#because i fucking hate how influential his books and comics and shows have been for my own life and writing as an author

[dyketennant]

the scene of stede meeting ed for the first time when ed's lingering over him on a flaming ship as stede bleeds out? the intimacy of the bathtub conversation in episode 6 blending both sincerity/vulnerability and humor, with the super interesting use of the mirror shots throughout? whoever got a vision from god to have the entire stabbing as gay sex scene? ed rowing away, clearly feeling a messy storm of emotions, while "perfect day" by lou reed plays in the background? taking the "women pretending to be men on pirate ships" trope and subverting it to give us a really solid nonbinary character? "not all beards are actual beards, if you get my drift" and the double meaning of it? critical examinations of hypermasculinity and queerness while also giving a show that is both genuinely funny and emotionally charged, leaving you on the edge of your seat with every episode?

like, when i say i could write an essay about this show, i mean i literally wrote an essay about this show already, and the budget cuts, behind-the-scenes zionism, fumbling of story pacing due to less episodes, and subsequent cancellation of season two is my actual villain origin story. and it feels like it's every queer show this keeps happening to.

got actual chills last night thinking about how season one of our flag means death was legitimately super fucking good and now i need to tear david zaslav apart limb-by-limb

[feral-and-chaotic]

Hiiii it's me again with more:

Thoughts

Plot wise:

- I enjoyed the changes from the books, splitting Grover from the party made his part more influential and I adored that choice

- the chair stuff was a nice link to the myths and I liked Annabeth talking Hephaestus down

-cutting the comedy elements has been something I've noticed throughout, which is interesting. I like most of it because it means there's less tonal whiplash (the books manage the balance very well but I don't think the show could without undermining the tension). Though I am sad that the booby trapped rollercoaster was cut.

- I thought Hephaestus being won over so easy was kinda sad, I wanted to hear him get more angry or upset.... But the choice to have Annabeth's speech was great and played into the themes of family and abuse cycles very well

-you know they did Ares well when you come out HATING him.

Characters

Annabeth

-Oh I love her.

-Leah is playing her so damn well.

-the emotional goodbyes with Percy were great, especially if you know about the trauma with Thalia and losing one friend in the past.

-I like her realising how fucked up her family is too. And realising she wants no part in that.

Grover:

-In the books, Annabeth was my favourite, in the musical I prefered Percy but I think in this show, Grover takes the biscuit

-I love how intelligent he is. And the way Aryan plays him as so you can really feel how much older he is than the other two.

-him outsmarting Ares to some extent is fantastic. He damn well knows Ares is a bitch ass motherfucker.

-I love the funny moments and the deep moments with him.

-And I think the choice to more him away from just comic relief is a good one.

- he feels mature, but funny and brave, with room to fully grow into how he was in the last book (Vagueness for spoiler reasons)

Percy:

-This kidd

-his humour is fantastic.

-the emotions are great.

-I love the fugitive stuff!

-How could I say more!?!

-Walker plays him so well!

Biggest gripe:

DISNEY. *Grabs them by the tie* FOR LOVE OF GOD. IMPROVE THE LIGHTING. I spent the ENTIRE episode squinting at the screen.

I rewatched LOTRs recently. Fucking bring back day to night technology. I will fucking riot.

Overall: a solidly enjoyable episode wish I could have SEEN more of it.

[darklingichor]

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton *Major Spoilers*

I did not plan to revisit this one because I still have it mostly memorized from when I read it over and over as a teenager.

I loved this book so much, even though my life was worlds away from Ponyboy's, I related to him.

This is probably the most influential book I've ever read. I found out it was written when S.E. Hinton was a teen and I thought "Maybe I can do it too."

I soon found that I was far too sensitive to let people read what I wrote, I couldn't get around the idea of pouring part of myself into something and having someone tell me it sucks.

Now, I realize that's pretty rich considering this blog, but I couldn't do it as a kid and even now it feels a little like saying "please judge my spleen for your liking. If it is found lacking, by all means throw it in the shredder. Fear not, I will feel every cut."

This is why very few people have ever read my fiction.

That's also why, with a couple of exceptions I try to be very respectful of every book I read.

Anyway, what made me return to The Outsiders was that I discovered that there was a 50th anniversary edition. This hardcover has extras, my finger was hitting buy before I even registered it.

So, reread it for the first time in a long time.

