#legally i have to say these were HEAVILY referenced from that one scene in the beginning. thank u dreamworks for having THE sexiest 2d anim

[rougedraconteur]

I wanted to make a separate post about all the “clickbait articles” regarding Chris Colfer and his “comments” concerning being on Glee and being told not to come out. Many folks are upset at the media coverage, and, as fans, they are outraged on his behalf on what they see. Maybe they are right.

However.

It is a hard stretch to call entertainment media actual news reporting, but there are a lot of jobs and a lot of money attached to the industry, so these things are all carefully crafted and controlled at a certain level for desired results.

First of all, let’s look at the original interview. The View is a topical news show that also purports to be about entertainment, and contains a mix of women from various backgrounds as hosts. It is part of ABC’s NEWS division, not their entertainment division, and is overseen by that department’s executives. It has won 31 Emmys, and no less a respected news source than the New York Times has called it, at one point, “the most important political TV show in America.” In 2021, The View had become the most-viewed news and talk program in daytime tv. (Wikipedia, inc. sources and references.) most importantly, Disney is the parent company, as it is the parent company for 21st Century Fox. Just getting on this show is a big deal. But Disney has all the control (and power) here.

Next, let’s look at who controlled that interview. Whoopie Goldberg runs that desk, and is the biggest draw. She is one of less than 20 living EGOTs, a Disney Legend, very respected in the industry, her Q score must be in the single digits, very high recognizability Quotient, she is recognizable and repected around the world, and appeared with Colfer in most of her scenes on Glee, which was heavily referenced in one of the clips chosen and shown in the interview. She is also a personal hero of his, in early interviews he cites his deep love of her in Sister Act as one of his inspirations to get into acting. The fact that he was able to get placement on that show for the one day he was in NYC is telling.

The clips that were shown, as well as the questions that were asked, and by whom, were all read from note cards and approved in advance. Alla, his well-respected publicist, was with him, as was his long-time agent, Rob, I am sure. They know what they are doing. They all chose together to talk about him coming out, and what he was told, and why. We feel it is all a tired rehash, but there are some slight changes in the actual WORDING, he finesses it a little more here. And it matters. This show contains seasoned interviewers, lawyers, political strategists, as well as celebrities who constantly deal with media. They know about spin, about what to ask, about when to ask it, about who asks what. Whoopie really did not ask much, yet I still felt she was entirely in control, along with Chris and his team, of this whole interview. They also know about legal lines and limits, actual news reporting standards, and what Bob Iger wants the message to be. They also know why Bob Iger wants the message to be a certain way.

Everything about that interview was very calculated, imo. Though, to most of us, I guess, it seemed like the same old rehash. But it wasn’t. For instance, he was told if he came out, it would ruin his career. But over the many years of speculation—was he outed? Was he forced into coming out, going back in, or did he choose for himself?—this is the first time I have heard him clearly say he chose this for himself, yes he was very scared, he did not know his character would be gay until he read the script, he came from a place where that was scary and dangerous, he was very young, etc.; but he acknowledged that his appearance and mannerisms and voice made it extremely hard to closet him in a believable way, so HE CHOSE to come out, though reluctantly and with some trepidation, and he included the story of the rainbow paper clip chain for his reason why, for emphasis. He WAS a debate state champion, after all, and is a seasoned writer now, he knows the power of language to shape perceptions. I have heard most all his live interviews since 2009, and I don’t think I recall that anecdote, or how memorable and sympathetic it is toward him, as a role model, which he specifically addresses as also a choice. Being a role model separated him from others in a very real way, he was a hero but also got death threats and hate mail, he required security, he was used by the show as an example of their progressiveness, but also separated from his peers in bts photos and invitations to events because he was openly gay and others could not be seen hanging out with him as it made them look gay, as well. He has said before he did not seek being a role model, for all those reasons. He is reshaping his coming out narrative regarding Fox and RIB and their roles in all this drama while still delivering an important message about the industry during Pride Month. He says if he wanted to be an action hero, he could not come out. He says he was told that.

That still holds true, for him and others, if he says too much. Conversely, if he did/does not, he would/will be rewarded, these things don’t change. This is their process, this is how it works for everyone, this is what they expect from team players, this is the industry, like it or hate it. And it does not always mean something sinister. (Although sometimes it does.)

There is a huge desire from Disney to reboot Glee in some way, it is still extremely popular on Disney+, and Dana Walden may have now found the gimmick to make that work, according to recent rumors. Now the job is to set up all the dominoes and remove any obstacles to reach that goal. And, based on that final look between Whoopie and Chris, whom she clearly adores, they understand this situation, what’s at stake, and what’s to gain here, and they expected this interview to get the results they both wanted. They, at least, delivered their end of the bargain, imo. I thought it was brilliant and subliminal and delivered a big punch for such a seemingly minor project, a new book, from a former actor. Glee, for him, was a long time ago.

The fact that Variety, an entertainment inustry trade publication, was the first to report on it, almost immediately, also matters, as does their headline. They set the tone for all the other articles, many publications of which are tied to Disney, their subsidiaries, or other major industry players with connections to that show, the showrunners, or the actors. Many of them included links back to the original interview. They want the buzz, and the reactions, to see how they read across media. Chris got a lot of coverage here because he still matters to not just his fanbase, but to the public, and to the industry, and to his community. Clickbait only works if people are interested, and this much is a crazy level of interest.

Again, Glee made BILLIONS for Fox, and Iger is looking to shore up Disney+ offerings to further entice new subscribers.

[alientoastt]

im probably not finishing this because i have art homework to do but. the them.

[image id: two digital drawings in the style of The Road To El Dorado, the 2000 dreamworks movie. they're both unfinished, and only lines. one the left is gunpowder tim from the mechanisms, wincing and rolling dice between his palms— he's only shown from the waist up. on the right is just the head and metal hand of marius von raum, also from the mechanisms. his face is screwed tight into an intimidating expression, and his fingers are splayed like he just strummed on an instument next to his face. end id.]

[ecto-american]

I was doing some research for a fanfiction, and remembered this line from Reality Trip, which got my criminal justice self all excited because of the implications. So have some analysis from a rambling autistic with a criminal justice degree.

“Daniel Fenton, in accordance with the Federal Anti-Ecto Control Act, Article 1, Section 1, Sub-section A, you're under arrest.”

Y'all, this is kinda wack? It means, on some level, there has been a federal judgment within the world of Danny Phantom that not only acknowledges that ghosts exist, but has an entire fucking act describing specifically the course of action in a sense. Lots of acts will kind of be this vague overarching thing with various random acts thrown into it, but the name along with the article one, section one subsection a dealio implies that this entire act focuses on ghosts. I say act and not law btw, because those terms are not necessarily synonyms.

Not only does this confirm that there are acts (at least one anyway) in Danny Phantom that specifically talk about ghosts, but kind of really and truly cements that the Guys in White are actually a federal government agency, rather than them simply acting as one but really being a private company of sorts or being some local state government program.

And with laws about ghosts, it means that legally, the government had to define what exactly a ghost is as well as their rights and lack of rights, and that they legally acknowledge, as a nation, that ghosts exists. While, of course, we don’t really ever get to see this act, and as far as I know, it’s literally Never talked about again, this scene means that this act applies to Danny. For a quick refresher, this happens after Danny is exposed, and so this act still applies to Danny despite him being outted as a half ghost. A scary sidenote is before this scene and line of dialogue, the agents told Danny that he was coming in for questioning and experiments.

So what might it possibly say? If there are any acts that we can potentially base what this act possibly would say, I would probably guess it’d be similar to the acts used for minorities within the United States. And I say these kinds of acts because they’re specifically acts that discriminate towards a group, and that have used various reasons to justify how they are not human, citizens or have any legal rights. If the agents’ lines were correct, these acts probably gave them justification for doing inhumanly cruel things to Danny.

Of course, Danny could be arrest for something totally different and not for some anti-ghost reasons. At this point in time, he’s still kind of half-loved, half-hated publicly as people are shown to still believe that he stole during the events of Control Freaks and the mayor incident of Public Enemies, but if he was under arrest for any of those crimes, the agents would have said that. And I refuse to believe this is an oversight of the writers, because they would have found any nitpicky thing and made it a funny situation where the agents went on and on and on about this endless list of crimes that the ghost boy has committed until Danny roundhouse kicked somebody. And no, it’s likely not because the Guys in White are only interested in Ghost Crimes. As federal officials, which they are confirmed to be, they would have arrested him for everything and have to basically fistfight the other government agencies investigating his Non Ghost Crimes.

So what exactly is he under arrest for? No clue obviously, and it’s hard to really even guess. Article 1, Section 1, Sub-section A for most acts are basically describing what the act’s going to be before it moves on to detail that. I think this is an oversight of the DP writers, lord knows we get enough of them, but it could also potentially highlight the Dumb factor of the Guys in White that we would see them sometimes exhibit, where instead of properly referencing the piece of legislation he’s under arrest for, they just blurt out the first section of that law.

And who wrote this act? It could be anybody, of course. Anybody within politics. It also begs the question as to exactly when this act was written and when it was put into effect. I’d wager it heavily depends on when the Guys in White came into effect, as they are clearly acting under these laws. Which begs the question: how many pieces of anti-ghost legislation are there? Who’s writing them? There’s potential that there are literally lawyers who are literally experts in ghost law. Keep in mind that in the beginning of the series, there was a lot of skepticism that ghosts even exist.

This honestly leads me to propose a new headcanon: The Guys in White are a very new government organization that spawned after the events of Public Enemies. To preface this and clarify, in order, the Guys in White appear in only five episodes: Million Dollar Ghost, Double Cross My Heart, Reality Trip, Eye for an Eye, and Livin’ Large.

Evidence to support this theory:

They only show up four episodes later in their first appearance in Million Dollar Ghost. Public Enemies seems to also be the first episode in the series that shows a massive onslaught of ghost attacks. I would guess that this is the ghostly event that probably spawned the act in question, which may have called for the organization of the Guys in White. Prior to this, ghosts were basically shown that they’re unconfirmed to exist on a public level. Even Jack, our lovable and excitable ghost hunter who’s been doing this since his college years admits in Mystery Meat that he’s never seen a ghost until that point. Jazz mentions that Harriet Chin in Bitter Reunions lost her job for writing an article about ghosts because she was laughed for writing about something that was more for “the national enquirer”, a conspiracy theory newspaper that nobody really takes seriously.

Why are they there during the events of Million Dollar Ghost anyway? If they’re a new organization, they may need that money or are cashing in on the publicity of the event to spread their name, or they’re just starting out and have no real clue where else to go. Only two of them even showed up anyway. The only other groups there are very small ghost hunting groups: literally two young adults on scooters, another set of young adults with a tiger fueled by anxiety and a van, and FentonWorks. And while they, out of all of them, clearly have the most advanced technology, they’re about on the same skill level as the other ghost hunters (getting captured and tricked and such just as easily). Danny even was just as “haha” about them as he was the other hunters who had showed up.

Their technology in Million Dollar ghost is nothing in comparison to the literal jetpacks and planes and four wheelers and armor they get several episodes later. Their funding increased when they proved ghosts exist and more ghostly events happened, and they likely proved their competence in some way. Especially when we see that they have been catching other ghosts (like Skulker in Double Cross My Heart and Lydia in Reality Trip) and gathering important information on ghostly artifacts (Reality Trip).

It would explain why they don’t really show up that often in the series, especially during major ghost events where they really should be there, such as the ghost king invasion of Reign Storm. They may have not secured the funding or manpower to really do anything just yet. Note that Reign Storm happened in between Million Dollar Ghost and Double Cross My Heart, which is almost a 20 episode gap. Their skills, knowledge, ability, technology and apparent funding jumped massively between these episodes, and it kind of stays about the same consistency for the rest of the show.

They really only seem to have one department, and they have really low employee numbers for a government agency. There’s no talk or implications or having multiple departments or anything, such as research or technology. Even during the SWAT invasion during Reality Trip, there’s only like twenty or so agents there. In Livin’ Large, there’s only about seven there, and two are the Agent K and O that we know. They play a lot of roles, from researching, questioning, gathering information, tracking down criminals, getting information from the Fenton’s lab, technology things in FentonWorks, etc. Of course, this is a staple for many law enforcement jobs where you have many tasks, but they seem to be playing the role of detective, computer analysis, and police officer at minimum given the wide variety of things we see them do. As somebody who’s worked in three situations where the company/program was very new, it’s incredibly common for a new company that’s still finding it’s groundings to have a very blurred job line. Or they’re heavily underfunded, but look at the goddamn jetpacks they get, look me in the eye and tell me they’re underfunded.

The lack of basic ghost information. In Livin’ Large, they want to destroy the Ghost Zone. It’s apparently very obvious that you Can’t Do That, but the Guys in White seem oblivious. While you can argue that they’re just fucking dumb, it may be more reasonable to assume that they simply just don’t know.

There’s no dialogue (that I can find) prior to Million Dollar Ghost to suggest they exist. There’s also no dialogue from Vlad, who would have known and been wary of such an organization had it been around for years, to suggest that they’ve been around a while. Jack, who also is open about how much he admires them, would have likely said something to. But I am willing to chalk this entire part up to simply poor writing.

“But Danny knew who the Guys in White were when they showed up in Million Dollar Ghost!” Yeah. He also knew who the other people were, and I heavily doubt that they’d be as big of a deal or name as the Official government branch. It’s very likely that they all introduced themselves when they showed up.

[twdmusicboxmystery]

TWD Flagship Series Ending and How It Might Affect Beth/TD

I’m sorry I didn’t get my thoughts out sooner. I woke up to like three fires I had to put out (figurative, of course) so it too me longer than usual to get these written up. But, here we go:

Okay, so I know everyone is freaking out about yesterday’s news. I feel ya. I’m obviously very sad that the flagship series will be ending.

But having said that, it doesn’t entirely surprise me. And it doesn’t really bother me, at least not in the way everyone seems to think it will.

I have lots of thoughts about this, so bear with me. I’ll try to keep them succinct and organized.

I Still Think Beth is Returning

This is probably the most important thing for everyone to know. This announcement doesn’t affect my beliefs about Beth’s return. You’ll understand why as we go along and I explain more. It also doesn’t negate all the clues Emily and other actors have been dropping over previous months. Just keep that in mind.

It Doesn’t Surprise Me That The Show Might End Not Long After Her Return

Now, I’m gonna say that I realize now my original thinking about this was a little flawed, but I’m gonna say it anyway just to throw it out there.

As it’s taken longer and longer for Beth to return, I’ve come to realize that there would be a lot less of the show to go after her return than there was before it. If she’d have returned in S6 or S7, we would have had many seasons to go. But that hasn’t been the case, right?

I firmly believe that Beth represents Daryl’s happily ending. But that does imply it will be an ending of sorts.

And don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t have predicted the show would end in S11. You all know I’ve harped on the 15-season thing quite a bit, and I have more to say on that, which I’ll get to in a minute. I’m just saying that after Beth returns, I never thought we’d get another 10 seasons of TWD. A few, sure, but not double the amount or anything.

Okay, so let me make some broad statements here.

1)      Gimple said he had until S15 planned, and I believe him.

2)      I still think he has plenty of material so that they could have gone on through season 15.

3)      I don’t think any of that content is being scrapped, curtailed, or cut short in any way.

So how can all of those things work together? Well, this is my biggest belief about this whole thing:

I don’t think they’re changing any of their original plan. I think they’re just shuffling and restructuring the way they’re going to give it to us.

A lot of things have changed over the past few years: technology, the fact that people stream-watch much more often than live-watch, CoVid, etc. So basically, I still think they’ll continue to tell the story through what would have been season 15, but they’ll be doing it through alternate series, spinoffs, movies, etc., rather than keeping it all to the main series.

Now, some of the skeptics out there are bound to think my beliefs about this are awfully convenient, and I’m just holding out hope that Beth will still return.

But I’m not JUST talking about Beth story lines. There are other things to consider here that we can prove. And I’ll get to them.

But the next question is:

Why Would They Continue the Story in Other Spinoffs, Rather Than Just Keeping to the Main Series?

I wasn’t sure about this at first, either. The only thing I could come up with on my own is that there are certain business/monetary/logistical concerns behind the scenes that make this a better model for AMC to make use of, rather than continuing the flagship series. And really, we’re never going to totally understand all of that because for legal/privacy reasons they’re never going to give us the details.

But then, the always-insightful @wdway said some things that really helped light bulbs go on in my head.

We were discussing this and she said something about how, since Daryl isn’t a character in the comic books, and Carol died very early on in the story (at the farm, I think?), with this spinoff that will focus on Daryl and Carol, they’re heading into territory that has absolutely no comic book source material.

And that really made sense to me. So, here’s my underlying belief about WHY they’re ending the flagship series after S11, even though they still have more story they’re planning to tell.

I Believe They’re Ending the Story after the Commonwealth Arc, Specifically Because the Comic Books Ended.

Because here’s the thing. Even with the extended S11, I still don’t think that will be enough time to cover the two major story lines they’ve been hinting at and slowly uncovering over recent seasons: the Commonwealth and the Helicopter People.

The only way to cover BOTH of those so quickly is to REALLY short change one or the other of them, and I think we have ample evidence and foreshadowing that that won’t be the case.

So, here’s the jist of it. Back when Gimple took over and planned his 15-season arc, they couldn’t have predicted a lot of what’s happened since. They couldn’t have predicted technology, COVID…or that Kirkman would suddenly, without any warning, decide to end the comics. So, even though they’ve always put their own spin on things, and have definitely done things that weren’t in the comics at all (i.e. Beth and Daryl), they’ve still always stuck to the major arcs from the comic books. (The Farm, The Prison, Alexandria, AOW, Whisper War, and now The Commonwealth.)

I think they decided to pivot and change formats as soon as Kirkman ended the CBs. They just haven’t announced it until now. So, I think season 11 will focus completely on the Commonwealth, but they’ll end it and switch to something entirely new to continue telling the story of the Helicopter Group. And even though they’re advertising it as focusing on Daryl and Carol, keep in mind that Rick and Michonne are also still out there. We’ll have them to look forward to in the Rick Grimes Films as well. And of course they still have FTWD, TWB, and these other spinoffs they’re talking about.

Do you see what I mean? I don’t think they’re changing or curtailing the story they’ve always planned on telling. They’re just changing formats. So the main series will end with the source material from RK’s comic books. The rest will be a new series that is 100% AMC’s own.

I hope that makes sense. This is why it doesn’t really worry me and I don’t think it negatively impacts Beth’s story or return at all. 

Okay, let’s switch gears and talk about the spinoff.

When I read the press release, the first thought I had was, “Well, that’s vague.” The press release really doesn’t tell us much. It’s hard to draw many conclusions from it. And it doesn’t say other characters (like Ezekiel, for example) won’t be in it. Just that it will focus on Daryl and Carol.

And I get that, again, that may sound convenient, but that’s why I explained everything above first. Knowing that this is probably just switching formats to continue the same story, it doesn’t sound quite as convenient anymore, does it?

The second thing I thought when I heard this (and my fellow theorists said they had the exact same thought, which kind of validates it in my head) is that this whole Carol/Daryl thing is probably tied to the New Mexico symbolism.

If you remember, starting in 10x01, they started randomly referencing New Mexico a lot, in conjunction with the idea of the two of them taking off on Daryl’s bike and just leaving. I know that idea isn’t our fandom’s favorite, but it was obvious to me that this was a foreshadowing and that it will happen at some point. So I’m relatively sure that this spinoff about Daryl and Carol will be them going to New Mexico together.

Here are some posts where I talked about the NM symbolism: X, X, X,

The thing is, guys, I’ve also always believed that it will be a Beth thing. That it will mirror them taking off together to search for Beth in 5a. So either way, I think Beth will be involved in that spinoff series.

