#stephen king would endorse this post
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If you are not on Twitter but are interested in what's going on with Elon Musk's Twitter, never fear, I am back as your Twitter Correspondent.
So, on Thursday, 4/20, Elon removed all the "legacy verified" blue checks. That means that if you are, say, Taylor Swift or the Pope, and you have a blue checkmark because you have proven you identity and want to avoid being impersonated, that check mark went away unless you paid the $8 to subscribe to Twitter Blue.
The assumption was clearly that, despite all their blustering, when push came to shove the power users would nut up and pay for it, if only to avoid their fans being scammed using their likeness.
That didn't happen. As of 4/21, only weirdo Elon stans had blue checks. Those stans immediately got mad, because they had intended to purchase access to an exclusive club, and all the cool kids left as soon as they arrived.
To make matters worse for Elon, several influential shitposters began posting about #BlockTheBlue, a movement to block all paid Twitter bluechecks, and some even released scripts that would automatically block all bluecheck accounts for you.
However, some people retained their blue checks who swore they hadn't paid for them -- in particular, Stephen King and LeBron James, who had tweeted that they would refuse to pay.
Elon admitted that he had paid for these users' blue checks out of his own pocket. Is he trolling? Is it a weird simp move? Hard to say.
Now, as of 4/22, a whole mess of famous people have bluechecks who aren't paying for them. This seems to be a move to confound the automated Block The Blue scripts. Lil Nas X is tweeting angrily about how he doesn't want his blue check. People are speculating that a new policy has been silently rolled out to automatically assign a blue check to every user with over 1 million followers. Several people have pointed out that this amounts to false endorsement, i.e. implying falsely that a notable person uses or endorses your product without their permission, which is a crime. Blue checks have been posthumously assigned to Anthony Bourdain and Terry Pratchett, whose estates my money is on to be the ones to actually sue.
dril, famous shitposter and Block The Blue promoter, keeps being assigned a blue check as an apparent punishment for crossing Elon, but you can lose your blue check by changing your display name. (It seems really wild to tie the blue check to the display name and not use the username, but it became necessary after the era where all those legacy verified folks unleashed their inner Jaboukie and changed their display names to Elon Musk. As recently as last month a legacy verified user with 100k followers got banned for impersonating JK Rowling apologizing to trans people.) So dril just keeps changing his display name every time they bluecheck him. Elon and dril have been engaged in this game of cat and mouse all day. The "Elon bans dril and we all throw trash at him like New Yorkers defending spiderman" meme will probably come to fruition today or tomorrow.
#Twitter#Elon Musk#twitanic#most of you probably followed me for d20 stuff and didn't know I was a Twitter Refugee#I'm in great company (Chuck Tingle is a Twitter refugee as well)
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Elon's new blue-check subscription service was a massive flop, and the sudden removal of nearly half a million blue-checks suddenly made it crystal clear to Twitter's user base that the blue-check club going forward was going to be populated almost entirely by right-wing weirdos. There would be no hanging out with Stephen King or LeBron James; your fellow blue-checks would instead be a few notorious racists and jokes from (checks notes) influential wag "catturd."
In fact, by so clearly labeling the worst of Twitter’s worst people, it spurred a genius #BlockTheBlue backlash, in which people gleefully banned the blue-check trolls that now populated the top of every single prominent Twitter thread (like those of actual celebrities announcing their refusal to pay for what was now a worthless mark).
The visible unpopularity of the program wasn't just embarrassing for Musk. It's an existential threat to the program’s viability. Musk sold the subscription service as a way to become one of the site's Important People without merit; if all the Important People didn’t just stay off the program, but mocked it, only the most diehard of Musk loyalists would be eager to sign up for that.
As the collapse of the program became self-evident, third parties had already begun working on automated #BlockTheBlue plugins that would systematically block all checkmarks. So Musk immediately set out to salvage the reputation and very existence of the $8 club—by forcing Important People to be in it whether they liked it or not. And by "immediately," we mean "by afternoon."
Elon Musk's Twitter Blue is a verified disaster
I was one of Twitter’s early adopters. I was one of those accounts they suggested you follow when it started to get big. I went from a few thousand followers to a hundred thousand in a matter of days, and was at 3 million when I closed my account.
I left Twitter long before Musk took over, but I kept the account to protect it and the branding it comes with from bad people.
Last year, before Musk bought it, I posted a couple of tweets to let those three million accounts know that my memoir had been published. It seemed silly not to. I turned replies off, and just let it be an announcement.
Then Musk took over, and I watched Twitter turn into 4Chan. When it started to become 8Chan, I deleted my entire archive, unfollowed everyone except family, and then made my account private. I figure I still need to protect the username.
I don’t look at my account, but someone told me the check was gone. (Oh, I was one of the earliest verified users, too). I was thrilled. I didn’t want anyone to think I gave that bozo my money.
Then the same person told me the check was back, shortly after I think all decent people had concluded that blue check = red flag (or red hat). So I signed back into my account and updated my bio to make sure nobody ever thinks I gave that dumbass any of my money.
I know I’m not alone. That check mark is now toxic, and I’m not the only longtime verified user who doesn’t want anything to do with it. I wonder if someone more famous than me, with more at stake, makes noise about the implied endorsement / affiliation the blue check now carries with it, and the brand damage that comes with it?
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We have to face the fact that Elizabeth hated piracy and left it for good. She wanted a peaceful life and that is exactly what she got.
We have to face the fact that Bruce Lorne Campbell (born June 22, 1958) is an American actor and moviemaker. He is known best for his role as Ash Williams in Sam Raimi's Evil Dead horror series, beginning with the short movie Within the Woods (1978). He has also featured in many low-budget cult movies such as Crimewave (1985), Maniac Cop (1988), Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat (1989), and Bubba Ho-Tep (2002).
Bruce Lorne Campbell[1] was born in Royal Oak, Michigan, on June 22, 1958,[2] the son of advertising executive and college professor Charles Newton Campbell and homemaker Joanne Louise (née Pickens).[3] He is of English and Scottish ancestry,[1] and has an older brother named Don and an older half-brother named Michael.[4] His father was also an actor and director for local theater.[3] Campbell began acting and making short Super 8 movies with friends as a teenager. After meeting future moviemaker Sam Raimi while the two attended Wylie E. Groves High School, they became good friends and collaborators. Campbell attended Western Michigan University and continued to pursue an acting career.[5]
Campbell and Raimi collaborated with a 30-minute Super 8 version of the first Evil Dead movie, titled Within the Woods (1978), which was initially used to attract investors.[6] He and Raimi got together with family and friends to begin working on The Evil Dead (1981). While featuring as the protagonist, Campbell also participation with the production of the movie, receiving a co-executive producer credit. Raimi wrote, directed, and edited the movie, while Rob Tapert produced. After an endorsement by horror author Stephen King, the movie slowly began to receive attention and offers for distribution.[7] Four years after its original release, it became the most popular movie in the UK. It was then distributed in the United States, resulting in the sequels Evil Dead II (1987) and Army of Darkness (1992).[8]
Campbell was also drawn in the Marvel Zombie comics as his character, Ash Williams. He is featured in five comics, all in the series Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness. In them, he fights alongside the Marvel heroes against the heroes and people who have become zombies (deadites) while in search of the Necronomicon (Book of the Names of the Dead).[9] Campbell also played as Coach Boomer in the movie “Sky High”.
He has appeared in several of Raimi's movies other than the Evil Dead series, notably having cameo appearances in the director's Spider-Man film series.[10] Campbell also joined the cast of Raimi's movie Darkman[11] and The Quick and the Dead, though having no actual screen time in the latter movie's theatrical version.[12] In March 2022, Campbell was announced to have a cameo in Raimi's Marvel Cinematic Universe film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.[13]
Campbell often performs quirky roles, such as Elvis Presley for the movie Bubba Ho-Tep.[14] Along with Bubba Ho-Tep, he played a supporting role in Maniac Cop and Maniac Cop 2, and spoofed his career in the self-directed My Name is Bruce.[15]
Other mainstream movies for Campbell include supporting or featured roles in the Coen Brothers movie The Hudsucker Proxy, the Michael Crichton adaptation Congo, the movie version of McHale's Navy, Escape From L.A. (the sequel to John Carpenter's Escape From New York), the Jim Carrey drama The Majestic and the 2005 Disney movie Sky High.[16]
Campbell had a major voice role for the 2009 animated adaptation of the children's book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and a supporting voice role for Pixar's Cars 2.[17]
Campbell produced the 2013 remake of The Evil Dead, along with Raimi and Rob Tapert, appearing in the movie's post-credits scene in a cameo role with the expectation he would reprise that role in Army of Darkness 2.[18] The next year, the comedy metal band Psychostick released a song titled "Bruce Campbell" on their album IV: Revenge of the Vengeance that pays a comedic tribute to his past roles.
Campbell worked as an executive producer for the 2023 movie Evil Dead Rise.[19]
Other than cinema, Campbell has appeared in a number of television series. He featured in The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. a boisterous science fiction comedy western created by Jeffrey Boam and Carlton Cuse that played for one season.[20] He played a lawyer turned bounty hunter who was trying to hunt down John Bly, the man who killed his father. He featured in the television series Jack of All Trades, set on a fictional island occupied by the French in 1801. Campbell was also credited as co-executive producer, among others. The show was directed by Eric Gruendemann, and was produced by various people, including Sam Raimi.[21] The show was broadcast for two seasons, from 2000 to 2001. He had a recurring role as "Bill Church Jr." based upon the character of Morgan Edge from the Superman comics on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.[22]
From 1996 to 1997, Campbell was a recurring guest actor of the television series Ellen as Ed Billik, who becomes Ellen's boss when she sells her bookstore in season four.[23]
He is also known for his supporting role as the recurring character Autolycus ("King of Thieves") on both Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess, which reunited him with producer Rob Tapert.[24] Campbell played Hercules/Xena series producer Tapert in two episodes of Hercules set in the present.[25] He directed a number of episodes of Hercules and Xena, including the Hercules series finale.[26]
Campbell also obtained the main role of race car driver Hank Cooper for the Disney made-for-television remake of The Love Bug.[27]
Campbell had a critically acclaimed dramatic guest role as a grief-stricken detective seeking revenge for his father's murder in a two-part episode of the fourth season of Homicide: Life on the Street. Campbell later played the part of a bigamous demon in The X-Files episode "Terms of Endearment".[28] He also featured as Agent Jackman in the episode "Witch Way Now?" of the WB series Charmed, as well as playing a state police officer in an episode of the short-lived series American Gothic titled "Meet The Beetles".
