#do i think that this face censorship was executed as well as it could have been? nah.

[bidokja]

I was joking a while back that the actor they have playing KDJ for the orv movie was too handsome for him and a friend who's read orv was like "KDJ is actually secretly attractive!!" And I just felt my soul leave my body right then

SIGHS...

Okay. Buckle in. I'm gonna finally actually address and explain and theorize about this whole...thing.

I'm not gonna cite any exact chapters cause it's like 11:30 and I've got an 8 hour drive in the morning but I'll at least make an approximate reference to where certain things are mentioned. Also, this post is just my personal interpretation for a good bit of it, but it's an interpretation I feel very solid about, so do with that what you will. Moving on to the meat of things:

There is one (1) instance in the web novel that I know of which describes specific features of Kim Dokja (especially ones other people notice). This takes place when members of KimCom are trying to make Kim Dokja presentable to give his speech at the Industrial Complex (after it's been plopped down on Earth). This is when they start really paying attention and focusing on Kim Dokja's appearance since they're putting makeup on him; I still don't think they can interpret his whole face, but they can accurately pick out and retain more features than usual. If I remember correctly they reference him having long eyelashes, smooth skin, and soft hair. These features can be viewed as (stereotypically) attractive.

Certain parts of the fandom have taken this scene and run with it at a very surface level, without realizing (or without acknowledging at the very least) that this scene is not about how Kim Dokja looks. This is, in part, due to not realizing or acknowledging why Kim Dokja's face is "censored" in the first place, and what that censoring actually means. I think it's also possible that some people are assuming the censorship works like a physical phenomena rather than an altered perception.

I'll address that last point first. The censorship of Kim Dokja's features is not something as simple as a physical phenomena. It's not a bar or scribble or mosaic over his face. If that were true it'd be very obvious to anyone looking at him that his face is hidden. But his face is not hidden to people. They can look at him and see a face. If they concentrate on his eyes, they can see where he's looking. They know when he's frowning or grinning. They see a face loud and clear. But what face are they seeing? Because it's not really his, whatever they're seeing.

No one quite agrees on what he really looks like. And if they try and think about what he looks like, they can't recall. Or if they do, it's vague, or different each time. We notice these little details throughout the series. Basically, Kim Dokja's face is cognitively obscured. Something - likely the Fourth Wall, though I can't recall if this is ever stated outright - is interfering with everyone's ability to perceive him properly. This culminated in him feeling off to others; and since they don't even realize this is happening, they surmise that he is "ugly."

Moving on to the other point about what the censorship means: To be blunt, the censorship of his face is an allegory for his disconnect from the "story" (aka: real life, and the real people at his side). The lifting - however slight - of this censorship represents him becoming more and more a part of the "story" (aka: less disconnected from the life he is living and the people at his side). The censorship's existence and lifting can represent other things - like dissociation or depersonalization or, if you want to get really meta, the fact that he is all of our faces at once - but that's how I'd sum up the main premise of it. (The Fourth Wall is a larger part of the dissociation allegory, but that's for another post).

So you see, them noticing his individual features isn't about the features. It's not about the features! It doesn't matter at all which features got listed. Because they could describe any features whatsoever and it would not change the entire point of the scene. Because the point isn't what he looks like. The point is that they can truly and clearly see these features. For the first time. They are seeing parts of him for the first time. Re-read that sentence multiple times, literally and metaphorically. What does it mean to see someone as they are?

This is an extremely significant turning point dressed up as a dress-up scene.

---

P.S. / Additionally, I'm of the opinion that Kim Dokja is not handsome, and he is not ugly. He is not pretty, and he is not ghastly. Not attractive, nor unattractive. Kim Dokja isn't any of these things. More importantly, Kim Dokja can't be any of these things. The entire point of Kim Dokja is that you cannot pick him out of a crowd; he is the crowd. He's a reader. He's the reader. Why does he need to be handsome? Why must he be pretty? Why is him being attractive necessary or relevant? He doesn't, he doesn't, it's not. He is someone deeply deeply loved and irreplaceable to those around him, and someone who cannot even begin to recognize or accept that unless it's through a love letter masquerading as a story he can read. He is the crowd, a reader, the reader. He's you, he's me. He's every single one of us.

[jezabatlovesbats]

My brother and I reacted to Elf on the Shelf: An Elf’s Story. Here are our notes.

The quality is the same as we remember. 

How do you become a scout elf? Is it like the space ranger academy? Is there, like, military-style elf training?

“A special case?” (Cut to PlainRock destroying an elf on the shelf box.)

We elves can see everythiiiiig… so be nice!

He thought this has the same animation quality as PMATGA and Free Birds.

A letter falls off… and then it’s just PlainRock’s name.

Do ALL special cases just fall off the mail stack like that?

What if there was some kind of badge or something that indicated your rank as an elf? 

Chippey is willing to potentially sacrifice himself… 

Why does Santa’s beard look like it’s solid? 

So Santa gives the assignments? Do they even have resumes?

Then, he proceeds to cut the line.

Also, all the background elves look like copy-paste NPCs. 

Is not having belief in Santa a touchy, taboo subject to bring up here? I’d assume so.

How did literally everyone hear that? Do elves have supersonic hearing? Then again, when I was younger, I believed our elves could hear everything I was doing. 

I’d be terrified if I went through that shipping process. 

The original elf on the shelf book was published in 2005. What was supposedly the situation before then? 

What if that slide jump thing missed? Would the elves get seriously injured? 

And then he gets flung onto a doorstep?!

“It came! It came!” That means they ordered it. But according to this lore, Santa and his whole North Pole setup is actually real, so how did they? 

My brother says that either the twins ordered it themselves, or the parents are really good actors. But then, how did the twins find out what it is?

He also says that Taylor has a severe case of Tom Holland face. Also, according to the back of the box for this special, he’s 9.

He’d love to name his elf Stinkypants. Or Shredder. Or Ripjaw. 

“Your name is Sh*tbag. Now fly.” “No, mom! Don’t let his name be Sh*tbag!” 

This whole special, but with unnecessary censorship (like in those videos). 

If this special came out today and Taylor had an Xbox with a mic, it would be way different. 

Ooooh… it’s one of those singing things…

“Princess is nice.” Drag Queen Chippey when?

Can you imagine if he’d actually been named Dazzle McNoodle, Bergoopuff Special, or Fruity McNooty? 

If you named him Skeeter, he probably would’ve turned into an elf version of Mater. 

Taylor in this moment: “Eh, screw it. If I’m gonna have this thing spying on me, I might as well treat it with respect.” “What about Chippey?”

“Buddy…” If Elf hadn’t come out years prior to this, there wouldn’t have been a joke to make here. 

They stole this kid’s idea. A “Thank you, Batman! Your ideas are the best!” moment.

If an elf dies in the house, would the kids think its corpse is watching them? Would they even know? 

How does he know about the magic-flying? Did other scout elves tell him and other newbies about all this? 

Same vibe as, “Go, web! Fly! Up up and away, web!” 

That photo implies that the real Santa took time out of his busy life to go to a random Macy’s in the middle of some northern state. 

“Time to report to Santa! He’s gonna love hearing my plan!” (later…) “Okay, Santa, here’s how we execute him…”

My brother says Smash at Snowflake. (But how old is she?)

How fast do the elves fly? 

We imagined our youngest brother’s elf telling his name to the other elves and getting bullied for it. 

“What’s your name?” “I’m Sonic!” 

Every elf turns in his direction, and it cuts to them beating the hell out of him. “HAHAHAHAHH LOOOOL! IMAGINE BEING NAMED AFTER A CRINGY FRANCHISE WITH A CRINGY FANBASE!” 

“We’re on our way to snitch on our kid to Santa for the first time!”

They’re ice skating… on snow??

You can just tell when the commercial breaks would be in this. 

Then he proceeds to get back to doing Toy Story stuff. Like, Elf on the Shelf is pretty much like Toy Story, but much more Christmas-flavored. 

“Do you see him? Where could he be?” And then they look in their garbage can.

“Oh, no! The dog got him!” 

“We don’t know where he landed after coming back from the North Pole!” “Ooooh… about that… I saw him, and then I threw him in the washing machine.” 

“Maybe you could try roasting chestnuts on an open fire.” Do people even do that…? 

He squeaked when being poked. He’s made for the dog.

“Do you have anything you’d like to say about Christmas?” “Oh, let me begin. Number 1: Whoever picked up that peppermint stick on the street, that was mine. I want it back. Number 2: I know what everyone was thinking when that running of the reindeer happened, BUT THAT WAS NOT ME. THAT WAS FREDDIE. Number 3: JINGLES, YOU STILL OWE ME SIXTEEN BUCKS!” 

“Tell us what it’s like to have Christmas magic!” “You’re too young to know, kids.” 

Infinity War had nothing on the moment with Taylor touching Chippey. 

If it were me and my brothers, they would’ve tried to pull me and my finger out the way. 

You probably knew this was coming- “Mr. Claus, I don’t feel so good…”

Wait, so how were elves perfectly up and kicking BEFORE they got their magic? Is magic their lifeblood now? 

So they’re not even wearing, like, any hospital gowns or anything? 

That reminds me- when I was 6-7, I had Hello Kitty and the other Sanrio characters run a hospital/health department called the CPA. What did it stand for? I have no idea.

Yeah. The doctor says he’ll be better by the next morning. I feel it would’ve hit harder if he took a day or two off to recover. Then, that way, Taylor probably would’ve regret his choice more and had more time to reflect on it. Oh, god… WHAT HAVE I BECOME?!

The background elves. THEY’RE ALL THE SAAAME! 

“I wonder if Christmas will still come.” People who celebrate it can do it without elves. 

Dear Santa, just kidding. I believe in you. All I had to do to regain belief was commit what was probably a crime against Chippey’s life. 

It’s pretty nice to see Santa in casual outfits.

He could’ve faked that letter, and Chippey could have believed it. (But if he did, his magic wouldn’t have come back… I AM QUESTIONING THE LORE OF A SPECIAL MADE TO SELL BEHAVIOR BAIT FOR KIDS.) 

“Chippey, I’m so sorry. It didn’t even feel like Christmas without you.” What about carrying Christmas in your heart like Santa said earlier? Also, like I said, if you celebrate it, you can do it without an elf in your house. 

This is a family of theater kids. 

Santa doesn’t go down a chimney here. He just kinda poofs in and out, which is honestly a clever way for him to save time. 

[potteresque-ire]

Gg,

I’ll say this using the simplest way too. I’ll also say this, knowing it doesn’t solve anything ~

You didn’t start the culture of comment control (控評) and the fan circles that execute them, which stifled any rational discussions about entertainers. You didn’t start the culture of treating constructive criticisms—even opinions that fall short of being praises—the same as malicious slandering, something to be buried under a pile of positive comments, of rainbow farts. You didn’t start the longstanding frustrations among netizens, who felt they couldn’t even gossip freely when entertainment is all about the gossip. You didn’t ignite the antagonistic views of non-fans against fans that would one day turn into support for that movement against you.

You didn’t criticise fan circle culture on one hand, and encourage the practice of comment control on another. You didn’t tie the act of comment control to patriotism, didn’t mobilise fan circles to perform comment control on message boards in support of the Hong Kong police in 2019, taking advantage of the fan circle’s high level of organisation, their experience in performing such task, and their intense need to be seen as patriotic such that their idol will be viewed favourably by the government. You didn’t praise these fans who were there for their idol 阿中哥哥 (Chinese GeGe) — a virtual idol who personified the Chinese government—and called them patriotic. 

You didn’t make performative patriotism a pre-requisite for entertainers to survive in c-ent. You didn’t require performative patriotism to be placed above logic, above personal preferences in expression. You didn’t portray performative patriotism as a goal sufficient to justify any means. You didn’t teach impressionable young fans that as long as the cause was deemed by the powers-that-be as patriotic and honourable, one can ignore the laws, scale the Great Firewall and go to otherwise banned websites; one can cause havoc on and trample on their perceived enemy’s communities. 

You didn’t equate silencing one’s opponent with patriotism.

You didn’t market reporting culture as an honourable, noble deed. You didn’t resurrect reporting culture from its Cultural Revolution’s grave, with the knowledge that it had always been a weapon against people expressing different opinions. You didn’t ask your media arm to pen articles about the rewards to be made by reporting. You didn’t list the people who had reported on your official website like they had made honour roll. You didn’t make reporting so open, so righteous-sounding that many didn’t think twice to join the effort, even if it was only about a piece of fiction they didn’t like.

You didn’t make reporting of certain content on a website sufficient grounds for censoring an entire website. You didn’t make censoring a thing. You didn’t censor one of the few remaining websites left with relatively free expressions, while the rest of your team was already performing heavy-handed censorship on a certain pandemic—a certain pandemic that had killed, that had brought much anger, sadness and frustration. You didn’t put a chokehold on people who had already felt they had no room left to talk, when they were bound to their homes and could do little but talk. But vent.

You didn’t create a system where venting against the powerful could get one into trouble. You didn’t marry the politically powerful with the commercially powerful. You didn’t build the society where the few people left with perceived higher social status and who could still be attacked with little consequences were entertainers—especially young, recently break-through stars with little backing from the media companies, and the commercially and politically powerful people behind these companies.

You didn’t start 227.

The moment the axe fell on AO3, Gg, there was very little you could do, very little you could say. 227 was indeed an explosion, from too high a pressure from freedoms of speech that have been too strangled. They said you were mute? So were the theys who called you that, who didn’t have the guts to take their complaint to those who deserve it. You became the eye of a storm you didn’t brew, the eye that could’ve been anyone else—anyone else who wouldn’t have known better what to do. 

Offer guidance? Exactly what kind of guidance? Tell your fans that AO3, which does host material offensive to the Chinese government, has the right to remain inside the Firewall? Tell your fans that reporting is wrong? 

Is your guidance asking the solo and cp fans to keep their peace? Fans fight. Solos and cpfs fight. These fights happen on a daily basis, and there would’ve been no 227 if they were the cause of 227—because everyday would’ve been a 227. 227 became 227 because one of these fights, which happened to be between your fans, also happened to have knocked upon one of the most important pillars that prop up an authoritarian dictatorship: suppression of the freedom of speech; it stumbled upon what had already been a field of landmines, the buried anger of the people who have been silenced, censored over the years.

COVID put in a full, fresh layer of landmines, still buried shallow and waiting for inexperienced youngsters—who could be fans or non-fans, fans of any idol—to trip over their sharp corners.  

These days, people call the youngsters who tripped over them the shrimps.  One explosion triggered another and in the din, you were accused of not warning the youngsters, and thrown into the exploding field for punishment. To set off all the other landmines in danger of exploding. No one asked why the landmines were there. 

Appropriately, perhaps, or ironically ... have you thought about this, Gg? That your silence might have played a role to your survival in the industry, the support you’ve got lately from the state media? Because you took one for them, for those who created the storm and buried the landmines, who did all the things you didn’t do. Because you became a convenient punching bag for a country of 1.4 billion who needed something to punch. Because you took the blows gracefully and without complaint, didn’t utter a word that would’ve made obvious the instigator of the damage you’re now apologising for. You eased the guilt in the people doing the punching by having so many gifts they didn’t have; it must have given some people cold joy to land their fist on your gorgeous face. You’ve gritted your teeth and stayed silent even after the water armies, the yxh’s entered the scene, eager to feed on your corpse. The rot they smelled was the commercial value on you.

Have you thought about this, Gg, that you might’ve already performed the social responsibility implicitly demanded of you and in flying colours, by being the punching bag, the landmine sweeper? That when you promise to take more social responsibility in the future, that you may be asked to do something similar?

No one asked why the landmines were there. They’ll pile up again.

Yes, I’m frustrated. I read your letter and wanted to scream. I understand why you said everything you did, understand the realistic need to issue an apology and I respect and adore you, as always, for your maturity, your emotional intelligence. This letter is therefore neither a complaint nor a criticism against you; this is me, venting my frustration, from that half of me that knows painfully well that your letter is necessary and the right thing to do.  

