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kinkyintherealworld · 10 months ago

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Sissification - a toxic construction of femininity or getting off on outdated social constructs?

Becca here. 😀

First… I LOVE THAT YOU STARTED THIS DISCUSSION!!!! Thank you so much @youngchastity - who wrote to us (and tagged us in a post) for some healthy discussion around the sissification kink. We’ve definitely had a few things to say about it on the podcast, as have our guests. You can read his post, that started this conversation, here

Rather than speak for both of us at @kinkyintherealworld, I’m going to jump in and answer this from my point of view.

@youngchastity I love your thoughts on gender - I totally agree. I actually reblogged a post by @necromimetics the other day that said:

“can’t stop thinking about my friend’s cishet partner who said last night that he doesn’t think anyone is the same gender. god-tier take.”

And I agree - we’re all a wibbly-wobbly swirl of masculine, feminine, and everything in between energies, and everyone has their own unique blend. Trying to squash us into labels is lame as hell.

I like to think I am never one to kink shame (keeping it safe, sane and consensual), and in world where I (and many other women) want to smash the patriarchy, I may be a bit more sensitive to kinks that look down on femininity - or that’s how I have perceived it to date. As someone who has struggled with gender equality issues in real life (your capitalism comment made me give a disgruntled, but amused, snort), it’s hard to not knee jerk react and feel like I need to defend womanhood/femininity. There is still a power imbalance in the world, and equality is still a goal yet to be achieved, but upon dissection, is in the bedroom, playing with kinks, even a place we need to bring this battle? A question that has been raised to me, even before your message.

It’s funny, because I have actually had your very points discussed with me, last fall with my partner, Misty (who if you have read my personal tumblr is trans-personality who enjoys both sides of the gender spectrum fluidly) - we were on a road trip discussing the two episodes you made note of in your post, episode #16 and #19. And Misty, like you, felt we were missing the mark. S/he felt that in no way does sissification for the purpose of humiliation somehow degrade/make fun of/make lesser femininity. For all the same reasons you stated. S/he and I actually talked about doing a podcast about it, to dive more into the topic, Misty felt that strongly. It should be noted that Misty is NOT into sissification or feminization for the purpose of humiliation, and still she felt that we gave the sissification kink a bum rap.

Hearing her thoughts and yours, I think it is something that should be revisited and, for me personally, I need to take a closer look at why I find it uncomfortable.

Since you made such lovely points I want to try and address each one!

We’ve established that we both agree the trappings around what we consider to be masculine and feminine are made up (and ridiculous). I think, the kink we are talking about here is ultimately humiliation through outdated (but still most commonly accepted) societal norms. IF you get embarrassed about having those things stripped away, and “forced” into the opposite direction… good for you? I mean seriously, how fun is it to get off in weird and wonderful ways with someone who shares your kink from a slightly different perspective! The reality is, I believe, this isn’t hurting anyone. You want a person to lock up your dick, make fun of your little penis (your actual size is irrelevant), or put you in clothing that bends your mind with eroticism and makes you flustered with sexual need - awesome! Life is too short not to enjoy the kinks we have. The bigger question, if I want to dig into the piece that makes me feel uncomfortable is, “Is there misogyny in the specific kink?” - and the answer to that, for me upon reflection, is no. Misogyny comes from the person performing it. So yeah, some kinky things are done with TONS of misogynistic intent… but that isn’t concentrated in one area. Those assholes are everywhere.

To me, feminization is never something that goes hand-in-hand with sissification. My partner feminized himself (their pronouns are all over the place), in a loving way. To empower the feminine in himself. He has often described it as blooming or becoming a butterfly - his higher form of being. So no humiliation to be found, for either of us on either end. I find it hot as fuck when he is all dolled up.

I haven't dipped my toes into the humiliation via feminization kink (...yet?), so it’s hard for me to wrap my dirty little mind around it.