Campbell co-featured in the television series Burn Notice, which was broadcast from 2007 to 2013 by USA Network. He portrayed Sam Axe, a beer-chugging, former Navy SEAL now working as an unlicensed private investigator and occasional mercenary with his old friend Michael Westen, the show's main character. When working undercover, his character frequently used the alias Chuck Finley, which Bruce later revealed was the name of one of his father's old co-workers.[29] Campbell was the star of a 2011 Burn Notice made-for-television prequel focusing on Sam's Navy SEAL career, titled Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Axe.[30]
In 2014, Campbell played Santa Claus for an episode of The Librarians. Campbell played Ronald Reagan in season 2 of the FX original series Fargo. More recently Campbell reprised his role as Ashley "Ash" Williams in Ash vs Evil Dead,[31] a series based upon the Evil Dead series that began his career. Ash vs Evil Dead began airing on Starz on October 31, 2015, and was renewed by the cable channel for second[32] and third seasons,[33] before being cancelled.[34]
In January 2019, Travel Channel announced a new version of the Ripley's Believe It or Not! reality series, with Campbell serving as host and executive producer. The 10-episode season debuted on June 9, 2019.[35]
Campbell is featured as a voice actor for several video games. He provides the voice of Ash in the four games based on the Evil Dead movies series: Evil Dead: Hail to the King, Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick, Evil Dead: Regeneration and Evil Dead: The Game.[36] He also provided voice talent in other titles such as Pitfall 3D: Beyond the Jungle, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3, The Amazing Spider-Man,[37] and Dead by Daylight.[38]
He provided the voice of main character Jake Logan for the PC game, Tachyon: The Fringe, the voice of main character Jake Burton for the PlayStation game Broken Helix and the voice of Magnanimous for Megas XLR. Campbell voiced the pulp adventurer Lobster Johnson in Hellboy: The Science of Evil and has done voice-over work for the Codemaster's game Hei$t, a game which was announced on January 28, 2010 to have been "terminated". He also provided the voice of The Mayor for the 2009 movie Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, the voice of Rod "Torque" Redline in Cars 2, the voice of Himcules in the 2003 Nickelodeon TV series My Life as a Teenage Robot, and the voice of Fugax in the 2006 movie The Ant Bully.[37]
Despite the inclusion of his character "Ash Williams" in Telltale Games' Poker Night 2, Danny Webber voices the character in the game, instead of Bruce Campbell.[39]
He has a voice in the online MOBA game, Tome: Immortal Arena in 2014.[40] Campbell also provided voice-over and motion capture for Sgt. Lennox in the Exo Zombies mode of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.[41]
In addition to acting and occasionally directing, Campbell has become a writer, starting with an autobiography, If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor, published in June 2001.[42] The autobiography was a successful New York Times Best Seller.[43] It describes Campbell's career to date as an actor in low-budget movies and television, providing his insight into "Blue-Collar Hollywood".[42] The paperback version of the book adds details about the reactions of fans during book signings: "Whenever I do mainstream stuff, I think they're pseudo-interested, but they're still interested in seeing weirdo, offbeat stuff, and that's what I'm attracted to".[42]
Campbell's next book Make Love! The Bruce Campbell Way was published on May 26, 2005. The book's plot involves him (depicted in a comical way) as the main character struggling to make it into the world of A-list movies.[44] He later recorded an audio play adaptation of Make Love with fellow Michigan actors, including longtime collaborator Ted Raimi. This radio drama was released by the independent label Rykodisc and spans 6 discs with a 6-hour running time.
In addition to his books, Campbell also wrote a column for X-Ray Magazine in 2001, an issue of the popular comic series The Hire, and comic book adaptations of his Man with the Screaming Brain. Most recently he wrote the introduction to Josh Becker's The Complete Guide to Low-Budget Feature Filmmaking.
In late 2016, Campbell announced that he would be releasing a third book, Hail to the Chin: Further Confessions of a B Movie Actor, which will detail his life from where If Chins Could Kill ended. Hail to the Chin was released in August 2017, and accompanied by a book tour across the United States and Europe.[45]
Campbell maintained a weblog on his official website, where he posted mainly about politics and the movie industry, though it has since been deleted.[46]
Since 2014, the Bruce Campbell Horror Film Festival, narrated and organized by Campbell, was held in the Muvico Theater in Rosemont, Illinois. The first festival was originally from August 21 to 25, 2014, presented by Wizard World, as part of the Chicago Comicon.[47] The second festival was from August 20 to 23, 2015, with guests Tom Holland and Eli Roth.[48] The third festival took place over four days in August 2016.[49] Guests of the event were Sam Raimi, Robert Tapert and Doug Benson.[50]
Campbell married Christine Deveau in 1983, and they had two children before divorcing in 1989. He met costume designer Ida Gearon while working on Mindwarp, and they were married in 1992.[51] They reside in Jacksonville, Oregon.[51]
Campbell is also ordained and has performed marriage ceremonies.[52]
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So You Need a Blurb…
If you publish a book, the time will come in the process when your publisher will ask if you have anyone in mind to blurb/endorse your book. And then you will feel foolish telling your publisher that you don’t know anyone or maybe have no idea what a blurb is so you surreptitiously turn to the internet for help. Then you find this post. I gotchu, fam.
What Is a Blurb?
In publishing, “blurb” can mean a lot of things, from the jacket copy to your elevator pitch. But most often, if you’re asked to get a blurb from someone, that means an endorsement from another author or reviewer.
It’s the text on the back or the book or the first few pages where it says, “Fantastic! Five stars!”- some person
What is the Point?
If you ask around, basically nobody cares that a book has a blurb in it. It’s not the thing that will make or break your book sale. But they are a sign of legitimacy, that you are Someone, and that you are part of the community rather than a nobody from nowhere. They’re more important (and common) for lesser known writers breaking out. And they look nice on marketing materials.
How Do You Get Them?
You ask. Sometimes your publisher asks for you. But mostly you will be emailing authors and asking if they can blurb your book.
That Sounds Terrifying
It’s not so bad. For the most part, authors are flattered that you thought of them, especially if they’re midlisters that aren’t huge names. A blurb can give you both a little boost. And sometimes these conversations can stir up further relationships in the community. Writers buy books from each other. They generate buzz. If someone asks me to blurb their book, I’ll feel more invested in its success and might talk it up to others. And getting friendly with other writers is a good way to get invited to conventions, contribute to anthologies, etc. Sometimes authors recommend their pals to their agents. Sometimes they remember you when it comes time for award nominations and votes. So it’s worth it to swallow your fear and reach out.
OK But Like. How?
Step one: pick an author. Actually, pick several, because you’ll want multiple blurbs and not everyone will say yes. Pick people you think would like your book. This means knowing what they write. Aim for someone a few rungs up the ladder from you in experience. Yeah, you can ask Stephen King too, but the big guys are less likely to respond.
Step two: contact them. Track down an email address if you can. If they’re agented, you might need to go through their agent. Do not go into their DMs or tweet them publicly. Write a simple, professional email:
“Hi (author); my name is (name) and I really love (book they wrote that you liked). I have a new book coming out (date) and want to ask whether you might be able to provide a blurb? The book is about (one sentence hook). I would need any blurb back by (deadline you cleared with your publisher). I totally understand if you’re too busy, but if you’d like to take a look I can have my publisher provide an ARC in (format). Thank you for your time!”
An ARC is an advanced reading copy. It’s a not-finalized version of your story that can be sent to readers to start building buzz. Small publishers will usually only have digital arcs in pdf, mobi, and epub. Bigger publishers will have print arcs.
Fire the email off and wait. One of three things will happen:
1 - they say they’re too busy, sorry
2 - they say that sounds great
3 - they never reply
If you never hear a reply, it’s okay to send one follow-up after a couple weeks, then let it go.
After you’ve supplied the ARC, let them sit on it and then email to check in a week or two before it’s due. If they send it in late, it’s fine. It can’t go on the book cover but it can go on the Amazon page and marketing materials. Late is better than nothing.
What Will I Get?
Usually they’ll email you back a nice sentence or two that’s very sound-biteable. These are fun to write and authors can get clever with them. Usually you’ll get a larger one and can cut it down if necessary but it’s obviously bad form to take stuff out of context.
Sometimes they’ll shout you out on their socials. Sometimes you have to make the neat graphics yourself for your socials. You can ask them to share a cute graphic you made but don’t be pushy about it. They did their part.
Did They Actually Read My Book?
Yes. Probably. Mostly. Maybe they skimmed it. Authors are busy. Usually they want to say something nice even if you’re not their favorite style of writing. No matter what, thank them for their time (again!) and just don’t use blurbs that you don’t like.
Tips for Success
- be nice and polite, always. You don’t have to be mega formal. But you should hew on the side of politeness.
- maintain some kind of presence online so people can scope you out and see if you’re a nazi, obnoxious, a serial killer etc. Usually this means Twitter. But something is better than nothing.
- pick writers you like. If you like their writing, they’ll probably like yours. Also check them out online to be sure they’re not a nazi or sex pest or have any scandals that look bad on you. Due diligence!