Still, the other half of me wants to say your letter is utter nonsense.

Because your only mistake, Gg, is that you’re too likeable, and too likeable, perhaps, at the wrong time. You have too many fans who made all these issues you didn’t create so much more visible. You had too many fans at a time when COVID took too many victims, when the whole sociopolitical climate demands one voice and when every fan of yours is an individual with their own voice, their own likes and dislikes. You have too many fans who dearly love you but also require you to become a “public figure”—I’m putting this term in quotes as you did—a “public figure” who can help them decipher the conflicting messages the society is sending them re: the meaning, the responsibility of a fan, a “public figure” who, as you admit yourself, requires construction from Gg the Idol and Gg the regular person from Chongqing.

Gg the Idol and Gg the regular person from Chongqing who, you also said, require mutual acceptance. Gg the Idol and Gg the regular person from Chongqing who, therefore, must have significant conflicts—mutual acceptance isn’t necessary otherwise.

Who’s this “Gg the public figure” that will emerge? Or, what? How human will he/it be? How much will he/it still be you? Where are you going to be in this “public figure”?

And that’s the most difficult thought to endure this morning. To become a better self—you keep emphasising, as if you weren’t good enough, kind enough, courteous and respectful and professional enough to begin with.

A better self, may I ask, to who?

[cybernaght]

The Rebel/叛逆者: A Review of Sorts

After being only semi-invested in the Rebel, I ended up getting so into it in the final weeks of its release, I’ve shelled out on IQIYI premium just to get the final couple of episodes a few days earlier.

That’s right kids, it’s a Review of Sorts. Unfortunately, I could not find a translation of the novella the drama is based on, so will be looking at it as a separate entity. 

Most of this post is spoiler-free, however I have dedicated a few paragraphs at the end of it to discussing the final episode, as there are a few specific things about it I wanted to mention. There is a clear spoiler warning before that part.

If you don’t want to risk it, TL;DR version of this review goes something like this: Rebel is very decent, and positively one of the best things that I have seen to come out of China since I’ve jumped into that particular rabbit hole. It’s pretty well written, it’s very beautifully dressed and shot, and the cast is killing it. I thought it dropped the ball a little in post production, and I did not always love the pacing. Other than that, it’s incredibly decent, and well worth watching, unless communist propaganda really irks you, in which case stay very well away. 

I have been having many conversations with @supernovasimplicity​ all the way through watching this drama, so there are likely to be some thoughts here that are influenced by those. 

The story centers around Lin Nansheng, a struggling servicemen in the Guomingdang party. He has a great analytical mind, and absolutely no emotional capacity for his job. He has trouble handling violence, he is impulsive, he cannot speak to his superiors without bursting into tears, and has nothing even remotely resembling a poker face. And that is what makes this drama as enjoyable as it is. 

I don’t think Lin Nansheng’s journey would have been nearly as exciting had he started it from a place of competence. He botches up everything he touches because his big brain switches off the moment his emotions kick in. And so, when you see him grow in confidence, learn to control himself, learn to fake his smiles and compliments, you can’t help but feel a strange sense of pride. It also makes Lin Nansheng very likeable as a character for reasons other than Zhu Yilong’s ability to look like a bush baby.

It did take me a while to feel fully engaged with his performance - not because there is anything lacking in it, but just because it’s hard to be truly surprised by his choices after the exposure I have given myself to his work. That said, at about a half-way point I got charmed by him anyway, and there were quite a few scenes that were truly mesmerising. There were scenes where he broke out of the familiar mould of big unguarded eyes and fluttering wet eyelashes, and tried something that was not pretty: every time to a great success. I am hoping to see more of that in his future work. 

I really wanted to like the female lead, Zhu Yizhen, but unfortunately both the way she was written and the way she was performed by Tong Yao left me somewhat cold. It did not help of course that the screenplay ended up sidelining her at every turn, leaving her with very little personal agency. She was set up so interestingly, but in the end her sole purpose became being someone for Lin Nansheng to pine over. It is particularly curious from a perspective of meta storytelling: seeing how this is all centered around superiority of communism, which as a whole was, arguably, ahead of its time in the matters of binary gender equality.

The ensemble cast of the drama is stunning. Wang Yang came very close to  stealing the show at several points as Chen Moqun, somehow managing to make his rather unlikeable character interesting. I can say the same thing about Zhu Zhu who absolutely shined as Lin Xinjie, showing an incredible range and imagination in her performance.

The overarching story of the show is engaging, with some incredibly suspenseful elements; every narrative arc including a nice progression through it. As spy thrillers go, it was fairly well plotted. You could if you go looking for a few things that did not pay off in a satisfying way (notably, the Chekhov’s cyanide capsule), but you overall the story really was well told for the most of it. 

I did, however, feel like the pacing started to fall apart in the last quarter of the drama. Last episode in particular really did feel rushed, not just due to its pace, but also in a way it failed to pay off the final mission in any visible way. There will be more on that in the spoiler section of this post.

Important to note that The Rebel is a show made in Communist China in the year 2021. It does not ideologically side-step from the path that was laid out for it by that fact. Which is to say, it is, undeniably, filled with propaganda. Communists are the good guys, and if you think a good guy (or gal) is not a communist, they probably secretly are. With one exception of a friendly character who is not a communist, and whose fate we actually never find out. Curious, that. 

The Rebel is not a kind of a show where censorship-appeasing scenes are shoehorned in. It’s a kind of a show in which the main theme is Sacrifice For the Party.

Aside from the being the moral vector of the show, Mao’s gentle teachings explicitly help get Ling Nansheng out of prolonged depression following his injury, and almost annoyingly, this sat incredibly well with the character, as he was written. Lin Nansheng is conceived as this naive idealist who wants to be on the front line, who needs validation and support of others. His - and I can’t believe I’m saying this - his being disillusioned in his beliefs and choosing to join a party which includes people whom he likes and trusts makes sense. Him finding this one thing that gives him hope and letting it propel him into gaining confidence and competence makes sense. 

In many ways, the Rebel is a story of Lin Nansheng’s failure to become an antagonist within the world of the drama.

I have honestly spent this past couple of weeks pondering whether being well written makes political propaganda better or worse, whether the subtlety of it makes it more or less palatable, whether it’s enough, as a viewer, to be aware of it to shrug it off. Ultimately, this is not something I could or should make moral judgements on, but I do believe that it’s possible to acknowledge the fact that propaganda exists in the drama, and still appreciate it for a good piece of television that it is. 

That said, I am very well aware that me being kind of okay with it stems entirely from my own removal from the culture this is made in, and I am, perhaps, lucky to even have a choice as to whether I want to engage with a product which is, undoubtably, here to dress political ideology in fancy clothes.

I have, on the other hand, also seen many things in Russian media of the “Annexation of Crimea is Good Actually” variety and those make me feel very unwell, so feeling somewhat at ease with blatant political propaganda in Chinese media makes me the biggest hypocrite.

But, I digress.

Before we go into some specific plot-related things, I would like to mention that the Rebel has this weird dichotomy in which the production is sublime, and the post-production… not so much. The show very well shot. Every element of it sits perfectly together, not a single prop out of place, not a single extra underdressed, not a page of script not put to good use. It’s lit to perfection. It’s scored beautifully. So much of this show is just stunning.

And then… there is post-production. 

This is not even about bad CGI (and the CGI is, indeed, bad), it’s just that most of post-production as a whole feels rushed.

Starting with surprisingly imperfect editing, which at times just fails to make the scene flow together. The final line of dialogue would be spoken within a scene, and it would fade to black instantly without a single breath to indicate a full stop. A montage sequence would be created, but every shot within it condensed to a second, making it feel incredibly fast-paced when the effect should be the opposite. There would be a cut away from a speaking character and to the same speaking character from a slightly different angle, making it dynamic without any reason to do so. There are a couple of truly startling jump-cuts.

I did not speed this gif up. This is part of a romantic montage, edited like it’s a goddamn action sequence.

And of course dear old friend slowing down footage shot at 24FPS. Please don’t do this. You think no one notices - but we do.

There are other tell-tale signs of production rushing to the finish line: occasional, but very noticeable ADR glitches, very sloppy job done at sound mixing, which contribute to parts of the show feeling ever so slightly off.

It’s not unforgivable, but it does make me wish the same amount of care and efforts that went into shooting this drama would also go into it after it was all in the can. 

Oh, and just because if you know me you know I have a professional fixation on fights, and I am happy to say most action scenes are toe-curlingly delightful. Hot damn those fights are good. I am absolutely in love with the shot below, for example. Placing an actor behind a piece of set so he can exchange places with the stunt double during a one shot is such an old trick, but the execution, timing and camerawork are just... flawless. This is what perfection looks like.

Now we got all that out of the way...

SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES FINALE BELOW

Here’s the thing. I wanted to love the ending and I found that I could not.

The final mission was presented as important, and honestly the scene in which Zhu Yizhen is sending the vital message out as Lin Nansheng holds his ground in hand to hand fight is incredibly dynamic. Party, this is due to the fight itself being incredibly well choreographed, yes, but it’s also where it sits within the narrative, how high the stakes are for everything surrounding it. 

But then, the tension all but bleeds out. The Important Message is sent, the fight is won, and we are treated to ten minutes of a very slow car chase, problem of which is not even its speed as much as its placing within the story. As in, by this point both of those operatives have lost their cover, and completed their Very Important Mission. It would be very sad if they died, but their survival does not technically contribute to their cause. Moreover, Zhu Yizhen getting mortally injured in order to protect Lin Nansheng as part of her mission read a little empty when the mission is technically over. 

While I personally found Lin Nansheng slow recuperation and his low key ending enjoyable, I think I would have preferred to have seen a more tangible pay-off to all the sacrifices made in the name of “bright communist future”, just a little more justification for every moment of death and despair we witnessed. I would have certainly at the very least preferred to see Wang Shi’an’s death on screen. Considering how many likeable characters martyred themselves on screen, denying us the death of the one antagonist just seemed cruel. 

I really did love the ambiguity of the final few scenes however, if we consider the children choir at the end a fantasy. The idea that Lin Nansheng will live out his life in this hope that Zhu Yizhen is still alive, imagining her just outside of his field of vision, his only joy being in this fantasy of her… now, that is incredibly strong. I equally like the idea of rest being promised to him at the end of his journey, and said rest being painful, and slow and unwelcome.

But it felt like as they chose not to to lean into the “sweet” part of the bitter-sweet tone of the ending and we’re unable not commit to the “bitter” part either, so it lands with a splat which is somewhat lacklustre. 

---

This concludes my thoughts on the Rebel. 

I am more or less out of Zhu Yilong’s filmography to watch, which is probably a good thing at this point. I have just emerged out of several back to back work projects - literally today - and will hopefully once more have time for things I grew to enjoy doing during the lockdown. 

Those things, if you have not guessed, include watching Chinese television and writing things about Chinese television. 

[hoexian]

Let’s talk about the forest scene in ep25

I’m sure there has been a lot of talk about this scene, but I’m new to the fandom and I have many feels that I need to let out.

I have yet to watch all of The Untamed, but this scene might just be my absolute favorite of the series, and not for the reason you may think (“soulmate”) even though that’s an important part of it, of course.

This scene for me sealed the deal about their relationship. Not that I didn’t notice all the romantic ways in which they looked/touched/mentioned each other before of course, but in this scene I felt something different, especially from Wuxian. A new “awareness”, if I can call it such.

It is such a simple, yet meaningful and heartwrenching scene (in the best way). But let’s go with order.

Wuxian spots Wangji and his first instinct is that of smiling. Notice that it’s not just any smile, but a very sweet smile. This is very important because since he came back from the Burial Mounds, he hasn’t quite been himself and it’s rare to see him *actually* smile. 

He almost says Wangji’s name, but the word dies on his lips because he remembers the words of Xichen. But what are these words? 

“I hope you won’t be so self-centered since the people you care about will be affected by your actions.” 

Xichen basically told him “You’re doing something dangerous, I hope you do realize how this may affect the people you love.”

That’s what Wuxian thinks about while looking at Wangji. Not to mention, not long before this scene, he asked his sister “why would a person like another person (romantically)?” which was pretty out of the blue considering he *supposedly* doesn’t have anyone he likes and *supposedly* doesn’t see Wangji in a romantic way yet.

I think this may be the first time in the drama we come to know just how much Wuxian actually feels for Wangji, so much that as soon as he remembers Xichen’s words, as soon as he realizes he chose a path Wangji can’t follow and most of all, a path that he doesn’t want Wangji to follow because he could end up hurt, he immediately looks away and pretends he hasn’t seen Wangji.

Too bad Wangji has seen him. And his expression as soon as his eyes land on Wuxian tells a whole story.

The man is whipped. Like, really whipped. It feels like as soon as he sees Wuxian, everything else disappears. Of course, given the latest events, he’s also worried and conflicted. You can read all of it in his eyes. 

But we have seen these eyes before, because it is by now several episodes that Wangji looks at Wuxian with a longing that cannot be hidden.

So what is surprising about this moment, if we know that Wangji is in-deep already?

To me, what is surprising (and heartwarming and sweet and rainbows) is how Wuxian reacts to Wangji spotting him and immediately walking to him.

At first, he’s like “oh shit he saw me”, but then, when he sees that Wangji walks to him, that he approaches him on his own initiative, that he wants to be with him, Wuxian breaks the single smallest and softest smile we have seen him do so far.

This is not one of his cheeky smiles, it’s not one of his confident smirks. This is the shy, attempted smile of someone who is about to meet their crush. 

I’ve seen this smile before, both in real life and in a thousand millions movies, shows, you name it. It’s always this smile, the “I didn’t have the courage to approach you, but you’re the one approaching me now on your own initiative and this makes me so inexplicably happy”.

We’ve never seen Wuxian like this towards Wangji before. The scene that comes closest to this in terms of shyness/embarrassment due to a possible crush is when Wangji visited him in Nightless city after Wuxian woke up (oh boy, the romantic tension in that scene can be cut with Suibian!!).

Wuxian is still pretty oblivious to his feelings at this point in the story, probably he’s only just starting to wonder how he really feels about a certain someone, and this is the first time we see him react to Wangji as someone who likes Wangji romantically and not just as a friend. 

Now you might tell me “are you insane? it’s just a split-second smile!” but nope. Rewatch the sequence from the moment he first spots Wangji, follow every change of expression in Wuxian and you’ll get what I mean.

Now of course, Wuxian being Wuxian he only knows how to approach others with irony and sarcasm in order to hide his real feelings and inner turmoils, which is why the first thing he asks Wangji is about his duties back home. 

Wangji is much more straightforward, he’s a man of a few words so every single word needs to count, and that’s why he immediately mentions the music ritual, to which Wuxian reacts as he’s always done since he came back from Yiling: denial and frustration.

“Who am I to you? Can’t you mind your own business?”

This kind of banter is by now the standard between them. Wuxian says whatever comes to his mind, Wangji barely reacts, calls him boring or leaves, at best.

But this is when Wangji surprises him (and the audience), because for the first time (maybe too worried and frustrated about Wuxian’s situation to restrain himself) he dares to wear his heart on his sleeve and retorts: “Who am I to you Wuxian?”

These words are followed by probably the most poignant silence ever seen in the history of television (yeah im being dramatic about a drama, sue me!).

The question shakes Wuxian to the core. You can basically see his brain working just by looking at his face. He knows that’s not just any question – Wangji isn’t even looking him in the eyes. Wuxian knows how serious this is and how important that question is. Wangji would never ask something like this to anyone, but he’s asking him.

I think in this moment, not only he gets a clear peek into Wangji’s feelings about him, but he understands something more about his own feelings for Wangji as well. 

So it doesn’t come as a surprise when, after debating with himself whether he should just say the words or not, he simply says the oh-so-sweet truth:

“I once thought of you as my soulmate.”

