#but i do not enjoy fascism even more

[casstelli]

do usamerican leftists think that if they don’t vote the government will spontaneously collapse to make way for their socialist utopia

[lord-squiggletits]

Actually re: the last post about IDW Optimus and politics and moral grayness, if anyone here has read The Wheel of Time series, I actually compare IDW OP to Rand al'Thor in my head a lot. They have sort of the same background of "normal guy gets singled out by a person of Great Authority and put on a path to saving people" followed by a path to leadership hinging on "I became the Chosen One so even though I just wanted to save people, now I have to get involved in these bullshit politics where people are more concerned about securing their own power or spiting their enemies instead of uniting against evil."

Then there's a part of WOT where Rand becomes way darker and edgier, where basically as a result of a severe incident of betrayal and trauma, he goes "You know what, fuck you people, I tried to be nice and you just stabbed me in the back and tried to literally use me as a tool for your own ends" and he basically became a major hardass. To the point where I think there was at least one point (if not multiple) where after Rand extended some sort of diplomatic solution and got rejected, he was basically like "fuck you," fought an entire city on his own and won, then made himself the ruler and went "your armies belong to me and you're going to prepare to fight the Dark One like you SHOULD BE DOING." That phase is sort of comparable to Orion working under Zeta (OP flashbacks, Autocracy trilogy), in which OP's ideals are buried under disappointment and he's seeing these complicated, shitty political realities playing out where it seems like nothing is getting better and his attempts to work with the Decepticons only end in (from his perspective) being blatantly lied to and having his goodwill taken advantage of.

That's really what my ideal phase 2/3 story for Optimus would've been lmao. Still with the same idea of "gee you ARE fighting for the greater good but aren't you going a little far," but balanced out with a rightful dose of "I tried to be diplomatic and nice but no one listened, what else can I do but use force/politics/manipulation to make people see reason if they won't stop backstabbing and betraying each other in time to fight the Actual Evil Force who's going to kill us all."

WOT Rand even had a part of his character arc where he went so far into "humanity sucks, they would literally rather get slaughtered by the ultimate evil than set aside their petty bullshit long enough to work together" where he almost committed murder-suicide in a fit of despair that maybe humanity wasn't even worth saving at all. Only for him to be saved from the edge of despair by realizing "Wait, the world SHOULD be saved, because even though humanity sucks and so many people are evil, good still exists in the world and we can still fight to make the world a better place than it is."

LIKE IN A WAY RAND AL THOR IS BASICALLY IDW OPTIMUS in terms of the general shape of his character arc. Just the difference is that Rand got written as just a character with flaws and virtues coping the best he can under immense pressure and trauma. Whereas IDW OP got written more as "God the world fucking sucks and Cybertronians might just deserve to die bc we colonized people" and also everyone is constantly calling him a fascist and even the titles of his story are comparing him to an actual genocidal tyrant who killed 100 billion+ people. No joy or humanity just a scapegoat for evil living in a shitty world where everyone is miserable and "maybe our entire race IS doomed and we DO deserve to die" is like, a repeated motif of the entire story all the way to Unicron. As opposed to being treated as an obviously shitty worldview that the characters grapple with and go "no actually the world can be a good place and our society can recover from war and we don't deserve oblivion because of the cycle of violence we're trying to escape."

[starry-bi-sky]

For the Danyal Al Ghul AU: How would Danyal react to other canon events like when Sam wishes she never met Danny, Tucker wishes for powers, the christmas episode, or other DP canon events?

(Also, I assume Danyal's cover is blown by the reality Gaunlet event.)

Ohooho I love this question. So im only gonna respond to the episodes you mentioned, since it's been a while since i actually watched the show and I don't remember all the episodes. And also since I don't remember them fully, I'm gonna get details wrong. I am fine with that, it still gets the gist down lol. I've got the tvtropes recap page pulled up, so i'll be using that to try and hit the major points it mentions.

So, Memory Blank! Man I've thought about that one, and its the one I'm frankly most excited to answer because it gets to show just how much of a positive impact being friends with Sam and Tucker had on Danyal. So where to start? Their fight goes differently than in canon, but I'm going to start from after Sam makes her wish.

Firstly; she and Tucker are friends, but the two of them are not friends with Danny. He's on his own. In this au, the three of them became friends when they were 11 and Danny's been in Amity Park for about a year.

They met in the beginning with Sam trying to befriend him at first because she realized that they shared similar ideals on environmentalism, but he rebuffed her pretty harshly due to a combination of grief over leaving his home, trying to process the fact that he can never return and will never see his brother again or meet his father, and just plain League arrogance lmao. He really hated being in Amity Park just in general because it wasn't his home and it was the city too.

So he was really rather unapproachable in the beginning. People kept a pretty wide berth of him due to Fenton association and his own vibes.

But Danny's still a kid, and they want socialization with their peers. At 11 he didn't have any friends, and was frankly quite lonely. He decided to approach Sam and Tucker after deeming them "acceptable allies", although Sam wasn't really interested at first up until he did the equivalent of apologizing. Tucker warmed up first afterwards, but Sam really wasn't too far behind.

So thats how they became friends, post-wish though? Lets say that Sam didn't accept the apology and rebuffed Danny, and kinda intimidated Tucker into doing the thing. Danyal closed down, backed off, and then never approached them again because he decided right then and there he wasn't going to chase it. Wasn't worth his effort or time.

Then he just. never approached another person after that because he didn't want to get rebuffed again (he wouldn't admit that it hurt a bit), and he could already tell his efforts wouldn't work. He turned his attention to other stuff. In this timeline it wasn't too difficult to find him at events dedicated to combatting climate change, deforestation, light pollution, animal cruelty, etc. the LOA is an environmentalist group, after all. They just also happen to be eco-fascist assassins-for-hire.

In summary, Sam and Tucker helped Danyal realize the flaws in some of the League's beliefs (the fascism) to the point where he could deconstruct it on his own. Being friends with them made him realize that, frankly, genocide was not the answer to environmental equilibrium, and that the people outside of the League had lives worth living. They also helped quell his arrogance, and just in general influenced him to become kinder even if it doesn't look like that all the time to other people. Sam and Tucker make him laugh, and smile, and just happy.

OG Danyal: wears pretty casual teen clothes. More punky-aesthetic. Has multiple ear piercings. These were self-done. Will have a lip piercing by the time he reunites with Damian, mark my words. Can and will wear muscle tees. Makes puns, jokes, is generally sassy with his friends. Can, will, and has climbed shit he shouldn't be because he enjoys the challenge of scaling a building. It's also very funny seeing Tucker and Sam reenact the "Gregory! HOW DID YOU GET UP THERE?!" meme. Still has a questionable moral compass, but like, he's not an eco-fascist.

This Timeline Danyal: dresses much more sophisticated; dark academia vibe. Closed off, cold. Is 2x more likely to kill someone than OG Danyal, who was frankly, pr kosher with murder already but only if he deemed it extremely necessary. Still an eco-fascist.

Danyal without Sam and Tucker? Still believes in the teachings of the League because he has not been really challenged on them. In fact, he has doubled down on it, actually. Living in the city, growing up estranged and ostracized by his peers, has only strengthened his resolve that all of humanity minus the league (and the Fentons) deserves to be wiped out. He is disgusted by the people around him and desperately wants to go home, even more than the last timeline. The only reason he hasn't is for Damian's sake, but he's been checking in with mother whenever she visits and asking to find a way to come home. She's been steadily wearing down on it; her child is miserable here.

This version of Danyal should not have powers, and is, essentially on the fast track of rejoining the league -- doubly so when he hears Damian is living with father. Clearly it's safe enough for him to be with father, if mother allowed it, and father has become safe enough for Damian to live there. Good. With the threat of two heirs being in the League gone, Danny can return with Mother's permission. And. he probably takes Jazz (and the Fenton parents) with him. Forcibly if he has to.

So Sam has her work cut out for her here, a lot more than in canon, because even when she does tell him that they used to be friends in another timeline, and he believes it, he is not going to give a shit. Clearly they were not as good of friends as she thought they were, if she had wished they never met in the first place. Good riddance, then. This Danny is cold, incredibly hurt, and very closed off.

He is a cave wall in comparison to the Danny Sam knew, and talking to him feels like walking into one. Because he is looking at her with just utter disgust and disdain, keeping a distance like he is revolted by her presence and allergic to her and everyone else's touch.

Which really, really fucking hurts when she knows that in their last timeline, he would actively seek out her and Tucker's company and affection. Sam could read her best friend like an open book, and now its like she's trying to read one in another language she barely speaks. This boy used to smile at her, he used to laugh at Tucker's jokes, and he was so passionate about the things he enjoyed. Now he looks at her like he wants nothing more than for her to drop dead on the spot.

It hurts even more knowing that her last words to her Danny were the words, 'some days i wish we never met'; the way he looked at her afterwards haunts her. For a split second, he looked completely crushed and heartbroken, before his entire body language and expression shut off and he totally closed down on her.

Because by this point in his friendship with her and Tucker, he's told them, he has told them, in a very intimate moment of vulnerability, that they are one of the best things that's happened in his life -- right there alongside the day he first met his baby brother. They are very important to him, and he has finally felt comfortable enough with telling them. There's not a day that goes by that he isn't grateful for their friendship.

