#Can we change the real status quo and shake the foundations

[perseas-wellyboots]

People are like Rick Riordan is such a great author who's not afraid to change status quo and ignore major flaws in his stories like JK Rowling and I'm like are you sure?

That sentiment might have worked if PJO was the only series in Riordanverse but with the addition of HOO and ToA it rings entirely false.

In PJO the major problem that needed to be tackled storytelling wise was Gods not claiming their children and their neglectful nature along with rise of Kronos.

Both those issues were ignored by Zeus and then in the end when they swore an oath on Styx, we assumed that it will be better.

However straight into HOO series from The Lost Hero, we see that Zeus did not change at all and instead made a bigger mess of events by closing Olympus and forbidding Gods from leaving Olympus. So we learn that not only does he ignores a problem that could potentially end the Gods twice???? but he's actively part of the problem.

The Gods could be better as a whole if they had someone competent in charge.

The Trials of Apollo series however changes the status quo entirely, the previous both series were from POV of demigods, so they and along with them we could only assume how Gods work and that the Gods neglecting demigods is a choice by them. But in ToA, Zeus goes from zero to hundred, not only is he a incompetent paranoid leader but he's also a tyrant and abuser. He abuses all his children and any disrespect results in huge punishment.

The Gods like a human family are stuck in a cycle of abuse but unlike in human family their abuser would not just die naturally one day. He is with them forever.

Apollo even identifies himself with Meg and thinks Zeus as a Beast for himself and yet no resolution is found at the end of the series and we just go on.

The Sun and the Star and The Chalice of Gods only continues the status quo.

True change of status quo and revolution would be Zeus being overthrown. In the root of both wars the major issue that causes high casualties is Zeus's carelessness.

I would love a book from Apollo's POV where he recruits his siblings and plans a revolution to overthrow Zeus because the immortal and mortal world and demigods, all of them would benefit being free of him.

TL;DR: Most of RR's writing has very similar problems as JKR's writing and even though I enjoy the PJO series more than HP series, I think RR fans should stop preaching holier than thou attitude.

JKR is problematic outside of her poor writing in HP (racism transphobia) and so is rick (with his neutral stance on genocide in palestine and playing both sides card, using this to promote his book, his islamophobic writing and not to forget how badly piper was wrote in TLH and she did not get much better until ToA)

[thewriteadviceforwriters]

Creating Compelling Character Arcs: A Guide for Fiction Writers

As writers, one of our most important jobs is to craft characters that feel fully realized and three-dimensional. Great characters aren't just names on a page — they're complex beings with arcs that take them on profound journeys of change and growth. A compelling character arc can make the difference between a forgettable story and one that sticks with readers long after they've turned the final page.

Today, I'm going to walk you through the art of crafting character arcs that are as rich and multi-layered as the people you encounter in real life. Whether you're a first-time novelist or a seasoned storyteller, this guide will give you the tools to create character journeys that are equal parts meaningful and unforgettable.

What Is a Character Arc?

Before we go any further, let's make sure we're all on the same page about what a character arc actually is. In the most basic sense, a character arc refers to the internal journey a character undergoes over the course of a story. It's the path they travel, the obstacles they face, and the ways in which their beliefs, mindsets, and core selves evolve through the events of the narrative.

A character arc isn't just about what happens to a character on the outside. Sure, external conflict and plot developments play a major role — but the real meat of a character arc lies in how those external forces shape the character's internal landscape. Do their ideals get shattered? Is their worldview permanently altered? Do they have to confront harsh truths about themselves in order to grow?

The most resonant character arcs dig deep into these universal human experiences of struggle, self-discovery, and change. They mirror the journeys we all go through in our own lives, making characters feel powerfully relatable even in the most imaginative settings.

The Anatomy of an Effective Character Arc

Now that we understand what character arcs are, how do we actually construct one that feels authentic and impactful? Let's break down the key components:

The Inciting Incident

Every great character arc begins with a spark — something that disrupts the status quo of the character's life and sets them on an unexpected path. This inciting incident can take countless forms, be it the death of a loved one, a sudden loss of power or status, an epic betrayal, or a long-held dream finally becoming attainable.

Whatever shape it takes, the inciting incident needs to really shake the character's foundations and push them in a direction they wouldn't have gone otherwise. It opens up new struggles, questions, and internal conflicts that they'll have to grapple with over the course of the story.

Lies They Believe

Tied closely to the inciting incident are the core lies or limiting beliefs that have been holding your character back. Perhaps they've internalized society's body image expectations and believe they're unlovable. Maybe they grew up in poverty and are convinced that they'll never be able to escape that cyclical struggle.

Whatever these lies are, they'll inform how your character reacts and responds to the inciting incident. Their ingrained perceptions about themselves and the world will directly color their choices and emotional journeys — and the more visceral and specific these lies feel, the more compelling opportunities for growth your character will have.

The Struggle

With the stage set by the inciting incident and their deeply-held lies exposed, your character will then have to navigate a profound inner struggle that stems from this setup. This is where the real meat of the character arc takes place as they encounter obstacles, crises of faith, moral dilemmas, and other pivotal moments that start to reshape their core sense of self.

Importantly, this struggle shouldn't be a straight line from Point A to Point B. Just like in real life, people tend to take a messy, non-linear path when it comes to overcoming their limiting mindsets. They'll make progress, backslide into old habits, gain new awareness, then repeat the cycle. Mirroring this meandering but ever-deepening evolution is what makes a character arc feel authentic and relatable.

Moments of Truth

As your character wrestles with their internal demons and existential questions, you'll want to include potent Moments of Truth that shake them to their core. These are the climactic instances where they're forced to finally confront the lies they believe head-on. It could be a painful conversation that shatters their perception of someone they trusted. Or perhaps they realize the fatal flaw in their own logic after hitting a point of no return.

These Moments of Truth pack a visceral punch that catalyzes profound realizations within your character. They're the litmus tests where your protagonist either rises to the occasion and starts radically changing their mindset — or they fail, downing further into delusion or avoiding the insights they need to undergo a full transformation.

The Resolution

After enduring the long, tangled journey of their character arc, your protagonist will ideally arrive at a resolution that feels deeply cathartic and well-earned. This is where all of their struggle pays off and we see them evolve into a fundamentally different version of themselves, leaving their old limiting beliefs behind.

A successfully crafted resolution in a character arc shouldn't just arrive out of nowhere — it should feel completely organic based on everything they've experienced over the course of their thematic journey. We should be able to look back and see how all of the challenges they surmounted ultimately reshaped their perspective and led them to this new awakening. And while not every character needs to find total fulfillment, for an arc to feel truly complete, there needs to be a definitive sense that their internal struggle has reached a meaningful culmination.

Tips for Crafting Resonant Character Arcs

I know that was a lot of ground to cover, so let's recap a few key pointers to keep in mind as you start mapping out your own character's trajectories:

Get Specific With Backstory

To build a robust character arc, a deep understanding of your protagonist's backstory and psychology is indispensable. What childhood wounds do they carry? What belief systems were instilled in them from a young age? The more thoroughly you flesh out their history and inner workings, the more natural their arc will feel.

Strive For Nuance

One of the biggest pitfalls to avoid with character arcs is resorting to oversimplified clichés or unrealistic "redemption" stories. People are endlessly complex — your character's evolution should reflect that intricate messiness and nuance to feel grounded. Embrace moral grays, contradictions, and partial awakenings that upend expectations.

Make the External Match the Internal

While a character arc hinges on interior experiences, it's also crucial that the external plot events actively play a role in driving this inner journey. The inciting incident, the obstacles they face, the climactic Moments of Truth — all of these exterior occurrences should serve as narrative engines that force your character to continually reckon with themselves.

Dig Into Your Own Experiences

Finally, the best way to instill true authenticity into your character arcs is to draw deeply from the personal transformations you've gone through yourself. We all carry with us the scars, growth, and shattered illusions of our real-life arcs — use that raw honesty as fertile soil to birth characters whose journeys will resonate on a soulful level.

Happy Writing!

[literary-motif]

Black Daffodils

Zaros Atha'lin x Reader

You're poisoned. Thankfully, Zaros knows his way around plants.

“You cannot be serious,” you said, looking at Zaros as if he had just proposed burning down the library.

The two of you were taking a stroll by the garden, having just finished eating dinner together. Zaros had taken the opportunity of the meeting to fly into one of his rambles, explaining his grand visions and plans for the future if he were to succeed in the trials and ascend to the throne. It had been straining to keep your composure and smile politely at him to keep up appearances, especially since he had put it into his head to tease you relentlessly and with such vigor that you were sure ‘mocking’  would be a more appropriate term.

Zaros raised an eyebrow, shooting a sidelong glance at you. “Yes, sure. You think just because something has been a certain way for centuries that it should not be changed — it gave you a position of power, after all. It suited you to keep the common people groveling at your feet like the spoiled brat you are—”

Your laugh made him pause. It was not the usual incredulous amusement coming from you as he told a truth you did not want to believe, this was real, genuine amusement, laced with a pitying heaviness that made him feel as if you had found a chink in his armor.

“And here I thought you were smart beyond your botany,” you said, shaking your head, “you’re so naive.”

Zaros exhaled incredulously. “Me?” he asked, disbelieving, “really?”

“You are, with your values and ideas and utopias,” you said, holding his gaze to convey how serious you were, “they are all great, honestly. I’m happy for you if you know what to believe in and what to fight for, but it’s all theory. What do you think will happen if you take the throne and change the very foundation our nation is built on overnight, dismantling the societal classes, tearing apart the system and the political principles we govern by?”

“How rich. So we should just keep the status quo because it suits you? That’s not—!”

“Shut up for a moment, Zaros,” you snapped, taking hold of his arm to halt his steps, “Do you really think the throne gives you power? You need to play the system, in it rather than against it, and twist it out of shape enough to incorporate your ideas, but never break it. Do you honestly believe the entire nation would not revolt against you the moment you start dismantling our society according to your wishes? The nobility hates you already, you’re right about that. Do you think you can rule without them? Alone?”

“I rule for the people the nobility has forgotten about and never even looked at in the first place,” Zaros answered coldly, “I’m not alone.”

You chuckled. “Keep telling yourself that, but remember that people hate sudden changes. It will only be a matter of time until your policy of revolution starts annoying them and then, you need strong allies to appease the masses and back up your right to rule. If you discard the entire nobility as self-righteous snobs, you’ll be alone against the world.” You started walking again, leaving Zaros to follow with furrowed brows. “And you know how fast solitude kills in our lives.”

Zaros was deep in contemplation, looking through the stone arches of the courtyard to view the garden. He stared at the nobles strolling through it in the darkness of the evening as if they held the ultimate truth and shook his head, meeting your gaze briefly in the dim light coming from the palace wall. 

“I think you’re wrong,” he said, smiling at you so disingenuously that it made your mouth twist in distaste. You had hit a nerve. It was evident from how he turned his gaze to look straight ahead, picking up the pace to walk briskly across the paved part of the courtyard adjoining the garden. “I would reform the system for the people it systematically oppresses. I— I don’t need the nobility to back me up if I have the favor of the many!” 

The conviction in his tone was almost comical. It felt good finally being able to get under his skin. It was your time to tease him and, adjusting your pace to follow closely behind him, you smirked to yourself, wondering which buttons to push to get Zaros to snap. “Leader of the masses, oh popular one?” you baited.

Zaros growled, “Mocking me, are you? Well, not everyone had the privilege to be born into the spotlight. We common mortals need to earn favor and respect, and I intend to do just that as I topple the injustice in our world!”

You hummed in acknowledgement of his words as if they were a mildly interesting expression of an idea you had already discarded. “You would have a revolt on your hands as fast as—” 

“As fast as what?” Zaros asked challengingly as you cut off, “Have you run out of similes?” There was no quick, angry reply as he expected, only silence. He could no longer hear your footsteps following behind him, so he turned, puzzled.

In the dim light, he could see you leaning against the stonewall separating the courtyard from the garden, your eyebrows furrowed and breaths labored. You were pale, one hand resting against your chest as if you had difficulty breathing, the other placed against the stone to hold yourself upright. 