- it helps if you’re friendly with them or have casually interacted in the past. Remind them about it if you have. “We met at this convention” or “we had x good talk on Twitter” but you don’t have to know them.
Hopefully this helps. Good luck in your quest!
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so recently one of my favorite authors, Stephen King, retweeted something from JKR and gave a posted a review of her dumpster fire new book (Ink Black Heart). I'd never been a JKR fan, and I was happy when King did tweet out abt 2 years ago 'Trans women are women' when JKR tried to get him on her side, but this dramatic shift in behavior concerns and disturbs me. Especially since I've been a fan of his since I was young.
I am very much aware of his failings as an author too (I'm capable of critical thinking/reading unlike FITs) but this is a new low for him. I'm having trouble with wanting to keep reading his works but knowing this recent behavior might lead him into the radfem pipeline. Thoughts?
(The tweets in question are still up for people to see as I'm sending this ask btw)
Hard to say. Besides that, he hasn’t posted anything related to the topic lately from what I saw and he doesn’t like many tweets, but I really hope he’s not actually going down that pipeline. Like you, I’m a fan. Carrie is one of my all time favourite horror stories and it would be a shame for TERFery to ruin that. (Though yes, he is far from a flawless author in general.)
I’m not going to say he’s absolutely going down that pipeline based solely on those couple of things but I’m deffo keeping an eye on him and his tweets :/ he’s an old man with his own mind and he might not believe those things are endorsement of her transphobic views but he still needs to be careful what and who he is giving a platform to uncritically imho.
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Nike Nearing Endorsement Deal with Basketball Sensation Caitlin Clark, Sources Say
According to TheAthletic
Indiana Fever rookie phenom Caitlin Clark — the No. 1 pick in Monday’s WNBA draft — is nearing a lucrative, eight-figure endorsement deal with Nike, industry sources tell The Athletic.
Clark is expected to receive a signature Nike shoe as well, those sources said. Under Armour and Adidas also made sizable offers to Clark, two industry sources said.
Clark’s previous deal with Nike ended after the conclusion of the recently finished college basketball season, which allowed her to hit the market at the peak of her popularity. Clark was a supernova at the University of Iowa, breaking records and bringing new fans to college basketball. The women’s NCAA Tournament set viewership records with every game in which Iowa played, culminating in 18.9 million viewers for the Hawkeyes’ national title game loss to South Carolina.
The Fever drafted the 22-year-old Clark first overall in Monday’s draft. Interest in the draft was at an all-time high, and it also set viewership records, with more than four times as many viewers for this year’s draft (2.4 million) compared to last year, blowing away the previous record for the most-watched WNBA draft, set in 2004.
Clark was expected to land one of the most lucrative sneaker deals in the WNBA as sponsors have flocked to her in recent months and showed their desire to be in the Caitlin Clark business. She already has endorsement deals with Gatorade, State Farm and Panini.
Golden State’s Stephen Curry – who launched Curry Brand as a signature, standalone venture with Under Armour – participated in the companies‘ meeting with Clark, industry sources said. Curry Brand signed Kings star De’Aaron Fox as its first NBA athlete late last year, and inked University of South Carolina guard MiLaysia Fulwiley to a multiyear NIL deal, making her the first college athlete to partner directly with the company.
The last week showed just how in-demand and mainstream Clark has become. She made a guest appearance on “Saturday Night Live.” Then, WNBA draft ratings spiked. Fanatics said her jersey was the top seller for any draft pick on draft night in the company’s history. Ticket interest has also continued to surge.
At her post-draft news conference, Clark said turning professional hasn’t had a significant impact on how she is conducting any off-court business.
“If I’m being completely honest, I feel like it doesn’t change a ton from how I lived my life over the course of the last year,” she said. “Sponsorships stay the same. The people around me, agents and whatnot, have been able to help me and guide me through the course of the last year. I don’t know if I would be in this moment if it wasn’t for a lot of them.”
Let's go Caitlin!
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Stephen King’s Favorite TV Shows According to His Twitter Raves
https://ift.tt/3qGUGDO
“NOW WE’RE SUCKING DIESEL! If you don’t get it, you missed a great series.” Stephen King’s recent discovery of British police thriller Line of Duty – as relayed via a series of highly enthusiastic Tweets – was a delight to witness. King’s zeal is enough to make UK fans wish that he hadn’t binge-watched the BBC series from his home inside the sewers of Derry, Maine, but instead watched it at broadcast pace in the UK, where he would no doubt have made a sizeable contribution to the show’s Twitter larks. (King proved himself happy to join in with online TV show speculation when he correctly predicted the killer in HBO/Sky’s Mare of Easttown. You can bet he’d have had a take on the mystery identity of Line of Duty baddie ‘H’.)
Line of Duty isn’t alone in attracting King’s online praise; when the horror author watches a TV show he loves from inside the creepy Castle Rock devil shop he calls home, he lets his 6.5 million followers know about it. Below is a list of endorsements King has made on Twitter in recent years, from the usual sci-fi and horror suspects to a few less expected titles.
US MODERN CLASSICS
The Americans, Game of Thrones, Homeland, Sons of Anarchy and The Shield
In Stephen King’s house (inside Derry’s landmark water tower, The Standpipe) as of February 2018, only three shows were considered ‘appointment television’: FX Cold War spy drama The Americans, HBO fantasy epic Game of Thrones and Showtime spy thriller Homeland. King describes all three as “a cut above”. Going one further, three days after the Game of Thrones series finale aired, King called out the New York Times’ list of 20 best TV dramas for neglecting to include the HBO dragon epic. He’s glad the Times included FX cop drama The Shield, a show that “fundamentally changed TV”, but feels it should also have tipped a hat to FX motorcycle gang drama Sons of Anarchy. Get it right, New York Times.
INTERNATIONAL DRAMA
Dark, Fauda, Hotel Beau Sejour, Les Revenants, Marianne, Money Heist, To The Lake, ZeroZeroZero
Nothing scares Stephen King, not even subtitles. When he’s relaxing in his converted alien spaceship half buried in the woods of Haven, Maine, he enjoys nothing more than streaming a foreign-language box-set. He particularly rates German sci-fi Dark, which he called terrific, complex and very German, and recommends these explanatory recaps for anybody confused by its multiple timelines. Virus thriller To The Lake was called “a pretty darn good Russian series on Netflix,” while Israeli spy thriller Fauda was described as “all killer and no filler”. King called Belgian crime drama Hotel Beau Sejour “eccentric, brilliant and strangely touching. Supernatural fare for those who don’t ordinarily like it.” Speaking of the supernatural, King’s a fan of celebrated French horror Marianne, which he says could scare even “a sicko” like him. Also in French, he loved atmospheric supernatural zombie drama Les Revenants/The Returned, calling it sexy and scary. Netflix’s Spanish-language thriller Money Heist is “a firecracker” while he found Italian-Anglo crime drama ZeroZeroZero “bone-shaking, chilling, terrifying, epic,” and King found it hard to believe it could be bettered. High praise.
Read more
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Why You Should Watch Black Summer on Netflix
By Ron Hogan
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The Best French TV Shows on Netflix
By Louisa Mellor
BRITISH DRAMA
Black Mirror, Life on Mars, Line of Duty, The Stranger
From underneath his massive, transparent dome in Chester’s Mill, Stephen King will often enjoy a bit of British telly. Back in 2013, when it was still a Channel 4 show only just available worldwide on Netflix, King Tweeted that he loved future-tech anthology series Black Mirror, calling it “terrifying, funny, intelligent,” and compared it to an R-rated The Twilight Zone. The show creator Charlie Brooker, told Den of Geek at the time that despite being a huge Stephen King fan, his reaction was characteristically muted:
“I think I probably smiled? That’s about as effusive as I get about anything, because whenever anything nice happens in the world I always expect something appalling to happen immediately afterwards.”
BBC crime-drama-with-a-time-travel-fantasy-twist Life on Mars is another British favourite that King described in September 2020 as one of his favourite shows of all time, “the kind you go to when you’re feeling sad.” That same year, he called Harlan Coben’s mystery thriller The Stranger, starring Richard Armitage, as an excellent, addictive mystery. King’s British TV crush of the moment of course, is BBC crime drama Line of Duty, which he praises for having a central Mulder/Scully-type vibe between main characters Steve Arnott and Kate Fleming.
US THRILLERS
Big Sky, Bosch, Designated Survivor, Escape at Dannemora, Fargo, Mindhunter, Perry Mason, The Good Fight, The Man in the High Castle, The Morning Show
After he’s finished all the two-finger KitKats from the minibar at Room 217 of The Overlook Hotel, where he lives, Stephen King puts a thriller on the TV. Crime thriller, political thriller, legal thriller, alt-history Philip K. Dick thriller… he has time for them all. King is a particular fan of ABC’s murder show Big Sky, which stars Ryan Philippe and Vikings’ Kathryn Winnick. In February this year, he called it the best drama on network TV and said the final three episodes were stepping into Emmy territory. He calls Bosch an excellent detective series, one of the best on TV, with an engrossing story and superb cast. Kiefer Sutherland-starring series Designated Survivor he called excellent, complex and involving after its move to Netflix. Prison drama Escape at Dannemora is TV at its best according to King, who in 2015 described the penultimate episode of Fargo season two as the best thing on television in the last three years. In 2017, he strongly recommended David Fincher serial killer drama Mindhunter, and last year called the Matthew Rhys Perry Mason reboot a “damn good show.” In 2019, King called The Good Wife spin-off The Good Fight “the best show on TV”, and found nothing not to like about Apple TV+’s The Morning Show starring Jennifer Aniston. That was the year he also named Amazon Prime’s The Man in the High Castle season four as “amazingly good”, challenging and involving.
