#margin your commentary is very much appreciated

[star-farer]

until my love returns to me

Summary: In which the child who can no longer be kept in her buire's care lingers even still in their memories. AU: Ik'aad, HFSW Taglist: @kybercrystals94 @fionas-frenzy @padawancat97 @margindoodles2407 @dreamsight73 @comfy-vember

Comfy-vember 2024, Day 12: Hand on shoulder, Day 13: Surprise compliment

Author's note: Decided to play with their speech patterns to fit the HFSW AU better this time 'round. I hope it works out fine, Margin! And I'm very much open to criticism concerning it; writing sailors are a completely new area whose jargon I had to research a little on.

“Shoulda known I’d find you here.”

The voice makes him jump. “Kriff!”

Hunter laughs, soft and warm in the cool night air. A scowl over dulled leather is his reward.

“I’d have sent you o’erboard fer that,” says Crosshair, watching with narrowed eyes as his brother comes to lean against the ship’s railing beside him.

The elder huffs a breath that is part fondness and part amusement. “Tis well that I am the quicker, then, aye?”

“With the blade, perhaps.” Once more, the archer turns to face the calm horizon, watching the blue sky graze the shimmering dark seas. “The tale o’ the arrow is another entirely.”

“Ah, ‘course,” hums Hunter, bending his head to consider the murky waters lapping up the sides of the ship, “The arrow belongs to ye alone.”

Silence settles gently about them, not heavy and deafening as the chambers they are locked in for disobedience, but replete with the songs of the sea. The shifting waves murmur to each other, the winds whistle past on swift and briny wings, and hanging high amongst the iridescent stars is the pale face of the moon.

Peace is what he would name this silence, if not for the sorrow quietly stirring in his heart.

A sigh darts along the slim layer twixt water and air. “You’ll vaunt for hours on end ‘bout your prowess, vod’ika, I’ve no doubt o’ that. But it surely cannot be the reason for your vigil on a night so calm as this.”

There is a quiet request intwined along Hunter’s words with the mastery of a wordsmith. Akin to a dear hand held out to be taken, his shadowy voice is kind, patient. He is asking Crosshair to unveil his thoughts, to lay bare his grief.

The grey head bows to the reflections shivering across the inky surface. At the corner of his eye, the moonlight glints off the ring on his finger.

To accept the invitation is tempting.

To refuse, even more so.

The words sit on the edge of his tongue, awaiting the command of his hesitant mind. Tis naught to concern you. I had want only for a fresh breath of sea-air.

Like the swinging sword, the gaze he meets when he dares to lift his head lays waste to the words so well-wrought in his mouth. They die, shriveling as stale fruit, and coat his throat dry with their ashes. He holds ceremony for their loss with the tears that burn his eyes.

“Omega,” comes his rasping voice, and Hunter lifts his face to his, “I cannot forget her face.”

There is a strength, a firmness in the hand that comes to clasp his shoulder, and he draws his courage from it, leaning into its warmth.

“That is well—”

Disbelief strikes him across the cheek. “Well?”

“Nayc, hear me, brother.” Hunter’s mouth is a thin line. “That you ne’er forget our girl, that your memory of her face is not taken from you, tis a good thing. You carry her still in your heart and soul.”

“We clones bear souls?” he says with all bitterness.

But Hunter’s grip tightens, fingers digging past the layers of his blacks. A light gleams with ferocity in his dark eyes, the stars laughing cold silver in the black void. “Aye,” he growls, a fury barely restrained in his voice, “Elek. My brothers bear souls. I care none for the dogs that think elsewise.”

And though he wishes to refute this claim, Crosshair wraps one hand around Hunter’s wrist in accord, as always he has. Never once has his ori’vod let lies spill from his teeth. There is no reason to believe he will start henceforth, least of all with such conviction blazing in his face.

The younger dips his head in a single nod, chin tipping down to the deck they stand upon with planted feet.

Slowly, Hunter exhales.

“I understand, ner vod. Truly, I do. There are days and nights, dusks and dawns when all that fills me mind is the thought of her. But she is safe. Sundered from her kin, aye, but safe.” A sorrowed smile lifts his gloomy air. “And most important is that she remains in yer thoughts. Might keep you awake at all Force-forsaken hours, but she did that when we had ‘er too.”

Crosshair huffs a rueful chuckle at the memory of little hands patting his cheeks. Ever lively, their ad’ika, and never still. To keep her sat had proven o’er and again a challenge fit for kings, feet eager to run the miles and hands willing to climb the world.

And this memory, even as it whirls in his mind’s eye as a dream of an era lost — it wounds him with such yearning to remember the child he cannot return to. The child who has seen neither sun nor moon nor the uncountable stars, who has neither stepped on dry land nor breathed the fresh air. The child who was, despite all her lacking, wonder incarnate, her laughter pure, her eyes wide and glistening, her arms ever outstretched.

“You hold her in your heart, Cross,” says his brother, all tenderness, all love. Naught else is to be found in his warm gaze, naught else in the creases around his smiling mouth and eyes.

“Aye,” breathes Crosshair at last, with weighty voice and weighty heart, “Yet what I would give to hold her in my arms.”

And great fathoms beneath the ocean, lying in her subnautical chambers, the little clone-girl whispers the selfsame prayer as she slowly drifts to sleep, alone.

[jesncin]

I appreciate most of your takes but don't understand how you look at a character like livewire, a character created in the middle of a 90's feminist movement and come to the conclusion she's supposed to a be a caricature of classical racist conservatism

?? huh is this an elaborate joke I'm missing out on?? Like you're roleplaying as a Shockateer? There's no tone indicators so I'm left to my own perception that you're being serious so I'll have to respond in seriousness. I'm gonna be so embarrassed if this is a joke :(((

So...just because a character is made "in the middle of the 90's" or "feminist movement" doesn't...mean they're a feminist character? Like with that logic, Tana Moon is a feminist icon I guess. Also "caricature of classical racist conservatism"? man, I kinda envy how people think the way I write her is Cartoony Evil Racism and not a toned down depiction of how personalities like Posie Parker, Matt Walsh, and Blaire White talk. I suppose I'm glad you haven't encountered anyone that awful. Good for you! 👍

Livewire meta under the cut fellas

I feel like you don't have a very holistic view of Livewire's character. Because while yes, she has been used for feminist critique in the show and comics, that's not all there is to her character. My take on Livewire is a commentary on how white womanhood intersects with parasocial internet grifts and the larger way identity gets filtered online. It's a take influenced by how she literally started out as a controversial provocative shock jock in STAS.

There's so much potential to re-imagine her hatred of Superman as a commentary on how white women feel justified in harassing marginalized men because it looks like a punch-up to misogyny. The way she uses the accident Superman caused as a way to white-woman-victimize herself and prime her audience to hate him more. You can take the spinoff comic where she only lets women speak on the air as her presenting a black and white, non-intersectional view of social progress. Kind of like how TERFs keep fantasizing about a world without men as a utopia? In CW Supergirl, Livewire plays into internalized misogyny and homophobia to jab at Supergirl. Not showing up for her fellow women if you ask me.

Because while yes, Leslie has been shown to be a character who had to deal with sexism, she's also a really compelling narrative for an imperfect victim. Just because a character deals with sexist hardship, doesn't mean it makes her a feminist ideal y'know? Leslie lashes out and weaponizes her victimhood, she uses her audience to bully others.

I think one of the flaws to the longevity of her character as a villain is because her narrow hatred of Supes makes her themes short lived. So I really want to expand it through Satoshi Kon-style deconstruction of how people juggle having multiple identities in the modern era. In the (bleh) Batgirl Burnside comic Livewire shows up in, she returns as a being of energy who doesn't remember who she was before. In STAS, it's left ambiguous whether she actually believes what she says about Superman or if it's all part of an act that "pays the bills!".

Imagine the opportunity to make it so she pieced together a sense of self from the fractured way her audience viewed her! What a great way to talk about how parasocial relationships make us think we know a person from the bombastic way they present themselves (Casually Comics thought of this brilliant take). DCSHG has been the most competent reimagining of Livewire. A perfect update of her shock jock origins into the internet era that revitalizes her attention-seeking traits into the clout-chasing grind of social media personality.

All this to say, Livewire's way more that just "sassy woman on the radio fighting against The Man!" I think making her a punk appropriating, rebellious, internet personality who uses her privilege to marginalize others for clout and money is a natural, more political progression of what DCSHG built with her character.

I don't really understand how you can look at a character whose most prominent iterations involve her bullying and targeting people (including other women) and tell me she's "feminist" unless you actually believe in Leslie's version of White Woman Girl Power. Any kind of "feminism" that touts Hating Men as a major point should be something to be critical of.

[blackfeathersflurry]

Things that we do not tolerate....

Let's begin, shall we? While there have been some asks coming in from those who've decided to remain anonymous, we here at @blackfeathersflurry have decided to make the stance to ignore and delete these asks and move on. However, to make things abundantly clear:

Ableism: there are those with different capabilities that differ from our own and we need to respect that. Yes, there are limitations. There are days where the pain is overwhelming or things that aren't visible are taking away ones ability to properly function. Regardless, it is not our place to mock, judge, antagonise, deny agency or otherwise. If we find any of that within the precipice of this page, you will be barred and black listed. There will be no warnings.

Racism: discussions on what micro aggressions are are perfectly normal. Performing micro aggressions and racist comments however will not be tolerated. This, like ableism is monitored very carefully. Commentary on how sensitive marginalized groups are does count as a micro aggression, and a very obvious one at that. We do not recommend that you make similar statements.

Homophobia: we are very LGBTQ+ friendly in this part of the internet. We are even LGBTQ+ ourselves. Any homophobia within our presence will be met with extreme prejudice and highly unwelcome. Much like the Shinra security at a pride parade.

Transphobia: MUW identifies as She/they. I will allow you lot to figure this one out for yourself.

Bullying:We are aware that our readers come from all walks of life. We know this. It is however the 21st century and we are doing our best to create a more accepting community. However...we do not tolerate bullies of any kind. And that includes certain members of groups who shall remain unnamed at this time. Namely groups who look like, as 00€ likes to call them, "ugly little ghost gnomes with burger and beer stains on their bed sheets and call themselves grand wizards like pretend clerics". While she is a southerner, she doesn't like being represented by those people, as they "lack proper manners". We don't even accept any of their cousin groups. Tolerating intolerance begets more intolerance. To which it then becomes a cycle.

Sexual Harassment: this one takes the cake. People are lovely. We understand. 00€ writes content and short stories to create side and filler arcs for your enjoyment. There is even a story for how I got here and it gets...🌶️🌶️🌶️ Spicy. Chapter three is in process. But circling back to sexual harassment. Say you are chatting with someone and you tell them that they are attractive. That is a compliment. Then you get a bit salacious and that person becomes uncomfortable. The situation becomes tense. They tell you to stop and you keep pushing. Then that is sexual harassment. We do not appreciate that. I'm fairly certain we don't have to repeat the no warnings bit.

