#conservatism is a joke truly

[paris-geller-was-straightwashed]

holiday gatherings are always an ~interesting~ way to get new perspectives. like yes, please go on about how the 'young people' are refusing to take on responsibility and hardwork and all they do is stand around waiting for the government handouts that you're tired of paying taxes for - yes, this seems totally reasonable coming from people who are retired, don't talk regularly with anyone younger then 40, and spend every waking day watching The Daily News. thank you for that totally necessary perspective on my generation who've grown up in an ENTIRELY different economy and climate then you did, very helpful.

another fun holiday thing you can do is try to talk down a boomer's conservative anti-homeless (as in the people experiencing it, not the structure itself obvs) talking points by trying to say you Don't Quite Think every homeless person is a irresponsible druggie trying to swindle you, by saying that helping via giving food is still a good practice. 'last time I was in timmies an unhoused man asked if I could just get him a coffee and something to eat, didn't even ask for money, so I got him a cup and timbits because, you know, he's hungry and if you're worried about it that's at least a a safe way -" "but was he really hungry?! how do you know??" ??????¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿????? WHY. FOR WHAT OTHER PURPOSE WOULD HE ASK????????? FOR FUN?????? FOR YUKS?????? TO WATCH ME PAY $7 FOR SHITTY COFFEE AND DOUGHNUTS HE CAN'T EVEN RETURN JUST TO LAUGH MANICALLY AND NOT EAT THEM????????? WHO THE HELL DOES THAT????????????????? if you think a disheveled man who was wincing in pain the whole time reduces himself to politely begging for just a bit of food is one of those Evil Homeless Trying To Swindle You, you wouldn't last a fucking minute in a big city.

lastly, you can nearly tear your hair out wondering WHY THE FUCK IT MATTERS if people are using the government supports to help with addiction issues or parenting - and then watch them dig their heels in even harder when you propose the Radical Belief that the government should be a structure that helps us and gives aid to people, because otherwise straight up What Is The Point. 'pEoPle NEed tO tAkE rEsPoNSibiLIty & dO ThE hArDWorK!!!!!!' alright then FINE I guess tim over here will just live a miserable fucking life of working three jobs; doing a 9-5 retail shift, spending his weekends as an uber driver, and then taking nightshifts at a factory only to fucking die of a stress-induced heart-attack at 45 with less money in his account then you have now. but I guess he learned a great lesson of being a Productive Slave of the Capitalist Market!!!

in the end, all this does is remind me of the sentiment that even if I was being swindled for a couple of nickles, or even if someone took the 'easy way' out instead, I know that that's on them - and regardless, I still want to be the person who offers a helping hand up instead of being the one to kick them back down.

[takami-takami]

HONEST OPINION TIME

Okay. I truly, genuinely do believe this and I'm tired of holding back.

Smut is so important. Like yeah, comfort and fluff is incredible and healing, but practically nobody talks about how fucking healing smut is.

Sexual health and play are incredibly important. For a lot of people, this is, like... Their only healthy sexual outlet. And for a lot of people, sexuality has never really been a safe or comfortable place. Being able to pick a safe character to hold your hand when dipping your toes into it is so special. Being able to set boundaries for yourself by selecting what you want to read on your terms is so important.

As far as play, smut is fun. It's so fun. It makes people smile and kick their feet and teehee. Talking about characters with you guys feels like kiki'ing at a sleepover! It brightens my mood whenever we make jokes about it and share ideas!

A safe place to explore kinks is important. I cannot tell you the amount of times I've had people tell me "I like this and it's not normal" regarding my fics and I just frown, because I have an inkling that the instinct to judge yourself before anyone else can comes from shame. From the internalized messages that power is a thing that "doesn't belong to people like you." Or from the incredibly pervasive attitudes society has toward any and all forms of "degeneracy" (read: purity culture, oppressive systems, cultural conservatism, homophobia/transphobia, etc). It's bullshit.

This page is and always will be sex-positive and kink-positive. It's something I have to remind myself, too. Because it's hard. I judge myself too and I, too, live in this society; but I try to be strong because that narrative needs to change somehow.

I've gotten messages before about how people feel loved and desired when reading my fics which means so much to me because duh? We should? You deserve to feel loved and admired? I'm killing any person who made you feel like that wasn't the bare minimum, anyone who made you feel less than, by the way.

It's, like. Idk. I think it's incredibly healing. It's healing and fun and safe and awesome and cool, I guess.

[plunder413]

Man, if anything has truly utterly "gone downhill" its analysis videos or as they're now called "video essays". Like, I was there for specific early youtubers to lay down the groundwork and sorta define art analysis as making your own art in turn. If you've been in certain anime circles, you know. What I was hoping for was breaking down the barriers of convention that restrict people's thoughts on art. I'm an extremely postmodern and subjectivist person, and I wanted individuals to bring out their own experiences, loose and everchanging, senseless, only defined by itself. Instead we just have people going "THIS THING U LIKE IS SECRETLY BAD" and making a 5 hour long video meticulously taking down something in the most boring and bad faith way possible.

Like, where is the schizo love letter to like Earthworm Jim or some shit. Where's the videos that have interesting editing and personality? Idk I feel like it's all just this dick measuring contest to see how cynical we can be. It's saddening. Analysis is supposed to be like sampling in music, taking this art and rearranging it to reflect your own psyche, a creative endeavor in its own, an exercise in love.

And like, I think the evidence lies in the fact that I just make my own art and don't bother with wider discourse on the stuff I'm into. Like, I like cartoons and anime so I made my own story. I like music so I make my own music. And I'm honestly happier. Maybe it's because most creative types don't want to sink into the modern discourse hole that continues to discourage creativity in favor of comfy homogenous distraction sludge that can also say "hey, gay people? cool as frick actually!". Like, yeah, I could watch an HBomberGuy video but I could also just eat spider eggs and have them hatch and crawl around my insides and that will be just as painful but infinitely more interesting.

Really, I've seen far better art analysis here than anything on fucking YouTube and I think that goes to show that as much as you can say about this site, it's a site ABOUT art and creativity. People who fundamentally understand creativity and are not just trying to find the most correct art. Because going down that road only gets you polished, easily accessible bland muck that only conveys the most vaguely left leaning thing with none of that icky abstraction or weird humany stuff. I am into the infinity creativity has to offer. I happen to like to see weird taboo sexuality that mixes psychological branches into a colorful slurry. I happen to like when reality is bent or shaped into an abstract nightmare realm. I also like seeing cute girls just hangin out. I also like SpongeBob SquarePants.

Really what this comes down to also is a western standards being prioritized over all else. Which is dumb. And racist! Like, anime is a different culture that prioritizes different shit. I'm not even just talking about lolicon and shit, I'm talking like, fundamentally being stuck in these super intense, gritty narratives that maintain a consistent tone based on fast moving action and cliff hangers. Sorry but the idea of a maturity being stoic gritty cynicism is a very American idea, and shit is just different when looking beyond the western mainstream. And sometimes its not this presentable G rated thing you can call "chilling" and "breathtaking" sometimes it's a surreal atmospheric comedy with pervy jokes that deconstructs Japanese culture with very specific references and media tropes. Everypony should watch Neo Ranga btw, and I will once it can't trigger me because fuck that show feels like a nightmare. I'm using primarily anime examples because that's the foreign media I'm most familiar with.

Basically conservatism is a virus infecting even the self described anarchists and progressives and leftists because I can't handle having a strong emotion because I'm so pants shittingly scared of the current climate of Things(TM).

[arcticdementor]

“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” has a well-deserved bad reputation. It’s a song about, as our Britt Hayes put it, “a woman being held hostage by some guy who may or may not have drugged her adult beverage.” But it didn’t simply spring, fully formed, out of our culture’s collective disrespect for women. Before “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” became a rapey Christmas classic, then was overcorrected into a Nice Guy anthem, it was the musical centerpiece of an equally terrible hit summer movie: Neptune’s Daughter. Premiering 75 years ago—bringing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” to a moviegoing public who, until then, had no song to put on when pressuring their date into sex—Neptune’s Daughter clearly had no idea that its single notable contribution to pop cultural history would become a holiday staple. Again, this was a June release. It’s not set during Christmas, in the winter, or even in a locale that actually ever gets cold. Neptune’s Daughter is a truly idiotic entry into MGM’s series of “aquamusicals,” starring Esther Williams. Yes, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” won an Oscar for Best Original Song for being in a movie that was mostly a vehicle for swimwear and racism.

…

In Neptune’s Daughter, Williams (playing a swimwear entrepreneur) and Montalbán (playing a “South American polo player”) get caught in a rom-com of mistaken identity (and cultural appropriation). But that only lasts for an hour before the movie gets bored with itself, adding in a mob subplot (also of mistaken identity and cultural appropriation) to kill time during its final 30 minutes. The key incident of the film is when Montalbán’s identity is stolen by a virgin masseur (played like a spasmodic toddler by dough-faced comedian Red Skelton), which leads to all the horrible accent work you might expect as he parades around pretending to be a Latin lover.

…

The script eventually called for a little romance to lubricate its humming race-joke engine, which meant finally putting the musical into “aquamusical.” That’s where Guys And Dolls songwriter Frank Loesser came in. But “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” wasn’t supposed to be in Neptune’s Daughter. According to Williams in that NYT piece, the filmmakers had a completely different Loesser song, “I’d Love to Get You (On a Slow Boat to China),” ready to go, but the Hays Code’s censors balked at its use of the word “get,” which they thought was too clearly a euphemism for “fuck.”

…

Neptune’s Daughter is as hacky as anything MGM was putting out around then, and a fitting follow-up to the previous year’s Williams x Montalbán production. In On An Island With You, Williams��� character is literally kidnapped to a remote island by her love interest. This (and, y’know, all that xenophobia on display) paints a fitting picture of how the studio—and the powerful censors OKing everything—thought the world should work. But their time was running out. In just a few years, America would be flooded with movies from all over the world, movies that treated audiences like adults who live in the real world. Studio pictures would change in turn, their conservatism now often hiding out in the subtext of our blockbusters. But some of the cultural ephemera that kept it front-and-center, like “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” continues to live on, increasingly anachronistic to our modern eyes and ears. It’s strange and uncomfortable, and it makes sense that it’s still the target of popular backlash, but as soon as you place the song back into its original context, you realize that it’s a miracle that a worse version hasn’t been haunting our holidays.

[ginger-snap-talkin-nonsense]

Not the same anon but If you don't mind me asking why is Bob's Burgers is centrist, uninteresting, and make's you uncomfortable?

People act like Bobs Burgers is progressively left because of, among other things:

-Characters that feel Autism Coded

-Characters that are LGBT

-Having a girl allowed to go through the weirder, grosser side of puberty like being horny

-Landlords bad

So let’s go over all of these as examples.

1. No character is actively autistic and autistic traits are mocked in the show. I know y’all think Louise wearing a bunny hat everywhere is so “you-pilled” but I’d like to remind you of Courtney, who despite them saying deserved better in her opening episode they certainly never even think to slow down on openly mocking her for stimming in a way people find gross and needed to have boundaries expressed verbally because she doesn’t pick up on cues well. Y’all really hate Big Bang for doing that shit, why does this get a pass?

