#i see the hits and likes and engagement on the same racist fan works

[avengersrewatch]

E11: Panther's Quest

Finally! Black Panther joins the Avengers! But first, we have to make it through this episode.

Captain America is telling the other Avengers about the black catsuit guy. And then Panther immediately attacks. This is pulling from Panther's first appearance with the Fantastic Four, where he fights them and then reveals it was all a test. So Panther is testing these Avengers.

To be honest, these Avengers don't do that well in the test, in my opinion. Cap gets in one good hit, and Hank is able to figure out he has a vibranium suit.

It's fun for me when Panther beats up Hank in Giant Man form at least. So it's better than most of the fake fights on this show. (He's so little but he hits Hank in soft places and knocks him over. I would love to see that in live action, Kevin Feige!)

Again we get a depiction of Wakanda that is lesser than the Ryan Coogler films. Panther is basically asking the Avengers to help him overthrow M'Baku's government because "the people are the problem" in that they follow "the old ways." It's cringe.

We also learn Tony Stark tried to get vibranium from King T'Chaka to make weapons before he was Iron Man. Thankfully T'Chaka was like, "Um, no." Panther gives Tony a little side eye that I enjoy.

Long story short, M'Baku has given HYDRA access to the vibranium of Wakanda. And we know from previous episodes it's because M'Baku struck a deal with Klaw. But like, come on, M'Baku. Why are you working with the Nazis? You are literally a huge stereotype of how racists view Black people, why would this go well for you?

M'Baku in the movies is so superior to the early comics and this show. (There is a new M'Baku in the comics now who is just a whole different guy.)

Wasp asks, "So who's up for invading Wakanda?" I like you Wasp, but that is not cool.

So our FIVE Avengers (Cap, Panther, Iron Man, Ant-Man and Wasp) go invading. Thor has straight disappeared in this episode and it is not explained. Maybe they couldn't figure out how Black Panther could take down Thor so they just left him out? Because this episode picks up RIGHT after the last one left off and he was there a minute ago.

The only thing that makes sense is that he saw Jane Foster while fighting in the previous episode, because he trails after her like a puppy. So good for Thor, he's probably making out with Jane instead of invading sovereign nations.

One part I do like is when Tony veers off the flight path T'Challa laid out, and they are immediately shot down by Wakandan forces. Tony says, "you owe me a jet!" and T'Challa's like "that's on you for not listening to me." WHICH IT IS. You can't plan a coup and not even follow the plan.

T'Challa's like "good luck with the Wakandan army, I have to go fight M'Baku for the throne, kbai!" Tony orders Steve to follow him.

For the record, M'Baku believes the vibranium has corrupted Wakanda and he's selling it to HYDRA because he wants to get rid of it and get rid of all technology. And M'Baku in the movies isn't a big fan of Shuri's tech. His tribe lives more simply. But he also doesn't deal with Nazis. That's the part I'm having trouble with, honestly. I'm not being hyperbolic by calling them Nazis, a lot of these guys are the same guys Cap was fighting in the 40s.

Maybe M'Baku can't Google them with because he hates technology so much.

But for all his talk of tradition, when T'Challa challenges him for the throne he refuses to fight and sends the dora milaje to kill T'Challa which also doesn't make sense to me. (Doesn't M'Baku love to fight?) But Cap intervenes and takes on the dora while T'Challa engages M'Baku and defeats him with his "rage."

There is also another fight where Klaw turns into some kind of purple sound ghost at the vibranium mine. Jan and Tony are cute during this fight but I can't describe it.

T'Challa is made king and declares that "the old ways" must end. He's putting a "Council of the People" in charge of Wakanda and joining "the Outsiders" as an Avenger. Because Wakanda must become part of the world now?

He's not even staying behind to put that in writing? Or see how it's implemented? I have concerns.

... but not enough to stop me from being excited the next episode is GAMMA WORLD, the much anticipated return of two Avengers.

Rating: Eh, if you're interested.

[writing-for-life]

@parasocialite, I’m also tagging @violetoftheendless in this because she chimed in on this earlier, and I am spinning trying reply to everyone.

I can only speak for myself, but it is a bit like what I already wrote somewhere else, and what @orionsangel86 also brushed upon:

The fun side of fandom and the deeper contemplation/analysis of works/characters are seemingly often presented as mutually exclusive, when (at least to me), they are two sides to the same coin. I often think, wrong as I may be, that problems seem to arise if we are very deeply anchored in just one of those sides and see the other as either less than, or an attack on what we hold dear?

So for me, deeper analytical engagement is far from bringing me no joy. Actually the opposite, even if I discover things that are maybe not just “fun”, but point towards deeper issues. And just looking at silly gifs or amazing fan-art without thinking about it too deeply also brings me joy. Again, they aren’t mutually exclusive.

What doesn’t bring me joy are the things I mentioned (personal attacks, directly or indirectly trying to silence people etc), and I tend to step away for a bit if I think that's beginning to take over (as I said, no fandom is worth losing mental well-being over). However, if everyone just constantly stepped away from problematic behaviours without ever saying anything, the fandom will also become poorer for it, plus it skews the view on "what's consensus". The loudest group isn't necessarily the one who always gets it right (or wrong, for that matter). It's simply the loudest group.

I don't so much have a problem with characters/characterisation. I can look at Hob, see him as canonically problematic and talk about it, but that doesn't mean that I have a problem with people who like Hob or ship Dreamling. There are people in the fandom, however, who perceive criticism of Hob as criticism of them, and that *is* problematic. In the same way, I don’t have problem with anyone who doesn’t go into a raging fit about Thessaly and can just see her as a character (which seems to be a far bigger issue for the fandom tbh). @violetoftheendless mentioned the meta I wrote about it, and it ultimately boils down to what I also wrote under 2) in this post: We have to be able to separate characterisation from personal endorsement of what characters do. Accepting Thessaly as an inherent part of the story doesn’t make anyone transphobic, nor does accepting Hob as an inherent part of the story make anyone racist:

It is how we engage with the deeper questions that these characters present us with that’s far more telling. Thessaly goes against the self-image that much of the fandom likes to perpetuate (“the queer academic”, and I’m one myself, so this isn’t a slight), so transphobia always creates immediate outrage. Why doesn’t Hob’s racism cause the same outrage? Yes, perhaps it helps (or is it convenient?) that Hob as one half of the typical fandom M/M ship regrets, and that makes him “more okay” than the murderous witch who doesn’t. But does it really? Because at the end of the day, they’re both just characters, aren’t they? They’re both written to hammer a certain point home. I think you can tell where I’m going with this…

What is the goal? I don’t know, I can only say what’s important to me. Mutual respect, thinking/breathing before hitting “send”, accepting that not everyone shares our views, that people are in fandom for different reasons and they’re all okay, understanding that not every critical thought about our favourite characters or works is a personal attack, and that critical discourse can ultimately foster growth and not stagnation, would be good starting points? Because that way, fandom can be fun for *everyone*, no matter how they personally approach it I guess?

Nuance in (The Sandman) Fandom

I thought a lot over the past few days, partly prompted by discourse on here, partly due to a couple of “interesting” asks and messages I received (the type you don’t answer). I *think* they might have been prompted by engaging in discourse on topics like anti-blackness/racism, misogyny/sexism, TERF characters etc in The Sandman.

Fandoms are always getting super sensitive if someone shines a critical lens on their favourite works, authors and characters. So to make this clear (in case it isn’t already obvious from my brain-rot blog):

I love The Sandman. I love Neil Gaiman. I have an extremely soft spot for Dream (and Desire btw, who deserves a lot more character analysis than just being summed up as “villainous, sexy bitch”. One day, perhaps ;)).

I can read The Sandman and just get lost in the story, even after decades and many rereads. 

But I can also view it through a critical lens—these things aren’t mutually exclusive.

Not critical enough or too critical?

As fans, we can get trapped in certain thinking patterns, like:

“My blorbo can do no wrong”-syndrome 

“Characters with flaws are inherently problematic and imply authorial endorsement of those actions” 

“Characterisation and problematic subtext are one and the same” (aka overanalysing and looking for problems where there are none is the death of every story, but failing to see problematic patterns where they are clearly visible is a problem, too).

Don't say anything bad about my favourite character

I think this doesn’t need much further exploration. It’s not my personal way of looking at stories through permanently rose-tinted glasses (I always feel it stalls my experience, but my experience is not everyone else's). Some people prefer that type of escapism, and I’m good with that (although the downside is of course that by not willing to engage with issues, we can unwillingly perpetuate them). Live and let live, ship and let sail. But please, for the love of god: Don’t insult people via their inboxes or messages just because their opinions and preferences don’t align with yours. I’m not going to sugarcoat it or phrase it “nicely”: It’s infantile (and a form of bullying btw), end of.

How can you even like a character who's so horrible? And that author must be equally horrible, too

We have to separate flawed characters, even those who are written to be really problematic, from real-life endorsement of these actions. 

Author, narrator and character are three fundamentally different things, and don’t overlap as much as some people seem to think. 

We can write vile, despicable characters to make a point (for me, Thessaly was always a prime example for this, and I explained why here). We probably hate them as we write them. I don’t know what else to say, but this facet of writing seems to get more and more lost on people, and it’s a worry. Crying for sanitised characterisation is one step away from censorship. We explore what is problematic about people and humanity through story. That’s how we process and learn. It’s nothing new, but it becomes impossible if we can’t write flawed and even disgusting characters. 

Face value…

Since I’m mostly in The Sandman fandom, I often read that its ending is hopeless, and that’s supposedly the entire message. 

It is agonisingly sad, yes. But is it truly hopeless? I personally see it as quite the opposite, but of course that’s my opinion, coloured by my life experiences.

I also get that show-only fans often haven’t read the comics, or at least not the whole arc. And as such, their outlook from what they’ve seen so far (and choose to focus on) has to be different by default. I also understand that many people are quite new to the comics, even if they have read them in their entirety. I’ve sat with them for 30 years, and I still find new things on every reread (and I read it more times than anyone should 🙈), and I still don’t feel like I’ve understood it all. Perhaps because I still haven’t fully understood myself (and it’s unlikely I ever will). If there’s one thing The Sandman isn’t, it’s one-dimensional and easy to grasp in its whole depth.

I just wrote a ginormous meta on it, if you’re interested, it’s here:

Subtext, (not so) glorious subtext

This is where it gets complicated:

We shouldn’t mix up characterisation and story subtext. Overanalysing every line to death will always make us find something that’s “problematic”, when it really isn’t in the wider context of the story.

Zooming in is NOT always a good thing. Sometimes, we actually need to zoom out. 

But subtext *can be* (accidentally) problematic. Even in stories we love. And none of this negates what I previously wrote.

Stories have real-life implications of sorts, and we need to be able to talk about it. That’s where those slightly flabbergasting, hostile inbox messages come in, and I want to expand on that "topic of contention" a bit:

Neil himself confirmed that the Endless basically warp reality, and that this is why, after Dream’s failed relationship with Nada, many black women in his vicinity suffer terrible fates (Ruby and Carla in particular). And that this spell is only broken when he dies, and that it is the reason why Gwen doesn’t suffer the same fate. And said Gwen then gets used as a plot device to basically absolve Hob (who canonically really is a problematic character, whether show-only fans like it or not) from his slaver past. Once again, very clearly: No one is making this up. Neil confirmed it (for the comics, and that was over 20 years ago. It remains to be seen if his stance has changed as we move into that arc in the TV show).

I don't think it is correct to imply that Dream as a character is racist (I've read that, too) because he logically can’t be. He holds *all* the collective unconscious. He is also, strictly speaking, not white. He is everything and nothing, and he shows up in many different ethnicities throughout the whole arc, depending on who looks at him. But Neil played with a subtext here (reality warping due to a bad relationship which then affects everyone with similar physical traits) that will read very differently to a black person than it reads to a white person, and we have to understand why that is an *extremely* slippery slope.

Plus, we are supposed to see Hob, who *was* a racist at some point (you can’t not be if you’re a slave-trader—it’s impossible by default) as redeemed. And yes, he *does* regret deeply, good for him (and if I were saying this aloud, you would hear the sarcasm in my voice, because it is indeed all about him. We are to sympathise/empathise with him and his character growth while there isn’t much mention of the people he maltreated). But also: it was a black woman who basically forgave him (with dialogue that personally makes me cringe). And that black woman who offers forgiveness is not truly a black woman—she is a character written by a white man. And as much as author and character are not the same (see above), there is an inherent sensitivity in that power imbalance that we can't brush under the carpet.

I don’t think Neil is racist. Probably quite the opposite, and I can even see that his intentions were good from a storytelling point of view. BUT intention and impact are two fundamentally different things, and telling the story this way (comic version) betrays blindspots only white people have. Just like women have blindspots when they tell stories about men, and men have blindspots when they tell stories about women (and there are a few of those in The Sandman, too). And and and…

As storytellers, we can’t always speak from lived experience. It’s impossible. And that also means we occasionally make mistakes that look bad in hindsight, even if our intentions were good.

I guess the proof is in the pudding: What do we do when people who *have* that lived experience tell us it looks bad? If they inform us why it is hurtful, plays into old stereotypes etc?

Are we willing to listen and yield (both are the foundations of allyship btw), or are we insisting that our viewpoint as someone *without* lived experience is right? That lived experience extends to all lived experiences (sex/gender, sexual orientation, age...), and from all we’ve heard from Neil so far, it seems important to him to rewrite what he sees differently today. Whether they’ll always get it right for the show—we’ll see. At the moment, it looks a lot better than in the comics, and certain issues are already being handled with a lot more sensitivity, but a few problems remain.