Weirdly I do have a bimbofication kink for myself… sometimes. 😁 If I am in a particular mood for the fantasy. I have never found the right time/partner/energy to explore that. Am I feeling humiliation when I go there? I don’t think so…? More the need to feel desired, trophied (yes I made up that word), and used in a deeply submissive way. I’m not embarrassed about that. ;) I too would be interested in hearing from women who enjoy humiliating others through feminization/sissification, and how they feel about it. Awesome point! 😀

Celebrating feminization! Now that is my jam! 💗 Give me a soft cute boy, and let me make him weak with wanting to be pretty and obedient for me. To me this is a huge mind shift - the key word “celebrating”, not shaming. Gosh, I could just sink into this topic like the perfect bubble bath. To me, this is a core element to gentle femdom. It is about making boys better… pretty, soft, sweet things that want to please - the D/s element being a key piece. The submissive to be absolutely loved and worshipped for their submission. No shame, not less than me, and certainly not shifting my own very feminine self. I love the feminine. I love to see it in men, and men embracing that side of themselves. Is this a form benevolent sexism? I don’t know. And more to the point, if I am engaging in it with my partners, writing about it on tumblr, and reblogging things that I enjoy around the topic, am I hurting anyone? Food for thought, but I am going to keep doing my thing. ;) I feel like you can look at BDSM here, and for those who wish to criticize it, could for its dynamics. But that feels like a giant, whole other post. Another thing you mentioned in this point was the strapon, and it’s use as a symbol of power. I have never seen it that way. To me, it is my soul penis… and I love being able to be inside my partner(s). It is an act of love, and makes me want to bring them to amazing places of pleasure (while I get off too). I really don’t enjoy the pictures of women wearing strapons who look like they want to punish their partner with it. But that’s just me. I know lots of people must enjoy that because there is a shit ton of porn that looks that way.

Playing with gender. I like that - and I do it! I love being able to put on a penis!! I really enjoyed trying my hand at Drag King make up and going out as a boy (I’ll post my picture again). I LOVE seeing boys in make up and fucking gender norms right out the window. You said it in your post - gender is made up and stupid. So yeah, let’s play with it, and maybe even break the molds! Though then you’ll have to find something else to get embarrassed and turned on about. ;) Our kinks are about orgasms and pleasure. Let’s enjoy them. In the end, it is all about intent and the people doing it. Not about the kinks themselves. People who want there to be an imbalance of power between women and men will keep doing mean spirited things to keep that nightmare alive - in the streets and in the sheets.

I feel like I have answered your points (I may have jumped around a bit), and I don’t feel the need to argue any of them. Misty had already shone a light on where I may have not been seeing the bigger picture.

I am SO HAPPY you wrote us a message, and that you took the time to write out your thoughts (that can be read here). So sorry it took me a while to see it and respond! I am always up for conversation and debating (with kindness) any of the points.

I definitely feel this topic should be a podcast. Any chance you'd like to be on it @youngchastity? ;)

Hugs! Becca

#kinky in the real world #podcast #podcasters of tumblr #matriarchy #smash the patriarchy

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myragewillendworlds · 10 months ago

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I really just can't express enough my distaste for what "activism" and "acceptance" for people with transsexualism has turned into on social media. It's become nothing but memes and jokes making light of sex dysphoria and medical transitioning, treating transsexualism as a joke or a cosplay, turning it into a "look" or a "vibe" or something sexual.

People only relate to it in a way that relates to their own identity or opinions; as "gender inspiration", as a "fuck you" to "the system", as a statement on gender or society as a whole, as a funny meme, as a sexual object, as a means to form your own hollow (sexual) identity around experiences of others that have nothing to do with you. Fetishized into a product, something for you to consume.

I feel like the only time people seem to acknowledge we are living, breathing human beings, actually affected by our sex dysphoria, is when there's another dead transsexual teenager to remind them.

Nobody even sees transsexual people anymore as people born with the wrong sex organs, undergoing or having undergone medical procedures to change their sex. They are "genderfucking" people now, automatically and unchangingly interpreted as having the genitals opposite of their gender – and then either joked about or sexualized for it too. The sex-changing part isn't even part of the general definition anymore.

Non-transsexual people act like they have as much right to form and defend their opinions on it as actually transsexual people do, speak like they think they know as much about it, opinions formed from posts on social media written by "they/them trans nb queer" teenagers – which they reblog as fact just as readily as they do posts from actually transsexual people, because it's not like they have a basis from which to draw a distinction.

The distinctions they do draw are all the wrong ones. Over-mentioning of "cisgender" and "cishet" attributes in the most irrelevant ways excludes us from being considered regular men and women more openly than ever before. In this age of obsessive "inclusion", the only groups we are consistently grouped in with by the internet "allies" are under the banner of "queer", made-up 'third sex' labels (that have no relation to the experience of sex dysphoria or sex-reassignment), or simply with our birth sex. The same conservative discrimination as always, now wrapped in progressive language.

The internet is so oversaturated with this topic, with most of it just harmful, all I wish for at this point is that people would just shut up. We've had enough discourse on it to last us the rest of the century. Just make it stop. Stop making your jokes about us, stop making us your fetish objects, stop treating us as your fandom. I'm just so tired.

