#hes so fucking trash at his job its high comedy

[thoughtsbeewild]

hmm. i think its because of Kill tony comedian comment that escalated this. If you know comedians thier jokes can be offensive or defensive to a particular audience- which makes sense that the end result will blow back from the demoncrat providing more hatred/division to USA

I mean bumbling mumbling Sleepy Biden has his whole hatred of the orange man, that will never change his mindset . Or as orange was saying to his crowd "forgiveness of What Biden said". My first thought damn orange used his leadership skills to tone it down, good fucking job. In reality, these two old men will not get along period. Just like marriage, a relationships with families, loved ones, etc...

The other side is just full of lies and full of shit. thier campaign is definitely directed toward the hatred of the orange man, the list they speak about orange getting americans, its not true. That was actually them in 2020 election, they were to gather a list of all usa citizens who voted, rallied against them and take revenge. I remember it was Nancy pelosi agenda, she was fucking pissed at us..

LETS REWIND 4 YEARS BACK,,,take it back to 2020 refresher fast forward, they succeed, right with the masssive layoffs, toxic leadership, using DEI or the color of your skin in companies for promotion title change, inflation, high rent, homelessness, you got high crime, you have POWER OF MAINSTREAM MEDIA AND CELEBRITY WOKE PUPPETS UNDER YOUR POWER/CONTROL TO MESSAGE TO THIER BILLIONS OF FOLLOWERS TO HATE AMERICANS AGAINST EACHOTHER BECAUSE THEY DONT FOLLOW YOUR MORALE, YOUR PRINCIPLE, YOUR METHOD OF CHOICE, THAT MAKES OTHER SIDE BAD, THAT DEMONCRATS, BIDEN, KAMELA RESORT TO THIER LOWEST LEVEL TO DIVIDE UNITED STATES AND OTHER COUNTRIES. YET WHEN ORANGE GOT SHOT THEY SAID CONDOMN, DO NOT INCITE VIOLENCE, HERE YOU ARE SAYING HITLER, NAZI, ORANGE SUPPORTERS ARE TRASH, YOU ARE USING YOUR PUPPETS HUMAN VULNERABILITY AGAINST THEM WITH VIDEOS, CELEBRITY, WHOLE NINE. YOUR MAIN PURPOSE IS WE KNOW TAKE DOWN THE ORANGE MAN MAN..

Some comedians are not funny..I HAVE SEEN KILL TONY WITH SHANE and impersonator biden,,, TO BE HONEST THEY ARE NOT FUNNY AND OFFENSIVE..IVE SEEN BETTER COMEDIANS THAT CAN APPEAL TO ALL AUDIENCES WITHOUT ANYONE TAKING OFFENSE.

I ATTEMPTED TO WATCH JOE ROGAN, THE BOATS, THAT WAS NOT FUNNY AT ALL FOR SOME REASON. I I FELT THAT is not HIS GREATEST SKILL AND WHILE WATCHING LIKE YELLING AT THE SCREEN WHY IS THIS MAN YELLING AS COMEDIAN, IT WAS A HARD TO WATCH HIS NETFLIX SHOW(BRUTAL), I MADE IT THROUGH..I THINK JOE ROGAN IS BETTER AS A PODCASTER or host at UFC match NOT COMEDIAN PER SE..

I did also attempt to watch kill Tony with Tucker Carlson, Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan as guest, it was not funny. For the life of me, when tucker Carlson guest at kill Tony show he was laughing so hard on the show, which made no damn sense..Maybe I’m picky and selective of good comedians who can engage with all audiences of all personalities. That what you do in a leadership role, you work with all kinds right..

JUST LIKE SOME ACTORS ARE NOT GOOD IN CERTAIN GENRE WHICH THEY SHOULD STICK TO ACTION OR COMEDY..

I think bringing out Kill Tony at a repeat RNC show lol, was that a good choice? Maybe watch his shows first before putting someone in political scene...because you have look at bigger picture the entire audience, unfortunately on trump management that was not looked at ..oh well mistakes happen, shit happens, lesson learned right..

THATS ON ORANGE MANAGEMENT TEAM FOR THAT BLOW BACK, u should know better when putting a comedian in political fight to win the usa president..

[canyourscienceexplainthis]

It’s honestly so satisfying that Zhao was such an incompetent donkey that he wasn’t even included in the ember island players. Like they might have heard stories about him but even playwrites of that absolutely abysmal caliber went “lol what a loser forget this guy.” That, to me, is justice.

[thiamfresh]

Can you rank your favorite TW seasons? I'm currently rewatching and I'm surprised to see how my opinions have changed so much the second time

I'm doing this without having watched Teen Wolf since the final episode so WOO here we go!! uninformed trash under the cut

1) SEASON TWOOOO

This season will now and always make me lose my absolute shit. They found their feet after season one and Season 2 really managed to find its stride with a mix of comedy and drama. Skirted that sweet sweet spot of not taking itself too seriously but seriously enough that it doesn't turn into Riverdale. And, If we're not counting Theo, Matt was the most interesting Villain to me. I loVEd him, Stephen did a fanfreakingtastic job of playing him and was a lot more appealing than most of the villains in that he wasn't just 'evil supervillain' but a very human villain.

2) SEASON 3B

Season 3 B was pretty fucking amazing and I won't lie, it would've got first place if not for the fact that Season 2 just brings me more joy personally. Like storywise and stuff, 3B is definitely the best season, but I just...enjoy 2 more. Like, to me 2 has more rewatch value whereas 3B is amazingggggg Season 2 had better 'stand alone' episodes. Like you can dip in and out and enjoy it whereas 3B you gotta go for the full season.

3) Gonna be a super unpopular opinion but...Season 4 is in third place for me. At the time I haTED season 4, but when I rewatched it before Teen Wolf ended I really really loved it. The introduction of Liam into the Supernatural world and him being shown as a scared kid was a really nice (and angsty) reminder of how young the characters are and Liam being reluctant to fight the Beserkers/deadpool kinda stuff at first is !! really nice. Also, Derek going full wolf, even tho we knew it was coming, was AWESOME

4) Season 1. Look, it kinda sucks, its predictable, it's HILARIOUS, the first time I watched episode one I had to pause after the bite because I was laughing so hard at it. But again, it's idk...It's fun, it has some nice moments.

5) Season 3A honestly...I'm not..a big..fan..of 3A, Could be the murder of Boyd and Erica, could be the fact that the Alpha pack were just..not that scary to me and had me rolling my eyes most of the time they were on screen (I mean two of them fuse together likeeeee????? They wanted me to not take that as a joke?) Still had some amazing moments and really brilliant episodes/sequences. The Darach, again, not a great villain, had a lot of potential but just, didn't quite hit the spot for me. Will definitely dip into the series to watch some moments but then you know. I think The overlapping plots of the alpha pack and the Darach just led to kinda too much happening at once leaving me not giving a shit about a lot of the stuff that was happening. Also....True Alpha. I wish I could ignore the fact that its the dumbest thing I've ever heard, but I just can't and it sullies the whole series for me.

6) 6B. Because Thiam. Lets be honest at this point the show had driven off of a cliff and I was only watching for Thiam. The return of Gerard as a real player almost made me quit. I can't rewatch anything but the thiam scenes because anything with Gerard and/or monroe/and/or the teen hunter group has me foaming at the mouth. Not to mention the absolute slap in the face that was Brett and Lori's deaths. I am bitter and I will never not be.

7) Season 5A. I hated season 5. To me it was one of the worst things i've ever seen. I was actively routing for Theo to kill the entire McCall pack by like episode 3 and the only reason it is this high on the list is because of two reasons.

Reason one - Watching Theo kill Scott and everyone else in pain in the last episode made me happier than I think i've ever been. I was hoping they'd just end the whole series right there.

Reason two - I've just realised that the reason I was going to put (Theo and his lil chimera pack strutting into Eichen, pretty BAMF vibes) was in 5B so...I guess I only had one reason. So I'll repeat it. Theo decemating the McCall pack felt like the first rain to signal the end of a drought.

8) Season 6A. It's here because Thiam, but Theo wasn't in the season enough for my tastes. Would have liked it (maybe) if they'd kept Kira for the season abOUT PEOPLE WHO TRAVEL THROUGH FUCKING LIGHTNING instead of saying she had 'no story left to tell'. Again, had some great moments (*cough*thiam*cough*) but overall it was pretty shitty and I have a lot of beef with the Stiles being taken and only Lydia, who didn't even know who Stiles was like a year and a half before, being able to bring him back is without a doubt the dumbest and most disrespectful (to Scott and Stiles's friendship ((and to Stiles and the sheriff's relationship)) plot i've ever seen and was so shoehorned in it made me hate Stydia with a burning passion despite having shipped them in the previous seasons. (I am so sorry to any Stydia fans. I know it was a huge awesome moment for y'all and I'm really really glad you got that and I'm not trying to like belittle your ship I just have some personal grievences with how Stydia played out (as a whole, not just in that moment, that I can't get over))

9) 5B, I know i technically watched it all but i think i blacked out from the shame of having to endure it. Theo getting dragged into hell was pretty awesome ngl but overall, fucking terrible, If i have to watch anything from 5B i will just find clips on youtube rather than having to suffer through full episodes.

[danwhobrowses]

WWE - Best and Worst Booking from Wrestlemania 36 to 37

Wrestlemania 37 is in the books and so a new saga of WWE booking begins anew.

But the year has had its ups and downs, in the outside world and the booking, so - for doing something new - I'm gonna run down some of the best and worst booking decisions made by WWE from the Raw after Wrestlemania 36 to Wrestlemania 37 Night 2.

I will note, these are my opinions - some of which acts upon hindsight rather than 'in the moment' - and if you're gonna call me an anti-WWE mark rest assured I plan to do this for AEW too after Double or Nothing in May

Also, there is the off chance of spoilers...somehow? But it's worth covering that base

April 2020 Best WORST - Samoa Joe on Commentary On April 27th, Samoa Joe was called upon to replace Jerry Lawler (we'll get to that) on Commentary. Joe provided a great presence to commentary and it kept him on TV, we do still await his return but seeing more of Joe is a huge plus. EDIT: This was best until just now I learn that Samoa Joe has been released, the fuck WWE?

Worst - 'Ramen Noodle Moonsault' Part of what caused Lawler's replacement was the scrutiny caused by an April 13th call by Lawler during a match between Austin Theory and Akira Tozawa. He called a Step Senton a 'Ramen Noodle Moonsault', Lawler is rarely funny nowadays with his dated comedy but this was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Best - Giving Sonya and Mandy the Floor It could've been a huge down not to see Sonya vs Mandy at Wrestlemania after she was outed in manipulating Mandy away from Otis, but their feud managed to carry on strong all the way to Summerslam thanks to Sonya stepping up her game to come off as a fantastically asshole heel - which in turn made Mandy a sympathetic character. Their post-mania build allowed for an anticipated match, it was only unfortunate that an attempted irl kidnapping in August would sour the momentum and cause Sonya to take some justified time off.

Worst - Charlotte Flair on all 3 Shows Charlotte's NXT Title win did not go down as well as WWE had hoped, somehow giving the woman that had won next to everything another title reign at the expense of Rhea Ripley's Wrestlemania debut backfired on them. And unfortunately, exposing Charlotte on all 3 shows did not help matters at all, furthering the criticisms WWE have often faced when they overbook Charlotte on the upper card.

Worst - COVID-19 and Black Wednesday While not necessarily a booking thing, it was very bad of WWE to do what they did at the time. Another outbreak raised some backstage concerns over the conduct WWE, who had tried to not acknowledge the pandemic in the same vein then-president and somehow HOFer Donald Trump had done, were acting towards the pandemic. The worst of it all though was Black Wednesday, a mass exodus of talent in the height of the pandemic was never gonna be great PR, but a lot of the talent let go were very popular - Drake Maverick's video also cast a negative light on WWE even when they rehired him and used it as a storyline. While some found greener pastures to flourish, not everyone landed well on their feet, equally baffling was that WWE would then boast a quarterly profit before rehiring some of the staff they let go.

May 2020 Best - Giving the title to Asuka While we were all surprised to see Becky Lynch survive Shayna Baszler at Wrestlemania, nobody could dispute the post MITB segment on Raw when Asuka was rightfully awarded the title for winning the MITB. Being a shining light in the Empty Arena Era, Asuka was certainly a fan favourite choice to succeed Becky as she embarked on her journey towards Motherhood. A truly wonderful segment which showed that segments can pay off just as much as wrestling.

Worst - Not Pushing Otis While Asuka's MITB victory was done right, the same could not be said for the Men's Winner. Otis had the fan's backing and while his victory was surprising especially given the competition it had potential. Which WWE then squandered and buried as hard as they could. Otis never got to develop beyond a joke act, his love interest and partner taken from him, before he would months later lose it to the Miz.

Best - MVP joins up with Lashley Lashley was in a rough spot here. His main story was cucking Rusev by having an affair with Lana, and then marrying her. The pair was not built to last and mercifully we upgraded to the MVP/Lashley partnership. Together both men began their career resurgence as they now stand at the top of the pile, this was the beginning of the Hurt Business.

Worst - The Brand-To-Brand Invitational Much like how the Wild Card Rule was stupid, the Brand-To-Brand Invitational was also stupid. Often used as a tool for Survivor Series or to bring Charlotte or Corbin over with their bad heat, overall it served nothing for the fans or the booking, regardless of whatever they named it.

Best - The Fight Pit Timothy Thatcher can still do a lot more in NXT, but he still leaves a great legacy in introducing the Fight Pit. When there's not enough people for War Games but a Steel Cage won't do, the Fight Pit sold stiff aggression with its debut affair between Thatcher and Riddle, a brutal match only since done once more. It may have been done twice, but if someone calls for a Fight Pit you know shit's gonna go down.

Worst - Stripping Sami Zayn of the IC title, for staying safe Sami Zayn had finally won a championship on the Main Roster in March, then COVID happened. While WWE did make an outward statement that anyone who didn't wish to risk their health could exclude themselves, when Sami did it he lost the championship. This was rather hypocritical given that Jordan Devlin was still the Cruiserweight Champion and an Interim Champion was being crowned, rather than an official one like Smackdown did. While Sami would return to reclaim his title, his time away is still not acknowledged.