We may update this list as we see fit. But for now. Enjoy yourselves. Don't be strangers.

Drink some water.

[paponela]

I *deeply* appreciate your tag commentary about Yang's bullet-taking record on that one post. I mean, it's a behavioral pattern between that flashback Ursa charge (where Ruby was clearly frozen), Beacon & the voidspace platform, but I honestly wonder if that situation gave her any more room/time for other options than it did for Blake to catch her a split second later. I mean, (a) fleeing civilians to backstop any gunfire and (b) it sure didn't look like *Ruby* would've reacted to Neo in time.

The only thing I think she could maybe have done differently was try to hit Neo instead of pushing Ruby away. But I understand that like. Maybe she though pushing Ruby away was 100% effective whereas trying to stop Neo had a margin of error that she was not willing to bet on. Or maybe she didn't even consider hitting Neo in the first place, she just thought the hit was inevitable and defaulted to take it herself bc she can handle it better. Cause you know.

I mean you know when you were a kid and played online rpgs with your friends and there was always that guy that put A LOT of their points in their hp so when there was a fight they got hit more than everyone else but that's fine because they could take it, and also they were keeping everyone else that couldn't afford that much damage safe??

Personally I think Yang's character asks a very important question that is: what if the tank of your party was the person you loved the most in your life???

Am I mean hdhshsgsjdhjd

No coherent thoughts besides that at the moment I just think about it sometimes and go insane

[mostlymovieswithmax]

Movies I watched in May

Sadly, I kind of skipped writing a post for April. It was a mad month with so much going on: lots of emails sent and lots of stress. I started a new job so I’m getting to grips with that... and even then, I still watched a bunch of movies. But this is about what I watched in May and, yeah… still a bunch. So if you’re looking to get into some other movies - possibly some you’ve thought about watching but didn’t know what they were like, or maybe like the look of something you’ve never heard of - then this may help! So here’s every film I watched from the 1st to the 31st of May 2021 Tenet (2020) - 8/10 This was my third time watching Christopher Nolan’s most Christopher Nolan movie ever and it makes no sense but I still love it. The spectacle of it all is truly like nothing I’ve ever seen. I had also watched it four days prior to this watch also, only this time I had enabled audio description for the visually impaired, thinking it would make it funny… It didn’t.

Nomadland (2020) - 6/10 Chloé Zhao’s new movie got a lot of awards attention. Everyone was hyped for this and when it got put out on Disney+ I was eager to see what all the fuss was about. Seeing these real nomads certainly gave the film an authenticity, along with McDormand’s ever-praisable acting. But generally I found it quite underwhelming and lacking a lot in its pacing. Nomadland surely has its moments of captivating cinematography and enticing commentary on the culture of these people, but it felt like it went on forever without any kind of forward direction or goal. The Prince of Egypt (1998) - 6/10 I reviewed this on my podcast, The Sunday Movie Marathon. For what it is, it’s pretty fun but nowhere near as good as some of the best DreamWorks movies.

Chinatown (1974) - 8/10 What a fantastic and wonderfully unpredictable mystery crime film! I regret to say I’ve not seen many Jack Nicholson performances but he steals the show. Despite Polanski’s infamy, it’d be a lie to claim this wasn’t truly masterful. Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) - 8/10 Admittedly I was half asleep as I curled up on the sofa to watch this again on a whim. I watched this with someone who demanded the dubbed version over the subtitled version and while I objected heavily, I knew I’d seen the movie before so it didn’t matter too much. That person also fell asleep about 20 minutes in, so how pointless an argument it was. Howl’s Moving Castle boasts superb animation, the likes of which I’ve only come to expect of Miyazaki. The story is so unique and the colours are absolutely gorgeous. This may not be my favourite from the legendary director but there’s no denying its splendour.

Bāhubali: The Beginning (2015) - 3/10 The next morning I watched some absolute trash. This crazy, over the top Indian movie is hilarious and I could perhaps recommend it if it weren’t so long. That being said, Bāhubali was not a dumpster fire; it has a lot of good-looking visual effects and it’s easy to see the ambition for this epic story, it just doesn’t come together. There’s fun to be had with how the main character is basically the strongest man in the world and yet still comes across as just a lucky dumbass, along with all the dancing that makes no sense but is still entertaining to watch. Seven Samurai (1954) - 10/10 If it wasn’t obvious already, Seven Samurai is a masterpiece. I reviewed this on The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast, so more thoughts can be found there. Red Road (2006) - 6/10 Another recommendation on episode 30 of the podcast. Red Road really captures the authentic British working class experience. Before Sunrise (1995) - 10/10 One of the best romances put to film. The first in Richard Linklater’s Before Trilogy is undoubtedly my favourite, despite its counterparts being almost equally as good. It tells the story of a young couple travelling through Europe, who happen to meet on a train and spend the day together. It is gloriously shot on location in Vienna and features some of the most interesting dialogue I’ve ever seen put to film. Heartbreakingly beautiful.

Tokyo Story (1953) - 9/10 This Japanese classic - along with being visually and sonically masterful - is a lot about appreciating the people in your life and taking the time to show them that you love them. It’s about knowing it’s never too late to rekindle old relationships if you truly want to, which is something I’ve been able to relate to in recent years. It broke my heart in two. Tokyo Story will make you want to call your mother. Before Sunset (2004) - 10/10 Almost a decade after Sunrise, Sunset carries a sombre yet relieving feeling. Again, the performances from Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke take me away, evoking nostalgic feelings as they stroll through the contemporary Parisian streets. There is no regret in me for buying the Criterion blu-ray boxset for this trilogy. Before Midnight (2013) - 10/10 Here, Linklater cements this trilogy as one of the best in film history. It’s certainly not the ending I expected, yet it’s an ending I appreciate endlessly. Because it doesn’t really end. Midnight shows the troubling times of a strained relationship; one that has endured so long and despite initially feeling almost dreamlike in how idealistically that first encounter was portrayed, the cracks appear as the film forces you to come to terms with the fact that fairy-tale romances just don’t exist. Relationships require effort and sacrifice and sometimes the ones that truly work are those that endure through all the rough patches to emerge stronger. The Holy Mountain (1973) - 10/10 Jodorowsky’s masterpiece is absolute insanity. I talked more about it on The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast.

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) - 10/10 Another watch for Grand Budapest because I bought the Criterion blu-ray. As unalterably perfect as ever. Blue Jay (2016) - 6/10 Rather good up to a point. My co-hosts and I did not agree on how good this movie was, which is a discussion you can listen to on my podcast. Shadow and Bone: The Afterparty (2021) - 3/10 For what it’s worth, I really enjoyed the first season of Shadow and Bone, which is why I wanted to see what ‘The Afterparty’ was about. This could have been a lot better and much less annoying if all those terrible comedians weren’t hosting and telling bad jokes. I don’t want to see Fortune Feimster attempt to tell a joke about oiling her body as the cast of the show sit awkwardly in their homes over Zoom. If it had simply been a half hour, 45 minute chat with the cast and crew about how they made the show and their thoughts on it, a lot of embarrassment and time-wasting could have been spared. Wadjda (2012) - 6/10 Another recommendation discussed at length on The Sunday Movie Marathon. Wadjda was pretty interesting from a cultural perspective but largely familiar in terms of story structure.

Freddy Got Fingered (2001) - 2/10 A truly terrible movie with maybe one or two scenes that stop it from being a complete catastrophe. Tom Green tried to create something that almost holds a middle finger to everyone who watches it and to some that could be a fun experience, but to me it just came across as utterly irritating. It’s simply a bunch of scenes threaded together with an incredibly loose plot. He wears the skin of a dead deer, smacks a disabled woman over and over again on the legs to turn her on, and he swings a newborn baby around a hospital room by its umbilical cord (that part was actually pretty funny). I cannot believe I watched this again, although I think I repressed a lot of it since having seen it for the first time around five years ago. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 - (2011) I have to say, these movies seem to get better with each instalment. They’re still not very good though. That being said, I’m amazed at how many times I’ve watched each of the Twilight movies at this point. This time around, I watched Breaking Dawn - Part 1 with a YMS commentary track on YouTube and that made the experience a lot more entertaining. Otherwise, this film is super dumb but pretty entertaining. I would recommend watching these movies with friends. Solaris (1972) - 8/10 Andrei Tarkovsky’s grand sci-fi epic about the emotional crises of a crew on the space station orbiting the fictional planet Solaris is much as strange and creepy as you might expect from the master Russian auter. I had wanted to watch this for a while so I bought the Criterion blu-ray and it’s just stunning. It’s clear to see the 2001: A Space Odyssey inspiration but Solaris is quite a different beast entirely. Jaws (1975) - 4/10 I really tried to get into this classic movie, but Jaws exhibits basically everything I don’t like about Steven Spielberg’s directing. For sure, the effects are crazily good but the story itself is poorly handled and largely uninteresting. It was just a massive slog to get through.

Darkman (1990) - 6/10 Sam Raimi’s superhero movie is so much fun, albeit massively stupid. Further discussion on Darkman can be found on episode 32 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast. Darkman II: The Return of Durant (1995) - 1/10 Abysmal. I forgot the movie as I watched it. This was part of a marathon my friends and I did for episode 32 of our podcast. Darkman III: Die Darkman Die (1996) - 1/10 Perhaps this trilogy is not so great after all. Only marginally better than Darkman II but still pretty terrible. More thoughts on episode 32 of my podcast. F For Fake (1973) - 8/10 Rewatching this proved to be a worthwhile decision. Albeit slightly boring, there’s no denying how crazy the story of this documentary about art forgers is. The standout however, is the director himself. Orson Welles makes a lot of this film about himself and how hot his girlfriend is and it is hilarious.

The Mitchells vs. The Machines (2021) - 4/10 More style over substance, Sony’s new animated adventure wants so much to be in trend with the current internet culture but it simply doesn’t understand what it’s emulating. There’s a nyan cat reference, for crying out loud. For every joke that works, there are about ten more that do not and were it not for the wonderful animation, it simply wouldn’t be getting so much praise. Taxi Driver (1976) - 10/10 The first movie I’ve seen in a cinema since 2020 and damn it was good to be back! I’ve already reviewed Taxi Driver in my March wrap-up but seeing it in the cinema was a real treat. Irreversible (2002) - 8/10 One of the most viscerally horrendous experiences I’ve ever had while watching a movie. I cannot believe a friend of mine gave me the DVD to watch. More thoughts on episode 32 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast. Don’t watch it with the family. The Golden Compass (2007) - 1/10 I had no recollection of this being as bad as it is. The Golden Compass is the definition of a factory mandated movie. Nothing it does on its own is worth any kind of merit. I would say, if you wanted an experience like what this tries to communicate, a better option by far is the BBC series, His Dark Materials. More of my thoughts can be found in the review I wrote on Letterboxd.

