stamped on it, but we always like to experiment with new things. The hard times we have all been going through are actually giving us much inspiration, so this record will be filled with different emotions.“
Italian symphonic metallers Eternal Silence's new album Timegate Anathema is out now. For the album's release, Eternal Silence is sharing the new music video for their single ‘Edge of the Dream’, a powerful song, with heavy riffing and a strong orchestral section. The alternation between female and male vocals designs a catchy melody together with the inserts of the choir. “Since the very beginning this song was there, and it looked like it was always there. Alberto wrote it in the initial stages of the preparation of the album, but it wasn't immediately chosen to be part of this work. Marika took part in writing the lyrics and we struggled a lot to find a good solution for the chorus. Everything fell in the right place when we were recording in studio and with Michele Guaitoli we had the idea of a choral part in the chorus, used as a counterpoint to the main voice. The result was one of the most epic songs we've ever written.” adds the band.
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After setting the music world ablaze in May with the release of their mind-bending latest full-length album, Initiation, fans instantly clamored for more SUMO CYCO. Those prayers are now answered with the drop of the official Initiation Digital Deluxe Edition. Featuring peppy new single ‘Sun Eater,’ plus additional limited edition tracks ‘New Jive,’ ‘We Are The Nation,’ and ‘Awakened,’ the Initiation Digital Deluxe Edition is available now. Fans can check out a delightfully demonic new music video for ‘Sun Eater’ below. [via Outburn]
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Once Human, the band featuring ex-Machine Head guitarist Logan Mader, is now streaming their new single ‘Only In Death.’ The single almost feels like a ballad with its lilting rhythms, but still remains plenty heavy and clear outta "ballad" territory. "This is my most personal song on the new album. It meant so much to me, that I really needed to get my hands dirty with the visuals," said vocalist Lauren Hart. "Logan and I filmed everything to keep the song’s the raw meaning. Musically, it’s very emotional and dire, and the outro is probably my favorite piece of music on the album!" ‘Only In Death’ is off Once Human's forthcoming album, and first since 2017, Scar Weaver due out February 11. [via Metal Injection]
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This September, the Symphonic Metal Band Shattered Vessels arrived on the scene with their first single ‘Portrait of Us’. A track that will be part of their first EP Humans are Alive. A melancholic composition of Symphonic Metal made up of romantic pianos, cellos and dark operatic vocals, fused with the intensity of distortion-laden guitars and piercing percussions. Mixed and mastered by Jacob Hansen. An audio engineer of bands such as Epica, Fleshgod Appocalypse and Volbeat. ‘Portrait of Us’ is a song that reflects on the toxic relationships that drain our potential and distancing from them to drive our growth. [via Metal Goddesses]
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After dazzling the alternative scene with their recent mini-album Vampire, Saint Agnes are back with a new self-made single that sees them at their most hardcore. From that very first line of ‘Die! Fucking die’, you know you’re in for something intense with ‘Uppercut!’. The harsh, frantic lyrics strike out at self-doubt and criticism, proving that you can often be your own worst enemy. It’s a hardcore horror-punk type of defiance that’s going to make their live performances unmissable. Here’s how Kitty A Austen described ‘Uppercut!': “Uppercut! is about fighting with yourself, fighting with your own mind. No one is more brutal to us, more precisely evil in their criticism, than the voice in our own heads and it’s something I’ve struggled with a great deal in my life. Uppercut!’s message is one of self-destructive defiance: do your worst but it won’t be a patch on what I already do to myself. It’s a song that lives at rock bottom but hopefully lets people feel less alone if they struggle with the same thing. It’s the most honest song I’ve ever written and I hope, when we sing it together on tour, that we can silence those voices together. It’s also brutal as fuck and hits like an uppercut to the jaw, so that’s fun.” [via Gigwise]
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thoughts? kjfhlkjdfh asking bc i rb'd the original post from u a bit ago because i agreed w/ original poster but i just saw this rb of it and wanted to know what u thought. ciaran(.)tumblr(.)com /post/652413157345820673/there-is-a-genre-of-posts-thats-obsessed-with-the
well first of all i hope this isn't a bait ask. this reply really doesn't deserve the time and effort i put into refuting it, but there was a point in time when i was emotionally confused by these..."arguments", so whoever u are, anon, i hope this is helpful. i also recommend some distance - literally, "go outside and touch grass", which is a lot more difficult than it sounds, but it needs to be done. anyway, here's my "analysis":
for context, here's what the post in question said:
and the tags:
at a high level, we can see that what ciaran is saying doesn't really respond to what OP was talking about. for this reason, i'm not going to bring in much of what OP said, because it's uncontested in this context, and look at ciaran's reply. i'll try to break this up...
EDIT: i had a long-ass response here, but then i realized it was dumb because the source material is dumb. i cut out most of it, but here are the highlights.
"there is a genre of posts that’s obsessed with the notion that fandom is something much larger, more prevalent, and more able to affect the way media is processed and consumed, than it actually is in reality."
so, as we can all see on tiktok and, indeed, on the electronic lore olympus billboard that takes up a side of a literal skyscraper, fandom is no longer the niche thing that "fandom olds" make it out to be. also, we can't ignore how many (white) fandom players go on and work in the industry (cassandra clare, whoever wrote 50 shades, man idk much of anything so there's probably many more). so this comment is sort of myopic. and since this is what characterizes the rest of the reply, well...it's not great.
also don't look up lore olympus; it's basically a dd/////lg fanfic that happens to be one of the most popular series on the line webtoon app, which is rated for teens...and for $1 to the creator's patreon, you can view not sfw p*dophilic art, so. also obviously i didnt do that; there was a video essay about this. i can't find it though
"ironically but understandably, these posts are made by people who are so terminally fandom-poisoned that they ascribe phenomenal power to it, and think of it as some great evil that must be defeated (by making posts on tumblr, which is obviously a very influential thing to do)"
"fandom-poisoned" is such a nebulous term, especially since it appears to mean "has had some really significant, (in this context) bad experiences with fandom." this is, first of all, a huge assumption to make about a stranger, and second, not the own they think it is. i'm just going to link this post, and hopefully you can see how it relates.
anyway, the "making posts on tumblr is meaningless" is um...interesting, seeing as off the top of my head i can think of two very influential tumblr blogs that talk about really important issues, Gradient Lair and Red Light Politics. I don't know as much about Red Light Politics, but Gradient Lair is frequently cited by academics (not getting into academia nonsense now but... -_-). also, they sound more pissed that the original post did gain traction, but whatever. this paragraph doesn't really make sense, but nothing here does, because i wasn't given much to work with.
"...and then because these people have basically no imagination and unfailingly pick on others for their own faults, they project their own experiences on everyone they perceive as being more ‘in fandom’ than them,"
jesus christ. i'm going not say anything about the tone of this because i put too much effort into this for some rando to call me a cyberbully.
i think what they're thinking about is how there appear to be some "fandom critical" people who try to, holistically, "ruin everyone's good time" by "stirring up drama" about popular fandom artists/writers/whoever else idk. oftentimes these people will also make jokes about fandom whatever, seemingly picking on random people's interests.
however, if you look at the long history of fandom racism, fandom's normalization of p*dophilia, and even general fandom harassment, and then you look at fandom's visceral, unwarranted reaction to criticism regarding these things, you can quickly see that disillusionment towards fandom is entirely reasonable. as for the joking, well...this an oversimplification but not everyone needs to like what you like. it sounds like they just need to get over themself.
and go “You, a 27 year old queer blogger who is into [tv show/anime/movie] an embarrassing amount, are now going to be the face of Capitalism” with no self-reflection or critical thought given to how fucking cringe it is-"
so, i'm regretting putting so much effort into this because this is so fucking long and i have to analyze this nonsense...it feels like i'm back in my feminist thought class. nightmarish. but anyway, this seems to deal with- [CUT FOR LENGTH. nothing important was missed].
EDIT 2: actually here's a summary of what I had. it deserves better than to be a response to this nonsense, but first it detailed how this took 1. the op's post and 2. a comment that we don't even know if op agreed with and misinterpreted that, and threw quite a fit about this- and i hate to say this because this term is misused so often by redditors, but- strawman.
I then went on to discuss how, for example, PoC can uphold systems of white supremacy. while obviously no person of color is going to be the "face" of white supremacy, the discussion still needs to be had, especially within that group. similarly, while fandom constituents may not be the face of capitalism, there needs to be a discussion, within fandom, on how they support and are defined by capitalist (and other) systems.
it was really too good of a point to be making for this trash reply. I could go say more, but I'm still trying to stay on topic, unlike ciaran.
"to act like random people on the internet, end users with no influence over corporate decisions, are the ones personally responsible for the fact that late-stage capitalism has destroyed popular art and culture in an increasingly sordid attempt to make money."
we've been over the "no influence" bit - because in fact fans do have influence, especially since media creators are literally fans, etc etc. i'm tired of people acting like they have no power and using that as an excuse to support and perpetuate harmful, easily avoidable behavior.
also, to act like the nebulous system of late-stage capitalism is the only cause of bad media is ludicrous. first of all, someone has to make these so-called "corporate decisions", and the people making artistic decisions are, again, overwhelmingly members of "fandom." this comment is really trying to keep marvel trash and lore olympus-esque nonsense in the same atomic, indivisible category lest someone catches a whiff of nuance.
"the above post is a great example of this phenomenon because op admits freely that they only think fandom is destroying media because they have been spending more time in fandom and thus have an over-inflated sense of its importance in greater culture. posting your own Ls indeed."
i'm so tired. this person literally has 120 works on ao3 like...who is spending more time in fandom.
and the tags:
#i assure you that fandom has no bearing on my actual real life #and if it does on yours. then that is your problem #it's also a very funny problem to
now this is just egregiously tone deaf. you do not need to do more than a cursory google search to find a bottomless well of examples of fandom harassment, threats, doxxing, and violence, much of which is racially motivated. you can see why it would be bad to make fun of this.
also the way that “fandom has no bearing on their actual real life“...120 fanfics on ao3. 120.
conclusion:
the reply clearly misinterprets of op's point, and as such, does not refute it. they responded to another issue altogether, which is that of the sanctity of their ~coping mechanism~ or whatever it is. their argument in this respect was, in my opinion, delusional and pathetic, especially given that they wrote it on someone else's unrelated post.
FINAL NOTE: i cut out lots of this because the reply went in so many different directions, so some stuff might not make sense. let me know if you have any questions.
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Decryption_Error: “Master Mind”
Summary: Elliot gets fired and Y/N blames herself. She begs a part of Elliot for help as she is faced with the reality of the lengths Mr. Robot will go to in order to protect Elliot.
A/N: The final chapter picks up right after this chapter : )
Decryption_Error: All Chapters
Word Count: 6022
One week and four days.
That’s how close we came to our one-year anniversary.
As it turned out, we actually did spend Memorial Day weekend together, but instead of being cozied up while basking in the success of our love, I had watched as Elliot was escorted out of my parents’ house in handcuffs.
I had always considered myself to be an intelligent, well-rounded person who practiced introspection enough to identify and work on accepting my shortcomings. I could be quite critical of myself at times, but when I had gone through counseling, my therapist helped me understand that people judge themselves through an almost cruel critical lens: once I could accept I was my own harshest critic, I could move forward instead of getting sucked back into a cycle of persecution.
Elliot and I had often talked about self-persecution, but I now understood that it wasn’t just his voice that criticized him. He literally had other selves within that were passing judgement and carrying out their own agendas.
And one of those selves was about to end my relationship with Elliot, all thanks to one of my shortcomings.
Another thing I considered myself to be was more than just my father’s daughter; I had worked all through my 20s to become an individual, to become someone more than just a last name. Nepotism was normal in my world, but something about it always sat uneasy with me. Hemingway wrote about that feeling; he said immorality was anything that “made you disgusted afterwards.”
The more advantages I saw being dished out to people like myself from parents with means made me think about Hemingway’s definition of immorality. I didn’t want to walk through life with a stomach full of disgust, so I set goals with the intent of making a good life for myself and helping those I could.
My father encouraged his children to live with integrity, to practice selflessness, and most importantly, he taught us to be hungry. He encouraged us to fight against complacency because he remembered what it was to be hungry; he remembered what it was to want something, to work for it, and he remembered how meaningful it was to find a purpose.
I knew that was why Kathleen became a doctor. I knew that was why Erin became a lawyer. And I knew that was why Charlie became a teacher.
And I knew that was why I worked at a cybersecurity firm, a business that had the sole intent of providing protection. I had my purpose.
But in that way of upbringing, my father inadvertently bred naivety. I thought more people were like us, especially those of us with financial excess. I knew about nepotism, about greed, about entitlement, but I didn’t really understand those things until Elliot was fired from CIStech.
Ali Olayan.
He was not like me. He was not like my family.
I had read Corey as the greatest threat to Elliot’s well-being, but I had read wrong.
Beneath Ali’s nonchalant exterior lived the kind of antagonist I had thought only existed in the movies; Ali lived and breathed his privilege, believing that he could craft whatever narrative he wanted for any person he chose. This was Ali’s world, and we were all just living in it.
Ali was never taught to know hunger, never taught to be selfless or encouraged to become something other than what he was. In his mind, he was already something.
It was entirely too late when I finally figured out that the resolution of the incident in the server room sat inside of Ali’s mind like a tick. And the more he thought, the bigger that parasite grew, the more unsettled Ali became that a nobody like Elliot Alderson had caused a disruption in his worldview.
To Ali, it had been a joke, not unlike one his own friends may have inflicted on countless of their schoolmates. Ali knew things like that were a joke because he had never been punished. And if there had never been a consequence for his actions, then he had never been wrong.
Until I told him he was wrong.
Until I gave him a consequence.
I had assumed that because Ali’s family was strict and that because Ali was respectful during his discipline hearing that he understood right and wrong. Instead, being reprimanded attacked his ego by opening up his mind to a barrage of things he had never cared to think about before, including morality.
The tick fattened inside of him, fostering Ali’s need for revenge.
* * * * *
Pursing my lips as I proofread my email one more time, I threw a nasty glance at my phone as it interrupted me.
By the third ring, I couldn’t ignore the compulsion to answer it, so I abandoned my email and picked up the phone.
“Yes?” I said, not bothering to glance at the ID as I saved my email as a draft.
“You need to get down here.”
“JaLeah? What is it?”
“Now, Y/N! Get down here now,” she pleaded.
“I’m on my way,” I said as I stood and hung up the phone, my mind working to process the bizarre demand of a woman I had never known to be frazzled by anything. Even the hacks hadn’t gotten her to break her calm.
“Hold my calls and cancel my 4:00,” I said with a single breath as I rushed past my secretary’s desk and to the elevator. My heel caught in the gap, and I almost stumbled face first into the glass. As I pushed for CIStech’s floor, I realized my fingers were shaking.
Elliot.
No. He would’ve at least texted me if something was up. This can’t be about him.
It’s not about him.
I tried to logic out my anxiety, reminding myself that if I let those thoughts rush forward, I wouldn’t be able to think critically.
The office collectively turned to watch my arrival, and I didn’t need time to wonder why. I could hear the muffled shouting coming from within Tim’s office.
“Don’t,” I commanded Jayne as she reached for the intercom to announce my arrival.
Jayne sank back in her chair, her hand still hovering over the intercom as I pushed into what used to be my office—the one where I interviewed Elliot with Colin and JaLeah, where Colin, goddamn him, said that getting too close to Elliot Alderson probably never ended well for anyone.
Even as he stood with his back to the door, I could feel Elliot’s anger the second I walked in. Dread danced down my spine as I took a deep breath and wondered if this was the same Elliot-yet-not-Elliot I had met a month ago.
Tim looked up from his position at the table, his lips pressed into a thin line as he looked at me then back to his irate employee. Next to Tim sat Ali, with a smug look of satisfaction on his face.
“You—are firing me?” Elliot raged, and just by the tone of his voice, I knew my instinct was right; this wasn’t him.
“What’s going on?” I interrupted, causing this version of Elliot to whirl around and Ali’s smugness to turn from quietly distasteful to outrightly repulsive.
As not-Elliot looked at me, I was shocked at how the anger seemed to morph his features. His jaw was tight its angularity more pronounced; his mouth was much smaller as his lips were pressed against his teeth; his eyes were big and unnerving, but the thing that nearly made me falter was that this Elliot seemed to take up so much more space. It was intimidating.
I had thought I was afraid of the side of Elliot who protected him, but I was even more afraid to realize how little I knew about this side of him.
“You can’t save him this time,” Ali said, drawing both my attention and not-Elliot’s again as his tone reflected that repulsive smirk I wanted to knock off his face.