June 2020 Best - NXT start using old show names Partially due to AEW using Bash at the Beach, WWE decided to hold onto some of theirs and WCW's old PPV names. While this was slightly petty, the way they used them proved fortuitous in exuding nostalgia in a big way. To start, we had In Your House but this would also lead to the resurfacing of Halloween Havoc and Vengeance.

Worst - Not Firing Jaxson Ryker During this time the BLM protests were in full swing, so Jaxson Ryker decided this'd be the right time to praise Donald Trump on twitter. The backlash was high and his stablemates suffered for it as well, depushing and taking all the Forgotton Sons off TV. Jaxson Ryker still somehow has a job and tv time in WWE, and that continues to baffle.

Best - Maverick vs Fantasma in the Finals While exposing Maverick's firing was in poor taste, the story of the former GM chasing the title was one we can get behind. Paired with El Hijo del Fantasma finally getting the platform to debut after being hired in August 2019. The finals match would also beget to a strong title reign by Fantasma where he showed his charisma as a heel and birthing his faction Legando del Fantasma, as for Drake it led to a mismatch team with Killian Dain, it could be better but it could be worse.

Worst - Jeff Hardy vs Sheamus' narrative You'd think putting Jeff and Sheamus together would be fine, and the wrestling was indeed good. The storyline however was wrong, very wrong. Rehashing the Jericho/Punk angle, WWE decided a urine test angle would make for good TV - which was a particular low for both men.

Best - Io Shirai at the Top (which she could jump off of) When Charlotte won the NXT Championship from Rhea I vocally worried that this'd mean curtains for Io Shirai, the Stardom Ace had found her footing as the 'Mad Queen' heel character and won a ladder match to contend for the title, but she was going up against Charlotte Flair - WWE's 'Queen' who had already cut the legs from Asuka, Rhea and Bianca Belair - so the worry was high. Fortunately In Your House decided to give Io the much-deserved title win, granted she should've beaten Charlotte and Rhea was there to take the pin but this would begin Io's long reign as the female Ace of NXT, as well as jumping off of anything and everything on each TakeOver.

Worst - Street Profits vs Viking Raiders doesn't happen for Backlash During their time as Raw Tag Champs, the Street Profits engaged in an 'Anything you can do, I can do better' series with the Viking Raiders. The segments itself were mostly silly but some parts were admittedly humorous like the leg of meat popping up everywhere. But the payoff match on Backlash never came to be, instead we continued a cinematic brawl which would've been fine...but it had no conclusion. It ended in a bin, much like the feud was trashed, with the malice of the Viking Raiders mostly thrown away.

Worst - Nia vs Asuka ends in a Double Count Out Backlash 2020 already had the questionable booking of Profits vs Vikings, Braun vs Miz and Morrison and promoting Edge vs Orton as the 'Greatest Wrestling Match Ever'. But another that could not be let go was the women's title match. This was Asuka's first major defense, the storyline should have been her proving that she deserves the title and the best we got was Nia Jax. Like Profits/Vikings it could've been salvagable had there been a legitimate finish, but the match ended in a double count out, only to follow up with a Raw rematch - sadly this would not be the end of Asuka being poorly booked as champion.

Worst - Kairi's Injury Speaking of Nia, in a May taping that released in June Nia faced Kairi Sane in the build to her feud with Asuka. But Kairi came out of the match with a nasty head cut after being thrown into the steps. Unfortunately, this was not the first time Kairi had been injured by Nia so it was not a good look on Nia to repeat herself.

Worst - *Unmasks* 'Old Man Santos Escobar!?' When El Hijo del Fantasma revealed himself as the leader of the masked men, it began the stable Legando del Fantasma. But of course, 'El Hijo del Fantasma' isn't really a heel name that rolls off the tongue, the name change was justified but the choice was not. Using the surname of a drug lord exposed WWE's continued hypocrisy of things - who were adamant in removing Apollo Crews' surname when a killer was also named 'Crews', among their usual obsession with cutting names - but it was worsened by the choice of Santos, which means Saint. It also made it odd that his faction carried his old name but not him, what was wrong with Santos del Fantasma?

July 2020 Best - A New US Championship Design Aside from the 24/7 title, the US Championship design was one of WWE's weakest, fans had been calling for a change for quite some time. During Apollo's feud with the Hurt Business though we got a new US title unveiled by MVP; a slightly better design, it was definitely a good move in terms of booking and merchandising.

Worst - Asuka loses to Shenanigans, and then to Count Out Alas, Asuka's reign hit a bump in the road when the Bayley/Sasha connection set their sights on claiming all the gold. While this would do well for Bayley and Sasha's story, it was once again a story that came in Asuka's expense. She lost stupidly in Extreme Rules and when that was revoked she lost by count-out in a match where nothing was meant to influence the wrestlers on the outside. This was an added blow because Asuka was counted out to save Kairi from being attacked backstage - which effectively wrote her out of WWE, which meant that the attempted save was worthless.

Best - Big E goes his own way, but doesn't split from the New Day Before the WWE Draft split Xavier and Kofi from Big E brand-wise, injuries to Xavier and Kofi left Big E unable to compete for tag titles. However, fans had been hoping for another singles run from Big E and this was the platform for it. What made it good though was that Big E didn't leave the New Day to pursue a singles career, keeping the beloved faction still alive.

Worst - Bye, Kairi Kairi Sane carried a similar star aura that Io and Asuka before her did as the Mae Young Classic winner, former NXT Women's champion and basically being an all-round adorable human. When it was learned that she would be taking an ambassador role in Japan - where she would get married and spend time with her husband also - fans were upset to see her go. But WWE never gave her a proper sendoff, the last we see of Kairi is just her KO'd backstage with Asuka having given up her title to fail in saving her, and that left a bad taste.

Best - Keith Lee: Double Champion Keith Lee had captured NXT hearts with his physicality, athleticism and theme song, he was NA Champion and WWE had decided that double champions are all the rage now, so they pit Lee and Adam Cole against one another. It was a brief run, but the moment Lee held two belts became a big moment signifying a new chapter for NXT.

Worst - 'The Horror Show' Extreme Rules was kind of a low point for WWE. Rather than just continue with the no DQ gimmick they threw all their chips into the Braun vs Bray swamp fight, which tanked horribly. Also Rey vs Seth suffered from it with the daft Eye for an Eye stipulation - which AEW had previously done effectively - it was a great wrestling match marred by its goofy stipulation and thus its ending, all of which was made simply because Rey hadn't extended his contract at this time. Needless to say, overbooking and stupidity left 'The Horror Show' Extreme Rules a dud.

August 2020 Best - Introducing the Thunderdome There was some hesitations about the introduction of the Thunderdome, the fact that it's just screens some of it reused to pair with piped cheers and boos doesn't sound too good on paper. And granted, it has its flaws still, but at the same time the Thunderdome has been more positive on WWE's atmosphere than a purely empty arena has. The NXT cages are probably better paired with AEW's using their backstage staff as the crowd but you get what you give sometimes.

Worst - Retribution Retribution is a lost cause, even to this day. It tried the Nexus-esque debut with big names but shitty masks, as well as their purpose contradicting their actions. It all began here, and shouldn't have happened in the first place, Mercedes learned that one quickly. At least T-Bar has Twitter game.

Worst - Changing Keith Lee's attire, theme, and making him a side character to Drew vs Orton Within a month of winning both belts, Lee would be moved up to Raw where immediately he was pitted against Randy Orton - who was feuding against Drew McIntyre. With a new outfit and new music, Lee was a stepping stone to simply further Orton's feud with Drew rather than influence it, in a single moment WWE had made fans lose confidence that they could book Lee as well as he was in NXT, a worry that continues to this day even with another theme change.

Best - Damian Priest gets a shot A star who needed a chance to shine, Lee's vacating of the NA title left a slot open for someone to get a solid push and the winner was Damian Priest. Having proven himself there and in a prior feud with Finn Balor, Priest was a worthy candidate to hold the title and he still is able to hold that momentum in his main roster pursuits.

Worst - Raw Underground Doing something different is nothing to be afraid of, but sometimes you have to read the room. And Shane McMahon introducing a boiler room fight club was not it. Granted, Raw Underground didn't get the fairest crack of the whip, but it had also not distinguished itself on the card nor did it have as many decent stars to carry it. The repackaging of Babatunde to 'Dabba Kato' didn't sell any seriousness to it either.

Best - Pat McAfee Shines The Adam Cole/Pat McAfee feud did somewhat stumble at the start with WWE's insistence that this was a shoot, but the end result paid dividends. Pat McAfee raised a very low bar on celebrity contributions in wrestling matches, showing what celebrities who are actual fans could do to pull off an athletic and entertaining affair.

Worst - Mauro and Renee leave Mauro Ranallo may've been divisive for some fans in his enthusiastic commentary, but I loved the guy. He actually sold the energy of the matches and he knew the moves. Renee Young was also someone who proved to be a fantastic sports journalist, her commentary times on Raw marred by micromanaging she was a great host for Talking Smack and her podcast showed how relatable and fun Mrs. Moxley truly is. The departure of both had left a void WWE have struggled to fill again.

Best - Dominik Mysterio steps up In Summerslam 2005, the PPV was main evented by Shawn Michaels overselling Hulk Hogan for 20 minutes. The event saw not just titles go on the line but Kurt Angle's Olympic Medal...and the custody of a child. That child was mini-Slim Shady Dominik Mysterio, who in storyline had recently discovered that Eddie Guerrero is his biological father, adopted by Rey Mysterio and his wife. Fifteen years later, Dominik would step back into a Summerslam ring, this time to make his wrestling debut. While he would lose, Dominik gained a lot of positives especially given how he was up against Seth Rollins, Dominik's progression continues to impress as his father ensures that he gets the best training he can provide, the prince of the Mysterio household has a bright future ahead of him.

Worst - Murphy takes the fall in the Mysterio/Rollins Feud Alas, the Mysterio Family vs Monday Night Messiah would only have sporadic good moments and part of that is because Seth would escape mostly squeaky clean. The few times the Mysterio family would win was when it was a tag match with Murphy to take the fall. This wasn't just unfair on the Mysterios since they were being robbed again of 'winning' a feud which involved Seth ripping Rey's eye out but it also was a disservice to Murphy's talents as a former Ace of 205.

Best - Reigns FINALLY turns Heel, and is a Heyman Guy Roman Reigns was consistently booed for about 5 years, earning a reprieve when kayfabe was thrown away to support him in his bout with Leukemia. Given his dialysis, COVID left him as a risk for most of the year, but he made a huge return in the Universal title match between Braun and the Fiend. Debuting a heel persona which would align with Paul Heyman, WWE had finally done what the fans wanted - turn Roman heel. And Roman has been on top ever since, the Tribal Chief Reigns.

Worst - Splitting the IIconics In a bout of trying to raise stakes, WWE decided that the best way to service their women's tag division was for 2 popular teams to fight for contendership - but the losers would have to split up. Between the Riott Squad and the IIconics, the former would win the match - but continue to be underbooked to the point where their reunion after feuding with each other has become fruitless - which meant that one of the few established tag teams in the women's division were splitting...not too long since the Kabuki Warriors had split too. Despite half a year later Peyton delivering a killer promo and Billie showing some comedic flair, neither bounced back from the split - their only solace now is to reunite now that they too just now have been released...

Worst - Velveteen Dream comes back June proved to be a shocking time for wrestling in general when brave people publicly called out their experiences with sexual, emotional and physical harassment and abuse. This rattled all companies and blacklisted a ton of once renowned wrestlers such as David Starr, Jimmy Havoc, Jack Gallagher, Marty Scurll, Travis Banks, El Ligero, Joey Ryan and shut down all of Chikara pro wrestling. Velveteen Dream was among the names listed, accused of having inappropriate communications and grooming minors, this was of course a huge blow to the once-popular rising star. Like they did with Matt Riddle, Joe Coffey, Wolfgang, Jordan Devlin and Sid Scala, WWE decided to investigate rather than immediately release Dream. During this time, WWE should have kept Dream off TV for an extended period of time, instead he appeared a month later on NXT to qualify for the NA Title ladder match Priest would win under heavy scrutiny of the fans. As much as WWE point out that they had found nothing, many still remain unconvinced and while Dream is currently off tv now, having him return so soon did not inspire confidence.

September 2020 Best - Sami gets the IC Title Back After being unfairly stripped of the title back in May, Sami returned to claim himself the true IC champion. Pitted against AJ Styles and Jeff Hardy, the trio would embark on a smart and highly acclaimed ladder match for the title, which Sami would win. Course correction coming into play for Sami to resume his reign, but I still wonder why he was the heel in all of that...

Worst - Changing Aleister Black's Attire and Entrance Aleister Black had the IT Factor, he was a superb striker with a great gimmick of a dark and brooding warrior, rising like a vampire in his entrance with a demonic jacket, he oozed the aura of a main event player. Until Vince changed the music and decided that Black should wear an eyepatch...this of course was done after a span of barely booking Aleister anyway - despite him delivering in his matches - before not booking him at all.

Best - The Prince is Promised Finn Balor's return to NXT had been on a slow burn at this point, but with Karrion Kross having to vacate due to a separated shoulder a new NXT champion had to be crowned. After a 4-way iron man tie, Balor came on top on Super Tuesday Part 2. Finn being champion again was indeed the right choice, while it delays his collision with WALTER indefinitely he has had a superb reign filling in for Karrion Kross, who would reclaim in a good match at Stand & Deliver.

Worst - Telenovela Bullshit The Mysterios/Messiah storyline tangented in a bad way in its ending stages before fizzling out. Aalyah Mysterio had been booked into a romance with Murphy, the acting was like a soap opera and not in the good way. 'But mother, I love him' literally being the weekly storyline of coaxing Murphy away from Seth, all of which became dropped to mean nothing for anyone.