HORROR & SUPERNATURAL
Black Summer, Dracula, The Haunting of Hill House, Servant, Stranger Things, THEM
When he’s not nursing kidnapped novelists back to health in the remote Colorado cabin where he lives, Stephen King goes in for a bit of scare-action on the TV. He called Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House “close to a work of genius” despite not being a fan of revisionism of its kind in general, and praised M. Night Shyamalan’s Servant for its focus, acting and atmosphere, adding “if there’s anything creepier or more binge-worthy than this, I don’t know what it is.” He loved Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’ BBC Dracula, calling it terrific and “VERY bloody”, found the first episode of Amazon Prime Video’s THEM scared the hell out of him, and praised Netflix’s Black Summer for reinvigorating the zombie drama: “Just when you think there’s no more scare left in zombies. THIS comes along.” As for Stranger Things, he described the first season as like “watching Steve King’s greatest hits” in a good way.
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Next week on What Famous People are Watching: is Stanley Tucci really that big on the Westminster Dog Show, or is he more of a The Underground Railroad guy? We find out.
The post Stephen King’s Favorite TV Shows According to His Twitter Raves appeared first on Den of Geek.
from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3x6ARqW
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Election 2018: How Did Anti-Semites Do?
A few days ago, Tablet Magazine published a list of eight "antisemites running for Congress". It was a good start, but woefully incomplete -- there are so many more antisemites to choose from! Moreover, it doesn't really properly gradate antisemitism (there's a huge difference between a literal Holocaust Denier and someone who's been in a room with Louis Farrakhan). So while you can read how Tablet's 8 fared here, for a more comprehensive picture this post has you covered.
First, the good news: the absolutely, positively, most blatant antisemites generally did not win.
Actual Neo-Nazi Arthur Jones lost to Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski 73-27 in Illinois' 3rd congressional district.
Jones' Holocaust-denying compatriot, John Fitzgerald, lost by a similar 72-28 margin in California's 11th district to Democratic Rep. Mark DeSaulnier.
In state legislative races, the same basically held true:
In North Carolina's 48th state house district, GOP nominee Russell Walker -- who once said Jews "descend from Satan" -- lost to Black Democratic minister Garland Pierce 63-37.
In Missouri, GOP nominee Steve West (who was disowned by his own kids) fell well short of unseating Democratic State Rep. Jon Carpenter.
Finally, in California, Maria Estrada's virulent antisemitism didn't stop her from earning an Our Revolution endorsement, but it presumably did her no favors in her D-on-D challenge to State Assembly speaker Anthony Rendon -- she lost 56-44.
The two biggest antisemites to win were both incumbents.
Open White Supremacist Rep. Steve King (R-IA), last seen telling the world that European Neo-Nazi parties would just be plain old Republicans in America, had a much closer than anticipated race against Democrat J.D. Scholten. Still, King prevailed 50-47, thus proving that there is no limit to how racist you can be if there are enough Republicans in your district.
Meanwhile, in Washington, GOP State Rep. Matt Shea -- who advocated for an American theocracy where non-Christian men are executed -- handily won reelection 58-42. Huzzah.
Now, those guys represent the worst of the worst. Most (not all) were running on the GOP line, and most (not all) lost. But the Tablet list itself evinces a clear antisemitic spectrum, and once you move past the obvious cases the story gets more complex.
On Tablet's list were two definite borderline entries, for whom I think it's fair to question if they are properly called antisemitic at all (certainly, they're far further afield than some of the names further down on this list):
The case for including Indiana Rep. Andre Carson (D) appears to boil down to "he's been in a room with Farrakhan and the Iranian president", which isn't exactly on the level of denying the Holocaust. Call me jaded, but this felt very thin to me. Carson's Indiana district is gerrymandered to be reliably blue, and so it was -- Carson took his race 63-37.
Lena Epstein -- the Republican candidate in Michigan's 11th congressional district -- also has fair grounds to question her inclusion. Yes, inviting a Jews for Jesus Rabbi to eulogize the Pittsburgh victims was stupid, and insensitive, and baffling, and did I mention stupid? -- but was it antisemitic? I'm not sure. But we no longer need to expend much effort figuring it out: Epstein was soundly defeated by Democrat Haley Stevens, flipping this open GOP seat blue and I suspect signaling the last we hear of Epstein in national politics.
The next tier of antisemites comprises people who aren't really accused of saying anything antisemitic themselves, but who have endorsed antisemites or antisemitic movements.
On the Democratic side, Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL) is the poster child -- while the past few weeks might have you believe that every Democrat in the country is a Louis Farrakhan fanboy, Davis is one of the few who actually has praised the man (the NOI has a large presence in Davis' Chicago district). Davis' district is one of the bluest in the country, and he took 88% of the vote against nominal Republican opposition.
On the Republican side, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) endorsed a Holocaust denier for school board (and that wasn't even his only connection to the Holocaust denying set). "Putin's favorite Congressman" looks to have gone down in his toss-up race, losing narrowly to Democrat Harley Rouda.
Also falling into this category (though arguably shading into the class below) is California GOP Rep. Steve Knight, who ran an ad featuring a far-right activist notorious for antisemitic and racist online comments (Knight plead ignorance about the guy's views, but you'd think the t-shirt he was wearing in the ad -- a US flag with "infidel" stamped over it -- would be a giveaway). Knight lost his seat 51-49 to Democrat Katie Hill.
Next, we get to people who have themselves said or done antisemitic things -- albeit perhaps not as vividly as a Steve King sort.
For Republicans, George Soros is the fulcrum. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who gave a Holocaust denier a State of the Union ticket and is a major source of Soros-related conspiracy theorizing, works as a good example. He handily won his re-election race 67-33.
Speaking of Soros, in Minnesota's 1st district, Jim Hagedorn -- who claimed that Joe Lieberman only supported the Iraq War because he was a Jew and who then cut an ad claiming his opponent was "owned" by the Jewish globalist billionaire -- looks like he will squeak out a win over Democrat Dan Feehan. If that result holds, it marks one of the few districts this cycle to flip D-to-R. It also is particularly painful for me because this is the district where my wife grew up and my in-laws still live.
And while Florida gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis is more well-known for the racism, he too dipped his toe in the antisemitic Soros conspiracy pool, accusing his African-American opponent, Andrew Gillum, of looking to "seed[] into our state government, you know, Soros-backed activists." DeSantis, a Republican, prevailed over Gillum by about a single point in what had been thought to be a blue-leaning race.
Two more Democratic members of Tablet's list -- Leslie Cockburn and Ilhan Omar -- fit in this category, albeit for comments that are several years or (in Cockburn's case) decades old.
Cockburn wrote a book in the early 90s that was basically a "Israel is responsible for all awful things" screed; she lost her VA-05 race to Republican Denver "bigfoot erotica" Riggelman, because America is awesome and that was really a choice. The margin was 53-47 in a race that was viewed as a decent, if not top-of-the-class, Democratic pickup opportunity.
Omar, running in Minnesota's 5th district, has come under fire for a tweet where she accused Israel of "hypnotizing" the world to prevent it from seeing its "evil". While she has seemingly moderated her views on Israel, she pointedly declined to walk back this comment or recognize how it seems to traffic in antisemitic tropes (in contrast to her 5th district predecessor, Keith Ellison, who pointedly disassociated himself from prior Farrakhan affiliations). Omar won her race by a crushing 78-21 margin.
Finally, it's worth looking at some local races where Republicans (albeit not always the Republican candidate) ran antisemitic ads.
In Alaska, a GOP mailer which showed stacks of cash being stuffed into Democrat Jesse Kiehl's suit didn't seem to work, Kiehl defeated right-leaning independent Don Etheridge 60-37. (Etheridge he disavowed the Republican ad).
In California, Republican Tyler Diep painted his Jewish opponent Josh Lowenthal green, enlarged his nose, and showed him clutching $100 bills; Diep prevailed in his California Assembly race, 54-46.
Pennsylvania State Rep. Todd Stephens (R) made sure to drop the "Johnson" from the name of Democratic opponent Sara Johnson Rothman when he photoshopped her holding a stack of cash, instead going with "Stop Sara Rothman". Stephens won re-election by a narrow 51-49 margin.
In North Carolina, Republican Rickey Padgett tried to unseat State Senator Mike Woodard (D) by, among other things, posting a picture with Chuck Schumer dressed in a Nazi SS uniform. Woodward prevailed by a 62-36 spread.
Finally, in Connecticut, Democrat Matt Lesser gained national attention when his Republican opponent Ed Charamut sent out a mailer depicting Lesser with wild eyes, a huge nose, and a wad of cash. Lesser prevailed in a tight race, winning 52-48.
What are the takeaways here? Well, for starters, the most virulent and explicit antisemites generally lost. That's good, though given that those candidates generally ran in ideologically lopsided districts it's easy to overdraw from that. The Steve King victory shows that where the partisan lean works in the antisemite's favor, partisan allegiance generally trumps (seriously, does anyone have confidence that if Arthur Jones ran in Steve King's district as the Republican candidate, he would lose?). And if that holds true for to a blatant bigot like King, it certainly applies to more mild or sporadic offenders, like Davis and Omar.
The more interesting -- and troublesome -- story is how less overt but still clear antisemitism played out in more closely contested races. Those who assume that America just doesn't tolerate antisemitism are in for a surprise. Hagedorn's antisemitic past (and present) didn't seem to dent his chances in Minnesota's toss-up first district, for example. This isn't to say that antisemites were universally winning -- more that antisemitism, even when expressed, generally isn't a losing issue either even in the sort of closely contested districts where you might expect candidates to tread more carefully.
Moreover, there's a partisan lean to this that cannot be ignored. Certainly, there are incidents of antisemitism in both Democratic and Republican politics. And because American Jews (and Jewish politicians) are so overwhelmingly liberal, there are far more progressive "targets" for antisemitism than there are conservatives. Still, between Soros conspiracy theorizing and "Jews clutching money" ads, there seemed to be a noticeable step-up in GOP appeals to this sort of antisemitic sentiment that doesn't have a clear parallel among Democrats right now.