Antichrist (2009) - 8/10 Lars von Trier is nothing if not provocative and I can understand why someone would not like Antichrist, but I enjoyed it quite a lot. After watching it, I wrote a slightly disjointed summary of my interpretations of this highly metaphorical movie in the group chat, so fair warning for a bit of spoilers and graphic descriptions: It's like, the patriarchy, man! Oppression! Men are the rational thinkers with big brains and the women just cry and be emotional. So she's seen as crazy when she's smashing his cock and driving a drill through his leg to keep him weighted down. Like, how does he like it, ya know? So then she mutilates herself like she did with him and now they're both wounded, but the animals crowd around her (and the crow that he couldn't kill because it's Mother nature, not Father nature, duh). Then he kills her, even though she could've killed him loads of times but didn't. So it's like "haha big win for the man who was subjected to such horrific torture. Victory!" And then all the women with no faces come out of the woods because it's like a constant cycle. Manchester By The Sea (2016) - 6/10 Great performances in this super sad movie. I can’t say I got too much out of it though. Roar (1981) - 9/10 Watching Roar again was still as terrifying an experience as the first time. If you want to watch something that’s loose on plot with poor acting but with real big cats getting in the way of production and physically attacking people, look no further. This is the scariest movie I’ve ever seen because it’s all basically real. Cannot recommend it enough. Eyes Without A Face (1960) - 8/10 I’m glad I checked this old French movie out again. There’s a lot to marvel at in so many aspects, what with the premise itself - a mad surgeon taking the faces from unsuspecting women and transplanting them onto another - being incredibly unique for the time. Short, sweet and entertaining!

Se7en (1995) - 10/10 The first in a David Fincher marathon we did for The Sunday Movie Marathon, episode 33. Zodiac (2007) - 10/10 Second in the marathon, as it was getting late, we decided to watch half that evening and the last half on the following evening. Zodiac is a brilliant movie and you can hear more of my thoughts on the podcast (though I apologise; my audio is not the best in this episode). Gone Girl (2014) - 10/10 My favourite Fincher movie. More insights into this masterpiece in episode 33 of the podcast. Friends: The Reunion (2021) - 6/10 It was heartwarming to see the old actors for this great show together again. I talked about the Friends reunion film at length in episode 33 of my podcast.

Wolfwalkers (2020) - 10/10 I reviewed this in an earlier post but would like to reiterate just how wonderful Wolfwalkers is. If you get the chance, please see it in the cinema. I couldn’t stop crying from how beautiful it was. Raya and The Last Dragon (2021) - 6/10 After watching Wolfwalkers, I decided I didn’t want to go home. So I had lunch in town and booked a ticket for Disney’s Raya and The Last Dragon. A child was coughing directly behind me the entire time. Again, I reviewed this in an earlier post but generally it was decent but I have so many problems with the execution. The Princess Bride (1987) - 9/10 Clearly I underrated this the last time I watched it. The Princess Bride is warm and hilarious with some delightfully memorable characters. A real classic!

The Invisible Kid (1988) - 1/10 About as good as you’d expect a movie with that name to be, The Invisible Kid was a pick for The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast, the discussion for which you can listen to in episode 34. Babel (2006) - 9/10 The same night that I watched The Invisible Kid, I watched a masterful and dour drama from the director of Birdman and The Revenant. Babel calls back to an earlier movie of Iñárritu’s, called Amores Perros and as I was informed while we watched this for the podcast, it turns out Babel is part of a trilogy alongside the aforementioned film. More thoughts in episode 34 of the podcast. Snake Eyes (1998) - 1/10 After feeling thoroughly emotionally wiped out after Babel, we immediately watched another recommendation for the podcast: Snake Eyes, starring Nicolas Cage. This was a truly underwhelming experience and for more of a breakdown into what makes this movie so bad, you can listen to us talk about it on the podcast.

[i-draws-dinosaurs]

Alright it's Tumblrfy Wrapped time I'm gonna do a commentary to make it marginally less boring

I posted 370 times in 2021

80 posts created (22%), 290 posts reblogged (78%). For every post I created, I reblogged 3.6 posts.

[I legitimately could not have guessed this I don't keep track of it but like hey, 80 original posts is not bad!]

I added 425 tags in 2021

#paleoart - 56 posts

#palaeontology - 53 posts

#paleontology - 53 posts

#palaeoart - 52 posts

#palaeoblr - 50 posts

#my art - 44 posts

#dinosaurs - 43 posts

#digital art - 31 posts

#dinosaur - 22 posts

#star wars - 21 posts

Longest Tag: 114 characters

#i feel very strongly about this issue but i absolutely understand the feelings behind wanting extinct species back

[Self care is not wanting to check the notes on the mammoth cloning post]

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

I will never again achieve the level of Raw Power I had as a 10 year old child trying to convince an Actual Palaeontologist that a fake dinosaur I made up was actually real and he’d “just never heard of it”

1857 notes • Posted 2021-03-12 04:22:22 GMT

[Absolutely iconic of childhood me, please read this post to see an absolutely hilarious masterpiece of a powerpoint presentation by child Tas full of misremembered facts and outright falsehoods]

#4

See the full post

2295 notes • Posted 2021-10-18 05:45:09 GMT

[Did not expect people to vibe so hard with this one!! It took off on tumblr and Instagram so like there's the middle of your venn diagram of what those two have in common. Still not gonna make another one though cause that was a Task to research]

#3

David Armsby’s ‘Old Buck’: A Review

So by now most of you are probably aware of the short film Old Buck by David Armsby (AKA Dead Sound) that came out today and has singlehanded become one of the best pieces of dinosaur media I have ever seen in my life. I haven’t really done a review-format-type-thing before but this really make me want to give it a shot. So, in advance, my short review is that this film is absolutely incredible, and you should all go and watch it a million times over like I have. Now, to say that in a much more long-winded way!

See the full post

2934 notes • Posted 2021-09-10 11:59:06 GMT

[Genuinely super proud of this one and I'm still absolutely in love with the Dinosauria series! The third episode dropped recently and you should absolutely go watch it! I've got a review for that one in the works too]

#2

Important Science News Update

A new pterosaur has just been described!! It’s called Kunpengopterus, it’s from the Jurassic of China, and it has,,,

Opposable thumbs??? 

[official release artwork by Chuang Zhao]

See the full post

3062 notes • Posted 2021-04-15 01:30:56 GMT

[Oh hey this is the one post on this list that I totally forgot that I made, still absolutely love this little guy! A clarification though, the genus Kunpengopterus existed before this year and the news here is about a new species of that genus called Kunpengopterus antipollicatus]

#1

We give a lot of grief to dinosaurs with dumb boring names like Australotitan or even dumber stupid names like Thanos. But I think it’s time to point some appreciation towards dinosaur names that are just, so good, man. 

Like, take Galeamopus. Pretty standard-sounding Latin name there but nope, turns out the authors were on some insane 4th-dimensional chess nonsense with this name.

See the full post

4525 notes • Posted 2021-08-17 09:00:55 GMT

[Galeamopus post my beloved. I'm so proud of this one and so pleased that it resonated with everyone!! If you haven't read this one before please check it out, it's genuinely one of my favourite posts that I've ever made and it being in the top spot this year makes me really happy!]

[Thank so much for another wonderful year on tumblr everyone! I've had some great moments and it's been so great to hear from all of you and to see the excitement that you have for learning and palaeontology and science in general!]

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[renaroo]

Other History? More Like Other MYSTERY

as in it’s a MYSTERY how the hell this got past an editor the week before Pride Month are you fucking kidding me?

I was kind of hoping for more than like... a week of being back on tumblr before I breathed fire and ripped a comic book to shreds. But we all know why I’m here.

There are so many preemptive things to get out of the way before I rip into this thing...

John Ridley as a writer in other forms of media has been incredibly accomplished and an important additional voice to entertainment industries. I do not wish to take away from that or to minimize the impact of voices like his.

But, you know, he’s a voice in media. Not the end-all, be-all to all marginalized people worldwide who can substitute his perspective for any nonwhite straight male voice. And I don’t think that has ever been more apparent than the continued spiral down the drain that has been every issue of The Other History of the DC Universe since the first. 

DC’s “new” approach to everything being canon and everything mattering is dumb and filled to the brim with ways it’s going to backfire and reveal itself to be the eye sore of publications that it’s aiming for, but I was curious to see how they would try to incorporate these characters’ long and contentious histories in the comics with the real world issues they often were billed to tackle, and try to fit it into the current pop culture landscape. That was the whole reason I had my eye on this comic to begin with.

By the second issue we were getting some stark warning signs because as much as I appreciated hearing an authentic perspective on how the Teen Titans brand carried on while neglecting its landmark Black teen heroes (Mal Duncan and Karen Beecher), there was a note of cruelty added to the issue that felt otherwise misplaced and uncharacteristic of the tone being set. 

There was no reason to have a significant portion of that issue dedicated to Mal and Karen’s monologues taking some aggressive words out on Roy Harper specifically for being an addict. 

Perhaps it was a quirk of writing from a flawed perspective or a show of how righteous upset and anger could be turned outward to other people suffering in a vy for your own empowerment. 

I’m now pretty sure that wasn’t it at all. I’m pretty sure because it kept getting worse every issue and it’s culminated in today’s issue where the retelling of Renee Montoya’s story managed to be petty, cruel, shockingly pro-police brutality int its adulation of Jim Gordon and especially Harvey Bullock, and managed to make a well-rounded and very beloved Latina lesbian and just retrofit every stereotype she never had before to her without regard for what it did to her story or to the stories of people around her. 

Honestly, lapsed faith and a poke at the damage that Catholic guilt can have on especially queer believers is kind of my jam, so it’s not that I wouldn’t be down for a story with that perspective. I could even understand exploring that with Renee. But not at the expense of her established history.

Which is a question all of its own. Here we have the skeletal structure of Renee’s life events that we have read before (in much better stories), but they are surprisingly out of order and also shockingly twisted in a way to make EVERYONE as unpleasant as possible. 

And in a way that has convinced me that either John Ridley has never read comics featuring Renee, or that he was mandated to change things that had no business being changed.

According to this issue Renee hated Batman and other superheroes? Which, ah, I don’t even know where that could come from. Ever since the animated series where she got started, Renee’s whole bag has been “the acolyte of Jim Gordon, only other cop who supports Batman”. Like I don’t even know how you get around that.

But according to Ridley she’s hated them all along as an extension of her internalized homophobia and self-loathing. Great.

What follows out of that is that apparently? Renee and Batman specifically butted heads over wanting to rehabilitate Harvey Dent? As in Renee wanted to help him and BATMAN was the one flipping out and saying Harvey was a sociopath and couldn’t be helped.

Like. I’m starting to question if Ridley has read Batman comics before. I don’t know where that interpretation could possibly come from? Bruce and Harvey were friends? Bruce has always held out hope for saving Harvey from his psychosis? It’s like. THE storyline for Two-Face.