So to hear Sam say that some days she wishes they never met? well. That breaks his heart. Just- just a little bit. Sam regrets it the moment it leaves her mouth, and she immediately tries to apologize, but Danny immediately spits back; "Well. I hope you get your wish." and then stalks off.

I'm warring with myself here trying to decide whether or not this new timeline Danyal is at a "point of no return", where nothing Sam says is going to make him attempt to reignite that friendship. Clearly that will end badly anyways, if this is the result of that friendship. He's cut all ties from these people; he feels no prerogative to fix things she broke.

Like, the version of Danyal I'm thinking of here has no close bonds with anyone in the city sans Jazz -- and she? has her own life outside of Danny. She is not his keeper, not his caretaker, and certainly not his therapist. (which i have beef about too, considering how she gets boiled down to 'therapist with no life of her own' but im not going into that.) She has some influence on him, but frankly not enough to really make him challenge his beliefs. Danny cares about her that, if he returns to the league, she is coming with him. Or at the very least, will be spared from the League's goals.

Mmmm. I can't make it a total point of no return though. Sam's very stubborn, and she knows Danny. And while this Danny is still very different, he is still Danny. She'll try and befriend him insistently in a way that might annoy him, but at least not push him away further.

(Tucker, meanwhile, is just soo confused about Sam's very random, very abrupt switch up. Cuz girl he thought you hated this guy? Why are you suddenly trying to get all buddy-buddy with the terrifying Fenton kid. Have you been possessed? Is this some kind of crisis?)

(Sam drags Tucker into befriending Danny because he is the only person she knows that can get him to belly laugh. Tucker is mildly terrified but going along with it.)

Anyways this does end with Sam befriending Danny, or at least getting him to like her long enough that he'll pick up a ghost weapon and face off against Desiree. There's no way in hell he's walking into that portal, that last timeline might have been a 1/billionth chance of it happening and he's not dying for the chance to get powers. And frankly with his training -- which he's probably kept up with even more than the old timeline because he had no one to spend his time with -- he doesn't really need them to be good at fighting them. Just show him how to ghost proof a weapon and he'll handle the rest from there.

But Sam does end up undoing the wish and getting back to her own original timeline in the end. It's the morning after her fight, and the literal first thing she does that morning is get her shoes on and fucking sprriiint to the fenton house. Bursts into tears when she sees Danny and apologizes over and over again. She swears she didn't mean any of it, and to please believe her, and Desiree's still loose and they need to stop her, and she's had the worst time.

She does tell him about the other timeline she just went through, and she hopes that, if it still exists, that that Danyal manages to find friends in the Sam and Tucker there after this. And if not them, then anyone.

Danny's still pretty hurt by what she said, it cut really deep, but he forgives her.

-----

Tucker getting his powers! Frankly things gooo... relatively the same as canon, I think? Actually, no. Danny probably figures out the whole Genie "i wish you would go back into your lamp" thing faster than canon danny since he's not a C student lmao. TV.Tropes doesn't give me too much specifics for a recap on the plot, so we're gonna wing it. For the plot I'm going to say that Tucker gets his powers before Danny figures out the "i wish" thing, which happens relatively quickly.

Danny tries to be... rather supportive of his friend getting powers? Especially since, in comparison to Danny, it was rather painless. However, he's also very suspicious. He doesn't trust the source of Tucker's powers, and warns him to be careful and to let Danny know if he feels off in anyway.

Tucker does end up helping Danny a few times, but the quick progression of his powers and Tucker's willingness to use them more often than not worries him. He reminds him a handful of times that Tucker shouldn't rely on his powers to help -- not even Danny does that. He prefers to use his weapons and martial arts to fight instead. Tucker doesn't listen.

And they end up fighting anyways. Things get resolved, everything turns out okay!

------

Christmas episode straight up just. doesn't happen. Danyal doesn't care enough about the Fenton arguing or about Christmas to be upset about said arguing. He thinks its really childish, but he's not a grinch about all of it.

--------

Okay it wasn't explicitly mentioned but i have thought about TUE. And I'm trying to think how that would go because it's the result of Danny getting his hands on the math answers and cheating. Which Danyal would not do.

And someone mentioned in the comments on my ao3 under the oneshots there that TUE might just straight up not happen. Which makes sense, Danyal is so different from canon that things don't have to always happen like it did in canon. So that's something I need to chew about, cuz if it does happen, then I'm going to figure out a different way for it to.

[reasonsforhope]

"It was widely described as the week that India’s beleaguered democracy was pulled back from the brink. As the election results rolled in on Tuesday [June 4, 2024], all predictions and polls were defied as Narendra Modi lost his outright majority for the first time in a decade while the opposition re-emerged as a legitimate political force. On Sunday evening, Modi will be sworn in as prime minister yet many believe his power and mandate stands diminished.

For one opposition politician in particular, the humbling of the strongman prime minister was a moment to savour. Late last year, Mahua Moitra, one of the most outspoken critics of Modi and his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), found herself unceremoniously expelled from parliament and kicked out of her bungalow, after what she described as a “political witch-hunt” for daring to stand up to Modi.

The murky and allegedly undemocratic circumstances of Moitra’s expulsion from parliament was seen by many to symbolise Modi’s approach to dissenting voices and the steady erosion of India’s democracy. She was among several vocal opposition politicians who were subjected to investigations by government crime agencies.

But having won a landslide re-election in her home state of West Bengal, Moitra will return once again to parliament, part of the newly empowered opposition coalition. “I can’t wait,” said Moitra. “They went to egregious lengths to discredit and destroy me and abused every process to do it. If I had gone down, it would have meant that brute force had triumphed over democracy.”

While he may be returning for a historic third term, many have portrayed the results as something of a defeat for Modi, who has had to rely on coalition partners to form a government. The BJP’s campaign had been solely centred around him – even the manifesto was titled “Modi’s guarantee” – and in many constituencies, local BJP candidates often played second fiddle to the prime minister, who loomed large over almost every seat. He told one interviewer he believed his mandate to rule was given directly by God.

“Modi’s aura was invincibility, that the BJP could not win elections without him,” said Moitra. “But the people of India didn’t give him a simple majority. They were voting against authoritarianism and they were voting against fascism. This was an overwhelming, resounding anti-Modi vote.”

During his past decade in power, Modi and the BJP enjoyed a powerful outright majority and oversaw an unprecedented concentration of power under the prime minister’s office, where key decisions were widely known to be made by a select few.

The Modi government was accused of imposing various authoritarian measures, including the harassment and arrest of critics under terrorism laws, while the country tumbled in global democracy and press freedom rankings. Modi never faced a press conference or any committee of accountability for the often divisive actions of his government. Politicians regularly complained that parliament was simply reduced to a rubber-stamping role for the BJP’s Hindu-first agenda.

Yet on Tuesday [June 40, it became clear that the more than 25 opposition parties, united as a coalition under the acronym INDIA, had inflicted substantial losses on the BJP to take away its simple majority. Analysts said the opposition’s performance was all the more remarkable given that the BJP stands accused of subverting and manipulating the election commission, as well as putting key opposition leaders behind bars and far outspending all other parties on its campaign. The BJP has denied any attempts to skew the election in its favour.

“This election proved that the voter is still the ultimate king,” said Moitra. “Modi was so shameless, yet despite them using every tool they had to engineer this election to their advantage, our democracy fought back.”

Moitra said she was confident it was “the end of Mr Modi’s autocratic way of ruling”. Several of the parties in the BJP’s alliance who he is relying on for a parliamentary majority and who will sit in Modi’s cabinet do not share his Hindu nationalist ideology...

Moitra was not alone in describing this week’s election as a reprieve for the troubling trajectory of India’s democracy. Columns heralding that the “mirror has cracked” and the “idea of India is reborn” were plastered across the country’s biggest newspapers, and editorials spoke of the end of “supremo syndrome”. “The bulldozer now has brakes,” wrote the Deccan Chronicle newspaper. “And once a bulldozer has brakes, it becomes just a lawnmower.” ...

“This was not a normal election, it was clearly an unfair and unlevel playing field,” said Yadav. “But still, there is now a hope and a possibility that the authoritarian element could be reversed.”

Harsh Mander, one of India’s most prominent human rights and peace activists who is facing numerous criminal investigations for his work, called the election the “most important in India’s post independence history”, adding: “The resilience of Indian democracy has proved to be spectacular.”

He said it was encouraging that an “intoxication of majoritarian hate politics” had not ultimately shaped the outcome, referring to Modi’s apparent attempts to stir up religious animosity on the campaign trail as he referred to Muslims as “infiltrators” and “those who have more children”.

“The past decade has seen the freedom of religion and the freedom of conscience and dissent taken away,” said Mander. “If this election had gone fully the BJP way, then India would not remain a constitutional secular democracy.”"

-via The Guardian, June 9, 2024

[museofreverie]

𝐖𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐨𝐦. Eren Jaeger

Pairing: Modern Fem!Reader x Eren Jaeger┊ONGOING ┊Written in 2nd POV

In which a chronically online Gen Z that went through the pandemic goes to the Attack on Titan Universe and tries her very best to change the ending with an "I can fix him" mentality.

