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ambiguouspuzuma · 4 months

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Regicide, regicisions

Pip didn't want to be queen. She'd started this war to put an end to the old king - his insatiable greed, the raiding of their villages, the brutalising of his own subjects - not because she saw herself in his place. She didn't know the first thing about ruling. It was a low bar to follow, but she couldn't see herself upon the throne.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of people who agreed.

"That's the problem with regicide," Hari told her, a whole uprising too late. "It has a way of getting in the water, spreading around, like a particularly pervasive disease. Once you show the people that a monarch can bleed, they're rarely content with the one performance - and it's an unwise leader who sets themselves up for the encore."

It was a poisoned chalice, he explained. If the leader of the rebellion installed themselves upon the throne, they'd have to contend with a legion of assassins from all angles. Revenge, from the side who'd been displaced. Ambition, from those who thought it should have been them, now that the hard work of civil war was out of the way. Or other interested parties, those with some influence, who'd learnt that they could roll the dice if the new ruler didn't do exactly what they want.

"Too much change, or not enough - there'll be pitchforks either way."

Pip sighed. It was the morning after they'd broken the siege, and she hadn't slept enough for these decisions. But the rest of the castle would be waking soon, and so too the realm. When news of the battle filtered out, they'd want to know who ruled them. Hari had woken her for good reason, and taken her to the throne room, where the old king's body still lay on the floor. She'd done the regicide herself, and it was odd to see her hilt protruding from his chest.

"So we're in agreement." She eyed the throne. It didn't seem tempting. All she wanted right now was her bed. "I won't be queen. Let somebody else do it."

"It's not that easy, sadly," Hari said. At least he really did look sad about it. "Even those who swerve the crown are often doomed, I'm sorry to say."

"Be sorry you didn't tell me before I stuck a dagger in his heart."

"An empty throne will leave a vacuum - and if you don't fill it, here and now, there'll be plenty of other volunteers."

"Perfect. They're welcome to it." Pip went to reclaim her dagger. It gave her something to do, to stave off this feeling of impotence. "I don't want any of that. That's not what this was all about."

"You'll say that now, and they might even believe you. But when they find their own rule inevitably threatened, for any of the reasons I've mentioned, they'll look to you as the cause: friendly or not, they'll see you as a natural point for dissent to rally around, the hero of that glorious revolution, the creator of the potential they'd turned into disappointment."

"Me? A rebel?" She wiped the blade on the king's scarlet robes. It had been neat work, as her deaths always were; it was an odd thing to take pride in, but she'd never been one of the hack-and-slash types. She'd killed the guy, but there was no sense being violent about it. "I wonder what could have given them that idea."

"Well, that's part of the problem. You'll always be a replacement in waiting - a perpetual challenger to the throne. It doesn't help that you've already emptied it once. That kind of thing leaves a reputation. So, as well as vengeful loyalists and those behind you in the queue, the monarch you crown could soon come for you head."

"Perfect." Pip paused, as if seeing Hari for the first time. He'd been with her from the start, a dedicated servant of the cause, right up to that final stroke the night before. They'd been standing as they did now, facing the throne - him just behind her, as always, finishing off the king's guards as she did for the king. Even this morning, he'd chosen to wake her, to warn her, rather than let her sleepwalk into trouble. "I can trust you, right?"

"I don't want it!" Hari knew exactly what she'd meant. They'd been together long enough for that. "Have you not been listening? Poisoned chalice. It's not something you'd give to your friends."

"But not something you'd trust to your enemies. Got it." Pip looked down at the dead king, the only enemy she'd had before. She hadn't realised that striking him down would raise a dozen in his place. "How many saw him die?"

Hari took a little longer to understand that one, but then let out a little laugh of disbelief. "You want me to add some strings?"

"Not literally, but... we can say we hashed it out, came up with a compromise. We just need a figurehead, right? Then we can come up with a council of advisors, with us as the go between..."

"It sounds incredibly risky."

"Weren't you just telling me that the alternative was certain death? That I might as well have been martyred in the process?"

"Well, when you put it like that..." It was Hari's turn to sigh. Pip felt tired having been woken, but now she wondered if he'd slept at all. "We don't have a lot of time. But sure, let's give it a try."

#writing #short story #writeblr #creative writing #original writing

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kaijuposting · 1 year

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So I watched Pacific Rim for the first time yesterday, in my late 20s (holy shit holy fuck holy shit why did I not see this sooner et cetera).

I've got a copy of the sequel Uprising too but I've heard some less good things about it (that it may contradict stuff in the first one etc) - would you recommend Uprising or is it better to just stick to the classic?

It depends on the movie experience you're looking for/what you're willing to put up with. In order to explain fully, I'll have to drop some mild spoilers, so be warned.

Uprising goes whole hog with a very pro-cop, pro-military attitude. Mako Mori is basically a cop. Jaegers are weaponized against civilians. There's child soldiers. Where the first movie presents the PPDC as a problematic institution that sometimes performs useful services (its bias toward protecting the wealthy is noted), Uprising presents it as unambiguously good and desirable to be a part of. The film seems to be completely unaware that the world it depicts is utterly dystopian. To see a sequel to a Guillermo del Toro film basically go "police states are cool and cool people support them!" is... jarring, let's say.

And then of course there's the whole storyline with Newt and Hermann. Some people enjoy it for the angst/angst fic potential. I personally just hate it because to me it just feels like what fundamentalists think will happen if you crack open a medieval grimoire or use a Ouija board or something. Like, it just feels this close to a corruption story from a Chick tract to me. Also, the movie turns Hermann into this utter doormat around Newt. It's very hard to imagine that this version of Hermann Gottlieb ever actually argued with Newt, and it's very difficult to imagine that the Hermann of the first film would have put up with Newt's behavior in this movie.

And yes, there's some... continuity weirdness. Like Newt's supposedly been drifting with the kaiju brain chunk from the first movie for ten years, even though the chunk being good for only one drift was a major plot point in the first film. Now of course minor continuity errors aren't a big deal, but here it just feels really sloppy; and in light of the way the second film lionizes the PPDC, it feels like another case of just not caring what the original film was doing.

And of course, what ultimately ends up happening with Mako Mori was a severe [everybody disliked that] moment.

The jaeger designs aren't as varied as they are in the first film, and the fight scenes suffer from a lot of visual clutter. The kaiju themselves are fine, but it's kind of hard to appreciate them when all of the clutter just makes it difficult to register what you're seeing.

And speaking of visuals, if you were really into the look of the first film, or into the way del Toro used color symbolism, Uprising is going to be a letdown. Like the first Pacific Rim film uses the color yellow for Raleigh. Uprising basically uses the color yellow because the first movie used the color yellow.

And then on the other hand... there's Jake Pentecost and Liwen Shao.

John Boyega's acting is great. He makes the character incredibly funny and likable. Sure, the whole thing with Jake being Pentecost's son doesn't really make a lot of sense, but when I actually watch him I just can't really care that much. Mainly I just wish he'd been in a much better movie, where maybe he was Pentecost's nephew or something. He and Nate Lambert read as ex-boyfriends, and for me their interactions are fun to watch.

Liwen Shao is so fun to watch as this genuinely kind of terrible person. In my view the character is utterly wasted on a story that doesn't really seem to appreciate why she's terrible. However, she's kinda got that whole evil girlboss vibe. If you like it when women are kinda evil, you might enjoy Liwen Shao.

So yeah, it's really down to what you're interested in and willing to put up with. It's really not a good film, but some parts of it can be enjoyable.

#answered #pacific rim #pacific rim uprising

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sunburnacoustic · 1 year

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Muse’s Matt Bellamy on Why Band’s New Album, ‘Will of the People,’ Is Even Better Than a Best-Of, Plus Tour Plans

Matt interviewed in Variety, published 26 August 2022, the day Will Of The People was released.

In a Q&A, the singer addresses everything from his vested interest in geothermal energy and the alarming state of U.S. politics to loving Stephen King and Rage Against the Machine... and whether fans will see a certain giant puppet back on stage in 2023.

Stepping into Muse frontman Matt Bellamy’s Los Angeles studio is immediately surreal, on a couple of different fronts. For one thing, there’s the fact that it’s in an unmarked former storefront on a heavily trafficked urban street, so on the other side of the one-way glass, pedestrians are constantly passing by, unaware that they’re about two yards away from a rock star coming up with new songs to potentially join “Madness” or ”Uprising” guy as new KROQ-driven earworms in their heads.

But apart from the street scene outside practically brushing up against his console, there’s something else about the place…

“I don’t know if you remember the TV show ‘Twin Peaks,’” Bellamy inquires. As a matter of fact, yes. “Do you remember the Red Room? We’re sitting in it, basically,” he says, and sure enough, here in the front room of his studio, there is the black-and-white zig-zag flooring, the wrap-around red drapes, the minimalist lamp, the vaguely retro sitting chair…. Bellamy is a student of fantastical pop culture, so it makes sense that he’s surrounded by a Lynchian throwback space — even if the rock arias he creates here passionately reach for the sky, rather than feeling like they’re stuck in an interdimensional waiting room.

Bellamy sat down with Variety to talk about Muse’s seventh [ninth] album, “Will of the People,” which comes out this weekend. Along the way he spilled the beans on the band’s touring plans, which, besides a few already-revealed stops in small theaters this fall, will bloom into the expected arena tour next spring. He also touched on the state of rock, Rage Against the Machine, Stephen King, geothermal energy, why he’s drawn to rather than repelled by his adopted America’s political divide, and whether we are all really (as the climax of the new album would have it) “fucking fucked.”

Muse’s last album, “Simulation Theory,” felt much more electronic, which fit in with the overall concept you had for that album. With this one, a heavy guitar sound returns on quite a few numbers. Did you miss that, or maybe think the fans missed it?

