#anti-billionaire narrative

[ferdifz]

Thoughts on the missing OceanGate Titan submersible

So much "eat the rich" energy surrounding the social media comments around this story...

Meanwhile explorer Paul Henry Nargeolet is not a billionaire.

———

IwriteOK on Twitter:

folks complaining that the government or whoever isn't doing enough to rescue the deathsub may not realize that rescuing human beings submerged anywhere near the depth this thing was supposed to be at would be harder than putting a man on the moon

Not quite harder than putting a man on the moon, but hard enough still.

...as in: Each single trip to the moon requires months — if not a whole year or more — of preparation. This rescue needs to be done within the next like 48 hour or so, or not at all.

———

And how goes the Ukrainian counter-offensive? How goes the Myanmar coup-detat? How goes the Iranian women's-rights rebellion?

All things that continue to cost very real human lives.

———

Hope this one Tumblr post will be enough to sate my hunger to commentate. And then I can let go of commenting on this issue anymore going forward.

———

Update, about an hour after original post: US Coast Guard says 'underwater noises' have been detected in search for missing Titanic-tour submarine.

🐦 [Spectator Index] [AFP News-Agency] [the Associated Press]

———

Update, a few more hours later: Although yeah to be fair (via Eric Feigl-Ding on Twitter) :

My god—Oceangate, operator of missing submarine exploring the Titanic wreckage, had a viewport (window) certified only to 1300 meters, as whistleblower complained in a lawsuit, but was fired. So what’s the Titanic wreckage depth? ➡️4000 meters. 🔥

Missing Titanic Sub Once Faced Massive Lawsuit Over Depths It Could Safely Travel To (The New Republic, June 20, 2023)

———

Update, June 23rd:  "Tail cone of Titan sub found" - US Coast Guard press conference - via BBC News live update web-page

June 24th: Canadian and US officials have indicated there will be investigations into the Titan deaths. Other government agencies are may join in, but it is unclear at this stage which agency will lead the investigation.

June 28th: Pieces of derbris confirmed to be former OceanGate Titan submersible recovered; suspected human remains among the wreckage. (the Guardian)

[machinavocis]

.

[lilacsandlillies]

I was going through the anti Jason Todd tag because I hate myself and want to understand where people who dislike him are coming from and one thing I kept seeing was annoyance at Jason fans who claim that Jason is female coded and realized that the term “female coded” might not be the best term to describe what we mean.

A female coded character in literature and media typically means a character that has no specified gender or otherwise does not have a gender but is obviously meant to be a stand in for a woman or female. Kind of like how Starfire has no specified race (due to being an alien) but is still obviously black coded based on the way she’s drawn and treated by the narrative.

This is slightly different than what we mean when saying that Jason is female coded. It’s not that Jason is literally supposed to be a stand in for a female character, it’s that the way a lot of characters treat him and a lot of the tropes used on him are things that usually saved for female characters, not big buff men like Jason.

To start with, being Robin is narratively (or at least was) very similar to being a woman in a story. Robin is a role made to complement Batman (who we all know is basically the ultimate male power fantasy). Robin’s role is to be an accessory to Batman. Robin can be smart, but not smarter than Batman. Robin can be strong, but not stronger than Batman. Hell, Robin is often kidnapped and used as a literal damsel in distress, a role often regulated for women as a whole.

What sets Jason apart from the other robins (except for Steph) in this regard is that they were allowed to be characters outside of Batman. Dick might not have been the “man” of the story when he’s with Bruce, but when he’s with the teen titans suddenly he’s the smart one who has all the answers. Jason’s Robin was never really allowed this.

Then we get to the most, controversial, part of Jason’s female coding. The fact the he was effectively fridged. Fridging is usually only referred to as frigding if it’s a female character, but Jason’s death checks pretty much all the other boxes needed. An incredibly brutal death that was more about Bruce’s feelings on it than Jason himself.

This is especially apparent when compared to the other Bat characters. For all the female coding, the only other Robin to actually be fridged was Steph (and we all know about the misogyny surrounding her death). Barbara was also kind of fridged during the killing Joke. The only female character to escape this is Cass (to my knowledge). When you look at it through this lens, the fact that the only other characters to be permanently damaged like this for Bruce’s story are female, it’s not hard to see where the idea that Jason is female coded comes from.

You can even find this in Jason’s origin story. Poor little orphan is saved by benevolent billionaire is a role usually saved for little girls, like in Annie.

Despite what you might think, this even continues after Jason’s revival. Jason is still used less as a character and more as a motivation for Bruce. He’s regularly called emotional and hysterical (terms usually used to refer to women).

Jason is first and foremost a victim. A role performed by women in most media. Men are expected to be stoic and “rise above” the things done to them as to not be victims, as continuously shown by the way characters like Nightwing are not allowed to be effected by the horrific things they go through. The fact that Jason is shown the be angry, and sad, and emotional, constantly, and the fact that he’s punished and vilified for it puts him in a place much more similar to a female character.