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽ 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 ☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

Archive of Our Own ┊ Wattpad

┈➤ 𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒

When the world is thrown into chaos and safety protocols become the new normal, you must confront the fact that continuing your lifelong dreams of becoming a dancer may no longer be possible after experiencing the loss of a beloved someone due to the pandemic. However, there is always a possibility of finding small joy even in times of despair: the freedom to do whatever you want during quarantine. And perhaps this includes being addicted to the Attack on Titan series. But when an action of yours triggers a phenomenon, you find yourself transported to a familiar world where man-eating titans exist, with the threat of war looming between countries ━ all of a sudden, fiction becomes reality and things take a drastic turn as you encounter your beloved characters. As the stakes become increasingly high with your knowledge about the future, you must learn how to confront your fears, face the consequences of your choices, and with the goal to change the course of history and stop the gruesome fate of many by helping Eren Jaeger discover the true meaning of freedom at all cost.

┈➤ 𝐓𝐀𝐁𝐋𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒

𝟎𝟎𝟎┊Prologue 𝟎𝟎┊From You, 2000 Years Ago 𝟎𝟏┊The Girl Who Knew 𝟎𝟐┊Iced Coffee and Anxieties 𝟎𝟑┊Some Words of Wisdom 𝟎𝟒┊Just a Very Long Dream 𝟎𝟓┊Under The Tree 𝟎𝟔┊Dépaysement 𝟎𝟕┊Held Captive 𝟎𝟖┊Rot Girl Summer [ONGOING]

┈➤ 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒

Heavy Spoilers, Manga Spoilers, Slow Burn, Long Chapters, Attempt at Humor, Heavy Cursing, Mommy Issues, Blood and Gore, Anxiety Attacks, Grief, Violence, PTSD, Trauma, Mention of food restrictions, Body Dysmorphia, Period-Typical Discrimination, Fascism, Gaslighting, Slavery, Mental Illness, War Crimes, Racism, Death

┈➤ 𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄

Hello, everyone! I finally decided to post this Eren fic here on tumblr to have more engagement to it. Yes, it's an isekai fic and yes, we will embrace the cringe! The AOT brainrot will not end that's why I wrote this because Eren deserves a happy ending---but before that, please bear with me because this is a slow burn fic. I didn't want this fic just to focus on romance and make Y/N a mary sue---I want her, you, be written as human as possible. This fic will talk about loss, grief, moral dilemmas, psychological trauma and many more along the way. Also, if you don't mind, there will be a LOT of pop culture references. (If you don't like reading those, then it's fine. You are free to exit this fic.) I hope you'll enjoy this ride! feel free to also comment down your thoughts since I love reading comments <3 lots of love!

[vexwerewolf]

Felicitations, comrade! We had our session 0 for the IGF campaign im running, and one of my players wants to be a moonlighter pirate "infiltrating" Hell's Gate militia. He was initially thinking of being affiliated with the Hell Hounds, which for obvious reasons would present some challenges. Do you have any advice for making this happen, what with the very first mission putting him up against his true boss? I dont know that he'd have enough time to have truly built up camraderie with the rest of the SRT to truly make his character have conflicted loyalties.

I mean, he'd have to have been with the militia a while to build up enough trust to be seriously considered for the SRT.

But moreover, let me tell you what being a Hell Hound is like.

CW: psychological and physical abuse

So one thing I want to make it clear that the Hell Hounds are basically an incel cult without the weird gender-sexual overtones. I imagine there ARE women and enbies who join it but in essence Andros Capella is a creepy weirdo who preys on disaffected, primarily male youth with no prospects and indoctrinates them into his worldview of nihilistic violence.

Andros doesn't really have a philosophy, or at least not one that he could describe in words (and even if he could, he wouldn't), but it could be summed up as "the weak exist solely to create things for the strong to take." You are worthy of having things if you are strong enough to take them, but only so long as you're strong enough to keep them.

The closest political ideology I could ascribe to him would be "stateless fascism." Andros is certainly sadistic, devoid of empathy and believes himself to be supreme, but he's too intellectually lazy to bother engaging in justifying why he's supreme. He makes the most basic of naturalistic arguments (i.e. "this is just the way the world works") but feels it's beneath him to actually justify or provide evidence for his claims.

He hates the minutiae of day-to-day life, and derives no joy from anything that doesn't involve someone else's discomfort or pain. He will steal your food for the sheer thrill of having taken something that you wanted to eat, but he won't enjoy eating it because he despises the physical sensations of chewing and swallowing.

And if you are a Hell Hound who, god forbid, enjoys something, he will bully the shit out of you. He will verbally and physically abuse you until you learn to hate the thing you liked just to make the pain stop.

Lemme tell you what the average night on Fort Cerberus looks like when you're not on a raid: you and a couple hundred other sick fucks lurk around the corridors drinking and gambling but you sure as hell better not actually look like you're having fun because you're all desperately trying to avoid becoming the bossman's next chew toy.

Some poor fuck catches Andros' eye. You're not sure what for, but from the sounds of things he might've been counting his poker winnings too loud. He gets a hand on his shoulder from the big man, who tells him that he's being too selfish - gotta learn to share a bit more, yeah? Now, way Andros sees it, guy's got ten fingernails that he's keeping all to himself, so here's a set of pliers - redistribute.

You jeer along with the rest of the room, loud enough to drown out his screams, because you're so very, very relieved that it isn't you. But you fuck up. You look a little bit too enthusiastic, perhaps, or maybe it's the opposite, maybe you weren't forcing it enough. Either way, the bossman's eyes land on you and your blood turns to ice in your veins.

"You," he says. "C'mere."

The room is dead silent all of a sudden, quiet enough that the pitiful whimpering of the first guy, (currently on his second thumbnail) is the only sound you can hear. You walk over, as a prisoner does to the place of execution.

He takes your hands, inspecting your fingernails, and then your hands, then your arms. "No ink yet? You not pulling your weight? Am I payin' to feed a fuckin' leech?"

You say you're not a leech.

"Those pricks over at the Gate are gettin' too clever. Learning too quick. Gettin' the jump on us too many times. I want someone over there learnin' what they know. You 'avin' no ink makes you a good choice. They'd sniff out any of these boys in a second, they would, but not you. You look soft. Don't he look soft, boys?"

The room jeers at you just as you jeered at the first guy (he's on his ninth nail, now, and his throat is so hoarse he can't make sounds anymore). You try your best to remain composed.

"Normally soft'd be fuckin' worthless. But soft'll let you blend right in with the Gaters."

So, to avoid whatever horrific torture he's currently ideating, you agree. The next time they go out on a raid, they pick a ship full of people who don't know each other and slip you in with the passengers when nobody's looking. You don't go to Hell's Gate directly - you do a couple of hops through the Thousand Habs, just to throw off suspicion.

You sue for residency on the station as a refugee from a failed habitat. They give you your own cabin, and they make sure you're fed and clothed. You smirk to yourself - they really are as soft as Andros said they'd be; they have food and water and clothes and they're just giving them away!

You don't have all that many marketable skills, so after a few rotations scrubbing air filters, you apply to take the militia aptitude test. You try to play it down so they don't get suspicious, but if nothing else you're a damn good pilot, so you get fast-tracked. These fucking idiots just give you a mech! God, it's gonna be so easy to tear them apart from the inside.

They put you in a team. You train together, building up hours in the simulators. Then something weird happens. They... trust you? They want to... spend time with you, outside the simulators. They want to drink with you, play games with you, hear about your life. Well, is it more suspicious if you say no? You have to maintain your cover.

You don't always fit in well. Sometimes you crack jokes that are... a little unpleasant, a little off, a little worrying, and you learn to bite those down because it's bad for your cover. You also have this odd air about you, like you're constantly on guard, like you're waiting for the other shoe to drop (like somebody's gonna make you rip your fingernails out if you're too happy). People figure you must've gone through some trauma and are kind stupid enough not to pry.

You feed information about the militia back to Andros - carefully, so as not to blow your cover. Some members of your team get hurt - nobody dies, but they get hurt. You feel... bad. Why do you feel bad? They're soft, they're weak, they don't mean anything. They're not your real friends. You don't have any friends.

Months pass. Jerry says he wants to tap your team for a long-standing project he's working on. This is your chance. Sabotaging this will prove to Andros that you're strong, that you're not weak, that you're not a leech, that you can pull your weight.

Sure, a bunch of your team will have to die. The only people who've ever put their trust in you, the only people who've ever believed in you. But that's fine, right? They don't mean anything, they're not real people, right? They're idiots for trusting you, right? They deserve it, right?

Right?

... right?

[wilcze-kudly]

I have a question what do you like of final of the Legend of Korra and What do you not like it ? ( S4)

Ah, B4. My favourite season and the season I hate the most at the same time. I have such mixed feelings about it and I think most of it stems from the utilisation of Nazi and Soviet imagery and inspirations in the Earth Empire.

Because it disrupts any sympathy, I could have towards the good Kuvira had done for the Earth Kingdom because of the IRL historical context behind those same pros in the regimes Kuvira was based on.

Technological advancements and modernisation? Made possible by essentially slave labour of the people of the country, particularly the prisoners of gulags, who were in huge part political prisoners (known as biełoruczki, if I remember correctly). I use the term 'political' very loosely because because many of the 'crimes' were just... really stupid. For example having rented a French book from a library.