@wdway told me she’s believed for a while that S11 will be another “Daryl searches for Beth” season. TD has believed for a LONG time that there will need to be another search on Daryl’s part. That there may even be something of a replay of events in Coda, but that it will end differently. In a good way, rather than in the disaster that was Coda.

So, either Beth and Daryl will get a reunion sometime in S11, but then something will happen and she’ll be taken again. Probably by the helicopter people. And Daryl will need to go look for her.

Or.

Maybe they won’t get a reunion at all in S11. That would definitely suck more, but maybe, while the audience, and various characters in the show *coughs Eugene* know about Beth, maybe Daryl really doesn’t find out until the end of the season, and he’ll just be busy dealing with the Commonwealth situation. But then, at the end, he finds out she’s alive and jumps on his bike to go find her. And, as in 5x02, Carol goes with him.

I also think Ezekiel will probably figure heavily in this. I’ve harped on and on about his death fake out, right? I do think it will happen some time in S11. And I think it’s possible that the season (and series) will end with Carol still not knowing that he’s really alive. Or maybe she’ll find out he’s with Beth and that will be part of the reason she goes with Daryl too.

Now, obviously this is all conjecture with a liberal splash of head canon. But given the symbolism and foreshadowing we’ve identified, especially these past two seasons, and how often TD has been right about this sort of thing, I really think there is a VERY good possibility that this, or something close to it, is what’s really happening here.

So yeah. I think I’ll shut up, now. The short of it is, I think they’ll continue the story line after S11, just in different story vehicles. I think Beth will still return and be a big part of the story moving forward. And I think S11 (and the series) will end with a lot of unresolved story lines that will move to other parts of the franchise. Therefore, aside from being sad to say goodbye to the flagship series in principle, this really doesn’t worry me all that much.

At the very least, we know we’ll be getting more Daryl after the series officially ends. Which is a good thing.

Thoughts?

[keepyourpantsongohan]

Ayesha Liveblogs Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card S1

Not to be someone born in the 90s but wow this is a change from the more simple animation style new anime truly likes things shiny, intensely bright and round lmao

Ah I guess the prologue is just a reanimation of the original anime finale? That’s fair it helps you reintegrate if it had been nineteen years for you

“That way, you’ll realize who you consider to be your Number One” Eriol’s advice has gotten less cryptic since he stopped lying

“The person I love the most... is you” Lmao didn’t Syaoran ALREADY do this confession in the final battle this is like in Naruto the Last where Naruto just forgot that Hinata had already said she loved him

Fdshkfjhkjdfhksjhfkjh wow Yukito appearing with a flower background and shine effect and softened face is this a style choice or is this just Toya Vision™

I think Toya’s voice IS different rest in pieces I still respect u bro 

“How do I feel about Syaoran” [Pan across Syaoran in floral background] It is a style choice how very shojo manga of you

I’m really very confused by the references to Tokyo Tower bc I’m pretty sure they were battling at Tsukimine Shrine did I miss something??

No I just checked it was definitely at the shrine in the anime did THEY not check or were they like ‘hmmm not enough drama only Tokyo Tower for our battle backdrops pls’

This is the third or fourth flower backdrop in the first ten minutes jkhkdjhg the floral effect artists said ‘I WILL BE SILENT NO LONGER’:

I DO NOT understand the chronology of this the bear exchange was the last scene in the anime is this before or after the finale???? If it’s after then why is Syaoran still in town

Rjhkjhgkj is the entire point of redoing this episode so Sakura could also give Syaoran a bear

“Toya was too embarrassed, so he had me bring it over and went back to his room” Lmao @ Toya sending his boyfriend to be nice to his sister in his place 

If this show does not stop the floral cutaways I will not be able to take it seriously it is Ouran High School Host Club levels of intensity jdshfkjshdfkjhsdk

“Will you wait for me?” “Yes! I’ll wait! I’ll be waiting!” I think they threw out all continuity just so they could establish that these feelings were for sure mutual for the setup of the sequel series

That, or the original series so heavily discarded manga continuity that they are trying to walk it back to something more accurate without any real explanation

Rffkghkfghkdfhgkj if they’re referencing the original anime bear scene what was the point of that stupid prologue SO WHAT IS THE TRUTH

“My name is Mike. I’m from Portland” LOL references to Americans in anime are always so funny 

“Now I can stay in Tomoeda forever” did u bring ur mom and sisters orrr

Gosh I’m actually quite thrown by how quickly this romance escalated it took them 57 episodes to just use each other’s first names and now it’s taken them one (1) episode to Commit 4Ever At Age 13

HAHAHA do they have smart phones now? Always on the cutting edge

“I Am a Stuffed Animal” some of the quirky captions ARE worth it

“Make sure you tell him... even the smallest things” Yue has become more of a romantic since he got closure and a part-time boyfriend 

“I never knew! Thanks for telling me!” “Never change, Li-kun” kjhgkjhdkj STILL MY GULLIBLE BOY some things don’t ever change

Is that a dragon?? They are really expanding this magical universe

It bears repeating the polar opposite levels of pacing from the two shows it’s only episode one and they’ve already established so many new rules and powers 

I don’t blame them for it though bc they have to put forward some kind of plot progression

There were so many visual effects in that scene I couldn’t even tell what was happening lmao it’s like reading manga battles

“But why are these things happening in Tomoeda again?” I mean not to point fingers but Syaoran’s arrival is fairly recent

“Did Wei-san come back with you” “No, just me. But he said he’d come to check on me in a while” HE’S 13?? CHILD. WELFARE. LAWS!!!!

“I wish that I could’ve used it as a reference” “For what?” “To make something that would look wonderful on you” LMAO now that Syaoran and Sakura are a thing He is Included in the outfits 

“’Great to have you’ so you can do what?” don’t bully ur sister Toya, u r both happy with your respective relationships now

WHAT ARE THE STAKES OF KERO PRETENDING TO BE A PLUSHIE TOYA IS LITERALLY DATING THE MOON

I understood “Gale” but what exactly is a “Siege” card this feels a little abstract 

“We managed to keep him in the dark” did u tho? Again. Moon boyfriend

“So it happened in her room” Did u put a protection spell on that bear or something Syaoran 

I genuinely do not tire of Syaoran and Sakura’s shared gullibility this couple is morosexual solidarity

How convenient that Sakura’s new key just announces whenever there’s a new clear card to collect lmao

I meant what I said about Toya’s love language being touching Yukito somewhere above the shoulders 

“You’ll find out when the time comes” Dfddjhfjkdhf Toya what are you going to DO 

Two cards in one episode is quite a bit for ep 3 I guess they’re trying to give her some more fighting options lol 

Is the implication of the way Sakura just happens to be coming across magical phenomenon that Clow Reed didn’t make his cards but just harnessed magic that existed in nature 

For no reason other than my own suspicion I think that something funky is going on with Syaoran’s powers

“That person was almost the same height as me” I mean so was Eriol

“Sakura and the Lovely Transfer Student” we know by now transfer students mean that shit’s about to get real

“And then you slept with your belly uncovered” “I did not!” Toya’s gentle bullying to distract Sakura is always weirdly sweet

“Your brother is so funny Sakura” CHIHARU’S RIGHT STAN TOYA

SHINOMOTO ARE YOU SHITTING ME JHDFGHDGDFDD WHY DOES IT RHYME

“I hope we can be friends” if I know anything about this show this means she’s going to do something very shady immediately

I wonder if this will be the season that Tomoyo’s filming of everything Sakura does finally becomes plot relevant

I do think it’s weird that Sakura trusted a new key without questioning it

“I’m changing back” LOL @ YUE TRANSFORMING INTO YUKITO JUST TO AVOID PEOPLE I’M STARTING TO REALLY LIKE HIM

DGSJGSJDGDJGSFFSJDHJS YUKITO APOLOGIZING FOR YUE LEAVING RUDELY THAT’S MY POLITE AND HANDSOME MAN WHO HAS NEVER DONE ANYTHING WRONG IN HIS LIFE

I KNEW Syaoran was being suspicious!!! Talking about Sakura with Eriol in secret phone calls

“I came here to be ready for that time, when it comes” current theory is that Syaoran has NO powers and that’s why he is not running out of his classroom for teenage battles with the Forces of Nature

“How much has Yukito-san been eating?” “Not as much as he did when you were in elementary school, but he still eats a lot for his size” This must be a strange conversation for their dad to listen to but I like how this is code for Does Yukito Have Magical Chakra Exhaustion

“Um, I just... Phone call” said Sakura, as she was forcibly moonwalked away right in front of her friends’ eyes

LOL is Tomoyo being unable to film Sakura going to be a recurring joke 

“Don’t worry about it” “I have to, when it’s about you” Syaoran really going Full Boyfriend Mode huh

I’ve never questioned it in until precisely this moment but who pays Kero’s phone bill?? Is it Tomoyo? Who is the account holder for this stuffed animal did she establish Kero as a legal person

“Momo-chan, let’s be friends okay?” I feel like this has to be immediate foreshadowing for Momo being alive

[Cucumber cut incorrectly] “Gotta show Yuki” hjkfhksjdhfkjhd rude of Toya but the caption kills me

Ddjkhfkjdhfjkdhfkjh the pure juxtaposition of this energy:

Tomoyo: They have other things to do

Chiharu, thinking that it’s a romance thing: [Winks]

Syaoran and Sakura: [In the shadows while threatening music plays]

“I didn’t feel... anything” oh NO why r their magic senses NOT tingling

I feel like I have been had, they had an episode called the “Song of the Moon” and Yukito didn’t even show up?? Rude

SCREAM this magical FaceTime call is much funnier than I could’ve imagined

“Yukito is in a recitation club, which he takes very seriously” GDGJFGJGJHGDG Yue very respectful of not occupying Yukito’s time with magical shenanigans LMAO

“And we’ll make them the cutest oxygen masks you’ve ever seen” Tomoyo, like the background effects artists in this anime, will not be stopped

Well colour me inaccurate I guess Syaoran can use his powers and he can do a fancy new sword thing

I like this flying scarf it’s the first of the new cards with a personality

Poor Syaoran always so serious to being a Teenage Wizard is hard

Wow I bet there’s NOTHING weird about the fact Akiho lives in Eriol’s house it’s just pure happenstance (said no one)

“Could we um, go out together?” I think this is the first time someone has explicitly scheduled a date in all 80+ episodes

I really do enjoy Toya’s never-ending list of temp jobs lmao 

“Still going on, huh?” Toya’s older brother senses are unparalleled

LMAO IS THIS A 15 YEAR OLD BUTLER

Ghgjhfjfjhfjh what is the scale for these heights why is Kaito twice the height of these 13-year-olds

Unsubtle shot of this man’s pocket watch echoing Sakura’s dream

I’ve never seen a more Rich Person Reaction than Akiho getting upset that Katio, a service worker, stated that taking care of her was his job hfkjdhfkjh

“I came to Japan because there was a book I wanted”

1. VERY Rich Person thing to say

2. Wow I wonder which of you has a MAGICAL BOOK that’s been doing weird things lately

“What language is it” “I don’t know, but I’ve learned to read it” me when I hear people speak South Asian languages LMAO

Why does everyone keep referencing the Time That’s Coming? Toya, Syaoran, Eriol... they’ve all caught Mizuki’s affliction of vague and unhelpful prophecies

*One more go to jail Mizuki for the road

I hope that these stupid FaceTime calls with Yue are in EVERY episode from now on

Does the fact that he’s listed as Yue-san in Sakura’s phone mean that there’s a phone for each personality omg

OMG I just realized the ep title (Sakura’s Thrilling Aquarium Visit) must be a throwback to “Sakura’s Heart-Racing First Date” which was not a date but took place at an aquarium. Cute!!

GJHGSHJGFSGH Yue is me whenever people talk about video games:

Kero: Hey, Yue, play an online game with me

Yue: [Hangs up immediately]

“I made you wait” “Nah, I got here too early. It’s still twelve minutes before our meeting time.” I think she and Yukito had this exact exchange in that early ep

“She doesn’t have magical powers, but she’s oddly perceptive” I hope that Meilin’s one and only magical power is precognition lmao

Omg every time someone in this show speaks English I am so thrown 

“I wasn’t sure how I should look at him” awww Syaoran trying to re-establish himself in the family

I guess this aquarium HAS changed in that it developed a security system for when the tank breaks [youknowwhathatisgrowth.gif]

LOL I guess it’s convenient to have an invisibility cloak when ur breaking and entering I was wondering how they were going to deal with their criminal behaviour in the age of cameras

Ep 10. Sakura’s Unbelievable Juvenile Detention Centre

Weel weel weel looks like Sakura isn’t the only one with new powers nice ice Syaoran!! I missed their tag team fights

OH MY GOD IF THIS PHOTO ALBUM ACCEPTS THE CONTINUITY OF THE SECOND MOVIE THEN SAKURA AND SYAORAN HAVE ALREADY! DONE! THEIR! CONFESSIONS! WOULD YOU PICK A LANE

“You want the person you like to eat good food” Besides the fact Kaito is twice your height and therefore probably an adult... u should not make advances on people u employ - this is all very bad-vibes-no-jutsu

I am shocked that it took this long for Sakura to notice that her new cards paralleled the old cards

Syaoran is staring at Kaito like he murdered his spouse in a previous life 

“So he has Moon magic too?” UHHHH WAS SYAORAN’S MAGIC ALWAYS MOON-BASED I FEEL LIKE THAT’S NOT CLEAR

Also very unclear why Eriol keeps leaving her on read if he’s talking to Syaoran what

I love how Kero has independent friendships and communications with both Yukito and Tomoyo lmao

How many times has Penguin Park been destroyed by now

“Perhaps your dream is gradually progressing” Progressing into what exactly the Battle of the Nice Thirteen-Year-Olds

Why is it that magic in this universe comes with above-average athletic ability LOL

Once again, without a body/personification, these cards seem harsh

Kaito seems like too much of a red herring a la Mizuki so I’m going to assume the other presence we see is someone we either haven’t met yet or smth really fucked up with the rest of the main cast 

I’d lose my mind if it was Toya but I genuinely hope not he’s too nice

I honestly missed Meilin ever since she chilled out a bit she’s very fun

“The emoji in her message definitely looked thrilled” [Bob Dylan voice] For the times they are a-changin’.....

“I don’t know when it’ll happen, but when it does you’ll know” Toya.......

Toya’s absolutely nonplussed reaction to his Moon Boyfriend never ceases to amaze

Yukito: [Sighs and floats into the air to wrap in a wing cocoon]

Toya: [Sitting and staring unfazed] 

Also am I crazy or was that transformation on purpose bc it really had the energy of ‘Fine if you won’t talk to me maybe you’ll talk to Rude Magical Me!!’

“Did I change again?” GUESS NOT LMAO 

Also it’s fun how as different as Yukito and Yue are, their shared brain cell says ‘TOYA COMMUNICATE WITH MEE’ 

“But ever since Syaoran came back, he’s had something important on his mind” People don’t give Sakura enough credit for her emotional intelligence

Can we take a minute to appreciate Sakura’s outfit fashion ICON

What is this Furry card that makes u dress up in ears and a tail lmao

“I’ll treasure [these cookies]” “I’d rather you ate them” LOL

My Furry card prediction gets more and more accurate with each passing second (even a broken clock’s right twice a day)

Uhhhhh Syaoran what did u sell to the moon devil to be able to cut through the space-time continuum

Sakura: NO THAT’S MY EMOTIONAL SUPPORT SYAORAN

SCREAM this family and their circle of hair cutting (also if Yukito cuts Toya’s hair, does Toya cut Yukito’s? Or does it not grow bc magic jfhkfh)

“I’m pretty sure that was middle school English” Sakura hearing English is me hearing French LMAO 

“Sucks, doesn’t he?” MEILIN PLS

Djhfjkdhkjfhjk Tomoyo’s immediate rage at being the centre of attention

SAKURA DOING MAGIC RIGHT IN FRONT OF OTHER PEOPLE OMG

“Surround the entire mansion” Very subtle Sakura I’m sure no one in your whole town will notice

“I hear her father specializes in archaeology, so he might have some interesting books” “Have I mentioned Sakura-san’s father to you before?” [Dramatic cut in music] WELL

Oh my GOD did Kaito just turn back time bc he regretted what he said immediately? Honestly a mood

Also: BITCH

“You’re so alike, and not just because of your names” I have to say I’ve been thinking since her first appearance that Akiho looks like Nadeshiko so if they’re not related I will be surprised

“Sometimes watching good people makes me feel sad” well damn Meilin

I’m going to guess this Teenage Robot is the equivalent of the fight card that Meilin fought upon her introduction

Aw HELL YEAH SAKURA AND MEILIN TAG TEAM FIGHT WOOOO

“Aren’t you and Syaoran doing too much for those you care about, and forgetting to care about yourselves?” WELL DAMN MEILIN U R THE NEW TEENAGE SUPERHERO THERAPIST

 “Can I call you ‘Sakura’ from now on, too?” AHHH THESE KIDS

LMAO AMAZING IT TOOK 13 STRAIGHT EPISODES FOR MOMO TO EVEN TWITCH

“We are indeed progressing... toward that time” I feel THREATENED

Once again I cannot stress strongly enough how much I love physical comedy

Sakura: They don’t seem to be causing any harm

The dessert rolls:

GOD the roll cakes eating each other to form one giant monster Babushka doll roll cake jhfjkdhgkdjhgkj incredible

EXCUSE ME MA’AM WHY WAS THERE A DEMON GIRL IN THE REFLECTION OF THIS SHATTERED CARD 

“Please laugh again” Akiho is v nice I really hope Kaito isn’t mean 

“Once a magical contract is formed, it can’t be broken, unless something really serious happens” [Quirrel voice] Can anyone tell me what foreshadowing is?

“What do you feel” “I think it’s a card” Very observant Sakura I think they gathered that

When Sakura gets all four of the base elements is Momo going to turn into a 200 pound giant rabbit

I like that every time Toya is concerned about Sakura, Yue appears suddenly to discuss the matter seriously with him [Gay and Wondorous Life of Caleb Gallo voice] He’s in this relationship!!

“When you’re angry or upset, it shows on your face, even if you don’t say it” Yue IS in this relationship woooow

“When humans realize they’re talking to a fox, they won’t sell you mittens. In fact, they’ll catch you and put you in a cage.” UH who is the fox in this metaphor not Sakura I hope???

Years later Syaoran is still winded if Sakura makes too much eye contact khgkghkjg 

The fact that Yukito reads at a children’s hospital... truly one of The Nicest Not-Humans On Earth

Well with each passing episode we have less and less reasons to trust these cards and Kaito the Young Magical Butler

Ever since Kaito reversed time, I cannot shake the persistent thought that Akiho IS Nadeshiko. That’d be weird but u know... I’ve seen this show do weirder

“Your sweets look better” “No, yours!” Grandpa witnessing this date

“Also if Sakura-chan goes to college or wants to do something else, he wants to help” TOYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

“Any further, and you won’t be able to return” NADESHIKO BE MORE SPECIFIC 

“It was my robe” Wait what ur family is a magical society or smth and somehow u don’t know Akiho??? How in the whomst

Everyone in this anime is like, ‘Haha Yue looks mad’ as if Yue does not look mad every second that he’s alive

KHKJHKFJHKJFHJ GRANDPA MASAKI REALLY GONNA GIVE SAKURA A HOUSE AND TOYA NOTHING LMAO WHAT’S IT LIKE TO BE THE LEAST FAVOURITE GREAT-GRANDCHILD LOL

“Nadeshiko would talk to things that weren’t there, and try to reach an understanding with things that couldn’t talk” 91 EPISODES LATER AND MR. KINOMOTO FINALLY ACKNOWLEDGES MAGIC?? OKAY

AND HE KNEW BOTH SAKURA AND TOYA HAVE HAD MAGICAL PROBLEMS FOR 3 YEARS!!! MR. KINOMOTO WHAT KIND OF HANDS-OFF PARENTING

“I want me to tell me [about your pain] too” wow this is the CALL-OUT EPISODE

“The house they live in was once torn down and replaced with an amusement park” were the continuity errors of accepting the second movie... A PLOT POINT?!?!?!

