#does not make it any less racist imo

[shesnake]

I wanted to know your thoughts on this but do you think it's fair to say either Louis or Armand are abusive in their relationship? Idek if this is a valid angle to view the characters from because I guess they're all monsters or whatever but a part of me thinks that it's kinda lukewarm to refuse to engage with the complicated themes of the show, which abuse is featured heavily and pretty clearly imo. This isn't aimed at you btw. Something I noticed is people tend to use some of Louis's less favorable moments to justify the violence he experiences. Like that post about Armand just matching Louis energy in ep 5, most of the notes are taking the stance that Louis is a cold, unempathic pimp who doesn't care about sa victims, that Armand genuinely is completely right when he says he is always cleaning up after Louis that he was only worried and tenderhearted and Louis escalated in the worst way and that after Louis said that he deserved everything that happened after. And I may be biased but to me that is so fucking crazy. To me it seems like fans, specially nonblack fans, have zero empathy for black abuse victims, actively enacting abuse culture even. But idk if that is a too reactive view. I don't want to say Louis isn't flawed because he is. But I mean we are watching the season about Armand getting Claudia killed on purpose and somehow people are still like Maybe Armand didn't do it, maybe it was all Louis, maybe Louis really asked for it. All of it. I think there's a problem there but idk I kinda feel a little crazy too. Btw disclaimer I fuckin hate Lestat this is not about comparing Loumand/Loustat lol

hi! and wow there is so much to discuss here...

I think it is fair to describe the actions of both Louis and Armand towards each other as abusive by definition but it's always important to remember that it is Armand in the position of greater power over him. Armand is older, stronger, owns dominion. He can walk in the sun, manipulate memories, and live without constant debilitating hunger for blood - all of which are things that impede Louis from being his own person outside of Armand.

Louis also faced this same predicament when he was with Lestat, but unlike Armand who uses his own innate powers against Louis, Lestat mostly used his social advantages of whiteness, wealth etc in addition to withholding key knowledge about vampirism to keep himself in control and Louis dependent on him.

and sure Louis can lash out all he wants! He can mock Armand's sexual trauma (trauma which Armand himself already gets them both to fetishise... but that's a whole different conversation...) he can hit back when Lestat hits him but when he's with either of those guys he is always going to be the victim. Nothing shitty he does to his partners, or to Claudia, or to Daniel, justifies what is being done to him by these men.

There absolutely has to be anti-blackness involved in any argument that says Louis deserves any of this. (Of course Armand as a brown South Asian man is not immune from fandom racism but his treatment is racialised in a different way that is also a different conversation). Any negative behaviour from a Black man is going to be seen by racists as exponentially more aggressive than it is, especially the cross-section with those you mentioned who aren't engaging with the complicated themes of this show exploring abuse.

They can see that Louis yelling at Armand is bad, but don't notice that Armand is being manipulative. They can see that Louis stabbing Lestat that one time during sex is bad (and still sexualise it), but don't notice that Louis is disassociating in every sex scene he has with Lestat afterwards (because they're too busy sexualising it). They can see that Louis making Daniel upset is bad, but don't notice that Daniel has been leveling dozens of racist and homophobic micro-aggressions at him since episode 1.

Armand got a few minutes to tell his tragic backstory in Louvre, Lestat had 2 or 3 different scenes in season 1 to recall his own. It's just been words. Meanwhile racists erase Louis' experiences with trauma because they never had enough fucking empathy for him to begin with to even register it happening to him! on screen! in real time! right in front of us!

And yeah Louis and Armand and Loumand are incredibly complex and compelling, and I do enjoy seeing Louis' moments of cruelty towards Armand! But he's never going to win against him in the game Armand built for him.

And in terms of Claudia, I do think that Louis failed her, as he has always failed her. And is responsible for her death in that regard. But that failure involved letting those other two fucking sharks eat her!!! I personally haven't seen anyone pushing the blame completely off Armand and onto Louis but I wouldn't be surprised. This week I've more pissed off about people levelling it all on Armand and think of Lestat as an unwilling participant.... this is of course the blonde white vampire show....

anyways sorry this is so long! thanks for the message this was really interesting to think about.

[idiotsinkdaisies]

(longer post) once again over analyzing network tv shows trying to recreate the high i felt when S8x06 "Confessions" first aired - the one scene that I never liked was the Josh Glee speech, but now looking back I have thoughts about the why/who of it all:

Josh comes in and the first few lines of dialogue are him saying "right, you're with Tommy. Unless there's another boy?" and Maddie replies with "There's another woman."

reading in, this is on the nose about bucktommy as a relationship not just being between buck and tommy!! There is a third person in that relationship - and this scene frames that third person as being Abby Clark.

(Third person as a disruption/source of conflict, not in a poly way.)

Regardless of how you feel about Abby, she was Buck's first real adult relationship and made him realize what he wants within one - he learned how to "step into the circle" and meet his partners where they are at with her - it was Abby and Patrica in S1, and Eddie and Chris in S2 onward.

he never steps into the circle with Tommy because that relationship never developed emotional depth

(IMO) Buck realizes that Tommy left Abby in a way that mirrors how she leaves him - a serious partner coming to terms with the fact that they have to leave you to find themself/do what is right for them. He's both emphasizing with Abby for being left, and realizing Tommy hurt her in a way that she hurt him. Buck jumps to a logical conclusion, very much an if A=B and B=C does A=C? Could Tommy hurt him?

Abby is less a third person in bucktommy and more so haunting the narrative with great hair, a well traveled passport, and her annotated copy of eat pray love.

Still, she's talked about and discussed a few times that episode (introduced during the bucktommy date as a conflict, at dispatch, then during the breakup scene.) So explicitly - is she why they break up? no... but is it a part of it... yes (?)

Is she the third person?

Bucktommy always had a third person!! And It is not Abby Clark!!

buck bothered and bewildered was like look! he's so jealous eddie has a new friend. and then 9-1-1 goes um actually he's jealous of the new friend :) obviously :)

even tommy replies to "I wanted your attention" with "my attention?" just for buck to go "I guess so."

buck lurks in the diaz home but eddie lurks in buck's relationships... who is the real #obsessive...

They never explicitly said that eddie diaz is the reason bucktommy struggles/falls flat as a relationship.. but there were signs for those with eyes to see ("bring eddie" "really?" "and die")

Back to the Josh scene - we get into this part I like a lot, which is what is right before he goes into the Glee bit:

It was scarier, more confusing, and not half as accepting. And so sometimes we did things to protect ourselves, things that we might not be proud of, that now look less noble.

The Glee part is.. a choice.. and as someone who watched Glee and would attribute Santana as part of my lesbian awakening and being amazed that they were allowed to have LGBT characters on screen.. I should have fully emphasized with Tommy. At face value it's a scene to make Tommy more relatable/empathetic/forgivable. Unfortunately for Tommy, i think he's at best uninteresting and at worst racist/misogynistic and the scene really didn't do anything to change my opinion for better or for worse.

So then there's a choice that was made - why have Josh give a speech about repression and the struggles queer characters have to Buck in the same episode where he breaks up with the boyfriend in question?

Buck (seemingly) is not going to have any internalized homophobia plot lines, so it is a good theme to introduce! Just because Buck had an "easy" sexuality realization where his queerness is not a point of angst, that does not mean other characters are going to have a simple one.

(we do see this with Micheal in S1 specifically - but if this is truly introducing a theme - it's a little late for it to be related to him)

Is there another character on 9-1-1 that might have battle scars related to sexuality, might have seen a scary confusing world that is not accepting and done things they're not proud of... who might have married a woman and lived as a heterosexual man for years...

in summary: it feels clumsy because they're talking about a "third person" haunting the bucktommy relationship and they have the wrong third person!! they talk about repression influencing a character's choices and they have the wrong character!!

will josh's speech be referenced/re-quoted in reference to Eddie i can only wonder ...

is this intentional or am i reading too far into things?? anyways.