But if it’s not surprising for the audience, it surely is for Wangji. And Yibo here gives us a perfect execution of someone whose heart just got caught in his throat. 

For someone who is always blank-faced and emotionless, Wangji’s lips and chin surely tremble a lot when he replies “I still am.” 

What’s even more surprising, is that Wuxian doesn’t seem to expect that reply, but when he looks at Wangji, he finds him still with his lips parted and that worried/yearning but firm expression on his face. “I still am, I am here for you and I will always be, you just need to let me in” he seems to say.

Which is probably why Wuxian looks at his flute next. Maybe he’s thinking that if it’s Wangji, he can tell him the whole story. Wangji would accept it, he would accept him.

When he looks up, Wangji’s gaze is unfaltering, lips still parted, probably waiting for a word from Wuxian, a gesture, anything.

This is when the romantic tension between these two reaches a level that is almost ridiculous and totally impossible not to notice. The way they stare at each other like there is nothing else in the universe but them, makes it feel like this scene lasted forever and a day, when it’s been barely a minute.

And I think this is where, if censorship allowed, there would have been a kiss. For sure. Without any doubt. This is it, this is the moment.

This is where acceptance sets in, for both of them. Sure, Wangji has long since accepted his feelings, but now he knows that Wuxian may feel the same. And Wuxian seems to reach a new level of awareness that seems to put his mind at peace about his feelings for the other man.

And that’s also why the writers decided to interrupt it so abruptly, because there was no way these two men would come out of this scene without some explicitly romantic gesture to seal their feelings for good.

correct me if I’m wrong?

[ouyangzizhensdad]

i meant white/western audiences are slow to understanding the subtext rather than asian fandoms, when i was a kid i remember most asian countries didnt even have "kiss scenes" in movies or dramas, for us the "subtext" was normal for straight couples too (I've seen a few white folks think cql is a story abt 2 straight friends). the issues with the poor production and it has shit production coz of the budget but the drama wasnt supposed to be a big hit. also like how u just made it the "idol drama"  as if most kdramas and cdramas arent full of idols. I mostly agree with ur cql fandom hate too but to me it seems like u sometimes just want to prove that cql is worse than it is just coz the fans it brought in. I dont blame u either, I've seen some shit metas and the cql fans who hate the novel and call the writer homophobic are also funny. What makes me irritated is that the amount of hate cql gets on here is equal to the amount of hate novel gets, when the drama made alot of things possible for asian LGBTQ audiences. This is the first drama that my gay asian friend (who isnt out) watched with his parents and got them to fall for all the ppl and support the couple. Novels have our imagination in them but dramas need to make a lot of ppl happy and also keep censorship at bay. for me personally cql seems like it made it possible for alot of closeted kids be comfortable talking abt a gay couple with their parents, as novels are limited to a fandom. (Like I've not read a single harry potter book but I've watched 4 of the movies 😚)

I'm not trying to attack u but I'm trying to tell u that just coz the drama brought in a shit ton of weirdos in the fandom it still helped alot more ppl than u can imagine...

Hi anon, 

One thing where we seem to be of a different opinion is that criticising cql as a work of fiction, or highlighting the political economic context surrounding it, in no way negates what it can mean for people. I personally consider that these are completely different matters. These things often have nothing to do with the inherent quality of a thing, or even how good “queer rep” it is--they are relative to people’s specific and personal experiences, or a particular moment in the media landscape. All the things she said holds special meaning to me because it was the first time I got to see two women kiss on tv and it felt revelatory. I vividly remember sitting cross-legged right in front of the tv and refusing to come eat until the end of the music videos--at a time when I could not articulate why I was so fascinated by it. I know that this song is still meaningful for a lot of queer people my age, even if many people hate it for being a straight gaze fantasy. Regardless of what it personally means to me, I’m not going to argue that the music video is a masterpiece, or be blind to the reason why the kiss was included in that music video. CQL is very meaningful to your gay closeted friend, and allowed him to discuss wangxian as a gay couple with his parents, and that’s absolutely great. But I personally think it’s a little bit far-fetched to suppose that the same couldn’t have been said of any other live adaptations of a danmei novel who didn’t shoehorn in a het romance: if the timing had been different, perhaps the first drama with romantic subtext between two male characters he would have seen with his parents would have been Guardians, or the incoming adaptation of TGCF. Hell, H2O was so popular that they might have just watched that one together as well, even if the subtext “romance” is between two side characters. 

Let me be clear as well that I am not trying to argue that MDZS is this groundbreaking piece of fiction wrt “gay rights” or queer representation in China that changes minds and sways public opinion. It’s one of many danmei novels--it just is one that has a lot of literary merit. I simply think it’s disingenuous when people in the western fandom claim that a subtext romance is better “representation” than a canon gay couple who get their happily ever after. CQL is more impactful because it is mainstream, but it does not mean the representation it offers is inherently better. It is also ridiculous sometimes because the hurdles faced by a danmei authors vs the government-backed media giants who benefit financially from putting out censored version of their stories is just..... not something that should be ignored in my opinion.

Asian audiences being more used to romance depicted through subtext does not, at least in my opinion, negate the power of heteronormativity or compulsory heteronormativity to influence readings of that subtext by a portion of the audience. Chinese people are absolutely creative and innovative in the ways in which they manage to circumvent censorship, but a webseries financed by a media giant is not going to be a transgressive attempt to pull the wool over the censors’ eyes--at the end of the day it needs to be a safe investment. 

You seem to suggest that I am hard on CQL for being an idol drama but do not bring the same criticisms to other idol dramas. I find this weird because it’s not like I’ve ever praised an idol drama, and I know I haven’t because I simply don’t think they are competent works of fiction (although sometimes the camera work and editing is at least competent, compared to cql where the production quality is kind of poor). The closest I’ve come to doing that is praising My Mister, which is not in any way an idol drama, but which I suppose features an idol (IU) in the cast. When I said the first jdrama I watched was Hana Yori Dango, that was not an endorsement of how good it was--because honestly it’s one hot mess barely held together by the chemistry between the two leads--it was just a statement of fact. 

I am very critical and judgemental, I’ll give you that, but I don’t think that equates to “hate”. Yes, most of my discussions of CQL sprout from existing discussions within the fandom. But most of my posts indirectly reference or respond to something I saw. What’s the difference between me addressing a common novel fanon and me addressing a common opinion on cql’s virtues? 

TLDR; a work of fiction being significant to people is something to recognise but it should not preclude being able to discuss that work critically, especially wrt how it executes its story since the inherent quality of the work as art has no direct correlation with its impact, be it on individuals or on a specific media landscape. Moreover, the impact of a work on queer people or on the social perception of queer people is not inherently proportional to how “good queer rep” it is: it has usually more to do with the context (ie people don’t remember Brokeback Mountain because it was the best movie with a gay love story ever made until then--there was more at play). 

[canchewread]

Editor’s note: this post is part of the Recommended Reading series here on Can’t You Read; an ongoing and evolving feature that combines an easy to swipe info-graphic, a short journal, and a link to an important related discussion I’d like to share with readers.

A Culture of Predation Can’t Stop Fascist Pig Violence

In the wake of the frankly surprising (but extremely welcome) guilty verdicts in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd, I’ve tried very hard to reign in my cynicism. After all, the conviction of a cop for murder “in the line of duty,” let alone a white cop who murdered an African American man with an impoverished background, is about as common as a goddamn unicorn fart, and on that account alone the verdict is worth commemorating, if not necessarily celebrating. 

While it would be unspeakably obtuse to suggest that the verdict represented some sort of positive justice, it’s also undeniable that many feel this moment may indeed be a starting point; a chance to at least begin to imagine what a positive justice for African Americans might look like. In particular numerous observers have pointed to the very public crumbling of the proverbial “blue wall” of silence, the fact that Chauvin’s fellow police officers passionately testified against him with the whole world watching, as a positive omen for the future of police reform.

Unfortunately I (and many other observers) have doubts about this position. I don’t mean to be a downer, but the truth is that nobody, not even immunized murderpigs and their commanders, can justify the horrifying video of Chauvin mindlessly executing George Floyd over the course of nine and a half minutes. Faced with the choice of openly embracing their own “little Eichmanns” in front of an outraged public, the Blue Meanies decided that ultimately it wasn’t worth protecting a fuck up like Derek Chauvin. The cost, both to his fellow thug cops, and the profession of policing as a whole, would simply have been too damn high to justify the reward. 

The sad and horrifying truth here is that if Derek Chauvin had simply shot George Floyd, instead of casually kneeling on his neck for almost ten minutes, he’d probably be a free man today; just like so many cracker murderpigs before him. Furthermore, even this smallest of concessions probably wouldn’t have happened without months of nationwide protests conducted under a state of constant assault by violent, openly rioting police officers. That last reality is certainly not lost on fascists and neoliberal authoritarians; why else do you think reactionary lawmakers are rushing to pass legislation that criminalizes mass protest against racialized police violence? 

Still, you can’t blame folks for hoping; hope can be a good thing if it gives you the strength and courage to continue a seemingly impossible fight for actual justice. Perhaps some long day from now we will look back on this moment and say “and the conviction of Derek Chauvin was the point when the wave ultimately broke, and the tide of cracker police violence finally rolled back” - even if it’s clear that these convictions, by themselves, do not have the power to enact the change we so desperately need. 

Where I can and will find fault however, is with those deluded and disingenuous souls who have used this moment to once again champion the doomed cause of police reform; blithely ignorant or willfully oblivious to the fact that police reforms already failed to prevent the murder of George Floyd, and so many others like him. The bald truth is that the current establishment movement towards police reform is about maintaining the power and funding of the very same violent uniformed thugs who’re murdering poor people on behalf of the capitalist state in the first place; that’s why nobody is talking about removing qualified immunity for police officers, and that’s why even some cops themselves are coming around to the idea of reform at this late a date. In many ways, the real importance of the movement to “Defund the Police” is that the mere threat of taking away the sweet filthy ducats that pay murderpig salaries has already shifted the carceral establishment’s position towards bargaining; albeit, in bad faith.

The road to neofeudalist hell is paved with dark intentions however, and what establishment reformers, even and perhaps especially those who’re prepared to acknowledge the fundamentally racialized aspects of police violence, aren’t prepared to discuss in the open is the nature and purpose of policing itself in a capitalist society. There is no public examination of why it is that we keep hiring folks who turn out to be violent white supremacists to be police; and there certainly will be no discussion about the ways class relationships intersect with race through the designed function of racialized policing.

Despite the pro-police propaganda you’ve been fed all your life to suggest otherwise, the vast majority of what police actually do in America is to protect the wealth, property, and feelings of affluent white people and the corporations they own. Far from solving major crimes and preventing violence, modern policing in the Pig Empire revolves around nuisance violations, so-called broken windows policing, and other methods of harassing poor people for minor infractions of the law; remember, the police encounter that lead to the murder of George Floyd started over the purchase of cigarettes and a dodgy twenty dollar bill. The reason murderpigs can get away with violently assaulting protestors and journalists who threaten the established order is because that is precisely what they’re being paid to do, and indeed what their predecessors before them have always been paid to do.

On the surface, this class and capitalism analysis may appear to create a tension with the narrative that white supremacy and racism are also driving the crisis of police violence, but that’s really just about the same old establishment spin. As I’ve discussed in numerous prior essays, you simply cannot separate capitalism from white supremacy, or even racism, because bigoted ideas are propagated and spread for the specific purpose of marking out certain marginalized groups for exploitation and highly-lucrative (for some) repression.

Do you want to know what systemic racism in policing really looks like? It looks like hiring murderpigs to repress the poor, knowing full well that due to centuries of slavery and exploitation, the nonwhite and particularly African American population will be vastly overrepresented in the targeted communities. It looks like a supposedly colorblind war on drugs, the ongoing use of demonstratively racist stop and frisk practices, and expanded powers for your community’s “gang squad” in pretty much any neighborhood that just happens to be predominantly Black. It looks like literally profiting from these practices in ways that are sometimes extremely brazen and obvious, but sometimes hidden from everyday sight; even if they’re hardly much of a secret. The fact that the police are ultimately enforcers for the capitalist ruling class, also makes them enforcers of the white supremacist order that capitalism is so dependent upon in our society; there is no contradiction involved here.

Look; you don’t get rid of fascist murderpigs and white supremacists in law enforcement by throwing more money at nazi cops. Joe Biden can summon up all the pretty words he likes, but you can’t address the racialized nature of police violence without fundamentally altering either the racialized nature of inequality in American life, or the very purpose of policing in our society; and he’s sure as shit not talking about doing any of that at all. Thus, no matter how surprised and hopeful I am after the Chauvin guilty verdicts, that sense of positivity is ultimately tempered by the realization that “nothing will fundamentally change” - and that includes cracker thug pigs executing unarmed Black men on camera.

Although they might finally be better than openly fascist Republicans, the Democrats still don’t have answers to the problem of racialized police violence because ultimately, they don’t have answers to the crisis of capitalism itself. It’s not a question of reform or changing the law; murder is already illegal, even if you’re a white cop. Inequality, and the security force violence necessary to maintain it, is a festering sore inside the American body politic, and there are indeed consequences for essentially ignoring a crisis now so obvious and enraging to the public at large. 

What kind of consequences? Well, let’s ask researcher and professor Temitope Oriola who provides one terrifying answer in the public journal, The Conversation:

“The United States is at Risk of an Armed Anti-Police Insurgency“ by  Temitope Oriola

Or, you know, we could just abolish the murderpigs first; your call really - but don’t expect Palooka Joe to be much help, either way.

- nina illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

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Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

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“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

[concealeddarkness13]

WHG 15 Imposter Syndrome Part 5

Tagging: @sparkles-and-hens, @knmartinshouldbewriting, @maple-writes (also thanks for Volt!), @pen-of-roses, @thoughts-of-nora, and @ratracechronicler (also thanks for Priscilla Cristal and Atwater!)!

I stared at myself in the mirror as my stylist put the finishing touches on the most ghastly costume I had ever seen. I glanced over at my stylist, who had a permanent sneer on his face. “A cow. Really?”

He waved his hand dismissively. “It’s not like you livestock people give me anything to work with.”

I glared at him. “How am I supposed to get sponsors like this?” I gestured at the full body suit of a cow, complete with a cow headpiece.

“Who cares? I didn’t sign up for District 10 anyway. They had to beg me to do it. You should be grateful.”

I snorted and started walking to the door. “Well, you should be grateful for this then.” I shot him double middle fingers before I slammed the door behind me.

This wouldn’t do at all. I would probably need supplies in the arena, so I would need sponsors. Which meant I couldn’t be seen in this hideous costume. I stalked the hallways, looking for either a stray stylist or some clothes I could steal.

The stray stylist showed up first. She (I think) was a sight with rainbow hair that stood a foot over her head and stiletto heels. Her lips thinned as she looked me up and down. “I see my fellow stylists are incompetent, as usual.”

I put on my best dramatic pleading expression: wide eyes, jutted out lower lip, hands clasped. “Please, you’re the only one who can help me. I bet your costumes are much better!”

She scoffed. “Begging doesn’t look good on you, dear.” Pause as I fix my face. “So, what would you want me to do about it?”

I winked, instead going for a jovial approach. “I bet you are better than my stylist. Would you happen to have something that would catch the crowd’s eye? It doesn’t have to be related to my district.”

“Of course it doesn’t.” She looked me up and down again and sighed. “You’re in luck. My district doesn’t want my idea anyway. How do you feel about pirates?”

I grinned. I was a pirate. “That sounds fabulous.”

She ushered me over to an empty changing room, and she commenced with getting me ready all on her own. It was a whirlwind, and she ran out afterwards, yelling that she had to go save my district mate from the same fate.

I grinned at my reflection. Much better. A black, slightly low cut tank top; skin-tight, black pants; knee-high, black lace up boots; a white coat that fastened around my neck so I didn’t have to put my arms through the sleeves; and a white tricorn hat. She had rushed an explanation that in the lights of the loading area and chariot presentation area, the white hat and coat would shine pastel rainbow colors. Just the right amount of flashy without being gaudy. I was ready now.

