#Communist media complex

[ahaura]

some quick resources with vital information and context about or related to Palestine (compiled Oct. 15)

[Video] Why Israel Deliberately Targets Civilians

[Thread] Zachary Foster, a Ph.d historian of Palestine, posted about the real history of Hamas

[Video] Double Down News covering the myth of "self defense"

[Video] Mohammed El-Kurd on 75 years of violence and oppression

[Thread] Abby Martin debunks the "human shield" excuse used by Israel to bomb civilians

[Video] Mohammed El-Kurd on media literacy, "DO NOT BE COMPLICIT IN GENOCIDE"

[Article] "Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza is quite explicit, open, and unashamed." - Raz Segal, associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University, in @JewishCurrents.

[Video] Mohammed El-Kurd on ABCNews

[Tweet] Reminder that just a few months ago Netanyahu brought a map to the UN of the “New Middle East” that effectively showed Israel annexing all of Palestine.

[Video] Michael Brooks breaking down how the situation with Palestine and Israel is "not complex"

[Video] Paul Murphy, Irish Parliment Member for People Before Profit, on Israel and Gaza

[Statistics] The Human Cost of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

[Video] Husam Zomlot: “It’s the Palestinians that are always expected to condemn themselves.”

[Map] An interactive map that details the history of "Conquer and divide", from 1967 onwards, via B'Tselem.

[Documentary] The Actions of Settlers in Hebron (Tel Rumeida)

[Video] Former CIA admit to lying about atrocities committed by Cubans. They admit they didn't know of a single atrocity done by the Cubans. "It was pure raw false propaganda to create an illusion of communists eating babies for breakfast."

[Documentary] Gaza Fights For Freedom (covers the IDF assassinating and maiming Palestinians in the peaceful March for Return in 2019)

[Video] Ghassan Kanafani’s famous interview

[Documentary] How Palestinians were expelled from their homes

[read-marx-and-lenin]

I learn from your page Holodomor is western propaganda. Is Chernobyl also?

The famine itself was not propaganda, the specific claim that it was a genocide of Ukrainians is (as well as the appellation "Holodomor", which was coined in the 80s to deliberately sound like "Holocaust" and further the "double genocide" myth.) There were plenty of people who died due to famine across the Soviet Union at the time. It was a tragedy for sure, but the idea that it was intentional or that grain was withheld from Ukraine is simply not true.

(Link to an article describing the flaws with the typical "Holodomor" narrative.)

Chernobyl is another real tragedy. However, there is plenty of misinformation about the extent of the disaster and its consequences. Not many people know that, for instance, the Chernobyl complex continued to operate and produce electricity for 15 years after the disaster, nearly 10 of those years occurring after the Soviet Union dissolved and Ukraine became independent.

(Link to a Reddit comment going into detail about myths surrounding the Chernobyl incident.)

The Western media is apt to exaggerate tragedies that occurred under communist-led governments in order to try and discredit communism as a movement. They do this to defend capitalism, which has no shortage of its own tragedies but is never held to the same standards as communism in the West.

[a-very-tired-jew]

Absolutely wild to see a Jewish blog on here that has historically called out antisemitic rhetoric in media, such as Disney and AoT, fully embrace that same rhetoric when it comes to Israel and Hamas.

But I also understand.

I won't call anyone out, but if you can spot the similarities in AoT to Nazi rhetoric about Jews, then you can sure as shit spot them in the rhetoric of Hamas and their allies. Willfully ignoring it because "Western Civ is Bad" is an indicator that you have been radicalized by that exact same rhetoric, except this time it's coming from people you like or share interests with.

My Left leaning shalomies, you have got to be careful. You may identify as a Democratic Socialist, a Socialist, or even some form of Communist, but that "West Civ is Bad" rhetoric and talking points you're repeating that you heard from your more radical Comrade comes coupled with thinly disguised antisemitism. They're using your dissatisfaction with the state of things here in the USA and other Western countries to spread Holocaust Inversion/Denial, spread blood libel, ZOG, and other such antisemitic conspiracies.

How do I know?

I'm in my late 30s. In my 20s I was an avowed anti-Zionist. But as time went on more and more of the rhetoric I was being told by other anti-Zionists didn't make sense. It was a lot of Bundist talking points about how the diaspora was always safer while also denying the well documented pogroms that had happened against us.

While also denying what happened to the Bundists in the USSR.

What happened to people like Benjamin Zuskin.

And so many others who argued that we were "safe".

It was the Holocaust Universalization mixed with Denial and Inversion. It was so many things that when you looked at them in a bigger picture they ended up contradicting themselves.

It was the denial that Nazis allied with various regimes in the MENA to blatantly kill Jews for simply existing.

It was the denial that antisemitism was actually not a big problem nor as pervasive as it actually is.

Simply put, after enough time, life experience, reading, and thinking it became very clear to me that I had been fed a line of bologna. They had played on my dissatisfaction with the USA and its past actions.

I legit had the line "Israel only exists as a modern day concentration camp to keep all the Jews in one place and then exterminate them later. Jews need to be dispersed around the world to keep them safe" as justification to be anti-Zionist thrown at me when I was younger.

And it made sense at the time. You're fed so much pro-USA material growing up that eventually you find out the narrative that the USA lies, that the UK lies, that the West lies all the time. So you look for alternatives, but you end up embracing propaganda from even worse sources that are downright authoritarian and trying to deny their own atrocities and bigotry by pointing at others. You honestly swing so far the other way on the pendulum that you embrace and repeat rhetoric without fully understanding the nuance and complexity of it all.

When I hit my 30s I realized I had been taken for a ride. A veritable rube if you will.

And I see this same pattern in a lot of younger anti-Zionist Jews in that same age bracket. It's the same dissatisfaction that is being manipulated into antisemitism under the guise of anti-Zionism. It's the denial that what they're saying is antisemitic because surely they, as Jews, know what that actually is, and even if it is, they can't be antisemitic because they're Jewish. Right? Right???

So I beseech you. When the rest of us are saying "hey, this is actually antisemitic" and you go "Um, actually... As a Jew..." please stop for a moment. Think why some of us would be pointing that out. It's not for Zionism sake or any other political ideology. It's because that hate fueled rhetoric hurts all of us and some of us have been in your exact same shoes.

So if you can see the antisemitism in something like AoT and Disney, then you can surely see it in these slogans, rhetoric, and actions of anti-Zionist activists. And if you don't...well hopefully this will make you stop and think.

[chic-beyond-the-wall-oc-acct]

So, project 2025 has been deleting their PDFs but a few lovely people have posted the list of books they want to ban and other than the fact that the entire list is stupid, here's some that stuck out to me + the reasons listed next to them. Most of the books on the list are lgbtq+ books which one would expect to find there, so I just did ones I didn't expect.

The Holy Bible - Challenged for religious beliefs and graphic content.

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin - Sexual violence, political intrigue.

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson - Death and religious content.

Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey - Toilet humor and "disobedience."

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak - Critique of the Russian Revolution.

Deadly Deceits by Ralph McGehee - Former CIA agent's critiques of the agency.

Emma by Jane Austen - Complex gender themes, social critique.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury - Censorship and media manipulation by the government.

Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling - Accusations of promoting witchcraft.

Howl by Allen Ginsberg - Explicit sexual content, anti-establishment themes

Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss - Concerns over violence against parents.

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez - Mental health, sexual content.

It's Perfectly Normal by Robie H. Harris - Sex education content.

It's So Amazing! by Robie H. Harris - Sex education content.

None Dare Call It Conspiracy by Gary Allen - Discusses alleged hidden global power structure.

None Dare Call It Treason by John A. Stormer - Anti-communist and conspiracy-focused.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - Critique of Soviet labor camps.

Operation Paperclip by Annie Jacobsen - Exposes secret U.S. program involving former Nazis.

My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier - Violence, anti-war themes.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt vonnegut- Anti-war themes.

Spycatcher by Peter Wright - Ex-MI5 agent's account of intelligence operations.

The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama - Criticism of religion, perceived political messages.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin - Female independence, sexuality.

The Book of Night Women by Marlon James - Slavery, graphic violence.

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede - Magic, feminism.

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein - Themes of selfishness, parenting.

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy - Examines class and caste issues in India.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - Critique of religious extremism and patriarchy.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas - Examines police violence and racial injustice

The Hunger Games Series by Suzanne Collins - Depicts oppressive government and rebellion.

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster - Political subtext, wordplay.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver - Critique of colonialism and missionary work.

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene - Critique of religion and political oppression

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle - Religious critique.

The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli - Seen as a critique of political ethics.

The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare - Often challenged for themes of submission of women in marriage.

Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer - Themes of violence, supernatural elements.

V for Vendetta by Alan Moore - Political rebellion, violence.

War is a Racket by Smedley D. Butler - Critique of war profiteering.

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein - Dark humor, "rebellious" themes.

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak - Themes of rebellion, dark imagery.

Where's Waldo? by Martin Handford - Alleged inappropriate illustrations.

White Noise by Don DeLillo - Critique of consumerism and modern society.

Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes - Feminist themes.

Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss - Seen as political allegory.

Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis - Critique of authority and societal norms.

[anarchywoofwoof]

on Martin Luther King Jr. day, here's a reminder of his words penned from the interior of a Birmingham, Alabama jail in 1963:

“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the White moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice.”

while liberals and self-proclaimed moderates will flock to social media today to post their MLK quotes and laud the achievements of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., it's important to keep in mind that Dr. King wasn't always popular with the average american. in the 1960s, public opinion was mixed until around 1966 when his popularity fell off a cliff.

and despite his starkly positive posthumous approval rating, one could argue that Dr. King would not be nearly as popular today if he was still among the living.

King was a strong critic of the Vietnam War and a fierce advocate for labor rights. he spent time in jail, was being followed by the FBI, was charged with having communist sympathies despite his outspoken criticism of the communist party, and was adamantly opposed to poverty and wealth disparity - he actually believed in a guaranteed income. in the modern world, he would not be praised for holding these views.

we do a disservice to Dr. King's legacy and all that he worked for when we choose to celebrate a sanitized version of him that is full of quotes taken out of context and nebulous ideals about peace and harmony; yes, he supported nonviolence when possible. however, as with everyone, his views and convictions changed and evolved with time. his notions about what constituted "resistance" were complex, disruptive, and often culminated in violence by those on opposing sides. furthermore, Dr. King was a staunch opponent of capitalism and the type of society that it creates.

when we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr Day, we celebrate the ideals that he championed. that includes the views that many people find scary and "radical" in today's world.

[pony32099]

Guo Wengui lied to hundreds of thousands of his online followers, promising them huge profits if they invested in GTV Media Group, Himalayan Farm Alliance, G| Club and Himalayan Exchange. Since at least March 2018, Guo Wengui has been the mastermind behind the complex financial scam, in which he and his financial adviser Kin Ming Je defrauded thousands of people and made more than $1 billion. Guo Wengui's success has a "cult" flavor. Calling believers in the name of "anti-communist", creating a community with closed information, while bullying or threatening to punish those who are not firm in their beliefs. After packaging himself as a "master" type of figure, it is natural to harvest the wealth of believers.

[txttletale]

i'm genuinely curious about your stance on the russia/ukraine conflict in its entirety, if you'd be willing to talk about it? your viewpoint sounds interesting based on the posts you just made but idk how to really ask about the complexities of it in particular

the russia/ukraine war is an interimperialist war between russia & the NATO bloc using ukraine as a proxy (hence why i compared it to the similarly inter-imperialist world war i). obviously first and foremost it is a horrendous tragedy for all the working-class people involved who have been killed, tortured, & displaced. on this blog i am more critical of the horrific neoliberal economic reforms, open state embrace (sometimes literally!) of neonazi paramilitary groups, intensification of ukrainian state repression, and blatant bloodthirsty militarism of ukraine's imperial sponsors than i am of russia's imperialism & war crimes because i am blogging on a majority-western website to a majority-western audience who are already being exposed to relentless media coverage about the russian atrocity de jour to manufacture consent for the constant escalation of military conflict (i talked about this a while ago).

ultimately it is best understood (like any war, or any foreign policy event in the history of humanity) as states on all sides amorally pursuing their own interests--in this case, as all states involved are bourgeois states, the interests of their national bourgeoise--which only rarely and tangentially align with the elementary well-being, let alone the interests, of any of the human lives at stake. a ceasefire and peace negotiations should be arrived at as soon as possible, and anti-imperialists and communists in both russia & the NATO bloc should be doing everything in their power to bring that moment closer by eroding consent and support for the war and obstructing the industries and insitutions that are allowing it to continue

[fruity-pontmercy]

Les Mis adaptations and apolitical appropriation

I think it's no secret on this blog that I love the original Les Mis 1980 concept album in French, and that I also love comparing different versions of the stage musical. I've noticed that Les Mis seems to get progressively more vaguely apolitical as time goes on, not only in the way it's viewed in our culture, but in the actual text as well.

It's natural for specifics to be lost in adaptation. It's easier to get people to care about 'the people vs. the king' in a relatively short musical rather than actually facing the audience with the absolute mess that were 19th century french politics (monarchist orleanists vs monarchist legitimists vs imperialist vs bonapartist democrats vs every flavour of republican imaginable). Still, I feel that as time goes on, as more revivals and adaptations of the stage musical come out, the more watered down its politics become. Like, Les Mis at it's core is just meant to be a fancily written, drawn out political essay, right?

In a way I feel that the 1980 concept album almost tried to modernise it with its symbols of progress. Yes, through Enjolras' infamous disco segment (and other similar allusions to the ideals of social change), but perhaps most interestingly to me, through one short line that threw me off when I first heard it, because it seems so insignificant, but might actually be the most explicitly leftist line of all of Les Mis.

"Son coeur vibrait à gauche et il le proclama" (roughly "His heart beat to the left and he proclaimed it" i.e: he was a leftist) Feuilly says, while speaking of the now dead général Lamarque in Les Amis de L'ABC.

What's that? An actual mention of leftism??? in MY vaguely progressive yet apolitical musical??? More seriously, this mention of leftism, clashing with the rest of the musical due to it's seeming anachronism, is interesting not because it's actually more political than anything else in Les Mis, rather, because it's not scared to explicitly name what it's trying to do.

But we've come a long way from the Concept Album days, it's been 43 years, and Les Misérables is now one of the most famous and beloved musicals in the entire world. It's been revived and reimagined and adapted in a million ways, in different mediums, in different languages and countries, and it's clear that it's changed along with it's audience.

On top of pointing out a cool line in my favourite version of the musical, I wanted to write this post to reflect on the perception of the political message of this work. We as a Les Mis fandom on Tumblr are very political, I don't need to tell you that, however, I feel that because this very left leaning space has sprung out of a work we all love so much, we oftentimes forget to revisit it from a more objective point of view.

Les Misérables has a history of being misrepresented, this has been true since it's publication, since american confederate soldiers became entranced with their censored translation Lee's Miserables. However, with it's musical adaptation, this misinterpretation has been made not only more accessible but also easier. As much as I love musical theatre and I think it is at it's best an incredible art form able to communicate complex themes visulally by the masses for the masses, I think it'd be idealistic to ignore the fact that the people who can afford to go see musicals regularly are, usually, not the common folk. Broadway and the West End are industries which, like most, need money to keep them afloat, and are loved people of all political backgrounds (and unfortunately, often older conservatives) not just communists on tumblr. We've seen the way Les Miz UK's social media team constantly misses the mark regarding different social issues, and the way Cameron Makintosh has used the musical to propagate his transphobia, and most of us can agree that these actions are in complete antithesis with the message of Les Misérables as a novel.

But I must ask, how does Les Mis ,as a West End musical in it's current form, actually drive a leftist message, and how are we as a community helping if every time someone relating to the musical messes up if we just claim they "don't get it"?

I'm thinking in particular of incidents like last october, where Just Stop Oil crashed Les Mis at the West End. Whether you think it's good activism or not is not the question I think, this instance is interesting particularly because it shows that, outside of Les Misérables analysis circles and fandom spaces, it is not recognised as an inherently leftist, political or activist work, and instead of just saying they completely missed the point of the musical, I think it'd be interesting to take a step back and look at what the musical as it stands actually represents in our culture today.

I don't pretend to have all the answers, so I won't try to give one, but I do hope we can reflect on this a bit.

[urdreamgirls-dreamgirl]

the duffers were heavily inspired by the cia’s secret operations called mkultra which targeted women, people of color, and poor people most heavily and completely destroyed their lives to experiment with torture tactics and “mind control” during the cold war, focusing heavily on experimental drug use and electroshock therapy. el’s mother in the show is a victim of mkultra and el is the product.

what the show fails to acknowledge and what would have been so fucking interesting for them to explore in a show abt GOVERNMENT CONSPIRACY is that mkultra was built on the intense and extensive manipulation of the american capitalist propaganda machine that instilled fear in americans of becoming victims of these very same brainwashing tactics the american government was experimenting with but at the hands of the “big bad scary communists.”

now, in the 21st century with the benefit of hindsight, we know that the american people were being manipulated and lied to by their own government abt the “dangers” of communism in an effort to manufacture consent for wars in vietnam, south america, afghanistan, etc. that allowed the us and us-backed military regimes to torture and execute millions of people associated with trade unions and leftist organizations. we killed che guevara, salvador allende, attempted assassinations on fidel castro, and facilitated the murders of millions of regular people to maintain the lie that communism is evil and a direct threat to the american people.

instead of exploring these themes they laid the groundwork for in season 1, the duffers succumbed to the pressure of the hollywood propaganda machine and the promise of continued funding and guaranteed marketing and viewership by creating characters like dr. sam owens in season 2 that allowed their audience to begin sympathizing with the us government and framing brenner as simply a “bad apple” within a system where people were just trying their best. brenner is evil and he’s a villain, but he’s no longer a representative of the us government but rather an extremist leading a covert cell of other extremists within the bureaucracy.

in doing this, the show allowed for the introduction in season three of the big bad communist boogey man in the form of the russian government/military and thus allowed stranger things to enter into a series of media products that, though seemingly unrelated & from different studios, nonetheless all work together to manufacture consent in the present-day for us wars abroad that claim to be protecting us from the perceived threat of “brainwashing,” “indoctrination,” and, in some instances, communism/threats to the capitalist machine (think specifically marvel and star wars). “the evil communists are doing this evil thing so we had no choice but to also do this evil thing” becomes the thesis of the show—the ends will eventually justify the means.

except that now it doesn’t. because to remain a part of the hollywood propaganda industry, the duffers have to sacrifice the themes they first established at the beginning of their show. they have to abandon any characters that offer a deviation from these new themes they’ve introduced. and it’s becoming apparent that the duffers lack the talent and the ability to execute complex storylines that go beyond what was introduced in the first season—perhaps they have the ability to conceive, but they lack the ability to follow through and it’s the very nature of the capitalist structure of the white male artistic genius that has now trapped them in this position—their inability to let go and let others take over the creative execution of their product will be their downfall as their series comes to a close.

