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faint-kitten · 1 year ago

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Never forget Marcus Fenix is bad at sex.

by Faint_Kitten

NOTE: I'm going to oversimplify a lot, because believe it or not Tumblr DOES have a character limit and if I write too much it will refuse to save it/post it.

Gears of War is an incredibly political series. The books are cannon. Each game has MASSIVE time jumps and introduces new characters as if we were already supposed to know them. And you would, if you read the books which form one long continuous story with the games. In fact, the original Trilogy almost doesn't make sense without them. They are functionally worse stories without Karen Traviss' novels fleshing out the characters and completing the story. One of the recurring things that gets glossed over by fans of the games who just like the multiplayer is the fact that everything is awful in Gears' universe. Humanity fucked itself. It fucked itself fighting a multigenerational war for (lets be blunt) oil. The lambancy is the result of mining and fucking with immulsion and it is literally destroying crops, making ground infertile, and seeping it's way into every animal and source of food. That's why they're on the ships in Gears of War 3. Its why you have the line "you fucked up my tomatoes asshole." They have to grow food on these ships, because it literally isn't safe to be on land anymore (as seen in Coalition's End). But the fucking lambancy (again, a mutation caused by a never ending war for fuel) is reaching the ocean it's consuming the planet. As seen by the leviathan fight at the start of Gears 3. Mining, and Refining immulsion which turned out to be a living organism sleeping, (a parasite) made Lambancy, drove the Locust out of hiding and into conflict with humanity. The resulting condition of immulsion (lambant being the parasite and lambency being the condition of succumbing to the parasite) is infecting everything. It's literally ending the world. The world is falling apart, because in an attempt to win a war for Imullsion (Oil) they experimented on miners with rustlung (Black lung) to create supersoldiers to win the war, which lead to the creation of the Locust in the game. Hmm. First Gears game came out in what, 2005? There didn't happen to be any sort of...THING happening around the 00's that bled into every facet of our popular culture coming out of the U.S. at the time. Did there? Hmm. Whatever. Game's aren't political amirite bros? My Point is: humanity is fighting the entire original trilogy for it's survival. And they're doing horrible things to do so. I don't have space to go into everything, but honestly the emotional core of Dom and Marcus is not nearly as interesting as Cliffy B thinks it is, compared to everything else going on in the world. The fact no one gives a shit about art and museums as they have shootouts because...what the fuck good is art when everything is dying? When Dom and Anya attempt to pay a lawyer they do not give him moeny, they give him government ration coupons, because food is more valuable than money. Characters outright call Marcus and friends "fascists" to their faces. It handles a lot of the logistics of "the world is ending, humanity is losing how do we fight a worldwide war that we're losing, and what does that look like, in the military, in politics, and civilian life?" One issue of the original comic deals with the fact there are breeding farms. Women who are forced to make as many babies as possible, because more babies is supposed to mean more soldiers. With Alex Brand declared barren when she couldn't make baby and being put into the cog army. When they visit one of these birthing centers in the comic, where the women (justifiably) have revolted and taken over the facility, one of the women tells Marcus he probably had his pick of women, a big strong guy like him. Now Mr Fenix is our big strong manly man. We cannot have hetro men playing our game thinking Mr Fenix would let a lady talk to him like that. He's gotta be noble, This is the 00's. There were no wokescolds in gaming yet. Gamergate was a blip in our future. Our hero has to be right, he has to pwn this woman. So Marcus Angrily defends himself: "Listen Lady, there are two ways to win this war, making soldiers, and killin' grubs, and I'm a hell of a lot better at one than the other."

I think Marcus Fenix admitted he's bad at fucking.

#games aren't political #gaming #don't think just game #classic gaming #character limit really effed my ability to articulate everything i wanted to #gears of war

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smreine · 2 years ago

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Hey there, I miss you on Twitter. By the way, I dunno know if I asked you before, but what inspired you to write the Dana McIntyre books and do you plan to write more?

I'm so glad we're on here together Natalie!!!

I wanted to write the Dana McIntyre books (the series "Dana McIntyre Must Die") because I'd had Dana around in other books, and I just always had so much fun writing her.

She is the daughter of a demon hunter who was this big burly bear of a man, and she grew up to be a fat butch lesbian who hunts vampires. There's a multigenerational story going in my urban fantasy universe. I felt very warmly fond of Dana, writing her to be very much the daughter of Lucas McIntyre, and I wanted to do her dad proud.

I love urban fantasy a lot. But do you know how many fat butch lesbians are allowed to be the lead character in urban fantasy? How often do you get to see a fat butch lesbian killing it sexily on a cover?

Literally I wrote the series because Dana is awesome and I thought urban fantasy was missing something. :)

#my ask box #urban fantasy #writing #vampires

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wistfulwisp · 6 months ago

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BOOK REVIEW | Britt Bennet’s “The Vanishing Half” 🧿

So, this book has been on my shelves for YEARS, literal actual years. It’s been so long that I think this book travelled with me when I moved over a year ago, and I’ve never had a particularly strong pull to read it honestly other than the flashy cover. It made its rounds on booktok and bookstagram, that much I definitely remember. But, I finally picked it up on a whim and I’m so glad that I did. Bennett has crafted a perfect, visceral and authentic picture of family, the struggle of identity and finding yourself, and individuality versus the collective. I wasn’t expecting it to be a multigenerational saga, but I think that aspect of it was necessary and powerful. It was an absolutely beautiful look into the lives of these sisters and used poetic and sometimes heartbreaking language to show them struggling to make the best lives possible for their kids. I’m struggling actually to find the words that can convey how this book made me feel, because it was so rich and mesmerizing that once I started reading it I’d find it physically paining to put it away to tend to other life stuff. Pulled me right out of my reading slump and gave me lots to think about. I think what I loved most was that there was something that everyone can take away from it — about race and the struggles and biases that POC are faced with on a daily basis, as well as finding a sense of belonging versus living in your truth. An absolute must-read, if you never read it when it was at the height of its popularity like I did 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

(The only qualms I’ve really heard people have with this book is that they found some of the characters to be disappointingly underdeveloped, where they could’ve ended up easily having their own novel each. I wouldn’t say that’s much of a complaint though, just because I think the aspects of the story that were relevant were very well developed and wanting more from such fleshed out and authentic feeling characters isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I wanted more too, dw)

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biosblades · 2 years ago

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I actually think you’re totally right, but I think the problem actually goes a little deeper than this. At some point, the internet decided that all adults are creeps and that multigenerational friendships (or even friendships w/ people like 4-5 years apart from you) are inherently suspicious/problematic.