Yeah, it’s definitely more guitar-oriented. We did a bit of a review of everything that we’ve done up to date and wanted to focus on the parts that we felt like we hadn’t improved upon for a long time, which meant we ended up looking back at some of the older stuff. So a new song like “Kill or Be Killed” — the last time we went down that kind of heavy route, like that heavy, was “Stockholm Syndrome,” which is on our third album. But I think you’re right in saying there was an element of missing the energy of playing together as a band after being separated from each other. … When I started writing songs, definitely there was a lean toward writing things that worked for the three of us to play together, which basically means guitar, bass and drums being the primary sounds, rather than going down the kind of more separated route of electronics and programming and synth basses.

You said at one point that the label had asked you for a greatest-hits album, and instead you wanted to come up with something new that feels like it should be a greatest-hits set. Is that about right?

Our contract with the record label meant that we were due to do a best-of, but I spoke to ’em about it and we weren’t very keen on doing that. We preferred the idea that we could either defer that down the line or just not do it all. We’re old-fashioned in thinking that when you do a greatest hits, it seems like the end or something. So with that in mind, that was one of the reasons why we started thinking: Well, what are our hits? And, like, do we even have any? I don’t think we do, but we do have songs that are the most popular songs with our fan base, and we started going through what our best-of or greatest-hits would even look like. And the bottom line was, we were like, God, we could do that so much better now. Some of these old songs from 2002 or something that would probably be on there, we felt like we could just better it. So that was trying to give ourselves a high bar to really strive harder, to almost make a definitive album that would be the album that I would show to people if they were asking, “What is Muse?” Would I give them a greatest hits album? Or would I give them this album? I think at this point I would give them this, in terms of a representation of all of the things that we do on one record, and represented in a good way.

It’s a cliche to ask, is this your pandemic album? But it seems like, thematically, the pandemic combined with a lot of other things going on in the world to put you a bit back in an apocalyptic mood.

We’ve always had elements of sort of dystopian fears for the future. And even though we’ve usually stayed in the realms of the relative safety of fiction, I’d say that this album sort of collided with reality a little bit. And I think that’s what was quite different about this album. There’s similar themes on this album that you’d find on songs like “Resistance” in 2009, or “Absolution” in 2000 [2003]. But the difference was the time that this album came out, where it was unavoidable that it collided with things that I’d say were less about the pandemic and more about, let’s say, the overall division in the West, and the American empire being under threat from internal and external disorder, and how that could play out in the next few decades.

On the lighter side of the album, you invoke the horror genre on the new song “You Make Me Feel Like It’s Halloween.”

It’s clearly like a bit tongue-in-cheek: here comes the church organ and a few scream sound effects. I’m a big fan of Stephen King. I read his book “On Writing” around the time I started making the album as well, and it reminded me of how much he was quite influential on a lot of the films that I liked when I was growing up, and how even TV shows we see today like “Stranger Things” owe a hell of a lot to him. So I ended up making that song a bit of a homage to him, putting quotes from “Misery” and “The Shining” in there. Both those films really resonated for me with the isolation of the pandemic experience, in some way.

When “Ghost” came up in the running order, it was like, well, here is a breakup song — and that kind of song is always unusual for Muse, where there are not so many relationship lyrics, but “Madness” is a famous one in the middle of “The 2nd Law.” But then you said something somewhere that made it seem like it is not about lovers having parted, but was inspired by deaths that occurred during the pandemic.

Yeah, I like the idea that songs can be interpreted different ways. During the pandemic period, because I was alone in the studio for about a period of six months where even Dom wasn’t here for a while, I started doing a couple songs on my own, on the piano. I put out a few covers of songs where I played acoustically; I’ve already done a couple on the acoustic guitar, but then I did a couple of piano. It was just something to do during that period, but that also led to the “Ghost” song, which was in that stripped-down style, created in the middle of that isolation/loneliness period. And yeah, (it was) reflecting on previous relationships. But I was also trying to connect it in some way to what was happening in the world, in terms of people experiencing terrible loss, especially elderly couples where someone passes away. The media was all hyped up with all the science arguments and that kind of stuff, but behind all of that, there was obviously a terrible tragedy taking place, and it wasn’t something that I necessarily thought there was enough coverage of in the media.

Speaking of that softer side, you’ve said that, left to your own devices, your solo music might sound more like Enya than stuff that’s as heavy as Muse.

I’ve always had a little thing for modern sort of ethereal, classical stuff. I listen to a lot of stuff that’s completely different to Muse, but I found myself in a band with two guys that want to rock real hard. So I think one of the unusual dynamics in the band is that you’ve got me, who probably as a natural inclination leans toward some pretty different music to what we do together. I’ve always been really into classical music in general. But I mean, obviously I love rock music as well. Rage Against the Machine is one of my favorite bands. I went to New York this last weekend, and I saw them play twice.

I was going to mention a level of commonality between you and Rage Against the Machine, but worried it would be an overreach.

I mean, obviously, politically, I’m not gonna pretend to be in the same sphere as them. They’re fighting for really serious causes, to do with the backgrounds of the band members. But I’ve got massive respect for the passion they put into it, and the musicality.

In terms of live performance, you have some theater shows coming up in America this fall, but we haven’t heard much yet about the massive worldwide tour people would expect to follow this album.

We are doing one. We’re just booking at the moment. It starts in January in Mexico, and then we’re doing probably our most extensive North American arena tour, which is gonna be from, I think, February through to April. Then we finish up with a European tour — of our own venues, and not festivals necessarily. We did a few festivals just now in Europe that were supposed to happen in ‘21 but got pushed back to ‘22. Really, those shows we just did now were kind of out of place in a way. But after the album comes out, we do a few little theater shows and bits and pieces just to kind of test out some of the new songs, and then next year will be a pretty extensive tour.

On the last major tour, you had that very big guy (a massive animatronic figure) on stage. Do you think about: How do we top that?

The “big guy” — or the big girl! — I feel like is gonna be here to stay. We feel like we’ve created a mascot, in a way, but we’re gonna make them look different for this tour. On the last tour, it was a big kind of cyborg/skeleton thing or something. On this tour, it’s gonna be more a hooded, masked kind of revolutionary-looking figure of some kind, who’s gonna be a big monster on stage. It’s like the revolutionary monster, basically, in all of us.

Photography: Nick Fancher Art Direction: Jesse Lee Stout + MUSE

Being a citizen of both England and America, and seeing the turmoil in the U.S. over the last few years — along with being affected by fires where you live — did you ever think of moving back to the U.K. permanently?

I usually go back a lot anyway. But Dom (Howard), the drummer of the band, did actually go down that road of “I want to go home, I want to go back to England, where it feels safe.” And when you go to England after being somewhere like L.A. for a long time, England does seem very safe by comparison. In America in general, obviously there’s the gun culture and everything here that doesn’t exist in the U.K., and natural disasters that you get in California, and also the political division. We do get that in the U.K, but it doesn’t come in the same format that it comes here, which is genuinely quite crazy. But oddly, I went the other way. I actually wanted to stay here and be in the eye of the storm, if you like, because America is where it’s going down. It’s where the whole world is, America right now. And where’s this going? America’s a couple of steps away from going in a really crazy direction, you know? We just don’t know. I’m talking more about the division and the potential for real civil unrest, on a grand scale.

And so I think being literally where we are right now in this room, looking out that window during the making of the album, was really kind of fascinating. I saw everything out that window, from the initial shutdown of everything, a lot of the shops going out of business, to the looting and smashing windows. I had this place boarded up at one point. And then the National Guard coming in with tanks, and people walking around with machine guns on this street — seeing all that happen just right outside that window just was pretty full-on. I’ve never made an album that close to real shit happening.

So the passion and the sense of threat in those songs is not just manufactured.

Yeah, I mean, you add the wildfires into the equation, where we got evacuated from our home; then you add the January 6 riots to this equation. We had a baby in June 2020, and shortly after was when I started coming in here to work, and I was alone, largely, on a day-to-day basis, when I was working here. All that stuff I described all happened here right in front of us. And when [the original owner of the studio] moved to Vermont, and the general vibe was like Dom saying, “I wanna get back to England,” I was like the only one that’s like, “No, I want this space. I wanna be honest. I wanna stay here and see what happens.” [The trio did a lot of the work on the new album over Zoom, but convened to put the finishing touches on the record at Abbey Road in London.]

You have described yourself as formerly a left-leaning libertarian who is looking for a new term to describe yourself or where you’re at. Centrism isn’t enormously popular nowadays, but you are still interested in hearing what people are saying on all sides and interested in solutions that you think could address grievances that you think different political factions may have in common, although they don’t realize it.

With the division that’s going down in America, I am watching it from an outsider’s perspective, being from the UK. And having some basic understanding of geopolitics, I feel like finding common ground between these two crazy factions in the United States that dislike each other, to get back to a state where the people of the U.S. feel unified as one on some issues, at least, is not just a matter of national security. It’s a matter of international security. I think that’s how serious it is, in my opinion, you know? I feel like, if it falls into disarray, then bigger, powerful entities are gonna move in. Not necessarily physically move in, but they’re gonna move into the global stage as major players, and therefore their ideologies are going to start to infiltrate everything in the West.

Your songs have been coopted by the left and right. When there’s an anti-authoritarian theme to them, maybe everyone believes it’s the other side that’s authoritarian.

I’d say the most common theme is fighting for some kind of freedom, or having that instinct of wanting to reject elements of where you feel like your freedom’s being taken away. And obviously that can be hijacked by extremists on both sides. … If there is any common ground at all between these two extremely different viewpoints that are battling themselves out as the West kind of crumbles in on itself, it’s the idea that there needs to be something that puts the powers that be, let’s say — or the elites; I hate using those words — in check. The populism that we’ve seen emerging in the last 10 years on both sides, I’m intrigued by: What’s the common theme? … It seems to be the idea that there’s kind of powerful entities, powerful corporations, and even maybe potentially powerful individuals, which are not necessarily doing anything for the gain of the people. They’re doing things for the gain of, you know, shareholders — call it whatever. And I think keeping grotesquely large power in check is what I see as the common theme… I think we see a lot of a hell of a lot of words being thrown at each other and loads of division essentially emerging out of something where I’m wondering if there is actually a common ground there — about keeping large, centralised power in check, and especially huge corporations that do massive environmental damage, keeping them in check.