To Ali Olayan, this was a game of revenge.
“Tim—explain.”
“Don’t listen to them,” not-Elliot growled out, his lips barely moving as I brushed past him to take the open seat on the other side of Tim.
“Sit down,” I bit back, our eyes locking for a moment before he dropped his gaze. Not-Elliot yanked out the chair and sat, a huff of breath escaping when he crossed his arms, his anger occupying a fifth seat at the table.
“Last week, Ali suggested I take a look at the data on the employee performances he ran,” Tim began. “And the results were concerning—"
“Fucking bullshit,” not-Elliot muttered, as he sullenly slumped in his chair like a teenager being disciplined.
I ignored his comment and told Tim to continue.
“The results were concerning because Alderson’s performance didn’t exactly decline so much as nosedive. It made me wonder how someone could go from 100 to 10 in the course of a few weeks.”
“Perhaps a mitigating personal circumstance, Tim. Did you consider that?” I said, trying to both avoid and use the lie about Elliot’s mother.
Tim angled his laptop toward me and clicked on the open tab beside the performance eval.
“Whatever Mr. Alderson has been doing at work, hasn’t been our work.”
Elliot moved quickly, uncrossing his arms and reaching out to slam the lid of Tim’s laptop shut.
“Your work? Your work?! This is just the sort of shit that some data jockey would pull out of their fucking asshole,” not-Elliot said, his speech slurred with irritation as he jerked back and stood, his chair wobbling from the force of his movement.
“And that’s not even the worst part of coming in to this fuckhole every day. No. It’s seeing people like you in positions of power,” he said as he whirled on Ali.
“You reek of nepotism, of never having to work for any fucking thing in your life. A script kiddie! You’ve never written an exploit from scratch in your fucking life. Relying on pulling code from Metasploit or some shit. And what’s the real fuckall of it is that you can’t code and yet you are sitting here, shitting on me, because of something YOU did! I didn’t lock myself in that server room. I didn’t think it was a fucking joke and neither did anyone but you and the other self-centered cunts you call your friends. So fuck you!”
The one who raged for Elliot stopped then, teeth bared, chest rising and falling as his hands ran once, twice through his hair before they dropped to his sides, his fingers flexing before balling into fists.
I didn’t take my eyes off of not-Elliot as I asked, “And no one thought to ask for my input? In case you forgot, I am the General Manager and am in charge of CIStech—not either of you.”
I pulled my eyes away from not-Elliot’s and looked at Ali and at Tim. Ali had lost his smirk and Tim’s hairline was beaded with sweat.
“Well?” I prompted, my own voice rising.
“The--the data doesn’t lie,” Tim finally said quietly. “Mr. Alderson has been using company time to execute his own projects. It’s outlined as one of the most clear grounds for dismissal in the contract every employee signs when they’re hired.”
“I’m aware,” I said with a sigh, knowing he was right. If Elliot, or whoever he was, actually was using company time to work on another project, there was nothing I could do to protect him.
“What have you been working on, Elliot?”
Elliot was so angry that he actually shivered as he turned to me, his body going absolutely rigid.
I waited.
And he silently seethed.
I stood up, not-Elliot’s eyes watching my movement, not my face. I got as close to him as I dared, but when I reached out, my fingertips barely ghosting the cuff of his shirt, he snapped.
“Fuck you,” he growled out, closing the distance between us so he was inches from my face. When our eyes met, the rage that burned in this Elliot’s eyes broke something deep inside of me. “You’ve always just been one of them.”
And with those words, that broken thing shattered.
Not-Elliot ripped off his ID badge and tossed it onto the table. He didn’t look back as he yanked open Tim’s door, the doorknob slamming into the wall. I watched as muted grey chunks of painted plaster fell onto the floor.
I wanted to run after him.
I wanted to beg not-Elliot to let go of his anger.
I wanted to tell him, all of him, that I still loved him.
But I couldn’t.
I had to set the tone for the company.
I had to swallow the acid that burned in my throat as I looked at Ali.
Ali.
I tilted my chin up as I walked forward and calmly shut the door to Tim’s office.
“You targeted him,” I said slowly and clearly without turning around.
“That’s a wild accusation, Ms. Y/L/N,” Ali replied, not bothering to hide the triumph in his voice.
“You targeted him,” I repeated as I coolly turned on my heel and walked back to the table. “You orchestrated this.”
“How the hell was I supposed to know Alderson would lose his mind—”
“Show me the data on the rest of the white hats.”
“What?” Ali asked, his eyes narrowing.
“Show me the exact same reports and their time stamps for all of the white hats on your team.”
The palpable rage that had lingered in the room morphed into an uncomfortable, equally palpable silence as Tim and I both waited for Ali to answer.
“Ali,” Tim prompted.
We waited again, the silence condemning Ali’s actions as it dug his grave.
“That’s what I thought,” I said in a low, dangerous tone. “I don’t give a damn who your parents are. You’re fired.”
“You can’t—”
“Watch me.”
I turned from their eyes and walked out of Tim’s office, my chin still raised as I stared directly ahead and made my way up to HR.
Not exactly the office to take kindly to intrusions, I did finally relax my posture into a more humble stance as I approached Alison Shaye.
She and I had been through quite a lot thanks to the hack on Colin and with one look at my face, she ushered me in and shut the door.
After two hours, thirteen phone calls, a visit from Miles and from three members of the board, CIStech officially ended its relationship with Ali Olayan.
I shook Alison’s hand, then made my way back to Tim’s office, the stragglers who hadn’t left at 5:00 taking a wide berth to avoid me as they finally cleared out for the evening.
“Ali will need replaced, effective Monday. I think it’s time to switch JaLeah from application security to network security so she can oversee the white hats.”
Tim’s eyes were unwilling to meet mine as I talked; he nodded and made a note, finally finding his voice as I reached the door to his office.
“I—I had no idea he was going to … that he would’ve reacted like—”
“You could’ve told me,” I said without turning around.
“Ali convinced me you’d only go over my head to make it all disappear. I … wanted to be fair. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
I raised my head and looked up at the ceiling, completely drained. I turned to face Tim, knowing my face reflected the defeat I felt.
“I’m not sure when I lost my reputation of being a person of integrity. Maybe it was when I started dating my employee. Maybe I never really had it to begin with because Dad’s face is hanging in the lobby. Whoever I thought I was, I’m clearly not. If my SM was unable or unwilling to come to me, I failed. It’s not your fault, Tim. It’s mine.”
I bit my lip as I stepped into the empty elevator, redirecting the pain in my heart so I wouldn’t start crying.
When I finally reached my desk, I picked up my phone and stared at it.
There was no point in calling Elliot because he wasn’t Elliot right now.
Darlene.
I was numb when I pushed her name, almost forgetting to raise the phone to my ear as I walked over to the window in my office, the sky slightly overcast as yet another late spring sky played the will I or won’t I rain game. It felt like an eternity had passed since I had met with Miles in his office and looked out of his near-top floor view and wondered what it would be like to leave this world, to leave Wall Street and to never look back.
“Helloooo?” Darlene’s voice trilled with its characteristic hint of annoyance at being disturbed even though she probably wasn’t doing much of anything.
“Hey, Dar. It’s Y/N.”
“Um, duh,” she said slowly, a slight trill of laughter accompanying her words.
I wanted to laugh with her at my own obviousness, but there was nothing left inside of me except the dead weight of dismay.
“Elliot got fired today.”
Silence—how much tense silence could a person endure in one day?
“You fired him?” Darlene finally said, her voice full of trepidation.
“I had nothing to do with it.”
“What the fuck?!”
“Elliot’s been … multitasking. His job performance over the last two months has tanked, and whatever he’s been doing for the last month hasn’t been what we’ve been paying him to do.”
I waited.
“I’m sorry, Darlene. This was out of my hands.”
“You know what, fuck you,” she said, her tone shifting from concern for her brother to anger at me. “You pushed him because YOU wanted him to be normal. You wanted him to fit into your fucking high-class, black tie, ‘I’m having a social because I’m so rich and so fucking bored’ lifestyle. Elliot never wanted to be a part of that. You knew it and you pushed him into it.”
I listened as Darlene ranted. I owed her that. I owed Elliot that.
All of this was my fault.
“What? Nothing to say because you can’t talk your way through this one with your cool, calm, logic prevails because I’m rich and never have had to worry about any goddamn thing in my life bullshit?”
“I’m sorry. I know this is my fault, and I know I can never understand what the two of you have been through but I do love him,” I paused. “And you too, Darlene.”
“I need to talk to Elliot,” she mumbled as she hung up.
I wiped at the tear that had escaped and was leaking down the side of my nose. I had too much to do to cry now, and I’d be damned if I was going to break down in my office.
Before gathering up my tote, I checked my email to make sure Ali was officially let go. I made a few notes for Monday as I continued to fight back tears, and when I clicked the lights off in my office, it felt like I had also turned off something within myself, something that was not going to be as easy as flicking a switch to turn back on.
I stopped at my apartment to change into sneakers, jeans, and an oversized sweater. Despite it being late May, the overcast weather made it chilly and I didn’t know how late I would be out. I threw my wallet, my keys, and my phone into my mini-backpack.
I checked my phone during the train ride and frowned as I saw a missed call from my dad. One thing that you could always count on in the cooperate world was that gossip traveled faster than the speed of light.
A part of me had filled with the ridiculous hope that Elliot would be at his place, waiting for me, but when I opened the door and stopped in the entry to listen for any sound to indicate he was there, I was struck by a resounding quiet … until I heard a series of quick sniffles.
I stepped far enough into Elliot’s to see Darlene sitting on the edge of his bed, rubbing at the traces of tears on her face.
“It’s not him,” she said, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth.
“I know. Where did he go?”
She looked up at me, her eyes wide and teary, her anxiety as palpable now as her brother’s rage was a few hours ago.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she said reaching for her backpack that had been flung beside the bed. She scrambled to her feet and started stuffing some of Elliot’s clothes into her bag along with a few things from his bookshelf, including a few old polaroids.
“Don’t give up on him,” I pleaded, repeating what she’d more than once asked of me.
Darlene let out a frustrated growl as she flung off the papers, books, and CDs that had been sitting on the edge of Elliot’s bookshelf. They crashed to the ground and she brought her boot down on them in a stomp.
“I’m done, Y/N! I’m not his fucking keeper. I’m not going to sit here and watch him fuck his stupid life up again!”
The mess on Elliot’s floor crunched as she walked over to reach high up into his closet; she pulled down a worn game of Sorry! and wrenched off the lid, exposing a wad of cash. She took a little over half of it, then put the box back.
“I’m doing what he told me to do and getting the fuck out of his life.”
“You’re the one who told me it wasn’t him. You told me not to listen to him when he’s like this!”
“I was wrong.”
“Darlene,” I said, grabbing her upper arms and forcing her to stop moving. “I know what’s wrong with him. He has—"
“I know, Y/N! And I know something happened to him but I can’t help him because he won’t tell me what it was. I can’t fix it. YOU can’t fix it. No one can fucking fix it!”
Darlene brushed past me as my mouth fell open. I always suspected she knew more than she ever said out loud, but maybe that was what kept her sane. Elliot’s truth wasn’t something Darlene was ready to face.
“Where are you going?” I quietly asked.
“The fuck out of this city,” she murmured before turning around to look at me.
We were standing face to face, both of us with tracks of tears on our faces. I didn’t know what to say to her as she looked at me, so vulnerable and so young.
“I’m s-sorry,” I said, choking on the emotion of my apology.
“I didn’t mean what I said on the phone,” she answered, a fresh tear falling from the corner of her eye.
“You’re pissed,” I shrugged. “And hurting.”
“You didn’t deserve—”
“It’s okay,” I said with a small smile. “You and I are good. We will always be good. Will you remember that for me? Please?”
Darlene took a deep breath and nodded, her lips quirking into an awkward smile. I moved forward and pulled her into a fierce hug.
“Take care of yourself,” I whispered into her hair as she clung to me.
She nodded again, pulling away and quickly moving to the door. She pulled it open and stepped into the hall, but before Darlene could close the door, I asked, “Is there anywhere he would go?”
“Coney Island,” she said after a long pause. “There … or that museum in Queens, the one with the layout of the city.”
“I remember. Thank you.”
Darlene bit the back half of her bottom lip, looking unnervingly like her brother as she nodded.
“I’ll see you. Soon,” I added with emphasis.
Her eyes flicked to my face as she shut the door, and I was left alone to just stare at the off-white of Elliot’s front door, unable to imagine the pain she carried from having to grow up much too fast.
With a shiver a turned away from the door as a flash of Elliot, looking just as vulnerable as Darlene, flitted through my mind. He had stood right there, and I had crossed the line when I kissed him, pulling him into my life, whether he was ready for it or not.
When I broke my gaze, I turned around to look at Elliot’s computer. I was struck with that same strong pull as I was on the night I had first met the angry version of Elliot. From my research, I knew a person’s psyche developed personalities that had specific jobs to do within their system. I knew who Elliot’s protector was—that was obvious. And now I knew that there was this other, this Elliot, but not Elliot. He was angry and hurting, curious and almost more alive at times than Elliot. He was so raw, almost like he was much newer to the world than his grizzled protector.
I was now certain it was him I had slept with a month ago. My mind was whirring with the idea of going to bed with one person and waking up with another, but again, I had to force myself to focus. None of these questions and feelings would matter if I never saw Elliot again, but maybe I could use my connection with his angry persona to get him back again.
I was struck with a sense of urgency, like the walls were closing in and I knew, knew I had to talk to him.
Instead of stepping back this time, I slid out of Elliot’s chair and sat down. When I turned on the monitor, Elliot was still logged in. I couldn’t believe my good luck, and as I got to work, I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe my Elliot wanted me to find him, to bring him back again.
It didn’t take long to triangulate his data transmissions to Coney Island, and again, it felt too easy.
I transferred the location to my phone and hurried to the subway.
I kept watching for Elliot’s location to change, but it really didn’t move for the 45 minutes it took the train to get out to the beach.
Daylight was fading fast and as I walked along the boardwalk, a few of the lamps flickered on. I wove my way through the light foot traffic and kept an eye out for Elliot’s dark hair and the light green dress shirt he had been wearing—
That I saw on his bedroom floor, next to the pile of stuff Darlene had stomped.
I finally spotted him sitting in the sand, the black of his hoodie a perfect contrast to the beige of the beach. His eyes were trained on the water as the wind ruffled his hair. His arms encircled his knees and he was twirling what looked like a small stick of driftwood between his fingers.
“How did you find me?” he asked without turning to look at me.
I sat down, my body stiff and aching from an exhaustion I was sure to feel for days. I pulled my sweater tight around my body as I felt the cool air from the water drift up along the beach.
“I don’t know what to do this time,” I said, wondering which Elliot I was talking to. I didn’t feel a radiating anger or an icy coolness, but without looking into his eyes, I just wasn’t sure.
“Walk away.”
“I don’t want to walk away. We knew this would be hard—I knew this would be hard. The answer can’t be to just quit.”
“I’m tired, Y/N.”
I waited, watching his face and silently praying he’d turn to look at me so I’d know.
“I’m tired of fighting with …”
“Just say it,” I pressed softly. “Holding back at this point is almost laughable.”
“With him,” he finished, his eyes still staring forward.
“He hates me,” I stated, thinking that whether it was his protector or the angry one, I couldn’t go wrong since they had both told me to fuck off and Elliot had let it happen. Maybe he really felt those things, too.
I leaned back and let my hands sink into the cool sand as I waited for him to answer.
“He doesn’t hate you. He’s scared of you.”
“Scared of me?”
“Of what you might force Elliot to remember.”
So this is still the angry one.
“You really do love him, don’t you?” he questioned, finally turning to look at me.
And as sure as the sun was about to set, I could tell that the person looking at me was not the Elliot I had fallen in love with. I looked into not-Elliot’s eyes for as long as he allowed. They were the same eyes from this afternoon that had told me to fuck off and the same eyes that had burned with longing that night in Elliot’s apartment.
“We’ve met—I mean, before you told me to fuck off today.”
His cheeks colored and he suddenly became very interested in the small piece of driftwood that was still twirling through his fingers.
“Are you serious right now? After the things we did, you’re going to play shy?”
He turned to me, a fraction of a smile on his lips.
“If it helps, I do like you. And I’m sorry for what I said today. I can’t … control myself very well.”
As I watched him twirl that piece of driftwood back and forth through the same fingers as my Elliot, the same fingers that had caressed my face, that had held my hand, that had reached for me in the dark, I felt like I aged a thousand years.
Those fingers now belonged to a stranger.