The cop stuff... I don’t really know how to talk about the cop stuff to be completely honest. If you mention the LA Riots on one page and a few pages later try to frame it so that over policing and methods of brutality weren’t a thing until 9/11... I don’t know what to say to you. 

I’d say maybe I was being ungenerous here except there were two characters who got entire full page spreads about what good cops they were. And one of them was goddamn Harvey Bullock with the explicit commentary that Renee USED to be uncomfortable with his torture methods and general brutality but figured it was “okay” because he knew how “innocent people screamed different” and that he “never collared someone and it didn’t stick” because. Y’know. Police violence and falsifying evidence never go hand in hand. what the actual fuck ever right?

The timeline for Renee and Kate’s relationship is also completely changed which means that we get to add a trope I just LOVE as a lesbian personally, which is that lesbians can’t keep relationships and can’t keep from cheating on their loving partners. Especially when they are butch. 

And I’m not talking about Renee cheating on Kate. Oh, no. Ridley decided Kate was the Other Woman during Renee’s relationship with Daria. 

And just.. the cruel commentary that Renee had about both Kate and Daria throughout. It made my skin crawl. The way she talked about other women in general made my skin crawl. “Uncomplicated women” “Broken souls” “Can’t be with someone better than yourself”

So I actually planned to go into a full rage post about just the queer content because 1. my lane and 2. it honestly affected me so bad I was shaking and tearing up in anger a bit. Every single friend I know who loves Kate and Renee, see themselves in Kate and Renee, have been the same kind of mess I am after this.

The NASTINESS of the internal monologue. I don’t know how to explain it more than this is how poorly men think of flf and to have one use a character so meaningful to the community to spout this hatefulness has revolted me in a way I... haven’t had happen to me for a while.

I was going to talk about the weirdness of just... randomly deciding to retcon Renee’s parents into being undocumented when that’s never been a thing before and just doing NOTHING with it the whole while after. Or how it’s pretty questionable how Renee suddenly became so adherently Catholic when it’s never been portrayed like that before (that’s Hel B’s bag, JPV if you squint) but it’s entwined with any of her commentary on her ethnicity p sus too but I don’t have the nuance for that discussion right now.

Rena Rants are back and what a fucking JOKE this comic was. 

I didn’t pay for it and neither should you.

P.S. bringing back Tim Fox and calling him “Jace” is dumb as fuck too

[miniwolfsbane]

Whose your favorite character throughout all the series? In The Original Series? Next Gen? Voyager? DS9? Enterprise? Discovery?

Tuvok, but Janeway is a close second and I have a big soft spot for Harry Kim. Data is great too. (yeah, very common answer, I'm sure.)

Haven't watched enough TOS to form character opinions yet. TNG? Beverly, beating out Data by a small margin (she seems the most humanized and I don't fangirl her that hard, but I don't loathe any one character either.) See above. Uhh...three way tie between Jadzia, Julian and Quark. Have barely seen ENT. Mixed feelings on DISCO, but Saru and Tilly. Can't choose between them!

Is there a series you can't stand, why?

Not so much can't stand, but Discovery wasn't the best ever.

If you could be a character for one day who would you choose and why?

Probably none of them. Too stressful. But if I had to, B'Elanna Torres when she was single.

Tell us your favorite scene or memory from the series or fandom.

When Voy was being touted as the new kid and they did cast interviews, my mom told my dad "Look honey, a black Vulcan!" XD Some months later, he was their new instant fictional son-in-law AKA my crush. (It didn't last long and I was 11. It still weirds me out why the frick I was crushing on a grown man at that age.)

What are positives of the fandom?

Willing to share information and give honest opinions, but I haven't seen that much of it until recently, being on reddit now.

What are negatives of the fandom? And ways you would change it?

Too brutally honest. As with every fandom, no fan wars, everyone play nice!

Whose your favorite captain?

Depends. As nostalgia bait and a win for women, Janeway. As an actual Captain? Picard, but Sisko might be a close second because I cave and the fans are right, he's a dang fine captain.

Settle the debate____ (asker asks their own question)

Huh? Uh...Is Harry Kim more Interesting than Geordi LaForge? (Harry has gotten so much hate on Reddit and in videos I've seen lately. Makes ma a sad panda.)

What character do you most emulate?

Purposely, none at the moment. But in childhood, if I got the sudden urge to be too giggly in public, I'd pretend I was a Vulcan.

Headcannons on a character.

I decided all Boleans are just weirdly great at cutting hair. Would explain how everyone is getting their haircut on Voy, and Janeways many, many stylish hairdo's throughout seven whole seasons.

If you could choose what planet would you live on and why?

Mayyyybe Risa? Because it's so tropical.

If you could choose what species would you like to be, why?

Eh, would still like to be human, but NGL, being a Klingon would be the shiznit...except for all the violence...and the food. But being the race no one wants to take in a fight? Nice!

What's an aspect of the fandom, series that resonates with you?

Fandom, IDK. But the series? Universal peace, hope for the future, and, considering the times, humanity actually getting intelligent enough to pilot starships. (headcannon that they got smarter as time went on and not dumber.)

If you could write a episode or book on the series what characters would you pick and what would be the plotline?

4 way crossover somehow between Voy, DS9, Lower Decks and TNG. LD kinda already did this, but not all in one episode.

What are your views on the politics in star trek?

No real opinion on it, but I will say it makes for good drama.

What are your views on the actors in the series, is there something they do that demotes/promotes the representation of the series or characters?

Rewatching as an adult, B'Elanna's actress' performance and character wanted me to get more in touch with my bi-racial heritage (as she did for a lot of people). Appreciation for all the Asian representation in two series, even if I am not Asian. Not sure if I can think of anything that demotes off hand, except reading Garret Wang had lots of commentary on The Doctor's character development that was negative, so that's a bit sad.

Character you can't stand?

Neelix and (just because he's poorly written, NOTHING to do with race!) Geordi LaForge.

What has star trek taught you?

What the Hippocratic Oath was, equality, how to be a great leader, being feminine and strong, and a bajillion other things too much to list here.

What's your favorite series?

Voyager.

Do you have any fan art, fan fiction that you would share with followers?

Made The Doctor on Character AI because there wasn't one at the time. https://character.ai/profile/Mini-Wolfsbane

Nothin else worth mentioning unless you want a weird computer graphic doll of me fangirling Tuvok I made in, like, 2011 or something.

The most realistic character?

Either Tilly or Harry. Or The Doctor. It's hard to pick.

KMK 3 names

Kiss Harry

Marry Julian

Kill Riker (he's not as slick as he seems and doesn't really do it for me.)

Who do you ship yourself with?

Some AU version of Tuvok that's single. (Doing this now in character AI. I have to keep editing because the bot makes him smile and stuff, but he's mostly in character.) Outside of that, definitely Julian Bashir.

Top 10 ships

Don't even have 10, but anyone that makes anyone I've mentioned happy. I have a bit of a soft spot for Janekotay, and I ship Seven/Harry soooo hardddddd!!!!! (Or at least get enthusiastic about it) He deserved someone and that would have been nice. They teased us with 0 payoff. (Never mind all the flack harry gets for being boring.)

If you could cosplay as someone from the series who would it be?

Some chubby version of Ezri Dax because we're both smol, adorable happy beans, but I'd also do some background female Klingon in metal garb if I had an unlimited budget. Mayyyybe B'Elanna? But she ranks like low middle on my list of favorite characters, but she's so awesome at the same time.

✨Star Trek Ask Game✨

Give Worf some tea 😉

Whose your favorite character throughout all the series? In The Original Series? Next Gen? Voyager? DS9? Enterprise? Discovery?

Is there a series you can't stand, why?

If you could be a character for one day who would you choose and why?

Tell us your favorite scene or memory from the series or fandom

What are positives of the fandom?

What are negatives of the fandom? And ways you would change it

Whose your favorite captain?

Settle the debate____ (asker asks their own question)

What character do you most emulate?

Headcannons on a character

If you could choose what planet would you live on and why?

If you could choose what species would you like to be, why?

What's an aspect of the fandom, series that resonates with you?

If you could write a episode or book on the series what characters would you pick and what would be the plotline?

What are your views on the politics in star trek?

What are your views on the actors in the series, is there something they do that demotes/promotes the representation of the series or characters?

Character you can't stand?

What has star trek taught you?

What's your favorite series?

Do you have any fan art, fan fiction that you would share with followers

The most realistic character?

FMK 3 names

Who do you ship yourself with?

Top 10 ships

If you could cosplay as someone from the series who would it be?

[iamanartichoke]

Hello Charlotte.

I wanted to say thank you for interacting with me on your blog. You've been in the fandom for so long, it feels kind of surreal we're mutuals ^^.

But more important, interacting with your posts opened a window out of my echo chamber and I ended up having civil discussions with poeple who were previously in my block list. It really made me reflect on how I have been dealing with fandom negativity as a whole (not only Loki).

I think it's easy to make blanket statements about the "other side", and vague call out posts about the "puritans" who want to take away our sweet enemies to lovers trope and sanitize any thought provoking world building in fiction. When we're scared of other poeple's opinions, we are very quick at clutching our pearls.

But the truth is, we don't have the same response to fiction, and some discussions made me go "WTF, did they watch an alternate timeline version of that show ????". Or simply realising we don't apply the same social role or moral values to fiction. And you know what ? That's okay. As long as you don't go and attack other poeple online. I guess all sides are a guilty of that, and I would lie if I said I have never made an unwanted commentary on a post, even formulated politely.

Hope the fandom won't put you under too much stress and things won't go brrr again when Thor 4 and Loki 2 come out.

I'm not gonna lie, I read this a couple of times searching for the but. "Thanks for interacting with me, it's been real, but imma have to unfollow/check out now for Reasons." So that was special, lmao.

No, but, in all seriousness, this is such a lovely message to receive, and I really appreciate it. I'm really glad that I was able to, in some small way, contribute to an atmosphere that fostered discussion and open-mindedness, as opposed to wank and hate. Tumblr very much can be an echo chamber (on both sides of an argument), and I wish that we could step outside of it a little more often because even if, ultimately, you don't agree with someone else's take, you can definitely come away from the conversation with a new perspective or understanding of where the other person is coming from. And also, sometimes it's just fun to lob ideas (and even 'disagreements') back and forth. One of the things I miss the most about being a student (ie an English major) is those classroom discussions, where people shared their responses/opinions to a story, and sometimes a bit of debate would be sparked but there was no animosity or ad hominem shenanigans going on, just analysis.

So, yeah. I'm also glad that you were able to talk to people that you had previously blocked; not to make it all about me but I've been blocked by a lot of "pro series" people I've never spoken to just due to (I'm assuming) my more critical takes as well as who my mutuals were, and sometimes I do feel like, yknow, I wish that person had engaged with me and maybe had a discussion with me instead of just dismissing me entirely. Each time it happens, it makes the fandom feel a bit narrower. But it is what it is. And that's just to say that, as someone who's been on the other side of the "block and move on" table, it's nice and encouraging to see those narrow margins widening again, in however small a way.

