Hi! Hope you are doing well. By any chance, have you happened to watch The Glory?

Oh no.

I say "oh no" because I have, in fact, watched Part 1. I will not be watching Part 2. And... my feelings on this story run long, and they run deep. I have only talked to two friends about it because my feelings are so unpopular but--

I hate The Glory. I truly, truly hate it as a story, as a piece of media, and I cannot for the life of me understand why it gets any praise at all.

Well, that's not fair, I guess. I can understand--it appeals to the id. But I still think people neglect critical thinking when it comes to this story, and as someone for whom this issue--bullying--is extremely personal in a lot of ways, I find it offensive.

*Also, I do want to acknowledge that there are absolutely cultural elements I am not familiar with. That said, I'm also not coming from "just googled it" when it comes to the specific cultural elements around bullying portrayed in The Glory; I do have experience there. However, I was not raised in this culture, so there are certainly many elements I'm missing*

Listen, I know I'm usually in the "fiction isn't reality!" camp, but I also always add that fiction doesn't happen in a vacuum. It is shaped by and therefore can shape reality. Lots of factors go in to determining how, and I do believe stories, especially those that deliberately try to be "issues" stories, should take care to be responsible. The Glory frames itself as an issues story, and it takes no care to be responsible whatsoever.

Yeah, yeah, it's a revenge story. But revenge stories, frankly, are very dull stories most of the time unless they are 1) shocking or 2) intellectually interesting. The Glory has no interest in provoking questions beyond the very basic "oh, did she go too far?"

The Glory in a rare category of my opinions where I think it is a bad story and the people who made it should reconsider their choices. It goes along with 13 Reasons Why in terms of how NOT to tell a story about an important issue, even if the makers are well intentioned (which I do think was the case for 13RW).* Not every way of bringing awareness to an issue is equal. There are irresponsible ways to talk about issues in fiction that actually reinforce harmful stereotypes, and that transcend the boundary between fiction and reality because the story is designed precisely to do so, and this is one of those cases.

*(Given what came out about the director of The Glory, it doesn't even seem like there was a good intention here. Also this was 0% shocking because the entire damn story is literally "How Bullies Think 101" but presenting it as how a victim thinks and without the self-awareness of calling that out. It's dishonest, unhealthy, irresponsible, shallow, and uses shock value to cover the fact that it has little depth. I hate to tell you but literally 99.99% of bullies think their victims deserve it. This could of course be an interesting meta commentary, but the story's not interested in anything deeper than "bullying bad," which everyone, even the worst of bullies, would say if you asked them if bullying is good or bad.)

So yeah. I hate The Glory.

I will say this: as someone who was bullied as a child, as someone who has worked with victims and with bullies themselves... The Glory is offensive, inhuman, and perpetuates every surface-level understanding of what bullying is, who perpetrates it, and who suffers from it. The reality is that portraying bullies as people who are just born bad is wrong. Morally, it's wrong. Issue-wise, it's unhelpful.

I could tell you stories that would make the abuse depicted in The Glory look tame. I could tell you what happened to those kids, and I could tell you about what it was like to protect kids from their bullies at the expense of my own wellbeing. I could tell you how helpless it feels when you know that other authority figures aren't just ignoring it, but actively contributing to bullying kids, and how many hours of sleep I lost working out plans to protect kids so that even if I couldn't save them, they knew someone cared. I'm still in touch with a lot of these kids today, actually.

I could also tell you what it was like to sit with those perpetrators and understand their lives, what motivated them, how goddamn scared and hurt they were, because hurting people hurt people, and know that I couldn't protect them the way every child deserves to be protected. When you've exhausted every legal avenue to save a kid who abused another and there's nothing you can do, how do you live with that? I could tell you what it was like to watch a child attempt suicide in front of me. Except I don't want to violate those kids any more.

I never met any kid whom I thought was doomed to be a perpetual victim or a perpetual bully. I did meet kids who were beyond my help, and the help my associates could get for them, but it should never have gotten to that point.

Even people who like to perpetuate the idea that rich kids are the problem--I've worked with kids who were literally royalty, who flew on private planes, whose parents are Important, and I've worked with the kids whose parents are coolies and who don't ever get fed at their home. You know what's remarkably similar about extreme wealth and extreme poverty? Attachment issues in their kids that lead to behavioral issues, because their parents aren't around for them physically or emotionally. Yes, rich kids still have more options, not denying that at all. But there's an interesting complexity here that could make for an interesting story, but The Glory is more "rich kids bad." Which is just not a particularly interesting or insightful commentary itself.

Salt! Gift of the gods! Pure as silver, it puts the fine in finance! The Valyrian word for "salt" is lopon, but it's likely to show up as lopor, in the collective. Enjoy this gift of salt! Let us take some time today to celebrate salt and all it has done for our dried meats and caramels!