[mariacallous]

The Sept. 1 elections in the two eastern German states of Saxony and Thuringia have hit Germany like a cyclone, delivering the strongest-ever turnout for an extreme right-wing party in the postwar era. In Saxony, the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) captured 31 percent, landing it narrowly behind the Christian Democrats (CDU), and in Thuringia, where the AfD is led by a twice-court-fined ideologue and outspoken neo-fascist named Björn Höcke, the party took 33 percent of the vote, the highest of any party, and thus also the mandate to form a government. The new populist party Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW)—a rightist offshoot of the Left Party that boasts anti-immigration planks and pro-Russian sympathies—landed in third place in both states.

Although it is unlikely that another party will partner up with the AfD in governance—they all say they refuse to do so—the results raise resounding questions for modern Germany. How can such an extreme hard-right party perform so well in postwar Germany, a country that, in both its eastern and western postwar incarnations, made preventing the return of a racist, authoritarian leadership its very raison d’être? Why is this phenomenon so pronounced and radical in the country’s east, the territory of former communist East Germany, almost 35 years after the Berlin Wall fell?

Germans are now asking: How could everything go so wrong? Several recently published books by German authors offer a reckoning—and some answers.

Proponents of eastern Germany, including literature scholar Dirk Oschmann and historian Katja Hoyer, authors of recent bestsellers blasting the overbearing West and those taking the West’s side—most of the mainstream media, including the leading weekly news magazine Der Spiegel—are practiced at lobbing rhetorical grenades at one another. On their own, these one-sided arguments miss the mark. But taken together, and combined with new material, they explain how the Germanies’ journey wound up such a wreck.

The cleft between eastern and western Germany—defined by the East’s extreme-right vote and preponderance of street violence, as well as the inability of the republic’s mainstream parties (with the exception of the CDU) to attract eastern members and votes—can be traced to the events following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today’s hard-right sympathies in the East are largely, though not exclusively, spiteful backlash against the one-sided terms of West Germany’s annexation of the East, the West’s demeaning treatment of the easterners, the indignity that the economic transition inflicted on many eastern Germans, and the legacy of a suffocating, repressive dictatorship on its former subjects and their successor generations.

Detlev Claussen, an emeritus sociologist from Frankfurt, hit the nail on the head: “The AfD is the East’s revenge on the West, which is blamed for all the upheavals after 1990,” he wrote in an email to Foreign Policy. “The party’s personnel are right-wing extremists, the electorate only partly so, although it too appears indifferent to the accusation of Nazism.” Claussen pointed out that populists’ top issues were migration and the Ukraine war, two topics that are not relevant to regional governance. Rather, another topic is almost always predominant behind them, one regularly laced into the rhetoric of both the AfD and BSW: the unfair, demeaning terms of unification and the terms of the transformation since then. “The essence of the far-right vote is resentment against the West,” Claussen wrote.

The AfD vote in the East is complex: The five eastern states aren’t a seething bastion of foaming-at-the-mouth neo-Nazis—although neo-Nazis are among them. German studies show that about 8 percent of Germans—on both sides of the country—firmly subscribe to hard-right, racist ideological worldviews with a large additional segment in a gray zone that might well sometimes—but not always—support the likes of a right-wing dictatorship, street violence against politicos, racist laws, and antisemitism, too.

The numbers aren’t that much different than in other European countries, though they are in Germany currently higher than at any time since the Nazi era, particularly among young people, and also higher in eastern Germany than western Germany. About half of AfD supporters in the East—roughly 15 percent of the voting population—are rightists hardcore enough to actually lionize—rather than just accept—Höcke, who employs thinly veiled neo-Nazi language, soft-pedals Germany’s World War II crimes, and wants to “remigrate” non-native Germans living in Germany to their origin countries.

This radical segment is extremely alarming and constitutes a menace for people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, Muslims, and leftist groupings, among others. They are the types who either perpetrate or condone far-right hate crimes, which have been on the rise for several years. Germany’s security services counted 25,660 such incidents in 2023. That’s an average of 70 a day Germany-wide and 22 percent more than in 2022. In May, a candidate for the Social Democrats was attacked and badly injured in Dresden, capital of Saxony, when pasting up EU election campaign posters. Experts say that this kind of violence hasn’t been so vicious since the 1990s, tagged today as “the baseball-bat years,” when pogrom-like attacks were carried out in the eastern states against migrants and others.

The 1990s is a good place to start to understand right-wing extremism in the East. The easterners had emerged from beneath the heavy hand of Soviet communism and were pleased to be rid of it, as well as welcoming to political and economic systems—liberal democracy and market capitalism—that they knew very little about. They were also unaware of how thoroughly the decades of authoritarian, militaristic education and indoctrination had penetrated their psyches and habits. East German communism was ethnically homogeneous and nothing if not narrow-minded; the very few non-Germans living in East Germany, such as African or Asian guest workers, reported regular abuse. When the wall fell, West German rightists—a generation before Höcke, who himself was born and raised in northwestern Germany—poured into the East to tap this raw energy and organize. When the easterners were confronted with refugee hostels in their communities in the 1990s, they often reacted with anger—and baseball bats.

One explanation of the racist violence and voting patterns today in the East lies in the 1949 to 1990 German Democratic Republic, and the values passed on from generation to generation. The young people today voting AfD and belonging to neo-Nazi street gangs are the children and grandchildren—or come from the same communities—of the bat swingers of the 1990s.

Today’s AfD hotspots are much the same as the sites of the 1990s’ violence. Over the years, one study after another has shown higher levels of racism and intolerance in the East, which the years of transformation have not diluted as the West’s implanted democracy teachers—university deans, politicos, foundation heads, CEOs, school principals, police chiefs—had intended and expected.

But the AfD phenomenon is more layered, since this explanation alone, broadly speaking, pertains to only about half of the constituency and very little of the BSW. It doesn’t explain how over three decades this ugly radicalism could fester and then suddenly explode again into the open. The East’s takeover by the West may have been sanctioned by the easterners in the democratic elections held in 1990—they voted for the CDU and Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who turbocharged the unification process, completing it in just 11 months after the fall of the Berlin Wall—but the pain and sacrifice of the economic transition ran deep and left scars that still smart today, even though eastern per-capita GDP has climbed over the years, today being about 80 percent of its western counterpart, with unemployment at just under 7 percent.

The disappointment and hurt of the easterners should not be underestimated. Kohl had promised them “flourishing landscapes,” but what they received was rampant unemployment: Three million people who had jobs lost them—and were thrown onto welfare rolls, which into the early 2000s equaled half of the East’s GDP. In the low-income labor market, the news was worse: Over 50 percent found themselves jobless. Those who could, including many young people, fled to the West, like the engineer who held the lease on my apartment in Berlin on Friedrichstrasse: He landed a job with BASF in Ludwigshafen in western Germany and never returned. The easterners were incensed at the deals that the Treuhandanstalt—the government agency that sold off East Germany’s enterprises—made for a song. The overnight introduction of the Deutsche mark in 1990 and the Treuhand’s fire sale ensured that western German firms and western German owners would sop up all of the eastern German business—and use the region for a supply of cheap, dispensable labor (which explains the lower per-capita GDP today).

The ostensibly burning topics of migration and the Ukraine war are largely red herrings, concluded sociologist Steffen Mau, author of a widely read new book on the East-West divide, entitled Ungleich Vereint: Warum der Osten Anders Bleibt (Unequally United: Why the East Remains Different). The eastern states have by far the smallest fraction of foreign nationals among the federal states, and those communities with the lowest numbers in the East tended to vote disproportionately higher for the AfD (which also scored well in depopulated rural areas, places with fewer women, fewer medical services, and higher unemployment). They are not threatened by the Ukraine war and have nothing to gain from admiring Russian President Vladimir Putin. The EU, which the AfD lambasts for milking Germany dry, has contributed immensely to the eastern states’ development since unification, to the tune of $53 billion (€48 billion). The German state shelled out nearly $2 trillion (€1.75 trillion).