DAMN U KAITO I REALLY WANTED THINGS TO BE OKAY FOR AKIHO

“But I’ve got a great poker face” “Yes you do. But Yue does not” JKHDKJGHKJSHGKJHDKJGHSDJGHKJH BY DIALOGUE ALONE IT’S LIKE WHENEVER ANYONE SEES YUE’S FACE TWITCH IT MEANS HE’S HAVING AN EMOTIONAL BREAKDOWN

Yue: Evil magic looming overhead is bad for your wifi signal actually

“I will obtain these new cards. So I can use the relic I took from the association to activate that magic spell” Kaito really laying out his motivations out loud in a library. Insensible. Vague and probably misleading. 1/10 villainous monologue 

Sakura’s powers are WILD she can duplicate the strength of her magic 

“Power that’s too strong will bring unhappiness to its owner” SYAORAN :((

I feel like the only way this can end is Toya giving Sakura magical noogie so she doesn’t have to carry all of her powers like the reverse of what he did for Yue-kito 

THERE IS TOO LITTLE TIME LEFT IN THIS SHOW FOR ALL THE ANSWERS I NEED THERE’S ONLY 20 MINUTES AHHHH

THERE ARE 12 MINUTES LEFT AND STILL NO ANSWERS!!! WHAT HAPPENSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

I GOT ABSOLUTELY NO ANSWERS OH MY GOD?!?!?!?!

[cheonsans]

★ ＸＯ

ｔｈｅ ｓｅｃｏｎｄ ａｌｂｕｍ

XO is the second studio album released by Superbia Entertainment’s R&B duo, X2. It was released on January 14, 2016, and featured the title track heaven. The album received a moderate amount of controversy for its explicit lyrics and content, though ultimately, X2 just didn’t care. After wonderful success with their first album, their comeback was timely and once again entirely self-managed; it was anticipated and well-received.

(playlist link)

TRACKLIST

heaven (title) - insp. elo and penomeco’s oh i

heaven features a spacious instrumental complemented with strings, powerful vocals, subtle but driving percussion, and a gradual build-up into an airy and equally as strong chorus. Layered vocals from both of the members lend to an atmospheric sound to the song, and despite the song being mostly vocal-driven, Junsik’s rap portions provide a refreshing respite from the flowing nature of RJ’s vocals. The song is a seamless blend of their individual vocal flavors, and showcases their harmonic abilities in particular.

hit me up - insp. sik-k and gaeko’s ring ring

shinin’ - punchnello and crush’s corona

expensive - simon dominic and jay park’s won and only

don’t be shy - crush and sik-k’s don’t be shy

Sheer filth. The song is upbeat and light-hearted, despite the very explicit nature of the lyrics. This song, while very popular, was regarded with particular distaste from listeners as people realized that RJ was only barely legal by Korean age when he wrote it. The lyrics featured lines such as “Tell me what you what you wanna do/I’ll take it off slowly/I can undo it with one hand/The tight clasp on your back/Till you ask for more/I won’t stop/Twice, three times, from the top, from the bottom/I wanna live inside” from RJ, clearly referencing not only undressing a girl, but much more than that. From Junsik, lines were more palatable, even if he had lyrics like “I wanna hear your moans/Let’s wash up/But keep the bathroom door open/Don’t be shy/girl I told ya/Let’s say the shower made you wet/and I slide/Between your thick thighs.” So, yeah, the song was obviously explicit as hell. When brought up in interviews, the two sort of brushed off the controversy, stating that music was about expression, and it was unrealistic to expect every single young artist to pretend to be naive to save face, especially when they aren’t idols. They hung out with a few YouTubers, one of which joked around with the two and had RJ show off his unhooking a bra with one hand skills (as many as he could with a time limit and on a mannequin), but he was laughing too much to do it more than three times and his hands were shaking because he was nervous.

don’t u know? - woo, loco, and gray’s we are

a moment of silence - loco and crush’s still 

ERA NOTES

Just as they had done with their first album, all of the posts on the x2 instagram were archived. in their place were nine photos with white backgrounds and black graphics that formed the lewis dot structure of dopamine, as well as 011416 beneath.

RJ and Junsik both went mostly quiet on their personals, as well, though RJ’s last instagram post had the caption “baby, you’re like a breath of fresh air” and a photo of clouds taken from an airplane seat.

Junsik was obviously more comfortable behind a camera this time around, though clearly not at RJ’s level. Once again, teaser videos were released, one for each member.

Junsik’s featured him walking and looking seemingly bored on what looked like a mirrored sheet of glass, in a computer-generated sky of shifting colors, ranging from pink to dusty blue. His hair color was hidden beneath a baseball cap. He wore a loose white dress shirt, asymmetrically tucked in and with the sleeves rolled up on his forearms, black pants, and minimal jewelry.

RJ was filmed underwater, sitting cross-legged in dark water. he had one elbow on his knee, face resting in his palm as if he were finding something incredibly tedious, and glanced repeatedly at the rolex on his wrist to see when it would be over. He was styled similarly, though his jeans were heavily ripped and shirt half-falling off his shoulders to flow in the water around him, wearing nothing underneath. His hair color was hard to make out, but dark.

Overall, there was a dual color scheme for the music video. RJ was featured with mostly darker blues and greys, and primarily underwater. Junsik’s color vibe was silvery, pink, and dustier pastels. Along with that, RJ’s theme was underwater, while Junsik was framed with clouds, the sky, and more traditional “heaven” imagery. This dichotomy was used to represent the dual sides of love, or “x” vs “o”: when you’re so deep ‘underwater’ in love that you can’t breathe, and the flip side, where you’re on cloud 9 and all too blissfuly unaware of the lack of oxygen and danger in climbing higher and higher. 

The music video for heaven followed the same trend as the teasers and focused on the duality between the sky and water, and the need for oxygen in both. There were a lot of shots with CG that looked like paint on glass, whether in the sky or in a spacious apartment that was apparently entirely underwater, creative transitions, and a color scheme that shifted between the members’ individual aesthetics for the concept. The styling remained simple, as per their brand, though Junsik surprised fans at one point by having a scene in which he was sitting on the edge of the same mirrored platform as his teaser, shirt entirely unbuttoned, and singing/rapping almost lazily. His hair color was revealed to be silvery-grey in the video, and RJ’s navy blue with streaks of lighter color for dimension. In the scenes where the two are together in the CG sky with a time-lapse showcasing rapidly shifting clouds and colors of the sky with paint on glass effects, they’re back to back and feeding off of one another’s energy. They were praised for the sincerity of their expressions, and of course, the sex appeal in their unbuttoned shirts and lazy affects.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Is it true that Mary Jane drove Harry to drug addiction?

Not it is absolutely not.

That is a common misconception that is often used to unfairly belittle or criticise Mary Jane.

It’s rooted in ASM #97. In the prior issue MJ was openly flirting with Peter in front of both Harry and his father. She continued to do this (sans Norman) in ASM #97, and Harry consequently went to a drug dealer and got high. He got clingy with MJ leading her to not at all gently make it clear to him that they were absolutely not exclusive. You could even interpret this as her dumping him, though I don’t and given how they were dating again later on, I think she was just setting him straight.

After arguing with Peter and coming down Harry takes an overdose of the drugs (we don’t know what ones they were exactly).

The simplest way to debunk the idea that MJ was the cause of Harry’s drug problems if to simply check out earlier pages in the very same issue.

Here between how Harry acts, Peter’s dialogue and the artwork depicting the very same bottle of pills Harry uses later in the issue, the message is very clear.

Harry was ALREADY a drug addict before MJ ‘gave him the gate’. 

Furthermore, it’s possible (and in my view highly likely, especially after the retcons to MJ’s character) that MJ was both aware of Harry’s drug problem and might even have subtly referenced it in this issue.

Turn your attention back to the scene where MJ lays into Harry. Notice her dialogue when Harry first approached her.

How chipper we suddenly sound.

That emphasis wasn’t added by me, that was all Stan Lee.

I don’t think that was accidental, I think it’s intended to clue us into the fact that MJ at least suspects why his mood has so suddenly changed. The comic, in it’s foreshadowing of Harry’s pill bottle is already demonstrating a certain subtly in parts of itself so this isn’t exactly a stretch to make.

But we can dig deeper.

Stan didn’t exactly depict young people as they really existed in the 1960s (he was middle aged and the comics code wouldn’t have allowed him anyway), but he wasn’t blind.

EVERYONE knew drugs were being passed around in the 1960s and that college kids in particular were using them. Stan himself had been to a fair few college campuses for lectures by this point in time so he may well have clued into this himself.

I’m not trying to throw shade at MJ by saying this, but given how she was kinda sorta a hippie, a girl who was ‘with it’ and who liked to party, it made it unbelievable for her to have not clued in on what might’ve been going on with Harry and Stan through her dialogue may well have been trying to reflect that.

We might also speculate her casualness about it could imply this isn’t the first time she’s seen Harry high, which (if you accept that) further proves that she didn’t drive him to drugs in this issue, it’d been happening for a long time. In fact the canonically debatable Death and Destiny mini-series (set several issues earlier than this) heavily implies Harry to already be using drugs, specifically cocaine.

Furthermore to blame MJ for this is really, really unfair.

When it comes to drug addiction she’s not Harry’s keeper. She’s not responsible for what he does to his own body.

And if we really are going to attribute blame to her, then we should also attribute some blame to Peter for not noticing the obvious. We should also attribute blame to both of them plus Gwen and Flash for not being there enough for Harry to help him deal with whatever issues drove him to drugs.

And boy of boy should we blame Norman. He’s Harry’s father, shouldn’t he be held accountable on some level?

Now if you want to look at it from a position of hindsight when retcons have revealed more about everyone, the truth is MJ REALLY wasn’t to blame for Harry’s drug problem. 

We could argue in pushing him away when she knew he had a problem she was being a bad friend but like...there is only so much any of us can do. Personal story: one of my friends in high school went off the rails a bit when he was 16-17. Not due to drugs but other stuff and my grandma insisted I be responsible for setting him right. But my parents, quite correctly, set me and her straight that that wasn’t my responsibility and my abilities to help him were limited anyway.

MJ is in an even worse boat than I was.

She had less financial security, she was dealing with a legal adult with access to a lot of cash and much more cash than her, her mother had died maybe a year-18 months earlier than this, she was dealing with leaving her sister and getting into the swing of city/college life, and that’s not even touching upon her knowledge of Peter’s identity and her deep rooted commitment issues.

Of all people MJ was not in a position to help Harry at this time and giving him the gate was the emotionally healthiest thing for her to do for herself in that situation, even if it arguably came from a place of her own insecurities regarding commitment.*

On Harry’s end, MJ could never have been the sole factor that drove him to drugs. At worst she might’ve been one of many contributing factors or even the straw that broke the camel’s back. But Harry was VERY LIKELY to have fallen into drugs or some other destructive habit with or without her.

Harry’s grandfather was an alcoholic, meaning there was a genetic predisposition towards substance abuse in his family. I know Norman isn’t a drug addict or an alcoholic, but he is a power addict. He’s so much of a power addict he literally became a super villain when he already had wealth and social power.

Speaking of Harry’s Dad....hoooooooo boooooooooooy....Norman screwed his son up bad.

He alternated between neglecting him, verbally abusing and belittling him and just straight up hitting Harry when he was a child, with arguably a certain underlying resentment towards Harry over the death of Lydia, Harry’s mother/Norman’s wife; she possibly died due to complications in giving birth.

Norman put pressures on Harry to ‘be a man’ and to also live up to his own massive shadow, and combined with the fact that Harry was desperate for Norman’s  love and approval, yeah Harry was a very messed up little boy.

And he grew into a very messed up vulnerable young man. He was so messed up he’d repressed his memories of his awful childhood and rewritten them in his head to be much happier than they really were.**

So MJ or no MJ, Harry was always going to be susceptible to something like drugs. For all we know he might’ve been experimenting as far back as high school or as a result of Gwen dumping him for Peter.

Bottom line: No, MJ did not drive Harry to drugs.

*I know some people might bring up how she helped Peter deal with Gwen’s death, but that’s very different.

For starters, grieving someone, hard and painful as it is, is in truth a lot easier than helping someone overcome addiction. 90% of the time, eventually the mourning passes. With an addict, they often have to struggle every day to not fall off the wagon.

In essence MJ, a woman in fear of commitment, was looking at a longer term commitment were she to have helped Harry.

More than this, Harry was already clingy and a rather needy person. In a lot of ways he was looking for someone to mother him (hence why he married someone with nursing experience) which was a turn off for MJ in general. Add in the very real possibility that he’d come to depend upon MJ to keep him clean and it would’ve been MJ’s version of Hell. 

Peter in contrast was someone she didn’t need to mother, but was someone who did in that moment need his help and she was at a place in her life where she was more able and willing to give it. It helped that, unlike with Harry, she was you know in love with Peter too.

**Incidentally, Norman basically rewrote his own memories too, believing himself to be a great Dad when he really wasn’t. 

Harry’s delusions occurred BEFORE he touched the Goblin formula by the way, speaking to hereditary mental illness in his family.

[teruthecreator]

if you're comfortable, could you say what specifically you hated about the finale? i never got into amnesty but i liked balance so i would like to know how disappointed i should be ://

okay i’m gonna explain this in-detail exactly Once bc i’m trying rlly hard to just forget about the whole epilogue and keep it moving like that shit never happened, so for anyone else who is asking me why i don’t like the finale (and im not saying you’re wrong for asking, anon, it just seems that when you vocally do not like a thing there are hundreds of people who come out of the woodworks to ask you why and i think thats kinda Huh, Weird of everyone but like whatever) i’m gonna lay it all out here on the table and you can take this as you will. 

i’m not gonna be getting into fistfights with people abt this so if you disagree please don’t try and banter with me. i am running on

also, CRITICISM OF ART DOES NOT MEAN CRITICISM OF THE ARTIST. I AM NOT CRITICIZING THE MCELROYS AS HUMAN BEINGS, BUT RATHER THEIR ARTISTIC DECISIONS IN TAZ: AMNESTY. MORE PEOPLE NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT THERE IS A SEPARATION BETWEEN ART AND ARTIST, AND ONCE YOU (AS AN ARTIST) POST A PIECE, IT BECOMES SUBJECT TO CRITICISM. I AM NOT BRINGING GRIFFIN, JUSTIN, TRAVIS, OR CLINT’S CHARACTERS INTO QUESTION; I AM SIMPLY GIVING A CRITICISM ON THE SHOW THEY’VE CREATED AS A WORK OF ART. 

oh, this goes without saying, but i will anyway: SPOILERS FOR AMNESTY (IN GENERAL, BUT ALSO FOR EPISODE 36) 

i’m gonna start off by saying, i don’t think the whole episode was a total disaster. there are two things mainly that have ruined the whole experience for me, but for the most part i thought the like first 2 hours of this episode were a lot of fun! the fight scene was a little bogged down in the rolls imo, but it didn’t deter me too much from the overarching boss battle. the intro was a sick concept, i enjoyed the callback bits spliced in w newly scripted bits from mentioned past encounters, that was all well and good. i loved beacon in the episode, and god do i wish he stayed for the whole thing. 

my problem mainly sits with the epilogue, which is why i think the whole episode turns sour in my mind. because the epilogue is supposed to be what satiates your desire to know more, right? not to reference balance too much (bc these are two completely different stories w different premises, and for people to so readily compare them is kinda wack. that being said, they are two stories made by the same people that use an epilogue to wrap up the loose ends, so im gonna make this one comparison), but the epilogue told us, the listener, all the things we wanted to know about after the day of story of song. we got to know what they did, a little bit of their interpersonal relationships, and we even got a big group scene with the killarey wedding! 

this epilogue, though, feels like it left so much still on the table. one of those things i will swing back to later because it is the largest part of my argument, but after all of this time we still don’t know why everyone at the lodge got exiled! no one talks about it! we don’t know how dani ended up there, or jake, or barclay, or moira, or anyone! they don’t reference the banishments at all, which i think is a huge shortcoming figuring that is the core premise as to why these characters exist in our pc’s world in the first place. 

i also feel like the concept of the worlds being divided for a long time is kind of a dumb way to go about framing what they do After The Fact. like, they could have had those scenes happen without the looming concept of them being divided, especially when their big reunion scene is like 2 minutes long and basically does nothing. what would have been a cooler premise is if billy connected the worlds, and the worlds worked together in rebuilding themselves. we still could’ve had the same bits happen (for the most part), but i just think that whole separation bit kinda alienated the pc’s (especially thacker). 

but everything up to aubrey’s epilogue bit is fine. i have some problems, but it’s fine. where i started to completely abandon the work itself though is duck’s bit, and i’m gonna get into it by saying this: I know Justin Mcelroy is not legally required to make all of his characters gay, but this whole scene was just a big reminder to me that this show is done by 4 straight white men

and yeah, my big problem with this scene is the fact that justin had to make Duck/Minerva a thing. because it adds nothing to the story while also being a very skeevy concept in-general, and it reduces minerva’s character down to the Hero’s Girlfriend trope and it’s so comphet and she doesn’t deserve it. 

my first grievance with this: It adds nothing to the story. 

had justin not even mentioned the relationship part of their interaction before the scene actually took place, this scene would be like every other scene involving duck and minerva prior to this. duck says honey once, and even that could’ve been played off as duck just being affectionate to his friends (which is a thing, i call several of my friends “my love” irl and it isn’t a big deal). minerva doesn’t even use pet names, she calls duck by his full name, which is exactly how she addressed him in every other scene! duck’s speech is a genuine heart-puller, but it was completely soured by the fact that justin had to premise this entire scene by saying duck and minerva are a thing. 

my second grievance: it’s a skeevy-as-all-hell concept. 

this whole premise is nasty seven ways from sunday, and it is my biggest problem with duck’s bit as a whole. for starters, and i think more people need to mention this, minerva meets duck on the night of his 18th birthday. which means duck has literally just stopped being legally considered a minor before minerva appears before him. and honestly, i would still consider duck a minor in this case because he has literally just turned 18!!! his brain has not developed past one of a 17-year-old on the exact date of his birthday, and i argue it will not until he is at least in his twenties. keep in mind, your brain does not stop developing until you are about 25. so while in the legal sense, duck is an adult, in both the mental and emotional sense at that exact moment, duck is still a minor. AND he’s still in high school, as referenced in his response to her call to duty: “i got class tomorrow”. and minerva is old enough to have become the minister of defense for her homeworld, go through an entire war, and have several other chosen ones (including leo tarkesian, who is at least 20 years older than duck) before meeting duck. so that makes her much, much older than duck when she meets him. and i don’t care if they had barely any interaction after that first moment (though they did, as justin legit talks about when he introduces minerva as a concept to the show), that still establishes their initial interaction at a massive age difference. which, regardless of anything, makes their eventual relationship so genuinely messed up. 

sure, you can argue that when you get older age doesn’t make that much of a difference, and i would agree. my mother is 53 and her husband is 63, that’s ten years. but my mother and step mother did not meet at 8 and 18, they met at 50 and 60. the initial interaction makes all the difference between “older people meeting and having a relationship” and “a very messed up situation”. 