I sank into the sweet nostalgia of the story. Reading this book is like sliding on a well worn pair of jeans. This book introduced me to Robert Frost.

I taught myself to type using the poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" because I had it memorized and would never get tired of it.

I still love the friendships and family bonds presented in the story. I still got a knot in my throat when Johnny died and Dally lost everything. I cried when Ponyboy found Johnny's letter. By God, but I still love this book.

I did notice that some things hit differently now than they did even when I read it once in my 20's.

The first thing I noticed is akin to when you watch The Little Mermaid as an adult and Arial says that she's sixteen and not a kid

and you laugh out loud because, girl, you are a zygote, shush!

When Cherry says to Ponyboy, she could fall in love with Dallas Winston so she hopes she never sees him m again. When I was a kid reading this,familar with The Breakfast Club, Grease, etc, this seemed like a natural statement.

Now? My first thought was "Oh honey, you're more screwed up than I remembered." Because from their first interaction, Cherry would fall in love with a catcalling construction worker.

Ponyboy says that Dallas said something "Really filthy".  In the movie, he asks Cherry howhe was suppose to know if her hair was really red, like her eyebrows were. A roundabout way of asking if the carpet matches the drapes. Bad enough and in the context of the 1960's that might have been dirty enough to be censored from the orginal manuscript, but I always imagined it was worse than that.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, after all, Dally wasn't so much a step up or down from Bob, as a step to the side.

Honestly when I was fourteen and reading this for the first time, I didn't think much of Cherry, I thought she was fake, and very stupid. She was older than me, but I knew it was massively fucked up not to admit she dated a bad guy.

  I see her as sad now, and she's a much darker character She's painted as someone with integrity, someone with principles.

She wouldn't take a Coke from Dally.

She tells Bob that it's her or the booze.

Won't take a pop from a hood, threatens to break it off with her boyfriend if he continues to drink. Okay, understandable.

Realize he beat the tar out of, and pschologically scarred a kid for kicks?

He was sweet sometimes.

What?

He was something special.

She says to the kid he and his friends attempted to murder. 

"He wasn't just any boy."

Right you are, Cherry. Incidentally, did you have any pets disappear while you dated him?

She's a mixed up girl.

I had many a head cannon for the characters in this book when I first read it.

I thought Ponyboy would grow up to be a writer, Darryl would open his own roofing business, Soda and Steve would work for him while fixing cars on the side. Two-Bit would work with them when he felt like it, or he would end up hitching to California to be a stand-up comic.

I thought Cherry would end up married to someone who worked for her father, who I imagined was a lawyer.

After this read through? I adjusted that future.

We met Randy again in That was Then, This Is Now. He's a hippie, which makes perfect sense. I see Cherry running off to Haight Ashbury. I don't get farther than losing sight of her red hair on a crowded, sunny sidewalk, but I get the same spooky vibe I always got after reading Rumble Fish.

Something else that hit differently, the relationships between the boys.

It hit differently for me because I know now why I love it so much.

I remember being  in a major reading slump before I picked up this book. See, I couldn't get into the books that were marketed to me. I wasn't in to RL Stine, except for the history of Fear Street books. I couldn't get into Christopher Pike at all.

I was reading mysteries and westerns, but I really wanted something that had people my age in it that wasn't a romance or sick lit. I'd read enough of those, and I thought that if I read one more book where boy meets girl then one of them croaks I would scream.

So I went to my mom's bookshelf, and found her copy.

I really loved that the real connections that are focused on, are between friends and family. These connections were not treated as being less than a romantic relationship. In fact, just the opposite, the gang see each other as their cement relationships. Soda and his girlfriend Sandy break up, he's hurt and it adds to an already rough time, but it is not a focus.

I suppose it could be argued that the reason for the lack of focus on romance has to do with the fact that Pony states that he's not thinking of it yet. But seeing how all of the gang look out for each other from Darryl keeping the Curtis's door unlocked in case one of the boys needed a place to crash, to everyone looking out for Johnny, to Johnny staying with Pony when he was upset after his fight with Darry, and looking out for him when they were in hiding, to Dallas helping them find a place to go after Bob was killed, to Pony sticking by Johnny after the killing, to Two-Bit sticking up for Johnny when his mother came to the hospital  and how broken up he was when Ponyboy got sick, and finally how one of Johnny's last acts was to write Ponyboy a letter that he hoped would help both Pony and Dallas.

