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spookfished · 1 month ago

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media roundup sep 2024

hello! havent done these in a while. im currently "extremely unemployed" lol well see if i go back and do any of the previous months i skipped ㄟ( ▔, ▔ )ㄏ i think its nice to force myself to summarize my thoughts like this

BOOKS: the tyrant baru cormorant by seth dickinson: most recent book in the masquerade series, which is a thriller (?) about the mechanics of empire. dude this book was so great. no notes. there were some incredibly gratifying payoffs in here and some craaazy twists. idk i wish i had something more to say i just thought it was really really good im glad that baru gets to have some good things as well as bad. of course, seth dickinson has amazing prose and the ending was so like, uplifting? and inspiring? i was very surprised lol

when the angels left the old country by sacha lamb: queer jewish immigrant YA, apparently for fans of good omens. an angel and a demon from a small, small town go to america to track down one of the town's mising daughters. despite neither being a gomens fan (although i did read it) nor jewish, i really enjoyed this! it has a dreamy, fairytale, eva ibbotson-like tone to it that made it a pleasure to read, despite the somewhat foreboding topic (let's all have a fun time on ellis island while visibly jewish!) the stories of the humans and the non-humans feel equally important, but i really especially enjoyed the way the angel changed over time as a response to the world it saw. its just a really nice book :3

long live evil by sarah rees brennan: villainess isekai, but western tradpub. a woman dying from cancer at a young age is given the chance to live again--as a two-bit floozy villainess the day before her execution?! how will rae find a way out? and how well, really, does she remember the time of iron? sarah rees brennan is sort of a comfort author to me; in other lands meant a Lot to me as a mentally ill teenager. all the same, i almost dropped this book during the first couple of chapters. in my opinion, this book has a REALLY rough start that evened out into a ride that i enjoyed quite a bit despite many other factors. while some parts of the part are clearly deeply personal (this is the author's first book published after recovering from late stage cancer), it also has a tendency to hammer in its points over and over again and undercuts too many serious moments with quippy dialogue in a way that deflates tension rather than increasing it. also, one b-couple takes clear inspiration from one of her previous works (but this time more #toxic --they kill each other in time of iron) and as a result unfortunately outshines the main couple at times, who also have to share screentime with a huge cast that often feels improperly balanced. but also, i thought the main couple was pretty cute, actually! the ending twist, while not unpredictable (and also very, uh, danmei?) was also very enjoyable and nice to let creep up on you. i feel like i'm being more strict with it than i am with a lot of villainess isekai i read though, haha… i agree with ineedacatchyname's review of it (and a lot of these thoughts just echo theirs. woops!)--a lot of this could be fixed with a bit more editing, but ultimately i spent the second half unable to put it down and i'm still going to read the sequel.

against football by steve almond: fairly short nonfiction. one diehard football fan's searing condemnation of the state of american football today (and what we could do to make it better). this was recommended to me by megafaunatic, and i really enjoyed it :3 i come from a pretty "ugh, sportsball" type of family, and so it was really interesting to see why people love watching football (especially a team as "wretched" as the former oakland raiders) as well as playing it--but also how the continuation of football in its current state is pretty much inexcusable (one bright side is that division i graduation rates have actually gone up quite a bit since this book was published in 2016!) id easily recommend to both football fans and non-fans.

GAMES: pikmin bloom: pikmin bloom is a game about walking around, growing pikmin, and planting virtual flowers. i didnt play this game for a while bc i was like "well, its pokemon go but with pikmin -_-" and like. it is. but niantic has also taken the opportunity to overhaul a lot of its base game mechanics with a focus on actually getting you to GO OUTSIDE and WALK AROUND, which i think is to its benefit! like, yeah it actually did get me to go on some walks when i wouldnt have otherwise. the microtransactions kinda suck but as long as youre willing to kill your darlings (pikmin) its fine i think. < guy with a very high deathcount in pikmin 3 and 4

return of the obra dinn: stylized mystery game about unpacking what happened in a scaaary voyage by seeing the moment surrounding the crewmembers' deaths. dude. this game is so fucking good. it was like everyones goty in 2018 and as soon as i finished it i was like "i wish i could get hit in the head so i could play it again." imo, its a really good game to play as a group (with one person driving) bc so much of the gameplay takes place outside of the game--deducing, speculating, etc and it's really fun to do that as a conversation with someone else! the game does a good job of disincentivizing random guessing--when i played this game with my family, we did guess on a couple but it was almost always a 50-50 "choice A or choice B". and the game can (apparently) be completed without any chance guesswork whatsoever! can be a little gory at times, but its all in this sort of dithery monochrome style so you don't really think about it until you're walking to the bathroom in the halflit moonlight and youre kinda like hey this kinda looks like return of the obra dinn haha. wait. anyways play this game!!

unpacking: cute little game about unpacking/moving in during the various phases of one person's life. probably a masterclass in "environmental storytelling" that invites you into making your own stories for our unseen protagonist while also providing these understated beautiful little moments of understanding. also, it was really theraputic getting everything perfectly placed in order when i currently live in a very messy house ;-_-

umineko chapter 2: ahhh year of umineko 2024 continues. im definitely not finishing the whole game this year (lol) but i might end up finishing the question arcs at least..? anyways ive been lbing this the whole time (#year of the seacat 2024 for blacklist) but man this was pretty harsh compared to the first episode. it even makes battler break down..! i was secretly wondering how it was going to try and turn around my opinion on rosa, but, well, i still really dont like her. has bright points in more beatrice!!! the introduction of the meta, some ???really horny??? parts and the [You are incompetent] scene. also, everyone seems to really hate george for some reason but i feel like i still dont get it.

SHOWS:

the decameron: drama about fucking and dying in black plague-era italy, and a villa meant to be a getaway from it all. in high school i wanted to read the decameron because it was mentioned in theatre of coolty--just so you know, this is nothing like it. its just really fun! and full of light intrigue and twists and reveals and tragedy. a lot of the plague-based humor hit in some pretty uncomfortable places, which the showrunners were definitely going for. neifile and panfilo hands down had my favorite relationship.

witch from mercury: revolutionary girl gundam?? this is how everyone pitched it to me, which honestly put me off a little bit. wfm is clearly aware and respectful of its predecessors but also takes the first episode to go "nah were going to do something a little different though." like, its kind of like instead of tackling rape culture it decided to tackle the military industrial complex instead ? ? i guess?? it seems like a good entry point into gundam for many (including me!) i enjoyed the first season very fun and currently watching the second. looking forward to seeing how sick and twisted things can get

in terms of music ive been listening to a lot of zerobaseone.. every time were in the car together neil is like lets listen to yurayura and im like yessss. yurayuraa oh ive also been listening to counter//weight while driving but im not going to include it bc its been slow going lol. all my thoughts about it so far is like "this is the thing neil really likes"

anyways if you got to the end or skimmed or whatever, thanks for reading! hope u have a good one.

#txt #kade media

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saltycharacters · 10 months ago

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That Steven Universe Hitler meme (and all related memes) needs to die. Steven is a Jewish-coded character in a story about the Jewish concept of teshuvah. But people keep conflating this with the Christian concept of forgiveness and then misrepresenting the character. People think that the message is to forgive abusers and fascists. It's disturbing. He's a child trying to find his place in the world and he's meant to be Jewish-coded. Anyone making references to Hitler in Steven Universe fan art is just antisemitic. You don't have to like the show, but you can't gloss over the most important aspect of it because you want to be edgy.

So after a bit of thinking I've decided that it's best I pass on any explination or opinion onto my good friend @jewishspider , as these are a lot of serious claims I don't feel adequate to comment on as a non-jewish person- I also encourage other jewish people to add anything they feel fit.

I'm not sure why this was sent to me specifically, and I recommend that, in the future, these kind of serious discussions be sent to people who are actual experts/part of the minorities being dicussed, as it's better to gain insight from them directly and then let other reblog the post to spread information.

#i also wasnt sure what meme you were talking about so i had to look it up #and im mostly baffled by how out of context it felt to recieve this i just feel itd be much better as either its own informative post #or sent to someone whos actually jewish so there can be a proper discussion by people who have a say yknow

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dalekofchaos · 1 month ago

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Full offense intended, but I could never have a friend like you, who slanders my favorite wrestlers on the daily, knowing that are my favorites. That's not a friend to me, friends don't do that to each other. You slander The Elite, Britt Baker, MJF, FTR, Jack Perry, Wheeler Yuta (when you called him "Wheeler Useless"), and now Jon Moxley. Who's next? If you dislike these people so much, then why do you post about them and have gifs and photos of them on your blog? Just don't post about them and ignore, plain and simple. But no, you gotta be an asshole about it, as always, and then play the victim when you get called out.