also, in this same argument, taking the mentor-student relationship and turning it into a romantic relationship IS SO MESSED UP!!!! GENUINELY AND HONESTLY MESSED UP!!! i feel like i don’t need to explain this because there have been so many examples already as to why this is a relationship you Should Not turn romantic, but i will anyway because it frustrates me so much that justin completely glosses over this!!! the power dynamic of a mentor-student relationship, in whatever way it is portrayed, displays a power balance that is heavily leaning to one side. there is not an equal distribution of power amongst the two because one person is teaching the other. the one person is weak to the others wills and whims because of lack of experience. think of your high school teacher or college professor; if you started a relationship with them, people would raise so many questions because you are not at equals to the teacher/professor. even if they treat you different, and even if they no longer teach you, it all has to do with the initial interaction. and minerva was still duck’s mentor up until either episode 34 or 35, when she handed off the title of Herald of the Astral Mind to duck. that means for nearly all of their interactions, there was a mentor-student dynamic. to have that turn into a romantic relationship is so sketchy and weird and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. 

my third grievance: it reduces minerva’s character down to a girlfriend trope, and it’s comphet as hell 

my friend tin (@taako–waititi) phrased this so well in the big group chat im in w her, so imma just quote her on this and then go into the comphet stuff: 

“i was dming max about it and they also mentioned, quote, ‘her story was never about romance. it reduced her down to ‘competent woman becomes endgame girlfriend’ trope’ and they are so right it makes me fucking pissed. regardless of any ‘mutual respect’ and ‘emotional intimacy’ kind of thing going on that some people are arguing for, it’s something that didn’t need to happen because minerva’s character becomes that. my thing is mutual respect and emotional intimacy between two people can. exist. without it being. romantic. like. friendship is. also valid. i personally don’t think that mutual respect and emotional intimacy are two buttons that you press to make the machine churn out a romance” 

not only does it reduce minerva’s character to tropes, but it also is extremely comphet for a woman who is so heavily wlw-coded or lesbian-coded and it just angers me. you could argue that she could be bi, but if we look at canon for just its face-value, the only romantic interaction she ever has is with a man, which basically makes her straight. this isn’t like aubrey’s situation, where travis clearly states she is a bi woman who is just in a relationship with another woman in amnesty. griffin doesn’t state anything about minerva’s sexuality and then she’s paired off with a man right at the end. and you could argue that she isn’t wlw or lesbian-coded, but i am not the only one who is wlw and thinks this, so i feel like i have more of a ground to stand on in this opinion. and this just feels so, like, textbook compulsory heteronormativity it made me feel physically sick when i heard this bit in the podcast. 

so that’s my first big issue with the finale, fully explained. my second issue with the epilogue is that ned’s death continues to be disappointing and his character arc is never completed, which just tanks the whole show for me. 

i’ve talked about this several times since ep 28 about how ned’s death was stupid and did nothing for his character arc, but i’m gonna reiterate my main points for the people who find this post without knowing my whole blog:

1. ned’s main interpersonal conflicts are just brought to the surface and never fully delved into before his sudden death. ned doesn’t ever get to explain his history with boyd and why he had to steal shade tree to mama or barclay or really anyone besides vaguely to aubrey. 

2. every character is just immediately expected to feel sad about ned’s death, despite the tension that still remains right up until the very end. aubrey shouldn’t have even known that the shapeshifter framed ned because that’s all explained once she goes to sylvain, but i think travis just assumed she did because he heard the interaction between ned, mama, and barclay. so she should’ve had Way more conflicting feelings about the whole thing, but ned’s death is just angst-bait so that doesn’t happen.

3. ned’s death doesn’t make roll sense because clint rolled a mixed success and mixed successes, by definition, are supposed to be less severe moves than a failed roll (which gives the gm the ability to make a hard move). there isn’t really anything harder to do to a character than kill them, but even if you wanted to argue that if clint failed the roll the hard move would’ve been ned failing and letting dani get shot, it still doesn’t change the fact that clint rolled a mixed success when slamming into the pizza hut sign at full velocity and came out of that alive (severely injured, naturally, but still alive). 

so, yeah, there’s that. and then theres the fact that griffin doesn’t ever give us any other scenes involving ned directly. ned only becomes a reference from 28 on, which is so disappointing given ned’s importance to the other two pcs. and i understand that the mcelroys have a lot of trauma related to death, but griffin shouldn’t have killed ned off then if he did not want to talk about death in graphic detail. we all have trauma. we all want to avoid topics. but to kill ned off and then never talk about his death in great relation to the others is a genuine disservice to ned’s character. 

the day episode 28 aired was the same day i buried my grandmother. i would have loved if death wasn’t brought up, but i don’t control the podcast. the mcelroys do; they had the ability to avoid this topic in a more servicing way to the characters and they didn’t. that isn’t to say they are bad people for not doing it, but it makes the finale even more disappointing because it means we never get the full rounding out of ned’s character arc. he becomes this like brief reference that is, once again, angst-bait or emotional fuel and i feel like he didn’t deserve that. he deserved a genuine reference, a genuine moment. even a dream sequence i would have appreciated!!! 

griffin had sylvain directly point at ned in aubrey’s flashback in ep 35, and then did nothing about what that could have implicated in the finale. it sours the entire episode in a major way and disappointed me immensely. there should have been more done with that topic and there wasn’t and i will never forget how deeply it hurt me and turned me away from canon as a whole. not to be ned kin on main, but ned was the backbone of this show and the exact moment he left was the exact moment the whole thing went downhill. it turned less into a story about growth and adversary and amnesty and more into a waiting game for when this very loose end was going to get wrapped up. 

i wanted to enjoy this episode. i tried so hard, y’all. but just the thought of ned loomed over me the entire time and i was waiting for a more proper completion to his arc, and it never happened. and coupled with that very bad and skeevy duck/minerva bit i was just so frustrated and hurt last night. 

so, yeah, that’s my whole spiel. you are free to disagree with me, but keep that opinion to yourself because i’m not getting into it with anyone. i will just block you; it’s better for us both, anyway. 

[leviathan-supersystem]

Okay, been workshopping my script for the video adaptation of the “currents” post with @sapphixxx​ (thnx bb) and i’m gonna post it here for commentary and critique one last time before i record myself reading it then start editing some clips and stuff for a video, so anyways yeah, hit me with your best critiques, sisters ✨💅

(also i’m thinking i’m going to call the video “social currents” instead of just “currents” because i feel like that gives a better sense of what it’s about. also changed the script to reflect this)

People have proposed various methods for understanding society and how people interact with each other from a scientific standpoint, from dialectical materialism, to memetics, to analysis of incentive structures, even to viewing social groups as a kind of superorganism, with each individual as a body in a cell.

And I thought- what if you were to take those models and jam them together into some kind of big social theory Frankenstein?

We might use the work of B.F. Skinner as a jumping off point- known for his eponymous “Skinner Box,” a simple box that administered rewards or punishment in response to certain actions- pushing a lever, or moving to a particular part of the box. Experimental subjects places in the Skinner Box soon changed their behavior in response to these incentives, generally increasing rewarded behavior and decreasing penalized behavior- even fruit flies, in a simple Skinner Box that heated up when they moved to one side of the box, soon changed their behavior in response to incentives, avoiding that side of the box.

Social interactions can be a bit like a Skinner Box- our actions are either rewarded or penalized by those around us, through everything from subtle expressions of approval or disapproval to more overt forms of reward and penalty, and soon our actions shift in response to this.

How our actions are incentivized or disincentivized depends on the memes the people around us carry- memes not in the lolcat or SpongeBob sense, but in the older sense of the term, an element of a culture or system of behavior passed from one individual to another. How the people around us will respond to our actions is shaped by their moral beliefs, political beliefs, religious beliefs, etc.- these collections of memes, or memeplexes, often contain a list of dos and don’ts, and people around us carrying these memes will incentivize or disincentivize our actions according to these scripts.

Sometimes people create their own value systems, but usually people just pick up the value systems they’re immersed in by their community through osmosis, or join communities because they find their value system appealing- but all value system memeplexes were created by someone at some point, to serve someone’s interest- perhaps the interest of the community as a whole, or perhaps the interests of a specific class or individual.

A group of people sharing a value system act in tandem as a massive incentive system, affecting the behavior of everyone they contact, in ways from subtle to extreme- to graph out what that looks like, let’s draw a rough diagram loosely inspired by a real life example, let’s say the culture war between the right and left surrounding the new age scene in 1970’s San Francisco.

Let’s represent these worldviews- left wing, right wing, and new age- with color dots, and say the blue dots indicate right-wingers, and the pink dots indicate left-wingers, and the orange/yellow ones indicate new-agers.

And then from there, draw arrows to indicate the influence that people have over each other- with the size of the arrow indicating the intensity of that influence, and the color of the arrow representing which value system is guiding how they incentivize or disincentivize behavior- whether they’re following the values of right-wing politics, left-wing politics, or the new-age scene in how they reward or penalize the actions of the actions of those they interact with.

(Looking at this chart, it might seem strange to think that there would be overlap between right-wingers and new-agers, but those familiar with the new age scene in 1970’s San Francisco wouldn’t find that unusual.)

The social incentives which an individual receives- the social reality that they experience- is determined by their relations to the people around them, and consequently the set of social incentives one person receives will be radically different from that of another. Within right-wing social clusters, they would be rewarded for praising then-governor Ronald Reagan, in left-wing social clusters they would be rewarded for opposing the Vietnam war, in new-agey social clusters they would be socially penalized for expressing disbelief in crystal healing, and so on- these rewards likely taking the form of things like praise and increased social clout, and the social penalties likely including being scorned or even shunned.

This is very simplified rendition, of course- a perfectly accurate one would be excessively cluttered- but this works as a lose rendition of how communities interact. People with shared beliefs cluster together, and influence each other and the people they’re socially adjacent to according to those shared values, and in doing so they coalesce into collective incentive systems which shape the behavior of everyone they come into contact with.

The relation between these incentives and behavior is not always straightforward- for example an intended penalty might act as a reward for a person who enjoys negative attention- but behavior is always inevitably affected by and contextualized by these incentives.

From this angle, social groups which coalesce around memplexes appear as almost a kind of collective organism, with each person being a cell in the body of some kind of massive behemoth- the memeplex serving as it’s genetic- or memetic- code, and the incentives serving as it’s nervous system.

Now, a lot of analysis which has used this sort of metaphor has framed it as strictly negative, but I don’t think that’s useful- these sorts of social organisms form any time you have multiple people together who have even vaguely shared beliefs about right and wrong, and I don’t think it’s meaningfully possible or desirable to prevent people from congregating around shared moral beliefs. We’re all cells in the bodies of vast superorganisms, conduits for forces far larger than ourselves, and that’s okay!

Let’s call these collective organisms “social currents,” building off of the sense of the word current meaning “particular ideas, opinions or feelings being present in a group of people.”

But also referencing it’s more common usage as referring to a current of water - something a person can get caught in the flow of. Or an electrical current, coursing through conduits.

 Most social phenomenon can be described in these terms- groups of people acting in tandem to incentivize and disincentivize behavior according to a memetic script- from political movements, to religions, to cults, to ethical philosophies, to governments, to corporations and even artistic movements- all of these can essentially be thought of as different varieties of social currents.

And there can also be social currents within social currents- for example all corporations are sub-currents of the super-current of capitalism, which is the prevailing hegemonic economic social current.

The incentives used by social currents include everything from material incentives/money, to expressions of approval or disapproval from peers, to legal punitive measures like imprisonment- even our internal feelings of guilt and pride are ultimately based on the value systems we’ve picked up through social interaction, and thus are just another form of incentive that currents use.

Our choices are so heavily shaped by the incentive structures of the social currents we interact with that insofar as we have any kind of autonomy as individuals, this is expressed more by what social currents we choose to interact with or act as a conduit for than it is by what we choose to do within a given current.

Morality, rather than being some unchanging concrete set of laws encoded into the universe, is a function of this social phenomenon- people generate memetic scripts about which actions to incentivize and which to dis-incentivize, and the effect of this incentive structure will be to varying degrees beneficial, or detrimental, to society- or possibly beneficial to one class at the expense of another. Morality isn’t like the laws of physics as much as it’s like a form of technology, which must always be continually updated and improved to be more beneficial to more people.

We could also roughly sort social currents according to the categories of Economic and Ideological- or in Marxist terms, Base and Superstructure.

These both overlap and have a reciprocal relationship, of course, but there is a definite divide between social currents which incentivize mostly through material economic means, like corporations- let’s call these Economic, or Base Currents- and social currents which incentivize behavior through more subtle ideological and personal means, such as political ideologies and religions- let’s call these Ideological, or Superstructure Currents

Often there will be superstructure currents which emerge out of base currents, or base currents which emerge out of superstructure currents- consider the mission statement of the ethos of a company as a superstructure current emerging out of a base current, or a boycott organized by political group as a base current emerging out of a superstructure current- or for a more complex example, the food program run by the black panthers as a base current emanating from a superstructure current, which, had there been a successful revolution, might have evolved into a more larger and more complex base current- a socialist economy.

While usually social currents operate simply through people following the incentive structure while acting in their own self-interest, once an individual has fully absorbed the value system of a current, they will act according to that value system even beyond the point of self interest- whether this is a good or bad thing depends on the merit of the value system of that social current- on how beneficial it is as a piece of moral social technology.

To give a few examples to illustrate this:

A: Two people in the desert come across water. Instead of splitting it evenly, the stronger of the two- who in this hypothetical happens to lack a sense of guilt or conscience- simply kills the other, and takes all the water for themselves. In the absence of social incentive systems, self-interest plays out in horrific ways.

B: Someone donates money, but the primary reason they did so was because they knew they would receive social approval for doing so, and benefit in the form of social approval outweighed the cost to themselves.

C: Someone knowingly gives their life to save the lives of several other people- perhaps a civilian in a warzone throwing themselves on a grenade. In this case there isn’t even the hypothetical chance that they did it purely for selfish approval-seeking reasons, since the cost was their own life, and whatever social approval they may gain, they will never experience it. This is, nonetheless, still a function of social currents- it’s just that they have internalized the value system to the point where they adhere to it not just as a means to the end of gaining social approval (or avoiding social disapproval and punishment), but as an ends unto itself, and will adhere to it even at extreme personal cost.

D: Some incel creep, stewing in forums which treat Elliot Rodger and Alek Minassian as heroes, goes on his own similar spree killing, ending the spree by taking his own life. This person also will never receive any social reward from their cohorts for their actions, due to being dead, but had internalized the value system of the incel ideology to the point where they will act on it even at extreme personal cost.

So you can see that while example C and example D are both acting nominally selflessly, example C is morally commendable, while example D morally repugnant- and while both example A and example B are acting selfishly, and example A is just as repugnant as example D, example B is only somewhat less commendable than example C- point is, acting selflessly does not inherently make you better than someone acting selfishly if the moral framework of the social current you are selflessly adhering to is itself a malignant framework. (And this isn’t a static thing either, since a current that was once benign can become malignant).

So selfishness is, overall, Not Great, but the picture is a little more nuanced than “selfishness=bad, selflessness=good”

In practice, social currents tend to have a certain anatomy- already in this diagram here we can see the different currents portrayed have a clusters within them, as well as a noticeable edge- let’s outline those to bring them into clearer focus.

When we do this, we can see an amoeba-like shape taking form- inner nuclei, and an outer membrane. Similar to how genetic code instructs cells on how to organize into an organism, this is how memetic codes instruct individuals on how to organize into collective superorganisms.

When the two memeplexes are more compatible, the superorganisms will overlap as they absorb each other, and when they memeplexes are less compatible, they’ll form more distinct boundaries, and attempt to siphon people away from each other, acting more directly in competition. Here we can see both the left-wing current and the right-wing current overlapping with the current of the new-age scene, making it a flashpoint for culture war sparring- this kind of scenario, where one social current will become the arena in which two other currents battle each other, is fairly common, and in fact the culture war between the right and the left within the new age scene in the 70’s is mirrored today by similar culture war skirmishes between the right and left within the Norse neopagan scene.

Social currents have a tendency to try to place parts of the memeplex which are more appealing to outsiders on the external membrane, and to place parts which are more alienating to outsiders near the nuclei- Scientologists don’t tell people about all the Xenu stuff right off the bat, you feel me? This especially applies when attempting to siphon people away from a competing social current.

The Mormons actually have a term to describe this strategy- “Milk Before Meat”- the idea being that you must first expose potential converts to the Spiritual Milk- the more appealing parts of the memeplex- before exposing them to the Spiritual Meat- the more alienating parts of the memeplex.

In addition, incentive structures are usually more severe, and the rules more strict, the deeper you go- this similarly helps to ease the process by which someone is absorbed into a social current.

In some of those nuclei clusters we can see noticeable power hierarchies, particularly the ones on the top and bottom right, which are clearly centered around specific individuals or groups who the rest of the cluster is subordinate to. To tie this more firmly into the real world, if the pink and blue represent the political left and the right in this model, then the nuclei-like clusters would be both informal and formal groups of political activists, with some of the more formally organized political groups having overt hierarchies and chains of command.

These kinds of power imbalances within a social current have a detrimental effect upon it, resulting in a kind of social decay- to illustrate an example, consider the reverend of a right-wing church gradually making his church more cult-like, consolidating his own power at the expense of his followers.

(Now, a more thorough diagram might show how this church interacts with the larger social current of Christianity, how the different denominations act as distinct yet connected currents, how they’ll act in opposition or in tandem depending on circumstance, and how they overlap with both the right and the left- but it would take years to create a diagram which accurately captured all that.)

A person who already has disproportionate power within the social current, in this case the aforementioned reverend, shifts their value system in their own favor, re-writing the rules to their own benefit- (one popular path for the preacher gone full-blown cult leader is to re-write the rules to allow themselves to take multiple young wives, like David Koresh did)- here I’m representing that shift with the shift from blue to teal-ish in the upper right corner, representing a shift from the background ideology of right-wing christianity to the specific ideology of a tightly controlled reactionary cult- and this has a ripple effect on the cluster surrounding them,

shifting it so that the rest of the people in the current better serves the interests of the leader and his cadre, often at the expense of everyone else within the cluster. The subtle shift from preacher to cult leader, and the attendant shift in the social mores of the church, doesn’t in any way benefit his followers- but given his disproportionate ability to reward or punish his followers, they fall in line out of fear of punishment, adopting the new value system, enforcing it on each other horizontally in addition to the pressure the cult leader is exerting from above.

So while the popular narrative holds that we need hierarchy to maintain social order, in actuality hierarchy is in many ways harmful to social order- the powerful have every motivation to shift the rules in their favor, change the social current’s incentive structures such that it acts to their benefit and exploits the people lower in the hierarchy- not to mention when there is a clear divide between the people who make or enforce social rules, and the people subject to them, the people who make or enforce social rules have little reason to follow them- cops, and Ted Kennedy, can get away with murder.

Of course, a lot of the times the social rules were already in their favor to begin with- hence why they had more influence in the first place.

In either case, whether baked in from the beginning or a function of societal rot as the powerful further entrench their power, the end result of memeplexes being undermined by hierarchy is the same: the prevailing ideas and values are the values of the ruling class, and the interests of the ruling class are disguised as the universal interest of all.

Luckily, hegemonic power attempting to entrench itself isn’t the only way a social current’s value system can shift, and there are other forces which act to counteract the entrenchment of the ruling class- put a pin in that, because we’re going to come back to that in a minute.

There’s also another type of cluster within the social currents in this chart, and that’s clusters of people who have become dissatisfied with the status quo of the social norms of the current they’re within - lets highlight those in grey.

