#is biased. the people who insist we hate her because we are uninformed about her and the mechs and lying are biased themselves.

[majorshatterandhare]

[ID: two screencaps of tags from dark mode

First Image: tags from ×-caliber reading “#guys it's called UNRELIABLE NARRATING all caps: unreliable narrating] # shes NOT [all caps: not] evil #jonny just views her in a certain light" Second Image: tags from ceaseless-ramblerand x-caliber.

Tags from ceaseless-rambler read "#this is such a hard fucking poll because do you love her or hate her' the answer is YES [all caps: yes] #she's great but the fucking morality switch destroys me every time i think about it because. morality switch. what the fuck. #but also. gestures wildly in her direction. you understand? #doctor carmilla #the mechanisms."

Tags from x-caliber read '#prev has a great elaboration actually #bevause i answered thinking only about the unreliable narration that made people think she's evil #but i didn't actually think as far about her ACTIONS [all caps: actions] #now i do think that she had good intentions with the morality switch #that doesn't make it any less fucked up however"

End ID]

Okay in regards to this poll I'm going to do some Doc Carmilla analysis because I don't like having back and forth conversations in tags. This is long, I couldn't really find a way to cut it down

The biggest thing that fucks me up about her is Brian's morality switch. The concept of a morality switch at all is horrifying to me, taking that control away from someone. Brian's about page on the mechanisms website says the reasoning was because Doctor Carmilla found it "amusing" which. Makes me hate it even more. @x-ca1iber pointed out the fact that Jonny is an unreliable narrator, which is a good point. However, I doubt Jonny wrote everyone's bio and I don't think either morality mode would really let Brian lie about it, lying is wrong and I can't come up with ends that would justify it. Brian could be wrong about reasoning, of course, but I'm not sure why he would be. Because a lot of that second half is speculation, *please* let me know if there's anything to agree or disagree with any of it.

The two other things that make me not willing to chalk all of anti-Doctor Carmilla sentiment up to unreliable narration and character misinterpretation are the end of this video and near the end of Lashings. The first video shows Jonny cut the music and, sounding somewhat frantic, ask Carmilla what she's going to do about being thrown out the airlock. When she doesn't respond, he backs away and accuses her of planning something. This is something that isn't attributable to unreliable narration because the premise there isn't that it's a retelling but an actual event occurring. Also, the way Jonny is on edge, expecting her to do something but not knowing what/when and having to just kind of act like it's fine really makes me read it as a bad relationship for him. The end of the Lashings performance shows Nastya stressed about various other things and Doctor Carmilla coming up behind her and hugging her. Nastya visibly tenses and remains as such for the entire interaction. I've seen people argue that this was due to the aforementioned various other things, and it could very much be that! This is definitely my least compelling piece of evidence. But it's worth noting that Doctor Carmilla doesn't back off from the hug and remains sort of in Nastya's face until Nastya steps away. The situation is either Nastya being generally uncomfortable with physical contact at that moment (or in general) and Carmilla not caring, or Nastya being distrustful of her in general. Either way doesn't reflect well on their relationship.

None of this is to say that I think she's trying to cause them harm. She does see them as her kids, in her own way. The only other close relationship she had that I'm aware of is Lorelai (please let me know if you have any more information on this! I'm always open to corrections) and that wasn't exactly healthy. She could very well not know any other way to treat them, and I really do think she meant well. The problem with meaning well is that is doesn't change the ramifications of your actions. The best of intentions don't change the fact that you hurt people. This is, in my opinion, especially prominent in parental figures, which she is.

That is all about her as a person, though. As a character? She's fantastic. Trans lesbian vampire scientist with dubious ethics? Great!!! And all of the things I just talked about that make me dislike her as a person make me love her as a character. That disparity is what makes it really hard to answer the poll I linked at the beginning, because holy fuck morality switch but I love her as a character

Tags that inspired this under the cut

[beastars-takes]

Zootopia Takes: Darker’s Not Better

The Shock Collar Draft

So, it sounds like people are largely positive on me doing some Zootopia posts on this blog, and I wanted to talk about this tweet I saw the other day:

I’ll punt on explaining why Beastars isn’t “Dark Zootopia”--that’s a great topic for another post. But I would like to talk about why this popular yet stridently uninformed tweet is so, so wrong. Why the shock collar draft was not better, actually.