As a result, I feel like some adults actually act like this as a defense mechanism. Like they want to be apart of the fandom for the thing they like but they’re so afraid that if they so much as talk to a child (let alone talk kindly) they’ll be accused of pedophilia.

So they carve out a little space where they can do their own thing and vigorously protect it from younger fans. And in doing so, they act like a total asshole. Literally putting down kids for trying to read stories about Pokémon.

But it’s a little hard to blame them with how much they’re already under scrutiny just for liking the franchise (because you like watching cartoons?? Well then you must also be a fan of molesting infants, the two are inseparably related /s) so they’re going scorched earth to try to distance themselves from the concept of children. And don’t get me wrong, it sucks when people are mean to you and insist that you’re ruining the community by being a part of it. But that’s also what kids (especially the dreaded puriteens, younger fans usually don’t care) are doing to them. And being called a “snot nosed crotch goblin” is a little hurtful, but being accused of pedophilia can literally ruin someone’s entire life.

So idk, as a general rule I’d say be nice to people regardless of their age. But given the current online climate, I also see where these adults are coming from

i think too many people think the problem with “fandom adults” is that they’re “too old to be watching cartoons/playing nintendo games/writing fanfiction/etc” and not the actual issue of “a loud minority of them really fucking hate kids for no reason.

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rotzaprachim · 2 years ago

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thinking about the whole plot with jyn weaving the shroud in the cassdyssey. WHo is she weaving it for? The most obvious answer is Saw Gerrera, which is a really fascinating option- further from the Homer, but a really interesting insight into her and Saw’s connection as well as a link in that Saw is probably still alive. (side note- i’m not really an expert in ancient greek customs and i guess a funerary shroud is something that WOULD take a very long time to make but it’s still kind of darkly goth-bitch hilarious to me that penelope is weaving a shroud for someone who is STILL ALIVE. suitor voice: marry me! penelope voice: i can’t im busy i’m weaving a shroud for my in laws. suitor voice: oh is he dead? penelope voice: he will be.)

but the longer we spend hinting at the edges of Clem Andor’s story and the shape he’s left in the whole of the story, the more I think it has to go back to the Homer and take the more linear comparison of Clem to Laertes. because the whole thing with Klem is that he never did get a burial shroud. his death was not something anyone but Cassian and Maarva were going to remember. he would not be mourned as a father or dying king. the violent, visceral image we’re left with is the physicality of snow lightly heaping on the folds of his jacket as his hanged body sways, back and forth, the polar opposite to being laid to rest in the earth wrapped in cloth. and the gouge that leaves is quaking emptiness of the universe. penelope is weaving and undoing the shroud to buy time, but in so many ways cassian is making and unmaking the story of his father’s death in his mind to avoid the reckoning he’ll be forced into if he faces it, full on. the show itself, the story, is the weaving of Clem andor’s shroud

#the cassdyssey #tw hanging #klem andor #cassian andor #andor #clem andor #andor spoilers #it is really interesting to kind of recombine rogue one and andor characters to be in the same story #what's so interesting in the odyssey is how we get this kind of multigenerational family dynamic #odysseus is bordered on either side by his father and his son #there's three generations there's his mother and father his wife his son they're all kind of bound by him but he is GONE just this kind of #absent shape in their narrative even though each is facing different kinds of profound grief in his absence #and that's an interesting alternate version of a show called ANDOR in which many characters are tied in so many ways to cassian even if not.#literally

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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 years ago

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The Persuaders (how minds really change)

I have always been interested in how people change their minds. I think it started with my Dad’s story — he was a conservative, religious Jew until he was 18, then he had an argument with a union activist on a picket line, and within a year had renounced his faith and become a lifelong revolutionary communist.

My dad was and is an arguer, as am I. He was raised on vigorous debate, and when he lost to someone who had arguments he couldn’t refute, he returned to the picket line, day after day, to continue the debate to learn, and ultimately to change — forever.

I, too, had an experience like this: as a baby writer, I was raised on the idea that the more copyright there was, the better I — and other creative workers — would do. Then I found myself traveling to conferences in the early 2000s with Fred von Lohmann and Cindy Cohn.

We argued about copyright the entire way across first the Pacific and then the Atlantic, and then through the streets of London and Hong Kong, for literally days on end. Within a couple of months, I had resigned from the company I cofounded and joined EFF.

I had the pleasure of discussing this with Ed Snowden when we appeared together at the NYPL in 2017.

http://media.nypl.org/audio/2017_5_3_Edward_Snowden_AUDIO.mp3

Snowden had the mother of all conversions. He started out as a gung-ho CIA and NSA operative who came from a multigenerational military family and was only prevented from joining the Special Forces when he broke both his legs during basic training.

Years later, Snowden committed the most significant act of whistleblowing in US intelligence history, risking a firing squad and ending up in seemingly permanent exile. His mind changed…a lot. He describes that process in detail in his superb 2019 memoir “Permanent Record”:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/09/24/permanent-record-edward-snowden-and-the-making-of-a-whistleblower/

Snowden — like me, like my dad — realized that a foundational tenet of his life that he’d taken as axiomatic was actually resting on a shaky foundation. He realized that the NSA had no loyalty to the Constitution and that its leaders would brazenly lie to Congress to cover up their lawbreaking:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/leaks-from-edward-snowden-focus-attention-on-nsa-director-keith-alexander/2013/07/15/04c0eaa8-ed6c-11e2-bed3-b9b6fe264871_story.html

In Snowden’s memoir, we get a look at the slow erosion of his certainty, the hollow it left behind, and the new ideas that rushed into that void. It’s an account of a slow, profound, deep change. It’s a change I could recognize from my own history.

After the 2016 election, a lot of people got interested in how peoples’ minds changed. It seemed that a lot of people had had their minds changed for the worse, as they fell into cultlike panics over imaginary sex rings operating out of nonexistent pizza parlor basements and equally imaginary “migration crises.”

A lot of people in my circles — progressive, technologically informed — embraced a theory of persuasion that struck me as nearly as outlandish as the beliefs it sought to explain. They said that the tech giants’ algorithms had been weaponized by evil billionaires and Steve Bannon to convert otherwise reasonable people into foaming, terrified conspiratorialists.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the evidence for the claims of Big Tech brainwashing was pretty thin. Exhibit A was always the boasts of the ad-tech sector, who routinely promised shareholders and prospective customers for advertising services that they were really good at advertising.