If it could ever happen, if we could ever get there, I don’t know how we do it necessarily, but if there could be a type of change that could take place that could make some of the divisions we’re seeing now dissipate to some extent, there’d be a new power structure that could work. It’s a little vague because there’s certain things I can say that actually do resonate with both sides. And that’s the confusion in me. It’s like, I do believe in individual freedom, but I do also believe in shared land ownership. So how do you pair those things off?

But flipping the story a little bit, something else I enjoy about being in California is also that the types of people that are here are really big risk-takers. And I think that might be connected to the fact that everyone’s living on the edge of a tectonic plate. I don’t know what it is! But for some reason it seems to attract people that are really risk-taking, entrepreneurial people. Obviously you get a hell of a lot of hustlers as well. But it’s fascinating seeing all those people working in the startup industry, if you like, from obviously Silicon Valley all the way down to here. I’ve had some involvement in that, and I’ve been lucky enough to rub shoulders with really great people working in the fields of solving issues to do with climate change and stuff like that. And getting involved in that investment community a little bit has really actually given me a lot of hope about some of the solutions and the biggest problems that we face, like climate change.

For example, there’s really amazing things happening with geothermal as being a real genuine solution to the fossil fuel industry issue, and there’s lots of new startups in that space now. Also, nuclear fusion is another amazing technology, which is probably about a couple decades away. But I feel like that’s another reason why I like being here. It’s not just being around all the creative people that live in this part of the world, but also being around the people that are really technologically genius creators as well.

The new album climaxes with “We Are Fucking Fucked.” With the optimism you have about something like geothermal, it sounds like that level of pessimism is not necessarily where you are right now. But maybe that song is you in one mood that doesn’t define where you’re at all the time.

Well, I think I learned this from a film study class I did once. Films usually follow a straightforward pattern, which is a kind of equilibrium that goes into disequilibrium, then it comes back to equilibrium at the end for the happy ending. But whenever someone creates a film or a book that ends on a sort of tragedy of some kind, or ends on something bad, what happens is, it leaves the viewer or the listener in a state where they can’t help but feel compelled to do something about creating an equilibrium that isn’t there. When I was studying films briefly, that’s what someone told me: If you wanna do something where you leave it to the actual person who’s watching or reading or consuming the art… if you leave them in a state with an unhappy ending … they can walk away from it and go, “Maybe I need to do something about this.” So that was one of the reasons why I put “We Are Fucking Fucked” at the very end. Hopefully people come away from it and go like, “Well, are we? I don’t know about that. Maybe I’ll do this…”

In practical terms, it seems like it also would probably be hard just to follow a song called “We Are Fucking Fucked.”

Yeah, the other thing is that it didn’t fit anywhere else on the album.

You have these massive arena tours around the world, but you’ve said you don’t get much recognized out on the street. It feels like that must be the best of both worlds, as rock stars have it — being this bigger-than-life stage persona and then being able to have somewhat of a normal life.

Yeah, for sure. I’m glad. I’ve seen all sides, though. I was in a relationship with someone much more famous than me [Bellamy was engaged to and has a son with Kate Hudson; that relationship ended in 2014], and I’ve seen insane levels of fame, where everywhere you go, someone is putting cameras in your face. That is not for the faint-hearted, that’s for sure. Especially if you have any kind of introverted personality traits, then that’s not gonna go down well. But we’re very, very lucky to be where we are, and I think it’s nice (how) if I ever bump into someone who knows who we are, someone sees me, usually somebody’s like, “Oh, I saw you a couple years ago. Great show, blah, blah,” and there’s a little picture or something. It’s never invasive or problematic in any way. I have experienced the other, though.

Do you have a sense of who the average Muse fan is these days?

It’s a huge age range now in our shows. It wasn’t like that in the early years, for sure. The crowd always seemed to be mainly our age or just a bit younger. We never really had a big teenage fan base until we had a song called “Supermassive Black Hole” that went into a “Twilight” film, and suddenly our shows had a lot of teenagers turning up. I think it’s gone the other way now, where we now have people at our age and their kids are now coming into teenage years.

And then there’s the older crowd that likes us, because I think we are maybe one of the last rock bands around that still have overhangs of what the 20th century rock sound was — even going back to the ‘60s, but more so the ‘70s kind of rock leanings. I think that brings in some of the older kind of Queen/Pink Floyd fans, maybe. So we literally see an absolutely full, probably three-generation age range now in our shows, and we love that.

You’re also considered alternative rock, and that in itself has become kind of an oldies format, with a concentration on stuff from the mid-‘90s through to the mid- or late 2000s, which means your early stuff is considered the reliable “classics” of that format at this point.

Rock obviously is not a global force in the way that it was in the mid-20th century, but it’s still got a longevity to it. It’s one of the few genres of music where you can actually grow old. It’s been proven now I think you can grow gracefully and rock. I mean, the Rolling Stones have proven it, and it looks like U2 are on their way to proving it. And I think there’s not many other musical genres really where you can do that. I think pop and dance music and all that kind of stuff, having a career that spans three decades is probably a lot harder, you know?

Your fan base crosses boundaries also because so few acts are capable of coming up with those grand melodies for something that has some real aggression to it.

And the melodic sense, I guess, is what’s really missing in sort of heavy or heavy-ish music. So I think rock as just a wide term that describes all of the music from the ‘60s on or ‘50s on… you feel like you’re just slightly less inhibited by fashion and by trend. It’s just not quite as important as it is if you’re a pop act, where you’ve gotta have your finger on the pulse and gotta be working with the right producers and the right video makers and gotta just be hot all the time. That’s kind of exhausting.

I think for us, we’ll all happily take influences from any point in time in music, but also the history of rock is something we have on our side. I mean, we could go down a road of where we could do a song that sounds a bit like Queen, we can do a song that sounds a bit like U2, we can do a song that sounds a bit like Depeche Mode — and we could do all of that within one song. And all those things are multiple decades out of fashion, in a way, but it doesn’t really matter. Because I think operating in the sphere of rock is almost like the new jazz, or the new classical — it’s kind of timeless. I hope it feels like it’s become like a timeless genre, which is no longer in the mainstream, but is still important to a lot of people.

#muse band #muse interviews #muse #matt bellamy #2022 #Variety #here's the full interview #it's a bit long so I did also post snippets of it along various themes. Not bad from the interviewer! Although them or the editor got SO #MANY little things wrong. Super Massive Black Hole for example. That's not how it's written;this is literally their 2nd biggest single ever #WOTP is not the 7th album it's the 9th etc etc. (Absolution came out in 2003 (or 2005 if you're looking at it from a US POV) not in 2000)#little things that I've just edited because I can't be bothered with the authenticity for little things like this #anyhow; minor things #Will Of The People #WOTP #music interviews #music

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inventors-fair · 2 years

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Rebel Yell - New Year's Revolution Winners

In defiance of all that opposed them, three winners have emerged this week: @hiygamer, @nine-effing-hells, and @the-gboi!

Domiel, Voice of the People - @hiygamer Revolt on a Rebel is honestly exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to see this week. Like, why weren't any of the original Revolt cards Rebels, anyway? If there were a set to resurrect the Rebel type in, it'd hafta be something called Aether Revolt I think. Regardless, Domiel here looks to be just the right mix of power and balance and inevitability and General Grandiosity that I felt commending it was necessary. Will it break anything? Probably not. Can it take over a game of Magic, potentially? Absolutely. Is that the kind of thing I’d be looking for in a giant fancy angel? 100%. Fantastic showing this week.

Gupha Jailbreaker - @nine-effing-hells And here on the other side of the Aether Revolt coin, we have a far more flavor-based approach to rebellion against the consulate. Absolutely love how this individual takes the chains and bars and Ghostly Prisons of their oppressors and wields them against them, generating an effect that would certainly be oppressive at lower mana values but feels right at home on a hasty six. This very much feels like you understood Where This Effect Should Exist and placed it precisely there, and that is I think worthy of commendation. The option of paying energy is cute and while it does feel a bit like flavor text, it's very effective flavor text, if the name of the prison and the Aetherborn typeline weren't enough to place this creature already. Excellent work overall.

Scolt, Defier of Purpose - @the-gboi This card definitely went in one of the more interesting albeit vague flavor direction of all our submissions this week. Definitely was not expecting to witness a robot uprising like this, and to be quite honest I love it. Certainly a very original take on what a Rebel might look like. The ETB is delightfully flavorful and likely just effectual enough to see some use without being too overbearing, though it is a shame you cannot use it to untap any of your own artifacts just in case your opponent lacks a valid target. Oh well. Regardless, the main hangup I had with this card was actually just whether or not it was costed right, as there is staggeringly little in the way of precedent for this kind of effect. Sure, there's The Antiquities War and that one Tezzeret what make your artifacts into 5/5s for about this mana cost, but those are on a multi-turn delay, but also they can generate additional value beyond just abruptly animating a hoard of Treasure tokens or somesuch, and Rise and Shine is much closer to an immediate mass-animation effect, but it costs more mana, but it makes 4/4s, but it's from a modern horizons set so who knows how over or under they aimed this, but but but. At that point I just decided to stop worrying so much, since it did generally seem to be Just About Right, Probably, and learned to love our robot overlords.

That's about it for our winners this week. Join us again in a while for our runners-up!

#mtg #magic the gathering #Inventor's Fair #custom Magic card #Rebel Contest #Winners #commentary

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mermaidsirennikita · 1 year

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ARC Review: The Evergreen Heir by A.K. Mulford

3.5/5. Releases 6/13/2023.

For when you're vibing with... real deal fantasy romance, friends to lovers by way of arranged marriage, and a nonbinary (neurodivergent) lead.

Nerdy Neelo is reluctant to take the throne--but they may not have a choice if their mother's health keeps declining as it has been. The issue becomes even more pronounced when the queen sets the palace on fire in a drug-induced haze. On top of the pressure to rule, Neelo is facing the pressure to marry--namely, their friend, renowned warrior Talhan Catallus. As a witch uprising threatens the safety of the kingdom, Neelo must rely on their betrothed for help; even if they aren't sure if they want to marry at all.