Best - Kyle O'Reilly and Jey Uso enter the Main Event Primarily tag wrestlers for their WWE careers, Kyle O'Reilly and Jey Uso were given unexpected chances at the world champions Balor and Reigns on NXT and Smackdown, and boy did they take those chances. Both men impressed hugely in their matches, enough to get multiple rematches and a bigger role in the main event from it, Jey would join Roman as a heel and support to the Tribal Chief while O'Reilly would come to blows with Adam Cole in an unsanctioned match. Both men can be seen as world champions now.

October 2020 Best - NXT UK Acquisitions NXT UK hasn't really gained the desired momentum, which is a shame because there are a lot of great talent still there, and they sport one of the best looking active belts in Wrestling today. The problem is the limited audience and minimal roster depth, which is why it was refreshing when WWE signed more to the brand, the big name of Meiko Satomura being the headliner but also Rampage Brown and the steal of Ben Carter - now Nathan Frazer - from under AEW's nose. Later they would push A-Kid and sign the former Lucky Kid and Millie McKenzie to further bolster its brand.

Worst - Not Repackaging Retribution On October 5th, WWE decided to turn Mustafa Ali heel and put him as the leader of Retribution, but they would also pit them against the Hurt Business - a heel faction - and reveal himself the 'Smackdown Hacker' - who had unveiled some heels doing heelish deeds. Confusing at the best of times, Retribution never got past losing either, forcing Mia Yim to do tantrums in the ring on a mini-push that came to nothing and elevating nobody. Retribution had chances to save itself, but WWE didn't take those chances.

Best - Sasha wins big! At last, Sasha wins a big title match clean in a storyline payoff against Bayley. Both women at the top of their game, they earned the Hell in a Cell spot and began a title reign that would go longer than any of Sasha's other main title reigns. The Boss was finally standing on top as the main roster finally did Sasha vs Bayley right.

Worst - Orton wins big... Randy Orton had been feuding with Drew since beating Edge at Backlash, losing on consecutive title matches until Hell in a Cell, where he won despite the slow burn hints at a Fiend feud. While Randy was at the top of is heel game and Drew didn't have to hold the title all year, the multiple past attempts deflated this story as well as scrutinizing WWE constantly saying 'no rematch clauses' and 'you can't just walk in and demand a title match' but then doing the absolute same thing. Orton's title run wouldn't last either, which makes it all the more meh.

Worst - The Draft The Draft is meant to lead to surprising new dynamics and storyline changes, but 2020's Draft was a misfire. For one, there was no competition for it, Raw got 3 just because it ran longer and a percentage of the draft picks were wrestlers staying on the brand they were already on, making the shock factor limited. The Mysterios followed Rollins to Smackdown to continue their drab storyline, the tag champions swapped belts to remain colour coded and for some reason some tag teams were treated as individual and some not.

November 2020 Best - Undertaker's Retirement Ceremony After 2 previous 'retirements', the Undertaker finally hung up his boots for real this time, ending it where it began: Survivor Series. It was a very tasteful affair with nods to the card he debuted on such as the Gobbeldy Gooker and Brother Love, it was a good time and a good sendoff for one of WWE's greatest characters.

Worst - Survivor Series books it wrong While there was many good matches in Survivor Series, it did suffer from the usual booking mentality of 'Raw Superiority'. Lana became a sole survivor by default of count outs and DQs in a team including Shayna and Asuka, the Smackdown men were completely squashed despite having a strong team and Baron Corbin and finally, no NXT. There was the potential for adding Balor, Io, Priest and Imperium to these matches and that just could've elevated it, the last was more understandable though given COVID.

Worst - Not booking 3 Future Stars Andrade, Aleister and Murphy. All three had shone before reaching the main roster be it for NXT on the former two and 205 Live on the latter. But on the Main Roster their luck was a mixed bag; Murphy had recently beat Rollins clean, but after the Mysterios were about to come down with COVID themselves WWE didn't push anything with him, Andrade was a former US Champion in a faction that all fell apart within the year and Black was a shitkicker who WWE were methodically gutting. All three would soon see themselves not on tv at all, and for two they had an alarming connection.

Worst - Zelina gets fired Zelina Vega was the one who elevated Andrade to a face midcarder to a heel main eventer on NXT, she was also coming along well as a wrestler with some decent bouts with Asuka. But when WWE enacted a policy that their wrestlers couldn't profit from third party stuff like twitch, when Zelina resisted and found loopholes she found herself getting released soon after, Andrade and her irl husband Aleister Black now ominously missing from WWE, it was for the most part pettiness on WWE's behalf to forbid their talent from making money elsewhere by being themselves.

December 2020 Best - Big E wins the Big IC Without his New Day buddies, Big E could continue his singles run despite daft claims from Corey that as a decorated tag champion Big E couldn't do singles wrestling like he did when he was NXT Champion and IC Champion. But on the Christmas Smackdown taping, Big E would win the IC championship to a big babyface moment, which he would carry into Wrestlemania.

Worst - Gargano wins the NA Title (again) I have nothing against Johnny Gargano, but it is odd that he was the one to usurp Damian Priest and then Leon Ruff. To this day he still holds that title despite Dexter Lumis, Bronson Reed, LA Knight, KUSHIDA (who recently just won the Cruiserweight title) and Cameron Grimes all looking like worthy competitors to get a push. It's a strange place where Gargano builds a faction with gold but it doesn't elevate anyone around his waist.

Worst - Charlotte returns just to add another title to her list WWE's obsession with mismatched teams is matched only by their obsession with pitting a champion and no.1 contender against tag champions, both of which are overdone. So when TLC came along with Asuka having a mystery partner to face Shayna and Nia, it didn't quite land that her partner was Charlotte and they went on to win the titles...only to drop it in about a month as they teased a title match between the two. It showed the low pecking order the tag titles had, the lowered stock of Shayna and how the title change was merely to say that Charlotte had won every title in WWE (at that time).

Worst - Miz fails his Cash-In, but gets the Briefcase back The Men's MITB was horribly booked all year and time was running out, WWE had to decide whether they would have to book a failed cash in - and put the Miz in the same list as Sandow and Corbin in those who lost their cash-in (Cena and Braun if we include those who didn't capture gold), making Miz champion or hot potatoing again. At the end of TLC it looked like they picked the latter, which would've tied things up in a bow. But the following Raw, the Miz got his briefcase back because Morrison had cashed it in for him, meaning the saga was forced to continue.

January 2021 Best - Xia Li finally gets a repackage Xia Li has been on the NXT Roster for a long time, like Vanessa Borne and Aaliyah long time, but the best NXT could give her for a long time was 'Chinese Undercarder'. 2021 however made a shift, by turning Li heel with a storyline of her and Boa answering to a mystic overlord, Li turned into a brutish kickass killer, squashes building to her dispatching her former friends. While she still sits low on the card, it's promising stuff that can easily be pushed towards the main title scene, and frankly Xia Li has done her time to earn such a push.

Worst - Goldberg challenges Drew 'for disrespecting legends' The whole Goldberg fiasco was once again a rush job that served nobody except old Bill. Still soured by the fact that he cleanly defeated the Fiend and also had a horror match with Taker, nobody was quite amped to see Drew vs Goldberg at Royal Rumble. His reasoning for feuding with Drew was also confusing since he was claiming that Drew had disrespected the legends on Legends Night when he had been fully supportive and respectful towards them. Mercifully, the feud did not go Goldberg's way.

Best - The Women's Dusty Classic is Announced The Dusty Rhodes classic has in NXT become a platform for tag teams and mismatch alliances to flourish and open into newer storylines, and also to sometimes set up War Games, and with the vast depth of the NXT Women's Locker Room it was the right call for WWE to make a women's variation. The tournament allowed Candice, Dakota, Raquel, Ember and Shotzi to get tv time outside of a world title shot and so their talents weren't entirely wasted.

Worst - Sonya Returns, but as a GM Assistant When Sonya Deville took some time off post-Summerslam, she had proven herself to be skilled on the mic and in the ring. But on Jan 1st's Smackdown Sonya would be spotted and later it was officially announced that Sonya was back on Smackdown, but as Adam Pearce's assistant. Aside from some backstage talks and Street Profits trying to bribe her for a title match, Sonya hasn't seen much TV time - which is a poor utilization of her skills. The position is fine to an extent, but Sonya should be using her position to further her in-ring prospects too, take a leaf from AJ Lee's book.

Best - Edge returns at the Rumble While I was never unhappy with Edge winning the rumble I wouldn't say it was the best booking choice out of the roster. If anything though, Edge returning from Injury at Number 1 was a definite crowd-pleaser, and pitting him against Orton to resume their hostilities set the tone for the Men's Royal Rumble.

Worst - Corbin beats the Mysterios Clean on Consecutive Weeks I don't know what the purpose of this was. After returning from COVID, the Mysterios were put against King Corbin in weekly matches, Rey lost to Corbin clean, Dom lost to Corbin clean, there weren't any interferences or weapons, and there wasn't really a plot to this. Only when Dom beat Corbin thanks to Rey's help did the feud 'end', but it didn't really do anything for them, in the end, Dom cheats to win and not in an Eddie Guerrero way. It was just weird.

Best - The Women's Royal Rumble The Women's Royal Rumble in 2021 was a masterpiece, nearly every woman in that match got some shine and a bit of story. There was depth, context and clarity in the bout and the exciting prospect of the final two being Bianca and Rhea - two NXT prospects who would both later grasp gold. The ending segment solidified a perfectly-booked bout that would set a standard the men couldn't outshine that night.

Worst - The Universal Title Last Man Standing botch Handcuffed on the scaffolding, Roman Reigns looked certain to lose his Last Man Standing match against Kevin Owens as Heyman frantically tried to uncuff him. Of course, this was a botch at the worst of times but instead of attempting to ad-lib something, the Ref just restarted his count after reaching 6. It was a daft choice that killed the sails of the match, they should've either attacked the ref or let Owens - who had lost to Reigns several times already - hold the title for a month or so before dropping back to Roman.

February 2021 Best - MSK win the Classic On Impact the Rascalz were a beloved faction, and when two thirds of them jumped ship to NXT as MSK, fans were eager to see if WWE would go all the way with them, or if they would let the UK uberheel team of Grizzled Young Veterans take the spot. Fortunately they went for the former, which was a big boost for the future tag champions - only slightly delayed by injuries to both MSK and the then-champions Burch and Lorcan.

Worst - Top Tier Bad Booking on all 3 Shows Despite Smackdown and NXT regularly dwarfing Raw in quality, each show had begun a less than stellar narrative to build some feuds among their favoured wrestlers. On NXT, Gargano's faction The Way were having a Dexter Lumis problem - and although Lumis had won a non-title match against the NA Champion he did not get a title shot - one which had its bright parts but was often found goofy especially with the Indi Hartwell romance stuff. Smackdown merely had to keep it simple with Bianca and Sasha, but instead, they decided to go through the 'can they work together' route with Shayna and Nia, again shoddy booking threatened to dampen a Women's Wrestlemania Main Event. But Raw of course had the worst of it, Charlotte would be a babyface feuding with Lacey Evans, who was fucking her father...fans were already aware that Lacey has a husband and child which WWE had acknowledged before, and the feud only ended because Lacey was legitimately pregnant - which they storyline'd to be Ric's too - sparing Asuka of the same fate. It just wasn't a good time.

Best - Cameron Grimes STONKS The Gamestop Reddit Stocks moment came out of nowhere and made people a lot of money, WWE decided that Cameron Grimes would be one of those people. Already exuding charismatic energy and a decent catchphrase, making Grimes rich somehow elevated his character further as a hilariously snobby whackjob. Here's hoping he gets a solid crack at it as he cites DiBiase, maybe like he did Grimes can pay his way to the top.

Worst - Sheamus sucks at history Sheamus turning on Drew was an inevitability, and their matches were strong and entertaining affairs. But WWE really didn't try too hard to think of a reason for Sheamus to turn on Drew, citing his reasoning to be that Sheamus had lived in Drew's shadow. I mean really? We're talking about the same Sheamus who has won every men's accolade in WWE bar the IC title while Drew was doing air guitar with Heath, Jinder and Hornswoggle in the undercard? You have to make things make sense for people to buy into it.

Worst - Miz gets to be King for a Week Following on from Miz's failed cash-in was Miz's successful cash-in after Elimination Chamber - an action he succeeded in thanks to Lashley assaulting Drew post-match. While Miz being world champion again was anticipated for a long time, the timing was not right at all and fans were more or less relieved to see that Lashley would be taking the title from him within the next week. It was mostly a bit of clean up after realising that they don't want to use the MITB in the build to Wrestlemania, afterwards Miz went from WWE Champion to feuding with a rapper - also spare a thought for Morrison who doesn't really get to do anything outside of being the Miz's buddy.

March 2021 Best - Lashley wins the WWE Championship Speaking of Miz's short-lived reign, the one saving grace from it was that Lashley would claim it soon after, looking like a monster in the process. An overdue run for the man who was slowly looking like he was about to fade out of the company the same way that several others had and later would got his position to be WWE Champion, long may he reign.

Worst - La Sombra de El Idolo Andrade remains one of the most talented wrestlers of his generation, he had several paths in WWE that could have moved him to the top of the card, several feuds that people were amped for. And none of it came to be, because Andrade was granted release on his second attempt. Where Andrade El Idolo will appear next remains up for discussion, the likely route being AEW or reconvening with his old Ingobernables, but wherever he lands it'll be on his feet.

Worst - Shane returns just in time for Wrestlemania Season Shane McMahon is the boss' son, with a masochistic urge to be thrown off of things. But he doesn't seem to realise that every time he's on the card someone more deserving is not, not even with a posse as he tries to renew his 3 Minute Warning days. This time around Shane beleaguered WWE's card with a feud against Braun Strowman circulating around Shane calling him stupid and pouring green goo on him...who asked for this?

Worst - Apollo changes his accent Speaking of 'who asked for this?', Apollo's heel turn in embracing his Nigerian heritage was fine, a new edge for the otherwise smiley naive face character. But then Apollo decided to put on an accent, even though he's spent years without it. It was just unnecessary, a stamp that was to say 'I am foreign, boo my foreignness' that certainly has no room in today's wrestling. What's the odds that within a year Apollo's Nigerian Royalty gimmick will be warped into a Nigerian Prince scammer gimmick?