They claimed that their “Big Data” troves, combined with their secret algorithms, could convince anyone of anything. The thing is, critics of these companies started from the correct observation that Big Tech lied all the time. These companies lied about which data they gathered, how they processed it, whether they paid taxes, how their treated their workers…all of it.

And yet, advocates for Big Tech’s mind control rays claimed that the only time Big Tech wasn’t lying was when it was boasting to customers and investors about how totally awesome its products were. They treated these marketing materials as presumptively truthful, even though they built atop a crumbling foundation of psych research that was a mix of unreplicable junk and long-deprecated ideas like behaviorism.

This despite the fact that there were so many other, simpler explanations — for example, perhaps you believe a false claim at the top of Google’s search results because Google a) is generally trustworthy; and b) has a monopoly over search so you don’t have a customary second source that would reveal its lapses.

I found the story that Google and Facebook built a mind-control ray to sell your nephew fidget-spinners and then Robert Mercer stole it and made your uncle into a QAnon so obviously wrong that I ended up writing a short book about it, “How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism”:

https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59

In the years since that book’s publication, I’ve only grown more dismayed at the number of smart people who want to locate the problem with conspiratorialism and rage in “dopamine loops” and other supposed Big Tech brainwashing methods.

This is doubly harmful, first, because it ignores the actual source of Big Tech’s power to harm us — monopoly — and actually makes things worse by demanding that Big Tech get bigger in order to police its users:

https://doctorow.medium.com/unspeakable-8c7bbd4974bc

But second, because when we focus on the means by which scared and vulnerable people encounter conspiratorial beliefs, we don’t focus on why so many people — including people we love and have lost — are so scared and vulnerable.

As Anna Merlan writes in her indispensable 2019 book on conspiratorialism, “Republic of Lies,” conspiratorialism sits at the juncture of real trauma and real systemic failures — people who’ve been hurt by systems stop believing in them and grasp for alternative theories to explain the world around them:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/09/21/republic-of-lies-the-rise-of-conspiratorial-thinking-and-the-actual-conspiracies-that-fuel-it/

If we focus on preventing Big Tech from seeding vulnerable people with bad ideas, rather than asking why the bad ideas take root — or how better ideas can compete — then we deprioritize making a better, fairer world.

When I heard that Anand Giridharadas was releasing a book about how persuasion works, I was excited — and a little worried. Giridharadas’s 2019 book “Winners Take All” was an incredible, important, scathing takedown of elite philanthropy as a means to launder the reputations of plutocrats who gain their fortunes by creating the harms they claim their giving will save us from:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/11/10/winners-take-all-modern-philanthropy-means-that-giving-some-away-is-more-important-than-how-you-got-it/

This idea is well-crystallized in Douglas Rushkoff’s new book “Survival of the Richest,” where he calls it The Mindset: “I must make enough money to outrun the damage I’m doing by making so much money”:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/13/collapse-porn/#collapse-porn

(Incidentally, you can catch Rushkoff, Rebecca Giblin and me tomorrow at the Ottawa Writers Festival!)

https://writersfestival.org/events/fall-2022-in-person-events/surviving-apocalyptic-economics

Having enjoyed Giridharadas’s previous book immensely, I was worried that he might have fallen into the trap of blaming the rise in conspiratorialism, “polarization” and other swift-moving currents of belief on Big Tech mind-control.

I needn’t have worried. “The Persuaders” is a fantastic, energizing and exciting book about what it means to really change peoples’ minds — how, on an individual, institutional and societal scale, new ideas take hold; and what can and should be done about the proliferation of conspiracies and hate:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/669716/the-persuaders-by-anand-giridharadas/

The book is structured as a series of case studies of remarkable “persuaders” — people who are doing hard work to change minds at every level. It opens with social justice organizers who are wrestling with the impatience of their peers with potential supporters who haven’t mastered nuanced language and with movement struggles over the ways to understand identity and class.

What does it mean for Black organizers to get involved in the Women’s March on Washington, when its early days were marred by tone-deaf and race-blind gaffes? Will involvement legitimize the idea that gender solidarity can exist without racial justice? Or will it bring new allies to a movement that sees gender and race as separate, vital issues that can’t be addressed on their own?

Though the context of the Trump election is recent, these questions aren’t new — organizers like Loretta Ross have been wrestling with questions of principle, solidarity, and effectiveness since the 1970s. In his profile of Ross, Giridharadas describes Ross’s “circles of influence” theory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T11YuEE9omQ

In this theory, a political actor divides others into “90 percenters, 75 percenters, 50 percenters, 24 percenters and 0 percenters,” based on the amount of ideological overlap they share.

For Ross a 90 percenter agrees “capitalism is problematic; racism, homophobia, transphobia and anti-immigration bias are bad.” Within these groups, the emphasis should be on the 90% agreement, not the 10% divergence. There’s no pressing need to turn 90 percenters into 100 percenters.

Next are 75 percenters, “people who share a good portion of your worldview, but not totally.” For Ross, the Girl Scouts aren’t with her on abortion rights, but they’re committed to the rights of girls and women. There’s no need to turn 75 percenters into 90 percenters — “there’s enough common ground to work on.” With 75 percenter coalitions, “you have to accept large islands of disagreement in a sea of assent.”

Next, 50 percenters, “people who share values,” but the politics derived from those values are opposite to your own. Ross’s parents are religious conservatives, but they share her values of “hard work, taking care of one another and how you ought to treat people.” With these people, the mission is to look for openings — such as when Ross connected with her father over the need for health-care reform after he fell ill and was neglected by the VA.

Then are 25 percenters, “people diametrically opposite from you,” who “don’t share a vision, a basic worldview, or fundamental values…[who] use the exact same words to mean completely different things.” As Ross says, “When I talk about patriotism and wearing a mask to keep my neighbors safe, they talk about liberty or their freedom to go get a haircut.”

There isn’t enough common ground there for easy coalition, but if there’s a project that requires support from your 25 percenters, you have to appeal to their sense of themselves as “good people.” When you’re “calling in” a racist, say, you try to get them to understand that “if you want to be a good person, you’ve got to do good things.” Remember that 25 percenters are motivated by “fear of immigrants, fear of queers, fear of this, fear of that.” You have to take their fears seriously for them to be able to listen to you. “If you dismiss their fears, they don’t listen.”