There’s a reason that so many Jason fans (that like him for a reason past “antihero with guns”) are female. For most characters, when you swap their genders there would be a pretty clear and big difference in the way their story takes place. If you swap Jason’s gender, the story takes place identically.

A lot of this is best shown in men’s reactions to Arkham Knight’s version of Jason. In that game, Jason is similarly angry and emotional, albeit for slightly different reasons. He is also still unmistakably a victim. You’d think the men playing would like him. After all he’s a big cool angsty guy with a lot of guns and muscles. Instead, a lot of men’s thought that he was whiny. That his feelings were annoying.

There’s also something to be said about how his autonomy is regularly undermined by Bruce (specifically in Gotham war) and how his decisions and feeling are constantly treated as if they’re worth less than Bruce’s, but that’s a discussion for another day.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Given the support that Roser enjoys from billionaire oligarchs at the pinnacle of the capitalist system, one wonders if it is a coincidence that so much of the data he headlines for public consumption happens to valorize that system. The chief narrative that OWID deploys is that progress is due to economic growth driven by profit-seeking private enterprise and breakneck industrial productivity. He has made this view explicit in his essays published on OWID’s website. No mention that poverty mostly has been alleviated by the power of the state regulating capital, redistributing wealth, and providing services, counter to a system of immense inequities. Roser never mentions the labor, civil rights, and anti-colonialist movements that have pressed for social welfare benefits, safety nets, legal protections and political liberation for the poor. In his superficial telling, “The history of economic growth is the history of how societies leave widespread poverty behind by finding ways to produce more of the goods and services that people need.” While in the vast piles of data at OWID you will find no mention of political movements that have bettered the human condition by challenging the supremacy of capital, you will also find nothing that reveals the complex realities of what happens when societies outside the vaunted system of economic growth are absorbed into it and made to conform to its rules.

[burst-of-iridescent]

ana's meta masterlist

Pro-Zutara:

the official zutara dissertation: part 1 | part 2

zuko, aang and taking lightning for katara

zutara and romantic coding

"you rise with the moon, i rise with the sun" is a zutara line

zutara and thematic significance

zutara vs jetara

zutara parallels in the awakening

zutara's narrative culmination

zutara in the crossroads of destiny:

azula vs katara

love as resistance in the catacombs

zutara in the southern raiders:

the true source of katara's anger at zuko

katara bloodbending before zuko

the narrative relevance of zutara

zutara and bloodbending

zutara's narrative symmetry

why zuko had to betray katara in ba sing se

Anti Anti-Zutara:

the official zutara dissertation (p.3)

"zutara would face too much opposition from their countries"

"zuko and katara are a colonizer/colonized ship"

"zuko and katara would fight all the time”

"platonic zutara is better than romantic zutara"

"fire lady katara is racist"

“zuko would’ve taken lightning for anyone”

“katara is too traumatized by the fire nation”

“shipping zutara is amatonormative”

“zuko didn’t actually care about katara”

ATLA Ship Criticism:

the official zutara dissertation: part 4 | part 5 | part 6

why mai.ko was never intended to be canon

mailee is a better ship than mai.ko

how kat.aang could've been fixed

kat.aang's lack of trust in the southern raiders

emotional labour in kat.aang

kat.aang’s narrative imbalance

comparing katara and aang's parenting

the fortuneteller does not foreshadow kat.aang

gendered expectations in kat.aang

ATLA/LOK:

azula/katara parallels

katara's choice in the crossroads of destiny

on katara becoming a healer

was zuko's betrayal in-character?

zuko's comments in the southern raiders

zuko's comments in the southern raiders (pt. 2)

zuko is not a “bad boy”

zuko’s treatment of aang in sozin’s comet

sokka didn't feel inferior to katara

did mai fear azula?

comparing mai and toph

azula vs zuko: the tragedy of narrative foils

should aang have killed ozai?

sexism in the water tribes

thoughts on the atla comics

thoughts on the atla comics (pt. 2)

writing a final battle: kung fu panda vs atla

gratuitous violence in the legend of korra

The Hunger Games:

zutara and everlark parallels

zutara and everlark parallels (pt. 2)

gale's arc in the hunger games trilogy

the myth of humanity's inherent evil

the ending of lucy gray

Squid Game:

individualism under capitalism

the ethics of billionaires

[odinsblog]

“We are witnessing the rise of nationalism, protectionism, the pursuit of narrow interests and the decline of common cause,” Ramaphosa said during his State of the Nation address. “But we are not daunted to navigate our path through this world that constantly changes. We will not be deterred. We are, as South Africans, a resilient people.”

While he did not mention any bully by name, Ramaphosa’s remarks came just days after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to cut all funding to South Africa, alluding to the long-running false narrative that white South Africans are being mistreated by the nation’s post-apartheid government. 

Trump and his allies, particularly South African-born billionaire Elon Musk, have ramped up their rhetoric against South Africa in apparent reaction to the recently passed Expropriation Act of 2024, a controversial law aimed at solving the country’s longstanding land ownership inequality problem. The law has drawn criticism for supposedly risking and disregarding private property rights—particularly those of South Africa’s white minority—as it permits land seizures by the state without compensation.