Kuvira's attack on Republic City is also heavily recontextualised due to this context. Because, in a void, a woman of a county that has been heavily affected by a war trying to regain a former colonised region of her country that hadn't been returned after the end of the war is not a terribly immoral thing. You could even describe it as justified.

But with the context of Kuvira's inspirations it takes on a darker meaning as one of the Soviet and Nazi excuses for invading Poland in 1939. In the words of Timothy Snyder, historian and author:

Hitler saw Poland as the ‘unreal creation’ of the Treaty of Versailles, Molotov as its ‘ugly offspring.

Furthermore, even post-Soviet Russia has a similar pattern of dismissing the legitimacy countries that fall victim to their campaigns. For example, Putin justifying the current genocide and war crimes in Ukraine by claiming Ukraine to be historically Russian lands and that Ukrainians and Russians are 'one Nation'. I have spoken at length on Kuvira's parallels to Putin and length, I believe.

Connecting Kuvira's claim on Repubmic City to these ideologies is counterproductive to any sympathy I could have to her goals. Because, in a void, decolonisation. With the influences assigned to her, it's rather giving 'imperial nostalgia'.

And I know that you could easily make the argument that we should look at the Earth Empire as it's own thing, that it isn't defined by its historical infulences. But I do believe it does. Kuvira's inspirations are glaring, obvious and hard to ignore. Especially the Nazi ones.

Kuvira's Soviet inspirations, which in my opinion, are a far bigger part of the show, are, however, more insidious. Mainly because a Western Audience isn't primed to see the danger and sordid history in the ideologies she presents here.

Because a lot of younger First World citizens seem to have this weird hard on for Soviet Russia, ignoring that it was just as horrific as the 3rd Reich.

Now, I actually really liked Kuvira as an antagonist in the first half of the season. I'd even classify her as my favourite main villain (my fave antagoinst in general being Aiwei's gayass).

I really enjoyed the mix of Nazi and Soviet inspirations behind her character, because while these ideologies may seem different at first, they aren't actually that dissimilar, even being referred to as 'Totalitarian Twins'.

Which is why I mildly push back against people claiming that Kuvira represented simply fascism. I believe Kuvira could've been an almost perfect 'human' commentary on totalitarianism.

I belive that Kuvira is an amalgamation of multiple totalitarian dictators, not just Stalin and Hitler, combining their common traits and behaviours.

We are very quickly shown how charismatic Kuvira is and how she is skilled at social engineering by, for example manipulating Bolin and Korra, as well as strategically putting on displays of power and strength to intimidate opponents and endear allies.

Showmanship is a huge part of a lot of totalitarian dictatorships, particularly as many of them rely on cult of personality, which certainly rings true for the Earth Empire.

We're also quickly shown how fond Kuvira is of ultimatums and total control. This 'all or nothing' mentality is a common theme in totalitarian countries. You're either with the ruling part 100%, or you're an enemy of the state. See my above description of political prisoners in gułags. Kuvira's weaponisation of the context of historical necessity is also a trademark of Soviet regime.

Kuvira's characteristation as manipulative, intimidating and calculating behind her more charismatic and virtuous veneer is a perfect mirror into how irl totalitarian regimes often hide behind friendly faces and utilise sound ideologies to obscure their true insidious intents.

And then the show ruins this excellent villain with a poorly executed sympathy scene and later a shitty redemption arc.

That's not to say I'm fully opposed to Kuvira having a sob backstory and being marginally sympathetic. But I would rather this be used to show off how totalitarianism is inherently a self destructive system. Leaning into Kuvira being an insecure, compensating control freak rather than presenting her as a misguided heroine who lost her way would be a much better use of her character imo.

I liked seeing her cry like a little bitch tho that was cathartic and also sexy.

But you know who actually deserved the sympathy and empathy we were encouraged to give Kuvira? The Beifong family, especially the Zaofu crew! And if you follow me you've probably heard me ramble about this already but they really were the only real ones that season.

They were the literal only ones actively warning everyone about Kuvira and seeing through her bullshit. And it's no surprise, since they know Kuvira. Sure, their grudge against her probably influenced their opinions, but the comics show that there were symptoms of the person Kuvira would eventually become even as a child, like in her anger issues and her destroying Opal's dollhouse as punishment for Opal setting a very rational boundary.

I truly think the Beifong family deserved more screentime and we desrved to hear more out of all of them. As for example, Huan could easily illustrate the irl censorship and control totalitarian governments. Like, there's a reason Polish writer and painter Stanisław Witkiewicz overdosed and slit his wrists after hearing about the Soviets. One of his books also practically predicted the totalitarian control of Nazis and Soviets on Polish art and self expression. But the talk of Huan's wasted potential can wait for another time.

I also liked Wei calling Kuvira out after she was describing herself as a peaceful negotiator by going: You call bringing an army to threaten our city peaceful? After which the conversation was immediately redirected because really Kuvira couldn't maintain her flimsy moral ambiguity if the was answered.

This was his only line in the season and he ATE.

I frankly didn't care much for Toph's inclusion in the season? It felt rather contrived and existing purely for the viewers to get excited and recreate the Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at screen meme. This is the same feeling I had about Zuko in B3. Katara is the only cool Gaang octogenarian to me.

I didn't really have an opinion on Lin thsi season. She's.... there? I thought it was sweet that she went to rescue Suyin and that she seemed to have fixed her relationship with her to some extent. But honestly after 4 books her combative nature was overstaying its welcome. Being mean to traumatised teenagers as a middle aged cop is only funny the first few times.

I guess I enjoyed the relationship drama between Toph and Lin and it was nice to see them begin to reconcile. Though, once again it feels repetitive, like a mommy issues reskin of Lin and Suyin's conflict in B3.

Speaking of estranged Beifongs, I particularly liked Baatar Jr's storyline and think he would've made for a much better antag to sympathise with than Kuvira. I like the implications of his inferiority complex and his redeeming moments of trying to stop the spirit canon when Opal was in range of getting hit and the implication that he loved Kuvira much more than he did for the Earth Empire. It's not much, and he's certainly not a good person, but he had more grounds for a redemption than Kuvira.

And I loved Opal's storyline of opposing Kuvira so staunchly and being positioned as Kuvira's primary detractor. I love seeing how Opal had evolved between B3 and B4. How she's visibly more confident and sure in herself and willing to stand up for not only herself but those in need. Her hair growing messy after B3 is also so important to me and wonderful visual storytelling.

I do, however, have a few gripes with the treatment of her character, particularly the minimisation of her concern around Kuvira. Like the rest of the Beifongs, Opal is presented as irrational in her hostility towards Kuvira, which isn't the case at all. She is berated by established characters like Jinora and Korra for her stance, especially after the attempt on Kuvira's life. Actually, I think that: well Su and the twins were the aggressors in this situation, after Kuvira actively threatened military action on your peaceful city could constitute for gaslighting.

Even after Kuvira is proven multiple times to be dangerous and a threat, Opal's despaur over having her family captured and home conquered is treated as inconsequential grumpiness and is pushed aside in order to make room for the plot. Hell, Opal even tags along with Korra and Jinora to help investigate the Spirit Wilds.

(Opal is a better woman than me if someone pulled that shit on me I'd like. Not talk to them for at least a month.)

...And the second half of the season where she gets booted back into the love interest zone is fucking painful. The moment Bolin arrives in Republic City, Opal's very valid frustration and anger is reduced to a lovers' spat and focus is redirected to Bolin "winning her back". And after all is well in obligatory comphet world, I don't think Opal even speaks. It's like after she forgave Bolin and their relationship returned to status quo, she immediately just became an NPC.

Despite my hatred for how Bolin impacts Opal's storyline, I actually adored Bolin's being part of Kuvira's army, and how that was handled.

I liked seeing the continuation of Bolin being easily manipulated by those he looks up to due to his childhood. I liked the portrayal of Bolin's good intentions being used by Kuvira, since it once again parallels the irl inspirations behind Earth Empire .A huge chunk of the Soviets' detractors were actually disillusioned communists, who had joined and given their support, only to be betrayed by the system that they hoped would bring about a positive change.

Sadly, after Bolin deserted from Kuvira, this excellent set up isn't followed up on properly. Instead of any teaching moment or character development, we get Bolin moping for an episode, a few apologies and essentially a fetch quest. And after that, Bolin's honour is restored and he essentially goes back to how he was before B4. Which is dissapointing as hell.

I really enjoyed Korra's recovery arc, it wa svery moving but not to the point of making me too uncomfortable. However, I don't like the notion that she had to suffer to learn compassion and 'become a better person', which is the implication. Because that's an extremely harmful idea and just false. Seeing Korra be constantly beaten down and hurt in the name of "learning compassion" or some bullshit is honestly unsettling.

I also think that Korra's personal arc was ill placed and messed with the main storyline. I think that showcasing Korra's new "compassionate" worldview on Kuvira is the main reason behind the downfall of Kuvira as a character for me. Trying to justify Kuvira's abhorrent actions in service of Korra's personal development is... a bit problematic to say the least

I actually despised Republic City being in the focus of this season. Like, so much is probably going on in the Earth Kingdom but we have to be stuck outside of the Iron Curtain. And meanwhile we have to sit through contrived plots in New York City but make it Oriental. It kinda reeks of USA self-centeredness. And it makes our main characters seem kinda like assholes because they're people with infuence and yet they're just chilling while people die in Concentration Camps so um.