Finally come the 0 percenters, those with no common ground who must be “overpowered and overwhelmed,” not persuaded. The simple term for those people is “fascists.”

Ross’s framework really struck me and explained so much about the kinds of activist coalitions I’ve worked in for decades on digital human rights — coalitions that have mostly consisted of 75 percenters, some 50 percenters and even the odd 25 percenter. It’s a framework I knew immediately that I’d be returning to in my own work.

Giridharadas also profiles two important political figures: Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, finding in them a study in contrasts that is revealing and important. Sanders has spent decades refusal to make politics personal; AOC has mixed personal biography with her critiques to make them relatable. Both approaches have persuaded millions of people, and each has changed through their political careers.

This leap from organizers to national politicians sets up the second half of the book, which discusses “messaging,” and steers clear of the pitfalls of this subject — the fast-talking ad exec’s idea that “messaging” is about bypassing people’s critical faculties, rather than engaging them.

Instead, Giridharadas presents the theories of Anat Shenker-Osorio, who works both within parties and within movements seeking to influence parties to craft messages that actually change people’s minds by convincing, not by trickery.

But just because Shenker-Osorio is interested in “convincing,” it doesn’t mean that she wants to argue with you. Her work focuses on formulas (in the best sense possible) for winning over the minds (and hearts) of persuadable people.

Her theory of change starts with that idea of “persuadability.” She rejects the idea that people in the “center” want a bit of each — rather, she says they should be viewed as undecided. If you can’t choose between a pizza and a burger, you’re unlikely to be happy with a pizzaburger. The persuader’s job is to move you to their pole, not to muddle their position into undifferentiated slurry.

To reach the “persuadables,” Shenker-Osorio says we must “animate the base to persuade the middle.” Promising (and delivering) the policies your most ardent supporters want is going to get them to mobilize, and that mobilization will send them out to convince others.

Moderates are best understood as floating around in thinly held, easily shifted beliefs. She calls these “good point” people — you tell them talking about race is necessary for political progress and they say good point! You tell them talking about race only highlights differences and makes things worse and they say good point! Good point, and also, good point!

To reach these people, you must “toggle them into the most progressive understanding they can have of the world, which is latent within them, and keeping that up, up, top of mind, so that is their default.” To get there, you need “the base to keep on repeating the set of messages that will activate those progressive narratives that already exist in people.”

Another pillar of Shenker-Osorio’s tactics is to deliberately alienate the opposition. This is something the right understands in its bones: they talk about Jewish Space Lasers and Great Replacement and we repeat it — “Can you believe the awful thing they just said?” Every time you repeat it, you bring attention to it, and some of that attention comes from people for whom it sounds just fine.

That’s a tactic the left can and should use. Rather than hiding behind milquetoast pronouncements, we can use “good riddance” statements that are meant to turn off our 0 percenters, like “a greedy few rigged the game in their favor, now too many jobs don’t pay enough for our needs, let alone enable their wants.”

One of my favorite parts of Shenker-Osorio’s doctrine (one I suppose I should learn to embrace myself) is to stop leading with problems. My inbox is full of fundraising emails from Democrats with screaming phrases like “HAS EVERYONE GIVEN UP?!?!” and “PLEADING with you to reverse this…” As Shenker-Osorio says, the core message is “This is a new crisis. This is terrible. It’s very horrible.”

This does work on people who are already convinced, to a point. But it doesn’t grow the bases. And by making people more and more fearful, you also make them more conservative. The opposition to the left isn’t the right, Shenker-Osorio says, “it’s cynicism.”

To get out the vote and mobilize a movement, you can’t promise to “reduce harm,” you have to promise to “create good.” MLK said “I have a dream” and not “I have a multi-bulleted list of policy proposals.”

Shenker-Osorio wants us to say what we’re for, not just what we’re against. Not “abolish ICE” but “create a fair immigration policy that respects all families.” She says “it’s a Republican wet dream that they have us constantly talking about everything that we oppose” because “it gives them more airtime” and “it scares the shit out of people.”

So don’t lead with the terror of the climate emergency — lead with “ensuring clean, safe air to breathe and water to drink.” Lead with “paying people enough to provide for their families,” not “fighting low wages and poor working conditions.” Instead of “the lack of paid leave,” go with “helping people be there for those they love.”

Shenker-Osorio proposes a taxonomy of “right issues,” “left issues” and contestable issues, and says that we shouldn’t frame our cause in right wing terms. When they say “We’ll cut taxes and it’s good for the economy” and we counter with “We’ll raise wages and increase consumption, which is better for the economy,” we’re still talking about the economy, and the right owns that issue (she says) (I’m not sure I agree!). When the left leads with the economy, they invite voters to prioritize the economy and yet somehow choose the party that is least associated with it. Instead, the left should talk about “people’s economic well-being,” an issue the right is weak on.

Thus: promote Medicare for All as good for all our health, not better for the national economy. Even if M4A is cheaper (and it is, much!), if you frame the goal of health policy as “efficiency” then you let your opposition sell policies that are bad for health but good for costs. Forget Obama’s “bend the cost-curve down” and go for “No matter what you look like or where you come from, when someone you love is ill or injured, you want them to get the very best care without going bankrupt.”

When Trump tries to steal an election and we call him a “strong man,” we admit that he’s “strong.” There are people who want a leader who’s “brash” and “gets stuff done.” Instead, call him “a weak loser, a bumbling idiot who is trying to steal the election” that he lost. The repeated message should weaken Trump in the eyes of his base, not strengthen him.

One contestable issue that Shenker-Osorio wants to see the left claim is “freedom” — an idea that every kind of American consistently rates as one of the highest (if not the highest) virtue. Letting the right claim freedom was a huge tactical blunder and it’s not too late to wrestle it back. The freedom to vote, reproductive freedom, freedom from police violence.

She proposes a three-stage process for constructing a message:

i. A shared value: “No matter what we look like, where we come from, or what’s in our wallets, most of us believe that people who work for living ought to earn a living.”

ii. A problem: “But today, a wealthy and powerful few try to divide us from each other so that we’ll look the other way while they pick our pockets and hand the spoils to their corporate cronies.”

iii. A solution: “By coming together, we can rewrite the rules so that the wealthiest few pay what they owe and all of us have what we need for generations to come.”

Giridharadas calls this “a callout sandwich” — “a generous heap of callout between two thick slices of call in.”