And Republican strategists must have come to a conclusion that these ads work. Yes, maybe they turn off some Jewish or more liberal-leaning voters. But Republican campaign operatives must think they make up for it by revving up the conservative base (or even independents -- for a variety of reasons I strongly suspect that right-leaning independents might be even more susceptible to this sort of appeal).
There was certainly no systematic punishing effect for Republicans going to this well -- and so we can expect they'll keep doing it. And that is a worrisome conclusion.
via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/2zyyHER
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Support AO3, or don't, but leave it the fuck alone
(I wrote this rant quite a while ago and never posted it, but seeing as people are On That Bullshit again, I figured it was time.)
I feel like people (you know which) who bitch about AO3 holding fundraisers to support their business, even though said business hosts content they don't approve of, are rather analogous to anti-vaxxers, or anti-unionists.
The online fanfiction world before OTW/AO3 was much more dangerous and much less regulated and much harder to control, and innocent people were getting hurt all over the place.
Content creators could destroy other people's work with impunity under "copyright infringement" claims that weren't even valid. Web hosts could discover that a fic writer was posting written erotica or fanfiction in general (see copyright infringement above), on their servers (usually after being alerted to it by someone with a grudge) and respond by taking down their website, deleting their work, and banning their IP. They didn't even have to tell you if they did this, you could discover it by accident. And this happened a lot, because companies were skittish about anything even potentially legally problematic, so they erred on the side of enormous banhammers.
And on the fan creation side, there were no real content standards. There was no way to know whether what you were reading was potentially triggering. Tagging wasn't a thing. Warnings weren't standardized. There was no system, no way of either protecting yourself OR your work. And trying to find things you wanted to see was sometimes even harder, and involved associating with people you might not want to. I entered fandom (at 17, I might add) at a time when the primary way to get fanfic was through Yahoo!groups. Message boards. I had no control over who I did and didn't have contact with. I honestly don't even remember if there WAS a way to block people. And there were definitely some creeps. There were definitely some people I would never want to associate with.
When the OTW was created, it set out to fix both of these problems at once. The legal side dealt with the fair use and transformative aspects of fanwork, and AO3 dealt with the content moderation aspect. And I think they've done a damn good job with both. Of course it's not perfect, nothing is perfect, but the fact that I can go to AO3 right now and filter out just about anything I don't want to see with extremely good results tells me that they've achieved what they set out to achieve.
But people who weren't here for the before don't see the former world. Anti-vaxxers don't think of disease as a threat because they haven't been exposed to it. Anti-unionists think unions are worthless because they weren't there for life before the 40 hour work week and child labor laws. They only see what they can criticize now.
And beyond that, they come to their criticism with misinformed, ignorant, and harmful ideas about how the whole thing works. Like anti-vaxxers and their autism myth, and anti-unionists and their worship of capitalism, these people have a worldview that, frankly, scares the shit out of me.
They seem genuinely convinced that writing about something means fully endorsing it. That only the sick and twisted and perverted would ever, could ever, write offensive or gross things, write about characters who enjoy those things, explore scenarios that would be horrific in reality. That fiction not only influences and is influenced by society, but creates reality, IS reality. That abstract concepts in a story are, themselves, crimes against humanity equivalent to rape and murder. That these things ARE rape and murder. That writing a story that doesn’t explicitly condemn rape or abuse is not only endorsement but incitement. As if fiction writers were causing these things to happen in real life, to real people. They’ve said as much. If you write rape fantasies, you’re a rapist. If you write incest, you’re a pedophile. Period, end-of, no gray area, no exceptions. Though of course, the only writers for whom this is true are fanfiction writers.
Funny how they’re not going after the published authors like this. Is anyone seriously going around calling Stephen King a pedophile because IT has a weird, uncomfortable and frankly unnecessary child orgy in it? Because it totally does, for some weird fucking reason. (Coke. The reason was lots, and lots, of coke. Also the 70s.) He made thousands of dollars off of that story, he will collect royalties on it for the rest of his life. But no, he’s fine, we can leave his career alone, his book can stay on the shelf. We should definitely instead destroy the unpaid passion project of some 40-year-old housewife who writes out her fantasies to feel just a little less alone, some 16-year-old abuse victim trying to make sense of the things currently happening to her, some 25-year-old receptionist whose only escape from her soul-crushing job is exploring the inner workings of human dynamics through the characters she most resonates with, or finds the most fascinating, or most inspire her to write. These are the real villains, am I right?
AO3 protects ALL OF FANDOM and yes, this includes the unsavory and the distasteful, because it must. Because content censorship is creative death. Once an authority is allowed to decide what is and isn’t acceptable subject matter, it’s a matter of time before those subjective, arbitrary decisions start affecting people it shouldn’t. What happens when one of the decision makers goes power-mad? When they get into a disagreement with a writer and decide, oops, all their shit is banned, and anyone who commented positive things on their stories is banned, too. When somebody gets hired to do the job, and you know what they really find inappropriate and gross? Interracial dating. When somebody decides to erase all the stories involving the “wrong” kind of trans person. Or all trans people. It’s not remotely farfetched to imagine something like this happening. One trip to Fanlore and you can find dozens of incidents like it in the past. Over, and over, and over.
And the thing is, once these tools are put into place, they are never, ever only used as intended. They are never, ever only used to the benefit of the “good guys”. We don’t want censorship on AO3 for the same reason we don’t want a leftist president with unlimited power - because the people in charge today might not be the people in charge tomorrow. Because no one should be allowed that kind of authority, even people we agree with. Because humans are fallible and make mistakes and make bad choices, and we have no choice but to let them, but we sure as hell can prevent them from doing too much damage.
Writing down a rape fantasy that someone is already fucking having because they are among the most common sexual fantasies on the fucking planet does not cause tangible harm. Destroying someone’s creative outlet? Tangible fucking harm.
These people want to take away the only bastion against the wider world that fandom has, because a small percentage of it contains upsetting, triggering ideas. Not calls for action, not instruction manuals, not advocations - just ideas, put together to make stories. The site HAS self-censoring mechanisms, that's one of the reasons for its existence, but the ability to actively avoid the content they don’t want to see isn’t enough for them. That scares me, and it should scare you, too. Because once they decide you’re “problematic”, you’re next.
Because they are advocating for authoritarianism, and authoritarianism is not your friend.
#this might be the first post that loses me followers#we'll see#I'm okay with that tbh#fandom#AO3#protect fandom#support AO3
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Blog Post #15
Wagner, Isreal, and the Palestinians
In this first reading, they first introduced the genius of Wagner’s music, then went on to introduce his anti-semitic beliefs and finally introduced the discussion regarding the debate of playing Wagner’s music in Isreal. They make the argument that by continuing to outlaw Wagner’s music in Isreal it is like giving in and letting Hitler have the last word.
To a degree, I understand this argument because I can imagine that Hitler would’ve been selfish with such great German music as composed by Wagner and he himself might’ve called for the banning of Wagnerian compositions being played in a place the Jewish race claimed as their own. He might of asserted that they didn’t deserve it or something, and if that was the case then I would say hell yeah let’s defy Hitler’s wishes and let’s not exclude Jew’s from things as amazing and Wagner’s works.
But on the other hand, I approach this conversation with cultural lenses trying to understand this dilemma, for example, today there are a lot of accusations made about various artists regarding their behavior and beliefs and if something surfaces that goes against what I think is right and fair, such as R Kelly’s sexual assault charges, I have actively chosen to disown his most famous songs. I think this is an ok practice even if the song is extremely influential. As for Wagner’s music, this argument can’t be made so lightly because of how genius and innovative he truly was. But yet, I still think his very outspoken beliefs kind of warrants that his music should be selectively played and not in places that were the target of his disdain.
Divorcing music from anti-Semitism, Israeli soprano takes on taboo at Wagner-fest
In this reading, my first point made above was asserted by one of the Jewish artists performing at Wagner’s festival; Wagner wanted a Jewish cleansing and by performing his works it’s kind of like nuts to him, ya know? I think we just have to ask ourselves if his beliefs can be expunged on the basis of his genius and innovative music advancements. It’s just hard to imagine that we can say we’re actively working against Wagner’s beliefs by encouraging Jews to perform and enjoy his music when we’re bringing more attention and praise to him. To me, this is kind of saying “look we know what you believed and it’s not ok but it’s kind of ok because we still like your music”, I just don’t think much is being done to condone his beliefs although he deserves it. For this reason, I feel kind of slimy that we’re going to his opera because I don’t really want to support someone that was so actively and vocally anti-semitic. I definitely think that when introduced Wagner should be first labeled an anti-semite and second a genius composer, so that people can actively make the choice whether to support someone like that. I’m not saying we should throw out all Wagnerian improvements made to music and theater, but his additions should be taken with consideration and we can’t ever stop condemming him for his beliefs. Nuts to Wagner.
Wagner and Me
1. Stephen Fry also grapples with the question of whether or not to take Wagner’s music as it is and for the genius it is or to always engage with the disdain that he was a vocal anti-semite. He comes to the conclusion that he doesn’t want the music to be lost in a shroud of hate and he actively chooses to enjoy Wagner’s art. I can understand his argument that we shouldn’t let his hate win and we shouldn’t lose the genius of his music to the Nazi’s but I still face a bit cognitive dissonance over the whole matter. I suppose I’ll have to see if seeing his opera is worth it at the end after I’ve seen it in person.
2. I learned a few things from this little documentary;
First, I learned that I recognize more of Wagner’s compositions then I thought I did.
Second, I hadn’t known, although I’m not really surprised that, Wagner’s relatives still are head directors in production of his operas in Bayreuth.