I think the reason I hate B4 is because it's I also love it so much. I love it for the groundwork it set and for what it could've been. It could've been brilliant, but it ended up convoluting its messages and playing into harmful tropes, probably unintentionally.

The worst part of B4 is how good it started off. The begining was excellent and the second half drove it into the ground for me.

....and of course the best thing to come out of B4 was ✨️the weilin face pat✨️. Absolutely iconic scene, best ship in the show, hands down. Though I love that every single Krew Member was given a queer love interest.

Slay. A gaggle of wild bisexuals.

[sanktpolypenbourg]

Sidenote though, with "Pre-Unification Terra", I enjoy the location names getting twisted into silly nonsense as yes, over literally millenia, if anything of our languages survives, the etymology of names is bound to be lost and they are bound to get distorted in a History spanning game of telephone.

What I find FUNNY is that of all places, germany remains a nation state.

Things like the US are obvious; it's big enough to remain as a cultural realm for millenia, even if the specific nation states that occupy it change.

Britain I get, because then you can have that fun thing that a former island nation occupies a swath of desert.

France, yeah, that's silly, but it makes sense, if only for the satire. Their continued existence, in ANY century, is a punchline all by itself.

But "jermani" just doesn't make any sense whatsoever even by the internal logic. Especially since no other countries like that were added - we don't get a random Thy-land or Wenezuel or anything. It's like, sure, you can come along too, I guess. I like to think it doesn't have anything to do with a sort of fascism wank, to ensure some players get to paint up their miniature dolls as literal space nazis. The most vanilla explanation I guess would be that Warhammer has a big german fanbase and they didn't want to alienate them. Also pausible but slightly disappointing would be that they just couldn't culturally justify their "knights in space armor" setting without the germanic element. Related to that, the idea that this is the minimum level of detail for a depiction of Europe even tens of thousands of years in the future. Logically there is no reason it should have more political geography than the Kamchatka Peninsula (or in that era I suppose the Kamchatka Ridge), but for war-gaming purposes I guess it's hard to get away from at least a minimalistic WWI/WWII configuration for a mostly western audience.

[rise-my-angel]

How people hear the logo "fire and blood" and not think of fascism baffles me. Like it literally sounds like something the nazi's said. I know it might not be fair comparing real life history to fiction, especially in a medieval setting that doesn't match ...BUT THEY HAVE FLYING NUKES GUYS

Bear with me, but I think a lot of it stems from the dragons. In normal, or at least traditional fantasy, dragons are usually used differently in other stories. They can both be antagonists and companions to the hero. They are normally written to be while large and dangerous, also sort of majestic and awe inspiring.

So people see the dragons here, they see people riding them, and they think automatically it's cool. So if you're already someone more inclined to enjoy creatures like dragons, there's a perfect basis. A people whose culture revolves around dragons. It's an easy buy in to the Targaryean propaganda. You will automatically start seeing them in better lights because you like the dragons, whether you realize that or not.

But the problem is, grrm does not use dragons in the traditional sense. Grrm has been very clear that he has written the dragons as essentially, one for one metaphors to weapons of mass destruction. Grrm is also very anti war, a sentiment felt throughout all of his work, how no matter what justification one side or the other feels, it is the people, the lands, the smallfolk who suffer from war the most. So, the use of nuclear weapons in war, is essentially, the worst case scenario in terms of war. Which is what the Targaryeans use dragons for. Thats what Valyria has always used them for.

Fire and Blood sounds cool beacuse it is menacing, but it is more then that. It is the statement that they will burn the country to the ground so they can be kings of the ashes. Valyria used dragons to burn cities to the ground and were incredibly cruel to the slaves they took as a result that places like Bravvos are still massively anti dragon/anti valyrian. Two seperate people of Essos fled across to Westeros to escape them (The Andals and the Rhoynar), then the Targaryeans come to the same place and do THE EXACT SAME THING TO THE SAME PEOPLE WHO FLED THEM ORIGINALLY.

I am certain grrm is not writing dragons as "Its actually okay to use nukes if you're nice to them when you're building them." He's probably more likely to say "no matter what justification you tell yourself, access to such catastrophic destruction at your will and fingertips is a power no one should ever wield."

Yes the dragons are sentient creatures, but these are not like a creature such as a direwolf. One was sent to their human companion by a fate beyond them, and acts more like an extension of their identity and a friend as human and direwolf protect each other. Such as Nymeria biting Joffery to protect Arya, and Arya chasing Nymeria off to save her life for saving hers.

Dany murdered her own slave in order to use blood magic to force dragons back into a world after a peaceful number of centuries without them. Dany then uses them to burn her enemies alive, threaten those who stand against or disobey her and doesn't even consider taking steps to control them until after Drogon burned alive an innocent three year old girl, and even then all she does is lock them away in a manner that will no doubt only make them more angry and resentful of humans.

Not all sentient creatures are the same, and dragons specifically within the world of asoiaf are symbols of the dangerous balance of the world tipping too far. The Doom of Valyria was the result of using blood magic and dragons to tip the worlds balance too far and there is nothing left but a cursed, blighted hellscape left behind to remind man not to toy with nature in ways they will never be able to control. I don't think it's a coincidence that some stories say they found the first dragons in the Fourteen Flames, and it was the eventual eruption of the Fourteen Flames that destroyed Valyria and its dragons.

The Targaryeans didn't need to die with them, it's probably good that at least one family managed to safely leave so at least some aspects of a long, forgotten culture can be remembered in the history books from somewhere. But they do not act like just people. The Targaryeans still see themselves as something like gods.

In their eyes, they are better then the people of Westeros, those people taint their bloodline. They used dragons to force them to be subservient to them when all of those Kingdoms ruled independently for thousands of years before. Then they used those same dragons to tear the country apart.

No one is looking forward to or likes talking about the storming of the Dragonpit beacuse we want to see animal death. We want to see it for what it stands for. An uprising of people pushed too far by a monarchy that uses weapons of mass destruction recklessly beacuse they see themselves as gods. They refused to be subjected to that anymore, and they knew doing it would kill more men then it would dragons but they did it anyways. They looked at the free use of nuclear weapons and decided they will not live in that fear anymore.

Fire and Blood is literally their dragons. It is why they call themselves dragons. They are the destruction of the world, and they see nothing wrong with that.

Dragons plant no trees, and neither do the Targaryeans.

[glassrunner]

while isha was very much a cutesy character that helped soften some of the harsh moments of season 2, i ultimately feel that her existence was unnecessary.

the moment she appeared onscreen and immediately tagged along with jinx, i got the sense that she was incredibly hamfisted into the plot for the purpose of eventually making jinx Suffer More. the progression of their relationship (which i understand happened over a timeskip, but seriously that timeskip is doing too much heavy lifting -- a problem in its own) from "annoying kid following me around" to "new little sister" isn't elegantly alluded to, it's constantly made extremely obvious. and just to make sure we get the point, riot puts the final nail into that narrative coffin by having jinx literally say aloud that isha is a basically a younger version of powder and paints her hair blue. and then two episodes later, she's gone. just to give jinx yet another reason to go insane, which she doesn't really need.

isha has literally no dialogue. she serves to remind the audience of jinx's past, minus the trauma. it's easy and expected to project a young powder onto every scene she's in, which is just a waste of a new character. but even before the direct isha/powder comparison, jinx declares that she's discarded that persona, that "jinx" is no more. somehow, isha's mere presence even calms down jinx's psychosis to the point that she has a mild break for presumably the first time in a while only after isha is taken away, which just feels extremely lazy and gratuitous -- like the big bad Insanity is just a convenient lever to pull when the plot needs more tension and drama, rather than something that jinx has suffered from her whole life, and which silco's death amplified to the max.

all of the interesting plotlines i was looking forward to, like caitlyn's spiral into vengeance and fascism, jinx's rage and grief and psychosis causing chaos, vi and caitlyn either reconciling or being unable to in the end... it all just feels like it was brushed aside. jinx, after firing a rocket that killed half the piltover council, decides she just won't fight piltover anymore; caitlyn, who's grateful for ambessa's support and guidance in her crackdown on zaun, suddenly turns on her to aid vi; vi, forgetting her life-threatening feud with jinx, abruptly remembers they indeed are sisters who shared a life. so many conflicts conveniently resolved in seconds, when they should've taken at least a few minutes to untangle -- all because we needed so much time devoted to isha and jinx's relationship.

don't get me wrong, i LOVE the emotional moments that have been present so far. i think they do still hit, but their beauty is definitely muted because the pacing is a complete disaster. it was really difficult to enjoy isha having a bug battle with jinx when 1. i didn't even really recognize that jinx and 2. i was constantly thinking about what the other characters were doing. with how many plotlines need to be wrapped up before the finale (zaun's independence, the black rose vs. the medarda clan, mel's supposed magehood, etc.), i'm really not confident that we'll get a satisfying ending, and honestly i wouldn't have minded not having isha in the plot at all if it meant we could get a more coherent and less rushed overarching storyline.

