#if they’re willing to put in the work and call out antisemitism when they see it

[tiredandsleepyaf]

Ok, so let me explain why rebloging posts like these do little to nothing to assure Jews that they’ll be safe around you.

Goyim reblogging this stuff don’t typically listen to Jews (which is apparent because we’ve said stuff like this doesn’t actually do anything to help us many times) about their experiences with antisemitism or listen when Jews try to educate them on things like antisemitic dog whistles or blood libel. Most of them are way more enthusiastic about punching Nazis than they are about showing any compassion to Jews. I’d venture to guess the majority of Jewish people know that often the goyim who reblog this stuff are just out for blood and don’t give a damn about us, because we’ve seen this many times. Not to mention that the desire for a violent revolution that some leftists seem to have has led to Jewish people facing a lot of antisemitism (at their hands). I would bet that some of the people reblogging this act similar to Nazis themselves. I know at the very least the goyim rebloging this don’t listen to Jews because we’ve said many times that this sort of thing doesn’t really do anything to help us, and we’d much rather goyim call out and learn about antisemitism. Overall, it’s just very performative activism, and it’s pretty obvious that the goyim reblogging this are just doing it to try and make themselves look better, and not for the sake of Jews.

[sylvielauffeydottir]

Hello, it is I, your friendly neighborhood historian. I am ready to lose followers for this post, but I have two masters degrees in history and one of my focuses has been middle eastern area studies. Furthermore, I’ve been tired of watching the world be reduced to pithy little infographics, and I believe there is no point to my education if I don’t put it to good use. Finally, I am ethnically Asheknazi Jewish. This does not color my opinion in this post — I am in support of either a one or two state solution for Israel and Palestine, depending on the factors determined by the Palestinian Authority, and the Israeli Government does not speak for me. I hate Netanyahu. A lot. With that said, my family was slaughtered at Auschwitz-Birkenau. I have stood in front of that memorial wall at the Holocaust memorial in DC for my great uncle Simon and my great uncle Louis and cried as I lit a candle. Louis was a rabbi, and he preached mitzvot and tolerance. He died anyway. 

There’s a great many things I want to say about what is happening in the Middle East right now, but let’s start with some facts. 

In early May, there were talks of a coalition government that might have put together (among other parties, the Knesset is absolutely gigantic and usually has about 11-13 political parties at once) the Yesh Atid, a center-left party, and the United Arab List, a Palestinian party. For the first time, Palestinians would have been members of the Israeli government in their own right. And what happened, all of the sudden? A war broke out. A war that, amazingly, seemed to shield Benjamin Netanyahu from criminal prosecution, despite the fact that he has been under investigation for corruption for some time now and the only thing that is stopping a real investigation is the fact that he is Prime Minister.

Funny how that happened. 

There’s a second thing people ought to know, and it is about Hamas. I’ve found it really disturbing to see people defending Hamas on a world stage because, whether or not people want to believe it, Hamas is a terrorist organization. I’m sorry, but it is. Those are the facts. I’m not being a right wing extremist or even a Republican or whatever else or want to lob at me here. I’m a liberal historian with some facts. They are a terrorist organization, and they don’t care if their people die. 

Here’s what you need to know: 

There are two governments for the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza. In April 2021, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas postponed planned elections. He said it was because of a dispute amid Israeli-annexed East Jerusalum. He is 85 years old, and his Fatah Party is losing power to Hamas. Everyone knows that. Palestinians know that. 

Here’s the thing about Hamas: they might be terrorists, but aren’t idiots. They understand that they have a frustrated population filled with people who have been brutalized by their neighbors. And they also understand that Israel has something called the iron dome defense system, which means that if you throw a rocket at it, it probably won’t kill anyone (though there have been people in Israel who died, including Holocaust survivors). Israel will, however, retaliate, and when they do, they will kill Palestinian civilians. On a world stage, this looks horrible. The death toll, because Palestinians don’t have the same defense system, is always skewed. Should the Israeli government do that? No. It’s morally repugnant. It’s wrong. It’s unfair. It’s hurting people without the capability to defend themselves. But is Hamas counting on them to for the propaganda? Yeah. Absolutely. They’re literally willing to kill their other people for it.

You know why this works for Hamas? They know that Israel will respond anyway, despite the moral concerns. And if you’re curious why, you can read some books on the matter (Six Days of War by Michael Oren; The Yom Kippur War by Abraham Rabinovich; Rise and Kill First by Ronen Bergmen; Antisemitism by Deborah Lipstadt; and Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn by Daniel Gordis). The TL;DR, if you aren’t interested in homework, is that Israel believes they have no choice but to defend themselves against what they consider ‘hostile powers.’ And it’s almost entirely to do with the Holocaust. It’s a little David v Goliath. It is, dare I say, complicated.

I’m barely scratching the surface here. 

(We won’t get into this in this post, though if you want to DM me for details, it might be worth knowing that Iran funds Hamas and basically supplies them with all of their weapons, and part of the reason the United States has been so reluctant to engage with this conflict is that Iran is currently in Vienna trying to restore its nuclear deal with western powers. The USA cannot afford to piss off Iran right now, and therefore cannot afford to aggravative Hamas and also needs to rely on Israel to destroy Irani nuclear facilities if the deal goes south. So, you know, there is that).

There are some people who will tell you that criticism of the Israel government is antisemitic. They are almost entirely members of the right wing, evangelical community, and they don’t speak for the Jewish community. The majority of Jewish people and Jewish Americans in particular are criticizing the Israeli government right now. The majority of Jewish people in the diaspora and in Israel support Palestinian rights and are speaking out about it. And actually, when they talk about it, they are putting themselves in great danger to do so. Because it really isn’t safe to be visibly Jewish right now. People may not want to listen to Jews when they speak about antisemitism or may want to believe that antisemitism ‘isn’t real’ because ‘the Holocaust is over’ but that is absolutely untrue. In 2019, antisemitic hate crimes in the United States reached a high we have never seen before. I remember that, because I was living in London, and I was super scared for my family at the time. Since then, that number has increased by nearly 400% in the last ten days. If you don’t believe me, have some articles about it (one, two, three, four, and five, to name a few). 

I live in New York City, where a man was beaten in Time Square while attending a Free Palestine rally and wearing a kippah. I’m sorry, but being visibly Jewish near a pro-Palestine rally? That was enough to have a bunch of people just start beating on him? I made a previous post detailing how there are Jews being attacked all over the world, and there is a very good timeline of recent hate crimes against Jews that you can find right here. These are Jews, by the way, who have nothing to do with Israel or Palestine. They are Americans or Europeans or Canadians who are living their lives. In some cases, they are at pro-Palestine rallies and they are trying to help, but they just look visibly Jewish.  God Forbid we are the wrong ethnicity for your rally, even if we agree.

This is really serious. There are people calling for the death of all Jews. There are people calling for another Holocaust. 

There are 14 million Jews in the world. 14 million. Of 7.6 billion. And you think it isn’t a problem the way people treat us?

Anyway (aside from, you know, compassion), why does this matter? This matters because stuff like this deters Jews who want to be part of the pro-Palestine movement because they are literally scared for their safety. I said this before, and I will say it again: Zionism was, historically speaking, a very unpopular opinion. It was only widespread antisemitic violence (you know, the Holocaust) that made Jews believe there was a necessity for a Jewish state. Honestly, it wasn’t until the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that I supported it the abstract idea too.

I grew up in New York City, I am a liberal Jew, and I believe in the rights of marginalized and oppressed people to self-determine worldwide. Growing up, I also fit the profile of what many scholars describe as the self hating Jew, because I believed that, in order to justify myself in American liberal society, I had to hate Israel, and I had to be anti-Zionist by default, even if I didn’t always understand what ‘Zionism’ meant in abstract. Well, I am 27 years old now with two masters degrees in history, and here is what Zionism means to me: I hate the Israeli government. They do not speak for me. But I am not anti-Zionist. I believe in the necessity for a Jewish state — a state where all Jews are welcome, regardless of their background, regardless of their nationality. 

There needs to be a place where Jews, an ethnic minority who are unwelcome in nearly every state in the world, have a place where they are free from persecution — a place where they feel protected. And I don’t think there is anything wrong with that place being the place where Jews are ethnically indigenous to. Because believe it or not, whether it is inconvenient, Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel. I’ve addressed this in this post.

With that said, that doesn’t mean you can kick the Palestinian people out. They are also indigenous to that land, which is addressed in the same post, if you don’t trust me. 

What is incredible to me is that Zionism is defined, by the Oxford English Dixtionary, as “A movement [that called originally for] the reestablishment of a Jewish nationhood in Palestine, and [since 1948] the development of the State of Israel.” Whether we agree with this or not, there were early disagreements about the location of a ‘Jewish state,’ and some, like Maurice de Hirsch, believed it ought to be located in South America, for example. Others believed it should be located in Africa. The point is that the original plans for the Jewish state were about safety. The plan changed because Jews wanted to return to their homeland, the largest project of decolonization and indigenous reclamation ever to be undertaken by an indigenous group. Whether you want to hear that or not, it is true. Read a book or two. Then you might know what I mean.

When people say this is a complicated issue, they aren’t being facetious. They aren’t trying to obfuscate the point. They often aren’t even trying to defend the Israeli government, because I certainly am not — I think they are abhorrent. But there is no future in the Middle East if the Israelis and Palestinians don’t form a state that has an equal right of return and recognizes both of their indigenousness, and that will never happen if people can’t stop throwing vitriolic rhetoric around.  Is the Israeli Government bad? Yes. Are Israeli citizens bad? Largely, no. They want to defend their families, and they want to defend their people. This is basically the same as the fact that Palestinian people aren’t bad, though Hamas often is. And for the love of god, stop defending terrorist organizations. Just stop. They kill their own people for their own power and for their own benefit. 

And yes, one more time, the Israeli government is so, so, so wrong. But god, think about your words, and think about how you are enabling Nazis. The rhetoric the left is using is hurting Jews. I am afraid to leave my house. I’m afraid to identify as Jewish on tumblr. I’m afraid for my family, afraid for my friends. People I know are afraid for me. 

It’s 2021. I am not my great uncle. I cried for him, but I shouldn’t have to die like him. 

Words have consequences. Language has consequences. And genuinely, I do not think everyone is a bad person, so think about what you are putting into the world, because you’d be surprised how often you are doing a Nazi a favor or two. 

Is that really what you want? To do a Nazi a favor or two? I don’t think that you do. I hope you don’t, at least.

That’s all. You know, five thousand words later. But uh, think a little. Please. 

[kitkatopinions]

“Let people enjoy things” and “You should be willing to recognize that the media or celebrities you like are flawed, especially if the ways they’re flawed are in ways that are harmful or offensive to women or minority groups” are NOT opposites, and in fact they can and should work together.

“Let people enjoy things,” is what you say when you see someone harassing a twenty year old for wearing a Lilo and Stitch backpack because ‘Disney adults are so immature,’ it’s not what you say when someone is criticizing the large and harmful pattern of antisemitism in Disney works.

“Let people enjoy things,” is what you say when someone starts ranting about how women who drink pumpkin spice coffee are vapid basic followers, it’s not what you say when people call out a harmful organization for being harmful and you don’t like that.

“Let people enjoy things,” is what you say when someone is trying to gatekeep the character of Spider-Man from people who liked Andrew Garfield’s interpretation, it’s not what you say when people are criticizing the MCU for their pro-military rhetoric or their history of sidelining the women characters.

“Let people enjoy things,” is what you say when you’re blogging about liking a ship that puts Yang from RWBY with someone other than Blake and someone comes into the notes talking about how much better Bumblebee is. It’s not what you say when people criticize the writers for their horrible fake-racism plot, or their mishandling of (most) of their queer characters, or anything like that.

If it ruins your viewing experience to see someone criticize the media even in meaningful ways then you need to take a step back from the media and re-examine your priorities. Fans trying to silence people about the problems in media / problems with celebrities is one hundred percent something that can and will be weaponized. And the people who make that media and the celebrities people defend will use their fans and the passiveness of their fanbase as a shield and as a means to just keep on doing the exact same toxic shit they’re doing now. It’s not ‘preventing people from enjoying things’ to ask people to put a bit of critical thought into what they consume and what they like enough to see the problematic elements.

And much less important, but still worth noting; ‘let people enjoy things’ also can and should go along with ‘let people dislike things’ too even if the reasons are all subjective and opinion based. People are allowed to post on social media about what they like, and people are allowed to post on social media about what they don’t like. It’s up to you to cultivate your own online experience, not up to everyone else to stop talking about their experience with something in public because you might hear it. If they aren’t coming into your comments or ask boxes or reviews or so on, them posting their opinion is not an attack on you or an attempt to force you to change your mind. If seeing someone dislike media you like disturbs your viewing experience and makes you unable to enjoy the thing, you should step back from that piece of media.

[dwellordream]

A Six of Crows Review: Kaz V through Kaz VI

Previously

On the positive side of things, the reveal of Kaz’s backstory and how he and his brother were conned of their life’s savings and left to starve on the streets is well done. I have to give credit where credit is due in Kaz V. Bardugo very effectively shows the differences between the innocent and playful little boy Kaz was and the cruel and spiteful young man he’s become with the recounting.