[sea-buns]

hey to a gorgug liker what do you think about his nightmare section from sophomore year? cause I feel like the horror there is less “ah my grandparents were racist” and more “fuck am I being a stereotype? are the people who hate me right about me?” cause wrt to his having to modulate between barbarian and artificer in fhjy it’s like. idk

oh boy do I have thoughts

Tbh, I had zero recollection of the racism stuff until reading this. It was just SO MINOR. His trial in the forest felt really lackluster to me. I feel like everyone else's really dug into an issue at the core of their character and his felt more like "everyone is getting a trial, what do we do for gorgug?" And idk if that was just a bad delivery/call on Brennan's part or if it could have been helped by Zac engaging more in it but it just. Didn't feel like anything. It was a lot more about the dice than the horror of the claustrophobia and the bugs and you've never fit in anywhere you live to make yourself smaller wherever you go you're just the loser who hits hard. Like yeah I guess there was an overarching theme of Gorgug gaining confidence in himself but it was done very poorly imo.

And I think his trial in the forest was wrong for putting such an emphasis on his intelligence. I think that would have been much better suited in fy, back when he was still being heavily bullied, but beyond that it felt like a quick and easy thing for them to grab. Yes, he had insecurities about his intelligence with all the complications with Zelda. But, to me, the focus of fhsy was his HEART. It put a spotlight on how his social circle has grown, and his bully is his friend now, and he's not alone anymore. His interactions with Ayda, the friendship book, trying to help Fabian, I believe in you spring break, it's Gorgug keep going. I made a post earlier in the season (including a great addition by another user) that I think articulates that emphasis on his emotional intelligence very well.

Fhjy HOWEVER. I think it's doing everything that sy failed at. It's giving him space to have an inner conflict. It's addressing lots of little issues and conflicts he's had over the campaign and combining them into one coherent piece. Like, guy was in a relationship pretty much all of fy, and then dealt with the fallout in sy, but I don't think we've EVER seen as much quality relationship development with Gorgug as we have in jy. He and Fig spent an entire summer together trapped in a tour bus and no season has indicated that bond and friendship more than this one. He and Riz have found something to bond over, meanwhile in previous seasons there was pretty much zero one-on-one personal interaction between them. Fabian expressed sadness over Gorgug leaving the Owlbears, because it was the only thing they had that was just for them to hang out and be friends.

Just with that, we're already doing leagues more with Gorgug's character than we ever have. And I haven't even STARTED on his barbificier journey, oh dear god lmao.

Gonna preface this bit with a post I made before the season even started. It was about Zac's steady improvement in his performances with every PC, and how I was predicting that it was gonna culminate into a Gorgug that does him the justice he deserves. It was initially supposed to be a criticism, but I got a little lost in the sauce of loving my boy lol. Still very relevant to the topic of this ask!

God, where do I START?? Addressing his relationship with rage? I'll be honest, I didn't think that would ever be used as a character arc. And I'm not even sure why I've felt that way. I just didn't think... I didn't think about how he might've had a dislike for his own rage. Like, the WAY he rages isn't bad by any means, but I don't think it ever crossed my mind how actually harmful his lessons to sing to combat rage were. No, I did not like the way Porter went about teaching him (a bit too unsupportive of his capabilities and reminiscent of shitty teachers for my liking). But his point about EMBRACING anger; that rage is not bad and does not— should not— need to be stifled. THAAAAT. That opened up such an interesting dialogue for Gorgug.

I do appreciate the beginnings of Gorgug's interest in artificing in fhsy. I think the crumbs of it back then did a great job of leading into his larger commitment to multiclassing. And I think what he's been doing with it this season is exactly what was lacking in his section of the nightmare forest. His trial was a puzzle, based entirely on die rolls, where his solution after failing even when he's assisted by the enemy is to essentially give up. I understand that facing their fears was the whole point of the trials, but his section came off as incredibly anticlimactic and unfulfilling. Just the fact that it was a trial based on stat numbers more than the development of the character itself.

Where junior year succeeds in actually showcasing his intelligence and the evolution of the worth he holds in himself is with the hands-on approach it takes. Yes, the academic rolls are still dice and stats, but there's a physical manifestation that wasn't there before. Gorgug is smart when it comes to getting his hands dirty. It is in the practical applications of his skills that his brand of intelligence shines the most.

And while, once again, I did not LIKE Porter's heavy resistance to multiclassing....I have to admit that I don't think Gorgug would have had such a boost in confidence without that struggle. Even if my boy had trouble expressing it to Porter verbally, HE STOOD UP FOR HIMSELF. Instead of simply rolling over and agreeing that he wasn't built for a technical class and it was stupid to try– he was DEFIANT.

The kid who said "I'm a dumbass. Eat me you stupid bug." took on FOUR CLASSES. Three school years worth of artificer simultaneously. AND stayed with the Owlbears. AND went along on party missions to help Kristen's candidacy. AND was always on deck to help the party with the overarching plotline.

AND HE ACED IT!!! THE FIRST BARBIFICER THAT THE AGUEFORT ADVENTURING ACADEMY HAS EVER SEEN!!!!! He is paving the way for every unprecedented multiclass that follows.

Just in comparison to who he was in the previous season, the amount of drive and self-worth he's gained is astounding. In my eyes, it's done more than enough to makeup for the way his development fell flat in sophomore year.

i hope this fulfilled the ask in the way you were hoping! i told you i'd get carried away lmao. writing a bunch about any of zac's characters is always such a joy. gorgug had always been my favorite of the bad kids but i always found myself wishing he went deeper, y'know? and now it's real. my precious anxious boy has been handled so well. and watching zac's growth as a performer has been such a blast.

thanks for the ask! :D

[velvetvexations]

Coming from a middle eastern genderqueer, imo the whole thing is less 'transwomen calling TMEs theyfabs is like black people calling white people crackers' and a lot more 'transwomen calling TMEs theyfabs is like black people calling middle easterns camel fuckers.' (Obligatory these groups aren't exclusive, you can come from the middle east and be black or be mixed middle eastern and black.)

Like. Sure there's a lot of stuff about black people that the vast majority of middle easterns do not and will not understand. Sure there is a lot of anti black sentiments held by many middle easterns. Sure you can go ahead and say that this slur does not have the history or gravity of the n-slur, so it's not the same. You can even argue that because colorism affects your average black person far more than your average middle eastern, that the racism they face is simply a lesser version of the racism black people face.

But here's the thing.

Even if all of that is true, it does not justify calling me a camel fucker. You are still being fucking racist when you call me a camel fucker! You are being racist! Towards another racial group that also deeply suffers under the same systems that make black people suffer! I understand the frustration towards racist middle easterns but that does not make it okay! Some rhetoric that hurts them may not hurt me and vice versa, but we are still both suffering from a racist society, and there's also a lot of overlap in our experiences when we focus less on generalisations and more on specific instances! Yes it's important to address anti black sentiments within the general middle eastern population, I am all for that and I think it's important, and it's part of why I hate when people focus on white people and not nonblack people when it comes to talking about anti black sentiments BC that is NOT exclusively a white people thing.

But quite frankly if you are calling me a camel fucker and telling me to shut up about my own issues because you think you've got it worse and then claim if I'm upset about being called a camel fucker it just proves I'm racist, or if you say it's okay to call me a camel fucker because you've had a lot of bad experiences with middle easterns and I gotta prove I'm 'one of the good ones' by nodding my head and smiling, then I'm sorry, but you are the racist in that scenario, and I am not shutting up. I am still going to defend black people with my whole heart but holy shit you are being racist and I do not have to take that sort of verbal abuse. Thank god this isn't an actual thing that has happened (the justification for being called a camel fucker, I have been called a camel fucker by black people).

Except even then this analogy is flawed because I think trans people of all slices have WAY more in common with their experiences than black people and middle easterns AND I think the trans community does a lot more to try and understand each other than middle easterns and black people try to understand each other. But it sure as fuck is more accurate than comparing it to black people calling white people crackers.