[canmom]

reading Brainwyrms by Alison Rumfitt. it's interesting. clearly part of the post-Topside wave of trans lit, with the same 'plugged in to twitter' energy, but way more British about it. which means most of the allusions are very transparent to me. it's a combo of... hardcore kink driven romance as the main arc, in a near-future setting in which TERFism goes further to the point of outright bombings, and a scifi element with alien brain parasites that it's gradually building towards.

compellingly written, I'll give it that for sure - I lay down to read for a bit and before I knew it I'd read like a third of the book. the main character's disaffected, traumatised air is well observed, and the kink doesn't hold back.

I think my reservation with it so far is that it feels a little too much like a polemic blog post about the way things are going. the MC Frankie is a trans woman with a pregnancy kink who survived a bombing at a GIC and now works in social media moderation - it's all stuff that is blatantly Relevant To The Argument, as it were. it's tricky to criticise it for that because it's like, what you're saying is that it's tightly constructed and thematically consistent and that's bad somehow? but I think I've come to feel that I like fiction to bring me something a little new and unfamiliar.

the chapter I most enjoyed so far was actually a more metaphorical, abstract interlude, in which resistance to fascism is cast as becoming 'one mass of queer flesh, which now grabbed and clawed...'; 'faces locked in kisses until they became one face. the cops would try to pull at this mass, but to no avail'. very 'faggots and their friends between revolutions' stuff.

the chapters which are presented directly as social media posts and articles are also sharply observed. i think a lot of fiction in which the internet features heavily suffers from not understanding the internet very well (Hosoda's Belle for example), but for example the chapter 'Curious Cat' where an anonymous person (blatantly Vanya) is sending messages asking for help with a parasite, and getting rebuffed or misunderstood, and the chapter where Frankie relates a murder of an instagram model by a stalker who posts about it to a reddit community devoted to her, read as very real.

a lot of the story is about responding to a terrifying political situation in sexual terms - a flashback chapter depicting Frankie having sex with some terf's pretentious brother ("with each thrust from him, she thought to herself, I am a traitor, I am a traitor to the cause"), or the preface which jokes about how in another world the author would be writing 'cool horror stories about vampires raping werewolves, ones with no subtext at all'. I prevaricate a little on whether this is a compelling examination of a theme that I do find interesting (the mysterious origins of sexual desire) or just edgy for its own sake.

this is an odd novel for me in some ways because while on one level, this is about people who I could very easily be a single degree of separation from were they real, it's also about a facet of life that is still quite alien to me and in many ways I only know about second hand. I've never been to a kink club (that wasn't in an MMO anyway lol), I'm way too much of a nerdy autist shut-in to know what it's like to be someone who would feel put out if she hadn't had sex in a week. so even before the parasite stuff, it's hard to know how much of Frankie and Vanya's stuff is real, and how much is fantasy. is this really how things go between people? it sounds kinda fun, but unlocking the door this far has already taken years.

when I've read books about the crazy lives that American trans girls supposedly live and interesting sex they're apparently having, they've been at a certain remove, the other side of the Atlantic. and this book feels sort of similar, even though I know it's set right on my doorstep. idk, I've never been good at this.

anyway I don't think I want to write fantasy novels so directly about The Discourse of the day, but it's probably good that someone is. that said, it's hard to parse like... ok, it's titled brainwyrms, and 'brain worms' is a common way of describing an obsessive, cultish idea you receive from the internet.

and like if you look at the newspapers, or twitter trans discourse, you certainly could believe that this country is on a rapid slide to putting us in camps. however, my day to day life has been... it's not without hostility, but the average street harasser isn't doing it because of a Guardian or even Mail article. this country has a subculture of deranged weirdos who hate our guts, and a political class who will happily stoke culture war shit to score points, but most normies I've met don't care one way or another that I'm trans - they might mention a family member or friend they know who's also trans. the day to day conflicts are over way more prosaic shit, the landlord vs tenant forever war, or how the kitchen should be cleaned. which of these windows is more informative of the 'overall' state of affairs? not that a more violent terf cult is a bad premise to write a novel around, but a sense of impending doom is a pretty powerful mechanism to keep you scrolling, right?

like in 20, 40 years - will the terfs really be bombing the Tavistock and banning transness, as Rumfitt imagines in her near-future setting preface? or will they go the way of those newspapers in Thatcher's time who smeared the gay movement, just as they smear us today? of passing political obsessions like 'new atheism'? I don't know the half-life of cult shit.

anyway, time to read the rest of the novel, and see how it handles this brew that it's concocted.

[strikeslip]

I've been comforting people by telling them how fascism burns itself out, pointing at the history of Germany and Argentina and saying "Ten years. Try to make it ten years." I have not been telling them that Putin's been in power for 26 years, nor have I been pointing out that Francoist Spain lasted 39 years, nor have I talked about the general reinforcement of dictatorships and kleptocracy around the world. The city I live in has been doing crony capitalism for far longer than the alt-right's been around. We, the human race, do not have a fix for these sorts of organizational problems.

There's a bad century coming, with agriculture not ready for climate change, with whole parts of the world ready to go mostly-uninhabitable and with plenty of anger ready and waiting for all the migration that'll be triggered by that. We don't know how people will react to Europe going cold after the AMOC collapse, we don't know how people will react when coastlines around the world go under (China and India's coasts are of particular concern here since they have the most people), and we don't know what it'll look like when the Middle East starts to hit black flag temperatures on the regular and it becomes impossible to step outside for any extended time. There's nowhere to run, and all the governments coming to power on the promises that they can make it better are going to be flailing around desperately as it turns out you can't persuade or bribe an ocean current.

And on the other hand, maybe we'll get fusion working and free energy will revolutionize greenhouse farms. Maybe everyone will have temperature controlled buildings, we'll build water purification plants, and geoengineer swaths of the world to adjust temperature via solar reflection. Maybe the various demographic crashes will rewild massive swaths of land and biotech will bring us new crops and extinct animals and vaccines for cancer and the common cold. Maybe we'll have all those things and the migration and the anger all at once. People are afraid; people are right to be afraid.

If I keep my head down and get lucky, I still expect to lose my social security (and any chance of a comfortable retirement), to lose more than a few of my friends (to distance or otherwise), to need to make it through hurricanes and floods and droughts, to lose access to a great deal of the information I've enjoyed for so much of my life, and to live in fear for many years. I expect riots and repression. In the worst cases, I'm worried about military drafts and rationing and related corruption. I dream of a house with a basement of supplies and a guest room to rent out, to shield myself from these things, but I fear being trapped by investment in a single place. And like so many other people, I'm alone or mostly alone. There's a community or two I'd like to join, but even when I attend their events, I stand on the outskirts and can't see a way in. I'm stubborn; I'll keep trying and likely make some progress eventually, but all the big feelings are outside my range of experience and people can tell. I will always be something of an alien, something of an outsider. Something of an acceptable loss.

People are afraid; people are right to be afraid. And I'm right there with them. I only wish I could see a solution.

[lord-squiggletits]

There’s two different types of bad writing, and one of them is the kind that’s actually infuriating.

There’s bad writing that’s just bad 100% of the way through, or it’s otherwise so low quality that there’s nothing of value to be gained from it. When writing is this bad, you can just ignore it and forget about it because it has no skill, no value, no memorability whatsoever. You don’t develop strong feelings about it because the writing is so bad you can’t even hate it because you don’t care about it enough to complain about it.

And then there’s bad writing that actually has gems of quality in it: There were interesting concepts, or character relationships that seemed interesting, or a setting or other plot device that adds depth to the world. Except it’s executed in such a shoddy way that it makes you scream from how much worse the actual writing is compared to what it could have been in theory. Bad writing that’s bad because of wasted potential is 1000% worse than bad writing that’s just bad because it’s just good enough to make you want to enjoy it.

The latter type of bad writing is pretty much how I feel about Barber’s work in phase 2 and it really annoys me lmao. Because Barber got almost every plot point that I was looking forward to reading about (Earth politics, Pyra Magna, colonies, Optimus fucking Prime being my favorite character of the whole continuity) and managed to turn it into a snail-paced boring slog full of contrivances that don’t make sense and only exist to force a certain plot to happen, with virtually no character relationships that are interesting and sloppy political allegories that aren’t actually told through a good story and are basically just Barber puppeteering the characters to scream “THIS IS A POLITICAL ALLEGORY DO YOU GET IT” as if this is entertaining or #deep when really it’s just boring and annoying.

[rapha-reads]

IWTV rewatch

Season 2 episode 1 [What Can The Damned Really Say to the Damned] - part 4/4

- And now... Mood shift, setting change, back to Dubai, 2022, and the 77 year-long lie. And lord oh lord, we jump right into it with the shot of the bedroom being a cell and Armand selling Louis' art without even telling him the works are up for sale. Greaaaat. This is gonna be fun.

[Louis] "'Could I see the pages we removed? Of Claudia's diaries?'

[Armand] 'We made an agreement.'

[Louis] 'I don't know what else is blurred or misremembered.'

[Armand] 'My name is in some of those pages.'

[Louis] 'I sit across from him and reckon with the knowledge I don't know what other misrememberings made into it. I won't share them with him but I need to read them again.'"