Worst - Women's Tag Fuckery Upon winning the women's Dusty Classic, Raquel and Dakota got a Women's Tag Opportunity against boringly longstanding champions Shayna & Nia, however rather than just pull the trigger and give the titles to them, WWE opted for a cheat finish which had Adam Pearce turn heel for the day just to screw over NXT. This was all a convoluted plan to create NXT Women's Tag Championships, which were awarded to Raquel and Dakota...before immediately losing it to Ember and Shotzi. Just what you want when establishing a new title huh? Quickfire title changes! It was all just very roundabout, should've simply announced the titles for the Women's Dusty Classic prize or given the Women's Tag to a team that could actually use it.

April 2021 Best - Edge and Roman add a bit of YES Alone Edge vs Reigns was still a highly anticipated Universal title bout. But the addition of Daniel Bryan brought in several new layers and conflicts for all characters. Each of them (like Balor vs Kross would) were presented as warriors who were forced medically to vacate the top prize only to come back stronger, each of them main evented Wrestlemania, and each of them were some of the best wrestlers in the world. The triple threat also meant that No DQ stipulations could be opened up, allowing Edge to show more of his heelish and psychotic side, as well as Bryan and Roman's viciousness. All three sold that they wanted that title and it made it stand out.

Worst - That Hurts our Business The Hurt Business was looking to become another success story in modern WWE factions. Masterminded by a resurgent MVP and helmed by now WWE Champion Bobby Lashley, Business was indeed booming. Until the final few weeks of Wrestlemania decided to cast aside Shelton and Cedric - the latter they strived to convince in joining them within the past year - and effectively dissolve the group. The loss of the Hurt Business led to high criticism, especially since Cedric and Shelton fell hard into the undercard only to see King Corbin cross brands to do Lashley's dirty work, it just wasn't a good thing and the possibility of replacing those spots with Mace and T-Bar does not quite fill the void.

Best - Cesaro gets his Push Cesaro had often been haunted by the dangling of the 'brass ring' over his head. Despite a frequent tag champion and also a US champion, WWE shied away from his strong and dedicated fanbase that desired more for the Swiss Superman/Cyborg. In the build to Elimination Chamber, fans were intrigued by Cesaro's clean wins over such names as Daniel Bryan, but were not surprised when he didn't come out on top in the chamber itself. In the aftermath though, Cesaro began a feud with Seth Rollins, someone who could boast an impressive Wrestlemania W/L record, compared to Cesaro - whose only Wrestlemania singles match was last year's Pre-Show. The match was put on Night 1 and was a lovely affair with a clear story, most importantly though Cesaro came out on top with a huge rub and like that, the Cesaro section gets to believe again.

Worst - Fiend Falls to One RKO After spending the last year re-mystifying the Fiend by having him survive all manner of things including drowning and being set on fire, the return of the Fiend to open Night 2 of Wrestlemania left a sour taste in fans' mouths. After 8 minutes of no-selling Orton's offense, Alexa Bliss reappeared with black goo over her face to distract the Fiend, he was hit with an RKO and pinned for 3. The bafflement was high as fans wondered what exactly the intention was for having the Fiend lose on his return, and why it took only one RKO to finish it when so much worse things have struggled to keep him down.

Best - NXT Stands and Delivers before Mania In what was a long and entertaining week of wrestling, NXT said goodbye to Wednesday Nights in style with their Wrestlemania-esque 2-Day Takeover. The shows were good sporting some fun matches, including an entertaining CW unification ladder match and Io passing the torch to Raquel, though NXT weren't invited to Survivor Series or Mania this time, they still put on a great show before moving to Tuesdays.

Worst - Riotts, SD Tag Champions slighted The Riott Squad currently stand as one of WWE's last surviving genuine tag teams, everyone else being singles wrestlers thrown together to avoid Main Event or Superstars. However, they also stand as a team who after multiple attempts are still not tag champions. After carrying the bulk of their Night 1 Tag Team Turmoil, the Riott Squad were unfortunately left to be felled by Natalya and Tamina - who would lose on Night 2 rendering this pointless anyway - and I have to ask, is it ever going to happen? The Riott Squad are not the only tag team hard done by at Wrestlemania, as the Smackdown Tag Championship did not even make it on the card! A fatal 4-Way between the Dirty Dawgs, Street Profits, Alpha Academy and Mysterios could've brought some infectious energy into Night 2 given the amount of talent in those four teams, but instead it got put on a 'Wrestlemania special Smackdown' while Shane vs Braun ended up on the main card. Priorities were not straight there and WWE robbed Dominik Mysterio of a Wrestlemania debut, their only contribution being a video recap and a Dirty Dawgs interview on Night 1 to prelude the Raw Tag Championship match.

Best - Wrestlemania dished out the goods, and the fans In spite of some questionable booking in the early stages, we end the list on a high. Wrestlemania didn't have the best build or go-home show, but it certainly delivered on a blend of storytelling and wrestling, big title changes for Bianca and Rhea and solid matches for the majority of the card meant that WWE ended on a high. Most importantly too, it was in front of a crowd, the ambiance very much missed on the Grandest Stage of them All.

I would rant about April 15th 2021 but I said it's from Mania 36 to 37 so yeah, footnote fuck April 15th. In the end though WWE had its ups and downs, but hopefully they will learn from some of their mistakes and come back stronger

[quakerjoe]

You do realize that one of two people will be the President of the United States on January 20, 2021–yes? Either the incumbent or the Democratic nominee will hold the office, and that’s a legacy as old as Jefferson and Hamilton. If you can not stop trashing both aspirants to the office may I suggest that you pursue the acquisition of a passport as well as some means of leaving the country? Your laments are so doleful as to finally become comedy.

You know what’s really funny? Everything about YOU. I’ll tell you why, since you bothered to ask. I at least owe you that much since you didn’t ask anon.

I get this sort of banter every now and again so I thought I’d display it and answer the question at hand.

First off, this “#Murica, love it or leave it!” horseshit has two facets to it in response.

ONE: “Go fuck yourself. If you’re so willing to lie down and take it in the ass for one of the parties constantly screwing you, you’re pretty useless. Why don’t YOU leave since you’ve clearly given up the fight? “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” comes at a price, sometimes a high one, and you have to FIGHT for it. If you’re willing to just bend over and take an elbow deep fist in your ass from the Democrats so it can jerk off the GOP while its dick is constantly forced down your throat, then perhaps YOU are the one who needs to pack up and fuck off to Saudi Arabia or North Korea. Maybe Russia or China are more your speed.

 TWO: Are YOU going to pay my way if I decide to give up on America and abandon my home and the nation that I love? I may not love your precious politicians, but I’m still proud to be an American. I served, am a vet, but THIS is not the nation I signed up to defend. This era of US history is the Big Sellout, and you, dumbass, are a part of that.

 You people had chances and opportunities to make this a better place than when you found it, but over the five decades I’ve been alive all I’ve seen is people fighting to get in line to buy the government snake oil like it’s a Cabbage Patch Kid or the new iPhone. It’s pathetic how much the US lacks vision or has any real pride or dignity worth talking about. We’re not #1 at fuck-all anything worth bragging about unless it’s how bad the education system has gotten or that we’re the TOP nation in the world for incarcerated citizens per capita and it’s mostly geared towards men who happen to have a dark complexion.

 The rich and powerful exist here because WE ALLOW it. People  like you, you defunct Fox “News” fan, are either a cheering fan for the status quo of yesteryear with Biden who wants to turn back the calendar to a time that BROUGHT US TRUMP in the first place OR you’re a trump fan who has NO IDEA… well, no ideas or thoughts about anything. Trump’s shown us who we really as a nation apparently- deluded, self-centered, selfish assholes, and the WORLD can see it. Not all of us, granted, but as a generalization, we truly suck. Such a waste of enormous potential, especially given all the resources we’ve had over the years.

 As a result, we’re being overwhelmed by a virus that’s killing us by the thousands and perhaps millions some day. But, since we no longer believe in or do science anymore, nothing much is coming to save us. If/When the time comes that its run its course and should we find a vaccine, there are still anti-vaxxers who’d rather die than take a cure. Then there are the religious zealots who think Jesus will protect them. You know; the ones who are dropping like flies these days? Those assholes; the hypocrites who think they’re part of ‘the faithful’ who, if you believe in that sort of thing, do Satan’s bidding more than Jesus’.

 If you’re not boiling mad at the GOP for literally doing everything they can to go out of their way to keep the US a hateful, racist, peddler of death nation bent on keeping its citizens poor and undereducated, you’re not a part of the solution. If your fucked-up solution is to have those not happy with the butt-hurt they peddle move to another country, it shows you’ve got no pride or respect for your country or yourself. You’re weak, ignorant, selfish and stupid all rolled into a big burrito of go fuck yourself.

If you’re not making a fist so tight that your nails are digging into your palms when you hear that the Democrats are literally forcing us to choose one racist sexual predator that can’t hold a thought or form sentences as the “champion” to replace the incumbent one, you’re DEFINITELY not a part of the solution. Also, you’re an idiot, an asshole, and totally a Biden Bro.

 What will it take for YOU to open your window and shout out “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” eh? You people rolling over for Biden are pathetic weaklings who sold out women and #MeToo and sold your souls to #MeTooExceptBiden, allowing the bar to be set to the same, low, cesspool standard that the GOP glorifies in. You sold out party, country, woman, minorities, and everything that was once even remotely good about the party that allegedly represented the working class so that the party leaders can keep their cash flow from Big Pharma, the Insurance lobby, Big Oil and the Military Industrial Complex. You’ve turned the Democratic party into yesterdays feckless, weak and worthless GOP while the current GOP drags the country even FURTHER to the fucking right. You’re aiding and abetting the foulest elements of the nation’s existence.

Your attitude has cost us our place on the world stage and most of our allies while we crawl under the covers with bedfellows we once considered enemies because they treat their people like shit. Now WE are one of those shithole countries you people used to rant about… AND YOU’RE PROUD OF IT and unwilling to stand up and fix it. Instead, you prefer those who are willing to do your job FOR you to just move elsewhere. Loser. Listen, if you’re too much of a wuss to stand up to the establishment that’s using your tax dollars to bail out the rich while pissing table scraps down upon you, that’s on you. You’re too stupid to know better. I get it. But until YOU get off YOUR ASS and hold your government accountable, you’ve got no room to criticize those who ARE doing it.

We’re in the middle of a pandemic and the ONE GUY who has been fighting for his decades-long career for UNIVERSAL health care was someone YOU opted out. American apparently hasn’t suffered enough to grow a pair of whatever motivates it to stand up to the wealth inequality. The US idolizes the rich and instead of fighting for a chance to live at least a DECENT life without having to worry about going tits-up and pear-shape because of hospital bills or job losses, they’d rather just piss away their fortunes and futures so that people with more money than they can spend in a lifetime of ten could possibly spend, all while THEY pay little to ZERO taxes, leaving YOU stuck with the bill. That’s on YOU if you’re willing to bend over and just take it in the ass and take it dry; no kiss, no lube, not so much as a feel-around. That’s YOU.

You, sir, are the problem. Clearly, with people like you, the US is simply BEGGING for 4 more years of trumplefuckery. Perhaps you even deserve it. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but who am I? I’m just one of the few willing to call anyone out on their bullshit, from the GOP overall to Pelosi’s feckless approach, to Schumer’s “kid who gets beaten on the schoolyard daily” approach to trying to appear useful. I’ll shit on Liz Warren for not backing a Progressive approach and getting behind Sanders EARLY; screwing her friend and ally AGAIN like in 2016. I’ll call out all the other “candidates” who say one thing while their track records show that they’re pretty full of shit. I’ll DEMAND that we have a party that’s transparent and willing to fight to drag us BACK to the Left instead of the “oh, let’s settle for plutocracy and oligarchy because it’s better than fascism” route. Fuck that, fuck them, and of course fuck you too. Thought I forgot about you? Oh, this is all about you, you spineless goon.

 So let me know if you and your ilk are willing to throw your precious few dollars into a GO FUND ME to finance my move to another country. This includes my family, all our belongings, and of course a home once we get there. Naturally, you’ll be finding us ALL gainful employment there and the costs for the passports, visas, and whatnot and you’ll of course be lining us ALL up with jobs. I’ve got a big family, so it’s going to be pretty goddamn expensive. Shit, just ME moving is going to cost more than you’d be willing to cough up.

 In the mean time, I’m going to remain here, giving the finger to the GOP, the Establishment/Corporate owned Democrats, and people like you. Seriously, you’re an idiot.

@ imall4frogs He’s talking about people like YOU.

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High Sophomore Year Ep 4

Skipper Thistlespring and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

We pick back up at The Swan’s Little Parade where rich people shenanigans are taking place. Gorgug breaks from the group to try and call Zelda. When she doesn’t answer, he leaves the saddest, sweetest apology voicemail ever. Lou breaks. Siobhan breaks. I break. 

Meanwhile, the rest of the group gameplans. Adaine pushes back against the idea that they have to talk to Aelwyn. Her parents are also an option and Aelwyn is not a good person, no matter how hot Fabian is for her. They also check out the guest book from the hotel and see that Bill Seacaster has stayed there several times, always right after a Garthy O’Brien (they see that it happened a bunch while they were in jail and it was probably in conjunction with when Bill was supplying palimpsests). Fabian recognizes the name as a pirate and Cathilda knows they run the Gold Gardens which is a floating pirate casino/brothel.

Kristen tries to release Gorthalax but just confirms that, because of the curse, doing it without messing up Gorthalax is gonna be tough. 