I wandered over to the chariot loading area, and just a few minutes after I arrived, Volt Powell and Atwater (I refused to call him by his first name for some reason) walked in dressed in the glorious costumes of a hen and a rooster. Shit. I probably would have looked similar. I shook with silent laughter until I could contain it and walked over to them with a grin. Aunt Reeves had known Volt and told me about her, and that Atwater fellow looked like he’d enjoy some mischief.

“Nice evening, isn’t it? I see some of us were more fortunate than others.”

Volt made a face. “You should be careful. Don’t want to waste your good fortune here, do you?”

I winked at her. “Ah, but I’d trade this costume a thousand times to stay near such a beauty.” I held out my hand. “Triel Reeves. District 10. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

“Reeves, huh?” She shook my hand firmly. “Volt Powell, District 11.”

I would have to ask her about her plots with Aunt Reeves. “Hmm. I might have some questions for you soon. But I don’t want to neglect Mr. Atwater over here.” I whipped around to him. “I must say, I was impressed by the string of curses coming out of your mouth before the Capitol cut away. It’s funny. They are fine with sending fucking children to their deaths. But cursing, on the other hand, is the evilest of sins.” I held out my hand to Atwater.

“They cut it?” He raised an eyebrow as his eyes focused on me. “Damn. Another victim of the Capitol’s tyrannous censorship.” He shook my hand. “Guess I don’t gotta introduce myself.”

“You’re that memorable. And your handsome face doesn’t hurt either.” I winked again. “I have a proposal for both of you which involves destroying the Capitol’s tenuous hold on the idea that they control everything. Would you two be willing to hear it?”

Volt crossed her arms and watched me before she shrugged. “Why not? Go for it.”

Atwater looked a little interested. “I’m listening.”

“I have an airship and a genius engineer who can sneak said airship into the arena to get as many tributes as possible out of the arena without the Capitol’s consent.” I eyed Volt. “I’m sure you’re familiar with airships and the not-so-legal side of things, and you know the captain and crew who taught me everything I know. I would be thrilled if you are interested. And even more thrilled if you would assist me in causing some malicious mischief against the Capitol before the plan is executed.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Really? Sounds like a stretch, doesn’t it?”

Shit. I should have known this would happen, but it still hit me like a blow to the stomach. But I forced my smile to not falter, even though my voice was shakier. “I’ve researched the Capitol and the arenas of the past. I even was able to get some information on blueprints for this arena from a reliable source. I-I even have a previous tribute on my side, and she knows all about what the Capitol throws at us in the arena.” Don’t think about how she basically told me to give up the last time I really talked to her. I cleared my throat. “I assure you, I have done everything I could to prepare. There won’t be any problems.”

“And what’s the catch?” Atwater’s voice was as smooth as silk, but there was something under it that didn’t sound so calm.

I shook my head. “Nothing! All I want to do is fuck with the Capitol and save people. Once we’re out of the arena, you can go wherever you want, no strings attached.” He snorted at that.

Volt sighed. “Trust me kid, just because you thought of everything doesn’t mean you really have.”

This was good practice for other dissenters. I just had to keep telling myself that as my hands grew clammy and I had to clasp them to stop them from shaking. “That may be true, but Captain Reeves made me work on improvising. I’ll be able to work with whatever happens.”

Atwater sounded pleasant when he spoke up. “I have only two questions. First: why the hell are you doing this? Second: how the fuck are you doing this? Specifically the escaping bit. They have force fields around the arena, by the way. And it’s guarded by a fleet of hovercrafts. In the middle of nowhere. And I’ve heard a nasty rumor they monitor what happens there on camera.”

Oh. I could answer those questions. “I’m doing this because I don’t particularly like the idea of children dying in the arena, and I’m planning on recruiting as many tributes as possible, and because I hate the Capitol and want to see them fail. Second, my engineer has already invented machines that make the airship invisible to both the eye and radars. And they’re almost finished with a machine that will disable the force field around the arena. The cameras on the inside will be tricky, but maybe there’s a hacker or two within the list of willing tributes. If not, we can always chuck as many cameras as we can so that they break.”

That was the best I could do at the moment, and they didn’t look like they hated the idea. I tipped my hat at them as we got called to board our chariots. “Please at least think about my offer. And possibly meet up with me during training so we can fuck with the Capitol.” I ran off before they could respond.

As the chariots started moving, I forced the brightest grin, and I waved at the crowd and blew kisses. Acting for them, I could do, but I still didn’t know if this plan would work. But what choice did I have? It had to work, or I would have doomed the people with me to death. And I wouldn’t let that happen.

During President Snow’s speech, I sat down and tipped my hat over my eyes as if I was sleeping. Fuck him because of all the lives he had ruined. I clasped my necklace tighter as the chariots rolled away.

[moondonky]

Id go to jail

People be like,, u should buy a fast car,, nah id prolly go to jail.. u should get a motercyle,, nah id prolly go to jail, u should sell sum bitcoin, nah id prolly go to jail, u should by a house, nah id prolly go to jail, u should travel to sum foreign countries, nah id prolly go to jail.. u should start a buisness,, nah id prolly go to jail... u should have fun hit up sum clubs, nah id prolly go to jail...

They laugh, think im joking,, not alot of people know me very well, for fucked up reasons, the feds and cia prolly now me best,, my name will turn up on every list,, every chance they get,, ive had dudes interrogate me in a smoking lobby at an airport, ill have chicks swipe me on tinder just to get alil close,, like im a spy or sum shit,, idk I have fun, ill fuk with them,, but prolly shouldnt,, I never did anything illegal,, I just know things that I shoulnt, and im good with words and can talk alot of shit, its weird cuz its a crime to investigate corruption and lives of powerful people,, behind closed doors,, they are not who they act like they are, in many ways they only tell you what u wanna hear,, all these things there doing now legally, like forcing on people, censorship, tracking, all the heavy news propaganda, blacklisting, marking concerned people as like an enemy of the country,, they were already doing all that years ago,, face book was literally doing psychological research and studies on users,, simply targeting ur emotions with what they put in your feeds, deliberately making people depressed n shit, just to see if they could,, and they got caught, and in the court process,, they made it legal,, why theres nothing u can do about it now,, they can legally psychologically manipulate you,, and track you, and record you, and sell ur data and do whatever the fuck they want, its not even Facebook anymore, or Twitter, or amazon,, because our country has been in a state of emergency for the last 20 years,, and people don't even understand wtf that means,, these unpresidented times that is perpetuated, it is done on purpose,, war, economic collapse, drought, civil disobedience, disease, are all reasons for martial law, to be in a state of national emergency,, everything that is happening,, only reason a president can even use executive orders, to bypass the senate and congress, everything that seems so fake, why it seems like there all lying, in every word they say,, even the money "printing", secretly they were already 23 trillion dollars in debt,, over the last 15 years.. money that dissapeared in to there pockets,, this aint a new bill, this is them openly pinning it on Americans in raised taxes,, and inflation,, ur seeing the removal of national military, and the insertion of privatized contractor mercenaries,, and trust me u do not want rich people to be able to buy there own army's, they armed and destabilized an entire continent to create a neverending privatized buisness of war,, if u remember in ukrain way back when,, we sent in blackwater mercs,, Russia sent in a bunch more of theres and kept crimea, if u remember what started all that,, was ukrain was stealing and selling gas, from russia, how biden through his son ties into it,, and Russia just shut the pipeline off, and then civil war broke out and a passenger plane got shot of the sky,, which was a missed target, and suppose to be the Russian presidents,, most people don't have a clue all that happened,, we even extracted all of ukrains gold for safekeeping.. and I say we,, but I mean was the Obama administration, which is still in control of things, technically, through Hillary or biden,, democratic party, all same the people, even trump,, a lifelong friend of the clintons.. they all fuk in the same beds...

When people say wake up,, what they are trying to say,, our country was hijacked,, and we are being manipulated,, by the people who are in control of everything, the people are being deliberately put in a psychosis of propaganda and isolation from thinking for themselves,, kept in narrow bands of dialog and comunications...

When people say new world order, sustainable development, green new deals,, sounds all peachy,, untill your whats removed,, you know like take that jab or what every they call it, that turns u into gmo intelectual property.. which im sure u also didn't know, anouther law passed so u cant sue them if anything goes wrong... like side effects, because its not a vaccine by definition, so they had to create a new law to protect themselves, just like if vaccines have side effect u cant sue them.. and that can get very concerning when u really look into shit,, like there were riots and protests by the people of wuhan, the week prior to the "outbreak".. when they welded doors shut, and incinerated the "infected", by the garbage incinerator they where protesting.. there are videos of people yelling out there windows, "its all fake",, there are videos of trucks driving around using gas to "disinfect" the entire province,, there was a loss of 8 million cellphone subscriptions in china at start of the "pandemic",, social credit scores, facial recognition, cameras everywhere,, that is sum shit they are trying to make legal in america, and are already prepared for,, that is the "infrastructure" they want to build.. even where I live in seatlle,, there are thousands of cameras everywere that are not legally turned on,, because there backed my facial recognition software that is not legal yet...

And I say no, I dont like that, thats not american

And I'd prolly go to jail if I did,, so I listen to my bible,, and it says to flee to the mountains, avoid it, when all the shit thats happening starts hapening, sounds like camping to me.. im always waiting,, still working, small crew small shop, under 100, but I refuse to take that shot, no tests, no pills, none of it,, I could have cancer or a tumor, I would never find out, I let doctors stitch up cuts, set bones, I do not like the idea of them playing god, I have my own God, it is what it is, grateful for days alloted, not in distress, not in need of saving, only God gets to judge my fate, I would never want to live forever, because I know I am eternal,, eternity is eternity, heavon or hell, figuratively u only die on earth,, u dont get to bring your money or what uve built, or acquired, when u die, what u have is what dies,, its you, as a person, if u even know yourself,, do u look up, or do u look down,, in the end u judge yourself, because u cannot lie to yourself,, u will know exactly where u belong, there was never need to hear repremandation..

Only sinners are afraid of death, rather believe its just the end... that dudes my friend lol.. in the end from the begining, it is Gods judgement, I would not advise partaking in the traditions of men, seems kinda Greek if u ask me

[minimalisticmonstermash]

What the Fandom (actually) thinks about the SPN Finale 15x20!

A short while ago I posted a Quiz  [Which Part of Supernatural Season 16 are you?]  and the post has 27 notes, so I thought barely anyone would have taken this, but it turns out actually a couple people did.  And I´m so glad I did put in one free form question: “Would be please be so kind to sum up the finale in 3 words. (Or 333 if you want to...)”  Because the past days I clicked through the notifications on the quiz, which is kind of tedious, but I could not stop cause what people put in there is a mood, a riot, the pure unfiltered truth, eloquent and outrageous in the best way!   And so I collected the answers and tried to roughly group them. Which you can find under the cut. (If someone that took the quiz wants to be tagged or have the commentary removed please just message me!)  Can you guess what the most common 3 words were? 

 The rare acceptance or praise  not that bad  // Not entirely horrible.  //  satisfaction and closure :D  //  good idea, shaky execution, ultimately fulfilling  // epic love story

Grounded Truth & the well adjusted It was something // well that happened

CW & Network aka. put the blame where it (probably) belongs network fuckery afoot  //  Corporate Fuckery Ahoy!  // network bullshit ruined everything  // fuck the cw // Fuck the CW //  Fuck you cw //  cw ships wincest  //   FUCK ROBERT SINGER  // Greed won

Make some Effort (@show) Lazy //  half-assed fever dream  // feverish dream (nightmare)  // Could be better  // Not comprehensible, stupid, low budget  // How did buckleming do better  // Fuck you, spn writers. Could have done better

Hate Crime  A hate crime // literal hate crime  //  The hate crime //  I only need 2 and it's hate and crime // subtle-but-not hate crime // hatecrime to all Homophobia Call Out Straight Gay Chicken// not gay enough // bad unsexy homophobic // Where's my gay? // horrific hetero nightmare // Homophobic queerbait bullshit // no homo shitshow // Bury your gays // silencing, erasing, ugly  //  Homophobic and incestual  // homophobic disappointing stifd // Character assassination and homophobia //  Stinky, censorship, offensive // Disappointingly heterosexual & bland You need to speak  fandom for that  why lamp wtf //  It’s the turbo hell we were all sent to // Wheres the tapes??? Castiel centric  so no cas?  // So no cas? // Needs more Cas // No Cas, pathetic // where is cas // why no Cas // where was cas //  yo a ti  // where was castiel Bless you I released scripts for a reason

Deserving Better! Damn Right! They deserved better // They deserved better // They deserved better // dean deserved better //  dean deserved better  //  dean deserved better // Dean deserves better  //  destiel deserved better // Destiel deserve better. //  Jensen deserved better  //  dumb , idiotic , horrible and #deanwinchesterdeservedbetter

Trash, Shit  & Garbage aka. The scatological truth FUCK THIS SHIT // Shit shit shit // Shit shit shit // total shit //  Shittiest fucking shit// Total and utter shite. //  Piece of shit // Fuck this shit  //  Complete utter shit //   Fucking pointless shitshow // stupid As all fuck // That was shit.  // A shit show  // what a shitshow // An absolute shitshow // total shit show // a shit show // A shit show //  total shitshow lmao // absolute shit show  // A shit show // Rancid shit show  // i would say it's a shitshow but that's mean to shit // Complete utter shit   // fuck that shit //  fuck that shit //  fuck this shit // Absolute fuckin bullshit // fucked up shit  // Utter shit bro //  Distilled horse shit // Absolute horse shit // Absolute Horseshit. 3. //  Absolute dog crap // Piece of crap // pile of crap // piece of trash // Steaming trash fire // Shit ass garbage   //  Gar ba ge // Fucking trash fire // Absolute garbage fire // A dumpster fire //  piece of trash // unfortunate dumpster fire //  Flaming pile of garbage // disaster dumpster fire  // Unsatifying flaming garbage // Dumpster fire on ice. A mess. Underwhelming. Incomprehensible. Oof // I got 2: dumpster fire // Complete. Fucking. Bullshit.   // Complete utter bullshit // utter gross bullshit // Shit fuck shame // hot mess inside a dumpster fire inside a train wreck

Still won´t read any praise here The worst thing  // a complete disaster // so fucked up //  It was terrible //  it really sucked  //  Man it sucked //  Well that sucked  //  Fucking sucked bro  //  it fucking sucked  // it sucked ass it was fucked // Sucked major ass.  // It sucked ass // very not good :(  //  it was bad :(  // Absolutely fucking awful  // The very worst //  bad. bad. wincest...  // Bad bad bad  //  bad poop ending // bad funni yuck // horrendous nightmare fuel  //   A fucking nightmare // worst thing i’ve never seen in my life //  an absolute atrocity  // a fucking disaster  it was terrible // an absolute disgrace  //  Just so awful // Really Fucking Bad // Literally the worst // Real real bad  //  Bad stupid bad  // uhh very bad  // crap bad lacking //  horrible rude worst // awful  //  bad // bad  //  Crap //  wack Ugh. // No  // UGH // Bad, messy, dumb   // Bad terrible worst ugh  // Oof my dude  // deep deep sigh 9000+ epic failure  //  Small dick energy

Demands!  Suck my dick   // Not it motherfucker

Thinking of all of us! We all lost

Summed up in 3 Words               Bitch. Fucker. Ass.    //  Death age heaven  // Dead, married, forgotten  // Sam Dead Car  // Dead, Sad, & Car.  // Dead, Sad, Car  // Slow shambling death  //  burns in hell // Absurd, wtf, huh  //  fucking odoriferous stench.