These are not friendships that end when everyone starts dating.

This seems like a "duh" statement, but you have to think, so many things show friendships as training wheels. Something you use until you reach the next level and find a romantic partner. And, maybe this was just my small town, but that was very much the way things went around me, it was expected.

It was great to read a book about kids around my age who didn't see friendships as inferior to romantic relationships.

Now, knowing that I'm Aro Ace, I think I liked it because it spoke to what I thought was important without making it seem like something I needed to grow out of.

The extras were cool, letters between the author and the editors when the book was in the works, letters from the actors who played Pony, Johnny, Soda, Dallas, and Randy.

It was interesting to read the actors' feelings about characters they played so early in their careers. I was half hoping Matt Dillon would apologize for choking on, and embodying that gigantic piece of ham during the death scene, but one can't get everything in life.

I could read the other SE Hinton books, and talk about the connections between them, but I will likely skip That was Then, This is Now and Rumble Fish.

See, I didn't like That Was Then This Is Now very much when I first read it. A big reason? I didn't like Bryon. There was just something about the character that rubbed me the wrong way.

He's... I don't know... he's like Two-Bit without the charm. Plus, Ponyboy is featured, but Bryon hates him. It seems out of jelousy because of all the stuff that had happened in The Outsiders. And he hates him even more *because* he's quiet about it. I get distancing the last book from the next and that was an effective way of doing it, but when I was younger it just made me not like the character all the more.

I've read it a few times since I was younger, wondering if it would improve as I aged. It didn't.

Bryon is still mostly unlikeable. Plus, I grew up in the Frying an Egg, Diving into an Empty Swimming Pool, DARE, era of drug awareness. The whole book felt like a PG-13 version of The Buttercream Gang. Now that I have sufficiently aged myself...

Rumble Fish, I loved, but like I said, it's an unsettling story and one that left me oddly unsatisfied.

I really enjoyed the next two, Tex and Taming the Star Runner so I may revisit those.

[kindabraveandlittlestupid]

It seems Disney underestimated the power of the Dark Side of its fan base with the box office failure of Solo: A Star Wars Story. It shows a fracturing among viewers and how future movies will be received (or not received) by audiences around the world. The major issue with the fans isn't that people outright hate the new direction of the series but many are upset that the universe they know and love for long is changing before them. Some of those changes are for the better with new stronger female leads in the movies (which was needed) and then there are changes that for the worse such as changing the established lore of the force and cutting back the extended universe, which ironically took dozens of strong female characters with it. So yay! Progress?

So I plan to make the case for being critical of the new movies. I plan to also chastize those jerkoffs who decided to attack female actresses for being role models for young girls. I plan to make a rational argument for the removed content cut away by Disney writers. I also plan on talking about how we can bridge these divides and bring everyone back together. You might not agree with everything I say or maybe you will. Most people almost never share 100% of their opinions with another person which was kind of the problem in all this... dissent was widdled down to either or and those fans with legit criticisms were pushed into the camp of those assholes who hate women and the concept of social justice/equity. Because there was no discourse or room for dissent, Disney Ultimately gambled on that disgruntled fanbase not being as influential as it is and they were wrong.

No Room For Dissent

This is a common problem in society these days, where we view things in absolutes; be it politics, movies, religion and so on. Perhaps we have always been like that (I only been around since 1985) but it feels pretty bad these day especially in regards to politics being so divisive or movies that look to present more female roles and ethnic roles in their casts taking so much flak. While I might make some political parallels to create examples, I intend on focusing on the cultural divides taking place in these popular movies.

There is plenty of blame to go around for the tribal mentality that comes when critiquing a movie. Studios benefit from having a cultural high ground because it's easier to say “You’re being sexist or racist” instead of handling a critique and having to answer for poor choices they made while making the movie. I imagine this is what happened in the case of the Ghostbusters reboot, some people asked why the black character wasn't the scientist and the studio reacted with “Why don't you like women?” A kind of deflection mentality that avoided a valid critique of the movie and shames the critic from raising his or her voice again.

The blame also falls at the feet of the very worst patrons of our society. On one side you have the army of trolls of the web who are by far the worst people the interwebs (and the world) has to offer. These are the sort of guys who see any female lead role as an insult and seek out to harass them in the real world forcing the said actresses to abandon social media. These sort of people (most of them male) leave me gritting my teeth because this isn't so much a passion of a fandom they want to protect as it is a lifestyle of attacking people who are not them. Everything is a fucking battle and anything that progresses or enhances another race/gender/sexuality beyond their own is considered a threat to their manhood.