On the negative side of things, the efforts by the author to get the reader invested in a burgeoning relationship between Kaz and Inej falls totally flat. Not just because Kaz is a dick who can’t work out that he should probably thank Inej for saving all their lives, but because the narrative keeps insisting to us that there is chemistry and mutual romantic feelings between the two of them, but never really bothers to show it.

Kaz is mean to girls he likes. Inej thinks he’s attractive. It doesn’t go much deeper than that. It feels like Bardugo is far more committed to the relationship than even her audience would be, and we’re nearly at the halfway point of the novel. 

I still don’t see why I should want the two of them to be together. I mean, Jesus, there’s more depth between Nina and Matthias, and Matthias’ entire character and backstory is rife with fucking Nazi imagery!

Matthias II does a decent job at continuing to develop his character and his relationship with Nina, though at times it does veer into ‘walking camera’ territory before the flashback to the shipwreck begins.

I find it a little unrealistic how easily Nina falls into a pretty friendly manner with Matthias after they wash up on land, even if she doesn’t think he’s much of a threat to her with them both exhausted and sick from hours swimming for shore. 

Cracking jokes with the man who captured her to take her to her death seems a little weird, and it doesn’t seem like this is supposed to be taken as shock induced hysterics. I would think she’d have harsher words for him than ‘big idiot’ and ‘prude’.

And if I never have to read Matthias ‘indecently round’ comment again, I’ll die happy. Is Bardugo aware she can just call a character fat? Heavyset? Chunky? It’s not a dirty word.

Bardugo does try to confront this disparity - the obvious passion between Matthias and Nina, in contrast to the fact that he has been raised to hate all grisha and to an extent still does - with the scene of the pyres. Nina does get in some good lines - “Do you have a different name for killing when you wear a uniform to do it?”, while Matthias defends his prejudice by pointing out that Ravkan grisha soldiers destroyed his home and slaughtered his family.

This is where the real world connections fall flat on their face. Bardugo puts in some pretty obvious connections to actual historical atrocities, such as the witch trials that occurred across Europe during the Renaissance, and the Fjerdan’s whole national image pretty clearly taking some cues from Nazi Germany.

Blonde hair, blue eyes, men fight to protect the fatherland, women stay home and have more pure Fjerdan children, grisha are demons on this earth and lower than dogs who must be exterminated for the greater good… If the latter is unintentional, damn, it is one hell of a coincidence.

But the point is, while real world minorities are guilty of nothing but existing, fictional minorities such as the grisha are depicted as dangerous and capable of wide scale destruction. Real world racism, antisemitism, and other forms of intolerance isn’t based off anything except prejudice, paranoia, and convenient scapegoating. 

Yet in Bardugo’s world, there is real basis, and that’s where it gets thorny, and where this novel really, really could have used some sensitivity readers.

And while Matthias II does get at some actual thought provoking conflict between Matthias and Nina, it’s almost all undone in Nina II, which has Nina seemingly forget most of the massive fight she just had with him, and start thinking about how she wants to kiss him again. This, after she just saw the horrific evidence of what Fjerdans do to grisha.

I understand what Bardugo is trying to do, cutting between their current conflict and their reluctant bonding in the past, but there’s just not enough substance to it. I don’t buy that Nina would so easily come to trust, even love, someone dedicated to killing her kind. I don’t buy that Matthias would so easily fall for her.

And I especially don’t like the false equivalence that the narrative tries to bring about by suggesting that Nina is ‘just as guilty’ as Matthias for turning on him when they made it back to civilization. Matthias somehow can’t connect how what he hates her for; falsely accusing him, having him imprisoned, chained up in the belly of a ship, is exactly what he’d just done to her.

Why should Nina have trusted him, just because he became infatuated with her? He hardly changed his mind about all grisha, he just became attracted to one. Matthias does deserve punishment for his behavior. Is rotting in prison for the rest of his life the solution? No, but neither is getting to walk away scot free.

Nina reveals that she in fact accused Matthias of slaving to spare him the worse fate of being captured and brought back to Ravka to be tortured and executed as a druskelle. 

Honestly, I don’t think this reveal was necessary at all. I could excuse and even welcome some spite from Nina towards him. Instead this just paints her as this all-compassionate, pure-hearted angel willing to repeatedly sacrifice herself for the sake of both friends and enemies. I like Nina, but I’d like her better with more bite to her.

Inej V unfortunately takes us right back into walking camera territory for her. This could be any character narrating this chapter, and it does little to nothing to develop her. 

The travel descriptions are also not terribly interesting and I don’t think the pacing is handled all that well; the book started fast, got even faster and choppier as the Crows came together, and is now grinding into a dull slog ever since they landed in Fjerda, which is a much more thinly sketched setting than Ketterdam.

I think it might have made better use of the book to work it out so all the events took place within the confines of the city, to add to the themes of how Ketterdam can make or break any one of them, but too late now.

It’s even more insulting when contrasted with Kaz VI, which continues to detail Kaz’s backstory, which is where Bardugo is at her strongest. It just emphasizes that this book would have worked better with few characters, tighter characterization, and a plot confined to Ketterdam and its mundane capitalist horrors. It’s too thinly stretched between multiple POV characters, half of whom are barely developed, the other half of whom are frustratingly botched in their development.

I know jack shit about Jesper and Wylan, and it’s aggravating. I still know very little about Inej. Kaz, Nina, and Matthias get the most attention, and Kaz still isn’t very believable or compelling in the present, just the past, whereas Nina and Matthias’ intertwined story is an awkwardly arrayed mess of conflicting ideals and poor characterization decisions.

I only have about a hundred pages left of this book, and right now it’s hovering at like a C- rating. Not badly written enough to be offensive or infuriating, but still firmly stuck in some mediocre traction that, with more stringent editing, could have been resolved. 

There are some good plot ideas and good character concepts here, but they’re lost in the mire. I’m barely even invested in the actual heist plot, which just doesn’t feel as urgent as it should, and the characters are not compelling enough to make up for it

[a-student-out-of-time]

There's a good and a bad way to subvert expectations. Unfortunately what's been happening a lot lately is that many works go for twists for the sake of being twists, the Star Wars Sequels being a prime example of this. Or the later sessions of Game of Thrones. There is a fine balance between being able to surprise your audience and not being extremely predictable.

//I’ve absorbed more complaints and feelings from both those series through pop-culture osmosis than I have from watching them. I’m more of a casual observer, but I do have some feelings on both these points (which I will put under here if you’re interested.)

//tl;dr version: I think we should unbiasedly judge media on its own merits and look over what works internally within the story and what doesn’t, be willing to make our own judgements rather than jump on bandwagons and tell people what they should or shouldn’t like, and not treat opinions as straight facts.

//And also that I’m honestly tired of hearing about the sequels and GoT ^^;

//I disagree with a lot of people on the Star Wars sequels (aside from 9, fuck 9), but I’d rather not start a debate about it nor their quality overall. Only that I think people really overreacted to them  and many others jumped on the hate bandwagon when emotions were running high.

//Frankly, many of the criticisms I saw about the films felt either wildly inconsistent about what they’re upset about or what they wanted it to be (7 was criticized for being too much like old Star Wars, 8 for not being enough like old Star Wars) and others felt like they came from bad faith and I can’t take them seriously.

//And yes, the last season of Game of Thrones is trash and wrecked everyone’s storylines for the sake of being shocking, but let’s also be real: GoT was never going to have a happy ending if it wanted to stick to its “realism.” Whoever got on the Iron Throne was inevitably going to have to purge all opposition to consolidate power. That’s just how real revolutions and coups work.

//To be clear, Daenerys’ turn to evil murderousness was stupidly executed, but it wasn’t necessarily unprecedented. What I frankly dislike about fantasy in general is its tendency toward the Divine Right of Kings. That only certain bloodlines have the right to rule and you just need to put the “rightful heir” on the throne. In other words, giving absolute power to a magically omnibenevolent person will fix everything. I may be an optimistic humanist, but I know that simply doesn’t happen.

//The entire point of GoT is that DRoK is stupid and royalty in general really kinda sucks. If you go back, you see most of the lords we follow, including “good king” Eddard Stark, are either totally indifferent to the masses or are completely sadistic and torture them for funsies since the legal system doesn’t protect peasants.

//The Starks are no better than the Lannisters simply by virtue of being overall “nicer” than them. Both sides start wars that get thousands of people killed. Also, everybody loved John Snow, but he also fucking hanged a kid and I’ve never heard anyone bring that up since.

//Most importantly, Daenerys was a likable character with a sympathetic backstory, but even before the last season, she was fully embracing being a Targaryen by blood and was openly murdering people who got in her way while she was conquering territory after territory.

//Yes, a lot of the people she killed were slaveholders, but let’s be real for a moment: not everyone who participates in an evil system is evil themselves. It’s easy for us as the audience to judge them for participating in a slavocracy, but living in one comes with being told slavery is okay. That doesn’t make them evil by nature, just subject to the biases of their culture.

//Also, slavery is evil but conquering people is fine? And burning people to death for opposing you is acceptable since you’re going to be better and free everyone, or because you had a sympathetic backstory? These are the kinds of things that get villains criticized for, but is treated as a necessary evil at worst for the protagonists.

//This is protagonist-centered morality. The show is framing it in a way where you’re being drawn in to see it that way, but also telling you not to see blatant hypocrisies for what they really are. Daenerys was even called as mad as her father by Tyrion. It wasn’t well-executed, but it was going to happen regardless of how much anyone liked her.

//Violence for a good cause is still violence. If you’re going to burn people for disagreeing with you, then say that other people shouldn’t and should listen to others, that’s full-on hypocrisy. That goes for most of the characters in the show, frankly, and the message is executed well for most of it.

//That being said, don’t think this means I think the last season of GoT is good, that the Star Wars sequels are perfect, or that I hate all fantasy books ever. That’s not what I’m saying. I try to enjoy what’s good about them and point out their flaws regardless.

//What I’m saying is it’s important to, when you want to be critical of media, put your feelings and biases aside and judge the media you’re criticizing on its own merits. In my opinion, the claims that the sequels only did things to subvert expectations is unfounded. They were going their own direction, which was admittedly controversial and not what many people wanted, but just because you don’t want it to happen doesn’t mean it’s a bad twist

//Just like how a character isn’t a Mary Sue just because they’re too OP or you don’t like them. That’s not what that term means and hearing people use it like that irritates me. While I do have my complaints about characters, people use that term as if it’s a form of literary criticism that has more use than is necessary.

//If a character is OP, they’re OP. If a character is flat, they’re flat. If a character is poorly written, they’re poorly written. If a character is at the center of the universe and literally everything else exists just to amplify them and their role in things, then they’re likely a Mary Sue/Gary Stu. It’s not a label to slap on  a character you don’t like or to give a critique (or complaint) more weight.

//This is why I say DR3 Chiaki isn’t a Mary Sue, she’s just not a very well written character. All Mary Sues are poorly written characters, but not all poorly written characters are Mary Sues. She’s not terrible, but she’s not explored much and her only big roles are being the person who brings Class 77-B together and her death turns them to despair.

//While her death was tragic and brutal, we didn’t really get a good look at who she was as a person beyond just being nice and opening up to her friends. If they’d expanded on that a little more, maybe it would’ve been more effective, but the way she died felt...manipulative and shock baity in a lot of ways since it banked mostly on our familiarity with her despite it being a totally different person.

//DR3 honestly had a whole host of shocky and just plain gross scenes that I really don’t think needed to be there.

//But likewise, if a story has a plot twist that you don’t like, that doesn’t automatically make it purely shock bait or subverting expectations just for the sake of doing so. There’s a difference between “this character was evil all along and there were a lot of clues and we just didn’t want to believe it” and “this character was evil all along for reasons we’re dumping on you now.”

//Just so I don’t seem like a hypocrite, while I personally don’t like what happened with Mikan in chapter 3 of SDR2, it was an effective way of foreshadowing the truth of them being the remnants of despair. It was set up that every had lost their memories and this was a sign that getting them back wasn’t necessarily going to have a good outcome.

//And I’ll be real: I can’t take a lot of the complaints about the Sequels or GoT seriously because much of it carries overtones of racism, sexism and antisemitism. For those more into Star wars, I think you know what I mean already and that’s all I’ll say. As for GoT, I’ve seen reddit posts viscerally attacking the writers directly and even saying that we should’ve expected the ending to suck since it was “written by Jews.”

//Yeah, go figure I can’t read any of that. I know not all people who hated the show’s ending or the films are like that, but it’s impossible to deny that those attitudes are very real.

//In the end, if you want to be critical of media, the worst way to do that is to just watch a video of someone complaining about it for half an hour. Yes, those video essays can be fun, but the only way to be truly critical of media you enjoy is to examine it yourself and look closely at what’s in it and how it’s presented. That goes doubly for shows you like.

//I know not everyone will do that and all opinions are ultimately subjective, but don’t let someone else tell you that you should hate something or that something is bad just because they didn’t like how it ended. Watch or read it yourself and draw your own conclusions. Don’t just follow the crowd and also be respectful of people who don’t agree with you. You can learn a lot when you talk to someone with a different opinion.

[starryocean]

Finished So I’m a Spider volume 10. I have...mixed feelings about this one. Under the cut, and no spoilers in comments, as always.