Not Canon & Fake  &  Insulting insulting. not canon  // Unsatisfying, degrading, noncanonical // Disgusting Insulting Fake // sad, bullshit, not-a-finale // Embarrassing, ridiculous, insulting // disheartening, harmful, horrible // Terrible. Disgusting. Hilarious  //                 Incomplete. Unkind. Nonsensical.  // Traumatising, stupid, horrendous  // horrible incomplete unsuccessful  // Disgusting, disrespectful, unreal

Disappointments & Complaints very big disappointment  //  disappointing, disrespectful, baffling  // An utter disappointment // disappointment of the decade  //  Fruitless, regressive, insulting, disturbing, and all-in-all just disappointing //  the complete unpackage  // supernatural finale clusterfuck  // WRONG, Horrible, Offensive //  poo rehash bad  // Unnecessary character deaths  Betrayal & Inconsistency   Stupid awful depressing poorly written inconsistent betrayal  // Boring betrayal // inconsistent, monotonous mess  //  inconsistent disappointing mess

Denial! Aka. The wise!  Finale? What finale? //   What finale ?  // what finale? //  Finale? What finale? Ohhhh yeah 15x18 was great // you mean 15x18?  // Did not happen.  // What the...what?? // What finale ??? // um.........what finale? // finale? what finale. // what finale? it didn't air yet. last episode that aired was 15x18 pffft  //  what finale :) //  Does Not Exist  //  It never happened  //   That didn’t happen // No, i refuse, there was a finale??? // what finale?? // It doesn't exist  // it doesn't exist // Weird of season 15 to end with 19 episodes and an open ending // what finale? the show got canceled after 15x18  // Finale? What finale? Supernatural isn’t over. I’m not in denial, you are //  an atrocity i've erased from my memory //  I Can't See Suddenly. I Don't Know// Don’t know her.        

Consequences & Emotions (I hope you´re all okay, have a hug!) Oh my god it was awful. Hated it. Made me reactivate in the fandom. And obses over that show AGAIN. Oh, and yeah, yeeted me to a place so dark that I got me some new scars.  // Ymmmmm, fuck the finale. It got me spiraling down back to depression and self harm. Didn't make sence. Badly written. Badly executed (well, except acting) // Never wanted to claw my own face off more than watching that heap of garbage // fuckin hated it // My heart hurts  // Stupid unsatisfying pain  //  slap inthe face // I am unhinged  // Im throwing up  //  I am sad //  i went feral  //  Broke my heart  // hurt my feelings  / I wanna die // i hate it <3  // I hated it  // I hate it //  Extreme rage inducing  // Trauma, It was   // Oh. Oh dear. // Absolute soul crushing, sucked sunshine and joy out of this world and any other possible reality this abomination exists in. It hurt so much I actually disassociated and had a real life horrible week. Luckily anger finally swept in and fan fiction ultimately saved the day. // AWFUL. HARMFUL. DEPRESSING. I HATE IT // Waste of time //  My villain origin story // Destroyed rewatch value

This is unfortunately too true  disturbingly pro-suicide   //   odd lacking empty

Valid Questions:  why’d’ya do that // Why why why

WTF?! What the …  “The popular 3” What The Fuck // What the fuck// what the fuck // What the fuck. // what the fuck // What the fuck //  What the fuck //  What the fuck. //  What the fuck // What. The. Fuck.  //   What The Fuck  //  What the fuck // what the fuck // what the fuck // What the fuck // What the fuck // What the fuck?! // What. The. Fuck. // What the fuck?!  // what. the. fuck. (was that????) // What the actual fuck? // 1. What 2. The 3. Fuck //  'what the fuck'  // The actual fuck? //  What the heck, //// What the heck //  What the heck // what the hell // What the hell? // what the hell

Narative & Character Development That was pointless // Failure of storytelling //  15 years of story and character development down the fucking drain // Fuck character arcs, no free will // Assassination of character  // Lost character development // character development is dead // disjointed alien mess I don't know these characters what the fuck // boring, loveless, characters are ignoring  // Season 1 Finale.  // From darker timeline // Awful Forgetable OOC //  piece of shit all the character development thrown out the window. cas deserved better (also to be with dean cause they are in love)   //  Underwhelming, disappointing garbage, a slap in the face of chatacter development. //  the dark ending //  The Chuck ending we didn't deserve. // a dumpster fire on the level of the GoT finale - all character dev & story arc thrown out. CLOWN VAMPIRES  

The Jokers among us, or those finding a laugh in the grimmest things a comedy  //  Just a joke

Relateable:  AAAA AAAAA AAAA  // AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I see what you did there and I love you 333 // 333 // 333  // 333  // 333 variations of the word fuck I especially love you  666

Rebels! 4 words (sorry): they showed their hand  //  The end of hope (that’s 4 words but too bad)

Didn´t watch the Finale  for various reasons  Haven’t seen it,  //  i didn't watch it out of spite  // haven't seen it yet for some reason // didn’t watch it  //  I didn’t watch it but everything that happened because of it activated the decade-old sleeper agent part of my brain that was a spn fan  // I stopped watching spn in the middle of season 12... The finale was awful from what I gathered

Hello Stranger, we welcome you here  I don't actually watch SPN I'm taking this for kicks bro

The Refusal (either of the finale or the  question) Nope //  No thank you // no // No   // No thanks, fuckers // No thank you. // No // This is bullshit // haha what? No  // Please, not this  // Oh god no // noooooo oooo ooo  // ....no. //  No. It sucks // I will not <3  //  no thank you  // no no no  //  no thank you  // Lmao wtf no // Nope. Just no. Refusal is self care!  No, I won't let it hurt me again. //  I can't, it's too bad

The offensive Wig! Party city wig // party city wig  //  party city wig // Homophobic, bad, wig // shitty sam wig // party city wig // Party City Wig // party city wig  // Jared's fucking wig //  bad, homophobic, party city wig // The Wig™ Blurry wife Sam's blurry wife

The Nail / Rebar!  ( @the-rusty-nail-that-killed-dean  @therustynailthatkilleddean  you are recognized) nailed by dickbar //  rusty nail wins  // Rusty fuckin nail.  //  Nail Dean Death Clown  //  dean got nailed  // Rebar. Cas helped.

All of those  Dickbar, Blurry Wife, Driving for 40yrs,Party City Wig, Drone Shot (cringe) // absolute trash fire garbage, burn the party city wig and the cw down but keep the dog

Those with crystal balls expected i guess // disappointed, not surprised

Puzzled (Yeah me too) or Undecided or Eh i don’t even fucking know // Jggfdv //  Huy  // Meh // Meh // meh  // it was bad ??

Let´s create great fanworks!! free real estate

Defies Categories and is good stuff  everything for nothing. // traumatizing, badly-written, comedic   //  devastating yet obnoxious //  God is dead but hegemonic masculinity is still kicking // maam this is a wendys  // am so glad that I was a whovian. I've dodged two bullets. // F's in the chat // >:((

I´m sorry, I failed you with this quiz quiz was wrong // Dude. Dude you gave me "liking the finale" a minute ago. I assure you; i did not. "You have found peace" bro I haven't known a SECOND of peace since that ill-begotten nightmare of a shitstorm  //  [[“I STILL HOPE UR DAY WAS G”:]]  HOW THE FUCK DID I GET THAT I LIKED THE FINALE PLS OP THIS IS NOT A MARK ON YOU OR ANYTHIG I LOVE U EVEN IF I DON'T KNOW YOU BTU PLS THE DEPRESSIVE STATE THAT I SPENT MY LIFE IN POST-FINALE DOES NOT DESERVE TO BE SHAMED IN THIS WAY I. PLEASE. I DID NOT LIKE THE FINALE. HOW DO I GET A DIFFERENT ANSWER PLEASE

Misha? Was that you? Rancid Nut Work

Particular Stuff Fuck john Winchester  // [[“ Mj”; ]]fucking disgusting shitshow [okay so that was 3 words, but MAY I JUST SAY, c*w was incredibly disrespectful to Misha, Cas, Jensen, and Dean. Misha played a Cas for 12 years, and then he's not even in the finale? and Cas gets mentioned a whopping total of 2 times after he confesses his love to Dean?? and then, Jensen. 15 years of his life on Supernatural. Jensen turned down the role to be Captain America, and his best friend is Dean, the character he plays. But then Dean dies on a rusty nail, never getting to actually live his life? Dean died how he always thought he would- and he died as "Daddy's Blunt Instrument", finishing off his dad's unfinished case. J*hn Winch*ster ab*sed him and Sam mentally, emotionally, and possibly physically too, and does NOT deserve to get a Heaven at all, least of all, a Heaven right by Deans. Dean never got to live how he wanted to and was repressed as fuck, and this is all because of his dad, the resident shit head. And don't even get me started on the queer erasure, and racism. Kevin Tran deserved better. He, after through all he suffered on Earth, deserves to go to Heaven, not be tortured in the afterlife forever. I fully believe that it's just because he was Asian. If J*hn got into Heaven, why couldn't Kevin. Also, not to mention, Charlie, Rowena, Claire, Patience, Kaia, Crowley, Donna, and Jodi, and probably countless of other queer characters who were erased. They were silenced and fuck the cw for doing that. I could add so much more, but for now, have an excellent day and a wonderful year :)]   //  [[“Yellowcollins”:]] hat the fuck was that literally what the fuck. I’m convinced the writers did not watch a single episode they made past season 3. There was literally not a SINGLE character from season 4 onwards in the finale. LITERALLY. NO. ONE. and what about “family don’t end in blood” that they’ve been preaching since LITERALLY season 1??? huh??????? nah fuck 15x20, this will go down and the WORST ending in the history of endings.

[cookie] < for everyone that made it that far ;)  

[inknose]

mdzs read diary part IV, the end

It’s inspiring how much self care wwx is gonna finally get now that his husband will go along with whatever he does, so he’s gotta look out for lwj’s well being if not his own. that is emphatically the STUFF

dragging my hands down I face as I read this, after all these chapters of getting up close and personal with ghouls bleeding from every orifice, slaying ancient beasts, rebelling against the entire cultivation world, the two of them are absolutely paralyzed by middle school crush sleepover math

chicken

he actually drew kissy doodles .... he....

IDK I THINK I JUST DOCUMENTED THIS PART CUZ I WAS STILL SCREAMING you cant expect me to have very useful things to say at this point

this is torture you are both so mushy you are so GONE

This part really stood out to me, it’s an attitude I feel like wwx implies with his inner narration a few times but most clearly says here: he’s not one for allowing himself to exaggerate how bad his circumstances are/could be even a little bit - he’s already lived through some extreme low points and found a way to keep going, so he never makes sweeping statements about what he couldn’t live without (Inner JingYi: you’re supposed to say you’d be lost without him here!!!) Instead he seems to accept as a given that being alive doesn’t guarantee him any pleasantness or joy at all, and as a result his feelings toward being in TRUE LOVE are surprisingly pragmatic, but also colored with such gratitude. There are a lot of things in the novel that struck me, like this, as being just a little to the left of familiar tropes/sentiments, and were more touching for it. Whether it be the influence of culture difference as opposed to what I’m used to reading in most western romance stories, or MXTX’s unique outlook, or a combination of both, it was really refreshing and made me pause over it. Not “I can’t imagine living without you” but “I could be living without you, but instead I get to be with you and I think that’s the best thing that could happen.”

ADJFDKFJ THE UST BEING SO STRONG THAT EVEN THE VILLAIN COMMENTS ON IT IN THE MIDDLE OF EXECUTING HIS EVIL PLANS IS ONE OF THOSE THINGS THAT WILL NEVER FAIL TO MAKE ME LAUGH MY ASS OFF. hes like god damn! here I thought I had problems

it was at this moment that I realized we were doing this Now... I’m still recovering. What a scene. I am so glad I saw the most incredible fanart soon afterwards, bc the fact that someone has already drawn a perfect comic of this part means I don’t have to

I love you so much, you are so annoying, you are perfect... I like how he’s been experiencing openly requited love for all of ten minutes but he’s already figured out how to weaponize it to piss people off

doing!!! his!!! job!!!!!

ahh... it’s a really good story. JGY is a great character. One of the most interesting differences for me between drama watching vs. novel reading experience is that without an actor to bat his vulnerable doe eyes at you and smile faintly with his cute dimples, the book does not go much out of its way to try to lull the reader into a false sense of security around him or *endear* him to you the way the show does. But just by seeing events through wei wuxian’s POV, its still enough to evoke pity or understanding towards him. The overall impression is a bit more detached though, there’s less emphasis on the spectacle of how he could manipulate everyone closest to him and more of a general feeling of resigned tragedy that everyones the worst on this bitch of an earth.

I CANNOT DEAL WITH YOU FOR EVEN ONE MORE SECOND!!!!

I clearly paused to take note of less and less parts at the end & the extras due to: a) too excited to reach the end b) too spicy to photograph and c) too sleepy cuz I kept reading in the middle of the night. but I absolutely took the time for Bro We Are Teens appreciation corner:

I’d absolutely read 40 more extra chapters of their monster-of-the-week field trip antics.

god... poor Jin Ling now basically has to deal with divorced parents that talk shit about each other to him whenever he is saying with one of them. except they are both his uncles. just a disasterhood of all uncles from start to finish. AUUUGH wei wuxian and jiang cheng have fucked me up completely, I dream of them reconciling but I also REFUSE to believe it would ever be easy. let me know if theres a fanfic that absolutely tortures you for decades before they hug

HAHAHA oh no this man ain’t making it to immortality thats for damn sure. HE’S JUST GONNA TRY AS HARD AS HE CAN HIS WHOLE LIFE NOT TO LOOK AT HIM BUT THEYRE *MARRIED* SDLKFJSF ohhhh it’s too funny, like... the mundane domestic family drama IN the fantastical swords and sorcery setting is what really ratchets up these things from amusing to fucking hilarious I think

aaaa the end... final random thoughts? No not final, I would like to please keep discussing at length and exhaustively, all the time please - CQL has gotta be one of the best TV adaptations I’ve seen. ANY adaptation of anything would be lucky to be so good!! reading the novel has just made me appreciate it even more.