#transgender #transsexual #transphobia

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 2 years ago

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[Image: A meaningful (to me) gold ring with a textured surface sits on wet grey stone glinting in sunlight and the reflection of green trees and sky]

* * * *

Riddles in the Dark One of the simplest ways to define the Buddhist concept of “emptiness” (suññatā) is that a thing is “empty of what isn’t there.” We’re looking at what is absent in a thing that we have been assuming is present. What could that be? My kid and I have been listening to The Hobbit together, and of course the riddles are one of the best parts. Riddling, the book tells us, is an ancient sport, and even dreadfully evil (read: traumatized) people like Gollum respect its rules. Begging forgiveness of master Tolkien (and master Baggins) here’s a riddle: Absent though you think I’m here In all things you hold most dear Nowhere will you find me tied To the shape your eyes have spied What am I? Philosophically, we say that the thing that is absent is “essence,” or “substance,” both of which refer to a hypothetical permanent defining attribute of a thing that persists through any change that happens to the physical object we call the thing. But essence is an idea, nothing more. It is the “soul” of a thing, which we may have an intuition about, but no actual evidence for. All the evidence suggests that physical forms, as well as the ideas and names that describe them, all change. So I think the simplest way to answer the riddle is “meaning.” What is the soul, or the essence of a thing, if not a way of saying that it has a fundamental meaning? The meaning a thing holds is a concept that defines a thing in as deep a way as we are able. So a simple way to think about emptiness is to recognize that any meaning we give to a thing (object, entity, experience, concept, intuition, place, culture) is contingent—contextual, dependent on time, place, and relationship. Another way of saying that is that in the absence of telling a story about a thing, that thing has no intrinsic meaning. The meaning is in the telling and hearing, not in the thing itself. (There is no “thing itself.”) The usual mistake in understanding emptiness is taking this to mean that things do not “exist,” in any way other than as illusion. But that’s just a conceptual trap. “Exist” and “doesn’t exist” are just more layers of story and meaning—and the Buddha explicitly rejected them as irrelevant concepts. The meaning bound up in these words is that something that doesn’t exist doesn’t matter, and that’s terrifying. Our lives don’t matter? Good and evil in the world don’t matter? That doesn’t feel right—because it isn’t. Existence is a philosophical conversation called ontology. What matters is a different conversation, and it’s the more important: ethics. Things are empty of intrinsic meaning. Any story we tell about a thing is thus more about us than the thing. In the Theravāda system, this is the first insight that leads to liberation from suffering, called nāma-rūpa, or “name and form.” It is the recognition that the name of a thing, which is the closest we can come up with to identifying its fundamental identity, or meaning, is not the same as the physical thing it points to. The label rides alongside the thing like the answer to a riddle. The riddle is the strange poem of direct experience, which is oblique, poetic, always leaping the bounds of whatever concept we try to bind it in. The answer is a name, which seems final, but which ends the game. Which is more ecstatic, more resonant with mystery, the riddle— Alive without breath, As cold as death Ever thirsty, never drinking, Clad in mail, never clinking —or the answer, stolid as a full stop: fish? The riddle sings. The answer thuds. It’s always like this. Emptiness recognizes that the answer to the riddle of experience never sufficiently sings the meaning of the thing. There is no soul in a person because no single concept can do justice to the wild mystery of a life. For a map to depict in perfection every detail of a landscape, it would have to be an identical replica of the place, and just as large. No concept is that capacious. So the thing is empty of the meaning we think it has—the name that defines it. Emptiness, philosophically, turns out to be a word problem. A riddle. It points to a mistake we keep making… until we don’t. When we recover from the illusion that things are what we call them, an incredible spaciousness opens up around us. Suffering is basically emotional, the Buddha tells us, as we react to the stories unfolding around us. Freedom is a word for when our emotions are unbound from story, and set free to respond more intimately to life as it unfolds. The real riddle of practice, then, is how things continue to matter even as they are set free. The answer to that defines the enlightened activity the tradition came to call bodhisattva. ___

[Thank you Sean Feit Oakes]

#Buddhist #Lord of the Rings #LOTR #Sean Felt Oakes #words and writing #the riddle #ring #emptiness #bodhisattva

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athomewiththecicadas · 2 months ago

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Life as a Senior NCO for a Head of Household that can't Provide, during "Morning Coffee."

There a few things I'm going to go over, just to clear a few things up. First regarding the Joint Militia Detachment.