Sandra-Lynn goes to get Gorgug while Fig decides to careen the campaign into Crazytown and make herself Empress for Life of the same. She disguises herself as an old lady and tries to drop off a note giving her phone number as the new number of the cop she impersonated last episode (Detective Decker) so she can send a fully grown cop texts that would def get him Chris Hansen’d irl. Brennan decides that if she’s gonna keep making beds, she should probably lie in one of them for once and comes for her entire life in the funniest scene of the episode. No recap I could give can do it justice(links to clips here: x, x). Just know it ends with Fig running away and ditching her phone in a lake, which could very possibly have plot consequences if she forgets to replace her phone before she’s in a tight spot where it would be helpful and the absolute dumbest/funniest reason for a character death (I want to note that she did replace her phone technically, but with a huge, old, brick phone from Adaine’s jacket that can’t be as useful as an actual cell). 

ANYWAY

Tracker creates a Moon Haven in the van which is basically like a dope pillow fort with the Sanctuary spell cast on it and TARDIS bigger-on-the-inside spatial mechanics. Once they’re inside the Moon Haven, Ragh finally feels safe to tell them what he knows--which he does telepathically via Adaine and the message spell to make everything extra safe. Here’s a rundown of what he tells them:

He saw Kalina on the night of prom after the big fight. She was talking to Jace (the sorcery “teacher”) and an elven woman who looked like Adaine in black robes--Adaine confirmed with a picture that it was her mother. 

After being healed by Porter, Ragh started walking home and was stopped by Kalina who said she would kill his mom if he told anyone what he saw. 

Ragh’s mom Lydia is also a half-orc barbarian. She was on a mission in the Red Waste (where the 7 Maidens have their Sophomore Year quest) and they found a soul gem that was leaking something bad. She put it in her chest to contain the evil but at the cost of her health. She’s now extremely sick and in a permanent, medically-induced rage to keep her alive. She refuses medical treatment because no one can ensure the evil won’t be released if they remove the gem. 

His mom fucking slaps.

So that’s all deeply worrying. Adaine invites Ragh and his mom to live with them in the Haunted House and Fig offers to give them Dr. Asha’s number. Gorgug discovers the Van can become a boat which is convenient for the pirate-y things they have to do (the Golden Gardens is on the way to Falinel so they decide to stop there first). Fig has a heart to heart with Gilear while Adaine and Sandra-Lynn take first watch outside since the Moon Haven can only hold nine people. Adaine has to roll a wisdom save because she’s outside of the Haven’s protection and, even on a 16, the music goes all scary and she feels that something is in the tent with her outside. Something humanoid and her size with its knees to its chest. She senses that if she sees its face, something will happen to her and, instead of looking at it, she calls for Sandra-Lynn. By the time she shows up, the thing is gone. Fig assures Adaine that she’s not crazy or seeing things and, based on Adaine’s description, they’re able to deduce that it wasn’t Baron or Kalina. 

In the morning, Gorgug is pretty bummed and asks everyone to call him Skipper. Kristen is very down and Fabian is very not. They discuss whether they should tell all of the information from Ragh to the 7 Maidens (no) and whether Gorgug should call Zelda (yes). They drive into the sea. Gorgug finally talks to Zelda who is not happy with him for the ghosting and unintentional thoughtlessness. She’s even less happy with him when she realizes he forgot to get the generator they needed to stay in touch long distance. They’re breaking up. Do I mean relationship-wise or phone-wise? You don’t know? Well that makes two of us (Thanks, I Hate It).

They’re at sea for two days and then make it to the floating pirate shipwreck city of Leviathan. Pirate adventures next week, y’all! 

Detention

Fig for Trying to Seduce ANOTHER Middle-Aged Man

Listen, I’ll stop putting her here for this when she stops doing this. Not to mention, she invented a whole ass person (HILDA HILDA?????) when she’s just been told that nightmare monsters are being generated from lies. Fig, my girl. Ms. Faeth. Please. I’m begging you. Please. 

Honor Roll

All of the Adults for Stepping Up

Every single adult in this episode was on fire. Fig confided in Gilear and he stepped up to the plate with a This-Is-So-Serious-I’m-Going-To-Use-Your-Actual-Full-Name, speech. Sandra-Lynn showed Adaine how to do some ranger stuff and jumped in to save her when she cried out. Cathilda was ready with warm milk and cookies she somehow was able to make in the van as soon as Adaine needed them. Sandra-Lynn also had a heart to heart with Fig and even Gorthalax, who’s still trapped in the ruby, gave Fig a spell slot back. And, of course, Ragh’s mom slaps. 

Random Thoughts

Adaine and Fabian both being uber rich but being on the opposite ends of the rich people spectrum is hilarious. Adaine is a “Sleeping in a van? I’ve heard of that but I’ve never gotten to do it. This will be fun!” Rich Kid  and Fabian is a “No turn down service? Hard pass,” Rich Kid. 

I was happy that they brought Ragh along for comedy reasons but who knew he was gonna be so chock full of backstory and important story beats? Like, every good GM has a way of making whatever story path that was chosen seem like the only way the story could have gone and I’m sure that whoever was picked, Brennan would have made that seem like the obvious and essential choices but I’m very happy they picked Ragh. Him talking about how much he loves his mom was so adorable! I love that he’s a big, good, dumb boy now and I’m happy they invited him to live at the Haunted House. That’s def gonna be good for some shenanigans (also love that Adaine’s only stipulation was that he had to be nice to Zayn and he was so eager to agree).  

Insane Ally Move of the Game: Deciding that Kristen genuinely doesn’t know Gilear used to be lunch lad at their school. Is Kristen even on the same plane of existence as everyone else. And then, later, “I worry about Gilear.” Do you really???

I totally forgot that Gilear was not only an elven diplomat but also a full on actual counselor. Makes it even wilder that he lost the job to Jawbone. Also, while we’re talking about him, I said we were gonna inevitably gonna get some more color on Gilear this season and we saw some of that in this ep when Adaine uses detect thoughts on him (which, btw, seems like a horribly invasive thing that people do very casually in this world) and we see that he gave up his career for Sandra-Lynn and then was wrecked when she cheated on him. Really puts a melancholy shade over his hilarious ineptness. 

Another thing I figured we’d see soon and that we’re starting to see is Adaine speaking up on Aelwyn. Two times this ep she tried to steer the group away from Aelwyn and seemed more serious than her usual trash talk. As excited as I am for pirate adventures, I want to get to Falinel ASAP to see how this shakes out. 

Also, on the mom front, wild that we found out that Ragh has a super dope mom in the same scene Adaine took another L and found out that her mom is also involved in this shadiness. Black robes are never a good sign. But I will say, just based on the story beats we’ve gotten, I’m not totally sold on the idea that she’s 100% bad--or at least that she doesn’t care for Adaine at all. I’m wondering if she wasn’t at school trying to find Adaine (possibly among other things). 

“Every time you have sex it’s a gamble. You could lose your heart.”/”What happened to you on tour?”

Gorgug trying to let a full sized griffon land on his arm is hilarious. I love that. He’s so wholesome and dumb.

I love that when Emily was doing her Hilda-Hilda nonsense , turned into Detective Decker, and ran past the police house precinct, Lou was the only person who was on her wavelength and understood what she was trying to do while everyone else was like????

We find out in this ep that Van can control all the auxiliary functions of the van but not the actual driving, which is important to know before a sticky situation. On a more personal note, we find out that he was originally a planetar (second most powerful D&D angel) of Elysium, specializing in harmony, relaxation, and chill vibes and he got dumped and kicked out of heaven for sleeping through a call to battle.

We also get the cursed image of a van with hands which I knew was gonna be the shirt and lo and behold. 

“Fuck Me.”/”When.” Y’all are the worst. 

I love that Brennan mentioned Porter in Ragh’s flashback, fully knowing it was gonna trigger Emily. 

Fig’s new plan is to get all of her parents in a throuple and I don’t even know where to begin with that tbh so I won’t.

@voxfantasma made a comment last week that Sandra-Lynn very well could have seen Kalina which is why she can she her in the photo--which is an offhand comment I made when I was talking about the rules of the photo last week--and Ragh’s reaction to the photo is making me move this theory back up to the top spot. I still wish they would show the photo to more people so we’d have more data for this. 

I loved Fig tossing Fabian a bardic inspiration for a compliment even though he didn’t really need it. I also love that she has a rider in her rockstar contract necessitating gogurt be at all her shows for Gilear. 

Adaine paranoidly casting water breathing on everyone at the slightest hint that they may have to go near water. Our girl is learning from the mistakes of the last oracle. 

With the gang facing off against the Nightmare King and Brennan’s description of the thing in Adaine’s tent as being humanoid, about her side, and sitting in a sort of defensive way, I’m wondering it what it was was a manifestation of her own anxiety or something along those lines. Of course, it could just be a normal ass monster. Sometimes the scariest thing is your inner turmoil and sometimes it’s just a monster trying to bite your head off. 

We also learn that Cathilda has a super wild adventurer’s life before she settled down to be a maid--so she knows what she’s missing and she’s fine with it--and also that she is paid ridiculously well, which makes me feel better about what’s going on with her. Also, her moment with Adaine and the cookies was so sweet. My notes for that scene say, “Adaine loves Cathilda and so do I.”

I loved Murph and Riz going equally Pepe Silvia trying to anagram out Garthy O’Brien (which is also what I was doing, especially since Brennan specifically spelled out the name). Cheers to Murph/Riz and Siobhan/Adaine trying to single handedly keep the story on track--both in and out of character.

There’s a part in this ep where Adaine Ray of Frosts Fig who immediately Hellish Rebukes her and that’s truly the kind of step-sister shenanigans I want to see from them as much as possible please and thank you. Also, like I said before, it was very sweet of Fig to reassure Adaine that she wasn’t just seeing things in the tent. Her catfishing middle aged men aside, she can be very empathetic when she wants to be.  

Adaine cast (or tried to cast Friends) on the thing in her tent. And I think it’s very telling about her character that that’s the spell she would cast and not an offensive one. Not that messing w/ someone’s brain is a super chill thing to do or anything, but I think, “Maybe I can calm whoever this is and talk to them and we can get some information,” is a much more measured reaction than maybe, “Let’s blast this thing to kingdom come and ask questions later.”

“Man van is a boat, my boat is a van.”

Brennan lets Adaine roll w/ advantage to convince the Hangman to come with them on the Van (which he still hates) because she said, “Please” really cute which is the kind of arbitrary DM fiat that I love. 

Adaine: We should tell them unless we’re being graded on a curve. (Savage.)

“Fig, she’s a maid. She’s not allowed to lie.”

All the skipper talk this ep got the Gilligan’s Island theme stuck in my head (never seen an ep but my mom watches it sometimes) so the next day I was getting dressed going “With Fabian, and the skipper too, the oracle, the PI,” to the GI theme song. Also, did not know skipper and captain were the same title until Fabian got all upset and I looked it up. Yet another piece of information I know because of some game (along with what a panacea is (Dragon Quest 9) and where the CDC is (Pandemic)).

Gorgug, being offered a virgin daiquiri: No thanks, I’m driving. (I’ve said this before: Zac low key has the best comic timing of anyone.)

When Riz is angraming, one of the things he ends up with is something about a “night yorb” which Brennan decided is a real thing that both the Hangman and the Van are very wary about. Having the Hangman constantly being like, “SPEAK NOT OF THE NIGHT YORB!” and the Van being like, “Seriously, don’t fuck with the night york,” was so funny and such nonsense. I can’t wait for the night yorb mini boss fight that has to happen now because of the rule of funny.

Gorgug comes down from his call with Zelda and everyone except for Fabian (and probably Ragh who cannon-balls off the boat w/ Fabian and they both have to be rescued by Sandra-Lynn) knows exactly what happened immediately. Aw, buddy. One of my favorite things about media where you have kids saving the world is you have relationship drama and also the world is ending and it all feels equally high stakes. I find that so funny but also it feels very representative of what high school was like, or at least what it felt like (minus the literal apocalypse, obv. Or maybe not. Idk what was going on at your high school). 

Adaine continues lending out Boggy to anyone who needs him.

Also, Gorgug tries to build a cell tower with driftwood and parts from Adaine’s jacket. It’s not going super hot. 

Both Adaine and Riz are podcast nerds and listen to This Solesian Life. All checks out. Their friendship is underrated.  

“I’m feeling really bad and my van is a boat.”

“I was gonna be straight edge except for drugs,” gives me “Sober salad” energy. 

The whole discussion about Kristen getting tracker silly putty for her birthday. 

The Van was serving some serious Ned Flanders energy along with the Owen Wilson energy this episode. 

Brennan does pretty good whale noises. 

Only crit this episode is Fig with a nat 20 insight to know Gorgug’s conversation with Zelda did not go well. Which is something she’d crit on.

[bylerly]

Sis it was trash. The acting was amazing but that’s about it. They ruined Mike and Wills friendship big time, not even gonna get into shipping lol. Also Finn and Noah I’m sorry sweeties, your characters were reduced to nothing lol

MAJOR MAJOR SPOILERS under cut.

i’m just going to put what I didn’t like here, to get my negativity out of the way.

the monster was beyond disappointing. the mindflayer, in both its physical and mental forms, was WAY better/scarier than this one. I’ll give this one gore points, sure, but…. god. it just seemed lazy

the complete and utter sidelining of Lucas & Will, and the continuing crappy Mike plot. that was possibly the most infuriating part for me. let me just go into more detail with each one…

I liked that Mike got called out for his shitty behavior because it was needed, for him & those he was being a dick towards, even unintentionally. but after that… he just…. didn’t do too much. I mean, he got better treatment than Lucas and Will this season, and he got some of his leadership qualities back, which was good. but the character is just…… still. resigned to be secondary, and spent so much of this season being so unlikable.

Lucas has deserved better from the start. he had a couple cool moments this season, but nothing like I was hoping. he was sidelined (his moments early on with Max were great tho) as usual, not being given any substance in his own plot. i am just so exhausted with his writing.