I really appreciate the juggling this book did. It's a fantasy story, it's a romance, it's delving into a lead with qualities you rarely see explicitly drawn in either genre. While it leaned a bit too much into the "YA fantasy" vibes at points for me, I did enjoy it and I would totally recommend it to interested readers; I may very well recommend it to my sibling.

Quick Takes:

--Here's the thing: explicit representation is important in genres like fantasy where it's easy to be vague. I really liked that there was no real question about Neelo being neurodivergent and nonbinary. They weren't without pushback from other characters, but that wasn't the main point of the story. Generally speaking, I'd say that Neelo being potentially "not right" for the throne and different from their mother was more of an obstacle than Neelo being nonbinary.

--Talhan is super gone for Neelo from the jump, another thing I appreciated. Though the book is never focused on Neelo's sex organs (and it shouldn't be) it's pretty easy to read that they are AFAB. However, it never reads like Talhan is going "here's my female love interest who just does a fun little thing called being nonbinary". He is into Neelo as they are, for who they are, and that is not just about them being great on the inside. He's ABOUT them physically. And they're not a waifish David Bowie type, which is how a lot of nonbinary or otherwise gender non-conforming characters I've read play. Neelo is big and broad and not delicate.

--I appreciated Neelo's complex relationship with their mother, the love and resentment and anxiety playing there. In general, I felt like a lot of Neelo's insecurities were centered around them comparing themselves to their mother positively and negatively. As they grew beyond this, they were able to fully mature and come to terms with their wants and needs as an individual. It's very classic coming of age, but it works very well.

--I've heard that you should read the first books in this series to understand what happened here? And I've heard it stands alone. I only felt confused a couple of times. That said, there is a very "YA fantasy" vibe that goes beyond this being a fantasy novel. It's definitely not YA (more on that below) but something about it that's hard for me to name kept me from getting fully involved. A video game quality of jumping from moment to moment versus lingering. A lot of people will like that, to be fair. For me, it makes it a bit harder to fully invest in the story. Like, I was zoning in on the romance and character growth, but the witch stuff and the magical drugs kind of went over my head.

The Sex Stuff:

I really liked how the sex scenes were written here. They're explicit without being super graphic, and they describe Neelo's body without getting specific in a way that is super gendered. I also LOVED that much of this book was about Neelo accepting themself as a sexual being and exploring their desires with Talhan. There's one scene where they have anal sex because it felt more like THEM than vaginal sex, and I was like--oh, you know, as someone who isn't nonbinary I never really thought of it that way, but like... tracks. I loved reading that. (Also: anal sex? In my traditionally published non-m/m non-Tessa Bailey book? In 2023? Egad!)

Like I said, I don't know that this fully hit for me as an indvidual reader, but I think it's solid, and I like the work it did a lot. Would recommend for those interested in queer fantasy romance.

Thanks to Netgalley and Harper Voyager for providing me with a copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

#romance novel blogging #arc reviews #netgalley #book recs #books #book reviews

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literaryscribs · 2 months

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Going through 7.5 story and I'm going to make a couple of theories on the future: 1) I'll bet Heta is Nul. Why? The weird and unusual fixation people have with her. Plays similar to what's been told about Nul when she was a Jedi and force bonds/connections. There's also the cinematic that had the Mirialan try to protect the group while a woman suspiciously tall and shaved bald has their back turned.

Not to mention the type of weapon going into storage there. No the lightsabers don't look the same but there's no guarantee she didn't strip down one of her own to a more base form. But Ri'kan's unusually fanatical, Shae's fanatical in the opposite way i.e wanting Heta dead, the Mandos following Heta despite a portion having their own reasons for joining her are weirdly dedicated to her cause when their nature is typically more fickle unless a strong leader's able to unite them. I just don't see Heta as particularly charismatic considering it feels she's more like a child going by what other people have told them rather than personal experience. Considering what's known about Mandalorians pre Shae's leadership and they actively wanted to side with the Empire to fight Jedi. Plus several other pretty extensive benefits too. 2) Our factions are going to turn against us. I've suspected this for a while but the recent 7.5 update's getting close to putting the nail in the proverbial coffin for me. I've done saboteur and loyalist and the main thing I'm getting in terms of vibe is our faction is losing patience with us. Shae's thing and her lack of responsiveness in general while she goes hunt murder. Basically put, during Kotfe/Kotet the point was basically driven home that our factions moved on without us. They took apart everything we worked for and stuck it as a mere footnote in the grand scheme of things. Sometimes we were pivotal in a particular objective but the grand scheme of things? Nope. Republic wanted us gone and refused to help, even when Saresh tried to take over. Empire assisted eventually but even during chapter 2 of Kotet it's very grudgingly while people think Acina's insane. During the uprisings, especially in the second round which was very Republic centered, you could see how paranoid they were getting over the Alliance. Equating them to potential terr*rists preparing to invade the senate because they had the Eternal Fleet. If you sided with the opposition on Iokath, its even less reason to trust you. Only reason why they did after all that was basically a combination of desperation for a win and to see what you were up to. It's out of character for either big faction to allow the Alliance to exist in the form it has considering both their natures to dominate. Either by diplomacy or force and currently both sides are getting tired of it because they can't outright control you like they used to. You're not playing by their game rules, so at some point in the future I expect the knives to come out at you. And it'll either be over the holocron, Shae or the Alliance itself being too much of a liability long term for their interests. 3) It's a suspicion and I could very likely be wrong but I'm thinking they may make all classes relatively accessible to one another. Reasons why: On the logistics end it's more than a bit inconvenient to have to make essentially 4 slightly different storylines to take into account force and tech users. I've been noticing over the past few expansions (I came into the game in 2015 or 16, just after chapter 10 of Kotfe was released) that the line between force user and tech has been getting more and more blurry over time.

I did run into cut content on reddit somewhere that actually had a different plan for the infamous Chapter 12 of KotFE, in which the protagonist was actually supposed to gain force using powers courtesy of Valkorion unlocking certain things. I suspect that it was originally in the plan but the game engine decided to have a massive upheaval which resulted in the chapters being pushed back a ton for a rush rewrite and rollback of the patch on the dev test server before what we got came through. Story wise, other than it's a bit jarring and weird to be the only gun in a room of lightsabers in general, there's been little hints here and there. Some of it long ago in the flashpoints for Taral V and Maelstrom prison in which Trooper and Smuggler can both see and hear Meetra Surik without assistance from Oteg, being able to use/channel Valkorion's power relatively safely during the times he offered the choice to (or by force), being easily able to enter into Satele's mind albeit with Kira's help, being easily able to stand against force users in general for the most part, being able to have certain force tech react to us. Then there's the weird scene where the player character, no matter the class, is reaching toward Nul's holocron even though the tech users shouldn't technically be able to pull it toward them. Why try? The holocron itself does appear to have a fascination quality to it since Sahar gets mesmerized by it for a period of time before she hands it to the player. Considering what it does, it leaves implications... If, and it's a big IF, the wall between tech and force user comes down at some point, then it would open up a few avenues. It would possibly allow for new classes to be made since you'd no longer need to make 4 of them just to keep things equal. Possibly just 2 or 1 with the extra effects changing various colours depending on alignment. It could also mean that content is released a little bit quicker since less work would need to be done to keep those hard-line distinctions from one another. Less work on voices and a few other things. It might not happen, depending on potential backlash, but I'd prefer the chance for new things to happen and explore rather than have stuff stagnate. with some caveats in place to ensure the old content isn't impacted *too* much. e.g running the unlock like a venture where player needs access to x planet or x place in the storyline or something.

#just random game rambles while stuff goes on #I don't expect things to happen but for some stuff the writing feels on the wall to me #particularly with the original faction since the player doesn't have the same range #Only time will tell though

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morganwrites-starwars · 7 months

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Time Waits for No One pt. 4

A Sequal to Time is a social construct.

Summary: What do you do when you time travel 50 years in the past with your Jedi son, accidentally adopt 3 more kids, and become Mand’alor? Din figured stopping a Sith uprising was a good answer. He just has to unite the Mandalorian factions, repair relationships with the Jedi, and stop a galactic civil war. Easy.

Masterlist

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Din cared about Jango; he really did. But Din did not have the time or patience to work out whatever was bothering the man slowly and carefully. In between politics, spies, and darjetiise, Din barely had the brainpower to help each of his ade individually with their own problems. And while Jango was a good friend and advisor, it was not Din’s job to help him solve his problems.

But Din wouldn’t tell Jango to stop talking when the man came to him, rambling on in half-formed thoughts and sentences. Clearly, Jango needed someone to listen to him as he reasoned out the solution to his problem- whatever it was. So Din would sit with him, reading some proposals for potential spy candies from Silas while giving Jango half an ear and the occasional sound of acknowledgment. People would talk to fill the silence, and as long as they felt Din was listening, they would go on and on until they eventually let slip whatever they were trying to hide. It was a strategy Din had gotten really good at. Good for bounty hunting and Mand’aloring.

Right now, Jango was talking about the morality of cloning, which was a random enough topic that Din felt confident in saying that it was a topic Jango was using as a lead-up to whatever he was actually contemplating.

“Would they be Mandalorian? Are they me or my ade or something else? Would they even have souls?” Jango asked.

“I’m a political leader, not a religious one,” Din said. “But I would guess it would be up to them if they wanted to be Mandalorian. And it's up to you what relationship you want with them.”

“Well, I don’t think anyone wants more mes running around,” Jango weakly joked. “But I don’t know if I would be a good buir. And would I just raise them to be like me? Or will they develop their own personalities?”

Din had been experiencing an interesting phenomenon since traveling into the past. Mandalorians and Jetiise alike had been seeking him out for parenting advice. Din certainly felt more qualified to give out parenting advice than political advice. But cloning as a weird workaround to talk about becoming a buir was new.