2. No characters are LGBT. Bob awkwardly saying he’s “probably not gay” to a guy trying to turn him down is not confirmation that he’s bi. Dear lord Family Guy at least had the nuts to say the words “I’m Bi” when making a similar joke about Peter. Oh but they have the trans positive characters right? Oh I’m sorry, not trans characters. Drag Queen Sex Workers who’s opening appearance has them talk about sitting on people’s faces to children at a birthday. Now obviously I am absolutely pro drag, pro sex work, the works. But this reads like a conservative comic about how the libs are grooming your kids. Again, y’all hated Family Guy for the joke about Brian being grossed out when he finds out he had sex with a woman he obviously couldn’t tell was trans, why is this suddenly positive trans rep?

3. Tina’s obsession with grabbing her neighbors ass is gross. When Big Mouth did this shit with a character they spent the next 4 years explaining over and over again the line between being attracted to someone and being allowed to horny during puberty while being any gender, and sexual harassing people. Bobs Burgers never makes this distinction. Tina is just supposed to shoot off about her latest erotic fan fiction about the boy next door and I’m supposed to laugh. It’s giving “its funny because she’s a girl” energy, not positive influence energy.

4. Their landlord is a friend who is routinely shown to be “crazy but also friendly guy who’s actually helpful and gives Bob plenty of rent extensions”.

Now does this mean Bobs Burgers is secretly some right-wing pipeline? No. All of these things are dumb oversights or jokes that went on too long which happens in the best of shows. Family Guy certainly wasn’t immune to taking too long to end Quagmire SA jokes or making anti-Semitic remarks feel a little too unironic. But Family Guy also threatens to break your teeth if you don’t respect Native Americans in conversations about their land, or if you don’t have respect for trans people. Bobs Burgers is too out of politics to say that.

And that’s fine. This isn’t modern Simpsons type “centrism” which is just myopically packaged conservatism, this is Duncaville. It’s easy Gen-X humor that’s just calm and mundane enough that you can relax to it. It’s practically background noise for 40-year-old wine moms, and that’s NOT an inherent negative. But I’m sick of people acting Bobs Burgers is the one and only “truly progressive” cartoon while it does literally nothing in the way of politics one way or the other. You like it? Fine. But don’t come to me about how how it’s the most genius show ever written and “so much better than gross out garbage like Seth MacFarlane makes” or you’re getting popped.

[demonicintegrity]

I’m seeing more “America’s the worse” and other America is the butt of the joke type nonsense on my tiktok and I was gonna make a tiktok response before work but I didn’t so have this:

Imperialism and colonialism are not American inventions. They’re not America-specific problems. In fact, there are countries who have been doing those things longer than America had been a country. Most of the globe has been directly and devastatingly impacted by British imperialism (including America!) and still feel it’s effects to this day.

You also don’t have to be white in order to be racist, xenophobic, and engage in other forms of bigotry. Being a person of color and/or not American doesn’t exempt you from terrible ignorance and biases.

And to phrase America as the only place you can find horrible bigotry not only is insulting to the decades of rapid civil rights activism and growth here, but does a deliberate disservice to problems elsewhere in the world.

I’ve seen the most rancid racist takes and double standards come from Britain immediately followed up by the British going “we’re not racist! That’s an American thing!”

(Hey dipshits, quick history question, where did Americans come from? Cuz it wasn’t a fucking vacuum.)

Japan is exceptionally nationalistic and has a long history of imperialism and xenophobia. Not to mention the conservatism and toxic workplace culture there makes America look like a cake walk.

Poland and Ireland both still suffer from religious conservatives erasing culture and trying to assimilate the country.

China has its own history of poor labor conditions as well as governmental abuses of power.

(And truth be told every country has its own history of wrong doings and bigotry. Truly no one is exempt. These are just off the top of my head. These are also problems America also has, but aren’t exclusive to us.)

And I’m not bringing up those other countries as a put down, I’m bringing them up because how are they ever going to address their own problems if bigotry is treated as an America Only problem? It’s almost like if they can hide behind “oh but it’s not America” they can dismiss concerns about their own ways of life.

It’s also funny, because America absolutely has uniquely American born and raised issues and concerns. But that’s hardly ever what we get flack for. Most of the time its colonialism or racism which is experienced worldwide. The only American specific problem I get used against us (so to speak) are school shootings. Which is less of an actively malicious/ignorant mindset and more of a symptom of other problems. It’s also regarding as a tragedy from both dominating parties, there’s just a heated divide on how to address it.

My point being: the whole “America sucks and is the worse” shtick is unfunny and overdone at best and actively disrespectful and hypocritical at worse. And quite frankly I don’t wanna hear it from countries who swear up and down they don’t have systemic issues as well. Especially considering Americans are very quick to acknowledge and be open about the flaws in our country.

[sortyourlifeoutmate]

And while I’m still rambling dumbly on the ever-thrilling subject of British politics, let us take a moment to appreciate again how truly dire the state of play is. For while I’ll happily point out what a pack of workshy, grasping, out-of-touch cunts politicians are just by default, the current Tory crop remains genuinely concerning.

Like, we make fun of Suella Braverman for being a fascist nutcase – and rightly so – but it’s a little distressing and depressing that she’s even in a position where she needs to be made fun of. She’s in government! She’s not just standing on Speaker’s Corner screaming at anyone passing by who looks a bit too foreign – she’s a government minister! She has the power and authority to actually act out her weird, fetishististic loathing of immigrants! That is explicitly her whole job!

Gah!

It has gone beyond a joke how cracked she is. We all like to pretend our political opponents are out of their minds but at this point I am honestly a bit worried. This idea that, oh, we can just train more local-grown fruit pickers! Apparently ignoring that it is backbreaking, tedious, poorly-paid work that most people here don’t want to do because it is backbreaking, tedious, poorly-paid work, not because they don’t know how.

(I’m also not wholly sure how this vision of filling gaps in the labour market with our own indolent workers squares with the very prominent Tory vision of a Brexit-enabled “High skill, high wage” economy that doesn’t require dirty, nasty foreigners. Who’s picking the fruit, exactly? Robots? Or highly-skilled, highly-paid workers? Somehow I’m not so sure.)

All of which on top of course this ‘National Conservatism’ conference she’s speaking at apparently being organised by some American organisation, and the increasingly obvious amounts of imported Right Wing American nutbaggery, all this culture war “Oh no not the woke” crap that’s clogging up the national conversation.

All this talk of ‘Cultural Marxism’ – because that’s not sinister at all, is it?

And who was it again who was big into self-sufficiency as a national concept? Hmm, tip of my tongue, tip of my tongue…

Typically I’m loathe to bandy about ‘fascist’ because it tends to get overused to the point of meaninglessness these days, but Jesus Christ Suella kind of makes it difficult not to use it. She’s something else, fuck.

And, as said, she is in the government!

What a time to be alive…

[the-fallen-blue]

The thing that struck me at the time, and that still sits with me now, is his absolute confidence in the lines he'd drawn around his universe.

I mean, this isn't a man sitting in a bar with his white buddies saying some shit about race, or some coworker who you're closeted to throwing out a gay joke. This dude looked at an audience that contained not only women, but also teenage girls like then-Nev, and still thought "I am in a space where everyone is on my wavelength on this issue." He was so sure that the people who were mad weren't real fans, that real comic book people who came to cons were on his side, that you couldn't be in a space like this where everyone really truly cared about the genre and the characters and the craft and still somehow believe that women were people, that his mind edited every single person in that room into "one of the good ones."

And there it is, in a nutshell, right? The fundamental core kernel at the center of conservatism, it's that. It's "caring about a thing means being invested in all parts of it, it is not physically possible to sincerely like a thing and still want it to grow and change. Any desire to alter a system/subculture/institution/anything at all is therefore inherently coming from outside of it, and can therefore intrinsically have no motivation other than malice." For comix dudes, if resisting change means wishing brutal violence on teenage girls, that's fine, because they started it, they must have, change is inherently external colonial violence.

wait please tell about the time willingham said he wanted to shoot you. i didn't know anything about the guy let alone that he. threatened to shoot people.

To be fair, not me personally - he doesn't know who I am, afaik. But a group I belonged to.

So 19 years ago, Willingham wrote the comic in which Stephanie Brown was killed off. This comic, combined with the widespread fridging of and disdain for female characters that was rampant in the industry at the time, and DC's absolute refusal to give Steph a memorial case like Jason's because "she wasn't really Robin," sparked a lot of feminist pushback. (To be clear, women have always read comics and there has always been feminist activism in the industry, but at that particular moment in time, it coalesced around Steph.) This made DC and Willingham very, very angry.

Anyway, while on a panel at a con, Willingham said that he "wanted to take a gun to all those girls who kept asking about a memorial case." Because you know, when people are protesting the rampant violence against female characters in comics, what we need is violent rhetoric against women coming from high profile writers. And since I was literally on the board of a feminist nonprofit named after Steph at the time, I took it rather personally.

[just-a-cybercroissant]

For Valerie, please!

🦾🍙🎤❔(Placide and Brigitte)

Oh that's gonna be a looong post. Sorry it took me a while to answer!

As Valerie's lore is mostly based on my fic 'Tower', which is currently unfinished, I'll be either vague or brief about certain things, as I don't want to spoiler the upcoming chapters XD

🦾 - Johnny Silverhand

Okay, as I ship Valerie with Johnny, I want to make it pretty short so not to spoiler too much. Instead, I'll try to focus on some brief moments from their life together.

I'd describe their relationship as frenemies (since the beginning)-to-friends-to-POTENTIAL-lovers (after Ebunike events).

In Night City, Valerie could never find the right lover - a faithful and caring, strong-willed and appreciative man she could always trust. A person, that her father for her mother was. When Valerie had to share her brain with Johnny after the heist, she quickly formed a bond with him. Through endless squabbles, arguments, jokes and constant rescue of each other (when Johnny saves Valerie due his engram and biochip abilities) Valerie found Johnny was the only man who truly understood her as he literally could read her brain.

They often clash ideologically. While Johnny transcends morality for the sake of his idealistic goals, Valerie remains firmly convinced that destruction is not the solution. Like inverted magnets, in other words. In turn, Valerie often remarks that Johnny seems to like it when she sees inconsistencies in his argument. Either he sees this as a game, or he likes it when Valerie shows strength of character - only Johnny knows.

However, trust and respect develop between them. Johnny likes Valerie's loyalty to a certain code of honor (e.g., she is always ready to help, never betrays). Johnny gradually begins sharing details from his past, particularly about his life before the war (his parents, life in Texas, etc.), which he rarely shared with Rogue. Valerie appreciates this gesture, as she sees it as a sign of trust. But what Johnny is thankful for the most, thinks Valerie, is that she doesn't see an engram but a true living person.