And obviously, I’m not writing several pages in reply to a single tweet--this is a take that’s been around since the movie came out, that the “original version was better.” It’s been wrong the whole time.

Let’s talk about why!

Part 1: “Because Disney”

Let’s start with this--the assumption that the film’s creators wanted to make this shock collar story and “Disney” told them to change it.

That’s not how it works.

I try to keep stuff about me out of these posts as much as possible, but just for a bit of background, I’ve worked in the animation industry for about half a decade. I know people at Disney. I have a reasonable idea of how things are there.

There is this misconception about creative industries that they’re constantly this pitched battle of wills between creative auteurs trying to make incredible art and ignorant corporate suits trying to repress them.

That can happen, especially in dysfunctional studios (and boy could I tell some stories) but Walt Disney Animation Studios is not dysfunctional. It’s one of the most autonomous and well-treated parts of the Disney Company.

The director of Zootopia, Byron Howard, isn’t an edgelord. He made Bolt and Tangled. He knows what his audience is, and he’s responsible enough not to spend a year (and millions of dollars in budget) developing a grimdark Don Bluth story that leadership would never approve. It wouldn’t just be a waste of time--he would be endangering the livelihoods of the hundreds of people working under him. Meanwhile, Disney Animation’s corporate leadership trusts their talent. They don’t generally interfere with story development because they don’t need to. Because they employ people like Byron Howard.

Howard and the other creative leads of Zootopia have said a dozen times, in interviews and documentaries, that they gave up on the shock collar idea because it wasn’t working. They’ve explained their reasoning in detail. Maybe they’re leaving out some of the story, but in general? I believe them.

But Beastars Takes, you say, maybe even if Disney didn’t force them to back away from this darker version, it still would have been better?

Part 2: Why Shock Collars Seem Good

I will say this--I completely sympathize with people who see these storyboards and scenes from earlier versions of the movie and think “this seems amazing.” It does! A lot of these drawings and shots are heartbreakingly good, in isolation.

I love these boards. They make me want to cry. I literally have this drawing framed on my wall. Believe me, I get it.

But the only reason we care this much about this alternative draft of Zootopia is that the Zootopia we got made us love this world and these characters. You know what actually made me cry?

Oh, yeah.

So let’s set aside the astonishing hubris of insisting Zootopia’s story team abandoned the “good” version of the story, when the “bad version” is the most critically-acclaimed Disney animated feature in the past SIXTY YEARS.

“But Beastars Takes!” I hear you say. “Critics are idiots and just because something’s popular doesn’t make it good!”

Fair enough. Let’s talk about why the real movie is better.

Part 3: The Message (it is, in fact, like a jungle sometimes)

This type of thing is always hard to discuss, in the main--a lot of people don’t want to feel criticized or “called out” by the entertainment they consume, and they don’t want to be asked to think about their moral responsibilities. But it’s hard to deny that Zootopia is a movie with a strong point of view. Everything else--the characters, the worldbuilding, the plot, grows out from the movie’s central statement about bias.

And the movie we got, with no shock collars, makes that statement far more effectively.

To dive into the full scope of Zootopia’s worldview and politics (warts and all) would be a whole post on its own, so I’ll just summarize the key point of relevance here:

Zootopia's moral message is that you, the viewer, need to confront your own biases. Not yell at someone else. No matter how much of a good or progressive person you consider yourself to be--if you want to stand against prejudice you have to start with yourself.

That’s a tough sell! For that message to land, we need to see ourselves in the protagonist.

Judy’s a good person! She argues with her dad about foxes. She knows predators aren’t all dangerous. She’s not speciesist. Right?

Ah fuck.

Let’s fast-forward to the pivotal scene of this movie. In an unfortunate but inevitable confluence of circumstances, Judy’s own biases and prejudiced assumptions come out, and she shits the bad.

Nick, who’s already bared his soul to her (against his better instincts), is heartbroken. But not as heartbroken as he is a minute later when he tries to confront her about what she’s said, and she makes this face:

Whaaaat? Come on, Nick. I’m a good person. Why are you giving me a hard time?

People like to complain about this scene. That it’s a hackneyed “misunderstanding” trope that could be easily resolved with a discussion. They’re wrong. Nick tries to have a discussion. She blows him off.

This isn’t Judy acting out of character, this is her character. Someone who identifies as Not A Racist, and hasn’t given the issue any more thought. This is not only completely believable characterization (who hasn’t seen someone react this way when you told them they hurt you?) it’s the film’s central thesis!