When he spoke up, my eyes returned to his face.
“Mr. Robot would rather Elliot focus on Angela. He prefers her because she can’t love him like you do—he thinks she’s safe for him … for us.”
“Mr. Robot is the name of Elliot’s protector?”
“Yes, although he doesn’t like me,” not-Elliot said as he flashed me a crooked grin.
“Why?”
“He doesn’t trust me.”
“Will you tell me who you are?”
His face scrunched up as he thought, his mouth opening, then closing.
“I—I’m not sure. I’ve always just thought of myself as Elliot. Well, as a part of him. This control … it’s new for me.”
I wondered if people who were close to those with DID felt like talking to an alter was surreal. I knew, from the top of my head to the tip of my toes that this was not my Elliot, yet it was him—a part of him he needed.
“All of that uncertainty, the lost time, the conflict … that’s what Elliot has to carry within himself. Isn’t that worse than … what happened to him?”
“He forgets. Or …” Not-Elliot trailed off.
“Or?”
“I think of myself as Elliot, but I’m better than him at a lot of things. It’s always been my job to keep him occupied when Mr. Robot needs to take over, so I create places for him to go.”
“Occupied? So Elliot is … where is he now?”
“He’s in an emergency session with Dr. Horton.”
“Oh,” I said in a low voice, my chest feeling tight. “All this time … he hasn’t really been going to therapy.”
“In a manner of speaking, he has been. Things have gotten better, haven’t they?”
Not-Elliot’s voice was like a buzz in my ear as my mind sped through the last month and a half.
“He must have hacked someone and gotten those anxiety meds.”
“I did that.”
“You hack, too?” I said, the buzzing in my ears subsiding as I clutched the sand painfully beneath my hands to remind myself that now wasn’t the time to get lost in my thoughts.
“I am the hacker,” Not-Elliot said with a perfect three-point grin, the very same one Elliot made.
“Don’t do that—please don’t look like him,” I begged as tears formed in my eyes.
He looked away, a deep frown settling in the place of his smile.
“When is Elliot coming back?”
“He can’t come back while you’re here.”
“Why?”
“It confuses him. Creates more work for us.”
“I don’t fucking care!”
Not-Elliot huffed, a quiet half-laugh that was nearly carried away by the breeze.
“Can you … communicate with him?”
“I don’t have as much control as Mr. Robot. My thoughts … can get mixed up with Elliot’s. That’s how he knew he got fired. Sometimes—”
“What?”
“Sometimes, it feels like I am more him than he is.”
“I know, without a doubt, you are not him. Elliot isn’t angry; he isn’t mean.”
He looked at me, his eyes filled with sadness.
“When can I see Elliot again?” I pressed.
“Do you really want to see him again? After everything he’s done?”
“I love him.”
Not-Elliot shook his head.
“You have to let him go. This isn’t over until Mr. Robot says it is.”
“What isn’t over? What does Mr. Robot want? What if I can help?”
Not-Elliot bit his lip, and he looked just like Elliot again, a conflict clearly going on beneath his exterior.
“You forget even more quickly than Elliot does—you are the bug in our system.”
My hands were shaking as I brought them together to brush off the sand. I stood up, feeling sick.
“Even you know enough about computers to know the steps for removing a bug.”
Enter safe mode to remove the bug, delete temporary files, reinstall damaged software or files, increase defense.
“If you’re Elliot’s safe mode, Mr. Robot is going to delete me.”
My legs felt like they were going to give away, and I knew I needed to leave before I lost my mind. Elliot was right here, right in front of me, and a piece of him was going to destroy the last year of his life—of my life.
I took a step back as Not-Elliot watched me. I turned away from him, but I was suddenly seized by a wild desperation.
I rushed back and dropped to my knees on the sand in front of him, almost throwing him off balance as he braced his feet and turned toward me.
Not-Elliot’s mouth was shaped in an oh of surprise as I leaned in to kiss him.
I clutched the front of his hoodie and I kissed him with all the love I felt for Elliot. I kissed him as the last bit of daylight faded to black, as the waves crashed on to the beach, and as the insistent spring wind swirled around us, grains of sand dancing against our exposed skin.
“I—I’m—I’m not him,” he stammered as soon as he his opened eyes to look into mine.
“I know. But … why can’t I love you, too? Why can’t we work together to help Elliot?”
Not-Elliot and I looked at each other for a long, long time, the lamps on the boardwalk popping on to bathe us in a ghostly light.
“All I want is to be happy with Elliot. I’ve never been in love like this before—I don’t care how many parts of Elliot there are … I’ll love them all. Just please, please don’t let Mr. Robot get rid of all the happiness I know Elliot has felt this year.”
“I have to go,” he said, his head moving back and forth, his eyes large and confused. “Let him go, Y/N. Do us all a favor and just let him go.”
Not-Elliot pushed my hands off of him and walked away quickly, his lithe frame dipping into the small throng of people who were headed toward the arcades as the boardwalk lit up for the night.
He never looked back.
Tags: @sherlollydramoine @rami-malek-trash @teamwolf2411 @limabein @txmel @alottanothing @ouatlovr @backoftheroomandnotbelonging @moon-stars-soul @free-rami @ramimedley @hopplessdreamer @sweet-charmie @polarcrystall @hah0106 @clumsybookworm18 @diasimar @ramisgirl512 @aboutthatmelancholystorm
#Elliot Alderson#elliot alderson x reader#elliot alderson fanfic#mr robot#mr robot fanfiction#rami malek#rami malek character#female reader#mr. robot#mr. robot fanfiction#Elliot x reader
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Writer’s Review
Holy crap, I’m finally doing this tag!!! I’ve been trying to reply to it for a very long time, but every time I’ve opened my old writing, I’d fall into reading my stuff all over again. Some of my stuff is literally from 2005, y’all! I’m sure if went digging deeper, I could find stuff from 2002 ;) ANYWAY!
I was tagged by: @roguelioness @laraslandlockedblues @queen-kass-the-writer & @dismalzelenka. Thanks lovelies!
Tagging: @out-of-the-embers @shannaraisles @puddle--wonderful @thebakerstboyskeeper @allisondraste @ellenembee @ellstersmash @hollyand-writes @irlaimsaaralath @jonogueira @lucyrne @ma-sulevin @novamm66 @naiatabris @rhetoricalrogue @wardenari
Rules: Post two snippets of your writing. The first should be one of the oldest examples of your work that you can find (the older the better!), and the other has to be an excerpt from something more recent. Compare the two side by side to see the difference between what your writing looks like now and how it did then.
I’m keeping it all under a ‘Read More’, because I actually like you people and don’t want you to have to scroll for a day and a half to get to the bottom of this post. You’re welcome!
Okay, let’s talk about the oldest piece of writing I could get my hands on. The timestamp on this puppy is from 2005, which sounds about right. I wrote it long-hand while laying down on my ex’s couch. Not sure what exactly prompted me to write this story, but I still fucking love it, even fifteen years later. I’m not going to link to my online archive where this fic lives because I am NOT opening myself up to criticism over what I wrote when I was younger. Not today, Satan! Anyway, the fandom is Yami no Matsuei/Descendants of Darkness and the pairing is Tatsumi Seiichiro/Watari Yutaka, my OTP for that fandom :)
Shadows danced around the barely lit room as the blinds moved to the rhythm of the wind. The house looked deserted, but the open terrace door, and a faint scent of something familiar, convinced Watari that Tatsumi was home. He took a tentative step forward, constantly double-guessing his choice to come at such a late hour. Considering the way things progressed between them in the last couple of days, he could expect to be thrown out rather quickly. Still, as each slow step brought him closer to the glass door, he had a feeling he had made a good decision.
Cold, crisp air filled his lungs when he stepped onto the dark terrace. He did not need magical abilities to feel the well-known presence, mixed with an awful stench of cheap cigarettes. Watari raised his eyebrows as he watched the dark silhouette against the night sky; so hunched and tired. Between his slender fingers, Tatsumi held an unlit cigarette.
“Are you going to light it?” he asked.
A visible tremble ran through that powerful frame as the small roll of finely cut tobacco fell out of Tatsumi's grasp. He followed its path for a brief moment and then shrugged. When he turned away from the railing, he kept his head low, hiding behind the long bangs. Watari swallowed almost audibly as he noticed the dark circles around Tatsumi's normally vibrant blue eyes. It only proved how poorly Tatsumi had been taking care of himself lately.
“Not anymore,” Tatsumi said in a flat voice.
Now, this next excerpt is from something I am currently working on, but haven’t actually posted yet. It’s a conversation between Fenris and Garrett Hawke, while Hawke is living a boring life and hiding from The Chantry post DA2. It’s from a random story that I decided to revisit recently, that I will be reposting this coming fall.
Fenris looked him up and down with a critical eye. “Considering what you look like, I’m surprised as well. What have you done to yourself? Was this your idea of a disguise?”
“What’s wrong with how I look?” Garrett pouted.
“You remind me of the humans in Kirkwall who kept pushing their questionable wares on clueless customers. Remember? They smelled of patchouli and smoked a lot of elfroot.”
Garrett snorted with amusement and reached up to run a hand through his now shoulder-length hair. He’d been keeping it in all sorts of braids and ponytails - mostly because it was easier to keep it out of the way while working the forge - but he figured Fenris probably meant the various piercings he now sported on his clean-shaven face.
“If you must know, I ended up near Wycome and there was a lovely Dalish clan friendly to humans who did all sorts of piercings in exchange for supplies and money.” He gently tugged at his right earlobe and at the large wooden plug that sat within the flesh. “It’s amazing what you can do with high pain tolerance and magic, my friend. I wanted to look nothing like my description and I think I succeeded at it.”
Now, onto the comparing thing!
My writing used to be a lot more focused on trying to evoke emotion and suspense through meticulous editing and sentence sculpting. It sounds stupid, maybe, but I remember taking a long time to go through my stuff with a fine-toothed comb to make sure that: 1) I don’t sound ESL, and 2) that I convey the emotions I was striving for. My early influence for writing like that was Tolkien (and I whole lot of other fantasy authors I can’t think of right now). I wanted to sound fancy REALLY FUCKING BAD.
These days my language is a lot more relaxed. I think once I left the creative influence of my ex, I was able to find my own voice in writing. I figured out that my strength lies in the more modern language and urban fantasy style (if we’re talking about traditionally published works). I think it really reflects that in the second blurb, because it feels funny, relaxed, laid back. Also, my sentence structure is nowhere near as stiff. Which I like.
Another thing I noticed is that I used to write exclusively M/M pairs, while I now write almost exclusively M/F pairs. I’m going to out myself as one of these obnoxious people who thought that writing M/F was gross and M/M was the only way to exist as a writer in fandom. Gods, I was SO STUPID. Ugh. Anyway! I was clearly dealing with trying to work out my sexuality while in a deeply Catholic culture, so we’re not going to dive TOO deep into it. This is just a meme, after all ;)
The big question is, have I improved my writing? The obvious answer is, yes. For one, I don’t have a beta editor to catch all of my mistakes anymore. I do all of my own writing and editing, and I feel like I do okay on most days. I also don’t stress as much about making my fiction perfect. Once you let go of the desire to get every sentence ironed out to crisp perfection, your writing immediately improves by a mile. I also don’t over-describe actions as much anymore.
I dunno, while I think I haven’t changed my style TOO much, I also feel I’ve changed A LOT. In the end, this is a part of my journey and I’m nowhere near done traveling ;)
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A Chromatica Review
So I never really use Tumblr, but when I do go on here, it’s pretty much to review something long-form. As you can tell from my profile picture here, and from my glowing review of ARTPOP from 7 years ago, I am and have always been a Gaga stan. Just read the melodramatic first paragraph of my ARTPOP review and you’ll get the gist of how much I idolize this woman. Well, idolized. Past tense.
That’s not to say I suddenly hate Gaga–I’m still going to follow her career and listen to whatever she puts out. There have just been several factors this past year that have changed my perspective on how I view her, this album being one of those factors. But I’ll get to those later. First I just need to lay out all my issues with this album.
Yes, this is going to be that type of review, so if you’re a fellow Gaga stan that isn’t able to criticize her work, this probably isn’t for you. Otherwise please read to the end if you can, because this is honestly about more than just the album.
Issue #1: The Mismatch Between Music & Aesthetic
When the cover of the album came out, I was so gagged. Like, just look at it! It’s striking, and Gaga has rarely ever disappointed me when it came to visuals. Actually, I can’t even think of any visual choices she made in previous eras that disappointed me. Even in the Joanne era, the pink cowboy hat became iconic and all of her aesthetic choices fit with the overall vibe of that album cycle.
So naturally, when she revealed to us the new visual direction she was taking for Chromatica, I assumed it would give us some insight into how the music would sound. The aesthetic of this era always gave me grungy cyberpunk and heavy machinery tease. When I look at the album cover for example, I can hear a song produced by SOPHIE in my head, the clink-clank queen herself. (There were rumors that Gaga was going to or did work with SOPHIE but that was never confirmed, unfortunately for us.)
For those unfamiliar with SOPHIE, here’s Ponyboy, which was most recently used in the ad campaign for Beyoncé’s Ivy Park clothing line.
youtube
That was the kind of production I was more or less expecting when taking the visuals into account; dark, metallic, basically similar to ARTPOP’s production (to be honest ARTPOP sonically fits better with the Chromatica aesthetic; think about it).
But what did we get? Light, garden variety dance pop, a stark contrast to what the album cover and the promo images teased us with.
In the album, we get these orchestral interludes that are beautiful but don't really mesh that well with the actual tracks. The songs don't have any orchestral elements by themselves, so the interludes felt a bit misplaced to me. I wish they'd incorporated more of that into the individual songs, so that there could be an orchestral through-line to give more cohesion, like what Ariana did in her album positions by using strings. However I will say, the transition from Chromatica II into 911 remains unmatched.
I get that the album is supposed to sound happy, that it was her returning to her “dance pop roots” and singing about serious topics like mental health over happy-sounding beats, because it’s supposed to reflect her current mental state. I get all that. But if that was the case, I think she should’ve gone with a different visual direction to match. Personally I wish she went a different direction musically instead, but even if it was just the other way around and she changed the aesthetic of this era, my opinion of the album would probably improve slightly, cause at least there would be cohesion between the visuals and the sonics.
I look at that album cover, and promo images like the one below, and then I listen to songs like Fun Tonight or Plastic Doll for example, and there’s a noticeable dissonance there.
You might be thinking “why are you so hard on her for this?” and I guess it’s because I’ve always held Gaga to a high standard when it comes to how she links those two elements. Think of every era she’s had in the past, and you remember how the visuals always just worked with their respective albums.
And that’s before I’ve even talked about the videos. Oh lord, the videos.
Issue #2: The Videos Are Lackluster (Except For 911)
It started with Stupid Love, the lead single. I had mixed feelings about that song in the beginning, but because I was so thirsty for new music from Gaga at the time, I played that song like hell when it leaked and it was on rotation for a good while. But when Gaga premiered the Stupid Love video, I’m not going to lie; I really didn’t like it.
The whole “shot entirely on iPhone” schtick really did the video a disservice. I’m sorry but it had to be said. If I imagined the video with a higher budget and more of a plotline as opposed to just being a dance video, I think it could’ve worked a lot better and been a decent introduction to not only Chromatica the album, but this fictional world/planet that she’s created. Which by the way, she didn’t really deliver in that regard either.
The concept of Chromatica being a fictional world could have been expanded on further; she could’ve showcased all of the different factions (I know they were called “tribes” at first but that’s appropriative so I’ll call them factions) and perhaps had an overarching storyline about how these factions are at war, and it’s Gaga’s job as one of the “Kindness Punks”, as she calls it, to bring everyone together for a rave.
This is why I will always say it: Chromatica needed to be a visual album. Just imagine the storyline I mentioned just now being turned into a full-length feature, and now imagine the album’s orchestral intro playing as they’re essentially opening the gates to Chromatica and Gaga discovers this world for the first time, and then it goes into the first song Alice where she’s meeting all the factions and getting acclimated to her surroundings.
Honestly I could go on and on cause I have thought about this for SO LONG now and I’ll never shut up about it. It’s just such a missed opportunity cause the concept was just begging for a visual album. Anyway sorry for my tangent: back to the Stupid Love video.
The whole “shot on iPhone” gimmick really was unfortunate. Like she really ruined the quality of a music video because she wanted that Apple check??? Come on, Gaga, there could’ve been some other way to secure that check.
And then there was the Rain On Me video, which definitely have visuals that are a massive improvement from Stupid Love because it was professionally shot and cinematic. But even that was another purely dance video with not much in the way of storyline. Not that storyline is always required for music videos, but I think specifically when it comes to Chromatica, not having storylines in the M/Vs does a disservice to the overall concept.