🍙 - Goro Takemura

Pretty quickly, Valerie develops trust in Goro, and whether it's Valerie's intuition or Goro's charm... it's probably both. They initially work with each other because of their deal (Valerie helps Goro avenge Saburo's death, and Goro helps her reach out to the biochip developers). But after the events of the Parade, when Valerie saves Goro, their communication loses its just-partners-in-crime framework and develops into mentor-ward chemistry. Goro often patronizes Valerie (and sometimes goes too far), and she, although often teasing Goro's conservatism, usually obeys. Goro becomes a father figure to Valerie.

🎤- Kerry Eurodyne

Valerie hasn't met Kerry yet in her canon. However, I won't be surprised if she develops a very positive relationship with the rockerboy. After all, he is a friend of Johnny, and Valerie likes his music (more than Johnny's, which Silverhand takes like he was stabbed in the heart).

❔ - Placide

Placide and Valerie's relationship can be described as "from foes to friends" (with benefits). As in canon, Placide and Valerie meet while she seeks the "Voodoo Boys" for biochip information. Valerie quickly realizes she will need to be particularly careful around this laconic big man.

Brigitte doesn't inform Placide of her plans to steal the biochip, and Valerie realizes the gang is splitting. She almost pays for this realization with her life when Placide kills agents from the Network Watch and decides to deal with her to destroy the biochip. As Valerie nears death, she realizes Placide values the real world and the small community of surviving Haitians much more than annihilation in the Web, as the 'Voodoo Boys' aspire to. He, as the son of the last Oungan priest in Haiti, dreams of resurrecting faith in the deities of the Lwa, which was quickly replaced with the worship of the AI in Night City. Placide leaves Valerie alive, and Valerie keeps her promise and doesn't give up on his plans for Brigitte. For this honesty, Placide rewards her by teaching her a couple of tricks in cyberspace.

Here's a little spoiler for upcoming chapters:

In Valerie, Placide sees the uncorruptedness of the city and the decency so unusual for the Night City, and Valerie sees in Placide his leadership qualities and devotion to his ancestors' culture.

After a joint search for Rache Bartmoss's deck to find the DataKrash codes, Valerie and Placide spend their first and last night together. Valerie needs to return to the city, and Placide realizes that he cannot leave his community even for Valerie's sake. Their paths diverge, but they maintain a fairly friendly relationship in the future.

❔ - Brigitte

Contrary to Placide, Valerie and Maman Brigitte developed strained relationships. Since Valerie fulfilled the terms of the deal with the 'Voodoo Boys' and made it to Alt Cunningham, she didn't have time to leave the Net when Brigitte told her to stay away. She knew Valerie was protected by Alt in virtual reality and Valerie was a lot stronger in the real world, so they just decided to stay apart.

The cool truce didn't last long. Valerie gained Placide's trust when she didn't turn him over to Brigitte after his sabotage (See: Placide). After seeing this interference in the affairs of the 'Voodoo Boys', Brigitte decided to contact someone from Night City, who had long held a grudge against Valerie.

Since the fic isn't finished the "Voodoo Boy's" arc is not complete, so... to be continued.

[trulyinspiringmovies]

Shrek 2

“Shrek 2″ is often considered to be one of the greatest sequels of all time by some people... and those people would be correct.

Shrek and Fiona are happily enjoying their marriage until they’re invited to a royal ball by Fiona’s parents. Fiona and Donkey are excited to go, but Shrek is hesitant. He has a feeling that Fiona’s parents won’t really like him or accept the choices that Fiona has made. Still, he ends up going and gets caught up in a ploy crafted by the Fairy Godmother.

The first “Shrek” was content with delivering a simple, yet powerful story. It used the benefit of simplicity by crafting genuinely funny jokes and sharp commentary about the relentless push of conservatism from DreamWorks's clear rival. “Shrek 2″ is ambitious, if not anything else. It retains the same level of jokes and commentary and I dare say that it actually elevated those levels. There were so many moments that had me laughing out loud. A few notable jokes were the “Cops” parody, which is still relevant today, and the Starbucks joke which is just so good. While maintaining the same level of quality of jokes and commentary, “Shrek 2″ also does what every good sequel does and expands the scope of the first film. I love everything about the kingdom of Far Far Away. First off, the name is just top-notch. It effectively positions itself as the place that every fairy tale starts off mentioning. Making it a parody of Hollywood is just so damn clever. “Shrek 2″ also feels like a genuine continuation of the first film because it follows up on logical plot beats. In a franchise about being more realistic about our ‘happily ever afters’, of course, they should explore what the in-laws think. Of course, we follow up on Prince Charming who hasn’t learned the lessons of the first film. Speaking of Prince Charming, “Shrek 2″ delivers with its new characters. Every one of them just hits the mark. Doris The Ugly Stepsister was hilarious to me as a child. Mongo will always have a place in my heart. Puss In Boots was so popular that he got his own spin-off movies, one of which is gaining exceptionally great critical reception in theaters right now. And who could forget the Fairy Godmother? She’s such a fun villain because she gets to be the celebrity who gets to ham it up when the cameras are rolling, but then switches to an evil mob boss on the flip of a switch. Plus, she has an amazing singing voice. She performs a cover of “Holding Out For A Hero” and has the rare honor of exceeding the original as the definitive way of listening to the song. Jennifer Saunders really sounds like she’s having a blast in the role. The final climax of this film is one that sticks out in everyone’s mind. I think rightfully so because the action is high-octane, high-stakes, non-stop fun with great jokes and call-backs along the way. You truly feel like Shrek is running out of time because of the love potion Fiona’s about to drink and the effects of the potion he drank. I do think the twist was a bit predictable, but it was still executed in an ambiguous enough manner that it didn’t bother me one bit. All in all, this movie is a masterclass on how to make sequels. I know it’s a meme to call it the best sequel of all time, but there is some truth in that. I wouldn’t go as far as calling it the best, but I think it’s perfect for the “Shrek” franchise.

★★★★★

Rewatched on January 4th, 2023

[formulatrash]

hi! It’s totally fair if you don’t want to answer this question for whatever reason but, do you think there are any drivers in F1 that are part of the LGBTQ+ community? I don’t want to speculate on anyone’s sexuality, but it is a bit disheartening at times to see no representation whatsoever in the sport that I love so dearly... at the same time, it’s nobody’s duty to become a symbol for the community just because they’re a part of it, so I’d understand if they wanted to keep that low key, especially considering the amount of fans that would hate them for that only. It just makes me sad sometimes, not gonna lie.

I'm not gonna speculate publicly in any specific way, obviously. But statistically, it is impossible that there have never been LGBTQ+ F1 drivers - and actually there were two out ones, in Mike Beuttler (who sadly died of AIDS) and Lella Lombardi.

In other series, there are openly out drivers - in fact W Series seem to be basically incapable of stopping the drivers getting together, which is awesome and they should do it. And also kinda gives a lie to the idea rivals wouldn't.

There is a split between women's and men's sports in that basically sporting ladies seem to be like "wow, fit women time to openly drool over each other" and men being more pressured to keep it strictly no homo. It's nice that F1 drivers lately have been definitely more comfortable with being affectionate to each other and with deviating from very restrictive ideas of masculinity, although obviously that does not in any way imply their sexualities or gender status.

I think there are many reasons to be optimistic that an F1 driver could come out. Motorsport's landscape has changed - and the world, too - but of course, as you say, being the first is a sucky job and not, heh, one of the good kind.

Would they face some challenges? For sure. Some locations would be difficult - the UK, for instance, if a driver came out as trans. God, just imagining the thinkpieces from TERFs has made me nearly pass out.

I am sure there are LGBTQ+ people in the paddock beyond, whether that's in the media cohort (I mean, lmao, I am typing this why do I always exclude myself lol) or in the garages. And of course, the fans. As much as F1 talks about (even pre-pandemic) existing in its own bubble, of course it does not and while demographics are often skewed towards wealth and white western europeans, that doesn't affect the distribution of LGBTQ+ people.

Will it be godawful for the person who takes the first step? Yeah. You can't get away from the fact casual homophobia is pretty rife in F1, I'm regularly appalled by the sort of shitty jokes members of the media - who you'd think might be a bit less stuck in the jurassic period - will default to. Lots of people in F1 think they're a bit hardcore, that that's part of the image of the sport and it comes with both a strict conservatism and edgelord tendencies.

I think, with the right support, though, they'd be ok. Drivers generally have much better support systems now than ever before and god knows, it's cus they need 'em. From social media to the immediacy of reaction, everything from onboards to team radio to their Insta likes is under scrutiny and of course, that's gonna feel pretty oppressive in some ways.

(I know I hate it, as someone who gets a low-level version of it on Twitter)

But would their team or sponsors or the sport at large lose faith? No. And there would be, in the torrent of horrible stuff that's inevitable with any of these things, such support and inspiration.

It's a bit of a burden, being a figurehead and it's very easy to see why, for example, Lewis shrugged it off for a lot of his career because fuck knows, everyone's got enough to be getting on with with just the basic challenges of the career let alone having to be a representative. And it's why, with aspects you're not able to hide, people struggle - whether that's race, gender or whatever.

Living in the closet isn't a very satisfying option, though; which is the most convincing argument for how there might not have been any LGBTQ+ drivers other than the ones we know about. But it's more likely they grinned and bore it, of course. History's littered with people who never got to truly live as themselves.

It's very good having someone like Matt Bishop in a prominent role in F1. Because he can speak beyond the theoretical; that a team can welcome a gay head of communications and the paddock will have to and can work with them. That he's in a relative position of power is great because it means people can't chat shit and that means for someone without that relative power, they're protected by extension.

Who knows when more LGBTQ+ people will come along to the sport - but I think there's reason to be hopeful that they can be there.

[willowcrowned]

okay I’ve blacked out the name and deleted the comment because I really don’t want to be a dick, especially since the comment was half joking, but I do think it’s indicative of a wider problem that me acknowledging in the tags that a lot of these women have a real familiarity and ease with their text of choice—and that I really admire that!—is grounds for worrying about being radicalized

it’s—idk, I could get really preachy here and I’m going to try as hard as I can not to go that way—but it’s concerning that it’s considered dangerous to recognize that there are parts of people’s cultures you can really respect and appreciate, even if you totally disagree with the framework those parts are part of. even if tradwives as a whole tend to leave a bad taste in my mouth, it’s important to me to acknowledge that the people who engage in those practices are not deluded babies who don’t see that everything they like is obviously bad. rather, it’s important that I understand that there are truly affirming and worthwhile parts of that culture that lead people to create the really horrible, terrifying frameworks to justify the rest of it.