On the other side, we have people who you would call PC and they are sometimes PC to a fault. I tend to find myself agreeing with people on this side more often than not but even then we have our moments where I am wondering what the fuck the objective is. They become advocates for a worthwhile cause but become blinded to valid points or arguments. Back to Star Wars, I wondered why Admiral Holdo was even in the movie because she was killed right away and Akbar or Leia could have had the noble death. The response is defensive of the female role simply because it's a female role. Studios obviously love these advocates because they still don't have to answer the questions and its a private army of people to protect their franchise.

The last group is fans which is a wide spectrum of people from little girls who see Rey and get excited to see a girl kicking ass on the screen to long-term fans who have questions about the lore of the movies being changed or questions why the movie changed directions. Most of us reside here between the two extremes; the PC movie defenders who see the film as a tool to improve society and those little troll fuckers who want to see the world burn.

The failing in this discussion about the movie is the fact those two polar opposites dictated the discourse for the rest of us. You either accepted the movie as it was and enjoyed being on the moral high ground or join the trolls if you have any small critiques of the movie whatsoever. Perhaps we more moderate critics failed a bit by letting the trolls become the loudest voice in the room and let them write letters where they basically bashed women became the only thing people could see. Much like a peaceful protest where 97% of the people are there to say their piece with civility and clarity but its those 3% (the Trolls) throwing trash cans thru the window that get the cameras on them and they define the protest with the media coverage. 

I blame also the Directors and Disney for playing this absolutist mentality where they say anyone who is complaining about the movie is a baby, sexist, racist or some other insult. They didn't seem to want to have any criticism and why would they?! Having a golden franchise that can basically prints money and where you can say anyone who dissents against us is a bigot of some sort, is a hell of a defense. No one wants to be with the trolls and be labeled as chauvinist or racist but because there was no spectrum or room for dissent they ultimately pushed critics and concerned fans to that side.

Respecting The Lore/Establish A Vision

Disney may not realize this but they fucked up pretty bad by cutting away the extended universe. I understand WHY they did it; thousands of characters, hundreds of worlds, dozens of stories to consider compiled over 40 years? I imagine the collective writers of Disney who saw the scope of what other people had built together and collectively shit their pants. It's a massive undertaking to try and apply the lore in a way that fans might enjoy or explore plots that we would love to see executed. The problem is instead of looking at this expanded universe as a foundation to build their movies on, they decided to slice it away and leave nothing but the core movies and a cartoon. I will try and break down why that was a mistake.

Fans Invested Most of Their Time Into The SWEU

What they may have not realized is the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy was not where fans invested most of their time. Yes, we loved those movies for being the gateway into this great fictional universe but ultimately watching the 6 films would take only 13 hours. Knights of the Old Republic a single game of that Star Wars Universe (that they cut away), takes at least 28 to 48 hours to complete. Then you add on other games Knights of the Old Republic 2, The Old Republic MMO, Shadows of the Empire, Battlefront 1/2, The Force Unleashed, Rogue Squadron, Empire at War, Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, Jedi Academy, Republic Commando and so on you are now looking at hundreds of hours invested to a single play thru or more likely THOUSANDS of hours for true gamers play each game a few times.

This is where the true long-term fans who buy Star Wars merchandise over a lifetime instead of a holiday season reside. It stays fresh in our minds as books, comics, games, and yes the movies become part of regular media diet. Disney perhaps felt overwhelmed by it or perhaps wanted to reboot the universe decided to take the vast majority of where our love resides in the Star Wars Universe and scrapped it. Like it or not this is where they lost most of their following and since they did it just before the release of the The Last Jedi they have since been dealing with the fallout of loyal fans who feel betrayed and I am not talking just about the bitchy trolls from online either.

Removal of Strong Female Roles

I like seeing Ray as a strong female character and we all, of course, we all love Leia as well. There is no doubt the Star Wars movies while centered around some strong female characters have been pretty much been male-dominated for those first six films. So the change is not only warranted but welcomed.

What is a shame as while that was true for the movies it was far from the truth for the SWEU content where there were literally dozens of strong female leads they could have been explored by Disney.