“What is it?” Zaros asked in confusion. 

“I—” you began, but could only gasp as your knees buckled. Your hand roamed across the stone, trying to find purchase as you crumbled to the ground. Zaros rushed forward in an instant, catching you in his arms.

“Help!” he yelled, causing the nobles strolling through the garden to turn their head at his panicked cry. “Someone get the chief curer, hurry!” his eyes were wide with worry, searching your face hastily for any indication of what was happening to you.

Some of the nobles had gathered around the two of you, gasps and murmurs flying through the crowd at seeing you slumped against the wall with half-lidded, delirious eyes and a wheezing breath. Zaros paid them no mind, focused entirely on you.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” he asked, cupping your cheeks with unsteady hands, “Hey, look at me. I’m right here.” 

You mumbled something unintelligible that sounded somewhat like his name.

Tilting your head to the side slightly, Zaros saw a faint discoloration on your cheek, spread across it in the form of a tree branch. “I—” he breathed, his brain taking a moment to connect what he saw to a poison he had been forced to study. “I know,” he whispered in a sudden epiphany, tearing his gaze away from you to look towards the garden. “A moment, I’ll be right back, my heart, only a moment,” he rushed out, dropping his hands from your face and darting into the garden, ignoring your muffled whimper of protest.

When he returned, the chief curer had just kneeled next to you, starting his examination. “Move!” Zaros said briskly to the nobles barring you from him and pushed through the crowd of onlookers. Ignoring the curer, he tilted your head towards him, placing a few green petals in your mouth. “Don’t swallow them,” he instructed gently, leaving a hand on your cheek as the other found yours, squeezing comfortingly, “These petals are a natural remedy for various types of poison. You should be better in a moment.”

“What is the reason for this commotion?” Queen Roena’s clear, sharp voice cut through the murmuring crowd, silencing them in an instant. The curer sprang up to bow and explained hastily that he could not yet tell.

Zaros did not leave your side, helping you sit up properly once the antidote allowed you to move again and holding out a handkerchief for you to dispose of the petals. “Help me up,” you whispered to him after regaining your breath, and Zaros obliged, keeping his arm firmly around your waist to hold you upright. 

“It will take some time for you to recover completely,” he said quietly, putting more of your weight on him, “You’ll likely be weak for a day or two, but no longer than that.” You groaned in reply.

“What happened?” Queen Roena asked, looking at the two of you with confusion and worry. Her gaze lingered on you, silently checking you over. 

You cleared your throat. “Well, your Eminence, that’s not easy to say. You see, one moment I was engaged in a most pleasant debate with my— my acquaintance here, and the next I found myself on the ground, out of breath and unable to move.”

“They were poisoned, your Eminence,” Zaros said, but before he could add anything, the chief curer interrupted him.

“And how would you know that?” he asked, distaste evident in his tone. 

“I have studied the poison that evokes exactly these symptoms,” Zaros said to him before turning his gaze back to the Queen, who was looking at him intently. “That is why I knew which antidote to search for in the garden.”

“How very convenient,” the curer observed and a tide of new whispering erupted from the crowd. Zaros could feel his blood starting to boil at the suspicion turned on him. 

“Zaros,” you said breathlessly, closing your eyes briefly to stop the world from spinning around you. “I need to lay down. Walk me to my room?”

“Of course.”

“Your Eminence, is that wise?” the chief curer’s voice was faintly audible to you, moving away from the crowd with Zaros by your side. “What if he's only waiting to be alone with them to finish what he started, to eliminate his contestant for—” Zaros huffed beside you, continuing to lead you away. 

No matter how much he insisted that he did not care about what those around him thought of him, you could see beyond his carefully constructed mask and had always noticed how much it bothered him. Although he never acted on it, choosing instead to remain passive and seemingly nonchalant at their words, the epitome of calm collectedness. Deep down, you had seen it gnawing at his heart, and it did still, evident in the hurt shining in his eyes. 

“This one,” you nodded toward a wooden door to your right, leading to your chambers. “Right, thank you. I’ve got it from here. I’ll just—” You twisted out of Zaros’ arms, bracing yourself against the wall to keep from falling. You underestimated your strength, however, and would have collapsed to the ground if Zaros had not caught you again. 

He chuckled hollowly but without malice, as he adjusted his grip and led you into your room. “Yes, I can see how well you’ve got it,” he said, setting you down on the bed, “Stubborn like always. What is it with you and thinking you’re above such feeble things as being helped? A side effect of your upbringing, I’m sure.”

“Shut up,” you whispered, leaning back on the pillows with a groan and closing your eyes. The feeling of a hand on your forehead made them snap open again. Zaros was looking at you with an unreadable expression, perched on the side of your bed. “Like what you see?” you murmured, trying to crack his serious demeanor. He did not smile, mouth twisting into a tight line.

“Here,” he helped you sit up slowly, handing you a glass of water. “Drink, it helps.”

“Oh, does it?” you teased, taking small sips, “Did you poison that too to get rid of me and start your top-down revolution?”

His reaction was immediate. “Seriously?” he raised his voice in a near scream that made you jump, “What, you think I’d kill you for my own gain? You think I’d go over your dead body to implement my ideas?” Zaros leaped to his feet, looking down at you with rage and betrayal shining in his eyes. “You’re just as bad as everyone else!”

“Sit down, Zaros,” you said tiredly, taking hold of his arm and tugging him towards the bed. “I’m only teasing.” Your eyelids were starting to drop of their own accord, exhaustion finally overtaking you. 

A part of you was afraid to rest, considering what had happened. You were poisoned, and although the realization had not entirely set in yet, the thought of laying asleep, defenseless against the poisoner, made you shudder. 

“I know you’d never—” you said, holding onto Zaros’ hand as he sat on the bed again. He had a frown on his face and you could tell he was biting back a sarcastic remark or sharp jab of some kind. “I know you’d never hurt me,” you finished, eyes drifting shut with a content sigh at having him near you. 

Despite your differences, you knew you could trust Zaros. He wore his ideals on his sleeve, and you had been acquainted long enough to get a feeling for the sort of person he was. 

Looking at your entwined fingers, he swallowed thickly, the frown on his face replaced with a soft expression as his gaze drifted over your sleeping face. He reached up his free hand to brush tenderly through your hair, contemplating how improper it would be to lay down beside you and keep you safe.

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

A general problem the MCU has is that while they may be good at bringing up potentially interesting and complex takes on real-world issues or things that could shake up the status quo, they're not good at commitment, and usually have the issues get solved in anticlimactic fashion, whether that be by the end of the same project they were introduced in, or have them get solved offscreen.

Like, with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, they raise a legitimate issue through bringing up the topic of how immigrants and refugees are treated. Setting aside Karli falling into the same trap as Killmonger of "villains who suddenly kill a bunch of innocent people at random because they were raising too many legitimate points, and we need the audience to not root for the", the issue is resolved through Sam effectively giving a "Do better" speech to the politicians while the deportation issue is solved offscreen.

Setting aside that they come off more like a HYDRA manifesto, the Sokovia Accords could've been the foundation for a discussion about acceptable forms of oversight for superheroes. But it really just amounted to a plot device to allow the airport battle to happen, they're pretty much forgotten once Zemo enters the picture, they're mentioned a few times in Ant-Man and the Wasp and WandaVision, and then Matt Murdock's scenes in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law reveal that the Accords were repealed offscreen.

Secret Invasion seemed to be on track to deconstruct Fury's habit of using superpowered people to help him, by having it reveal that he basically exploited alien refugees. But he doesn't actually solve that issue by the end (in fact, when it comes to defeating Gravik, he exploits G'iah having superpowers and wanting to avenge her parents to utilize her as an assassin).

I very much agree with you.

The MCU likes to bring up certain points of discussion but they seem to believe that either the audience is too stupid to understand complex storylines or they just want something easy to digest that won't upset anybody (mostly the execs).

It comes to show that while in the past the superhero movies were all about celebrating the heroes and their "otherness", nowadays we get organizations like the TVA justified by the narrative, the governments are protected and the blame is deflected towards the heroes like Bucky, or a series that could have made a fantastic story regarding Fury, Shield and their shady missions turns out to say... absolutely nothing at all.

What they did to the Flagsmashers and Karli was so utterly disgusting that I can't even begin to say how mad it made me. Hell, Secret Invasion was dealing with refugees as well (the alien-kind but, still). So why not try to connect the two somehow? We had Nick speak to Talos about racism, much in the way Sam gets to mention some of it especially when he's with Isaiah, but nothing ever comes out of it. They're short lines that can be quoted in tweets and memes but they're pointless when it comes to the story being told in the series.

And maybe that's the problem, it would seem that's all Marvel wants. It's like their "queer rep". They want something quick, short, and ambiguous that won't bother anyone too much. Probably because they're one of those who think "both sides" are equally right and wrong and so they don't want to alienate anybody.

And one of the reasons I hate this is that when it really comes to it... does the existence of heroes really change anything in the MCU universe? When it comes to external threats they're essential, but with internal affairs? They always stop the immediate threat but everything else that made it happen is left as it is (the worst offender is CW, the Accords and that damn Raft. "Oh let me break my teammates out of here but watch as I do nothing to help the other inmates or anybody else that will be sent here in the future". WTF is that?!!).

[deulleya]

"lie and truth."

the fifth instalment of my musical translation series — entering an elite academy amidst shrewd lies and shocking truths. will friendship endure, or will betrayal tear them apart?

the video is not mine, but all translations are my own.

musical: eli (일라이)

cast: [lyon] yu taeyul, ki sejung, noh yun • [eli] bae nara, hong seungan, park jwaheon • [sophie] lee seoyoung, lee jiyeon • [alice] im yejin, seong minjae • [yulia] baek yeeun, sun yuha • [justin] shin hyucksu (shin subin), hong kibeom • [headmaster] jeong jaeheon, byun heesang

synopsis: in the prestigious brixton academy for the rich and elite, the scholarship student lyon and his best friend eli are lauded as role models for the student body. that is, until the transfer student sophie upends the status quo alongside whispers and rumours. amidst the burgeoning distrust, the students defend themselves with lies upon lies that shake the very foundation they've built themselves upon. everyone has secrets, yet everyone seeks the truth — but is the truth they yearn for truly the real truth? and is there even a real truth at all?

production: new production (twitter / youtube)

[ this musical will be streaming online here, here, and here (different cast each day). hyuckstin and nyun lyon!! ]

- ☽ -

- ☽ -

하나만큼은 – at least one

+ 바람 rep. – wind (reprise)

noh yun as lyon, park jwaheon as eli

[Lyon] What are you doing?

[Eli] I have faith in you. Whatever comes your way, you’ll pull through. That’s who you are. The real problem is me. Nothing interests me nowadays. As expected, the righteous path of law ought to be treaded upon by someone like you. A righteous person, like you. Not someone like me.

[Lyon] What do you mean by that?

[Eli] Hey, should I just flunk an exam? Or perhaps I'll withdraw from the moot court? That way you’ll definitely get in, regardless of what Sophie does.

[Lyon] What do you think you’re saying?! We promised to enter the same university together. Look, if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t even be here. You were the one who led me into this world. That’s why we have to keep going together, till the end!

[Eli] Lyon… I’m sorry. Calm down, okay?

[Lyon] …I’m sorry.

[Lyon] From a certain point Not a single thing has been going my way Not my grades, nor my evaluations, not even my emotions

The words that surface endlessly in my mind Perhaps the image you have of me May not be the real thing

Scared, fearful, unfamiliar, anxious These feelings, this side of me This isn’t who I am

I don’t want anything to change I’m going to live as I planned

[Lyon] When I’m with you, I can stay true to myself. The me whom you believe in. That side of me.

[Lyon] The future that I dream of I can’t let it crumble Can’t just this one thing Turn out the way I wish for? Without anything changing Even if it’s just the two of us

- ☽ -

[Lyon] Hey, that’s dangerous. Come back down—

[Eli] Lyon! You remember, right? You told me so — as long as I hold fast to my balance, I won’t be swayed!

[Lyon] I did..?