MJF literally said he is against genocide and Palestinians being killed. He's not using his girlfriend as a shield or being Zionist. And maybe if people stopped spewing antisemitic bullshit about him on the daily and just simply unfollowed/blocked him, instead of looking for something to attack him over, he wouldn't be so defensive all the time or respond the way he does.

And I find it funny how all of sudden you can't stand Max Caster, after you defended that incredibly offensive rap he did, referencing a rape and sexual assault case, saying that it's what heels do and that heels are supposed to be offended. And called anyone who spoke up about it "sensitive marks."

Hypocrisy at its finest. Can't pick and choose who you hold accountable or who gets cancelled and who doesn't. Just stop already, please. It's enough. And if you can't handle it, then maybe wrestling just isn't for you.

Not doing this anymore. It's been 4 years and I've just had enough.

I’ve deleted most of the negative stuff I’ve said about WWE & AEW. I will only focus on the stuff I like in wrestling and won’t say anything negative.

My father has recently passed away and I am still dealing with his passing. I am not in a good mental health space. So it's not worth fighting over.

I was not trying to be misogynistic about it just giving my opinion to the shitty booking of that senile rapist piece of shit, but I recognize some of the posts did take it too far, especially the Caster shit yeah I know that was gross and I am sorry. No wrestler controls their booking so I shouldn’t be on them for that, but I can’t help but feel pissed for my favs being done dirty by shitty booking. I was not trying to be anti-semetic about MJF by calling him a zionist. I called him a Zionist because other wrestling fans have called him out. One Twitter thread in particular shows that MJF came to this Jewish fan’s inbox and asking to be educated and when said person explained all they could, he just left her on read and never responded which did not help matters.

I am not antisemitic in any way, I always raise Jewish voices for Palestine and other important causes. You do not know me, please do not put words in my mouth. Also I have Autism, depression and anxiety, all your accusations do is make me nervous and breakdown. I recognize this doesn't excuse my behavior, but it does explain my lack of a reaction after all this time. I apologize for the negativity I've brought to wrestling, anything I've had to say that went too far, attacking your faves and I apologize for my lack of owning up to it.

and if that is not enough. I won't post about wrestling and I won't even talk about wrestling and just watch it in my own personal space and keep my opinions to myself. And if that STILL isn't enough I will stop sending asks to our mutual friend

Please just leave me alone.

#Asks #Anon #AEW

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aimmyarrowshigh · 1 year ago

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How can you support SALS and also the OTW racism thing? I'm not saying racism is okay, but if all content is okay then all content is okay.

They're not related to each other at all.

The kind of racist content that #EndOTWRacism is talking about violates the most important tenet of the "fandom guidelines" that probably spurred this ask: DON'T BE AN ASSHOLE. If someone is intentionally trying to make fandom unsafe for fans of color, then they are BEING AN ASSHOLE.

Tagging the full, legal name of a scholar of color who called out your pro-Nazi non-fanfic for being pro-Nazi and not a transformative work in the first place, is being an asshole. I don't care that they're shipping their two OCs. I care that they were doxxing a real human being. The issue is not "ship and let ship," it's that this person was BEING AN ASSHOLE.

Writing a fic where you turn a white villain into a Native character for the sole purpose of having him abduct and rape your white protagonist is BEING AN ASSHOLE. Was it a ship that I personally hate? Yes. But the issues with that fic were not that it was the ship that I hate, it was that they intentionally used Native identity as a shorthand for "violent rapist," which is obviously racist. And he's already a rapist in canon as a white guy. I don't have to like the ship to let them ship it. But the issue here wasn't the ship. It was the racism.

Writing a fic where the very recent devastation of a Black community and deaths of thousands of Black people is the vaguely-mentioned background for your two white guys to fall in love and bone down is BEING AN ASSHOLE. Especially when, after people tell you that you're being insensitive and racist, you double down on it being "the best fic idea ever." The issue here was not the ship, which was a hugely popular fandom juggernaut of two white cishet dudes. It was the racism.

Writing a fic where you only ever refer to half of your interracial ship by a racial slur is BEING AN ASSHOLE. If you can't think of any descriptors for a Middle Eastern character besides a slur, then you aren't ready as a person to be writing about a character from the MENA. The issue here isn't the ship, which is, again, a fandom juggernaut, and also canon. It's the racism.

Writing fics where you insist that a character of color is actually white because you don't like ~when politics mix into your space opera and he's too hot to be a person of color anyway~ is BEING AN ASSHOLE, and also it's being racist even if you're shipping him (nay, especially if you're shipping him) with another character of color. Whitewashing a character to make them more palatable to you is obviously racist.

Writing a fic where the only person of color in your boy band is a drugged out, terrible person is BEING AN ASSHOLE. Especially when dude, there are videos of the white guys in the band doing drugs. The issue is not any ship involved, it's the racism.

Now, do I, personally, as a Jewish white person, think that all of those were written with the INTENT of making fandom unsafe for fans of color? Probably not -- I think that the last one was borne of unconscious racism, not intentionally malicious racism. Probably. But that doesn't make it Not Racist. And it doesn't make fandom safer for fans of color to give it the benefit of the doubt.

But most of these? Were literally written TO MAKE FANDOM UNSAFE FOR FANS OF COLOR. To punish fans of color for daring to state opinions about the racism that they've faced from a certain fandom or fan or set of shippers. You do not accidentally doxx a scholar of color in your tags. You do not accidentally HAPPEN to change a white villain's race to make them more villainous. You don't accidentally use a litany of slurs to write about a character of color.

I think that there are more accidentally-racist fics on AO3 than there are intentionally, maliciously racist fics. I've written some fics that are accidentally racist myself, and I've learned from being called out and I can only ever try to do better. #EndOTWRacism is not about getting people banned forever from ever writing anything ever again because they grew up steeped in structural racism and it translated in some way to their writing. It's about a) holding AO3 and the OTW accountable for their promise to hire a diversity consultant, and b) making fandom safer for fans of color when these INTENTIONAL, MALICIOUS acts of racism DO happen. Because they are not the same thing as "someone wrote an icky ship."

Also, frankly, because I've seen this argued, too -- fandom is not meant to be a space for children. So arguing that "well then we need to put in place policies to protect children and make them safer in fandom" is a specious comparison. Fandom has never been for children, it's still not for children, and it'll never be for children. AO3 is not a space that children belong in. It's not designed for children. It's not for them.

But it's also not a space that is For Whites Only. And if the OTW doesn't want it to come across like it's a space For Whites Only, they need to follow through and hire the diversity consultant and recognize that intentional, targeted acts of overt racism *against real fellow fans* are not the same thing as dumb reports about a ship being icky, and they can't treat them both with the same velvet gloves.

If a child under 13 gets onto AO3, lies their way into seeing Snape/Harry content, and feels gross about it, that is on them for lying and on their caregiver for letting them onto an adult site unsupervised. AO3 is not for children. If that child, or their guardian, then makes a report to Abuse that someone who wasn't supposed to be on AO3 bypassed the safeguards set up by AO3 and saw something that is allowed on AO3, that's a them problem.

If an adult fan of color gets onto AO3 and sees that they have been doxxed in the tags of a story, or that their community's dead bodies are being used as fodder for a white-guy love story, or clicks into a fic for a ship they like and are confronted with whitewashing or slurs, and they make a report to Abuse, there needs to be a mechanism in place to make the person who IS MEANT TO BE ON THE SITE safer. Whether that's adding a Warning category for Racism, a way for users to flag a work for being racist and having some kind of pop-up or something show up, better block and mute features, suspending users who doxx or otherwise engage in targeted harassment campaigns, or some combo of the above, the adult fan of color BELONGS on AO3. Their experience being unsafe is an AO3 problem.

It has nothing to do with shipping. No one is saying that everyone who ships Steve/Bucky instead of Sam/Bucky is going to get a big asterisk on their profile that says, "RACIST BECAUSE THEY SHIP A BAD SHIP." But if you write a fic where you kill off Sam in a grotesque way SO THAT Steve and Bucky fall in love? Yeah, that's racist and you're not a safe writer for fans of color to be around.

"But how do I know if I'm being racist???"

RULE #1: DON'T BE AN ASSHOLE. If you're Not An Asshole, then your mistakes are just mistakes. If you're Being An Asshole, then that's a problem, not a mistake.