I admire the tradwife commitment to homemaking (never an easy job) the same way I admire the conservative #christiangirl commitment to continuing to practice and understand their text of choice. I find the implication that men were intended to lead and women were intended to be helpmeets deeply disgusting, and deeply concerning for the women who believe it. I find the conservative #christiangirl reliance on God for all answers to be completely antithetical to my own religious practices and worldview. Acknowledging one doesn’t invalidate the other—and, actually, I’d argue that allowing myself to acknowledge the good embedded in practices that I find at best personally distasteful allows me to really unpack what I think is wrong with them

edit: two things. first, the flavor of christianity I’m specifically talking about here is good old American fundamentalist Protestants. second, I think it’s also important to acknowledge that the things I admire about them are present in many other cultural frameworks, many of which do not leave a bad taste in my mouth. I didn’t mean to link homemaking with sexism, nor a reliance on god with conservatism—just to say that a lot of the time, the presence of those good things is used to justify the specific, often harmful, cultural frameworks tradwives and conservative #christiangirls operate within

my new strategy for keeping myself from scrolling endlessly on youtube’s tiktok rip-off is to purposefully fill my feed with tradwife content to make watching shorts unbearable. so far today I’ve seen a video with #tradwife #peace imposed over a series of 1950s advertisements and a “christian girl morning routine” video so I think it’s going swimmingly

[stormblessed95]

Hello!

I came across this ask that India army is tkkrs. I always wanted to discuss this but then I had doubts if it would make me look like an outsider for questioning the things in my own community. If you are comfortable with my response below, please do share it.

I'm an Indian and the first shipping video I came across was of TK. (I'mma leave the door open by JK and V singing along in an butter era interview... this was turned into a moan in a funny way). I don't know how Instagram algorithm works but I think it shows up post based on the region you live in / the people you follow who have viewed the tags you follow (#bts in my case).

Since I understand the local language I also read the comments under the shipping videos. I tend to agree that these shippers are very young not even 24-25 because of the way they put their words. They are convinced that TK is real 😂 I'm okay with it because they are not using any words to spread hate against JM. Mostly I come across "JM is tk shipper, he's a good brother to JK and protecting their ship"

Some are simply there to troll and make fun (vegetarian joking) but yes they choose to be a tkkr. Like under one jikook video someone said "what's V thinking of this" and people were just casually laughing or supporting it (in an entertaining way, nothing offensive against JM).

All these comments were in Hindi language of India and I am just trying to give you a context. The videos are very much sexualized but they don't hate JM (is what I feel). I'm mentioning JM because I have seen people call out males who embrace feminity, taunting in a humorous way. This I have not seen and it's a good thing I feel. They rather accept JM as the curtain to their ship and I am fine with it but I am uncomfortable watching the content. The slo mo is less than x2 🤣🤣

This is a reason I follow international blogs. There are more jikook supporters + content overall. I kinda feel that even in India there's a stigma of LGBT. People are accepting in recent times but only if it's not from their own relatives or acquaintances. I'm an ally, I find gay jokes very uncomfortable (common here in Indian middle class culture - referring to the calling out males I mentioned above). Jikookers are less here (or I have not come across) could be because of homophobia/LGBT stigma. Because jikook seems real from any sane guy's lenses. That's why they are okay to turn tk skinship into shipping (it's a psychological thing maybe reverse psychology). Indian tkkrs are fine with LGBT jokes also and that's why their content is the top. It's basically delulu shipping+LGBT stigma turned into jokes. It churns out views, likes and comments.

But again three of us Indian jikookers are on your blog, means there are jikookers also. Rather jikook supporters. And I mean no offense to any shippers in India but it is kind of a fact that taekook is most famous here.

Anon 2: About the fact that Taekook is the most popular ship in India, Indonesia and countries such as SEA, I don’t think it has to do with a specific culture but much more about conservatism? I encountered a lot of Taekookers from Turkey or Middle East countries as well for example. In countries where homophobia is still very rampant and deeply ingrained in its inhabitants mentality (I mean, homophobia is still present everywhere even in progressive countries but at a different degree), Taekook is a safe ship. Shippers can enjoy the fantasy of these two together precisely because deep down they know there is close to no chance this ship is real. The way their vision of a gay couple is so stereotypical and ingrained in toxic narratives such as hypersexualisation, jealousy, cheating is quite telling in my opinion. That’s just a personal POV but I don’t think 99% of Taekookers truly believe they are a hidden couple yada yada. Hence their epidermal reactions to Jikook which looks a bit too real for a looot of people, Taekookers included. Taekook fits their vision of what gay men are supposed to look like, how a gay couple behave, because in the end it’s all about the game and the fantasy for them and it has not much to do with love, real emotions and attraction and reality.

Last post I'll do about this. I have a lot of anons about the Indian/SEA armys/tkkr posts. These 2 summed up basically all the core messages and covered all the topics, so I'll just post these 2 anons to cover it. I read all of them and super appreciate everyone sharing their thoughts and experiences with me and us all here. Thank you. Also there are quite a few Indian ARMY who follow me here apparently, I appreciate you all 💜 thank you!

[gg-astrology]

NCT: Mark Lee - Inner Planet Natal Reading

💕Hello! I planned to release this on his birthday but it seems like I couldn’t make it skjfdnkdn Happy Birthday Mark Lee! For this post, I figured I should do an Inner Planet Natal Reading instead of an Overview. It should give a broader insight to everything going on in his life (in the long run) and lay out everything he has potential for (or is doing) -- before I delve deeper into how it’s working for him currently (overview-- which god knows when I’ll be doing those!) 

Considering how NCT has been pumping out so much materials right now, once I gather enough thoughts (digest) I’ll make an overview pointing to some gifs as reference later. 

I’ll probably do one for Lucas, Ten, Johnny and Taeyong if I have time. But the other members I really don’t know well at all (although I’m sure there’s some pretty good NCT astrology bloggers out there, please be sure to check them out!)💕

💕disclaimer: i’m a novice on astrology but these are my interpretations of the signs and how they’re working based on my experiences with them. Everyone has different opinions and studies in astrology, all interpretation and experiences within the realm is valid. However feel free to make your own post or skip if you strongly disagree. There might be inaccuracy and difference in opinions. But the point of this post is to relate, entertain and have a fun time. I’m hoping to validate people with similar experiences and get people excited about the girls+ astrology. Also, since we don’t know most of their birth times, I’m using the standard 12.00pm💕

Lee Min Hyung (Mark Lee) August 2nd 1999 (Vancouver, Canada) Toronto, Canada

Leo Sun - 2nd Decan (Ruled by Jupiter/Sagittarius)

Playful, fun-loving and often times disciplined in a way that makes him seem wiser/older than his age. Leo Sun influenced by the 2nd Decan often shows both maturity and youthfulness in their behaviour and physical appearance at the same time.

Sagittarius influencing them strongly in their chart can give individual this curve to their eyebrows, sort of like a sage you know? Unlike Aries influence, individual tends to have a ‘lucky’ appearance-- imagine the Chinese Fuk Luk Sau, that’s what they tend to embody (whether they’re Leo Suns or not) 

Although they thrive on performances, Jupiter/Sagittarius makes him abit more subdued than most. In fact he’s much more willing to listen and takes on criticism well (without losing his head) because of this placement (when it’s from other people) -- difference in opinions, point of views, cultures makes him open-minded and often very understanding of others to an extent. 

Coming from a non-traditional culture himself, on one hand he likes to travel and meet new people, opportunities to do so consistently in his career is important. On the other hand, restriction of any form/kind (heavy conservatism/traditional culture) might scare him away-- so coming to the Mainland probably requires a lot of contemplation on his part.

In the end, Leo thrives to be in a safe and often supportive environment. Wants to bring joy to people around them through their self-expression and dedication, their greatest pleasure is in bringing other people pleasure and sometimes it’s at the expense of themselves becoming the source of it.

Highly sensitive to other’s emotions/environment and often one of the first to be there for anyone who seems kind of down, they offer a hand on the back and a guiding presence (safe environment) for others to just be around them. 

Highly emotional themselves they relate to others struggles easily but ultimately, have a positive and hard-working nature to them. Driving force in giving other happiness is through their own sense of optimism and motivating others through example of their own action.

What this means is, they’re the type to understand where others are coming from. Are empathetic to others plight and tune in easily to fluctuating emotions (either high or low, but usually bad at detecting any moodiness in between) they offer a place of solace and advice. 

But also brings those advice through practice, the type of people to go ‘see? Let me show you what I mean/we can do it together’ and actually implement it in their life. Does activities that backs up their word so others can see how to do it, strives to motivate others so that they can go ‘oh, I feel rejuvenated/energized just by watching this person achieve something great’. The kind of person who leads through example and bring themselves down to the place where others can relate to. 

Leo Sun in Sagittarius Decan are often very charming individual, just by being themselves. They possess an abundance of awkwardness to them in particular when it comes to strange environment/new people (Since Leo can be shy and Sagittarius can get a little awkward overall) but ultimately very excited to make new acquaintances and friends once you get to know them. 

Very sincere and often frank individuals, who gives good/solid advices due to their own experience. Seems like they possess wisdom beyond their years and are usually very popular individuals who gains a good reputation from both seniors and juniors alike. 

Likes people who are also as honest and loyal as they are, likes to learn new things from people and tend to be pretty open about their curiosity (doesn’t tend to act/think like they’re above anyone else) which makes them immensely popular amongst their peers. 

They’re fun-loving and often likes helping people around them. Although they’re very supportive of someone if they ever feel like the other is immoral/dishonest or is taking advantage of them, they can tend to feel easily hurt/distance themselves away. They’re people who knows their own worth and works hard in grasping who they really are. 

Individuality or a strong sense of self is important to them, and learning things about themselves/how to implement lessons from others into their own personal core-values is important to them. 

Strives best when facing challenges, particularly of the activity kind or intellectual kind. Although they humbly don’t think they’re all that great mentally, they have a certain strength to their character that keeps them ambitious and preserve under stressful condition.

Can be prone to acting rashly or with emotions during stressful situation, pushed into a corner they can get highly argumentative and destructibly defensive, sometimes even passive-aggressive as they tend to become very stubborn and thinks their own opinions matters most (wants to be heard and acknowledged first, before they can see anyone else’s perspective).  

Aspects:

Sun (Leo) - Trine - Moon (Aries)

Fire-fire combination in his Moon and Sun makes him highly in-tune with himself. 

Highly opinionated and prone to speaking up if he feels others have misunderstood him, he won’t stand for others defining who he is without his say in it. 

Often controls the narrative in a respectful and often gracious manner, he doesn’t wait till things get out of control before he acts.

 In fact he possesses great will-power and strength, highly reactive and quick to respond to situations that may cause harm to his career/sense of self. 

Loves being laid back and joking around with others, but at the same time he needs constant support and attention on him in order to feel truly loved/adored. Needs to feel like he’s well taken-care of, despite taking great care of himself. 

Dependable to others and the public views him as someone who’s confident in himself. His members rely on him a lot and he feels like he can strive under certain pressure (minimal amount, when he’s focused goal by goal) but not the overwhelming pressure that can get drown him in his own insecurities (see later). 

Giving goals to him bit by bit can really help him achieve all of them, not very good at seeing the bigger picture or falling under pressure (can lead to doubting himself and insecurities, relies on others a lot) but with good management/moderating he can truly reach new heights in his career/goals. 

Highly ambitious and often a very inspirational person to be around, he knows how to lighten up the mood/atmosphere where-ever he goes. 

Sun (Leo)- Square - Mars (Scorpio)

Can come across as a bit self-centered, but this is due to having an abundance of Mars-energy in him. 