Mau, in his nicely balanced study, concluded: “The economic transformation of the 1990s, which was associated with major restructurings and brought with it not only freedom but also economic declassification and insecurity, has made people [in the East] less willing to undergo further changes. Having already had to fundamentally change their lives and abandon biographical fixtures, larger sections of the population now strongly resist further impositions, be it growing diversity or socio-ecological transformation.”

None of this, of course, explains why such broad swaths of the population cast their ballot either for a party that tracks closely with neo-Nazis or another that looks to Russia for inspiration and not Brussels. This, though, is the hardest, most in-your-face way to strike back at the system that delivered them such disrespect and injury—and then blamed their backwardness for the mess.

“German democracy possesses its legitimation through its radical break with National Socialism,” Claussen wrote. “The election results in Saxony and Thuringia throw this foundation into question.” It’s a swipe that Germany’s mainstream elites aren’t going to shake off quickly.

[seventeendeer]

TF2 analysis - on cultural references, context as characterization, and how to analyze comedy

-taps mic- HELLO, TEAM FORTRESS 2 COMMUNITY !

A while back, I received an ask requesting analysis of one of my favorite video games of all time and special interest of 12+ years, and you know I just had to go and turn that into a several thousand word essay for the reading pleasure of the people.

Because that shit got way too long, I’ve decided to put it into a post of its own. Hopefully a big title and no previous context being necessary will give more people an incentive to read it. I spent a long time on it and I think it’s pretty cool, and I would love some nice attention for my effort. ;w;

The ask I received went a little something like this:

Below the cut, I will be replying to these questions individually. It touches on everything from Cold War propaganda to the media landscape at the game’s launch in 2007 to first-person shooters as a genre - all to gain a better understanding of author intent, expected audience reaction, characterization and themes.

Anon previously requested help writing more accurate fanfiction, and damn it, that is what they are going to get!! and MORE

Introductory disclaimer:

First of all, for clarity's sake: this analysis is going to specifically talk about TF2 as seen through a fandom lens. I'm going to be talking about the game as a piece of media, creator intention, and the fandom's reactions to the game and extended canon - that is, the slice of the TF2 fandom that is interested in the characters, in the world and in doing at least semi-faithful fanworks.

I will not be touching on TF2's wider playerbase or meme culture. I greatly enjoy both, but they are not relevant to the post I made that sparked this anon's questions (I will link this post in the replies, in case anyone is curious).

I also have to disclaim that any references I make to real world history in this post have to be taken with a hard grain of salt. I've done my best to fact-check everything, but I am not infallible! For a better understanding of the historical elements I talk about here, please do your own research, and approach my claims with a healthy amount of scepticism, same as you would any unsourced social media post. (Readers may notice examples I give below primarily feature Soldier, Spy and Scout. This is because I feel I have the most solid grasp on the historical events and media that informs their characters, compared to the other classes. All the classes contain these contexts and meta complexities, but in an effort to not talk out of my ass too much, I have decided to focus on the characters I feel the most confident dissecting.)

>1) What tropes was the game parodying/what cultural contexts would you say are essential to understand, in order to better understand the game?

The characters of TF2 were specifically designed as satiric takes on national stereotypes depicted in American propaganda media during the Cold War. Two easy-to-explain examples to illustrate:

- Soldier embodies the ideal of a "red-blooded American" who is strong, brave, hyper-masculine, hates foreign superpowers, loves the vague ideal of "freedom" and firmly believes America is the greatest nation in the world. He prides himself on having personally murdered nazis in the past, despite actually having accomplished no such thing (comparable to the US taking a disproportionate amount of credit for defeating Nazi Germany in World War 2; at the time, WW2 was a very recent cultural memory that made for good propaganda fodder). He fears, hates and dehumanizes communists (as Soviet Russia was the US's highly-villified opponent during the Cold War). The satiric angle: he is depicted as so brainwashed by propaganda that he has become immune to facts and logic. He is horribly sadistic, brutal, paranoid and xenophobic. The ideal he is based on is portrayed as shockingly and disproportionally violent and illogical to the point of being laughable.

- Spy is based on how the US viewed France during the Cold War: as a weak, cowardly, “unmanly” nation. At the time, France was depicted this way because they were perceived to have surrendered to Nazi Germany early on in World War 2 out of cowardice. Spy is one of the least macho of the mercs, he is ineffective when fighting enemies head on, and his main method of attack is reliant on trickery and “not fighting fair.” The satiric angle: Spy isn't actually much of a coward - he is more intelligent, more tactical and more resourceful than many of the others, and simply doesn’t feel the need to risk his neck when he could be working smarter, not harder. The other characters are portrayed as a bunch of meatheads for picking on him. The negative stereotype he is based on is portrayed as largely unearned and ridiculous. (Though note that Spy is also depicted as an upperclass prick to contrast with Engineer being working class; in that dynamic, Spy is depicted as a pompous asshole, while Engie is depicted in a more favorable light. The characters are multi-faceted and no class is universally “better” or “worse” than the others, but right now I'm specifically focusing on the "Cold War stereotype" aspect.)

Notice how, while these two characters have different nationalities in-universe, they are both based on stereotypes seen through an American lens. Notice the way the American character is based on a comedically deconstructed ideal, while the character from a nation the US did not view favorably at the time is depicted as falsely judged by an unfair and ridiculous metric.

The entire TF2 cast and universe revolves on this axis! It takes old American ideals and prejudices and uses them for comedy, adding exaggeration and caveats to make those ideals look absurd.

It’s a parody of media produced in the US during the Cold War, which contained massive amounts of propaganda. It satirizes the political ideals that were glorified in said propaganda media.

Very important extra cultural context: this satiric depiction of old war propaganda was specifically designed to be instantly recognizable to TF2's central demographic at the time of release in 2007.

Older Valve games like TF2 were very specifically made to appeal to pop culture-savvy, nerdy young adult gamers. This demographic was expected to see the characters and think "oh hey, it's like a funny version of X character type I've seen in movies!"

Because those kinds of movies were still everywhere at the time. The Cold War ended in 1991. TF2 was released only 16 years later. To put this into perspective: the Legally Blonde movie came out 22 years ago, in 2001. Think about how many Legally Blonde memes are still floating around the web today, how fondly remembered this one movie is and how often it’s still referenced in contemporary media. Now consider that media produced during the Cold War was fresher in the cultural memory at the time of TF2′s release than Legally Blonde is for us today.

TF2 was never meant to be seen in a vacuum. It was always meant to be in conversation with old media that it expected everyone playing to be extremely familiar with.

I'll say that again: the cast of TF2 are based on Cold War stereotypes - comedically exaggerated - so they would clearly read as parodies to people in 2007.

Those are 3 different overlapping lenses to consider when approaching the characters.

The characters are more than just funny cartoon men with guns and an unusual amount of differing accents. They are commentary on older media trends.

Now, someone might ask - why did the developers choose this specific aesthetic and tone for their online shooter video game?

The developers have stated multiple reasons, including wanting the characters to be immediately recognizable both physically (they generally look like the stereotypical depictions they're based on) and audibly (the differing accents and regional dialects make it easy to identify which class is yelling in your ear mid-combat during gameplay).

However, I also have another theory:

It's been confirmed TF2's comedic tone was designed to combat a lot of negative aspects of shooters in the genre at the time of its creation. I have seen developers discuss that they were going for a lighthearted atmosphere to discourage player hostility.

I, personally, also think it is extremely likely the developers opted for satirizing old war propaganda partially in order to combat the tendency of other shooters often being war propaganda. Valve has always been a politically left-leaning company, with a history of depicting military-like forces and unchecked capitalism in a negative light (see the Half-Life and Portal series, respectively).

By depicting the cast of TF2 as generally unhinged, illogical and clownish, they were able to communicate to players: "War is dumb, nationalism is dumb, whatever Call of Duty has been telling you is cool is actually illogical and copying it makes you look like like an idiot. That being said, we all sometimes wish we could beat the shit out of other people in the desert with a shovel, so let's get our aggressions out in a safe, non-serious environment with no consequences. Come play pretend you're a murderous sadist blowing up equally unhinged people with us, it's silly, but it's so fun."

I believe everything from the cartoonishly over-the-top, non-permanent deaths to the deserted, remote environments, to the lack of any truly innocent or defenseless characters was all a carefully crafted foundation made to encourage players to make the informed decision to leave their inhibitions and moral hangups at the door. They wanted players to have fun and go nuts engaging in military-like violence, without encouraging pro-military attitudes in their playerbase.

For an example of a game that royally screwed up doing the same thing, just look at Overwatch - it tried to preach a "wholesome" vibe that was completely mismatched with its gameplay. Overwatch tries to justify extreme violence as Okay When Good Guys Do It To Bad Guys, which ... yeah, again, that is straight up modern military propaganda, on purpose or not (and knowing the US military’s tendency to pour money into video games that glorify war, “on purpose” isn’t as much of a stretch as one might think). Paradoxically, TF2 comes out both looking and feeling better to play, because it handles aligning player emotions VS in-game actions much more elegantly. It accounts for common pitfalls in its genre. OW jumps into those pitfalls with both legs and instead ends up looking shallow and nauseatingly twee.