There’s persuadables, and then there’s persuadables. Giridharadas profiles Diane Benscoter, an ex-cult member who has some experience helping to “deprogram” people who’ve been lost to cults, and who has taken on an interest in the origins of cultlike beliefs. For Benscoter, it’s not enough to talk about a generalized psychological vulnerability that we all share, nor is it enough to focus on the Svengali powers of charismatic leaders.

Instead, like Merlan, Bescoter delves into the particular life circumstances of people who fall into cults that make them susceptible to cultlike beliefs — and what kinds of discussions and interventions can create the seeds of doubt that will eventually lead them — like her — to leave the cult behind. She advocates for training therapists and counselors to recognize the warning signs of cultlike beliefs.

More ambitious still are the plans of John Cook, who created a taxonomy of the ways in which conspiratorialists make suckers out of us:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/10/flicc/#denialism

Cook believes that if you teach people these tactics early (as he is trying to do, through fun classroom games) that they will be “vaccinated” against these tactics later in life. We may get our backs up when someone tries to convince us that our cherished ideas are wrong, but we also hate being played for fools.

The book ends with a chapter on “deep canvassing,” a technique that has door-knockers spend half an hour with each subject, even ones who say they agree with them, as a means of not just changing people’s minds but motivating them to action.

Deep canvassing is a fascinating subject. The first blockbuster study on it had to be retracted when it was revealed as an academic fraud, but the debunkers who discovered the fraud ran the experiment again and found the evidence supported the technique — in other words, there was no reason for the fraud.

Following Arizona canvassers — many of them undocumented immigrants — as they seek to mobilize voters to call Kyrsten Sinema and get her to vote for a replacement to DACA is a fascinating, fly-on-the-wall glimpse of how minds can change in realtime, and how they can’t.

By bookending his book with activists trying to find common ground with the wider public, Giridharadas offers evidence-based hope that it’s possible to make a difference, to win the day without losing your soul. As we barrel towards an uncertain midterms, books like “The Persuaders” present a roadmap for building coalitions, taking power, and changing the world.

[Image ID: The cover of the Knopf edition of 'The Persuaders.']

#pluralistic

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amarillokidding · 3 years ago

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since you seem to be rly into time being a cycle and all that, i was wondering if uve read one hundred years of solitude? 👀 i feel like u could maybe like it

I actually already have that in my 'to read' list!! I read the themes and its literally extremely similar to how I would describe tch! "Multigenerational family, patriarchs, cycles of time, gold/yellow as important color symbolism, ghosts, solitude and everything restarting" the authors last name is Marquez which is one of my characters last names as well and he has another book about a mysterious winged man that ppl believe is an angel, which a character like that appears in tch, and another one of his stories is called La Mala Hora(the evil hour) which is 😭😭😭😭

#i dont want to accidently reveal crazy stuff that happens in tch but 😔😔 when i skimmed the summaries i went insane #for several days #tch #i appreciate this ask i feel like im not just talking to myself

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mrzastudies · 3 years ago

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In honor of South Asian heritage month, here is a post on my favorite novel.

I don't have the words that will be good enough to give this book justice; I don't have the words to capture what it meant to read a story like this. What it meant to feel seen. This is the book I tell everyone to read whenever I am asked for a recommendation, this is the book that changed my life I say. This is what ignited my love for fiction and desire to read books that were written by authors that wrote stories I could see myself in.

I wasn't too fond of reading fiction as a child, I think it may have been because I didn't have exposure to authors whose work I could wholly appreciate.

Of course, there was fiction I did enjoy, but nothing came close to feeling seen.

That is until I read 'A Place for Us' two years ago.

I am now a sucker for multigenerational sagas with strong character development. (Pachinko and Salt houses are next on my list!)

Two years later and I am still hungover. I am yet to read a story with so much depth and with characters so brilliantly written.

I became a little obsessed (understatement) with the author and binged all her interviews, I enjoyed reading all the background info that inspired her (some of which can be found under 'author's notes' on Goodreads). I literally cannot wait for whatever @ffmirza writes next, because I will preorder it in my sleep.

Maybe one day I will have the words to give this book a proper review, but until then this will have to do.

🌬Swipe for the synopsis from Storygraph!

✨ After I read APFU I asked my friends if they'd ever read a book they could relate to & if they ever read words that felt like home.✨

Two that come to mind are from An Iranian friend who said they could relate to the graphic novel ‘Persepolis’ because their parent's story was so similar to Marjan Satrapi's and A Nigerian friend recommended “Half of a Yellow Sun”.

I then made it my mission to seek out books that the people closest to me could see themselves in.

Have you ever read something you could relate to? Come across a character that you felt represented you in a book or movie/TV show? Has anything come close?

Instagram: @mrzastudies

#medicine #doctors of tumblr #studyblr #readersofbookstagram #readers of tumblr #bookstagram #bookish #booklover #south asain #studywithme #studyspo #study #studybuddy #studygram #iced coffee #coffeeblr #coffeelover

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wits-writing · 4 years ago

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Bill & Ted Face the Music (Movie Review)

How I have missed having new movies to talk about!

And this is a most excellent movie to use as a return to reviews! (Thanks to the non-heinous decision to release it for digital rental/purchase, rather than force people to go into movie theaters as a pandemic continues to rage on.)

Bill & Ted Face the Music, from director Dean Parisot with a screenplay from the returning duo of Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, pays tribute to and enhances the legacy of the previous two movies. In the decades since the end of Bogus Journey, Bill S. Preston, Esq. (Alex Winters) and Ted Theodore Logan (Keanu Reeves), have done everything they can think of to produce the song they were told would unite all of reality back in 1989. They’ve consistently fallen short of their destiny with Wyld Stallyn’s big song from the concert at the end of the last movie only amounting to a one-hit wonder. All other attempts have only led them further into obscurity and increasingly esoteric musical experiments.

When chasing this impossible destiny finally has their lives on the verge of falling apart completely and the pair are ready to quit, Kelly (Kristen Schaal), the daughter of Rufus, appears before them with a warning. Reality itself has started coming undone and will only right itself if the song is performed within a 77-minute time limit. Bill & Ted decide to take desperate measures and see if any of their own future selves succeeded where they’ve failed. Meanwhile, their own daughters, Thea Preston (Samara Weaving) and Billie Logan (Brigette Lundy-Paine), go on their own excellent adventure through the history of music to recruit the perfect band for the perfect song.