Meetra Surik

Mara Jade

Bastila Shan

Mission Vao

Juno Eclipse

Iden Versio

Jaina Solo

Maris Brood

Visas Marr

Jan Ors

And so many more...

These women come different walks of life being the daughter of Han and Leia (Jaina Solo), plucky engineers who travel with a Wookie (Mission Vao), former Sith turned to the Light Side (Mara Jade), former Imperial Pilots and Soldiers fighting for the Rebellion (Juno and Iden), or even one of the most powerful Jedi’s in the Galaxy (Meetra Surik). I suppose what is best about them being fictional is that they still exist and if Disney wants to start mending bridges they should star readapting these characters into the canon universe.

The Best Stories Exist Before And After The Movies

I suppose for some the story of Skywalker family struggle was enough for them but the bigger stories existed long before the Empire/First Order and greatest conflict took place years after. The Mandalorian Wars, where warriors raider world after world forcing the Galactic Republic to step in. The Great Galactic War pitting the Sith against Jedi across the galaxy. The Invasion of the Yuuzhan Vong leaving trillions dead across hundreds of worlds and nearly destroying all life.

These stories are part of that extended universe and far more compelling than the recycled Death Star plot we saw in 4 of the 10 Star Wars movies. The audience craved to see the Jedi at their peak when they maintained peace across the universe, or they wish to see the Sith exist not in pairs but as an Empires themselves. If Disney wants to explore this franchise than embrace the stories that have not yet been shown on screen.

Establishing A Vision

Disney has enjoyed great success with the MCU and dozens of movies its created. They also managed to get their mittens on the Star Wars Universe and seek to milk it much the same. The problem is they don't seem to have a clear idea where they want to go with the movies or what they should do with it. I already discussed how complex the universe is with all its lore but you (Disney) have control over the movies. The rights to the toys, games, books, comics and films an like it or not we are at your mercy of where you decide to take it. 

I suppose I am advocating having a vision for the future of this series. Marvel Cinematic Universe works because the stories were planned out with a sort of climactic point to be explored (IE the Infinity Wars) so we know you can practice good foresight. On the other hand... John Carter, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and the Lone Ranger display a carelessness of other franchises. Not trying to be mean, just stating a fact. We saw it happen with other movies like Batman in the 90′s where the objective was selling toys and not making a quality film that could encourage people to buy merchandise for decades. I guess what I am trying to say is Harry Potter this franchise, treat it with love and care that the fanboys and fangirls so we can go with you on this adventure into a galaxy far far away.

A Letter to You Troll Douchbags

Some of us critics truly love movies. We see the flaws as they are and we want to be able to say our views with other people around a table. I had my issues with the magical properties of the heart-shaped herb in Black Panther. I wish they continued Ghostbusters 3 with Oscar (Jason Gordon Lovitt) taking over and having some young black scientists (played by Donald Glover and Jessica Williams) being the Ghostbusters (and Role Models) in the movie. I have some issues with The Last Jedi and how they changed the flow of the movie from one director to the next but you little bitches keep making these debates about race and fucking gender every fucking time. You see a woman on screen and you write up a review of a movie that isn't even out yet because you’re somehow afraid of the 50 movies released over the year you somehow won't be represented.

Cut your fucking shit out you little pricks. We cant make honest critiques now because you’re the first fucking twits to review a film and all you spew is the vial fucking hate raging against everything that isn't you. Honestly, the rest of us just want to enjoy ourselves, we are grown up enough to know white isn't the only skin color in the seats of the movie theater and male isn't the only gender of a hero (we call them heroines) in movies.

I picked these movies on purpose because they were topical and I had my issues with them (and I have my issue with every movie save Shaun of the Dead which is fucking perfect). I wanted to write reviews that were balanced because I want to believe we can have that discourse again where we can chat why a movie works or doesn't work without the risk of having labels like sexist or racist applied to us because you want to act out. So please for the love of god either commit to shoving your head further up your ass so we can't hear you or pull your head out and join the rest of the world. Either way, I am tired of having to apologize and denounce your rhetoric... it's honestly fucking exhausting.