Yes, Nick somewhat provokes her into reaching for her “fox spray,” and her own trauma factors in there, but she’s already made her fatal mistake before that happens.

(As an aside, people also make the criticism that the movie unrealistically deflects responsibility for racism onto Bellwether and her plot. It doesn’t. All the key expressions of prejudice in the film--Judy’s encounter with Gideon, her parents’ warnings, the elephant in the ice cream shop, Judy’s early encounters with Bogo, Judy's views on race science--exist largely outside of Bellwether’s influence. She is a demagogue who inflames existing tensions, she didn’t invent them. Bogo literally says “the world has always been broken.”)

So, anyway. But we love Judy. She’s an angel. She also kinda sucks! She’s proudly unprejudiced, and when her own prejudice is pointed out to her she argues and doesn’t take it seriously. This is bad, but it’s also a very human reaction. It’s one most of us have probably been guilty of at one point or another.

Look at Zootopia’s society, too--it’s shiny and cosmopolitan, seemingly idyllic. Anyone can be anything, on paper. But scratch too deep beneath the surface and there’s a lot of pain and resentment here, things nobody respectable would say in public but come out behind closed doors, or among family, when nobody’s watching. It’s entirely recognizable--at least to me, someone who lives in a large liberal city in the United States. Like Byron Howard.

Wow, this place is a paradise!

Wait, what’s a “NIMBY”?

Part 4: Why Shock Collars Are Bad

So, with the film’s conceit established, let’s circle back to the shock collar idea. Like I said, it’s heartbreaking. It’s dramatic. It’s affective.

It also teaches us nothing.

If I see a movie where predator animals are subjected to 24/7 electroshock therapy, I don’t think “wow, this makes me want to think about how I could do better by the people around me.” I think “damn that shit’s crazy lmao. that’d be fucked up if that happened.” At a stretch, it reminds me of something like the Jim Crow era, or the Shoah. You know, stuff in the Past. Stuff we’ve all decided couldn’t ever happen again, so why worry about it?

The directors have said this exact thing, just politely. “It didn’t feel contemporary,” they say in pressers. That’s what it means.

If anything, the shock collar draft reifies the mindset that Zootopia is trying to reject--it shows us that discrimination is blatant, and dramatic, and flagrantly cruel, and impossible to miss.

And...that’s not true. If you only look for bias at its most malicious and evil, you’re going to miss the other 95 percent.

The messaging of this “darker version” is--ironically--less mature, less insightful, less intelligent. Less useful. Darker’s not better.

Part 5: Why Shock Collars Are Still Bad

So what if you don’t care about the message? What if you have no interest in self-reflection, or critical analysis (why are you reading this blog then lmao)? What if you just really want to hear a fun story about talking animals?

Well, this is trickier, because the remaining reasons are pretty subjective and emotional.

The creators have said that the shock collar version didn’t work because the viewers hated the cruel world they’d created. They agreed with Nick--the city was beyond saving. They didn’t want to save it.

The creators have said that Judy was hard to sympathize with, not being able to recognize the shock collars for the obvious cruelty they were.

Fuck you, Judy!

But we haven’t seen the draft copies. We haven’t watched the animatics. We have to take their word for it. Anyone who’s sufficiently invested in this story is going to say “well, I disagree with them.” It doesn’t matter to them that they haven’t seen the draft and the filmmakers have. The movie they’ve imagined is great and nobody is going to convince them otherwise.

But the fact remains that the shock collar movie, as written, did not work. And, if behind the scenes material is to be believed, it continued to not work after months and months of story doctoring.

There’s even been a webcomic made out of the dystopian version of Zootopia. It’s clever and creative and well-written and entertaining and...it kind of falls apart. The creator, after more than a little shit-talk directed at Disney, abandoned the story before reaching the conclusion, but even before then the seams were beginning to show. How do you take a society that’s okay with electrocuting cute animals and bring it to a point of cathartic redemption? You can’t, really. The story doesn’t work.

Does that mean people shouldn’t make fanworks out of the cut material? That they shouldn’t be inspired and excited by it? Hell no. This drawing is cute as hell. The ideas are compelling.

But I suppose what I’d ask of you all is--if you’re weighing the hot takes of art students on Twitter against the explanations of veteran filmmakers, consider that the latter group might actually know what they’re talking about.