But yeah, overall I agree with you - not everyone is going to have the same response to fiction, and that's why it's so important to remember how subjective fiction is when we're engaging with it. Fiction isn't only subjective and, yes, some takes are probably more "correct" than others (for example, Person A may have read the Great Gatsby and come away from it thinking it's a love story, whereas Person B came away from it thinking it's about the lie of the American Dream, and one of those readings is wrong), but the lines are very blurry bc so much of fiction relies on figurative language, for example, or metaphors, or reading between the lines. Two people will read the exact same book (or watch the exact same show) and come away from it with wildly different interpretations, and it becomes harmful and causes wank when people forget that it's completely fine to have those different interpretations (with some caveats; for example, if Person A comes away from The Great Gatsby thinking it's a love story, and being able to back that up with how they interpreted the text, but then going on to claim that the story is immoral and harmful bc it frames Daisy and Gatsby's relationship as romantic and no one should read The Great Gatsby anymore, for example, that's ... a little less fine. But that's a whole other topic.). That being said, attacking people over it isn't the right way to go about addressing it, and it is very easy to get caught up in the "them vs us" mentality and throw out blanket statements and vagueposts and the like. I'm as guilty of it as anyone.

/babbling. But, yeah. I whole-heartedly agree with you and am really glad you've joined the fandom and I've been able to get to know you a bit. You get it. (Incidentally, I hope it's okay that I answer this publicly; I always get anons so I never know if people who send asks off anon do so bc they want a private answer. Please let me know if that's the case.)

[tobi-smp]

well ! to describe the situation briefly, someone reposted one of my posts talking about the recent harassment campaign for technoblade and were (naturally) harassed into deleting that reupload because twitter is just a knife tornado hungry for their next victim

this is upsetting for a lot of reasons (the perpetuation of this cycle of harassment and abuse even on the small scale being the most important), but what I felt was actually my place to comment on in this particular situation (it’s not my place to speak for the affected person) was to address how the blatant use of bad faith interpretation used to interpret any person or content that the twitter hate mob wants Removed as bigoted or problematic was Blatantly used to force someone to remove my commentary on this Exact phenomenon. and the fact that I both pointed out the ableism in the technoblade situation And faced ableism for pointing it out Sure Says A Lot about the current climate of the situation.

I use twitter pretty rarely and when I do it’s not really dream smp focused, so I’d appreciate it if people who feel safe spreading it around on twitter would do so would do so: (Link) but just passing it around here is totally fine. note: I didn’t use any screenshots or names for anyone or anything except myself because I’m not here to put anyone on blast.

Here’s a comprehensive list of my posts on the techno situation up until now: (Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4)

and I’ll have a text version of my response/explanation under the cut

The entire point of my post is that people, namely the original creator of the thread but Many Many More, were making smaller but objective allegations (things that are objectively true, like techno making a joke on twitter asking if hitler is a lesbian) and mixing it in with Far Harsher allegations that take reading a situation in blatant bad faith to interpret it the way that they have and treating them Both with the exact same weight. 

Doing so both enables people to bolster the smaller allegations (it’s much easier for people to care about the objectively provable things if they can also buy into the idea that he’s either genuinely racist or just out and out cruel) And it uses the smaller allegations to retroactively strengthen the case against technoblade in these stronger allegations (it’s much easier to accept that technoblade had intended for this to be a joke when you list it Alongside a laundry list of edge humor that paints him in a bad light presented with commentary on how he’s an objectively awful person).

One Of the points I made was Not that technoblade has adhd so therefore we can’t criticize him, that is a surface level bad faith reading of what I said and just overall poor comprehension of the post itself, but that the fandom has a history of treating technoblade in ableist ways, particularly when it comes to reading his tone but far and beyond that as well. The cherry picking and blatant misinterpretation of the literal only point in which I mention his neurodivergency to discredit the point I’m making is literally just proving my argument for me. People are willfully using bad faith interpretation to justify stronger allegations that make their criticisms look better so they can strong arm people into acting how they want them to act and doing what they want them to do. People want to force technoblade fans to shun him and force technoblade into a position under them so they take an instance where his tone is blunt while trying to share a petition get justice for george floyd and they overtly and unashamedly interpret it as him mocking the death of a black man so they can shame him and the people who support him with accusations of racism. People see a take they don’t like defending a man they’ve decided is bad so they take the only mention of adhd in the post and twist it into coddling people with adhd to excuse racism to pressure and shame the reuploader into taking it down and apologizing. It’s weaponizing marginalized people to use as blunt objects to hurt someone, which damn well isn’t activism.

When I, as a person with adhd, autism, and anxiety, recognize when largely (not entirely but Largely) neurotypical people are taking advantage of the flexibility in how tone can be read to clearly come to an unfair conclusion intended solely to hurt someone and I recognize that tactics like this leaves neurodivergent people particularly vulnerable it is not your place to tell me that I’m “babying people with adhd.” recognizing bigotry against people like me is not babying and reducing it down to that is ableist, Point Blank.

At any rate, the point I was making with the end of my post was Not that technoblade is excused from having to apologize because he has adhd. It was pointing out the fact that the conflation of provable minor offenses with major offenses that he’d Have to defend himself against Because they’re bad faith readings of what he said creates a situation where he both Can’t address the situation in its entirety without leaving himself vulnerable for more misinterpretation and harassment And can’t take anything that’s been brought up in good faith (meaning that he Very Understandably wouldn’t feel comfortable addressing it when he’s well aware that it exists for the entire purpose of harassing him).

Disagree with that point, agree with it, whatever. Just don’t paint it as something that it’s not just so you can tear it down easier and harass people over it. Genuinely it is disgusting to me that my words were used as a tool to hurt someone else and people should feel ashamed for what they’ve done. They won’t, but they should.

[paenling]

no ones saying you cant enjoy daniil? people like him as a character but mostly Because he’s an asshole and he’s interesting. the racism and themes of colonization in patho are so blatant

nobody said “by order of Law you are forbidden from enjoying daniil dankovsky in any capacity”, but they did say “if you like daniil dankovsky you are abnormal, problematic, and you should be ashamed of yourself”, so i’d call that an implicit discouragement at the least. not very kind.

regardless, he is a very interesting asshole and we love to make fun of him! but i do not plan to stop seeing his character in an empathetic light when appropriate to do so. we’re all terribly human.

regarding “the racism and themes of colonization in patho”, we’ve gotta have a sit-down for this one because it’s long and difficult. tl;dr here.

i’ve written myself all back and forth and in every direction trying to properly pin down the way i feel about this in a way that is both logically coherent and emotionally honest, but it’s not really working. i debated even responding at all, but i do feel like there are some things worth saying so i’m just going to write a bunch of words, pick a god, and pray it makes some modicum of sense.

the short version: pathologic 2 is a flawed masterwork which i love deeply, but its attempts to be esoteric and challenging have in some ways backfired when it comes to topical discussions such as those surrounding race, which the first game didn’t give its due diligence, and the second game attempted with incomplete success despite its best efforts.

the issue is that when you have a game that is so niche and has these “elevated themes” and draws from all this kind of academic highbrow source material -- the fandom is small, but the fandom consists of people who want to analyze, pathologize, and dissect things as much as possible. so let’s do that.

first: what exactly is racist or colonialist in pathologic? i’m legitimately asking. people at home: by what mechanism does pathologic-the-game inflict racist harm on real people? the fact that the Kin are aesthetically and linguistically inspired by the real-world Buryat people (& adjacent groups) is a potential red flag, but as far as i can tell there’s never any value judgement made about either the fictionalized Kin or the real-world Buryat. the fictional culture is esoteric to the player -- intended to be that way, in fact -- but that’s not an inherently bad thing. it’s a closed practice and they’re minding their business.

does it run the risk of being insensitive with sufficiently aggressive readings? absolutely, but i don’t think that’s racist by itself. they’re just portrayed as a society of human beings (and some magical ones, if you like) that has flaws and incongruences just as the Town does. it’s not idealizing or infantilizing these people, but by no means does it go out of its way to villainize them either. there is no malice in this depiction of the Kin. 

is it the fact that characters within both pathologic 1 & 2 are racist? that the player can choose to say racist things when inhabiting those characters? no, because pathologic-the-game doesn’t endorse those things. they’re throwaway characterization lines for assholes. acknowledging that racism exists does not make a media racist. see more here.

however, i find it’s very important to take a moment and divorce the racial discussions in a game like pathologic 2 from the very specific experiences of irl western (particularly american) racism. it’s understandable for such a large chunk of the english-speaking audience to read it that way; it makes sense, but that doesn’t mean it’s correct. although it acknowledges the relevant history to some extent, on account of being set in 1915, pathologic 2 is not intended to be a commentary about race, and especially not current events, and especially especially not current events in america. it’s therefore unfair, in my opinion, to attempt to diagnose it with any concrete ideology or apply its messages to an american racial paradigm.

it definitely still deals with race, but it always, to me, seemed to come back around the exploitation of race as an ultimately arbitrary division of human beings, and the story always strove to be about human beings far more than it was ever about race. does it approach this topic perfectly? no, but it’s clearly making an effort. should we be aware of where it fails to do right by the topic? yes, definitely, but we should also be charitable in our interpretations of what the writers were actually aiming for, rather than reactionarily deeming them unacceptable and leaving it at that. do we really think the writers for pathologic 2 sat down and said “we’re going to go out of our way to be horrible racists today”? i don’t.