Regards Michael California

[boku-no-headcannons]

(please make this canon)

Can I have cocky Bakugou knowing that he’s fucking hot, and everyone hates him because he’s right 

Can I have Midoriya with large glasses with the cutest little wrinkle on his nose when he concentrates so hard that the glasses just slip right off his face and fall onto his book. Can I have him sigh in frustration but this time propping it up with his hand and burying it in his green hair that is also falling on his face ( he needed the glasses because he ruined his eyes from staying up too late reading and texting his friends about homework)

Can I have Iida gathering a workout squad (in UA dorms) that wake up at sunset to run around on the grounds if it’s nice, or in the gym, and he always plans out what they’d be focusing on so that they could all become better (and while Bakugou says it’s a burden to be around them, he still helps out)

Can I have Ochako and Kouda baking cookies in the oven, which brings everyone downstairs, because fuck does that smell like heaven

Can I have passive-aggressive caring Bakugou yelling at everyone to take care of themselves in a very angry but comical way

Can I have Midoriya going door-to-door to wake up anyone who had accidentally slept in after a long night of studying and homework

Can I have Shouji being a handyman of sorts because he’s just so damn good at using all of his arms, and everyone kind of just stares at him in awe when he changes the batteries to the fire alarm

Can I have Tsuyu bringing in plants that her parents and her siblings bought her, and the collection of plants getting so big in the common room that Aizawa just tells her to put up a garden on the roof of UA

Can I have platonic Todoroki and Momo creating an electric piano, so that while everyone is there, they play some classical music. Can I have the other students requesting songs of all types, like classical to pop to jazz, and the rooms are always filled with music and life.

Can I have photographer!Tooru, because while she can’t be seen and has given up on being in the pictures, she wants to take pictures of these moments with her friends and immortalize them on film. Can I have all the 1A students flocking her for a paper copy of the photos so that they can put it in their room, which eventually leads to just the photos being hung on the hallway walls

Can I have artist!Jirou, where she decides that her room needs a change and she paints a beautiful mural of the galaxy, and everyone freaks out when they realize that she used glow in the dark paint and it shines at night

Can I have an insomniac Tokoyami who spends most of his time at night looking at conspiracy theories and unsolved crimes (aye Buzzfeed Unsolved anybody?)

Can I have Bakusquad creating a video journal recording every day in the dorms with their friends, and it’s just a chaotic, good time

Can I have all the girls parading around the halls and the common room, holding a fashion show using both Aoyama and Momo’s closets to take clothes from.

Can I have Aoyama being the first to march around with a boa around his neck and sunglasses on his face as he directs the entire show

Can I have 1A having these huge movie nights and when All Might and Aizawa walk in to check on them inside of the common room and just see piles on piles of blankets and pillows scattered on the floor and on the couches as the class snores on, and so they just smile, shake their head, and vow to scold them in the morning (but spoiler alert: it never happens)

Can I have them watching crappy movies like Sharknado (along with other B-Grade movies) just because they like to laugh at how dumb it is. Can I have them also watching Marvel and DC as they all point out all the quirks that they would totally love to see in action. Can I have them shrieking when they find out that the newest releases stream on their tv too.

Can I have Sero being unexpectedly good at knitting, so Momo buys yarn and has her parents send her a package for Sero to make blankets, sweaters, hats, scarves, book bags and whatnot when 1A orders from him

Can I have Midoriya being a diplomat between 1A and 1B, and Kendou can’t help but smile at how earnest he is about trying to get everyone to cooperate with each other. Can I have Shinsou, who is a pretty influential person when he chooses to speak out, supports him wholeheartedly (although he was pretty skeptical about it at first)

Can I have Monoma frothing at the mouth when Midoriya invites them into 1A’s common room for baked goods (that the entire 1A worked on together to make peace, and even Bakugou was dragged in, grumbling the entire time). Can I have Monoma saying that “of course 1A has everything they want” and Testsutetsu walking up with a cookie stuffed in his mouth saying that their common rooms were the exact same, but the only reason they hadn’t decorated was because of how clumsy Monoma was (he blushes and runs away)

Can I have all the boys wearing glasses, because fuck, they would look super hot. Like damn

Can I have Kirishima and Kaminari pranking Mineta by sneakily taking the grape balls and tell Mineta that he’s going bald. Can I have Mineta moping around in his room saying that he’s never going to get a girl (in which Todoroki mumbles “not like you had huge chances in the first place) and Momo and Ochako eventually coming in and comforting him. (Mineta takes advantage of this and takes in the boob in his face hug)