First off: what I liked. I liked the stuff with Kyouya, but that’s a given. His armor-piercing question to Ms. Oka was pretty great. Even if, in a way, when considering his history it comes off as a bit hypocritical, at the same time, it makes complete sense for him as a character. He feels a lot of regret over his violence, and he’s always had a complicated relationship with it, both on Earth and here. For him to see someone treading a similarly complicated, bloody path--of course he’d get angry about it, even if only out of a desire to not inflict that on anyone else.

Also, his reactions to not reacting gave me feels. Oh Kyouya, you’re so traumatized! ;-; Poor kid.

I swear this series is just trauma central for everyone. Kyouya, Mera, Ariel, Oka, Shun, Yuri, Hyrince, now Asaka and Kunihiko, and even Kumoko/Wakaba at several points! And more people besides that! They’re all traumatized! I swear the only person who isn’t having serious issues with trauma is probably Sophia, and that’s mainly because of Envy fucking with her head. And even with that, her clingy jealous nature is probably at least in part due to her trauma. I can at least see it, anyway.

No, scratch that, the only one who isn’t traumatized is D. Speaking of, I think we got hints that she might literally be the devil? Like, in the chapter where she gets found out and dragged off by that maid. There was a mention of “several circles of hell,” and with her initial and her proclamations of being an evil god, the devil certainly fits. Interesting personality, though. I wouldn’t normally think the devil as having a non-interference policy, but at the same time it kind of makes sense? In the way that it lets people go wild, at least.

Okay, other things I liked...the banter between Wakaba and Ariel was really good, same with Wakaba and D in that chapter I mentioned. I liked that callback to how Oka saved the nameless spider’s life back on Earth--of course her soul would want to care for Oka because of that. Um, that scene between Bloe and Balto was pretty tragic, especially when considering that Bloe is canonically doomed to fail already. Like, we hear that he dies early on in the Demon Lord’s Aide Interludes. Poor Balto, he tried so hard to protect his little brother for it all to be for naught ;-;

Finally, the best part. ENBY DRAGON. They’re consistently referred to with they pronouns and the narration doesn’t designate them as one gender or the other, nor does the character ever clarify, so I’m calling it that they’re an enby. I mean, they purposely chose an androgynous appearance when shifting to a human form. No cis person could ever. I know that this nonbinary pal only showed up for like 2 seconds at the very end, but I would die for them. We stan. I hope we get to see more of them.

Now, stuff I disliked, and why I’m mixed on this book: first, the pacing in the beginning dragged on too much with the exposition. Maybe it was because I kept getting distracted by my family watching the Mandalorian, but I remember feeling the same way even after they stopped and I was able to concentrate more thoroughly. Ususally, there’s a good mix of exposition and action going on, rather than it being all tell, but in the beginning there was a LOT of tell going on with the spy network Wakaba set up and stuff. And there was a little bit in the middle, too, I think. Didn’t like that.

Then, the main thing I don’t like: The implications of Wakaba’s plan. In a way, breaking the system in such a manner would result in what seems to be planetary genocide. She herself comments that it’s a massive amount of death, even if she also implies it wouldn’t be explicitly everyone who dies, but I’m still not super comfortable with that. Also, killing all the elves save Oka. If Potimas is the main big bad, and the reason why the elves are considered a threat, why do they need to kill all of them?

Yes, you can argue he can just latch onto another elf as a new body, but it’s only certain elves, right? I’m willing to bet none of the out-of-the-loop elves fulfill those conditions. Or, at least a majority don’t. They don’t need to die. They can be told the truth and even help oppose Potimas if need be. Those elves only want to help save the world as they understand it--that’s not wrong. That’s not even a crime! They’re just being manipulated like Oka is.

So why do they have to die, too? Furthermore, with the cyborg elves/any other compatible elf, they can have those “feelers” removed. Magically, physically, or whatever. Or even just put Potimas into a position where he can’t latch onto a new body. Like, there must be a range limit, right? I don’t remember if it said there was, but I can double check later. Or, hell, even use his own barrier against him by modifying it somehow. I’m willing to bet those “feeler” things are related in some way to something that could either resemble a skill or exist outside the system. If conjuring exists outside the system, at least with certain things, then you can theoretically conjure a way to force Potimas to be trapped within his own body when he dies.

It’s magic. Wakaba has already shown that you can basically do whatever the fuck you want as long as you have the energy/runes to do it. So just do something like that instead of committing elf genocide.

I mean, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the author before, in terms of how she’s (?) handled tropes. Okina Baba might betray my expectations and end up writing something other than literally killing every last elf save Oka and/or planetary genocide. She handled the goblin concept/design super well, and she’s handled the demon stuff petty well. It didn’t read as antisemitic, and there’s been a consistent pattern of Not Always Chaotic Evil throughout the work.

It would be severely disappointing if this is where her writing fell flat, considering how well she’s handled all the other stuff so far, and I’m honestly not sure if it would ruin the series for me. Probably not completely, as there’s a large amount of material that;s legitimately good and fun, but I would definitely be disappointed.

That’s my feelings on it, at least.

[writerice]

Honestly, South Park is a really good show. Anyone who calls it racist today, fundamentally misunderstood why it makes of fun of busybodies, as well as why remaining chilled, calm and cool is actually a good thing. People complain a lot that South Park is a show where uncaring is cool, and where people who care too much are the butts of jokes. Now, I never want to do this- I don’t want to deny someone else their perspective- But these opinions are built on shaky premises, and misses the mark.   First lets start with Eric Cartman, who is recognized as the source of a lot of the bigotted comedy in the show. Eric Cartman, ever since the first season, had almost always been put in the role of an antagonist/ that one drama queen who no one wants to get involved with. He finds ways to manipulate situations if it’ll mean he’ll receive something out of it, and is a self-centered person to the extreme. When he says bigotted things, we’re supposed to find him disagreeable and hateful, and his being funny will never make what he says to be okay. We’re also supposed to feel refreshened whenever Stan and Kyle immediately admonish him for being a dick, which is also funny, because holy shit, not only do we have a child spouting antisemitic bullshit, but we have children who will actively tell their peer to fuck off! Its wonderous. This is WHY South Park was so fascinating to begin with; Before South Park, there was never a seriously funny depiction of kids using realistic adult profanity while having childlike discussions on topics that were considered political.  Now lets move onto Stan and Kyle: These two are clearly shown to be awesome and cool kids who just want to have fun and enjoy their lives. They don’t want to be roped into things that adults tell them that they’re supposed to be worried about. They’re kids, they live in the present. They live uncomplicated lives, as any 8-year old should, unless its something they’re interested in, like an adventure involving other kids from their class (anyone remember them capturing a paper fortune teller from the girls?). They don’t force themselves to care about things. They understand from a young age that ungenuine about causes can be harmful, and a waste of time and energy. 

When they DO genuinely care about things, we have cool and rich plots emerge that are related to our understanding of them as characters- Stan has successfully helped save the lives of veal up for slaughter, as well as whales. Kyle navigates his Jewish faith and identity while being one of the most compassionate human beings on television. Even better than that, these boys arent’ even particularily strongly identified. Stan isn’t that “animal rights activist”, and Kyle isn’t that “humanitarian child”, they’re flexible and dimensional characters. They have their moments where they’re just being kids and are relaxing and having fun like normal, as opposed to brooding over shit that they can’t control. It seemed like South Park had an accurate depiction of what a healthy attachment to identity/cause actually looked like, WAY beyond this era of neuroticism where people are encouraged box themselves.

It says a lot of sad things about children nowadays, too. Children in the current generation are pushed harder than in prior generations in being perfect students, with mandatory volunteer work pushed onto them and being told that they need to develop their life’s passion in time for college plans. Some of them get pushed into becoming esports stars or child Youtubers by their parents. When do they even have the chance to be children anymore? 

Now, onto the adults of the show: The adults are always screwing things up. They want to ride on causes that they aren’t truly aware of. 

They are their own society’s disruptors; They often neglect to critically examine whether their call for action and change are justified. They don’t check to see whether their actions are necessary, or if their methods are reasonable. Sometimes, their actions create more damage than if they didn’t do anything at all! And this is why we mock them- Not “for caring”, but because they’re busy bodies; Their motivation to act or call for change comes less from wanting to affect meaningful change within their society, and comes more out of a vague desire to want to “better themselves”. 

Its the type of selfishness that we don’t really speak enough about in our current society as we should be- How people get intertwined into causes they aren’t truly thoughtful enough about, because they’re just encouraged to get passionate about “anything” that moves them, or “anything that seems worthwhile”.

And this is both stupid, as well as dangerous, because you want people to be mindful about what the real affect of their “help” is. Some things that people do in the name of ���help” either don’t help the people it’s intended to help (the only poor family in South Park, the Mc Cormicks, get a single can of vegetables on Thanksgiving via a gameshow-like contraption, and they don’t even get a can-opener for it), or make matters worse for those it claims to help (Like Bono claiming that Timmy playing in a band was akin to mocking his disability).  People can, and should be encouraged to help make a difference, but you don’t want a culture where you keep pushing people to change things for the vague reasoning of “being a good person”. You want people who are informed, aware, are capable of critical thinking, and who can tell when and where their efforts are actually needed. 

Also, this is extremely important: But South Park is, like literally everything ever, a product of it’s time. This show was made during the 1990′s to early or late 2000′s, when things like media activist groups existed to police and censor stuff for people because of those things being deemed “insensitive”. This was before the internet was fully used on the scale it is today, so people were being limited from being able to watch/read/play or otherwise access media based purely on stupid, petty shitty reasons.

Like not allowing children to enjoy Canadian television because farting or using cusswords is “too offensive”, where you were dealing with Karens who had way too much power and time to spend. It meant telling Karens/Boomers relax and not to deprive other people of their ability to express themselves just because they didn’t think their interests were “appropriate”. Totally a different thing than when we talk about the generalized concept of sensitivity today, when we’re refering to how human beings are made to feel as based on their identity. 

Kyle’s lectures at the end of an episode are meaningful- It doesn’t exist to “undo” any offensiveness in an episode. He’s a voice of reason who brings together the social commentary. I don’t see why anyone would ever have a problem with it. Is it obvious and easy? Yes. Does it put a nice cap on the end of an episode to return everything to status quo in time for the next one? Yes. I loved it. I thought it made for a comfortable, easy viewing experience. It may be considered formulaic, but thats how they made the end of an otherwise edgy episode feel wholesome, or depart a message of value.

Its easy to see this as an “attack on caring”, if you’re applying it directly to today’s movements and stuff, but that requires a lot of willful ignorance, and an even greater lack of understanding the context the show was made in. We all have access to wikipedia, no one has an excuse. 

TL;DR, it didn’t “age badly”. It was extremely relevant for its time. Context matters, and this show was perfect for the context of it’s time. The creators are doing their best to address current modern day topics with new story-telling, so maybe look to the present and be amazed by how much they’ve decided to change in those regards instead of repeatedly making everyone who grew up with the show feel old. Sincerely, a nonbinary pansexual liberal woman of color who just wants to enjoy South Park as the greatest still-running animated satire ever, thank you

[rose-sunlight]

J&C’s RTA (or, for the boring people: Jake and Charles’ Road Trip Adventure)

Pairings: Implied Jake Peralta/Charles Boyle, Mentioned Jake Peralta/Amy Santiago, Jake Peralta/Original Male Character (OC)

Warnings: One mention of antisemitism, but it isn't graphic.

Summary: When Jake returns from being undercover, Charles realises how depressed he is over Amy's rejection. He decided the perfect remedy is a BFF Road trip. Little does he know, this Road Trip will bring some interesting revelations into the light.

A/n: This is for the @b99fandomevents​ Summer 2020 Fic Exchange written for @impossiblyizzy​! Hope you enjoy!

As soon as Jake returned to the precinct after being undercover, Charles began to plan this trip. He knew about Jake confessing his feelings to Amy (squeal), and how he was horribly rejected. When he returned, unchanged from his stint undercover, Charles vowed to take Jake on a road trip to end all road trips.

He even decided that Jake could dub their trip, hoping that would cheer him up. It did, and so they left on their summer J&C’s RTA—unknowing that what would happen could possibly change the course of their friendship forever.

Of course, Charles knew that they had to have an appropriate car to travel the way in, that’s why he chose a 1960’s panel van, like the one from Scooby-Doo. He thought Jake would look at it and smile; he did, but his smile disappeared almost instantly. Even when he climbed inside and looked around at all the snacks and chips Charles had bought (he had decided on the ones Jake likes, not the ones he liked that had a crunchy mealworm flavour. But Jake looked at them and smiled again, leaning against the window as Charles began to drive to their first location.

The music was blaring: Jake had insisted that Carly Rae-Jepsen and Taylor Swift be playing constantly at full volume. Charles had one hand outside the car, dragging it through the air, feeling the wind between his fingers as they flew past grand houses in the suburbs of New York at break-neck speed. Jake had his eyes closed against the rays of the sunlight coming through the windshield, a small smile tugging on his lips.

He was picturing Amy here with him, experiencing the beginnings of this elysian sunset.

“You know what you need?” Charles said, not taking his eyes off the road.

Jake shrugged, “A dartboard with Teddy’s dumb stupid face on it?”

“No,” Charles sighed, “You need to find someone else. Someone who will make you forget about Amy!”