I guess my issue with these two music videos, but mostly Stupid Love, is that Gaga isn't fully utilizing her COIN. Like she's successful enough to the point where she has budgets for these videos and can go all out, but doesn't. She has the capacity for extremely high production value, but up until 911, the last video she did that had that level of extraness was G.U.Y. I miss the days when her music videos were an event. I still remember where I was and what I was doing the exact moment the Telephone video came out. That's impact.
Taylor Swift I think is somebody who really knows how to blow her budget on a video. Look What You Made Me Do may have been a terrible song, but I always thought the video was sickening.
Anyway, I have no notes on 911. She's a masterpiece. If there was a music video category at the Oscars, I'd be campaigning for it right now.
Issue #3: Any Other Girly Can Do This
The thing I always loved the most about Gaga's music was that nobody was doing it like her. Everything she put out always felt like it was distinctly hers and hers alone, it's unmistakable. Even in Joanne, despite that album being a major departure from what she normally did.
I know Joanne is a very polarizing album, even for Little Monsters, but personally I've always loved it. Joanne was an album that I always knew she would make and I thought was essential to her career and body of work. Despite her straying away from pop for a more earthy, grass roots sound, it still sounded very much like her music. Even from the first track, Diamond Heart, her DNA is all over that.
It's difficult to explain what exactly I mean when I say there's a certain signature "Gaga-ness" or that she has a very specific DNA injected into her songs. If you've been a fan of hers for a long time or followed her career, you probably understand what I'm referring to. It's the way she laughs maniacally in the beginning of ARTPOP on Aura, how she says "I don't speak German but I can if you like, OW!" and proceeds to recite broken German on Scheiße, how she invented the phrase "disco stick", literally the ENTIRETY of The Fame Monster.
These examples probably give you the gist of what I'm trying to convey. Gaga is fucking weird. She has always been fucking weird and I love that so much about her. And her brand of weirdness was so specific that if any of the other pop girls tried to do what she did, it would have been cringey as hell. To me, the most disappointing thing of all with this album was that this weirdness that was so uniquely hers was missing.
It's there in brief moments, in tracks like Sour Candy, 911 and Babylon, but most of the album doesn't really sound like her music. It sounds like songs that she wrote for other people, like her old unreleased stuff. OG Little Monsters probably remember songs like Second Time Around and No Way. These were leaked unreleased songs that Gaga had written for other artists, and even though they were absolute bops, they didn't sound like her. They weren't supposed to.
A similar feeling I had was when her song The Cure came out a few years ago. I genuinely thought that was something she wrote for someone else, cause even though it was a solid pop song, it absolutely had zero Gaga-ness and any current pop girl could sing it. This pretty much encapsulates how I feel about the majority of Chromatica.
I was gonna say it sounded like songs that were written for Ally, her Star is Born character, but I think even those pop songs from the soundtrack sounded more Gaga than Chromatica does. 💀 I can easily imagine Hair Body Face being on The Fame.
Final Thoughts
It's funny that the last review I had posted on here before this was my review of Kingdom Hearts III. The Kingdom Hearts game series is something that's very near and dear to my heart, and I waited a wholeass decade for the third game to come out. And then it did, and I was so disappointed.
So you know what happened after that? What helped me deal with my disappointment of that game was my anticipation for Chromatica, or at the time it was still called LG6. I had no idea I would feel the same exact way about this album the way I do about KH3. Now when I think of both of these things, I'm mostly frustrated by all of the potential and the missed opportunities, but I also look at them with a certain fondness. I had fun playing KH3, and I also had fun listening to Chromatica, despite both of them disappointing me overall.
In the beginning of this review I said that there were certain factors that have stopped me from idealizing Gaga too much. Firstly it's because I'm much older now, and secondly it's due to the sheer state of the world this past year. The pandemic really precipitated the fall of celebrity culture, and all of that made me really examine how putting someone on such a high pedestal can be damaging in the long run.
Gaga is a human being and I haven't agreed with everything she's done, particularly how she handled the whole R. Kelly situation back in 2013. And also the simple fact that she's a white woman, we know how a lot of the time they can't help but show their asses and are bound to disappoint us in some way. I'm forever grateful for her artistry and how she saved my life when I was a suicidal little eighth grader, but I'm also going to hold her accountable for any of her mistakes, and I'd be ready to stop supporting her entirely if anything she does ever goes too far.
Now I stan artists for fun. It's not healthy to idolize them to the point of revering them. I mean, I like to make jokes like that about Beyoncé, like "no way on Beyoncé's green earth", etc. But even she is just a person that we shouldn't deify for real.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that Chromatica being a lackluster album and era ended up being a good thing, because it helped me grow out of idolizing celebrities too intensely. Chromatica was pretty much the best disappointment I've ever listened to.
If you've read all the way to the end, thank you! Writing this was very therapeutic but also stressful; this is a second draft cause Tumblr fucked up my first post. 😭
Anyway, SAWAYAMA & Ungodly Hour are albums of the year. Argue with the wall.
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An entirely too long post on how to fix Veronica Mars
So, anyone who has followed this blog for any length of time knows: 1) What a massive Veronica Mars fan I was and 2) how distraught I’ve been over the most recent season that debuted on Hulu in July. I’ve been pretty angry about it since it dropped, but the first month after I was pretty occupied with real life stuff. Now that I’m more settled, I’ve found myself getting sadder and angrier over time with just how terrible S4 was and what an obvious fuck you to longtime fans it was. It feels dumb to be so upset over a tv show, but this show got me through a lot over the past 8 years, and I feel like it’s been taken away from me.
It’s anyone’s guess as to whether there will be a new season. Ideally it would end here with maybe an alternate ending filmed to avoid alienating fans further. On the one hand, the botched release, overwhelmingly negative response, and silence from the creators after initial interviews don’t look good for renewal chances. On the other hand, Hulu doesn’t have a lot of streaming hits, it probably did relatively decent numbers, and there are rumors floating around that its pickup chances look good. On a personal level, I hate the idea that this is where the legacy of Veronica Mars ends, while at the same time being extremely wary of what the creators have planned. I think a big part of the disappointment with S4 was that the movie and books set up what could have been some really interesting storylines and situations, all of which RT and co. squandered for cheap drama and to apparently turn the show into an entirely new vehicle; additionally I had hope that S4 would be a chance to rectify some problems the show has long had, but again, S4 exacerbated them. At this point I don’t expect anyone higher up in the creative process or at Hulu to give a fuck about the fans or making the show better as long as they hit streaming targets, but here are some suggestions:
Fire Rob Thomas
While he created the show, it’s become clear that not only has he lost touch with the audience and the original spirit of the character, he doesn’t seem too keen on putting much effort into writing the show (as I will discuss below). Then you have his clear misogyny: his views that women in relationships can’t be interesting, that what makes Veronica interesting as a character is her trauma and how much she can endure, and the fact that basically every female character in the history of the show has a history of sexual victimization. He thought that making the Mexican cartel hitmen “philosophical” was subverting expectations (which says a lot of what his expectations of Latinx characters are). Then this is the way he essentially exploited his long term fan base to earn a new season of the show, only to turn around and tell us that we don’t matter. From a business perspective alone keeping him doesn’t make sense; selling a streaming platform on your loyal fanbase and then proceeding to purposefully piss ~80% of them off would be pretty questionable to me as someone in charge. The sheer cruelty with which he treated not only the fans who have supported him for 15 years (I fucking used to liveblog iZombie y’all. iZombie!), as well as how he callously dismissed long time cast members in favor of celebrity guest stars should not be rewarded. He’s admitted in interviews that he would be ok with younger writers doing a reboot many years in the future; why not just let him have a producer credit and then hand the show over to someone who’s invested in making it good?
Put a woman in charge and diversify the writing staff
A big problem with a) Veronica’s characterization in S4 b) RT’s ideas about what makes female characters interesting c) the show’s long history of problematic treatment of sexual assault is that it comes from a man’s conception of the female experience. The Veronica showcased in S4 and that RT wants to write in the future is very much a male fantasy: hates marriage and children, traumatized, DTF, and is too cool for other women. RT stated in interviews that he wanted to show Veronica at a “crossroads” this season in a way he claimed had been shown for men but not women; many female viewers found this depiction to ring false (few women are spending their time fretting about how committing to marriage after five years in an established relationship will bar us from strange sex going forward). In addition to having RT at the helm, most of the show’s writing staff for the majority of its run has been white dudes, which doesn’t bode well for telling the story of a female PI in a diverse community in today’s political climate. Putting a woman in charge would hopefully help rectify these issues to make the character feel more true to life and put a damper on the misogynistic storytelling. The show has a natural candidate in RT’s second-in-command Diane Ruggiero-Wright (despite her problematic history, never forget #KeisterEggGate), who has admitted to not being able to watch the last episode. Jennifer Graham, who wrote both of the books, would also be a worthy addition to the writing staff; while the books had a mixed reception, most fans agree that she got Veronica’s character right. And with the show’s problematic historical treatment of minority characters, adding more POC writers going forward is also necessary.
Bring back Logan (alive)
You don’t have to be a LoVe shipper to recognize just how integral Logan has been since the inception of the show, not just as Veronica’s partner but as a character is his own right. Logan’s journey in many ways parallels Veronica’s, and shows a contrast in how different characters respond to similar trauma. The most critical plot line in the show’s history, the mystery of who killed Lilly Kane, simply doesn’t work without Logan’s importance to Veronica. RT and his defenders like to claim that Logan was holding her back from true growth, which is frankly bizarre as he is the only character to consistently challenge her, like when he tells her that she obviously isn’t happy this season. Additionally, Logan’s scenes this season were the lone highlight of what was otherwise a painful slog of a season. Of the people who have said they would watch a potential S5, a good portion are only interested because they believe that the ambiguity of the last 10 minutes of the season means he’s not really dead (despite what RT has said in interviews). Then there’s what Logan’s death does to Veronica’s character, effectively cutting off what would have been an interesting character arc and stagnating her forever. No matter how much they try to shove Leo the pedo creep and other milquetoast RT self-insert love interests on us, no one else can possible measure up to Logan’s level in terms of being able to match Veronica as a character, intellectually or as a result of shared history.
Plus, the fact that we haven’t had a Weevil/Logan interaction since S3 is a goddamn travesty and should be rectified immediately.
Bring back Veronica
As sad as I am about Logan’s death, for me the most upsetting aspect of S4 was the assassination of Veronica’s character. For many viewers (including myself), the character we saw Kristen Bell portray in S4 wasn’t Veronica Mars but a different character with the same name. Between her abusive behavior towards Logan, her general indifference to her father’s medical condition, her dismissal of Wallace, and her racism towards Latinx characters (using a kid’s lawyer to threaten deportation: not a good look!), she was lacking the marshmallow-y center that always balanced out the pricklier aspects of her character and made her compelling. This change in characterization was especially jarring given that she was not this way when we last saw her in the books, where she mused about having children and sent her half-brother Hunter to summer camp (side note, but does he even exist anymore?). Many of us who had grown up with Veronica were hoping to see her grow with us as a character; instead we got an extreme regression lower than we’ve ever seen her. It would be one thing if they were trying to depict a PTSD storyline, which would make sense given her background, but since her change in behavior is never addressed by the narrative, it just makes her look like a cruel asshole and makes it impossible to root for her. This is exacerbated by the fact that RT has made it clear he has no interest in portraying her inner life, as shown by his wanting to avoid showing her grief over Logan’s death because it would be a real downer compared to the entertaining but ultimately hollow banter and quips he wants to focus on. Veronica this season was also just plain dumb: you mean to tell me that the girl who nearly got killed by Aaron Echolls in her back seat wouldn’t think to check her backseat every time she gets in a car? (And let’s not even start with RT’s bizarre assertion in an interview that she apparently votes Republican). Not helping matters was Kristen Bell’s performance, which felt very flat for me this season compared to S1-3 and the movie; I don’t know if this was due to personal limitations or a reflection of the bad writing. Writers of future installments and KB herself would be wise to revisit S1, the movie, and the books to figure out what makes sense for Veronica’s character, leading me to my next point:
Get reacquainted with canon, develop a show bible, and hire a continuity director
This show has long had a problem with dropped plots, timelines, and continuity issues. Shelly Pomroy’s party has two happened either in the summer, or the fall. Then we have the movie paradox: Veronica graduated high school in 2006, which means her 10 year reunion should have taken place in 2016. The movie was released in 2014 and the books seem to keep to 2014 dates. Then S4 states that Keith’s movie accident took place in 2013, and mysteriously ages Veronica up to 35 when she should be 32 in 2019. Logan mentions an Aunt Naomi in S4--why didn’t she take care of him after Aaron was arrested (and what happened to Trina)? How the hell is Leo working as an FBI agent when he presided over the disappearance of the Lilly/Aaron tapes? Veronica is shown to be tentatively forgiving of Weevil taking the settlement from the sheriff’s department in Mr. Kiss and Tell, but is then shown to be extremely angry towards him for it in S4. This is just a small selection of the inconsistencies within the show. Plus there is the problem of repeated plot lines: Veronica rejects Leo in favor of Logan in S1, then rejects Leo in favor of Logan in Mr. Kiss and Tell, only for her to...reject Leo in favor of Logan in S4 (and RT says he wants to leave the high school plots behind). This sloppiness doesn’t bode well for a series that is supposed to be about mysteries, which require tight plotting. It would behove TPTB going forward to once and for all determine a timeline of Veronica’s life, keep a detailed record of past plot and character points, and have at least one person on staff who thinks to remember this stuff (RT notoriously has only a “solid, not spectacular” memory of the show, no matter what Kareem Abdul-Jabbar says).
Make an effort (and do your fucking research)
Moving on from continuity issues to more general problems with the laziness of RT’s writing. He has basically admitted that he doesn’t care much about facts or characterization when writing plots--he shoehorns details to fit the plot rather than have it evolve organically from the characters and prior canon. I know that when writing it’s often impossible to make every story detail 100% accurate, but the extent of RT’s sloppiness is alarming. This excellent Reddit thread details a lot of the problems with S4 in particular, but this has been a problem since S2. Did anyone ever understand exactly why the Fitzpatricks were invested in framing Logan for Felix’s death? In the movie, it makes no sense that if Cobb and co. wanted Carrie silenced, they would add the complication of framing Logan for her murder--given her history, it would have been a lot easier just to make it look like she had accidentally overdosed. Given his previous patterns of villain writing fans were able to guess the identity of the S4 bomber based on casting alone. The mysteries in both Mr. Kiss and Tell and S4 are both ripped from the headlines, which indicates that RT wants to turn VM into the next Law and Order. Meanwhile, he complained about how hard including Logan in the story in S4 was, while Logan arguably had the best lines and most interesting scenes this season--apparently when you put an effort into things, they work out! This laziness extends past storyline issues and into factual problems that detract from the quality of the plot. Longtime fandom pals are probably tired about hearing me go on and on about how there’s no way Aaron’s lawyers could have gotten Veronica’s medical records due to HIPAA laws. Logan’s career change from naval aviator to intelligence is highly unlikely (and unnecessary, given that they changed it only to fridge him at the end of the season). Meanwhile, I know fanfic writers who have spent hours on the phone with strangers in order to research what type of firearm would cause a specific type of bullet injury. It’s very puzzling to me that RT wants to take the show in the direction of being mystery-only when apart from that one time he is piss poor at writing mysteries and puts no effort into them. I shouldn’t have to tell television writers to, you know, do their job but this is what we’ve come to in 2019.
Know your audience
A majorly annoying thing about the promo for this season is how in every single interview Rob Thomas did he was always talking about how he wanted VM to be like other shows and movies: Fargo, True Detective, Game of Thrones, Chinatown (which is apparently the only noir movie he’s ever seen). The thing is, if I wanted to watch those shows, I would; I watched Veronica Mars specifically because I enjoyed its unique qualities, and I would say most fans agree. The general perception within the fandom is that with this season Rob Thomas seems to have been aiming to dump the old, majority female, CW fanbase in order to achieve what he perceives as a cooler prestigious male fanbase; the issue is, new people aren’t going to take up a show in its fourth season if they didn’t watch or didn’t like earlier seasons. Also, trying to write a prestigious show doesn’t make your show prestigious. Considering that based on anecdotal evidence most of the people who like S4 seem to be male, he may have succeeded in the first part of his aim. However, this majority female fanbase he was so willing to cast aside are the ones who have run fansites and rewatches during fallow times (i.e. between S3 and the movie and then between the books and S4), so drumming up interest among fans (and therefore streaming views) in the future may be a challenge. Plus, women are a better advertising demographic since they are more likely to be in charge of household purchasing decisions, so maintaining us as a fanbase makes business sense as well. He may have tricked enough people into watching S4 that S5 is given a go, but I wouldn’t be surprised if streams are weak beyond that. If the show is to succeed as a commercial endeavor, better to go with appealing to a known quantity than trying to make a generic show that very few people have expressed interest in watching.