(Sorry if any of this is worded weird, I am on mobile and not used to it)

The issue is that they're barely willing to agree AFAB trans people have any problems literally at all and what they do admit is "I guess sometimes TERFs care about them too much and out of overwhelming but misguided love occasionally do things that inconvenience them".

[bestworstcase]

Suddenly reminded of your remark in one of your essays about Lionheart being the token Faunus headmaster in the academy system, and something about… idk the irony of him being in Mistral, which you indicate is one of the most racist places for Faunus aside from Atlas. Just amusing cuz I never saw that take before.

not just irony, imo, i think it does a lot of thematic work for the faunus subplot

regarding the question of whether atlas or mistral is worse for faunus: while faunus are systemically disadvantaged in all four human kingdoms (and menagerie is politically marginalized on the international stage)…

in atlas/mantle:

jacques schnee, a virulent bigot behind closed doors, is at pains to present himself as a tolerant benefactor to the faunus in public; one of his conversational partners during the charity party in v4 is another businessman who pushes back on jacques’ covertly bigoted rhetoric by specifically citing class disparities between atlas and mantle and the reality that faunus in particular face a lack of opportunity that can’t be overcome by just being employed. this bit character isn’t an activist—he’s a businessman. that means these are mainstream, normative viewpoints in atlas.

mantle news media and law enforcement are apathetic to the disappearance of several faunus in arrowfell, but when it turns out that the man responsible is a political figure beloved by mantle’s human working class, his support evaporates. (there’s further nuance in that he acted under duress, but even his most enthusiastic supporters react to the news that he hurt faunus miners with horror)

robyn—also a beloved political figure to the mantelian working class—explicitly includes faunus and this does not diminish her support with humans in mantle whatsoever.

when racist grandma goes off in v8, her daughter tries anxiously to get her to stop and, importantly, nobody else in the crowd of scared / stressed out / angry people in mantle speak up in agreement with her.

when weiss slams a drunk guy into a dumpster for making a racist remark to blake, the drunk guy’s buddy more or less just goes “woah!” and then double-takes because is that weiss schnee—what he doesn’t do is react like he thinks weiss or blake was the one out of line.

in the CFVY novels, it’s revealed that velvet’s dad works for the atlas military and she’s spent at least some time in atlas with him, but she doesn’t feel any particular wariness toward people from atlas or assume that they’ll be racist to her until they prove otherwise.

ilia remembers her classmates at an atlesian prep school being very openly racist, which tracks with how weiss is when she arrives at beacon; these were, in all likelihood, largely the children of covert bigots like jacques—kids who picked up rancid attitudes at home and lived in a sheltered bubble where these attitudes were allowed.

SDC operates globally, so we don’t know where adam suffered that hate crime or what happened to the perpetrator

so, while atlas/mantle do have systemic racism against faunus and some individuals are quite bigoted on an interpersonal level, it plainly isn’t socially acceptable in atlas or mantle to be openly racist, because a strong majority of the populace in both cities seems to fall somewhere between neutral to supportive of faunus rights. given the “no faunus” sign the madame had in her swanky hotel a decade ago, this may be a fairly recent swing in public opinion.

in mistral:

the white fang is headquartered in mistral and the bulk of its operations seem to be focused there, suggesting that this is where the pain is sharpest; sun, who attended haven academy and isn’t exactly a deep thinker, scorns the group as a “cult” and “a bunch of creeps who use force to get whatever they want,” which is less an objective statement of fact than it is an expression of what the dominant cultural narrative in mistral probably is

mistral has sundown towns.

qrow is from mistral; his narration of the world of remnant faunus episode is laced with very clear unexamined biases even though his stance is generally pro-faunus—very much what you’d expect from a guy who grew up in a very racist environment (there are no faunus in the branwen tribe) and then learned better but never really did the work to unpack his subconscious aversion to faunus

lionheart is politically marginalized to such an extent that he’s able to plausibly use his impotence with the council as cover for his deliberate sabotage

during mistral’s prewar occupation of vacuo, faunus were enslaved in mistrali dust mines in vacuo as per the CFVY novels

in stark contrast to velvet’s indifference to atlas, she is terrified of mistralis and associates the kingdom with, specifically, sexually charged racist harassment; so while in atlas she undoubtedly dealt with microaggressions and the occasional open racist, her experience with people from mistral has led her to presume “virulent bigot” as the default.

at least some businesses are segregated even in the present. (and at least one of qrow’s informants is a regular at a segregated noodle shop, underscoring the previous point about his attitudes)

now obviously there are mistralis who aren’t aggressively racist and others who support faunus rights, the kingdom isn’t a monolith, but the details were given suggest that open bigotry is normative and socially acceptable; there are certain places in mistral where faunus risk being murdered just for setting foot there. mistrali faunus may not face such quite sharp economic pain as in atlas (because the systemic issues mantelian faunus deal with intersects with the rampant classism which harms everyone in mantle), although mistral also has steep class divides that would likewise fall harder on faunus than on humans; but it seems to me that mistral is, culturally, a lot more hostile to faunus than atlas/mistral with bigotry allowed to flourish out in the open.

and, a pit stop before bringing this around to lionheart: ozpin offers lukewarm vocal support to the cause of faunus rights and vague platitudes about “taking strides” to close the divide (which blake calls him on in remarkably sharp terms given the sheer amount of power he holds over her as her headmaster), but… he shames blake for hiding her cat ears rather than do anything about the racist bullying that goes on at his school; he singles out blake, clearly suspects her of being salem’s spy and makes implicit threats when she doesn’t cooperate; he jumps to the worst possible conclusion about lionheart but trusted ironwood without hesitation in v5 despite ironwood’s objectively much more alarming behavior; he gifted lionheart salem’s old tea-set. so ozpin is not… especially a good ally to the faunus even though he notionally is on their side.

which brings us to lionheart. why did salem choose HIM, out of all the headmasters or teachers she could have tried to convert into a spy?

she picked the one faunus—not just headmaster, lionheart is the only faunus faculty-member we’ve met so far. the faunus appointed by the ruling council of a notoriously racist council to be the headmaster of the school where a faunus student absorbed the message that the faunus civil rights movement is a violent cult.

in other words, the most vulnerable member of the inner circle, someone who would have been walking a precarious political tightrope under extreme pressure to be absolutely beyond reproach because anything less would have gotten him torn to shreds, figuratively speaking, by a hostile public; and as if that isn’t bad enough, ozpin didn’t trust him either. ozpin is extremely quick to jump to the conclusion that lionheart is a traitor, in contrast to his blithe certainty that taking the lamp to atlas after ironwood closed the borders and withdrew his troops from mistral right before salem attacked haven!!

raven asks lionheart what salem has on him. it’s this. it’s him being the token faunus headmaster with his hands tied by the council in front of a racist public that he knows will rip him apart if he screws up even a little, and allies he can’t count on to have his back because ozpin is weird about faunus too.

is it any wonder that he folded like wet cardboard when salem threatened him. ozpin thinks she was just so scary that she sank her claws into lionheart and deleted his courage but the reality is the man was working under enough pressure to turn anyone into a nervous wreck with or without salem putting her thumb on the scales, and she just… recognized that and took advantage.

[super-hero-confessions]

I love Homelander.

I think he's an interesting character but I never get butthurt or complain about whenever someone points out that some of his fans are actual rape apologists or bad actors because I'm confident enough to know I'm not one. (Also there is literally an entire MAGA part of his fans that I feel like people on here forget exists? The ego on some fans to strictly personalize every possible complaint on him and the behavior surrounding him when we know that exists is so crazy. Feeling personally attacked by everything comes from a place of deep insecurity.) Here's the thing though, there are bad actors. There are apologists. Period. We all know it. It doesn't really help to be one of them or deny that they exist because it further stigmatizes a fandom and gives credence to the bad faith purity culture warriors' arguments because you are responding in bad faith. It's like when someone points out there are pedophile priests in the Catholic Church and instead of acknowledging this well known fact and saying, "You know what? I agree and that is awful." and trying to open up a conversation about how to fix the problem, you instead have one side that screams, "WELL NOT ALL CATHOLIC PRIESTS ARE PEDOPHILES!!" and the other screaming, "THIS IS THE PERFECT REASON TO ABOLISH THE CHURCH!".

