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Claudia + “Monster”

one of the very offputting and indigestible things about a lot of modern media is the pivot to the quality being the same experience as reading fanfiction. I've only read a little fanfiction in my life, and of course, there are always stand outs in fan works. But I feel everyone can know what I mean when I say it's like reading fanfiction. And I feel like it's a spectrum. For example, right now I'm rereading Hench, and I would say there is a distinctly fanfiction flavor to the work, in that I can tell the author has read a lot of fanfiction, I can clearly guess at some of their favorite tags and tropes, the taste of fanfiction is in my mouth. However, the work itself is compelling enough, the characters flushed out an interesting enough, and the story inviting enough that I am able to bear it with grace. This is like the middle of the spectrum. The far end of the spectrum is when reading a book is exactly like reading a fanfiction (term for this? If the other is flavor...) It's all trope. it's cheap and unearned. It's shallow. It's enjoyable mostly to people who read a lot of fanfiction because it does exactly the same thing. Fanfiction flavored is sometimes tolerable to me, but I resent it, especially when the tropes are paraphilias and fetishes in disguise, but not only then. It's distasteful. And more and more new books and TV series and movies are further and further on the spectrum of how much like fanfiction they feel, how clearly they are made by creators who grew up in fandom, "living and breathing fandom". And because fanfiction-adjacent creations are stripped down to the most appealing and easily accessible plot points and paths, characters & emotions for a fandom-steeped or fandom-ready (innocent) audience, they sell well, they test well with test audiences, they make money. I just routinely see the idea that fandom is basically a free space, it's not hurting anyone everyone's having fun, why do we need to be critical of this? And it's like well it's profoundly transforming the entertainment industry, which profoundly transforms what media people grow up on which is certainly something worth thinking about. And media literacy is a term that's now reached internet driven semantic satiation and become a meme. Instead of something that is important to moving through the world and a practice you can develop your entire life. And I hate how defensive everyone gets about this. I have no power to take away your fandom. I just want think critically and deeply about this like any other social phenomenon.

reading the wiki for the american psycho movie every single thing it’s saying about christian bale has me in tears …….. he literally wanted the role so bad he got that buff in two weeks, rejected every other offer for 9 months while the producers tried to get dicaprio to be patrick bateman bc bale knew dicaprio would chicken out, went to dinner with the director and the guy who wrote the novel IN CHARACTER apparently scaring the shit out of the novelist, took the role for $50k, and then made all his costars think he was a giant freak bc he never fucking broke character, and APARENTLY LITERALLY HAS CONTROL OVER HIS SWEAT GLANDS AND USED THIS IN THE BUSINESS CARD SCENE

ok thanks for the info wiki

Hey Paul!

It brings me comfort that, for a brief moment, Jared Leto genuinely believed Christian Bale was going to kill him with an axe

legitimately irritated with the way that no matter what anyone advises, tumblr and every other social media platform has this innate, nearly religious need to hoist up any man who checks off their "says/does all the right things" boxes. it's something connected to this issue of neverending compartmentalization and labeling that dismisses any critical thinking and possibility of nuance in evaluating a person or a situation. women are so so eager to throw aside their gut feelings, or even just their personal dignity and healthy sense of distance, for a chance to worship at the altar of an "unproblematic king". it's insane how much of an overlap there is between evangelicals and terminally online leftists.

i don't wage war in the comment section very often. but sometimes i get pissed off.

A lot of people on Tik Tok have migrated over to the Chinese app RedNote, and the Chinese users are so fucking funny about it. I saw one comment that was like "Welcome, I was the Chinese citizen assigned to spy on your data, I missed you"

imagine being the first amish bitch in your village to like get your body done like ass shots titties done and like beat face contoured… and then you walked into like the saloon or whatever amish people have and everyone dropped their irish fiddles and was shookedt? like everyone churning butter was just in shock and you walked across the artisanal wood floors in your wantmylook.com thigh high lace up heeled boots like your life depended on it… yes god

my mans jedediah looks away in humility but you KNOW he’s churnin butter that night……milkin a different cow…..

Why y'all doing this when you know the Amish are not here to defend themselves.

cause in my head, in my head, i do everything right