These pockets of dissatisfaction generally emerge in response to legitimate grievances with real problems in the value system of the status quo (though they can also occasionally be founded on illegitimate grievances, like that of a formerly privileged class losing their privilege). Often these problems in the value system are tied into the kind of exploitative hierarchies I mentioned earlier - however, problems can exist within the value system of a social current without them necessarily being to any exploitative classes’ benefit- sometimes the source of the problem is that the rules have been written or re-written to benefit one person or class at the expense of the rest, but occasionally there are problems in the value system of a current which are caused by simple human error, and aren’t to anyone’s benefit.

Lets say that the pocket of dissatisfaction within the left-wing current is people who feel the social norms around sex within the left are dysfunctional, while the pocket of dissatisfaction within the right wing current is people dissatisfied with the excesses of the ascendant evangelical right, perhaps specifically unhappy with the excesses of the preacher turned cult leader they’re socially adjacent to.

On one hand, these pockets of dissatisfaction can act as a point from which a competing social current can attempt to siphon away individuals, in the form of people from the competing current reaching out to the people in the pocket and making the case that they would be happier if they were to leave their current for the competitor- in this example, someone reaching out to people alienated by the church-gone-cult, so that she can make a case to them that the social values within the left prevent this kind of reactionary religious excess- in this framework it can almost be represented as one current extending a pseudopod into the other current to draw in people from it:

This is a relatively simple example- one person reaching out to another- but a current can generate extremely complex social mechanisms to draw people from other currents into itself. For example consider a group like redneck revolt, which reaches out to people in right-wing leaning rural areas and recruits them into the left, or conversely, for another example from same 1970′s time frame as our diagram, the Jesus movement, a right-wing movement which recruited hippies into reactionary evangelical Christianity. Unlike a redneck revolt, which is pretty overt in what it’s goals are, the Jesus movement was more deceptive, framing itself as a left-leaning progressive brand of Christianity when in actuality it’s most prominent figures were  staunchly reactionary- just look at the Jesus movement associated cult the Children of God, which marketed itself to hippies and presented itself as progressive to outsiders, while it’s leader was preaching racist, homophobic, and antisemitic screeds to the people living on the cult commune.

An especially deceptive version of the previously mentioned milk before meat strategy comes into play here, in this case being used as a strategy to siphon people away from the left while concealing that intention, presenting a progressive face to suck in hippies and then indoctrinating them with far-right ideology once they’ve been ensnared. So while the strategy of one social current extending a pseudopod into another to siphon away members may be pretty universal, it can either be done in ways which are more honest about the intentions, like Redneck Revolt, or it can be more underhanded and dishonest like the Jesus movement was, and relying on more overtly deceptive versions of the Milk Before Meat tactic- though almost all social currents use mild Milk Before Meat tactics when drawing people in by at least somewhat downplaying aspects of the memeplex more alienating to outsiders at first.

Of course, Milk Before Meat tactics can sometimes fail- sometimes the more alienating parts of a memeplex end up alienating people, in spite of attempts made to mitigate this- whether this results in those people simply returning to the current they were being absorbed from, or forming a new pocket of dissatisfaction, depends on the scenario, specifically on the degree to which they had transferred from one current to another.

While these pockets of dissatisfaction can act as a weakness for another current to leech off of, they can also act to generate a corrective force, as people in these pockets who have been harmed by the existing social norms within that current create an updated version of that value system, or an entirely new value system, in response to their material needs- so for example, this pocket of dissatisfaction in the diagram represents women who had been harmed by the dysfunctional social mores around sex in the 60’s and 70′s radical scene- this spurred them to create ideological concepts based off of critiques of the “free love” norms of the 60’s radical scene, ideological concept which would later be described as “sex-negative feminism.”

In this diagram this is represented by the grey pocket of dissatisfaction becoming a new internal social current, which acts in opposition to the current surrounding it on the point of contradiction- here the red current within the pink current represents sex negative feminism within the larger context of the “free love” ideology which prevailed in much of the left.

This internal current spreads within the social current surrounding it, absorbing people who resonate with their critiques of the social status quo, eventually dispersing and incorporating itself into the larger surrounding current.

In the classic dialectical materialist model, the first current is the thesis, then the new current growing out of the pocket of dissatisfaction is the antithesis, they synthesize into a new social status quo, which inevitably will have it’s own pockets of dissatisfaction, and the process repeats.

For example, as portrayed in this diagram, the problems inherent in the 1970’s radical scene’s social norms around sex was the flashpoint for the development of feminist critiques of sex and porn, then the flaws inherent within the sex negative framework, such as it’s sometimes excessively puritanical values and it’s ugly transphobia, spurred sex positive feminist critiques, then the flaws within the sex positive framework spurred a new wave of sex critical feminism, and so forth, this back-and forth dialectic working to shape the social norms around sex within social spaces on the left.

Now, I’m sure some would argue that in the back and forth between sex negativity and sex positivity, one of the two was reactionary, and emerged to retain the privilege of an oppressive class and undo progress. However I disagree, I think both sex positivity and sex negativity- and the back and forth dialectic between them- played a progressive role in improving the social norms around sex within the left.

The pattern of “people disenfranchised by the current value system create a new value system, which spurs action which shifts social norms to better accommodate peoples needs” is visible everywhere- revolutionary action by the oppressed against the status quo is not only a force in driving social and moral advancement- it’s the primary force, the grinding dialectical engine at the heart of history and morality.

We can see this pattern playing out especially clearly in the field of LGBT rights, where homophobic and transphobic laws and social mores- which are a harmful incentive system which unnecessarily punishes benign behavior- spurred the emergence of the lgbt rights movement, as the people harmed by homophobic and transphobic social mores and laws to joined together in radical action to change them.

Or for an example on a larger scale, consider the way feudalism was supplanted by liberalism and capitalism, particularly around such flashpoints as the French revolution- so we can see that this dialectical pattern can take different forms, and while sex critical feminism and sex positive feminism both acted internally within the left, the contradiction which spurred the decline of feudalism was more severe, with the liberal enlightenment social current more fully separating itself from the feudal social current before overtaking it.

(Similarly, at this point it’s necessary for capitalism to be supplanted by an entirely new economic current- the contradictions at play here are too severe to be resolved through a more subtle internal dialectical process.)

As noted earlier, the ruling class losing it’s power and privilege due to social progress creates it’s own pocket of dissatisfaction. This can generate a harmful reactionary social current, which aims to undo that progress- and this certainly applies to the decline of monarchy and feudalism. 

Reactionary currents caused by an oppressive class losing their power can have a significant memetic ripple effect, outlasting the actual people who lost their power- and the reactionary current which emanated from the aristocracy and monarchy losing their power after feudalism declined continues to this day. The central narrative of monarchist reactionaries in the wake of the decline of feudalism (this will sound familiar) was that progressivism and democracy were bad, and that Jewish people, freemasons, and the Illuminati were behind them (especially in relation to the French revolution)- as you’ve probably already noted, this narrative which continues to play a central role in reactionary movements to this day, from fascism to neoreaction- though some original flavor moldbuggian neoreactionaries attempted to swap out the Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theorism for a sinister Calvinist conspiracy.

The Illuminati was a small short-lived enlightenment-era discussion group, but then some deranged pro-monarchist priest named Augustin Barruel accuses them of having caused the French revolution, and from there the telephone game of the memetic ripple effect exaggerated the Illuminati into the ultimate shadowy boogeyman in the reactionary narrative. More than anything else, the fact that the whole right-wing conspiracy theory about the Illuminati is directly traceable back to the reactionary response to the French revolution shows just how severe the memetic ripple from that reactionary social current was, and how firmly caught up in it’s wake a lot of modern reactionaries are. Both fascism and neoreaction can be understood as essentially mutations and cross-pollinations of the reactionary current that emerged in response to the French revolution.

However, while reactionary currents can undo progress, nonetheless the general overall trend of history is toward improvement- the long moral arc of the universe bending toward justice.

Now, if power imbalances are harmful, and if these sorts of dialectical processes correct power imbalances through social upheaval, the question must be asked- why do power imbalances exist in the first place?

To answer this question with a question- how do you create an incentive system without that incentive system creating a power imbalance between those it rewards and those it punishes?

It’s a difficult question, with no easy answer!

Of course, this may drive many to deem social currents and incentive structures inherently evil- “We must cast off all binds that might shape our behavior, destroy all the authoritarian social mores, reject all coercive social systems, and embrace individualism fully!” they might say “’The People’ is dead! Good-day, Self!” They might also tell you you’re “spooked” and tell you to read Stirner.

Here’s the thing though- as noted earlier, any time you have people in a group where some of them have shared beliefs about which actions are good or bad, these kind of social incentive systems are going to emerge- you could try to prevent people from doing anything which might in some way incentivize or dis-incentivize the actions of others- but how would you convince people not to reward or penalize the behavior of others, without in some way rewarding or penalizing their behavior yourself in order to convince them?

And more importantly, would we really be better off if there were no social incentive systems or consequences for action? Would we really be better off if, for example, abusers, faced no repercussions? And recall here that we’re talking not only about formal legal penalties but also decentralized social penalties like “people not liking you”- which, mind you, can be a pretty powerful social tool for shaping behavior.

So as you can see, there isn’t an “out” here, and the dream of a world without incentive structures is in actuality neither possible nor desirable. The goal shouldn’t be to abolish all social incentive structures, but rather to correct what is broken, to replace flawed incentive structures with better ones, and to improve upon the social technology of morality.

So, what is the takeaway from all of this?

Especially, what is the takeaway from all this when it comes to the question of how to make and keep a revolution?

Anarchist approaches to revolutionary theory generally hold that a revolutionary movement must reject all forms of hierarchy and authority to create a genuinely revolutionary movement.

Marxist approaches on the other hand, as per Engels in On Authority, take a view that hierarchy and authority are not strictly negative, and it’s the class character they serve which is the important thing.

What we can see from the framework I’ve laid out here is that the truth lies essentially somewhere in the middle- namely, that anarchists are correct that hierarchy is inherently corruptive, and should be avoided or it will undermine a revolutionary movement from within. However they are incorrect in the individualistic social-libertarian approach which they generally tie in with their rejection of hierarchy- Engels may have been wrong on hierarchy, but he was correct on the reality that a sense of discipline, unity, and order is necessary in a revolutionary movement if it is to maintain itself long enough to supplant the hegemonic order, let alone sustain itself afterward.

The revolutionary social current we create must be more functional, and more beneficial to human well-being if we are to successfully supplant the prevailing hegemonic current.

[despairandregretentertainment]

Wikipedia, the Free Online Encyclopedia- | Chris | Trial 5.2 | Re: Akira, Rafe, Sorano, Willow mainly | ATTN: NPCs, All

Chris listens with his head tilted to the side at Akira’s answer in thought. There still had to be something they were missing there, some rule that hadn’t been made clear to them or BS that would be pulled, but it was a start at least.

“Thanks for the answers, though it leads me to have some more questions too. First, will it be ONLY the six of us who are voting on this, or will the audience have some say as well?” Given uh, the gimmick of this season and all, that seemed pretty important to know if they’d have to deal with it or not.

“And next, what were the grand prizes of those who died, then? What was Yuuma’s grand prize in particular, too? Seems pretty important to know, since it probably SHOULD be going into effect but they’re actively trying to keep it from happening with Ayumi’s situation, or at least that’s how it’s being made out to be. Feels like something we should be told.”

And then, Chris gives a nod of agreement to essentially every other player but Rafe, and for reasons more than him just being Rafe. In particular, he looks at Sorano and surprisingly(?) Willow in agreement most recently for the details they’re bringing up. Good, seemed like the rest of them at least were on the same page here. 

“Exactly. Finding the ‘mastermind’ among us isn't the issue here, and is frankly a waste of time given everything we know, so I recommend not bothering with it for now. I think the audience would be much more interested in us going over everything else behind the scenes with the board instead,” he clarifies, because yeah, he’s only going to double down on that opening recommendation.

“To finish off what knowledge I had from around the maps before this investigation though, the names of all five board members were among all of the names listed on the tiles of the Theme Park in chapter 3, and in chapter 4 there was a large tapestry depiction in the Museum about a king and his crown being divided among five people that then kept the power for themself, obviously alluding to the TE board members hanging onto their power and pushing their own agendas despite Tomo being an adult now.”

He takes out his personal notebook almost lazily before continuing, idly flipping through to cross reference between a few things.

  "The names and occupations given in Chapter 5's Dressing Room puzzle were at times suspiciously similar to the Board member's themselves, so I'm pretty sure that was something too. In particular, Nobuo Ozaki is the COO of Kimi Health and Housing, which is actually a Yakuza front, where as 'Nagito' was a Yakuza Boss in the puzzle. Sadao Hashimoto is in control of the TE legal team and is obviously corrupt as fuck and lets them get away with all kinds of shit, while 'Sadou' is a Corrupt Lawyer in the puzzle.  

Yataro I would assume would be the Affair Partner 'Hatoru'. I don't want to make assumptions, but apparently he's close with Tomo's mom Yumi Tomomi given it seems as though she trusts him enough to let her into Tomo's home, and he's had public suspicions on his relationship with Tatsuo Tomomi himself too. Whatever the case and romantic or not, he’s playing people. 

Hideo Muramoto by the way was the asshole who told Akira to 'give her what she wants' in that one memory of his we saw, and was also involved heavily with the kaiju genre of film production, obviously being referenced by 'Orochi' the Kaiju in the puzzle. That would leave Hanako Tamashiro as the Brothel Owner 'Yuriko', which honestly doesn't surprise me.”

Dear GOD Chris has so much information on these fuckers, and it's finally the time to get it all out there.

He also gives a wave back to Sorano at that kidnapping from other countries comment, who is now sitting right beside him. Hello indeed. 

“Given you all seem to have found the same information that we did, I’d like to clarify some of it. Specifically, in regard to what the TE Board and Tatsuo did to Hirohito Watanabe because he was gaining popularity as a socialist politician. It was 8 years ago, and Tomo was apparently brought to watch this at 14 years old as a ‘lesson’ that he didn’t handle well. The board members planned to kidnap Hirohito’s child, Touma Watanabe, and hold them for ransom to make him drop out of things with the public excuse that it was random gang members who were doing it. Obviously, it was actually orchestrated by them in reality.

But, apparently, something went either went wrong or there was possibly a change of plans, because when Hirohito went to meet with them, he was shot, and murdered. Touma was also shot, but survived, and is still out there. Pretty fucking much in the end, it was a politcal assassination after a political kidnapping of a child, all done by Tatsuo Tomomi and the five board members still in control. I put a lot of that shit and the previous stuff together with the power of Wikipedia, by the way.”

All hail Wikipedia…

[themanofonebook]

—TELL ME ABOUT 19TH CENTURY PRISONS I WANT TO KNOW ALL ABOUT TOULON

We have the basis of the system, and we had active officers, which could be divided into three groups: commissaires, officiers de paix, and the Gendarmerie Royale; then we have inspectors (we’re talking the mud on people’s boots as far as the ladder goes) and the National Guard (a sort of on-call army for the monarchy moving out of the age of Napoleon where the actual army was stomping its way around Europe and into the Bourbon Restoration fuck Charles X I’m mad) which was not part of the police force precisely but would be dealing with revolts like you see in Les Misérables.

That’s what’s going on on the outside; move South to places like Toulon, the insides of the prisons, and we have something entirely different on our hands.

Firstly, let’s make something clear: corruption, which was certainly out and about on the streets, ran fucking rampant in prisons. I have noted one particularly good fic, the name of which I cannot remember for the life of me, which addressed the facts that if guards at prisons wanted to take a prisoner out and shoot him, the loosest excuse could cover that right up, and the only problem would be the loss of labor. We are talking about a system only marginally better than England’s: stealing in England would get your hand chopped off, or sign you up for the morning’s first execution; stealing in France the first time, depending on your age, would get you a warning or upwards of three years in prison; stealing again gets you life in prison; do anything more than that while there and you could be executed.

Suicide was typical of prisons; again, that fic I mentioned certainly had research poured into it, as it spoke of a section in Toulon where inmates would regularly throw themselves from the top of a wall to the hard sand below, killing themselves. If they did not die, there was a good chance that they went insane anyways.

In the early years just after Napoleon, the upper class took on prison reform as a sort of pet project; the only thing that the French hate more than criminals is the police, but, I mean, that’s splitting hairs and convicts come in at a very, very close second; but if it would make them look good and help them to feel like they were getting something worthwhile done, why the fuck not, right? Right. This began coming out in 1816, where children were sent to correctional facilities instead of prisons, which upped the ages of men working in places like Toulon (they galleys were made obsolete, they were either mining or doing menial production on things like clothing or tools).

But while that’s all well and good, you have to remember that these are hundreds upon thousands of men all being chained up in the same place for years on end. Toulon could pack itself full to the brim with prisoners and probably still have room for more, and you can bet that they were all working; if you weren’t sick, dying, or dead, you were out putting labor in for the State to repay your debt for… that loaf of bread you stole.

And you can see the type of society that that would create, one built upon hate and forming a sharp contrast with the airy, easy lives of the bourgeois and royals. Homosexuality in particular formed a means of subjugation, and of trade:

In regards to cruelty, this ran most rampant in jails. Officers on the street were actually required to look after the health of all citizens, including prostitutes. They were legally obligated to take care of the people they were overseeing, and had direct contact with their superiors, who could see everything that they were doing and receive feedback on them from the common people instantly. Therefore, those working in the cities had no desire to break the rules, as none of them wanted to lose their jobs. However, in jails, all levels of authority were grouped together in a tight, enclosed space with the unlawful. Patrick O’Brien said, “[Those who practiced homosexuality] were considered basically abnormal and corrupt.” (mtholyoke). The threat of homosexuality was used to gain the upper hand, and the hierarchy of prisons was skewed in this way. As such, guards were constantly exposed to something that they considered fundamentally vile, and this had a direct impact on their mentality. They were so thoroughly immersed in something seen as wrong, but accepted as normal and even expected within such institutions, and they were required remember that they were above it. These men were told that it is disgusting by the outside world, but were trapped in a different realm entirely, in which men who were considered beasts by the public are allowed to form their own “society”. This society, in fact, had its own language, one separated almost completely from French to the point where it nearly became its own sub-language: argot. Argot, by definition, is “an often more or less secret vocabulary and idiom peculiar to a particular group” (Merriam-Webster). Argot was a dialect used in prisons and amongst gangs and criminals specifically. Based heavily in metaphorical interpretation of words, Hugo himself asks, “What is argot, properly speaking? It is the language of wretchedness.” Of course, while argot was meant to be secret, guards on duty could easily hear whispers and snippets of conversation. Without saying anything, they picked up on this language of misery. Simply by working in prisons, they were distanced from society; yet they were still expected to go out and behave properly amongst people who had never lived even a day in such close quarters with thieves, vagabonds, murderers and the like. It was a strain on their mentality. They were, more often than not, no different than any other men; but, for whatever reason, they found themselves working amongst the foul and outlawed, terribly close to something that France saw as forbidden or repulsive. That takes its toll on ones mentality. Despite any attempts to stay “pure”, a guard may find themselves crumbling under the pressure both from their superiors and from the State as a whole.

So one, you have the separation of language; two, you have the separation of societal constructs. Homosexual rape was used as leverage, as a threat in order to gain status or favors, and we can deduce that convicts were not the only ones employing these methods.

We also have Javert’s note to the Préfet at the end of his section of the book. Now, I don’t tend to rely on Hugo, because his history can tend to get a bit wonky, but I pulled the bits from the letter which seemed relevant to what we’re talking about and I’ll try to back them up with what I know.

Secondly: prisoners, on arriving after examination, take off their shoes and stand barefoot on the flagstones while they are being searched. Many of them cough on their return to prison. This entails hospital expenses.