Trump has similarly put “anti-white” policies in the U.S. in his new administration’s crosshairs, cracking down on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)-related initiatives across the federal government and private sector. 

Here’s what to know about Trump’s issues with South Africa.

What Trump and his allies have said about South Africa

On Feb. 2, Trump announced on his social media site Truth Social that South Africa has been “confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY.” He then said that he “will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed.” He later told reporters that South Africa’s “leadership is doing some terrible things, horrible things.”

It’s not the first time Trump has made such claims: back in 2018, during his first term, Trump said he’d ordered then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to look into land seizures from and killings of white farmers in South Africa. 

These comments echo a longstanding false narrative pushed by right-wing groups in South Africa that white people are being dispossessed of their lands and are even victims of genocide.

Musk, who was born in South Africa’s Pretoria, has repeated the myth in multiple posts on X throughout the years, including one in 2023 accusing left-wing South Africans of “openly pushing for genocide of white people” and another the same year saying “They are actually killing white farmers every day. It’s not just a threat.”

Ramaphosa rejected Trump’s claims, arguing in a post on X on Feb. 3 that the government “has not confiscated any land.” The South African President said the new Expropriation Act is “not a confiscation instrument” but a legal process that “ensures public access to land in an equitable and just manner.”

Musk responded on X, asking: “Why do you have openly racist ownership laws?” The South African government then said Ramaphosa spoke with Musk over the phone to dispel “misinformation.”

(continue reading)

[urialnathanonwright]

Trump’s Orbán Playbook: America’s Democracy is on the Brink

A commentary on Zack Beauchamp’s Vox article, "How Viktor Orbán turned Hungary into a dictatorship"

By now, it’s impossible to deny: Donald Trump’s second term is unfolding as a textbook case of authoritarian consolidation, eerily mirroring the rapid power grab Viktor Orbán executed in Hungary back in 2010. Zack Beauchamp’s insightful analysis in Vox lays out the roadmap Orbán followed—one that Trump appears to be taking step-for-step, only this time, it’s happening in the United States. The question now is whether Americans will recognize the warning signs in time to stop it.

The Blitzkrieg on Democracy Has Already Begun

Beauchamp warns that Orbán’s rise was not an overnight coup, but a systematic dismantling of democratic institutions through relentless executive overreach. Trump, now back in office with a Republican-controlled Congress, is following a similar trajectory. His first weeks in power have already been marked by actions designed to strip oversight and consolidate authority.

Just as Orbán leveraged public discontent with Hungary’s previous government to push through sweeping authoritarian changes, Trump has used economic instability and voter frustration to justify aggressive executive actions. His mass pardons of January 6 insurrectionists—echoing Orbán’s early moves to neutralize opposition by taking control of the judiciary—are a clear indication of where this is headed. He’s systematically purging federal agencies of career officials who might challenge him, while rewarding loyalists who will greenlight his most extreme policies.

Legislative Weaknesses: America’s Saving Grace?

Beauchamp highlights a key difference between the U.S. and Hungary—Orbán’s Fidesz party had a supermajority that allowed him to rewrite Hungary’s constitution at will. Trump, by contrast, still faces institutional roadblocks. The Republican Party holds a narrow majority in the House and recently gained control of the Senate, but without a filibuster-proof margin, Trump lacks the unchecked legislative power Orbán enjoyed.

However, this is not a moment for complacency. Trump’s strategy has always been to ignore legal constraints, dare the system to stop him, and, when challenged, declare his opposition “the deep state.” Orbán did the same—using “anti-elite” rhetoric to justify his assault on democracy. The real test now will be whether Congress, the courts, and the American people can resist Trump’s erosion of democratic norms before it’s too late.

The Musk Factor: Private Power Meets Public Control

Another chilling parallel in Beauchamp’s article is the role of oligarchic influence in an autocratic takeover. In Hungary, Orbán’s longtime ally, Lajos Simicska, operated as a shadow figure, overseeing government spending and using public funds to consolidate wealth and media control under Fidesz. In Trump’s America, we see a strikingly similar dynamic with Elon Musk.

Musk, whose financial empire now extends deep into government contracts and digital communications infrastructure, has positioned himself as an unelected but powerful enforcer of Trump’s agenda. From reshaping how federal payments are processed to influencing social media narratives, Musk’s unchecked power mirrors Simicska’s role in Hungary’s democratic collapse. When one billionaire can dictate policy without holding public office, democracy is already on life support.

The Courts: The Final Battleground

If there’s one thing Hungary teaches us, it’s that the judiciary is the last line of defense against authoritarianism. Orbán knew this, which is why his first priority was neutralizing Hungary’s courts. Trump, despite facing legal challenges, has so far been unable to fully subjugate the judiciary. However, his relentless attacks on judicial independence—calling judges “corrupt,” ignoring court rulings, and stacking the federal bench with loyalists—are straight from Orbán’s playbook.

The Supreme Court, with its conservative majority, will play a pivotal role in determining how far Trump can go. The question is whether they will act as a true check on executive power or simply enable his steady march toward authoritarianism.