Will. oh my g o d. they mutilated his character. he was resigned to only being the friend feeling left out, which started out okay. that scene with castle byers was peak cinema. but then… what the fuck ????? they acted like his psychic connection was going to be a big plot for him, but it only mattered for like 2 seconds. once he told his friends that night in the woods, it stopped being useful. he could tell them that the mindflayer/upside down presence was close, but it was in moments when they could already tell. and then… nothing. he had a few useful things to say about his experience with the MF, but once shit hit the fan in the second half… he wasn’t given anything to do. his character went nowhere. Will has SO MANY POSSIBILITIES, and it felt like the duffers literally forgot about him, then just wrote him into the background of some scenes. remember when we thought there would be a big revelation or twist with him this season…. hahaha funny, the duffers said fuck will rights….. and yes, they completely and utterly destroyed his friendships this season. noah acts circles around so much of the cast, but he was so reduced this season, it was embarrassing

billy. FUCKING BILLY. he was given SO MUCH FUCKING SCREEN TIME trying to get us to feel sorry for him, to get us to empathize. I don’t, and I’m furious that the duffers took away valuable screen time from characters who could’ve used it (see the three characters I just mentioned). I didn’t care. I’m glad he’s dead so it won’t happen again, but he got so much excessive screen time. Dacre did fine. but i will never not be bitter that this was the season of fucking Billy.

what happened to 5/6 being insane and badass? there were some good moments. but nothing that blew me away.

the comedy was so awkward in a lot of parts, was this just me??? it felt like they were trying way, way too hard. the only times the humor hit was when the actors made choices that made it hit. it wasn’t really the writing.

just as suspected…. the scoops troop was a low tier grouping for me. i want to love Erica…. but i just. don’t. it’s cool that they went the nerdy route with her, and Priah did a good job. there are just so many characters that are already being underdeveloped, and her plot with the other three didn’t do much for me besides minor comic relief (mostly from Joe).

Alright, I thought everyone was already predicting Hopper’s “death”? was I the only one seeing that coming from twenty miles away?

That post credits scene… was that supposed to be shocking in any way? A fucking demodog? okay thanks lmao (”not the American” - is that Hopper in that cell?)

Kind of tying into my first point…. nothing about the monster or Billy’s plot was interesting to me. Nothing. It garnered some great acting from the cast, but that was it. The scenes lingered way too long and so much of it was rehashed and, again, booooooring.

The Jancy stuff was…. disappointing, just in that it was underwhelming. I like their dynamic, and that they did way more with the kids this season. It was a step up from s2, yes. But it was still less than I hoped.

The amount of flashbacks, either from other seasons or even the episode before…. so unneccessary. it was like they were trying to fill in gaps where they had nothing else to put. and it’s insulting that they think the audience is THAT dumb

I felt like there was a… lack of depth? that they wrote the season to try and be as shocking and crazy visually and plot-wise as possible, that little nuanced moments and character emotions that make the show so good were virtually gone.

Okay, I saved this for last because I KNOW I’m going to get shit for this, but this is just my opinion. …El got way, way, way too much of the plot and screen time in s3. I adore her, and i know she��s technically the “main” character. But… every other scene was her, or centered around her. Characterization of other characters was at an all time low, or even moved backwards, but everything was centered around hers. It would be one thing if other kids were seen as well (i.e. last season, where her own screen time was obviously high, but other kids got a little room, too), but her own plot made up about 95% of the kids’ (minus dustin, who I don’t consider to be in the other kids’ plot line this season). It’s officially turned into the “El and the other kids” show, which leaves such a bitter taste in my mouth. Probably because I saw it coming, but didn’t want to believe it. Season 3 was literally the Eleven and Billy Show imo

I’ll put things I enjoyed (smaller list) in another post at some point, but I need to decompress.

[sorrytobreakyourheart]

Micmacs: weapon manufacturing criticism in a comedy

So in On Why Pre-Afghanistan Tony Stark Isn’t a Bad Person ( while not a hero ) I talked about the movie Mimacs à tire-larigot as a counterpoint to all my positive arguments to defend Tony as a weapon manufacturer, and I figured that

(A) most of you probably don’t know that movie since it’s french ( like me) ( and I’m writing this in English, which is probably not helping but eitherway )

(B) I should probably expand on why exactly liking Micmacs and agreeing to a lot of it doesn’t negate my feelings on Tony’s ethics

+ there’s a lot about that movie that stands on its own, without me throwing Tony at it. It’s, first of all, a comedy, though, so of course there isn’t a long and winded commentary of weapon manufacturing thrown in the middle by a character.

The parts that directly relates to Tony or the MCU in general will be in italics.

( I’m not, obviously, going to tell you absolutely everything about it, but mostly the part about weapon manufacturing and how it ties in with Tony’s past )

First of all, the story ( and, because I can’t control myself, the arguments in the middle ):

The Incidents

Bazil ( Danny Boon ) is a child in 1979 when his father ( a soldier ) is killed by a landmine as the man is working on removing landmines from the maroccan part of the Sahara. His mother receives his father’s things, and he learns that La Vigilante de L’Armement was the landmine’s manufacturer.

30 years later, Bazil is shot in the head by a stray bullet from a car/moto chase between two criminals, and survives, but the bullet is still inside his brain because removing it has 9/10 odds of leaving him a vegetable. That also means he spends a lot of the rest of the movie suffering from that bullet, with the risk of dying without warning at any moment. Later, he’s given the bulletcase his replacement at work found on the road: it’s from Les Arsenaux d’Aubervilliers.

Now, I would be the first to say that yes, his life was fucked up by those two weapons, but the manufacturers are not necessarily the ( only ) ones responsible for that. Assuming those two enterprises followed the rules, you can say that the first guilty party in his father’s death is the government/military that started the war/decided to use landmines, and that the criminals in the shooting could have stolen those weapons ( or gotten it from a stolen shipment ) from the military, making it the criminals’ fault.

Both are true, regardless of the manufacturers’ own guilt.

The Aftermath

On top of having lost his father and risking death by inconvenient bullet everyday of his life, Bazil lost his job ( logical, someone had to do the work while he was recuperating ) and now lives on the street, scrapping by as he goes.

After a few months, he’s taken in a by a group/family of other lost people. They live in a cavern of recycling materials ( and by recycling trash ). There’s Tambouille ( Mama Chow in English ) who’s the group’s mom. Placard ( Slammer ), who did 25 years and is possibly a former crook from what we see. Remmington, an African ethnograph who somehow ended up poor in Paris like the rest of them and uses an overwhelming amount of french language clichés. La Môme Caoutchouc ( Elastic Girl ), a contorsionist. Petit Pierre ( Tiny Pete ), an old man who doesn’t really speak but makes incredible automatons. Fracasse ( Buster ), a former human cannonball with the injuries that goes with the job. Calculette ( Calculator ), a girl whose ability to tell anything and anyone’s measurements is basically a superpower.

The Revenge

One day, as Bazil is collecting things thrown away to use again, he ends up right in between the buildings of Les Arsenaux d’Aubervilliers and of La Vigilante de l’Armement. He recognizes the logos, and tries to get to talk with the CEO of Les Arsenaux ( bullet ) for compensation, but get thrown out. Then he cross the street, and hears a speech by the CEO of La Vigilante about how making weapons is awesome ( I’m admittedly symplifying here ).

Frankly, at that point Nicolas Thibault de Fenouillet ( old-style CEO, Les Arsenaux ) and François Marconi ( modern-style CEO, La Vigilante ) don’t seem that different from Tony. They live in luxury, make weapons for their country and possibly its allies, their public persona is not necessarily likeable, but you can always chalk it up to the fact that yes, it’s a public persona ( they aren’t engineer, though, just the CEO ).

Except. Tony might have refused to see Bazil, if he had come to him for a bullet made by SI, but he wouldn’t have made the kind of joke de Fenouillet did ( “He says he has one of our bullet in his brain, sir”/”well that makes something for him to remember us by” ). On top of that, when Bazil was thrown out by security, they took their time to mock him and his head wound, to be cruel. That’s not a behavior Tony would have tolerated from his employees, supposing de Fenouillet knew about it.

Except, I made an argument in my previous post about the Ares Award and Tony’s absence, him not necessarily wanting an award for being a weapon manufacturer, and that directly relates to Marconi’s speech. Marconi, him, is there, and makes the praise of his business, and jokes about Rimbaud having been a poet only to become a weapon dealer, and himself planning to do it the other way. He does it unprompted. He shows the ego we keep hearing about in Tony, when Tony wasn’t even there for his own award ceremony, when Tony only said that the weapon industry was necessary when Christine Everhart basically asked him if she was ashamed.

Anyway, Bazil is angry. He wants revenge, which, okay.

He starts spying on both CEOs, making a plan to take them both down. And as it turns out, Marconi is ( oh, surprise! ) contacted by an African ex-dictator who wants to start up shit again because he likes being a dictator better than being an ex-dictator. Marconi spends about two seconds and a half saying he only sells to legitimate clients, before being told how much he’s going make, and then, his ethics go right through the window.

Which, you know. Tony never agreed to do. Not even when the Ten Rings kidnapped him and tortured him.

There’s a confrontation with the rest of the gang, and eventually everyone in on the plan ( which, you know, is about making les “Marchants de la Mort” pay; you know where I’m going here ).

The plan, in fact, consist of a lot of shennanigans that probably wouldn’t work in real life, but the gang is just that good, and it’s a movie. They start by incapacitating the dictator’s men, and Remington pretends to be them to offer de Fenouillet the same deal, so that both CEOs think the other one undermined him when the deal doesn’t happen. Then they get in, wreck Marconi’s cars, steal de Fenouillet’s rather disturbing collection of famous people’s body parts, steal a shipment of bombs, etc.

From there the CEOs are the one escalating. Marconi put pressure on a cleaning lady to sabotage de Fenouillet’s testing unit, which causes a massive explosion at the plant of Les Arsenaux, and there are no casualties but only by chance. De Fenouillet sends a tactical team to kidnap/murder Marconi.

It’s all interrupted when the dictator’s men get back in the story and play Russian Roulette with Marconi ( before the tactical team gets there ), Bazil gets caught because he was worrying about Elastic Girl ( who was looking for blackmail, and is currently hinidng in the fridge ), and the CEOs finally realize what’s going on ( kinda ).

Bazil almost gets killed, but the gang as a Plan B, and ends up kidnapping de Fenouillet and Marconi instead, staging a flight and arrival in the desert, putting a grenade ( not armed ) in de Fenouillet’s mouth, who’s sitting on Marconi’s shoulders, who’s standing on a landmine ( not armed either ), while they are all disguised as arab women with picture of their dead/injured children.

Before long the two are confessing to a lot of things, starting with all the people who are not legitimate clients they sold things to ( IRA, ISIS, you name it ). They are being recorded, of course, and when the gang stops acting and reveals who they are, they also download the video on ( old, old ) YouTube. Les Arsenaux and La Vigilante are about to close, de Fenouillet and Marconi are ridiculed, about to be tried, and lost all their support.

Bazil is happy with his new family.

The End.

Non-Violence

Bazil & Co’s plan never involved violence. They aren’t looking to kill either CEOs, and the employees are not treated like acceptable casualties just because they work for the two assholes. In fact, the only people who die here are not part of the plan, are killed by de Fenouillet’s men, are the dictator’s men. The most violent thing they did was release bees on workers to steal the bombs, and send a car with goons in it in a billboard

Unlike, say, Wanda and Pietro’s plan, who just didn’t give a damn about what happened to anyone ( the Avengers themselves, but also all the people who would get caught up in whatever they’d pushed Tony into doing ) as long as they got to kill Tony, to make Tony suffer, until they realized it had gone too far and (A) they were going to die too, (B) maybe seven billions people was a bit too high a casualty count even for them.

The only thing you can blame the gang for is the explosion at the factory ( if there had been casualties ), in that they instigated the rivalry, but, in the end, that’s on Marconi, much more than on the gang, because he’s the one who decided to do that ( and by pressuring an imigrant couple to do his dirty work, no less ).

Tony wouldn’t have deliberately endangered people like that. If he was like that, he’d have dropped a missile on Gulmira to get rid of the Ten Rings, without care for the civilians casualties, instead of getting there in person and targetting only the terrorists.

A Plan that wouldn’t have worked if they hadn’t deserved it

Despite the fact that Bazil wants revenge, his whole plan only works if de Fenouillet and Marconi are, in fact, assholes. Marconi didn’t have to accept the dictator’s deal, but he did. De Fenouillet didn’t have to accept the dictator’s deal, but he did. When they thought the other one had started trashing their stuff, they didn’t have to escalate. Marconi didn’t have to take his employee’s visa so that his wife would be forced to sabotage Les Arsenaux. De Fenouillet didn’t have to try and murder Marconi.

If they hadn’t sold weapons to ISIS/etc, they wouldn’t have had anything to confess at the end. They’d probably have been ridiculed, but it couldn’t have done any grave damage to their lives. In fact, the gang would have probably been labelled as the villains for having harrassed/kidnapped/threatened ( since they didn’t know the landmine and the grenade weren’t armed ) people who were doing their job within the law.

At every turn, the CEOs had a choice, and at every turn, they disappointed. Which is why the plan worked.

Tony refused to sell/make weapons for terrorists, which is what pushed Obadiah to get rid of him. Tony demands a lot of his employees, but he doesn’t force them to do anything, they can leave if they want, if they think he’s wrong.

And if Tony, somehow, had still ended up in the same situation, threatened with death to admit to having done things illegal... He wouldn’t have had anything to admit, because he didn’t do it.

Reality vs. Fiction

That’s the big difference between Tony Stark and de Fenouillet and Marconi. He’s not a bad person for being a weapon manufacturer, because he did it following the rules, but they aren’t, because they didn’t.

Being a weapon manufacturer, again, isn’t a bad thing per se, even if it isn’t a good thing either. As long as there isn’t world peace, and the absolute assurance that this peace will go undisturbed, we need soldiers, we need weapons, and therefore we need weapon manufacturers ( but I already made my argument about it in my last post ).

Now, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that most, or maybe even, all, of the real-world weapon manufacturers are not good people who always follow the rules. But in case you hadn’t noticed, Tony Stark is the ideal ( or as close as ) of what a weapon manufacturer should be ( still not good per se, still not bad per se ), because he lives in a fictional world.

If you can believe in a soldier who never obeys orders he thinks are wrong and yet never gets disciplined because of it, if you can believe in a guy who turns into a giant green rage monster, if you can believe that six people can stop an alien invasion, and then you tell me you can’t picture a honest weapon manufacturer in that same world, well.