[Eli] Do you still remember? The day we first came to this place A school we’d never aimed for A dream we’d never harboured As if wearing ill-fitting clothes We were nothing but stifled

[Eli] C’mere. Ah, c’mon!

[Lyon] Coming.

[Eli] Ah, it’s refreshing!

[Lyon] Ah, it’s refreshing.

[Eli] Lyon.

[Eli] Do you remember that day? You told me, who felt trapped Not knowing where to head towards Or what to pursue, To feel the wind

[Lyon/Eli] Feel the wind If we feel it with our hearts Even without flying, we can soar As long as we don’t lose our balance We can be free, anywhere

[Eli] Hey, grab my hand! Grab it, grab it! Lyon. Shall I tell you a secret?

[Lyon] I have one too. A secret.

[ alternate pairings here (yu taeyul, bae nara) and here (ki sejung, hong seungan). ]

[moontheoretist]

Lol, said a person who wouldn't notice good storytelling if it hit them in the fucking face. Don't listen to this asshole OP, and just block. Any person who shits on fanfiction and equals fanfiction with bad writing never actually read any fanfiction or any good writing in their entire fucking life. Those are people who are literature purists, who can't stand when something doesn't go the "proper way". Everything this person says is just pure elitist literature bullshit that I had to deal with when I studied writing. I'm tired of people like this and their crap. Not to mention that apparently this person is so offended they started to target ANY post that is even remotely happy about this change, and is insulting everybody who even dares to like the change. Oh bohoo, I'm sorry, I know good storytelling when I see it and I don't gatekeep.

Honestly, put the sock in their mouth and don't encourage them.

Everybody who has functioning brain cells knows that Mystique and Destiny are villains and suck at parenting. But it doesn't mean we are not allowed to celebrate that Kurt is the baby born in a queer family. We long ago went past the "representation of queer people can only show them as good, otherwise it's homophobic" stage, and now we can have villains and evil characters be queer as well without feeling bad about it, because guess what, queer people can be bad people.

As long as there are good queer people in the story's universe, it's not a problem that bad queer people exist, because nobody is demonized then. Making villains have sympathetic stories that don't lead to their redemption and are basically tales about how evil people can also be driven by causes that are close to any average person, is a good thing because it combats the narrative that evil is born from evil. Lol nope, if someone lived in real world and truly paid attention then they know that bad people are not born bad, which means that any person can turn out to be bad. But obviously people like this asshole can't grasp that, because they live in the delusion that only evil births evil, that no good person could ever do anything that is objectively bad or evil.

They live in the world of 2-dimensional constructs, not people.

Also, Charles Xavier was always shady and did shady shit. We often see him as good only because Magneto is bad for stupid reasons, lol. But when you look at them separately, Charles is your typical liberal that wants to preserve the status quo. Not someone who wants to make any meaningful change. While Magneto is the one who wants to create that change, but because society fears change and sees it as something inherently bad, Magneto is turned into a villain who is trying to achieve his goal by evil means, because society can't accept that sometimes meaningful change needs to shake or even destroy the foundations of the society and build them up from scratch. This fact is literally why most of Marvel freedom movement people end up being villains. This is a notorious problem for Marvel Comics, despite the fact that they're trying to tell stories about liberation and change.

X-Men are basically a story about persecution of people due to smth that they have no control over, and fight for liberation of mutant kind. It's bonkers to me that someone who wants to change the society to not persecute the mutants is written like a Nazi who wants to create a supremacy of mutants instead. It only shows that the idea that "if you give people rights, then they will create a supremacy to oppress their oppressor" is still very much alive in the minds of many people.

It's a stupid idea that doesn't make any sense, but alas.

A time-stamp so bad that it gives the ones from Frank Miller’s All-Star Batman & Robin a serious run for their money in just how little sense it makes! From Chuck Austen’s most infamous X-Men storyline, The Draco, wherein the very first page of the issue flashing back to Nightcrawler’s birth is complete and utter FAIL:

To explain why Nightcrawler’s birth taking place “20-years ago” makes absolutely ZERO sense, when Kurt Wagner was established as a member of the all-new X-Men in Giant-Sized X-Men #1 during the mid-1970s, it was established that the youngest team member at the time was Colossus at age 18. And shortly after in Uncanny X-Men (1963) #129, Kitty Pryde joined the team at age 13 and-a-half. And to make matters even worse, shortly before The Draco came out in the early 2000s it was established in Chris Claremont’s X-Treme X-Men run that Kitty held a job bartender while attending the University of Chicago, and in the city of Chicago required people to be at least 21-years-old in order to have a bartending license at the time the series was written.

So that means at least 8-years had passed in-universe between Nightcrawler’s introduction to the X-Men and the Draco, and Kurt was obviously older than 18 in Giant-Sized X-Men #1. So there’s absolutely no way his birth took place “20-years-ago.”

You’d think an editor would have caught such an obvious mistake… but I guess not…

And that’s not even getting into the WORST aspects of The Draco, which not only made Nightcrawler’s father this Satan-wannabe named Azazel (which thankfully the recent X-Men Blue: Origins one-shot retconned by going with Claremont’s original plan of Mystique being Kurt’s true father and Destiny his mother…), but features Azazel stupidly plotting to escape from a Hell-like dimension he was trapped in by going to Earth to breed a bunch of mutant teleporters who could open a portal allowing him to return to Earth.

Except… if Azazel could already leave his dimension in order to have a bunch of babies on Earth, then what’s even the point of his plan in the first place?!

From Uncanny X-Men (1963) #428 by Chuck Austen & Sean Phillips.

[thevindicativevordan]

You did one for Hulk (incredible btw). Got any thoughts on Spider-Man?

He used to be one of my favorites.

It's easy to see why Spidey took off as Marvel's premiere character, and competitor with Batman for the most popular superhero ever. If you'll indulge my DC bias, Spider-Man sits at the intersection between Superman and Batman. Like Superman, Spider-Man never knew his birth parents, and was instead adopted and raised by an elderly couple. Uncle Ben and Aunt May are the people Peter thinks of as his mom and dad, and it's their lives that help shape Peter. Both Superman and Spider-Man wear colorful red and blue costumes, both have iconic jobs working for newspapers with cantankerous bosses, and both have a lot of Jewish DNA in them because of their creators. Like Batman however, Spider-Man has a tragic parental figure's death to motivate him, he has a very poor reputation with the public, they both style themselves on animals, and both have strong roots in the cities they protect. That Peter's greatest foe, the Green Goblin, also stands at the intersection between Lex Luthor and the Joker makes for a great parallel. Add in that Spider-Man has the second best Rogues Gallery in comics, and it's clear Peter drew on the best attributes from his predecessors as a foundation.

What separates Peter from them though is that he was the first hero with real problems. Neither Superman or Batman had to worry about paying rent regularly like Peter did. Both stood apart from their peers by choice, while Peter wanted to make friends but wasn't able to do it. Krypton and the Waynes died through no fault of Supes or Bats, but Uncle Ben's death was something Peter was at fault for if indirectly. Then you had Gwen Stacy killed as a direct result of Peter's superhero career, introducing the idea of heroes who could fail. Spider-Man was pitched as the flawed hero, the human hero, the guy you could think of yourself as being if you got superpowers. You would screw up and make mistakes, but you'd try your best regardless. Of course the readers would be drawn to, and identify with him, and that's both the secret to his success and what keeps fucking him over. A lot of guys see Peter as their self-insert, so they keep trying to return to their youth through him which keeps derailing him as a character. My entry into Spider-Man fandom came during one of the brief lulls from Marvel trying to reset him to what they see as his "roots".

I remember seeing the Rami Spider-Man movies in the theater and being utterly entranced. I played the first Spider-Man movie tie-in game pretty religiously as a kid (fuck that level where you infiltrate OsCorp, those robots were insane), as well as other Spider-Man games such as Web of Shadows. Can still hear the theme song of the 90s animated Spider-Man show in my head, that show's versions of Green Goblin and Venom are still my favorite takes. All this is a rambling way of saying that "my" Spider-Man was formed during a period where Marvel seemed ok with Peter being more adult, something they've been trying to roll back ever since.

Peter was a college student in the 90s cartoon, the comics had him and MJ married (my first Spidey comic was vol. 1 of JMS' Amazing Spider-Man run, so Peter and MJ being married is the "default" for me), the video games were set in the Ramiverse so he was a college student there as well. It's such a weird era to look back on in retrospect given what's to come and what came before. Peter had problems and was flawed, but he was also so much more mature and thoughtful, intelligent in a way beyond just being a science whiz. He and MJ had a great dynamic as a couple under JMS. They were so clearly in love and also utterly unwilling to take each others shit that it was just a joy to read. That relationship really was something I dearly loved, and of course I took it poorly when Marvel broke the two of them up. Making it a plot where not!Satan comes down and takes their marriage away only rubbed salt in the wound.

Suddenly Peter was a lot more immature and stupid, and Marvel was insisting that this was "how he should be". Marvel was claiming that Spider-Man was all about youth, thus he needed to remain young and marriage free in order to work, which flew in the face of the character as I understood him. To me, Spidey was a character about the opposite, he was about growing up.

More than any other character in the MU, Peter was the guy who embodied character development. In his early years under Lee and Dikto, Peter was an asshole with a chip on his shoulder. Far from being the martyr figure everyone sees him as today, Peter initially just kept trying to make money with his powers. He was constantly moaning and bewailing his lot, because he was a fucking teenager! EVERY teenager treats ANY setback like it's the end of the world. Yet over a period of years, both in universe and out, Peter grew into the great hero everybody sees him as today. He became kinder, more charitable, and made friends with his peers. He acquired a steady stream of super hot girlfriends, ultimately marrying MJ. Peter married MJ before Clark Kent married Lois Lane, that's a huge freaking accomplishment! Totally makes sense that Peter would get married first because while Superman was more or less frozen in place like all DC heroes, Spider-Man was the one who embodied the Marvel trait of growth and change. The world kept throwing shit at him and Peter dealt with it as best he could, and that gave me hope because if he could overcome the forces arrayed against him to find some degree of happiness, so could I.

One More Day completely obliterated all of that. I didn't recognize this character anymore, I didn't care about the shallow relationships they teased him entering, relationships we all knew didn't matter. If Peter couldn't stay married to MJ, he wasn't going to last in a relationship with Carlie Cooper or any of the girls Slott set him up with. Peter being immature worked great when he was actually in high school and college, but Marvel wanted to write him as a high schooler without actually deaging him. The contrast between how he was characterized before and after OMD was just too jarring for me.

Ultimately I left for a while. I read Superior and Spider-Verse, but I was no longer religiously following Amazing Spider-Man any more. Checked out Ultimate Spider-Man which I had never read, and I enjoyed it, but I also held a grudge against it's success. Clearly this was the series that enshrined high school Spider-Man as the "ideal" status quo for a lot of people, and I couldn't help but blame the series for Quesada's successful torching of a more mature Peter Parker. I also read Spider-Girl which took place in an alternate continuity where Peter was still married and he had a daughter with MJ named Mayday. I loved that series a lot, and Mayday became my favorite Marvel superheroine. Eventually I came back to ASM with Spencer because a few of my fellows told me he reminded them of JMS, and I've enjoyed his characterization of Peter. Doubt the marriage will be coming back any time soon but it's nice to read a more adult Peter after how he was characterized under Slott.

Hard to say what the future holds for Peter. Tough to say for certain but with the end of high school Peter in the MCU approaching, it feels like we're on the edge of another shift in status quo for Spider-Man. May be that the creation of Miles is allowing Peter to finally start to mature again since Miles can be the corporate wet dream of an eternally young "diverse" Spidey. The insistence on putting Miles into more and more of Peter's stuff, with Peter mentoring him, makes me hope that Marvel is becoming more ok with Peter growing up. The Insomniac Spider-Man is a college graduate, he feels the closest in tone and character to the Spider-Man I grew up with under JMS and Rami. They even got to kill Aunt May off, something Marvel is still terrified to do in the comics, and the relationship between Peter and MJ is portrayed as crucial to both (as it should), even if MJ is a little too Lois Lane lite for my liking.