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cubikzoa · 2 years ago

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Hey guys, just wanted to say this bc I feel like it’s important, especially as a huge Star Wars fan myself. I’ve been noticing a disturbing trend recently on Star Wars YouTube channels, but I do know that it’s been going on for a while on various parts of the internet and in the Star Wars fandom. A portion of Star Wars fans like to say that “The Empire was right!”, and to me, that’s worrisome, annoying, and the very antithesis of the message that ALL Star Wars movies have been conveying since the original trilogy.

I think it’s important to mention that George Lucas himself has said that he largely based the Empire on Nazi Germany. Star Wars has always been a commentary on morality, equality, and how people have fought to protect themselves, their loved ones and friends, and the galaxy. It’s an incredibly overt message that even a middle schooler with a decent education on WWII could see if you just look at the plot:

How the Empire committed genocide against many species and cultures, how Imperial officers and recruiters were stated to be prejudiced against “aliens”, how Luke was given his first lightsaber by Obi-Wan, a metaphorical torch and legacy to carry to aid others, given to him by a survivor of “the dark times”. How Palpatine was influencing Anakin with talk of Sith ideology and how power was important from the time he was young, and how Palpatine was elected as chancellor, only to turn the republic into a Galactic Empire. How Luke had to face the fact that his father was Darth Vader, and how he didn’t have to be that way, how he could break the cycle. How Leia and Padme were struggling to fight for true democracy and the rights of all in a republic, and later Empire, where the majority of the powerful in both eras were horribly corrupt and tried to block their efforts. How Cassian was thrown into imperial prison for overtly exaggerated and falsified crimes, an imperial prison meant to work its prisoners until their death. How the stormtroopers and so many others blindly followed orders again and again. How the first order held rallies and hung banners as red as blood. How Moff Gideon bombed Mandalore, slaughtered the Mandalorians, and turned their sacred, cultural armor into his weapon to use against them. How he crushed the darksaber in his fist. How the Mandalorians were forced from their home to wander the galaxy trying to survive. How the remaining Jedi were hunted after most of them were dead, how they were betrayed by friends and neighbors and mentors to the Empire. How Anakin stormed the Jedi Temple with a battalion of clone troopers and killed everyone, even the younglings and those trying to protect them.

So, in short, if you’re a Star Wars fan and say that “The Empire was right!”, even as a joke, I’ll assume that you’re incredibly socially awkward at best or a horrendous bigot of some vile sort or another at worst. It kinda reminds me of the saying, “give a man a mask and he’ll show you his true self”, except this time, it’s people’s reaction to the mask that really reveals their opinions. All in all, to me, saying that is a huge red flag, especially in terms of morals. Stay safe out there Star Wars fans, and May The Force Be With You! Oh, and don’t forget to support your Jewish friends and online friends, as they may be going through a tough time right now, so offer them some support & kindness. 💕

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berlinbabylon · 2 years ago

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review of s4 (skip if you don’t want to read criticism)

SPOILER WARNING

so, i finished season 4 a couple of days ago and... i liked some parts of it and one episode was good (episode 8) but for the most part i really absolutely hated this season and i never thought i would say that. in my opinion, it actually got worse towards the end! i must be living in a different reality from everyone else.

i’m sorry. i really am. but i have to get this off my chest:

- charlotte double-wielding guns and shooting up those white hand idiots like she’s in a john woo movie? awesome! except... it was dumb af. this could have been so good, i’m a huge genre fan of this type of action, but not at the expense of a character’s intelligence. there was zero reason for her to barge in there when she did. at least make it seem like they’re just about to kill the good pathologist, have them string him up or whatever and she sees and has absolutely no alternative but to intervene. or have them conclude their meeting and start making for the door. please, i’m begging, just anything to make her desperate actions make sense.

- malu taking a shot for kiddie fiddler wendt? thanks, i fucking hate it. for that matter, i hate what they did to wendt’s character.

- for that matter, awesome lgbt+ rep or uhmm not. reinhold and fred don’t even get a kiss or any significant scene together (the couples date at the very end is cute but too little too late) although fred actually has a fairly important role to play this season. we never even really get to see them talk about his decision to work for that nazi paper. like, what. okay, fred quits at the end, good for him, but does this qualify as a character arc now?

- speaking of lgbt+ rep, them blowing up the esther/edgar/walter polycule only to have walter go “well whattaya gonna do. i loved him ¯\_(ツ)_/¯” right as he croaks was the most ridiculous thing i’ve seen in a long while and didn’t land at all. i actually cackled. i can’t believe they turned the complex dynamic they had introduced in s3 into this clichéd jealousy mess that had no nuance whatsoever. i’m stunned people preferred their storyline this season. it didn’t track at all. neither did edgar showing up again (as i had predicted) and gereon believing him about wanting to broker peace in the underworld. el oh el.

- also edgar being like “oh btw we need to kill doktor schmidt, he’s an evil mastermind” was an absolutely ridiculous and lame way to try and advance that storyline. it also just got dumped in there and you don’t get any sense that it’s influencing gereon or his character actions at all. not that he has much of an arc or anything this season anyway but back when the show was still good (and by good i mean exceptional), his drug addiction and guilt complex was a major driving force behind much of what he did, how he behaved at work etc. here, in s4, you have to be grateful that they belatedly remember to send him to confession because he’s a catholic but that scene also just unceremoniously gets dumped in there. not to compare but since we have already seen an absolutely outstanding confession scene this tv season (in interview with the vampire, fabulously acted by jacob anderson), i couldn’t help but notice how the confession with gereon was neither written well, nor particularly acted well, nor integrated in its episode well, nor, in fact, scored well.

- max raabe’s ein tag wie gold is a bop but other than that, this season was not scored well and i say that as someone who owns the first two soundtrack releases on vinyl. there were many times when i noticed that something was off, where the music actively worked against the scene it was supposed to be enhancing. the song at the shabbat dinner was nice but as a jewish friend who i watched it with pointed out, them playing piano on shabbat is very sus, even if they’re a reform household. there was a woman with a wig which indicates (ultra) orthodox. not going to nitpick that scene any further though because the shabbat dinner and abe goldstein’s character in general were a highlight (although i loathed the storyline he was stuck in).

- tell me you don’t want to write actors out of the show without telling me. nyssen and helga have long overstayed their welcome. nyssen they could justify by having him pop up from time to time in connection to the rocket science “plot”. but he’s lars eidinger (who’s great), so. helga has just become whatever they needed her to be. anne marie’s actress had some extremely dodgy acting going on this season, sorry to say. i don’t even want to talk about the idiocy of how they wrote this storyline which could have been extremely good and important. i’ll just say that i laughed my ass off when anne marie clocked abe with her flute but generally it was not a good choice to play these kidnappings for laughs (and i guess these rich people just have no security whatsoever, even after the first kidnapping). there’s a time and a place and this storyline wasn’t it. but rich people, funny, or something. well, they are ridiculous.

- the whole story with the butler. talk about wasting screentime. his götz von berlichingen monologue was also really bad although i was delighted when i heard the verses. it just didn’t land. that goes for many scenes this season imo. i don’t know if it was the directing or what but even stuff that looks interesting on paper just does not come across well. it just comes across as ridiculous and manieriert. but not in the good way. (there is a way to do this well and the show used to walk that line very well. not anymore, it seems.)

- (side note: the frivolity of the movie industry provided the perfect pastiche for that sort of thing in s3. which is why i really vibe with it, as someone who’s a huge fan of 1930s movies. didn’t even mind that they relocated the apex of expressionism into the late 1920s when that’s very ahistorical. but anyway that’s a different topic.)

- actually as a last point on the nyssen storyline, abe goldstein shooting a hole in the ship instead of shooting anne marie in the head made me groan. it was so obviously written that way just to give her a chance to pop up later again. it made absolutely no sense, even if you try to handwave it as an attempt at poetic justice. neither did helga leaving her down there make any sense. she had no way of knowing that abe would kill her or make it seem like he killed her. at that point, helga still looked like she could think straight, she didn’t tumble around deliriously, she made a clear choice. and they just did it for the twist, not because it made sense for the character in that moment.

- the show was always very drunk on coincidences, twists of fate etc in that 19th century charles dickens / victor hugo way and i could dig that for the most part because they had this rich tapestry of social commentary going on. while i can still appreciate the breadth of society that they’re trying to show, it now comes across as shallow, there’s no immersion, i was extremely distanced from everything going on and couldn’t have cared less, which is a damn shame considering that this is where we should start feeling even more involved.