Face the Music is a multigenerational journey through that which binds us through time, a long-awaited reunion for the creative team and lead actors, and the final payoff of the destiny that kicked off the whole thing.

And against all odds… It works!

[Full Review Under the Cut]

To be honest, the initial trailer for this movie did not win me over to this series revival. Seeing the leaders of the idyllic 28th century roll their eyes as Bill & Ted repeated the iconic “Be excellent to each other! Party on dudes!” had me worried this would be mean-spirited in a way that goes against the core of the previous movies. There’s a sincerity in those movies about these two dudes’ optimism and perseverance being able to overcome anything, from passing history class to coming back from the dead. This movie being about what happens when that attitude finally gets worn down by the years of banging their heads against the wall to complete the single most important task in the universe. Ted especially feels the weight of the years catching up with them, being the one to suggest giving up before the strict time limit gets laid out in front of them.

Doing nothing but chasing the success they were promised in their youth begins to threaten their ability to see outside themselves. Hints of that show early on with them and their wives all in couples counseling together. Which becomes more apparent as they travel to increasingly dire futures for themselves. The older Bills and Teds we see have lost even more of their charming positivity, often happy to insult, trick, or threaten their past selves for their own benefits. It’s a humorous literalization of how people look back on their own mistakes or deal with their fears of the future and as a bonus gives us a chance to see Winters and Reeves play increasingly bizarre versions of their classic characters. Though Bill & Ted’s struggle against their inadequacies only account for half the story of this movie.

The other half comes from Billie and Thea’s adventure through time. The duo is introduced as the only people left in the world still believing in their dads’ abilities to make the prophesized song. Growing up around every sonic formulation Wyld Stallyns ever created gave them a passion for and encyclopedic knowledge of music that’s unmatched, even by their dads. Lundy-Paine and Weaving embody the Millennial versions of Winters and Reeves’ Gen X archetypes. They carry on the positive spirit their dads have lost with a gift for recognizing the finer details of music across all genres and figuring out how and why it fits together.

That passion takes them on a journey through history that also reflects a maturation of how this film series approaches history compared to Excellent Adventure with who the girls recruit along the way. I won’t give away when they go or who they recruit, but it speaks to a more complete understanding of history than the original movie had with its time travel story. Though I will say it includes an extended cameo by a time displaced Kid Cudi as himself, who ends up being one of the best comedic performers in the entire cast.

As much as I love this movie, it’s far from flawless. There are two subplots that feel clumsy in their execution. One involving Ted’s dad, Jonathan Logan (Hal Landon Jr.), not believing Bill & Ted ever went on any of their adventure through time, space, heaven, and hell, which simply resolves when circumstances force him to believe it. More frustrating is the involvement of Princesses Joanna and Elizabeth (Jayma Mays and Erinn Hayes, respectively), Bill & Ted’s wives, or rather the lack thereof. The best I can say is that they at least aren’t damseled like they were in Bogus Journey, but that doesn’t make up for them being almost aggressively sidelined by the plot of this one. In a movie that hinges on Bill & Ted’s connection to their families, these subplots being so thin is hard to ignore.

For every frustration those subplots caused, there was some amazing new or returning element from the series to prop things up again. When the time comes for Bill & Ted Face the Music to bring all of its threads together for the concert finale across time and space, I was left amazed how well it paid off what all three movies have told us about Bill & Ted’s destiny. The twist they manage to put on the payoff is simultaneously clever and touching, even if it’s a little easy to guess early on. It creates such a warm, comforting atmosphere within the movie that’s difficult not to give into as it plays out.

This is worth every cent of what the digital rental/purchase costs, especially if you’re a fan of the previous Bill & Ted movies.

Be excellent to yourselves, watch it, and party on dudes!

If you like what you’ve read here, please like/reblog or share elsewhere online, follow me on Twitter (@WC_WIT), and consider throwing some support my way at either Ko-Fi.com or Patreon.com at the extension “/witswriting”

#Bill & Ted Face the Music #Bill & Ted #Wit's Writing #Movie Review #bill and ted face the music #bill and ted #Keanu Reeves #Alex Winters #Samara Weaving #Brigette Lundy Paine #Dean Parisot #Chris Matheson #Ed Solomon #Sci Fi Films #science fiction #comedy movies

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save-ben-swolo · 5 years ago

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girl i've been waiting for your reaction. The disrespect towards ben in this movie was unreal.

I’M-

Full disclosure I was FULLY spoiled on Tuesday because I spent the night of the premiere barely able to sleep after accidentally seeing the “leak” that Ben dies and getting paranoid about it. The few hours I DID sleep I dreamt that I was a journalist meant to give a “good review” of the movie for DLF and Daisy and JJ were both trying to explain to me why it was GOOD that Ben dies (thanks to both of them for promising a happy ending at the goddamn world premiere right before people had to sit through that heartbreaking garbage.)

Then I realized I’d loose my shit if it was true and I found out in the theater so... spoiler town for me.

ANYWAY. It’s hard to really know what you’re going to get tone wise based on other people yelling about it (which is why I was creeping and not blogging until now). I KNEW it would be bad but the extent to which they made Ben inconsequential (IN THE FUCKING LAST MOVIE ABOUT THE SKYWALKERS) was (taking my emotional attachment to the character out of it) abysmal writing.

He gets “redeemed” but never truly accepted back into his family. Han was his memory not a force ghost. All leia did was say his name then she died and he was #shook (before Rey stabbed him LMAO cool.) Luke doesn’t even bother to talk to him after saying “see you around kid” but he lifts an x-wing out of the water for Rey and convinces her not to exile herself. Nothing was actually reconciled between Ben and his family. IT FUCKING HURTS!

His ONE LINE after being redeemed is “ow”

When facing the evil that admitted (at the beginning of the film) that he was every voice inside his head which caused the tragic separation between him and his family in the first place (bonus he ruined the lives of his entire family) he does nothing to actually defeat him and LITERALLY GETS THROWN INTO A PIT SO REY CAN FACE HIM ALONE. Because I guess facing the dude you JUST learned killed your parents (indirectly?) and is also your grandpa (which makes you upset?) trumps multigenerational torment.

He FINALLY crawls out of the pit only to revive the “real hero” of our story (forevermore apparently) before getting one kiss as a “reward” and dying.