Jake shook his head “I don’t know, Charles, I just can’t do that. Everyone would remind me of Amy.” He knew this was a lie, he could find someone who was the opposite of Amy and love them for the night, but it wouldn’t be the same, because all he would be able to think of would be how it wasn’t Amy holding him, kissing his neck…

“Well, I’m sure someone where we’re going will have a pair of lips for you.”

“In a weird way, thanks.”

They arrived at their first hotel stop the next day, after taking turns driving. It wasn’t much, but it was grand in its own way, with charming old windows and exposed brick. It was almost like a cottage, but with people and balconies watching you arrive. Charles slung his bag over his bag, slamming his car door shut as Jake did the same.

The receptionist was an older woman, scowling with tiny glasses on the bridge of her nose as Charles smiled and gave their room numbers. He’d decided, for privacy (a new concept for Charles, but one he was willing to learn for the sake of his heartbroken friend), that they would have separate rooms. He looked back from the scornful woman to Jake, who was frantically typing on his phone.

“Who’s that?” Charles asked as Jake shot up, eyes wide, like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“Oh, uh, no one, just…you know, Rosa…”

Charles raised an eyebrow “Oh, yeah, right, we both know Rosa doesn’t text you for that long,” His eyes comically widened in realisation, like the parent who had caught him with said hand in the cookie jar, “you’re texting Amy, aren’t you?”

“What? Charles, no, why would I?”

Before Charles could respond, the scowling woman passed over the two keys, suddenly breaking out into a fond smile that shook Charles slightly. He grabbed them and thanked her “You boys have fun; are you waiting on another couple?” She asked, holding back the other key.

Charles blushed, suddenly a bumbling mess “Uh, no, we-we’re not…uh…we’re not a couple…” He managed to blurt out, watching as the woman pushed her glasses up and smiled awkwardly.

“Oh, I’m sorry, here,” she replied, handing over the second key before gesturing to the stairs “your floor is the third, first two doors on the right, you can’t miss them.”

“Ok, great, thanks” Jake said, grabbing his bags and dragging Charles away from the woman, who he was still gaping at for assuming the two of them were a couple. They were halfway up the stairs when Jake turned back to Charles, who was still frowning as he walked.

“You know,” Jake started “I never imagined you to act so weird just because someone assumed you were with a dude”.

Charles shook his head again, furrowing his eyebrows as they finally got to their respective rooms “Oh, no, it wasn’t that I just realised that she looked like Julia Child! I have all her cookbooks, she looked just like her!”

“Oh, sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

There was a pause as they both stood in their hallways, staring at each other. The night was still hot and the stars that had just peaked out from the New York smog were shining through, creating an almost blue effect on Jake and Charles face. Jake had to stop; in this light, he noted how handsome his best friend truly was, but only in the way that his looks complimented his personality nicely.

Jake swallowed on air, Adam’s apple bobbing “I’m…going to go in. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Yeah,” Charles nodded, smiling a toothless grin “See you in the morning.”

They went into their separate rooms. Charles couldn’t sleep: he didn’t really understand why Jake got so offended about his supposed shock around being called a couple. He figured it was just a normal Jake move, standing up for whatever he felt was right. Maybe he felt a compassion to help those marginalised groups. After all, Jake had revealed to them the horrific things said about him in his youth when he wore the star of David around his neck.

Charles decided to sleep it off. Jake wasn’t doing much sleeping, and wasn’t planning on doing so until his casual fling was out of his room. He wanted them to stay, for that bit of closeness he really needed from anyone, but he decided that it was easier this way, for them to sneak out in the early hours of the morning.

Morning came, and the weather had ramped up again. It was a heavy heat that made it almost impossible to breathe, and Boyle was sure he would’ve died if it wasn’t for his sleep apnoea mask keeping him breathing. He almost slept in, like he was planning to, but housekeeping knocked (even though he had put ‘do-not-disturb’ on his door handle), and he found himself scurrying out of the room in shorts and a t-shirt.

Unfortunately—or, fortunately, for Jake, Boyle had stepped out of his room the exact time his fling of the night left, planting a big kiss on his lips, while Jake stood in the doorway of his room, dressed only in a pair of white boxers.

“Thanks for a great night.” The man, Jason, he had introduced himself as, said, walking straight past Boyle’s gobsmacked face. Although, it did make a lot of sense for Jake to like guys, when he thought about it. Jake stared back at Charles with a pale face, one arm outstretched.

“How much of that did you see?” He asked, not as concerned as Charles thought he would be, judging on the nice shade of translucent Jake had seemingly turned “I need to know so I can gauge how big my lie has to be”

Charles cut him off “Jake, you could’ve just told me.”

Jake’s shoulders slumped “I know. But…I don’t know, I’ve been keeping this a secret for so long, I was worried you’d be mad. No one knows, if that helps, not even Gina.”

“Knows what?”

Jake flushed red “You know what.”

Charles took a step forward, trying his best to be comforting to his embarrassed and half-naked friend. “I know, but…but it might help you if you say it out loud.”

He had a glint in his eye, and Charles could detect it as unwavering emotion and unshed tears from years of pent-up frustration. He wonders how many times Jake’s tried to tell the squad, how many times he’s tried to correct the pronouns of whoever he’d been on a date with the day before his shift. “N—” he let out a deep blowing breath, “No one else knows…that I’m Bisexual.”

Charles smiled proudly, reaching out to pull Jake into a hug. He didn’t cry, not even as Charles stroked his back comfortingly. He was just relieved that someone else knew. If it had to be anyone, he was glad it was Charles.

“If it helps…no one would judge you. Especially not me.” Charles gave a stern look, and Jake almost begged him silently to continue. “I’m Pansexual! I thought you knew, Jakey, I talk about my fat crush on Dave from HR all the time!”

If Jake was in a cartoon, his eyes would be like saucers right about now. “I thought you meant in…like, a bro way!”

“There is no way me talking about all the explicit things I’d let him do could possibly be in a bro way.” Charles deadpanned as Jake let out a breathy laugh.

“Cool.” Jake said, smiling at his friend as if their eyes had just met for the first time in their friendship. He sits down on the motel fire escape, and Charles joins him, knees brushing against each other “So how does being Pan work?”

Charles sighed “A lot of people say a lot of different things. For me…I’m attracted to the soul of someone before their body. I don’t care about gender, as long as they’re kind and intellectually sexy.” He was staring straight at Jake now (no pun intended).

“We’re super dumb.” Jake groaned.

“Yep.”

“Are our gay-dars that broken that we’ve been friends for what? Five years? And neither of us knew the other was LGBTQIA?”

Charles let out a large giggle, smiling at Jake, nudging him slightly “One hell of a road-trip, right?”

“Yeah,” Jake smiled back, “And it’s only just started.”

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[themiscyra1983]

The Elephant In The Room

Let me preface all this by saying I do not have time for assholes. If you come at me with insults and contempt, I will block you.

The other day on Twitter I said the Harry Potter books aren’t good. I said this to a friend but I guess some people just keep an eye out for whatever Harry Potter shit pops up on Twitter and/or the algorithm just likes to spit in people’s eyes because hoooo boy people saw and lost their minds. I blocked two people over it because they decided to be assholes, and had a somewhat terse conversation with someone who was more politely insistent before going, finally, “I’m glad you find joy in something I no longer care for” and putting an end to the conversation.

It’s no particular secret that I’m in the fandom, and prior to J.K. Rowling going full, ‘no plausible deniability here’ transphobe, I’d bought my share of official merch. Frankly I should have stopped that sooner, but it took getting figuratively slapped in the face multiple times before I finally admitted Rowling’s ignorance carried a distinct air of willfulness and malice. Anyway I still HAVE the stuff I bought before, the Ravenclaw crap, the wands I was collecting (no more of that, I fear, though I’d hoped to pick up Tonks and Ginny’s wands at least before I brought an end to it), the Ravenclaw goblet I was gifted from a friend who bought it before JKR passed the plausibly just clueless horizon. There is still much in the world that I love, but much of that love comes now from the creations of others, and I cannot in good conscience spend money in ways that directly benefit Rowling’s financial empire.

And the Harry Potter books are not, in my view, good books. I’ve felt that for a while now. I’ll go a step further: I think they’re dangerous stories to tell children; I think I would be uncomfortable reading them to any children I might have. They are not stories that should be viewed without a critical eye. I loved them as a teenager. I’ve grown more uncomfortable with them - and, as with Twilight, far more comfortable with how critically thinking fans have transformed the work - as time has passed.

This actually has very little to do with the fact that, well...Rowling is not the best writer. Listen. I’m a Power Rangers fan. I’ve watched every incarnation of Star Trek, and every single movie. I have no problem with trashy fiction. You will find me rooting around in the garbage with the finest raccoons. But that is part of it, yes; there are flaws in the craft of it, and I don’t feel that, inherently, we needn’t judge children’s fiction by adult standards. I would argue that the very BEST children’s fiction is also excellent by adult standards. But this is the least of my concerns.

Here are my actual concerns.

Rowling wants credit for declaring Dumbledore gay after the fact, for saying Hogwarts is a safe space for all students in ways not reinforced (and in fact actively contradicted) by the text, for cheering the fan-created same-sex marriage of Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan, but she doesn’t want to take the creative risks that go along with that. When she had the opportunity, with the Fantastic Beasts movies, to make that subtext text, she and her cronies outright declined it. At every opportunity she has shied away from actually putting her high-minded ideas to the page. This is a cowardly choice at best.

Further, Dumbledore’s only canonical love interest (and it is not clear whether the love was requited) was a pretty fascist with whom he fell in, politically, for a time. I get it, we’ve all had crushes on terrible people. But this is literally his one and only love, requited or not, and after he defeats Grindelwald he is left to pine away for the remainder of his days. The one gay love story in the books - if you tilt your head, and squint, and accept Rowling’s word for it - is a tragic one that leaves one man in prison and another celibate and alone and, increasingly, a manipulative bastard who upholds the status quo.

There’s nothing wrong with a tragic love story. I’ve enjoyed quite a few. But when this - THIS - is what you hold up as a triumph of representation, in the absence of ANYTHING else...no. No cookies for you.

Let’s also talk about how I don’t feel Rowling wrote Dumbledore or approaches him with a critical eye. There is NO excuse for leaving a child in an abusive home. No, fuck your blood wards. You’re telling me that Albus Dumbledore - ALBUS DUMBLEDORE - could not devise protections better than leaving Harry with abusive relatives who despised him and everything he stood for? Then, too, when Dumbledore did intervene in Harry’s life, he did so with full knowledge that he was setting Harry up to be a sacrificial lamb, AND WITH THIS SPECIFIC END IN MIND. None of this is acceptable. Dumbledore is a fucking manipulative, abusive bastard who uses people and throws them away, and the fact that it WORKED OUT for Harry does not absolve him of his crimes.

Moving on, and bear in mind I’m still getting my steam up on this whole rant: Seamus Finnegan. Seamus Finnegan is the one canonically, obviously Irish character in the books, named quite stereotypically, but more importantly, in the books and movies, is shown to be interested in (a) liquor and (b) making things explode. He’s REALLY GOOD at making things explode. Do I need to explain why it’s problematic for the one Irish character to blow things up all the time? He also does this in defense of UK wizardry’s status quo, so, you know, even if you were all IRISH FREEDOM FIGHTER YEAH, I assure you he is not that guy.

There is an entire species of sapient magical creatures who exist solely to serve witches and wizards. Hogwarts is run on slave labor and most of the finest wizard families hold slaves. But it’s all right! Only one of them has ever, in the context of the books, wished to be emancipated, and everyone else views Dobby as a weirdo for wishing to be free, and paid for his labor. Dobby, incidentally, later lays down his life for the wizarding savior who tricked his master into freeing him. The only other emancipated house elf we see in the books, Winky, spends her time in a state of drunken depression, rendering her useless and scarcely capable even of caring for herself. She wished to remain enslaved, do you see, and was helpless without the benevolent guidance of her master.

There’s fan work that has tried to address this by exploring a mystically symbiotic relationship between house elves and wizards and witches, and yes, yes, J.K. Rowling is drawing on European folklore here, but let’s not give her credit, okay?

Goblins. Goblins! Goblins have a long history of being antisemitic stereotypes to begin with (hence why I have seen multiple Jews on Tumblr push back HARD on ‘goblincore’), but J.K. Rowling just...right. They’re short, ugly, have hooked noses, generally look like antisemitic cartoon figures. They are locked out of power but control all the wizarding world’s banking, and do so in very usurious ways, for example charging wizards to hold their money, etc. Now this might be an interesting commentary on how Jews have historically been oppressed and forced into fields that goyim felt themselves too ‘pure’ to work in, were it not for the fact that Rowling’s fantasy Jews LITERALLY AREN’T HUMAN, and more, ARE ACTUALLY GREEDY, CONNIVING, AND WILLING TO BETRAY YOU AGAINST THEIR OWN SELF-INTEREST FOR PERSONAL GAIN. FUCKING GOBLINS, MAN.