“Kids are weird,” Din said bluntly, putting down the datapad he’d been reading. “None of my ade are biologically mine, but sometimes Grogu does something that reminds me of myself.”

“So there’s no way to know,” Jango concluded, staring at the ceiling.

Din shrugged. “Well, your ad wouldn’t have the same life you did. Hopefully. No offense.”

Jango chuckled and dropped his chin to his chest. “None taken.”

“You could just adopt,” Din suggested. If Jango was so worried about an ad with his genetics, adoption was a good alternative. And, not to brag, Mandalore had some of the galaxy's best orphanages and adoption processes. He’d even gotten pleas from planets who’d recently faced wars and had an influx of orphaned kids. They asked to be able to send some of the ade to a Mandalorian planet so their ade would be guaranteed to be taken care of. Din had agreed to take some but primarily worked with these planets to set up their children's services.

Despite Din thinking it was an obvious and easy solution, Jango waved dismissively. Rude. “That’s not the point,” Jango stressed as he stood up.

“What’s the point?”

That was the wrong thing to say. Jango threw his hands in the air, clearly annoyed, and began pacing. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

“The only clones I know about were the ones from the war in my time,” Din said gently. “And I never kept up with that.”

Jango abruptly stopped and pointed at Din. “Exactly. What did that me have to do with those clones? Did he know that they would be used to kill all the Jetii-even the ade?”

“I don’t know.” Din sighed and stood up. He walked over to Jango and rested a hand on his shoulder. “From what I guess, that you was alone and hurt. He isn’t you- you won’t make the same mistakes as him.”

“You don’t know that,” Jango muttered, not looking into Din’s eyes. Din wasn’t a fan of eye contact- it made him burn and itch uncomfortably. His helmet was great in that aspect- people had no idea he wasn’t actually looking them in the eyes. But Din didn’t have his helmet on now, and he wanted Jango to look at him. So Din ducked his head to catch Jango’s eye. Jango still wouldn’t look at him, so Din gently shook him, which startled Jango enough to look back at Din.

“I, generally, don’t know osik,” Din told him. It startled a snort out of Jango. “But I like to think I’m a good judge of character.”

“You sure about that? You kept me around,” Jango said with a rueful smile. Din moved his free hand to Jango’s other shoulder and shook him again, slightly harder this time.

“You’re an idiot,” Din told him. “But you’re also loyal and stubborn and know a hell of a lot more than you give yourself credit for. People look up to you.”

Tears welled in Jango’s eyes, which he angrily wiped away. Jango’s chin dropped to his chest, and he scoffed. “I’m a karking failure. In this time and yours.”

“Why?” Din asked. As a rule, Jango tended not to express his emotions very well. Din had never asked, but he guessed it was caused by the man’s time as a slave.

Jango ripped himself away from Din’s hold to pace in front of Din. His hands flew to his hair in a tight grip. “Everyone seems to trust me- but I’m just a failure. Everyone around me dies, and I’ve never been able to save them- Jas’buir, my buire, Arla-“ Jango cut himself off with a violent sob. Din lurched forward and pulled the man into a tight hug. Jango shook in Din’s hold, gripping onto his cuirass.

“You were an ad,“ Din muttered. “None of that was your fault. Tayli’bac?” Jango didn’t respond but slowly stopped shaking, still breathing harshly. Din held tight. He would stay until Jango was ready to pull away. It took a few minutes until Jango pushed back against Din’s hold. His eyes were red-rimmed, but he looked stable enough. So Din felt comfortable enough to ask, “Tell me what brought this up?”

Jango let out a long breath and nodded. He sat back into the seat he’d occupied earlier. Din sat in the chair next to him instead of behind his desk.

“I got a message offering a job,” Jango started. Din nodded. He’d supported Jango, slowly returning to bounty hunting. Din understood that it wasn’t an easy career to give up, and he could tell Jango had been going slightly stir-crazy in Keldabe. “It was for good credits- something about a Count. I was curious. Figured I’d hear them out.”

“In person?” Din asked. Jango cringed and nodded. Din sighed. Meeting a client in person with such a vague offer was a bad move.

“I don’t know why. But I went- remember when I went to the Serenno system that month?” Din nodded- Jango had only been gone for a few days. Factoring in travel time, Jango had only spent two days in the system. He’d been quiet about the trip when he returned, and Din had guessed it had been a bust job. “When I reached the meet-up stop- some cantina- it was empty. I watched it for an hour before figuring it had been a fake or something.” Jango inhaled sharply. “Next thing I know I’m waking up outside my ship with a headache, a day later, with the credits in my account and a message saying they’d contact me later with another offer for a new job.”

“Ka’ra,” Din breathed. “Why didn’t you say something.”

Jango shrugged but looked at Din with panicked eyes. “I don’t know- it just, just slipped my mind? I forgot about it when I left the system. I thought maybe it was-“ Jango’s breathing picked up. Din reached over to comfort him, but Jango shook his head. He took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds before slowly letting it go. Jango repeated this a few more times before speaking. “I thought maybe it was brain damage from everything. But a few days ago- right before the Jetiise came- I got a message. They wanted to hire me and other Mandalorians of my choice to train an army. And, and I think-“ Jango stopped abruptly and dropped his head into his hands.

But Din didn’t need him to finish. “You think they clone you.”

Jango nodded. Din took a deep breath, trying to tamper down his growing panic. This time was supposed to be different- no clones, no Clone Wars, no Jetii genocide, and no Night of a Thousand Tears. And yet, there might be Jango Fett clones being made right now.

“And there’s more,” Jango said quietly. “They offered me more than credits.”

“What?”

“They offered me a son.”

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Mando'a translations: darjetiise- Siths Tayli'bac- got? understand? Ka'ra- stars

#star wars #din darjin #jango fett #time travel #mand'alor din djarin

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sunriseverse · 4 years

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pru could have had it all it could have explored the long term impacts of the kaiju war on the environment (nuclear winter from the initial drops to kill kaiju or the devestated ecosystems for example) and society and how society changed after a war that forced disparate communities to come together to try and survive and the technological advancements from the information gained by kbio research (cloning tech could be applied in so many ways not the least of which being in medical treatments) and the use of jtech in other fields such as prosthetics (if you can hook up to a jaeger to control it neurally why not tinker around with that and make more sophisticated prostheteses?) and the handling of the ppdc post war and. so. many. other things. (i personally wish we’d learnt more about, say, kaiju cultists). but no uprising had to butcher the world building that had already been established bring in bland characters give female characters little development (see jules as The Love Interest and liwen as Mako’s Replacemt (and honestly a pretty charicatured depiction like we get it chinese people are uncaring and cold and only focused on success and profit)) and killing off an already established beloved character and horrifically handle a sensitive topic (newt being under precursor control) and doing a disservice to a well loved dynamic (newt and hermann do not have the wealth of interaction they do in the first film. yes the first film had them as secondary characters but at least it worked and didn’t feel like some strange parody. even if pru has them with more screen time it absolutely does not have the depth on a narrative level that it does in the first film).

anyway yeah fuck pru and steven s deknight my friends and i all hate pru and steven s deknight

#like there were points of uprising that WERE interesting and DID have potential #BUT THEY WEREN’T UTILISED OR HANDLED WELL #newmann #pacific rim #anyway that’s my rant for tonight dear listeners please don’t mind me #c.txt

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thevividgreenmoss · 4 years

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During the late 1960s in particular, the FBI genuinely feared that such a unifying leader, a black ‘messiah’, could bring about ‘a real “Mau Mau” in America, the beginning of a true black revolution’. Indeed, just one week before Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination in 1968, the FBI had cited him, alongside Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), as prime contenders to assume such a position. The assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X must be understood as part of a much broader wave of violence, intimidation, sabotage and repression focussed against the Black Nationalist movement and its allies, most notably by the FBI’s COINTELPRO campaign (originally directed against the US Communist Party). The US state was so determined to crush any and all internal resistance that, in the words of one US general, if the uprisings did not die down as the 1970s progressed, the Pentagon was ready to turn American cities into ‘scenes of destruction approaching those of Stalingrad during World War II’. That willingness to use indiscriminate violence to crush internal uprisings has never dissipated, as the events in LA in 1992, Ferguson in 2014, Standing Rock in 2016-17 and nation-wide over the past week have made transparent.

There is a further layer of offense to the propensity of many Americans to only comprehend this recent wave of violence as though the US is temporarily acting like other implicitly ‘worse’ countries and that it should really be happening somewhere else like Caracas, Baghdad or Beirut. These ‘bad’ examples are frequently associated with violence in the mind of an average American as a consequence of the very same factor that now threatens US cities: the unceasing brutality of the US state. Beirut especially has become a lazy by-word for chaotic urban violence to many Americans of a certain age as a result of its civil war, and especially the 1980s period of that conflict, when a number of American citizens were kidnapped and some killed. But what is forgotten is that US marines were occupying Lebanon at the time; that the US was directly involved in sparking and sustaining the civil war itself; and that the US is responsible for some of its worst violence, including the massacre of hundreds of Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila.

As so many of those slain black revolutionaries understood all too well, there is a direct link between the daily racist violence inflicted upon them and their fellow black Americans and the violence the US military inflicted against civilians in Vietnam and elsewhere overseas; it is the intrinsic and ongoing link between racism, capitalism and imperialism. As the BPP revolutionary George Jackson – himself murdered by the state in San Quentin Prison in 1971 – wrote to Angela Davis a year before he was killed: ‘it’s no coincidence that Malcolm X and MLK died when they did ... remember what was on his [X’s] lips when he died. Vietnam and economics, political economy’. X had explicitly stated: ‘you can’t have capitalism without racism. And if you find a person without racism ... and they have a philosophy that makes you sure they don’t have this racism in their outlook, usually they’re socialists’. At this point he had begun working with the governments of a number of recently independent African countries, many of them socialist, to pass a UN resolution condemning the US as a colonial power for its treatment of its black citizens. This proposal ‘terrified the American power elite’ and X was eliminated before he could proceed with it.