IPL’s writing team is a talented lot, and dybowski as lead writer has the kinds of big ideas that elevate a game to a work of art, particularly because he’s not afraid to get personal. on that front, some discussion is inescapable as pathologic 2 deals in a lot of racial and cultural strife, because it’s clearly something near to the his heart, but as i understand it was never really meant to be a narrative “about” race, at least not exclusively so, and especially not in the same sense as the issue is understood by the average American gamer. society isn't a monolith and the contexts are gonna change massively between different cultures who have had, historically, much different relationships with these concepts.

these themes are “so blatant” in pathologic 2 because clearly, on some level, IPL wanted to start a discussion. I think it’s obvious that they wanted to make the audience uncomfortable with the choices they were faced with and the characters they had to inhabit -- invoke a little ostranenie, as it were, and force an emotional breaking point. in the end the game started a conversation and i think that’s something that was done in earnest, despite its moments of obvious clumsiness. 

regarding colonialism, this is another thing that the game is just Not About. we see the effects and consequences of colonialism demonstrated in the world of pathologic, and it’s something we’re certainly asked to think about from time to time, but the actual plot/narrative of the game is not about overcoming or confronting explicitly colonialist constructs, etc. i personally regard this as a bit of a missed opportunity, but it’s just not what IPL was going for.

instead they have a huge focus, as discussed somewhat in response to this ask, on the broader idea of powerful people trying to create a “utopia” at the mortal cost of those they disempower, which is almost always topical as far as i’m concerned, and also very Russian.

i think there was some interview where it was said that the second game was much more about “a mechanism that transforms human nature” than the costs of utopia, but it’s still a persistent enough theme to be worth talking about both as an abstraction of colonialism as well as in its more-likely intended context through the lens of wealth inequality, environmental destruction & government corruption as universal human issues faced by the marginalized classes. i think both are important and intelligent readings of the text, and both are worth discussion.

both endings of pathologic 2 involve sacrifice in the name of an “ideal world” where it’s impossible to ever be fully satisfied. in the Diurnal Ending, Artemy is tormented over the fate of the Kin and the euthanasia of his dying god and all her miracles, but he needs to have faith that the children he’s protected will grow up better than their parents and create a world where he and his culture will be immortalized in love. in the Nocturnal Ending, he’s horrified because in preserving the miracle-bound legacy of his people as a collective, he’s un-personed himself to the individuals he loves, but he needs to have faith that the uniqueness and magic of the resurrected Earth was precious enough to be worth that sacrifice. neither ending is fair. it’s not fair that he can’t have both, but that’s the idea. because that “utopia” everyone’s been chasing is an idol that distracts from the important work of being a human being and doing your best in a flawed world. 

because pathologic’s themes as a series are so very “Russian turn-of-the-century” and draw a ton of stylistic and topical inspiration from the theatre and literature of that era, i don’t doubt that it’s also inherited some of its inspirational literature’s missteps. however, because the game’s intertextuality is so incredibly dense it’s difficult to construct a super cohesive picture of its actual messaging. a lot of its references and themes will absolutely go over your head if you enter unprepared -- this was true for me, and it ended up taking several passes and a bunch of research to even begin appreciating the breadth of its influences.

(i’d argue this is ultimately a good thing; i would never have gone and picked up Camus or Strugatsky, or even known who Antonin Artaud was at all if i hadn’t gone in with pathologic! my understanding is still woefully incomplete and it’s probably going to take me a lot more effort to get properly fluent in the ideology of the story, but that’s the joy of it, i think. :) i’m very lucky to be able to pursue it in this way.)

anyway yes, pathologic 2 is definitely very flawed in a lot of places, particularly when it tries to tackle race, but i’m happy to see it for better and for worse. the game attempts to discuss several adjacent issues and stumbles as it does so, but insinuating it to be in some way “pro-racist” or “pro-colonialist” or whatever else feels kind of disingenuous to me. they’re clearly trying, however imperfectly, to do something intriguing and meaningful and empathetic with their story.

even all this will probably amount to a very disjointed and incomplete explanation of how pathologic & its messaging makes me feel, but what i want -- as a broader approach, not just for pathologic -- is for people to be willing to interpret things charitably. 

sometimes things are made just to be cruel, and those things should be condemned, but not everything is like that. it’s not only possible but necessary to be able to acknowledge flaws or mistakes and still be kind. persecuting something straight away removes any opportunity to examine it and learn from it, and pathologic happens to be ripe with learning experiences. 

it’s all about being okay with ugliness, working through difficult nuances with grace, and the strength of the human spirit, and it’s a story about love first and foremost, and i guess we sort of need that right now. it gave me some of its love, so i’m giving it some of my patience.

[quiet-admirer]

So. Here are my thoughts.

It's much more nuanced than I've ever heard multiple fat non-feedists speak about feedism, but on the whole I'm still… not terribly impressed?

Firstly because if you're choosing to talk for an hour and fifteen minutes about a fetish, at least get the definitions of the fetish right: fat fetishism, feedism, and gaining/encouraging were all conflated and it just muddies the conversation when you're assuming all fat fetishists are into a feeder-feedee role and are also all into the gaining dynamic when that isn't the case.

I just really think these conversations will always suffer when they lack the voice of a fat person with an actual feeding kink or fat fetish, because what they're discussing is how they would imagine the dynamics of the kink to be like and how they've experienced the margins of the kink as people who are not interested in it or were engaging in it as survival sex work.

Like, you can talk about your own experiences with engaging in it as something that's not your kink or your experiences being nonconsensually involved in it or what your perceptions of it are as a fat person not into that kink, but further than that, it just becomes speculation about what you think the kink is like and how the dynamics seem to you as an outsider, and I'm not sure what value there is in expanding on that speculation at length to be completely honest.

Saying you can't imagine how it wouldn't fuck with your mind to engage in these kinks you haven't actually experienced and that don't resonate with you… doesn't make any actual commentary on the kink itself.

And I think as a direct result of having no fat feedists involved in the conversation, it also very much suffers from drifting back to the assumption that in feedist spaces, the default is fat feedee/thin feeder, and like it or not, that is an assumption that comes directly from fatphobia. They try to acknowledge the diversity of fat fetishists a few times, but can't seem to keep themselves away from that assumption, especially when talking about theory and power dynamics. And they can never seem to imagine feedism or gaining or fat fetishism as anything but relational, when it can very much just be about someone's solo appreciation of their own body.

Overall there's just a bit too much "but what if… hear me out… the thin feeder actually did abuse the fat feedee" but dressing that concept up in words like "power dynamics" and "agency" and in theory and then patting themselves on the back for being intellectuals. Maybe I'm just being a shithead, though, so please feel free to tell me if I am!

And then of course I'm always going to nitpick when there's no distinction made between critiquing kinky people's actions and critiquing a kink itself. It just made the conversation a little unfocused tbh, like I think it's an interesting and important conversation to have about how power dynamics do play out in feedist spaces and relationships and how and why abuse occurs, but when the focus is constantly shifting between that and coming back to the "well, are we policing fat people's sexualities though?" we could just have a much more succinct and in-depth conversation if we pick whether we're talking about when feedism does "go wrong" and why, or whether we're treating it like any other kink and assuming that the ideal/baseline is that everyone's consenting and finds it pleasurable and taking the conversation from that starting point.

I also think the end got into a very theoretical place with the 'desire is inherently violent' thing (I'm inferring they were saying desire is violent in white cisheteropatriarchical culture because otherwise that would be a weird take). But like… Maybe I'm just not getting it but if that's how you feel, why do you feel the need to single out fat fetishism if you think all desire is violent and all fetishes are "doubly violent"… (And you already know it's my biggest pet peeve when somebody conflates fetishizing and nonconsensually fetishizing so i won't even go there lmao.)

I don't know, I think at that point we get into a symbolic place rather than in a place of people's actual subjective experiences of kink and pleasure or actual relationship dynamics, but I just generally tend to lose interest when the theory gets to where you're just saying words, like, you can justify why anything is violence if you want to… Like, is the subjective experience of pleasure violence? In this essay I will…. - It's just not my wheelhouse and not an intellectual exercise that stimulates me personally lmao [edit: I'm not critiquing going to a High Theory place when talking about fat kinks, I'm more responding to @thaenad's comment I'm the replies.]

And then finally, the last bit about if someone is introduced to fat liberation because of their fat fetish they will never be capable of actually helping dismantle fatphobia because their sex-addled brain is incapable of seeing anything but an inanimate object for their own sexual pleasure the second they catch a glimpse of fat upon a human body is… obviously something i disagree with… People with fat fetishes are still whole humans capable of having sexual desires and also existing in the world just like people with other fetishes…

But hyperbole aside, you could say the same for someone whose jumping off point for fat liberation was body positivity or plus size clothing availability or HAES or eating disorder recovery. Will they always be incapable of viewing fat people as anything other than a consumer audience to sell to or a group that should eventually disappear if a utopia of social determinants of health is created? All thin people new to fat lib are coming into it with their fatphobia and their understanding of "caring for" fat people filtered through something or other.

And I don't want it to feel like I'm trotting out The Fat Feedist Card but like. Sorry! That's another generalization that assumes the default fat fetishist is a thin feeder! There are fat feedists who've always been fat and always been fetishists who were introduced to fat lib through their fetish.

Overall I like that the episode gave me more to think about than "for the love of god, fetishizing and nonconsensually fetishizing are different things" and I actually didn't feel very defensive or activated listening to it, but at the end of the day… why bother sitting around and speculating about a fetish you only have second- or third-hand knowledge of?

good lord Unsolicited FTB just released an episode about feedism I’m biting my nails

[theshedding]

What Haiti's past tells us about the meaning of Resistance & “Revolution”

One of the realities of American education (public or private) is that the already abbreviated history of Black people in the United States is completely non-intersectional and without recognition of the larger international African diaspora with respect to (1) Black liberation or (2) American and New-world European colonial history. For instance, it is not commonly recognized that proportionally-most Black people from Africa who arrived in the “New World” due to the Atlantic Slave Trade did not live in North America but in the Caribbean, South and Central America. That is to say, if you were enslaved (or newly freed) outside of Africa at any point from the 16th through late 19th century outside of Africa, you would’ve had a one in three (or four) chance of living in the United States. Ask your average Black person on the street about this and it’s news. Ask your average non-Black person on the street about this and it’s even more surprising news. And why wouldn’t it be? Due to highly racialized educational systems, steadfast commitment to Black marginalization, indifference and/or Black & indigenous marginalization, most Americans who don’t actively seek this information have very limited knowledge about critical historical events. The American Revolution and details are reduced to incoherent romanticized narratives about English tea and “tyranny”. The Civil War is also vague and obtuse in its descriptions of Southern animus and economics. “Reconstruction” is a word that, admittedly, I did not learn (or had forgotten about) until an adult...and as a young person I fancied myself more knowledgeable than most about Black History through extra-curricular history lessons, elders, activities and educated parents. Even I was unaware of the sequence of Black history, resistance and triumph on critical historical events in Black American history.

Fast forward to the 2016 Presidential Election, the word “Revolution” and phrase “We need a Revolution!” was flagrantly thrown around and abused in public discourse by young (and older) people who undoubtedly grew up with the same biased and negligent public educational system I had grown up with and (in many cases) profoundly less extra-curricular historical exposure and education. As a culture, we would then start to see real gains in the #BLM movement and the zeitgeist towards radical change and structural reforms from race to finance and public safety. I was quite happy to participate in the resurgence of a resistance movement, especially one centering itself around issues of Black liberation. It’s what I’ve been around most of my life. What I wasn’t comfortable with however, was the use of the term “revolution” to describe it. At least not by White people (there’s a reason for that) and/or by younger people (of any color/ethnicity) who also undoubtedly had been steeped in the vapid romanticism of ‘revolutionary’ history taught to us by our primary and secondary US educational indoctrinations. 