Then there’s the travesty of Magic in North America, which disrespected the intelligence of Native Americans (none of them figured out you could point a stick at something to make the magic go until white people showed up to help, apparently, but don’t worry, they’re really CLOSE TO NATURE and GOOD AT NATURAL MAGIC), disrespected the beliefs of specific peoples (no, skinwalkers aren’t just misunderstood shapechanging wizards and witches smeared by the greedy and ignorant, you’re whitesplaining actual mythology to the people who hold it sacred), made the ONE wizarding school in America white with an appropriated Native veneer, and generally just...Did Not Get America. As bad as the UK Wizarding World is, Rowling demonstrated complete IGNORANCE regarding the long history of what we now call North America, ignorance of even modern American culture (there’s a reason why American fans particularly tend to ignore the idea that wizardry is locked down tight behind a wall of secrecy here), ignorance and disrespect toward Native populations, and an unwillingness to do the research necessary to do this shit right.

There’s more. There’s blood purity, and gender politics, and Severus Snape’s portrayal, and all kinds of shit that grates, and I’m just tired.

Writers make mistakes. it happens. But Rowling does not recognize her mistakes. She does not seek to make amends. She just barrels on with her shitty opinions, regardless of who she hurts.

it is at the point where I am no longer even willing to thank her for graciously allowing us to play in her sandbox. We don’t need her blessing; the OTW has done far more for fanfic than she has. And it is, indeed, beginning to grate on me that people constantly try to apply Harry Potter metaphors to real life and real politics. As my friend Doc often says, find another book.

I love butterbeer (or at least the knockoffs available outside the Universal parks), I still read fanfic sometimes, I still like to play with ideas like the Harry Potter movies as performed by Muppets, with Dan Radcliffe as Snape and Tom Felton as Lucius. I’m glad the movies brought us a generation of actors, mentored by performers like Alan Rickman and Maggie Smith and so many others, who have gone on to bigger and better things. Much of my merch is packed away, but I still hold on to some of it because it has new meaning for me in light of fanwork, or because (in the case of my Ravenclaw hat and scarf) it’s warm, winters here are cold, I don’t want to buy new shit, leave me alone.

I am accustomed to seeing fans turn trash into treasure. I’ve tried to do it myself. But I feel, quite strongly, that the original text in this case is trash. it is radioactive, stinky trash. You won’t persuade me otherwise, and I’m done apologizing for it. If Rowling wants me to respect her and her work again, she’ll have to earn it, but I’m very trans and she low-key hates my kind, so even if I weren’t a random reader I wouldn’t be holding my breath.

And I really, really need to emphasize to you all that it is okay if people don’t like a given work of fiction. It is okay if people HATE that piece of fiction. You don’t need to change the minds of everyone around you. You absolutely will not succeed in doing so. Please, I’m begging you, make peace with that - and please, I’m begging you, even if you like something, try to consider it critically.

[newsiepedia]

Character Profile: Jack (Musical Version)

Real Name: Possibly Jack Kelly. However, in the film, that was an alias, and his real name was Francis Sullivan. (Newsies Film script, page 77) The same could be true for this Jack.

Nickname and Meaning: None (unless you count Jack Kelly)

Age: During the song Santa Fe, Jack sings “Trapped where there ain’t no future/ even at seventeen”, implying that he is, in fact, 17. (Newsies Live script, page 45)

Gender: Jack is always played by a man.

Family: Jack used to have a dad, but he died before the story started. (Newsies Live script, page 1) Aside from him, Jack has “no folks, nowhere”. (Newsies Live script, page 2)

Jack…:

Loves art. He paints for two main reasons- to help Miss Medda’s theatre by painting sets for her, (Newsies Live script, page 19) (Trading Card) or to calm down after going through something traumatic, like seeing his friends hurt or being locked up in the Refuge. (Newsies Live script, pages 53, 55, 65) But Jack doesn’t just like art- he’s good at it, too. Miss Medda remarks that he’s “got natural aptitude”, (Newsies Live script, page 19) and from what we see on stage, his paintings are professional looking, with excellent color choices. (Example)

Can’t take a complement. Despite his skill, when Medda tells Jack that he’s “quite an artist”, Jack aggressively brushes it off. (Newsies Live script, page 19) He also gets embarrassed and tells Davey to “shut up” after he rejoins the strike and Davey tells him they’re glad to have him back. (Newsies Live script, page 69)

Is traumatized. Jack suffered terribly at the hands of Snyder, to the point where he would abandon his best friend to get away from him. (Newsies Live script, pages 44, 45) However, he was also impacted by the death of his father- he talks to himself about his death (Newsies Live script, page 1) and gets very uncomfortable when Davey mentions his family. (Newsies Live script, page 17) This could show that Jack lost his father at a very young age, or that he watched him die.

Is a womanizer. When Jack first meets Katherine, he is very creepy to her. He annoys her while she’s working, (Newsies Live script, pages 21, 22) derails conversations about other topics to flirt with her, (Newsies Live script, page 36) and clearly doesn’t take her seriously as a reporter.(Newsies Live script, pages 33, 34) However, as he gets to know Katherine, Jack changes his ways (a little). He recognizes her intelligence enough to let her take over the strike and spread it to working children all over the city, (Newsies Live script, page 66) and when the strike is done he genuinely cares enough about her to give up on going to Santa Fe. (Newsies Live script, page 78) However, it is unclear if Jack’s attitude change applies to women in general, or only to Katherine.

Is naturally charismatic. Despite his poor treatment of her, Katherine still can’t help but think of Jack as “handsome, (and) heroically charismatic”. (Newsies Live script, page 78) He also convinces some of the more anxious newsies to strike within a day of coming up with the idea. (Newsies Live script, pages 27, 28, 29, 30, 41, 42) He does such a good job that even when Jack has given up on the strike, the newsies drag him right back into the fray. (Newsies Live script, pages 55, 56, 57)

Is highly emotional. Jack doesn’t try to hide any of his feelings, be they positive or negative. He is incredibly affectionate with Les and Crutchie, (Newsies Live script, pages 1, 2, 3, 16, 26) and claims to be in love with Katherine shortly after meeting her. (Newsies Live script, pages 67, 68) However, when something goes wrong, Jack also reacts very strongly. When the price of papers is raised, Jack is furious, practically screaming during The World Will Know. (Newsies Live script, page 30) Later, when a group of newsies scab, Jack desperately tries to convince them not to give up, almost crying. (Newsies Live script, pages 41, 42) This is most apparent after Crutchie is taken to the Refuge. The fearless Jack Kelly quickly retreats and goes into a depressive episode, almost calling off the whole strike. He only rejoins the cause when Davey, Katherine, and Les remind him that quitting is pretty much a death sentence for Crutchie. (Newsies Live script, pages 55, 56, 57) 

Loves his newsies. Jack sees himself not as a leader, but as perhaps an older brother to his newsies. When Pulitzer raises the price of papers, Jack refuses to let him hurt is boys, and encourages them to strike with him as leader. (putting him in more danger than usual). (Newsies Live script, pages 25, 26) He also does his best to keep the newsies from worrying, offering to go to Brooklyn when everyone else is too scared. (Newsies Live script, page 33) He’s especially fond of newsies he can help, like Crutchie, and Davey and Les (who are new).

Is not academically smart. What Jack has in social skills and planning ability, he lacks in general knowledge. Among his many gaffs are calling Brooklyn “the sixth largest city in the world”, (Newsies Live script, page 33) telling Crutchie to “quit gripin’” about his bum leg because it helps him sell (conveniently forgetting that Crutchie doesn’t want to rely on his leg to sell well, his bad leg is very painful, and that being crippled puts him in danger of being thrown in the Refuge forever), (Newsies Live script, page 1) and almost ruining his chances of getting the strike covered by hitting on the cute reporter. He readily admits it, though- when Katherine calls him the newsies’ leader, he’s quick to tell her that Davey is the one with all the ideas. (Newsies Live script, page 36)

Is cocky. The instant Davey suggests a strike, Jack is wholly on board. He doesn’t think about how dangerous a strike could be to the kiddos, he just starts assigning roles and giving orders. (Newsies Live script, pages 25, 26, 27) He also continues to hit on Katherine even after she expresses her disinterest. (Newsies Live script, pages 21, 22, 36) 

Doesn’t actually want to go to Santa Fe. As Miss Medda so cleverly pointed out, Jack isn’t "going somewhere”. (Newsies Live script, page 53) Instead, Santa Fe represents what Jack really wants- a family. Just look at how he describes it- during Santa Fe Prologue, he says that in Santa Fe “your friends are more like family” and “why, the minute that you get there, folks’ll walk right up and say/ welcome home son, welcome home to Santa Fe”. (Newsies Live script, page 2) It’s also interesting to note that the only newsie Jack calls family is Crutchie, who is also the only newsie who shares his dream of Santa Fe. (Newsies Live script, page 3)

Could hold some antisemitic beliefs. Jack probably doesn’t know that Davey is Jewish (as it’s never confirmed in canon) but he probably picked up on it somehow (maybe even subconsciously). This puts certain quotes into a different perspective- like how Jack accused Davey of being willing to let kids be sent to the Refuge for “half a penny a pape” (a common antisemitic stereotype is that Jews are greedy). (Newsies Live script, page 55)

Headcanon Fuel:

Why does Jack want to run away to Santa Fe, specifically?

How did Jack learn to paint?

How did Jack become the (unofficial) leader of the Manhattan newsies?

Why is Jack so much loser with Crutchie than the rest of the newsies?

What did Jack’s father do for a living? 

How did Jack’s father die?

How did Jack meet Miss Medda?

Why does Jack have a soft spot for kids?

Why won’t Jack accept complements?

Why is Jack such a flirt?

Actors and Physical Appearance:

Jeremy Jordan

Corey Cott

Dan Deluca

Joey Barreiro

Jack is tall and thin, but muscular. He has curly black hair and a square jaw. He usually wears blue.

[sophygurl]

Okay, time for me to try and remember all the stuff I wanted to make sure and say about my lovely time at WisCon 43 this past weekend. 

Generally, I was just so pleased to once again get to extrovert all over the place in a space filled with amazing people. I got to hang out in my adjoining room full of my pals where we got to touch base with one another between running off to do other things and download our days to one another each evening. I got to enjoy several nice meals with friends I rarely get to see and acquaintances that I admire and respect. I got to have fascinating conversations with combinations of friends, acquaintances, and strangers in the lobby and at parties and in the hot tub. I got to sit on panels with intelligent and creative people with all different perspectives. I got to show off fun outfits and feast my eyes on everyone else’s cool shit and do the smile-and-wave at people I only see once a year even if we never got the chance to actually sit down and talk. I got to meet lots of new people and have adding frenzies on twitter and just generally delight to my heart’s content in awesome smart nerdy people who are also feminists with intersectional leanings - many of whom were also disabled and/or queer in a variety of ways. This is all what I just adore about WisCon so much. And it did not disappoint. 

Being my 10th WisCon, I have stopped being utterly shocked that people might know/remember me. But I’m still a little bit amazed and delighted by it - especially when it comes from folks who I admire a lot and also have not spoken to more than once or twice. I know some people are just better at remembering and recognizing people than I am? But it still never fails to impress me!

I was a little less schedule-y with myself this year than usual. Which is not to say that I didn’t have full written schedules of all the things I wanted to do (planning is my favorite of my OCD symptoms so...). But I was a lot more flexible about doing things like walking in late to a panel because I got excited to sit outside and talk to someone I ran into in the halls beforehand or leaving a panel early if I felt like I wanted to take my time getting to the next thing. I may have still written down all of the things I wanted to be doing in any given time slot and prioritized them in order - BUT I played it by ear at each time and often did a totally different thing. lol

I still did lots of panels! In fact, I find I get to so many panels that I don’t spend as much time just doing hang-out activities as much as I’d like because there is only so much time in a day. I once again never made it to the trans/genderqueer/non-binary space and only went to the disability space the one time for the organized dinner. Ah, maybe next year!

I also still took notes during the panels I went to, but not as copiously as usual, and my handwriting is getting worse all the time so we’ll see how/if my panel write-ups go this year. 

Getting my new walker the day before the con made a huge difference! It’s been two years since my previous walker broke down and I for sure noticed the difference in how much easier it was for me to get around to have one again. 

On the other end of things, I have really gotten used to my hospital bed and having to sort out how to sleep in a regular bed again was an adventure in positioning various cushions and pillows and blankets around and requiring more lidocaine for nerves that got bungled up. But it worked(ish). 

I also broke the toilet in our room. As in, neither plunging nor snaking did the trick and the maintenance guy had to take our toilet apart and cart it off and put a different one in it’s place. The replacement toilet was not currently in use for reasons that soon became obvious - lots of gurgling noises and self-flushing going on. But at least it flushed! 

A few more specific things:

I found a pair of hot pink denim capri’s at the clothing swap that I’m excited to try out! 

I discovered that my habit of suggesting lots of panel descriptions is more of a thing than I realized. Like, I knew I wrote a lot - I just didn’t realize how much more than the other average con-goer that was. I can’t decide if I should be more embarrassed or pleased/proud of this? But either way, it’s not going to stop me and I already have a huge list of ideas to write up for next year, so. 

Only made it to one party, but glad I got to that one. I find I don’t have the physical energy for dance parties anymore and have never been a huge fan of the sit around and make small talk parties, but the Secret Superhero party that Alexandra Erin and co. throw every year is a good one because 1) they give people Stuff To Do which helps cover for all manner of social awkwardness and 2) there’s already built-in a few people I know and can reliably socialize with a little bit so I have less of that tendency to walk in - peek around - see no one I know (or only see ppl I know already talking to other people) - get intimidated - and leave. 