Of course, all of this is personal speculation. Whether or not this was the reading that Valve intended, I do believe it's a big reason why TF2 has remained so profoundly loveable over the years - it uses its writing and art direction to put the player in the perfect mindspace to Fuck Shit Up.

It's a fantastic example of how to carefully and artfully craft something extremely stupid for maximum intended effect. It uses the strengths of comedy as a genre to its absolute fullest.

Unfortunately, because of cultural shifts since the game's release, newer fans do end up missing out on a lot of what makes this game so expertly done. Many newer fans don't come into the game with the base cultural knowledge it expected of its original audience. To gain a better grasp on the characters and enjoy this piece of media as it was intended, I think it will be extremely helpful to familiarize yourself with the material it is referencing.

For an introduction to media produced and influenced by the Cold War, I would recommend the Wikipedia article Culture during the Cold War as a starting point.

(I have skimmed, but not read, the full article; I encourage readers to be especially source-critical when engaging with pages like this that detail themes of history and propaganda - it's a starting point, not a finish line!)

>2) What themes/layers do you feel the fandom has lost sight of, over time? (or never really managed to acknowledge to begin with?)

Some of this is covered in the previous section, but I'll use this question as an opportunity to talk about another thing I feel is overlooked by fans (and, frankly, the writers of the newer comics too), especially when creating fanworks:

The fact that the characters are extremely dependent on their setup and narrative context to be likeable.

Something I think fandom culture struggles with in general is interpreting and handling fictional characters not as real, independent people who exist in a vacuum, but as the sum total of countless moving parts inside a narrative all working together to create the impression of a real person.

In a comedy, characters are especially dependent on presentation to feel like themselves. It is not enough to loyally recreate an arbitrary list of personality traits in order to create accurate fanworks - recreating the sorts of situations they get into, the kinds of people they interact with, and cherry-picking the information they have access to is neccessary for bringing out what makes the characters so charming!

This is especially important when interpreting and handling a cast made up exclusively of characters who are mean people with bad intentions, bad opinions and a complete lack of adequate self-reflection across the board.

Canon makes them all come off amazingly likeable, but this is because the writers were manipulating tone, relationship dynamics, setting, and much more to show off the characters at their most distinct, least detestable and absolute funniest.

Overlooking this aspect of writing comedy characters often leads to a very common pitfall in many, many fandoms out there - following the logic of a character's canon personality to a place they don't like, and getting rid of those personality traits to combat their own discomfort.

Making characters too kind, too understanding, too progressive, etc., is an endless source of micharacterization in fandoms in general, but especially in fandoms of media where the characters are a bunch of dicks in canon.

To be clear, I fully understand where this is coming from. Fans get attached to characters like these because they're funny (and intended to be loved!) - realizing that a character you really like would logically react in an unlikeable way if you put them into certain situations feels bad. No one wants to turn a character they love into something they find they don't love anymore.

But this is where carefully engineering your setup and narrative comes into play.

Example:

A lot of TF2 fans are queer. Queers flock to TF2 because let’s face it, the campy vibes and silly fun masculinity and weird women are like catnip to us.

But a lot of queer fans go into the fandom aspect of the game and find that ... wait, shit, these characters are not exactly pillars of progressiveness. Reconciling some of the extremist political views of the characters with queer narratives, with queer values, seems a daunting task to some. Because what’s a queer fan to do? Portray a character they love in a way that makes them unloveable? Painstakingly depict shitty, uncomfortable characterization in the name of “realism” that ultimately detracts from their own and other people’s enjoyment of the story? That’s not fun. Fandom is supposed to be fun. So, what, do they just portray the characters as miraculously having perfectly amicable social politics by the standards of the larger queer community in 2023?

Some do, of course, for their own comfort, and it’s understandable, but it’s not good storytelling. It’s an excessively shallow way of interacting with media - the fanfiction equivalent of confidently sitting down to write an in-depth, flowery review of a horror movie you watched with your hands over your eyes during all the scary parts. You cannot create fanworks that are even remotely faithful to the spirit of the canon while deliberately ignoring the core themes and author intention of the canon you’re working with. These things are, unfortunately, mutually exclusive. TF2 characters are meant to be wrong about most things politically. Hopefully my reply to the first question in this post adequately illustrates why that’s so important.

But the good news is that bastardizing canon in order to avoid making characters unlikeable also isn’t necessary.

There’s a reason Soldier, in canon mocks his enemies for everything from failing at masculinity to being disabled, yet doesn’t have a single homophobic line:

The people writing his lines figured it would detract from the character. It would hurt real people’s feelings and make the character less fun to play as, so they didn’t include it. No excuses, no explanation; it is simply omitted for the sake of likeability.

(For contrast, notice that the writers did not extend the same kindness to certain other minorities, like fat people - playing as Heavy fucking sucks when you’re fat, because every other class hurls fatphobic abuse at him. This is a fuck-up on the writers’ side; they failed to identify this type of humor as meaningfully detracting from the experience for a significant amount of players, and so ignorantly decided to include it.)

This is what I mean by “setup and narrative context.” I also like to call this “maneuvering”, because it involves selectively portraying a character in contexts and situations where they shine and instill the intended audience reaction, while steering them away from situations where they would logically act in ways that counteract how the audience is intended to feel about them.

Fanworks can absolutely do the same thing! Fanworks can even take the technique further, because they’re not bound by limited time and focus, the way the original work is!

Sticking with the above example of wondering What The Hell To Do when portraying a character who, due to the ideal he’s satirizing, should by all rights be on the wrong side of history in relation to queer rights, let me make a bold statement:

Soldier TF2 is not homophobic. He's a nationalist, a right-winger, a sexist, a xenophobe - but he's not homophobic.

Why? Because he just so happens to never encounter any gay people in canon. They happen to never cross his mind. He's thinking about other shit. If there's a Pride riot in Teufort, he just so happens to be looking the other way.

Soldier TF2 is not homophobic, because he can't think for himself. He's an idea, a fraction of a bigger narrative that he does not exist outside of.

And if he needs to encounter gay people in a fanfiction, don’t just passively follow the logic of his character to that uncomfortable place none of us enjoy going to - use that maneuvering! Make him misinformed, make him misunderstand, give him incomplete information - the character is not only a face with personality traits attached, his soul is also in the context of the story!

Make him homophobic, but he's pretty sure only Europeans can be gay (just look at them!), and it's already so damn sad that they weren't born in beautiful, paradisical AMERICA, so he pities them instead of hating them. Make him think he's successfully being homophobic, but he has misunderstood what a gay person is and thinks it's a particularly venomous type of snake (men who kiss other men are fine, why would he care about that when there are HORRIBLE HOMOSEXUALS slithering around in the desert that he needs to go blow up right now before they bring this glorious nation to ruin). Make him homophobic, but literally "phobic" - he's shaking and crying hiding inside a cupboard, and his newly-outed gay friends have to lure him out with canned meat and a trail of small American flags, treating him like a feral cat that needs a little time and space to get used to people.

That's funny. It's likeable, it's charming. He isn't portrayed as a good person, or woke in a way that clashes with the themes of his character, but with a little maneuvering, he is faithful to what makes him such a legendary character in canon - being a silly caricature that brings us joy.

If Soldier himself needs to be gay? There are ways to make it happen. Same approach. Get creative. Make it silly. Go for thematically appropriate comedic explanations, not cop-outs or realism*.

That is what I think the TF2 fandom is lacking - understanding of how to manipulate context to make a character feel like their own unique, lovable selves.

Characters are not just visuals and personality traits. They are also what happens to them, what they conveniently find out, what they happen to miss.

This is the same for every story, but it is especially important to understand in a comedy. Doubly so in a whimsical, hyper-violent, morbid comedy like TF2.

It's one of the most important layers to be able to recognize, and an even more important one to be willing to try to recreate.

*Unless you feel like doing a deliberate deconstruction, in which case, go ham, sometimes actively engaging with canon means doing some real weird stuff to it to make a certain point on a meta level. This is obviously different from the issues I described above.

>3) "even the newer official comics don't even seem to really "get" the original game" … I've had a nagging sense for years now that the TF2 comics don't really match the game, tonally -- which has admittedly soured my enjoyment of them -- but I've never been able to put two and two together and fully determine why that is. What would you say they've failed to "get" about the work they're based off of?

While I very much love the newer comics on their own merits, I do think they are wildly removed from the game, and lack a lot of depth by comparison.

I believe the greatest failing of the comics, especially the long-form comic, is that the writers do not seem to be aware of either of the subjects I covered above.