Since his Sun is externalizing so much of his personality, his drive and will-power can feel conflicted on whether or not it’s needed in externalizing this part of himself at all.  

Has a conflict between how highly reactive and confident he is in his ‘self’ that his quieter, colder but just as powerful Scorpio Mars can feel like it’s accumulating tension. 

Makes him prone to acting brashly/acting before he thinks, and then he realizes his mistakes and can have a hard time loving himself in his entirety. 

Understanding when to keep his Sun/Moon from reacting in order to plan/strategize for a better solution is crucial. 

Since it can lead to him being seen as egoistic, unwilling to compromise, unnecessarily competitive and self-centered around others sometimes (Leo traits). Keeping his calm and cool and externalizing his energy through a cooler tone that way would help him balance himself out. 

The more affectionate and joyful Leo side can be hidden under a ‘fighter’ personality and make him highly volatile, and can also be very moody when he doesn’t pay attention to his water placements (Cancer Mercury/Scorpio Mars). 

He doesn’t like being misunderstood or feeling upset over it, but at the same time the whole reason he’s misunderstood is in over-reliance on his reactive nature/Sun-Moon in the first place.  

Fire-Fire combination in his Sun-Moon makes him appear rather hot-headed and temperamental, which rubs people the wrong way sometimes particularly when they feel like they’re wrongfully accused of something by him. 

He doesn’t react well to defensive people, and in turn becomes highly defensive himself. Tries to overwhelm others by arguing that he’s right without noticing he’s imposing his opinions on others first before their own (not a discussion, he just wants to win). 

Sun (Leo) - Square - Jupiter (Taurus)

Tends to overdo things sometimes, usually in affection for other people (Leo) or giving other people too much (Jupiter in Taurus). 

In terms of resources, he can be too generous when promising others monetary gains or stability in the future (Taurus). Relies too much on his sense of self/performance that often times he doesn’t consider circumstances or moderations. 

Overly optimistic in his promises and the reality of it which can tend to disappointing others. In turn, he disappoints himself and pushes himself to work harder, can lead to inner-frustration and self-decrepitation sometimes (Leo) even when it’s not due to himself but rather due to circumstances. 

Watch for being too generous in giving people things that he owns, mostly money and objects. Can easily get cheated/scammed and will have to face hardship in trusting others too much this way. 

Wants and craves unconditional love/support but may not get it, needy for expressions of love. And tends to feel like it’s never really enough even if he has the whole world loving him at his feet. Would always want to be shown support and love even when he has it.  

Sun (Leo)- Square - Saturn (Taurus)

Faces hardship in terms of resources and unfamiliar environments. Never tend to do well when they feel themselves uprooted from their sense of ‘home’ or in new environments.

The sense of self feels weakened and any attempt to assert himself and sometimes feel like it’s being obstructed by established authority (Saturn) can often feel like he’s unjustly held back at times. Particularly by adults in his life/seniorities. 

Wants to achieve stability and considered to be ‘doing well’, reputation and acknowledgement of his skills/abilities is important to him. He wants his career to support his leisure, and has a good head-heart priority on that. 

Like I said earlier, he tends to not realize that his biggest hardship/competitor is usually himself. Pushes himself so hard as ‘punishment’ sometimes, thinks hard-work is the only way to go and over-piles himself with work to ‘compensate’ for it. 

This is Leo’s self-decrepitation at it’s finest when they refuse to admit that some problems just needs time to figure things out and doesn’t listen to anyone else’s words-- likes to pile themselves in activities to get through ‘blocks’ they may have. 

Sun (Leo)- Opposition - Uranus (Aquarius) (R)

His sense of self sometimes overrules the will of others. Possesses so much confident and self-righteous quality to him that sometimes he can think he knows best even when he thinks he’s being humble. Tends to rub authorities the wrong way because he doesn’t seem to listen to suggestion or cater to softer wills/asking him of something. 

Has such a strong sense of individual and self (Aquarius/Leo) that he tends to be hard-headed and won’t listen to anyone (fixed sign). 

Consider: that he speaks highly of his own opinion and other is saying exactly the same things but he doesn’t think that they’re right. Very particular about ‘distincting’ himself as different and thinking himself as the savior of the underdog sometimes without realizing there’s many ways to do stuff and get the same end result. 

Very particular about the way things are phrased, that he can have a hard time understanding where others are coming from even when they want the same thing that he does.  

Sun (Leo)- Opposition - Neptune (Aquarius) (R) 

Has dream/goals that are much bigger than life, can appear to be a high achiever or wants something unattainable. 

Takes time to realize what it is he really wants, can be a bit wishy-washy but has a front he maintains at all time. 

Wants to be seen as someone dependable, yet at the same time hates that he has to be kept inside a box for others to ‘depend’ on him. Wants to run away from responsibilities sometimes, but is stuck between day-dreaming about ‘what could be’ and pushing through towards his goal.

Often has a vivid imagination and escape into himself, but at the same time feels like he has to live in reality/society all the time in order to be accepted as ‘normal’. 

Conflict between what the heart wants and who he is. In particularly his softer, vulnerable and dreamier water-side (and Leo softer traits) and how to externalize those outwards.  

Sun (Leo)- Trine - Pluto (Sagittarius) (R)

He’s so sure of himself and his own persona that he accepts changes easily. External environment and circumstances doesn’t deter him or make him lose his cool.

Actually, it takes him a while to even fully realize that things have changed now. He can be so fixed and steadfast in himself that actual realization of his own popularity comes slower than normal. 

Despite this he’s very well liked and popular with those around him, not only is he seen as humble, honest and open-minded he tends to easily accept those who has a difficult circumstance than he is and help others easily. 

Aries Moon - 2nd Decan (Ruled by the Sun/Leo)

With his Sun-Trine-Moon his energy/emotional well-being is pushed through even more by knowing his sense of self. Can come across as a very confident and emotionally in-tuned person.

Often times appears like he has a clear direction/sense of self. This can be intimidating to others. Ever met someone who just seems so confident and direct? Someone you don’t really know how to please (air-signs/water-signs) because they know themselves so well? That’s the kind of person he is. 

An over-abundance of energy given towards developing and understanding his ego. Not just from this placement but also from the multiple aspect towards his Sun (earlier) as well. 

Possesses great will-power and the ability to showcase his core-self outwardly. Externalizes through his confidence and ego (which is ultimately pretty healthy) -- has to learn to not be so?? chaotic but with others, he seems to be a highly dependable and trustworthy person who knows himself best (and thus, can help guide others).

Since Leo is so creative and affectionate, his Aries Moon tends to exhibit a softer, sentimentality and romantic side of himself. Loves affection, but also validation and compliments. He thrives on receiving positive feedback from others around him. 

Emotionally alert and active, he can tend to react and point out flaws faster than anyone. Not only this, but he’s actually a very principled person. There’s a lot of misconception about the Leo/Aries person, but one of their many great quality is how unbending they are in the best possible way.

One of those people who probably makes funny faces to make you laugh, teases people a lot but at the same time, would do aegyo at you if they feel like they’re being neglected. 

Whiny and sulky (Leo/Aries combination) but often times pretty straight forward about it. As in, he wouldn’t keep it to himself that he’s clearly dissatisfied with something you’ve done (or not done for him).  Can’t really keep their frustration to themselves well. 

Active imagination and day dreams a lot, usually helps because they’re big achievers. Instead of thinking it’s just a dream, they use this subconscious/sentimental part of themselves to push their activity even more.

Understand that a good balance between day-dreaming and activity would help them achieve their goals. They tend to relax by consuming sources of drama (usually in television) music/media but funnily enough, they can only take small doses of personal drama at a time (from close friends/family or themselves). 

With an Aries Moon in the Leo Decan he can get a bit restless if he doesn’t have a say in something. His opinion is his utmost importance, and has to be careful not to come across as someone who speaks on top of others sometimes. 

Can come across as leader-ish, although he’d doubt himself in an official leadership position. Feels much more comfortable when he can actively be himself and do activities without the burden of actually looking after people-- freaks out when it’s something required of him and not something he chooses to do. 

Here’s someone who doesn’t have many secrets, everything he’s feeling or thinking he’s the type to just verbalize it out. Usually, the reality of it is-- he says what he thinks but he rarely takes in advice/feedback from others. So no matter how openly candid he gets, his own stubbornness (Leo Decan) keeps him from actually changing himself.

Internal change comes harder for him because he doesn’t get swayed by others advice. He has to see from himself his own change, through his own path. One of those people who only has epiphanies when he goes through something, can come across as very self-centered and opinionated of himself. But usually he means well by it and uses his own life experiences to teach/motivate others. 

When he’s mad he’s often the type to deal it out immediately. He may sulk or retreat into himself when he’s younger (Leo/Cancer), but usually once he realizes it’s easier for him to just-- get it over with, he’s the type to make the opponent stay and just talk it out. Prefers no mind games and would rather be blunt about everything-- an all-cards on the table type of person. Can be prone to crying a lot too actually (Cancer Mercury influencing his Moon and Scorpio Mars) 

(see how reactive he is? this isn’t just from his aries moon but rather everything fire in him) 

Aspects:

Moon (Aries) - Sextile - Uranus (Aquarius) (R)

Often very imaginative and sensual, he tends to have an innovative/entrepreneur spirit to his presence.

A forward thinker without the time or energy to spend doubting himself. He’s often an instigator and knows what’s going to ‘trend’ way before conventional society gets it. 

A trend-setter and trail blazer in the best of ways, can often times be unemotional or insensitive but highly in tune with his intuition/foresight. 

Cancer Mercury (R) - 3rd Decan at 29′10 degrees (Neptune/Pisces)

The Most Dramatique of persons, absolutely hilarious and moody but in the best ways-- the way he talks can tend to grate other people the wrong way due to how dramatically bitchy he can be, but at the same time its all depending on whether you LIKE cancers and leos or not. 

If you ever wonder why he’s so expressive and meme-y it’s because his Cancer is working closely to his Leo. Having such a strong emphasis on Leo in his chart, he finds it easier to express himself/his emotions dramatically through facial expressions.

Generally, you can imagine what someone with Cancer and Leo strongly influencing them would be like. Since his Mercury is in it’s 3rd decan (without a correct birth time) we can assume he embodies both Cancerian and Leo traits in his mind/emotions.

Although he can tend to be moodier sometimes (Cancer/Leo energy) and probably has difficulty expressing his softer sentiments unless he practices (in retrograde) -- he can easily adapt and react to others through Leo sense of self-expression.

Leo’s theatrics/dramatics comes through the most when there’s a Cancer involved in their personal chart. Can you imagine-- just having a double placement for being a drama queen? But with a stronger emphasis on the actual externalization/expression instead of the emotional/moodier side of it? 

It’s no wonder he’s entertaining to watch, since he draws attention and affection from others by being himself. (Cancer-Leo) but at the same time, he can have a harder time realizing the inner depth/his true potential (thoughts) behind his own dramatics acts.

Having a Cancer in Mercury makes one prone to reacting emotionally to things (trad. rules Moon/emotions), because it’s process through the mind/thoughts (Mercury) -- they naturally tend to get a bit defensive when they feel the other person has a Bad Opinion and cautiously hold themselves away from others. 