Had planned to go to a lunch meeting for people to yell about The Magicians (of which I have a feeling my opinions would have largely been contradictory), but accidentally wandered off to lunch with other people without realizing I’d done so! Hopefully the 3 people I wandered off with did not feel as though I’d tagged along uninvited, but I certainly enjoyed the chance to get to know them all a little better. 

Once again did not make it to the Vid Party, but DID make it to the Vid Deep Dive panel, which was great. And have watched a bunch of the vids on the list now and am super excited about vids in general again and am hopeful that this will lead me to actually using my YouTube and AO3 accounts to specifically watch and fangirl over vids more. Vids are like magic to me and vidders like wizards - I am so in awe of their talent I cannot. 

Had some really interesting conversations about religion and fandom throughout the con - starting with my panel on the use of religion in SFF TV shows, dovetailing into a fascinating conversation down at the pool, and ending with some thinky thoughts coming out of the Antisemitism at WisCon panel. Possibly more on that later. Also possibly some more panels on the subject for next year?

Lots of panel topics and conversations this year ended up being about the combination of two subjects very close to my heart: 1) hope and/or redemption, and 2) community. Again, possibly more later and certainly some intriguing panel ideas for the coming year. 

I did buy two books this year! Budget does not always allow for book buying, but I did good on the food budget, so I allowed myself two during the sign-out. They were both from people I like to presume to call friends, which is always a nice plus - to buy directly from someone you want to support financially as well as personally. I got First Dates, Last Calls by Alexandra Erin which I’m excited to read and The Apocalypse coloring and activity book by Theo Nicole Lorenz which I’m excited to color!

I had wanted to get Laurie Mark’s final book in the Elemental Logic series Air Logic, along with the 3rd book (since a friend is planning to gift me the first 2 in the series), because Air Logic has just come out and the author and/or publisher were going to be at-con but by the time I got the Dealer’s room they were not there and by the time I left the sign-out they had not gotten there so it was not meant to be. But I still plan to get those books because I ADORE the series so far and am excited about the 4th. (I actually asked my library to purchase the book and am on the first on the holds list to get it once it’s in, so at least I’ll be able to read it soon if not actually own a copy)

As evidenced by my post the other day, I was thinking a lot about conversations being held about making sure more diverse voices are being heard during panels. I don’t have a lot of advice re: making sure more folks from more marginalized groups show up. But I find I did have a lot to say about making sure the panels folks are on end up being inclusive of many voices whether or not those ppl show up to be on the programming itself. And - I suspect - doing the latter well enough will help to foster more of the former as people will feel safer to come and share their perspectives as well as not feel like they have to always BE The Diversity Voice on every panel they choose to attend/be on. But I am a cis white chick, and I feel like it was mostly trans and poc folks these conversations were about, so I am eager to hear what other people have to say about all of this as and if they’re willing to share. 

I tend not to make it to GoH speeches or the Tiptree Auction because I have trouble with sitting still in a large room crowded with people type events. But as expected, even reading the text of Charlie Jane Anders’ speech made me weep with hope and joy and I hope G. Willow Wilson shares hers at some point so that I might also weep at hers. Those GoH speeches are always so inspiring and thrilling. I love this community. I am so grateful I became a part of it. I hope we can just always always keep growing and doing better to and for one another. 

Panels that I may or may not end up writing up a little about in the days to come: 

(the tail end of) Capitalism is Fueled by Anxiety

Favorite Queer Depictions in Fiction

Polyamory and Alternative Relationships

(the first half-ish of) New Pop Culture for Old Farts

Learning to Hear the Dog Whistle

Mental Illness in SFF

Vid Discussion Deep Dive

Antisemitism at WisCon

(parts of) The 116th Congress

Plus the five panels I was on, which will be less notes and more impressions: Killing Eve, Use of Religion in SFF TV, How to Write a Panel, Found Family, and Speculative Fiction on TV [also the spontaneous The Umbrella Academy panel which was small and informal but still really cool!]

[sootonthecarpet]

if it's not too much trouble to answer, can I ask what's been the going on with doctor who that's bad? I've seen little bits of it when my parents watch it in the other room but not enough to really get a good sense of it?

heyyy sorry to keep ya waiting on this. i tried to keep this as short as i could, but it’s about five paragraphs long, sorry. it’s not in any way a comprehensive list of problems with the last few seasons, just a quick tour of the moments i shouldve let be my ‘i can’t keep watching after this’ point. i wanted to write it objectively but i got pretty aggro, bc this show that in some part i genuinely adore has been producing unforgivably bigoted content. (it’s kinda a ship of theseus situation, except where the parts of the ship were replaced with worse, shittier, fake-woke parts.) i ask ppl to avoid reblogging this, because i don’t want my words to contribute in any way to online buzz surrounding this show or make anyone want to see it, even if ONLY to hatewatch or criticize.

content warning for misogynoir/antiblackness, racism, bury ur gays, some shit with nazi germany (yeah lol) and just the slightest kiss of antisemitism.

(edit: i seem to be having some problems with the read more cut. it’s there on dash view and when i edit the post, but doesn’t show on some instances of my blog. i can’t fix this but gksfkgls. wanted to at least be overt that i wouldn’t post this kinda long ranty stuff without a cut.)

in the last season where peter capaldi was the doctor, two seasons ago now, he had a new companion, Bill. she was a black lesbian and literally the only reason i started watching doctor who again. i loved her, and i was really glad to see the show moving back towards the more diverse cast of characters that we saw in the late aughts. then the season had a repeated theme of FORCING her to either repress or not feel her emotions. there are two scenes that stand out most to me. in an ep set in like, early 19th century london, she and the doctor are talking to a racist rich white dude who is being super nasty to Bill. the doctor keeps telling her to cool it and not show how angry she is. then HE gets to punch the guy out and knock him to the floor.

this theme of the white man being the only one allowed to get angry was big all season, iirc. then at the end of the season, Bill is turned into a cyberman. they’re usually like. soulless scary automatons, but some characters keep their individuality, which has been explored in a few past seasons, usually leading up to a tragic/heroic death. in Bill’s case, they did this trick with filming where we could see her perspective of herself in some shots–an intensely emotional performance, Bill was completely traumatized and her actress was working her ass off–and in others, just this metal body incapable of expression, scaring people like she was a monster and monotoning these otherwise very emotional statements. it’s an interesting narrative device, but after a whole season of this show putting Bill through all kinds of terrible shit and forcing her not to show her feelings on the matter, it hit me as like. this nauseating exaggeration of how society treats actual black lesbians as monsters and tries to make them bottle up their emotions and especially their justifiable anger. anyway, then Bill died and got to be with her dead girlfriend from her first episode. wow, cool.

idk what made me watch the season after that. i guess i wanted to see the new doctor, and i liked her companions (one was like. a young man with disabling neurological symptoms, tbh even if i’d missed Bill’s season that might have had me back on board). i had plenty of problems with how the season played out, obvs, but nothing was standout horrible to me the way the shit with Bill had been (except maybe the episode that started out like ‘space amazon is a hellhole’ and somehow ended with ‘space amazon was taken advantage of by a broken AI that hurt some people and they didnt fix the infrastructure we explicitly showed harmed their workers but now it’s fine!’ if that sounds weird and heavy handed with an unsatisfying ending, it’s because it was). the new season tho? the OPENING EPISODES OF THE NEW SEASON, THO? it opens with alexa product placement, in an episode about how a fictionalized google was actually run by a black man who had ties to a large number of aliens who had secretly infiltrated our society, altered our dna, and shit like that. so uh, 1. brand war lmao, sellouts etc etc 2. y’all remember those conspiracy theories about jews? and white supremacist beliefs that black people are ruining the world but aren’t smart enough to do it on their own so they must be agents of jewish corruption? HUH. HUH! that’s not even my big problem with the fuckin thing, but it’s FOR SURE a suspicious writing move from a tv show with suuuuch a huge viewership. (and it’s just plain embarrassing for a show with alexa product placement to try to go all scary panopticon tropes specifically @ a google analogue.)

anyway, we run into an old recurring antagonist, the master, a time lord like the doctor. he’s a guy again after having been a woman for a few seasons, and now played by an actor of color. i figure the reasoning at least partly relied on “dude, how fucked up will it be if we force the doctor’s black friend to call a white dude master” but i was immediately afraid it might go to the like…. Righteous White Woman Gets The Better Of Evil Brown Man tropes and oh boy!!!! i tried to be good and give it the benefit of the doubt until i saw something racist but it wasted no time. the doctor got stuck in the past at one point, and met the master, who was currently a military official with the third reich. oh boy. so she asks him why they let him work with them and he explains he’s using a device to psychically disguise himself, they see him as white. (we missed a great chance for him to monologue about how they were willing to bend their morals when they saw how evil he could get or something.) this was awkward enough for me as a viewer, but i wasn’t prepared to go into it, in case there was some tiny shred of nuance somewhere that would make this situation anything but a clusterfuck.

well, the doctor executes a genuinely clever scheme and makes a radio transmission to the brits that she knows won’t reach em, talking about how helpful this officer has been–setting up the master to be falsely outed as a double agent when the nazis intercept it. she tells the master this and then skedaddles, letting him be arrested by his own men. could be a satisfying karmic victory where he presumably gets a military trial and weasels out of his fate, although i don’t like the implications of a white woman punishing a brown man for racism. BUT IT DIDN’T STOP THERE! she disables his psychic filter, causing his men to see his true identity as a man of color–she exposes her oldest frenemy and Basically The Only Time Lord Who’ll Talk To Her to nazi racism when he was ALREADY about to fall into their hands as a prisoner. what could have been a marginally satisfying defeat was instead a kind of emotional horrorshow for me as i had to stop and wonder what kind of hell they’d put him through and why the writers decided that the doctor (who has literally since the show began in like the sixties been set up as an enemy of naziism via allegory and has always been firm in the idea that NOBODY, including literal maneating space monsters, deserves to be treated as less than human) would DO that. IT’S LATER IMPLIED HE ESCAPED FROM A CONCENTRATION CAMP. the narrative DOES NOT allow time for that to sink in before moving on.

i dont have a conclusion 2 this. im just hurt as fuck about it. i hope i gave u the info u were looking for without getting too deep into my personal feelings, but it’s difficult, maybe impossible to be objective about stuff like this.

[fangsofsin]

Fang! Opinion on the pewdiepie shebang? You had such a well thought out opinion on the septiplier shenanigans, id love your thoughts on this... If you want

(The following opinion may not be your own and that is okay. If You wish to unfollow me for this, I understand and don’t hold you ill.)

I’ve been asked a few times to give myopinion on the whole thing with Felix and Disney and the slander. Ihaven’t said shit, though, because I was afraid – in the earlystate of all this happening – I wouldn’t be able to give a wellthought out and fair response. I’m very big on being fair. Or as fairas one can be about shit. Can’t do that for everything, I know… Butthis is Felix. I’ve been following him since 2010. He got me throughdepression in college. Hell he still does these days… I wanted tobe fair to him but also to what was going on. Because it’s not alight topic to just half-ass reply on. This isn’t some shipping warplayground war… This is a serious topic.

So I’ll give the most basic opinion onthis whole thing. Although you all know me. I’m a rambler. So just…Give me a little patience to explain my thoughts because they may getall over the place. And also know, yes, I know not a lot of peoplewill agree with me. If you have a differing opinion, cool. Share itwith me. Say what you feel. Be honest to me. Everyone is entitled totheir opinion. No matter how I feel against it, it’s their opinion.Opinions can change and grow. So I won’t judge you on that. So try togive me the same courtesy, okay? I like debates anyway. They’re agood way to get shit off your chest.

Anyway, lets start with me saying thatmy first initial response to everything was pretty superficial andpetty. I was mostly just made that Scare PewDiePie Season 2 was beingcanceled. I had been all prepared to get ready to buy YouTube Red atthe end of February so I could watch this without tracking down theepisodes like I had to do with season one. I huffed like a child anddidn’t take into account exactly why everything was getting canceled.I’m human. I can be selfish. And that’s what I was being… Then Ifound out exactly what the fuck was happening, and I was indistraught.

For those that don’t know what’s goingdown and what’s happening, I’m not going to explain everything that’shappening because it would take too long and fill up this post to belonger than I want it to be. But I highly suggest watching h3h3’svideo and Philip Defranco’s video on the whole ordeal (Linked for you. Seriously I would watch thesebefore you go on with this if you don’t know what I’m talking aboutat all). Or if you want more of a basic and outside opinion check outScarce and DramAlert. To get an opposing opinion on everything, checkout Casey Neistat. Seriously a lot of YouTubers are talking aboutthis.

So if you decided to watch all these,cool. If you get what’s going on already, then let me be to the pointand say that yes, I stand with Pewds but I’maware that he did mess up a bit. As I’ve said, I have to be fairabout this whole ordeal because this is a pretty big topic to notthink through. You can’t just gut jump this kinda thing.

I hadto do a lot of research into things as I was reading all the newsarticles and looking through the facts and opinions. I literallyspent a whole day off of work to research what I was being fed byeveryone. I don’t like to not be informed on shit. I like to know abit about what is going on before I jump throats. It’s why I neversaid anything during political debates because I didn’t want to soundlike an idiot ranting about something I didn’t look into. That’s justasking to be verbally smacked down.