In Blood in My Eye, a book which Jackson heroically managed to finish in prison shortly before he was murdered as well, he wrote:

The US has established itself as the mortal enemy of all people’s governments, all scientific-socialist mobilization of consciousness everywhere on the globe, all anti-imperialist activity on earth. The history of this country in the last fifty years or more, the very nature of all its fundamental elements, and its economic, social, political and military mobilization distinguish it as the prototype of the international fascist counterrevolution.

Jackson’s observation has only proven to be more accurate in the intervening half century. Therefore, in addition to their solidarity with the righteous cause of black Americans, it is for this reason, too, the eyes of many millions all over the world are now focussed so intensely on events in the US. Anything that has the capacity to weaken the US internally serves to strengthen the position and revolutionary potential of all progressive forces everywhere in the world. Jackson wrote at length about the potentially global significance of a revolution led by what he termed the US’ ‘black colony’ – a concern shared by the US state. As revealed by Maurice Bishop, one of the State Department’s primary fears concerning the Marxist-Leninist revolution in the small Caribbean island of Grenada in the early 1980s, was the fact that that its leadership and 95 percent of the country’s people were black, and therefore it could have ‘a dangerous appeal to 30 million black people in the United States’. This was deemed unacceptable and in 1983, after years of other means of sabotage against it, the US military invaded Grenada and swiftly crushed its short-lived revolutionary process.

Contrary to the blatantly racist notion that this ‘great nation’ should not lower itself to the standards of its enemies, it must be stated plainly that the US is in fact the global expert on assassinations, crushing internal dissent, controlling and intimidating the media and various acts of mass violence against protesters and opposition groups – all the very things that many people are now absurdly claiming to be ‘un-American’. The events of the past week have demonstrated this clearly. What remained of the superficial mask of American liberalism has – at least for now – dropped entirely, exposing the ugly fascism at its core.

In the days and weeks to come, many people – including some on the left – will scramble to pull that mask back up. Reforms, they will say, can address this problem, thereby implying the US remains a redeemable democracy morally superior to its enemies. But the reality is that the US is what it routinely accuses its enemies of being: an authoritarian, militarised police state that surveils, brutalises, imprisons and murders people at home and abroad with impunity – all in the service of the interests of its capitalist oligarchy, which lays claim to everything, everywhere.

Louis Allday, This is not an Aberration; Violence is Central to the History, and Present, of the United States

#*#essays

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ininterestingtimes · 3 years

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Following up our coverage of last week’s uprising in Kazakhstan, we have translated an array of perspectives on the situation from various Russian anarchist sources and interviewed two anarchists from Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan and the place where the fighting became most intense.

This text also includes previously unpublished photographs taken by our contacts in Almaty.

The following sources should serve to debunk any facile misrepresentations of the uprising from the authorities in Kazakhstan, Russia, or the United States—or their misguided supporters.

To those who spread conspiracy theories about the United States attempting to stage-manage a “color revolution” in Kazakhstan, we must point out that the protests began in response to the government canceling its subsidy on gas, which is produced under a profitable state monopoly in Kazakhstan. Those who defend the governments of Kazakhstan and Russia are defending repressive forces that are imposing neoliberal austerity measures upon exploited workers in an extraction-based economy. The honorable place for all who genuinely oppose capitalism is at the side of ordinary workers and other rebels who stand up to the ruling class, not supporting the governments who claim to represent protesters while gunning them down and imprisoning them.

This is not to say that the clashes in Kazakhstan represent a unified anti-capitalist struggle, or for that matter a labor movement. The most credible accounts of the composition of the protests acknowledge that there have been a wide range of different participants utilizing different tactics to pursue different agendas. Of course, if we are sympathetic to workers who protest against the rising cost of living, we can also understand why the unemployed and marginalized might engage in looting.

A crisis like the uprising in Kazakhstan opens up all the fault lines within a society. Every preexisting conflict is pushed to a breaking point: ethnic and religious tensions, rivalries among the ruling elite, geopolitical contests for influence and power. We saw this to a lesser degree in France during the Yellow Vest movement and in the United States during the George Floyd Uprising and its aftermath, though those crises did not proceed as far as the uprising in Kazakhstan, where, owing to the entrenched authoritarian power structure, any struggle is immediately an all-or-nothing venture.

If it is true, as we have argued, that the protesters in Kazakhstan were opposing the same forces that rest of us face all around the world, then the violent suppression of those protests by the soldiers of six armies poses questions that we all must confront. It seems that such moments of truth are becoming practically inevitable as economic, political, and ecological catastrophes hit one after the other all around the world. How do we prepare in advance, in order to maximize the likelihood that these ruptures will turn out well despite all the forces that are arrayed against us? In such moments of revolutionary potential, how can we propose transformative questions to the others who make up this society with us, focusing the lines of conflict along the most generative and liberating axes even as we compete with a variety of factions that aim to centralize their own ideologies and interests? How do we avoid both conspiracy theories and manipulation, both defeatism and defeat?

#Kazakhstan #capitalism #police state #Russia #politics

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3-inch-sam · 2 years

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Oh you’ve gotta do Tron for character bingo

okay okay holy FUCK i have a lot of thoughts on him, the bingo is gonna be kind of a general statement since i don't want to write a damn essay

they are soooo cool looking: doesn't need an explanation moving on

wasted potential: tbh anyone familiar with the franchise knows about this. uprising got cancelled, Rinzler was under utilized and they really could have gone more in depth with him. that kind of thing. I really believe we have a very special story in Tron, and I've seen that potential brought out by artists and fic authors!!! a lot!!! we never see him bring up Dyson or Cyrus outside of their episodes, and that alone is something I would love to see more on. I also really really want them to explore how he felt about his move to the Grid. did Flynn tell him what was happening and why he couldn't talk to Alan anymore? how does he feel about leaving Yori and Dumont behind? what's his relationship with Able? how does he feel about Flynn after so long in exile with no word from him? what's his opinion on the ISOs? I need answers

if they were real I'd be afraid of them: this applies only to Uprising and Legacy. 1982 is a himbo and I don't think he'd actually have a reason for me to be scared of him

they're like a blorbo to me: enough said

they're deeper than they seem: refer to wasted potential

didn't get enough screen time: literally the title character and wasn't the main character of over half the media in this franchise

I'm mentally ill about them: refer to blorbo

I would almost check "wow they are a horrible person" simply based on Scars 1&2. I do not really think that he's a horrible person, but I do think it's really interesting to see the real "fallen paragon" side of him in those two episodes. fixated on revenge to the point of almost getting himself and Beck killed, putting the command of a User (albeit, someone he clearly regards as close to a god) before the needs of a very close friend, etc. as much as it hurts I love how raw these episodes are. he's stripped of all the pretenses of being the hero of the grid, and we just see a man who is very broken and very lost. so I wouldn't check it but also goddamn dude Beck was looking out for you and literally didn't know who Dyson was

#tronsgender #James got an ask #i could talk about him for hours #character bingo

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catboycafe · 4 years

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I Will Now Express Every Thought I Have About Pacific Rim: The Black

⚠️ spoilers for the whole thing baby

I actually forgot Pacific Rim: The Black was premiering today until I saw it in an article this morning! When I first heard about it months ago, I was decidedly not sold on a Pacific Rim anime. Uprising burnt me the fuck out and I don’t have a lot of trust left in me for new entries to the franchise. But I had heard rumblings of Raleigh and Herc being referenced after going into #pacificrim and I decided I may as well check out to see what was up! I binged it in 4 hours and it sure was a whirlwind, I’ll tell ya

The Plot

I really enjoy the setting and initial concept! We’re so use to seeing Kaiju/Jaegar shenanigans play out within these major cities with helpless civilians everywhere that spending so much time in a lonesome desert and these destroyed civilizations was really cool and indicative of the changes Pacific Rim has undergone in the last few years. I also looooved the Desert Settlement from the beginning!! It seemed really homey and picturesque; I wish we’d spent more time with the other survivors and got to see more of their day to day aside from farming and sitting.

I also found the first episode set up to be really tight and well written! I was hooked during the initial flashback, Hayley and Taylor’s fight was really poignant and well acted, and the reveal of Atlas Destroyer felt really huge and epic!!

But once we left the Desert Settlement and the plot started actually moving along, the pacing becomes suuuper rough. We spent way too long in Bogan with Shane and Mei; there’s only 7 episodes and we spent, like, 3? 4? within the confines of that camp and I felt it weighed the plot down. Boy is introduced in the 2nd episode and, because the narrative spends so much time on Shane’s evil machinations and Mei’s back story, we still don’t know anything concrete about his origins or purpose 3 episodes later! That felt frustrating to me

The story beats overall were very predictable. I was able to pick up on Mei’s backstory via her dynamic with Shane in their introductions, so her memories felt too built up and too hollow once they were revealed. The same with the reveal of Boy’s Kaiju form; he was in a big green test tube in a PPDC base - I assumed immediately he was a part-kaiju experiment and again his reveal felt hollow, especially after the glacial pace of it’s development.

Even when events weren’t predictable, they lacked weight. The appearance of several Kaiju Breaches in “Boneyard” felt very cheap for some reason; I wasn’t scared and I didn’t feel tense about these odds mounting against the protagonists. This was just happening and I was just watching.

The Art Direction and Animation

I’m very obsessed with all the new Kaiju we got from this; I love how Copperhead is rendered, they’re a joy to see on screen!! The Rippers are also very cute and deserve little plushies...i love these neat little dogs. Boy’s Kaiju Form is very intimidating with an interesting color palette and I loved seeing him next to Copperhead’s highly saturated design!

That’s unfortunately all that I liked however; All the human character design is unmemorable to me. Every character looks exactly like another easily identifiable anime character from a different property (Hayley looks exactly like Zero Suit Samus to me, for example. And Mei kept reminding me of both Bernadetta Fire Emblem and Motoko Kusanagi from GitS. The list goes on).

I can sort of understand why they’re so bland? A franchise going from Live Action to something as heavily stylized as anime is probably a really difficult transition and these designs are probably meant to be more lowkey than more unique anime designs in order to help that transition. But realistically stylized designs can still be recognizable and unique! These feel uninspired and bare bones.