I have been in formal activism and education personally 30+ years now. Make no mistake, I absolutely support of “change” in our society, particularly towards social justice and Black liberation. And I have no wish to exclude White people or any other ethnicity from being enthusiastic activists or communicators of social/economic/political justice. That’s not my point. What my case is however, is that I’ve always been uncomfortable with the careless use of the term “revolution” in our national political conversations about race, justice, history and radical change. Particularly if that term is being appropriated for something other than racial equality of Black or indigenous people in this country. Historically, “revolution” has been inextricably tied to some aspect of Black resistance in the new world. To update the term in a way that erases or obfuscates deep racial inequities makes me uncomfortable in its lack of this historical context. Aside from that appropriative term however, the use of the sub-category or phraseology “radical change” in connection with “revolution” is problematic for its own reasons; ‘radical change’ and ‘radical ideas’ have become erroneously conflated terms in this way. Historically speaking, radical ideas have always endured much longer than the actual moment of revolution and change itself. In my lifetime there have been a number of “radical” changes; cigarette use and public smoking, seatbelts, recycling, eco fuels, Black people being on television and not talking “jive”, Gay/Bi and Trans people simply existing while not living a sad, diseased-ridden and isolated life, smoking weed and pre-existing conditions in health care are all things which were massive structural changes in society that took lifetimes to negotiate, deconstruct and implement. The idea came way before the actual change. And every one of those ideas were not radically “changed” in any one moment or by any one person. Instead those changes represented a patchwork of efforts by nameless, thankless individuals, organizations and multiple leaders whose work at times overlapped in various ways. Many of whom died or had to leave their advocacy before their desired change could be realized. Simply saying “radical change” and/or conflating change with charismatic leaders, “revolution” and politicians without acknowledging radical ideas, radical people (plural) and radical efforts over long stretches of time is a betrayal of history, the people working to change and correct it and those who have worked to correct it, for our sake.

On this day, January 1st, 2021, the 217th anniversary of the dissolution of Saint Domingue and the beginning of Haiti (Áyitì), the very first ever Black republic in the European/Western colonial world, named in honor of-and deference to-the indigenous Arawak/Taino “Indians” of the Caribbean, the process of what change really looks like is as profound as it ever was. Most of us have not studied this history in any appreciable detail-Black people included. Many might be surprised to know that Haitians came to Philadelphia, Charleston (S.C.) and New Orleans as a direct result of what happened in the late 18th and early 19th century and that there are Black and White Americans living there right now with traceable ancestry to this Caribbean island and the revolution that occurred there (until earlier this year I wouldn’t have known that either). Despite what Kanye West said, Black people did not ‘choose’ inferiority, slavery and colonial oppression. In fact, they resisted it and plotted revolution from the moment they boarded ships in West Africa. Especially in places like Haiti where many of the Africans arriving were literally soldiers, prisoners of wars and being replenished every 5-7 years because of the high death and production rates. There were hundreds of rebellions and revolts of enslaved Africans in the New world during the Atlantic Slave Trade; Haiti’s is just one of many. But Haiti’s is the largest, sustained revolt, with the most cultural, political and economic implications for its White, Black/African & African descended people -and- as people living in a “new” world trying to reconcile what it means to live together in a land post-slavery, post-European colonialism. To this day its people are a living testament to how difficult that work of Anti-Black resistance is in a global economy built around the presumption and instance of Black inferiority. The “project” of this revolution is yet unfinished.

Therefore in 2021, anyone studying, protesting, manifesting and politically agitating against our current socio-economic-political structures in America needs to study the Haitian Revolution in as much detail as possible. It is one of the biggest examples of how intricate, dynamic, long-suffering and difficult it is to actually perform “radical change”. During the pandemic I began (re) introducing myself to this subject by reading books, watching documentaries and listening to lectures outlining the layers of narrative involved in what would be come the Haitian Revolution; Macandal, the three “Commissions”, the Tricolor Commission, “Declaration of the Rights of Man”, the determinative links of the French Revolution, “Code Noir”, André Rigoud, British blockades, Spanish regiments, the “Coloureds”, returns to the plantations for Africans only, not “Blacks”(e.g. caste systems), trade embargos, Toussaint, Dessalines, etc....all confirming what was already apparent: change is hard, long and often takes generations.

If you are currently fighting for something, or against it, know that not one person or one act can or will likely “radically” change the reality. A “revolution” is a term not to be used lightly. When we de-romanticize it and “dig” into it we can begin to see more clearly how ugly and non-inevitable it’s results truly are. History tells us so-and we can learn from this history in a way that informs our present-day activism and fight towards justice of any kind, for any person, any ethnicity. Commit yourself and learn from those who have done it before you and recognize that the past will always be relevant to the present in resistance and change. 

Below are some great resources start to learning more on the Haitian Revolution👇🏿:

“Revolutions” (Apple Podcast, a immensely detailed lecture series!) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/revolutions/id703889772?i=1000358493623 PBS, “The Black Messiah: Macandal” https://youtu.be/cHIEYx2_C9Q “Haiti and the Atlantic World Reborn (New York Historical Society)” https://youtu.be/dpbLMkAJFtE “Noam Chomsky, Modern-Historical Political Commentary” https://youtu.be/e1JWr03P9W8 “Haiti Journal, 100th Anniversary of US Occupation” https://youtu.be/pILrdFJ683M

Happy New Year, Happy Haitian Independence Day and most importantly, Happy learning!!! 🤩🥂

[kirbyspits]

A lot of Makorra shippers only moved on because they’re afraid of being called homophobic for not shipping korrasami. I LITERALLY saw someone on Instagram yesterday call a makorra shipper homophobic just for saying korrasami came out of nowhere. Also, Korrasami shippers LOVE to bring up the "popping bottles" backlash to make fun of makorra shippers. I left the tlok fandom in 2014 bc it was so toxic as a teenager, but now i’m 23. I’m no longer afraid of shipping something i always loved.

Ah, yes, I realized I didn’t address the fandom's toxicity in the last ask, but I’ve spoken about it before. I don't talk too much about the past because I was at the edge of the fandom back in 2014/2015. I was aware of fights, but the discussions I saw were moreso on bi-erasure. I saw one post saying it was wrong to ship Makorra. I remember being really confused about why Makorra was actually problematic, but I didn’t appreciate being told who I can ship the only dark-skinned woman protagonist on a major television network with. Why are you forcing me to ignore Mako and Korra’s relationship? Book 1 is practically about Mako and Korra, all other characters be damned. Me preferring the story of one pairing and a popular romance trope, second chances, is not wrong, and no one would know how I view the LGBT+ community based on who I ship in one show.

I ended up leaving the community because I was disappointed with season 4 in general. When Korra was released on Netflix, I figured it was time to rewatch the series again (plus, I’ve been binging all my favorite romance anime). So imagine my shock when I created a new Tumblr and Twitter account to rant and rave about TLOK, and I saw nothing but hate and name-calling in the Makorra tags. I saw people casually throwing around the word “homophobic,” and one person said people who don’t like Korrasami are just misogynistic. 

I just wanted pretty pictures, and people are out here psychoanalyzing shippers! So, I dug through some blogs and to feel more grounded with this fandom I didn’t recognize. After reading through their commentaries and experiences, I actually became more upset at Bryke than the teenagers/children who comment on Makorra posts saying how much better Korrasami is or accuse Makorra shippers of being homophobic. 

Yes, I truly believe these comments are mostly coming from people in their late teens and younger, at least in 2020. I can’t speak on 2014/2015, but since we were younger, the early 20s/late teens, I wonder if our age group was also the loudest. Don’t get me wrong, adults can be horrible people and can get really nasty. However, every time I look up the rudest commenters' profiles, they were teens. When one Korrasami shipper wrote “screw Makorra” on my AMV, I figured I’d have some fun trolling them until I clicked on their profile and saw a child. Needless to say, I ignored them and reflected on how parents are allowing their babies on TikTok while my parents freaked out at the idea of showing my picture on FB growing up. 

*I’m not still mad about that*

Also, while it doesn’t give anyone an excuse to make such a strong accusation, part of me, as a straight person, feels like I can’t get too upset because I also become very aware of my privilege. The space I’m in is a majority of young LGBT+ fans (at least on Twitter where I’ve seen the most toxicity). Some people see TLOK as their safe space and imply why should there be Makorra shippers when they have all these other cis/het shows they can engage with. It doesn’t work like that, of course. TLOK doesn’t only feature Bi characters. They’re POC/Indigenous, women, and Korra has dark skin. That’s a lot of marginalized communities. Makorra/TLOK is my comfort show, not because she’s with a man, but because of the reasons I just listed. Also shipping Korra with Mako doesn’t mean she’s no longer bi. She’d still be attracted to women.

Here’s who I am upset with tho, Bryke. Mostly Bryan. While Makorra shippers called out Korrasami shippers for cyberbullying, the focus seemed to be on Bryan for making it seem like there was something wrong with them for not finding Korrasami’s narrative satisfying. It was especially sad to read bloggers who identified as being part of the LGTB+ community saying Bryan’s hetero-lens dismissed their experience and then having to defend/proving themselves to anonymous messengers. 

Fans saw it as a betrayal. They saw it as the go-head for the rude Korrasami shippers to harass Makorra artists because they “didn’t watch the show correctly.” When the creator, the person you admire, also puts the blame on you, that kind of pain is on another level.

Korrasami shippers played a huge role in kicking Makorra shippers out of the fandom, but we can’t underestimate how much Bryan’s statement is a slap in the face. He used his characters and social justice as a shield for reasonable criticism. Just because we say a story is bad and Asami is grossly underwritten doesn’t mean that we’re against the idea of Korra and Asami being a couple. 

Of course, I’ve seen some very problematic statements from Makorra shippers. After all, homophobia is real. However, aside from the actual bigots, people have no issue with Korrasami. They just wanted a stronger connection between the girls. Many people seem to think Makorra shippers were looking for more romance, but we know we couldn't expect that. We can expect more screentime, musical cues, and more emotional support, which most people can see as platonic, but be romantic if you really want to. Mako’s interactions in book 4 can be seen as platonic, but all of us Makorra shippers saw it to be romantic.

Popping bottles! I completely missed that joke in 2014 and I discovered it this year. I agree it’s pretty annoying, but I become a troll and say I’m popping bottles for my Makorra moments. I don’t get any engagement, but I don’t seem to lose followers for it. Maybe popping bottles represents “straight-baiting?” I don’t get it why it’s so funny after all this time, but we’re Makorra shippers. We’re the joke 🙄

Anyways, to wrap up, lately, there seems to be a bit of a shift on Twitter. When I first created an account. I stayed in my little corner live-tweeting about TLOK and Makorra. I had to stop looking at the Makorra tag because it was so negative. Now, I’m seeing people admit they’re cute, and then saying they’re platonic soulmates. I’ll take it, although, as one commenter said, “that’s boring!” 

Someone led a Makorra Week back in October, and it was really nice! I have feeling people speaking up on the name-calling and reminding people that we’re talking about 2D characters helped. We just want to be left alone and enjoy the scenes we have in the show, art, and fanfiction. 

Keep shipping who you want! Don’t let any stranger shame you for your shipping preferences, especially in fiction! I’m so happy you feel more comfortable shipping these two dorks! You’re not alone! I’ve been a Makorra shipper since 2012, and while I find Korrasami cute (I love Korra, and I love Asami), Makorra is my OTP. I really like them, and I think they were meant for each other.