They do not handle the satirical aspect well. The newer comic writers don't even really seem to be aware that there is a satirical aspect - they treat the world as just a silly version of mid-1900′s media, with a narrow focus on silver age comics (which were primarily superhero comics, not an easy genre to match with TF2′s more grounded setting - see the comic’s limp attempt at doing a Superman parody with Sniper) + a dash of the Man’s Life magazines (would have been a good match, if not for the fact that it’s primarily used as aesthetics, with no attention given to themes the way the game does with its own media references). They attempt to write parody only, and even the parody aspect is a hollow effort. Crucially, the writers don't seem to have much of an opinion of the old media properties they're parodying, and without opinions to guide a parody, it becomes shallow and lifeless. "Mid-1900′s media was a bit silly, right?" isn't enough of a hot take to justify its existence. It needs an axis on which to spin to feel complete.

Reiterating the point I made in my answer to question 1: the game's satirical aspect circled the point that was "American media made during the Cold War pushed a narrative that was illogical and ridiculously misaligned with reality."

Its absurd humor is grounded in reality and follows a thematic red thread that the comic does not. As a result, the comic (again, primarily later entries) loses a lot of the sting and edge of the game.

Even though the comic attempts to be more serious and "dark" at certain points, the much more silly and easy-going game (and Meet the Team videos, not to mention) comes out looking more mature, interesting and layered, even though many of the layers remain subtextual. The game is fully married to comedy and has no intention of "getting real", but it is loyal to the spirit of satire. It has opinions. It has bite.

In the game and early supplementary material, there is a dread and horror in the subtext that the comics tried to bring to light later on, but the comic writers didn't know what the scary thing behind the curtain was.

The scary thing was - is - the Cold War.

The scary thing is the dread injected into the genre it's satirizing by people who wanted American readers and movie-goers to be afraid. Scaring people into compliance, into finding a sense of safety and comfort in their national identity, was the entire purpose of many, many pieces of media released at the time.

The comic writers didn't notice the subtext and figured they had to make up their own reasons for why the world of TF2 is so utterly fucked.

They didn't understand the cultural context, and they missed the mark entirely.

This also hindered the comic writers' ability to reproduce the game's humor and characterization. Without understanding where exactly the game's humor was coming from or why the characters were so likeable despite being horrible people, they lacked direction. They made the characters at the same time too impassionate, too stupid, too uncaring, and too nice. All together, the characters became less interesting, less likeable.

Example:

- In the game, Spy was not intended to be Scout's father. Spy having a relationship with Scout's mother emphasized Spy's craftiness and intelligence (undermining the enemy team not only through brute force, but through infiltrating their personal lives), and showed off the strengths of his aforementioned "softness" and sentimentality (he's the only mercenary shown to have consistent luck with women). It also emphasized the flaws in Scout's worldview, and his status as the team underdog, and showed a clear contrast to Scout's non-existent love life. Spy came out of the situation funny and likeable because he 1. was portrayed as cool and capable in a way the other mercs aren't, and 2. his softer side is simultaneously humorously endearing, consistent with the rest of his characterization, and highly informed by the satirical aspect of his character in a way that clicks perfectly thematically. Scout comes out of the situation likeable because his ego is balanced out by his bad luck - you can simultaneously see that he's trying too hard and why he's trying too hard. Spy and Scout's dynamic in-game is also fun and interesting, because you have a tough, hyper-violent, wannabe-macho young man who is desperate to gain the respect of both his team and his enemies getting freaking owned by a guy who is nowhere near the impressive-tough-guy ideal Scout strives to embody. The game's satirical points inform the characters and their actions, which gives the comedy depth and nuance, which in turn makes all characters involved fun to watch and easy to get invested in. It is the establishing of and subsequent pointing-and-laughing-at an ideal that produces engaging, character-driven comedy in this situation.

- By contrast, the comics decided that Spy was Scout's father. Spy's motives for getting involved with Scout's mother is no longer about gaining intel on his enemies. In this version of events, his motives are reduced to merely wanting to reconnect with an old flame. This completely undermines the dynamic described above, for multiple reasons: the situation no longer shows Spy as having a particular skillset that sets him apart from the other mercs, he is no longer portrayed as emotionally "softer" than the others (in fact, having left a poor woman to raise and feed 8 kids on her own while he was off enjoying his upperclass life makes him look incredibly cold in a way that is distinctly unfunny; I don’t think the writers thought this part through), Scout's comedic poor luck is no longer on display, and the "macho character is humiliated by the type of guy he respects the least" satirical aspect no longer works. There is an attempt to replace it with a mutual "ugh, I'm related to this guy?" running gag, but it's a very pale substitute for the layered, strongly characterized, thematically appropriate dynamic present in the original game. Spy comes out of it looking like more of a cowardly, cold-hearted fuck-up than a hilariously brilliant tactician with a heart. Scout comes off way too pitiable, because he is not responsible for his own misery here, and the person horribly bullying him and picking apart his self-esteem on the battlefield is his absent father who abandoned him as a child. He's not an objectively badass character who nonetheless fucks himself over in humorous ways trying to chase an ideal that objectively sucks - he's just a regular shitty guy who ended up in bad circumstances because of things outside of his control.

The comic writers didn't understand what Spy and Scout respectively represented in the game, and because of this, they didn't realize they were taking the characters off the rails and making them much less interesting as a result. They didn't realize they were killing off an endless source of comedy that supported the game's satirical angle in a fun, unique, dynamic way.

It resulted in a flat, flavorless subplot. It had some superficial attempts at "heartwarming" moments ...

... but here's my take: if the writers wanted to include more warmth and sincerity in the comics, wouldn't it have been way more heartwarming if Spy started treating Scout as his son even though he wasn't?

Would it not have been way more endearing to see him look out for his girlfriend's child, not because he has any personal ties to him himself, but because he knew if anything happened to Scout, his mother would be devastated?

Why not build from there? Why not make it an active choice? Why not preserve the existing dynamic and themes, and just follow that narrative thread to its logical conclusion?

Spy has an established sentimental side. Scout is desperate for approval. The reluctant surrogate father/son development practically writes itself. It would have been such a good way to explore TF2's themes more explicitly, too!

But again, the comic writers did not seem to realize the game even had themes.

I do like the newer comics. I do think they're really fun, and I did even enjoy the "Spy is Scout's father" subplot in its own way. But this complete inability to identify the game's themes, and thus the source of all its comedy, and thus the red thread defining characterization - it resulted in supplemental material that was lackluster, directionless and unable to scratch the same itch the game does.

They're good comics, but they're hardly TF2 comics.

>4a) … Sheerly out of curiosity, how do you feel Expiration Date holds up, in comparison?

Similar to the way I dislike Spy being revealed to be Scout’s biological father for coming off as a stilted, superficial attempt at being “heartwarming,” I also immensely dislike later supplementary material trying to promote Ms. Pauling to Scout’s recurring love interest for the exact same reason. Expiration Date pushes this subplot way past its breaking point and shows off extremely well why the “jerk characters are secretly a bunch of softies” treatment is so deeply, deeply out of place in TF2.

Back in the early comics, Scout hitting on Miss Pauling was played as a joke at his expense. He was an idiotic, sexist guy incapable of talking to a pretty woman without trying to fuck - she was a highly skilled and deviously manipulative minor character who mostly existed to show off how dangerously competent the Administrator and her people were. Scout acting like an utter dumbass too entrenched in his own limited worldview to notice what was happening right in front of him was important characterization for him, Miss Pauling’s quiet, calculating efficiency was important characterization for her boss, and their clashing personalities set the tone for the dynamic between the entire team of mercenaries and the conspiracy going on right under their noses.

Expiration Date chose to eliminate these layers and invent a completely new conflict for these two specific characters to go play with in a corner, which had nothing to do with their original characterization or the larger plot. Scout is now portrayed as being genuinely in love with Pauling, even noticing small details about her mannerisms and knowing about some of her interests, even though the entire point of their original interactions were that Scout was so busy trying to live his tough-guy-with-a-pretty-girl-on-his-arm fantasy he did not bother to listen to or learn anything about the women unfortunate enough to cross his path, allowing Pauling to carry out her job without causing suspicion.

Instead, Scout’s sexist approach to interacting with women is played for sympathy (”he’s actually a romantic underdog because the lady he likes accurately clocked him as an idiot!”) and inadvertently validated (”once she gave him a chance, she found out he’s actually a pretty okay guy!”).

In the process, Miss Pauling loses far too much of her usual competence, being visibly freaked out over having to perform a job she’s been shown to handle with grace in the past, and being taken aback by what should by all rights be routine weirdness in this world, all so she can have an eye-roll-worthy forced positive reaction to the entire experience at the end of the short, in a weak attempt to justify why she comes to like Scout more despite all the trouble he’s caused for her and wants to spend more time with him in the future.

The romance subplot is only made possible because the characters are heavily edited compared to their past portrayals, is only able to develop in the direction it does by aligning itself with the values of a character who existed to be a laughable, obviously-mistaken caricature, and is only able to distill a happy ending to the whole mess by stripping the other character of personal standards and agency.

Scout and Pauling are frankly two halves of a whole shitshow in Expiration Date, because the writers either didn’t notice or didn’t care about what older works were gunning for - all they saw was that Boy Liked Girl, Girl Did Not Like Boy, and that just wouldn’t stand! After all, everyone likes romance, right?