- as for one storyline that i couldn’t have cared less about: everything to do with toni. in fact, i think it would have been far more poignant if we hadn’t seen her for a season and hadn’t known what had become of her after running away and then when we least expect it, charlotte comes across her living on the streets, maybe while chasing a suspect or something. now that’s a coincidence i could buy. and such a scene would play like a gut punch. but they rob themselves of any dramatic impact by wanting to overexplain and overshow and being all pedagogical which is a huge problem in the writing of german tv shows and s4 of babylon berlin has started showing all the hallmarks of mediocre german tv and it makes me feel sick, considering how stylish and epic the previous seasons were.

- toni’s actress is not good. i’m sorry. i just have to say it. but also, they stuck her in a nothing storyline. moritz’ actor fares better but if they wanted to pair off the spares and get rid of them, they needed to do that in a way that would’ve left more screentime for the interesting and/or relevant stuff. like, uhm, everything to do with malu/litten/charlotte etc. it’s a damn crime that they didn’t do anything with lotte being fired from the police and then hired by litten. nothing. she gets to mope around at the bar a little bit and poor jacky gets to be her hapless sounding board (he deserves better, so many characters and actors in this cast deserve better). and then she gets to be gereon’s emotional support system. once again, charlotte is deprived of any and all agency and no, the double-wielding scene does not make up for it. the scenes in that haus sonneborn institution were well-shot, the horror film genre influence was clear, but unfortunately i don’t much care for horror films and i also, at that point, did not much care for toni or her friend or the pathologist (f*ck him for getting rudi killed in a very lame rip-off of stephan’s much superior exit) and we all knew lotte wasn’t going to die. that’s what i mean by immersiveness: where in previous seasons i’d have been on the edge of my seat with tension and dread, this didn’t elicit much emotion from me at all. except for the groan when lotte did her thing at the end there. the only good thing to come out of that was her conversation with gereon about her guilt which was the only time in the entire season where i believed a scene between them, emotionally, and was invested.

- i guess that, on the bright side, she got to be happy. i support that. even though i don’t believe it should have to come at the expense of the show being good. and she still had to go through that awful ordeal of the dance marathon. (one of the few memorable scenes of the season, at the very least.)

- random but i very much liked the actor playing oskar. and he was very much underutilized. really, don’t get me started on the entire debacle that was malu’s storyline. i think i’d rather have watched an entire season set on that zeppelin than what we ended up with.

- litten not even being in the finale should actually be considered a crime against humanity considering he’s literally the best character on the show at this point. for that matter, the trial against katelbach and the undermining of the legal system and the press should have been a much bigger arc and point. katelbach still being a comic relief character only used to bumble about not knowing whether he did propose to behnke or not is absolutely ridiculous. these are the characters we’ve come to know and care about and they were paid absolute dirt in s4. behnke’s best scene was the train heist and even that was not edited or scored well but hey, at least it was amusing and they did something with some sort of flair there.

- going back to lotte for a moment. i’m happy for the charlotte/gereon shippers that they got so much fucking out of them this season (to be crude, then again so is the show) but i can’t be the only one who thought they were awkward as all hell together. i never shipped them but i did always like their dynamic and i thought their kiss in s3 was magical. what they did with them here did absolutely nothing for me, i cringed when she visited him at the station and their idea of sexy talk in between kisses was discussing case-related work. none of it had the levity, flirtation or charm you’d see in a lubitsch film (one of the alleged inspos for this season) although liv lisa fries sold the hell out of her infatuated smiles and looks. volker bruch trying to smile was physically painful to me, however. sure, it could be charming that he’s an awkward turtle duck but considering everything we know about the bts issues, it really didn’t endear me any further. i dread having to watch them be awkward together in future seasons and i absolutely dread lotte’s only purpose being tied up in that. for that matter, how did she earn her badge back at the end? surely not with her double-wielding gun action? but it’s not like the show really cared to pursue this as a storyline or her as a character this season, so why should i care.

- the way they threw rukeli in there at the very end of the season was almost offensively bad. i was extremely excited for him to show up ever since they had insinuated that he’s her half-brother in s3. the actor here was fine (i wouldn’t count on him being accurately or sensitively cast bc german productions usually don’t do this, haven’t checked it, however) but you’re really going to do a whole season where boxing is at the very least on the periphery and you’re only going to throw him in at the end to make some sort of point? we didn’t even get to stay with him and lotte during their first meeting? we’re just supposed to believe they have some sort of relationship now after that camera shot panned out, showing them through the window of the café? i’m sorry but what?

- worst of all: them having him use chalk as white paint to mock the nazis in the audience to make a point. you can’t make a character we’ve barely even met the dramatic and emotional high point of the season. and i’m sorry but rukeli was a real person and in real life he was forced to present himself with bleached hair and white paint in an “aryanized” form, this was part of the abuse he suffered!!! it makes me absolutely mad to think about how they tried to turn this into some kind of empowerment thing here. nevermind that at this point in time, audiences were still overwhelmingly on his side and actually protested against fights being rigged against him. i just absolutely hate everything this scene chooses to be. i also hate how gereon walks up to that one guy who can command~ the crowd and we get a flashback to something that happened in the same episode, like, just 30 minutes earlier, to remind us that this is the guy he refused to shoot so they can defuse the situation in the dumbest most construed way possible. i feel like i’m losing my mind when i see people say that this is good writing. good writing would have involved audiences not needing a flashback to something that happened in the same episode, just because almost nothing in this season is giving anything resembling the appropriate weight and focus.

- speaking of which, the case of the season was so uninteresting and lame i even forgot to talk about it. and i still don’t have anything to say. except one thing: why did weintraub not immediately suspect that something was up with max (the henchman) when that car bomb went up killing the other henchman? because weintraub arrived in the car, went inside, came back outside and suddenly a bomb has been attached to his car in the meantime and max was standing there all the time? like, what?? this season is littered with this dumb shit and maybe it was prevalent in the other seasons as well and i just chose to overlook it because there was so much for me to love but i genuinely can’t believe five adults wrote this season and struggled so much with thinking any of it through. it feels like they just had little chess figures with pictures of the characters attached to them and tried moving them across a board.

- oh and one more thing about the flashback issue. böhm and his family being in that apartment at the very end was an absolutely ridiculous scene. his money issues were well-telegraphed, a little too well-telegraphed if you ask me, and his involvement in the shoot-up was already extremely obvious by the time his wife demands to know where he’s got his money from. that bit where he collapses against the wall and we get all these flashbacks to things an audience that’s half-way intelligent and half-way paying attention has already gotten long ago was just embarrassing for the show. the issue wasn’t just with the flashback, however, it was also with the way it was shot and edited. so many scenes this season really don’t land as intended. i feel bad for the actors because they’re doing their best and they’re also not at fault for this weird issue in german shows where they do really bad ADR (re-dubbing scenes when there were sound issues in the footage from set, it makes dialogue sound very unnatural and strange and the show always had this issue in certain scenes but in this season it’s amplified to the max, i almost couldn’t watch the edgar/gereon reunion because of the bad sound engineering). but woof that böhm family scene could have been a highlight but the way he creepily said something to the effect of them never being separated (probably telegraphing an eventual fate that we call “erweiterter suizid” in german where usually a man kills his family and then himself) and then the show just straight up cutting to the nyssen last will scene without giving any of it the time to sink in was absolutely comical. i’m sorry. but there are scenes this season that feel amateur and i don’t think you can blame it on covid when the editing is at issue.

- having said all of that, i was excited for gereon’s arc this season and imo they never did anything of note with him undercover in the SA. why not have him befriend stennes for real, become conflicted about what he’s trying to do (and, well, in fact him and the police president do want stennes to succeed so it wouldn’t even have been that outlandish). him talking to the police president about the mission at home while his very much indoctrinated nephew is in listening distance was so so dumb omg.

- the stennes putsch which i also was very much looking forward to was such a flop that fizzled out without any real spark. his confrontation with wendt was lame af. the actor is awesome, his interactions with wendt in s3 were intriguing and this what it all leads up to? gdi. i can’t believe they wasted so much time on that homophobic blackmail material plot when it was never even picked up again after it got stennes out of prison. he never should have gone to prison before the putsch, he already had his conflict with wendt from last season, they could have saved so much time on this and dedicated it to something actually interesting. and if you actually want to get into the messiness of homophobia and homosexuality in the SA, röhm and all, you better be prepared to bring on figures like magnus hirschfeld (it’s honestly ridiculous he hasn’t even been referenced on the show yet because he was super famous in berlin and germany in general and also a favorite target of the nazis). reference the harden-eulenburg affair. do something with this. not just have wendt buggering a kid in a park. i like that gräf was quietly pissed at gereon about the whole thing but this should never have been a storyline in the way it was implemented.

