Screenwriting Twitter: An Unholy Abortion
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Renowned writer Martha Polo discusses her experiences of screenwriting Twitter.
[Note from Alexis: I allow Martha Polo to occasionally use my Medium account. That does not mean I condone her opinions.]
An infamous method of torture death invented by the Persians was “Scaphism”. You were undressed and tied in a wooden boat, stretched over over its base. You were then force-fed honey and milk until you developed extremely severe diarrhea. As a bonus, honey was massaged into your body, as a method of attracting insects to the juicy parts: eyes, genitals and any other tasty appendages. Having been lovingly prepared, you were left floating in the sun over a stagnant pool of water. Your diarrhea would collect beneath you in the boat, bringing many more insects.
This “insect rave” would involve them also breeding and eating within your exposed flesh. Flesh which developed gangrene, amongst other delights. Each morning the honey and milk buffet would continue for you, to help keep you alive for longer. After a few days, your desperate begging for death would drive your throat hoarse, and when it came as a sweet relief — you were too insane from the torture to even notice.
I will be honest [Martha, you always are — Alexis]: when I think of all the possible modern day equivalents of this ancient torture, the first that springs to mind, towering above all others like a Colossus of Rhodes — is so-called Screenwriting Twitter.
It probably doesn’t help that I despise everyone in the film and TV industry. A more rampant mass of bottom-feeding scum-suckers doesn’t exist anywhere in this reality, or throughout the whole multiverse I’m sure. To be clear: I believe what distinguishes our Universe (Earth 616) from the rest of the Marvel Multiverse is that our film and TV industry is at a statistical extreme of the whole of reality. A more virulent hive of scum and villainy cannot be found outside of the Tatooine desert.
Let me try to put into perspective how much I despise you all. When I was 15, my best friend stole the love of my life. Not only that, she BECAME my best friend purely to steal the love of my life. I was going through serious bouts of anxiety and depression and had attempted suicide. This girl came into my life, and — when everyone else at school was too embarrassed or horrified to associate with me - risked her whole reputation to raise me up. She then proceeded to use me to get close to the boy I had loved since age 10 and who (I found out too late) had loved me. She seduced him and then planted gossip about his parents, claiming the gossip came from me. His father lost his job and went onto anti-depressants, and this boy was convinced it was my fault. So not only did he not love me anymore, he loathed me, and gave his whole life to the girl who had pretended to be my best friend.
I still wake up in the middle of the night wanting to hurt myself as I remember her. I punch myself in the head telling myself how stupid and pathetic I am for letting her get away with it. I then fantasize about torturing her to death, the sound of her screams echoing through a warehouse I purchased specially for the occasion.
Yet my hatred of her PALES IN COMPARISON to how I feel about the UK and USA film and TV industries — particularly those who create, curate, manage, deal, produce and work on stories and turning stories into movies and series. I… [Martha continues on like this for a few paragraphs. I’ll spare you any more — Alexis]
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Which brings us on to the dark underbelly of that world. The place where the bacteria of the crap they spew mixes with the most foul juices of their excrement creating a dark mixture that poisons to the touch before it can drown you: Screenwriting Twitter. An unholy abortion whose very nature is the Schopenhauerian horror that lies behind the reality we…
[More censored ranting followed. I’ll paste the rest when I’ve had time to edit it down and make it less libellous — Alexis]
To be continued in Part II…