Bring back the mystery of the week
This is a more minor thing I felt was missing from S4. I think after the criticism of S3 not having a season-long arc RT overcorrected in focusing on one mystery. However, the mystery of the week had the following benefits: 1) giving chances for the characters to interact and telling us more about them 2) helping to modulate the pace of the season-long arc. With better writing a season-long standalone mystery could maybe work, but in the case of S4 specifically the mystery was kind of dull and repetitive and could have stood to include a couple of diversions in the form of a smaller case here and there.
Re-evaluate the creators’ interpretation of the word “adult”
Much of the promo and reviews for this season noted the more “adult” content to be expected this season now that Veronica’s grown. Many fans hoped that meant seeing Veronica act like, you know, an adult with adult problems rather than a teenager less mature than the actual teenager she was. Unfortunately, the show’s interpretation of the word seems to be more in keeping with a television rating sense of the word--meaning sex, drugs, and gratuitous violence (But apparently not the word “fuck.”). Look, it was expected that as the show moved to a streaming service and given the overall dramatic scope that there would be an upgrade in some of this sort of content (and I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t looking forward to steamier LoVe moments, which were sorely overpromised), but the way it was included this season felt like RT and co. included this stuff just because they could and not to serve the storyline. For me, personally, the biggest example of this was Veronica’s drug use, which I know didn’t necessarily bother everyone. Given her history as the daughter of an alcoholic as well as someone who had been the victim of two roofie attacks, not to mention the fact that her character never seemed to be into partying, I found it very out of character (and book writer Jennifer Graham agrees). It felt like RT included this just bc they thought it would be funny to see Veronica on drugs without considering whether it made sense for her character. Also, were the beheadings strictly necessary? Plus there’s RT’s little temper tantrum over not being able to use curse words this season--they weren’t present in the original show, no one was going to miss them now, and the “cuss” thing was just annoying and reminiscent of The Good Place.
Dealing with a parent who maybe has dementia--that’s an adult storyline. Too bad RT ended it with a dumb excuse about “mixing meds” (another factual error! Pharmacy software would have caught it!) rather than actually exploring what it would mean for Veronica to see her father in decline and take over the family business (and give Rico Colantoni the exit he appears to want). This is the kind of adult content I would hope to see in future seasons.
Adult is not a synonym for “unrelentingly bleak” either. The original show, while dark, always had an element of hope that was completely removed from S4 (no matter what KB might claim). And would it have killed the writers to show Veronica wearing disguises and going undercover like she used to? There was nothing fun about this season (and no, I don’t count the multiple partying scenes as fun, more like sad).
Kill your darlings
It’s cliche, but it’s true. Another issue the show has long had is the writers keeping around characters or inserting jokes and references for their own personal amusement rather than for the story. The most notable example of this is the continued presence of Dick, a highly problematic character considering he pushed Beaver into the room with Veronica the night of Shelly Pomroy’s party, among a whole host of other racist, sexist, and generally obnoxious actions over the years. But because Ryan Hansen is so widely beloved among the cast and crew, so he stays. Then there’s the matter of the infamous Keister egg in 3x08, which the writers and KB have all expressed love for, despite the fact that said Keister egg is an example of sexual assault--which, even if the victim is a douchey fraternity president, is never funny.
Also the constant Big Lebowski references are tiring. Watch a new movie.
Improve Neptune’s gender ratio
Veronica Mars, despite having a female lead, has always been a male-dominated show; other than Veronica herself, the only consistent female character over the original show was Mac (and she didn’t even come back this season). This is unacceptable in 2019, for any show. The books introduced promising female characters in the form of Marcia Langdon and Petra Landros, but Marcia’s character was was watered down for S4 and Petra was nowhere to be found. Additionally, Veronica and Mac have always been written as “cool girls” who looked down on other women for their femininity, which isn’t a great message. Almost every other female character, even the innocuous Parker, is portrayed as somehow bad or incompetent. I would love nothing more than a season centered on the women of Neptune and their interactions with each other. While we’re at it, stop giving every woman on this show a background of sexual victimization.
Treat VM as an ensemble show, not a Kristen Bell vanity project
A major complaint from Burnt Marshmallows and S4 defenders alike was how little time was given over to the original core cast this season. While Veronica may be the protagonist, a large part of how the show became so beloved was her relationships with the other characters. Yet RT has decided that going forward VM will be a KB solo project, with her traveling town to town quipping and sleeping with strangers. This seems strange, given Kristen’s recent interviews talking about how difficult it is to shoot VM and how she never wants to be first on a call sheet ever again, not to mention how she asked for less screen time all the way back in S2, which resulted in the Weevil-Logan storyline, which was way more interesting than Veronica’s storylines during the first half of that season. (The traveling detective thing also seems weird considering that KB is pretty insistent on shooting in LA to be near her family.) Additionally, if this is truly the last season of VM with all the original characters, then no one got a proper sendoff.
I’m not sure how willing much of the cast will be to return for future iterations, given how uncomfortable many of them seemed during promo as well RT and KB’s treatment of them (insensitive at best, deliberately mean at worst) this season (shout out to Tina Majorino for recognizing what a shit show this was going to be), but bringing back all the original characters into the fold and giving them significant storylines would go a long way to mending fences with fans, improving the show from a character arc perspective, and would also give KB the break she apparently wants.
Recourt the fanbase
What has VM always been renowned for above all else? It’s incredibly loyal fandom which not only got it renewed twice during its original run but also put up their own money to get the movie made--I know many people who donated when they really couldn’t afford to. RT basically owes the last 6 years of his career to VM fans--the success of the Kickstarter arguably got him the iZombie show running gig, and the fourth season likely wouldn’t have even happened if not for it. Thus, the blatant cruelty and disregard with which RT and KB have treated fans during the promotion of S4 has been incredibly insulting and hurtful; I still can’t fathom what in the world possessed RT to think that throwing away this 15-year relationship was a good idea. It’s not a good sign when the 2 fansites most active during the post-movie period (VMHQ and VM Confessions) cease operations in the wake of S4, and when at least 3 out of 8 board members of the oldest running fan group, Neptune Rising (who were dormant during the post-movie period but played a critical role during earlier fan campaigns and in the S4 promo) resign. A fandom this loyal that was betrayed will not stand idly by if the S5 RT wants to make goes ahead; given the number of tweets the official Hulu VM account has had to delete in the wake of S4 due to the overwhelmingly negative response as well as the controversy over editing out Logan from S4 promos, I imagine that S5 will be a PR nightmare. Even if future seasons are amazing the trust can probably never be fully repaired, but it would be helpful for RT (or fingers crossed, a new show runner) and KB (as star and EP) to go overboard in reaching out to fans and at least admitting they made a misstep with the entirety of S4. Back in the day, the old Mars Investigation fansite was invited to set to conduct interviews; maybe do that again. Also someone should get KB some sort of VM fandom-fluent media trainer because I don’t think she has conducted a single interview during her entire stint on the show that didn’t anger fans (it might help if she actually bothered to watch the show).
Map out an endgame
Look, this can’t go on forever. As long as RT keeps leaving every installment open ended with the hopes of maybe getting renewed again five years down the line, the story is going to keep running into the issues the movie and S4 faced with having to shoehorn the characters into nonsensical plot lines to reconcile those endings and deal with actor availability issues. Either plot another 2-3 seasons to wrap the show up with a satisfying conclusion, or map out a greater timeline of Veronica’s life with spots where a mini series or movie here and there could fit in.
#Veronica Mars#still angry#mainly written for personal catharsis#need to stop being angry about this and focus more on studying synaptic transmission#Burnt Marshmallow#we use to be fans
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You don't have to answer this if you don't want to but what's up with the Courtney Love controversy? Why are people accusing her of manipulation or whatever? I'm totally new to this discussion
hey darling!! no worries, I love discussing Kurt & Court bc theyre my surrogate parents and they emotionally raised me when I had a difficult relationship w my Mom and Dad, plus I’m named after Kurt and he’s part of the reason I realized my ~gender~, so needless to say I have a surplus of information on them. Plus their music fucks. anyways, this is gonna be a masterpost-
my credentials(sources I have taken my information and formed my opinion on Kurt & Court’s relationship from if u need to look into them):
-Heavier Than Heaven(Book by Charles Cross, authorized by Kurt’s estate. Charles Cross is a well known grunge/music historian and has literally devoted his life to researching and writing rockstar biographies, including several on Nirvana. One of my favorite books ever.)
- Montage Of Heck(Documentary on Kurt’s life. Produced by his daughter, Frances. I have some heavy criticisms of this film and of the interviews in it, but it does have some reflections on Kurt and Courtney’s relationship that I think are important.)
- Hit So Hard(a documentary on Hole’s drummer, Patty Schemel. Minor discussions of Kurt and Kurt and Courtney.)
- Verse Chorus Verse(Fan-made documentary series on Kurt’s life, widely regarded by Nirvana fans the most in depth play-by-play biography that exists- and it’s free on YouTube, which is lit.)
sources I don’t pull from, but many younger Nirvana fans do(the people who buy into the conspiracies generally):
Kurt and Courtney- A documentary made in the late 90’s under the guise of biography, but is actually about the conspiracy theory that Courtney killed Kurt. I saw it when I was a new fan and I literally laughed out loud from how apeshit it was.
Soaked In Bleach- ‘Biopic’ about Courtney killing Kurt. I haven’t seen it but straight men who think Courtney is ugly take it more seriously than the Bible. Very little truth ever goes into these theories, besides maybe names and dates.
Anything Hank Harrison(Courtney’s father) has to say- He wrote a book on the subject. He also gave her acid and lost custody of her when she was three years old. He’s a shit parent and I doubt he’s actually seen his daughter since the 80’s.
Anything Buzz Osborne(Kurt’s friend, singer for the Melvins, a band Kurt looked up to in Montesano) says- I think Buzz’s opinion is taken way too seriously by a lot of the fan base, I read an interview of his criticizing Montage Of Heck because Kurt ‘didn’t really have a stomach disease’ and was just lying about it to get high, and also about how he hated having to see Courtney naked, and made a good long point about how disgusting her body is. IOn top of all that(none of which really has to do with critiquing the film...?), he mocked Kurt and called him a loser for committing suicide. I don’t care what your opinion on his stomach, his wife, or his music is, that shit is callous and idiotic, but totally reflective of the 70’s and 80’s mentality regarding the mentally ill. He’s part of the legion of pretentious punk dudes who *kind of* knew Kurt, who think Courtney’s the one who ‘corrupted’ him, which brings me around to answering your question.
So, there’s this idea regarding Kurt and Courtney’s relationship, which is pretty similar to the one surrounding Sid and Nancy’s(or at least used to.) Courtney is the whiny, annoying, petulant bitch who attached herself to the first trophy she could find, and through her terrible manipulative personality kept him with her and kept him from getting better. In this mode of thinking, She’s also the person who ‘started’ him on drugs, and in a few people’s eyes, the person who ‘forced’ him to have Frances.
The reality of the situation, as I see it, as someone who’s gone to pretty decent lengths to inform themselves on the subject, is that Kurt and Courtney’s relationship was toxic: But the toxicity was mutual. This doesn’t mean they were a “problematic” couple, or that they were abusing each other, or even that either one of them was ‘evil’, it means that they fell deeply in love as young trauma survivors with substance abuse issues and huge ambitions. That’s a lot to put on any relationship and it’s a lot to talk about, so I’m gonna split this into categories of complaints that you’ll hear pretty routinely as a new Nirvana/Hole fan.
1. “She got him into drugs!”
Courtney started on heroin in the late 80’s in L.A., when she was still playing with Sugar Baby Doll(her band with Jennifer Finch and Kat Bjelland). Kurt, as said in Heavier Than Heaven, tried heroin for the first time around 1988-1989(I don’t remember exactly.) At the time, he was still living with(though I don’t believe they were still dating) Tracy Marander. Because he was destitute, he didn’t have enough money to start forming an actual habit until Nevermind started gaining speed, and by the time he and Courtney started dating(they met a couple of times and phoned a couple of times before cementing a relationship) he had been taking it for a while. That’s the thing I think people look over when it comes to Kurt- He was embarrassed about his addiction and he hated the physical side effects, but he loved heroin.
Courtney says in Montage Of Heck that she had both tried and kicked heroin by the time she met Kurt, but I think the Heavier Than Heaven description is probably more accurate: That she did heroin socially, and her addiction worsened after the two of them began living together because Kurt was(in her own words) ‘obsessed with oblivion.’ She also said in Montage Of Heck that his dream was to ‘Get to three million dollars and become a junkie.’ She’s stated several times that her drug problems came out of a need for ‘comfort’, and Kurt was into getting so fucked he couldn’t do anything else(also confirmed by his friend, Dylan Carlson, who was also into heroin and did it with him often.)
On top of that, Courtney was the one who orchestrated interventions for Kurt, went through the process of reviving him when he’d overdosed, and broke his syringes/scared off his dealers to try and keep drugs away from him as much as possible. At one point, she even made a rule that no drugs were to be done in the house- So he started renting motel rooms and doing them there. It was she who was the head of his final intervention before he went missing.
If anything, Courtney is the person who tried her hardest to keep drugs away from both of them. Considering how much people still talk about her doing heroin while pregnant(which occurred very early on before she was aware of her condition), Kurt is the person who struggled the most to stay off drugs during her pregnancy and after Frances’ birth, even going so far as to hide in the bathroom from her while she was struggling with morning sickness so she wouldn’t know he was getting high.
2. “She manipulated him into dating her/marrying her!”
Here’s the thing about Courtney; She is an enigmatic, entertaining, talented, maternal individual. Here’s the thing about Kurt; He’s a shy, quiet, non-confrontational guy with mommy issues. There’s been a lot of discussion on how Courtney was ‘obsessed’ with Kurt, and how she wouldn’t rest until she pinned him down: That’s untrue, or at least it reads less like crazy-bitch-steals-rock-god and more like cute-singer-has-crush-on-fellow-cute-singer. She was really into him, but when she met him she was still dating Billy Corgan, which deterred her from pursuing him until that relationship(basically) dissolved. When Kurt met her, he had just gotten out of a relationship with Tobi Vail, which most likely fell apart because she refused to be what Tracy Marander had been for him. She wasn’t interested in caring for him and she wasn’t interested in a full-time monogamous relationship. She was working too hard at her own career and was way too involved in the burgeoning riot grrrl movement to worry about looking after Kurt Cobain. That just wasn’t going to work for him.
Kurt was a big believer in the nuclear family model, he was very monogamous, and besides that he lacked the ability to physically take care of himself. If he wasn’t living with a partner who would clean up the house and remind him to wash his hair, it just didn’t happen. He was chronically ill, depressed, and he’d spent most of his adolescence AWOL from anyone who would actually raise him, so Tobi’s rejection deeply hurt him for a number of reasons- While Courtney, the opposite of Tobi in a few key ways, was exactly what he wanted. On top of looking like the archetypical punk girl, “I was attracted to her because she looked like Nancy Spungen,” she had a maternal streak (In Montage Of Heck, when he’s found sitting beside her while she cuts his hair, and, typical for people living with Kurt, mentions that she cleans the house because ‘nobody else fuckin does.’) Early on in their relationship, Kurt had a meltdown and begged Courtney to come to his apartment. She did, and looked after him the rest of the night, a pattern which would become common for them, and was stated by her half sister to be the ‘original strain on the relationship.’
Besides her mothering elements, Courtney was brassy and loud, and her presence allowed him to be less introverted and freer with himself. She was an ambitious young musician who shared a similar childhood to him, and had the same yearning for a safe home life that he did. She was well-read and artistic, and introduced him to the literary side of music creation, which he hadn’t explored yet. After spending a night on the phone with her, he went around telling everybody she was ‘the coolest girl in the world,’ and broke off another burgeoning relationship with Mary Lou Lord on live TV after spending the night with her. The famous quote, “Courtney Love is the best fuck in the world.” is in fact real. And yeah, he could’ve handled that one better.
The attraction was mutual, and I find it hard to believe that Kurt was ever forced into anything romantic with her based on how well she suited his tastes.
3. “She used him for his fame/money!”