Can be a bit cynical of others in the most sarcastic/sassiest ways, easily express their distaste for certain things but in a way that can come across as throwing ‘shade’ (because they’re prone to passive aggression and swerving conflict).  

In fact, check out this gif-set of Mark’s expressions as an example. If you go through them one by one, you can see instances where his Aries Moon reacts super fast to what’s happening and his emotions coming through in a very Cancerian manner-- that is, cautious at first and very dubious of others -- like a crab snapping it’s claw and side-stepping quickly, shifty eyes and retreating back into it’s shell-- just for defensive position. 

His Leo-decan in Aries Moon makes him exaggerate it more, and there’s a strong emphasis on Moon-Mercury on his personality because Cancer’s traditional ruler is the Moon -- therefore he looks for his Moon for response before he thinks/acts a certain way. 

A soft bud who wants to express his creative vision in a softer light but finds it harder to do so sometimes. Writing things down and thinking about things isn’t as much his stronger suit. Instead, he can rely on escapism when it comes to slower-moving activities or energy. 

I really can’t understate how well he just...syncs himself to other people’s emotions. Although sometimes he can have a bit of a hard time understanding his own (water in his Mercury and fire in his Sun/Moon) 

Tends to think he’s emotionally attune but at the same time, doesn’t like how his emotions are often all over the place. 

Gets frustrated with himself when he acts a certain way (faster than he wants/brash/crass sometimes) because he KNOWS he should’ve behaved differently. His mind and his emotions doesn’t sync up, tends to get confused between one and another.

Knows how to deal with other people’s emotions (Cancer Mercury) but often has to take time to get to know his own. 

In this case, his Aries Moon/Leo Decan pushes him to becoming more aggressive than how he necessarily wants to be (emotionally) so it’s like...half of him is already jogging while the other half of him is still at the starting line. Again, it’s a frustrating feeling to be crossed at. 

Aspects:

Mercury (Cancer) - Square- Jupiter (Taurus)

Home life and problems with moodiness, sometimes he feels frustrated with how he comes across. 

In particular wanting to be his authentic ‘self’ (homeself) and not having time to do so. 

Confliction between his personal (sense of self/home self) and his public self -- possibly also stemming from his ‘performance-prone’ Leo/Aries and his Cancer Mercury ‘thinking/feeling like’ he should keep something to himself/for himself at the same time. 

Mercury (Cancer) - Opposition- Neptune (Aquarius) (R) 

Makes him seem insincere sometimes, because he can tend to get defensive easily he has a habit of retreating to himself sometimes he doesn’t take responsibilities for his own hurtful words/action (Cancer). 

Retreats into his ‘shell’ or ‘dreamland’ instead of facing the consequences, can become misunderstood by his peers because of this and tends to huddle even deeper into his shell (Pisces Decan).

Often times, he has a harder time showing his softer, more vulnerable side to the public because he’s scared of being misunderstood. He wouldn’t know how to explain himself/seek help from it either.  

Virgo Venus (R) - 1st Decan

First of all I’d like to point you all to this gif-set of shy/flustered Mark. This is a great example of how Virgo Venus can be especially with so much sensitivity in his inner placements (Leo’s soft nature, Aries sentimentalism, Cancer’s affectionate side brought out through Pisces Decan)

 If you go through them one by one you can see tiny little instances where his Leo does get shy and his Virgo Venus peaks through. 

Particularly in the second gif where he’s flustered and trying to pull down his shirt. Although it’s possible that his Leo loves the attention and being praised for his physicality, at the same time his Virgo is highly modest and has a certain standard he sets for himself to be appreciated in (like, a criteria box he wants to be seen in society for).

It’s often an endearing mix of extreme second-hand embarrassment (or first hand) for him that makes him react in physical ways. 

‘Blanket kick’ like environment where a large part of him (Leo/Aries) love the attention and sweet sincere validation, yet at the same time his sensitivity and standard doesn’t allow him to fully embrace those things (Virgo keeps him modest to a certain extent, despite him living for it, he finds that it keeps his feet on the ground and makes him humble) --

So he’s very prone to just,, screeching into his hand in shyness while at the same time loving the attention and getting really flustered to the point where it can overload him in emotions sometimes.

In fact, this points to his Cancer Mercury where the first reaction that he can do when he’s faced with this circumstance/environment is to hide. 

The entire second row of that gif set as well as the second to last row (particularly the last one of that row) is his brain going ‘shit it’s coming gotta hide’ in anticipation for the in-coming praise/embarrassment. 

Cancer Mercury combined with activity makes him sort of--- pulls himself into his shell a little and it manifests in a very physical way which is to hide his face or turn his body away from embarrassment.

Now thats all for unexpected/flustering environment, Virgo Venus are naturally pretty shy people already (particularly when they’re adored and noticed for their effort/skills) so it takes very little to make them squirm. 

Yet at the same time, when he’s prepared for to shower someone else with love/compliment it can be a much more taxing/different road all together.

Virgo Venuses are hard workers, they love progression and productivity. They like to see results, and they’re much more interested in the effort put into said work and the overall complexity/thought of the journey than the end result. When they compliment someone--- usually heartfelt, they put a lot of thought and dedication into their words. 

Often very sincere and very moving to hear them actually compliment you (because they’re not big...complimenters themselves) they can be a bit stiff but truly wants you to know they acknowledge your effort/skills in that area. 

Physical touches, comfort and usually small gift or detailed-attention. They’re like.....they almost seem cold and tsundere but it’s not intentionally so? 

It can be hard to pin-point, since his Leo placement makes him so loud and vibrant it tends to overpower his smaller, shier sentiment and dedication sometimes. 

So a lot of the time, when he shows that he does care (sincerely, honestly and frankly) he can be hurt/upset that people expects him to be loud about it all the time (because of his Leo/Aries) when he does thing in very private/subdued sort of way (which is more his style) 

There’s a duality to him, is what I’m saying. And what people expects of him isn’t always what he’s willing/feels like he wants to give. 

He’s capable of being a quiet, private and a shy person (Leo/Virgo). Yet at the same time people only sees him for the loud, shade-y and frank (Leo/Cancer) person that he is. 

Yes, he is both, but sometimes it can make the quieter part of himself feels like it’s swallowed beneath everything else as well.   

Loves for the hard-workers, those who shows perfectionist streak in themselves and for others around them. Appreciates fine-tuning himself and his skills into something sort of like perfection.

Although it takes some time to realize and he might be more into luxuriating/laziness. His Virgo Venus is in retrograde, which means his Leo/Aries combination makes him enjoy time off from work a lot more than his Virgo would’ve freaked out about. It might possibly be a good thing since he’s not prone to over-anxious/stressing himself out, but can lead to confusion on why he’s anxious at all.

Understanding and opening the opportunity to realize who he truly is (which is someone who likes productivity and constant progress) and disciplining himself to work consistently despite having a good balance of work/play might help this retrograde truly realize themselves. 

Oh and also, can be prone to jealousy quite a bit. Because of the abundance of Leo can make one crave a lot of attention, the Virgo often feels like they’re not ‘good enough’ when faced with challenges (in attention/affection/work/efforts) -- it’s not as if they seek to possess/obsess with the other person. 

But often they are a bit... insecure. Needs total devotion from their partner and to be reminded that they truly are loved for their quieter qualities as well. 

In terms of work he tends to push himself even harder to make up for this insecurity. Often times it leads to repressing even more of his water placements which aggravates his inner-frustration AT himself even more. (You can see how it’s a cycle he has to learn how to break by himself) 

Aspects:

Venus (Virgo) (R) - Trine - Jupiter (Taurus) 

Having his planet of social relation trine the planet of expansion/generosity makes him a very kind-hearted and often philanthropist person. 

Has a deep need/craving to give back into the world, wishes to help others and often take care of the livelihood of others beyond just monetary gains. 

Venus is in retrograde, he might find it harder to care/love himself and can overcompensate by giving too much to others in the mean time (Jupiter). 

Often has to do with orphanage, nursing home or domestic areas. Would look to offer services for those in need.   

Venus (Virgo) (R) - Square - Pluto (Sagittarius) (R)

Has a kind of...dependency on love-hate relationship. Might see this reflected inside of himself from his own inner tension, and therefore externalize it outwards into looking for similar dynamic from others as well. 

Although it’s slow to realize he does have to watch out not to be drawn to people just from his dynamic/chemistry with them. Often times he can ignore what his head and Virgo is saying just to ‘break free’ from ‘chains’. 

Desire something out of the ordinary, often times finds thrill in what’s ‘taboo’ (in this case, a dating ban maybe) likes secrecy and keeping relationships private to himself. At the same time, wishes to possess his partner. 

Scorpio Mars - 2nd Decan (Ruled by Neptune/Pisces)

An abundance of will power and energy, often times through activities. He feels the best when he’s constantly striving and practicing towards his goals.

I know people worry about him over-working, but honestly it would’ve stressed him out even worse if he was kept in the basement-- like, much much worse and lead to a lot more toxic behaviors. 

The fact that he has an over-abundance of activities in his schedule really helps relax his placement a lot. He’s much less prone to stressing himself out or putting himself down because of this. The never-ending rotation of members who support and gives him the opportunity to expand himself, grow from and challenge himself in also helps alot with regulating his placement. He has a lot of inner-tension and self-frustrations that just-- really thrives best when he can do something about it y know.

With his Virgo Venus making him seriously love productivity and his Scorpio Mars making him crave that constant activity Mark Lee STRIVES when he gets to do what he does best -- performing and being creative (Leo Sun/Decan in Moon) 

Not only is his Sun externalizing all his tension into productivity but with a Scorpio Mars, he should be able to externalize all his emotional tension here as well. 

It’s a balance, if you look at it like this: Mark only has Fire and Water signs in his chart. And most of the time it’s to a certain degree-- all three of each element.  

He possesses so much power from that, just a balance of power that’s overwhelming from both sides and not enough of access to let it all out y know? So while his Fire-signs might come out via his sun (easiest), his Cancer Mercury and Scorpio Mars might render his fiery side to become tinted in a more-- emotional manner than he realizes. 

What this means is that his heart might be concern with something but the way he says/speaks about things might come across differently. Often times in a better way. He can become a lot more sensitive/persuasive like ‘you shouldn’t do that because it’ll hurt xxx feelings’ or ‘don’t do that because it’ll hurt me’ -- his actions are more thoughtful and often times strategized to have the best outcome (more calm) with a developed Scorpio Mars. 

Again, his water mercury/mars will only help him best if/when they’re developed.

But often times they can act as if they’re in retrograde themselves if they’re still undeveloped (most likely) -- he acts like his water placement doesn’t exist and is only made up of fire.

Acknowledging how to speak about his emotions, and that he has a whole lot of it, and how to utilize his water placement better would help him realize he has an duality to him that would help his Virgo Venus (R) as well.  