Pushing back on criticism that comes from people with lived experience is problematic—I’d encourage us to think about what it looks like if a white majority in the fandom is basically saying that the opinions of POC are essentially “overreactions” (and yes, that happened).

It’s complicated. The Sandman was written in a different time, and I think we have to distinguish between things that weren’t really problematic at the time but have aged poorly (again, Thessaly springs to mind, and I have lived experience as a queer person during that time, so I can see it in context while at the same time acknowledging that I would make changes to bring it to the present day), and things that were always a problem due to blindspots. They were a problem in 1990, and if they don’t get changed, they are still a problem today.

This fandom is generally so much more open and nicer than others I know. But that doesn’t mean it’s infallible, because it’s full of humans. 

Nuance is sorely needed, in both story interpretation and interaction between said humans.

(tagging @violetoftheendless )

[messengerhermes]

Things for White Fandom Nerds to Consider

Hey y'all, After seeing a post where fans of color wrote about their frustrations with the ways white fans prioritize our comfort over their wellbeing and access to safe fandom spaces where they can have fun, be comfortable, and have their needs responded to and respected, I wanted to build out a separate post specifically addressing a few of the things I notice we white people tend to do in fandoms, and also offer resources for those of us who may be looking to break down our internalized white supremacist shit and change. So, some questions for my fellow white fandom nerds to consider:

Are you attempting to learn more about white supremacy and how you've been raised on it, whether you like it or not?

When fans of color in a discord/forum/comments section name harm they are experiencing in said space, do you downplay that harm, ignore it, or outright contradict them, because well, things have been nice here for you?

Do you prioritize peace in fandom spaces over the comfort, wellbeing, safety, and joy of fans of color? Pushing for discussions of racism to be shelved or ended because they make you uncomfortable?

Do you insist that you can't be a force for white supremacy, because of another marginalized identity you hold? (True facts, my fellow white disabled queers, we are still mechanisms for the white supremacy machine against communities of color whether we want to be or not. There are people of color living with the same queer crip identities we have who are navigating vastly different roadmaps because they're Black and brown, and we need to build skills in acknowledging those differences and being able to engage in real conversations and work around them)

When someone points out racism creeping into your fanworks, do you recognize that as an act of good faith, that they are trusting you to receive that knowledge and change? Or do you become defensive and dismiss them?

Are you only interested in characters of color if you think they're hot and want to watch them kiss whoever else you think is hot? Do you flatten them down to being a white character's love interest/bestie/confidant without building them out the same way you do your white faves?

When you do come up with headcanons for characters of color, are you considering the ways racism may be playing in there without you thinking about it, because you don't have to think of those things? (I'm thinking of the deeply fucked up "Miles Morales shoplifts" thing I saw drifting around a while back. Shoutout to the humans who said fuck that and went "Miles Morales takes up Ballet instead because I loved that shit personally")

Do you love reinterpretations of characters as people of color and share art and writing that shows these depictions, but prioritize this from other white creators over creators of color? (This does not me white creators shouldn't draw or write characters of color, the issue here is who gets praise for "diversity" in their work and who gets ignored or criticized)

Do you care for people of color when they're characters in the things you enjoy, but struggle to care about systematic oppressions without relating them back to your fandom (Thinking this time of the surreal "If you like K-pop care about orientalism" situation that happened like two weeks ago)

Do you get caught up in feelings of shame and guilt around the power whiteness gives you, and seek out people of color to make you feel better about how good/bad you are as a white person?

There is not a magic wand for undoing racist and white supremacist values we've internalized. And there is no "Tada~ you've hit the end of the journey, all your racism is gone and now you are a Truly Good White Person" moment. Because things are way muckier than that. Racial Justice work, and becoming a traitor to white supremacy is about the ongoing practice of :

building self-awareness

having the resilience to face our harmful actions

taking accountability for our behavior

developing a cultural identity outside of the sterilized concept of White that white supremacy has constructed

speaking out against racist policies, practices, and interactions in the spaces we are in

supporting the movement towards abolition

developing resilience in ourselves so we don't run to people of color in our lives for reassurance every time white guilt screeches in our ear

Learning how to be in spaces where our every thought fart is not the center of attention

relearning history from a decolonized lens

Way more than could be condensed into a Tumblr post which will be rapidly forgotten or metabolized by the internet

That said if you're the reading type, might I recommend checking out Rachel Cargle's Community POC Reading Recommendations spreadsheet? This spreadsheet is not specifically for Racial Justice, but it is broken up by genre and the nonfiction section has a lot of work by authors of color talking about Critical Race Theory, racism, white supremacy and related subjects.

[snifflesthemouse]

This morning, I read an article titled “I went undercover in the sinister world of Meghan Markle hate accounts" posted to Refinery 29. The title gives the impression of a journalist disguising one’s self as a “Meghan Markle hater” for the sake of getting to the bottom of something. However, the content of the article is nothing like its title.

Before I go further, let me stress the importance of perspective. My post isn’t an attack on the article’s author. I’ve never even heard of the author before now, and I’ve no right or reason to attack a perfect stranger because I vehemently disagree with the content of their work. Making assumptions about someone solely on what they write is lazy and sloppy in my opinion. I may be lazy and sloppy, but a hypocrite I try not to be. Therefore, go forward remembering my issues are with content, not creator.

The article starts out explaining the origins of the term “Megxit”. It continues with other hashtags, conspiracy theories, and so on. The article even mentions various media platforms “attacking" the Duchess, as well as crude posts witnessed by the author.

Then the name dropping begins. First with Murky Meg, then Sue Blackhurst, then According2Taz, then Skippyv20 on Tumblr, then Yankee Wally. Eventually, names of Royal Rota journalists are dropped. Then people like Angela Levin and Omid Scobie get mentioned, with interviews from the latter. Instead of an undercover sting, we get a “Who’s Who" of Megxit, a few anonymous Sussex Squad quotations, and Omid trying his best to be fair.

What this article accomplishes is very little when it comes to objectivity. The title is a misconception, and the content essentially paints targets on the backs of the people the author carelessly considers “Meghan Markle Haters". The article reduces anyone who disagrees with Meghan’s behavior as racist, misogynist, conspiracy theorist nutters. So, not only is the content of the article sloppy and lazy, it also lacks originality. We’ve all heard this sad song-and-dance number a million times.

I guess at face value, it becomes very easy, effortless really, for outsiders looking in to reduce an entire group of people with similar views to the basic stereotypes as old as time. It takes very little thought, consideration, or critical analysis, to assume things because they seem to correlate. But correlation is not causation. Just because some people opposing of Meghan Markle’s behavior happen to be racist doesn’t mean every single opposing person is also racist. Again, lazy and sloppy.

Just like assuming every single Meghan Markle fan is also vegan, anti-monarchy, feminist, woke warriors is downright sloppy and lazy. This author has personally interacted with and found common ground with Sussex Squad people many times. Some even became social media friends. They believe what they do, and I believe what I do. We do not agree with most things regarding Harry and Meghan, but we do agree to disagree and be civil.

So, contrary to the article, not all people “hate" Meghan Markle just because they detest her behavior. It’s important to remember extremes exist for all spectrums. Every topic, especially those politicized or made popular by media platforms, have extremes. There is no denying the fact that there are people who hate Meghan Markle because of her ethnicity. Those extremists who hate Meghan for her ethnicity ironically do not discriminate, though. If they hate her for her ethnicity, they hate ALL people of that same ethnicity.

On the flip side of this coin, is the other extreme. The face is the same on each side because the face represents extremism. There is no denying the fact that there are extremists who see anyone opposing Meghan as racists. Extremists who, by default, view every issue in the world through the lens of racism. While racism is a serious problem that deserves no place in society, assuming racism is the root cause of every conflict is also lazy and sloppy. And the same could be said that these extremists do not discriminate, either. If they see race as the only issue for why people “hate" Meghan Markle, they see race as the only issue for most everything.

The problem with both extremes is when everything and everyone is reduced to racial identity, racism only continues to exist. A racist using skin color as a disqualifier perpetuates racism. Assuming racism is the only reason behind disdain for someone only perpetuates racism. Focusing on race or racism allows no room for content of character.

Especially when people defend Meghan Markle being the victim of racism with a racist rule. When opposing critics say “I didn’t even know she was Black" or suggest her physical features, her Hollywood CV, or past involvement with Black causes were nonexistent before she became a duchess or stepped down from being a working royal, the extremists on the other side often resort to the One Drop Rule.

Which means their defense for calling Meghan Markle “haters" racists, even though they might have never knew she was mixed race, is a form of racism. The One Drop Rule was borne from the Reconstruction Era post-Civil War. The “rule" essentially said anyone who appeared to have Black features were considered Black.

The One Drop Rule was the precursor and eventual backbone to Jim Crow Laws of the South. It was used to oppress and segregate Americans based on physical appearance. Considering most people who never heard of Meghan before Harry came along were ignorant to her mixed heritage, it seems grossly negligent to assume race is the real issue. How can one be racist toward Meghan when they didn’t know she was mixed race? This author wasn’t aware of Meghan’s ethnicity prior to it being pointed out (by her and Harry. Repeatedly.), mainly because this author didn’t care.

Like so many, when I first saw Meghan and Harry together for the engagement interview, I was more excited about a fellow American joining the Royal Family. After learning she was biracial, well it was even better. It represented change and progress. Does that mean I saw the Royal Family as racists beforehand? No. It means I saw them as exactly the opposite. Had they been racist, she’d not be a duchess. Her being American and divorced was more a shock to me than being mixed.

The point of all this is there are extremists on every spectrum. For a journalist to say they went undercover, when in fact they did not, to expose the true motives behind Meghan Markle “haters", only to find they did very little to really understand the other side was disappointing. Not surprising, just disappointing. This could’ve been an excellent opportunity for someone to take the reigns and make bridges between two very passionate factions. Instead it became nothing more than a hit piece.

The article fails to acknowledge the possibility – no, the probability – that most people who object to Meghan Markle do so because of how she behaves. The article only considers one possibility behind this “hate". And by calling the objections “hate", the article in turn defines all criticisms as hate speech. Again, unoriginal, sloppy, and lazy.

So here we have it, yet another article grouping and stereotyping anyone who disapproves of Meghan and Harry as racist haters. Yet again, another article name dropping people “deemed racist haters", essentially painting even bigger targets on the backs of those people. Like they didn’t already have enough hate mail. Yet again, another sloppy, lazy, article that never digs below the surface to understand why instead of assuming it.

This isn’t new, it’s just another slop drop from the sensationalism machine that has replaced fair, legitimate journalism. It would be different if there weren’t so many questions surrounding the births. It would be different if Meghan Markle actually lived by the example she so vehemently preaches. It would be different if Meghan Markle would make amends with her own family before telling the world how they should treat people. It would be different if Meghan Markle were a strong woman instead of claiming to be one.

But it’s not different. She hasn’t spoken to her father since two days before her wedding three years ago. She denies the family connections that existed before her fame. She ghosts people once they are no longer of benefit. She preaches equality and universal service while using her title every chance given. She and her husband criticize the “family she never had" while naming their second child after that family’s Matriarch. All of those are behaviors that incite strong emotional responses. Behaviors. And behavior has no racial identity.

A final note… hypocrisy is the main reason people have issues with anything. When one group of people tells another group to stop attacking a public figure, while using assumptions as their crusade call, it’s hypocrisy. One cannot say “if you can’t take the heat, then shut up!” to another without being a hypocrite. When that happens, don’t be surprised when the same exact thing is said back. If Meghan or her fans can’t take the criticism, they shouldn’t participate in it. We all have the right to choose. Just like if I couldn’t handle the criticism, I’d not be writing this.

Life is not fair. The world is a dark, cruel place. When we expect the world to bend to the will of a few, we are setting ourselves above the majority. A strong woman would know this. A strong woman fighting for others would also know that the only person responsible for how one feels is one’s self. External feedback isn’t responsible for internal turmoil. Internal feedback is. That is all.

REFERENCE:

Amoako, A. (2021 June 11). I went undercover in the sinister world of Meghan Markle hate accounts. Refinery29. Retrieved from: https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2021/06/10518195/megxit-meghan-markle-anti-fandom

[olderthannetfic]

Ah, I do see your points, anon. I'm not going to post all your asks publicly because if you really feel that unsafe, it's probably best not to have a bigass chunk of your text for people to analyze and try to guess your identity from. I think one of the best points you made is about how close to home it hits when the non-fave is not only your fave but is similar to you in some way like demographic. You're not wrong for having those emotions. I do wonder if they make it hard to see how some other people feel similarly embattled on other axes.

TBH, I think one of the big problems here is that the large aggregate patterns you're talking about are racist, but most individual fics and fans are not really the problem. It's hard to know how to talk about this or who to tell to "fix" it when we're looking at free, hobbyist art.

A lot of people's tastes are certainly formed by shitty society, but once they're formed, they don't change fast if at all. Asking someone to rewrite their libido is a big ask, yet tumblr does it all the time as though it's as simple as snapping your fingers.

This leaves me with the sense that a lot of tumblr is... like... the political lesbians of porn fic or something: desire is not real, only choosing based on logic and politics. Or maybe people are so asexual that they just don't understand the lizard brain's "YES!" at some porn things and complete indifference to others?

I don't think it's great if great swaths of people feel like bottom!Nicky is super hot and top!Nicky fundamentally isn't, but I also don't think they can necessarily just turn it off like flipping a switch.