Scout, as he is portrayed in the game and in the early supplementary material, is one of my absolute favorites of the mercs. I find him incredibly funny, and the way his hyperactive, fun-loving, jokey traits overlap with his intense bloodlust (literally - he’s the class with the most weapons available that cause bleed damage!) and barely-suppressed rage makes him fun and fascinating. The little man has so much unchecked ADHD and cultural trauma he just has to go and kill people about it, which is just so intensely relatable in the “forbidden mood” way TF2 handles so well.

Unfortunately, I get the impression he has in later years fallen victim to the curse of being a skinny young white guy character, making him a target for writers who think every series needs a relatable everyman protagonist for either themselves or the audience to project onto (and who think skinny young white guys are the most relatable people around, for reasons you can probably imagine I’m not personally very fond of).

TF2 absolutely does not need a character like that, and butchering Scout’s established personality in the name of “relatable” and “wholesome” is first of all Some Bullshit, and second of all a lost cause. The character simply has too much baggage as an over-the-top caricature to be comfortably rewired into an author- or audience-surrogate. He’s always going to come out looking like an asshole - whether this aspect of his character turns out likeable or unlikeable is entirely controlled by whether the story itself acknowledges it.

I did find Scout and Spy's dynamic to be quite well done, though, especially if you ignore the "Spy is Scout's father" reveal from the later comics.

The idea that Spy didn't have to go and do all that, but has grown a soft spot for Scout purely because his girlfriend clearly loves her incredibly annoying boy and her happiness is his happiness, is perfectly in-character. Scout has also long been established to desperately crave approval from his teammates, and on paper, the idea of putting him in a situation where he had to let go of some of his macho man dignity, imitate Spy more closely and ultimately win a tiny bit of that approval he's been looking for is interesting and plays well with the game's existing themes.

It's just a shame Scout's motivations ended up being conjured out of thin air, in direct conflict with past characterization, for the purpose of enabling a schmaltzy, tonally dissonant romantic subplot.

tl;dr, I'm conflicted on the subject of Expiration Date. It's funny, it's cute when it's not trying too hard, and seeing the mercs dick around off the clock getting into stupid shenanigans together is something I've always wanted to see in a longer animated format. It’s largely a good time and a fun watch, despite its questionable gender politics and trope-y execution.

However, like the newer comics, it suffers immensely from writers who are simply unable to identify the themes, characterization and comedy style of older material, and thus, in my opinion, falls way, way short of its potential.

>4b) I'd be very curious to hear your thoughts on Emesis Blue, should you end up watching it.

I'll be sure to share my opinions if I ever get around to watching it!! I'm super curious about it. As I mentioned in another post, what little I've heard of it seems much more on-point thematically, and even with the characters being so far removed from their official characterization, I really get the impression this is a deliberate, informed choice, in stark contrast to the newer official supplementary material. I’ll be sure to drop some words on it if I ever get around to watching the full thing!

Anyway, that about wraps up my thoughts! If you’ve read this far, thank you for sticking with it, and please do consider reblogging - I’ve spent an insane amount of time writing and re-writing and fact-checking this, and I would love for it to reach just half of all the people who were curious about my initial posts on the subject. :’)

Follow-up questions are very welcome, though to be clear: I’m not really interested in “debating” the subjects I’ve talked about here. I know I posit a lot of hard opinions in this post and not everyone is going to agree with me and that’s fine - if you feel differently, I invite you to simply ignore me and write your own take on your own blog. No hard feelings, I just don’t enjoy those kinds of discussions. (Corrections on any factual mistakes I’ve made are of course encouraged).

[cowpokezuko]

Les!Ushiten hcs

bc its finals and my brain is broken.

Satori is a stress baker. Anytime she has a big project due or anything that makes her anxious is happening, she can be found in the kitchen making the most delicious baked goods.

Satori also despises cooking. She would rather spend two days working on a complex cake that involves spun sugar and handmade chocolates than cook a pasta sauce.

Wakatoshi, on the other hand, loves to cook. She doesn't have the patience for the hours of baking or proofing involved in baking, nor does she have Satori's sweet tooth, so cooking is much more in her wheelhouse.

She also has an extremely specific diet due to her sports career and her autism, so being the main cook in the household worked out that way too.

They are generally very good communicators, but when they do fight, Satori is far more passionate and emotional, whereas Wakatoshi thinks she's more rational and tries to get Satori to relax and calm down, but that just makes her more upset.

They are a butch/femme couple and WILL play into it for the bit.

Satori (anarcho-communist that she is) thinks it's really funny to satirize housewife/sahm instagram content then reveal at the end that she's a lesbian. Wakatoshi does not get the joke but is always willing to support her gf.

Wakatoshi has an instagram, but it has 1 (one) blurry picture of Satori and a picture of a cat she saw in Paris one time. You can vaguely see the eiffel tower in the background, but that two is blurry and hard to decipher. She has like 10k followers.

She may have a horrible social media presence, but she has a very detailed and carefully maintained journal that features notes, sketches of her surroundings, to-do lists, recipes, and most of all, doodles of Satori and her teammates.

Wakatoshi is a beer girl. Satori is decidedly NOT.

She is a cocktail girlie and sometimes fine wines, but only if they're not too dry.

Satori is a lightweight. She will take a few shots and be absolute blasted. She also gets really flushed when she drinks.

Wakatoshi spends most of their nights out trying to reign in Satori and holding her hair by the end of the evening.

Satori is terrible at crafting because it requires long periods of focus that she does not have.

Satori loves horror movies, but is also a bit of a scaredy cat and has to keep Wakatoshi around so she can cling to her strong arms when she gets scared.

Wakatoshi's favorite film genre sci-fi/fantasy but is very picky about it. Yes she's into LOTR and Star Wars.

I feel like I should post about ushiten on this blog more, so here's an attempt at that.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 5, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Sep 06, 2024

The U.S. government continues to tighten the screws against Russian malign activity. This morning the Department of Justice announced an indictment charging Dimitri Simes for violating U.S. sanctions against Russia. Simes allegedly worked for a sanctioned Russian television station and laundered the money from his work. Simes advised Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. 

A second indictment charged Simes’s wife, Anastasia, with sanctions violations and money laundering through the purchase of fine art. 

The Justice Department also issued a grand jury’s superseding indictment against six Russian computer hackers. Five were officers in Russia's military intelligence agency; one is a civilian. The six are charged with hacking into and leaking information from, as well as destroying, Ukrainian computer systems. The hackers also attacked systems in European countries that support Ukraine and in the U.S.

The State Department has offered a $10 million reward for information on the defendants’ locations or their malicious cyberactivity.

The fallout from yesterday’s revelation that six powerful right-wing media figures were on the Russian payroll continues. One of the right-wing commenters referred to in yesterday’s indictment, Tim Pool, has pushed the idea that the U.S. is in a civil war, interviewed Trump on his podcast in May, and has been fervently against American aid to Ukraine. Today, he posted: “Upon reflection I now understand that Ukraine is our Greatest ally[.] As the breadbasket of Europe and a peace loving people we cannot allow the Fascist Russians to continue their crimes against humanity[.] We must redouble our efforts and provide and additional $200b at once[.]”

By this evening, though, he was making a joke of the news that his paycheck had come from Russia.

Notably, Trump posted on his social media site a rant that tied his own 2016 campaign to yesterday’s indictments, although the indictment itself did not do so. He accused “Comrade Kamala Harris and her Department of Justice” of “resurrecting the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, and trying to say that Russia is trying to help me, which is absolutely FALSE.”

Vice President Harris is not in charge of the Department of Justice.

By tying yesterday’s indictments to his campaign’s involvement with Russian operatives in 2016, Trump might have been trying to suggest the story was old news, but it does highlight the parallels between Russia and right-wing operatives trying to get him reelected. Along with his colleague Donie O’Sullivan, Jake Tapper put it like this on CNN: “Today, the U.S. government is trying to peel back more layers of what officials say are massive and complex efforts underway to influence your vote in the upcoming election. One part of these alleged plots: replacing your average 2016 Russian social media bots with actual conservative Americans, right-wing influencers with a combined millions of followers, influencers promoted by Elon Musk, some visited by Republican politicians such as former president Trump.” 

Then Trump fell back on the old trope that his opponents are communists, posting on his social media platform: “We are fighting true COMMUNISM in this Country. We have to save our Elections, our System of Justice, our Constitution, and our FREEDOM, but that can only be done after we win BIG on November 5th, and proceed to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.” 

Economists for Goldman Sachs Group Inc. say that a Trump win in November would hurt the U.S. economy, while a Harris win—if she also gets Democratic control of the House and the Senate—would make it grow. 

Trump’s 2024 campaign is not at all about reality; it’s about a worldview. When asked at an event at the New York Economic Club “what specific piece of legislation will you advance” to make child care affordable, the 78-year-old Trump answered:

“Well I would do that. And we’re sitting down. You know I was somebody. We had Senator Marco Rubio, and my daughter Ivanka was so impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that because—look, child care is child care. It’s—couldn’t, you know, it’s something you have to have it—in this country you have to have it. But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to—but they’ll get used to it very quickly—and it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country. Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s going to take care. We’re going to have—I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country, because I have to stay with child care. I want to stay with child care, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth, but growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just told you about. We’re going to be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in. We’re going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people, and then we’ll worry about the rest of the world. Let’s help other people, but we’re going to take care of our country first. This is about America first. It’s about Make America Great Again, we have to do it because right now we’re a failing nation, so we’ll take care of it.” 