Okay? Great. Good job Yancy, you cracked the code. Now how does that solve the problem of the priests that are actual pedophiles? They're still around. Still protected. Still hurting kids. They will still be around even if the church goes away because that's not really the problem either. The problem is the mentality that enables them to persist and thrive within the community. The mentality of tribalism. If we take everything as personal attack and reject any possible criticism on the basis of "community", the same issue gets created over and over. An environment that is both hostile to newcomers and comfortable for bad actors who you have just unwittingly provided a defense for by ignoring the argument or complaint put forth. The gravity of apologists in a fandom works to the similar effect if not through direct touch, then to exposure to similar things people do not sign up for (seriously you can get legally sued or brought up on sex offender charges if you aren't careful or reject disclaimers or tags and the wrong person comes across your stuff. That's no joke.) Rape apologia does perpetuate rape culture as an example, and we know this to be true regardless of where it may be. People, even ourselves, are more impressionable than we'd like to admit. So how do we reach that middle ground where we understand that we are not rape apologists, we don't convey ourselves as rape apologists, and are still able to support our horrible favorites? I think that's what these people are asking for and IMO I don't really think it's too much to ask. Bad actors are definitely there and a problem so denying they exist or acting as one (as if the callout was personal) doesn't really help.

I'll be blunt. As an example, too many of the people just here on Tumblr make The Boys fandom look like the most racist, ableist, misogynist, rape apologist fandom out there. Logically, we should know that can't really be true. The show itself has made a point to criticize this sort of thinking and those fans. But just one person is too many and that should be enough for people to step up and try and shut that shit down before it has the chance to grow and get worse. Or at least acknowledge the fact that it does happen without getting salty about it. You can like your favorite villain as much as you want, just don't be one of the bad actors that stigmatizes the fandom and ruins the experience and I promise that not only will other people be much happier and complain less, but you will be too.

Also. For the record. Homelander fans being more deeply insecure than Homelander himself is the true ironic tragedy here.

[yellowspiralbound]

Since season 3 of The Witcher Netflix comes out tomorrow...here are some of my concerns on adaptation from this season onward. Potential spoilers for the future seasons and definite spoilers for the books. Long post ahead.

The Hansa's Dynamic

I am so worried about how the Hansa is going to be handled in the show. Like shaking in my boots terrified. The showrunners already really messed up Dandelion & Geralt's dynamic...and that's one of the easier dynamics present in the Hansa imo. The dynamic is already going to be screwy because Cahir is a middle aged man and not a petulant teenager if he's present in the Hansa at all (though I think he will be since Emhyr called him and Fringilla out at the end of s2).

Emhyr as a Character

Speaking of Emhyr...I think they might attempt to give him a redemption arc, and I cannot emphasize how bad of an idea that is. They're going to retcon the whole "wanting to impregnate Ciri" bit, which I have mixed feelings on. Like yes, on one hand that's fucking gross but on the other hand, that bit is in there to show how fucked up Emhyr is and why Geralt needs to get to Ciri so quickly; it adds a sense of urgency to the Hansa's travels. If I see Emhyr sympathizers on my dash after this season I will lose my fucking mind.

Milva's Pregnancy & Related Scenes

I suspect that Milva's pregnancy is going to be cut entirely or play up the rest of the Hansa's concern for her as a weird "men think they can control women's bodies" thing which Milva will have to fight with them about so the show can be appropriately pro-choice without exploring any of the pro-choice nuance the books bring up. I can just see Regis talking to the guys about it being turned into a "the father deserves a say in a woman's choice to abort" scenario instead of the "I will give this woman her abortion regardless of what you all think about that (and I've made that VERY clear) but I think she's making this choice because she believes you all will abandon her/not support her if she wants to keep this baby and someone needs to make sure that she knows that won't happen" scenario that it actually is. This is also plays into my concerns about the Hansa's dynamic as changing that scene changes it irreparably.

Characterizing Nilfgaard as a Nation

Right now I feel like the show could go one of two ways 1) Nilfgaard is wrong in everything it does or 2) Nilfgaard is right in everything it does (if Emhyr gets a redemption arc). The show has already made a show of the Northern Realms' racism, which is book accurate mind you, but I fear this will translate to a sort of "Nilfgaard is the better nation as its less racist" scenario. While Nilfgaard is better in that aspect and a few others, it is still a militant slave nation. Nilfgaard and the Northern Realms both have their evils and their virtues; that's a big point in the books and the games. Neither nation is 100% good or 100% bad - they're just nations. I don't think the show will be able to handle that kind of nuance.

Jaskier & Radovid...

Apparently, Radovid is supposed to be one of Jask's love interests this season. Radovid is a massive racist, a war criminal, and a teenager. I'm sure all of that's going to be retconned but for fuck's sake just make a new character if you're going to age up and completely change the personality and insanity of an existing one. Important note: I am 1000% in support of queer Jask. I have never shipped that man with a woman in my life (even in the books and games) but for the love of God why did his LI have to be fucking RADOVID??

Mistle & the Rats

If they make Ciri and Mistle a love story, I am going to be disappointed but not surprised. Let me be clear: Mistle is a rapist and an abuser. I suspect they will change that to shoehorn in a queer relationship (even though Triss and Philippa are RIGHT THERE if they want a semi-canon wlw couple). The Rats as a whole are definitely going to be made into more robinhood-like characters because God forbid a main character like Ciri is morally grey or does questionable/bad things.

Geralt's Disability

If this season ends with the Vilgefortz and Geralt fight, as I suspect it might, Geralt will be disabled permanently by the end of this season. The dryads do not fix it. Magic does not fix it. Geralt becomes disabled and stays disabled. His disability becomes a hindrance during the books and the reader actively sees him grapple with the fallout of this. I do not trust this show to handle that - especially with how much more closed off Geralt is in the show compared to the books. If I had to guess, Geralt's disability will be handwaved away or mentioned in passing and never actually shown to impact him which is not cool.

[weaverlings]

i think one thing that's especially awful about the dm fandom is indeed the way so many white fans are eager to play off the racism as like. Just a character flaw or quirk, even when the work does seem to treat it otherwise

these are thoughts i have considered for a while formulated based reading what Black bloggers have had to say and brought on by this post but i didn't want to derail that at all

white fans treating laios' ignorance of toshiro's name as a cute thing. no it was racist. laios just breezed over toshiro's name and maybe he originally did so because he didn't like... adequately listen/understand toshiro, and that was because of the autism. that reason isn't acceptable and certainly not an excuse. laios just brushing over a name with an origin in a (let's say) non-"Common" language is racist.

and marcille's racism is both very real and when it is portrayed, it's clearly shown as a problem... tbh though, i think the fact that the narrative focuses more on how she patronizes falin as a result of the elves' paternalistic attitude toward short-lived races (not that it does this a ton, exactly, but it's more relevant to the story than her racism toward orcs), while her frankly cruel and callous ignorance toward the orcs is contained strongly in a few chapters and addressed in an afterschool-special-y way where she never offers a meaningful apology but more just um. a grudging acknowledgment of the fact that orcs are people? is sloppy handling. that one post about how marcille is conservative is incredibly true and while she starts to learn better, i don't think we get to see enough of that learning process for it to be meaningful. and it's definitely not one of the funnier aspects of marcille's character??

this isn't to say that the work itself isn't racist, or that its approach to racism in the narrative is good. fantasy racism as an allegory is a bad concept, i think - dungeon meshi may do a few things better, insofar as the bar is under the ground.