Can I have Mario Kart tournaments every Thursday after classes and it just turns into a full-out war with everyone doing 1 vs 1 tournament style matches until a true champion can be crowned. Can I have them comically screaming at the screen and creating alliances. Can I have Bakugou being in denial when Midoriya ends up winning the first time they do it, and resolves to beat him the next time around (training at night for a straight week), which ends up paying off (while everyone just panics when the explosions starts)

Can I have sassy Todoroki and Bakugou getting into these dumb little contests as everyone cheers them on, because who said that there was a need to be a bigger person in these situations

Can I have Ojiro and Koda staring at all these crazy things that 1A does and wonder how exactly they got their in the first place (although they’re quite glad)

Can I have rare outings where the teacher accompany the class to a voted destination, whether it be the movie theater, or the mall, or the amusement park and even a beach, and while it’s super rare, even the teacher want to break out of the cage called UA

Can I have the Bakugou/Midoriya grudge grow into something more than the extreme rivalry. Can I have them become less of a dangerous chemical match that should never be together, but instead become a catalyst for something so much greater 

Can I have new friendships and tighter bonds as they grow into the role that they fit into within society and school

Can I have 1A just being so supportive of each other, and maturing into people that will and deserve to be the next generation of heroes

Can I have these students be the teenagers that they are and take a break from all the things that have been falling apart in their world. 

Can I have them happy, and carefree, and be able to smile, without worrying about their friends being kidnapped, or villains attacking their loved ones and innocent people, and to be able to have those moments that make them feel normal (and not in the ‘boring’ way). Sometimes even the extraordinary becomes restricting. 

Can I have them be able to taste the sweetness of ice cream before they need to spit out the taste of metallic blood from their mouth. 

Can I have the perfect, but short moments, where the pressure of being a hero can be ignored, just enough so that they can appreciate the time before they are thrust into a world full of terrible monsters and scarier situations where there are dead bodies on the streets and destruction is rampant. 

Can I have these beautiful, wonderful students not need to wake up with crippling nightmares and debilitating fears that may scar and follow them right from the get-go in their first year. 

Can I watch these students grow up and still have faith in the world and what it has to offer, even as they fight on the front lines and their own brain may chant that it is hopeless to wish for peace in this world.

But then again- you don’t always get what you want.

[thewoodsattheworldsend]

PewdiePie has started a book club. 

*Gasp* No!

The choices so far have tended towards sci-fi – I Am Legend, Brave New World – but also included The Picture of Dorian Gray and American Psycho.

Oh no...

 “For me to discover how much joy you can get through reading”, the 28-year-old Swede said, “It’s been so much fun.” 

Oh No!

This month, he wants his viewers to join him in ploughing through Moby Dick.

How fucking dare he?!

That said, the first PewdiePie “Book Review” has still been watched 3.5m times. Right-thinking individuals may have struggled to engage young people with classic literature for decades. Felix Kjellberg just turns up and does it from his closet.

Last year he made news globally after paying two Indian men to hold a sign saying “Death to all Jews”. Three months later he drew headlines again after using the “n” word while live-streaming a video game.

It’s important to remind everyone about this, even though it’s the first time out of two times this will be mentioned in this article. It’s important, but not as important as these other much more condemning nails for PewdiePie’s coffin.  

Each week, alongside reactive content like his savaging of Logan Paul’s suicide video, PewdiePie posts three different “shows”. In the first, You Laugh You Lose (YLYL), Kjellberg watches a stream of supposedly humorous, or perhaps laughable clips. He mocks them and tries not to laugh. On Last Week I Asked You (LWIAY) he sets his audience challenges and reviews the output. Those challenges largely involve creating memes and in the third show, Kjellberg reviews the more popular memes on the internet. This show is called Meme Review.

Holy Crap, that’s terrible. 

Filming in his small room, decorated with Japanese figurines and a poster of A Clockwork Orange, 

Figures, Japanese ones?! A Clockwork Orange poster!?

Kjellberg eschews the aspirational locations of many of his peers.

Like his peers, people with a truck-load of money, or his peers Youtubers, because that’s normal for Youtubers... - Sorry, I mean OH MY GOD HE DOES WHAT?!

Because of the way that YouTube (a company owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet) guards its data, it’s unclear precisely who watches PewdiePie’s content.

61,940,275 “Right-thinking individuals” people, that’s who! 

I mean, go on. 

Data provided to Kjellberg by the company, which he screenshotted and posted during a 2017 video, suggested his largest demographic was among the 18-24 age group, followed by 25-34. It seems unlikely that he is not also very popular among teenagers, however.