Hopefully Spider-Man can shake off Quesada's lingering influence and start being what he was created to be: the guy who moves forward rather than running in place.

[maxwell-grant]

What do you think of Society of Superheroes : Conquerors of the Counter-world ?

While my favorite of the alternate Earths pitched in Multiversity would actually be Earth 13, Earth 20 I think could have easily sustained a strong ongoing if they ever come back to it. It approaches it's "pulp" aspect not nearly as over-the-top as it could have (and that's a compliment), especially considering how over-the-top the rest of Multiversity and Grant Morrison's work can get, instead it's just exaggerated enough to align up with what you'd expect from comic book superheroes reinterpreted through pulp hero lenses.

I love that the main cast here is not comprised of Justice League analogues. I'm fairly sure that if you asked most people, most writers or artists, to create a "pulp take on the DC universe", you'd end up centering around the story around "retro" recreations of the Justice League, like Superman as a Doc Savage adventurer or Batman as a gun-toting vigilante, but here you have these characters from much more varied sources that only required the smallest of tweaking to be convincingly genuine pulp heroes, still following along some of the general archetypes but solid enough to stand on their own, even if you remove the entirety of the DCU around them, even if you somehow transported them back into a 1930s time period. I really gotta give it credit for how genuine it's characters feel even if they weren't designed to last. Doc Fate in particular I'm pretty sure could easily work as a stand-alone character in the DCU, if not the outright replacement for Dr Fate. He definitely seems more popular.

Something that I particularly like about it is also that a substantial part of the story is devoted to the heroes grappling with the changes being brought about their world, as a result of the invasion both from the neighboring supervillains as well as the general story of Multiversity. Doc Fate is forced to hook up a character to a torture brainwashing device (a reference to Doc Savage's own brainwashing programs), and he remarks of his own fears towards his growing lack of humanity. The Mighty Atom, the team's youngest and most innocent member, briefly despairs over the fact that he's had to kill someone. And Vandal Savage's final line is his remarking that he's won by turning the heroes into killers, as it's his murder that calls forth Niczhuotan, The Destroyer of Worlds, who looms menacingly over the final page.

While I'd hardly call it a "debate", it's an interesting perspective to explore the "superheroes who kill" aspect that's pervaded so many discussions of superheroes and pulp heroes alike. The DCU's superheroes are mostly defined by their refusal to kill, it's the one thing it's two major icons have in common above all else, and of course, it's something that a lot of the more famous pulp heroes didn't have a problem with. Here, the fact that these superheroes are being forced to kill and resort to desperate tactics to combat the growing menace is framed as one of the many ways in which everything is going to hell in the multiverse. None of these guys wanted to kill or injure anyone when they signed up for the Society, of course they don't, they are old school DC superheroes. But they don't live in a DC superhero world, they live in a pulp hero world where they've spent the last 5 years desperately fighting off the invasion of pirates that only wish to spread, in Savage's own words, "rape and cruelty", and lacking the superpowers and great moral high ground and perpetual safety of status quo of the DCU proper, and when their science and superpowers fail, they must resort to that oldest and most barbaric of tools, here best embodied through the stone and spear that the two immortals wield in their final duel. I would very much like to read a story about the fallout and rebuilding of society in the aftermath.

Earth 40 is another concept I would like to see explored more in-depth. Like with Earth 20, I very much appreciate the choices of supervillains in this, and particularly the fact that it's Vandal Savage here leading the pack. I retract my statement of Ra's al Ghul as the DCU's premier Pulp Supervillain, because in retrospective, Vandal Savage has always been the most qualified for that position and the only one who's actually been used in that specific capacity. They do a good job as a great menace able to shake up the foundations of the world they are opposite to.

However, while I don't think this could have been dwelved into in the span of just one issue, the premise of "A DC world but ruled by pulp villains" actually does have more potential than was ever suggested by what these issues brought, and Earth 40 does come across to me as a bit of wasted potential. As I've argued before, pulp supervillains have a long and fascinating history, and supervillains in itself are a concept that's really evolved and grown (and possibly born alltogether) in the pulps, long before comic books and their superheroes. Superman may be considered the first superhero with only some dispute, but long before him, we had supervillains with a capital S like Fantomas and Fu Manchu and Zenith and Dr Jack Quartz running rampant, and supervillains from even before the American pulps proper like Count Fosco, Father Rodin and The Black Coats, characters that were indisputably supervillains by every definition.

The real life history of the supervillain as a concept, it's biggest players from before comics, and the decades by which the supervillain predates the superhero, have never factored into The Big Two's superhero universes (or even any superhero universes I can think of) in the ways that the superhero's history has, so having an alternate Earth to explore that I think could be a very interesting idea and would allow Earth 40 to work even separately from it's conflict with Earth 20.

[nikstersss]

Par-Baked Thought #1

Wala akong maisip na post title.

__________________________

Being able to accomplish things under seemingly more difficult circumstances does not give you the right to invalidate the struggles of someone who is going through the same, but is not achieving the same results as you. Invalidating struggle means invalidating progress. 

Your achievements are yours. How you got there are your testimonies to your capabilities. You have every right to be proud of yourself. Great performances ought to be celebrated, after all. However, they should not be used as standards for others. Do they make you better? Perhaps, to a certain measure. I think it depends on what you’re weighing it up against: skills, awards, relationships, finances, health, etc. “If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.” 

Our situations aren’t false dichotomies; nothing is always black and white. Similarities and generalities exist, of course. We would lose all objectivity without them. However, we sometimes fail to look into the different nuances that have compounding effects on the whole performance of the individual. I applaud you if you were able to handle heavier workloads or if you had it much harder during your time and still survived. Were those the baseline standards? Perhaps you were really good then. But who sets these standards anyway? If so many think they’re so unfair or even inhumane, maybe it’s because they are? Are the circumstances then the same now? Or do I really just belong to a generation of whiner-babies? Or am I unconsciously gaslighting myself into thinking that because of the status quo for so long? “That’s how it has always been.” So even if you see that there’s a better way to do it, you won’t bother to change? 

This is also starting to look like an argument on a means to an end. You ultimately judge based on the results, but what about the experiences that led to that outcome? And I guess it also depends on who’s looking, as well. A performance board, a criminal court, a class report—versus someone doing a self-assessment. I think it’s different when you say that one should be used as an example versus when one should be used as a standard. It’s truly a difficult matter to be objective about when so many factors can be considered subjective. 

I do not like mediocrity. I do not tolerate toxicity either. There is a fine line between tough love and bullying. One develops motivation; the other, fear. Both may achieve the same results on the surface, but they differ greatly underneath. Motivation establishes a strong foundation that will support you when things shake you up; fear feels more like a haphazard construction that could crumble any time. Being the bare minimum is okay because according to the set standards, you’re up to par. But you don’t have to stop there either, especially if you know you could be more. And it’s this desire for improvement that should be nurtured. Nurtured, not forced. 

Growth takes time, effort, and patience. There’s a right way to get there, but the right way is not necessarily the same path for everyone. However, trust that all these paths eventually lead to your destination. 

__________________________

Thoughts inspired by this Twitter thread.

What pink says is true. These are very real reasons why I’m having apprehensions about going into training myself. Of course, nothing is easy. Calling it difficult would be an understatement. That’s expected. Suffer, if we must, but let us suffer with dignity. There’s got to be a way to make adjusting to that kind of life easier. Some may thrive in the toxicity, but others falter. It’s honestly quite disheartening to see that even if you may have the smarts, the attitude, and the grit, but sometimes things can still become overwhelming. I’m not going to go into the nitty gritty details of it anymore, but anyone familiar with medical training knows that this is indeed a systemic problem. True, not everyone recognizes that it’s there. Others even deny that a problem exists. Some just don’t care anymore. 

But, to be honest, I don’t think blue is totally in the wrong either. I just don’t like the condescending tone with which it was delivered (especially after seeing all the other tweets and receipts, hahaha gotta love twitter for this). Perhaps coming from such a triumphant place of overcoming all those challenges, the responses could have been meant for dispelling pink’s negative notions about residency. Could have actually convinced someone to go into training, but instead sounded rather arrogant. The initial intention may have been good and not really to invalidate anyone’s struggles, but there was a problem in the communication or idk maybe not and blue was just being an ass lol. 

Anyway, those are just my opinions on the matter. Your thoughts? 

[ineffable-endearments]

Oppressive Systems

Along with all of the other things it’s “about” (chosen family, free will and choice, balance, the creation of meaning, the power of love, recovering from abuse, etc), Good Omens is about oppressive systems. Aziraphale and Crowley are two people dealing with the same oppressive system and trying to approach coping with it from opposite directions.

Crowley’s coping method is resistance. Obviously neither of them wants to die so he’s not going to outright say “fuck you” to Hell, but he DOES come up with ways around the rules, skirting them closely enough that he puts himself in danger. Crowley accepts that the whole thing is a bullshit pantomime; it’s part of his psychological coping method, exerting as much control as he can manage over his own personal situation at any given moment. His survival method is to be extremely confident in the lies he tells Hell while being genuine with himself and with Aziraphale. And he believes they have free will - they can choose their fates from here on; everything isn’t so rigidly set in stone that it can’t be changed. Whether Crowley believes there’s any “Great Plan” at all is up for debate, but he certainly thinks free will is an important part of...whatever existence actually is, whether it’s a Great Plan or a Great Mess.

Aziraphale’s coping method is compliance. He puts his faith in Heaven because he doesn’t think there’s any other option. If it’s all part of the Great Plan, then what Heaven wants will inevitably come to pass, whether it happens with his consent or not. It’s essentially a belief in predestination, except as far as he’s concerned it’s a reality because he KNOWS God exists and he KNOWS what Heaven can do to people who don’t obey. His psychological coping method is to believe wholeheartedly that everything is going to turn out for the best and that whatever happens at the end of the world is exactly what he wants, because living in a universe where he has no control over his fate and he acknowledges that everything will NOT turn out okay would be completely fucking unbearable. His survival method is to obscure the truth while technically following the rules and not being particularly genuine with anyone, even himself, except in very desperate circumstances like when holy water is involved.

When you’re caught up in an abusive system, you can be terrified of it, but still believe that it must somehow be in the right because of its authority or the power it holds over you. Maybe you could open your mind to the possibility that it’s all wrong, but to do so would be to resign yourself to a depressing, psychologically painful worldview from which you cannot escape.

Certainly there is a point in the story of the TV show where Crowley loses all hope and it is often contrasted with what he does in the book. With that said, I still think Crowley actually started out being the more hopeful character than Aziraphale. Crowley started out believing that they could in fact do something about Armageddon. Aziraphale started out believing it was not possible. He wasn’t so much faithful as resigned and choosing to believe that Heaven’s vision for the world would be good because all the other options didn’t bear thinking about.

But Crowley was able to make him believe that they did have control over their fate. It’s not really The Sound of Music that convinced Aziraphale to join The Arrangement v. 2 and godfather the Antichrist with Crowley. That and hours of conversation and alcohol and needling got him to admit out loud that he didn’t want Armageddon, and yes, that’s always the first step. But he was still saying “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t” (and he was extra distraught to boot because he just brought all this despair to the surface). The thing that convinced him to take action was the realization that Armageddon might not actually have to be inevitable and it might even be possible for him personally to interfere with it.

Even afterward, though, Aziraphale’s technique is to remain as compliant as possible. He believed that if he just tried hard enough he could change a corrupt system from within. He thinks he’ll harness Heaven’s influence to do good things, even if the origin of that influence is fucked up. Only when the Metatron tells him that Heaven will never cancel the war does he realize that, much like oppressive systems in real life, Heaven exists only to serve its own interests, it does not care one bit about compassion, and the changes needed to make improvements (in this case, literally saving the world) will not and cannot be made through actions that preserve the status quo.

The power within a corrupt system CAN be used to make change, but that power has to be used against the system itself, which will weaken it. We see Aziraphale and Crowley doing this on the airbase, using the power of Heaven and Hell’s confidence in the Great Plan to shake Heaven and Hell’s own foundations. And the body swap is a nice little example of characters infiltrating their oppressive systems but not complying with the rules, giving each of them unique protections and further shaking the systems from within.