Thepeople that are comparing Felix to Hitler… No. Just.. No Really?Why? Second, this whole thing is media manipulation and I know for afact everyone is far more aware of what the fuck that is since thebig media fight after the whole election cover and with fightingagainst the media manipulation of the Dakota Pipeline incident andeven the very obvious media scandal against the POC community! I knoweveryone knows that the media will stop at nothing to make a quickbuck by turning against someone to cover up another incident or evenbecause they were paid undercover of the public eye. I know we areway more aware than that, everyone.

Yetthat doesn’t seem to be the case this time. Pewds has been left as asacrificial lamb to the slaughter house and no one seems to beremembering that this is all happening at a rather convenient time.For awhile, the media was skimming away from Trump trouble – thepossibility of early impeachment coverage hasn’t been covered and Iwasn’t even aware of it until it was pointed out to me during mediaresearch. The Shay Carl incident – which is covered again by allthe above YouTube news coverage and can be found about in multiplearticles – has basically been forgotten. I mean I feel like that’sa little too convenient. Which, hey, it could just be acoincidence… But something about all this doesn’t seem like it is.All lines up too well.

Idon’t trust the media. I’ll say that now. I don’t trust the media andI have to do my own look into things. So everything I’m seeing beingsaid about Felix is just a bit fucked up. I’ve watched all thosevideos that they used to “point out how anti-Semitic” he is. Andthat’s not even right at all. Those clips are clearly edited andimposed with emotion jerking music to promote manipulation! Nevertrust everything on the internet! Rule number one they teach you whendoing research or just goofing around. That’s the first rule Ilearned in my early digital media classes in middle school.

It’slike people forget that manipulation is a thing. Also, to top thingsoff, how wrong is it that so many people were just happily willing tobe like “Oh it’s PewDiePie so it has to be accurate because I hatethat guy”… Seriously. Felix has the largest channel on YouTube.He’s basically the king of it… But he also has such a huge fuckinghate group too. So how fucked up was it that it was easy for peopleto just be like “Sure I buy that” and not even really listen orstop and thing? It’s like the best example of how easy it is forpeople to fall into media traps and that makes me cringe. Becausethat’s one reason Trump is our President right now. Media traps. AndI’m not ashamed to say that because it’s the truth. Hilary and Trumpwere put in Media traps and used media traps. Both did. Equallyfucked up.

TheThird Crusade, Hiter’s anti-Jew propaganda tactics with theholocaust, or the wiping out of over five hundred Jews during theearly 1900s because of false blame of Russia’s peasantry are examplesof extreme Antisemitism. An example of some that is anti-Semitic isHitler. Extremist skinheads are examples of someone anti-Semitic.Hell! Even Walt Disney himself is an example of someone withanti-Semitic behavior.

Thisis not Felix.

Now!Here’s something to keep in mind. Felix isn’t without theshit he’s done in the past that can be considered / is wrong.First off, examples of shit Felix has done in the past is drop theN-Word (Not a fan of that at all and I don’t forget he’s done that),made fun of people with serious disorders like turrets or downsyndrome (granted he was trying to be funny, but even I was like“Okay Felix you’re dragging this out” and “You went from FamilyGuy to Oh That’s Cringe, dude”), and using the term of Gay as a bitof an insult (That’s his much older videos and he fixed that up a bitbut it’s still pretty much there). And he’s even had the occasionalrude comment that can be taken pretty insensitive, on his Twitter. Soyeah, he’s said and wrote down some pretty wrong things. But he hasadmitted to them (Most. I’m not sure if that N-Word shit was coveredbecause I can’t find more on it, but I know it fucking happened) andhe has stepped away from messing in that area.

Thiswhole Fiverr thing is what started it. He set out to do anexperiment. He wanted to show the idiotic things people would say anddo for a quick buck. He was not expecting a response. Even in thevideo – the true video – you can tell he was very much in shockand disturbed by what he was seeing and hearing. That someoneactually went through with this kind of thing…

Itwas a joke, an experiment, that went down south real quick and it’svery obviously not what he was expecting to happen. And much of usjust saw this as a fucked up video and that it was proof that, yes,people will say and do shit for money like some kind of brainwasheddog on puppet strings. All for five damn dollars – I believe thatwas the amount anyway – these guys said and did these things. Ifanyone should be talked to, it’s also the people in the damn video.Not just Felix.

Now Ialso have to say that Felix is a giant – well known – publicfigure. My parents even know who he is, and they don’t watch YouTubeor even mess around on any social sight besides Facebook (my momdoes, dad refuses a FB). Kids in kindergarten know who he is. Thelittle kids I watched at my daycare have Brofist shirts and love him.He’s a well known face. Some even call him one of the faces ofYouTube next to iiSuperwomanii or Tyler Oakley.

Sowith that, yes. I feel like Felix does need to watch himself better.When you’re a public face like he is – like any of these YouTubers– you have eyes on you. You have people ready to string you up forthe execution gallows because of one wrong move. Because apparentlyit’s cool to hate and attack people. It sucks and it’s wrong, but atthe moment it is how it is. We live in a digital media where yourmistakes and fucks up are forever on display. Where you can dig intoanything if you know how and where to look.

PewDiePieis in the wrong for stupid shit he’s done in the past. But those donot defy him. If that’s the case, then every bad and horrible thingyou’ve ever said or done is who you are. No rules. You said somethinga bit racist in the past – even if you truly didn’t know it wasracist – doesn’t matter. According to this logic, you are nowforever a racist. You stole something when you were like six – apiece of candy or a sticker – you are now a thief by this logic. OrHell, say you got drunk one time in your life and made a dufus ofyourself – drunk dance on bar and fell off it or something – youare now forever a drunk because you pulled one stupid.

Thatis the way the world is acting. Felix has acknowledged the shit inthe past. He spoke up and admitted that, yeah, what he said in thepast was insensitive and wrong. He admitted it. And he stepped awayfrom a lot of it… But he’s a comedian, you guys. Hell I think hesaid it best in his video. He pushes the boundaries. THAT’S WHAT YOUDO AS A CONTENT CREATOR! You push to see what does and what does notwork. Obviously this didn’t fucking work for Felix. He learned.That’s that. That’s all it should be.

Andjust today, as I’m finishing typing this up for you, Mark posted avery important video. Now I agree with Mark to an extent. I’ll be thefirst to say that some things he said I kinda have to go “Ehhhh”because there’s a very black and white painted imagery around some ofthe stuff he’s saying and that’s not the case. There are gray areasin life and they do matter. You can’t be extreme one way or anotherwithout it eventually crossing over and becoming a gray spot.

Do Iagree that we are all humans and we all will fuck up? Yes. Do I alsoknow that even though we are humans and we fuck up, we still must beheld accountable for cases such as murder or rape or childpornography or etc etc? Yes. And as far as labeling people, yeah thatshit is obnoxious. It puts too much pressure on someone to be thisimage that has been slapped on them.

Istand with PewDiePie. I stand with the fact that he made an error.But I also am not ignorant enough not see that the media is straightup fucking with him and slandering him.The full proof is right out in the open for everyone to see. He saidwhat he said but he did not say it like they’re trying to play it as.I’m sorry, but as someone who has been in journalism and multimediaclasses, I can straight up say that this is slander all over it. Fakeand degrading news.

That’swhat I think about all this. I don’t agree with the fact the WSJ didthis. I think someone was trying to cover tracks and used Felix asthe lamb. I think it’s beautiful how much of the YouTube community isstanding with him and backing him up, even the YouTubers that don’tlike him. And I think the WSJ needs to be punished and needs to admitthat they lied and made this whole bullshit scandal out of thin air.

Now.If you don’t agree with me, talk to me. Don’t come at me with a rudeattitude. I’ll smile and look away. I don’t do rude anddisrespectful. Be an adult. Have an adult conversation with me. Tellme what you think and why. You may open my mind to something I didn’tthink about. There could be things I’m ignorant about. Enlighten me.Be a teacher. Teach me. I’ll listen. Fair and square.

[lodelss]

Soraya Roberts | Longreads | January 2020 |  8 minutes (1,978 words)

“And when they bombed other people’s houses, we / protested / but not enough, we opposed them but not / enough …” On January 3rd, Ukrainian immigrant Ilya Kaminsky quote-tweeted his poem, “We Lived Happily During the War,” after it went viral the day Iranian general Qassem Suleimani was assassinated on the order of President Donald Trump. The poem appeared in his long-awaited 2019 poetry collection, Deaf Republic, about a town that responds to the killing of a deaf child by itself going deaf, a parable of the present-day United States, a country that responds to its own demise (and the rest of the world’s) by blocking its ears. His tweet went up in the midst of increasing tensions between the U.S. and Iran and ahead of the death of more than 50 people in a stampede during Suleimani’s funeral procession. It went up months into bushfires ravaging New South Wales that have destroyed millions of hectares and killed roughly half a billion animals. It went up in the wake of a slew of antisemitic attacks across the country. Last Sunday, while thousands in New York marched in solidarity with the Jewish community, the Hollywood awards season kicked off in Los Angeles with the Golden Globes, and the media started gleefully tweeting about couture as though the destruction of the world had politely paused for the occasion. The timing made me think of a friend who recently asked: What if all the people who went to see Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker — tens of millions of Americans — protested instead?

“Now’s NOT the time to live happily,” read Kaminsky’s tweet after he extended his thanks for his poetry’s dissemination. He did not squander the moment the way so many of us often do, advising instead that we “write quality journalism & spicy op-eds & protest poems, get out in the street if you’re able. We won’t live happily during another war.”

But aren’t we already?

* * *

In April, when the Notre-Dame threatened to burn to the ground, a bunch of billionaires fell all over themselves pledging to restore the Gothic cathedral (which turned out to be a lot of bluster — the fundraising goal was largely met by small donations). The mega-rich have been comparatively quiet in response to Australia’s bushfires, which are exponentially more devastating, broadcasting their priorities all the louder. Columnist Louis Staples noted that billionaires tend to run businesses with the sorts of carbon footprints that fuel climate change, the clear cause of the conflagrations. “Also Notre Dame is a landmark in a world famous city,” he wrote, “whereas the Australian wildfires have mostly affected rural, sparsely populated areas.” This confers a kind of poetry on their predilection. Notre-Dame is not only one of France’s most powerful religious and cultural symbols, it was also looted during the French Revolution because it was emblematic of the country’s — and the church’s and the monarchy’s — plutocracy. Marie Antoinette lost her head, but so too did Notre-Dame’s statues. That billionaires pledged to rebuild this historic monument to inequity amidst worldwide uprisings against oppression and large-scale environmental destruction speaks to where their allegiances continue to lie.

More than morals, more than guilt, the number one concern of the ultra-rich appears to be rebellion — the threat of those with less coming for those with more. In the New Yorker this month, a profile of the Patriotic Millionaires, “a couple hundred” rich Americans (at least $1 million in income; more than $5 million in assets) who push for policies to address income inequality, had them voicing this fear repeatedly. Tech exec William Battle, who was raised Republican but veered left after Trump’s election, somewhat comically told the magazine (in a whisper, I have to imagine), “We could have — I don’t want to say it, but, riots.” It tickles me to think of a bunch of exceedingly rich idiots walking around with their knickers in a twist of terror over an imaginary enemy, while in reality the horrors of the world largely originate with them. Paraphrasing Walter Scheidel, author of The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-first Century, the New Yorker’s Sheelah Kolkhatar explained, “levelling happens much more often because of the collapse of a state, such as the fall of the Roman Empire; because of deadly pandemics, like the black death of the thirteen-hundreds, which killed so many people that there were labor shortages and workers’ wages went up; and because of mass-mobilization warfare, such as the two World Wars.” Sound familiar? States are too in control to bow to pitchforks; what they can’t control are natural (“natural”) disasters. Fire, flooding, starvation, disease. Which isn’t to say they aren’t trying.

“Disarm the lifeboats.” This is the title Jonathan M. Katz, who made his name reporting on the 2010 Haiti earthquake, chose for his latest The Long Version newsletter. It’s a reference to journalist Christian Parenti’s 2011 book Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence, which builds on a model of panic proposed by Lee Clarke and Caron Chess. These two academics claim that panic weakens social bonds, reducing the likelihood of crisis resolution, but that it is in fact rare in disaster situations. But people’s enduring belief in this myth — the truthy trope that the public panics in a crisis — ironically leads to actual “elite panic”: powerful people hoarding authority and resources and withholding information. And this panic is actually worse. “Because the positions they occupy command the power to move resources,” Clarke and Chess write, “elite panic is more consequential than public panic.” To get an idea of the sort of consequences they’re talking about, go to any newspaper. It will bear out Parenti’s prediction that elite panic results in what he calls “the politics of the armed lifeboats,” where “strong states with developed economies will succumb to a politics of xenophobia, racism, police repression, surveillance, and militarism and thus transform themselves into fortress societies while the rest of the world slips into collapse.” The failure to mitigate disaster — through cooperation and redistribution, through working together instead of apart — inevitably leads to the collapse of these lifeboats as well.