That’s the core advertising demographic everyone in traditional advertising wants to watch their content and buy their products, oh my god. 

It has been observed that you can pretend to be older than you are on the internet.

You can fucking WHAT?!

Many of the fans who engage with PewdiePie by posting content either on YouTube or Reddit are under 18.

Many of the 61 plus Million people are minors.

When Kjellberg was confronted about his anti-semitic prank and his offhanded use of racist language last year, he apologised. In another short clip he said “It’s not that I think I can say or do whatever I want and get away with it. I’m just an idiot.”

That’s the second time, and the last. 

However it remains unclear whether his experience has led him to question his behaviour. Always inclined towards the type of humour common on the forums of 4Chan and murkier subReddits, Kjellberg has nowadays doubled down on material that is, to put it gently, anti-PC.

Is, is the, to put it gently, the anti-Politically Correctly stuff the classic literature?! 

Because I don’t know if you guys have been to a library lately, but um even though we keep cutting their funding they keep buying books and wanting people to READ them. 

I don’t want to be an alarmist, but every book in PewdiePie’s book club is there. 

*Loud Whispers* All. Of. Them. 

Carrying on, what other terrible, terrible things has PewdiePie been up to lately.

His ironic tone means he rarely says anything explicitly offensive. But the themes and memes that recur in his videos are consistent: images of famous African-Americans (Neil deGrasse Tyson, Barack Obama) captioned with the wrong names; a meme to which the punchline is “respecting women”; African voices sampled and replayed in incongruous situations; recitations of English language posts on Indian Facebook.

That’s terrible! Thank you for not showing us the may-mays, you’re truly saved my soul.

Pepe the Frog will also make appearances.

Pepe?! 

The frog from the comic whose wasn’t created as a Neo-Nazi, whose creator killed off after being used as a meme by everyone was also used by Neo-Nazis and is now suing Infowars for copyright infringement for putting Pepe in a MAGA (Make America Great Again) poster with other Right-Wing people? 

That Pepe?! 

That’s a hate symbol according to the ADL (Anti-Defamation League)!  

But then there’s from the same a page, they do seem to care about content,

“However, because so many Pepe the Frog memes are not bigoted in nature, it is important to examine use of the meme only in context. The mere fact of posting a Pepe meme does not mean that someone is racist or white supremacist. However, if the meme itself is racist or anti-Semitic in nature, or if it appears in a context containing bigoted or offensive language or symbols, then it may have been used for hateful purposes.In the fall of 2016, the ADL teamed with Pepe creator Matt Furie to form a #SavePepe campaign to reclaim the symbol from those who use it with hateful intentions.”

As for Book Review, the final item on last month’s edition was Jordan B Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life. Kjellberg gave it a rave review. “I really enjoyed this book,” he said, “it made me understand people around me better.”

Ah yes the Canadian professor and clinical psychologist, whose book they sell in the bookstores here (I’m Canadian) along with all those other terrible, dangerous books like Moby Dick, A Clockwork Orange, and anything by Neil DeGrase Tyson.

Felix “PewdiePie” Kjellberg is funny, intelligent, innovative and highly charismatic.

That’s sounds like so many people I know! I am very concerned!

He also has one of the world’s biggest public platforms and a remit restricted only by YouTube’s terms of service.

That doesn’t sound like a many people I know, but that second part is every Youtuber, and also every creator everywhere really. We’re all only restricted in the end by the terms of service of the platforms we publish on. 

To call him an alt-right agitator would perhaps be unfair as he has never publicly identified with the proto-fascist movement. 

It’s a trap, a Kafka trap. The term originates from, The Trial, which is probably the next book for PewdiePie’s bookclub, so ABSOLUTELY DO NOT READ THAT.

But he shares much of their culture and amplifies it across the world.

Their culture is memes and books. Books. 

Books!

The things Hitler burned. 

Everyone shares much of that culture! OH MY GOD! THAT’S TERRIBLE!

People should pay PewdiePie more attention. 

Everything in this article seems to be suggesting that people do the exact opposite of that. 

Anyway...

If you’re at all interested in experiencing a world where you’re allowed to listen to people, read books about, or by people you disagree, or that the most influential Puritans disagree with without being branded an Alt-Right support, if you enjoy, goddamnit access to information, this Culty Puritan Crap should trouble you.