- it really ruined wendt on top of things. not that it made him worse as a person because he was already bad before (though lbr it did make him worse ofc) but it made him a whole lot more uninteresting as a villain (he only seemed to find his groove back in the last two episodes). the interesting part of his dynamic with malu in s3 was the intellectual clash of ideologies. while i did not and do not ship them, i was very intrigued to see where they would take that in s4. well, i have my answer. they skipped any and all interesting and relevant development and turned it into an extremely clichéd and lame honey trap plot because we all know communists loved honey traps. groan. (yes, i watched the americans.) also, rilke is my favourite poet and has been for many many years and wendt needs to keep his words out of his damn mouth. i can’t believe they revealed that wendt used to sexually abuse underaged boys and still wanted us to think that his relationship with malu is in any way romantic, cute or intriguing?

- i was so rooting for doktor völcker to get him and then malu just had to take a bullet for him. bruh. just when i thought i couldn’t hate this season more. i know i already mentioned it but still. at least she didn’t die from it, small blessings, but her getting shot straight through the chest and then being back to spy shenanigans on the zeppelin not much later was just the height of ridiculousness. i always hated the train confrontation between gereon and bruno and it seems that the show is very very determined to evermore move towards that pulpy comic book-y version of the show that i can barely tolerate in order to get to the good stuff. but when there’s barely any good stuff to get to, it gets tough.

- do i even want to talk about edgar? him taking the kids away from esther was lame. anything to do with esther was lame. i can’t even muster more to say and edgar/gereon was one of my absolute favourite dynamics in s1/2 so i should’ve been overjoyed to see it make a return here. but, in the eternal words of the matrix: not like this.

- finally, doktor schmidt, eh? well. where to begin. first of all, jens harzer is one of the best living german actors, he’s phenomenal, and the fact that he still gets so little development is a fucking joke, frankly speaking. i might have liked his scene with alfred lying on the floor best. at least it was funny. his sessions with gereon were hamfisted in their analogies. his last scene with gereon also didn’t land, it was just groan-worthy. gereon repeating back his words just made it all the more obvious how much of their luster they have lost at this point. i can’t believe someone spoke schmidt’s platitudes in a serious way like some sort of cool mic drop when the “quelle der angst” stuff only works in that hypnotic evil drugged out therapy session way jens harzer says it. the cgi was also bad but that’s neither here nor there (there was a surprising number of badly lit and framed scenes in this season, idk if they changed cinematographers but even the staple shot of following a centered gereon with his hat around became extremely overused). the thing is that i’ve long been convinced that doktor schmidt isn’t actually anno / gereon’s brother, so i should be happy that he seems to be finally be revealed as a svengali type which i also find very fitting for the movies and culture the show references as well as the history it tries to reflect (in fact, this season was as thematically rich as ever, with many metaphors and analogies for the rise of evil etc etc but what good is that if it’s all pedagogical and the actual character writing is either non-existent or utter bullshit?). they’ve dragged this out for too long now. they also, and this might be the worst offense, have completely lost the connection gereon is supposed to have to this plot. nevermind helga or moritz. have doktor schmidt be a svengali figure, fine, love that, i vibe with it, but that doesn’t mean this plot should have no advancement. it really feels like they treaded water for as long as they could because they only had a very vague idea of where they wanted to go with this and still needed to figure out the details. well, hire some fucking writers (and by that i don’t mean hire your wife, like one of the director/writers did for s4).

- i’ve really come to loathe this very german tradition of producers, directors and others thinking they can write scripts themselves and that there are barely any decent writers around who are just that, writers. we have some that are barely okay but the structural issues of underpayment etc ensure that the talent that exists can’t turn this into a job. instead you really just have nepotism and all those people who think they can write but where the wheels eventually come off. now i’ve loved babylon berlin for a very long time, i’ve been there since the beginning, i’ve actually been there since the first press announcement (the show spent a lot of time in production hell before s1/2 saw the light of day, the budget kept ballooning etc). and i will say that i think the first three seasons featured some of the best that german tv has to offer. (s3 slightly less so but it was still entertaining and i think they did a really good job introducing a number of great characters like malu and litten in it, plus sabin tambrea is always fun!) but i must now question whether i was not more so taken in by the direction, the music, the style, and some very expertly shot and executed scenes that the show either cannot or does not want to afford anymore. the type of scenes that are needed to let the wild and often nonsensical plotting breathe and give the characters a chance to shine, to give all of it depth and resonance. i’m really so profoundly sad by the direction this show’s quality has taken and i have no idea whether it’s because one of the directors did more this season than the others, whether it was because of the new writers (i hope not). whatever happened, they had enough prep time and this just ain’t it.

- last point: i know how annoying it is when a show that you love gets hated on by others, so this is the last thing i’ll say about that. but i really needed to get this off my chest because i’ve been loving the show for a very long time, i’ve been investing a lot of time (not so much in recent years but before that) into spreading the word, at least here on tumblr and irl where i got several people into the show who all disliked s4 as well btw, i loved making gifs (which is also why i’d say i have a very good eye for the cinematography and style of the show and all the finer details but gif-making isn’t a real credential ofc lol). and i’m usually quite chill about stuff, i’m neither a super stan even when i love something (which is also why i didn’t watch it first thing it came out) nor am i a hater when i don’t like something but a case like this, where i genuinely loved something and it turns sour, that hurts, man. i’ll probably watch the next season - if there’s a next season! - because i still hold out hope that it might be better, i think it’s an important history to tell and the show had everything set up in order to tell it. there are two gif sets i want to make of this season (which is also always a good gauge for me to tell how i feel about something, and even those sets aren’t sets i absolutely want to do but i’ll do them nonetheless at some point; probably). after that i don’t think i will use this blog much anymore but i’ll keep it online for as long as tumblr is online because i always find it annoying when other people delete their stuff.

so long und auf wiedersehen!

#babylon berlin #babylon berlin spoilers #s4 #i realize that this a long post of mostly negativity which i do apologize for but i hope someone might find some validation in this #if they have the same opinion #for those of you who don't i hope you don't take this to heart because most of it is really a matter of taste #and things that i'm peculiar about i suppose #i do believe s4 has objective issues with quality (yes also in comparison with the much-maligned s3)#but that's neither here nor there #i just wanted to get my personal grievances off my chest #all the best to everyone and if you still enjoy the show - good for you!#i mean that genuinely

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brw · 2 years ago

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I saw your post about Charles Xavier, and I loved it. I hate when Charles is written by as villainous or seen that way by fans; because of his visible disability and one the fact that he's one of the most prominent disabled characters in comics that is being portrayed/seen as evil.

Also, could you tell me about your thoughts on Charles please.

ooooo yeah i do think writers have given charles a VERY short end of the stick... which is weird because a lot of writers after will continue to write him as a kindly old man figure despite the moral transgressions which i think is where most people's frustration comes from. but i do think he's held to a higher standard? like i keep saying it but emma's name is literally white queen + she once stole & used ororo's body against her will + hellfire trading company is very clearly inspired by the east india trading company, but she's a fan favourite. this isn't to say he isn't an awful person at times but for xmen that means kind of nothing to me. anyway, for me personally i just get frustrated because i think there is a good potential narrative here but because writers aren't disabled & don't understand our experiences this context is always missing.

"charles is a spineless liberal" is funny to say but it makes more sense once you think about him as a disabled man who for most of his life was not disabled. disabled people HAVE to make themselves digestible & acceptable for neurotypical society, so we can get the accessibility & accomodations we desperately need. it makes SENSE from that perspective charles would be more about acceptance & assimilation, because from his experience as a disabled man that's what he needs. it makes sense that erik, as a jewish survivor, knows that you can't make peace with some people & it is much better to be independent, to have the ability to defend yourself & to take out the people who literally want you dead, but those aren't necessarily the same goals as the disabled community, at least not for Charles. Him & Erik are a very interesting potential narrative about how different communities have different goals and different needs, but because few writers who touch Charles have disabilities that nuance is often lost & he becomes the spineless liberal we joke about.

Charles also works as a very good discussion on internalised ableism, were people to take him in that direction. Like I said, Charles wasn't always disabled & for much of his early adult life he was able bodied, & he grew up in an ableist society. It makes sense he would then internalise that & project that onto his own students & the way he approaches mutants. because he's so uncomfortable with himself & the way he looks, he's become uncomfortable with the way visible mutants look too because he struggles to separate the two. that would explain in part why all the mutants he chooses to represent the xmen or to go out for press conferences or whatever are all human passing, because of his internal sense of shame that he's projected onto children who don't deserve that.