Third, after seeing his grave, I realize they might of made it in honor of his original opera house in Bayreuth...., plain, simple, intended to not take away from the genius within. (;
Fourth, that really awful writer guy, Wagner’s son-in-law, supported and even endorsed Hitler to the Wagner’s when he was first emmerging in German politics.
Finally, the Ring Cycle is 18 hours long in its entirety (17 if you take a nap!).
“Lohengrin” chapter
1. The chapter says that the opera is based on myths incorporating archetypes from the medieval fairytale time, such as knights, kings, witches, magic swans, kings, and damsels in distress.
2. I think it is possible that Wagner saw himself as Lohengrin, because Wagner described him as an artist, a higher being, somewhat above the world, but not exempt from the need of love. Looking at Wagner’s life we know that he quite enjoyed the ladies and also considered himself to be a great artist on his own accord even without the confirmation of the masses. I think it’s possible he was projecting how he felt about himself by creating a character such as Lohengrin.
3. An overture incorporating themes from the entire opera, where a prelude does not, a prelude stands on its own and is more so beautiful than meaningful in the sense of introducing the opera’s themes.
4. Elsa is on trial for the murder of Gottfried, because she goes in the woods with him and returns without him.
5. It seems to me that the only note of the location that Telramaund and Ortrud are banished to is the courtyard of Antwerp Castle, the location of the opera, which makes sense because it would be hard to create two distinct locations on a stage and still have the characters interact with each other. (Although a lot of opera asks the audience to use a bit of imagination, perhaps this was too much of a stretch)
6. Elsa wants to know Lohengrin’s name because she feels that by not even getting to know his name she is somehow below him and that if she is below him then he very well may get bored of her and may leave her for someone else.
7. Ortrud drops dead because she is shocked when Gottfried transforms back from being a swan.
8. Lohengrin kills Telramaund in one blow in his castle room. Ortrud is a pagan, meaning she practices witchcraft. Elsa falls lifeless when Lohengrin leaves on his swan boat after announcing his name.
9. The joke about Kaiser Willhem II being photographed in full swan knight drag or the joke about the actor missing his paper mache swan boat during one of the performances? both funny stories.
10. I’m most excited for elaborate sets, and to see how they project the swan boat (lowkey I hope they use a real swan or like a fleet of real swans) and also to see how the actor of Ortrud portrays the part.
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10 Years Later, Taylor Swift’s ‘Fearless’ Still Slaps
When it was released in 2008, Swift’s sophomore album launched a thousand takes. Today, it’s best remembered as a simple time capsule
By LAUREN M. JACKSON
November 12, 2018
Taylor Swift during the "Fearless" tour at Madison Square Garden on August 27, 2009 in New York City.
Theo Wargo/WireImage for New York Post
Like Propel water, The Scarlet Letter and mechanical pencils, Taylor Swift’s Fearless pairs well with the sporadic squeak of team-issued sneakers, overpriced hot lunches and the kind of angst that defines comfortably suburb-bound teenage years. Sliding open the album on Spotify with my iPhone 8, I can still feel my limbs stretched in all directions, hear the snap-crackle-pop of a dozen adolescent girls’ joints going through the motions of yet another warm-up to what would become the soundtrack of my high school varsity dance team’s inner and outer lives, as well as leave poptimism forever changed.
I am 27 now, still anxious but inflexible, no longer clinging (as) tightly to singular albums to tell the emotional landscape of my life — but back then, Fearless was god. Swift was barely into legal teenagedom when compiling her sophomore album’s original 13 tracks, but more than the happenstance near-synonymy of our ages (I’m younger by 1 year, 6 months, 27 days), the four-walled, high school claustrophobia induced by the album is a matter of skilled musical mood setting. From the first downbeat of the inaugural title track to the last flippantly rebellious “hallelujah” on “Change,” Swift traps us in the mind of an ungainly teen as she was once trapped, as I was, as so many others wading the ambiguity between comportment and desire that doesn’t quite end when gowns come on and caps fly up.
Like so many notebook pages on the golden screen, Fearless is filled with boys. Stans and haters have their theories, but I like to think of each song as an archetype, less true stories of relationships gone sour than a young woman’s true to life hetero-ethnography. There are the boys who do good — the “Fearless,” “Love Story,” “Hey Stephen,” “The Best Day” boys (the last a tribute to Dad) — the boys who nurture and love intensely. They do all the usual country boy things, all the usual cinematic things: driving slow, kissing in the rain, flouting archaic inter-familial squabbles. They honor their promises and, most of all, leave the narrator better changed for her affection.
These boys who do good are short-lived. By Track 2, “Fifteen,” we’re already checking in to Heartbreak Hotel for the upteenth time with an account of that age generic enough to warrant a fan-made montage of clips from Degrassi: The Next Generation. The song tells an allegedly universal story of freshman year woes, complete with riding in cars with senior boys who also play football (because of course). It’s saccharine, sung in the vernacular of normative coupling that would become Swift’s enemy in the gossip pages. But the limited lexicon is not necessarily untruthful. “Fifteen” has aged about as well as anyone would expect, but some of those refrains make me yearn for arms long enough to slap all the powers that be responsible for belittling the whims of young girls. And according to the greater duration of Fearless — tracks like “White Horse,” “Breathe,” “Tell Me Why,” “You’re Not Sorry,” “The Way I Loved You,” and “Forever & Always” — the greatest threat to the happiness of teen girls are boys.
November 2008 looks rosy from here. America had just elected its first black president, the man who promised too much hope and change to possibly be true, but faith felt good back then. Men had committed just five mass shootings over the past year with one more on the way in December (2018 has 307 mass shootings to its name so far). The nation boasted just under 150 recognized active white supremacist groups (that number would climb to over 1,000 during Obama’s presidency). Global finance was in crisis but cable networks were still winning Emmys. Amy Winehouse was alive. Kanye still made sense and a bright-eyed, hair-tousled new country darling was exclusively concerned with dating, rather than local politics.
Like any celebrity who is also a woman, but also in a lane quite her own, Swift’s relation to mainstream feminism wanes and waxes with the season. A female artist beloved by the girls for whom her songs are written, Swift and her music are therefore more scrutinized, more rigorously excavated for signs of harmful messaging than her male singer-songwriter peers. Fearless frayed Swift’s reputation in a way that wouldn’t let up for years, if ever, largely because of its critical success. Swift took home four Grammys at the 2010 awards, including Album of the Year, beating the Dave Matthews Band’s Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, The Black Eyed Peas’ The E.N.D., Beyoncé’s I Am… Sasha Fierceand, most egregiously, Lady Gaga’s debut studio album, The Fame. The perceived slight invited robust inquiry into this supposed album of the year, and the aesthetic discrepancy between the two quickly turned to politics.
Autostraddle’s Riese called Swift “a feminist’s nightmare,” the enemy of “brave, creative, inventive, envelope-pushing little monsters” everywhere. An accompanying infographic, “a symbolic analysis” of Swift’s works to date, cataloged her most damning motifs, including “virginal” imagery, “the stars,” “crying,” and the 2AM hour. At Jezebel, Dodai Stewart agreed that Gaga was the rightful winner, speculating that in a race between “Gaga the liberal versus Taylor the conservative,” the latter “makes the Academy feel more comfortable.” One joy of pop culture is the revelation of how melodramatically things can change. Last month, Swift announced her endorsement of Tennessee Democrats Phil Bredesen and Jim Cooper for the midterm elections; meanwhile, Lady Gaga hews the path of glamorous respectability on her lengthy A Star Is Born Oscar campaign.
Feminist readings of Fearless weren’t wrong, exactly. Allies on the album come in strictly male form, while other girls are competition for Swift’s persecuted first person. Even the red-headed bestie Abigail becomes a lesson in chastity, losing her virginity — “everything”! —to the boy who broke her heart (the foil to Swift’s main character, whose dreams of living in a big ole city protect her from such a fate). The charting single “You Belong With Me” is a bouncy jaunt through the valley of me versus those other girls. The video that won Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards over Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” — to seismic effect — stars Swift as both the frizzy blonde, bespectacled weirdo in band and the sleek brunette cheerleader with the man (Lucas Till who now plays MacGyver on CBS). In true romantic comedy fashion, Good Swift, clothed in white, ends up with the guy in the end, defeating Bad Swift, whose only crimes it seems are great taste in footwear and not appreciating her high school boyfriend’s likely moronic sense of humor. Both the song and video became emblematic of a kind of Swiftian all-for-one girl power. Her 2017 video for “Look What You Made Me Do” resurrects and buries all sorts of Swiftisms, including the iconography of the uncool girl who features so heavily in the Fearless-era of her oeuvre.
Pop music exists not to elevate our souls or our politics, but to safely wade in the muck of our pettiest appetites, whether they come with trap drums or in serenades. Pop music deserves interrogation, but it will never exceed us. Fearless was a diary, sounding like the selfishness that bubbles up regardless of one’s intellectual or political guards against it. The debate it ignited wouldn’t happen were it released today, amidst all this. It’s a relic of a time when determining exactly what an album meant, culturally and aesthetically, was a crucial discussion to have in public, when nuance had stakes. Compared to the basic moral tenets we now expend so much of our energy defending, such communal acts of criticism feel small and regretfully scarce. Fearless was a moment, now relegated to a time capsule, no longer a prompt.
Rolling Stone
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APPEALING TO A HIGHER POWER (PART 6)
Can I pray for you in any way?
Send any prayer requests to [email protected]
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
“On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. About noon, King Agrippa, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’”
“Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’”
“‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’”
Acts 26:12-18
This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
If Paul was guilty of anything, it was that at one time in his life, he was just like the Jewish religious leaders who persecuted him. He arrested Christians and took great joy in punishing them, even endorsing murdering them in many instances. The scriptures affirm one such incident as a servant of Jesus named Stephen was stoned to death for his belief in Christ as Savior.
This was the apostle’s confession part of his speech to King Agrippa and the august group of people gathered with him in the audience room of the Roman governor Festus.