See you next time!

[pete-and-pete]

Cole White & Thomas Gillen: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Cole Evan White and Thomas Walter Gillen were two of four people arrested in connection with the violent Charlottesville rallies in 2017. Their arrests were not directly connected with Heather Heyer’s death. Read on to learn more about Cole White and Thomas Gillen, the charges, and what happened at the Charlottesville rallies. This is a developing story.

1. Cole White & Thomas Gillen Were Arrested on Federal Rioting Charges Connected to the Rallies & the Rise Above Movement

Cole White, from California — allegedly works at Top Dog restaurant in Berkeley pic.twitter.com/gxPvwQtAPw

— Yes, You're Racist (@YesYoureRacist) August 12, 2017

Cole White and Thomas Gillen were two of four people arrested on riot and conspiracy to riot charges connected with both the August 11 torch-lit march and the August 12 Unite the Right rally, where Heather Heyer was killed. Their arrests were not connected with Heyer’s death, however. You can read the full complaint below.

View this document on Scribd

The four men — Cole White, Benjamine Daley, Michael Miselis, and Thomas Gillen — were identified as marchers either on August 11, during the torch rally, or during the rally the next day where Heyer was killed. On August 11, a group of people marched through the University of Virginia carrying Tiki torches and shouting phrases like “Blood and Soil!” (a Nazi slogan) and “Jews will not replace us!” A group of student activists was attacked by some of the people from that group, Huffington Post reported.

The complaint states that the four arrested were among the most violent at the rallies:

Among the most violent individuals present in Charlottesville on August 11-12, 2017 were at least four members and associates of the Rise Above Movement, a militant white-supremacist organization based in Southern California, who had traveled to Charlottesville with the intent to encourage, promote, incite, participate in, and commit violent acts in furtherance of a riot…”

2. Cole White Was Photographed at the Tiki March, & He Said Publicly Later That He Was Not a White Supremacist

Sign on the door of Top Dog on Durant Ave confirms Cole White is no longer employed by the chain pic.twitter.com/ROwAed2NOl

— Harini Shyamsundar (@hshyamsundar) August 13, 2017

Cole White was originally identified in photos of tiki march participants, The Washington Post reported. When his identity was released, he lost his job a Berkeley hot dog restaurant called Top Dog. The restaurant posted: “Effective Saturday 12th August, Cole White no longer works at Top Dog. The actions of those in Charlottesville are not supported by Top Dog. We believe in individual freedom and voluntary association for everyone.” The restaurant is known for its libertarian leanings.

In a statement to the Post, Top Dog noted: “Cole chose to voluntarily resign his employment with Top Dog and we accepted his resignation. There have been reports that he was terminated.  Those reports are false.  There have been reports that top dog knowingly employs racists and promotes racist theology.  That too is false. Individual freedom and voluntary exchange are core to the philosophy of Top Dog. We look forward to cooking the same great food for at least another 50 years… e do respect our employees’ right to their opinions. They are free to make their own choices but must accept the responsibilities of those choices.”

In an online statement, White insisted that he was not racist or a white supremacist, SF Eater reported. His full statement reads:

I attended the Unite the Right rally because it was being reported as the biggest right-leaning event of the year with a large number of people expected to be present. After having witnessed first hand the violent attempts made by far left groups to disrupt what would otherwise be peaceful conservative gatherings in recent months, I knew Charlottesville would be a notable event. It was the infamous salutes, chants and actions that have widely represented this event to the public as a white nationalist rally, despite the comparatively small number of individuals behind them, and for this reason, I believe many participants and attendees are being unjustly targeted and demonized. I want to make it clear that I am not a white supremacist, nor was I ever. Those people with such beliefs were obviously present, assuming that those were the beliefs of the entire crowd is uninformed and irresponsible due to the fact that many people attended for the same reason as I did, which was to meet other conservative leaning individuals and to stand for freedom of speech. My portrayal over social and the mainstream media has been inaccurate, biased and completely unjustified.”

3. Thomas Gillen Is a 23-Year-Old Surfer from Torrance Who Was Once Jailed for Having an Illegal Handgun

According to ProPublica, Thomas Gillen, 23, is a surfer from Torrance. He was jailed in 2014 for having an illegal handgun with a serial number ground off. He was barred from owning any more guns. He’s a member of the Rise Above Movement. He was accused of being one of a group of people who had a violent clash with counterprotesters in front of a Jefferson statue, ProPublica reported.