& that's one of the biggest let downs of the modern era is that Charles automatically chooses to be walking.Yes, for some people that's empowering, but Charles will always be the first name people think of when they think of wheelchair users in comics, aside from Barbara. That recognisability in my opinion is more important, & I just can't help but feel like it would be important to have Charles be with Karma in a character that has accepted their disability & is not interested in changing themselves. Yes, that isn't everyone's experience & I do think it's important for some people who want those stories to have a voice, but Charles has a pop culture iconography that in my opinion is more important than a justification to erase his disability.

Charles is a very flawed person, & I think he should stay being flawed & imperfect & often ignoring other people's needs & opinions that are based around their experiences that he doesn't share, but I think he also does have a lot of potential as a disabled character & I'm very frustrated at the x-office opting to just erase that aspect rather than try and include those narratives. Like Krakoa still doesn't look wheelchair accessible. We could have an interesting discussion about how even in leftist utopias disabled people are still often forgotten about or ignored & erased out of the discussion, but because nobody sees the inaccessibility that discussion just isn't there. It's disappointing & just another item in the long list of how the X-Men team fail to tackle minority politics accurately or at all.

#asks #itsblueberry13-blog #charles xavier #krakoa #i just feel like theres a lot of potential nuance & story in a character like charles #but again it just feels like the xmen office are just incapable of understanding them #& i love wiz-kid & his story hes great i dont want people to think im ignoring him #but as ive said if you ask the average person to name a fictional wheelchair user charles is one of the first names you will hear #his most iconic iteration is as a wheelchair user! that status in pop culture is important! it shouldnt be erased or ignored!!#just bothers me #professor x

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rotzaprachim · 2 years ago

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8 + one or two questions of your choice for the grishaverse :)

8) common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

the ken-dollification himbo-isation of matthias especially as it's used to kind of... flatten the mental processes of discombobulation and dissasociation and dislocation that come from being deradicalised from a cult? he thinks kaz is a demon but was he really wrong about that? i think matthias's character has a LOT more complexity in the books than people give him or the arc credit for and the way the very complex IRL psychology of how all-consuming and total the logic of cults and religious extremism are is flattened into big dumb dumb... dumb dumb... as well as the idea of matthias's ken-doll like ignorance around sex and whatnot as being some kind of light fun character trait instead of almost sometimes a write-off of the very real fact he was very much in a genocidal cult... idk man. it grinds my gears.

also! kaz's *distance* towards inej in the books! look he's not Nice to her and i don't want to excuse that but he has VERY good reasons apart from his own prudishness to keep that distance and that is that he is the boss and she is the employee! kaz keeping distance between himself and inej is the most ethical thing he can do in the most unbelievably unethical situation possible and i don't think a lot of fandom keeps that in mind esp during fics during the pre-soc era. THAT's why it's SO important he pays off her contract in CK it's literally the first step that possibly could happen in order for their relationship to progress in any ways.

what was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person?

that person who plagiarized my fic and became a big name author in fandom sure grinds my gears/

worst part of fanon?

not a fan of a lot of the kanej content that kind of makes a sexual show of kaz being mean to inej or things that edge on straight up domestic abuse cause he's AWFUL it's JAIL TO KAZ FOR A MILLION YEARS JAIL like don't get me wrong he is REALLY awful, terrible even, i don't vibe with the tailorswiftisation of him either but like.... not to Inej he isn't. the reproduction of the if a boy is mean to you he LIKES YOU LIKES YOU thing but under new wording idk. anyway if he treated inej IN EITHER BOOK OR SHOW CANON like he does in a bunch of fics i'd literally want her to murder him no jokes

topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

the disk horse is always on the darkling being jewish and not a single. other. grisha. why are zoya tamar nina and jesper never jewish omg. why are the fics always the crows celebrate xmas and never jesper's crazy exciting fun hot girl purim party!!!!! why not that.

and finalllllyyyyyyy

a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

people can write matthias very aggressively controlling nina during sex but also i hate it and don't buy it. guys the princess and the fjerdan was a joke (and a commentary about eroticised xenophobia) for a reason. guys. his canonical sexual fantasy as of CK is about going down on her guys. the only way he's a top is if he's a service top or something y'know? anyway.

#shadow and bone #i think there should be more fic about nina lovingly deflowering matthias tho. like i think their should be #i dont' usually say this but i think the potentials for both of their characterisations to be expanded via the means of fanfic sex scene???#insane #but it's like. the reyl0-isation of everything.#a vibe when reading helnik or kanej or rebelcaptain like this feels really wierd #(what's weird is the presence of a) breeding kink or b) men being creepy and controlling in ways kaz or cassian would NEVER BE)#and then you go look and the main thing this person wrote is reyl0

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crankynewt · 2 years ago

Text

MCU Phase 5 & 6 Predictions and Theories

Clearly I’ve had too much time on my hands lately, but please feel free to reply with your thoughts and own predictions! Links to sources have been provided in cases where tweets, articles, or interviews are referenced!

**Quick disclaimer that these are merely my own theories and predictions, not necessarily what I want or hope to happen, but are based on patterns and predicted storylines.**

Regé-Jean Page as Reed Richards/Mr.Fantastic.

I am pretty sure that Secret Invasion tweet error was a copy/paste issue from a cast list provided to social media reps of cast members so he has likely been cast in something. However, I doubt it is Secret Invasion and it would not be a minor role, and he would be a perfect choice for the smartest man alive.

Cillian Murphy will not play Doctor Doom, but he will be cast in a non-F4 project.

Although he has been fancast by many as Doctor Doom and would do a great job playing the villain, I really doubt we see him take up that mantle. However, I do believe we may see him take on another anti-hero or grey character as that he would do just as great a job as.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau cast as Victor von Doom/Doctor Doom.

This rumour has been circulating a while and seems the most likely scenario in my opinion, more so than other popular choices among fans such as Murphy and Cavill. Marvel has successfully cashed in on the Game of Thrones appeal of many actors in the past and they are sure to again.

**Although Coster-Waldau is a phenomenal actor and would play a MCU villain very well, it must be noted that Victor von Doom is a Romani character and should in fact be played by a Romani actor. Yet as Marvel has unfortunately not been competent in their appropriately cast Romani or Jewish characters of actors of a shared heritage, I find it difficult to believe that this behaviour will be amended in time for this casting (which may have already taken place).**

Laura Dern in New Asgard.

We saw Jeff Goldblum and Sam Neill in Thor: Ragnarok, giving us 2/3 of the original Jurassic Park trio, and both were set to be in Thor: Love and Thunder (but only Neill did as Goldblum’s scene was cut), I NEED DR. GRANT AND DR. SATTLER TOGETHER IN THE MCU. Possibly as actress Frigga in an Asgardian play? Maybe the Grandmaster could be in the audience?? I don’t care how this would happen as I don’t see Thor 5 happening, but it is very important to me personally that it does. (This is the only personal indulgence prediction I promise).

Sylvie will die in Loki Season 2, Loki returns to New Asgard.

Both of them won’t make it out of the next season, yet I see Loki being a more likely option to survive in this case as he would return to New Asgard as a whistleblower about how dangerous Kang has become. However, none of the Avengers would believe him until Scott Lang confirms following the events of Quantumania.

Valkyrie adopting a much larger role in the MCU, dates Carol Danvers.

As we are nearing the end of our time with Thor and Loki, Valkyrie will likely be our link to Asgard. It’s also about time they give our King a girlfriend, and it being Carol Danvers would make them the ultimate power couple.

Nova announcement for Phase 6.

It’s overdue that Nova be introduced into the MCU, and with the Guardians making their exit in May it is the perfect timing to introduce a new connection to the galactic aspect of the MCU. It would also possibly be something hinted towards or appear in a post-credit scene in GotG vol. 3, and be connected to Adam Warlock’s future in the MCU.

Midnight Sons announcement for Phase 6 or 7.

This one feels pretty obvious given the introduction of Moon Knight & Mr. Knight, Blade, Werewolf by Knight, Man-Thing (Ted!!!) and Elsa Bloodstone, we’re seeing much more characters falling into the darker and monster-related side of the MCU who are all tied to the Midnight Sons. In addition to the fact that other affiliates are likely being introduced soon, including Wolverine and Ghost Rider, and others including Doctor Strange, Wong, and Mordo already present, it is certainly in Marvel’s plans for the future.

Antony Starr cast as Dracula in Blade.

Another highly rumoured casting, this time based upon Starr tweeting about being busy with little explanation and other alleged leaks. He is amazing as Homelander in The Boys, so him undertaking a villain such as Dracula would be great.