But in the meantime, as Kaminsky wrote, “I was / in my bed, around my bed America / was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house.” Within the center of the country’s plush cocoon, far away from the laps of floods, or the waves of heat, or the growling hunger, or the roving pestilence, we are comfortable enough to be lulled into complacency. Sprawling homes constructed by capitalism have taught us to individualize and to consume, and so in the midst of a crisis, we respond by purchasing self-help, by buying into self-care, by looking after ourselves as a first port of call, as though anything else really comes second, as though after that massage we will actually extend a hand to anyone else. “I believe that each person has the opportunity to offer the gift of their own higher level of consciousness,” Oprah told The Today Show earlier this month. “You can only heal the world when you are healed yourself.” The feel-good cliché is hard to shake because it isn’t entirely wrong. You do have to be well before you can take care of others, right? Aren’t we always told during in-flight safety routines to put the mask on ourselves first? Except we never seem to get further than that. Those in distress, who feel less cocooned, always seem to be fighting alone. In a recent interview with The Guardian, DeRay McKesson discussed the burnout faced by people of color who have been part of Black Lives Matter protests while the larger population sat in bed and watched on TV. “We saw that people were going to say, ‘Oh, my God, people should be in the street,’ but would never join us,” he said. “We saw that people weren’t willing to risk much.” Outside the lifeboat, they got tired, and inside the lifeboat, the messiah — the one on Netflix, I mean — provided a higher calling.

* * *

“In the street of money in the city of money in the country of money, our great country of money, we (forgive us) / lived happily during the war.” The last line of Kaminsky’s poem seemed to be host Ricky Gervais’s inspiration at the Golden Globes on Sunday. Before anyone could even take the stage, he castigated the ballroom full of famous faces for living happily, despite some of them — including Michelle Williams and Patricia Arquette — going on to address the war raging outside. “If you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech,” he warned. “You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything.” And yet Gervais himself broke his own rule, pleading at the end of the show to “please donate to Australia.” I consider this about-face a positive sign, the synthetic lifeboat losing buoyancy despite itself. Gervais’s inability to follow his own dictate shows the weakness of the fortress the West tries so hard to enforce in the face of the current calamity; the invisible ruins have suddenly become visible, even when we are watching from our bedrooms. This is the sound of Australia denouncing its prime minister for refusing to acknowledge the climate change, the sound of Americans protesting their president for attacking Iran, it is even the sound of Anand Giridharadas’s viral tweet pointing out that 500 of the richest people in the world could save the planet, if only they would work together.

“Climate scientists have modeled out how global temperatures might shift in different geopolitical scenarios,” wrote environmental journalist Emily Atkin in her newsletter Heated last week. “And the scenario that always ends up with the planet in fiery climate chaos is the so-called ‘regional rivalry’ scenario — to put it simply, the one where everyone is fighting, borders are closed, and rich white-led countries like the U.S. are super racist toward less-wealthy countries filled with brown people.” Which means the opposite is also true, the planet survives in the global community scenario in which everyone is cooperating, borders are open, and all countries are equal. So here’s the choice: You can face guaranteed death in the comfort of solitude, the chaos outside muffled by Disney and Netflix, Justin Trudeau’s beard, and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s royal defection, by any solipsistic interest, really, which does not involve engaging with the external world. Or you can face the cataclysm, you can bathe in discomfort and unrest, you can engage with it in your work and your life along with everyone else, and with them work toward survival. Refusing to rock the boat for fear of making anyone uncomfortable right now does not mean the boat is not still fated to sink in the end. If we keep continuing as we have, the Crisis of the Third Century, in which the Roman Empire almost folded due to combined political, social, and economic crises, could very well become the Crisis of the Twenty-First. In an interview with Chinese Poetry Quarterly in 2011, Kaminsky even compared present-day America to latter-day Rome. “The Roman Empire has produced many things that were valuable to modern civilization. But at what cost to other nations? This is the question anyone living in the U.S.A. today, particularly its authors, should be asking,” he said. “Anyone who reads and writes books should attempt to see with clarity the world they live in, pay taxes in, support by mere being there. Not everyone is guilty, Dostoevsky used to say, but everyone is responsible.”

By which he means: Rock the boat, especially if you’re in it, even if you don’t have a life jacket of your own.

* * *

Soraya Roberts is a culture columnist at Longreads.

[lodelss]

Happily Never After

Soraya Roberts | Longreads | January 2020 |  8 minutes (1,978 words)

“And when they bombed other people’s houses, we / protested / but not enough, we opposed them but not / enough …” On January 3rd, Ukrainian immigrant Ilya Kaminsky quote-tweeted his poem, “We Lived Happily During the War,” after it went viral the day Iranian general Qassem Suleimani was assassinated on the order of President Donald Trump. The poem appeared in his long-awaited 2019 poetry collection, Deaf Republic, about a town that responds to the killing of a deaf child by itself going deaf, a parable of the present-day United States, a country that responds to its own demise (and the rest of the world’s) by blocking its ears. His tweet went up in the midst of increasing tensions between the U.S. and Iran and ahead of the death of more than 50 people in a stampede during Suleimani’s funeral procession. It went up months into bushfires ravaging New South Wales that have destroyed millions of hectares and killed roughly half a billion animals. It went up in the wake of a slew of antisemitic attacks across the country. Last Sunday, while thousands in New York marched in solidarity with the Jewish community, the Hollywood awards season kicked off in Los Angeles with the Golden Globes, and the media started gleefully tweeting about couture as though the destruction of the world had politely paused for the occasion. The timing made me think of a friend who recently asked: What if all the people who went to see Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker — tens of millions of Americans — protested instead?

“Now’s NOT the time to live happily,” read Kaminsky’s tweet after he extended his thanks for his poetry’s dissemination. He did not squander the moment the way so many of us often do, advising instead that we “write quality journalism & spicy op-eds & protest poems, get out in the street if you’re able. We won’t live happily during another war.”

But aren’t we already?

* * *

In April, when the Notre-Dame threatened to burn to the ground, a bunch of billionaires fell all over themselves pledging to restore the Gothic cathedral (which turned out to be a lot of bluster — the fundraising goal was largely met by small donations). The mega-rich have been comparatively quiet in response to Australia’s bushfires, which are exponentially more devastating, broadcasting their priorities all the louder. Columnist Louis Staples noted that billionaires tend to run businesses with the sorts of carbon footprints that fuel climate change, the clear cause of the conflagrations. “Also Notre Dame is a landmark in a world famous city,” he wrote, “whereas the Australian wildfires have mostly affected rural, sparsely populated areas.” This confers a kind of poetry on their predilection. Notre-Dame is not only one of France’s most powerful religious and cultural symbols, it was also looted during the French Revolution because it was emblematic of the country’s — and the church’s and the monarchy’s — plutocracy. Marie Antoinette lost her head, but so too did Notre-Dame’s statues. That billionaires pledged to rebuild this historic monument to inequity amidst worldwide uprisings against oppression and large-scale environmental destruction speaks to where their allegiances continue to lie.

More than morals, more than guilt, the number one concern of the ultra-rich appears to be rebellion — the threat of those with less coming for those with more. In the New Yorker this month, a profile of the Patriotic Millionaires, “a couple hundred” rich Americans (at least $1 million in income; more than $5 million in assets) who push for policies to address income inequality, had them voicing this fear repeatedly. Tech exec William Battle, who was raised Republican but veered left after Trump’s election, somewhat comically told the magazine (in a whisper, I have to imagine), “We could have — I don’t want to say it, but, riots.” It tickles me to think of a bunch of exceedingly rich idiots walking around with their knickers in a twist of terror over an imaginary enemy, while in reality the horrors of the world largely originate with them. Paraphrasing Walter Scheidel, author of The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-first Century, the New Yorker’s Sheelah Kolkhatar explained, “levelling happens much more often because of the collapse of a state, such as the fall of the Roman Empire; because of deadly pandemics, like the black death of the thirteen-hundreds, which killed so many people that there were labor shortages and workers’ wages went up; and because of mass-mobilization warfare, such as the two World Wars.” Sound familiar? States are too in control to bow to pitchforks; what they can’t control are natural (“natural”) disasters. Fire, flooding, starvation, disease. Which isn’t to say they aren’t trying.

“Disarm the lifeboats.” This is the title Jonathan M. Katz, who made his name reporting on the 2010 Haiti earthquake, chose for his latest The Long Version newsletter. It’s a reference to journalist Christian Parenti’s 2011 book Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence, which builds on a model of panic proposed by Lee Clarke and Caron Chess. These two academics claim that panic weakens social bonds, reducing the likelihood of crisis resolution, but that it is in fact rare in disaster situations. But people’s enduring belief in this myth — the truthy trope that the public panics in a crisis — ironically leads to actual “elite panic”: powerful people hoarding authority and resources and withholding information. And this panic is actually worse. “Because the positions they occupy command the power to move resources,” Clarke and Chess write, “elite panic is more consequential than public panic.” To get an idea of the sort of consequences they’re talking about, go to any newspaper. It will bear out Parenti’s prediction that elite panic results in what he calls “the politics of the armed lifeboats,” where “strong states with developed economies will succumb to a politics of xenophobia, racism, police repression, surveillance, and militarism and thus transform themselves into fortress societies while the rest of the world slips into collapse.” The failure to mitigate disaster — through cooperation and redistribution, through working together instead of apart — inevitably leads to the collapse of these lifeboats as well.

But in the meantime, as Kaminsky wrote, “I was / in my bed, around my bed America / was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house.” Within the center of the country’s plush cocoon, far away from the laps of floods, or the waves of heat, or the growling hunger, or the roving pestilence, we are comfortable enough to be lulled into complacency. Sprawling homes constructed by capitalism have taught us to individualize and to consume, and so in the midst of a crisis, we respond by purchasing self-help, by buying into self-care, by looking after ourselves as a first port of call, as though anything else really comes second, as though after that massage we will actually extend a hand to anyone else. “I believe that each person has the opportunity to offer the gift of their own higher level of consciousness,” Oprah told The Today Show earlier this month. “You can only heal the world when you are healed yourself.” The feel-good cliché is hard to shake because it isn’t entirely wrong. You do have to be well before you can take care of others, right? Aren’t we always told during in-flight safety routines to put the mask on ourselves first? Except we never seem to get further than that. Those in distress, who feel less cocooned, always seem to be fighting alone. In a recent interview with The Guardian, DeRay McKesson discussed the burnout faced by people of color who have been part of Black Lives Matter protests while the larger population sat in bed and watched on TV. “We saw that people were going to say, ‘Oh, my God, people should be in the street,’ but would never join us,” he said. “We saw that people weren’t willing to risk much.” Outside the lifeboat, they got tired, and inside the lifeboat, the messiah — the one on Netflix, I mean — provided a higher calling.

* * *

“In the street of money in the city of money in the country of money, our great country of money, we (forgive us) / lived happily during the war.” The last line of Kaminsky’s poem seemed to be host Ricky Gervais’s inspiration at the Golden Globes on Sunday. Before anyone could even take the stage, he castigated the ballroom full of famous faces for living happily, despite some of them — including Michelle Williams and Patricia Arquette — going on to address the war raging outside. “If you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech,” he warned. “You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything.” And yet Gervais himself broke his own rule, pleading at the end of the show to “please donate to Australia.” I consider this about-face a positive sign, the synthetic lifeboat losing buoyancy despite itself. Gervais’s inability to follow his own dictate shows the weakness of the fortress the West tries so hard to enforce in the face of the current calamity; the invisible ruins have suddenly become visible, even when we are watching from our bedrooms. This is the sound of Australia denouncing its prime minister for refusing to acknowledge the climate change, the sound of Americans protesting their president for attacking Iran, it is even the sound of Anand Giridharadas’s viral tweet pointing out that 500 of the richest people in the world could save the planet, if only they would work together.

“Climate scientists have modeled out how global temperatures might shift in different geopolitical scenarios,” wrote environmental journalist Emily Atkin in her newsletter Heated last week. “And the scenario that always ends up with the planet in fiery climate chaos is the so-called ‘regional rivalry’ scenario — to put it simply, the one where everyone is fighting, borders are closed, and rich white-led countries like the U.S. are super racist toward less-wealthy countries filled with brown people.” Which means the opposite is also true, the planet survives in the global community scenario in which everyone is cooperating, borders are open, and all countries are equal. So here’s the choice: You can face guaranteed death in the comfort of solitude, the chaos outside muffled by Disney and Netflix, Justin Trudeau’s beard, and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s royal defection, by any solipsistic interest, really, which does not involve engaging with the external world. Or you can face the cataclysm, you can bathe in discomfort and unrest, you can engage with it in your work and your life along with everyone else, and with them work toward survival. Refusing to rock the boat for fear of making anyone uncomfortable right now does not mean the boat is not still fated to sink in the end. If we keep continuing as we have, the Crisis of the Third Century, in which the Roman Empire almost folded due to combined political, social, and economic crises, could very well become the Crisis of the Twenty-First. In an interview with Chinese Poetry Quarterly in 2011, Kaminsky even compared present-day America to latter-day Rome. “The Roman Empire has produced many things that were valuable to modern civilization. But at what cost to other nations? This is the question anyone living in the U.S.A. today, particularly its authors, should be asking,” he said. “Anyone who reads and writes books should attempt to see with clarity the world they live in, pay taxes in, support by mere being there. Not everyone is guilty, Dostoevsky used to say, but everyone is responsible.”

By which he means: Rock the boat, especially if you’re in it, even if you don’t have a life jacket of your own.

* * *

Soraya Roberts is a culture columnist at Longreads.

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