The four arrests are not directly connected with Heyer’s death, according to U.S. Attorney Thomas T. Cullen and Thomas Chadwick, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Richmond Division.

In 2017, James Alex Fields, Jr. was arrested on suspicion of driving his car into a crowd of protesters at the Charlottesville rally on August 12. Heather Heyer was killed, and 19 people were injured.

One protester, DeAndre Harris, was beaten in a parking garage by Unite the Right rally members so badly that he had a spinal injury, a broken arm, and head lacerations requiring 10 stitches. He was originally arrested and charged with assaulting a person at the rally, but he was later acquitted, The Washington Post reported. He was arrested two months after the beating, when Harold Crews — a North Carolina lawyer and chair of a self-described white nationalist group — filed a police report and persuaded a magistrate to issue an arrest warrant for a felony charge of unlawful wounding. When District Court Judge Robert Downer Jr. acquitted Harris, he condemned everyone involved in the rallies, both protesters and counterprotesters. He said that he didn’t see that Crews did anything wrong, but Harris was also not guilty because he only hit Crews with a flashlight while defending a friend who was struggling with Crews. Crews testified that when he was hit with the flashlight, he suffered a large welt and deep cuts.

4. A Different Group of People Were Accused of Using the Discord App To Plan Violence at the Rally, But Those Names Have Not Been Released

In August, a federal judge in California ruled that the Discord app must release the identity of a woman who was accused of helping plan violence at the Charlottesville rallies, NPR reported. She and dozens of other people were accused of using the chat app to organize violence. She posted under the name kristall.night on the app. However, the judge also ruled that the person’s real name should only be revealed to a small group of people involved in the case.

Marc Randazza, the woman’s lawyer, told NPR at the time: “I don’t like what my client had to say. I don’t like my client’s views. All you’ve gotta do is look at the username. … But I have a more strong opinion that you have the right to do that. You have the right to be extremely right-wing. That’s what America is. You have the right to be a raging full-throated Nazi if you want to be.”

The name “kristall.night” was a play on Kristallnacht, a night that Nazis attacked Jews in 1938, NPR reported.

This subpoena was part of a Virginia lawsuit against organizers of the rally. Leaked chats showed that kristall.night suggested people bring shields and helmets, and that flagpoles could be used as spears and clubs. She also made a number of racists statements in her chat.

5. James Alex Fields, Jr. Has Been in Custody Since 2017 & His State Trial Begins in November

Albermale County JailJames Alex Fields Jr.

Fields, who is accused of driving into the crowd, has a state trial scheduled to begin on November 26. He’s been in custody since the tragic rally. In his state trial, he faces 10 charges in Virginia. On December 18, a Charlottesville grand jury indicted him on 10 charges: first-degree murder, five counts of malicious wounding, three counts of aggravated malicious wounding, and failing to stop at the scene of a crash, Richmond.com reported.

In June, federal prosecutors filed 30 hate crime charges against Fields, saying that he “rapidly accelerated through a stop sign and across a raised pedestrian mall, and drove directly into the crowd … [and] stopped only when it struck another vehicle near the intersection.” The charges include one hate crime count for Heyer’s death and 28 hate crime charges for attempts to kill others, Fox News reported. An additional count accuses fields of racially motivated violent interference in a federally protected activity. The outcome of his state trial might help the U.S. Attorney General decide if he will seek the death penalty in Fields’ federal trial. The federal trial has not yet been scheduled. In late September, the U.S. filed a motion to remove Stephen Curran as the attorney of record from the federal case because he had left the Department of Justice.

A lot of Internet rumors were circulating about Heather Heyer’s cause of death. The Central District Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond found that Heyer died of blunt force injury to her chest. The manner of death was still pending at the time the cause of death was released. (Manner of death refers to the classification of what led to the cause of death, such as whether it was an accident, a homicide, a suicide, natural causes, etc.) In an interview shortly after her death, her mother said that she died of a heart attack, which prompted some ugly Internet rumors. Although the medical examiner did not clarify, it is possible for blunt force trauma to lead to a heart attack. Blunt trauma to the chest can at times cause cardiac contusion, rupture a heart chamber, or even cause cardiac arrest,  Merck Manual reported.

This is a developing story.

source https://heavy.com/news/2018/10/cole-white-thomas-gillen/