“Ralph Bohner” revealed as Peter Maximoff, explains Deadpool and the X-Men’s introduction to the MCU.

Given the possibility that Ralph Bohner is the member of WITSEC that Jimmy Woo was going to Westview to visit, a theory I explain more in depth here as WITSEC is not typically FBI jurisdiction, it would make sense that he will be connected to Deadpool and the X-Men entering the MCU, albeit with a different cast. Peter and Wade would be from the same universe, with the new X-Men being from another, thus explaining the discrepancy of having seen the first reboot of the franchise in Deadpool 2.

Daniel Brühl’s “surprise” return as Helmut Zemo in the Thunderbolts.

We were all expecting that Zemo was going to be in the Thunderbolts given that he plays a significant role in the comics, and Brül addresses this by reminding fan’s that Zemo is “not dead” and “even if he could [explain], he couldn’t” tell fans if he will return. Yeah, he’s definitely coming back. Marvel’s probably just waiting until the trailer drops or even hiding it until the film’s release to generate hype closer to it’s release.

Okoye returns in Thunderbolts and Wakanda plays a large role in the plot.

Given Bucky’s history with Hydra, it’s difficult to see Bucky joining Valentina given her ties with the organization, leaving two scenarios plausible: he is not aware of them, or is a double agent. If the possible rumours that it involves a heist in Wakanda, especially considering how Valentina likely has a vendetta against them for aiding Ross in escaping, it is surely the latter as I cannot see Bucky so blatantly defying Wakanda after all they did for him unless there is a more pressing threat at hand (ie. in TFATWS/CAATWS). And, if this is true, a large threat such as the Hydra under the guise of the U.S. Government classifies it as that.

Andrew Garfield appearance in Venom 3.

This is pretty popular, but considering his line in Spider-Man: No Way Home that he “want[s] to fight an alien,” it feels foreshadowing. That, plus the fan reception of his return and performance as Peter Parker, makes it natural that Sony would want to continue featuring him in their non-MCU universe, and have him face off with Venom or join forces against a common foe.

Milly Alcock cast as Gwen Stacy.

Another GOT/HOTD related casting prediction, Milly Alcock as Gwen Stacy is something I have seen discussed as a fan cast rapidly growing in popularity. And, as mentioned before, Marvel has historically favoured actors who featured in GOT, including Richard Madden, Kit Harrington, and Emilia Clarke in the MCU, with Sophie Turner and Maisie Williams in the XCU. Not only has she proved herself a great actress and bears a striking resemblance to the comic and Into the Spiderverse depictions of the character, but Gwen Stacy needs to be played as independent, strong and proactive in her behaviour. In her portrayal of Rhaenyra Targaryen, she has proved herself capable of portraying these traits as a strong female lead tenfold.

Donald Glover Returns as Aaron Davis/Prowler along with Miles Morales.

Again, another pretty obvious development, but I do not think Glover’s role of producing and starring as the titular character of Hypno-Hustler, a Sony film about another Spiderverse villain, will impact his role as Prowler unless we explicitly hear him confirm that he will be handing the reins of the role over to another actor. And, of course, it is incredibly likely we see Miles Morales introduced within the next few Spider-Man films.

Scott Lang is the one Avenger who remembers Peter Parker.

We know that there has been some exploration of the possibility that one Avenger remembers Peter Parker, and the one possible option is Scott Lang. It is through the Quantum realm that we know time travel is possible, and it may have been something being experimented with by Scott, Hope, Hank, Janet, and possibly Cassie, at the time of the spell being cast. We also don’t know what other kind of characteristics the Quantum realm may possess with regard to impacting how the spell may effect someone in it and/or absent at the time it was cast. However, this is just one of many possibilities.

Hank Pym dies in Ant-Man: Quantumania.

Pretty self explanatory, but I think as this is most likely the final Ant-Man movie, especially with Paul Rudd, that one of their main characters will die and, since they just got Janet back, Hank seems like the most emotional loss for the other characters.

Druig will adopt a more villainous role by the end of Phase 6.

I love Druig and Makkari so much, but in the comics, Druig is a villain that the Eternals fight against as well as being related to them. I don’t see them killing off Makkari and would be devastated if they do, but I think she may be injured or have something happen that would send Druig on a spiral. We would probably not see this until after Eternals 2 or the next Avengers films, but I fully expect Druig to have a character arc quite similar to Wanda’s.

Richard Madden returns as Ikaris in Eternals 2.

Arishem has the power to recreate any of the Eternals he wishes and, given that Ikaris was his most loyal follower and would be difficult both emotionally and physically for many of the Eternals to fight again, it would be in his best interest to bring him back.

Upcoming Avengers movie(s) death predictions:

Stephen Strange, Thor Odinson, Bucky Barnes, Scott Lang, Bruce Banner, Nick Fury.

Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 death predictions:

Rocket, Nebula, Drax, and Peter Quill.

Henry Cavill cast as any character.

He needs to be petty and go to DC’s competition lmao.

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lonniemachin · 1 year ago

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tim

Sexuality Headcanon: bi of course! canon, which is why it’s also canon in my head.

Gender Headcanon: cis guy but i could also see him as some flavor of nonbinary or transfem.

A ship I have with said character: you already know what i’m gonna say. timlonnie. i’ve gone over my thoughts on it so many times but i enjoy the ways in which they exist as separate characters and also foil each other and the way that their histories are intertwined. i think that the precipice of mutual understanding theyve existed on since they first met is super interesting and if they stepped over it it has the potential to be good for the both of them as they possess characteristics the other lack yet are also the same in certain ways. they make a good team when they work together and… it’s just fun. tim grows to care about her and understand her ideals, the most important thing to her. for someone like lonnie who is so isolated, i think that counts for something. AND he saved her life twice.

A BROTP I have with said character: can’t go wrong with tim & kon, which needs no introduction, but i also love his relationships with his eldest siblings (dick & cass) and of course. of COURSE. cassie sandsmark.

A NOTP I have with said character: aside from the obvious (batcest) do not breathe the same air as me if you ship him with jpv. which should go without saying but you’d be surprised!

A random headcanon: brown eyes babyyy. my mind refuses to register him as having anything else. also i think he is italian-irish american jewish and i’m stickin’ to it.

General Opinion over said character: where to begin. tim is one of my favorite DeeCees but if he isn’t yes he is no he isn’t ❤️. he’s genuinely compelling to me both in-universe and out-of-universe as one of the catalysts that brought the Bat Family as it develops together, being a part of events and teams that left such a huge impact on the dcu and what he represents symbolically wrt robin in the bat mythos, as well as generally knowing a little bit of everybody which makes for some great dynamics but i think his perception tends to get caught up in such a convoluted web of fanon and counter-fanon that it can be hard to tell, unless you… yknow. read his comics. just exactly who he is. i like his trait of being someone who knows his role very well and knows what he does not want to become and developing just how he differs from both of those. i do not understand why people latch onto him so hard though and think a large chunk of his fans tend to find it hard to accept that the dcu does not revolve around him and that he has flaws and it can come at the expense of people’s perception of a ton of other characters. also he’s a car guy over being a skateboarder… remember this and update your headcanons accordingly (/joke).

#anon #ask game #thank you!#i have more to say about him but its late lol

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ramblings-of-a-mad-cat · 2 years ago

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Rowling can go fuck herself. She and her books have always been garbage. Not sure why you think otherwise but.

Because that's just not true, anon. It's some kind of revisionist history that rewrites her into a villain from day one, but I don't think she was.

And if you'll stay with me, I think I have a theory as to what happened.

I was there. Perhaps I wasn't as educated as I am now, and perhaps I'm not as educated now as I will be in five or ten years. So maybe I'm wrong and I will one day come to understand that. But I don't think so. I remember living through the earlier days, and I can look back on them now. There was a time, not even that long ago, when Rowling wasn't the monster she is now. Because I used to defend her all the time, before she became a transphobe.

That was where I parted ways with her, and that will remain true. If she educates herself, realizes the error of her ways...if she apologizes and works to make it right, then maybe I'll reconsider. But I'm not holding my breath. Not only is she doing genuine harm, but she's betraying her fans. Whether she realizes it not, she is betraying everything she once stood for. What's truly ironic is that Rowling herself deplores betrayal. She's said as much, and that point of view is reflected in the books.

Let's talk about the books.

I'm not sure there's anything to be gained from defending them at this point, short of my telling what I believe to be the truth. I'm not at all certain that standing by the books will help anyone at this point, but I think demonizing them for no other reason than because of who wrote them, when she wrote them literal decades ago...I think doing that is, to put it lightly, unwise. Because the books, in my opinion, aren't problematic. Quite the opposite. My voice isn't more important than the voices of those speaking on behalf of their experiences in oppressed communities, but I do think that things aren't always what they seem.