(If someone reading this doesn't like their current tastes and wants to attempt to alter them, I do think it's possible. What you should do is line up a large slate of media that prominently features characters of the ethnicity or whatever that you don't find hot/interesting. These should be leads whose emotional development drives the plot and is supposed to be central to the audience's enjoyment of the media. Watch/read/etc. this media all the time. All. The. Time. Try out many pieces because you won't like every character or every show, and we're looking for genuine enjoyment, not the fandom equivalent of a pity fuck. Spend enough time on this, and your unconscious sense of who's hot and interesting will eventually shift somewhat. This is a project you should expect to take a few years.)

But I digress.

The one tweet thing is a very toxic pattern. If TOG fandom is doing that, guys, please try to be more conscious of holding the actors of color to a higher standard (or the women or whomever). I know this often comes from a place of paying more attention to our own and wanting to set a good standard, but the effect is that minorities can't fuck up ever while white dudes get infinite passes.

Okay, on to the fic thing... Gotta say, my instant reaction to that description is "Ooh!"--as it would be for the same scenario with the characters reversed. (Ships who start out trying to kill each other are my favorite! x1000 if they're resurrecting style immortals and they literally do.) I can see how it would feel like slamming into a brick wall if you aren't kinky in just the right way and you didn't know it was coming though.

Part of why I react so strongly to a lot of discourse that runs along these lines is that I am a naturally extremely kinky person. It's not so much about what I do (which as a deeply lazy person in a long distance relationship is essentially nothing), but it's absolutely how I'm wired.

And I can tell you that my quotidian experience in fandom is sharing something I don't even realize is a big deal only to have someone I like, respect, and trust react in horror and tell me that it's triggering and awful and should not be allowed in fandom spaces because it makes "people" unsafe. It's such an instant, kneejerk reaction they don't even realize I was sharing it because it spoke to the very core of me. Lesson learned, friend. Lesson learned.

That sounds a bit off topic, I know, but bear with me: The point of that anecdote is that it's pretty common for me to get people trying to raise my awareness of things I have already thought deeply about while denying my essential humanity and not even realizing. As a kinky person who likes to make my fave the top (and generally a conflicted sadist), this constant request to explain and justify is exhausting.

I doubt most of the top!Joe fans have this precise problem simply because people who make their fave the top are much less common in fandom than people who make their fave the bottom, but I see a similar pattern with fans who are just fundamentally wired for rape fantasies (one of the most common fantasies that exists) vs. fans who just don't get rape fantasies at all. Or substitute your BDSM/kinky/messed up fantasy trope of choice. Covertly radical feminist attitudes towards kink and power are on the rise in fandom, and as a naturally kinky person, boy do I notice it!

I know that it feels like crucial activism to share these insights about why the ratio of top!Joe is hurtful, and the pain you feel is real. But it's also the case that it's a big ask to want people to listen. (Not me. Obviously, I routinely choose to engage with discourse. I mean overall.) The reason for that is that you're only seeing a fraction of what they do or who they are, and you don't know how many previous people they've listened to how many previous times. It's a very different situation from someone whose job is making some major TV series or movie or something. That person does, in my opinion, owe you some amount of listening.

Now, I'm not saying no top Joe fan was ever a jerk. I'll bet they were. There's a tendency to be rude and to publicly air your schadenfreude when you feel like everyone has been yelling at you. What I am saying is that a lot of the problem here boils down to conflicting needs, and that means there isn't a good solution. It's a situation where people are genuinely hurt, but I don't necessarily agree that other people have harmed them.

I like that you did an actual count of the explicit fics, btw. It's good to look at the real numbers. I see too little of that in these situations. My off the cuff reaction is that 2/3 to 1/3 is not a bad ratio at all compared to many fandoms, but yeah, it definitely shows a strong trend, and that can be painful. (I have a fandom where I think there's maybe like 1 bottom so-and-so fic in the entire zine era fandom. One. It's pretty extreme.)

I guess my thinking here overall is: What is the practical solution? What are we hoping to gain? What is reasonable to ask of people?

And it can't be "Well, if they would just listen..." That's just a sneaky way of saying "If you haven't done it my way, it's because you haven't listened to me yet."

So the question I would ask of people is this:

What does a non-racist fic where Joe tops look like?

What does a non-racist sex pollen, dubcon, or even noncon fic where Joe tops look like?

And if you say the latter is impossible... well... sadists exist everywhere in the world. So do doms. So do people who prefer to top in a purely physical sense. People with rape fantasies where they're the rapist exist (people who are not actually rapists, I mean). None of this is restricted to any one group. We can't categorically say fic like that about Joe is coming from a place of racism without denying the fundamental humanity of kinky MENA people who'd want to make Joe like themselves or like their ideal partner. (Yes, I agree this won't be the majority of fic writers writing top!Joe, but this is a place to start for figuring out what the better version would look like.)

IDK, maybe you're that kinkster yourself, but your asks gave me the vibe that you don't really get the drive towards those darker kinds of fics and what might be motivating it besides stereotypes and shittiness.

If we can answer these kinds of questions, we can better critique the way people write what they write without telling them all of their taste is bad and they should just stop writing. Even if we think the latter is true, it isn't going to get us anywhere. Figuring out how to make Joe more multidimensional in the fic they already want to write or finding very specific wording that should be avoided might actually work.

Beyond that, the actions I think are productive would be running prompt fests, exchanges, or other events for bottom!Joe or for top!Joe where he's the main character and the fics are required to be from his POV. Themed collections and recs lists are great. (I've seen a bit of this going around in TOG fandom in the past, and that's an excellent approach! Keep it up!) Positive actions tend to work better here. Make more of what you want. Promote what you want to see.

I don't mean this in some fluffy magical thinking way: you aren't going to change that ratio radically just by the power of positivity. But I've seen this kind of thing play out in many, many fandoms, and going after the people who write what you don't like, even in a well-intentioned effort to educate and even in a polite, kind way doesn't do much. A few people feel guilty. A few feel defensive. A lot ignore you. The overall fic doesn't change. It's not a good use of your limited time and energy.

I'm off to look up that fic to see what I think of it in practice, but I'm going to post this before tumblr manages to eat it.

[brightbeautifulthings]

Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe

"'For the love of God, Montresor!' 'Yes,' I said, 'for the love of God!'"

Year Read: 2020

Rating: 2/5

Context: Starting two years ago, I’ve picked an intimidatingly long classic to read over the course of a year. I have a problem with trying to read books as fast as I possibly can, so if I set myself a thousand page novel, I’ll try to pound it in a week, and it will just be a miserable experience all around. So, a year is a nice compromise. I’ve hit the major Poe horror stories in the past, and I’ve been thinking about rereading them, but I couldn’t decide where to start. Reread my favorites? Read the ones I’ve heard of? What if I’m missing something awesome? As usual, my go-to answer is to read them ALL. For more thoughts on individual stories, see my monthly blog posts. Trigger warnings: character death, torture, live burial, cannibalism, decapitation, animal abuse, injury, severe illness, racism/xenophobia, anti-Semitism, ableism, slurs, mental illness, bitter ranting from the reviewer.

Thoughts: My edition, with an introduction by Wilbur S. Scott, is probably not the edition I would have picked, since I prefer more notes or even essays to help me out with books that are 100+ years old. Context is helpful. Somehow though, my dad and I ended up with the same edition, so we decided to read it together. My dad loves all things horror (I come by it naturally), and we’re both longtime Poe fans, especially if you happen to put Vincent Price in one of his film adaptations. Scott’s introduction is particularly pretentious for a book we probably found in the bargain bin, and he manages to criticize the horror genre for not being “literary enough”. This is an Edgar Allan Poe collection, right? Way to alienate 90% of your audience right from the start. You can’t snub an entire genre and then attempt to explain why people like it. Like a lot of critical writing, it tells us more about Scott than it does about Poe, and I was circling his typos to entertain myself by the end of the introduction.

It did not get better. In short, I actively hated so much of this collection, and it's my most arduous and least enjoyed year-long read to date. To be even shorter, the only stories I found worth reading for pleasure were the horror ones I had already read and loved, and I'm afraid to examine too closely whether that has more to do with nostalgia and pop culture than the stories themselves. Poe has a way of lingering on pointless descriptions and belaboring a point to its absolute death, alongside an aggressively pretentious tone that suggests the narrator (and, by extension, Poe himself), knows everything there is to know about everything and you're an idiot for even asking. His true talent may not be horror, but in turning what might have been a good story into an intellectual soapbox and hammering it the point of absurdity. It would be different if the stories actually were intelligent instead of ridiculous. I’m happy to talk Aristotelian ethics, but the point is never to intellectually engage the reader–-it’s to show how clever the writer is.

On the whole, it seems like Poe struggles with telling a straightforward story, and I can’t tell if it’s because the short story genre has changed so much since then or because he’s so busy trying to show readers how smart he is that he forgets that stories have very specific components like suspense, exposition, or rising action (or endings). Most of them consist of some narrator speaking the entire time (I have all kinds of problems with this, from, “You just ruined the twist of your own story” to “No human talks for thirty uninterrupted minutes unless some idiot gave them a microphone.”), and few of them have anything resembling action, plot/character development, strong themes, or closure. There’s an essay-like quality to some of them (“The Imp of the Perverse”, “The Premature Burial”) where he seems to be trying to tease out a concept on an intellectual level, sometimes for pages and pages, before he remembers that he’s telling a story with characters and what could loosely be called a plot. I could do without all the intellectualizing, verbal grandstanding, and narrative cartwheels; just tell a good story, please.

And he does, sometimes. It's clear why Poe remains an essential part of the horror canon because those are easily the best stories in the collection, and I don't think that's just because I'm a horror fan. Horror seems to age better than some other genres because certain things remain consistently scary over decades or even centuries--being buried alive, for example. “The Fall of the House of Usher” is permeated by a feeling of bleak foreboding, culminating in some truly terrifying images, and “The Tell-tale Heart” is one of the better examples of Poe’s rambling narrator who thinks a lot of his own intelligence and slowly unravels over guilt. Both scared me to death when I was a kid, and I’m happy to see that they still maintain a high creep factor as an adult. (I also had the Great Illustrated Classics Tales of Mystery and Terror as a kid, because all a story about being buried alive needs is an illustration!) “The Cask of Amontillado” has long been one of my favorites (because there is something deeply wrong with me, probably), and “The Pit and the Pendulum” and “The Masque of the Red Death” are both top-notch horrifying, the latter a classic plague story that's a little *too* relevant to the times just now (but, you know, also one of my favorites). The clock symbolism is some of the best in the entire collection. Why, pray tell, would you be afraid of time?

The tolerable stories are the detective ones and the adventure ones, in that order. I can see why Poe’s detective stories like “The Gold Bug” and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” spawned a genre. I was getting clear Sherlock Holmes vibes from his character, Dupin. However, it reaffirms that something is a classic because of its effects on literature as a whole and not because it’s still all that accessible. Just because something is the first of its kind doesn’t mean it’s the best of its kind; in fact, it usually isn’t because that was only a starting place. I can’t help feeling “Murders” would have been more compelling as a horror story than a detective story. Murdering gorillas are cool; listening to someone talk about murdering gorillas, much less cool. I was extremely irritated by his hot air balloon stories ("The Balloon Hoax", "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall"), but apparently Jules Verne loved them, which makes a lot of sense. I was getting a lot of Verne vibes from things like "A Descent Into the Maelstrom" and even the utterly long, boring, and racist "Narrative of A. Gordon Pym." It's clear they had influence on other writers, even if they're not the best examples of their genres.

Which brings us back around to the bad. It's not worth my time or yours to list all the terrible stories in this collection, but I can briefly summarize what I found so terrible about them. First, Poe is tragically, emphatically unfunny. The things he seems to find humorous are either in very poor taste now (his tasteless descriptions of mental patients in “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether”), or they’re outright ridiculous, almost slapstick, like the woman who gets her head stuck in a clock and is subsequently decapitated by it in “A Predicament,” which is an odd sequel to “How to Write a Blackwood Article.” I’m sensing that Poe is making fun of intellectuals or would-be intellectuals here, but with so much time and cultural distance, it’s hard to tell. In any case, it led to a running joke (“I’m going out for groceries!” “Don’t stick your head in any clocks!”). Somehow, I doubt this is the major takeaway Poe was hoping for.

Worst of all, they don't age well on representation either. Poe seems at pains to offend every single minority he possibly can throughout his oeuvre. There are a lot of horribly racist depictions of African Americans, snide comments about Jewish people (or the much more obvious anti-Semitism in “Four Beasts In One” where a mad king has a thousand Jews killed--really?), and blatant ableism (“Hop-Frog”). It's at its worst in "Narrative of A. Gordon Pym," a novella that spans over a hundred pages, that is basically a tedious, xenophobic setup to paint the native population of an island as the most horrific and duplicitous monsters imaginable. (The narrator previously ate one of his shipmates, so can he really afford to throw stones here?) For inexplicable reasons, that story isn't finished, and by that point, I was grateful.

Poe's poetry is a little easier to work through than his prose. I love "The Raven" with its lilting rhymes and dark message, and "Annabel Lee" is very pretty, both ubiquitous in popular culture. I also liked "Dream-Land," "Al Aaraaf" (where Ligeia makes another appearance), and "Alone." Most of the poetry has pretty simple rhyme schemes, the subjects mainly love and loss. There's an excerpt of an unfinished play, "Politian," included as well, but it didn't make much of an impression on me. TL;DR: I stand by my initial opinion, which is to read his horror stories for pleasure and, possibly, his detective and adventure stories for genre purposes, and to skip the rest. I'll probably be looking for a smaller edition of the stories I like. This one is a massive hardcover, more like a book you put on your coffee table to look impressive than a book you actually read (but I don’t have a coffee table, so it’s actually just taking up more room on the shelf than any one book has a right to).