Status: probably true, as prisoners are immediately given new uniforms upon arriving at Toulon, consisting of a red smock, yellow pants, a red cap for the average con and a green cap for lifers. Prisoners were also known for tucking materials into cardboard tubes and then shoving said tubes up their anuses in order to hide them. They were being searched thoroughly. Chances are that they were naked, and not just their feet.

Fourthly: it is inexplicable why the special regulation of the prison of the Madelonettes interdicts the prisoner from having a chair, even by paying for it.

Status: again, it’s probably true, but it may have changed during that era of reformation starting in about the mid-1820s and stretching onwards; they may have been allowed a chair, and we don’t know the last time that Javert actively looked into the innards of a prison.

Sixthly: the prisoners called barkers, who summon the other prisoners to the parlor, force the prisoner to pay them two sous to call his name distinctly. This is a theft.

Yeah fuck those guys.

Seventhly: for a broken thread ten sous are withheld in the weaving shop; this is an abuse of the contractor, since the cloth is none the worse for it.

Status: I wouldn’t put it past them, and I sort of stand by the idea that Fantine would have had a better time of it caring for Cosette in prison if she was already good with her hands, being fed each day, working in a weaving shop as opposed to doing labor as men did. But hey ten sous almost buys you a cup of coffee so— no all kidding aside this is actually wrong of them.

So we move into the referenced era of reform, and, while it might not have happened in Toulon (at least, not immediately), other prisons began to shift, to change themselves: notably, prisoners were offered the choice between shared bunks and their own room, one illustration of which includes a picture of a chair. However, don’t believe for a second that this was for the benefit of the prisoners: under the pretense of reform, this was used mostly to keep men apart to stop the outbreak of homosexual acts.

More:

The years 1820-1840 were considered the Golden Age for penology in France. Within these two decades arose numerous reform movements sparked during the July Monarchy. The common goal of all reformers was to eliminate crime and improve current prisoners by rehabilitation. Some of the means to achieve this goal were…

Discontinue confiscation of property of convicted criminals

Reduce long term sentences to a maximum of fifteen years

Suspend the Provisional Courts

Change judges and public office position toelected positions as opposed to inherited or bought

Seperate convicted criminals from those who are awaiting trial (so as to avoid the corruption of the young and possibly innocent)

Prisons inspected at least two time a week for the maintenance of a clean and healthy environment

Guards chosen possessing “irreproachable morality”

Do away with life sentence

Imprison convicts near the scene of their crime as a constant reminder of what they had done

Public exposure of prisoners in chains and tied to stakes

Solitary confinement to take the place of the death penalty

Education of prisoners

So we’re looking at prisons getting better… for all the wrong reasons… but better.

But in the time that Javert worked in them (looking at about 1803 still under Napoleon), they would have been dreadful.

[currents420420]

People have proposed various methods for understanding society and how people interact with each other from a scientific standpoint, from dialectical materialism, to memetics, to analysis of incentive structures, even to viewing social groups as a kind of superorganism, with each individual as a cell in a body.

And I thought- what if you were to take those models and jam them together into some kind of big social theory Frankenstein?

We might use the work of B.F. Skinner as a jumping off point- known for his eponymous “Skinner Box,” a simple box that administered rewards or punishment in response to certain actions- pushing a lever, or moving to a particular part of the box. Organisms inevitably shifted their behavior in response to these incentives- even fruit flies, in a simple Skinner Box that heated up when they moved to one side of the box, soon changed their behavior, avoiding that side of the box.

Social interactions can be a bit like a Skinner Box- our actions are either rewarded or penalized by those around us, through everything from subtle expressions of approval or disapproval to more overt forms, and soon our actions shift in response to this.

How our actions are incentivized or disincentivized depends on the memes the people around us carry- memes not in the lolcat or SpongeBob sense, but in the older sense of the term, an element of a culture or system of behavior passed from one individual to another. How the people around us will respond to our actions is shaped by the moral beliefs, political beliefs, religious beliefs, etc. of people around us- these collections of memes, or memeplexes, often contain a list of dos and don’ts, and people carrying these memes will incentivize or disincentivize our actions according to these scripts.

Sometimes people create their own value systems, but usually people just pick up the value systems they’re immersed in by their community through osmosis, or join communities because they find their value system appealing- but all value system memeplexes were created by someone at some point, to serve someone’s material interest- perhaps the interest of the community as a whole, or perhaps the interests of a specific group or individual.

A group of people sharing a value system act in tandem as a massive incentive system, affecting the behavior of everyone they contact- to understand what that looks like, let’s draw a rough diagram loosely inspired by a real life example, let’s say the culture war between the right and left surrounding the new age scene in 1970’s San Francisco.

Let’s represent these with color dots, and say the blue dots are right-wingers and the pink dots are left-wingers, and the orange/yellow ones new-agers.

And then from there, lets draw arrows to indicate the influence that people have over each other- with the size of the arrow indicating the degree of influence one person has on the other, with the color of the arrow representing which value system is guiding how they incentivize or disincentivize behavior- whether they’re following the values of right-wing politics, left-wing politics, or the new-age scene in how they reward or penalize the actions of the actions of that person.  (It might seem strange to think that there would be overlap between right-wingers and new-agers, but those familiar with the new age scene in 1970’s San Francisco wouldn’t be surprised.) The social incentives which an individual receives, and the social reality that they experience, is determined by their relations to the people around them, consequently the set of social incentives one person receives will be radically different from that of another. Within right-wing social clusters, they would be rewarded for praising then-governor Ronald Reagan, in left-wing social clusters they would be rewarded for opposing the Vietnam war, in new-agey social clusters they would be socially penalized for expressing disbelief in crystal healing, and so on.

This is very simplified rendition, of course- a perfectly accurate one would be excessively cluttered- but this works as a lose rendition of how communities interact. People with shared beliefs cluster together, and influence each other, and the people they’re socially adjacent to, according to those shared values.  

From this angle, social groups which coalesce around memplexes like this appear as almost a kind of collective organism, with each person being a cell in the body of some kind of massive behemoth- the memeplex serving as it’s genetic- or memetic- code, and the incentives serving as it’s nervous system.

Now, a lot of analysis which has used this sort of metaphor has framed it as strictly negative, but I don’t think that’s useful- these sorts of social organisms form any time you have multiple people together who have even vaguely shared beliefs about right and wrong, and I don’t think it’s meaningfully possible or desirable to prevent people from congregating around shared moral beliefs. We’re all cells in the bodies of vast superorganisms, we’re all conduits for forces far larger than ourselves, and that’s okay!

For lack of a better term, lets call these collective organisms “currents,” building off of the sense of the term meaning “particular ideas, opinions or feelings being present in a group of people.”

But also referencing it’s more common usage as referring to a current of water - something a person can get caught in the flow of. Or an electrical current, coursing through conduits.

 Most social phenomenon can be described in these terms- groups of people acting in tandem to incentivize and disincentivize behavior according to a memetic script- from political movements, to religions, to cults, to ethical philosophies, to governments, even to corporations and artistic movements- all of these can essentially be thought of as different varieties of currents.

And there can also be currents within currents- for example all corporations are sub-currents of the super-current of capitalism, which is the prevailing hegemonic economic current.

The incentives used by currents include everything from material incentives/money, to expressions of approval or disapproval from peers, to legal punitive measures like imprisonment- even our internal feelings of guilt and pride are ultimately based on the value systems we’ve picked up through social interaction, and thus are just another form of incentive that currents use.

Morality, rather than being some unchanging concrete law encoded into the universe, is a function of this social phenomenon- people generate memetic scripts about which actions to incentivize and which to dis-incentivize, and the effect of this incentive structure will be to varying degrees beneficial, or detrimental, or beneficial to one group at the expense of another. Morality isn’t like the laws of physics as much as it’s like a form of technology, which must always be continually updated and improved to be more beneficial to more people.

We could also roughly sort currents according to the categories of Economic and Ideological- or in Marxist terms, Base and Superstructure.

These both overlap and have a reciprocal relationship, of course, but there is a definite divide between currents which incentivize mostly through material economic means, like corporations- let’s call these Base currents- and currents which incentivize behavior through more subtle ideological and social means, such as political ideologies and religions- let’s call these Superstructure Currents

Often there will be superstructure currents which emerge out of base currents, or base currents which emerge out of superstructure currents- consider the mission statement of the ethos of a company as a superstructure current emerging out of a base current, or a boycott organized by political group as a base current emerging out of a superstructure current- or the food program run by the black panthers, a base current emerging from a superstructure current which could have, had there been a successful revolution, evolved into a more larger and more complex base current- a socialist economy.

Our choices are so heavily shaped by the incentive structures of the social currents we interact with that insofar as we have any kind of autonomy as individuals, this is expressed more by what currents we choose to interact with or act as a conduit for than it is by what we choose to do within a given current.

While usually currents operate simply through people following the incentive structure while acting in their own self-interest, once an individual has fully absorbed the value system of a current, they will act according to that value system even beyond the point of self interest- whether this is a good or bad thing depends on the merit of the value system of that current- on how beneficial it is as a piece of moral social technology.

To give a few examples to illustrate this:

A: Two people in the desert come across water. Instead of splitting it evenly, the stronger of the two- who happens to lack a sense of guilt and conscience- simply kills the other, and takes all the water for themselves. In the absence of external incentive systems created by society, or internal incentives like guilt, self-interest plays out in horrific ways.

B: Someone donates money, but the primary reason they did so was because they knew they would receive social approval for doing so, and benefit in the form of social approval outweighed the cost to themselves.

C: Someone knowingly gives their life to save the lives of several other people. In this case there isn’t even the hypothetical chance that they did it purely for selfish approval-seeking reasons, since the cost was their own life, and whatever social approval they may gain, they will never experience it. This is, nonetheless, still a function of currents- it’s just that they have internalized the value system to the point where they adhere to it not just as a means to the end of gaining social approval (or avoiding social disapproval and punishment), but as an ends unto itself, and will adhere to it even at extreme personal cost.

D: Some incel creep, stewing in forums which treat Elliot Rodger and Alek Minassian as heroes, goes on his own similar spree killing, ending the spree by taking his own life. This person also will never receive any social reward from their cohorts for their actions, due to being dead, but had internalized the value system of the incel ideology to the point where they will act on it even at extreme personal cost. The distinction is that the value system they’re acting selflessly in the service of is abhorrent.

So you can see that while example C and example D are both acting selflessly, example C is morally commendable, while example D morally repugnant- and while both example A and example B are acting selfishly, and example A is just as repugnant as example D, example B is only somewhat less commendable than example C- point is, acting selflessly does not inherently make you better than someone acting selfishly if the moral framework of the current you are selflessly adhering to is itself a malignant framework. (And this isn’t a static thing either, since a current that was once benign can become malignant).

So selfishness is, overall, Not Great, but the picture is a little more nuanced than “selfishness=bad, selflessness=good”

In practice, currents tend to have a certain anatomy- already in this image here we can see the different currents portrayed have a clusters within them, as well as a noticeable edge- let’s outline those to bring them into clearer focus.

When we do this, we can see an amoeba-like shape taking form- inner nuclei, and an outer membrane. Similar to how genetic code instructs cells on how to organize into an organism, this is how memetic codes instruct individuals on how to organize into collective superorganisms. And when the two memeplexes are more compatible, the superorganisms will overlap as they absorb each other, and when they memeplexes are less compatible, they’ll form more distinct boundaries, and attempt to siphon people away from each other, acting more directly in competition. Here we can see both the left-wing current and the right-wing current overlapping with the current of the new-age scene, making it a flashpoint for culture war sparring- this kind of scenario, where one current will become the arena in which two other currents battle each other, is far from uncommon. For example the culture war between the left and the right within the new age scene in the 70’s is mirrored today by culture war skirmishes between the left and the right within the Norse neopagan scene.

Currents have a tendency to try to place parts of the memeplex which are more appealing to outsiders on the outside membrane, and to place parts which are more alienating to outsiders near the nuclei- Scientologists don’t tell people about all the Xenu stuff right off the bat, you feel me? This especially applies when attempting to siphon people away from a competing current.

The Mormons actually have a term to describe this strategy- “Milk Before Meat”- the idea being that you must first expose potential converts to the Spiritual Milk- the more appealing parts of the memeplex- before exposing them to the Spiritual Meat- the more alienating parts of the memeplex.

In addition, incentive structures are usually more severe, and the rules more strict, the deeper you go- this similarly helps to ease the process by which someone is absorbed into a current.

In some of those nuclei clusters we can see noticeable power hierarchies, particularly the ones on the top and bottom right, which are clearly centered around specific individuals or groups who the rest of the cluster is subordinate to. To tie this more firmly into the real world, if the pink and blue represent the political left and the right in this model, then the nuclei-like clusters would be both informal and formal groups of political activists or discussion groups, with some of the more formally organized political groups having overt hierarchies and chains of command.

These kinds of power imbalances within a current can have a detrimental effect upon it, resulting in a kind of social decay.

To give an example, consider the reverend of a right-wing church gradually making his church more cult-like, consolidating his own power at the expense of his followers.

(A more thorough diagram might show how this church interacts with the larger current of Christianity, how the different denominations act as distinct yet connected currents, how they’ll act in opposition or in tandem depending on circumstance, and how they overlap with both the right and the left- but it would take years to create a diagram which accurately captured that, and even then it would be so complex as to be almost unreadable.)

A person who already has disproportionate power within the current- in this case the aforementioned reverend- shifts their value system in their own favor, re-writing the rules to their own benefit- (one popular path for the preacher gone full-blown cult leader is to re-write the rules to allow themselves to take multiple young wives, like David Koresh did)- here I’m representing that shift with the shift from blue to teal-ish in the upper right corner, representing a shift from the background - and this has a ripple effect on the cluster surrounding them,

shifting it so that the rest better serves the interests of themselves, or other people within the inner circle of leadership, often at the expense of everyone else within the cluster. The subtle shift from preacher to cult leader, and the attendant shift in the social mores of the church, doesn’t in any way benefit his followers, only himself. But given his disproportionate ability to reward or punish his followers, they fall in line out of fear of punishment, adopting the new value system, enforcing it on each other horizontally in addition to the pressure the cult leader is exerting from above, increasing the leaders power even further.

So while the popular narrative holds that we need hierarchy to maintain social harmony, in actuality hierarchy is in many ways harmful to social harmony- the powerful have every motivation to shift the rules in their favor, change the incentive structure of the current such that it acts to their benefit and exploits the people lower in the hierarchy, not to mention when there is a clear divide between the people who make or enforce social rules, and everyone else, the people who make or enforce social rules have little reason to follow them- cops, and Ted Kennedy, can get away with murder.

Of course, a lot of the times the social rules were already in their favor to begin with- hence why they had more influence in the first place. In either case, whether built into it from the beginning, or caused by societal rot as the powerful entrench their power, the end result is the same: the prevailing ideas and values are the ideas and values of the ruling class, and the interests of the ruling class disguised as the universal interest of everyone.

Luckily, hegemonic power attempting to entrench itself isn’t the only way a currents value system can shift, and there are other forces which act to counteract the entrenchment of the ruling class- put a pin in that, because we’re going to come back to that in a minute.

There’s also another kind of cluster within the currents in this chart, and that’s clusters of people who have become dissatisfied with the status quo of the social norms of the current they’re within - lets highlight those in grey.

These pockets of dissatisfaction generally emerge in response to legitimate grievances with real problems in the value system of the status quo (though they can also occasionally be founded on illegitimate grievances, like a formerly privileged class losing their privilege). Often these problems in the value system are tied into the kind of exploitative hierarchies I mentioned earlier - however, problems can exist within the value system of a current without them necessarily being to any exploitative classes benefit. But while often the source of the problem is that the rules have been written (or re-written) to benefit one group at the expense of the rest, occasionally there are problems in the value system of a current which are caused by simple human error, and aren’t to anyone’s benefit.

Lets say that the pocket of dissatisfaction within the left-wing current is people who feel the social norms around sex within the left are dysfunctional, while the pocket of dissatisfaction within the right wing current is people dissatisfied with the excesses of the ascendant evangelical right, perhaps specifically unhappy with the excesses of that preacher turned cult leader i mentioned earlier, who they’re socially adjacent to.

On one hand, these pockets of dissatisfaction can act as a point from which a competing current can attempt to siphon away individuals, in the form of people from the competing current reaching out to the people in the pocket and making the case that they would be happier if they were to leave their current for the competitor, in this case reaching out to people alienated by the church-gone-cult, and making a case to them that the social values within the left prevent this kind of reactionary religious excess- in this framework it can almost be represented as one current extending a pseudopod into the other current to draw in people:

This is a relatively simple example- one person reaching out to another- but a current can generate more complex social mechanisms to draw people from other currents into itself. For example consider a group like Redneck Revolt, which reaches out to people in right-wing leaning rural areas and recruits them into the left, or conversely, for an example from time frame of our diagram, the 70’s, the Jesus movement, a right-wing movement which recruited hippies into reactionary evangelical Christianity- unlike Redneck Revolt, which is pretty overt in what it’s goals are, the Jesus Movement was more deceptive, framing itself as a left-leaning progressive brand of Christianity when in actuality it’s most prominent figures were  staunchly reactionary- just look at the Jesus Movement associated cult the Children of God, which marketed itself to hippies and presented itself as progressive to outsiders, when secretly it’s was preaching racist, homophobic, and antisemitic screeds to the people living on the cult commune.

An especially deceptive version of the milk before meat strategy comes into play here, in this case being used as a strategy to siphon people away from the left while concealing that intention, presenting a progressive face to suck in hippies and then indoctrinating them with far-right ideology once they’ve been ensnared. So while the strategy of one current extending a pseudopod into another to siphon away members may be pretty universal, it can either be done in ways which are more honest about the intentions, like Redneck Revolt, or it can be more underhanded and dishonest like the Jesus Movement was.

While these pockets of dissatisfaction can act as a weakness for another current to leech off of, they can also act to generate a corrective force, as people who have been harmed by the existing social norms within that current create an updated version of that value system, or an entirely new value system, in response to their material needs- so for example, this pocket in the diagram on the left represents women who had been harmed by the dysfunctional social mores around sex in the 60’s radical scene. This motivates them to create critiques of the “free love” norms of the 60’s radical scene, these critiques eventually developing into the ideological concepts which would later be described as “sex-negative feminism.”

In this diagram this is represented by the grey pocket of dissatisfaction becoming a new internal current, which acts in opposition to the current surrounding it on the point of contradiction- the red current within the pink current representing sex negative feminism within the larger context of the “free love” ideology which prevailed in much of the left.

This internal current spreads within the current, absorbing people who resonate with their critiques of the social status quo, eventually dispersing and incorporating itself into the larger surrounding current.

In the classic dialectical materialist model, the first current is the thesis, then the new current growing out of the pocket of dissatisfaction is the antithesis, then they synthesize into a new social status quo, which inevitably will have it’s own pockets of dissatisfaction, and the process repeats.

For example, as portrayed in this diagram, the problems inherent in the 1960’s radical scene’s social norms around sex was the flashpoint for the development of feminist critiques of sex and porn, then the flaws inherent within the sex negative framework, such as it’s sometimes excessively puritanical values and it’s ugly transphobia, spurred sex positive feminist critiques, then the flaws within the sex positive framework spurred a new wave of sex critical feminism, and so forth, this back-and forth dialectic working to shape the social norms around sex within social spaces on the left.

Now, I’m sure some would argue that in the back and forth between sex negativity and sex positivity, one of the two was reactionary, and emerged to retain the privilege of an oppressive class and undo progress. However I disagree, I think both sex positivity and sex negativity- and the back and forth dialectic between them- played a progressive role in improving the social norms around sex within the left.

The pattern of “people disenfranchised by the current value system create a new value system, and this theory spurs praxis which shifts social norms to better accommodate peoples needs” is visible everywhere- revolutionary action by the oppressed against the status quo is not only a force in driving social and moral advancement- it’s the primary force, the grinding dialectical engine at the heart of history and morality.