- I don’t think I can do justice to what I find most fascinating about comparing the two versions briefly, to do that I need to get drunk and ramble at my friends for hours but... the condensed version is something like this. Really all the significant differences between the two versions (besides the ones which can be attributed to censorship and therefore aren’t worth discussing) are a side effect of the structure of how the story is told - there’s barely anything changed arbitrarily. Aside from having a cold opening, the drama sticks to a very linear version of the story, and I think for a TV show or film, that’s probably the best way to do it. We see everything, we get shocked and tricked and betrayed and surprised along with the characters, we feel the biggest impact at the climactic scenes having experienced all the build-up. The novel on the other hand is not only much more non-linear in WHEN we learn bits and pieces of information, but that information is also obfuscated under wei wuxian’s multiple layers of Unreliable Narratoritis, which are as follows: 1) difficulty remembering things because of personality/avoiding painful memories/actual memory loss, 2) No Homo Goggles still on, and 3) a wry sense of humor that makes the reader unsure of how much they can trust his attitude toward things, especially near the beginning. The experience of reading is a puzzle the reader has to mentally piece together through all of the above listed camouflage, and the puzzle itself is a three-sided mystery: One - How Bad of a guy was Wei WuXian really, and how exactly did all the bad stuff in his life go down; Two - wangxian epic pride & prejudice gambits; Three - political murder mystery. (I love stories like this btw... though I fully admit I’m glad I watched first this time bc it might have taken me a long time to tackle otherwise.) Because of this, where the drama wants to pull you in and submerge you in all the most potent emotional parts, the novel in direct contrast deliberately side-steps around these things and asks that you hurt yourself by filling in the blanks. In fact the more intense emotions and painful memories involved, whether it be his relationship with jiang yanli, his DEATH, the darkest days of war times etc, the more the novel evasively withholds details. I actually really like both styles of storytelling but each one is obviously way better suited to its medium. ANYWAY.... THATS BASICALLY WHERE MY BRAINS AT WHILE IM READING GAY SWORD WIZARD BOOKS

- The extras are so saturated with domestic married bliss that it’s a good thing I stopped taking pictures because I’d just take a picture of every page. this is too much for me to take... I did jump the gun a few times and read a few fanfics while I was still mid-read of the book (I tried to hold out but alas I am mortal) and at one point after finishing I was like “wow what fic was it in where lwj says something cute and wwx kisses him in public but they’re in the corner of the restaurant so no one really sees... OH NO WAIT that was actually in there.” and ... and that’s the LEAST OF IT... *stares into the distance* theyre married wow

- I ofc couldn’t help but see a few vague blogs beforehand so honestly I was braced for something like, wildly ooc for the sake of porn to happen in the extras... I definitely appreciate how the incense burner porn interludes could be uhhh a lot for many people and not my personal cup of tea in terms of smut however [here follows the words of a poisonous frog who has dwelt her whole life in the rainforests of BL] the concept is also surprisingly SWEET SDFLKJF like wwx sees lan wangji’s darkest mixed-up violent teenage fantasies and he’s just like aww babe you had a crush on me!! just... good for them

- I swear I’m not gonna rehash every cute married thing they do but wei wuxian grading papers in the tub........................rEALLY GOT ME

- I want to Draw - ok thats enough if I keep going I’ll just write “wei wuxian grading papers in the tub” seven more times probably

[fmdtaeyongarchive]

headcanon #043: interest in performance art

word count: 1,688 words.

triggers: mentions of violence (including gun violence), assault.

ash is notoriously talented in the musical arts and terribly untalented in traditional visual art like drawing or painting, but performance art is something ash has developed a unique interest in over the years. he’s a dancer, a performer by nature, but it’s situation art pieces, so-called “happenings” that step outside the bounds of a simple enjoyable story performance that intrigue him the most. 

ash hasn’t gotten the opportunity to experience much situation art in person, as it’s generally meant to be experienced, but he loves reading about it and watching videos of it or on it. since the beginning of the year, he’s made a point to read more, and in addition to topics like philosophy, he’s delved deeper into research on performance art as well.

he’s most interested in art the explores topics of human relationships, the dynamic between audience and artist, the nature of art, and the human experience as a whole. that’s part of why he’s so drawn to situational performance art. though he’s one of many, he’s in particular a fan of marina abramović‘s works.

two of marina abramović‘s works he’s most interested in are breathing in, breathing out (which marina abramović did with ulay) and rhythm 0.

in breathing in, breathing out, the two blocked their nostrils and pressed their mouths to one another so that they could only breathe the air the other breathed out until eventually, they were each only breathing in carbon dioxide and deprived of oxygen up to the point of passing out. ash views it as a commentary on human connection and relationships and the danger of dependence in relationships — to rely too much on another is to deprive and ultimately poison oneself. while ash considers this to be a commentary on all relationships, be they romantic, friendly, or familial, it resonates with him in particular because of his own tendency to depend too much on romantic partners in the past.

violence tw, assault tw, gun tw // his other favorite abramović piece, and possibly his favorite performance art piece, is the famous rhythm 0 where abramović stood in a room with seventy-two objects, varying from feathers and food to a scalpel and a loaded gun, laid out on a table. she left instructions on the table stating that the others in the room could do whatever they wanted to her for six hours and she would take responsibility for whatever they did, absolving them of any responsibility of their own for their actions. by the end of the six hours, she’d had her clothes cut off of her body, had been cut with various sharp objects, someone had attempted to suck blood from one of her cuts, and someone had pressed the gun to her head and put her own finger on the trigger before someone had torn it away. when she moved after the six hour mark had passed, the audience had all scattered and the observers-turned-participants left at the closure of the piece, not wanting to talk to her. abramović stated she realized in the midst of the piece that the participants might very well kill her if given the right time and circumstances. there are obvious feminist implications to this piece that ash acknowledges, but wouldn’t feel qualified to talk on himself as a man, but the part that resonates with him the most is how it speaks to the relationship between artist and audience. art builds a fourth wall, even despite all attempts to tear it down, that makes an audience feel ownership and emotional detachment from the artist. the pedestal a performer is put on grants the audience the ability to do or say anything they’d like, even if it’s demeaning, violent, or sexual, without the fear of consequences — things they’d never do or say if faced with the face-to-face humanity of the artist. the piece really struck ash the first time he read about it and saw pictures of it, and he’d like to do a song based on the piece one day, or even an entire album inspired by marina abramović‘s works and his own interpretations of them in the context of human relationships and the relationship between artist and audience.

gun tw // the death of the artist by abel azcona is another piece that stuck with ash for similar reasons as rhythm 0. the artist had previously done performance art pieces on topics like religious institutions, politics, and sexuality that angered several organizations and groups that had caused controversy and caused him to receive death threats, and for this piece, he wrote letters to all of the organizations and people who had threatened him inviting them to a gallery where he stood on a raised platform facing a loaded gun on open display nearby on a platform. this is more of a commentary on persecution and attempted censorships of artists by powerful entities, something ash can’t really relate to since he doesn’t do anything provocative enough to earn him death threats from anyone other than edgy teenagers on twitter. nevertheless, it’s a piece he thinks about a lot in relation to the nature of art and an artist’s place in society.

other pieces ash likes to ponder are:

tehching hsieh thirteen year plan, where he declared that he would make art in private without showing it publicly for a span of thirteen years. at the end of the thirteen years, he concluded the project with the statement “i kept myself alive. i passed the december 31st, 1999.” it makes ash consider his relationship to his own art and whether he’s doing it for others or doing it to keep himself alive.

marina abramović and ulay’s lovers (another piece he’d like to use as inspiration for a song), where the pair embarked on a dramatic spiritual journey to end their romance. they started walking from opposite ends of the great wall of china and met in the middle to officially end their relationship with an embrace, a final farewell, and the promise to never meet again afterward. it’s the sort of poignant closure ash thinks every relationship could have in an ideal world, and it speaks to the depth of bond romance can root in two people.

marina abramović and ulay’s rest energy, where the pair balanced a drawn bow and arrow between them for four minutes, with the arrow aimed directly at marina abramović’s heart. this is again a piece with feminist implications of the societal power men hold over women, but it also speaks to the vulnerability of love to ash and the kind of unwavering trust he’s not sure he’s ever had with anyone.

yoko ono’s cut piece, where she invited audience members to cut pieces of  clothing and remove it. ash likes this one for similar reasons to why he likes rhythm 0.

roi vaara’s artist’s dilemma, a video piece where a sign saying “art” points in one direction, while another stating “life” points the other in a frozen, barren landscape. vaara deliberates between the two for the duration of the video before it ends with him standing in the middle, still not having chose one direction or the other. to ash, it’s unclear whether it’s saying one must choose between one or the other, that an artist exists between two different worlds, or that performance art lays in between the balance of life and art, and he likes that he can interpret it in so many ways without any explanations feeling hollow.

tino sehgal’s kiss, a choreographed piece involving two dancers slowly acting out a passionate embrace on the floor of a museum or gallery. among original choreography and poses, they reenact famous kissing scenes from other artworks such as rodin’s kiss and brancusi’s kiss. the piece to society’s simultaneous discomfort with publicized intimacy and fascination with other’s love lives, both historically through art and socially through gossip and rumors. it also speaks to the difficulty of recreating intimacy through art. as someone who spends a lot of his time trying to recreate love and intimacy through music, and has had plenty of people both obsessed with and shaming him for their own perception of his love life, this piece stands out to him on a personal level as well.

ash’s interest in performance art comes mostly from how directly it can invite the audience of the art into the work. it’s part of why he’s come to love performing (solo) concerts over spending every day of his life in front of a camera. (jay z himself has argued concerts can be akin to performance art in an alternative venue, and ash would like it if one day he could hold a concert that plays with that idea more.) performance art allows for statements to be made that can’t be made as resoundingly through musical art or the fine arts. in performance art, the artists themselves are the art, and oftentimes the audience becomes a part of the art, too, and it can be outside of the commodification and greediness of other forms of art because of that if the artist so chooses. videos, pictures, and books on performance art can be sold, but often the piece itself cannot be and lives within the minds and memories of the artist and the audience. situational art can’t as easily be censored, controlled, or shaped by rich collectors or executives at labels, and that’s a part of the appeal to ash, who has often felt his music has been compromised by the business processes of the music industry. it reminds him of why he used to love dance so much, how a live performance lives in the moment.

ash himself doesn’t think he could ever be a performance artist, though he’d one day like to have the chance to sit down and talk to performance artists about art through their eyes. he believes performance artists are greatly underrated and too often written off as fake deep try hards when the legends of the form have just as much to say about the human experience as the greatest artists of any other art form.

[multimetaverse]

HSMTMTS 1x05 Review

Homecoming was a historic ep that was a giant leap forwards for rep on Disney and an overall delightful ep. Let’s dig in!

I was blown away by Seblos this ep, I never expected Disney to go this far this soon but what great scenes we got. It was so refreshing to see Carlos and Seb acting like normal teens, just like any straight couple. They have good chemistry and Frankie played Carlos’ nerves when asking Seb to the dance perfectly and his celebration after Seb said yes. I liked when Seb mentioned that homecoming would mean dancing together in front of all the non theatre kids, a little reminder of how much of a safe space the theatre can be. Really powerful to see Carlos tell Mr. Mazzara that he thought he made a mistake asking him to dance with him publicly and to see Carlos be brave enough to go dance on his own. And then when Seb arrived we got the shot we see in every teen movie where the love interest arrives at the big dance and sees the main character and smiles, it’s amazing that we saw that with two guys on a Disney show. Also impressive that Seb apologizing to Carlos was done in just one take as Tim revealed on instagram

Tim Federle has done an amazing job so far and good for him for going right into text. He’s said in interviews that no one from Disney ever asked him to cut any scenes or shy away from certain topics, which doesn’t mean much since he’d be saying that regardless of how much he was being censored, but we can see with our own eyes that he really is telling the truth. Now I do want more development for Carlos and Seb as characters as well as Seblos as a ship and I do think we’ll get that especially since Joe Serafini has been promoted to a series regular for S2, which is a very good sign that Disney is all in with Tim Federle’s plans. What an exciting time, there will soon be two main gay characters on a Disney show played by openly gay actors on a show created by an openly gay man. Tim has spoken of how Disney + is in some ways an open frontier and that he’s willing to take big jumps and I can’t wait to see what the rest of S1 and S2 has in store for us

Things have changed a lot since the High School Musical movies came out. It’s well known that Ryan was meant to be gay even though he could never actually be gay. Lucas Grabeel has spoken of how Kenny Ortega told him that Ryan was a lot like his High School self. In an interview with EW, Tim Federle was asked about the censorship of Ryan’s character and he noted that he wasn’t there for the movies and doesn’t view what he’s now doing on HSMTMTS as making up for anything that the original movies weren’t able to do. Which is fair but regardless in some ways tonight's ep does make up for the censorship of the movies

While reading an article on HSMTMTS I came upon a link to a story from October 2008 about Ryan and how he was clearly being coded as gay that featured some revealing quotes from Gary Marsh, from an interview conducted in summer 2008:

Regarding the fact that there are boyfriend-girlfriend relationships in the HSM movies, Marsh interjected, “Yeah, but that’s not about sex,” as though having two boyfriends equals full-tilt boogie. And as to why there can be boyfriend and girlfriends but not two boyfriends, he could only note, “It’s just not something that we’ve ever had the opportunity to portray. It hasn’t been a place we’ve gone.”

If someone, like Gary Marsh, believes that lgbtq relationships are inherently sexual then that means they don’t believe they’re appropriate for children. It’s no surprise then that it wouldn’t be until 2014 that Disney Channel had two lesbian moms appear on Good Luck Charlie and it wouldn’t be until 2017 that Cyrus came out to Buffy. Clearly Gary has for whatever reasons evolved in his views or there wouldn’t have been any rep on Disney Channel in the past 11 years nor do I think that he would make a comment like that publicly today but he probably does still believe that to an extent and I’d imagine other senior Disney executives do as well

 A few things are helping Disney + push boundaries, being more of a PG than a G rated service, not being exclusively targeted towards children, and being a curated service so parents can easily avoid showing their kids shows with lgbtq rep. And perhaps most importantly, the cold hard reality that if Disney + is to become financially viable then it has to appeal to a broad audience and provide the same quality or better than people could find on Netflix or other streaming services so the kind of censorship we see on Disney Channel just can’t fly

There’s been a lot of discourse regarding Seblos and Tyrus and HSMTMTS and Andi Mack and I’ll take the time to say my piece now. It’s not entirely fair to compare the ships and shows since they’re taking place under very different circumstances. Tyrus was a heavily censored ship that was only given permission to canon when the series finale was written whereas Seblos is already canon in the 5th ep. It’s true that TJ was written in a way to subvert gay stereotypes which was important but it’s also true that for most of the audience they didn’t know that he was gay until the bench scene itself so there wasn’t that much trope subversion going on. And who knows how he would have been written if they were actually allowed to have him be openly gay before the series finale

Carlos and Seb may fall into some stereotypes but Tim Federle has spoken of how when he was in High School he would have loved to play a character like Sharpay but wouldn’t have had the confidence to do so and he wrote Seb wanting to play a female role with his own past experiences in mind. He’s also spoken about how Carlos was based off of a close friend of his and he put some of himself into Carlos as well with Carlos telling Mr. Mazzara that he was meant to be on Broadway being something Tim told one of his own teachers in High School. Frankie and Joe have talked about how they see a lot of their own experiences in Carlos and Seb as characters and in Seblos as a relationship. Tim has spoken a lot about how important authenticity is to him and while Carlos and Seb may be stereotypical to some people it shouldn’t be discounted that others can see their lived experiences in those characters

For Andi Mack it’s important to separate Cyrus’ story from the Tyrus story line. It’s unlikely HSMTMTS could have pulled off Cyrus’ coming out story line, the shows are just too different. We’re almost certainly not going to see a One in a Minyan style ep on HSMTMTS but would we have seen such an ep on Andi Mack if they didn’t need to pack all of Cyrus’ S3 story line into one ep? We also can’t forget that 3x11 was written shortly after the cancellation and it was written as a potential end to the gay story line since they didn’t know until months later if they could go with canon Tyrus or not. Even with the limits it faced Andi Mack did a great job with Cyrus’ coming out story line and I think eps like 2x01 and 2x13 and 3x11 will be fondly remembered and will stand the test of time

When it comes to Tyrus though it’s fair to say that the bench scene was a historic and important moment but also an underwhelming one. Andi Mack didn’t live up to the promise that Cyrus was no different but it was never going to be able to with Disney’s restrictions, they were willing to focus on Cyrus as a gay character but not Cyrus as an actively gay character. One thing that will make Seblos go down a lot better than Tyrus is that we aren’t going to see Carlos bearding himself like Cyrus did. It won’t age well at all that Cyrus got to go on dates with Iris and kiss her twice and refer to her as a his girlfriend and even come up with a mashup name for them but Terri probably would have done things very differently if she had known that all Cyrus would be able to do with a boy was hold hands in the series finale. We can also tell that HSMTMTS won’t be facing an increase in censorship later on since Seb will be a main in S2 whereas Disney cracked down hard after S2 for Andi Mack, probably because the story was shifting from Cyrus having a hopeless crush on a straight guy to a reciprocated crush on a gay guy

Since Seblos is textual from the start it will be much easier to write and also much easier to fix things when the writers inevitably make mistakes. I think a lot of the defensiveness coming from certain corners of the Andi Mack fandom is because deep down people know that the bench scene wasn’t enough pay off for the long dragged out Tyrus no burn we got; especially with all of the drama and angst they had. Development is important but it doesn’t take two thirds of the series to set up a silent handhold. I think it’s very unlikely that for HSMTMTS we’ll see the drastic decline in quality that Andi Mack had for most story lines after 3x11. The bench scene would have been better if we hadn’t gotten the worst writing of the series for TJ and Cyrus as characters that did a real disservice to them and to Tyrus as a ship in the eps before the finale. The Tyrus story line was never going to get a great ending with Disney’s restrictions but it is also true that Terri’s choices made things a lot worse than they had to be