[bbq-hawks-wings]

Series Review Pt. 2/3

Part One

Part Three

Continuing the trend, lots to read under the cut.

In part one we established that the central conflict of the series as a whole is not so much a black and white “good guys side vs bad guys side” but of a much more complex societal problem stemming from individual choices and series of choices made by individual people and the impact those choices have on others. This is the heart of the current conflict between Hawks and Twice.

Twice and Hawks share many things in common and have been shown to develop a genuine friendship in their shared time in the PLF. This, however, has not changed the fact that they are still functioning from opposite sides of the central conflict - at least the institutional facet of it. Each of them has taken up a position fundamentally opposed to the other in attempts to bring about their prospective “big picture” futures, but that comes with the added emotional baggage each carries from the events that have happened to them in their respective pasts.

The visual direction of the scene enforces this concept. Each one is seeing the other literally from a different angle and in a different light. Twice is on the ground prone in a room where the only exit is blocked while Hawks stands alert and at attention over him, obscuring the only source of light entering the room. 

From Twice’s perspective Hawks’ face is obscured- the harsh light from behind casting a dark shadow across any features that would clue him into what Hawks is feeling - and he has to use the context clues he has available (posture, words, immediate events) through tears and adrenaline to interpret how to respond to Hawks. He’s been so suddenly thrust into this situation he literally and metaphorically can’t properly tell which way is up from where he lies. (Note how Hawks’ silhouette is sideways and looming over him in the same direction as Twice would be seeing from his place on the ground on page 13.)

From Hawks’ perspective Twice is knocked off balance and panicking like a cornered animal, completely unaware of the larger situation at hand and how they arrived here. When the perspective of the camera shifts and we can see his face again for the first time we get a completely different picture of what’s going on. Importantly, we can see in the change in perspective a closeup (usually used to highlight the key emotion) of Hawks’ face, complete with a somber and compassionate gaze that Twice is incapable of discerning right now.

Read this section through again twice. The first time use only the frame from Twice’s perspective and the second time read it with Hawks’. This is something I’m actually intrigued to see the anime handle because depending how deep the divergence in perspective goes, even the vocal performance may be different depending on the camera angle.

Twice sees a sociopathic, unempathetic monster who has used, abused, and thrown away his sincere offer of friendship to get what he wants and then has the audacity to try to convince him to play the fool again to get Twice to betray his friends for an easy way out. Hawks sees a person who feels betrayed and scared so Hawks is trying sincerely to explain to him what has been going on in order to be transparent because that’s the only way he can think to communicate the fact that he still values Twice, ending on the note that he believes that while Twice has crimes to answer for, he is still a good person who deserves to have a real shot at a happy life and that Hawks is personally invested in making that a reality if he’s willing to take the offer and trust him.

Hawks is operating as an enforcing tool of the law, but while he believes that law is set in place for general stability and safety it takes a human to human connection and cooperation to save someone to whom the law is blind. On page 16 when he says, “I don’t want to fight you, Bubaigawara!” he’s identifying with him not as the villain Twice, but as a person with an identity and will separate from the personae he’s crafted for himself over the years. Hawks would probably use his own real name to try to hammer this point home if there was a way to naturally do it. If Bubaigawara continues to resist and fight Hawks cannot make the case to others that he deserves a second chance. 

The exact memory that comes to Hawks’ mind is Twice’s words, “Anyone who helps his friends can’t be all bad.” Hawks is trying to say in this scene, “I’m your friend! I’m trying to help you! I know you see me as the bad guy, but I want to be your hero so please let me save you the only way I know how! Please trust me!”

He needs the cooperation, but Twice resists and Hawks has no other choice but to operate as law enforcement for the sake of the greater good. Twice has chosen to be a “villain,” so Hawks has to be a “hero.” All those feathers were for Twice in the case Hawks needed them, and now Hawks has to subdue the Sad Man’s Parade alone as well as Dabi whom neither knows is on the way.

That’s the bad news, but the good news is that hope is not lost. 

This is where I repeat my mantra of “we won’t know specific, individual fates until they happen." However, I think there are notable observations to keep in mind as we watch these final battles unfold.

Coming off of the discussion with Twice and Hawks, many including myself (and arguably even Twice) have gotten hung up on whether Hawks will choose to join the League eventually. Where we are now, I think it’s become a moot point almost not worth discussion anymore. If he does, we’ll see it soon; but Hawks seems to recognize that as long as the core complaints of the individual League members - and any of their sympathizers, for that matter - are not directly addressed, some other criminal force will come alongside and clash with them continuing the cycle of bloodshed and violence as influential leaders focus on gaining power until they are absorbed or achieve their end goal of complete anarchy and societal destruction. (Remember, he’s been following the League and their movements at least as far back as Kamino.) We saw it with the MLA, we saw it with the Shie Hassaikai, and even with Stain - along with the League of Villains, it began with a guerrilla group of revolutionists seeking to right a societal injustice; but if and when a separate opposing force of revolutionist outsiders cannot agree with them a battle ensues until one is subjugated and the strength of the loser is granted to the victor. Until the underlying issues are addressed, this cycle will only continue.

This is also to bring up the fact that the League of Villains is genuinely strong in terms of interpersonal loyalty but as an organization with foundational core values and a unified end goal has been fractured and shaky since the beginning. We saw those particular cracks most prominently just before the fight with Gigantomachia when lack of outer conflict began to highlight the inherent lack of unity in the LoV, only to be interrupted once again when some outside force stirred up a reason for them to work together for survival. Remember, all of the current members of the League of Villains were initially attracted and recruited because Shigaraki falsely appropriated Stain’s ideology. Dabi has stated he wants a world where heroes are obligated to their families first and that thinking of the misery he’s left the survivors of killed heroes “drives him crazy.” Toga wants a world where she has a network of unconditional support without feeling repressed. Twice wants a world in which he can trust others and be trusted and useful despite his bad luck and occasional mistakes. Spinner has clarified he needs a cause to believe in and fight for that supports outcasts like him, and Mr. Compress’s reasons for joining the League are simply to challenge the current status quo instead of mindlessly embracing it.

Shigaraki’s nihilistic dystopia of “burn everything to the ground” is not necessary to achieve any of these goals, and if enough confidence in alternative solutions and doubts in Shiguraki’s loyalty grows in the minds of each member of the League it could genuinely fall apart at the seams, though that isn’t to say that the League isn’t an incredibly tight knit and loyal group - quite the opposite, they’ve constantly shown to be willing to risk life and limb for each others’ sake - just that they’re more concerned with tearing down the current order than restructuring a cohesive new one. However, if the context around their unity has genuinely shifted to center around Shigaraki himself as a symbolic leader as it's been implied since the fight with Gigantomachia and the MLA, this will be clarified very quickly.

Even for most other villains we’ve encountered through the series this violence-first upheaval of society is not necessary to realize most of their goals. Gentle Criminal sought to shake up heroes’ apathy and overconfidence in their strength - La Brava following him closely because of her unwavering loyalty to him as a person - and even Stain was not opposed to the concept of heroes, just an institution of heroism that breeds greed and apathy instead of elevating the ideals of heroism. 

There have been exceptions like the Shie Hassaikai (who sought a complete erasure of quirks from the human genome) and the initial ideology of the Meta Liberation Army (a world ruled by the strong with completely unimpeded use of quirks) that would have required an entire shift in society on a cultural, governmental, legislative, and economic level; but for most the heart of their issues with society is an issue of the heart - that is, a cultural shift is necessary first and foremost to alleviate the problems each of these criticisms address.

This drastic but necessary change has been difficult to achieve up until this point because most of the mouthpieces for these cultural criticisms are either not weighty enough to carry traction without the threat of violence or are held by those motivated by personal vengeance who are not guaranteed to sit and talk  about peaceful options even if the opportunity was presented to them. The “outsiders” are so deeply ostracized in the current social and political climate that they can’t get a word in edgewise to those “inside” who go mostly unaffected by the shortcomings the outcasts are attempting to bring to light. This is where the series’ proposed solution enters the stage.

[berniesrevolution]

IN THESE TIMES

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s decision to not seek a third term has sent the city’s political and business communities into a speculative frenzy. While Chicago’s financial elite is preoccupied with the potential threat to business as usual, politicians and activists across the city are asking who should run—and who can win.

But for progressives who want to see fundamental change in Chicago, Emanuel’s exit must spark something bigger than the campaign of any individual mayoral candidate—it must inspire the people of Chicago to transform our city from the bottom up.

When previous mayor Richard M. Daley announced his retirement in 2010, the air was filled with talk of a non-machine candidate shaking up the status quo. Yet missing from the conversation was a firm vision of the Chicago progressives want to see—one that could bring together the diverse voices we want represented in city government.

We have a chance to do things differently this time around. Emanuel’s decision presents an opportunity for those of us who care deeply about Chicago to imagine a city free of corporate Democratic control; a city that is implementing bold policies—demanded by social movements—that act as a counterweight to the right-wing agenda coming out of Washington, DC.

While Chicagoans are eager to resist President Trump, the city’s corporate Democratic establishment continues to push through many of the very policies being pursued by the Trump administration.

Trump’s agenda to defund and privatize public education—seen most clearly in the appointment of Betsy DeVos, a Secretary of Education who once called traditional public education a “dead end”—is reflected in Emanuel’s protracted assault on public ed and the Chicago Teachers Union. Three years prior to Trump’s election, Emanuel, with the support of the rubber-stamp City Council, forced through the historically unprecedented closure of 50 public schools.

The president’s “law and order” plans to militarize the police, along with his inhumane, heart-wrenching immigration policies are also reflected in Chicago. Prior to Trump, Emanuel faced perhaps the largest scandal of his mayoral career with the alleged cover-up of the murder of Laquan McDonald. Under his watch, the police department has been a hotbed of abuse and discrimination.

And though Emanuel and many of his loyal City Council members posture as pro-immigrant, they have so far refused to remove the carve-outs from Chicago’s sanctuary city ordinance—carve-outs that ensure the city’s ongoing collaboration with Trump’s deportation regime.

Moreover, Trump’s egregious tax cuts for the rich are a magnified version of City Hall’s economic development agenda, which doles out tax breaks for big corporations and developers—and austerity for the rest of us. Compare the lavish deals readied for Amazon and Sterling Bay with the unmet needs in the classrooms of Chicago’s public schools.

For Chicago progressives eager to transform Chicago and resist Trump, the 2019 election presents a critical opportunity. We can win the city we deserve and fight back against Trump’s agenda by supporting and electing candidates committed to policies that serve as a bold, progressive alternative to Trumpism and the neoliberal status quo. Such bold policies would protect immigrants, fully fund our neighborhood public schools, end the criminalization of Black and Brown communities, and fully fund city services by taxing the rich and ending corporate welfare.

At the national level, progressives have been successful in resisting Trump and winning elections by moving beyond blustery rhetoric against the president and supporting bold demands that are backed by mass social movements. Movements and candidates calling for a $15 minimum wage, the abolition of ICE, Medicare for All, free college tuition, and criminal justice reform are moving beyond saying “no” to Trump. They’re putting forward their own progressive agenda—one made up of policies that are wildly popular. A recent Reuters’ poll found 60 percent of Americans support free college tuition, and 70 percent support Medicare for All. It’s no surprise that champions of these issues are winning at the ballot box.

Chicago’s progressives should seek to replicate this national model of success by presenting our own bold demands that present a clear alternative to both the current City Hall status quo and Trump’s White House. We don’t have to pay a consultant to construct our agenda for 2019, we simply need to listen to the demands of working-class Chicagoans of all backgrounds organizing for change. Here are ten proposals pushed by grassroots movements that should make up the foundation of a progressive 2019 platform for Chicago:

Free the Funds and Tax the Rich. Fund our public schools, pensions, mental health clinics and city services by taxing the rich and ending handouts to corporations. This means eliminating Tax Increment Finance districts that benefit the wealthy while reinstating the corporate head tax and instituting a downtown commercial rent tax. We also need to make our money work for us, not Wall Street bankers, by creating a publicly-owned Bank of Chicago with the $80 billion in assets and pension funds controlled by the city and sister agencies.