[beautifulhigh]

Catch up watching:

Kathy calling out Phil on his Mitchell bs is brilliant.  She knows him all too well.  Meanwhile him screaming WHO DID THIS was brilliant because what?  Someone’s gonna pop up and go, “Yeah, it was me”?  Danny’s appearance and sudden contrition makes me wonder if he’s got a new sideline in art work as well as offering up a stake in the deal because he is not the kind of guy who forgives and moves on.  If Danny’s only wanting Phil in for the name then that’s the name that’s going to be out there when the proverbial hits the fan.  And the moment when Ben sees them together needs to be the moment he realises that he is never going to have the kind of relationship with his dad that he wants.  And that’s OK.  Turning his back on his dad was both literal and metaphorical, shutting down the communication.  Ben yelling at Phil was everything I needed - and yes, he is still him.  I love that he doesn’t want to be defined by his hearing loss but he can’t carry on as if everything is the same.  This will not end well.

Tiff having zero patience with Keegan is what he deserves.  Again, I will say over and over that this is an important storyline, but if they want us to identify with Keegan then can he dial it down a little?  Entitled and arrogant doesn’t help.  The scene in the cafe actually held more weight because it boiled it down to what this is about: giving them a voice against the might of the police and the inherent racist attitude of The Establishment.  Am not surprised the post was taken down and when the cam footage revealed the truth?  That.  That was the moment that I actually engaged with Keegan.  He deserves that justice, he deserves it.  He talked to Tiff about what it is like Being Black and we FINALLY got why he’s been so angry and so frustrated and so ready to stick it to The Man.  If you want us there with the force then you have to give us a way in.  I know that this is a problem but I don’t know what it’s like.  I’m not black, I’m not BAME.  That scene was my gateway into this storyline.

Callum is the perfect boyfriend, can he do more than just be the perfect boyfriend though?  Adorable scene with the signing at the end.  Meanwhile of course Frankie is shoplifting in Walford because we need these two worlds to collide.  When she signed the insult and Callum understood it?  BWAH.  Because of course Ben Mitchell’s boyfriend knows all the naughty stuff.  The conversation with the littered signs is so natural I could cry.  The fact that Frankie’s mum forced her to do all the stuff to make her ‘normal’ is the bonding experience I didn’t want but at least it might help her get through to him.  Callum’s attempt at blackmail was... well... you’re not a Mitchell yet.  Frankie has the kind of no-nonsense personality Ben needs and she’s not going to coddle him.

The stretched out broadcasting actually made the fact that it’s nearly Lucy’s anniversary actually packed a punch.  Not everything is about you, Lola.  Dumping the sweets on the desk was stupid.  And slightly sweet.  No pun intended.  The promise that Jay will never know and Ben watching them intently has to be foreshadowing.  How much of that did Ben lip read?

Max and Ian and their shared experience in divorce is actually wonderfully hilarious.  I can’t believe Max just signed the business over to Ian - why do I think he’s not going to be so quick to hand it back after the divorce?  The comment about Ruby might be designed to make us feel bad for Max as he’s clearly more invested in the relationship than she is but he’s a walking cliché of the older guy/younger woman.

Because I’ve not watched in forever the fact that there are four kids has confused me.  I know Tommy is Kat’s with Alfie and I know Arthur is Kush’s with Stacey.  Where did the others come from?  Jean kicking Kush out is one thing but the kids?  That’s harsh and it’s just further proof that she’s not doing OK.  Given she’s been off her meds and then had an overdose having been force fed them how the hell is she out without any supervision?  No check up?  No one calling in today?  My heart did break a little for her at the end - while it was sweet to see their relationship get a second chance I honestly think he was right to try and spare her the pain when he “died” the first time.

And now the wait begins.  Monday, why so far away?  Beeb, why so shitty scheduling?  Tuesday/Thursday not good enough?

[sophieakatz]

Thursday Thoughts: Writing Advice (Part 1 of 3)

I recently stumbled across this writer ask meme about pieces of writing advice, and I was having so much fun thinking about it that I decided to just respond to them all!

1. Nothing is perfect

This is one of those truths that can be used for good or ill.

It’s easy to see the flaws in your own work, to hold your own writing to a higher standard than literally anyone else would. It’s good to say “nothing is perfect” to assure yourself that your work is good enough.

But if someone has called you out for using racist stereotypes in your writing, and your response is, “Well, nothing is perfect! So leave me alone and don’t tell me to fix it!” That’s bad!

Allow me to misquote the Talmud and tell you to keep two pieces of paper in your pocket, and take each out as you need it. The first says “nothing is perfect.” The second says “I can, and should, always do better.”

2. Don’t use adverbs

Adverbs are tools. Understand their purpose and use them wisely.

To prove my own point, I could not have written that second sentence without an adverb – “wisely.” The purpose of an adverb is to modify a verb or an adjective. It wouldn’t be enough for me to just say, “use them.” How should one use them? Wisely!

The best advice I ever got about adverbs is that they should be used when they are necessary for clarity.

If I write, “Sophie smiled happily,” that is not a necessary adverb. It is already obvious from the fact that I am smiling that I am happy. Using “happily” is redundant and uninteresting.

If I write, “Sophie smiled sadly,” on the other hand – that is necessary. The adverb changes the picture that you make in your head, and the sentence is more interesting as a result.

3. Write what you know

I get why people use this as advice. I’m much more a fan of saying “know what you write.”

Feel free to go beyond your own individual experience when you write – but for god’s sake, do your research. Expand what you know, so that you can write.

4. Avoid repetition

Like adverbs, repetition is a tool. Use it wisely.

What can repetition accomplish?

Emphasis – highlighting something as important.

Memorability – helping the audience remember.

Familiarity – we tend to like and believe what we hear over and over.

Musicians understand this. Listen to the Hadestown soundtrack and keep a tally of how many times Orpheus is referred to as “a poor boy” or Eurydice as “a hungry young girl.” Listen to the Hamilton soundtrack and count how many times Burr opens a song with “How does a –?” Think back on all the times you heard the new hit song of the year and you shrugged it off, but a couple weeks later, after you heard it on every radio station, on everyone’s Spotify playlist, in every YouTube ad – it “grew on you.”

The trick is using repetition just enough that it provides a useful structure, but not so much that it’s noticed to the point of instilling boredom.

5. Write every day

Sure, why not. If you write just ten words every day for a year, you’ll have nearly 4,000 words at the end of it – a short story. If you write a hundred words every day for a year, that’s almost 40,000 words – a decent novella. Writing every day is a good way to end up with something written.

But don’t beat yourself up if you don’t or can’t write every day. Writing takes effort. You have other things to devote energy to – work, school, groceries, cleaning, socializing, confronting your own mortality, finding out how season seven of Clone Wars ends.

I encourage you to notice all the things that you do every day which isn’t officially “writing” but is still a part of being a writer.

Now, this is something I struggle with. I go months without touching my novel, and it’s easy for me to dismiss that time as “not writing.”

But I send emails. And I write essays for school. And I jot down thoughts and dreams in my journal. And I read – you have to read in order to write. And I spend time on my walks and in the shower imagining dialogue and figuring out character paths and themes for my novel, all things that will help me when I do get back to writing it. And I have all the smaller projects I gave myself – this weekly blog post, my weekly poem or quote, my fanfiction.

If you’re a writer, then you’re a writer, whether or not you write every day.

6. Good writers borrow from other writers, great writers steal from them outright

I’m not sure what the distinction is here between “borrowing” and “stealing.”

Stealing is definitely a part of writing, though. I’ve written about this before – check out my old article on stealing bicycles as a writing metaphor.

7. Just write

Oh I am a BIG fan of this one. Even if you don’t know what to write, just write. So many pages of my journal open with the line “I have no idea what to write about.” Eventually, as you ramble, you start writing about what you wished you would be writing about. And then you find yourself actually writing.

8. There’s nothing new under the sun

Sure, but the art is in making something familiar feel new. I wrote about this a couple weeks ago in this Thursday Thoughts.

9. Read

Yes, yes, yes! Read to find out what’s out there. Read to learn the conventions of your genre. Read to ignite your love of the craft. Read to discover your people. Read to add tools to your toolbox (or pieces to your bicycle). Read to find agents and editors and publishing imprints. Read to learn what stories are not being told. Read to be a writer.

10. Don’t think!

Thinking is a tool. Use it wisely.

The best parts of my writing I’ve discovered not while writing, but while thinking about writing.

Just don’t think yourself out of writing altogether.

11. Write what you love

You’ll certainly be happier writing something you love than something you don’t love. You won’t love everything you write, though. It can still be good and valuable even if you don’t love it. But if you love it, or if you can remember why you loved it, you will come back and finish it.

12. Never use a long word where a short one will do

Forget the length of the word. Is it the right word?

To paraphrase Mark Twain and Josh Billings, the difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

If you do find yourself needing to choose between two words with identical definitions, and the only difference between them is their length, then think about the effect of the word on your reader. Read the sentence aloud a few times with either option. Different words have different connotations; they evoke different moods. It may in the end just come down to which word feels right for this moment.

13. Less is more

No, it definitionally is not. See my above thoughts about adverbs, repetition, and long words vs short words.

All words are tools. All words have a purpose. Is it the right word for this moment?

14. Never use the passive when you can use the active voice

Again, active voice and passive voice are tools! They have purposes!

The simplest way to differentiate between the two is that active voice is “the girl threw the ball” and passive voice is “the ball was thrown by the girl.” Both make sense. Both describe the same action. But one places the emphasis on the girl – the subject – while the other places the emphasis on the ball – the object.

Are you trying to create a sense of immediacy, to immerse the reader in the moment? Use active voice. He did this! She did that! Bam! Pow! It’s happening right now, and we know exactly who did it!

Are you trying to create distance between the reader and something in the moment? Use passive voice. He was being followed – by who, we don’t know. Passive voice adds a touch of mystery or disassociation.

15. Show don’t tell

How do you show? How do you tell? There are engaging ways to do both, and boring ways to do both. Do what the moment needs.

In prose, I recommend setting up with showing and then hitting your reader with a tell. Say your protagonist is standing alone in a room. Then, a woman enters. Show the protagonist’s reaction to that woman – their heart pounds, they tear up, they grab a chair for support…

And then, in the narration: “Her mother had been dead for five years, and yet there she stood.” Bam! A well-placed tell which contextualizes the reaction.

Plays and screenplays come down on different sides of the “show vs tell” debate. Film usually does more “showing,” while a stage play usually has more “telling.”

This comes from writers leaning into the limitations of the mediums. The first few lines of any scene in a Shakespeare play lets you know the location and time of day, because they didn’t have the scenic or lighting elements available to show it.

While a film can cut to different places and times quickly and easily, many plays are set in just one or two locations to remove the need for frequent scene changes. A play will capitalize on the characters’ reactions to and conversations about unseen offstage events, while a film will show these offstage events.

These are not hard and fast rules, of course. Plenty of films stay in one location, and plenty of plays jump around from place to place. It’s worth noting that standard formatting for plays and screenplays highlight this typical difference. In a stage play script, the dialogue (what we’re told) is left-aligned while the action (what we’re shown) is indented. In a screenplay, the action is left-aligned and the dialogue is indented.

Neither showing nor telling is superior. They are both tools. Use them wisely.

To be continued...

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

Stuber

There are so few original concepts being made by Hollywood these days that I feel like I have to support them wholeheartedly even if they’re lackluster. Today’s original piece of programming is Stuber, a buddy cop movie starring Dave Bautista and Kumail Nanjiani. Bautista plays Vic, a cop hellbent on catching the drug dealer who killed his partner and a guy who never takes any time off. At the urging of his boss (Mira Sorvino) and his daughter (Natalie Morales), he takes a day off to finally get Lasik surgery but a huge lead in his case comes through right at that moment! Since he can’t see to drive, he calls an Uber - enter Stu (Nanjiani), who is working a terrible retail gig, secretly pining away for his best friend (Betty Gilpin) and just one bad review away from losing his Uber job too. Oil, meet water. HIJINKS. So does this original story lack luster? Well...

Honestly, I really enjoyed it! It’s tightly paced, the chemistry of the leads is fantastic, and it’s pretty damn funny. Come for the classic buddy cop tropes, stay for a thoughtful treatise on masculinity.

Some thoughts:

I tell you what, I’ve been spoiled by the John Wick movies because these action sequences just feel disorienting and jerky in comparison to the flawless ballet of Keanu Reeves annihilating bad guys on motorcycles while riding a horse. 

These gunfights are bloody too - there’s no illusions about the level of violence happening here. 

Listen, I love a buddy cop movie, and that inevitably means you’ve got a tough-as-nails character who is mourning a deep loss, most likely his wife, and is both unhinged and too devoted to the job as a result. So on the one hand, it’s kind of nice that we’re showing Vic mourning someone other than his wife. I suppose it’s also good that Karen Gillan is shown as a smart and capable cop partner, and that she and Dave Bautista have easy, excellent chemistry (I’m sure their time together in the Guardians of the Galaxy films helped quite a lot there). But like. Does Karen Gillan have to die in the first 5 minutes to propel Vic’s story forward? It’s 2019. Do we really have to keep having this same conversation? 

After all the trauma Vic is putting his eyes through, there is no way this Lasik surgery is gonna take. 