You’ll recall that Paul was delivering this message at Agrippa’s request after he had appealed his case to Caesar. Festus had asked if Paul was willing to return to Jerusalem for questioning by the high priest and the Sanhedrin but the apostle wasn’t about to do that and so he demanded his case be heard by the Emperor himself. Not having any charge against Paul, either by Roman or Jewish standards, he sought to find something that would justify sending Paul to Rome during his speech before Agrippa.
And so Paul told his story and today, we see him share how he ended up following Jesus after so much time rejecting Him and abusing those who believed in him. As we look at our passage for today and the continued study of Acts 26, we find Paul detailing what is widely called his “Damascus moment”. Look again at his words here:
“On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. About noon, King Agrippa, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’”
“Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’”
“‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’” Acts 26:12-18
It had been just another day of doing what he took delight in, doing everything he could to eliminate anything having to do with Jesus. He was fully invested with the Jewish religious leadership, many of which were Pharisees as he was. The Sanhedrin had already managed to eliminate the one who said He was sent by God to be the Messiah and King of the Jews. Now all that was left to be done was to systematically eradicate all of Jesus’ followers.
And so after gaining the approval of the chief priests, Paul was on his way to Damascus to seek out Christians there, arrest them, and bring them back to Jerusalem. That was Paul’s plan but little did he know that the Lord had something else in mind, a Damascus moment, moment that would change Paul’s life forever.
Detailing what happened, Paul tells Agrippa that it was about noon when a brilliant light brighter than the sun suddenly descended from heaven and “blazed around” Paul and his traveling party who all fell to the ground. It was there that Paul, and only Paul, heard a voice ask him in the Aramaic language:
“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.”
Not knowing the voice of Christ because he was in no relationship with him, Paul asked:
“Who are you, Lord?”
To which, Jesus answered that it was He who was addressing his future apostle before giving him the following orders:
“Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”
In other words, Paul was formally commissioned to serve Jesus. He had worked against Him before that day on the road to Damascus but from there on out, he would work for Him to carry out two specific tasks that included:
1. Opening the eyes of the Jews and the Gentiles to their sinful ways and the need for a salvation they couldn’t gain for themselves.
Of interest, we know that when Jesus finished speaking to Paul, who was then called Saul, on the road to Damascus, He left him blind. His traveling companions had to lead him into Damascus where the scriptures tell us he fasted and prayed for three days before the Lord sent a man named Ananias to go to Saul, touch his eyes, and restore his sight.
Saul’s eyes were opened and he knew what he needed to do. Jesus was ordering him to help others regain their proper sight as well.
2. Paul was also ordered to help sinners turn from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to the power of their Messiah Savior.
During his ministry, Jesus said this about Himself:
“I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the Light of life.” John 8:12
Anyone living separate from Jesus was living in darkness and powerless against the power of Satan and the wickedness he led people to. The only way to escape this was to believe in the One who was the Light of the world, the only One who could provide the Light of life.
What was the purpose of bringing people out of the dark and into the Light of Jesus?
Jesus tells us as He finishes offering His direction to Saul. For when people were brought from the dark into the Light of Jesus, they would receive “forgiveness of sins”, washed absolutely clean by the precious shed blood of the Lamb Jesus, who God sent to take away the sins of the world (John 1:29). This cleansing and pardon set new Christ believers apart from the world, sanctifying them through their faith in Him.
It was true in Paul’s time and it remains true today.
Through his words in today’s passage, Paul essentially tells King Agrippa how he got from where he was as a Christ persecutor to where he was presently, a Christ believer and servant. Through testifying about his Damascus moment, Paul let his audience know that Jesus was indeed very much alive and working powerfully in the lives of the people God had placed Him in full authority over. If Jesus could do what He did to Paul, He could do it to anyone of those listening to him in the audience room, to include the mighty King Agrippa.
This same Jesus moves in power today. He still seeks and comes to people in ways to bring them to His service and, like Saul, He never leaves any new followers to wonder what they are to do. For we know that Jesus gave us this great commission, our marching orders as we work to bring the people of the world out of darkness and into His Light. Our tasking is as follows and it’s time to get to work:
“…go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” Matthew 28:19-20
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to [email protected]
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TGIF: ROUNDUP FOR FEBRUARY 19, 2021
We’ve been sharing some of our more relevant articles on our Instagram: (1) Sexual Abuse and the Church by Eugene Park, (2) Should We Respond to Racism by Just Preaching the Gospel? by Thomas Hwang, and (3) To Be Loved by Hannah Chao.
In case you missed it, we asked vocational pastors and church ministry leaders across the country a simple question: “What are some things that you wish your church would know about pastors?” Read Pastor Steve Chang’s new article.
Our monthly newsletter is scheduled to be sent out next week. Read our January issue, and subscribe today to receive our most popular articles. If you have an article or link to share, reach me on Twitter or Instagram.
ARTICLES FROM AROUND THE WEB
1. Melissa Kruger: Women Are Not the Problem
“Men need mothers, sisters, and daughters in the faith, just as women need fathers, brothers, and sons. We are a family, a beautiful body made up of many parts.”
2. Eugene Park: ‘Minari’: Searching for Eden in Arkansas
“Rather than seeking sharper lines for our tribes in a secularizing age, where faith is already difficult to cultivate, what if we found strength in the whole diverse body of Christ?”
3. Jonathan Hayashi: If God Rescued Me, He Can Rescue Anyone
“Police arrested me when I was 15. I was sent to court. As I was handcuffed and heading to the police station, I had an encounter with God in the police car.”
BOOKS, PODCASTS, MUSIC, AND MORE
1. Off the Pulpit: "Christian" Dating: Tinder, Purity Rings, & Sex
Eugene, Jason, and Thomas present a post-Valentines day episode discussing dating within the church.
2. Ask Pastor John: My Teen Is Sexually Active — What Can I Do?
“What can Christian parents do if they discover that one of their children is living in serious sexual sin? Pastor John offers counsel on where to begin.”
3. Aaron Lee: Related Works
Book Reviews: Gospelbound by Collin Hansen and Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, Being the Bad Guys by Stephen McAlpine. Commentary Review: Daniel by Joe M. Sprinkle. Our TGIF playlist is available on Spotify. Join my Asian American Worship Leaders Facebook group.
FEATURED THIS WEEK ON SOLA NETWORK
1. Faith Chang: God Among the Crowds
“He is the God of the broken, who welcomes the weak. The God who serves the crowds.”
2. Sam Koo: The King Who Fights Our Battles
“Friend, not only is Jesus powerful to defeat our enemies, but he is also willing to fight for us.”
3. Dave Park: Diff’rent Strokes: Why Asian Americans Need A New Theology of Work
“Sons and daughters never have to earn their place at the table. It is given to them.”
4. TGIF: Roundup for February 12, 2021
God Among the Crowds / The Seductive Sin We Never Talk About / The Proverbs 31 Man
General disclaimer: Our link roundups are not endorsements of the positions or lives of the authors.
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Catholic Daily Reading + Reflection: 26 December 2020 - It is Not You Who Speak
Readings at Mass for Saturday December 26, 2020
Fourth Week of Advent Year B
Vestment: Red
Today’s Rosary: The Joyful Mystery
SAINT STEPHEN,
The First Martyr (Feast)
Stephen, a deacon of the early Church, was ready to bear witness to his faith in the Lord. Filled with the Holy Spirit, he proclaimed the resurrection of Christ and called his people to conversion and faith. The forgiveness that he offered to those who killed him reflects the forgiveness offered by Jesus himself to those who crucified him. The feast of Saint Stephen, known as the proto-martyr, the first witness/martyr, reminds us of the high price we pay as we place our faith in the new born King.
Entrance Antiphon
The gates of heaven were opened for blessed Stephen, who was found to be first among the number of the Martyrs and therefore is crowned triumphant in heaven.
Collect
Grant, Lord, we pray, that we may imitate what we worship, and so learn to love even our enemies, for we celebrate the heavenly birthday of a man who knew how to pray even for his persecutors. Through our Lord...
FIRST READING
“Behold, I see the heavens opened.”
A reading from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 6:8- 10; 7:54-59)
In those days: Stephen, full of grace and power, did great wonders and signs among the people. Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called), and of the Cyrenians, and of the Alexandrians, and of those from Cilicia and Asia, arose and disputed with Stephen. But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke. Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth against him. But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; and he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.” But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together upon him. Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him; and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
The word of the Lord.
RESPONSORIAL PSALM Ps 31:3bc-4.6 and 8ab.16bc and 17 (R. 6a)
R/. Into your hand, O Lord, I commend my spirit.
Be a rock of refuge for me,
A mighty stronghold to save me.
For you are my rock, my stronghold!
Lead me, guide me, for the sake of your name. R.
Into your hands I commend my spirit.
You will redeem me, O Lord, O faithful God.
Let me be glad and rejoice in your mercy,
For you who have seen my affliction. R.
Deliver me from the hands of my enemies
and those who pursue me.
Let your face shine on your servant.
Save me in your merciful love. R.
ALLELUIA Psalm 118:26a.27ab
Alleluia. Blessed is he who enters in the name of the Lord; the Lord is God, and he has given us light. Alleluia.
GOSPEL
“It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father.”
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew (Matthew 10:17-22)
At that time: Jesus said to his apostles, “Beware of men; for they will deliver you up to councils, and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear testimony before them and the Gentiles. When they deliver you up, do not be anxious about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
Today's Reflection
The best way to reciprocate the love of God for us is to do his will in all circumstances. This would not be an easy venture. Jesus already warned his disciples of that uneasiness but reminded them that it is the work of God; God will surely provide the tools for the work (cf Mt 10:17-22). The only thing God requires of us therefore is proper disposition. St Stephen had possessed this disposition. See how he was described upon his election as a deacon, “A man full of faith and the Holy Spirit” (Acts 6:5). If you allow God to possess you, you will bear true witness to God and then it wont matter again what happens to you because alive or dead, you belong to God. Do not be afraid to stand for God for he does not fail.