Brb, need to SCREAM. Oh, the control Armand us exercising over Louis... The way he micromanages every aspect of his life. The way Louis has to bargain for everything he wants, and the way he thanks (thanks!!!) Armand for every breadcrumb thrown his way. The way Armand cares more about his image, his reputation, his grip on Louis, than Louis' well-being and peace of soul and mind. And the way the scene is shot and designed, the bars behind the bed and the skyscraper settling, the lack of any colors and any homey furniture, the huge bed with an ocean separating them, contrasting with the comfy house and room of 1132 rue Royale, and how Lestat and Louis used to sleep entwined in each other's embrace... I will go mad.

- BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA THE ENTRANCE HAND IN HAND, ARE THEY SERIOUS. Oh, this is too hilarious. And how they drop the hands as soon as they're seated, yeah, real convincing, fellas.

- Oh, Devil's Minion's crumb! Armand responding to Daniel by mimicking his "Yeah" and those big eyes looking so amused and fond at that old man. Couldn't care less about the Loumand, I'm here for the Devil's Minion. What a performance, Louis rubbing Armand's shoulder, lmao.

- Daniel shutting down Armand immediately is hilarious. "Sure, sire, you're on the record, but you still haven't made an appearance in the story so for now stfu and wait for your turn". No wonder Armand goes crazy about Daniel, that guy doesn't know how to be afraid. And second shoulder pat, Lou, hon... You're enjoying this, aren't you. You are enjoying the way Daniel puts Armand back in his place, something you haven't managed to do in years, despite what you both like to pretend.

- Oh, I love that piece of music! That one is "The Whole World Was Ready to Return" and it is gorgeous. It's played here, as Claudia and Louis go to Paris, and at the end, when Louis issues his threat/warning to the vampires in Dubai. Very thematic. The music in s2 is different from the music in s1, by the way. S1 soundtrack had very folk/blues undertones, New Orleans style, while s2 is much more orchestral/symphonic, Paris style. The music adapts itself to the setting, and I adore that. It gives so much more texture to the story.

- [Louis] "The war had turned off the lights, stripped its streets of their beauty, sent its avant-garde into exile. But now, the whole world was ready to return, to remake their lives. Pilgrims, on their hopeful way."

Nah, the avant-garde, at least artistic, was there, just, waaay underground or dangerously flirting with censorship and hidden meanings. In Paris itself during the war, there were several plays written and played against fascism while the Gestapo was patrolling the streets. Notably, though conflictingly, Jean Anouilh's famous "Antigone", in 1944, Josephine Baker singing and spying , as well as Sacha Guitry, who was arrested after the Liberation and accused of collaboration without any evidence, but who managed to save a lot of Jewish artists and personalities by playing double agent, or good ol' Sartre (who hilariously makes a cameo later on in the show) who writes a lot of stuff between '40 and' 44. Anyway. There's more but I ain't have time right now to do serious research. Back to Louis.

- [Louis] "'I wanna say something to you. I don't need to hear anything back I just need you to hear me. Hard words and soft words. The hard. Our life is shit. It's been shit. It is shit. It's gonna be shit again. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. No one's watching, no one cares. A shit life beats no life. But where we're going now we can't be running away again. Doesn't mean we forget what we saw. What she did in front of us. I see you going that way I'm gonna pull you back. I don't need that from you. As long as you walk the Earth, I'll never taste the fire, you understand me? We're going to find others like us. Aind if it ain't here, cos life is shit, or I fuck it up again, or you fuck it up, we'll go to the next place. We can't be the only good ones out there. Soft words. If you were the last vampire on Earth... it would be enough. It's you and me. Me and you. You and me. Me and you. You and me.'"

And my hallucination of your dead father.

Anyway that's his child, that's her parent.

Gotta give it to Louis tho, he doesn't lie. Embellishes, obfuscates, but lying, no. As long as Claudia's alive, he's not gonna try the sun. But if she dies... All bets are off.

Also Louis is right and hey, actually needed to hear that right now, thanks bae. Now someone needs to tell him back his own words, I think he needs to hear it back.

Episode insider:

Jacob talking about the heart full of sugar and how he spent the rest of the night on a sugar high is so adorable and hilarious when the part that comes next is Dreamstat. Also hey, "Dreamstat" was coined by Jacob himself, nice!

[Jacob] "Anne Rice's vampires are so human. This is kind of a departure from these sort of beautified, glamorous vampires. It's just really fun." - yeah, I like the glam vamp, but the monstrous vampire, a bit like Mike Flanagan does in Midnight Mass, is also a thrill.

Love Delainey saying she loved doing her stunts and all the physical stuff!

[Assad] "Armand wants to protect himself, but also wants to protect his relationship with Louis, what they have. He feels he has no choice except to come in, sharing the narrative with Louis." - yep. Protecting himself. Protecting what he has with Louis, even at the expanse of Louis' own will. Because what does Armand fear above all else? To be unloved. Not necessarily alone, like most vampires, but to be considered unlovable and unworthy of people's care. So if he can't be sure that people's feelings for him are genuine, he will orchestrate and manipulate them to tie them to himself. That's Armand's schtick.

season 1 masterpost

part 1 | part 2 | part 3

episode 2 | episode 3 | episode 4 | episode 5 | episode 6 | episode 7 | episode 8

[crowns-of-violets-and-roses]

Some Desperate Glory

Earth has been destroyed and 14 billion humans are dead with it. A handful of courageous survivors hide from the aliens who killed the earth and strike back as much as they can. Kyr (short for Valkyrie) has been raised since birth to avenge the earth and she fully intends to do so. Given the title and marketing around this book I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the human survivors aren't as heroic as they portray themselves; I will try and be relatively circumspect about the actual plot but if you're planning to read it and sensitive to spoilers you may want to skip this post.

It's Emily Tesh's debut novel though her novella Silver in the Wood was critically acclaimed and won her some major awards. And what a debut it is! I enjoyed Silver in the Wood but never picked up the sequel, this has done much more to pique my interest in what she will write going forward.

Gaea Station

The book begins on Gaea station where Kyr is shortly going to come of age and receive her assignment in the war this remnant of humanity is waging. It will be clear to the reader practically immediately that Kyr has been indoctrinated. The story is told from her POV not to set up a shocking twist that Gaea Station is evil but to explore the psychology of a teenager who has been indoctrinated from birth by a fascist cult. In the acknowledgements Tesh lists a series of books on cults and fascism that she read while writing the novel and the influence of them on the book is clear.

This is where the books excels. Kyr buys into the ideology of Gaea Station with fervour and is fully dedicated to the cause it fights for. It's an entirely convincing portrayal not just in terms of her beliefs but her emotions and even what she subconsciously avoids thinking about. The beginning of the books where the reader is immersed in her perspective is a fascinating perspective of someone who has been indoctrinated to the point that they don't examine the worldview that has been imposed at all.

If this aspect of the book has any flaw it's that Kyr's indoctrination is in large part the result of manipulation and abuse by the man who runs the station. The vast people majority of people in a fascist regime or even a member of a cult that has attained any great size is unlikely to receive such personal attention from the leader and it's one point that lacked verisimilitude.

Along with Kyr Gaea Station is where we're first introduced to the majority of the significant characters. Kyr leads The Sparrows a group of teenage girls training to join the war once they reach adulthood. Kyr is a cruel taskmaster to The Sparrows to put it mildly. Kyr's brother Magnus is interesting in his own rights and even more so when viewed in contrast to Kyr and their relationship while rarely the central focus is compelling. Commander Jole the leader of the station is seen for the first time but it's only later we'll get a in depth sense of him. Magnus's friend Avi is perhaps the most significant character introduced here and is often terrible in a way that feels similar yet distinct to Kyr.

Crucially, Tesh is willing to let Kyr be horrible. Some of the other characters are just powerless and trying to survive but Kyr treats both people she's close to and everyone else terribly. She's harsh to her teammates to the point of driving them to tears, punishes younger children ruthlessly and all the time is unbearably smug and self-righteous about what she's doing.

Until that is, Kyr inevitably leaves Gaea Station and becomes gradually disabused of her commitment to its ideology. While I say gradually in practice it happens remarkably quickly. There is justification for the speed it happens in the plot so I won't complain on the grounds of realism. Nevertheless it's a shame that there wasn't more time given to focus on Kyr getting deprogrammed.

Even as she changes her previous actions are not forgotten. With the exception of a handful of people at the top the book doesn't condemn those who were complicit with Gaea Station but neither is it willing to absolve them.

Humanity, Fuck No!

I expect most people reading this are familiar with the internet subgenre of stories called Humanity Fuck, Yeah!, described by a popular subreddit that collects such stories as "all media exhibiting the awesome potential of humanity, known as HFY or "Humanity, Fuck Yeah!", or I once saw concisely summed up as "human chauvinism" science fiction. On Tumblr you're probably most likely to have come across it through humans as space orcs posts and stories. Some Desperate Glory seems as if it is in part a critical response to these type of stories

Even before Kyr leaves Gaea Station we see what the greater universe things of humanity through excerpts from texts written in the settings. I adore using documents written by people in the setting as a framing device when it's well executed and it is here. As we see more of how humans are viewed, first through the excerpts and later through Kyr experiencing the wider universe - seeing Kyr's initial reactions to people not raised in a fascist cult is a highlight of book - it is clear that humanity fits an inverted HFY mould where the characteristics HFY stories idolise made humans the terror of the universe and ultimately led to their doom.