Credit where credit is due, Dave Bautista is an incredible physical comedian. He just GOES for it, every pratfall, every blustering into a wall, every labored punch in a fight scene. He attacks it all with gusto and a lumbering grace you wouldn’t expect. I’m telling you, he’s sneaking up quick to become the next Dwayne the Rock Johnson.

Additionally, this movie doesn’t work without Kumail Nanjiani. I’m so happy to see his star power just exploding between this and his new casting in the MCU as part of The Eternals. He’s one of the hardest working, funniest people in showbiz and I love everything he does here. The weariness, dealing with microaggressions from racist Uber passengers, the frantic energy when shit hits the fan. You really need a strong presence to be able to stand toe-to-toe with Dave Bautista, and their odd couple energy is chaotic and so much fun. I really love their dynamic, and it’s a big part of what makes this movie work.

I love this entire strip club sequence featuring a surprisingly feminist male stripper named Felix (Steve Howey) and Stu trying to convince him he doesn’t have to put up with his boss’s abusive behavior. It’s actually a really sweet scene which could have easily bro’d out and gone for a lot of cheap laughs.

The dog (pictured above) is amazing in every way and I LOVE HIM. He is perfect and such a good boy, and no harm comes to him - we even see him get adopted! There is even a whole PACK of other Very Good Boys and Girls shown throughout the film, and all of them live to tell the tale. Well done everyone.

It’s a weird balance the film is trying to strike that I think it *mostly* succeeds at, between showing us a lot of gross toxic masculinity, and also showing, in the form of Stu, another way. Now, Stu gets dragged along on Vic’s rampage, so he does a lot of hypermasculine things like shooting people and causing explosions, but he also has a lot of emotions about it and shows a lot of vulnerability. Ultimately, Vic teaches Stu he has to take responsibility for his own life and choices, and Stu teaches Vic that he has to allow himself to be open or he will lose everything in life that’s important to him. It sounds cliche because it is, but the way the characters grow and change as a result of their time together feels lik eit was genuinely earned, and in a 93-minute movie, that’s a feat in itself. 

Maybe I’m rusty and off my game, but I did NOT see that villain twist coming! But in classic “this villain is just here to be villainous” fashion, there is a LOT of monologuing going on that feels a little tired and lazy.

Another thing I appreciate is that this is maybe the only time the “friendzone” has been treated fairly onscreen. 

Did I Cry? A tiny bit. When Vic thanks Stu at the end. THEY’RE GOOD FRIENDS OK, IT WAS SWEET.

If you like action comedies, you could do far worse than this one which keeps a pace fast enough for you to stay engaged, and which features enough solid jokes that it can actually be called a comedy.

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

[huccimermaidshirts]

There’s a subsection of very online people who despise Harry, and it’s mostly because of his fanbase (Reddit is full of them, they call him a queerbaiter and spineless and mediocre or bad, “he’s not even actually hot” and whatnot). Those people are for the most part the same ones who create hit tweets against him on a daily basis, who hate him on tik tok, etc. There’s a lot of hatred for him on online spaces, and yes, that sometimes does translate into publications, scalding (yet ridiculous) write ups, reviews, opinion pieces, etc. As you said, the people who write for those publications tend to be very online. There’s also a lot of focusing on the negative energy online nowadays.

With that said, this online sentiment doesn’t translate to the actual GP AT ALL. Aside from Very Online People (in which you have a large fanbase, a large anti group, and obviously people who are mostly indifferent), the reality is that Harry is very loved and respected. He hasn’t reached respect as an actor yet, hopefully he will (if he wants to), but it’s not surprising considering his first actual role with substance has been out for 1 day. But as a musician, he was able to transcend the boyband stigma. Maybe not 100% yet because some old men still have some hang ups but I think he’s been fully embraced by men up until the age of 40~, which is something I didn’t expect would happen this soon.

He’s also largely considered a super nice and super kind individual, the GP would tell you he’s unproblematic and not overbearing. There isn’t negative energy around him or a negative predisposition. That’s why he can still sell as many albums, have his songs be so big, have his movies do so well, sell that many tickets, etc. Most people either have no opinion on him or a positive one. The negativity is reserved only for VERY online people, and still, a huge subsection of very online people is… his own fanbase.

Directors know this. Directors also had been saying he was a good actor (directors like Eggers, who auditioned him). Studios know this. He’s gonna have a million offers for roles, it’s up to him if he wants to take them, and actually work up the ranks to have a respected image as an actor as well. I’m not sure he’s all that interested cause he seems to find the process a little boring, but he will probably show up here and there.

Wanting him to not be this successful and big because of the hatred they see on twitter are being selfish. Harry is not online, he’s not reading any of that. I’m sure he’s aware it exists and would probably rather it doesn’t but I sincerely doubt he’d prefer being less successful in order to avoid it.

The people this hate train affect the most are us - his fans. Who read everything there is to read and will get hung up on all the negativity (because 1 negative comment out of 100 positive ones will always have more impact, it’s how our brains were wired). And yeah, it’s annoying, but we can simply just not read it. Engage with our own group of friends in the fandom and not be so obsessed with what random obsessed people are saying.

We need to understand that this hate train isn’t personal against Harry. It looks that way by design, but it’s not. Every person with a big spotlight on them goes through it. It may seem more vicious for us because, as I said, we’re too close. We’re reading everything and consuming every word (and internalizing most of it). But it’s the same thing Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga have gone through. Justin Bieber went through it as well, though I think his public image is a lot more negative than the others, even outside of very online spaces (being arrested and that racist video and all that other stuff can’t have helped).

When a star rises to a certain level, it inevitably becomes the target of hate, but they’re fine in the end. Harry is fine!

I agree with all of this! Let me add that Harry was sought after by directors (and marvel has been after him for ages if that counts for anything) after one movie and he gets butts in seats no matter what, so yes studios will want him!

[theliterateape]

Is the Cancel Culture Racist or a Response to Bigotry?

by Don Hall

Morgan Wallen is a country singer who was recently caught on camera using the word that cannot be uttered by a white person, let alone a white guy who sings country music. 

On one side, he was canceled. Suspended record deals, dropped from radio stations, streaming services taking down his music, and an automatic disqualification from this year’s Academy of Country Music awards. On the other side, Wallen’s latest album Dangerous became the the longest running number one album for a male artist since 2016, largely out of protest for his being canceled.

Aside from the fact that I wouldn’t likely buy his album in the first place as my musical tastes were frozen in the 1980’s, I can’t say that I disagree with the canceling. In this day and age, uttering the n-word while white is always with intent. It isn’t an accidental utterance. The intent most assumed is that dude is a fucking racist and leave it at that. Those who then purchase his music in record numbers must also be racists. Five years from now, if someone notices a copy of Dangerous on your record or CD stack, you’re going to have to issue an apology for owning the work of a racist.

In our current cultural civil war the lines are clearly drawn but the motivations for being one side or the other are less clear, less evident. Like the term ‘fake news’ the GOP loves to take that issue taken with their practice (originally utilized to describe Trump’s routine bag of horseshit trotted out daily) and turn it around on the rest of us (it was quickly re-branded as the enemy of Trump). ‘Cancel culture’ has undergone the same transformation.

There is a problem—in accountability, in due process, in general fairness—with the practice of mobs not merely boycotting individuals for what is deemed egregious behavior and language but harassing people into joining the boycott on moral grounds. These problems are not quite the same as what is meant by ‘cancel culture’ when uttered by Ted Cruz.

The new esoteric social media thing is called Clubhouse. Essentially an audio Zoom call for hundreds of people to have ‘rooms’ designed for conversations about agreed upon topics, one must be invited to join and then either listen in or join the discussion. You can even hit the “Leave Quietly” button if all you’re doing is listening in. You can ‘raise your hand’ to let the moderator know you want to pipe up as well.

As much as I despise social media, Himmel sent me an invite, so I joined just to see what this might be.

A few weeks ago, Michael Tracey started a room entitled “Is Clubhouse Obsessed with Wokeism?” He hosted the conversation as moderator with a few other moderators until around two hours in he allowed a woman whose handle was “Brooklyn” (IRL Amanda ‘Brooklyn’ Toussaint) to co-moderate. She immediately exiled him and took over the room.

Toussaint is the founder of PROVX, or Progressive Reform Overrides Violence. Her agenda was simple: take over the conversation because she felt it was white people talking around the issue. She made comments early on that the term "woke" should not be used by white people because it is inherently black vernacular and began "stacking" a list of people allowed to speak in the room. The ensuing discussion took an additional three hours.

A few selected quotes after listening to almost the entire thing:

“I just turned off the hand raising. White people put your fucking hands down…”

“As a queer black polyamorous woman I have been checked by trans people because of my internalized transphobia. Violence is not just physical. Your whiteness is violence.”

“By having rooms like this you commit violence to black bodies, violence on marginalized bodies.”

“Why would ya’ll let white people on any stage to talk about anything…?”

“My n****s, you don’t gotta be kind. Let these white motherfuckers choke on it.”

“It’s black history month. Fuck you. Fuck you. Pay me to listen to us, internalize our truth. On Venmo. Right now.”

“White people don’t think of themselves as being white. That’s supremacy.”

“Science was built on transphobia and anti-blackness.”

“How can you say that something is not racist when people are literally telling you it is?”

“I do want white people to reject whiteness. I want them to be anti-white.”

“I value the lives of animals over the lives of white people.”

If you switch out “white” for “black” it is obvious how completely bigoted this nonsense is. “I value the lives of animals over the lives of black people.” WTF? “I just turned off the hand raising. Black people put your fucking hands down…” If it looks like bigotry and smells like bigotry, it’s bigotry. I don’t blame them for being bigots but it’s still bigotry, no matter how you justify it.

Now, the likelihood that most Americans in the rural parts of the country give two shits for Clubhouse, it is not realistic to assume they hear this sort of hateful rhetoric on the regular. They do, however, read The Atlantic. They do read Newsweek. Many of them have some sort of social media and certainly most are in tune with the Trumpish perspective, the FOX News take, on social justice.

You wanna know what social justice looks like to them?

No. This is not what the preponderance of social justice seeks to accomplish yet it is what some might suggest it should. For the exact same reason one would shy away from a white nationalist promoting faux identitarianism, books on black racism, or the cancelling of the beloved writings of, say, August Wilson, we should openly refute this nonsense as well.

Most (as in the vast majority) of the country’s population recognize that anti-black racism is and has been a major issue we need to address. Most (as in the vast majority) are decidedly not bigots. The loudest of both the extreme right and left, however, are really fucking loud and incredibly bigoted.

We know what white supremicist rhetoric and iconography looks like and we should. We should also recognize the same dogma in different skin.

During the summer of unrest last year, as campus activists were tearing down statues of Confederate generals, I saw Ken Burns on some channel talking about the collegiate cleansing.

His perspective was that, of course, in the pursuit of justice there will be over correction. How else to explain the damning of Abraham Lincoln with Robert E. Lee? Over correction is an expected result when attempting a huge fix societally. So is a backlash in response.

Perhaps I simply cannot damn 75 million Americans as racist dipshits for voting for Trump over Biden. Perhaps I believe there are a lot of issues at play and race is only one of many. Hard to say but I do not believe that bigotry—which is present in every human in every country in every century—is the moral evil those seeking power using it as a bludgeon against the Others want us to believe.

I don’t buy Wallen’s music because I’m not a country fan. I don’t buy anything by Ted Nugent anymore despite my love of “Cat Scratch Fever” because he’s a rightwing loon. Road Dahl was a Nazi-sympathizer but I still watch Gene Wilder as Willis Wonka every time I see that it’s on somewhere and I love me some Thomas Jefferson while still recognizing he owned slaves.

Some in America are lashing back from the extreme rhetoric of activists like ‘Brooklyn’ Toussaint. This is an expected result. 

The more history I read, the more I am hit in the jaw with a simple fact: there is nothing new about this. In 1918 there were anti-maskers and protests about government babysitting us. In the fifties, people who were even adjacent to Communists in almost any form were “held accountable” and lost careers over it. And for the entirety of time, there have been asshats who use race to divide us into camps, pitted against each other like teams in a campground battle, like high school jocks versus nerds versus that one badass kid who made a bong in shop class.

We tend to buy this hook every time. Why? Because, like the center of a Tootsie Pop, it only takes the owl three licks to get to our judgmental, self-interested, terrified centers. It is the very core of the Republican (and now Progressive) strategy of population management: tap into that completely normal if not wholly insulated fear of one another and milk the bovine teats of rage spawned from the recipe of terror and impotence.

Perhaps it is due to my ascendence in the (problematic) 1980’s—pre-smartphone, pre-internet, pre-social media, pre-surveillance state—that allows me to fully decide to listen to the race grifters on both sides of the rabid canines of ideology and take no moral offense. Perhaps it is my very GenXness that chooses to engage but on my solid color-blind, MLK inspired path.

Or maybe, like the cancelling of a country music guy, the coup over a social media discussion, or the attack upon Dr. Seuss, I realize that these issues only really matter to people with plenty of food and places to sleep. As in academia, the drama is so high because the stakes are so low.

[ralfstrashcan]

I call bs on that Downworlders-appealing-not-serious-Statement from Izzy in 3x06

Here's why.

Warning: Contains extended talk about how sex is referenced on the Show, so probably nsfw? But nothing graphic.

“I think the reason why I find Downworlders appealing is because those issues prevent things from ever getting too serious.”

Without context this statement can be interpreted two ways:

1) She is secretly scared of a committed and serious relationship and so just dates Downworlders so she doesn't have to worry about things getting to intense.