Personal Devotional
Take a worship song to praise the Lord
- Lord, help me to know that no matter what I face, you are still God who can save me.
- Pray for all experiencing one form of challenge or the other that God may intervene in their lives.
- Pray that the Lord should give you the grace not to fail him no matter the condition.
- Pray for the orphan, widows and widowers that God may assist them.
- Pray for all accident victims in the hospitals that the Lord may hasten their healing.
Let Us Pray
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. Where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console. To be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life. Amen.
Memory verse: James 5:8
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I've never asked anyone this because I feel like a total idiot for not knowing, and you talk about it a lot so I think I'll get a good explanation on it. What exactly is an anti? And a stan?
Dont worry you’re probably lucky and relatively drama free on here if you’re asking, and the term ‘anti’ has only been a widespread ‘thing’ with an actual reputation for like….a year or two really? a couple years ago i didn’t see many fights or obnoxious posts about this stuff tbh.
Thing is, an ‘anti’ really shouldn’t be considered a bad thing. if you ask one of them, they’ll say theyre against abuse, harmful sexual practices/kinks, power imbalances, pedophilia etc. and it’s like yeah! of course im against that!
But these days when you see me or most others complaining about ‘antis’ it’s because these people like to attack others for the fiction they’re into by cramming anything they don’t like into those categories. Those things are now buzzwords, that are steadily losing their impact and meaning because of how antis use them to condemn any fictional content they don’t approve of, and therefore they are blurring the definitions of those things, watering them down and making them less meaningful and easier to just ignore. for instance, if you ship a villain with a hero they may call it abuse, and so you’re an abuse apologist. yep. if you ship highschoolers together and you yourself are over 18 then you’re a pedophile. you write fic about them having sex then guess what you’re creating child porn. Even a significant age gap might cause them to call someone a pedophile holy shit, I’ve legit seen people seriously think that an age gap of, say, 10 to 15 years is gross in any circumstance (because omg the older one was 10 when the younger was born!!! aging up is unacceptable!!), no exceptions (which i take personal offense to along with scores of other people because i’ve BEEN IN a relationship like that and they were the best ones, fuck you if you’re going to judge that on a surface level when it’s none of your business and both people are over 18).
To a typical anti, ships or fiction with ‘dark’ elements or morally gray issues involved is bad, and you’re bad for being interested in it even on a fictional level (sometimes even if you’re coping for your own issues through it?), and you’re encouraging minors to think stuff like abuse and age gaps and such are ok in real life etc etc. Being interested in these circumstantially problematic topics in your fiction means, to them, you’re making it like it’s ok for predators to groom kids into harmful real life practices. you’re saying abusive relationships are romantic. You and your fictional explorations are changing reality into a dangerous environment for people who don’t yet know the difference between fiction and reality. There’s no nuance to it, no subjectivity to it, it’s bad, you’re bad. Your fiction should be WHOLESOME! You must ALWAYS constantly extrapolate and elaborate on what points are wrong and which aren’t, clearly and loudly, or else you’re EXCUSING AND NORMALIZING the bad parts!
It doesn’t matter how much you explain that fiction is fiction and that creating fiction does not mean you endorse the subject matter with abandon. And antis are the ones who can’t seem to see a difference between fiction and real life here. it doesn’t matter how much you tell them that an 18 or 19 year old dating a 17 or 16 year old does not mean pedophilia (holy shit, pedophilia is sexualizing PREPUBESCENT children how many ships do you actually see these days that legit involve a child??? And yet I have to see people being called pedophiles every day and being told they are predators because of their freakin run-of-the-mill ships, ALL of which involve people 15/16 and up??? S T O P).
Most significantly, it doesn’t seem to matter to antis that it’s fucking gross and unacceptable for them to harass and judge people over their fictional interests, or bc they are into bdsm/kink, or to be telling people to ‘go choke’ and die because of the fiction they like to explore. it doesn’t matter to them if you point out the common conflicts and dramatic elements and literary exploration used in fiction by pros, because storytelling is storytelling, and ask them why they’re not calling those authors out for such ‘harmful subject matter’ (example–i like to tell them to go attack GRRM for writing Game of Thrones, go bother the creators of Hannibal, go string up Stephen King if people aren’t supposed to enjoy and be interested in ‘dark’ elements in fiction, and explore the shadier sides of human nature in a safe and speculatory way. Please.)
FICTIONAL INTERESTS AND CREATIONS DO NOT MEAN YOU ENDORSE THE SUBJECT MATTER IN REAL LIFE WITH NO EXCEPTIONS. And my interests, as someone who has their own life and their own mind and their own agency, are not going to be dictated by some strangers on the internet telling me what I can or can’t be intrigued by because ‘minors might see it and think it’s ok in reality’. Antis can’t seem to comprehend what’s wrong with that thinking if their lives depended on it.
Anyways…….i’ve ranted enough lmao. As you can see I get real heated about it because it’s just ridiculous and I’m sick of seeing it. Oh, and a ‘stan’ is short for ‘stalker fan’. It’s used in both casual and accusatory ways for both fiction and irl. Casually is just you really love a certain character or celeb and probably will always love/follow them no matter what they do. In an accusatory sense, you might see antis calling someone a stan of a character just for still liking them even though theyre bad (i would be considered a Loki stan for instance….and it might be considered a bad thing, that is, if antis were consistent across the board for which bad guys are unacceptable lol. Funny, you don’t see anyone getting lambasted for liking/shipping/writing about certain villains that are considered ‘acceptable’?? i haven’t figured out exactly why antis target certain things and not others. Oh that’s right, because it doesn’t make any good sense and it’s personal with them and it’s a power move to feel morally superior, and antis are kinda like a hive-mind cult mentality, it’s seldom based on a logic you can apply across the board). ~
#kingloptr replies#i could have gone on longer but i didnt wanna write an essay#i just#ugh#lokisdeviouspurpose#the discourse™#🐜🐜🐜#jimmies rustled
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The Great Rumpus Cat Great 2018 Reading Challenge
A twist on the ol’ read fifty-two in fifty-two weeks, i made myself a more specific challenge. I hope I can find some people to play along with me! the rules are: read as many as you can, in whatever order you choose, post on this thread when you’re done with your challenge book and tell me what you chose and how you liked it! One book cannot count for two challenges; you have to choose which one you want to use it for. To be read in no particular order:
1: Around the world: read a novel that takes place in a county you know very little about
2: The procrastinator: finish a book you never get around to
3: indielove: read a book published a very small press (local if possible)
4: The Librarian: Read a new-to-you classic
5: The Biographer: Read a biography and
6: an autobiography
7: The Scholor: Read a non fiction book on a subject that is new to you
8: The Serial Reader: Read the first of a series with at least three books
9: The Dramaturge: read a play
10: The Linguist: Read a book translated from its original language
11: The Poet: Read a collection of poetry
12: The Chekhov: Read a book of short stories
13: The Art Spiegelman: Read a graphic novel
14: The Isms: Read a book about some sort of ism, racism, socialism, Judaism, Wiccanism etc
15: I felt like I was there: read a fiction or non fiction history
16: The Rory Gilmore: pick a book from The Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge
17: On Society: read a book about a problem in our society, like homelessness (can be fiction or non fiction)
18: The Raised Eyebrow: read a satire
19: The Romy and Michelle: Read a book from the year you graduated high school.
20: Punked!: Read a story about a punk, cyberpunk, steam punk, old school British rock band punk, etc.
20: The Pulitzer: Read a book that won a Pulitzer
21: The Edward Gorey: read an adult’s book with illustrations
22: The Director: read a book slated to be turned into a movie
23: The local: Read a book written by a local
24: the Warm and Cozy: Read a book with over 500 pages
25: The Our Town: read a book that takes place in your town.
26: The New Face: Read a book by a new author (their first book)
27: The traveler: Read a book set in a location you would like to visit.
28: The Mrs Marple: Read a whodunnit
29: the Robot: Read a sci-fi book
30: The Stephen King: Read a scary book, horror, ghosts, etc
31: The Gender Bender: read a book with a protagonist who isn’t cis-gendered
32: Fuck that!: Read a book with an unlikeable protagagonist
33: That’s Ms to you: Read a book with a strong female protagonist
34: POVs: Read a story told from multiple POVs
34: The time traveler: Read a book that takes place in more than one era
35: The Truman Capote: Read a true crime story
36: Oh Captain My Captain: Read a nautical book
37: The Carl Sagan: Read a book set in space
38: Because Reese Witherspoon said so: read a book endorsed by a celebrity book club
39: The Sting: Read a book about a heist
40: The Glorious Cover: choose a book by its cover
41: The Muggles: Don’t be a muggle! read a fantastical, magical book
42: All the Pretty Colors: Read a book with a color in the title ie Blue Highways
43: The Novella: Read a book that’s less than 200 pages
44: The Grim Reaper: read a book about a death, or death in our culture
45: From me to you: Read a book written in letters, diary entries, newspaper clippings, etc
46: whosis: read a book by multiple authors
47: kids these days: read a YA novel
48: The Dr Doolittle: Read a book where an animal or multiple are front and center
49: The Nom de Plum: read a book written under a pseudonym
50: The treasure hunt: go into a bookstore a grab a book you’ve never heard of
51: The bestseller: Read that book that you’ve been hearing so much about
52: The Repeat: read a book you’ve already read, but feel like it needs another go.
Get reading and talking about reading!
BONUS ROUNDS FOR THE OVERACHIEVER (or substitutes if you’re not digging/having trouble with any of the other prompts)
1A. A post apocalyptic novel
2B. A book tied to your ancestry
3C. A Goodreads choice winner
4D. A book that messes with time, time travel, etc
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