The Fight is Now

As Beauchamp warns, democracy does not die in a single moment; it erodes over time through a series of seemingly small but ultimately devastating power grabs. Right now, Trump is testing the limits of what he can get away with. Every norm that goes unchallenged, every attack on oversight that is ignored, brings us closer to the kind of permanent one-party rule that has taken hold in Hungary.

Hungarians now look back and realize their biggest mistake was inaction. Americans still have a choice—but not for long. If democracy is going to survive, the resistance must begin today.

[buttacake80]

I hope this isn’t offensive but as someone who is trying to learn about American politics and English being my fourth language some terms can get a bit confusing to me and everyone around me struggles with the same way.

what does being a liberal mean? As in are you a trump or harris supporter? Or more neutral?

Not an offensive question. Actually quite complex.

Here in the US, we have two primary parties. The Republicans and the Democrats.

At one time in our history, there were other parties. We have smaller parties, but none of them have held a majority or even a significant minority. And, to further complicate things, these two primary parties flipped ideologies. It's confusing and would need its own post.

So, I will start this from 1980 forward.

The Republicans existed as the conservative party that represented small government, low taxes, and a strong defense.

However, the Republican Party was taken over by the "Make America Great Again" movement, pushing the party to an extreme right since 2012 (prior to MAGA, it was the Tea Party movement).

The Democratic Party exists as the liberal party that advocates for more social spending, more corporate taxation, climate change advocacy, and a smaller defense budget.

Donald Trump identifies as Republican, but he does not represent traditional Republican values.

Kamala Harris was the Democratic Party candidate.

I am a proud Harris supporter.

Both parties support capitalism.

I would fall more to the left than most liberals, but I would not identify as a leftist. Leftists are anti-capitalists.

Capitalism ran rampant, leading to this oligarchy that includes Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk. The billionaires do not want to be taxed. They do not support the unionization of workers, and they would like more deregulation in order to further enrich themselves.

They bought a candidate: Trump.

Meanwhile, Trump's MAGA base is racist and xenophobic.

75% of our population identifies as white. This number actually includes Hispanics. If we remove non-Hispanic whites, the number drops to 60%.

13% identify as Black

7% identify as Asian

3% mixed race

1% Native American

And the remaining 1% is several small ethnic identities such as Pacific Islanders.

The white American population remains the overwhelming majority, but since the 80s, the far right has been pushing a narrative that white folk were going to become the minority and treated as horribly as the white folk have treated minorities.

Furthermore, a large segment of our population identifies as Christian. They have pushed a false narrative that this is a Christian nation when it has never been such. So, for the last 25 years, an ultra conservative Christian Nationalist movement has also taken hold of the Republican Party.

Trump used white folk's fears of being replaced to secure another term in office. In addition, here in the US, Black women have been vilified because we are the most loyal supporters of the Democratic Party. We hold most of the graduate degrees here in the US. We are the most educated demographic.

We are not a monolith, but they view us as one. A lot of white folks resent Black women, so they could not stomach having a Black woman as the Nation's "boss".

So, they voted to maintain white supremacy.

I hope that's easy to understand.

[bingsoo-jung]

TTRPGs and Violence

Not everything is radical, let’s stop pretending like it is.

A lot of people in the TTRPG space don’t like me. About a year ago I more or less set fire to the handful of bridges I had built in this space in order to make a statement about the genocide of Gaza. In the past year as I protested my way across my college campus, graduated, and joined up with a mutual aid group, I have never once regretted this.

However, I do regret not being more clear with what I meant when I did it. So, let’s begin with a bold statement, people in the TTRPG space often discuss colonialism and resisting colonial narratives, but draw the line at actually resisting colonialism. The TTRPG community has decided that ‘revolutionary’ narratives are non-violent ones because many people subscribe to the idea that violence is inherently colonial and not simply a tool of colonizers. But no liberation has ever been achieved without violence, and the decision in the TTRPG space to say that anti-colonial and revolutionary stories should be non-violent ones exemplifies why TTRPGs often struggle to hold its own against other storytelling mediums. Not because of the inherent nature of TTRPGs, but because of the culture that has formed around them.

Stories, at their best, are vehicles of discussion about the world around us. They are ways to comment on the complicated nature of reality. But simply deciding the best path of resistance is a path of consummate niceness and pacifism — not one of violence and care — ignores those complex realities. It’s been decided that there is an acceptable amount of fury that can be depicted, but that fury ought to be toothless. Thus to reinforce that narrative, stories about war are always set after the war, they’re about healing from trauma in a better world. They’re about how we become better when all the fighting is done.

But the fundamental fact of reality is that those things aren’t done. Colonialism hasn’t ended, it’s just shifted forms, wars still occur, and there is an active ongoing genocide even now. I live in a country which has elected a wannabe-Hitler, and a South African billionaire who made his money from slave labor did a nazi salute at his inauguration. We live in an actively hostile and cruel world for POC, queer people, disabled people, and so many others. But we are pretending as if we don’t.