2) She isn't interested in a committed and serious relationship and Downworlders are the easiest way to have some kind of relation where both parties are aware that it's not going to go anywhere serious, so she doesn't have to deal with the fact that her partner gets overly invested which would lead to complications and possibly hurt feelings.

I honestly don't believe it's 1) because Izzy isn't the person to get scared of anything that affects her herself (meaning she'd of course be scared of her siblings dying a horrible death, etc.) She is incredibly courageous and one of the strongest characters on the Show, she is brimming with self-confidence and in contrast to Jace's it's 100% genuine and not to cover up some complex and twisted self-esteem and self-image issues. She is passionate, in fact her passion is probably her most defining character trait. So to think that she's scared of a committed relationship is just odd. Also, taking her relationship with Meliorn into account, it was clearly not going anywhere serious, but she obviously cared for him (and he cared for her) so if she was scared of any kind of commitment and her goal was to avoid getting feelings involved and eventually hurt (which is exactly what happened in S1), that wasn't a success, and she must have known that even before it all fell apart. Did she seem overly concerned during her affair with Meliorn, angsting over her attachment to him? No.

Whether you go with option 1) or 2), they both imply that Downworlders are the easiest (if not the only) source to access casual relationships / hook ups. And that's simply not true.

Let's take a look at the Shadowhunters' sex life. There's not overly much to go on, but there is enough.

- Alec: Zero sex life before Magnus, though that has probably to do with him not being outed and homosexuality being extremely frowned upon, so he's not really representative. He does check out Jace and some other Shadowhunter Dude in 1x12 though, so there's that.

- Jace: We see Jace rolling around in bed with Kaelie once and out on a date / friendly evening with four Seelies (both in 2x07). Besides that he states in 3x02 that he's been with tons of people (and it was never serious). So, a promiscuous Shadowhunter with loads of no strings attached sex.

- Lydia: Lydia's been engaged to John, and after he tragically died (RIP John, I so ship you with Lydia in any and all AUs) she decided that “in this line of work, the only thing worth falling in love with is the work itself” as she tells Alec in 1x08. There's nothing known about her sex life, but she was willing to marry Alec, knowing that nothing would ever happen between them, so she was either expecting him to be fine with her having an affair on the side or she was okay with the prospect of never (again?) having sex in her life. Of course she was probably still mourning her love and also she's incredibly ambitious and wanted that Institute no matter what, so I think the fact that she didn't prioritize sex in her life plan doesn't necessarily mean she's generally not that interested in having sex or that the society she lives in would condemn a sexually active person.

- Raj: Yeah, it pains me to even think about that, too. Whatever, for Science! In 2x04 he mentioned (talking about a corpse with its heart torn out, srsly, that guy) “I thought I was having a rough weekend. [...] I'm just saying, I've been in his shoes before. Except my demon's name was Kathy.” so he clearly had some relation with that Kathy person that ended in a broken heart (or bruised pride) for him. Also, considering that Raj is pretty racist towards Downworlders and dating Mundanes is forbidden I think it's pretty likely that Kathy is a Shadowhunter as well. In 2x08, which doesn't take place too terribly long after 2x04 he claimed to have been “this close to lining up a three way.” Disregarding the fact that I find it hard to believe he'd find one person willing to get with him, let alone two (sorry, I just hate him and his douche-y attitude and I can't imagine you wouldn't notice those after 3 seconds of talking to him and would be instantly turned off) wasn't that at Max's Rune Ceremony Party? Where there were exclusively Shadowhunters invited, hosting warlock excluded? So this indicates that a) after a short amount of time after a failed relationship / whatever he was open for a sexual adventure and b) Shadowhunters participate in threesomes, something that you probably wouldn't easily and openly mention in a reticent society.

- HELL EVEN ALDERTREE admitted to having dated a Downworlder and was also hitting on Izzy, which, considering she's younger than him and his subordinate should be frowned upon in an uptight society.

- Aline: In 2x15 it is mentioned that she was secretly seeing a girl named Carolyn and since they were in Alicante this Carolyn is most likely a fellow Shadowhunter. Also since that relationship is talked about in past tense it has probably ended. So she has a dating life.

- And then there's Izzy herself, of course. On-Screen she's only ever been in a relationship with Meliorn, but in 1x06 Maryse declines her offer to marry in Alec's place, saying “You can't do this. You and your Downworlders have seen to that.” referring to the tons of affairs with Downworlders Izzy has had. Not to mention Izzy's comment about jewels in 1x04. There's also the fact that she openly hit on Simon in 1x02 and when Alec rolled his eyes she commented “It passes the time.” Whether she meant flirting or the resulting possible hook up is anyone's guess, but I don't think I'm seeing things when I say it could very well be both... considering she and Alec both talked about Simon as 'it' in that scene (which, rude). So long story short, Izzy too has an active sex life.

Of course dating and casual hook ups isn't the same, but. Since of all known Shadowhunters there are apparently several with an active sex drive and associating with Downworlders is pretty frowned upon, associating with Mundanes is absolutely unacceptable because they can't know about the Shadow World and at least dating is apparently no problem between Shadowhunters, I find it pretty reasonable to assume that hook ups between Shadowhunters are fine as well.

(Taking into account that “Nephilim love once, fiercely” it would make it even more logical that everything that's not True Love is casual, thus making it even more plausible that not-serious relationships between Shadowhunters aren't uncommon. I'm personally not a fan of that line (see here somewhere at the end if you're interested) but the line is canon and therefore deserves consideration.)

Conclusion: Downworlders aren't the only source for casual hook ups.

This, of course, brings up the question why Izzy would choose to hook up with Downworlders at all if she could bed other Shadowhunters just as easily, without commitment being an issue, especially because associating with Downworlders kinda ruins your reputation. When Maryse explains in 1x06 why Izzy can't take over marrying for Alec she says “You can't do this. You and your Downworlders have seen to that. You can't possibly attract the caliber of husband who could help us restore the honor to our family name.”

Of course Izzy is rebellious and doesn't care what other people think of her, but she's not stupid. She knows that falling out of favor with the Clave can have serious consequences and upholding the Lightwood Image is important, a calculated move, a leverage, an insurance. So why would she do it anyway, if it's not out of necessity?

Because it's political. She is very pro-Downworlder from the start, she's interested in their ways of life (that butterfly thing in 1x05) and she's against the narrow-minded, racist ways most Shadowhunters display. This explains why she is simultaneously more interested in Downworlders and less interested in Shadowhunters.

To claim that Izzy just dates Downworlders because it's easier (or because she's scared, which, again, pffffff) takes that whole political and revolutionary aim out of her character and that's just reducing this action to something self-oriented instead of something she does with the awareness that it sends a certain signal to Shadowhunters of her and the older generation. It's really not called for, contradicts canon in my eyes or at least doesn't really make sense, and I really don't like it.

Also, just something to think about while we're talking about Izzy's sex life, more specifically all her alleged Downworlder Conquests.

- Vampires: The fact that she asked Raphael in 2x10 if being a Vampire has made him uninterested in sex implies that she doesn't know being a Vampire doesn't necessarily equal no interest in sex, so she probably never hooked up with a vampire.

- Warlocks: Remember that flashback from 2x18 when Magnus said he'd loose all his street cred if his people found out he “let a Shadowhunter spend the night”? And we're talking about spending the night at his home, not sleeping together. Makes it sound as if Warlocks kinda hate Shadowhunters and want nothing to do with them. So it's probably not Warlocks either.

- Werewolves: Before Luke became the Alpha I got some seriously Anti-Shadowhunter-Vibes from the pack as well (still do, honestly, but because of Luke the pack mostly behaves) so I find it hard to imagine any of those wolves would be willing to hook up with a Shadowhunter. Then again, Maia hooked up with Jace and she doesn't really like him. Then again, this could be a Maia-thing.

- Seelies: Can we talk about the fact that Seelies are like the Sex Tourists of the Downworld? They seem to only leave the Seelie Realm to get their mack on. Anyway, I clearly remember that one Scene in 1x03 where this dialogue happens

Alec: Downwolders are slaves to their impulses.

which, to me at least, implies that Izzy first and foremost mingles with Seelies. This dialogue could of course be because she was with Meliorn at the time, but consider that while Alec had to marry, Izzy was declared the one and only Shadowhunter with “ties to the Seelies” who could possibly convince the Clave that the Seelies aren't on Valentine's side. If Meliorn was just the latest of her flings who happened to be a Seelie I don't think that would make a good enough argument with the Clave; also why wasn't Jace also considered a Shadowhunter with ties to the Seelies? Because I don't believe that Kaelie was the first ever Seelie Jace has been with.

- Mundanes: First off, Mundanes aren't Downworlders, so there is that. Secondly I honestly doubt she has a dating / sex / whatever history with Mundanes because the way she says “Shadowhunters don't date Mundanes” in 3x04 sounds to me as if Charlie is the first Mundane she interacted with. It makes sense, because Mundanes aren't allowed to know about the Shadow World. (Simon in 1x02 was an exception because he was already involved in Shadow World business.)

Of course talking about “Seelies” or “Seelies and the occasional Werewolf” instead of “Downworlders” in that Scene mentioned at the beginning doesn't have the same nice ring to it, so I get why it was scripted that way. Still. Ugh.

[generational-intersectional-blog]

-- Emotional Algebra

-- Emotional Algebra of a Feral Spirit

How would Compassionate Nihilism work?

Because I needed to reject the stereotypes of 'white male' starting early with anti-racist and pro-feminist influences, it became easy to deconstruct ideological narratives in the culture. There's no difference in the process of transcending 'whiteness', 'maleness' and ideas of national bonds and nationalism, that is easily seen as the psychological impetus of war.

It's a matter of a single thought-process for understanding the agendas of socially-constructed ideologies. I lost religion by age thirteen using the same process for understanding the function of religious ideologies. None of those explanations came from a book. That was just my life.

Whatever label you'd like to put to that, it's a matter of the heart being stronger than the influence of society.

-- Early Essentialist Compassion  

Cognitive development is such, that we should expect everything to be in essentialist terms for children under twelve.

The entrenchment of a pure heart really happens before age six. The conclusion is there is no complex reasoning needed to entrench a pure heart.

--- Self/Worldview Constant

There is ones idea of the self in relation to the world, which is a *constant* over life, in the sense that while the character of ethics may change and develop, the *position in ones perceptions* does not change as we grow older.

All of our ethical/moral decision-making made throughout life is rooted in that 'crux': the way we see ourselves in the world. Our 'self/worldview' becomes the initial premises of any words (argumentation) and deeds (behavior) people express in the world.

-- The Crux of Social Change

There is an ethical/moral character to the way anyone sees the world. It always begins essentialist because perception always begins essentialist in childhood. The conclusion is one can nurture ethical development in the next generation if that is their will.

The world we want to see in that 'crux' of perception and ethical development.

-- Stages

In early life, and throughout life, we reach a different stages in ethics through learning, experience and revelation. Ethics become the 'initial premises' of all behavior. When we reach a new stage of ethics, our behavior changes.

-- Slippage, Shift and Redemption  

An example here is how sexual urges led me to be a bit of an opportunist when it came to sexual relations. Shitty ethics and sexual urges lead me into more than one purely sexual relationship when it was obviously hurting feeling of others.

I came to the ethics of an opportunist in the my early to mid twenties, but I needed to transcend that, because there was too much emotional conflict with the earlier entrenched 'universal ethics' of an anti-racism and pro-feminist upbringing.

The pure heart entrenched as a kid won the battle. That's 'demisexuality' as redemption. Redemption in any context comes from self-reflection when the heart wins the battle.  

-- Compassionate ID

I can speak in the context of universal ethics for days and days and days, because it's the emotional root of every expression all through life, while education and experience just gives me fancier words and logic to express the same root emotional repertoire.

-- Neptunian Ethics

"Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune." - Noam Chomsky

Of course, I live on Neptune, and don't live in the "Real World" of NYC Earth where my brethren call my compassionate ethics: "Kumbaya". (/sarcasm)

When people believe opportunism is "the natural way of society that will always be", they see universal ethics as unreasonable and foolish.

That puts me on Neptune, or might as well, for my Brooklyn brethren. They dismiss compassion and say: "Kumbaya doesn't work in the real world".

-- Kumbayarchy

My apartment is my real world to the best of my control. I call mental space under my control: Kumbayarchy. People who know me, know that I insist on keeping the ethics of NYC Babylon Kyriarchy out of my mental Kumbayarchy, at least in the physical space I control.

There are only universal ethics in that space, to my best ability.  

--- Hypocrisy and Cognitive Dissonance  

It seems most people see universal ethics as unreasonable and foolish, yet that's what they expect to speak in their defense. Along with the ethics of opportunism comes hypocrisy.

We get the psychology of capitalist USA in NYC, because that's the ethics the people here believe is 'normal'.

NYC is the Babylon Kyriarchy.

When I ask people who call my ethics 'Kumbaya' how to create solidarity without compassion, they generally don't know, and answers get convoluted.  We have not learned the lesson about 'using the masters tools' in regard to ethics.  Cognitive dissonance in this context is often exposed in the thought: "I can't really provide a reasonable rationalization, but I just don't like what you are saying."

--- Compassionate Nihilism

Who is to blame for systemic violence in a collective culture, but everyone?

Nihilistic attitude creeps-in to that battle between a pure heart and a culture in which there are no innocents and no organized spiritual maturity.

Emotions have a memory of their own. Notice we don't generally remember every detail of experience, but rather the emotions of certain particular experience.