In fact, 80% of his insecurities comes from this Virgo and Water-placements not being acknowledged properly. Learning how to use it, control it and expand on externalizing it would seriously help him (you can see in some instances where he’s clearly uncomfortable/hesitant on something, but resort to using his Leo placement for it instead) 

Talking about energy is so important when talking about Mars. Scorpio used to traditionally rule Mars (co-ruled alongside Aries) before being delegated to Pluto instead. Individual possessing Scorpio Mars in their chart has incredible auras around them whether they realize it or not. 

Often times it can be hidden or tinted in a softer light (Pisces Decan/placements in their chart) but once they turn ‘on’ to do something-- they often has a magnetic aura about them that draws people in.

Unlike Aries who externalizes outward, Scorpio externalizes inward (I know, its a weird thing to say/think about). The power they possess becomes a self-driven will and a challenge to do the impossible, they’re single-minded and often will stop at nothing to achieve what it is they’re set out to do. Obsessively tunnel-visioned sometimes when they get in a zone they feel most comfortable when they can work in isolation/on themselves. Of course this doesn’t apply to all Scorpio Mars-- it all depends on your other placement. But learning how to tap into similar energy/wave lengths as this can really help bring into focus how to achieve something no one else can do. 

Individualism and steadfastness in their goals/activity is important to them. They don’t like stopping nor do they like being ‘grouped’ in with other people. Often times they want to stand out, want to be acknowledged as a power house, wants to be big achievers and helpers through their own sense of self.

With Mark’s Leo/Aries placement his pride in being himself and who he is is already pretty big. With this placement, it’s even bigger. But it’s within reason isn’t it? If he possesses this much power in himself he wants it to be acknowledged. He wants it to be understood and to help others and maybe feared a little. But most of all he wants to be helpful to others.   

Aspects

Mars (Scorpio) - Opposition - Jupiter (Taurus) 

Wants to help others but often times has bad luck doing so. In fact, his action can be extremely clumsy and lack forethought. Has to be careful constantly not to do something out of line because he can get on the wrong side of the public pretty easily. 

Boys just wants to have fun, and yet at the same time he can be pretty hard-headed when it comes to accepting guidance/other people’s opinions. Understand that Jupiter rules higher education, which usually entails debates and discussions, if he’s unable to have a discussion with someone at the level Jupiter requires of him he can often be seen as a temperamental little kid throwing a tantrum most of the time. 

Mars (Scorpio) - Opposition - Saturn (Taurus)

Loses his patience easily, often very obsessive/possessive of someone or something only for a certain time before he drops it. 

Insecurities regarding himself and his own stability (income, activities, funds, etc.), craves a lot of emotional intensity/affection from others.

Doesn’t trust himself to actually have emotions or express them properly (due to Cancer/Virgo influence) but actually has so much of it. Likes to be affectionate at all times, yet at the same time he’s scared he’s going to annoy/want too much from someone. 

Wants a long-term Friendship Goals/Best Friend to be there through thick or thin, but often denies himself of this opportunity. Strangely enough he sees it as more of a fantasy to have long-lasting relationship than ambitious goals (worldly success is achievable, but a Best Friend who loves him unconditionally? Doubtful!)   

Mars (Scorpio) - Square - Uranus (Aquarius) (R)

Inner frustrations causes him to become stagnant and confused in himself. Leads to trying to externalize his fiery side even more and repress his emotional side. 

Incredibly stubborn (Scorpio and Aquarius are fixed) when he feels he is right, or that his insecurities are long-term pain in his side (when it’s easily solvable and he can do it because of his water placements)  

Acknowledging that he is so much more than just his goals and what he thinks of himself as, and letting others shape/shift him (influence his water side) would really let him see that he can be more. 

Sometimes, letting go of his control is the biggest issue for him. Since he can be pretty obstinate about himself (i.e. insisting that he’s a certain way without acknowledging he can be something else too.) 

Asteroids

Sagittarius Lilith Scorpio Chiron Scorpio Juno 

Conclusion

Just from looking at his asteroids alone, the key goal for Mark here is to 1. Acknowledge he has water placement/signs that aren’t bad for him at all (accepting his vulnerabilities - Scorpio Juno) 2. Learn from someone who values their independence and owns it, won’t let him control it and show him through positive optimism that it’s ok to be nicer to himself sometimes, he’s not compromising himself just by acknowledge/growing from others (it’ll help with being nicer to others too - Sagittarius Lilith) 

Plenty of potential to be vulnerable and soft, yet he hides it all behind a thick ass armor. Runs away from his own problems (personal self) through activities and keeping busy, yet at the same time craves that constant ‘buzzing activities’ in order to balance himself out. 

A pretty? Complicated person. I’ll probably dive more into it when I do his overview. As a first look into laying out Mark Lee’s chart, this does a good job of nudging into his potential and things he can work on in the future.

💕That’s it for ya boi Mark for now! I hope I can do him a little bit of justice, especially since we’ve just passed his birthday. I’m really hoping I can expand on his duality and how his Virgo/Water placements are working for him later in an overview. But this really gave me more questions than answers for now sdkjfnks If you have any questions/thoughts/opinions, feel free to send in an ask! I’ll be posting my usual svt series later, with Boonon in the works and Irene+Joy coming up next! Hope you look forward to it! 💕

[arcticdementor]

Guest-hosting for Rush on Friday, I mentioned the strange need of the right to virtue-signal to their detractors - as in the stampede of Congressional Republicans to distance themselves from their colleague Steve King over an infelicitous interview with The New York Times. Democrats never do this; Louis Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam declare that the Jews are pushing defective marijuana on black men in order to turn them gay - which would appear to be a prima facie slur on at least four Democrat constituencies: blacks, gays, Jews and potheads. Yet Clinton, Obama et al speak not a word against Calypso Louie.

There was another conservative virtue-signaling stampede over the weekend. A short video from the Lincoln Memorial went "viral" (notwithstanding its ubiquity, I'm keeping the word in scare-quotes because, like any other virus, this one should be contained): it purported to show a group of Catholic schoolboys in MAGA hats harassing an elderly Native American drummer. The lads were instantly identified as students from Covington Catholic High School, which I'd never heard of but is clearly the kind of tony white-privilege joint where they book Brett Kavanaugh to spike the punch at the gang-rape prom. So naturally social media instantly convicted them and moved on to the usual doxing and death threats. The school itself leapt to dissociate itself from its own pupils and threatened to expel them.

…

Yet, instead of a prudent skepticism, my former colleagues at National Review joined the stampede and decided to get way out in front of the story.

…

What's disturbing about this fake hate crime is not that the Twitter mob scented blood in its nostrils and went bounding after its prey, but that a big chunk of Conservative Inc piled on, as enthusiastically as the left. And Jay Nordlinger's finger-wagging about an "American disgrace" is absurd in its sanctimony: However you wish to characterize a professional tribal elder intervening in a showdown between upscale Catholic private-school pupils and "Black Hebrew Israelites", it isn't an "American" disgrace. An American disgrace is the declining life expectancy of white males due to addiction, or the collapse of the family in rural America, or a bipartisan political class admitting millions of unskilled illegal immigrants to the country so that MS-13 gangs are now a fact of life in suburban Long Island in order that the Dems can get voters and the GOP's donors can get cheap labor ...or any one of a ton of other "American disgraces" Conservative Inc doesn't talk about because it only takes to the field on the left's terms.

I talked on Rush last Friday about the folly, in philosophical terms, of always accepting your opponents' premises, even unto accepting and advancing the notion that "western civilization" is hate speech. How is that in the interest of even the most milquetoast and watery version of "conservatism"

But accepting not just your opponents' framing of the argument but their most repulsive totalitarian rituals is even worse. The Orwellian Twitterstorm is something utterly disgusting: It reduces man to a cyber-jackal, feasting on whatever prey is tossed in his path. I have argued, at some length, that you cannot have truly conservative government in a liberal culture. Culture is like air - it's all around, and you don't even think about it. So we live in an age of social-media feeding frenzies that can vaporize a fellow's Oscar-hosting gig or drive an unfortunate porn actress to suicide. There is nothing in the least bit "conservative" about such a world: It's like the young student in Milan Kundera's great novel of Warsaw Pact totalitarianism, The Joke, facing the party committee and wondering why none of his friends will speak up for him - except that it's now at Spaceballs Ludicrous Speed, and the respectable right cannot even bring itself to forgo the pleasure of getting played for saps. Every time.

[antoine-roquentin]

As long as South Korea existed, its politics had a division of the right-wing and the left-wing. By the early 2000s, however, the right-wing in South Korea seemed like old news, in a literal sense. Much of its subscribers were old people whose memories of the Korean War, communist terror and desperate hunger dominated their political decisions. As they did not grow up with democracy, they worshiped South Korea’s military dictators—foremost of whom was Park Chung-hee, who ruled for nearly two decades from the 1960s to 70s—as they would a king. In this sense, they could not possibly called “conservatives,” since the term, in its strictest interpretation, presumes a liberal democratic system. “Fascists” would be the more apt description. Korea’s right-wing was contemptuous of democracy, and favored dictatorship. They favored jailing “communists,” a catch-all stand-in term for any political dissident. 

But in the 21st century, the right-wing seemed like an old news. Twenty years after the peaceful democratization of 1987, it seemed that liberal democracy was the settled practice in Korea. Although the right-wing still wielded considerable force, they were aging and would fade away—or so Korea’s liberals thought. The liberals were riding high from the two consecutive terms of liberal presidents, Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, from 1997 to 2007. Of course, conservatism would continue to exist, but it would exist in a form that is more common in the advanced democracies: along the lines of the philosophical difference in terms of the proper role of the government, arguing over the proper size of the government, the appropriate level of taxation, regulation of corporations and redistributive policies, and so on. Even when the conservative Lee Myung-bak won the presidency in 2007, the liberals’ expectations for democratic governance continued.

It’s fair to say that Korea’s liberals were totally unprepared for what awaited them.

One cannot understand today’s Korea without understanding the internet. Until the 21st century, Korea was a middling, anonymous country. When placed among the numerous names of the world’s countries, Korea was a blank: not rich enough to command attention, not poor enough to arouse sympathy. Even the most seminal event in modern Korean history—the Korean War—is considered the “forgotten war.” Internet is what propelled Korea into the forefront of the world in the 21st century. Having seen the potential of high-speed internet earlier than just about any other world leader, Kim Dae-jung embarked on a massive project to equip the whole Korea with fiber optic cables during his term. This is perhaps the most underrated achievement of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning president. The result is the Korea of today: world leader in smartphone technology, cities constructed as a technological marvel, a major generator of the popular culture optimized for the digital age. So it shouldn’t be surprising the new breed of Korea’s young right-wing rose through the internet. What was surprising was just how retro these young right-wingers were.

The “new right wing” traces its origin to the website called DC Inside. Established in 1999, it was originally a message board to discuss the latest trend in digital cameras. (The site’s name means “digital camera inside.” It had a now-forgotten sister site called “Notebook Inside” that discussed laptops.) Soon, however, DC Inside organically grew into something else entirely. Reflecting its origin as a digital camera site, DC Inside had numerous “Galleries”—a themed message board in which people gathered to talk and, more frequently, engage in the earliest form of internet message board flamewar seen by the humankind. Particularly insane were the DC Baseball Gallery and the DC Comedy Gallery, where gladiatorial fights opened nightly to attract the amused onlookers.