When you take one look at his chest and have to wake him up for some fun 🤩 🤩🤩

Andre Braugher RIP

...𝓘𝓯 𝓘𝓽 𝓘𝓼 𝓦𝓻𝓲𝓽𝓽𝓮𝓷 𝓣𝓱𝓪𝓽 𝓦𝓮 𝓜𝓾𝓼𝓽 𝓓𝓲𝓮, 𝓦𝓮 𝓢𝓱𝓪𝓵𝓵 𝓐𝓽 𝓛𝓮𝓪𝓼𝓽 𝓓𝓲𝓮 𝓣𝓸𝓰𝓮𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓻.

Hi!, I was wondering how to get into rally lore? I mean what documentaries to watch or what books to read? I’ve been watching the last three Dakar (I’m kinda rooting for Sainz this year or Loeb) and a few wrc races but, I’m not as versed as in F1 and F1 history and I really enjoy this kind of racing so I would like to know more!

Thank you.

hiii hopefully i can help <33

if u want to get into classic wrc, an excellent video to watch is jeremy clarkson's piece on the 1983 wrc season. i know he is a fuckwit but this gives the best overview of a very iconic season in wrc. another good documentary are ones done by helmut deimel, if you have seen iconic this video with walter röhrl it was helmut who organised it <3 his films can be found here & here. there are a few fan-made documentaries about certain drivers - henri toivonen & michèle mouton. another good one here.

if you're interested in the 1990s, i only really know documentaries that were done about colin mcrae. this one is good about the rallies and cars he drove. i love this one because it talks about the 1995 season with the drama between sainz and colin !! keep watching the races if u can!!! i mostly just type whatever year and then whatever rally [ie 1983 monte carlo rally] and then hope for the best. a good channel to watch is vhs rallies, especially about the lombard wrc rallies <33 beloved <33

i don't really know much about modern rallying, my interest kinda stops after the 2000s 😅 however i do always find the time to watch the races & 'the bloopers' from dirtfish THEY ARE SO SILLY !!!!!

if anyone wants to add any more, please feel free!!! especially books because i don't know any that aren't written by christian and in german 🤣

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#qepd #andrebraugher #rip #actor #HomicideLifeontheStreet #BrooklynNineNine #Kojak #Ariana #Glory #PrimalFear #CityofAngels #Frequency #Duets #Poseidon #TheMist #Passengers #SupermanBatmanApocalypse #FantasticFour #RiseoftheSilverSurfer #Salt #TheGambler #SheSaid

"A hairline means nothing to white people" I say to myself out loud while doodling Eobard

Ipomoea pes-caprae

Treasure Shores Beach - June 23

Reid’s Lim car dream weaver returning again and still no perm one when we’re missing so many despite them having come to other servers years ago just makes a tiiiny bit rly mad 🙃 this sorta thing keeps happening … Dia/money costing things only return?? 😭 ln pls….

Your post about The Glory is everything I’ve thought but couldn’t articulate properly, thank you! It’s just revenge porn and I’ve seen people praise it because it’s “the one drama that doesn’t make you sympathise with the bad guys etc” which I feel is very shallow? Nobody is born bad. It got me thinking about other dramas who do sympathise - in Signal (2016) an abuse victim went on to kill others because of his horrific childhood and the main character felt sympathy for him, in Voice (2017) a character with a neglectful mother went on to hurt women in his adulthood and the main characters stated that they wished they had gotten him help in his youth so he didn’t turn out this way, in 18 Again one of the side characters was a bully and they later revealed that 1) he has a abusive father 2) he bullied the person because they saw the abusive father hit them and didn’t want it to spread; got a redemption arc as well. I feel like stories like these have a lot more weight to them.

OMG I'm not alone? I'm not alone! Lol. Listen I've kept this to myself and two friends for months but it has been simmering, so when I got that ask I was like--I have some self control, but not enough for this. Time to unleash it all.

Bad guy bad is honestly the most commonly told story in existence. Like, if they wanted to frame it as fun revenge romp, then use fun framing. If you wanted to frame it as a serious psychological drama, then you have to actually study that psychology to portray it accurately. You can't do both.

It's also like--with this specific issue, it's irresponsible and makes the problem worse, not better. People will be motivated to bully people in the name of ending bullying; it's literally what Twitter is all about, after all. You don't reinforce that. Every bully thinks their victim deserves it (they don't, obviously). Kudos for drawing more attention to an issue in a way that will create more bullying victims, not less.

That the director turned out to have been a high school bully was also not surprising at all, because the entire story was so lacking in self awareness that it was exactly how a high school bully would write an anti bullying story. It's actually quite sad though, and I hope he receives nuance and empathy along with taking responsibility in a way that enables him to gain a new perspective on a subject he clearly cares about. Looking in a mirror and discovering things about yourself, discovering empathy, is always much, much more interesting than "put down the baddie."

by Heather Cofer | I recently made a long-overdue trip to the dentist. The thought of going to the dentist has always made me shudder a bit, and one reason is due to my overly sensitive gag reflex. As I lay back in the chair, I was slightly hopeful that this time it would be different. But as they popped the x-ray gadget into my mouth...

        One of the few benefits to the entire freshwater vs. saltwater debacle that her biology has cursed her with: she CAN sit in front of other people and drink something that would kill them.

My goal is to give everyone that follows me /or even looks at my posts/ whiplash in the tags.

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