Thus not only are we engaging in pretend when we’re acting, we’re engaging in pretend in the metanarratives surrounding which stories do and don’t get told. We’re acting as if these stories which talk about healing from trauma are responses to the reality we live in, where the trauma-causing events have passed. But they haven’t. The traumatic history hasn’t ended, we’ve just grown blind to it.

To this day I can name one Actual Play off the top of my head which depicted violent resistance, yet I can name a number of movies, books, and TV shows which have, despite them being under far greater censorship. APs have chosen to self-censor not because the TTRPGs don’t exist, but in the hopes of being palatable, yet still wish to be viewed as radical by their community. This is done by choosing to not depict the PCs as engaging in violent resistance, and not portraying that violent resistance in a positive light. Instead most ‘anti-colonial’ stories are post-colonial ones about how ‘leftover anger’ from traumatic histories can make you cruel.

This is not to say that stories sent after colonization cannot be radical, but for them to be radical the violence used to achieve liberation cannot be ostracized and made into something that characters need to ‘heal from.’ That killing the colonizer who massacred thousands or even millions actually is on the road to hell and is something that can mar the soul. In doing so we vilify the justified anger of the colonized. We tell each other ‘don’t be angry at the injustice that happened to you.’ But Kira Nerys from Star Trek: Deep Space 9, or Cassian Andor from Andor don’t need to heal from the violence they caused, your TTRPG characters don’t need to either.

Furthermore, we treat actions that are not liberatory actions as being liberatory. No, you getting better opportunities is not liberation. No, former soldiers healing from trauma isn’t liberation. No, voting isn’t liberation. Liberation is liberation. Anything else isn’t, and shouldn’t be considered that. That isn’t to say those things important, but they aren’t equal to it. As Ismatu Gwendolyn would say, we’ve made a spectacle of liberation, we’ve made it something you can eat and consume and say ‘I engaged in liberation, my instagram feed says so! Look at this liberation meal I had!’ But in doing so we’ve failed to actually produce any stories which could meaningfully contribute to discussions of what resistance should look like and how it could be achieved. We’ve hampered our imaginations to foster a palatable leftism in favor of a useful one.

But what use is calmness, when the anger is correct? When things are wrong and fucked up? Why not tell a story about your anger? The want for violence isn’t always bad, what matters is when and where it’s used. Yes, indiscriminately murdering orcs is weird and speaks to the tendencies towards bioessentialism in D&D, but demanding we always negotiate with fascists because ‘they’re people too’ is just tolerating fascists. There is nuance and context to violence that matters, and by stripping those things from how we portray it, our stories become the worse for it. We do not trust in the viewer to come to conclusions for themselves, or to know where the line in the sand is, nor do we trust in the performer-creatives to be a rational person.

Perhaps most irresponsibly, instead of building infrastructure that would allow us to tell these kinds of stories we’ve instead cast it to the performer-creatives to take the emotional burden upon themselves. Why don’t we bring on intimacy coordinators to set boundaries and create safe environments to tell these stories? Why are things like decompressing and session zeroes optional and not obligatory? And why have we not innovated more robust and professional safety tools as this space becomes more and more of an industry? In doing so we’ve inherently made TTRPGs a less safe place that would allow us to tell more serious stories. The limitations are not solely of what stories we’ve deemed acceptable to tell, but the lack of systems that would allow us to tell them. This is not to say that if you don’t have access to these systems you shouldn’t be telling stories, but the lack of them nevertheless speaks to a greater issue in the TTRPG space, a fundamental unseriousness that impacts our very ability to be more radical in our imagination.

I don’t really know if I want to see more narratives around violent resistance in the TTRPG space. I’m not sure if the same people who have rejected such stories and the importance of them really have the capability to tell them, or if they will simply just make it work. But I hope to see new people use stories to galvanize people, and to innovate new futures. I not only want to see stories that say something, that give us new possibilities, but also new systems put in place that support creatives in telling these stories. Things like bleed should not be solely up to the performers to handle, but something that resources are budgeted for just the same as streaming assets, hardware, and so much else. If we want to create a space where people are emboldened to tell all kinds of narratives then we need to actually facilitate those spaces, not just say ‘I would like to see more kinds of stories told.’

TTRPGs are not producing stories in the vein of Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler, or even Deep Space Nine because we’re so focused on being better than our anger, but also trying to recreate the success of stories in other mediums. We reach towards a moderate middle ground based on the past because it’s healthy and reliable. But that ignores that oftentimes a good story not only makes the viewer feel something, but challenges them. The inherent nature of nostalgia is a conservative one which idolizes a forgone idealized past that never could have existed, and in constantly trying to recreate or pay homage to other stories, we continue to hamper our innovation.

There is such great potential to in TTRPGs as a medium, from their collaborative nature, to their real-time storytelling that provides a space for people to experience emotions and possibilities in real time, to, frankly, the lack of censorship that other mediums of art experience. They can push us to imagine and act quicker than if we were simply writing a novel or screenplay. But if the TTRPG space is to grow we must move beyond our unimaginative and anti-radical tendencies which idolize a non-violent nostalgic past, in favor of dreaming a sometimes violent radical future.