As stated above, Courtney was attracted to Kurt before Nevermind was even recorded, and if she wanted to marry a famous dude right out the gate, at the time they met there were plenty of people who were way more famous than Kurt. In Heavier Than Heaven she mentions really liking their song “Dive,” and later in life she mentioned hearing “Sliver” and being impressed with Kurt’s writing abilities. Both of those songs were released a solid two years before Nevermind. She was interested in Kurt because he was cute and talented and she was savvy in the music scene, meaning that she kept up with underground bands.
Now, a point of contention between Kurt & Courtney was their different attitudes towards fame. That is entirely true. Courtney wanted to be famous, enjoyed celebrity, loved attention, and could handle touring, press, and the craziness of success. She was very charismatic, very physically strong, and let’s face it, definitely an attention whore. Kurt liked being praised, he liked being successful, and he definitely had a thing for attention- But he hated pressure, he had inferiority issues, he didn’t know how to handle his life being pried into all the time, and he wasn’t strong enough to do massive tours. Courtney just didn’t understand that, which is pretty common if someone doesn’t share your same mental illness/physical illness: Touring hurt Kurt’s stomach, it worsened his anxiety and emotional instability, it wore his body out, it didn’t agree with him. He loved playing live but couldn’t handle the mania or the travelling, meaning he didn’t mind blowing off huge tours that would bring in loads of money. Courtney, who did feel envious and intimidated regarding his success, would get angry at him for that- She didn’t want him to blow off massive paychecks and press coverage because it’s not what she would’ve done. I definitely side with Kurt on this, nothing is more frightening and frustrating than people trying to force you to do things you can’t handle health-wise. Courtney, being naturally business-oriented, was also aware of how things appeared to the public, and definitely cared about their image more than Kurt did- One of their fights revolved around her nagging him about how important the “Heart-Shaped Box” music video would be for him, and how he should look good. He reacted by stubbing out a cigarette on his forehead and saying, “Do I look fucking good enough for you now?”
So yeah, Courtney, like a lot of people in Kurt’s life, was all about furthering his career and success. A lot of people read that as her being money-hungry or manipulative, in my opinion it’s just a natural response from a person who’s spent their whole life trying to be a success and wouldn’t really get there until 1994. I think some of it was envy and I think some of it was her using him a little vicariously, neither of which are healthy but neither of which are malicious, either. She wanted to be a rockstar, she was ready to be a rockstar, she wasn’t; He thought he’d wanted to be a rockstar, he didn’t really want to, he was.
4. “She emotionally abused him!”
I hate to say this because I love Kurt so much but, as someone who’s been through a codependent relationship where they were bailing water out of a sinking boat, Kurt’s behavior throughout their marriage set off way more red flags for me than Courtney’s did. I don’t think he was actually abusive, but I do think he was a little too underdeveloped and unresolved to be married to someone. He had to grow up slower than everyone else because he missed out on having concrete mature influences, which Courtney did as well, and like I said earlier I think a lot of their problems came through a lack of adult communication skills. Both of them were really jealous people: Courtney couldn’t stand Kurt talking about Mary Lou Lord or Tobi Vail, Kurt was completely convinced that Courtney was cheating on him with Billy Corgan(even going so far as to talk to their lawyer about a divorce shortly before he died.) This was the catalyst for a lot of mind games and unnecessary drama, especially coming from Kurt.
Kurt couldn’t handle conflict. He was really passive aggressive, and would do things to purposely piss Courtney off or communicate to her that he was displeased. While she was trying to stay clean he would declare that he was going to do drugs in the apartment, when she started talking to a psychic to help her with her problems he mocked her and put her down, when she staged his final intervention his entire argument against rehab was that she was just as ‘fucked up’ as he was(she had already agreed to go into rehab, though whether he was aware of this or not I’m not sure.) He made his first suicide attempt by overdosing on Rohypnol on their wedding anniversary because she took some pills and fell asleep and he decided that meant she wasn’t interested in him anymore. I’m not arguing that that’s an irrational response to your partner getting stoned and falling asleep, especially when he’d apparently set the night up to be as romantic as possible, but the overdose put him in a coma and sent Courtney into hysterics.
Her mental health began to decline due to paranoia that he’d end up dead, and her weight dropped due to the added stress. As someone who’s been through a pretty similar situation to that and exhibited the same symptoms, I can tell you that it is never okay to use a suicide attempt to deal with a perceived injustice from your partner. By this time, Kurt was facing either getting clean or dying, and his behavior was very depressed and erratic, so there are explanations for the way he was acting and I don’t think he was trying to manipulate her with a threat. Despite my understanding of that, there is nothing more exhausting than being the caretaker of someone who is hellbent on never getting better. I can’t imagine being the caretaker of someone who won’t stop until they’re dead, and I do think at that point it would’ve been better for them to separate.
But that isn’t to say Courtney wasn’t toxic herself, I’m not trying to paint a wholly negative image of Kurt here. I’m merely trying to stand in the way of Nirvana fanboys who have no grasp on the more sickly sides of his personality, and give Court a bit of a break. Definitely, she struggled with her jealousy: As stated, she never wanted his ex girlfriends mentioned around her and would tear them apart if they were. She was ambitious and career driven, which eroded a lot of her platonic relationships/working relationships as well her marriage to Kurt. She was one of the people who was pushing him to recover in time to play Lollapalooza, and she was one of the people who pushed him into his last stunted tour before his death. She weaponized his relationship with Frances in ways that I and most people agree are gross: She told him he should be playing massive gigs to support his daughter(though their medical and legal bills were big they were hardly poverty stricken), and admitted in an interview later that she called him in rehab once to tell him he’d dropped Frances on her head(She mentioned during this that Frances was wearing a furry hood, and that he didn’t hurt her. In my opinion he was doing his best by even trying rehab again, and that he was already so worried that he was a terrible father that it was just cruel to make him feel worse.)
She has a tendency to be self-obsessed, and to put her own self interest before people she cares about, even if she regrets it later. She struggles herself with mental illness and addiction, both of which tend to give a person poor judgment regarding the people they care about.
Once again, Courtney and Kurt weren’t a healthy couple, but it wasn’t because they were evil or abusive towards one another. They cared for each other deeply, they had a very pure devotion. Underlying all this nastiness were two people who prayed together, wrote together, fantasized about a Valentine’s Day wedding, and faxed each other R-rated love letters like modern versions of James Joyce and Nora Barnacle. During one of his more successful stints in rehab, Kurt wrote Courtney love letters every night(though he did decorate them with blood, wax, and semen.)
They had some serious therapy they needed to attend, the both of them. But 90% of these demonizations of Courtney are either untrue or blown out of proportion.
#aberdeen spoken word#ik this runs on so much but i love talking abt this shit and i didnt#want to spend tomorrow editing bc i have other shit i need to do so#have a basically unedited essay on my parents fndndfn
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im gonnaaaa revise and post my very dirk centric analysis of the epilogues here as well
also in case it needs stating, spoilers abound!
i read through both of the epilogues simultaneously yesterday, consuming both at the same time rather than one and then the other, and i feel like while it may not have been the most “satisfying” approach from a character-centric perspective, i have a more complete understanding of the stories than those who read them separately. if you’ve read through both and have the stomach to do it again for some reason, i suggest doing it in parallel, m1 c1 m2 c2 etc.
i will warn you though, i ended up having two nightmares at the same time in my dreams last night. like, simultaneously, two separate threads of terror unraveling in my subconscious. i woke up this morning already knee deep into an analysis of the homestuck epilogues, and it was less like “waking up” and more “becoming aware that i was conscious”
anyway, without further ado!
dirk killing himself in candy 14 is the scene that resonates with us as being “dirk” because it is. that’s all dirk, our dirk, the one from homestuck. he Has to do that in order for candy to continue being candy, and part of me believes that he knew that on a conscious level—hence his death being just. he knew he wouldn’t get a nice fluffy outcome in the candy timeline because him, all of him, not just this one instance, was fated to be meat dirk.
—and speaking of, the concept of Ultimate Selves pretty much squares away meat dirk. he doesn’t read like our dirk, the one from homestuck canon, because the narrative explicitly states he’s Not anymore. he’s become all of him, all of him from across paradox space, including notable players bro, doc scratch, and lord english. dirk’s Ultimate Self is a culmination of every possible him taken to the highest intensity. it reads like one of his personal nightmares because it WAS his personal nightmare—the personal nightmare of our dirk. he’s a prince of heart. the ascension to his Ultimate Self resulted in the complete destruction of the barriers between his splinters. the more i think about it, the more brilliant it is. he seems out of character as the dirk we know and love because he isn’t.
i feel like i finally Get it, but i’m still not looking forward to seeing people who dislike dirk using this to discredit the progress he made on his personal journey (ie “see he was evil the whole time!”) nor am i looking forward to all of the “dirk would never do this! it’s ooc writing!” from people who seem to have missed the part of homestuck where what scared dirk about himself most was the undeniable truth in it. there’s more than one example of “bad dirk and/or dirk byproducts” out there in paradox space. it’s more than feeling like you “might” be bad, it’s… being afraid of what you would be if you weren’t so afraid of being it, it’s seeing things that were a result of You-but-not-you and having to stare down the fact that even if you weren’t bad, even if you didn’t, you could have, would have, did. dirk’s Ultimate Self being a nightmare scenario is ..almost a recursive throwback to his fears about his ultimate self (note capitals)
him taking control of the narrative was epic though. it honestly did not catch me off guard? it makes sense. it is a 100% dirk strider move. if you haven’t read it by now for some reason, go read detective pony. i am diagnosing you with read detective pony by sonnetstuck. it’s terminal.
the only two people aside from hussie to have controlled the narrative in homestuck canon are the cherubs. and i did make the point somewhere up there that dirk absorbed lord english, and by extension, caliborn. that’s WHY he got that ability. not because he’s a prince of heart. dirk controlling the narrative makes sense from the perspective of dirk controlling the external narrative as well, ie, the whole thing is on a piece of paper that he wrote as some form of bizarre cathartic self punishment for his existence, but in the grander scheme of things and truth of homestuck dirk controlling the narrative makes sense as the puppetmaster-turned-puppet we see him become in several of his iterations, because caliborn literally becomes part of him.
everything is so skewed by the narrators. yes, both of them, because the whole point of the epilogues is that both of them suck and muse calliope is just as shitty as “impartial” “narrator” as Ultimate Self dirk is. it actually makes the whole thing a lot greyer in morality than it comes across at first. US dirk does a lot of Bad Shit as narrator, yeah, but even as passive as she is, calliope’s narration has its flaws (see: everything relating to trickster mode)
the epilogues are less about the characters themselves and more about a grander conflict between the two cherubs, using dirk and jade as their puppets—and yes, muse calliope is using jade as a puppet LITERALLY, which upsets me on so many levels i can’t even get into it here. let jade be fucking relevant and happy hussie or so help me i will write myself into your narrative and do some renovation of my own. but dirk is equally deprived of his agency in this scenario. i’m not going to debate with anyone about the inherent goodness/badness of dirk strider because that’s an entirely different essay, but in canon, dirk’s entire arc is about NOT becoming exactly what he becomes in the epilogues. the dirk we know didn’t choose to become his “Ultimate Self,” the dirk we know doesn’t get a choice between meat and candy, the dirk we know is at the mercy of the narrative even as he pretends to control it.
and that’s not something new to dirk strider, in any variation of himself. i’m specifically going back to thinking about the term “puppetmaster-turned-puppet” here, because i like it. in canon, we see dirk get out-puppeted by hal. it’s implied that bro is being controlled at least in part by lil cal, who is in turn.. a splinter of dirk indirectly via hal via arquiussprite. i’m getting a little lost in all the splinters. why is dirk’s worst enemy consistently himself? don’t answer that. uhh also it should be mentioned that makes lil cal a puppetmaster-turned-puppet-turned-puppetmaster, both literally and metaphorically. i fucking hate andrew hussie.
anyway, both of the epilogues do all that shit to to drive home the point that both of them (and i mean muse calliope and LE here when i say both, because this has officially stopped being about the dirk we know) are removed from human concepts like “good” and “evil” and represent duality in an alien manner that to a casual observer could be mistaken for some objective statement about morality, but they’re both wrong to us from our perspective as humans with human morals. the choice of candy and meat from the beginning was a cherub one. that’s not a balanced meal! that’s not even a reasonable dichotomy for humans! meat is not more real or “canon” than candy was, both of them are very flawed stories being manned at the helm by omnipotent green aliens.
okay we’re ALMOST done here, i just want to touch on the actual authors of the narrative rather than the ones the narrative insists are its narrators. by which i mean the actual real life human beings who wrote the epilogue. the point i was making above about how dirk doesn’t have any agency? the point of these epilogues were that none of the characters have any agency in their stories. every work is a reflection of its author, even when aforementioned authors are hiding behind pseudoauthors on a narrative level.
the homestuck epilogues feel very meanspirited to me. they punish their readers for not understanding their intentionally heavyhanded meta. homestuck was always very meta, but it was also fun. this, on the other hand, wasn’t fun. i haven’t seen anyone claim that the epilogues were a “fun” read, even those who enjoyed them enjoy them on the basis that “tragedy is a valid form of art,” and,,, ........and their opinions are. valid. and they can have them. sure.
but for those of us who read stories in order to enjoy them, which i am safely assuming makes up the majority of those who read homestuck, the homestuck epilogues are like a final kick in the teeth as a send off to a fandom with barely any teeth left to lose. we’re already having people who refuse to read them, and god i wish that were me, but it’s also.,, you can’t criticize something properly if you haven’t read it. we’re going to see a lot of very bad takes in the coming days about all kinds of things from information proliferating through the grapevine, and personally, i am not looking forward to it. i really hope this is the end, that homestuck is finally fucking over, and the epilogues are done with and we can all live our lives unmarred by strange orange men with typewriters. i’m going to hole up with my cool and new webcomic music albums and all of the good novel-length dirk-centric fic i’ve bookmarked over the years and wait this one out. i invite you to do the same.
cool and new webcomic bandcamp | cool and new greatest hits | my personal favorite album by them
detective pony by sonnetstuck (seriously please read this it watered my crops and cured my lead poisoning)
literally anything by callmearcturus but this is my personal favorite (chamomile, rosewater, and other unlikely intoxicants)
this long winded discworld joke by oxfordroulette that inflicted me with a terminal case of loving jake english despite it being a dirkjohn fic (vanitas vanitatum) also if you finish reading this one and also succumbed to loving jake english, i’m not going to link it but they have another fic that’ll scratch that itch for you. that’s all i’ll say on that matter.
this fic said nonverbal autistic dirk rights and thank god (we were made for another world by princex_n)
thanks for reading
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11/11 (Make a Wish) Tag
Thanks for tagging me, @capshorty!
Rules: Answer the 11 questions of the person who tagged you; make up 11 questions; tag 11 people to answer them.
1.) How old were you when you realized writing was something you wanted to do? How old were you when you actually started doing it?
Funny story, I denied the fact that writing was my calling for like four years. I’m sixteen and I’ve been writing regularly (almost every day) since I was eleven. It took pretty much everyone who I let read my (very bad) earlier work yelling at me that most kids don’t sit around crafting stories and actually doing a decent job for a majority of their time. I didn’t really start taking myself seriously (AKA actually writing not just for my own amusement) until I was fourteen/fifteen.
2.) What are your favorite fandoms? Do you read or write fanfiction for any of them?
Tbh, I go through fandoms like candy. Right now I’m into a few different crime dramas, but I’ve always been super obsessed with Star Wars and Once Upon A Time. I like The Umbrella Academy, Stranger Things, and Marvel right now. As for fanfiction, I’ve never actually written a legit, full-length fanfiction. I wrote part of one for Portal awhile ago, and when I was younger and got bored I would basically make up Star Wars fan fiction in my head, but I eventually turned that into an original idea, so I’m not sure if that counts. For the most part, all of my work is original. As far as reading fan fiction, I only really read my friends’ when they send it to me.
3.) What was your first story idea that you really felt was solid?
I never plan out my stories to any degree (AKA I’m horrible at outlining/following an outline so I have a pile of notes and cinema scenes in my head that I use), so the first story I ever really wrote to be published was a big deal because it was planned out. I had step by step planned out and I spent months on character profiles. It’s been two years since I finished the first draft and have been working on it every now and then, and I still feel like it’s pretty good. I don’t want to talk about it too much because I don’t know what the future holds for it, but I made some dumb memes on this account, so if you seen anything that mentions ‘AUT’, that’s the placeholder name for it.
4.) What’s your best solution for getting over writer’s block?