We can see this pattern playing out in the history of LGBT rights, where homophobic and transphobic laws and social mores- which are a harmful incentive system which unnecessarily punishes benign behavior- spurred the emergence of the lgbt rights movement, as the people harmed by homophobic and transphobic social mores and laws to joined together in radical action to change them.

Or for an example on a larger scale, consider the way feudalism was supplanted by liberalism and capitalism, particularly around such flashpoints as the French revolution- so we can see that this dialectical pattern can take different forms, and while sex critical feminism and sex positive feminism both acted internally within the left, the contradiction which spurred the decline of feudalism was more severe, with the liberal enlightenment current more fully separating itself from the feudal current before overtaking it.

Similarly, at this point it’s necessary for capitalism to be supplanted by an entirely new economic current- the contradictions at play here are too severe to be resolved through a more subtle internal dialectical process.

As noted earlier, the ruling class losing it’s power and privilege due to social progress creates it’s own pocket of dissatisfaction, which creates a harmful reactionary current.

Reactionary currents caused by an oppressive class losing their power can have a significant memetic ripple effect, outlasting the actual people who lost their power- consider the reactionary current which emanated from the aristocracy and monarchy losing their power after feudalism declined, which carried as it’s central narrative the notion that progressivism and democracy were bad, and that Jewish people, freemasons, and the Illuminati were behind them (especially in relation to the French revolution)- this narrative which continues to play a central role in reactionary movements to this day, from fascism to neoreaction- though some original flavor moldbuggian neoreactionaries attempted to swap out the Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theorism for a sinister Calvinist conspiracy.

The Illuminati was a small short-lived enlightenment-era discussion group, but then some deranged pro-monarchist priest named Augustin Barruel accuses them of having caused the French revolution, and from there the telephone game effect exaggerated the Illuminati into the ultimate shadowy boogeyman in the reactionary narrative. More than anything else, the fact that the whole right-wing conspiracy theory about the Illuminati is directly traceable back to the reactionary response to the French revolution shows just how severe the memetic ripple from that reactionary current was, and how firmly caught up in it’s wake a lot of modern reactionaries are. Both fascism and neoreaction can be understood as essentially mutations of the reactionary current that emerged in response to the French revolution.

However, while reactionary currents can undo progress, nonetheless the general overall trend of history is toward improvement- the long moral arc of the universe bending toward justice.

Now, if power imbalances are harmful, and if these sorts of dialectical processes correct power imbalances through social upheaval, the question must be asked- why do power imbalances exist in the first place?

To answer this question with a question- how do you create an incentive system without that incentive system creating a power imbalance between those it rewards and those it punishes?

It’s a difficult question, with no easy answer!

Of course, this may drive many to deem currents and incentive structures inherently evil- “We must cast off all binds that might shape our behavior, destroy all the authoritarian social mores, reject all coercive social systems, and embrace individualism fully!” they might say. They might also tell you you’re “spooked” and tell you to read Stirner.

But the thing is, any time you have people in a group where some of them have shared beliefs about which actions are good or bad, these kind of social incentive systems are going to emerge- you could try to prevent people from doing anything which might in some way incentivize or dis-incentivize the actions of others, but how would you do this without in some way rewarding or penalizing their behavior yourself?

And more importantly, would we really be better off if there were no social incentive systems or consequences for action? Would we really be better off if abusers faced no social repercussions? And recall here that we’re talking not only about formal legal penalties but also decentralized social penalties like “people not liking you”- which, mind you, can be a pretty powerful social tool for shaping behavior!

So as you can see, there isn’t any way to escape this here, and the dream of a world without incentive structures is in actuality neither desirable nor possible. The goal shouldn’t be to abolish all social incentive structures, but rather to correct what is broken, to replace flawed incentive structures with better ones, and to improve upon the social technology of morality.

So, what is the takeaway from all of this?

Essentially, that both Anarchists and Marxist-Leninists are right in some ways, and the way forward is to synthesize the two modes of thought- to merge the concepts of horizontal non-hierarchical social organization from Anarchists, with a sense of duty, unity, and discipline more akin to the ideas floated by Marxists in Engel’s On Authority, or Mao’s Combat Liberalism. Through a more complete understanding of currents and how they function, we can more effectively create a revolutionary current which can supplant the hegemonic capitalist current, driving the great dialectical engine of history and morality forward toward greater human flourishing and prosperity.

[quillandsaber]

30 Days of Beauty and the Beast: Day 6 (First)

I had great fun designing the castle chaplain's backstory and personality.  I hope to involve Pére François heavily in the future, because he's pretty uniformly awesome.  Adam did not deserve him.

BE WARNED: There is a premature newborn in this story.  As in, might-not-live premature.  I can assure you as the author that the baby survives (he's been referenced in an earlier short), but my characters don't know that.

"Your Highness, you have a son."

Cogsworth delivered the news gravely, and Adam knew instantly something wasn't right.  From the moment he'd been told Belle's pains had started, he'd sat in the chapel, alternatively praying, hoping, fearing, feeling utterly powerless...and now it had all come to this.  Cold dread settled in the pit of his stomach.  "What is it?  What's wrong?"

"The midwife and doctor agree it best that the baby be baptized immediately," the older man said carefully.  "I was asked to fetch you; I've already found the chaplain."

Adam did not need to be told twice.  He raced out of the chapel, up the stairs, dodging servants as they came from Belle's rooms carrying linens, ewers, other random items he couldn't make out in his mad dash towards his wife's bedchamber and the small cluster of people gathered outside the door.

Pére François was already there, stone-faced, preparing the holy water and the oil--he must have had it with him in readiness, Adam thought, and his stomach sank further--but Adam barrelled past them towards the doctor and midwife.  He could see blood on their hands, the smell of it frightening him even more.

"What's wrong?" he asked, darting between the two.  "How are they?"

"The princess is as well as she can be, but your son is...very small, and his cry is weak.  We believe he was born earlier than he ought."  The doctor looked to the midwife, who nodded.  "It is possible he may live--thrive, even--but for the sake of his immortal soul, I cannot recommend taking that risk.  However..."

"The princess won't allow anyone to take the child from her," the midwife finished.  "It's not uncommon for new mothers to be possessed with this sort of madness when they know their child is...unwell, but he is still unbaptized, and he will need to be fed if he is to thrive."

"I can perform the sacrament for the child in his mother's arms, there is no impediment," the priest interrupted, bowl and cloth in hand.  "But for the sake of his soul, we must act now.  His Highness should come with me and be witness."

"I'll go first," Adam returned, mind racing with all the new information; it was too much, too much at once to absorb.  "I might be able to calm her down."  Actually, he had no idea if he was able to calm her down--it would be a first if he did--but he needed to see that she was all right, at least.  The vague notion that he might have lost her (might still lose her, a voice said in the back of his head) was near enough to drive him insane.

With trembling hands, he opened the door to look in on the birthing room.

From what little he knew of birth, it seemed as if the servants had already been in to remove the soiled sheets and other things, but the smell of blood was still in the air, barely masked by scented candles.  Belle sat in her bed, hair a tangled, damp mess, eyes sunken and red, but--God be praised--alert and alive.  In her arms she clutched a tiny linen-wrapped bundle as if she was afraid it would disappear from her arms.

"Adam!" she whispered, fear coloring every syllable.  "Adam, is the priest here?"

"Yes, love, he is."  Adam glanced over to Pére François, who had bustled past him to the bedside.

"I won't let him go," she insisted, and the bundle let out a weak whine.  "They won't take him from me, not if...not if…"

"Be at peace, daughter," the old priest said, placing the bowl of water on the bedside table.  "All I need is to be able to see his face to baptize and anoint him, and to know his name."

"Jean-Alexandre," Belle said, her tight grip loosening just enough for the bundle to start turning, though Adam couldn't see past the black-coated back of the priest.  "We agreed that it would be Jean-Alexandre for a boy."

The priest began muttering in Latin so quickly Adam couldn't follow it, and he craned his neck to try to catch a glimpse of his son.  When Pére François backed away, he could finally see the child's face peering out from swaths of linen and silk wrappings.  It looked like no child he had ever seen before, pinched, somehow pale and ruddy at the same time, and so unbelievably small.

Then the child's nose twitched, and he gave out the tiniest wail Adam could possibly imagine, and a surge of some primal nameless emotion threatened to overwhelm him.  That was his child, his son, his and his wife's.  His firstborn, no matter what else happened tonight or tomorrow or the day after that.

A woman--the wet-nurse, Adam was fairly certain, though he only vaguely remembered being told that Mrs. Potts had selected one to be added to the nursery staff--shuffled past him.  "The young master is hungry.  Madame, if you please--"

Belle's eyes flashed with desperate fire as she clutched the swaddled baby close to her chest.  "'It is fit that every mother should nurse her own child because her milk, which is nothing else but the blood whitened of which it was made and wherewith he had been nourished the time he stayed in his mother's womb,' that's what Guillemeau says."  She looked to the ancient book that she'd kept next to her nearly as long as she'd been sure she'd been expecting; she must have read it cover to cover at least five times.  "You aren't taking him!"

"Madame--" the nurse began again, but a withering look from Belle silenced her.  The nurse looked to Adam, who looked to his terrified, distressed wife, then to the doctor.  He hadn't the faintest clue what to do, he didn't even know if there was anything he could do that would actually help, but everyone was looking to him to make a decision.

"Is there any reason this would be dangerous to either of them, anything that wouldn't be in the book?" Adam asked at last.

The doctor seemed to choose his words carefully before speaking.  "If you will permit me to mention it, ladies of noble lineage are often too delicate for it, and if any tried, it is likely that their milk would be insufficient.  However, considering the...unusual circumstances of the princess's birth..."

"It's her decision, then."

The entire room was silent for a long moment after Adam's proclamation except the small cries that came from the child.  Then the nurse spoke.  "Very well, Highness.  If his Highness would…?"

"No, let him stay, if he wants."  Belle's voice cracked.  "I want Alex to know his father, no matter what happens.  As much as he can."

The nurse looked startled, but as soon as the doctor left, she proceeded to assist his wife, murmuring quietly as they adjusted chemise, baby, and breast according to some set of rules Adam couldn't guess at, but he took the opportunity to sneak around to get a better look at his wife and son without intruding on what seemed strangely like a sacred scene, perhaps reminiscent of the Madonna and Child paintings he had seen in Italy in his youth.  Finally, the nurse backed up, muttering something about being back in ten minutes, and then the small new family was alone.

"You can come closer," Belle said, gaze fixed on the child at her breast.  "He has your eyes.  I was hoping he would."

His hands were still shaking so much he was afraid to even suggest he touch the baby, but he scooted onto the edge of the bed so he could wrap an arm around his wife's waist and look over her shoulder at their child.  The baby had stopped nursing, lying very still with his eyes closed, moving just enough to indicate that he was still breathing.

"This is your papa, Jean-Alexandre," Belle whispered.  "He's been waiting very patiently to meet you for many months now, and he's loved you every minute of it.  Didn't you?"

Adam nodded, blinking back tears.  Sitting there, arms around his wife and son, he vowed to be grateful for this day.  God only knew they might not have many more of them, but he'd always cherish this memory of his firstborn in his heart.

Some important history information for this one, presented as an information dump: the Prince and Belle would necessarily be Catholic, being French post-Huguenot removal.  According to Catholic tradition (as in, how most people believed, which is not necessarily what the detailed theological texts said), an infant's soul would be condemned to hell if they died unbaptized, so a baby who was born weak or sickly would be baptized as quickly as possible.  It's very realistic that Adam would have never seen an infant before; noblewomen didn't raise their own children until they were four or five, and even servant women sent their children away to be wet-nursed as soon after birth as possible so they could return to work.  90% of all French babies at the time were wet-nursed for practical or traditional reasons, and modern scholars believe this was a contributing factor to high infant mortality rates.

Jacques Guillemeau (1550-1613) was the first French obstetrician.  While his seminal work on birth and nursing would have been considered ancient and questionably-sound in Belle's day--which is why Adam doesn't trust it as much as Belle does and why a lot of its information was ignored by doctors and midwives of the era--it was (to the best of my ability to determine) the only obstetrics text to be written in French until later in the 18th century.  The line in the book immediately after the sentence Belle quotes lists reasons why women would have to use a wet-nurse, one of them being that their husbands won't permit it; Adam, legally-speaking, had the power to force Belle to give the child to a wet-nurse, which is why everyone looked to him to make the call.

[ecadimi-blog]

First Amendment Religion and Education

  Student Rights Under the First Amendment: The Establishment Clause and Freedom of Speech/Expression           Abstract This paper examines the Establishment Clause and the Free Expression Clause of the First Amendment and any impact on the free speech rights of students.  The United States Constitution provides the legal framework for our ever-increasing diversified population. The   Court rulings reveal conflicts in case law while trying to provide a framework for a healthy balance so that. Its citizens can fully participate in a democratic society. Ironically, the Lemon ruling operates as a standard-bearer is not heavily relied on to decide Establishment cases. Freedom of speech is examined through the lens of the rights of students to pray, display religious artwork, assembly on public property to participate in voluntary religious activities, and to use expressions that might be found distasteful and even despicable. The Courts have upheld the rights of students to express themselves even when their actions were contrary to expected decorum. Keywords:  Establishment Clause, Freedom of Expression Clause, freedom of speech, Lemon ruling, endorsement test, pure speech, speech plus, symbolic speech, First Amendment of the United States Constitution                 The United States of America is slowly coming to terms with its ever-changing population.  While acknowledging the U.S. as a country of immigrants, it grapples with the heterogeneous population as it provides equal protection to its citizens.  The increasing immigrant population previously described as a melting pot is now more inclusively thought of as a salad bowl. The melting pot theorists assumed that varying immigrants will “melt together”  leaving their cultures and adopting the norms and morays of the predominant society (Longley). Salad bowl theorists see a heterogeneous society wherein people coexist but do not sacrifice some of their uniqueness to live in the larger society (Longley).  Total assimilation is not the expected behavior. The sacrifice of cultural traits to achieve acceptance by the predominant society runs afoul of values held by the minority.  The cultural assimilation of minorities determines the weights associated by costs and benefits made by the family which is not aligned with those sacrifices made to achieve acceptance (Bison). Democratization of education affords opportunities for optimal exchanges of viewpoints and sharing of ideas even those which conflict. Amy Gutmann, a political theorist,believes “schools have a much greater capacity than most parents and voluntary associations in teaching children to reason out loud about disagreements that rise in democratic politics”. TheFirst Amendment which includes the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause provides a framework for its citizens to participate in a balanced democracy. First Amendment and Free Exercise Overview The First Amendment has two clauses about religion: The Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause.  The Establishment Clause arose out of the various religious beliefs held by the early settlers wherein dissent arose from the requirement to pay a religious tax to the Church of England which often compelled church attendance. After Independence, the settlers agreed that a national church would not be established. The Establishment Clause, written primarily by James Madison, applied only to the federal government. By 1940, the Supreme Court ruled the disestablishment applied to state governments through the Fourteenth Amendment (Hamilton). The Free Exercise Clause protects a citizen’s right to freely practice their religionas long as it does not conflict with a "public morals" or a "compelling" governmental interest (uscourts). The Lemon v. Kurtzman court held a three-part parameter for the “establishment of religion”.  The Lemon test is (1) a government can only assist religion when the primary purpose is secular, (2) the assistance must not promote or inhibit religion, and (3) there is no excessive entanglement between church and state (Hamilton).  Although the Lemon ruling has generated criticism, the Court often decides Establishment Clause cases without referencing it.  The Lemoncase has not been overturned which compels the lower courts touse it (Hamilton). Freedom of Speech/ Freedom of the Press Beyond the right to liberty, our most basic and protected right is the right to free speech.  The right of freedom of speech permits persons to express themselves without governmental permission, interference or regulation. The government must provide a basis for its curtailment of the right of free speech in any attempt to regulate the content of the speech (Hamilton). Generally, a person cannot sue another, either criminally or civilly for what they say or write about a person or topic, based on a conditional belief that the statements weretrue or her honest opinion (uscourts). Speeches that may cause a breach of peace or violence may be restricted.  Levels of protections vary for categories of speech such as the advocacy of illegal action, fighting words, commercial speech and obscenity and also depends on the forum in which it takes place.   Members of the press are afforded the same protections as citizens (Hamilton). Prayer in Public Schools   The Court ruled public schools cannot lead children in prayer or Bible readings even if voluntarily.  This was exemplified in the Establishment Clause decision in Engel v. Vitale (1962); Abington School District v. Schempp (1963). As an extension to Engel v. Vitale, the Court ruled prohibiting prayers at graduation ceremonies, Lee v. Weisman (1992), and football games, Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe (2000).   Yet, the Court stated that because adults were involved, prayer would be permitted in legislative sessions in Marsh v. Chambers (1983) and affirmed prayer at town council meetings when the Town represented prayers of any faith would be acceptedTown of Greece v. Galloway (2014) (Hamilton). Religious symbols on display Display of religious symbolsin public school classrooms, courthouses, public parks, courthouses and shopping malls are fiercely debated.  A religious display must pass the “endorsement test”which is whether a reasonable observer can make a determination by its context if the display can be considered as the government endorsing religionand if it sends a message of subjugation to people who hold different beliefs or non-believers (Hamilton). The Court rendered rulings which conflicted with each other.In Lynch v. Donnelly (1984), the Court permitted a nativity scene surrounded by other holiday decorations to be displayed in a public space -- the heart of a shopping district stating that it aligned with the community spirit of goodwill of the season. A display of a nativity scene rendered a different verdict In County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union (1989).  This nativity scene was visibly pronounced on a grand stairway in a courthouse and was ruled a violation of the Establishment Clause because it was undoubtedly religious (Hamilton). In McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union (2005), the Court held that a prominent display of the Ten Commandments with the embodiment of ethics in Christ at the county courthouse to be unconstitutional(Hamilton).  However, on the same day, the Court in Van Orden v. Perry (2005) upheld a Ten Commandments monument donated by a secular organization which was surrounded by other monuments on the spacious statehouse grounds.  The Establishment Clause provides a legal framework for resolving conflicts about the public role of religion in our ever increasingly diversified society (Hamilton). Freedoms of Speech and of the Press One of our most treasured liberties is free speech.  Free speech may conflict with other freedoms and the courts have to decide on the limits of free speech (Hamilton).Themustard test to determine free speech limitations is the "clear and present danger" test.  In the case Schenck v. the United States, a World War I antiwar activist Charles Schenck was arrested for sending leaflets to prospective army draftees encouraging them to ignore their draft notices. The United States argued that Schenck threatened national security. This case established the principle that free speech would not be protected if an individual were a "clear and present danger" to United States security (Hamilton). The Courts have identified three types of free speech each protected at a different level.  Pure speech is the verbal expression of thoughts and opinions before a voluntary audience. The courts have generally provided strong protection of pure speech from government regulation.Speech-plus involves actions (demonstrating or protesting) as well as words. Because speech-plus is action-oriented and potentially dangerous, it is not generally protected as strictly as is pure speech. . The courts have ruled that demonstrators may not obstruct traffic, endanger public safety, or trespass illegally (Hamilton).Symbolic speech technically is no speech at all. The symbols serve as forms of free expression.  Wearing black armbands in school and draft-card burningsfall in this category.Because symbolic speech is highly controversial, as a rule the courts have sometimes considered it to be beyond the limits of free speech (Hamilton). However, the Supreme Court affirmed the right of an individual to burn an American flag in the 1989Texas vs. Johnson decision. The principles that apply to freedom of speech, apply to the press. The press has one exception which is prior restraint. The courts have ruled that the government may not censor information before it is written and published, except in the most extreme cases of national security (Hamilton). Student Rights The United States Supreme Courtreversed the conviction of a teenager who had burned a cross on the lawn of an African-American family for violating the First Amendment's protections for freedom of speech in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul.  The Minnesota Supreme Court held the St. Paul'sBias-Motivated Crime Ordinance was not overly broad and because its content was not permitted it was ruled invalid under the First Amendment. The lower court held the ordinance had a compelling government interest in protecting the community against bias threats to public safety and order. The Supreme Court upheld the ruling and found the St. Paul Ordinance was overly broad and on its face unconstitutional stating that while fighting words were used, the Ordinance goes beyond content discrimination to viewpoint discrimination prohibiting the expression of speech it held to be repugnant (casebriefs). The Tinker v. Des Moinesruling held that students did not lose their First Amendment rights to free speech at the school house door because they wore arm bands protesting the Vietnam War.  This act is protected by the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled the wearing of the armbands as “pure speech,” or symbolic speech which is protected by the First Amendment(casebriefs).  The Court stated the school must prove this as a material and substantial interference with the operation of the school.  This school feared an anticipated disruption rather than any actual interference (casebriefs). What About Displaying Student Work with Religious Symbols? The right to exercise free speech, to assemble peaceably, to freely practice your religion, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances is a First Amendment right (U.S. Constitution). Ms. Educator of the Year assigned her class an essay and upon completion of the assignment, one of her students wrote an eloquent essay about Jesus and rendered a pictorial showing the Last Supper.  Ms. Educator does not want to violate Maya Angeletto, a future scholar’s rights, but she is also aware that religious symbols can’t be displayed in public schools.  AddThis Sharing Buttons In Joki v. Board of Education of the Schuylerville Central School District, a New York district court held that a school’s display of a student’s religiously-themed artwork violated the Establishment Clause. The painting depicted a man hanging from a cross with a crown of thorns, as a bright yellow light shone on the figure from the sky. While the school district stated that the painting was representing man’s inhumanity, the plaintiff argued it conveyed a religious message. The Supreme Court applied the Lemon litmus testand ruled the display unconstitutional considering the context and contents wherein a reasonable person could view the painting as an endorsement of Christianity in violation of the Establishment Clause (berkeleycenter).  The Court noted the symbol of the cross was a “centralized” theme in Christian homes representing a crucified Jesus.  Further, there was no clarifying statement or signage explaining the secular meaning of the painting, and there was nothing to “neutralize” the work (berkeleycenter). The Brittney Settlecase is cited exemplifying he need to build strong protections for religious expression in school. The 9th grader wrote a research paper for her English teacher. The topic was up to the student and Ms. Settle wrote about Jesus as her personal redeemer.  Teacher Ramsey informed the principal and Ms. Settlethat her writing about Jesus was inappropriate in public school.  Ms. Ramsey further added that writing about a topic the student already had a deep knowledge of would not be beneficial for her. Settle wrote the paper anyway and received a zero. The plaintiff lost the case in the federal district court.  The Court gave educators broad discretion over student assignments.  The Supreme Court declined to hear the case.  The Secretary of Education Richard Riley issued guidelines on religious expression in public school saying: "Students may express their beliefs about religion in the form of homework, artwork, and other written and oral assignments free of discrimination based on the religious content of their submissions.''  (Walsh) In the case at hand, Scholar Maya Angelettocan submit her essay on Jesus and her pictorial of Jesus because she is well within her rights of freedom of speech and expression under the First Amendment.  Supreme Court Loading... cases recognize student free speech rights, including religious speech.  Further, guidelines issued by the United States Department of Education state: Students may express their beliefs about religion in homework, artwork, and other written and oral assignments free from discrimination based on the religious content of their submissions. Such home and classroom work should be judged by ordinary academic standards of substance and relevance and against other legitimate pedagogical concerns identified by the school. Thus, if a teacher’s assignment involves writing a poem, the work of a student who submits a poem in the form of a prayer (for example, a psalm) should be judged on the basis of academic standards (such as literary quality) and neither penalized nor rewarded on account of its religious content.   TheEstablishment Clause of the First Amendment is clear about the promotion of religious beliefs or anti-religious beliefs.  Educators can teach religion when the content is tied to academic objectives and there is no attempt to indoctrinate students to a certain religious belief or non-belief (Wicht). Permanent displays of religious symbols on public school property violate the Establishment Clause. A display of the Ten Commandments in the main corridor of the school is a violation of the Establishment.  Permanent displays denote an endorsement for Christianity. If a Star of David was displayed in a classroom/hallway/cafeteria,a reasonable deduction could be made that the school favors Judaism (Wicht). If Ms. Teacher of the Year uses the religious symbols as instructional aids, not as a permanent display or decoration, this would not violate the Establishment Clause.  Ms. Teacher of the Year could hang Scholar Angeletto’s pictorial of Jesus temporarily with signage referencingthe purpose and content of the project along with the otherstudents’ projects. The burden of making a differentiation between a display and instructional use belongs to the teacher who must ensure clear connectionsare made to academic contentto avoid any form of proselyting of religion, and to advance understandings of multiple religious and worldviews (Wicht). Educators are compelled to strike a balance between the two clauses within the legal parameters for honoring the students’ right to free expression while avoiding messages and  displays that favor one religion over another. In this case, that balance could be achieved by clearly labeling the work as student art and communicating that the contents are not the school’s views while honoring the religious identity of the student (Wicter). Students and educators do not check their First Amendmentrights at the schoolhouse door (Tinker).   The Court noted personal intercommunication among the students is "an important part of the educational process," which may not be curbed by school officials merely out of a desire to avoid conflict or the expression of unpopular ideas.  The Court decided In the absence of a specific showing of constitutionally valid reasons to regulate their speech, students are entitled to freedom of expression of their viewpoints (Tinker)..  