part of it is simply making all these races actually human, and then making it clear that the distinction between human and non-human sapient races arbitrary to the point of basically being an excuse. number of bones?? however, this also touches on a flaw of the work imo; a lot of these issues are touched upon in canon, yes, but only in supplemental materials as opposed to the narrative proper.

another thing that i perceived is that the oppressed groups actually do not pose nor are they presented as genuinely posing any threat to the oppressors (again a bar under the ground thing, this shouldn't be noteworthy). like, the orcs are painted as violent and malicious by other races in-universe, but it's not like. predator-prey dynamics between them and other humans, or the orcs having ~dangerous powers~ that would supposedly justify their oppression.

and yet. that doesn't make the the presentation of orcs less racist in the context of reality. like using racialized features more heavily on characters who are also depicted visually as more animalistic. the orcs' positioning in the narrative is undercut by this, along with the lack of Black and brown characters of other human races. like yeah there's not literally zero but those that are there are indeed often not drawn/rendered well AND in a narrative work that is evidently trying to think about race, this issue stands out even more. or it should.

i do think dm tries to address the idea of race in the work. ultimately i don't think it succeeds very well. however all of this was originally intended to just be about how frusrating it is that white fans refuse to engage with any of this in favor of laios as autistic blorbo and farcille... i think it's like. even when a story is actively trying to be about race as a social and political issue, this still gets not only glossed over but sometimes even like! actively de-politicized and de-racialized! "there's nothing racist about dungeon meshi" yes there is! just because you relate to laios doesn't mean he wasn't racist! just because the work is thinking about race doesn't make IT not racist. but rather than engage with that at all, we apparently want to pretend it's just Flawless Fantasy Fun

[lonesomedreamer]

another thing that’s wild about SNW is the way it treats Spock, the franchise’s most beloved and iconic character by far. it’s not just the weak writing (Ethan does a great job, and it’s obvious that he loves Spock—but there are times when even his best efforts can’t save the script).* it’s that almost none of the SNW characters themselves seem to like or respect Spock.

I’ve already pointed it out how often Spock is mocked and belittled by his fellow officers for just doing his (essential!) job as the science officer; that judgment and harsh treatment extends to his own fiancée (while in-character for her, T'Pring’s attitude is often portrayed as reasonable by the narrative). even Christine, Spock’s biggest supporter and the most understanding/sympathetic of his colleagues, ultimately shuts him down when he does his best to be emotionally supportive!

sure, there were plenty of times when the og Spock was teased—or even insulted—by his friends. Uhura sings about him in an early episode, but he’s obviously in on the joke, because he’s smiling and playing lyre while she sings. when Kirk does it, the audience can tell that it’s coming from a place of love. when Bones does it (whether or not you think he’s actually being racist or not), Spock can and does give as good as he gets—it’s mutual. and when someone else is judgmental towards Spock, their behavior is almost always called out by other characters (Bones included!) (“leave any bigotry in your quarters, there’s no room for it on the Bridge.” / “he has no heart.” “his heart is different!”)

an entire TOS movie is dedicated to the idea of Spock being so valued by his friends that all six of them would put their careers and lives on the line without hesitation just for the chance to bring him back from the dead! there are also plenty of other instances in the show itself when his friends refuse to give him up for dead (“shut up, Spock! we’re rescuing you!” etc.) though Spock’s linguistic precision and technobabble are sources of humor, they’re not usually used a reason to ridicule him.

contrast that to SNW, in which Christine has to beg two of his fellow Bridge officers, Ortegas and Uhura, to accompany her when she begs the inter-dimensional aliens to fix Spock’s broken genome, because she’s the only one on the Enterprise who seems to care that he’s been altered. his fellow officers also regularly make snarky comments like “plan on marrying that debris field, Spock?” and “can’t you just say ‘two moons’?” etc., as Spock is making scientific observations in his capacity as the science officer and even confront him (“are you just some heartless, pointy-eared computer?”) in traumatic/dangerous moments. and to make matters worse, the SNW writers rarely if ever allow Spock to clap back in this scenes the way he so often did in TOS.

I understand that SNW’s Spock is younger, less experienced, and less sure of himself. he’s a lieutenant, not the first officer. nonetheless, he’s the butt of so many jokes and looked down on/judged harshly by so many other characters that I can’t help but wonder if the writers have a similarly low opinion of him.

*to be clear, I don’t think that exploring the possibility of a romance with Christine Chapel is an example of the show or writers disrespecting Spock—but the way they’ve handled his relationships with both T’Pring and Christine (the fact that both of them are “love interests” at all, actually) evidence of their apparent disregard for and misunderstanding of his character, imo.

[laurarolla]

So I finished the Ada campaign, which means I've now actually played all the campaigns of Resident Evil 6 between the original release in 2012 and now. It's been quite a while since I've played the other campaigns, though. My feelings toward this game are still mixed, which probably isn't surprising, but it's hard to give a full recommendation or caution for this game. What you want to get out of this game will impact whether you like it or not. There are a few things that I can criticize absolutely, though.

Okay, so this game in whole is absurdly long for a RE game. The longer games in the series historically were RE4 and RE5, which can feel a bit lengthy on the first playthrough but are single campaigns broken into very digestible chunks. RE6 campaigns tend to feel just a little longer than they should given the material they are working with. That's to say nothing of their much poorer pacing at times. Ada's campaign actually ends up mostly fine, and it's also shorter than the others in terms of playtime. Thing is, the game is also often very action focused, pushing you to move quickly and fight rather than run due to the often enclosed spaces, which I find tiring for long play sessions. Between the thin hallways of a submarine to the surprisingly restrictive construction of an abandoned street market, RE6 is less interested in offering you ways to run than ways to fight. This is, to me, often fun and a good time, but the tension it creates isn't really right for the horror that RE tends to invoke. It's less George Romero's Dawn of the Dead and more Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead, and I'm far more of a Romero fan at the end of the day.

Speaking of differences in storytelling, RE6 does another thing that I find to be particularly troublesome. See, Resident Evil has always been a story of conspiracies, corporate malfeasance, government corruption, and how the best any of the so called "good cops" can ever manage to do is get a few people out of a bad situation without being able to actually change anything. Something RE has usually avoided is excessive sexualization. There are exceptions, most notably character designs like Alexia Ashford's first boss form and alternate costumes, with special mention going to Sheva Alomar's Tribal costume from RE5 being another example of that game being genuinely quite racist as well. Sadly, RE6 has nearly enough moments that are fairly sexist to nearly equal the rest of the series before it put together. Ada and her doppelganger Carla are shown naked twice (no details, of course), Sherry is the only returning character who isn't the title character in her campaign, and then there's Deborah, a boss fought in both Leon's and Ada's Campaigns who is a naked woman writhing like an exotic dancer while attacking you with giant tentacles. There are other moments, but Deborah is enough by herself to justifiably put people off from the game. As an aside, the entire game's conflict is the result of one very powerful man having a certified incel moment and forcibly transforming a woman to look like Ada Wong because he has a sexual obsession with her. It's pretty bad in general. Chris, Piers, Jake, and Sherry fair far better narratively IMO by being mostly unconnected to that crap, but it's still overall a low quality story.

Mechanically, the game is mostly fun. Like I said, Zack Snyder Dawn of the Dead, even having a moment where you have to defend a bus full of survivors from zombies. Every character has a slightly different style based on their unique weapons and melee skills, and it makes everyone fun to play for someone once you get the hang of the controls. The Combat bar (your stamina meter) is the central focus of moment to moment combat, minimizing ammo consumption and allowing for many fun combat opportunities. Ada, for instance, can quickfire her crossbow to either immediately stick a bomb to a target while reloading the weapon in one move, or can use a regular arrow to stick an enemy to the ground or wall for an easy finisher. Leon's handgun has two modes, one for staggering for melee followups, and one that lets you pour bullets into an enemy to maximize damage. Combined with the skill system that lets you unlock, purchase, and equip bonuses to fit your playstyle, the game is able to be tuned to your liking. The controls take time to get used to, and the quick time events are overused to the point where turning them off in the options menu is quite tempting, but there's a lot here to like in terms of pure play.