Then he is LITERALLY never heard from again. To the point where it’s painfully obvious that he’s being ignored by the narrative. They kiss, he disappears (?!?) and we cut to.... idk Rey flying away seeming pretty okay with it or something. Then she buries stuff in honor of Luke and Leia (not Ben) and sees their ghosts but not Ben’s because.... fuck him he can’t be seen with or accepted by his family that’s stupid.

Darth fucking Vader got a funeral in ROTJ...... let that sink in.

I’m sorry but HOW was this movie about the Skywalker family and not a spin-off movie focused on the Palpatine family? Literally nothing changed in their family for the positive. All of them died so the spawn of Palpatine could rise (?!?) and commit identity theft by taking their surname.

#tros spoilers #tros salt #ben solo #ben solo deserved better #asks

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dangermousie · 5 years ago

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Prior to 2010 kdrama rec post

@walkwithheroes84 asked: “What are some dramas (Japanese, Taiwanese, Chinese, and/or Korean) that are older (pre-2010) that you wish more people would watch.”

Ooooh boy, we are gonna be here all day so I am just going to do Korea and save the rest for later. I had to really cull!

A Love to Kill (2005) - I own Japanese DVDs of this, I was so obsessed. A dark, intense melo in which Rain gets a job as a bodyguard to a rising young star played by Shin Minah. His plan is to seduce and wreck her to avenge his dead brother (who he believes killed himself after she heartlessly left him for fame), but he recons without his own impossible feelings for her or the extent of SMA’s internal damage. They remain one of the most impossible, messed-up, intense, doomed OTPs I’ve ever shipped. Stock tissues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJox8iEcFMs

All In (2003) - he is a gangster, she is a nun. Have I gotten your attention yet? This was a huge hit and Lee Byung Hun and Song Hye Kyo are out of this world together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuVDFLOytQI

Beautiful Days (2001-2002) - a super classic, grown up melo about a plucky poor girl and a tortured workaholic and Choi Ji Woo and Lee Byung Hun set the screen on fire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3skKcivjJs

Capital Scandal (2007) - somehow both frothy and deeply emotional, this centers on freedom fighters and playboys and spies in 1930s Seoul. If you don’t love it, you have no heart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN-0tERlaNM

Chuno/Slave Hunters (2009) - possibly my favorite sageuk (it’s a threeway tie atm), this story about an aristocrat turned slave hunter, a general turned slave, and a slave woman turned an aristocrat, all involved with rebellion, court secrets and sheer desperation of their lives is amazing. Beyond amazing. Jang Hyuk, Oh Ji Ho and Lee Da Hae are all on fire and if you ever watch only one sageuk, make it this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vAGdXpN6no

City Hall (2009) - Kim Sun Ah as a small town civil servant and Cha Seung Won as an amoral fixer for a powerful politician sparkle beyond words in the most grown up, smart kdrama romcom I have ever seen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLek2pnv8yY

Coffee Prince (2007) - Yoon Eun Hye is a woman dressing as a man, Gong Yoo as a man horrified to discover he likes her while thinking she is a boy. This was a mad hit for a reason.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKSupXmez5w

Damo (2003) - my first sageuk, this is as good as ever. Ha Ji Won is a police tea servant, a noble lady whose family was executed and she came down in the world; Lee Seo Jin as her noble superior who loves her silently. She infiltrates a conspiracy led by the charismatic, tortured Kim Mim Joon, and epic tragedy follows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGkglLvjJ9k

Delightful Girl Chunhyang (2005) - back when Hong Sisters were consistently good, this is a modern take on the famous folk tale. Our heroine is a studious poor girl and our hero a ne’er-do-well son of a local prosecutor. There is arranged marriage, true love surviving some insane sacrifice, one of my all time favorite OTPs, and a heroine and hero that grow into people I was obsessed with. Confession time - I wrote fanfic for this drama!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kTGHJZIUvA

East of Eden (2008-2009) - a sprawling multigenerational epic they don’t make much of any more, this has its flaws but the plots and brotherhood and romances and the characters and the revenge are so worth it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6LBIo16-e8

Emperor of the Sea/Sea God (2004-2005) - a larger than life sageuk epic they don’t make any more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j53vbAxW3d4

Family’s Honor (2008) - Kdrama does North and South. Our heroine is a widow from an aristocratic family, our hero is a noveau riche ruthless businessman who gets attracted to her. This is so so good!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrAMgTKg_As

Fashion 70s (2005) - period drama about a bunch of intense cool peeps, fashion and love. Just watch it.

https://youtu.be/qly7vkFUv3g

Friend Our Legend (2009) - the most criminally underrated drama on this list, about a group of childhood friends turned gangsters and the tragic fall out.I want a rewatch rn tbh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJQx3tA5cGs

Goong (2005) - a giddily fun take on an alternate universe where an icy modern crown prince and a bubbly commoner have to get married.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAjz-5b4P6A

Green Rose (2005) - this tale of a man (Go Soo) trying to get revenge and get back to his love (Lee Da Hae) is a modern take on Monte Cristo and has one of my fave opening scenes ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epJt6jCIOlU

Hello My Teacher (2005) - Gong Yoo is a student in love with Gong Hyo Jin’s teacher.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNFoENWvEEk

Hong Gil Dong (2008) - starts out wacky, ends up by making me cry. A wonderful take on Korean Robin Hood and the OTP omg the OTP!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ingEOTBSnt0

IRIS (2009) - in the running for my favorite kdrama of all time, with definitely the most tortured hero, this starts out as a fun routine actioner until our hero’s life details in a horrifying fashion and even his attempts to right the world are doomed in this horrifyingly bleak, intense, romantic drama.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kesXxZOBzQ

Jumong (2006-2007) - the DADDY of all traditional sageuks, with insane ep count (81) and equally insane and deserved ratings. See our hero go from zero to hero and an awesome king.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILBnGNxtwXw

The Kingdom of the Winds (2008-2009) - Song Il Gook’s last sageuk (so far, though I don’t think he’s gonna bother to come back), a story about a cursed prince and his quest for love and throne, this is wonderful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1qfC0yFIf0

Last Scandal (2008) - they dated in high school. Now she is an exhausted ahjumma with a deadbeat husband and he is a huge star. A second chance romance that starts out hilarious but turns profound follows. One of my all time faves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zquHf8-p3ZU

The Legend (2007) - I’ve raved about it elsewhere; it is arguably my favorite sageuk of all time (or maybe even just plain fave kdrama), smart and passionate and hugely epic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=853sc-s2hHE