I have no problem with the switch to CGI animation that modern anime is doing because I know it’s a lot cheaper to produce and it can still be really unique and striking! But The Black’s model animation felt very stilted and inconsistent. I don’t have a lot of knowledge about animating so I don’t think I can accurately describe what I disliked? Wooden is probably the best term. Character movements felt wooden and things like hair and clothes felt plastic.

Impacts also had very little weight. The fight between Tayler/Mei and Copperhead reminded me of when you’re in a dream and trying to punch something, but you can’t punch hard. It was simply too floaty and too soft. The final showdown in “Showdown” was better, but not by much. It was very immersion breaking seeing these Giant Robots and Giant Monsters unable to throw a real solid hit!

Characters

My favorite character was unequivocally Joel Wyrick. We love Joel Wyrick in this house! Joel’s character has real charisma and charm. I love his flirtations with Loa, how his cocky disposition is juxtaposed with his drinking problem and later insecurities over his lost memories, and his genuine kindness shown to Mei, Taylor, and Boy. No one ever plays with Boy, they just run after him and drag him around...but Joel has this moment in “Escape from Bogan” where he kneels down to Boy and helps him collect rocks. It was sweet!

So of course, when Joel dies for absolutely no reason 5 minutes later - pissed! I was pissed! I yelled “COME ON” aloud in my studio apartment! I was genuinely so excited to see him interact more with the rest of cast then, poof. No More Joel.

His death felt like it was for shock value to me rather than actual narrative development. Why kill him when we still don’t fully understand his and Mei’s relationship? Why were they so close? Were they childhood friends, or just coworkers that happen to become friends? Why did he specifically know all the details of Shane’s abuse towards Mei before she did?

What did his death accomplish? It made Mei sad...ok? She was already...very sad. Her running away from Shane already had consequences - the consequences of Shane coming after them for revenge in the future. Why did Joel have to become a causality?

His death is ultimately tied to Mei’s character arc which is, unfortunately, my least favorite :c I find Mei to be a really one dimensional character with a personality, backstory, outlook, and motivation that I’ve seen done a million times before with a million other characters. She feels very out of place in the franchise as a whole - Pacific Rim is, at it’s core, a story about connecting with others. Her self-centric arc and lack of desire to connect outside of drifting really alienates her from the story at large and it frustrates me how long The Black’s narrative spends on her.

Hayley and Taylor were otherwise very interesting in the pilot episode, but become similarly one dimensional at the story chugs on. Taylor’s unflinching (bordering on unhealthy) faith in their parents was really interesting next to Hayley’s complete acceptance of their parents’ death. But once the two of them make up their differences, they lack an interesting dynamic and become very passive protagonists.

Taylor especially has no personality - how would you describe Taylor? He’s...brave. He’s the older brother. He’s a leader? He’s nice? There is nothing noteworthy about him at all, which is sad considering I think he has the potential to be a really interesting way to explore the original movie’s influence on The Black’s story.

Hayley’s grief and self-blame are more interesting than Taylor’s...nothingness, but she still falls into this one-note trope of being the naive, excitable little sister. I guess I feel abnormally frustrated about this flat character writing because Pacific Rim’s incredibly unique cast has always been an inspiration to me! It feels sad that this new iteration into the series is full of what feel like stock characters.

Then we get to Boy. How come Boy can’t have a person name? It’s specifically written in a dialogue between Taylor and Hayley: “I’m not going to call him Chad or Barnaby or one of those names for a baby brother you wanted as a kid,”

Why?

He’s by all accounts a human child when they find him. Yes, he was found in a big green test tube - but he walks and acts just like a human child. The only difference, seemingly, is that he is non-verbal and engages in strange/annoying behavior (running off, eating bugs, etc). So he isn’t deserving of a name?? I don’t know why that makes me so mad, it just does. it’s like they refuse to treat him as a human even before they find out he’s a Kaiju - it’s super weird! How can the story sell me on the three of them becoming found family (like they’re seemingly trying to do) if the protagonists won’t even treat this kid like a kid??

Misc. Thoughts

The callbacks to Stacker, Herc, and Raleigh were cool! I also like that Herc is a major plot point! We love Herc Hanson and it’s what he deserves. I also find Loa’s connection to Horizon Bravo very interesting...and the fact we’re getting Kaiju cultist lore! Love that! Love that!

Fucked up that the only two dark skinned characters were: 1) removed from the story 10 minutes in with no call back yet, 2) Killed after having 1 line of dialogue and fridged for the character development of the blonde white girl. I really need to know what the deal with those 4 characters leaving in the beginning was about - I absolutely thought we’d see them again by now, but no dice

I don’t know how to feel about Ajax and have no clue what their purpose in the story is. They’re cool, but whats the point?

If Mei and Taylor are paired up together romantically, I’m putting Craig Kyle and Greg Johnson in the time out box. Very tired of seeing random hetero romance B plots in stories that can’t even get their A plots together

Overall, it’s kind of subpar! It has the foundations of a really interesting story, but the pacing and characters really took me out of it. I’m interested in Season 2! I know season 2 is already ordered and I’d love to see how things continue to develop, see if the character writing gets any better - but I’m not too hopeful unfortunately. I really really love Pacific Rim after all these years and I’m happy to still be getting content and world building! There’s just sooo much I would change about this however. At least fanfiction’s free!

Thanks for reading all this, I have ADHD and just go on and on if u let me. hmu if You Too have thoughts about Pacific Rim: The Black and have no one to talk abt them with

#pacific rim #pacific rim: the black #pacific rim the black #taylor travis #hayley travis #long post #sorry this is thousands of words. i contain multitudes

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swordmaid · 3 years

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YES YES YES TO ALL YOUR POINTS!! they dont want to hold her accountable so they throw the fatui in the mix when as far as i rembeber they were not even mentioned in the 1stAQ. wtf.

also did they just think we'd accept that ei just did an oopsie just bec yae said so??? i like yae but maybe they shouldve involved her in the 1st AQ made her conspire with ayaka idk but i feel like they didnt give her chracter justice and that she was just there to excuse ei

the build up with kokomi was good and even the new islands but they got like 2min lol i even read one comment saying teppei had a longer bigger impact than kokomi wc is so funny bec it's true! and with what you mention about the inazumans i actually didnt realize that and it makes so much sense but then they just became voices to push us when youre right it shouldve been their fight PLUS it wouldve made more sense since we didnt want to fight in the war in the first place!

it has so much potential! and it's sad im so sad bec i love the quests and the story they make! i even loved the walking scene lol but i guess they spent the budget there and not writing their plot properly :/

exactly!!! if you didn't do the taratsuna quest, the fatui had like, NO presence in the story at all. if they wanted to make them THE bigger threat, signora should've been a present in the get-go. there should be more quests where signora does questionable things but she uses her schneznaya diplomat card to get away scott free. there should be more tension between the tri-commission and the fatui, but no one is willing to cross the line because that's going to break the 'peace' that they have. and the kujuo clan allying up with the fatui would even be more impactful, and that would add more depth to sara's character and even ayaka's tbh.

like there should really be more scenes with the inazuma characters where their faith in their archon is compromised because of what's happening; like either the scenario is kind of forcing them to defy the shogun or they have to do something they don't personally believe in. raiden's pursuit of eternity should be more emphasized not just with the story reminding us over and over that that's what she wants, rather, because of the actions that she's doing and the effects it has on people. the vision hunt decree is one way to do it but why not make it go further you know? to the point that she's harming the people that her friends died for. like she's so obsessed with her pursuit of her own eternity, and her own loneliness and everything that came in between that she loses her own focus, and then it took all the people to rally up and join their voices for her to route back again.

and yes they should've incorporated yae more! AT LEAST, introduce her in 2.1 story because if you didn't do the sakura cleansing ritual, again, you wouldn't even know who she is. there should be scenes where she's overseeing everything, either through her shrine maidens or her fox form or whatever.

and HONESTLY yeah teppei had more impact on the story than kokomi that's so sad LOL. if kokomi was such a good strategist why not show it? they keep telling us X character is good at something, Y character is good at something but they're not showing it!! and that's such a poor way to story tell. like why not have kokomi band the tri-commission together to fight against the shogun--or rather, what's left of the kajuo + the kamisato and also the other one (i forgot the name lol) since if the tri-commission is representing the people of inazuma, and their people ARE being harmed, isn't it their job to protect them? that would be in kokomi's interest since they have a common enemy now--the fatui-- so it would make sense to take advantage of that situation AND further her own cause. like honestly after everything i can really see people dropping raiden and following the sangonomiya clan bc kokomi stood up for them more than raiden ever did LOL. which is why again, i said i won't be surprised if an uprising in inazuma starts.

and YAH it has so much potential but it was just poorly executed!! like the cool cutscenes and animations aren't going to distract us from the poor writing and i'm NOT even asking for like a super in depth story or whatever, i just want it to make SENSE and that one did not even meet that bar. i really am not a fan of how they just gave raiden another personality so she won't be held accountable for the shit that happened. and besides, if baal was supposed to be the 'kind' ruler, wouldn't it make sense if ei was the more ruthless one? and it's really just disappointing because they just keep saying over and over that the shogun's pursuit of eternity is unyielding but when u get to the story apparently it isnt and it just takes for a call out post to get her to stop lmao

#yah like............ why did this happen like THIS lol #idk just in comparison to zhongli's and venti's story quest how raiden was handled was just so poorly #if they wanted to make her a cute waifu queen that's fine whatever but like. hold her accountable for the shit that happened #in HER nation #if she didn't care about inazuma that's fine too honestly that would make sense why she just let that happen #but seeing that she DOES it's like ????????? it makes no sense

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avatar-state-kate · 3 years

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The lack of any sort of Futurama meta on tumblr while disappointing for me who would like to read it, is not surprising. Seeing as the shows run and prime predating this hellsite. However as I am now revisiting the series and believe that it has earned a place in television history as one of the great animated series I believe that an introductory meta of the series would be a nice thing for tumblr to have.