With all my love,

Theta S. Chun.

[phoenixyfriend]

[squints at the MCU] Tony Stark has displayed more ability to weather interrogation and torture than Steve Rogers.

This is "(displayed more)(ability)," not "(displayed)(more ability)," to be clear.

(I know fiction’s depiction of torture is famously propagandafied, but in this case, it’s not about torture for information so much as physical traumas shown on screen.)

(Anyway, have a rant I did on discord the other day.)

It's not really so much about "resisted the urge to hand over information" as "survived a truly harrowing experience and still came out of it trying to do good."

Tony's very first movie involves getting repeatedly drowned while in constant pain from bomb injuries as a civilian contractor, and I… don't think I can remember anything even a little similar with Steve

I don't think he's ever been captured for long before breaking out? All his injuries are in active battle, not torture.

Like... Steve went through something horrible with the ice and losing Bucky, nobody can argue that. But I think it's very telling, sometimes, that movie Steve, especially 2012 movie Steve, is completely unaware of the absolute nightmare that Tony experienced in his solo movies.

I have so many feelings about Tony Stark being the epitome of "guy who was raised and manipulated into being a bad person by someone he trusted, and (after a horrible experience) attempts to be a better person, constantly and consistently, even if he sometimes fucks up in the execution."

And the way that some fics elide his experiences in cleaning up other people's messes (first Obadiah's, then Howard's) and how that doubtlessly compounded his many neuroses from fixing messes that he did actually create himself is just

I have a lot of feelings

And am also feeling a little bitter and salty about how Tony Stark's MCU incarnation reportedly took some inspo from Elon Musk... and a little petty and satisfied about just how drastically we've all be shown that Musk can never live up to the idea of 'billionaire with inherited wealth who actually, without hesitation, risks his own life to save millions' that he tried to use PR to achieve in the media with 'my electric cars are gonna save the world' stunts about things he didn't actually have a hand in inventing

I'm just reading some fics I really enjoyed when I was still in the YA fandom, and there was a reference to a line Steve said in the movies and I started thinking (again) about how frequently fans take lines from Steve or Sam about Tony as gospel, because they haven't seen Tony's movies, and the lines from the star spangled boys are contextually meant to show that they don't know jackshit about Tony or his life, because they are directly contradicted by multiple prior films.

Also like... how often Steve's traumas get explored (in fic) in a way that Tony's just... don't? At most, his issues about Howard get explored, but that's it.

There's this moment in CACW that people take as Accurate and it infuriates me.

Tony Stark: [Back in the cell.] Just look. Because that is the fellow who was supposed to interrogate Barnes. [He shows a holographic image of Doctor Broussard.] Clearly, I made a mistake. Sam, I was wrong. Sam Wilson: That's a first.

Which, like... it's a bad movie. Obviously. But also

That line is immediately followed by Tony revealing that he's here to help the others and is sabotaging the security to make sure Ross can't take advantage, and yet fanfic still uses Sam's quote to promote anti-Tony agendas!

And 'Tony admits he fucked up' is. Like. Listen to me

Tony's first solo movie is fixing Obadiah's machinations. *

His second solo movie is fixing his Dad's fuckup.

His first team movie is fixing Thor's mistakes.

His third solo movie is fixing something that is only tangentially his fault.

It's not until AoU that the fuck-up is really his and his alone (well, not counting Bruce), and even then, even then, a massive portion of the blame is narratively laid at Wanda's feet!

And only then do we get this man, who has spent five movies seeing what happens when people don't take responsibility for their actions, or have anyone riding them to be ethical, who has criticized himself for neither having that oversight nor providing that oversight for people who snuck shit under his nose, that is when we get Tony weighing in on the side of "most countries on the planet are agreeing with this and it's for a reason, please work with me here, maybe we can get some of it rolled back to be less authoritarian and more reasonable."

* and removing himself from the military industrial complex he was raised and groomed to be in, but that's a system and not an individual act or a set 'villain'

Or as @firebirdeternal put it:

I would say that his first solo movie does have a large element of fixing his own mistakes too, it's just that his "mistake" was Trusting the Wrong Person and not taking personal responsibility for how his actions are affecting the world. (Which, he immediately does upon coming back from being captured? "We're going to immediately stop making weapons, because it's making the world worse" and then when Obadiah cuts him out of the company he goes "Oh. Okay no that didn't work, have to personally fix all this then.") and yeah it's just Tony have plenty of reasons to be on the side of "Someone needs to have oversight over this"

IM1 is such a good exploration of someone in privilege saying "this stops now" in a situation where they do have control because they have been confronted with their mistakes in a way that's unavoidable

It's also like, a great example of the fantasy of the Super Hero. Because Tony Stark, the businessman, even with all his wealth and knowledge, isn't able to stop the systemic harm being caused by His Own Company. One person isn't able to do that, even with the best of intentions. It isn't until he becomes something else, something more, a Super Hero, that he's able to make any kind of meaningful change on his own. Like IM1 is just a phenomenal movie. It understood it's subject material so incredibly well.