Resident Evil 6 didn't get a fair consideration when it was released, but it didn't really ask for one either with the name and legacy of Resident Evil attached. RE6 is an action focused thrill ride that outclassed the Paul W.S. Andersen Resident Evil movies in how much action and fanservice they could cram into the product without seeming to get the core of why people loved Resident Evil for over a decade prior. Capcom didn't let RE6's fairly impressive sales numbers prevent them from course correcting, though. They thankfully went on to give us the fantastic Winters storyline of RE7 and RE8 while dialing back the adrenaline for the more action oriented Revelations 2 and later REmakes. Resident Evil 6 therefore remains a very fascinating game from a unique time in the franchise's soon to be 30 year history, and is unlikely to ever be revisited outside of ports for modern consoles. It's a historical piece, and for people who are interested in the shifting nature of game design over the years, it's definitely worth checking out. I'd recommend waiting for a sale, though. XP

[maerossi]

thoughts on assimilation and laughing at Jewish anxieties

I watched The Brutalist last weekend in a pretty packed theater, and it brought to mind a form of antisemitism I've been thinking about recently, but when I tried to bring it up irl, my friends were like "we have no idea what you're talking about" and "that doesn't only affect Jews!" So I'm gonna try to explain it here and see if anyone understands.

Firstly, this doesn't only apply to Jews because I see a lot of similarities in American media that's about Chinese and Indian immigrants, for example, but that doesn't mean it's not antisemitic when it does apply to Jews, just as it's anti-Chinese/racist when it applies to Chinese people.

We've had decades of sitcoms and comedians who joke about Jews. These comedians are often secular, assimilated Jews themselves. And while I grew up in New York, surrounded by Jewish cultures, most of the people watching these comedies have grown up in other parts of the country (or other countries), places where they're much less likely to meet any actual Jews but are nevertheless being encouraged by their televisions to laugh at very New York-Jew-specific anxieties and issues.

Brooklyn 99 is an on-the-nose example: Jake is played by Andy Samberg, who's described himself as not being especially observant as a Jew, and Jake's ambiguous Jewish identity is really only ever played for laughs. In episodes where we meet his parents, for example, no references are ever made to Jewish identity (they seem very not-Jewish imo), but Judaism comes into play when they show a flashback of Jake's Bar Mitzvah solely for laughs or when, on the day of his wedding, a very stereotypically Jewish auntie shows up and says, "Jakey, what's this I hear about there's no rabbi?" to which Jake responds, "Not now, Aunt Linda!"

Not now, Aunt Linda! is what I want to call these kinds of jokes. Because that they're being framed as jokes at all is key: Jake's aunt, entirely possibly the daughter or granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, feels upset to find out that her Jewish nephew is not having a Jewish wedding. She's likely lived to see her family become increasingly assimilated over the generations, and she feels anxious at the idea of Jewish culture being lost in the century after a major genocide. This is all dismissed as Not now, Aunt Linda!

I'm not going to make this post a list of examples because I think we all already know that the only mainstream media we see about Jews are 1) decades of self-deprecating and just deprecating comedy about American Jewish life and 2) more recently, stories about people who leave religious Jewish communities. I don't think I have to argue that there's not much room in mainstream US media for, say, a story about the many irl converts I know who choose to join religious Jewish communities.

I think I remember the Not now, Aunt Linda! joke so well because I watched the episode it's in, "Jake and Amy," about our title characters getting married, shortly after attending a friend's Jewish wedding. And it had been such a fun wedding! I feel such joy when dancing at Jewish weddings; it's always a kind of magic to play some small part in lifting the bride up in her chair, like I'm so much stronger than I know. And so when I saw that bit in Brooklyn 99, I didn't think, haha, so funny, the old aunt's culture has been diminished! the way I was supposed to. I wondered why someone as fun-loving as Jake wouldn't want to have the Hora dance at his wedding, and I felt a little sad about it.

Which brings me back to why I felt uncomfortable watching The Brutalist in theaters and plan to rewatch it at home: The theater audience laughed at every instance of antisemitism. And I suspect that's because most people encounter antisemitism only on TV, in the form of sitcoms.

Here we have a serious drama about a Hungarian Holocaust refugee coming to America after surviving trauma he can't talk about, still separated from his wife, to find that his formerly observant Jewish cousin is now a Catholic convert. The refugee is jolted by this major shift in language, religion, culture, everything, and he asks, a little uncertainly, for his cousin to confirm that his wife is a Gentile--

Cue the theater laughing.

Later, his cousin's Gentile wife makes a gauche comment about the refugee's nose--

Cue the theater laughing.

We've all been primed to laugh when Jewish-coded characters like Rachel Green in Friends get their noses made fun of. Was the audience applying that lesson to this movie?

The Brutalist has a lot of humor; I'm not saying no one should laugh during it. But it seemed noteworthy that people were so readily primed to laugh at Jewish suffering, anti-Jewish prejudice, and anti-Jewish microaggressions, including many moments when I didn't feel the delivery was intended to be comedic.

I'm trying to imagine if the movie had been about Black/white racism instead. We don't just, like, hear someone say something classically racist and immediately laugh. There aren't decades of American sitcoms telling us to, after all.

And I think it's a huge issue, at this particular time, that people are so primed to laugh at Jews, and particularly at their suffering.

Does this make sense? My friends were totally baffled when I tried to explain this irl.

I started watching Indian cinema this year. Prior to that, basically my only experience with Indian culture was Mindy Kaling writing jokes in The Office about her character not knowing much about her heritage, which includes a subplot about her parents not wanting her to marry a (loser) white guy (Ryan) and wanting her to marry an Indian American doctor instead.

I wouldn't say this is racist comedy, in the same way I wouldn't say Jewish standup comedians making self-deprecating jokes in the 90s was antisemitic. But it primed an audience for something, right? The humor in The Office felt right at home with Not now, Aunt Linda! jokes.

When I started watching Indian romances and rom coms, I saw a culture that takes itself seriously. Plotlines where characters can be earnest about their heritage and religions without it being played for laughs.

Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahani (Rocky and Rani's Love Story), for example, is about a Punjabi playboy who falls for an intellectual, Bengali newscaster. There's plenty of humor, but none of it is aimed at what an American comedy would take aim at: their relatives being concerned about their traditions going ignored.

In fact, a lot of the scenes show that Rocky and Rani make a good couple because they take the other's culture seriously in front of their elders: Rani prays according to Rocky's grandmother's conservative tradition, and Rocky surprises Rani by learning the traditional Kathak dance that Rani's father specializes in.

I'm not saying Indian media is flawless and enlightened, so please don't expand my post into something it's not. But I am saying that I think it's really hard to see how assimilationist American media is, how it can appear to be "diverse" while actually disrespecting anything that isn't the norm under the guise that uniform secularism is inherently inclusive. And that means that when Americans make a movie that is about the pains of forced assimilation, the audience might not know exactly what to do with it, because since at least the 1960s, the cue card shown to us all has been laugh.

[bohemian-nights]

Hello, I was wondering why do you think TB attracts so many aggressive people with poor reading comprehension/media literacy? Like I have never seen a word of fiction glean a fanbase this wilfully obtuse and seemingly HELLBENT on offering the most intellectually dishonest takes! And sometimes even educated people with common sense prefer TB knowing Demon and Ramona are so wicked and selfish. :( my best friend thinks the Greens are usurpers and I don't get it cuz she's not a dumb person.

PS do you like Elia Martell?

If I had to guess why I’d say it has a lot to do with power fantasies and the ability to self-insert into certain characters(the greens aren’t written the best but they are much more fleshed out/complex imo).

With Rhaenyra people like her mainly because of the show turning her into a girl boss.