References Bisin, A., Verdier, T. (2000) “Beyond the Melting Pot”: Cultural Transmission, Marriage, and theEvolution of Ethnic and Religious Traits, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 115(3), pp. 955–988, https://doi.org/10.1162/003355300554953 Bisin, A., Verdier, T. (2010).The Economics of Cultural Transmission and Socialization. Working Paper 16512 http://www.nber.org/papers/w16512. Retrieved from https://www.nber.org/papers/w16512.pdf Gutmann, A. (1988). 1987-1999 Democratic Education. Princeton. Princeton University Press. Hamilton, M., McConnell, M (nd) The Establishment Clause. Retrieved from https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/interpretations/the-establishment-clause-hamilton-and-mcconnell Heil, C. (n.d.) Reference To God Removed From Student Assignment. Retrieved from https://aclj.org/free-speech-2/reference-god-removed-student-assignment

Joki v. Board of Education of the Schuylerville Central School Districtharles v. Verhagen

Retrieved from https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/cases/joki-v-board-of-education-of-the-schuylerville-central-school-districtharles-v-verhagen R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, Minnesota, 22 Ill.505 U.S. 377, 112 S. Ct. 2538, 120 L. Ed. 2d 305 (1992) retrieved from https://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/constitutional-     law/constitutional-law-keyed-to-cohen/governmental-control-of-the-content-of-expression/r-a-v-v-city-of-st-paul-minnesota-2/ Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. (n.d.). Oyez. Retrieved from https://www.oyez.org/cases/1968/21 Walsh, M. (1996, February) Student Essay on Jesus Prompts Legal Battle. Education Week Teacher. Retrieved from https://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/1996/02/01/05jesus.h07.html

Wicht, S. (2014) What Does the First Amendment Say About DisplayingReligious Symbols?

Retrieved from https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-resources/supreme-court-landma

http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/establishment-clause http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/free-exercise-clause http://www.tolerance.org/blog/you-can-teach-about-religion-public-school https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/first-amendment-and-               religion Legal Citations Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203(1963) County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, 492 U.S. 573 (1989) Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962) Joki v. Board of Education of the Schuylerville Central School District, 745 F. Supp. 823 (N.D.N.Y. 1990) Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971) Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992) Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668 (1984) Marshv. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983)   McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky, 545 U.S. 844 (2005) R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377 (1992) Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290 (2000) Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989) Town of Greece v. Galloway, 572 U.S. ___ (2014) Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969) Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U.S. 677 (2005) Read the full article

[denvergoldmine]

Stoner comedy “Super Troopers 2,” opening on 4/20, has an unexpected Denver connection

Actors Paul Soter, from left, Steve Lemme, and Kevin Heffernan answer questions after a special screening of "Super Troopers 2" Sunday, April 15, 2018 at the Sie FilmCenter. The sequel is Denver-produced and will be in theaters April 20. (Daniel Brenner, Special to the Denver Post)

At the Denver premiere of “Super Troopers 2” on Sunday, the giddy crowd inside the Sie FilmCenter was treated to not one but two surprises: a trio of cast members from the film’s creative team, the Broken Lizard comedy troupe, and some brief words from co-executive producers Kayvan Khalatbari and Andy Juett.

The latter was particularly telling of the film’s stoner pedigree — which extends to its national premiere on April 20, a.k.a. the unofficial stoner holiday of 4/20.

Not only was Denver the first major city to embrace legal, recreational weed nearly five years ago, but Khalatbari and Juett — who run Denver-based Sexpot Comedy, which enjoys a prominent, pink-hued logo in the “Super Troopers 2” credits — also overlap heavily with the cannabis world.

So when Broken Lizard needed help finishing “Super Troopers 2” following an unexpectedly robust but still-too-short crowdfunding campaign, director Jay Chandrasekhar turned to a pair who had equal footing in the weed and comedy realms.

“I’m really excited that it’s finally happening,” Khalatbari said after posing for photos with the cast and Denver co-producer Nick Hice on the film’s red carpet. “We got involved almost a year and a half ago, and it’s been amazing to see the process from start to finish.”

The event also provided valuable, on-brand PR for Khalatbari, who is challenging Mayor Michael Hancock in the May 2019 election and has raised more funds than the embattled Hancock this year. Khalatbari, who made his money with the Sexy Pizza chain before co-founding the Denver Relief dispensary (and, now, consulting group), was quick to strike the sort of unprompted, wonky tone befitting an elected official.

“It’s really important for Denver and Colorado to start investing again in film,” he said, referencing the rocky time the Colorado Office of Film, Television and Media has had in securing funds for film-related state tax incentives. “It’s something we’ve completely divested in, and anything we can do that brings attention to the city and encourages people that are inclined to invest in it, the better. I hope we can catch fire with some of that here.”

Actors Steve Lemme, from left, Paul Soter, and Kevin Heffernan are interviewed in the WeedStream during a special red carpet screening of Super Troopers 2 Sunday, April 15, 2018 at the Sie FilmCenter. The sequel is Denver-produced and will be in theaters April 20. (Daniel Brenner, Special to the Denver Post)

Also potentially catching fire: Actual marijuana in the WeedStream trailer in the Sie’s parking lot that night — a modified Airstream trailer where the cast did interviews, and the public could hang out and legally get high before the screening.

While Fox Searchlight Pictures brought the trailer to the Sie, Khalatbari has been using his own connections to market the film.

“As investors, we did some things to help integrate ‘Super Troopers 2’ into the cannabis industry, with Denver Relief Consulting having reach in pretty much every legal (cannabis) state in the country,” he said. “There’s a lot of opportunity there to promote film that is obviously associated with cannabis and opening on 4/20 — especially after 17 years since the original. People are ready.”

As a sequel to the 2001 cult stoner-comedy about bumbling, profane, practical-joke-loving Vermont state troopers, “Super Troopers 2” languished for years due to difficulty in securing financing, even as the script underwent dozens of rewrites to more densely layer the rapid-fire jokes. The original was made for just over $1 million and did middling business at the box office, but has gone on to become a dorm-room classic thanks to home video and streaming.

That means the sequel has a lot to live up to — including an incredibly high reputation among stoners.

“We invited our friend Doug Benson, the stoner comedian, to the premiere because we thought he’d be the barometer of how funny it was — for a guy who’s perpetually stoned, and a stoner-movie aficianado,” said Broken Lizard’s Paul Soter. “Did we capture the same spirit in the second one? Then we saw him a couple days later and were having a conversation about it, and he didn’t get a reference to a line in the movie. We were like, ‘Remember, that’s what we say in the opening scene?’ And he goes, “Aw, I was at the snack bar.’ ”

Actors Paul Soter, from left, Steve Lemme, and Kevin Heffernan answer questions after a special screening of “Super Troopers 2” Sunday, April 15, 2018 at the Sie FilmCenter. (Daniel Brenner, Special to the Denver Post)

The crowd at the Sie FilmCenter on Sunday was not quite so breezy. Some of the fans had whole swaths of the original film memorized, judging by the quotes overheard in conversation. Most hustled into the theater long before the start time.

“The original came out when I was 13 and I snuck into it with friends at the Olde Town Arvada theater,” said Elise Kerns. “The thing that makes me feel great about (the sequel) was that the Sexpot dudes were involved in it.”

That helps, but it’s not everything, said Soter — who plays the character Carl in “Super Troopers 2” — during a pre-screening interview at the Curtis Hotel.

“For us it’s about: Will people show up in the theater for a sequel to a movie they only ever watched on their couch?” he said. “We’ve never had a movie do more than $7 million on opening weekend.”

Other Broken Lizard comedies, such as 2004’s “Club Dread” and 2006’s “Beerfest,” opened against big movies (“Club Dread” against “The Passion of the Christ”) or were rushed in their promotion (“Beerfest’s” unusually short, one-month campaign), according to Broken Lizard’s Steve Lemme, who plays Mac.

A large audience laughs while watching a special screening of “Super Troopers 2” Sunday, April 15, 2018 at the Sie FilmCenter. The sequel is Denver-produced and will be in theaters April 20. (Daniel Brenner, Special to the Denver Post)

“And that metric has capped our careers and our ability to get other stuff made,” Soter added. “For us, it feels like everything comes down to this. It’s become a referendum on whether we’re a viable Hollywood commodity, or whether we’re destined to be these weird cult guys who live in the shadows of the industry.”

“We really are a mom-and-pop shop,” Lemme said, noting the 54,000 people who contributed to the film’s Indiegogo campaign. “The fans showed up to make this, and without them it wouldn’t exist. But we need more than 54,000 people to show up this weekend.”

That explains Broken Lizard’s relentless road trip to promote the movie, which continued on to Chicago after the Denver premiere Sunday.

So will it be another cult classic? That’s not up to the filmmakers, Soter said.

MORE: Read the “Super Troopers 2” movie review.

“Until you see it with an audience, you never know which (scenes) are really sparking. We’ve done 15 or 16 preview screenings at this point and it’s been fun to see those patterns come through,” he said. “You’re seeing which moments, and which scenes, are really knockin’ ’em dead.”

“And you can’t pre-engineer those,” said Broken Lizard’s Kevin Heffernan, who plays fan-favorite character Farva, noting that the best Broken Lizard can do is try to make its own members laugh, and just hope audiences agree with them.

“It’s like trying to predict viral videos,” he said. “You would drive yourself mad doing that.”

True. But you can also stack the deck by getting really, really high before watching.

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[tune-collective]

What's Inside Madonna Biopic 'Blond Ambition' & Can She Stop It?

What's Inside Madonna Biopic 'Blond Ambition' & Can She Stop It?

If the Universal project does get the green light, it will have to survive the wrath of the Material Girl.

Most scripts on the Black List — an annual ranking of Hollywood’s best unproduced screenplays, voted upon by the people who read them (many of them agency and studio assistants) — remain just that: unproduced.

But not always. Certainly landing in first place on the list doesn’t hurt. Such was the case with Blond Ambition: The biopic from first-time screenwriter Elyse Hollander about Madonna’s rise to fame earned 48 votes on the 2016 list, 13 nods ahead of the second-place entry from veteran scribe Dan Fogelman (This Is Us).

The script impressed Universal enough to snatch up the property, with two major producers — Michael De Luca and Brett Ratner — attached. Still, no director has yet been attached and the film is not yet an official green light.

Definitely not on board, however, is Madonna herself. The singer has posted several Instagram messages denouncing the project. In the first, posted just hours after The Hollywood Reporter broke the news of the project on Tuesday, she writes, “Nobody knows what I know and what I have seen. Only I can tell my story. Anyone else who tries is a charlatan and a fool.”

On Wednesday (April 26), a copy of the script now in hand, her criticism grew more pointed and personal. “Why would Universal Studios want to make a movie about me based on a script that is all lies???” she writes. “The writer Elyse Hollander should write for the tabloids.”

As an example of the script’s inaccuracies, Madonna singled out a line of dialogue on the first page, in which Madonna tells Dick Clark in an interview on American Bandstand, “I was born in Detroit. I’m a famed high school dropout.”

“I was born in Bay City, not Detroit. And I did not drop out of high school. In fact, I went to University of Michigan,” Madonna counters. But Hollander took that exchange directly from the actual American Bandstand broadcast, as evidenced by this YouTube video. (Perhaps that is why Madonna later deleted the second Instagram post.)

If Blond Ambition does get green-lighted, it will have to survive the wrath of Madonna. For Universal, it could wind up being a headache not worth pursuing. It certainly won’t be the first unauthorized biography to make it to the screen, but other recent notable instances — The Queen, The Social Network, Foxcatcher — were not reliant on a highly recognizable musical catalog.

Figuring heavily into Blond Ambition‘s plot are such early Madonna hits as “Burning Up,” “Everybody,” “Borderline,” “Lucky Star” and “Holiday” — all of them hit singles off her self-titled debut album from 1983. For Universal to include these songs, they would need to secure a sync license for the master recording (if they use the originals) and the music publishing rights.

Even if Madonna holds none of these rights herself, one prominent music lawyer estimates that “given her stature in the industry, she probably has an approval right” over the songs and could prevent them from use in Blond Ambition. The resulting film — a Madonna biopic without any Madonna music in it — greatly runs the risk of coming off like a big-budget Lifetime movie in the vein of Britney Ever After.

A second and far less promising tack would be to go after the script for defamation. But while there is plenty of material in Blond Ambition to which the Material Girl might object, calling it defamatory would be a legal stretch.

In one scene, she’s depicted shoplifting in a drugstore, “stashing a toothbrush and some toothpaste in her backback.”

The script also suggests that Madonna stole her iconic look from another fixture on the downtown club scene, a character named “Bianca Stonewell.”

And as her star rises, the screenplay suggests that Madonna ignores her then-producer and boyfriend, Jellybean Benitez, to cozy up to Prince.

“He tries to move past the bodyguard,” the stage directions note. “Madonna, fully engrossed in a conversation with Prince, doesn’t see him. Or does she?” (Italics Hollander’s.)

And in the final scene, just moments after her triumphant performance of “Like a Virgin” at the 1984 MTV Music Video Awards, she callously informs Benitez that she aborted their child.

“I won’t have to choose between my career and a family now,” she says as she applies lipstick in a vanity mirror. “And that’s how I want it.” (The scene was shot by students at the Los Angeles Film School and uploaded to YouTube, making for an inadvertently hilarious piece of Madonna ephemera.)

Oddly enough, what could have been one of the most incendiary and emotionally wrenching chapters — Madonna’s rooftop rape at age 19, something she spoke openly about in 2015 — is barely referenced in Blond Ambition.

“This might sound crazy, but when I first got to New York I wanted to believe the best in everyone,” she tells Benitez. “Of course, it wasn’t too long before someone took advantage of that. Took advantage of me…”

“Wait … Do you mean…” Benitez interrupts. 

“I don’t want to get into it,” she replies.

For now, Madonna is not speaking out further on the subject, having passed on a request for comment. Hollander, too, did not respond to a request for comment; her Twitter feed was recently made private.

This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.

http://tunecollective.com/2017/04/28/whats-inside-madonna-biopic-blond-ambition-can-stop/