No Cop Academy. 

Keep our communities safe and help end gun violence, not by spending $95 million on a new facility for the police—as Emanuel has proposed—but by investing in jobs, education, after-school programs and mental health services.

ERSB Now and No More Charters. 

Finally reinstitute an elected, representative school board (ERSB) for Chicago Public Schools, and put a moratorium on the construction of new charter schools.

CPAC Now. 

End racist policing and institute real police accountability through an all elected Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC) empowered to hold officers to account and democratically decide how our communities are policed.

Lift The Ban and Just Cause For Eviction. 

Lift the ban on rent control in Chicago to reign in skyrocketing rents and pass just cause for evictions to stop the displacement of Black, Brown and working-class Chicagoans of all backgrounds from rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods.

Erase The Database and Abolish ICE. 

Eliminate Chicago’s unconstitutional “gang database” that is arbitrary, overly inclusive, riddled with false information and serves as a list of Black and Brown people who will be targeted for incarceration and deportation. Remove the carve-outs from Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance that allow the city to work with ICE to deport undocumented immigrants.

Homes For All. 

Preserve and expand affordable housing across all Chicago neighborhoods by bringing oversight and transparency to the Chicago Housing Authority and require CHA to maintain public housing units on a one-for-one basis in future redevelopments.

(Continue Reading)

[pass-the-bechdel]

Brooklyn Nine-Nine season three full review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

73.91% (seventeen of twenty-three).

What is the average percentage per episode of female characters with names and lines?

33.21%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Three (episode three ‘Boyle’s Hunch’ (41.66%), episode eleven ‘Hostage Situation’ (45.45%), and episode twenty-one ‘Maximum Security’ (40%)).

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Zero.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Eighteen. Seven who appeared in more than one episode, three who appeared in at least half the episodes, and three who appeared in every episode.

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Forty-eight. Eleven who appeared in more than one episode, six who appeared in at least half the episodes, and four who appeared in every episode.

Positive Content Status:

Nothing bad, but nothing particularly impressive either, which is a let-down for this show. It has encouraged its audience to expect a higher standard (average rating of 3).

General Season Quality:

Messy. Not disastrous, but not quite the sure thing it felt like it was in the first two seasons. It’s still a good time, but it feels unfocused and occasionally tone-deaf.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

Well, the good news is that despite the stats not being as good as I hoped they might be for this show, they are an improvement on the first and second seasons, albeit a negligible one. Something is better than nothing. Not that the something we got was that dire; I’m just not really sure what to say about it, in the end. I said it was messy, and I meant it.

The season started out ok, with the status quo all changed up, Holt in the PR division, the Vulture in the Nine-nine. I do think it was a good move, not dragging out that set up for too long, but they had good fun with it for the few episodes that it lasted, and most importantly, they milked some great character/relationship fodder out of it, proving that it wasn’t just a bang-and-bluster idea to close out the second season, with no real fallout on the other side. As much as we both want our Captain back and can feel fairly sure that we’ll get him, delivering on that and returning to the status quo within the first episode or two of the season would have cheapened the event. A handful of episodes of hardship followed by an emotionally satisfying sacrifice to restore the natural order is much, much better. It’s not about shocking twists, it’s about character arcs, and the journey to Holt’s reinstatement was a quality one that enhanced the personal and combined narratives of Holt, Jake, and Amy. Unfortunately, it seems like the quality journeys and character-enhancing narratives kinda stopped there.

Obviously, various other events took place after that arc concluded, and many opened up new avenues of exploration for our characters. The problem is the consistency of that exploration, or rather, the lack of it. The personal lives and narratives of the characters seemed to be on-again, off-again, there was little sense of them as developing events that remain in play even when they’re not actively on screen. For example: there’s no forgetting that Terry has twin girls at home in the first two seasons, even though the kids and his wife are almost never on screen. Terry mentions them often, he has sub-plots relevant to his home life even if the home life itself isn’t depicted, and even when there’s no explicit evidence that he’s a family man, it remains present in his personality; he’s responsible and settled, he’s not on the dating scene, he’s a paternal presence for the rest of the squad, etc. There’s a consistent image of Terry Jeffords that maintains our memory of his personal details even when they’re not active elements of his on-screen behaviour or plots. The fact that he just welcomed a third child this season, however? Easily forgotten. It almost never comes up at all. A major change like that SHOULD be reflected in his character (Terry is extra tired lately; Terry is taking extra shifts for the money OR Terry is avoiding working overtime so that he can get home to help with the family; Terry is more stressed; Terry is extra friendly because he’s full of familial love and it’s overflowing into his work life). Normally, these are exactly the sorts of things that would be incorporated into subplots that allow us to explore different facets of the character, thereby reinforcing the audience’s retention of new character details while also allowing the character to get into whatever fun little not-necessarily-meaningful shenanigans the plot wants of them. This season frequently lacked this kind of basic character consistency, using characters for random not-necessarily-meaningful shenanigans that could have happened at any time in the series, or with any character. WHO is involved becomes irrelevant, because their personality isn’t being used to enhance the plot, there’s nothing being continued or fleshed out or just reinforced in the audience’s memory, and that leaves us with nothing much to hold on to. Stuff happened, and maybe it was fun in the moment, but you forget it almost as soon as it leaves the screen.

The consequence of a lack of character engagement - not the same thing as just having the character’s be present - is that disjointed effect that I complained about regularly across the season as I struggled with subplots that I frequently forgot were happening even mid-episode, despite the fact that conceptually at least, they were fun ideas. Nothing was using the characters properly, and so their personalities seemed to be shelved whenever they weren’t being handed specific single-episode personal content, and the consequence of THAT was that sometimes even when the characters were ‘on’, they felt off, forced, awkward, because their behaviour wasn’t consistent with what it had been the previous episode when they were given some meaningless subplot that existed for no other reason than to make sure all the actors earned their paychecks week by week. And that’s part of the problem, again: shenanigans written not for character, but just to fill space, just to give whoever isn’t involved in the central plot of the episode something to do in the meantime. They were much, much better at making the narratives flow together in the first two seasons, so that even perfunctory busy-work subplots didn’t FEEL like perfunctory busy-work subplots. Again, the key to that was character engagement, not just character presence. The shenanigans should be driven by the personalities of the characters; if the personalities of the characters are being molded to facilitate a shenanigan, you’re getting character presence, not engagement. 

AND THEN THERE WAS PIMENTO. As I noted while watching the episodes, both the dude and the plot he brought with him were erratic, sometimes super serious, high-stakes, and not funny, and sometimes slapsticky weird-for-the-sake-of-it comedy, and the tonal back and forth was a mess. There were aspects of Pimento’s very clear need for intensive therapy which I was not comfortable seeing as the butt of a joke, and of course the whole plot of FBI moles and witness protection which brought us to our season finale and the status quo shake-up coming in to next season was a cut entirely above what the show had served us previously. At mid-season, they did their very own Die Hard episode, and I was delighted by how they balanced the action-movie-style jeopardy with the show’s traditional comedic flavour. The Pimento episodes and the story that followed was still fun, still good watching, and it was some of the most character-consistent and engaged plotting they had turned in over a very patchy season, but it also set a strange precedent on a wobbly foundation. I’m not sure the show can sustain this level of serious intrigue, or that it intends to, and my concern is that it’s hard to back off from something like this and return to being irreverent without leaving a weird dark cloud over the show. Pimento and his game-changer narrative came out of nowhere, meaning that even when it was good, it was out of place, and I’m not sure what else I can say about that until I’ve seen how it plays out in season four. It just feels kinda like no one was paying that much attention to what kind of stories they were telling in this season, or how it was hanging together, or whether or not individual characters were having meaningful narratives that continued to impact their lives in large or small ways as time went by, the way that normal things do. I guess my wish-list for season four is looking pretty clear at this point. Nine-nine?

[jamesnelsonart]

Batman: White Knight Review

Folks, I can’t always let you know when a comic is bad. I don’t have the energy. A lot of bad comics are created every day, and to catalogue the reasons why Action comics issue 724342 didn’t appeal to me would be an exercise in futility and pain. No, when I see a bad comic usually the most it’s guilty of is being boring or not making a lot of sense and maybe the art isn’t put together very well. So I just ignore said media if I don’t like it. Maybe I’ll joke about it a bit with friends, but why spend my life on such things? You already know where this shit is going-- I’m about to break my code here. Every now and then, I discover something uniquely bad. It’s bad in a way I never could have even considered. It’s bad in a way that demands my attention, and I simply have to think about it, and then share my pain with others. That comic book is Batman: White Knight, and boy does it blow.

It’s honestly hard to tell where to begin with this review because if you think about any bad part of this book for more than one minute you’ll immediately be reminded of another bad part that relates to the first bad part, and so on and so on. It’s an interconnected network of bad. A true spider web of shit, full of parts all intersecting into an intricately dumb design. A painstakingly-made pyramid of poop, with each brick being laid as the foundation for something even worse than what came before it. I suppose I should start with the premise and work my way down from there.

What if, and hear me out here, what if the Joker became a good guy? And Batman… get this… was a bad guy??????? That’s the whole gist of Batman: White Knight. The white knight in the title is Joker, because he is a very pale dude from that chemical bath he took in his origin story. So that’s the premise. You understand the title. Now usually in superhero comics a shake-up like this might last for about a year before a return to the status quo, but White Knight takes place in an alternate universe, so write/artist Sean Gordon Murphy has the opportunity to make some big changes that will stick since there’s no worry about it impacting the main DC universe. Characters have the potential to die for good or change permanently here, and with the idea of the Joker becoming good you could get a pretty wild story here with some twists and turns. So why the fuck does nothing happen in this story!? Oh sure, this is a comic so actions do indeed occur. Events take place across a series of panels as they do in all sequential storytelling… But damn, this comic is a whole lot of nothing! It positions itself as a big shakeup, Batman as you’ve never seen him before! Only, it isn’t. This story is the safest fucking thing I’ve read disguised as an edgy, you-didn’t-see-that-coming, no-one-is-safe story. In some ways it’s funny, kind of like that Joker. But the only joke here is that I wasted my time reading this shit.

The story starts with Batman pursuing the Joker in his Batmobile, causing tons of property damage and hurting some innocent bystanders. Nightwing and Barbara are with Batman and are upset that they can’t reel in his dangerous impulses. Batman chases the Joker into a pharmaceutical factory where the Joker does his Joker speech. You know the one. The speech every writer ever feels that they have to write for the Joker, as if it adds something to his character. The Joker speech basically has the Joker go on about how he and Batman are polar opposites blah blah blah and how the Joker, in his own twisted way, has some affection for Batman and then Batman will be like NO and punch him or something. Hey, subtext works a lot better when it, y’know, remains subtext and not outright actual text. So Batman gets real riled up here and force-feeds the Joker a ton of pills while someone films him doing this and posts it on the internet. This combination of pills makes the Joker not be psychotic anymore (this is dumb as hell, but the rest of the comic is way dumber so you’d be surprised how the lowered standards allowed me to just roll with this) So this Batman is a pretty rude guy, being down with needless violence, and about as smart as a sack or bricks, but it’s an alternate universe, right? Characters are supposed to be different. Yeah… about that-- when doing an alternate universe it helps to have your universe be well-defined. This is especially important if it’s already similar to the main DC universe. The reader is left unsure as to what has or hasn’t happened in the past. Did the Joker ever commit any mass murder in this timeline? We don’t really know. The Joker has had a lot of incarnations so it’s kind of important to know how evil he is if he’s gonna become a good guy. If he’s committed numerous atrocities then I can understand a lot of peoples’ skepticism to him being good guy. Or was he some guy throwing pies at peoples’ faces and defacing property? Already none of this shit makes any sense if you stop to think about it but I have to keep going or this review will never get around to bashing the important stuff, like everything else about this book.