Before the show, she wasn’t well-liked (she descends into being a straight-up psycho), but they softened her out(her worst moments have so far been cut out), and tried to turn her into a Dany-type figure struggling to gain power against the patriarchy.

She’s poorly written and bland as hell, but they like the image curated around her. She’s dressed up as a revolutionary without being revolutionary. She’s the perfect mascot for their own wants.

With Daemon, he is a hot male “villain”/ anti-hero/bad boy. Characters like him are always going to attract a fanbase(especially a large female fanbase). It’s a tale as old as time.

People view him as either someone they can fix or their self-insert (Rhaenyra’s) man who will do anything for her. Aka her attack dog who’d die for even though the actual person he’d die for is Nettles, but they won’t admit to this because of their own biases.

I reject Daemon being completely wicked(at least book! Daemon; show!Daemon is on trial until the series ends). He does have some redeemable qualities. In the end, he chose love over power, the crown, and his own life. It doesn’t excuse away all his bad, but he’s not evil and totally self-serving.

Honestly, if I were to simplify things, based on how these fans express themselves, I think a lot of people who like Team Black(which is basically just the cult of Dumbnyra) are low-key racists with eugenic views or at the very least subscribe to white feminism(which is severely problematic).

Even the Black and POC fans seem like they have self-hate issues(sorry not sorry, but anytime you are befriending and making excuses for racists you aren’t right in the head).

Not saying your friend is a racist(or a self-hater), but this is just something I’ve noticed.

The show's influence really can't be discounted either. If someone is only familiar with the show I think it’s very easy to just take things at face value and see Rhaenyra as someone who is a victim and who we should root for because of framing(that could be why your friend likes her which isn’t her fault and is no knock to her intellect).

The book does a better job of showing that neither side is the victim or the villain. Both sides have casualties and innocent people(Nettles, Helaena, and the children) who are hurt by their side's greed.

I do like Elia. She was handed a really bad hand in life. She(and her children) deserved more than they got. The hate she gets from a certain part of the fandom is unjustifiable. She does nothing, but exist and she’s not any less relevant than her fellow dead lady Lyanna. (Seriously they are both dead and only live on in the characters memories. They both aren’t really relevant in that way).

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

Any opera recs for a musical theater nerd who keeps wanting to check opera out and hasn’t gotten around to it yet?

ooh!!! as a lover of both opera and musical theater, YES!!!

so here are some basics:

-any operetta or light opera basically ever. some of the best: gilbert and sullivan. johann strauss’ die fledermaus (the bat). franz lehar’s die lustige witwe (the merry widow). any jacques offenbach operetta, ESPECIALLY orphée aux enfers (orpheus in the underworld, aka the one with the famous can-can) or la vie parisienne (the parisian life). leonard bernstein’s genre-defying candide.

-speaking of which, there are a LOT of good, reasonably short american operas out there. george gershwin’s porgy and bess (the source of MANY standards, most notably “summertime”) premiered on broadway, actually. so did gian carlo menotti’s the saint of bleecker street. others i’d recommend: menotti’s the medium, carlisle floyd’s susannah, kurt weill’s street scene. all of these are pretty intense/tragic though. my fave in a lighter vein is bernstein’s trouble in tahiti, which i saw live once and it was DELISH.

-giacomo puccini and his contemporaries are a GOLD mine for musical-loving opera newbies. they’re reasonably short operas, they’re INTENSE, they’ve got amazing scores. so:

puccini’s la bohème: yeah, rent is based on it. however: VERY MUCH NOT THE SAME. (bohème is better imo.)

puccini’s tosca: you want an intense night at the opera? this one has EVERYTHING. it’s a straight up thriller. basically everyone dies. the music is glorious.

i’m not a huge fan of puccini’s madama butterfly but miss saigon is based on it, so there’s that i guess.

puccini’s il trittico: three short (1 hour) operas with three wildly different moods: il tabarro (the cloak) is a thriller, suor angelica is about a nun Going Through Some Shit and is DEVASTATING, gianni schicchi is a side-busting comedy and also has that iconic aria “o mio babbino caro”.

pietro mascagni’s cavalleria rusticana (rustic chivalry) and ruggero leoncavallo’s pagliacci (clowns) are a frequent double bill. they’re both INTENSE short operas about infidelity and passion and revenge and murder. and they both have tunes you will recognize.

-other recommendations:

-wolfgang amadeus mozart’s die zauberflöte (the magic flute), which has lots of spoken dialogue and hit tunes. MAJOR caveat however: you’re better off picking a production that plays much more fast and loose with the dialogue and lyrics because the original is uh…HUGELY racist and sexist! look up the pacific opera project’s nintendo-themed production on youtube.

-gioachino rossini’s il barbiere di siviglia (the barber of seville). hilarious as shit. so many shenanigans. can be a little long for a newbie but yeah. plus: TUNES.

-gaetano donizetti’s l’elisir d’amore (the elixir of love), don pasquale, la fille du régiment (the daughter of the regiment), and lucia di lammermoor. the first three are hilarious comedies, the last one is a tragedy of bloody murder with an ICONIC mad scene for the soprano.

-giuseppe verdi’s rigoletto and la traviata. both pretty short (~2 hours or so). both have iconic tunes and great stories. the latter is more or less the basis of both pretty woman and moulin rouge.

-georges bizet’s carmen. SO MANY HIT TUNES YOU WILL RECOGNIZE. also the basis of carmen jones.

-maurice ravel’s l’heure espagnole (the spanish hour). it’s a short opera about a woman who juggles three lovers by hiding two of them inside clocks in her husband’s clock shop. it’s risqué and funny and fun and does not get done enough.

-if you like WEIRD german stuff: richard strauss’ salome (which i love, but it’s disturbing as fuck) and elektra (which i don’t love but respect people who do) and alban berg’s wozzeck (SUPER weird and disturbing) are all in the 1.5-2 hour range and have been known to make unexpected fans of newbies. but do not attempt these unless you’re willing to experience a total mindfuck.

i hope that helps some! fellow operablr members pls feel free to add anything i may have overlooked 💗

[the-crow-binary]

not going to address the first half of your response to the q about the French revolution because it isn't as alarming, but holy shit the stuff you said about slavery and the supposed "black people are oppressed" and "anti white" narrative of nocturne and the facts you give to support this are blatantly incorrect. Think about it; slavery being opposed within France and its population in the 18th century but not in the colonies is not proof of anti-racism, it's proof of it. Whether they wanted to speak on it or take action or not, the French did very much benefit from the labor and produce of their slaves in the Americas- the wealthy more than the average citizen, but the benefits were felt by all to some extent. Of course the French revolution made Haiti's moves to indepence stronger, that's what happens when a colonizing country is going through upheaval- people are more able to act against it. The fact that there were black authors and participants in the French revolution does not change the fact that it was fundamentally about the wellbeing of the people of France, and that all tangible commitments to releasing its colonies and the people they held there were given up quite quickly. Also that society of friends of the blacks? Had less than 200 people. Not a great indicator of France not being racist!

Also, like, sometimes fictional characters are upset about things. That's not necessarily a political statement.

Here's something about the society of friends of the blacks: Yes there was less than 200 people in it. But in the people that were there, there was very important figures, such as La Fayette, Mirabeau, abbott Henri Grégoire, and others. Enough to make a difference and be heard (they sometimes received help from people outside of their association). And you did not need to be part of it to fight against slavery/for black people's rights. (even if we had to wait until 1848 before the definitive abolition of slavery, its thanks to the society of friends of black people, for example, that the free black people were given civil rights in 1792). Even with not much people in it, it was still a pretty big deal.