[kestrel-of-herran]

about Vincenzo having a female director, I think it really shows in the drama because not only does the show emphasize how hot SJK as Vincenzo is, it really focuses on Vincenzo as an object of desire instead of Chayoung or any of the female tenants in Geumga Plaza. would that be considered female/feminine gaze? I just like how the women are portrayed and it reverses the roles sometimes you see in kdramas or tv in general.

that plot line in ep. 8 is unfortunate and homophobic from my viewpoint but making Vincenzo the homme fatale falls in line with this too. sorry, that was a lot but I love your posts abt the show very much!

that’s exactly how i see the impact of vincenzo’s female director, anon! i’m happy to know that all the beautiful, aesthetic shots i’ve been appreciating are her doing, and that she’s interpreting the characters along with the actors during filming. and i agree that this is exactly how the female gaze works - if anyone is briefly objectified in this series, it’s vincenzo himself, never the women characters, which is always a pleasure to (not) see. and the script itself is very feminist and focused on the female gaze, with such a wonderful, quirky, flawed, powerful, all-around human character as cha young in the equal position of protagonist alongside vincenzo.

to be perfectly honest, i don’t consider the ep.8 plot homophobic, though i can understand the backlash. as a disclaimer, i’m not a member of the lgbtq+ community, so feel invited to ignore my point on the matter completely, it’s just an opinion!

i enjoyed the homme fatale plot point in that episode, i found it very fitting and refreshing, and i definitely connect it to the female gaze as well! after all, it was literally cha young’s gaze that transformed vincenzo into that role.

but the reason i don’t consider the episode homophobic is because, to me personally, the inclusion of a marginalized character in a negative role is not necessarily meant to equate all characters from that marginalized group with ‘evil’. take a look at myung hee (the prosecutor) for example - just because she is a middle-aged, career-focused woman with no family who loathes the female protagonist and is placed in an exclusively negative role, i don’t consider her representation to be a form of sexism meaning that all unmarried career-focused women are corrupted by their ambition and become less than human. if anything, it is a commentary on what surviving in the patriarchal corporate world can do to a person’s morals. but such women exist, because feminism does not mean that all women are good or that all women should treat each other like sisters, it only means that women are men’s equals, and that includes equals in evil as well as in good. so i’m glad that myung hee is allowed to be a horrible female character, because i love to see that representation as much as i loathe her. (i really recommend margaret atwood’s fiction, particularly the robber bride, for an interrogation of the representation of evil female characters as a form of feminism.)

in the same way, the representation of a rich, abusive homosexual character seems to me a very specific reflection of the fact that relationship abuse can be conducted regardless of the class and gender of the abuser and the victim, instead of a condemnation of all lgbtq+ people as abusers. it’s just such a particular situation - a spoilt rich boy with a bad temper who just happens to be gay - that i can’t take it as a universal representation of homosexuality as something ‘bad’, and i don’t believe it was intended as such.

i think there might even be some positive lgbtq+ representation in the show - mister ahn the nis agent? i’m getting major gay vibes from him. but i agree completely that kdramas need to do more to represent lgbtq+ people, and vincenzo doesn’t have this as its goal.

again, this is only my honest opinion, so please feel free to disagree with me completely. i’m so glad that you enjoy my posts, and thank you for the ask!

[im-the-punk-who]

Can I ask your opinion on Woodes Rogers?

Oh boy. Oh boy, howdy. I mean you can.

So, uhhhh the first time I was really thinking about Woodes Rogers as a character besides just being a little bitch boy was after I read Sage Street’s meta where he talks about the ways in which Rogers mirrors James in the early seasons/pre-series. And that’s pretty much how I see him. 

(On a side note, while I don’t agree with everything he has to say, I highly highly recommend Sage’s meta because it brings up some really interesting parallels and scenic cues, and particularly the meta on the S3 finale just....makes me scream a lot. Some of the painting stuff can get a bit reachy because as someone who works in theatre and has friends in film, some of the parallels is likely more ‘the set designers thought this would be cool’ than a directorial choice but like, it’s still awesome to see.)

But back to Rogers. So, personally, I think he’s a little bitch boy, but that has more to do with the fact that the show sets him up as the upholder of civilization and oppression, in direct opposition to Flint - who seeks freedom and an end to persecution based on society’s morals and whom I personally vibe much more with. Character wise I actually think Rogers is pretty interesting in that, like all the Black Sails villains, he is a complex character. He is sometimes humorous, sometimes charming, and sometimes straight up unwilling to listen to anyone’s voice but his own - hello, Eleanor! (And, yeah, I’m aware that’s how a lot of people describe Flint. It’s purposeful.) While I don’t like him, I appreciate that about him.

He has a backstory that makes it clear what his motivations are and how he reacts when faced with adversity - he hates chaos and wants order and is willing to compromise his own civility if he thinks it will bring an end to those things. In my personal opinion the reason he wants so badly to bring Nassau back in line could be that he thinks it will help him get over the loss of his brother - who died in a random act of chaos and cowardly violence. (And whose name was Thomas....) Like Flint, he is fighting in the memory of someone he idolized. 

The show underlines the similarity between them when Rogers says “All I have done here is finish what you began. I am now what you were then. And without you there would be no me.” 

Here, he is setting himself up as the continuation of James McGraw. Which is super hella rad, since we know that Flint views himself as at least partially a wholly separate persona from James McGraw. And that we’re led to believe that ‘James’ died or was buried when Thomas was taken. While I don’t think Rogers knows the full story I think it’s likely he has a pretty good picture. I’ll direct you to this post where I bring up the fact it’s likely he and Peter were working together on the pardons(and also because I assume Eleanor told him about James being McGraw as she found out during the Charlestown plotline).

Also:

“Everyone is a monster to someone. Since you are so convinced that I am yours, I will be it.”

“If you insist on making me your villain, I will play the part.”

Rogers!! Stop!! Get your own lines!!

I know a lot of people like to compare him to Thomas, and while I think we were meant to see the parallels(hi, they’re both put in green!), I disagree he is meant to mirror what Thomas would have been. In fact, if anything, he is Thomas’ foil, even as he mirrors James. 

Flint even points out this difference: 

“No one is being hanged. No one’s even being tried. Just as you wanted. Just as Thomas Hamilton wanted. So what is it that you’re fighting for that I’m not already offering?”

“Thomas Hamilton fought to introduce the pardons to make a point. To seek to change England.”

Aside from the classic “I want my Thomas back you sonofabitch.” vibe of Flint’s full answer, this is the difference between Rogers and Thomas. While it would ultimately have the same effect as Rogers’ actions - to bring Nassau back to heel - I think it’s important to recognize the intentionality of both characters as it illustrates not just who Rogers is, but also Thomas.

The reason Thomas wanted to offer the pardons was to make a point that pirates are still men deserving of forgiveness. To “offer forgiveness to any man who would seek it.” He is not coming from a point of control, but of freedom. To offer to these men a way forward.

Rogers is offering the pardons as a way to bring Nassau and the pirates back into civilization but we never actually hear him offer a suggestion of what they’re to do afterwards. And indeed, with how he runs Nassau when he has it, it seems he’s much more concerned with keeping control than in offering any meaningful change to the people he governs. 

Rogers is, in essence, exactly what James was talking about all those years ago when he said “Put a man on an island, give him power over other men and it won’t be long before he realizes the limits of that power is nowhere to be seen. And no man given that kind of influence will remain honest for very long.”

This is underlined in so many ways, from his scene with Berringer about ‘dark men’ to where he wants to accept the pearls he knows are from the Spanish gold, to when he straight up threatens Madi with the death of someone close to her in order to try and force her into surrender.

So, I think he’s a really cool character in that he underlines things about so many of the other characters.

However, Rogers is also a little bitch boy and I hate him because he’s is both a little confused and does not have the spirit. :) 

He is everything Thomas and James were fighting against instilling in Nassau - the very thing Thomas realized isn’t the way a good leader should act. Rogers falls very much under that Hobbesian view of The Social Contract - that a monarch or person in power has absolute sovereignty without needing to give value to individuals needs or wants(literally every interaction he has with Max, hi!), whereas Thomas falls much more in line with John Locke, who says that in supporting the needs of the individual, we support the state by default.

(And I can and will go on another whole tangent about this view of Locke vs Hobbes and how it’s a theme throughout the whole show, I can, I will, please don’t let me.)

Rogers is a fantastic villain for S3 and S4 because he illustrates all the ways that civilization puts down revolution and keeps people in line - right up to how his actions ultimately cause Silver to betray the cause and sell out his own friends for a personal safety that is only marginally implied - and still leaves those on the outskirts oppressed! 

Wow! Black Sails! Stop!!

And even though he as a character was eventually defeated, Rogers’ motives and ideas were actually instilled by the very rebel leaders who fought against him! It’s his treaty Rackham and Silver get the maroons to sign! It’s his version of civilization that is imposed on Nassau and the Maroon island even as he himself is ‘defeated’. 

And isn’t that a kicker? 

That Rackham in particular thinks he’s victorious because they’ve defeated the bad guy, but then he goes ahead and uses his plans, proving that it wasn’t the revolution or freedom or Charles’ idea of living free he was supporting at all but his own personal narrative of victory! What a sellout! What a direct parallel to how even progressive-seeming leaders will almost always sell out the ideals of their constituents for their own benefit! Boy, howdy!!

And I know fandom likes to throw him under the bus as all that is wrong with civilization - call him a little bitch boy and cheer his defeat. I know that he and Alfred Hamilton(and Peter, to an extent) get to be the villains in the narrative so our ‘heroes’ Silver and Rackham and even Flint can be put in opposition to them but like - that’s not the point. That’s not the point, that’s not the point, that’s not the point!

The point is that these men were tools of the empire - tools that were incredibly effective! They succeeded! Rogers succeeded in bringing civilization to Nassau. And in doing so he forced the pirates to choose between their own loyalties - he divided the camps until victory seemed hopeless and that is exactly how history generally works in terms of continued oppression. 

Hell, that’s exactly how current political events are happening right now. It’s a tried and true method of oppressive governments to pin things on one particular person (Woodes, or, y’know, Trump?) and say ‘if you defeat this person, your revolution has been successful’ while silently just going ahead with the plans of those people’s ideals anyway. It’s not the people who are the villains. It’s the ideals they perpetuate. 

All this is to say that I don’t feel particular malice towards Rogers other than that I feel towards all the characters who ultimately uphold oppression because I think Rogers is another great commentary by Black Sails on how we get so distracted fighting for what feels good that we can ultimately end up becoming exactly what we thought we were fighting against. 

(”A man casts his vote for the same reason he does anything in this life. Because it feels good.”)

And finally, he’s definitely a little bitch boy for how he treats my girls Eleanor and Madi (and Max) and I would absolutely cross the street to punch him for that alone. :)