Lobbyist (2007) - one of the very few actioners I’ve ever liked, and with more whump than you can shake a stick at, Song Il Gook is a tough as nails international arms dealer with an even tougher OTP (JJY) and this is a heaven of plot and love and hurt/comfort.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8puRJNmey4

Loveholic (2005) - a student/teacher romance AND a story about a man going to jail to protect the woman he loves all rolled into one. What more could you want?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6nVH75IRCM

Lovers (2006) - if it’s a smart adult love story you want, come right in!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgpe4VkbtNk

Mawang/The Devil/Lucifer (2007) - meet possibly my n1 kdrama of all time. Haunted past, tragedy, revenge, complicated characters and plot. If there is a perfect kdrama, this is it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkn1KYaCjVk

My Girl (2005) - Lee Dong Wook and Lee Da Hae set the screen on fire in a romcom with hidden identities and plot twists. PS it is funny but when the drama starts, I literally bawled.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0jpSCN72Wg

One Fine Day (2006) - Sung Yuri and Gong Yoo in a lovely, angsty romance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVeUG5U3oCU

Piano (2001-2002) - this is like who is who before they got to be big stars - Go Soo and Kim Hae Neul are in love but can’t be together because they are stepsiblings, Jo In Sung is a young gangster, tragedy and melo all around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRG_4Uxl4Zo

Que Sera Sera (2007) - Eric and Jung Yumi play the ultimate dysfunctional couple. He uses his good looks to date rich generous women, she is a neighbor who is neither. Their levels of obsession with each other are insane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4XqW14_A7k

Queen Seon Duk (2009) - want a female centric sageuk that is intense and epic and amazing? Look no further!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwIY4poVBNw

Resurrection (2005) - a tight, complex revenge thriller that more people should see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_ZbmVAk8zQ

The Return of Iljimae/Moon River (2009) - Jung Il Woo’s debut, this is arguably my favorite take on Korean Robin Hood ever and except for Someday and Friend Our Legend, the most underrated drama on this list.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YjgmHVO3n0

Robber (2008) - Jang Hyuk and Lee Da Hae break my heart and then heal it in this intense story of a man preying on desperate women and a broken widow. Yes, it’s another two messed up people heal each other story. I love those!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDyy3UtUWeM

Romance (2002) - a teacher/student romance, with gorgeous young Kim Jae Won and Kim Ha Neul.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LBs1tnc5Js

Sang Do, Let’s Go to School - Gong Hyo Jin is a teacher, Rain is a gigolo taking gigs to support his son; they used to be each other’s first loves. It’s wistful and slice of life and utterly tragic. Written by Lee Kyung Hee of the A Love to Kill and Thank You fame.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRg1q3RULWk

Save the Last Dance for Me (2004-2005) - I binged 17 episodes of this baby at a go, a record that has not yet been surpassed. Ji Sung is a rich man who is in an accident and gets amnesia, being cared for and falling for Eugene. However when he recovers his memory and forgets his amnesia time - he will end up meeting her again and falling for her all over again (hilariously, his RL wife Lee Bo Young plays the psycho secondary girl in this.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekfBrvJil8c

Say You Love Me (2004) - a much better attempt at Dangerous Liasons than the wretched Tempted. Kim Rae Won and Yoon So Yi, naive and tragic young lovers, come across a pair of jaded sophisticates; the female half of whom is intrigued by the fresh faced KRW and envious of uncomplicated young love and asks her partner to take YSI away from KRW for kicks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niL2WJ_oAIU

Seoul 1945 (2006) - from WW2 to the Korean war, this is intense and smart and pulls no punches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYsotv2rFQI

Shining Inheritance/Brilliant Legacy (2009) - Han Hyo Joo is a young woman tormented by her family; Lee Seung Gi is a spoiled rich boy who needs to grow up. I was obsessed with this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_sWhVZA3DY

Snow Queen (2006-2007) - Hyun Bin and Sung Yuri do a tragic romance melo right. He is a poor, smart kid, she is a brittle rich girl with a terminal illness. It hurts so good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEkAbJLYVpk

Someday (2006) - a sheltered cartoonist suffering from a writer’s block meets a sort-of small time private detective. They are both haunted by their pasts but find hope and healing with each other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLVijs891dw

Spring Day (2005) - a very solid melo where Jo In Sung ends up stealing the girl from the original leading man.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps7l27OBnVQ

Spring Waltz (2006) - the last and, imo, best of the seasons dramas, possibly in my all time top 10 kdramas, it follows a haunted young pianist and his OTP and their shared tragic past and hope for the future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IGO0DST8dk

Swallow the Sun (2009) - Ji Sung as the haunted mercenary wanting revenge on his father, Sung Yuri as his tough, common-sense girlfriend, one of my fave secondary OTPs (mercenary x stripper) etc etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C51efR5Iq5I

Thank You (2007) - Gong Hyo Jin is an island woman living with the stigma and agony of having an HIV positive child. Jang Hyuk is a surgeon haunted by the death of his girlfriend. Two lost souls find and heal each other in one of my all time favorites.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVk1TjvZZOw

Time Between Dog and Wolf (2007) - Lee Jun Ki is tortured a lot on his path to revenge and love. I loooove this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v24-57tLFH4

Tree of Heaven (2006) - only ten eps but bring your tissues for this tender and tragic and gorgeous love story between Park Shin Hye and Lee Wan, stepsiblings for a brief time; they reconnect when she’s a cleaner and he’s a gangster. I was sooooo obsessed with it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnAZlXZjFcw

What Happened in Bali (2005) - Ha Ji Won, Jo In Sung and So Ji Sub are a trio of desperately damaged people entangled with each other in what is probably still the darkest melo I have seen out of Korea. Money grubbing poor woman played by HJW, high-strung, abused rich son played by JIS, or a cold, ambitious man on the rise SJS - pick any of them, there is enough damage to level a city.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKHcYvK5qZM

Will It Snow for Christmas (2009) - a melodrama with Go Soo and Han Ye Seul by Lee Kyung Hee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvQ14gtCqvw

Worlds Within/The World That They Live In (2008) - the last candidate for my n1 kdrama of all time. By Noh Hee Kyung, with seemingly mundane lives of TV station personnel. But every character is someone you feel you know and Hyun Bin and Song Hye Kyo are both real and unreal as the OTP.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBHrjZ8T6a4

Congrats if you made it to the end!

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