A center of emotions: The Amygdala in that scenario doesn't care about ideas and rationalizations, it just feels the negative emotions of everything in one spot. The details of the world get very fuzzy in the struggle and the world just seems like a big stinky chaotic cloud of shitty ethics. ("It's the smell!" ~Postmodern Agent Smith)

Compassion leads to a nihilistic attitude in the 'causal/see-saw/hydraulic/algebraic' mechanics of emotions, which is to say the intrinsic connected relationships between emotions.

You know a pure heart only gives one path, and that the ethics of the culture at large are the ethics of a school-yard. At some points in the path, you'll feel like you hit it a wall, and the force of 'cultural hegemony' of shitty ethics kills your spirit.

--- The Amygdala remembers probability differently

It's also a matter of understanding probability. The Amygdala looks at probability differently than the reasoned mind, and often creates bias. The reasoned mind looks at details, but when the reasoned mind gets tired analyzing, the Amygdala sees the chaotic psychology of the culture as one big scary thing that can not be transcended.  

The institution-machine that maintains childish ethics in the culture is bigger than a scattered and random array of pure hearts and informed minds.

We get dispirited…but..

-- Re-Energizing

I've found the next stage in the compassion/nihilism progression is finding something for myself to re-engage happiness, and I expect at some point after that, the pure heart will send an urge to be heard again.

Natures beauty engages happiness for me, and spring is coming. The birds and squirrels of NYC have much more to say to me, than do the people of NYC.

Social Justice Argumentation uses perception, i.e. Mirror Neurons that allow us to feel the emotions of other animals, and perceive as through we are in place of another.  

- If I try to imagine seeing through the eyes of the people around me with anything but light discourse, I usually eventually see and feel the nastiness of NYC Kyriarchy, or at least get around to the subject.

- If I try to imagine seeing through the eyes of squirrels and birds I see and feel the beauty of nature. Being a fan of science helps with that, since it gives me lots to contemplate. With stuff like clouds, thermodynamics, and all the rest of wondrous existence outside of the human ego.  

I know how to make the getaway back to 'the core', which is significantly knowing that being angry about living in a structurally violent society is not a problem, and that I really don't want to be anyone but an ethical person, regardless of the fact I need to live in an alternate Neptune to maintain my core ethics.  

--- Art gets trashed by the system

I have personal experience in having my work assimilated by corporate capitalism, but that's only context for what I see in the larger scope of cultural change.

For more context, I realize now that there's no way to separate my anti-racist and pro-feminist upbringing from the fact that it happened from within a creative family that also imparted the vocations of music and art.

I see now there's no way to separate my concepts of art from both my ethical development and my present emotional repertoire and view of culture.

There is no way to separate the Art of a culture from the emotional repertoire of a culture. All art that is systematized serves the ethics of the system.

Mechanized, systemic Art has for me become part of the stinky capitalist chaos. Individuals can enjoy it, but no art is capable of changing the ethics of the system itself.

Oops. That's a hard realization when you've seen yourself as an artist all your life. Now the heart demands that I save the culture so that art means something other than service to the machine.

Add that to the nihilism connection that 'comes with' universal ethics in my experience.

Art in a general sense is dead to the degree the culture is spiritually dead. The ethics of a spiritually dead culture must be reconciled before art has meaning to those who love, more than they love art.    

-- Art as Identity

There's no way to really divorce my understanding from the world as I understand it through the sense of ethical and social justice argumentation. I go for broke on that. I try to be scientifically and culturally informed. The pure heart chased me to those pursuits.  

I need to mix-in my concept of art as an individual with art as a historic and cultural force. Anything I spit out into IT is judged by the measure of IT.

That leads to wanting a sledge hammer to smash the system. Except it wouldn't matter if I smashed the system, because people would demand putting the same thing right back in place.

What can I do? I can try to be iconoclastic, expect that been done to death itself.  All mediums have been assimilated by the B/K system and so there is nothing to do for artists but change the ethics of the culture.

-- Art as the Psychology of Cultural Change

Ideals - If you want to bring art, don't bring it to an electronic medium, bring creativity to the psyche of every new child in the culture, and then don't hand them electronics at all, so they may model genuine creativity for the electronically addicted.

The pure heart says that Art can not be an expression in the material world until the psychology of the culture is reconciled.

--- Art as Portal to Political Philosophy

This puts a lot of context to changing the view of art for new generations, and changing the view of what art means to ongoing social justice activism.

Art functions as a portal for all 'cognitively aware' education and child development.

Art functions as a portal for math, logic, particularly in relation to emotional development concerning ethical development during the most formative years.

A socially conscious child development strategy can function as a force for social change if adopted as working-class consciousness.

Art doesn't necessarily need to be "The Portal", but functions well as an intersectional point of understanding.    

In this interpretation, Art is connected to the ethical development scheme of Kohlberg, which understands the development and character of ethics from a universal measure.

This approach teaches Ethics, and Art, encapsulated in the same emotional repertoire.  

The aim in the strategy is to allow cognition to the level of critical thinking to develop in sync with universal ethics during pre-school and early school development.

Art functions as a portal for critical-thinking, only if we are aware of the connections between art, science and logic, and provide a 'scaffolding' of knowledge, which is to say appropriately prepare the ongoing lessons, education and social environment for a new socially-conscious child development strategy.

Every kid gets to use creative thinking as part of their emotional understanding of themselves in the world.

Social justice activists should understand that if ones ethics are not universal by age twelve, it's a very hard path to get to universal ethics once the character of more complex thinking emerges.  

Since simple visual Art which is easy to relate to the early emotional stage of childhood connects to more complex concepts like geometry and optics, and Music in early child development should be seen as connection to logic in the most general sense.  

A child's extended personal connection to music and art should be seen as an imperative for 'socially-aware' child development in the digital age.

At the level of mental development, composition engages creativity in any context of expression.

If we have a different way of seeing the relation between emotions and art, we should see it is the same emotional mechanism we use for social justice advocacy.    

The point is not that we necessarily intend to create a generation of artists, but do intend to teach critical thinking and an understanding of self in a more enlightened way.

It's taking art from control of capitalist mechanisms, and putting in the peoples intellectual and spiritual enrichment.  

-- Collectivist or Bust

I've jammed my political philosophy in a systematized and relational way. So OK, that must be something like a political art, right?

I'm not looking to be appreciated as a good guitar player or electronic musician unless it is from with a trajectory of social change. My art must be contained within my political philosophy for social justice and cultural change.

That art is not material but psychological. Right now it's just me, but it must be collective to manifest as cultural change.

Maybe we can think of it as the kernel of a new political theory of art.

If you buy-in to education as relevant to social justice, and science as relevant to education, and art as relevant to science, you should be able to see there is a purely psychological component to art in the context of social justice advocacy and cultural change.

-- Scaffolding

I'll contemplate in that realm where art is the portal for other aspects of education. Kohlberg's work gives me the structure for stages of education.

Art begins as a simple portal, but grows to be a comprehensive 'socially-aware' education strategy. The connection between disciplines will take work to get clear.  We can consider such an idea: "Art with a purpose"

--

This is to me where a discussion of emotions, child development, ethics and art belong in the context of intersectional activism.

I wouldn't know any other way to relate them in a way that gives more insight into cultural change.

--

#transnational #intersectionality

[dippedanddripped]

Keary Kase created a legacy not only for himself but Oregon with his classic record “Oowee.” And with recording artists the biggest influencers in the world, during the current widespread of a social issue known as Black Lives Matter, Kase dedicates his star power to bringing awareness to the importance of unity against police brutality and social injustice. Now not a time to make people dance, Keary Kase is here to wake people up.

“We, as humans, have evolved to higher consciousness,” he says. “In the last 5 years, we have experienced a re-awakening. We are aware of our connection to each other and the detrimental effect that negative vibrations have on our development. The days of praising the lord in one breath and cursing the devil in the next are reaching an end. It has become obvious that both of those forces, however, you choose to address them, exist inside every one of us.

The universally recognized symbol of balance, yin and yang, depicts a white shape with a bit of black at its core and a black shape, with a bit of white at its core. That symbol masterfully describes the human race as we are today. Unfortunately, we have a group of people who want to continue with the current version of slavery that allows them to move with a level of impunity and shields their families from everyday struggles endured by those outside of the group for generations to come. The shackles are off. They are not going back on.”

While there have been plenty of celebrities joining the protesters in the streets around the world. There are a majority of celebrities who have shy away from getting involved due to commitments with endorsements and branding. Keary Kase is definitely not one of those individuals and frowns upon those who are more concerned with their bank account than morality.

“I’m definitely not afraid to align with the BLM movement. We saw artists release songs and videos in the days following George Floyd’s murder. I watched Nick Canon’s “I Can’t Breathe Again,” for the first time with one eye opened. I was afraid the Comedian might soften the intensity of the moment. Instead, he came off on point with it. We need more straight talk from artists, now,  more than ever. I’m with it 100% and my music will reflect my support. My only issue with the movement is that it may be providing a cloak for any individual or organization wanting to undermine the true BLM agenda. We see politicians attempting to pass legislation at the Senate by feigning support of bills like the Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act while attempting to pass bills designed to lynch us. Love goes out to Senator Kamala Harris, btw, and the finger to Senator Small Paul.”

More than just a protest, Keary Kase involvement in the current movement is extremely personal, like most Black men in America, he ‘s been on the receiving in of police misconduct his entire life. Traumatic experiences due to Police’s abuse of power and authority which has become the normal understanding for Black America.

“When I meet a black man over the age of 25, I assume he has been wrongfully accused, arrested, prosecuted, beaten, judged, and mistreated. Often to the point of ruin (felony), leaving him with very few options to proceed with. Similarly, we are viewed by many white people in just the same way. The only difference is, they assume we are criminals by nature and that we have been justly convicted of any crime found in the record of our criminal history. They believe that aggressive arrests, beatings, and deaths occurring during infraction driven encounters are justifiable incidents in which a person of color did not comply.

When I was old enough to drive (16), I became exposed to police bias and harassment. Several times each month, I would get pulled over and asked to get out of the car so the officers could illegally search my car for drugs and weapons, which I told them I did not have. There is a suburb to Portland called Lake Oswego, which is known by EVERYONE as ‘Lake No Negro.’ If you are “driving while black” in Lake Oswego, you will be followed by the police. If you stay on one of the two main streets that pass through, they will escort you to the city limit and make a u-turn. If you happen to have an ‘intermittent tail light,’ you might get pulled over and hit with multiple tickets. This is Lake Oswego’s way of discouraging black visitors. The Lake Oswego Police Department should definitely be defunded. The first time I had to physically defend myself against police was age 17. There was a biker bar in Southeast Portland where my friend, his wife and newborn child lived. We would walk by the bar going to and from the store, throughout the day, as teens do. One night, as we were walking by, someone standing in front of the bar said ‘NIGGERS.’ We looked across the street where three older white guys, maybe in their 30’s-40’s, were standing and provoking us. We crossed the street to engage them and the entire bar spilled outside to surround us. A fight broke out and the police were called. When they arrived, the 6 or so police officers immediately started hitting us with their batons. I remember getting beaten by 4 officers, while I was on the ground, before being cuffed and placed in the back of a cruiser. Once the officers ran our names and realized we were mostly minors, they drove us home. None of the people in the bar were beaten, cuffed or questioned. It was Just-us. As an adult teen, I was convicted of a crime that I did not commit. The detectives told me it did not matter if I did not commit the crime. They said unless I told them who did commit the crime and the guilty party would verify that I was not involved, I was guilty.

In my twenties, I was shopping at a notoriously racist branch of a store called Fred Meyer, in Beaverton, OR. I had just purchased a karaoke machine and was waiting by the door for my friend to get out of the bathroom. A security officer told me I couldn’t stand there and I needed to leave. I told him that if I was going to be treated that way I was going to go to customer service and return the item. He said I could do it another time but I needed to leave immediately. I walked to the customer service desk where they refused to return the item I had just bought. The security officer grabbed my arm, I reacted and he fell, breaking his glasses in the process. Another security officer grabbed me from behind and put his arm around my neck. I started to blackout and was taken down. The police were called and I was arrested for trespassing. In the police report, they said I had damaged the karaoke machine and demanded a discount. It further said that I started yelling and making threats, then attacked the security officers as they addressed me. Again, I was convicted. After court, the first security officer approached me and said ‘see what happens when you go against us?” I replied, ‘yeah, you get your glasses broke.’

I often ask myself if that really happened because it makes no sense. Police are not our masters. They do not have the right to arrest us, beat us, or kill us when we don’t agree with them. But it’s not just the police who abuse power to the detriment of people of color, it’s the entire judicial system. The police are just the spear’s tip. Arguably, everybody gets the tip but we, especially black people,  always end up getting the shaft.My friend, Sgt. James Brown was killed by county jail staff in El Paso, TX while he was serving a 2-day sentence for a DWI. In his final moments, while struggling with the 5 officers who were restraining him, guess what his last words were. Years later the video of his murder was released. I watched my friend, who had just been honorably discharged from the Army after 2 tours in Iraq, gasping and shouting repeatedly, “I CAN’T BREATHE.” He begged the officers, who were killing him, to help him. I became friends with his mother and stepfather in the years following his death. It is still hard to look into his mother’s eyes to this day. Justice for Sgt. James Brown.”

In a radical mood, Keary Kase supplies a soundtrack to the current climate with new music in the works. Displaying that same energy and impact that created classic songs like “Change Gon’ Come,” “What’s Going On” and more, Kase’s knows that today’s music can deliver a similar impact. He explains:

“I won’t be writing any love songs for a while, but for black people, being killed by police, former police, and the likes has become a condition of our reality. This is not news to us. If you listen to Hip Hop from the ’70s, when it was created, all the way up to the hip hop of 2020, (pre- George Floyd) you will hear a steady flow of lyrics about police bias and brutality and the killing of black people at the hands of the police. We don’t even call it “murder” because, until 2020, they were never convicted or even charged with the crime.