There is no specific legislation here, or even a grasp of the specific nature of the problem of paying for child care. What there is, apparently, is an argument that high tariffs will solve all of the nation’s problems. In the New York event, Trump called again for slashing taxes on the wealthy and insisted that new, high tariffs of 20% on all imports, and as much as 60% on Chinese imports, will end federal deficits and bring trillions of dollars into the country, although he is wrong about how tariffs work. 

Trump insists that tariffs are taxes on foreign countries, but they are not. They are essentially taxes on imported products, and they are paid by consumers. Trump’s running mate, Ohio senator J.D. Vance, recently tried to claim that economists disagree about whether consumers bear the cost of tariffs, but as Michael Hiltzik explained in the Los Angeles Times yesterday, economists agree on this.

When he was in office, Trump launched a trade war in 2018 by putting tariffs of up to 25% on $50 billion worth of Chinese products. The next year he added another set of 10% tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports, and the next year he did it again, this time on an additional $112 worth of Chinese products. The nonpartisan Tax Foundation calculates that this amounted to an $80 billion tax a year on American consumers, costing the average household about $300 a year and costing the U.S. about 142,000 jobs.

There are reasons to use tariffs. They can be used to protect a new industry from cheaper foreign products until the new industry can compete, or to stop foreign countries from flooding a country with cheap products that destroy a domestic industry. When he took office, Biden kept those of Trump’s tariffs that protected certain industries.

Trump’s insistence that tariffs will solve everything is not about economics, it’s about pushing a worldview from the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century, one embodied by the 1890 McKinley Tariff. “If you look at McKinley,” Trump told right-wing media host Mark Levin on Sunday, “he was a great president. He made the country rich.” In fact, McKinley (R-OH) pushed through the tariff named for him while he was in the House of Representatives from his position as a spokesperson for wealthy industrialists. They insisted that high tariffs were imperative to the survival of the country, that such tariffs were good for workers because they protected wages, and that anyone who disagreed was a socialist. But in an era without business regulation, industrialists actually kept wages low and used the tariffs to protect high prices that they passed on to consumers. 

In the late 1880s, the American people demanded a lower tariff, but when Republicans in Congress went to “revise” it, they made it higher. In May 1890, in a chaotic congressional session with members shouting amendments, yelling objections, and talking over each other, Republicans passed the McKinley Tariff without any Democratic votes. They cheered and clapped at their victory. “You may rejoice now,” a Democrat yelled across the aisle, “but next November you’ll mourn.” 

Democrats were right. In the November 1890 midterm elections, angry voters repudiated the Republican Party. They gave the Democrats a two-to-one majority in the House—McKinley himself lost his seat. Republicans managed to keep the Senate by four seats, but three of those seats were held by senators who had voted against the McKinley Tariff, and the fourth turned out to have been stolen.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[myfuckingbudapestmovie]

Start Gallery Budapest presents Marko Rodics: Portraits of Politicians ...

Marko Rodics’ Exhibition "Politikus portrék" at Start Galéria, Budapest: A Subversive Take on Hungarian Political Icons

Budapest’s Start Galéria has become the stage for a bold and thought-provoking exhibition by artist Marko Rodics titled Politikus portrék ("Portraits of Politicians"). Running from November 7 through November 23, this series of artworks invites viewers into a reflection on Hungary’s complex political history, with a special emphasis on the figure of János Kádár, a defining figure in 20th-century Hungarian politics. By blending irony with a contemporary lens, Rodics’ portraits have sparked a unique dialogue about past and present, provoking comparisons between Kádár and Viktor Orbán—a parallel that resonates deeply with Hungarians today.

The Central Figure: János Kádár

Almost all of Rodics’ works in this exhibition feature Kádár, who was the General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party from 1956 to 1988. Known for his "goulash communism," Kádár’s reign was marked by an attempt to balance Soviet influence with economic liberalization, which made life relatively bearable for Hungarians under socialism. He is remembered as a complex, often contradictory figure who represented a softer side of Eastern Bloc authoritarianism, yet his era also suppressed dissent and maintained the rigid structure of a one-party state.

In the current climate, Kádár’s legacy has taken on new significance. Viktor Orbán, Hungary's Prime Minister since 2010, is often described as Kádár’s political successor—a notion Rodics cleverly critiques in Politikus portrék. The phrase “Orbán a Kádár János” (Orbán is Kádár János) has gained traction in Hungarian political discourse, suggesting that Orbán’s consolidation of power mirrors Kádár’s authoritarian style, albeit in a nationalist-conservative guise.

Artistic Technique and Symbolism

Rodics approaches Kádár’s image with an ironic twist, contrasting the somber portraiture style traditionally associated with political leaders with unexpected, almost whimsical elements. One piece from the exhibition, featured on the exhibition’s promotional poster, shows a black-and-white photograph of Kádár embellished with red tassels hanging over his eyes, symbolizing a playful, albeit unsettling, blinding. This artistic choice could suggest that Kádár (and by extension, the Hungarian political tradition he symbolizes) is both revered and willfully "blind" to the consequences of his policies—a possible metaphor for the political myopia that Rodics sees repeating today.

The red tassels might also invoke communist iconography while mocking it. Red was the color of the communist era, but here, rather than evoking reverence or fear, it evokes curiosity and humor. Rodics seems to be pointing to the way Hungarians today reinterpret, and sometimes trivialize, the symbols of their past—seeing them as neither wholly positive nor negative but as tools for reflection.

From Kádár to Orbán: A Political Reflection

Hungary’s current leader, Viktor Orbán, has centralized power to an extent not seen since Kádár’s era, dominating the media, judicial system, and public institutions. His critics argue that his rule mirrors the authoritarian stability Kádár once offered, albeit in the service of a right-wing, nationalist agenda. The notion that “Orbán is Kádár János” taps into the public’s sense that history is cyclical, that the suppression of dissent and the emphasis on stability at the cost of individual freedoms are themes Hungary has never fully escaped.

Through Rodics’ work, this historical parallel is visualized and brought into a contemporary, sometimes humorous, light. Rather than idolizing Kádár or demonizing Orbán, Rodics holds both figures up as symbols of a broader, often problematic trend in Hungarian governance: the preference for strong, paternalistic leadership that protects “national interests” but stifles political diversity. This narrative resonates especially with younger generations, who see in Orbán’s Hungary a modern version of the “soft dictatorship” under Kádár.

Audience Reception and Impact

Rodics’ Politikus portrék has been met with a mix of amusement, nostalgia, and reflection. For some, it serves as a reminder of the ideological fluidity of Hungary’s political landscape, where former communists became nationalists, and historical revisionism is used to support new political agendas. For others, the exhibition provokes a more personal response, as it challenges them to think critically about the legacy of Kádár and how it has shaped, or failed to shape, the Hungary of today.

Ultimately, Rodics’ work in Politikus portrék serves as both a critique and a celebration of Hungary’s political iconography. By juxtaposing humor with critique, reverence with irony, Rodics forces viewers to engage with Hungary’s political past and present in a way that is both accessible and profound. In doing so, he has created not only a portrait gallery but a mirror, reflecting Hungary’s ongoing struggle to define its identity amid the unresolved contradictions of its history.

[atla-confessions]

actual confession time: i fucking hate fanon jet and how the fandom woobifies him. you all missed the point of his character. pretty much every character in the show is traumatized by war but that doesn’t give them a free pass to be a piece of shit. jet is supposed to represent a character who let his trauma consume him and went on to abuse other people. he did not reflect on himself and the ba sing se arc further shows how ultimately his obsessiveness and hatred is stronger than his desire to change. it is a tragedy which makes his story compelling. woobifying him erases the complexity. no, jet isn’t your chill communist pot dealer or whatever he’d gaslight the shit out of you ti get what he wants and leave. sad how an interesting, morally gray character gets flattened because none of you have media literacy

X

[botforlove]

tumblr leftists suck so bad bc they'll flock to barbie, the most corporatized depiction of feminism ever, in which mattel is framed as a 'good corporation' that is in on the joke, so capitalism can't be addressed at all and patriarchy is entirely reduced to gender dynamics (goodbye intersectionality), but has some kind of complex against oppenheimer, a far more explicitly leftist movie that is shockingly pro-communist and extremely condemning of the us military, american exceptionalism and jingoism, and warns against scientific innovation without ethics. it probably shouldn't shock me that tumblrinas refuse to engage with anything that portrays a horrific event in a complex light (bc we obviously can't depict something without endorsing it), even though the invention of the atomic bomb (probably THE most significant and controversial event in human history) invites scrutiny from ALL angles. i'm not saying you can't dislike the movie. but the lack of media literacy present in discussions around it is outstanding.