Just fucking write, man. Whenever I get a block, it’s usually on a boring transition scene I don’t want to write (most of my stuff is heavy in internal conflict and development, so I don’t like to write out of order, period, in case I lose the flow of my character) and for the most part I just have to rip off the bandaid and get into the exciting stuff.
Granted, sometimes I also get writer’s block after I’ve been working really hard for a few weeks and I just run out of creative juice. When that happens, the best thing to do is just let myself recharge. I chill out, I watch some shows, I read some new books. I let myself rediscover my creativity before I hop back in.
5.) What book(s)/author(s) have you read that you think have influenced your writing most?
The Narnia Chronicles have honestly influenced my writing more than I would like to admit. I’m a fantasy geek all the way, but he was also the author that taught me just what you could do with a story. For instances, Narnia was a reflection of his faith. As much as I like to make fun of English teachers who are like “White drapes! It’s symbolism for freedom and purity! I don’t expect you to understand!” I love finding good meaning beneath stories and pretend the author leaves it there. I put a lot of focus on psychology and philosophy in my own work, and while reading John Green certainly hasn’t discouraged me, it really all started with stories that I grew up reading and found out meant so much more.
6.) Which of your stories was/is the easiest to write? Which was the hardest?
This might be a weird answer, but the ones where I can just write. Grimm’s Heights (go check out my Wattpad) was really easy to write because I didn’t care how bad it was. I just took a scenario and I let it unfold. I have a lot of stories that I write simply to write. There’s no pressure, so it doesn’t really matter how good it is. An Abundance of Dragons and The Limerence of Audrey Douglas are two of the hardest stories I have ever tried to write. Abundance is because I have such specific goals for it (AKA I want it to be wholesome and sweet, but I am Emo AF so no can do) and Limerence because I started it from a place of anger and betrayal and wanted it to prove a point to the person who made me angry. It’s easy to get dissatisfied when I don’t see myself moving fast enough, or I don’t feel like the story is as good as it was in my head, and that just discourages me from writing. Still getting better though!
7.) What are some of your favorite tropes to read/write?
Enemies to lovers. “But you gotta save the WORLD”. Love triangle but where it doesn’t end the typical way (AKA two girls fighting over the guy, but surprise they gay AF and start dating each other). Oh no, Character A is in trouble? And Character B arrives at the perfect time? Lovely! “I’m just an ordinary person.” WRONG!
8.) If you could date any fictional character, who would it be?
Tbh, I can’t think of a single character I’d actually want to date from anything I’ve read/watched. Even my own.
9.) What are some of your favorite things to do outside of writing?
Watch TV and read books, then mumble under my breath “I could’ve done it better.” I also like to take care of plants, annoy my dog, and go to iHop with my friends for no reason.
10.) Where would be your ideal place to live?
Rockies, like Colorado somewhere. College town. Just big enough to have a personality without traffic problems. I’ve lived in the Midwest (specifically Texas) for my entire life, so pretty much anywhere but here.
11.) What’s the most underrated book you’ve ever read? Most overrated?
People are always talking about Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings, but I’ve never heard someone other than my mom even mention the Belgariad series by David Eddings. It’s super great. It’s fantasy and it has different but very solid and real characters. It’s got humor, it’s got combat, and the world building is perfect for the story. The only thing I didn’t like was the final battle (I thought it was a bit anticlimactic), but I guess it’s about the journey, not the end.
As for the most overrated, there are a lot of books I could point out, but I’ll go with the Shannara chronicles. I don’t want to offend anyone, but I didn’t end up reading all of them, and I only watched part of the television series because it just made me soooo mad. I don’t want to go into it now (I could write a thesis on it, honestly), but the gist of it is that I liked the world but not the execution. I absolutely love a good post-apocalyptic fantasy, but I hated the story and the only character I actually genuinely liked was the only character killed off. The only reason I watched the television series was because my friend really liked it, and I criticized her taste a lot afterward. Anyway, I tried it because I heard great things, but it just didn’t do it for me.
As I’ve said many times before, I’m bad at these things because I never know who to tag. I spent like twenty minutes scrolling through some of my mutual writeblrs. As always, no pressure if you don’t want to do the tag! :)
Tagging: @thepanickingwriter @bluewrites0 @gardamn @writings-of-an-elm-tree @writings-of-a-narwhal @ink-on-poppies @latechickadee @amerakandreamer @clarissalopeswriter @senawrites @the-violet-writer
Questions for YOU!
1. What was the first idea/project that you ever tried to write?
2. What is your biggest strength as a writer? What is your biggest weakness?
3. How do you stay focused while writing?
4. If you could have lunch with one character you have written about (original or from fanfiction) who would it be?
5. What type of writeblr posts help you the most with your own writing (advice, resources, word lists, prompts, etc.)?
6. What is the most mind-opening book you’ve ever read/show or movie you’ve ever watched?
7. Have you written fanfiction? If so, on what?
8. What is a book/story/poem/anything you were forced to read in high school that you actually ended up liking?
9. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go? What would you see? What would you do? Why?
10. What is the weirdest thing you have done/searched on the Internet for the sake of research?
11. If you could adopt any animal as a pet (and I mean any animal) what would it be? (Also, it can be extinct/not real)
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Why We Love ars PARADOXICA
Back in 2016, the fandom made a list of 43 reasons why we love ars PARADOXICA in honor of the 73rd anniversary of Dr. Sally Grissom’s first audio diary on October 29, 1943. When I learned that the podcast was going to end after its third season, I decided to pull together another list that was double the length of the first.
However, the fandom was so passionate that we blew past our goal, and reached triple the length of the original list!
Without further ado, here are the 129 of the reasons why we love ars PARADOXICA:
Helen Partridge, my beautiful, beautiful wife
I just love Kristen’s laugh and it never fails to make me smile.
Mischa’s outros! “Brought to you by the internet:”
The TimeSwimmers episode. That whole thing was a masterpiece
Sally and Nikhil's friendship
Petra, my sassy troubled daughter
The effort that went into making such a truly unique and ambitious take on time travel-based fiction
Sally, my favorite disaster ace
All of the characters are just so beautifully flawed in their own ways and are so well depicted it’s hard to pick a favorite
Every episode makes me feel SO MANY EMOTIONS
The sound effects are just so well done that I feel like I’m right there with the characters
The subtle yet mind blowing foreshadowing
The way it endlessly inspires me to create fan content
The decryption team, who I don't understand yet love to watch unravel codes
The ability to make us both love and hate a character at the same time as much as we do Esther Roberts.
Jack Wyatt
The sass, and in general wonderful interactions with the fan base on social media.
The schoolyard brawl!
Very obviously not being afraid to have fun with ads/sponsored content.
Actually making me want to listen to the version with ads even though I'm a patron
Buttsticks…
Plasticity
The outro music is simple but so, so good
Lemon drops and Limestone
My curiosity about what Esther wrote in the letter
Golden boi and his devils lettuce
With three episodes left it felt like there was so much story left to be told and such little time to tell it
The generosity to keep us entertained between seasons
The subtle symbolism of Esther's mind being represented with card games
The heart-wrenching ups and downs of Esther and Bridget's relationship
Esther and Sally’s lesbian/aroace solidarity
Bridget, my mom
Sally's #relatable ace anxieties and Nikhil's comforting response
The super cool theme song by Mischa "i do not play piano" Stanton which they apparently HEARD IN A DREAM?!
The found footage pieces between scenes
The amount of detail put into it, and being able to notice new things on each relisten
Easter eggs like QDAM
Seemingly infinite pop culture references
The commitment to posting a transcript for each episode
The GOLDEN BOY smokes the devil’s lettuce?!
The Super LUminal Recursive Processor
All of the machine code names really
Mischa’s wonderful sound design that makes me feel like I’m actually in the location the episode takes place at and made me realize how wonderful podcasts could truly be.
Sally Grissom. The wonderful disaster ace and the first ace rep I ever found.
The sound design of the show, especially the tapes adding to world building, all those clunky sounds.
Sally Grissom, ‘I wonder what would happen if I...’, Mad scientist.
This show has the most complex, humanistic portrayal of aromanticism I’ve ever experienced
I appreciate the aP creators’ dedication to nuanced portrayal of and discussion about violence
All of Curses, of fucking course
Keeping the humanity of people who do bad thing while not trying to justify them
Their commitment to “all killer, no filler”
Reminding me that science is cool, dammit!
Petra is a lovely and nuanced, complex character that I adore with my whole heart and soul.
[BLUE BLUE 09 13 18 15 26 08 04 12 20 24 05 18 14 09 17 04 05 12 01 05 The weather in Tulsa today is: Drought. At the tone, the time will be: 5400 hours]
The creators are so so fantastic and fun! I love that they interact with fans.
Sally is the disaster stoner physicist we all need in our lives. also she’s relatable as hell
The show is not afraid to tackle issues like race, gender, or sexuality and it doesn’t overstep its bounds.
The codes are so fun (even if I don’t understand all of them)!
I love how excited scientists get when they’ve discovered something-it feels like real scientists I know
How Bridget criticizes Sally for making puns under pressure even though she does exactly the same thing
The way characters interact with one another, and grow, and learn, and develop is so fascinating and beautiful.
Plasticity might have been the first podcast episode to make me cry.
I love Sally “I only know anecdotal biology and chemistry” Grissom and how her science knowledge actually makes sense??
As a huge huge physics nerd and aspiring computer scientist, I love love love the way Sally talks about science! It’s like Kristen DiMercurio is narrating my inner monologue!
The thrill of trying to keep up with the diverging timelines
☭S̶͜͞ ̀͜҉̀͢Í͠ ̸̸͟҉X̵͘͢ ̢T̷̶͞ ̢̨͟Y̧̛͘ ̨͟͢ ̴̨͜҉S̷̶͢ ̴͝Í͢͟ ҉̢̛͝X̕͝͝☭
The consideration and dedication shown in not only writing an aro-spec ace character, but addressing issues and worries often faced by people in that community.
The mind-boggling task of trying to piece together everything that’s happening when for all we know every scene could be from a different, rewritten version of the timeline.
Anthony Partridge, the most melodramatic math nerd to ever play Tetris in a bubble outside of time.
The optimism of the show and ultimate faith it shows in both science and humanity, despite all the characters’ failings.
Sally giggling over meeting her future self both times that it happens
Sally’s book (and her attempts at pronouncing NaNoWriMo).
Maggie Elbourne, because as much as I love all my the more morally ambiguous scientists it’s nice to see one who actually stood up to ODAR’s shenanigans almost as soon as she figured out what was up.
Everything about the road trip.
TimeSwimmers was already mentioned but specifically TIME DOLPHIN RYAN LOCHTE
Characters that grow and change and learn
The 77s getting name dropped in Plasticity, way before we knew who they were
Sally calling out the English language for being problematic (“oh, you mean like morally upstanding?”)
“The weather in Tulsa today is: uhh I dunno”.
It has been quite possibly the most human exploration of time travel I’ve ever seen/heard.
Reaching a happy ending I couldn't even imagine
The weather in Tulsa is: sppoookyyy
The ever changing ways the codes were presented in season 3. Giving the feeling that the anchorites were both on the run and broadcasting these messages from different points in time.
Sally’s ace representation is the best I’ve ever seen and it makes me feel so #valid.
The sound design and detail in the writing make me feel like I’m truly immersed in the story, and it feels so authentic. Are you sure you don’t secretly have a timepiece?
The characters are people I CARE about and wanted to cry over during work all the time because they’re all wonderful and I love them.
The integration of the different storylines into Sally’s, especially Petra’s, is amazing.
Petra’s characterization was really well done, and it made me really care about her, even as she was trying to more or less destroy the world.
Out-of-date pop culture references that fit seamlessly into the dialogue despite being from literally a different time period and most of the characters having no idea what it meant. They just added an extra level of hilarious.
You may not actually know a single thing about tachyon fields and gluon walls (are they even real?) but you could definitely convince me that you know exactly what you’re talking about (or at least that Sally Grissom does).
The enDING WAS JUST REALLY WELL DONE AND I LOVE A GOOD CIRCULAR ENDING AND IT MADE ME GENUINELY GO TO THE BATHROOM DURING WORK TO CRY BECAUSE IT WAS JUST BEAUTIFUL.
The fact that the whole show is wrapped up by the revelation that the entire show is actually Nikhil and Mateo curling up with board games and snacks trying to form a story out of these tapes, patching together timelines to make it all cohesive, it just feels very right.
This story fits the medium so well, and so the fact that we don’t learn that Whickman has an EYEPATCH is absolutely wild but also wonderful because as soon as I heard that I knew that that was how it belonged, like of course he has an eyepatch, that’s a very Chet thing to have.
The ending was so perfectly, painfully beautiful. It was the ending we needed but never would have imagined.
Petra’s and Sally’s relationship being so complex and real.
Nikhil and Mateo using the archive to create the framing device for the whole podcast.
The sound the timepiece makes.
The final destruction of the timepiece.
Putting time travel in a Cold War setting makes perfect sense, and they go together like peanut butter and chocolate.
Did anyone mention Helen Partridge as a character? How beautifully she was set up and the fact that she pursued her own her life, and also, how BEAUTIFULLY Susanna Kavee can sing? Because damn.
I just. Really love this show. And everyone involved. So much.
The child characters were really well done-both the actors and the writing felt real.
To me, the show feels a bit like one of those camp friendship bracelets everyone used to make, with all these colors and threads--all of the timelines, woven together, messy but beautiful.
TEETRIS
Grissom’s Gizmo Gals!
Mateo’s non-stop flirting, even in the worst of situations
Sally “It’s Dr Grissom”ed HERSELF.
The way both the story and the characters reflect a complex view on the world with people making horrible decisions and horrible things happening to them, and yet always maintaining a positive outlook, offering the possibility of change and improvement.
The top-notch voice acting from everyone involved, helping to create the wonderful characters we all love.
Sally finger-gunning her way out of a conversation with a pun about a friend almost killing her.
All the minisodes!!
Any time Bridget, Nikhil or Lou acts like they want to adopt Petra
The series ending with two characters who had been at odds coming together
The characterization of the different Petras, because they all seem like different people even though in fact they are not (and Sylvia deciding she doesn't want to follow the legacy of Petras)
How Kristen can play 2 of the same character and make them sound different (how does she do that???)
Anthony’s will to save everyone, sacrificing himself, when the world didn't do anything good for him…
... and the constant struggle to save his friends (like when he was literally the only one aware of the Anchorites and the way their plan could have ended)
The way the show can go from time travel shenanigans to heartfelt character moments is a real testament to the talent of the writing team.
The Vegas episode, which I listened to after the finale and cried, because they were so happy and naive and everything wasn’t messy and bad and complicated.
The way gun violence is handled by the creators with respect and care
The way PTSD and mental health is handled (through Sally) is beautiful and respectful.
Partridge being named after a bird and living out his life in a cage. YOU GUYS ARE MEAN
Susanna Kavee’s absolutely amazing singing and Tau Zaman’s lyrics are an absolutely combination.
The ceaseless, unwavering commitment to puns
I love how important their friendships are to the characters (well, most of them anyways).
Sally’s conversation with Nikhil in season 3 reflects a lot of common anxieties of aromantic people, and his understanding responses
The entirety of the trial episode, which just really sort of showed the full extent of how terrible the Red Scare was by putting Esther, a Jewish woman, through it, and just shows you how defamed people in that time were.
In so many of the fictional and non-fictional representations of history, marginalized people have diminished, distorted, and stereotypical roles-but not in ars PARADOXICA. Thank you for making so many people feel seen.
All the amazing writers who started it all. 💜
Here are the signatures of some of the fans who contributed:
Signatures
Lindsay (ioniluna/drsallygrissom)
Khanan Abayev
SJ (your friendly neighborhood slauthor)
Dave (mondas-mania)
Noah (kindadisappointed)
Sana (i-am-delta-s)
Tina (espressonist)
Meaghan (lafgl)
Katherine (Rubywolfsbane)
Artimis (jp-blindperson/ap-blindperson)
Luke (martianboyy)
Ellie (joan-and-jane-and-esther-roberts/shewrites)
Bridge (cornerandchair)
Lem (aceparadoxica)
Esme (starsparadoxica)
Glory (mercutiglo)
Carly (guardianbob)
Emese (mse)
Ben (Q)
Special thanks to the ars PARADOXICA discord for being so helpful! From the time it was just a dozen people with a spork in a shoebox, this community was a shining star that helped me through tough times. Thank you for your silliness, cleverness, and support.
Brought to you by the internet: It’s weird! It’s fun! It loves you very, very much!