Speaking against the system through our music is what we have done since our ancestors were slaves. Today’s field calls may be repeated by a rifle.”

He further elaborates, stating:

“Thanks to the internet, fans will be impacted by the artists of today even more than they were by our predecessors. Whether or not the message will be delivered and who will deliver it is still a question. All of this is still so recent. As an artist, I observe life, collect data, and translate through my perspective. I’m still taking it all in. If other artists are in the frame of mind that I am right now, fans should be expecting to hear some of the most inspirational music they have ever heard from us.”

[thesportssoundoff]

Relating the WWE’s current business model to the UFC’s current business model---and how we may be seeing the end of the “star” era

Joey

November 13th

It's just another incident in a sea of incidents. Just another rock sized piece of hail in a storm that seems to have no immediate end in sight.

Just another case of Conor McGregor acting like a big star who has nobody to tell him no.

There will never be another Conor McGregor but not for the reasons you expect.

Bryan Alvarez and Dave Meltzer once had a discussion about the way the WWE developed and "built" stars. Alvarez asked what the thought process was behind the 50/50 booking they used and Meltzer said that at some point, you just don't want to deal with the problems of a major star. When the WWE was going through a pronounced exodus of talents they were grooming, there was a rumor that they were just determined to ensure that nobody got too big should they leave. No one person could hurt the brand, no one person could control it. The brand won out over all. It was their way of taking less money to protect themselves over the long term.

The UFC has Conor McGregor. Conor McGregor has the UFC. The two for better or worse are tied to one another for however long this MMA endeavor lasts for McGregor. There's a lot of money at stake for both parties here and that can't be understated. Having said that, let's briefly lay out some of the "incidents" we've gotten since about July of 2015 which IMO is arguably the peak of the UFC-McGregor friendship/partnership:

-McGregor's continued lateness to UFC press conferences irritates the UFC and the media.

-Conor talks more and more about wanting to be essentially a co-promoter alongside the UFC. He gets his own dais at UFC 194 with no Dana White in sight.

-McGregor compares himself to El Chapo and bitches about the UFC's promotional department  at a UFC presser.

-McGregor loses to Nate, saving a UFC event by even taking a fight, and then refuses to do media for UFC 200 which in turn gets him pulled from UFC 200.

-Engages in a bottle throwing fiasco that he winds up getting fined for with some pseudo community service thrown onto the back end.

-UFC 202 he faces Nate Diaz again and wins, McGregor ultimately saying after the fight that he wants to fight for the 155 title and won't return to the UFC unless he gets a pay raise.

-McGregor after objecting to the UFC making an interim 145 lb championship hems and haws on a return to the division while chasing 155 lb gold. He wins the belt, is a dual champion and then makes it clear he's not returning to MMA unless he gets equity into the org. Dana White tells him he can buy in but Conor either doesn't or refuses or who knows.

-Since November of 2016, Conor McGregor has made 0 title defenses across two weight classes. He's had one fight against Floyd Mayweather in boxing which made a lot of money and ripped off a bunch of marks. He still has no return date announced and the rumors of him trying to fight Paulie Malignaggi in boxing suggest a return date might not be coming anytime soon. There's a very good chance his next fight is at 170 vs Georges St. Pierre in a fight that would probably piss off the boxing populace.

-Since his last UFC fight, Conor has had to battle accusations that he's a racist, a sexist and homophobic. His press tour antics vs Floyd IMO helped prevent this event from hitting the higher marks it should've due to his comments in New York which left just about everybody at least momentarily turned off on the fight. His comments to Artem Lobov after the Andre Fili fight were gross and his pseudo apology of "It was blown out of proportion but I'm sorry"  didn't really help matters either. His non-apology for calling Floyd Mayweather a boy didn't help either.

-He's TWICE NOW had incidents with Marc Goddard including charging the cage and shoving him.. HE also punched at (or connected) a Bellator employee in a fit of "McGregor fans will defend anything." Bellator's security was trying to keep a non-licensed person (essentially a fan) from jumping the cage and was swung at. Whether you argue that it was dangerous or not to push Conor off the cage, and I mean it pretty much was, the guy is doing his job to the letter and got swung on. Did I mention that Bellator by the way is technically a rival organization?

And this doesn't even include the rumors of drugs or rumors of him cherry picking opponents or holding the company up for more money or w/e w/e etc etc etc. It doesn't even include him running some kind of a Q&A BEHIND  a paywall during an actual UFC event and then claiming they drew more viewers. The actual things Conor's done showcase the perils of having stars. It is the very example of Mo Money, Mo Problems. Conor brings in tremendous revenue and comes with tremendous headaches along the way. All of that paints a picture  of a WWE-esque future.

Hell it's NOT just Conor either so don't think I'm picking on him. He's just the best example of what happens when stars get a little bit of power and pull in a very young goof-ish sport. Jon Jones? I mean we could be here all day. The UFC was prepping to build around Jones as a superstar before a DUI, a hit and run, coke, steroids* (TWICE!) and turning down a date with Chael Sonnen at UFC 151. Jones, while away from the sport due to a HIT and RUN, was complaining about how much power the UFC had at the time. He came back and continually fucked up and continues to do so to this day. Rousey? She really was a star among stars but we all heard the stories about how she treated people from UFC staffers to media. She lost once and never recovered both in the eyes of the public and in her professional career. Think of all the money they left on the table with a second Holm fight, a Cyborg fight, a third Tate fight and even a Carano fight could they have pulled it off. The UFC was prepared to build around Chris Weidman but they couldn't figure out how and injuries betrayed him. Cain Velasquez not only continues to get hurt but every time the UFC wants to do something with him, he's either hurt or just not available. Oh and dare we be remiss, he also joined up with Bjorn Rebney's failed (I believe at this point we can say that) bid for a CAA backed fighter's org. CAA and Endeavor are not exactly on the best of terms, y'all. Stipe Miocic? The UFC's probably going to give him a bigger deal for PPV numbers that are barely above functioning level Aldo/Holloway type fights. PVZ? Well she's a headache on her own entirely. It's worth remembering she was complaining about how much she was getting paid before the losses to Rose and the Waterson fight. Now she's turning down fights and announcing title fights we're not even sure about anymore. And Waterson? They tried to build her up too and she got crunched vs Namajunas as well.

Hell think of all the NON-stars who operate like McGregors; dictating opponents, trying to push their "brand" and arguing when and where. Fans want to see Wonderboy vs Till but that's not happening. Fans want to see Rivera vs Lineker or vs Assuncao and chances are that won't happen either. Imagine how much fun it would be to see Kamaru Usman fight somebody really good and known---and realize why it's not happening. Dana White once said "this isn't how it used to be" when talking about how fighters act and approach taking UFC fights and he's right. When fighters start earning MORE money, it becomes a hell of a lot harder to get them to go on board with what's best for the company. DC has talked about champions earning way more than they did before they earned the title so why wouldn't they exercise that power? Why wouldn't Woodley try to stomp his feet for a GSP or Nick Diaz fight, rankings or common sense be damned?  

So where am I going with this? Well it's worth remembering that Zuffa took the WWE model, molded it in a few ways and ran with it as their own. WME-IMG has worked with both the WWE and now own the ZUFFA product as a whole. What's to stop them from just going even further with the WWE model? Imagine if instead of doing Dennis Siver vs Conor McGregor on a Fight Night weekend based entirely around McGregor, they gave him someone like Darren Elkins or Clay Guida as the second prelim fight on the card. Imagine if instead of doing big promotional pushes or putting dudes in fights in their home market, they just buried them on Fight Pass. What if they made everybody on the same level, save 2-3 guys they could trust, and then just went with it? They're not going to lose money because TV revenue is the ultimate bandaid. A guaranteed x amount of dollars every year from x amount of markets will cover up any weaknesses in the product. The UFC likely starts every year with a tremendous amount of immediate cash flow from TV deals and that's not going to change going forward EVEN if the TV money market crashes. The best way to prevent a star from taking over your product is to just have no stars or just rob said stars of any sort of strength within your organization. If this debt situation gets too much, an IPO is always an option It's worth noting that even in a bad year in terms of buyrates and ratings, the UFC's value went UP as an organization and Endeavor's stock has also risen after the purchase of the UFC.  That's very much on the stars who help m ake the product---but if the product is made then when do you need stars? At what point is there no advil strong enough for the headaches?

It's not like the UFC has competition breathing down its neck either. People love to espouse Bellator but their numbers are down and until you can prove to me how social media metrics equal millions, I ain't about to hear about twitter buzz. WSOF is  now the PFL is now graveyard programming on youtube. Combates Americas is getting a chance on NBCSsports but if the UFC leaves Fox to head there (and there's a chance) then what the hell is their future? Overseas is great and all but what Rizin does once month out of six is irrelevant to the UFC's business. Same for KSW.

We all agree that McGregor and Rousey and company have changed the way the UFC is seen and operates. We may learn that there's a chance it may not have been for the better.

[smokeybrandreviews]

Kali Ma

I f*cking hate everything about Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. All of it. It’s terrible. I’m not a fan of the entire Indiana Jones franchise but I'm making the attempt to understand the allure. I had already seen Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and rather enjoyed that one. The camp and shenanigans was pretty endearing. I recently watched Raiders of the Lost Ark for he first time in decades and, while i found it boring as sh*t, i should understand why it’s garnered suck praise over the years. That flick is a legitimate masterpiece, i can admit with no reservation. I remember The Last Crusade fondly, mostly because i am a fan of Sean Connery so I'm actually looking forward to revisiting that one but Temple? Temple is the f*cking worst, man.

This isn’t a review. This is a crucifixion. There’s not even a great many things wrong with this movie. In reality, a lot of what made Raiders great, appears in this film, too. The Score is dope. Ford is dope. The direction is dope. The cinematography and scale is dope. Sh*t dope, man. I can’t fault it in any of those categories. Looking at just those, you’d think this was a good movie. If you do, i bet you’re a fan of Michael Bay, too. I f*cking hate Michael Bay. I hate Michael Bay because he doesn’t know how to tell a goddamn story to save his life, while masquerading as a goddamn storyteller! That sh*t is appalling to me. That sh*t is why this film is abhorrent to me. Crafting a story is not easy. It needs to be compelling. It needs to be engaging. It needs to be good. Bay hides his lack of ability with effects and sexism. He’s the Chris Angle of movie makers. He distracts with overused CG, jail-bait girls in painted on clothes, and abject Bayhem. Temple has none of that. There is nothing in this move to distract you from the absolutely awful writing.

People give Crystal Skull sh*t because of aliens but no one talks about how out of place the plot to Temple is, when compared to the overall Indiana Jones universe. What about this movie feels like Indy would have anything to do with it? What about this movie feels like a f*cking Indian Jones adventure at all? At least Crystal Skull looks like an Indy flick, even if you have to squint real hard to see it. But Temple? What the f*ck is this? We go from supernatural relic hunting, to human trafficking and voodoo? For real? Did you not have a budget or something because ninety percent of this flick takes place on one set. There’s not a hit of nature porn in this at all. Voodoo isn’t even Indian. What the f*ck is it doing in this movie about Indians?? This story feels like George Lucas saw a special on Hindu Gods and wrote a fan fic about it, then turned that first draft into a sh*tty movie. But, even poor writing can be forgiven if there’s enough action to distract. Again, Michael Bay. What can’t be forgiven are the terrible f*cking characters in this movie, like holy sh*t, man.

Short Round is wildly racist and, considering Indy’s relationship with Marion Ravenwood, raises some interesting, albeit uncomfortable, questions. Sidestepping that problematic mire, who the f*ck gave the okay for Willie Scott?? This b*tch is THE WORST! She is the absolute opposite of Marion and does nothing to save her own as, ever this b*tch just screams and screams and screams some more. My dude, i hate her SO goddamn much. Damsel in distress, i get that, but really? B*tch, i can only tolerate you talking about your nails for so goddamn long, before i throw you to the f*cking wolves! I don’t know if Wllie is a conscious effort on the part of Lucas to write a woman poorly but, if hit was, good f*cking job, bro. I'm not even mad about the damsel sh*t, man. You can be in distress or a plot device as long as the character is written well. Wee see that sh*t in, like, Super Mario with Princess Toadstool (I’m 36. i know her name is Peach. When i was a kid, around the time these films came out, she was known as Princess Toadstool and Bowser was called King Koopa. Bite me.) or Vicki Wale in the 89 Batman. That’s how you Damsel a chick while keeping her agency intact. Willie is little more than a screaming blow-up doll in this flick and it’s goddamn insulting. Like, Short Round is annoying as f*ck but i just want to set Wilhelmina of fire and let her burn.

I don’t understand how people enjoy this movie. It’s an affront to Indian’s legacy, especially coming off Raiders. Again, i don;t like Raiders but i appreciate the craftsmanship of that film. I do not understand how so much of that same energy can permeate a direct sequel, with a bigger budget and better understanding of the character, yet, sh*t the bed so goddamn hard. Everything about this movie is less that Raiders and it should have been so much more. I read somewhere that this is considered a prequel to Raiders and i think that’s the right look. It wasn’t when it was originally released. That’s a little of the Lucas retconning that actually works. This should definitely be the first Indiana Jones movie you see, if you’re a virgin to the series. Every other film is better than this one, including Crystal Skull. I’d suggest watching them in chronological order. Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom is awful but it’s a great introduction to Indiana Jones, the character.