It does frustrate me that this follows countless other novels that insist on humanity being special (or so unremarkable that they are remarkable in their unremarkableness). It's far from the worst offender and "humanity is uniquely terrible" is a little less tired than "humanity is uniquely great" but it still felt repetitive.

The portrayal of humanity as a violent yet honourable primitive species with bizarre customs also mirrors how empires view people they are colonising. It's unclear how intentional this is but the book never actually does anything with this so that parallel just hovers in the background.

The Majo

The Majo, the society of aliens that inhabits most of the universe and annihilated the Earth, are not an empire. You can tell because the book goes out of its way to tell us they aren't one. Which isn't to say that they are an empire but there are enough similarities that I would have liked to see it addressed more substantively. Chalk it up to this book being way less concerned with imperialism than fascism, I suppose.

The various alien species never feel truly Alien. Nothing so cheap as just humans with rubber foreheads but their mindset is never incomprehensible.

At the centre of Majo society is The Wisdom a godlike supercomputer capable of doing basically anything to the point where we might as well just consider it magic. Princes of a near extinct alien species control The Wisdom and are the ones choosing which course of action to take (including say destroying the earth).

Yiso a young Prince of the Wisdom, comes into focus during this section. The training he undergoes to prepare him for his role had clear similarities to Kyr's own childhood which could have been explored more.

As the book leaves behind a tight focus on Kyr in Gaea Station it begins to stumble occasionally. Aspects of the wider setting are introduced but not given enough focus. Nagging questions are left unanswered. Some parts race by too quickly. There are parts of it where I wasn't sure what the books was aiming for and I'm not convinced Tesh knew either. Despite not quite living up to the standard set by the excellent early chapters it continues to be a deeply engaging book.

With the Wisdom introduced the stage is set for the next section of the book. It poses an almost philosophical question. Would it be better:

1. to kill 14 billion humans.

2. let humanity conquer the universe.

These are the only options. In a thought experiment you can just declare that your only choice is whether to pull the lever or not but stories are not thought experiments. The presentation of those choices as the only two possible options is unconvincing. In a short story you could just gloss over it but in a novel length work you need some sort of justification for why they can't do one of a hundred other alternatives. It's far from a grievous flaw but it bothered me.

Alternative Universes

In the penultimate section of the book we move to the viewpoint of Val a version of Kyr from another universe. After being immersed in Kyr's head from the beginning of the book the shift is jarring in the best possible way. Even the name even though it's a potential shortening of Kyr's own feels wrong.

In this universe humanity won the war against the aliens and now is an empire expanding across and endangering the universe. I don't want to belabour this point too much but this section puts another mark in the "Tesh is significantly less interested in imperialism than fascism" column as any focus on imperialism itself is dispensed with perfunctorily.

Val though lacking Kyr's specific indoctrination is still eager to serve as a soldier in the conquering human military.

Before long Kyr gets her memories of the old universe back as do some of the others. Although notably not Magnus who everyone agrees shouldn't get his counterpart's memories which provides a good moment in itself. Cleo, one of the Sparrows, was already interesting from the little we'd seen of her before and rapidly rose to one of the most interesting characters when we got to see her with two lifetimes worth of memories.

It could fairly be suggested that the number of characters from the original universe who Val has significant relationships with in the new one is contrived but frankly I don't care. It's great to see how they develop in a radically different context and my only complaint is that this section isn't longer. Both seeing the alternative versions of the characters initially and then seeing them integrate a lifetime of memories provides some of the books best moments.

The end of the section undermined the dilemma of whether it's better to kill 14 billion people or let humanity develop into an imperial power by changing the stakes that not destroying the Earth will ultimately lead to the annihilation of countless worlds. The initial dilemma was compelling once you suspended disbelief about the lack of alternatives the new one stacks the deck towards destroying the Earth to the point where the question is less interesting.

More focus on the human empire as an empire and not changing the terms of the consequences of destroying earth so starkly would have been great but the character writing in this section is brilliant enough to more than make up for it.

The Old Lie:

While most of the book after the initial section takes place planets and universes away from Gaea Station it looms over the narrative and as inevitably as Kyr left the climax must return to Gaea Station with the lies it's built on now laid bare to Kyr. Unfortunately this is by some distance the weakest part of the novel. If in the sections after Kyr leaves Gaea Station the book stumbles here it faceplants.

Kyr quickly starts working to undermine Gaea Station and brings The Sparrows on board with her plan and then it quickly becomes clear that apparently Kyr was the only one who ever actually bought into Gaea Station's ideology. I exaggerate but not that much. It's hard to think of a named character who is on board with it. The Sparrows are instantly ready to betray Gaea (and not out of any personal loyalty to Kyr most of them don't even like her), middle ranked officer are shown to be acting out of a mix of self interest and fear and the few at the top are just nakedly self-interested under a thin veneer of justifications.

It makes Kyr's earlier genuine belief appear as a rare if not unique exception. When you combine this with the focused personal manipulation of Kyr from Jole (a couple of scenes do a great job of conveying his charisma and skill with influencing people) we don't see anyone who has been indoctrinated to actually actually in circumstances typical of the average person on the station. Something like having one of The Sparrows betray them or at least have to be argued into going along with the rest would have improved this a lot.

This section of the book moves to directly address racism and sexism on Gaea but I often found the manner it did so awkward. Half the time it was just showing something about Gaea Station that we'd already seen and then tacking on "and that's bad because it's racist/sexist" when that was already obvious. A little subtly wouldn't go amiss. There are some notable exceptions including memorably an excerpt from a book written about Gaea that talks about it in a manner that the framing made feel much more natural than when it came up at other points. Interestingly by contrast homophobia was left more implicit. It's more directly addressed later in the book but even then it's more of a light handed show not tell approach.

The ending itself is no better than the rest of the final section. It pulls it's punches and gives a happy ending that feels two easy after everything that happened. It jars with the rest of the story.

Some Desperate Glory tends to be better the smaller the scale it's operating at is. When it's laser focused on Kyr it's damn near perfect, when it's about Gaea Station or the handful of major characters it's still amazingly good but when it pulls out to a larger scale it's still interesting but a lot more flaws start to show.

If it gave the parts with The Wisdom some more thought, allowed Kyr's deradicatilisation a higher page count and showed others who genuinely believed Gaea's ideology, addressed imperialism with if not as much focus as fascism more than the book gives it, and doubled the length of the section with the alternative timeline I'd have no complaints that weren't quibbles. Even so this is an amazing book and I'm eager to see what Tesh writes next.

[bedbat]

Shock Value, horror and media literacy

I feel like it’s very normal to see anti-gore and shock value sentiment online. Which makes a lot of sense obviously. I feel like most people agree that if your definition of good horror is just how much blood or shock value is present in the piece of media, you probably don’t actually know how to tell good media from bad media and operate on the belief that blood = good. I think most people kind of see how bad most modern day horror movies are. They just aren’t creative and it feels like a regurgitation of the same troupes. I especially hate how popular poorly written slasher movies have become. For example, I genuinely think The Terrifier just isn’t a good movie because the people raving about it are only raving about how disgusting and gory it was. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything actually interesting about the movie and it feels like the directors know that the general audience will just consume the most boring, low effort film as long as they add as much blood as possible. Have some of us become so simple minded that people can truly watch a video online saying ‘this movie was so good because blood!!!’ And then just…agree with that sentiment?

However I think the opposite sentiment is also true. It’s just as media illiterate to look at any piece of media with any form of shock value or gore and go ‘this is awful and terrible’. You can be uncomfortable with gore and not consume any disturbing media and that’s okay. You don’t have to villainize something just because you don’t like it. I recently read litchi hikari club and I thought it was a great piece of writing and art that carried an anti-Japanese imperialist message as well as showing how fascism can affect people, especially kids. Is it an uncomfortable, disturbing piece of media? Absolutely. Is it okay for people to not want to read it because it’s kind of gross? Yes. However writing off the entire comic as bad and anyone who likes it as bad, is plain ignorant. If you cannot or do not like to consume nuanced media that takes form in a more disturbing way, that’s okay. But exaggerating the plot and practically reading the comic with your eyes closed, is a whole other thing. Not everything has to have a happy ending. Not everything has to be appropriate. As long as there is substance outside of the shock value and the shock value isn’t glamorized, sexualized or used horribly lightly, I don’t see an issue with people enjoying that piece of media. I came across a video where the OP was in the comments flat out lying about the plot and contents of Litchi Hikari Club and it made me really upset. How can you paint yourself as some morally superior person for not liking an artistically shocking piece of media without even putting an attempt at truly understanding it. Was some of the shocking content unnecessary? Absolutely. But at the end of the day, the comic was meant to make a large point and refusing to even try to see that point to stay on your moral high ground because you don’t like any form of dark media is stupid.

Some topics are disturbing and deserve to be spoken about and shown in a disturbing light and not in a ‘happy ending everyone lives at the end’ story. However shock value and gore shouldn’t just be used because you’re an incompetent writer who can’t create a good story without making it a torture p0rn.

TLDR: if you think shock value = always good, you’re media illiterate, if you think shock value = always bad, you’re also media illiterate