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Older (Biadore) 6/? - nellie
A/N: We’re finally at the point where everything starts going to hell (and the moment I’ve been looking forward to since I started writing this). Again, thank you so much for the lovely feedback. I was struggling with motivation to write this next part, but knowing people wanted to read this spurred me on and I think this is actually my favorite chapter so far. I also wrote this in a different program, so I’m hoping the formatting is okay. It looks fine right now, but who knows what will happen when I press submit - apologies if not!
Meditation is hard.
Adore tries to focus on breathing in and out, but her mind keeps wandering - mostly to Bianca. She opens her eyes for a moment and her breath catches in her throat. Bianca is the very picture of calm and serene, and Adore is pretty sure she’s never looked hotter. But it’s rude to jump someone when they’ve offered to help make sure you don’t get so mad you kill a stranger, so she sighs and closes her eyes again instead of crawling over and burying her head between Bianca’s thighs.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Adore has to admit it’s sort of relaxing, even if she can only manage it for a couple of seconds at a time. It’s like the rest of the world doesn’t matter anymore. She doesn’t have to worry about anything except being in the moment. Adore always thought she was great at living in the moment, but now she’s not so sure.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in.
She doesn’t know why she gets so angry, but she’s tired of losing control all the time. Adore is surrounded by people who have a problem with her behavior, but Bianca is the first person who’s actually bothered to help her. Instead of lecturing Adore about the need to control herself she was here, teaching her meditation. Of course, if anyone else had offered to teach her to meditate Adore would have laughed in their face, so maybe the fact that it’s Bianca hasn’t hurt. But still. Bianca had told her they’d figure out a solution and Adore believes her. Adore doesn’t really trust anyone completely, but she trusts Bianca.
The alarm on Bianca’s phone sounds and Adore opens her eyes to see Bianca smiling back at her.
“How was it? Longest fifteen minutes of your life, right? It gets easier the more you practice.”
Adore chews on her bottom lip thoughtfully before answering. “It was… I don’t know. I do feel kind of relaxed now?”
Bianca gets to her feet in one fluid movement, like she’s a cat or a tiger or some other animal known for its strength and grace. She settles herself on the couch and holds her hand out to Adore, who goes willingly. It’s a familiar routine by now, Adore tucking her feet up and curling into Bianca. Bianca’s arm is wrapped around her shoulders, holding her close. It’s almost embarrassingly domestic but she secretly loves it. They fit together perfectly. Being with Bianca feels like being home.
“You have to stop getting so angry.”
It’s nothing Adore hasn’t heard a thousand times before, but coming from Bianca it feels like concern instead of judgement. She can’t exactly argue. She still remembers how it felt to punch that guy, her entire body tingling with adrenaline and flooded with rage. Adore likes to think she does a pretty good job of ignoring how shitty her life has been, but obviously she’s still mad at the world. She always feels like she’s seconds away from exploding and the worst part is how good it feels to really let go like that. Later, there are always consequences and complications, but in the moment she’s flying. She’s free.
But she doesn’t know how to put that into words. “I’m always angry.” It’s not what she means to say, but it’s honest.
“You’re letting them win, baby.” Bianca’s voice is quiet and she shifts their position so she can start to play with Adore’s hair. “Don’t let everyone else win.”
Adore smiles at the term of endearment even if she doesn’t really understand what Bianca is saying. Isn’t the whole point of fighting that she wins? She’s pretty sure the asshole from last night is going to think twice before he tries to coerce a girl into sex again so doesn’t that mean Adore has won? She lets her eyes drift closed as Bianca keeps playing with her hair. Bianca’s fingers catch in a knot and Adore bites back a gasp. Suddenly, it’s a little hard to focus on the conversation.
“I never let them win.”
Bianca laughs and it should be patronising, but it feels more like she’s letting Adore in on the joke. “I guess you don’t.” She tugs on Adore’s hair in a way that has to be deliberate and Adore holds her breath, waiting to see which way things will go.
She’s a little disappointed when said things don’t lead to sex.
“Every time you lose it, you’re giving away your power. You’re basically handing it to the other person and letting them know they can control you. You’re better than that. There’s more strength in keeping your power than there is in beating the shit out of someone.”
It seems so obvious the way Bianca phrases it, but Adore has never considered it before. She frowns, mulling over Bianca’s words in her head. Of course she’s heard people say that just walking away is a sign of strength, but she’s never really believed it. At least, not until now.
Her phone, which is lying on the ground where she left it, lights up with a notification. Adore considers ignoring it, but she’s a millennial at heart and she reluctantly drags herself from Bianca’s warmth to pick it up. There are three missed texts from Violet, each getting increasingly more worried and abusive, and Adore winces as she reads them.
“Something wrong?” Bianca has stretched herself out along the length of the couch and she’s watching Adore with an amused grin.
Adore shakes her head. “I ditched Violet last night when I called you. She’s just worried I’m dead.” She fires back a quick text to Violet, reassuring her that she’s still alive and breathing and then catches sight of the time. “Fuck. I’m so late for class. Can I shower here?”
“Of course.” Bianca gets to her feet and stretches her arms over her head. “I’ll find you some clothes, too. You’ll need to change.”
Adore glances down at the oversized t-shirt she slept in, not understanding what Bianca means. Of course she’ll need to change, she can’t wear… oh. She thinks back to the previous night’s outfit; a short leather skirt that barely covers her ass, a black crop top and an oversized flannel shirt. She’s very familiar with her school’s dress code and none of those things are on it. Bianca has a point. She follows Bianca into the bedroom, obediently taking the clothes that are handed to her before heading to the bathroom.
She’s briefly tempted to ask Bianca to join her, but she’s already so late and shower sex, while amazing, won’t help the situation. So she showers quickly, washing away all physical evidence of the night before. The emotional might take a little longer to move past, she thinks.
The clothes Bianca’s given her turn out to be basic - a pair of jeans which surprisingly fit her almost perfectly, and a black t-shirt which Adore immediately knots at her midriff. She looks critically at her reflection, wishing she had even a little makeup with her. She hates how young she looks without her usual dark eyeliner. But at least she won’t get sent home for being inappropriately dressed, and she can probably deal with looking like a kid for a day. She twists her hair up into a messy bun, strands immediately falling down and framing her face. It’s acceptable. Not great, but acceptable..
She’s standing in the doorway between the bedroom and living area when her phone lights up with another notification. Bianca’s sitting back on the couch and Adore shoots her a grin as she strikes a pose against the door frame, one leg lifting in the air in a deranged kind of arabesque. “Hey, pass me my phone? That’ll be Vi telling me she hates me.”
Bianca laughs and grabs Adore’s phone, glancing at the screen as she does. Her face changes to something Adore can’t read and she doesn’t make any move to get up or even throw the phone in Adore’s direction. “It’s your mom. She wants to remind you to leave a note if you’ll be out all night.”
Adore feels the pit of her stomach drop and time freezes for a second. Think, Adore. Think. “Oh. Yeah. I kind of lied about the roommate thing. It’s embarrassing, you know? Living with your mom at my age.” She tries to keep her voice light, but she has the sinking feeling that Bianca isn’t buying it.
“Tell me again where you go to college.” There’s a coldness in Bianca’s voice that Adore has never heard before and it makes her shiver. Bianca isn’t stupid and it’s obvious that she’s piecing everything together - all the half-truths and outright lies Adore has told her since they met.
“It’s just community college Bea, you know this.” Adore can hear how desperate she sounds, but Bianca’s still not looking at her and she can feel everything in her life beginning to unravel. She just needs to keep it together. Bianca doesn’t actually know anything yet and plenty of 22 year olds still live with their parents. She can bluff her way through this, can’t she?
When Bianca turns to face her, Adore can’t help but gasp. Her gaze is like ice and Adore has never been so intimidated and terrified of someone in her life. She knows Bianca isn’t going to hurt her - not physically, anyway - but she still feels her heart literally stop in her chest for a moment. Her hands are numb and sweaty at the same time and there’s a lump in her throat that makes swallowing difficult.
And then Bianca delivers the final blow. “How old are you, Adore? And don’t fucking lie to me.”
Adore winces. “Seventeen.”
There’s silence. It stretches out for what feels like several lifetimes. Bianca is still staring at her with that same cold expression and Adore wishes she’d say something, anything. She wants to explain, but the words catch in her throat - and anyway, it’s not like Bianca would want to hear them. What kind of explanation can there be? I’m sorry I deliberately lied to you for weeks and weeks about the fact that I’m 14 years younger than you, but it’s okay, I only did it because I really really like you? No.
“Get. The fuck. Out. Of. My. Apartment.” Bianca enunciates each word carefully, her voice low and a little threatening. She throws Adore’s phone in her direction before getting to her feet and walking to the window, ignoring Adore entirely.
Adore swallows hard. Her mind is racing and blank at the same time and she can’t do anything but react, quickly gathering her things together. She pauses when she gets to Bianca’s door, wondering if she should say something. Sorry? But Bianca doesn’t acknowledge her and Adore shakes her head, slipping out quietly still dressed in her borrowed outfit.
There’s no way she’s making it to school today.
***
She doesn’t leave her bed for the next three days. She gives her mom some bullshit excuse about being sick and locks herself in her room. She’s too numb to even cry and she thinks there’s probably some kind of irony in the fact that she’s finally managed to keep control of her emotions. But the reality is that it’s just too much. She’s dealing with the heartbreak of losing Bianca, coupled with the extreme self loathing she feels for getting herself caught in this situation in the first place and her brain can’t process any of it. Her life has fallen apart and she only has herself to blame. Adore always knew she was a colossal fuck up after all. It was about time she proved herself. Why had she ever thought she could possibly be good enough for Bianca? She’s a kid, a fucking little girl trying to pretend she’s oh so grown up. And now her games haven’t just hurt her, they’ve hurt Bianca as well. Why the fuck hadn’t she come clean that first night? How else had she expected this whole thing to go?
Eventually, of course, she has to go back to school. She wears the outfit Bianca gave her (gave, she thinks, because it’s not like she can return it now) in a display of masochism that surprises even her. She sits in class and stares at the board and doesn’t write anything down. Her body is at school but her mind had checked out and she doesn’t have the energy to do anything about it.
By the time she reaches lunch period she hasn’t spoken a word all day and it feels almost comforting in a way.
Violet’s waiting for her in their usual spot. She looks annoyed, but Adore doesn’t immediately take that personally. Violet often looks annoyed about something.
“Bitch, what the fuck? I haven’t heard from you in days.”
Oh. So she is annoyed at Adore.
“Sorry.” It’s the first word Adore’s said in over 24 hours and the word feels foreign in her mouth. “I’ve had a lot on my mind.”
“Yeah, well, you look like shit.” Never one to beat around the bush, Violet is someone who believes tact is for other people. Adore usually likes it, but then she also usually doesn’t feel like her heart has been cut up into tiny pieces and run through a blender.
“Bianca found out how old I am. It, um…” Adore trails off, biting her lip hard to stave off the tears she can feel forming in the corner of her eyes. “Didn’t go well.” She releases a shaky breath, counting backwards from ten in her head. Back to numb. Back to avoiding all the emotions she’s not ready to confront yet.
Violet’s eyes soften in a way that could almost be mistaken for sympathy. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” Adore waits for the inevitable ‘I told you so’ but it doesn’t come. Instead, Violet reaches out to squeeze Adore’s hand briefly, bringing Adore one step closer to tears yet again. “Look, can we just… never talk about Bianca again? Please?”
“Of course.” Violet gives Adore a too-bright smile. “You’ll never guess what Pearl was wearing today. I almost fucking died.”
Adore’s never been much of an actress, but she’s grateful for the moment of forced normality that Violet’s offering her. They’re both ignoring how not-okay she is and pretending everything is fine. She feels a sudden rush of affection for Violet, who’s always been a much better friend than Adore deserves.
“Be honest, that’s what you say about everything I wear, isn’t it?”
Violet laughs in a way that almost sounds natural. “You have your own sense of style. This, though, this is a choice.” She gestures at Adore’s outfit with a raised eyebrow.
Adore feels herself flush. She knows it’s not exactly her usual style, but she really wishes Violet hadn’t pointed that out. “Bianca lent it to me,” she says softly, feeling another solid punch of guilt in her stomach at the thought. She shouldn’t be wearing it.
Violet sighs. “Adore, don’t take this the wrong way, but you have to grow the fuck up.”
Adore wants to argue. She’s only seventeen, she’s meant to be making dumb mistakes. It’s normal to run around breaking hearts and fucking up. But she suddenly feels far, far older than her age and she knows Violet’s right. She doesn’t want to be an immature fuckup anymore. She can be more than that. Bianca thought she was more than that, and maybe she won’t always get it right but isn’t it time she at least tried?
“Yeah,” is all she says though, plucking a blade of grass from the ground and twisting it between her fingers. “Yeah.”
#bianca del rio#adore delano#biadore#lesbian au#high school au#nellie#rpdr fanfiction#submission#older
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Is the sensor/intuitve gap really as big as people make it out to be?
(serious answer)
Okay I’m not sure what you mean by gap so I’ll cover a few options.
1. Intelligence.
Yeah some of the people who type as intuitive and who claimed “seven kinds of smart” after they failed pre-algebra but won the poetry contest (or failed history but won the math team championship for that matter) get really fucking quiet when you point out Jung thought that the xSTx’s would be the best at science, or when we get into spatial reasoning or kinesthetic intelligence.
I think intuition can get extremely difficult to prove concepts right in advance, which is not something to take lightly (theoretical physics and such), whereas sensing tends to have fewer obvious flashes of genius in this (fairly narrow) interpretation, but more consistency. I’ve written longer about this elsewhere but: my former workplace had this idea of people who were innovative and pulled through great things for customers but sucked at follow through, and had a special name for them (sparks) (I was not direct management so I have no idea how this worked, exactly), and as someone who was not especially innovative, but who was extremely reliable and persistent and who did manage people indirectly, it frustrated the hell out of me. Give me someone who checks their email more than once a month and who gets their work done to the best of their ability over someone who occasionally pulls off a brilliant plan but who usually fails to get critical information in on time and who adds to my workload.
2. Number of people.
Honestly, not sure. I feel like the balance is higher in intuitives than the general stats say, even in my personal life (by which I mean I’m not sure intuitives are as rare as they say, but I do believe they are outnumbered by sensors overall). I am sure there are other factors involved: the people I know in my personal life are not a representational cross-section of humanity at large and I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the people in a lot of the studies may be mistyped (we can’t diagnose MBTI objectively, so there’s always room for error) or are also not representative of society at large. A lot of the evolutionary bio theories are pure theory with little evidence because we can’t exactly type Otzi the Iceman, and I’m wary of whenever evo bio gets into “well, primitive society only needs one shaman, but plenty of hunter-gatherers” because while it’s usually not intended as such it can pretty quickly get into “sensors are the laborers, intuitives are the architects” and we’re back at my first point.
3. Bias in a lot of MBTI info
It’s not too bad on Tumblr (maybe it’s because I’ve unfollowed people, maybe it’s because I see a lot more self-aggrandizing introvert stuff than intuitive stuff now) but yeah, a lot of information, even that from people I genuinely admire and use as sources, is flawed. The three major architects of the theory were all introverted intuitives, so their descriptions of Se and Si are either secondhand or based off their experiences with these functions as their tertiary at best. And, because they were intuitives, I suspect they may have, well, theorized about these functions and extrapolated without checking direct experience at times, which is why we get these messed up ideas that dominant Si is super sentimental and stuck in the past.
And of course once we have these flawed descriptions, actual sensors don’t see themselves in the description and so identify as intuitive, both messing up the intuitive descriptions and further solidifying sensing descriptions as uninteresting, uncreative, an unintelligent - because interesting, creative, and intelligent sensors think they’re intuitives.
This has changed but a lot of the people who were involved in the tumblr and similar MBTI community early on and wrote a lot of good information are in fact intuitives, and sometimes I find their descriptions of Si to be pretty lacking. It’s unintentional, but still a concern.
I’ve written about this at length too but there’s still definitely bias and if you have further questions about specific elements, I will gladly provide examples. The most basic one though is that if sensors can’t come up with new ideas or get sarcasm because of no intuition (false) then intuitives can’t process any sensory data and must be communicating on the internet through pure astral projection into cyberspace or something (blatantly false).
4. Gap in actual cognition.
Not actually that much. Si and Ni are both about gathering information over time, synthesizing it personally, and developing conclusions from those patterns. It’s just that Si functions off of the individual concrete events and finds a trendline, so to speak, whereas Ni reflects on the broader themes. Se and Ne meanwhile are about experiencing things in the moment and finding the opportunities and possibilities branching off from that instant; Se just does so in reality and Ne does so in a conceptual space.
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