So the Joker’s mental stability is restored (which somehow also changes his bleached-white skin and green hair back to normal, those pills must have been wild) and he becomes a super-genius and decides to fight Batman’s brutality, and by extension the Gotham Police Department’s brutality. He’s done telling jokes now, he’s now the Woker(ok he never gets called that, but it would’ve been funny if that happened). And with his genius intellect unrestricted by his unstable personality he is now free to… sue the city. Damn, that’s exciting. I feel I should stop here and say there’s a reason the Joker is a fairly static character, and that’s because he works perfectly fine as a clown with a Batman obsession who does crimes and has some good zingers. Those are the interesting things about him, so when you remove all of those traits you’re left with a pretty boring character. What is the Joker without any of his personality or Joker-ness? Just some guy. And that guy is the protagonist of the story now… great. The other characters don’t fare much better. They all act extremely stupid, wildly out-of-character, or perform actions that conflict with prior information the reader has been given about them. Batman does no detective work, largely having the plot fed to him by other characters and falling into every trap imaginable. He can only ever react to situations. Harvey Bullock is deriding Batman for brutalizing the Joker and seems very anti-police brutality, yet later is arresting a black activist, blatantly escalating a situation where there was no violence. Barbara Gordon is hanging out chatting with Mr. Freeze (who appears to be a nicer guy in this continuity) and spills the beans about her secret identity, then is shocked to realize that she’s been wearing her Batgirl costume, thus revealing her name! Why is she so dumb!? Why on earth would she want to talk to Mr. Freeze in her civilian identity, huh? They were in the Bat Cave when this happened, so suit or not, it’d be pretty obvious that the girl in the Bat Cave is Batgirl. What the fuck? See what I mean when I say it’s hard to know where to start and end with bashing this shit? I mean this was like a 2-panel thing. Everything leads into everything else because nothing was thought through or considered while writing this comic so events happen just because they have to in order to move events along, character motivation or personality be dammed. And what happens is… not much if you really analyze the sequence of events in the story. Joker gets better, sues the city, participates in a march against Police corruption/brutality and decides to run for mayor. Batman gets mad about this. Joker then discovers a slush fund that is used to repair all the damage Batman does to the city and exposes it to the public. As a mayoral candidate, Joker proposes using this slush fund to instead heavily arm the police. Doesn’t this kind of contradict his anti-police brutality sentiments by offering the department numerous tanks to drive around in? Ah, fuck it. I doubt any part of this is thought through or any narrative dissonance considered so I’ll just keep going. And that’s… all the Joker does. Well, he does do one more thing. He decides to start dating Harley Quinn. And if I’m gonna talk about the characters, I mean REALLY talk about the characters, I’m gonna have to talk about Harley Quinn. Or rather, the Harley Quinn…s. Plural.

I should preface this by saying it’s pretty clear Sean Gordon Murphy is a fan of Batman the Animated Series. It is good, so who can blame him? What gets weird is he inserts a ton of TAS-centric stuff into White Knight in a way that feels arrogant. He knows what is best for Batman, no one else. So why do I feel this way about his writing here? Because the Joker goes home and is greeted by a Harley Quinn who is like “Wow, can’t wait to have tons of sex and kill a ton of people with you again! My favorite hobbies are not wearing a lot of clothes, staying evil, and being an unpopular New 52 redesign!” Then the revelation comes, the OLD Harley Quinn shows up in her TAS jester outfit and derides the new one as a big tiddy bimbo (not joking about that, her dialogue is actually deriding her for having large breasts and not being a good role model lmao) and says that she will resume her relationship with the Joker now, because he respects women (you really gonna do Poison Ivy like that? Smh). As we all know, when you think an abusive partner has changed, you should definitely restart your relationship with them. This has never, ever backfired in the history of the universe. But back to the point-- in fairness the New 52 Harley did suck, but I don’t know why this whole thing is even in the story. Haha, I’m joking! I know why! It’s because Sean Gordon Murphy probably realized that he needed an antagonist to make some action happen because the story was clearly going nowhere! So the new, unpopular Harley goes off and swears she will return the Joker to his bad self, calling herself “Neo Joker”.  So how does someone with no resources or notable skills become the antagonist? Well don’t worry, the entire cast is very, very stupid and their agency is null and void, so if something needs to happen for this story to move along, it just happens.

Earlier in the story for the Joker to discover the slush fund he had to get the rest of the Batman rogues gallery to do it for him by stealing documents on it out of some building. How does he get every criminal in Gotham to do this for him? By inviting them all over and serving them drinks with bits of Clayface mixed in. You see, Joker used the Mad Hatter’s mind control tech on Clayface so it stands to reason that if you ate some of Clayface’s clay then the mind control would work on you by extension! It only sounds stupid because it IS stupid. I also gotta ask why the entire rogues gallery would accept drinks from the Joker… he’s kind of known for not playing well with others and, uh, frequently poisoning people. But again, these characters need to be dumb for the plot to happen. So Neo Joker discovers the control module thingy because the Joker just left it around (I assume the mind-controlled villains were just shitting their pants in the days leading up to this since they were all stored in a warehouse) so now she gets a villain army. And then she gets a giant freeze gun to use on Gotham City because in this universe Mr. Freeze’s dad was an ex-Nazi who came to America and built that and left it underground. No maintenance required after sitting around for decades, this baby’s ready to blast! So while all that was happening Batman went to jail, Joker let him out to help him with dealing with Neo Joker, and Alfred died. That might sound like things that happened, but let me be clear: nothing happened. Nothing happens this whole comic. Things appear to happen, but that is not the case, that is camouflage. Sure, Alfred dies, but Mr. Freeze starts helping Bruce, so one old man is replaced with another. Actually this is an upgrade, Mr. Freeze knows way more science shit so this new model is great! Batman is finally jailed for flaunting the law but then Joker releases him and reveals that he found out that Batman had been paying for the property damage fund, not the taxpayers! So Batman was a good guy all along! He was just being a brutal dick because Alfred was dying so it’s all in the past now. So if Batman was good all along then what was the fucking point of this comic? The premise is good Joker vs. evil Batman, until it isn’t. What was the point of ANY of the first part of this dumb ass book? But the reader isn’t supposed to think about that. To distract from the fact that there was apparently no conflict at all the Neo Joker starts making threats with her big freeze gun and villain army. So Good Batman and Good Joker gotta team up with the militarized police force to take her down! Yeehaw! But. There is a catch. The Joker’s mixture of meds is wearing off and he will revert soon! The classic ticking clock scenario—as bad as everything is, this should at least inject some tension into the story, right? Wrong. Joker reverts while he’s in the Batmobile with Batman, and then he’s like “I still wanna defeat Neo Joker for stealing my shtick.” So don’t worry, he’s still on your side, Batman. I’m kind of impressed that Sean Gordon Murphy took such an easy opportunity to add some stakes to this bland comic and was like NAHHH, FUCK THAT, I LIKE MY COMICS BAD. So the police ram the villain army with their tanks and uhhh not all of Batman’s villains have super powers you know… some are just regular-ass people. The Penguin gets fucking hit head-on with one of the tanks, how the hell did HE not die? Plus they’re all mind-controlled in the first place so that raises ethical questions as to how they’re being treated since they’re not willfully being evil right now but BATMAN IS GOOD OKAY? HE PAID FOR THE PROPERTY DAMAGE FUND SO IF HE SPLITS SOME FUCKIN SKULLS THAT’S JUST WHAT HE’S GOTTA DO YOU LITTLE BIIIIIIIIIITCH. DUE PROCESS… IS FOR CUCKS. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO DIE at this point in the comic I guess. Yawn… so at this point I think they all win or whatever. The freeze ray is stopped or something. Look, this part is kind of a blur. All you gotta know is Harley marries the Joker before he totally, totally reverts for real this time and gets sent back to Arkham. Then the dumbest thing Sean Gordon Murphy has ever written happens. And I read this book, so know that I do not say that lightly.

Near the start of the comic when Batman force-feeds Joker the pills it’s stated that this was all part of Joker’s master plan to get Batman to feed him pills that he just somehow knew would cure him and this would trigger Joker’s ultimate plan of… revealing the misallocation of taxpayer dollars? And he came up with this when he was still a bad guy, right? Huh? Well guess what, fuckos? It’s time for a fucking twist. Turns out the original Harley Quinn, who is Good and Pure and Keeps Her Clothes on except when I, Sean Gordon Murphy, draw her and the Joker fucking, is the one who planted the pills at that scene, as she reveals to Batman. Mind. Blown. No, really, my mind is blown as to why Sean thought this would add anything to his comic aside from more questions regarding the logistics of how she did that. How did she know which factory Batman would chase the Joker into at the start? How did she know Batman would force-feed the pills to the Joker? You’re not really a master planner if your plan relies on a ton of variables way out of your control. Then Batman is then like “wow that’s cool that you did that. this is why I always liked you more than the rest of my rogues gallery because I know you can do good things.” Yeah that’s right FUCK YOU Two-Face. Burned-ass bitch. You think YOU were the friend-turned-enemy who Batman hopes will one day turn good again? Wrong. It’s Harley. It’s ALWAYS been Harley. Then Batman reveals his secret identity to Commissioner Gordon and says he’s gonna be a cop in a blatant sequel hook. The threat of a sequel to this is scarier than any cliffhanger. Brr!

Ughhh, and you KNOW there’s gonna be a sequel, too. This can’t just end here. When I said I had to review this comic it was because most of the reviews say shit like “a bold new direction with a much-beloved property… DC, please don’t revoke my blog’s access.” This book demands a thrashing. It deserves to get laughed at, but everywhere I looked online people weren’t laughing. There was praise! Now look, Sean can draw a pretty picture so he has that going for him. And he’s also willing to kiss up to ComicsGate, a hate group populated by unskilled whiners, so that they’ll waste their money buying his bad book with pseudo-progressive politics. But I’m not here to insult Sean Gordon Murphy. This is a review, and I pledge to keep it focused on the comic. It would be unprofessional and rude to call Sean a gutless coward, or a worm, or a hack writer who just throws references around to create the illusion of lore, or a guy who condescends to trans writers and artist who get harassed daily about how they should just befriend their harassers, or a guy who thinks his inability to stick to a narrative theme makes his work deeper, or a guy who shits on indie creators in interviews because he works on Batman and they do not. No, that would all be mean to say, so you won’t hear me saying it.

I will give the comic this much, though. If you enjoyed All-Star Batman and Robin for how absolutely wacky it was, this book might be right up your alley. It fulfills that same feeling of viewing every panel and going “What the fuck? WHAT THE FUCK???” So if you like bad books, this book is for you.

[chrissciacca]

Adapting Walter Benjamin into Art Practice.

I am at a point where I have to come to terms with a few of the realities in my attempt to merge theory and practice. At the end of the day I am presenting "soundscapes" - a dubious concept and art form (sound recordings) in its past and current state. My fuel for trying something unique and challenging... where the practice is the research... is, in my opinion, the epistemological foundation of graduate research. What do the arts have to offer in terms of knowledge formation? Well, unfortunately not everyone will concede that art is even a small fraction as worthy as the sciences when it comes to this idea. Furthermore, I have raised the question - what would be the purpose of adapting such an enigmatic and complex, unfinished work such as The Arcades project into artistic practice? Not only that what does SOUND have to offer... a niche of a niche, underappreciated by most and dominated by our occulocentric culture.

Walter Benjamin took a unique approach to methodology because he wanted to SHOW the dialectic of the "golden age as hell" or "the new is the old is the old is the new" - not as an ostentatious display of theoretical theatrics. As Susan Buck-Morss points out The Arcades Project has "cognitive and politcal power." This is because he wanted the work to inspire real socio-political change in his lifetime.The real adaptation of The Arcades Project is better suited for looking at real world issues and not ego-driven artistry. My original concept was to look at commodity fetish, especially critical of modern-industrial bourgeoisie practice (of which I may be complicit - could I not also be using art to work this out for myself?)