 It’s insane that they introduced Kira as a homophobic character who was manipulating TJ but also was clearly into him; how do professional writers come up with that? It’s just not a mistake Tim Federle is going to make. Trying to do an external homophobia story line was an obviously bad idea but so was giving TJ an out of nowhere internalized homophobia plot in 3x13 and 3x15 before dropping it in 3x18. Cyrus’ coming out story line helped a lot of people because it showed the correct way for friends to react when someone comes out to you but for TJ they never did anything to help people dealing with internalized or external homophobia, the message was effectively ‘’deal with it on your own kids’’, which is sharp contrast with how openly his dyscalculia plot was handled. I don’t think HSMTMTS would be effectively able to deal with homophobia either but I think Tim probably realizes that and won’t attempt it

 There were a lot of little things Terri could have changed that would have helped. Don’t insert Kira into their plot. Don’t have Amber kiss Jonah or say she’s love him so at least she could have pointed to another character who never got to kiss a guy or talk about feelings. Put the Jandi bracelet scene in between the Muffy and Tyrus confession scenes so we don’t go straight from a Muffy kiss and handhold and verbal confession to the bench scene. And just write the bench scene better so it’s more in line with the Tyrus dynamic like how the Muffy and Jandi scenes did a good job capturing their own dynamics. Of course, we’re not going to see Seblos end so subtly so all these problems just won’t arise

Tyrus was important because it happened and may well be the only lgbtq rep we see for middle school characters played by actual teenagers for a very long time. But it’s also true that Andi Mack’s legacy will probably rest a lot more with Cyrus specifically, especially him saying the word gay, whereas HSMTMTS will be remembered more for normalizing lgbtq relationships with Seblos. I’m glad Tyrus happened but I’m also glad that Seblos will be a much smoother story line and will break boundaries for years to come. Anyways that’s my two cents

I really liked the Gina development this ep. Her doesn’t do cash line was interesting, hinting at financial problems? Moving 5 schools in 7 years is rough and I’d like to hear more about that. I’m glad that we got confirmation that she didn’t have an actual plan and was just winging it because her actions really did not make much sense. Tim Federle had said that love triangles will become love squares and it does make more sense to have Gina be into Ricky than EJ since there’s no real drama if she’s into EJ because Nini is totally over him. I do think Gina was being sincere in the scene with Ricky in the car (which Tim said was Big Red’s car that he lent Ricky and that Joshua and Sofia did that scene in just two takes). I also think that she needs Ricky as a friend not a lover and Ricky would not be happy if he ever found out that she was the one who initially stole Nini’s phone

Miss Jenn and Mike Bowen and Benjamin Mazzara love triangle? We do know that Miss Jenn and Mr. Mazzara spend Thanksgiving trapped together which is obvious set up for feelings to develop. We also got Mr. Mazzara doing a 180 and being nice to Carlos this ep which seems like a ploy to get him on the audiences good side

Loved the friendship moments we got this ep. Big Red and Kourtney are great friends. Ricky taking Big Red to his first dance was sweet and I love that Big Red showed up in a old man suit jacket that looks like it was from the 70s. Ngl I thought Ricky was wearing pajama pants for most of the ep. Glad we got a glimpse into Kourtney and Nini’s past, they’ve been friends at least since the 7th grade. I hope Kourtney stands up to the mean costume designer senior

I liked seeing Nini grappling with her self confidence after finding out that she got the lead role at summer camp because EJ poisoned the original lead. She does have the talent but that kind of revelation would leave most people shook

Glad that Ricky and his dad had a honest convo this ep. It’s just the two of them now so they need to stick by each other

Ashlyn has been an unexpected delight so far, I liked that she was the only one to go and support Carlos and she was rocking that suit

Ricky’s office stare after Gina dumped punch on EJ’s head was too funny

Born to be brave was a great song and the choreography blew me away, such a talented cast and crew they have

All of the costumes looked great this ep, kudos to the costume designers 

RIP Seb’s cow

Looking Ahead:

Miss Jenn faces her tribunal, I’m curious to see how much she faked on her resume

We get photos of Seb comforting Carlos which I think comes after he finds out that Miss Jenn is suspended. In the medley trailer there was a clip of Carlos hugging Miss Jenn at a coffee shop so maybe that’s next ep since there’s no need to meet at a coffee shop if she’s not suspended

The cast has talked about how we the audience we’ll be going back and forth on team Ricky vs team EJ all season long which at this point seems like a lie. I’m sure EJ’s redemption arc starts soon and if he’s still going to panic attacks I’d imagine that will soon be brought up but Nini is totally over him and I can’t see her being torn about her feelings for EJ in the final 5 eps of the season

With Seb being a main in S2 that will make things more difficult for the writers to juggle and I hope they are thinking about how to balance the different characters. I also wonder what the long term plan for EJ is since he’s the only senior and if S2 takes place spring semester of his senior year then what are they gonna do with him in S3?

We know that in 1x10 breaking free has EJ, Nini, and Ricky so I wonder if EJ starts off playing Troy for whatever reason before Ricky shows up. Since Ricky thinks Nini is over him I don’t think we’ll be seeing him make a move unless he gets some kind of signal from Nini

Wonder what was up with that Sharpay’s mom credit on imdb, just some random imdb troll? If so, what a coincidence that she picked what happened to be a big Seb ep

I don’t know if this will have impact on the show going forward but this marks the point that Tim Federle took over as showrunner after original showrunner Oliver Goldsmith departed. Oliver wanted to take the show in a more mature direction but Tim disagreed and Disney sided with him over Oliver

Until next week Wildcats

[do-kyngsoo]

(1/?) Hello! Fellow Chinese here! I want to bring awareness to something. I remember seeing a post w/ a list of Chinese K-pop idols to “condemn” for their support in China. I just wanted to say that any idol would be risking their entire career and family’s safety if they so much as condemn the Chinese government. It’s not even enough to not even say anything, because if they don’t, the government would condemn them for not supporting their home country enough.

Long post up ahead, if you’re interested in understanding the full story and gaining some understanding of why these Chinese idols may have openly supported China like they have then there is the keep reading link (if it actually works for once)

So backstory which most people know, the Chinese government is trying to have Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau completely under their control in the “One China policy” (these countries are already under China but have their own laws, governments, currencies etc.) so China is trying to get rid of the little independence these countries do have which has caused protests and over the last few weeks they have gotten increasingly violent with police using tear gas, rubber bullets and Chinese soldiers moving towards the border for backup.

In the heights of all these there have been several companies and brands (samsung, givenchy, calvin klein etc.) who have in some form expressed that Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau are their own independent countries. This has caused a lot of backlash from Chinese citizens and the government and many Chinese idols and actors have terminated any contracts they have with them. With Yixing specifically (and i think his case is pretty important when understanding the actions of all of the celebrities) he was I suppose ‘called out’ by a Chinese news outlet for not immediately terminating his contracts with the brands (he is brand ambassador for samsung, calvin klein and valentino who were all accused of having anti one china sentiments), yixings studio released a statement saying they will investigate the stances of the companies and he then proceeded to terminate his contract with Samsung.

The reason why all this is significant is because of all the backlash yixing and other celebrities were getting, first yixing was called a traitor to his country for not terminating his contracts and when he did terminate the Samsung one Chinese citizens were claiming he only did so because they said it and that he is money hungry. Amongst all of this there have been death threats sent to family and friends as well as claims that he is committing treason - and treason is a punishable crime in China of which the sentence is Captial Punishment (aka. execution). Needless to say it is an extremely serious accusation to make over someone not terminating a brand contract.

However even after all this all of these Chinese artists were still being condemned and were being pushed by the public and government to do more with these threats looming over them. So many of them posted pro One China policy images on their social medias which has then brought criticism from international fans.

The post with a list of idols to condemn is honestly news to me and is quite shocking that someone would make such a thing (it’s basically generating mass hate), I hope that if a person took the time to make a list then they also took the time to consider the conditions in China and the reasons that could bring these idols to take such measures.

Now anon made a great point here in saying that these celebrities don’t have the freedom we have in the west and thats’s because…they don’t. China is a country where censorship and indoctrination very much exists and is very prominent. They don’t have access to international news or social medias like twitter or facebook, they have China friendly, pre approved versions of their own. The Chinese government also has a history of banning things that they deem to be against them, in a moment they could see to it that something is never seen in media or spoken of. Just to put it in perspective here is a list of things which have been banned from China in the past:

Winnie The Pooh

Peppa Pig

Brad Pitt (his ban was lifted a couple of years ago)

Anything involving the concept of time travel

THE FREAKING LETTER “N’ (until they realised they needed it)

Saying “I disagree”

Now if they can ban TV shows and a letter of the alphabet for being against the government imagine what they could do to celebrities with millions of fans and followers, some even international (the kpop idols) and have a massive influence. They can end their entire careers, all it would take was the government to think they weren’t supporting them and you would never see them in Chinese media again which is a vast majority of their fanbases. (And you may argue that they have careers abroad...but not really - as much as some like to think kpop has western acceptance from the few awards or collabs groups and idols have the racism they face in the west is very much there, it’s just ignored by fans who want to believe that their faves “made it”), and like anon said Korea is not a very welcoming place for Chinese artists at the moment with the tensions with China mainly concerning THAAD. Also just remember the last thing on my list that is banned “I disagree” these celebrities literally CAN’T disagree with the Chinese government - it’s illegal. Chinese citizens are taught from the moment they’re born that the Chinese government is always right and that you can’t disagree with them, so these celebrities literally cannot say they support Hong Kong and the other countries wanting independence from China

So to anyone condemning these artists and saying they’re disappointed in them: hold off. You don’t (and may never) know the circumstances under which these artists have done what they did. It’s okay to disagree with what they have done, I certainly don’t like the whole posting propaganda incident, but trashing them or making lists of people to dislike fixes absolutely nothing and you could be sending hatred towards a completely innocent person. So for now let’s just support them (or at the very least don’t be negative) and hope that they do really support the independence of these countries from China.

[ladyshandioftheendless]

~KISS AU writings 12~

Heading straight on into the next part of this fiasco! I’m really eager to move this story along cause a looooot of shit is about to go down~ Enjooooy~

~Shandi

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~MODEL AU Part 3~

Featured Pairing: Bruce Kulick/Paul Stanley

Special Guests: Peter Criss, Vinnie Vincent, Dana Strum, Mark Slaughter, Bobby Rock, Mick Mars, Vince Neil

Summary: Paul invites Bruce to to a party for the magazine he modeled for..where things escalate even further~ (told from Bruce’s POV)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few days later I return to the studio with the photos. As soon as I’m through the door I see Mr. Criss and Paul standing there waiting for me. Oh boy.

“Let’s see ‘em.”

Mr. Criss holds out his hand and I give him the folder. Please like them. As soon as he opens the folder he rolls his eyes, which doesn’t exactly fill me with a lot of confidence. Then he looks over at Paul who just smiles at him sweetly. “It figures that the first photo I see is of your naked ass. You really think the magazine is gonna print these?” Paul just tosses his hair. “Of course they will~ You know why? It’s me~” He’s got him there. I mean..they’ll definitely edit them heavily but they’ll eat those up just because it’s Paul. Mr. Criss sighed but he conceded. “Alright alright. I’ll submit ‘em but I don’t wanna hear any whining about how they’re edited when they’re published. Got me?”

“I’m not worried, Petey. They’ll show as much as they’re allowed to get away with~” That’s for sure. Someone would have to be crazy to not want to show off his..’assets.’ After looking through all of the other photos, Mr. Criss closes the folder. “It’s real good work, Kulick. Fantastic even.” He hands me an envelope. “I’m gonna submit these this afternoon. As soon as we have access to the first copies you can have one if you want.” It would be nice to see my work in the pages of a magazine. My heart is beating a mile a minute just thinking about it! “Thank you, Mr. Criss, I’d like that very much~” Paul of course is incredibly amused. “I am a work of art, aren’t I, Photopup? I’d be proud too~” You mean you aren’t already? I find that hard to believe. “Anyway..” Mr. Criss interrupts rather firmly. “..make sure your schedule’s open cause I’ll be keepin’ your number handy. You up for more work like this?”

“Absolutely!”

“Then we’ll be seein’ you again soon.” Paul blows me a kiss before turning to follow Mr. Criss back to his office. “Until next time, Photopup~” While I’m in my car I open the envelope. A check for $2,500! I think I’m gonna celebrate with a nice big pizza when I get home~

The next week passed by like normal. Normal and boring. As much as I hoped for a call one never came. Still, I kept my camera clean and ready for its next job. The following week however started off with a bang. Monday afternoon when I check my mailbox I find a brown package folded up inside. When I open it I see one of my photos of Paul on the front cover of Runway. “Finally!” I sit down on the couch and flip through the pages with a big smile on my face. These were my photos. My photos printed in a magazine for the world to see. They weren’t even edited as much as I thought they would be. Paul was perfect. I can kinda see why he wanted to do it this way now. If I had a body like his I’d want to show it off too~ The lighting was the best decision I ever made. No fluorescents would have been able to bring out the golden undertones of his skin or the highlights in his hair. I turn to the next page and WOW. There’s his ass in full view. How were they able to get away with this? Are models exempt from censorship? Either that or someone pulled a lot of strings. Or more likely an extremely smart executive decision. A spread as hot as this will make magazines fly off the shelves. Quite a business~

Late Thursday night I get a phone call..but not from the person I was expecting.

“Hello?”

“Well hello there, Photopup~”

“Paul..?”

He giggles. “Surprised~?”

“Yeah, a little. How did you get my number?”

“From Petey’s rolodex of course~ You busy Saturday night~?”

“Um..” Is he..asking me out..? No, that’s crazy. “I don’t..think so..?”

“You sound unsure. Are you or aren’t you?”

I usually play guitar on Saturday nights but..this could be important. I can always play some other night. “No. No I’m not busy.”

“Good! Come to a party with me~”

What? Is he serious? “A..party..?”

“Come ooooon~ The Executive of Runway magazine is throwing a little get-together and he invited me.”

“Why don’t you go with Mr. Criss? Isn’t he more suited for these types of things?” I hear a loud sigh.

“Petey’s gonna be in New York that weekend. Pleeeeeease? I don’t wanna go alone..”

Ugh he’s using that cute voice. I can hear him pouting over the phone. “Oh..alright..I’ll go.” Damn him.

“Wonderful~! I’ll pick you up at 6:00..and dress fancy~ Ciao, baby~!”

I hang up the phone and run a hand through my hair. What the hell have I gotten myself into?

Saturday came much too quickly for my liking. It also didn’t help that I had nothing to wear that would classify as ‘fancy.’ I went for the next best thing. I dressed like I was just going to the club to play: a plain black tank top, black jeans and my favorite leather jacket. I’m not a fancy guy. I like things simple. I don’t see why I need to compromise myself for a bunch of people I’ll probably never see again. At 6:00 precisely I hear a car horn. “Well..here goes nothing..” I put on my jacket, grab my keys and head out.

Paul Stanley didn’t strike me as a guy who did much for himself besides his own hair and clothes..possibly not even that. I liked him, but he was a total prima donna. So it took me by surprise when I didn’t see a limo waiting out front for me. Instead there he was, sitting in a beautiful black convertible Corvette, with purple stars scattered across the rear of course~ It was immaculate, like it had just been driven off the lot. Paul smiles at me and waves. “Hey there, handsome~ Going my way~?” Hell, I’d go anywhere with him in a car like this~ “As a matter of fact I am~” When I get in and buckle up he starts the engine up again and revs it. “Mm..that sounds so good~”

“Like fast cars, do you~?”

“Ever since I was a kid~”

“Then hold on tight, baby cause we’re about to go for a ride~”

Boy was he not kidding. I actually hear the tires squeal as we take off down the road. It was fantastic~ “So..where is this party we’re going to?”