And people skip it and then take Steve and Sam at their word about Tony's strength of character and moral convictions and I scream.

THIS MAN FLEW A NUKE INTO A WORMHOLE WITH THE FULL EXPECTATION THAT HE WAS GOING TO DIE

Yeah, like, that Jump on the Grenade mentality is something that he and Steve actually literally share.

They both had 'jump on the explosive to save people' moments in their introductory movies.

I find so much more strength and inspiration in stories like Thor and Tony, where they are inherently fuck-ups and were shitty people and they are trying so damn hard to be better, which is more Tony than Thor really, but both of them and their first movies are just. I find that more inspiring than Steve or T'Challa or any other hero who was already a good person and just Became Great.

Tell me about the person who has to struggle to find that moral choice. Tell me about Natasha dragging herself from her oceans of blood and Tony fighting the government over whether they have the rights to use weapons he's created and about Thor having to reckon with his family's power being born of imperialistic ravaging of other cultures.

I want to hear about the people for whom being good is hard and a choice they don't have to make, but then they make it anyway.

Also I stand by "I am Iron Man. [infinity snap]" being the most amazing bookend the MCU could have done and probably the best part of the Endgame.

[darkmaga-returns]

Billionaire Bill Gates is calling for members of the general public to be censored by artificial intelligence (AI) if they question the official narratives regarding “vaccines.”

Gates, the Jeffrey Epstein-linked co-founder of Microsoft, made the call during a recent interview with CNBC.

He was discussing the “threat” of “anti-vaxxers” and promoting plans for handling “vaccine hesitancy” using “real-time” censorship imposed by AI.

Gates argues that those who urge people to avoid vaccines are “inciting violence.”

Therefore, he insists that “anti-vaxxers” are a “threat” to public health.

In response, Gates proposes a totalitarian approach, calling for speech “boundaries.”

He claims that AI-powered computer systems can weed out and eliminate “vaccine misinformation” in real time.

[ninjakittenarmy]

I find it hilarious how few people are actually condemning the assassination. Even my moderate progressive parents who have pretty much always been against any form of political violence when I discussed it with them haven’t condemned this.

Like, my father and I have had numerous disagreements over our opinions on the upper class, with him being seriously troubled by my “being a billionaire is inherently immoral” stance. We agree on a lot of things but he’s always been at odds with me on that. He used to look at you like you were insane if you said outright killing some of these people instead of going through the system legally was morally acceptable. He had the whole Batman narrative with Poison Ivy type narrative of “these people are the scum of the earth but they’re not criminals and they’re not dictators so violence against them is still bad” type deal most people had until recently.

I broke the news to him and he said “good. I dunno why they killed him but he probably deserved it.”

My mom meanwhile was laughing about all the memes people are making and generally taking way more joy than I expected from this. She’s further left than my dad but she still wouldn’t have been comfortable with outright celebrating this sort of thing a few years ago.

My point is that it’s really a testament to how drastically and how quickly the election results have changed people’s outlooks on this stuff, and to just how much of a scumbag this guy was. Do you have any idea how bad your reputation has to be for even the moderate, anti-violence, “have faith in the system” moderates to be cheering for your demise?

I’ve literally only met two people who had any issue with this. Both were on the same server and were hardline anti-punitive justice folks. Most of the others on that server share similar attitudes regarding law enforcement and they STILL couldn’t agree that this was bad. Only two condemned it and only on general principle.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Oliver Willis at Daily Kos:

Billionaire conservative donor Elon Musk called on the public to stop donating to the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that runs Wikipedia, due to the organization’s support for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). “Stop donating to Wokepedia until they restore balance to their editing authority,” Musk wrote on X, responding to a post from the anti-trans account Libs of TikTok noting that the foundation spent $50 million of its $177 million budget on DEI. A spokesperson for Wikipedia explained to Newsweek that its investment in diversity is meant to make the digital encyclopedia more accurate.

“Wikipedia is built on the premise that it becomes better when more people of different backgrounds—including political persuasions—source, edit, curate, and research content. Our equity goal advances that,” they said. For years now, particularly in the wake of protests following the murder of George Floyd, conservatives have attacked DEI efforts. The right’s complaints against Wikipedia are also reflective of the longstanding conservative desire to control information [...] Wikipedia’s influence runs counter to the likes of Musk’s X and Fox News. While the encyclopedia has faults, it plays a prominent role in providing accurate, up-to-date information. On Wikipedia, the public can learn about public figures like Musk, including his history of promoting conspiracy theories, racism, and anti-transgender bigotry. The right has tried to counteract Wikipedia’s influence before. The site Conservapedia was launched in 2006 as a right-wing alternative. The entries on the site are extremely biased and riddled with factual inaccuracies. 

[...] Conservatives believe that sources of information must reflect a conservative worldview rather than objective reality, which is why Trump has gone after news outlets like ABC News and The New York Times for not repeating right-wing propaganda. Even though many of these outlets have promoted conservative narratives and buckled under right-wing criticism and legal threats, it still isn’t enough for Trump.