Yes the French Revolution "was fundamentally about the wellbeing of the people of France" (and I'm not saying racism didn't exist at all outside of the colonies, but that it was way more prominent there), but it's still a fact that slavery was also fought against during it (even before and after), and that rights were given to black people thanks to it (because one thing led to another, then another, then another... slavery was not the main focus for most people, but the Revolution affected way more than what was intended and inspired many) As you said, the wealthy is the one who benefited from slavery most, compared to the rest even if "to some extent" it affected everyone (1 out of 8 french people benefited from it, to give you an idea). Doesn't make the french any less against it or any more racist. Not every french person actively fought against it, yes. But, just like if you use (so "benefit from") Amazon and don't go protest against it, it doesn't mean you are totally on board with exploiting employees (and the logic can apply to many companies and even countries to this day). So one can only speculate on how far racism went in XVIII France among the people, but imo, it's pretty telling that we gave black people rights and abolished slavery so close to the French Revolution (not that some people weren't already fighting for it before that).

So worst I did was say "only" the colonies were pro-slavery in my previous post and not give lots of details in order to make the post shorter. (i am actually fact-checking myself regularly using multiple sources, because I don't want to misinform anyone, but there's always a risk I might be wrong. i really don't like politics. also the show just angers me for lots of reasons that are not necessarily connected to The French).

But in the end, its all the same: Nocturne messed up.

Nocturne CHOSE to tackle slavery and racism. It CHOSE to make things happen during the French Revolution. It CHOSE to be political. None of it came from the games, it could have never been there if they just did not take those decisions. That's why, for this particular show, I have to highly disagree with your "sometimes fictional characters are upset about things. It doesn't make it a political statement" because Nocturne literally is all about politics.

The choice of making every noble a vampire, to make Annette a black ex-slave that freed herself, to make Maria a revolutionary leader, to throw "liberty equality fraternity/brotherhood" around from time to time (Maria literally shouted "vive la revolution!" in episode ONE), every single choice they made, every single thing they added or changed from the games is rooted in politics. Annette's teacher,is very politically involved, and her views are presented as the truth and never questioned. I don't have a problem with a character being so casually racist towards white people/anti-french, especially considering said character's background. But I do have a problem when that character doesn't get called out for it or shown being in the wrong. I'm sorry, but when you make a character who isn't a villain, say shit, and don't follow up with something that indicates that it's shit, or give her consequences for saying shit, yes, I will assume you think this shit is valid. (at this point I would've taken just Annette doing a grimace as a sign that she disapproves, but no, she seems okay with insulting the french. waw, okay, why were you ready to lead them then? Connasse.) Annette literally calls Maria and Richter "children" and act like an ass because she thinks she is so superior because she suffered MORE so she knows MORE and the show portray it as her being right (everyone is so nice to her all the time and don't even say anything when she is mean to them). It doesn't even bother to pretend she only said the things she said or acted the way she acted because of trauma and anger, no, its just the way she is, because its the truth, because white people can't suffer, because they don't know shit (she fought her own revolution then went to France to fight THEIR revolution while the French don't do shit, she is that superior)

I don't criticize showing that black people were indeed oppressed and literal slaves at the time. I criticize the form. I criticize that they can't elevate Annette or the black people without bringing others down. And thats a problem, EVEN without taking real events into account. It's just a shitty way to write a character (from a minority or not) in every single media. It's hard for me to explain it, but there's a difference between writing a character being a "victim", and writing a character being a "poor little victim". One gives way more dignity to the character and is way more respectful to the people it represents than the other. Annette is on the "poor little victim" side even with this #girlboss façade of hers.

There is something called "the death of the author" (it's a french essay, hehe). To put it simply, it's the idea that the author write something, and the reader create the meaning. What the author intended to tell does not matter more than what the reader understands/interpret, and the author's own life should not be use to judge of it's creation's meaning(s). It's the thing with art, you know? Different people can have different interpretations. For Nocturne, it doesn't matter if it wasn't their intention to talk about politics (how could it not have been when it's literally so obvious, I have no idea). Because I, as a viewer, noticed a pattern, noticed elements, and understood messages that are indeed, very political. It doesn't make me any more right than one who does not and just enjoy the show for it's story and characters without thinking much deeper than that, but it doesn't make me any more wrong either. It's not like I don't have any reason either, I can clearly explain why I think the way I do, the elements are right there, I didn't create them.

[fancyfade]

Devin Grayson gets a lot of stick (sometimes very much deserved) but I gotta say do enjoy quite a bit of her late 90s work. Credits due where it's due so I was wondering which are your favourite of her stories and maybe elements of her writing you like too?

Sadly I think u might be asking the wrong person (not as in on accident just as in. I don't think I'll be able to give you the answer u want) :P I was not overly impressed by anything she wrote*. Her batfam stuff is all mid-to-bad IMO, her takes on the characters relationships as they come across on panel are reductive, treatment of babs is sexist, and treatment of catalina is sexist and racist. in addition to all of the racism she does while writing dick's romani origins

I guess I liked the concept behind the 'dick mentors rose' arc, but not really the execution.

oh wait! I guess I liked her arsenal mini! i think she also might have done 1 story in NML I liked with Helena.

I'll say in terms of writing there's not any 1 thing I think she does especially well. I think there is more emphasis on characters emotions, which many people like, but often times it is not written well or the characters appear more readily open with their emotions/less able to hide it than usual, which reads as like... inauthentic to me? sometimes it hits, but most of the times it misses. i think if you're not invested in dick grayson angst, often at the expense of his own or other people's characters, then her batfam stuff really is meh, and she often writes dick weirdly codependent on Bruce in a way other writers don't', which just diminishes both of their characters and makes their relationship flatter and more boring.

this is excluding all the racism/sexism in the writing all ready, which I won't pretend that is unique to her writing but... if I'm analyzing her writing ofc i'm gonna bring it up :P

like hypothetically i could re-read the arsenal mini series to try to remember why I liked it, but I don't feel the need atm. Sorry i can't give u the answer u want

curious which of her stuff u like if u have read titans (or we just have different opinions on batfam stuff which is fine :P)

*tho I haven't read her Titans series except for like... 3 or 4 issues, so maybe if I read that I'd change my mind?

[synonymouswithanonymous]

I agree with this statement. Don't know who said it, but it's a true story. You can't make up a whole belief system, rules, and personality and then be upset that this real person isn't exactly like the character you made up of them in your head. Or be upset that they aren't exact copies of what's in your head. Or funnier still, be upset that their behaviour is their natural course, estimated correctly, but you now see them differently bc they did something you don't like (got a GF and big surprise you don't like her) and it's turned into meaning he's at fault. But he's not the one at fault in reality. So now he's constantly attacked too. He's been called stupid, creepy, manipulator, manipulated, user, racist, hypocrite. His talent has been mocked, from Ivar to new show, and so much more beyond he looks old/dead/dumb etc. He didn't say happy womens day to all women so it's a slap to his female fans? 😆 cancelled Wales Con? Slap to the fans? 😆 he posts his GF who he loves and He's a spineless lapdog? How does that make him anything but a guy posting his GF? As couples do. Or he takes photos of her and she posts them, he's still mocked. 😆 😆 He's in the same boat as his GF, he can't win for losing. I hope he's just living his life to make him happy (and GF too) and realizes you can't make everyone happy so why bother with it. 😊😊

Now I've never read him to be any of that. Always thought he's very good looking, talented, intelligent in interviews, comes across as sweet, loyal, goofy, and funny. Nerdy is a good thing imo. The husky he called himself seems to fit. IMO he looks great now, he looks happier now than he has in the years before Johanne. He looks happy, settled, less lost, less nervous, to me that's a good thing. Comfortable in his own skin. 😊 I don't know why I'm surprised by the hate he is getting, or the hate she's getting, but I am. It just doesn't make sense to me.😔😔

Anyway, his visa photos look good! I hope his new project goes great for him! I wonder what it is and when it'll film? 😊😊😊 and continued success and great 5star reviews for Askepot! I really like his hair this length, it looks great! If it's NYC I hope she'll get to visit too, but maybe not bc she'll still be busy with Askepot. But If she does I hope she gets to see some Broadway shows!!