What we don’t need are weapon manufacturers like de Fenouillet and Marconi. What we need are people who are willing to make them fall, but not by using violence first either, not when it’s not needed, not when you can do it differently.

( though, the Plan almost went South at one point, which is why, sometimes, you also need an assurance, like, say, a way not to get killed by the weapon manufacturer who has, *gasp*, weapons! )

[internet----girlfriend-blog]

On Saying Goodbye, or Making Meaning Out of Nothing

   I’ve never been great at saying goodbyes. Generally, I will stand around uncomfortably and shift myself closer and closer to the door until I can escape. With phone conversations, it’s even worse. It’s not that I don’t want to talk, it’s just that I can’t deal with the silence that comes before saying goodbye.  Most people who know me understand by now that they can expect an abrupt hang-up instead of a goodbye. I think this is mostly because I have an irrational fear of permanence and would rather leave abruptly than face the absoluteness that comes with a goodbye. This is probably because I am mostly a very overdramatic Sagittarius and I watch too many movies.

   I moved out of my parents’ house for the first time when I was eighteen. Within a week of graduating high school I was in the next state over. I didn’t have a hard time saying goodbye to my family but I cried like a baby when I hugged our dog for the last time before leaving. At least my mom could text; the dog didn’t have thumbs. I had expectations that this move would be much more emotional and dramatic, maybe even grandiose, but it was quiet and calm and unassuming. Again, I watch too many movies. I backed out of the driveway in my Kia and tried not to think about our dog. This was my first goodbye that ever really mattered; if you ask my Aquarius mother, it is the only goodbye that’s mattered so far.   

   While trying to escape the small town I grew up in, I ended up in an even smaller town. The name of this town is irrelevant because it’s so small that Google Maps won’t even recognize it as a real place. The deluxe Sheetz gas station was the main attraction, and the closest grocery store was a forty-five minute drive away.  I lived with my first serious boyfriend in this town. He was the first Aries I dated. We stayed in a large apartment over a lawyer’s office and in the summer I sat in front of the windows and listened to people shout and argue with each other about things that I didn’t understand at the time. Our neighbors were visited by the cops almost weekly because their fights got so bad that someone always ended up getting hit. I spent a lot of nights in my room with my ear pressed to the wall, listening to their fighting and learning all of their intimate secrets.  I didn’t think this was weird at the time. Our lease ended the following summer and, no longer fueled by the intensity of the honeymoon phase of our relationship, we decided to part ways. I didn’t cry once but he did keep my record collection, which hurt more than anything else.  I drove back to Ohio in the same Kia and tried not to think about my limited-press editions that I would never see again. This was my second goodbye that ever really seemed to matter.

   I moved back into my parents’ house when I was nineteen. I stayed in their attic and drove twenty-five minutes to work in Cleveland every day. I worked in a tiny restaurant that made most of its money from breakfast rushes and overpriced alcohol. It sat on the corner of Detroit Ave and bragged about the “friendly neighborhood atmosphere” more than embodied it.  I wasn’t allowed to park in the parking lot of this tiny restaurant and I acquired more parking tickets in that time than tip money. The men who worked in the kitchen would crudely talk about my haircut and my facial piercings and the way my ass looked in skinny jeans. The turnover rate was incredibly high, mostly due to the fact that the woman who owned the restaurant was batshit fucking insane and known to be violent.  I quit my job at this tiny restaurant when I was twenty and still living at home. I quit in the middle of a particularly hectic morning shift when I dropped a Bloody Mary on the floor and the owner called me an idiot in front of customers. The Bloody Mary shattered on the floor and stained my white Vans with tomato juice. I walked out, collected the parking ticket from my windshield, and drove home. I was never able to get the stains out of my shoes; it almost felt like one final “fuck you” from the tiny restaurant. This goodbye doesn’t really matter that much now but it felt like it mattered at the time.

   I moved out of my parents’ house for the second time when I was twenty. I lived in an apartment in Cleveland Heights with three other people that I didn’t really know. The apartment was overpriced with high ceilings and narrow hallways. There was always trash everywhere and the kitchen smelled like rotting food. A rice cooker sat in the corner, generally filled with molding rice. The bathroom had a standing shower with a perpetually clogged drain and dirty clothes covered the floor. I was a freshman in college and I spent most of my time at the school to avoid being in the gross apartment. I stayed over at friend’s places and only came home when absolutely necessary. I smoked a lot of weed and did a lot of acid and didn’t sleep and lived off of Clif bars and sugar-free Redbull. I broke up with my then-boyfriend because he was cheating on me with a woman twentyish years older than me. She was a sexually robust woman in her forties who went by the name Bunny and she had a daughter who was also older than me at the time. We met at a mutual friend’s party and she introduced herself by telling me that my boyfriend was good with his tongue. This initially confused me because mostly, I just thought he tasted like Marlboro Reds. I smoke American Spirits. He was the second Aries I dated, coincidentally with the same first name as the first Aries. I never spoke to him again. This goodbye mattered because I no longer had anybody to bring me free weed and help me build IKEA furniture in my shitty apartment.

   I turned twenty-one over the winter break of my freshman year of college. I was living with my parents again, after leaving the shitty apartment during Thanksgiving break. All of my friends were out of state so I bought myself a cheap bottle of gas station wine and invited a boy from Tinder over to my house. We made out on the couch and I knew he was going to hurt me. He did. He was a poet and a playwright with a big ego and a vaguely Italian-sounding name. He lived with his mom and did stand-up comedy on the weekends. I will never trust a stand-up comedian. He was a Capricorn, which also cannot be trusted.  He made fun of me for listening to emo music and I made fun of him for liking musical theater. We went on for months, sleeping together and refusing to acknowledge the fact that we were sleeping together. I moved into an apartment on Coventry while I was still seeing him and he would come over to drink and argue with my Pisces friends. He had a girlfriend almost the entirety of the time I was seeing him. We didn’t know about each other. She was a Gemini. I found out he had graciously given me an STD months after we had already stopped talking. He still follows me on Instagram. This goodbye was extremely prolonged and painful and overdramatic. This was the kind of goodbye I had been expecting when I left home for the first time, but instead it was with a dumb boy. It still mattered, probably.

   I moved out of Cleveland Heights the week before the end of my sophomore year of college. I left behind an apartment that never really felt like home and moved into another apartment that sometimes feels like home. I left behind my bitterness and anger but managed to pick up uncertainty and consistent self-doubt along the way. I moved into a big, old apartment building in Shaker Heights with my (very recently) ex-boyfriend. The first night in our new place we got a pizza and tried to coax my cat out from hiding in the furniture. I cried because I knew I was going to feel trapped, not unlike my cat, probably. I cried because I thought about my mom and how sad I make her. I cried because I knew nothing was ever going to be enough for me. I chalked it up to the fact that I am an overdramatic Sagittarius and ignored those feelings for five more months. I felt like this was a goodbye that mattered, but I’m not exactly sure what I said goodbye to. I’m still trying to figure it out, but I probably never will.

   I spent the summer in this apartment in Shaker Heights doing nothing and taking care of plants and my cat, who’s a Gemini. I drank a lot of wine in the evenings and stopped eating and started sleeping too much. I ignored my friends and didn’t pick up the phone or text anyone back. I only left the house to go to work and came back immediately after my shifts, feeling too anxious to be outside or in public alone. I laid in bed at night, sweating because we don’t have air conditioning, thinking about dying and what my parents would say at my funeral. This time, those thoughts didn’t feel so overdramatic, which was scary. As the summer went on, I thought less about dying and more about escaping, leaving school, leaving my job, leaving my relationship. I applied for study-abroad programs and ignored their acceptance emails. My boyfriend was working full-time, usually over-time, and so I spent most of my days completely isolated, planning my escape. I looked at apartments for rent in cities I’ve never been to, or even considered going to. I spent a weekend in Columbus and then another weekend in Detroit, always dreading coming back to Cleveland. I felt like I had been living as a ghost for the last six months of my life and I was desperately trying to figure out how to become human again. I feel like I’ve said goodbye to this image I’ve curated so carefully for myself, completely disregarding everything I thought I knew about myself and now I’m scrambling around, trying to understand what happened. This is it, this is the big one, the most melodramatic, the most important goodbye.

   I left my first serious, adult relationship last week. We were only together for a little over a year, but it felt like a lot longer. We still live together, so that’s been awkward. When the conversation actually happened, I felt less sad and more relieved. I didn’t even cry. I sat on the chair in our living room and he sat on the couch, asking me what happened. I don’t know what happened. Falling out of love is weird. Realizing that you have a better time hanging out with your friends than spending time with your partner is weird. Understanding that it’s not anyone’s fault and that two people can still care about each other very much but not be in love anymore is weird. We are both fire signs and we are both very overdramatic. And we watch too many movies. He doesn’t believe in astrology, but he’s the stereotype of a Leo. I’ve been listening to a lot of Sufjan Stevens and the National, thinking really hard about what went wrong, and where, and what we could have done to change it, or prolong it even more, or ignore it completely. This goodbye feels like a death. This goodbye will leave a lasting imprint, on both people involved. This goodbye matters.

   I’ll be turning twenty-three in a couple months. I’ve said countless goodbyes, see-yous and catch-you-laters in my life so far. I’ll say a billion more. This isn’t meant to be some deep, soul-searching essay or even a reflection. More an examination. No matter how many goodbyes I say, I know they’ll all matter, even if they become arbitrary later. I’m still not any better at saying it. I will probably never be comfortable saying it. I know I’m always going to be a melodramatic Sagittarius. Maybe someday I won’t define myself that way, but today is not that day.

[bullet-farmer]

1,300 words about Loki, mental illness, and why “lol he’s such a lovable asshole” isn’t my jam.

Anyway, Loki is a severely traumatized and mentally ill person who has very few positive coping mechanisms and falls entirely outside the bullshit respectability politics MI people are supposed to play by in order to be considered full human beings. And that’s one of many reasons why he has legions of fans--many of whom are fellow MI people--and why I love him. 

And why his Ragnarok arc means a lot to many of us—and why we’re worried about his Infinity War arc. 

To be honest, it kind of bothers me when people are like “lol Loki is such a trash asshole.” I mean…yes? Sometimes? And you’re entitled to your own interpretation of a movie, and especially of its most multifaceted character, so I won’t get in your face because I think you’re wrong on the internet. But that’s not all he is. And as someone with an illness that makes society dismiss me as a piece of trash and a raging asshole (who isn’t deserving of equal rights, I might add), I’m sorry to be riled up about this, but it does kind of rile me up.

When I watch Thor, I see a person who already had mental health challenges and a lot of doubt about his place in the world have his entire life blown apart with no help to pick up the pieces and no real understanding of how to pick them up.

When I watch Avengers, I see a person having a full-blown crisis and lashing out at anything and everything in his path—especially someone who loves him—to try to gain some control over his life. The fact he has godlike powers and can therefore make his problems, everyone’s problems doesn’t take away from this. If anything, it only adds to it to me. Because as a borderline, I can tell you that I’ve wanted the entire world to feel my pain and understand it many, many times.

When I watch Dark World, I see a person who finally becomes numb to everything life has thrown at him and who finally just decides to fade out of it, away from even the family he loves.

And of course, we assume the worst of him because, well we just watched him have a violent breakdown, right? So why wouldn’t he kill Odin, who said the most horrible thing to his son that I think I’ve ever heard a father say to a child in a work of fiction (tbh, it resonated with me because my father told me something similar, so I’m probably biased here)? Why wouldn’t he run Asgard into the ground out of spite or imbalance?

Then in Ragnarok, we find out that…he hasn’t. He’s just watching plays about himself, eating grapes, and being a hedonist. But meanwhile, he seems to be doing all right at his job. Asgard isn’t on fire and neither are any of the nine realms—well, except the one that’s always on fire ;p.

And yes, it’s funny! The Tragedy of Loki of Asgard is fucking hilarious! Loki’s little “oh shit” when Thor arrives put me on the floor laughing!

But comedy is just tragedy sped up, as a professor of mine once wisely said.

And the real tragedy of Loki here is that he has so much potential and is just…directionless. He sits around with his feet up watching what is essentially bad Asgardian daytime TV while comfort-eating. Which, you know, no depressed or traumatized person has ever done, like, ever. And when he lands on Sakaar, he gets to do what basically amounts to even more of it, with, possibly, wild sex with the Grandmaster on top of that.

And throughout all four movies, Thor is every NT/NOMI sibling who deeply loves their MI brother or sister, but who is at a loss of how to help them. We see him try pleading and reasoning. We see him try threats. We see him try bribery (help me avenge our mother). We see him try guilting and disappointment and even a brand of dark humor.

And then we see him figure it out.

He can’t strongarm Loki into making better, healthier choices, or coping better. He can’t sweet-talk or reason him into it, because mental illnesses don’t tend to respond in the long term to force, empty talk, or even reason.

So he does the one thing that I think works well—or at least, that is beginning to work for me.

Thor stages an intervention.

He tells Loki that he loves him, that he believes in him, that he thinks he can be more than he is and better than he is. That he has the power and the talent and the brains to do it, but that, in the end, the decision is his. Not Thor’s. Not Frigga’s. Not Odin’s . And if he can’t make those choices, Thor can’t be a part of his life anymore.

That’s why “You’ll always be the god of mischief, but you could be more” is the most meaningful movie quote for me of all time. People have been trying to do this for me for years, and I never really understood until that scene just what their efforts meant.

And for a minute, I worried that Taika wouldn’t get it either. But he did.

You see, Loki figures out that his brother is right. And he rises to be his better self. When he shows up in the ark, head held high, and walks through the crowd, he became the king he always wanted to be. When he used his helmet as a weapon to defend his people—and, in the credit animations kneeled while doing so—he became the king he could always have been. And when he stood at his brother’s side, he became so much more than many ever thought possible.