Elon Musk and the right-wing media influencer circuit are mad at Wikipedia as part of their anti-DEI circlejerk campaign, all because the company has DEI policies.

[eclecticwordblender]

south korea is a terribly misogynistic country and that the hate the korean entertainment industry receives stems from the fact that society loves to hate on anything with a predominantly women led fanbase and likes to diminish it as anti-intellectual fluff are two narratives that can and should exist simultaneously btw.

taylor swift is a billionaire and therefore a morally wrong person and her music is mediocre at best and that she receives disproportionate hatred just because she is a rich and powerful woman with a women led fanbase and nothing she does warrants misogynistic hatred are also two narratives and can and should exist simultaneously btw.

[rei-ismyname]

X-MEN - MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

A lot of X-Men, indeed a lot of Marvel characters, have transformations, alter egos, symbiotes, etc that cause trouble. Jean Grey has the Phoenix, Angel has Archangel, Malice takes over a lot of women (Dazzler, Sue Storm, Rogue, Mirage, Betsy Braddock, and many more), Gambit has Death, Magik and Darkchilde. That short list is really only scratching the surface. So many heroes get transformed or similar once and once it's defeated or overcome it becomes an ongoing trial for them.

Piotr Nikolaievitch Rasputin made a deal with Cyttorak of Crimson Bands fame for the power of JUGGERNAUT once, for reasons I don't recall right now. I always thought it was a bit of a boring choice tbh - his angsting over being a big dumb monster isolated from the things he loves is already a thing he does. Sure it was fun here and there but it was more of a 'struggling with the Dark Side' thing and Cyttorak didn't have all that much power over him. I think a better choice for a recurring alter ego would have been....

THE PROLETARIAN - WORKER'S HERO OF THE SOVIET UNION! With Vladimir Lenin's face on the chest of his sinister communist red overalls and everything. Obviously the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore but that's even better IMO. What does the Proletarian do after the Cold War ends and capitalism has 'won'? Siezes the MFing means of production for the people, that's what! Does he smash the X-Men too? Probably, they are definitely neoliberal bootlickers who are allied with several billionaires, and while they're not as bad as the Avengers they have an awful lot of faith in the USA as an institution despite it constantly trying to kill them.

Obviously this would never happen. Stan Lee was very anti communist, even if he didn't know a damn thing about it, and Marvel has remained so to this day. More broadly, a century of McCarthyism and Red Scare messaging has done some serious damage. Also, Marvel just does not do anything other than the most milquetoast liberal politics. Anything else is mocked and defeated by the narrative itself. Personally, I think that would make it even more interesting, as being committed to any form of anti capitalism to any degree is soul crushing while living under it.

I'd do anything for a Colossus solo where he interrogates his relationship with Communism, because the man is a true believer despite often defending capitalist interests (as far as he's shown to believe anything.)

This question, for instance. Does his power belong to the state? Xavier handwaves it by saying it belongs to the world (AKA his interests) but it's never truly touched on again. Krakoa would have been a great opportunity, a mostly moneyless society that already had bartering and mutual aid happening. Not everyone's needs were met and plenty of people fell through the cracks - Colossus or The Proletarian would have been the perfect advocate.

It's Kurt and Legion who come closest to forming a commune without hierarchy, and Kurt was working on justice reform. Forge had global poverty and homelessness solved, but ORCHIS and The Fall of X put a stop to that. Lenin's Ghost!

Bring back The Proletarian, you cowards!

[haleviyah]

Explain the logic.

For context, this user is an Anti-Zionist and we have a history for the past few months since October. He has resorted to calling me a "demon" multiple times just for poking holes in his narratives this is one of them. I have lovingly given him the nickname "Messiah" because he firmly believes he is never wrong yet nails himself in the foot.

He likes to demonise Israel while also claiming to be friends with Jews (I highly doubt that). This time around he is asking where all the money towards Gaza went. I responded by showing the net worth of Hamas leaders shown below:

It shouldn't take a genius to figure it out where that cash went.

I then asked, "If these men truely cared, why haven't they come to Gaza." I mean, they had nine months going on ten to figure out a game plan no?

His response: Blaming Netanyahu and pointing at a destroyed airport. Alright, but that doesn't answer the question does it? He's just playing the blame game at this point. So I asked again,

"Where are they? If they cared for the cause, where are they?"

His response:

Mine, and hopefully the final:

(pardon any misspellings on both our parts, but you get the point.)

It's true, the Escobar empire back in the 80s started off on a few thousand and grew to millions by smuggling drugs and people over MULTIPLE borders - it was a global network that started off in Colombia.

Yet, BILLIONAIRES for Gaza's cause cannot figure out how to come over ONE BORDER and meet with the people or let alone send food and water.

The point I am making is I know a cowardly leader when I see one, and Gaza unfortunately is subject to said cowards. They are only in it for the money and looking righteous, but never truly giving their cut of the shares to the people.

Explain this logic here? Who's really the "demon"?