If this meta seems vague, I am trying to keep it spoiler free as the target audience is potential viewers. Going forward I might make a more detailed version of this if people are interested. Now without further ado.

The premise:

Futurama is an animated adult comedy originally produced by Fox and later revived by adult swim that follows Philip J. Fry, a delivery boy from 20th century New York who is accidentally cryogenically frozen on New Year’s Eve of 1999 for 1000 years. The show follows his exploits in the year 3000, where he joins an intergalactic delivery service and goes on adventure of the week style escapades.

What is it about:

Any good show is always actually about more then it’s premise. I would say Futurama is about 3 things primarily: 1) sci-if media, 2) the legacy of the 20th century, and 3) the meaning of life comes from our relationships with other people

Let’s break those each down.

1) Sci-fi Media

Futurama is a nerd show that knows it’s nerd media. The series regularly devotes episodes to exploring tried and true sci-fi tropes, namely those popular within film and television. Time travel, parallel dimensions, interstellar travel, dark holes, string theory, robot uprisings, the works. The show does not just name drop these tropes (ahem Big Bang) but actually plays them out, sometimes straight and sometimes inverting these tropes.

Some of the strongest exploration of tropes comes in the form of the main cast. Fry as the Luke Skywalker/destined hero type, Leela as the badass alien babe, and bender the helpful robot. Except Fry is playing up the Everyman to his most farcical self, alien babe Leela is chronically single and solves her problems with her fists rather then with her feminine wiles, and Bender is the most self serving person in the whole series, doing everything to inconvenience his crew and practically nothing to help.

The comedy is not based on pointing at references and saying look a thing from science fiction, but by actually being science fiction, pointing out the things that are stupid and praising what’s good.

2) Legacy of the 20th century

There is an adage within literature/film critique that any story about the future is really about the present. The setting of the future a space in which to explore the fallout of what we are doing now.

Fry being from the year 1999 is deliberate, as it not only provides the audience a point of access character, but it contextualizes the future through the past. Many of the shows plots will directly implicate the 20th century as the cause of the problem the crew must tackle now.

From environmental issues, the colonization of Mars, and the rule of corporate monopolies, Futurama is to a degree a satire of the early 2000s and onwards.

3) The meaning of life comes from our relationships with other people

When Fry first awakens in the year 3000 he is initially very excited to have left his old life behind. Futurama isn’t the sci-fi of today but that of the 50s and 60s where the future is an aspirational place. Here Fry is expecting to shed his old life, where he was poor, had a shit job as a pizza delivery boy, and a cheating girlfriend, for something better.

Unfortunately his job assignment chip in the pilot is as a delivery boy, and through the series we see that really the future offers a lot of the same. Fry is still poor, with a shit job, and usually girlfriend-less. He’s still a nobody.

When Fry is defrosted he meets Leela, a one eyed alien who was orphaned on earth, and bender a robot disillusioned with his factory job. The three are completely alone at the beginning of the series, without friends or family. By the end of the episode they have each other.

Futurama is a comedy that isn’t afraid of sincerity or sentimentality, a rarity in adult comedy particularly of the “edgy adult animation” variety. The show is willing to sacrifice a laugh for heart and these relationships, the ones forged in the future and the ones Fry lost to the past, are the soul of the series.

As the Luke Skywalker type character Fry is destined to go to the year 3000 to save the universe multiple times. However futurama is not a show about destiny, if it were its finales (the show was cancelled and revived multiple times) would centre on world saving exploits. But they don’t, “Idle hands are the Devils Play Things” and “Meanwhile” are about Fry and Leela’s relationship, how they care for and love each other.

Being an adult comedy from the early OO’s some of the jokes did not age well, and the style of comedy is certainly not to everyone’s taste. But Futurama is a series that is able to blend high concept science fiction and social satire with tender character moments, which is a feat worth acknowledging. If not for the display of craft then for the message at the heart of it all.

You’re not nobody to the people who love you. The meaning of life, the universe, and everything are the people you meet along the way.

@shrinkthisviolet I am tagging you because this is my case for the show. Which I can summarize as a resounding check it out

#I could write an essay just on the fry family #because my god every episode about the people fry lost when he travelled to the future is a well full of tears #a top ten list of saddest episodes wouldn’t even fit all of the sad episodes #futurama meta #futurama #meta

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thenightlymartini · 3 years

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Special Headcannon Week! (#66) APHRarePairWeek2021

@aphrarepairweek2021

Day 2: Royalty

Headcannon #66

Kimchiburger: I almost wanna go Cardverse AU! with this. Like America is the King of Spades, and technically England is the Queen of Spades, but like they are similar to co-rulers rather than married? So, that leaves America as like, the most popular bachelor in the Spades Kingdom. And SK is just some musician that America finds while touring one of the towns near the border of Hearts and is just absolutely smitten with him. Like, he makes SK the court musician because he fell in love with the other’s soothing voice and wanted him around more. He basically fell in love on first meeting while SK is just flabbergasted that the King of Spades likes his singing so much that he got a job in the palace and is completely oblivious to America’s attempts at courting or hidden agenda when he specially requests love songs.

Everyone else in the court is both amused and aghast that the King took interest in some commoner just because he has a good voice. England is just more annoyed at America beating around the bush because even he realizes nothing will happen between the two if one of them doesn’t gain another brain cell soon.

RusNK: NK was the prince in a royal family that got overthrown when he was young, like maybe 10 or so, became the only survivor of said family (sorry, SK dead in this AU) and had been in hiding in another country plotting for revenge. Except, when he finally decides to act on it, he finds out that the rebels who overthrew and killed his family got overthrown themselves and a whole new royal family has taken its place, this being where Russia is the crowned prince of said new royal family. So he decides to infiltrate the new royal family and become the crown prince’s bodyguard, ‘cause he is technically the rightful heir and should be ruling, not this family.

Except, as he gets closer to Russia, develops feelings, and really examines the situation, he can’t help but to begin to question everything. Like, should he really fight for his right as heir? If he does, it means giving up on his feelings for Russia and eventually kill or fight him. Plus, he has to think of the people. They’ve been through too many uprisings and have finally found stability with this royal family. Should they go through more violence and instability just because of his ego and his personal belief in what is rightfully his? Not only that, but he would eventually learn that his family wasn’t entirely blameless and the rebels had a point in overthrowing them (there was rampant corruption and general neglect, but did that mean they had to kill even the children who had nothing to do with the politics and were mostly innocent?). It begins to dawn on him that perhaps he is fighting for something so antiquated that it has no purpose in the current situation, or even in the future for that matter.

He could give up on the idea of regaining the throne, but then where would he be? Who would he be? All those years of training, plotting, scheming, for what? Wasted? What would his identity be then? What purpose would he serve?

He could then just serve the new royal family, maybe, if he got lucky, he might even marry Russia, thus technically regaining the throne without displacing the stability. But what if he was found out? Russia wouldn’t take it lightly, since the whole reason the two would get close in the beginning was because Russia trusted him as one of the only people that wanted to be close to him without ulterior motives or planed on using him. He could easily see it as being used. Not only that, but the new royal family doesn’t particularly care for the old royals at all, having sided with the rebels in the beginning due to shared views. He would be a dead man if caught. So does he live even more of a lie? Always on the knife’s edge while aiming for the perfect solution? While aiming for potential happiness for himself and Russia?

Commieburger: This was really based off of Atlantis.

NK is the prince of a long lost civilization, and America is an archaeologist or anthropologist with a dig team and some mercenaries who just so happens to have the book that will lead them to the lost city. But instead of the whole team finding the city, America is the only survivor of a cave in, and the only reason why he is saved by NK is because NK (who had been following the group for a while) saw him as one of the only decent humans out of that group. Like the whole group was willing to use explosives on ancient pillars and trample their way through holy ground, and the only one to care about it was America.

So NK rescues an unconscious America and brings him back to the lost city, where America wakes up and is super confused and stupefied and generally amazed at what he sees. Come to find out, NK’s father, the emperor, is dying of some sort of illness and NK is poised to become the next emperor. The current emperor wants to get rid of America, preferably kill him so that their location and the people remained protected from the outside world, as that world played a part in their downfall and subsequent hiding. However, America proves himself useful by actively trying to help them recover a lot of their old culture and history that they themselves have forgotten about, from delving into dangerous ruins to retrieve old documents or artifacts to even teaching NK how to read his long forgotten written language thanks to his book that he had since the expedition.

Through all of these adventures the two’s relationship grows from strangers to a tentative friendship to even a romance. Like these two realize that their feelings are mutual without ever having to state it, they’ll hold hands or have more skin contact than normal, but will never kiss (get pretty close, but one or the other always holds back) or fully commit to a relationship due to understanding the circumstances and situation they find themselves in. Like, America understands that NK’s people are in a precarious situation where their culture is dying off and having contact with the outside world again could either save them or doom them. He wants them, by way of convincing NK, that the outside world isn’t what it used to be and that they could still be independent. But NK has to worry about his people, he is both fascinated and fearful of the outside world, and knows he has to be very careful with how he could be leading his people. He knows his father would keep them secluded, even at the cost of them dying off, because at least they will retain what little independence and cultural identity they have left. But with him dying, it’s up to NK to decide what to do. He almost wants to just keep America with them and forget about the outside world, but knows that really isn’t the best idea. Like, same sex relations are actually a normal thing in his culture, heck, even some past royals were involved in same sex relations or had same sex partners. It’s the fact that everyone sees America as the outsider to an extent even with his help in re-obtaining their culture and history; it would be too far out there. Not only that, but he understands that it wouldn’t be morally right to force America to stay, and America, in a way, doesn’t really belong in that world. Both of them fully know they don’t want to lose the other, but reality isn’t going to make it that easy for them.

#aphrarepairweek2021 #aph america #hws america #aph russia #hws russia #aph south korea #hws south korea #aph north korea #hws north korea #kimchiburger #rusnk #commieburger #im sang kyu #hetalia #day 2: royalty

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