I believe a lot of these things are either unfortunate coincidence, or just a lack of research on Rowling's part, without any intended malice. Or are otherwise microaggressions that originate from the social climate of the nineties. Which sounds like I'm dismissing the concerns, but that's not my goal. Let me go through some of the examples. It's going to seem like I'm defending Rowling at certain points, but trust me, it all goes to hell down the line, and I'm going to talk about that too.

Rita Skeeter. Is her physical description meant to be a caricature of trans women? Is her status as an Animagus who spies on children meant to depict a trans woman as a predator? No, I don't think so. Perhaps if she were written by Rowling today, I could see it. But Rowling herself has stated that she didn't become "aware" of this subject until a few years ago. In other words, she wasn't a TERF when she wrote the books. Rita spying on children with her animal form is also hardly unique. Wormtail does it too.

I've talked at length about the Goblins, but everything I'm about to say, I've seen on other posts. I've seen people, including Jewish bloggers, making these points. And the fact is - the Goblins in the original books are...really not that bad. They were likely intended to just be another culture. Based on old tweets from around the time, Rowling was actually very outspoken for Jewish rights. It's entirely possible that she just didn't know of the history of Goblins and their mythology. The films are a different story, Hogwarts Legacy is another story. But the original seven books? They're easy enough to give the benefit of the doubt.

But then there are the names. Various characters have names that are...painful to look back on. Everyone knows the different examples. Cho Chang being the most obvious, but there are others. She wrote a black man called "Shacklebolt." She wrote a Jewish family called "Goldstein." Apparently Viktor Krum is also bad. To these examples, I have to say...yeah, they're not good. I don't imagine they were deliberate attempts to be racist or anything, just another example of her not doing research or seeing the problem. In particular, I'd have to say that Shacklebolt is a badass name for a badass character, but once you realize that he's Black...oof, yeah, that's unfortunate. Same goes for Anthony Goldstein. Yes, she was asked, but come on, only one character at Hogwarts is a confirmed Jew?

I could do this all day, and not just for the books.

I could point out that Rowling doesn't cast the films, so she can't he held responsible for any problems with making Nagini Asian. I could argue that mishandling the reveal of Dumbledore's sexuality isn't proof that she's Homophobic - she didn't have to make him gay at all, did she? Likewise, her comparing Lycanthropy to the AIDS Crisis may have been a mistake, but it's very possible that she didn't see the problem and genuinely meant it as a show of solidarity. I could argue that Rowling didn't "retroactively make Hermione Black" that all she did was defend a Black actress from racist attacks and take her side. I could find issues with all of the complaints against Rowling outside her Transphobia. But none of it will matter to a lot of you, and that's totally fair. A lot of you may wonder why I'm even bothering. You may think I'm missing the point, that I'm not a real ally, that this is a bad take. Again, fair enough. But here's the thing. People are complicated, and a person can be "woke" in one way and bigoted in another. It happens all the time. I think slotting people into black and white boxes is a bad idea and it ignores the complexity of these situations.

Because here's the thing.

Rowling may have been progressive and "woke" at one time...but those days are long gone. She wasn't always a bigot. She changed. It is so important that she changed, for so many reasons. People can change without realizing that it's happening. No one believes they're the bad guy, and it's obvious that Rowling still thinks of herself as a social justice warrior. She thinks she's fighting for women's rights. That's the real tragedy here. She used to be a hero, and she hasn't noticed that this is no longer the case. She can't even fathom that idea. The people who oppose her must be the villains, because it couldn't be her, right?

This is easily observed in her ongoing work, including what she's written for The Wizarding World. I just outlined a bunch of examples of how the original books aren't actually problematic. But those are the books. The Potterverse Goblins weren't always antisemitic, not really. But then the films gave them hooked noses and added the Star of David to the floor of Gringotts. Then the Fantastic Beast films had a Jewish actor play a Goblin who was a walking stereotype. Then Hogwarts Legacy happened - enough said. Before, I argued that Cho Chang's name was probably just an irresponsible accident, not deliberate racism. But then Nagini happened. True, she doesn't cast the films...but it still creates a pattern and if she really wanted to, she could have overruled this. If she wanted to, she could improve.

But Rowling will never do this. Because above all else, do you know what she is? She's stubborn. Rowling is sure of herself and very close-minded, even if she's also imaginative and brilliant in her own way. There's a reason Hermione was based on her. But brilliance is not a compliment if you use it to do harm. Another thing Rowling has got in spades, is Harry's sass. She has always had a sharp wit, and this is something we used to love about her, way, way back in the day. Remember when she clashed with the zealots who thought her books were "Anti-Christian" and teaching children black magic? Or even more recently, when the Trump voters threatened to burn their copies of the films because Rowling spoke out against him? She encouraged them to do it, because the fumes would be toxic and "I still have your money." But because of who she was insulting, it was hilarious - even admirable. I admired her.

But that's the thing. That's the whole point.

Rowling has never handled criticism well. She has always had a tendency to beat her chest and tell her haters "Come at me, bro." Which, when she was dealing with nonsense akin to what I just described, is frankly acceptable. It's an impressive response. Dare I say, legendary. But the problem is, this leaves her totally incapable of hearing us when we tell her that she's gone wrong. She does not seem able to distinguish between different types of negative reception. Critics of Rowling, up to and including former fans who loved the books...they have no hope of getting through to her because she'll never be willing to hear it. Because she developed a spine when it came to dealing with her critics back when they were unreasonable and insane, and now she can't tell the difference between valid criticism and bigoted delusion. She can't conceive of the idea that she's wrong about anything. So no one will be able to convince her that she's now a Transphobe. She'll have to come to that conclusion on her own, and so long as she remains in the circles she's in now...it will never happen.

I doubt I need to tell you that she is not a lone case. This happens to people all the time, including adults who are middle aged or elderly. I've heard it said before that children and young adults are very impressionable. That may be true, but I think sometimes people forget that everyone is impressionable. You are too, and so am I. Propaganda is very real, and depending on who you talk to, depending on what accounts you follow or where you get your news...you can absorb a great deal of implicit bias and unconscious hate. We're social creatures and a lot of who we are comes from who we associate with. It's so easy for a person to think they're becoming "woke" when in reality, they're learning new "information" from deceptive, bigoted sources. It doesn't matter how smart you are. If anything, the smartest people are often the most susceptible to brainwashing from cults. Propaganda is a powerful thing. Honestly, Rowling should really know that, given how well she writes it in the Fantastic Beast films, but a lack of self-awareness is one of her biggest problems.

The odds are absurdly low that she'll ever see this, but just in case, I'd like to say something to her directly.

Joanne, I hope you'll consider what I've written here today. I know I'm just some cat on the internet, but I don't think you're going to find someone who will deliver this message to you as politely as I will. Because...I know you weren't always on the wrong side. I know you don't think you are now. But anyone, even a world famous writer, can be fooled by propaganda, and used as a tool to continue the spread of hateful lies. You wrote the Harry Potter books. A series that speaks out against racism and nazism through it's story. Do you understand that you're donating to causes that are doing to Trans children what the Muggleborn Registration Commission did to muggle-borns in DH? You don't have to squint to notice the parallels. Just something to consider. Harry taught us that no one deserves to grow up in a closet, and you're the woman who wrote him. Trans people are not the "Death Eaters" of this allegory, and the longer you stick to that, the more people you're going to hurt.

To everyone else who's stuck with me through this post so far, thanks for your patience. Writing all this has actually somewhat drained me. Because the tale of J.K. Rowling is a tragedy. I hate her for what she's done and how she's betrayed us, but the parting hurts because she was once a good friend and ally. Sadly, I don't think she's coming back. The Harry Potter books are a relic, a snapshot of an era where she was one of the voices speaking out for our side, before we lost her. A combination of her own flaws and the suggestive power of propaganda has turned a childhood hero into a repellent villain, but it wasn't like she was always this way and it wasn't like a switch just flipped in her mind. It happened over time. And now it may be too late. I fear she's done too much damage to ever make it right, and the worst part of this is, I don't imagine she's ever going to try.

She is responsible for her own actions. Full stop. But hers should also be a cautionary tale for all of us. Any one of us could undergo the same transformation.

#J.K. Rowling #Harry Potter #Harry Potter Books #Joanne Rowling #Antisemitism #Racism #Transphobia #JKR #Anti-J.K. Rowling #Long Post #Blair Speaks #Homophobia

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