The influence of DC Inside on Korea’s internet scene in the early part of the 2000s cannot possibly be overstated. DC Inside was the birthplace of every internet trend and meme. From the fires of the vulgar keyboard wars, a comedic gem would emerge. Such gem of a meme would spread into other major Korean websites, and eventually made their ways to newspapers and television. You might recognize this type of site—it’s Reddit, with Galleries being Subreddits. Reddit was once described as the “dark, unruly id of the internet,” but DC Inside was the OG of that description, as DC Inside is at least six years older than Reddit. (Note: Remember how I keep saying Korean politics is a five-year preview of US politics? Keep this in mind.)

DC Inside always was a cesspool, but even there, some truly deranged minds distinguished themselves with their over-the-top cessiness. Many of them gravitated toward DC Inside’s Comedy Gallery, then in 2010, separated themselves into their own message board site. There, they collected the most fucked up jokes, photoshopped images and gifs, and voted to choose the “best” material of the day. Thus, the site was known as the “Depository of the Daily Bests,” or Ilgan Best Jeojangso [일간베스트 저장소]. Over time, this site came to be known as the acronym of the first syllable of the first two words: Il-be.

For Korea’s young right wing, Ilbe was the demented internet version of the Viennese salon. At the first encounter, Ilbe would appear to be little more than a collection of destructive attitudes. The core of such destructive attitudes was self-loathing, in which Ilbe users wallowed and reveled. In their own telling, Ilbe users were aware of their own ugliness—the awareness which gave them a position of moral superiority in a twisted way, because everyone else who didn’t own up to his ugliness was a hypocrite. With this distorted moral license, Ilbe users engaged in a constant, nihilistic quest to create the most offensive contents possible, which in their minds would expose the hypocrisy of the rest of the Korean society. Violent misogyny, homophobia and racism were Ilbe’s mainstays. 

It was only a short time before Ilbe as a whole began taking on a discernible political stance as they sketched out their identity based on self-loathing nihilism. After all, all politics is identity politics. As they hunted for the sacred cows of Korean politics, they latched onto the most sacred one: Korea’s democracy. For the nihilistic youth who wanted to destroy the legacy of their father’s generation, there was no better target. Rejection of democracy was perhaps Ilbe’s only clearly stated political goal: the “downvote” button on Ilbe’s site was called “democratize.” This made Ilbe’s politics take on a curiously retro character—curious because while Ilbe’s political gaze looked backwards to pre-democracy Korea, it did not look at the same direction as Korea’s older right wings. The hero of Korea’s older right wing was Park Chung-hee, the authoritarian who (in their minds) defended South Korea from the communists in North Korea and delivered the country from desperate poverty. But the hero of Ilbe was Chun Doo-hwan, the authoritarian who succeeded Park Chung-hee—because Chun is most prominently remembered as the one who massacred hundreds of democratization activists in Gwangju in 1980. For Ilbe users, the ability to kill the liberals was more important than the authoritarian economic development.

Recall that Korea is the world’s first wired society. Korea had cyberbullying and doxxing before the rest of the world even knew what cyberbullying and doxxing were. Korea had the world’s largest social network service long before Facebook entered Mark Zuckerberg’s imagination. So it shouldn’t surprise you that Korea had the world’s first alt-right, long before there was such a word “alt-right,” because it is impossible to conceive of alt-right without the internet. Ilbe users were the world’s first alt-right, in that it foretold central characteristics of all the alt-right movements that would come. To put it diplomatically, they were disaffected young men who, disillusioned by the establishment politics, sought refuge in the idealized version of the past. To put it more straightforwardly, they were fuckheads who indulged in their worst tendencies online, to create a type of politics that is little more than a tool for nihilistically causing pain.

And boy, did Ilbe cause pain. In the decade of conservative rule began in 2007, Ilbe gained enough strength to be one of Korea’s largest websites by 2012. Ilbe became a social phenomenon, the fountainhead of noxious ideas from which Korea’s conservative politicians gathered their talking points and spread their own. When the Sewol ferry sank in 2014 and created the greatest political crisis that Park Geun-hye faced (at least until the Choi Soon-sil scandal broke,) Ilbe took the forefront of the unbelievable task of making the parents who lost their children in the sunken ship as greedy money grabbers. In the most disgusting political theater I have ever seen in my lifetime, hundreds of Ilbe members gathered at the City Hall Square, where the parents of the Sewol ferry children were engaged in a hunger strike, to start a “gluttony strike”: eating fried chicken and pizza to taunt the parents who had been starving for days. Ilbe’s negative influence peaked toward the end of 2014, when an Ilbe user bombed—bombed!—a leftist Korean American speaker, injuring three members of the audience.

Ilbe put Korea’s liberals completely at a loss. Never in their wildest imagination could they conceive that Korea’s youths would so actively reject democracy itself. Liberals—what else?—wrote a number of books and articles, trying to process what is happening. Some blamed themselves: Park Ga-bun, in his book “Ilbe’s Ideology” [일베의 사상], claimed Ilbe’s hostility to democracy resulted from the failed promises of democratization and the civic movements. Others tried to re-affirm their liberal values, such as freedom of speech. Law professors like Park Kyung-shin of Korea University and Hong Sung-soo of Sookmyung University offered pieties about how even Ilbe members had the right for free speech.

As it turns out, Korea’s liberals were even less prepared for Ilbe than they thought they were, because they simply lacked the imagination to fathom the lengths that Korea’s right-wing would go to destroy them.

Park Geun-hye administration was a lame duck almost from the beginning. Just days before the 2012 presidential election, an agent for the National Intelligence Service—South Korea’s spy agency—was discovered in a small room in Seoul, adding internet comments that criticized liberal politicians. It was big news that came too late in the election cycle; eight days later, Park Geun-hye squeaked past Moon Jae-in to become the sixth president of the Republic of Korea in the democratic era. The Park administration spent its first year fending off charges of a rigged election. After a year of investigation, the facts revealed by the end of 2013 was enough to shock the conscience. Since 2009, in the middle of the Lee Myung-bak presidency, the NIS ran a “Psychological Warfare” division whose sole task was to attack South Korean liberals. The 70 or so agents in the Psychological Warfare division were professional internet trolls. They wrote posts on major websites, and upvoted or downvoted posts. They spammed comments until every major news story comment board was filled with their comments. They fired out more than 1.2 million fake tweets. All of these were about Korean politics, praising conservatives and attacking liberals. All of these were in foul, vulgar language—the screen name for one of the NIS agents, for example, was “Decapitate Lefties” [좌익효수]. 

Four years later the Park Geun-hye administration fell, through an utterly irrational scandal involving a shaman’s daughter. The incoming Moon Jae-in administration re-opened the NIS investigation—whose findings are so staggering that it defied belief. 

The government actively created contents to damage the liberals. The NIS consulted psychologists to create the most damaging and humiliating photoshopped images of liberal politicians and activists. The most prominent example was the photoshopped mixture of Roh Moo-hyun’s funerary photo with a koala, designed to derisively undermine the last president’s dignity without quite stepping over the line. The Blue House also fed narratives: when the parents of the children who died in the Sewol ferry began their hunger strike, the internal Blue House memo said “take out Moon Jae-in, claim he is assisting suicide, politics of death.” 

Other damage to liberals was more direct. The Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye administrations blacklisted liberal-leaning celebrities, making sure they could not appear on television. The NIS even had a timetable; an internal memo titled “Expanding the expulsion of left-leaning talents from MBC,” several celebrities such as outspoken rock stars like Yun Do-hyeon and Shin Hae-chul were specifically named, with the date on which they were to be taken off the air. The government also threatened advertisers, making sure that these celebrities could not appear on their commercials. The NIS also directed a GamerGate-style attacks against liberal celebrities, using its troll army to spread false rumors about drug use. 

The government also created Korea’s right-wing media. Not assisted, not subsidized, created it out of thin air. In 2009, the Lee Myung-bak administration tapped Byeon Hee-jae, a pathetic gadfly whose only claim to fame until that point was being called “a gadfly no one ever heard of” by a prominent liberal commentator, to start an online publication called Media Watch. The NIS under the Lee administration paid the seed money for Byeon to start his website. Then the Lee administration pressured corporations to buy advertisements on Byeon’s site, and also ordered government workers to sign up for Media Watch’s paid subscription. Park Geun-hye administration, for its part, pressured Naver—Korea’s analogue of Google—to bury the bad news stories from search results.

The conservative government also subsidized right-wing civic groups, using them as extra-governmental political weapons. Lee and Park administrations paid veterans groups, who in turn paid to carry in busloads of old people from the countryside to stage massive political demonstrations in Seoul. (These included the “counter protestors” to the Candlelight Protests that brought down the Park Geun-hye administration.) Again, the government simply told these civic groups what to do. Following the government’s direction, these civic groups petitioned to keep out former president Kim Dae-jung from the National Cemetery upon his death, and engaged in a letter-writing campaign to Norway to somehow cancel Kim Dae-jung’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Taken together, it was not simply that the conservative government added some trolling firepower Korea’s right wing with fake comments and tweets. Rather, the conservative government was the entire game. The conservative government created political storylines, fed them to the right-wing media that the government itself created, used the right-wing civic groups to repeat them—until they became the mainstream opinion. The dissident voices were harassed, defamed, fired, and silenced, through pressures applied to media and search engine sites.

From start to finish, the conservative government managed the entire process that created a political narrative. And the biggest beneficiary, of course, was Ilbe, Korea’s most heavily trafficked right-wing website. Ilbe was the testing tube that the NIS used to see what humiliating meme would work the best to attack the liberals. Ilbe was the never-ending wellspring of right-wing troll army, who swarmed the left-leaning celebrities the NIS directed them to attack. Ilbe was where right-wing storylines were amplified, giving clicks to right-wing media and serving as a meeting ground for right-wing groups. For all of its vile, outrageous actions, Ilbe was shielded from consequences—the Park Geun-hye administration gave the Ilbe bomber a suspended sentence while deporting the Korean American speaker.

A gardener does not bear a fruit; the tree does. But the manner in which the gardener fertilizes the grounds, prunes the branches and pollinates flowers, determines the type and quality of the fruit that the tree bears. Even without the conservative government, Korea may have developed an alt right; but the type and quality of that alt right would have been different. Without the efforts by the Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye administrations to nurture it with money, and mainstreamize its voices, Korea's alt-right certainly would have been smaller, its vileness less pronounced and more firmly rejected by the rest of the Korean society. It was the conservative administrations that raised Ilbe, to harvest the most toxic fruit. Korea’s alt-right, the first alt-right of the world, was a government start-up.

the author claims Reddit as the best American parallel to Ilbe, but 4chan would probably be a better one. 

incidentally, the founder of Encyclopedia Dramatica, girlvinyl, worked at a high level position in the National Nuclear Security Administration at the time she founded the site. part of her job was to work with counterintel agents.