The problem remains: an automatic reflexive reaction to anything conceptually difficult. Yes analysing the 900 plus pages of unfinished manuscript into a coherent theory is a major undertaking that can’t be summarised so succinctly. However I don’t think anyone is really barred from understanding it when put in perhaps “simpler” terms (frankly I think anyone can crack open The Arcades Project and skim through it to find something to relate to). Once again I recommend Susan Buck-Morss' superb interpretation/analysis. It does raise another concern I have, however.Can we not attempt to engage with complexity without concluding that complexity translates to vagueness? Is doing so automatically overwrought or overly conceptual? I don't believe so. I do think a level of complexity should be encouraged at this level. I am no philosopher but I certainly feel like Benjamin is a little more pragmatic and understandable than Kant and Hegel.Yet, I cannot expect anyone to engage with this text in their own free time and I cannot expect anyone to admire it either. Another question raised: how can one satisfy the "dialectical image" when Benjamin didn't satisfy "the dialectical image". This is about artistic treatement. While text is a language, so is sound, or images for that matter. I am translating the work into a different language. Things will be lost, but perhaps something will be gained. I am also defining it on my own terms. Terms and concepts I have tried clearly define myself (tensions - opposites).

I am working through this. I do not come with everything in a perfectly presented package - this is work, not perfection and this is not a cop-out for weak work. This is the beginning of a process. I understand in his own time Benjamin had his immediate detractors like Adorno... (not to mention traditional academic philosophy departments) yet a case is made that Adorno’s skepticism was off-base as Buck-Morss illustrates in “The Dialectics of Seeing”... he was not getting what Benjamin was doing - attempting to try something not one of his predecessors attempted to do, and not even Marx was trying to shake up history in the same way. I refuse to pigeonhole Benjamin with snap judgements of his "value" as a philosopher..."overrated" or "genius". This has nothing to do with some sort of hagiography for me. This is my attempt at an original work and concept.

As a unique work (as far as I know), this entire project feels as though I am at a loss to converse with other artists. I was really thrilled to discover another sound work adapting Benjamin. It was a relief to read Campbell Edinborough's thoughts on his Arcades Project through his piece: Being Human. A Roving Soul: Walking the City with Walter Benjamin.

QUOTE: When explaining to others that I wanted to adapt The Arcades Project, the looks I received suggested scepticism regarding the text’s suitability.

QUOTE: However, I would like to argue within this article that the method of dialectical analysis developed by Benjamin in the 1920s and 1930s can be used to establish a dramaturgical model that is relevant to participatory art and performance.

From here he has to go on defense as to why performance practice suits the dialectical image. So I take my cue. I think I can make a good case with the inherent dialectics in both the landscape concept (where soundscape is derived) and ethnographic/documentary film. This is why I'm writing a thesis and providing documentation for my practice.

QUOTE: ...Benjamin’s method sought out dialectical images that could hold opposing realities in dialogue.

Am I not trying to work with opposing realities in sound? I'm not sure I'm willing to go further in a defense if this basic premise is not capitulated to. Obviously there are degrees to success in adapting a multilayered concept such as the dialectical image, however if two oppositional soundscapes - of my chosing - are not obvious as ground zero then I'm not sure I will get far.

Is it that foreign and enigmatic if I changed the title to Yin/Yang?... but you see... the dialectical image is so much more than that and its created through a fascinating use of language - a language that is thought provoking and inspiring as potential grounds for artistic expression.

QUOTE: The Arcades Project is full of images and ideas that pull the reader’s attention in different directions in order to establish a productive space for questioning the ways in which our experience is shaped by the material world.

QUOTE: (This) dialectical reading of city space enabled Benjamin to perceive and articulate the tension between empowerment and disempowerment, poverty and wealth, public and private. In recognizing tensions within the images he collected Benjamin found a moment in which the construction of the present could be contextualized in relation to the past – perhaps illuminating lost choices passed over in the process of creating the status quo. In Benjamin’s thinking, when space is perceived dialectically it is no longer experienced as a single material point, but as one possibility within a constellation of historical and social options (Benjamin 2007: 253–64)

YES “one possibility”. It’s funny to work this out in a sound composition since I often find myself confronted with myriad was of editing and presenting the soundscape. There is often the feeling that it could go in so many equally stimulating directions. But are willing to conclude this is too lofty? This can't be shown? I have yet to hear a compelling argument. I am at the beginning of a process, not the end. If someone wants to come along and do this better than myself I welcome it. I can only give the best version as I see it... I have nothing invested in "solving" Benjamin but I do have an investment in keeping things critically engaging for myself and technically challenging (not that I believe technicality is inherently better). I'd rather grow in this way than repeat past success. Did a score of mathematicians fail at Fermats theorem? Again, lest I be caught aggrandising…I bet it was still time worth spending to some, even in failure.

[khalilhumam]

How an equitable place governance pilot in Boston is shifting power balances

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/how-an-equitable-place-governance-pilot-in-boston-is-shifting-power-balances/

How an equitable place governance pilot in Boston is shifting power balances

By Philip Barash Like many cities, Boston is a patchwork of neighborhoods, each with its own distinct character, commerce, and culture—and its own unique pressures. And like many of its coastal peers, Boston’s neighborhoods are shaped by the exigencies of the real estate sector. In the newly developed Seaport district, for instance, only three of its 660 mortgages are held by Black residents. The relentless pace of development has threatened the vibrancy of Boston’s main streets, community gardens, and creative districts. While these challenges are often viewed distinctly, at the Boston Foundation, we saw the economic, environmental, and cultural impacts of land development as interrelated and unequally distributed. So we sought a place-based theory of change that could be attuned to these neighborhood dynamics and committed to spatial justice.

The design

To harness development for community benefit, we first asked a key question: Who represents public interest in communities? “Community” is a slippery geographic and social notion. If it’s a physical geography, how is it bounded? If it’s a social construct, what is its membership? As a grantmaker, the Foundation had to settle a practical matter of intermediaries: Where exactly do we send the check? We ultimately determined that rather than investing in placemaking interventions, we would support the unglamorous work of place governance. We wanted to construe placemaking not as a series of actions, but as a set of dynamic political, economic, and social relationships organized within a specific geography. As partners and intermediaries in this work, we identified a continuum of place-based organizations such as parks conservancies, business improvement districts (BIDs), Main Street organizations, community development corporations (CDCs), and neighborhood clubs. Although these actors vary in mandate and models, they represent the public interest in the design, activation, and governance of shared places. They serve as stewards of social infrastructure. Yet, these organizations are often isolated from one another and lack a collective voice. We theorized that by convening them as a cluster, we could not only enhance their individual capacities, but contribute to a stronger, more networked field.

The selection

In May 2019, we released an open call to apply for the Place Leadership Network (PLN). PLN would convene a disparate field of “place leaders” in a peer-learning initiative and invest philanthropic resources into their ongoing impact. Participants would be compensated for their yearlong commitment and be eligible for unrestricted funding at the end of the year to support community-led placemaking and place-keeping agendas. We asked applicants to choose a team of three to participate in the network, but left it open as to whether they select staff, board members, unaffiliated community residents, or other partners. We received 40 applications, ranging from well-funded CDCs and conservancies to small cultural councils and garden clubs. We ultimately selected eight teams based on their curiosity, readiness for change, and, most importantly, their intentional focus on spatial justice. Five teams serve communities of color: the predominantly Afro-Caribbean Bowdoin Geneva, Roxbury’s Nubian Square, historic Chinatown, the Latin Quarter, and a community of South American residents in Salem’s El Punto neighborhood. Two teams maintain open-space networks that stitch together communities of varied socioeconomic profiles. The last—a BID-led consortium of creative organizations—oversees place-keeping in a diverse area with Cambridge’s largest public housing development, artist workspaces, and a sizable population of unhoused people. Seven of the eight teams are led by people of color, three by immigrants, and six by women. Half of the teams have organizational budgets under $250,000.

The learning experience

PLN centered on a peer-driven learning experience. For nine months, the cohort gathered for full-day sessions organized around themes such as urban design, policy, funding, and resilience. Each session included site visits to teams’ communities, readings, guest presentations, social activities, and shared meals. We initiated a partnership with the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), whose students provided technical assistance to PLN teams. We coordinated curricula so the students’ learning would parallel that of the cohort. Though this model had limitations, GSD students brought a great deal of value. We were anxious about how this partnership would affect the cohort dynamics, recognizing that our two institutions wield power and carry long legacies of injustices. (The cohort would rightly point out that philanthropy often exacerbates the problems it claims to solve.) Yet, another stated goal of PLN was to facilitate contact between place-based organizations and holders of institutional power. Over the course of the year, some 40 resource-holders—including state agency representatives, elected officials, academic thought leaders, real estate developers, urban planners, and others—participated in the initiative as guests. To varying degrees, these contacts enriched the cohort’s learning experience and expanded access to resources. Some encounters resulted in unexpected alliances, but not all were productive or well received. In some cases, the cohort was unsure if they were learning from the guests, or vice versa.

The pivot

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the pilot, but did not destroy it. The learning process had always been nimble, adapting as the group expressed its perspectives and preferences, and proved remarkably pandemic-proof. At the same time, PLN organizations’ work rapidly changed. Place-based organizations were thrust to the frontlines of public health, and the cohort immediately pivoted to sustaining the most critical social infrastructure of their places. Our group discussions changed accordingly. In March, public health expert Nineequa Blanding facilitated a virtual discussion about social determinants of health. Sociologist Eric Klinenberg shared his research on social cohesion in a time of physical isolation. In a December survey, participants told us that of all the PLN’s facets, what they valued most was being together. More than formal learning, more than access to resource-holders, more than technical assistance, they benefited from contact with one another. Through a period of immense pressures, the PLN cohort held strong. We remained in near-daily communication, organized group catchups, forwarded links, and scheduled individual wellness checks. As one participant put it, paradoxically, the pandemic couldn’t have come at a better time. It was a deeply emotional period, particularly as members suffered personal losses while struggling with their places’ challenges. But it was also a generative one: When the Central Square BID surveyed its district and compiled results into an advocacy presentation, the Asian Community Development Corporation rapidly replicated that approach, with Harvard GSD students helping to analyze and visualize data. At the same time, the Boston Foundation distributed $75,000 in grants through a COVID-19 relief fund to support the work of PLN teams. 

The funding

The most compelling evidence of the cohort’s new collective identity was in the distribution of grant funds at the conclusion of the program. We had initially imagined a grantmaking process along familiar lines: We would ask the cohort to submit applications, run them past an independent panel, and determine awards based on the panel’s recommendations. When we introduced this idea to the cohort, the Zoom checkerboard filled with disapproving shaking heads. Aren’t we here to cooperate, not compete? Isn’t this an opportunity to learn from one another? Shouldn’t we, in the prevailing spirit of PLN, self-determine the outcome? One participant suggested that if the cohort were to disagree with the Foundation’s decisions, they would redistribute the funding among themselves. They were right. Together, we rethought the grantmaking approach to foreground values of peer learning, mutual support, and equity. We removed the competition by guaranteeing substantial, equal funding to each team. Instead of an application, each team briefly reflected on their time in PLN; these reflections were shared among peers with space to comment and offer ideas or partnership. The cohort chose to reserve part of the funds to distribute among themselves, in a participatory grantmaking process driven by an equity rubric. These remaining funds went to those PLN organizations working with budget limitations in historically disinvested places.

The future

The Boston Foundation prides itself on incubating new ideas that challenge the status quo. Yet, as much as a foundation offers an ideal testing environment, the next iteration of place-based work must be community-driven and autonomously operated. PLN demonstrated that community leaders can fully, confidently, and justly shape the futures of their shared places. Through the months, we kept hearing a similar refrain from the cohort: If Boston has any hope of altering development dynamics to center community interest and spatial justice, we need to continue shifting the power balance. This kind of systemic shift requires a great deal more than a foundation. It requires a sustained conversation among policymakers, developers, lenders, planners, activists, and academics, with explicit leadership by community members themselves. It requires a venue for doing so and a commitment from institutions to supporting such a venue while allowing it plenty of independence. It requires the delicate and deeply vulnerable labor of repairing trust between communities and the professionals and agencies that serve them. Then—and only then—can Boston transform from a city designed by developers to one determined by communities.