Look, I’m not trying to say that Loki is all sunshine and unicorn sparkles. He’s both an anti-hero and an anti-villain, and he’s probably going to spend the rest of his very long life struggling with, and at times falling prey to, the “grave imbalance” Thor referred to. Which is how a lot of MI people feel and experience life. For example, I see myself as both anti-hero and villain of my own story, not the hero, and often not even the protagonist. That is why I struggle to relate to 99.9999% of protagonists and frankly didn’t find any characters who I felt represented me until I was in my early thirties and saw Frozen.

So I’m not so much interested in “Loki the entertaining, day-drinking asshole” as I am in “Loki the survivor who can be, at times, both entertaining and an asshole (and a day-drinker).”

This is why he’s a valuable character for mentally ill people like me, and the hero—yes, hero—we deserve. Because few characters in mainstream media are allowed to be mentally ill and complex. We’re either portrayed as fragile little victims of our own brains, or violent evildoers who will probably try to kill the nice NT/NOMI protagonist and everyone they love. Or we’re just funny “Hollywood crazy” like Erik Selvig in Dark World (which wasn’t cringy as fuck at all backslash-sarcasm). Or just outright monsters like Hannibal Lechter. Or we’re the Good Kind of Mentally Ill that just sits there and looks Tragic and Pretty and doesn’t cause Problems. Or at least creates some nice art or books before we off ourselves.

We never get to be people. Messy, complicated, but not monstrous people, like NT/NOMIs do.

And Loki gets to be a complicated, messy, thoroughly mentally ill person who is struggling to figure out his place in the world after tremendous loss and a lifetime of feeling like he just doesn’t fit in anywhere.

This is why I’m incredibly, fiercely protective of him and his mentally ill fans. And why I can sometimes get annoyed with interpretations of him that, to me, don’t seem to understand how he’s anything but an entertaining jerk who sometimes does the right thing. Maybe. 

(Note: if you like this little ramble, I’m working on a much longer essay about him that will incorporate some of these thoughts. If you REALLY liked this, please consider buying me a ko-fi to help a disabled, queer writer create more in-depth pieces about media we know and love--or sometimes don’t.)   

[bambamramfan]

Humor, Ideologically speaking

Responding to a thread of people I respect talking about humor and politics, very wrongly. (@baroquespiral, @balioc, @kontextmaschine)

https://balioc.tumblr.com/post/164632139706/punching-up-ruined-comedy

I’ll have to start at the basics, but this will get to the issues they were talking about like Dave Chappelle.

One of the key forms of humor is a punchline that takes advantage of something the audience knows but is unsaid within the joke, and so the punchline only makes sense if you know that unstated fact. For instance a joke that relies on “Oh, Italians are stupid” or “rich men are entitled.”

Two men are sitting drinking at a bar at the top of the Empire State Building, when the first man turns to the other and says "You know, last week I discovered that if you jump from the top of this building, the winds around the building are so intense that by the time you fall to the 10th floor, they carry you around the building and back into a window". The bartender just shakes his head in disapproval while wiping the bar. The second guy says, "What, are you nuts? There's no way that could happen. "No, its true," the first man says. "Let me prove it to you." He gets up from the bar, jumps over the balcony, and plummets toward the street below. As he nears the 10th floor, the high winds whip him around the building and back into the 10th floor window and he takes the elevator back up to the bar. He meets the second man, who looks quite astonished. "You know, I saw that with my own eyes, but that must have been a one time fluke." "No, I'll prove it again," says the first man as he jumps again. Just as he is hurtling toward the street, the 10th floor wind gently carries him around the building and into the window. Once upstairs he urges his fellow drinker to try it. "Well, why not." the second guy says, "It works. I'll try it." He jumps over the balcony, plunges downward passes the 11th, 10th 9th, 8th, floors. . . . . and hits the sidewalk with a SPLAT. Back upstairs the bartender turns to the other drinker and says, "You know Superman, you're a real jerk when you're drunk".

This joke only makes you laugh if you know the various powers of Superman.

There are two important ways this can be used politically:

--To tell a joke that relies on ideological truths as the unstated assumption.

You ask a white guy who's he votin' for, like, "Hey, Bob, who you gonna vote for?" "Dave! Dave! Whoa, whoa, whoa! Take it easy. So I was fuckin' my wife in her ass, right? And let me tell you, it was something else." "Yeah, yeah, but who are you gonna vote for?" "Dave! Dave, come on with the voting! I'm trying to tell you about fucking my wife in the ass, and you're asking me all these personal questions."

--To tell a joke that uses the ideological truth as the facade, with the ways that ideology fails being the unstated assumption. The is known as an encounter with the Real.

Have you ever watched, like, a cartoon that you used to watch when you were little, as an adult? I was sittin' there with my nephew. I turned it on Sesame Street. And I was, like, "Oh, good. Sesame Street. Now he'll learn how to count and spell." But now I'm watching it as an adult and I realize that Sesame Street teaches kids other things. It teaches kids how to judge people and label people. That's right. They got this one character named Oscar. They treat this guy like shit the entire show. They judge him right to his face. "Oscar, you are so mean. Isn't he, kids?" "Yeah. Oscar, you're a grouch!" He's, like, "Bitch, I live in a fucking trash can! I'm the poorest motherfucker on Sesame Street. Nobody's helping me." Now you wonder why your kids grow up and step over homeless people, like, "Get it together, grouch. Get a job, grouch."

The two examples I gave were from Dave Chappelle, the person people are arguing over as a particular unspoiled strain of humor. He’s not. (Though at his best, like the gameshow “Who Knows Black People?” he emphasized the latter style of joke.)

The point is not to reliably identify which of these categories a joke falls into, and to “only do the good kind of joke” -- but to understand why ideology will always find humor a threat and a useful weapon.

There is no such thing as a humorless ideologue. The humorless feminist, the humorless christian conservative, these are all fantasies. The more someone shows umbridge at a joke that’s “not funny” because of inappropriate content, the more they love jokes that play by the rules of their particular ideological system.

(This isn’t about target, so much as about “agrees with my rules about how the world operates.” Someone who says “jokes about rape are never funny,” likely will laugh at a joke whose punchline is “frat boys try to dope drinks to get laid.”)

***

So what’s bad about all this discussion of “punching up” is acting like this concept is a remotely new thing. Every powerful ideology has felt the need to clamp down on humor, AND to use humor as a sharp weapon that enforces social order in a way most people can’t defend themselves against (ie, it’s just a joke you big baby.)

And the mourned libertine consensus of “everyone can take a joke” was just as doctrinaire about how humor was used as well. Most of what libertarian cultural advocates are complaining about is, after all, people making mean jokes at their expense.

[thenichibro]

Saekano: How to Raise an Atrocious Anime

I’ve seen a lot of shitty harems, but Saekano might be the most masturbatory, self-gratifying waste of my time I’ve ever had the displeasure of sitting through. Normally in a harem you get the standard character archetypes that aren’t any more than their cliché because the rest of the direction of their personalities are “I love the main character, he’s so cool.” And yet in Saekano, the author somehow finds a way to make such a bland, whiny, painfully obvious self-insert as the main character, and direct the entirety of the other girls’ personalities into revolving around him and him alone. The god complex on this author must be insane, driven mad from “being an otaku” or whatever the shit Tomoya says to be #relatable to the audience.

The egocentric nature of the show, funny enough, is so prominent it’s how the show starts, and oh boy is it how it ends. The entire plot – the central, organizing premise is that Tomoya sees Kato one day and wants to make her into his ideal heroine. Immediately, her entire personality is now subject in the viewers’ mind with what Tomoya will make of her. In the first season’s beginning she plays the normal terse, little-patience archetype, but alas not even her gruff personality could hold out to the wiles of a constantly whining otaku caught already in the middle of a cat fight between two other girls, both inexplicably successful and inexplicably head over heels for him.

Even moreso as the show moved into its second season, they apparently looked in a book of “bad anime clichés” (that’s assuming the author didn’t also pen it) and found that being self-referential is really hip. So now the characters mention screen time and episode count, and yet the show doesn’t know what it wants to be – a wacky comedy about a guy stuck in the middle of mindless containers of fanservice or a serious romance dealing with the emotional struggles of a socially anxious high schooler and how wanting to put time into his hobby brings him closer to people he didn’t realize were so close already. No, no instead, Saekano takes the worst of both, and bookends the melodrama with sparse fourth-wall breaks at the beginning and end of the season. As if consistency in tone was this show’s biggest problem.

And finally, after so many blatant fanservice episodes, angry tsundere-talk, and talking about doujin games, we reach the final episode – the culmination of my detestation for this trash. Prior to the finale, Eriri and Utaha undergo some actual development, realizing they must put their own goals over Tomoya’s to succeed in their respective careers and dump his doujin team to work together on a AAA title, any and all hope I had for that to continue disintegrated. Firstly though, the end of the penultimate and beginning of the final episode are all about how Kato is now the true love, the girl that will stay with Tomoya, because even though he completely ignored her in favor of winning over Eriri and Utaha to work on his game, she still loves him just the same, as I guess “thanks” for mercilessly crushing any other personality she had into her final form as Tomoya’s ideal visual novel heroine. The author has molded Kato into what he wants, through the paper-thin veil of Tomoya as the main character. And because Tomoya is the harem main, he can’t not be loved, right? So after Eriri and Utaha make this decision, the end of that episode is Kato inviting Tomoya on a date, because there’s no way he could be without a heroine fawning over him, right? He’s the main character for crying out loud! It’s only natural! Flexing his power over the heroines in the story, he turns them away or brings them back to the main character as he absolutely pleases, with zero regard for any discussion of emotion or changes in character along the way.

And then we have the finale. Eriri and Utaha with their newly determined personalities almost got to leave the show less tainted then when they entered, and yet, of course, (following the first half of the episode being the date with Kato, with lots of #relatable “I’m a geek who doesn’t know anything about fashion!”), Tomoya stops the pair at the train station, as they’re preparing to leave for their new job. At this point I was honestly wondering what could make me detest the show even further, and then Utaha grabs Tomoya and deeply kisses him, bringing stunned reactions from both Eriri and me, sitting in silence with my head in my hands. Seriously – it’s not like I’m an upstanding white knight fighting for strong female characters – my favorite part of the show is the thigh shots anyway – but are you fucking kidding me? This is my central point in all of this: no character is anything but a romance choice - the entire show is a power fantasy apparently meant to satiate the otaku like Tomoya, but I would think all but the most disconnected NEETs could see this as nothing but attempting to gratify the main character and his creator. It’s pointless. Every other part of any character is just pointless.

Washed away in a torrent of spit and lipstick is any and all development Utaha (and of course Eriri) went through, confirming my view that this show is literally just masturbation material for its creator, dreaming of being an otaku who can also have a harem. While that itself might sound like a claim levied at any harem author, this is some next level writing, when you can not only make every girl in the show hopelessly obsessed with the main character around, but pointedly, specifically, directly make them sacks of the author’s favorite clichés and push them all on the absolute deification of the “self-insert harem main character” that is Tomoya Aki. Saekano is not for the fans, it is for the creator, and is that not a betrayal of what the industry about? I don’t claim to be a creative type in any capacity, but writing something so detailed to satisfy your own desires, and then marketing it in a mass-market a fashion seems to me like he should just write porn for himself if he wants to jack off to them. Hell, I’ve read porn that gives me more character development in 22 pages.

I despised every goddamn second of watching this show, and yet I stuck around for the artstyle, and because I’ve compulsively finished every anime I’ve ever started. Even with the stellar animation in both seasons, it wasn’t worth it. Not one bit. Sitting in fuming silence following that painful 24th minute at last ticking down, I was actually angry enough to put my frustration into words. This show is good for the gifs that show anything but the characters’ faces, so I don’t have to be reminded the disgusting motivations and empty personalities that lie behind their eyes. What utter filth.

[jasonmelton]

MON NOV 12TH (REALLY DEC 4RD) - REVERSE PEDOPHILIA AND MAGIC

HEY BUD

What up?

New York City, I’m there now, loving how dirty it is. Hey New Yorkers, wanna get some attention for your business? Sweep up some of this trash!!

I work with kids, and I’m good at my job. Big concern with kids: People worry adults will be sexual AT or WITH them. No bueno. When that happens, there’s only two words to describe the terrible event: No bueno.

But they never tell you what to do when kids hit on adults. I got a 7th grade boy, Dennis, who licks his lips and calls me a ‘delicious tall vanilla latte.’ What do I to say to that incredible compliment?

Dennis tries to impress me with magic tricks. Talk about game! But I think: don’t hit on someone and then show them a magic trick. Only practical use for sleight-of-hand outside of magic: stealing and roofying. No bueno.

But he’s still a kid and he’s got kid problems. One day he confided me: “Mr Jason I’m so sad I don’t have any friends.” I reassured him: “That’s actually good, Dennis. You’re like a REAL magician.”

I’m good at my job.

Really, the only creepy thing I do is ask the kids to tell me where their parents have tattoos. Oh yea Bobby? A four leaf clover on your mom’s butt???

LIVE SHOWS (NEW YORK! CHICAGO! MILWAUKEE!)

12/5 Starr Bar. New York, NY 8 pm

12/11 Tomato Show at Comedy Bar. Chicago, IL. 8 pm

12/13 High Dive. Chicago, IL 8:30 pm

12/13 Sugar Maple. Milwaukee, WI. 8 pm

12/14 Logan Square Improv. Chicago, IL. 10 pm

12/20 High Dive. Chicago, IL 8:30 pm

WHAT’S GOOD?

Riding in a van to my show, I patted my jeans and realized I have lost my joke / therapy notebook. Not like ‘comedy is therapy.’ Like I had a notebook where I kept my joke ideas and my therapy notes. The worst possible thing to lose--not because of its importance to me, but because of its potential to completely destroy me. My feeble attempts to be funny. Ha! Followed by a list of things that make me anxious. This is hell.. I believe it went to one of two places: the last place I saw it was in the therapy office or perhaps the place I was after therapy: the grade school where I work. Yes: my entrails are dangled over either the complete safety and privacy of my therapist or the germy hands of a 7th grader, fucking nightmare. It’s been a few days and there’s no clues yet. However, the other day a boy at the school asked me if I like jokes. I replied “yes” and a bunch of kids laughed. Motherfuck!

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