“In Malibu~”

“Oh great. I’ll fit right in with all the rich, pretentious assholes..”

Paul laughs out loud and pats my thigh. “I refuse to believe you’d give any kind of a shit about what they’d think of you. Besides you’ll be there with me so they won’t have anything to say..except compliments on your terrific taste~” I scoff but there’s no doubt a lot of truth to that statement, especially with the way he looks right now. I don’t think I’ve ever seen purple leather look so good on anyone in my life.

“You’re staring~”

I am staring. I don’t try to hide it. He’s made a career out of people staring at him. What’s one more? “What are you thinking about, Photopup~? Do you wanna fuck me~?” Okay..caught me straight off guard with that one. He just laughs at my reaction. “It’s alright if you do..a lot of people do~” There’s the shallowness I’d come to expect from his type. I cross my arms. “I’m not like that. Yes, you’re attractive but that’s not all I want in someone.”

“What do you want~?”

I sigh. What I want is to not have this conversation. But I don’t say that out loud. At least not with those exact words. “I have more important things to worry about than my love life. Like keeping a place to live for example.” After that he takes the hint, and the rest of the trip is uncomfortably quiet.

I don’t have the words to describe the place we pull up to. It’s like..if someone built a beach house and expanded it into a gigantic mansion. It’s just..absolutely breath taking. I could only wish to afford to leave near the beach like this. While I’m staring Paul silently gets out of the car and leaves me behind. Yep. He’s definitely still sore about the conversation we had earlier. I guess I’ll have to find a way to make it up to him later. I get out, lock to doors and run after him. “Paul please. I’m sorry. If..you wanna talk more later we can. It’s just..not an important subject for me..” He fluffs his hair a few times before looking at me. “I dunno..I think your annoyance was kinda justified. I tend to be too nosy for my own good sometimes~ Hm. Actually all the time~ Apologies all around, then..now let’s go party~” I let him take my arm and lead me to the door.

Everyone inside is ridiculously beautiful..and now I feel ridiculously outclassed. People shoot me disdainful looks as we walk past, clearly making it known that I don’t belong in their exclusive little fanclub. I have an overwhelming urge to beg Paul for his keys so I can drive back home. We approach a man dressed in gold from head to toe and holding a glass of wine. When he sees us Paul waves to him. “Vinnie~!!” Someone dressed that extravagantly just has to be the host. He waves back with a big smile. “Paul, you made it! How wonderful to see you!” He comes over to give Paul a tight hug with his free arm. “Have I got a lot to thank you for, darling~ Thanks to those delicious photos we’ve had the highest sales we’ve ever had in months!” Paul holds onto my arm tighter. “Glad to hear it! The photos were all thanks to this one right here~ This is Bruce Kulick, our new photographer~ Brucie, this is Vinnie Vincent, head of Runway magazine~” I take his offered hand and shake it. “Were you a model yourself, Mr. Vincent? You certainly have the look.” He laughs. “My, what a charmer you are~ As a matter of fact I was a few years back. I got my start at Catwalk just like Paul here~ Then personal life intervened and I lost my love for the stage. So I channeled what was left into this instead~ And please call me Vinnie. Everyone does~” It feels so strange calling someone I barely know but their first name..but if he insists.. “A-alright..Vinnie. I’m..very happy that you liked my photos~ That was actually my first time shooting with Paul.”

“Oh darling they’re masterpieces! I fully insisted that nothing be done to them by way of editing~” Just as I thought~ He reaches into his suit jacket pocket and hands me a business card. “If you’d ever like to do some editorial photos for me just give me a call, hm? I could use a photographer with your skill~” I look at the card in shock. “Would you look at that~” I hear Paul say, laying his chin on my shoulder. “Somebody might be moving up in the world~ Happy you came now~?” Vinnie smiles and takes my other arm. “Of course he is~ Come and let me introduce you to some of my friends~” He was absolutely right. I am happy I came~ It was more fun than I ever expected meeting Vinnie’s coworkers. Bobby was intelligent. Mark was friendly. Dana was funny. They admired my work and gave me advice on how I can improve. I could definitely see myself working with them if I decided to take Vinnie up on his offer, which I was seriously considering. I’d have to talk to Mr. Criss about it when he comes back. Paul makes a disgusted noise that snaps me out of my thoughts.

“Oh fuck. Why did he have to come here?”

I look down at him and he’s cringing, his expression twisted in annoyance and anger. “Paul? What’s wrong?” Paul pointed towards the door. Following the direction of his finger I’m pretty sure I see the culprit. How could anyone not see him? His hair was a bright blond. Definitely bleached. He made sure he stood out wearing a shredded pink tank top over a white mesh shirt, white patent leather pants and pink platform heels. He was hanging on the arm of a slightly shorter man dressed all in black leather with long black hair and red tinted glasses. His pants had MARS written down the left thigh in large white letters. An interesting..and loud way to make his name known to strangers. “Hey there, pretty people!” the blond yelled, catching everyone’s attention. “Can one of you be an absolute doll and get a drink for me~?” I don’t think I’d ever seen so many people move so quickly towards the bar. They crowded it, fighting each other to be the first to get a glass filled. I watch the spectacle amused, but Paul just rolls his eyes. “Selfish asshole..” My curiosity is piqued. “It’s obvious you don’t like him. Who is he?”

“Vince Neil. The self-proclaimed ‘hottest model in Malibu’.”

“He’s not?”

“Of course he is. He just has to make sure everybody knows it.”

“Who’s with him?”

“Mick Mars. His agent.”

“Creepy guy.”

“Mick is a sweetheart. I actually like him. Vince is an arrogant prick who thinks he’s the hottest shit in California. He’s trying to force some kind of rivalry with me..says he thinks it’ll boost our popularity. I can get to the top on my own, thank you very much.”

Looking back at the mob, it looks like a good looking red head got lucky. She pushes her way through the crowd with a glass of wine and hands it to Vince. He takes it from her with a grin. “Congratulations, baby..you win first prize~” The rest of the crowd just mind their own business and go back to partying while Vince practically makes out with the woman in the middle of the room. Quite a guy. Paul however is clearly fed up. “I don’t know about you but I’m ready to leave.” It’s not like I can say no. He’s the one who drove us here. “If that’s what you wanna do.” He nods. We say goodbye to Vinnie, Dana, Bobby and Mark and head for the door.

“Heeeeeeey leaving without sayin’ goodbye, Paulie~?”

Paul winces. Guess we weren’t getting out of here without Vince noticing after all..much to his dismay. “Don’t call me that.” he hisses, glaring daggers. Vince just gives him a cocky smirk. “Shoulda figured you’d be here somewhere. Were you hidin’ from me? “Ain’t like you to not make yourself the center of attention~” I can see Paul’s eye twitch. “Unlike you I don’t need to do such things.”

“That’s because everybody forgets about you when I’m around~ Who would notice you~?”

“How could I possibly compete with that tacky bleach job?”

“Like you haven’t had any work done on your face!”

“Maybe more people would take you seriously if you didn’t dress like a prostitute!!”

I have to grab Paul’s shoulders and pull him back. “Come on. I thought we were leaving.” Vince turns his gaze to me. “You his boyfriend? If you ever get tired of him being such a bitch I’ll be your Barbie doll~”

“YOU FUCKING SKEEZY TRAMP!!”

Paul pulls away from me but he’s stopped again by Mr. Mars. “That’s enough.” he says in a calm voice. “Vince, shut up and go mingle. You..” He hands Paul back to me. “..take him home. If those two get into a fight nobody’s gonna win.” I can’t argue with that. I take Paul’s keys from his jacket pocket and take him out to his car. “If you don’t mind I think I should drive us back.”

He doesn’t argue.

To be Continued!!

[deniscollins]

In Amazon’s Bookstore, No Second Chances for the Third Reich

In 1998, when Amazon was an ambitious start-up, its founder, Jeff Bezos, said, “We want to make every book available — the good, the bad and the ugly.” Customers reviews, he said, would “let truth loose.”  David Duke has published several books advocating for the Ku Klux Klan, an American white supremacist hate group that argues for the purifying American society of African Americans, often based on distorted information. If you were an Amazon executive would you: (1) allow David Duke’s Klan books to be sold in honor of freedom of speech, or (2) ban Klan books by David Duke, as well as other KKK advocacy books? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

Amazon is quietly canceling its Nazis.

Over the past 18 months, the retailer has removed two books by David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, as well as several titles by George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi Party. Amazon has also prohibited volumes like “The Ruling Elite: The Zionist Seizure of World Power” and “A History of Central Banking and the Enslavement of Mankind.”

While few may lament the disappearance of these hate-filled books, the increasing number of banished titles has set off concern among some of the third-party booksellers who stock Amazon’s vast virtual shelves. Amazon, they said, seems to operate under vague or nonexistent rules.

“Amazon reserves the right to determine whether content provides an acceptable experience,” said one recent removal notice that the company sent to a bookseller.

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have been roiled in recent years by controversies that pit freedom of speech against offensive content. Amazon has largely escaped this debate. But with millions of third-party merchants supplying much of what Amazon sells to tens of millions of customers, that ability to maintain a low profile may be reaching its end.

Amazon began as a bookstore and, even as it has moved on to many more lucrative projects, now controls at least two-thirds of the market for new, used and digital volumes in the United States. With its profusion of reader reviews, ability to cut prices without worrying about profitability and its control of the electronic book landscape, to name only three advantages, Amazon has immense power to shape what information people are consuming.

Yet the retailer declines to provide a list of prohibited books, say how they were chosen or even discuss the topic. “Booksellers make decisions every day about what selection of books they choose to offer,” it said in a statement.

Gregory Delzer is a Tennessee bookseller whose Amazon listings account for about a third of his sales. “They don’t tell us the rules and don’t let us have a say,” he said. “But they squeeze us for every penny.”

Nazi-themed items regularly crop up on Amazon, where they are removed under its policy on “offensive and controversial materials.” Those rules pointedly do not apply to books. Amazon merely says that books for sale on its site “should provide a positive customer experience.”

Now Amazon is becoming increasingly proactive in removing Nazi material. It even allowed its own Nazi-themed show, “The Man in the High Castle,” to be cleaned up for a tribute book. The series, which began in 2015 and concluded in November, is set in a parallel United States where the Germans and the Japanese won World War II.

“High Castle” is lavish in its use of National Socialist symbols. “There’s nothing that there isn’t a swastika on,” the actor Rufus Sewell, who played the Nazi antihero, said in a promotional video. The series promoted its portrayal of “the controlling aesthetic of Hitler” in its nomination for a special effects Emmy.

But in “The Man in the High Castle: Creating the Alt World,” published in November by Titan Books, the swastikas and eagle-and-crosses were digitally erased from Mr. Sewell’s uniform, from Times Square and the Statue of Liberty, even from scenes set in Berlin. A note on the copyright page said, “We respect, in this book, the legal and ethical responsibility of not perpetuating the distribution of the symbols of oppression.”

An Amazon spokeswoman said, “We did not make editorial edits to the images.” Titan, which wanted to market the book in Germany, where laws on Nazi imagery are strict, said Amazon approved the changes.

Some fans of the series said they found reading the book as dystopian as the show itself. “If you can’t even have swastikas shown in a book about Nazis taking over America, please do not make books ever again,” wrote one reviewer.

When Amazon drops a book from its store, it is as if it never existed. A recent Google search for David Duke’s “My Awakening: A Path to Racial Understanding” on Amazon yielded a link to a picture of an Amazon employee’s dog. Amazon sellers call these dead ends “dog pages.”

Some booksellers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said they had no problem with the retailer converting as many offensive books to dog pages as it wished.

Mr. Delzer, the proprietor of a secondhand store in Nashville called Defunct Books, has a different view. “If Amazon executives are so proud of their moral high ground, they should issue memos about which books they are banning instead of keeping sellers and readers in the dark,” he said.

The bookseller said he only knew Amazon was forbidding titles because he received an automated message from the retailer, saying two used books he sold seven years ago — “Conspiracy of the Six-Pointed Star: Eye-Opening Revelations and Forbidden Knowledge About Israel, the Jews, Zionism, and the Rothschilds” and “Toward the White Republic” — were now proscribed.

“This product was identified as one that is prohibited for sale,” Amazon told him. Failure to immediately delete listings for these books, the company said, “may result in the deactivation of your selling account” and possible confiscation of any money he was owed.

Amazon said it didn’t really mean any of that about “Toward the White Republic.” “We did not intend to imply the book itself could not be listed for sale,” it said in a statement.

As for “Conspiracy of the Six-Pointed Star,” which is widely available from other online booksellers, Amazon said the book did not comply with its “content guidelines.”

Mr. Delzer said the email, which he posted on an Amazon forum, was clear and Amazon was dissembling about “White Republic.”

A bookseller since 2001, Mr. Delzer said he does not condone white supremacist material but believes people should be free to read what they want. The biggest seller in his shop at the moment is by Greta Thunberg, the young climate activist.

“Amazon wants its customers to trust Amazon,” he said. “The place that sells books doesn’t want much critical thinking.”

In 1998, when Amazon was an ambitious start-up, its founder, Jeff Bezos, said, “We want to make every book available — the good, the bad and the ugly.” Customers reviews, he said, would “let truth loose.”

That expansive philosophy narrowed over the years. In 2010, when the news media discovered the self-published “Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure” on the site, the retailer’s first reaction was to hang tough.

“Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable,” it said at the time.

That resolution wilted in the face of a barrage of hostility and boycott threats. Amazon pulled the book.

Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, said Amazon has the same First Amendment right as any retailer.

“Amazon has a First Amendment right to pick and choose the materials they offer,” she said. “Despite its size, it does not have to sponsor speech it finds unacceptable.”

Physical bookstores rarely stock supremacist literature, for no other reason than it would alienate many customers. The question is whether Amazon, because of its size and power, should behave differently.

“I’m not going to argue for the wider distribution of Nazi material,” said Danny Caine of the Raven Book Store in Lawrence, Kan., who is the author of a critical pamphlet, “How to Resist Amazon and Why.” “But I still don’t trust Amazon to be the arbiters of free speech. What if Amazon decided to pull books representing a less despicable political viewpoint? Or books critical of Amazon’s practices?”

Amazon’s newfound zeal to remove “the ugly” extends beyond the Nazis. The order page for the e-book of The Nation of Islam’s “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews” stated last week, “This title not currently available for purchase.”

“The Man in the High Castle” was based on a 1962 novel of the same name by Philip K. Dick, whose stories are often about the slippery nature of reality and how it will be controlled in the future by governments and corporations. One character in the streaming series was Mr. Rockwell, the American Nazi Party founder.

In photos in “Creating the Alt World,” the tribute book, the swastika around Mr. Rockwell’s neck was removed. The real life Mr. Rockwell has been largely removed from Amazon’s bookstore as well.

After a complaint by a member of Congress in 2018, a children’s book that Mr. Rockwell wrote disappeared from Amazon. So did his book “White Power.” Other Rockwell material, like The Stormtrooper Magazine, is described as “currently unavailable.”

Some sellers circumvent the blocks by listing titles with a word or two changed, other booksellers said. One seller said he recently received a message from Amazon that several titles by Savitri Devi, also known as “Hitler’s Priestess,” were forbidden. But they are now on the site. And a copy of “Toward the White Republic” recently popped up on Amazon, for $973 plus postage.

There is still an abundance of other Nazi material available on Amazon, much of it with favorable reviews. There is the “SS Leadership Guide,” many editions of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and Joseph Goebbels’s “Nature and Form of National Socialism,” to name just a few.

That only underlines how hard it can be to tell exactly what Amazon’s rules are. The confusion is reinforced by AbeBooks, the biggest secondhand book platform outside of Amazon itself.

Some of the books dropped from Amazon are available on Abe. Recently, there were 18 copies of Mr. Duke’s books on Abe, at prices up to $150. Amazon, which owns Abe, declined to comment.