We are going to merge with another regiment, that is an older regiment that provides "special support operations." And split the Joint Militia Detachment Brigade into two regiments. One that services Mercenary objectives, and one that provides Special Support.

1st Regiment continuing with the original objective to "stamp" the House of Representatives with a redress of grievance, and continue with reforms.

2nd Regiment to continue with raising ranks to do so.

However, the Virginia Militia Association is expected to substantially expand as a result of the merge. And for that reason, economic support is billed as "Uniform Facilitation Services."

Uniform Facilitation Services is a set of generic business models to settle intakes of large numbers of people, and presents "debts" to consumers, to orient consumer markets.

For example, for radio, an ROTC classroom is generally the forum for radio programs.

Another is based on promoting full dress uniform as a collectable lifestyle. Specifically noting the conduct of 1st strike. Touching societal talking points such as sex.

Which turns into additional training. For example: Men = "Merit."

If you don't know how to approach men, then consider "Merit."

However, for women talking to men, if she was talking to her girlfriends, and we over heard that she was wearing a bodysuit under her outfit, she needs to understand that she has the attention of everyone surrounding her. Which could be an entire Battalion (800-900 people).

Next, based on 2nd strike, servicing outdoor products, and practical convenience. As well as everyday gossip of life as an officer.

A perfect example would be a basic lawn chair. And a lawn chair is flimsy. And so, my life outdoors is generally flimsy.

However, when I say that it needs to be built correctly, it's referred to as "tough." Which is not what I was looking for either.

But a shed…….

Okay, if I said "crack house," is that not the same category?

But if I said it was a reasonable living quarters for anyone trying to reach higher levels of physical fitness, and essential training, life in Regiment is a much higher quality than a general consumer market.

Third, learning how to eat. And if you've never been punched in the face, then your food is kind of weak. But for anyone that can run a 4:00 mile, the average fast food chain isn't exactly the food you were looking for either.

The list of debts goes on for all sorts of lifestyle expectations, even how to relate to ensuring a family life.

You are going to learn how to account. And you are going to get very good at it. And nothing will teach you how to account better than learning the physical fitness of the PT Rehabilitation Program.

If you are interested, you should "bond." And we'll be able to get everything to you.

Sergeant Major Nathan Marksmith, North Wales Militia/ Joint Militia Detachment Brigade (Virginia Militia Association)

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Additional officer excerpts:

Springfield XDM

Referencing the ARM1 processor. I, as a child, would get up. So, reference "to get up."

The House of Representatives would settle "pull him." So, "pull him," provided "to get up."

Now, with that being said, the ARM1 processor is the enumeration for our physical fitness category labeled 1611. Otherwise, Brigade, or "Key."

Thus a firearm enumerated for "Key" is within regulation. Which is necessary and proper. But all of that hackling about firearm safety, does not include just compensation, or investment underwriting, suggesting oral argument was irrelevant.

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Taylor/Travis Financial Mechanism

When a financial issue arises with a shareholder, you bond. And now, we wait for civil process.

In Taylor's case, there's an issue with revenues. And so, she would bond.

And then there's an issue with reliance, which would be "Travis."

However, when referencing the institution of marriage, I've been responsible for many years for fiduciary services for his "spouses."

And conformity to law is usually a higher degree than Taylor's "reliance."

To make sure you are reading that correctly, I am so compliant that "Travis is dating Taylor Swift." Which would be the result of prosecutors.

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Financial Pricing

In financials, a price request is warranted. However minimum wage requires a physical fitness standard.

A price request without a warranted standard could be a substantial effect. Which would be a public affair.

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Financial Institutions

From what I'm hearing from the U.N. Security Counsel is that incompliance to minimum wage law is such an environmental issue, that a financial institution is being considered an "armed formation."

Under U.S. Law, the Authorization for the Use of Military Force of 2001 (AUMF 2001), qualifies these armed formations to be identified as subject to the rules of engagement for Counter-Insurgency and Anti-Terrorism.

And as a result, this allows armed forces to engage these armed formations with the use of force.

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Civil Process

Civil Process has concluded U.S. Law. And as a result, Government has issued the law through a Civil Process. This includes the use of military force.

As long as Congress retains the Law as defined, there is nothing else in our Civil Process to change the law, less a petition for redress, or an election.

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ensayario · 1 year ago

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IELTS exam, prep 2

On recent days, there have been discussions in our community regarding the school curriculum, focused on whether it should include or not a space for Physical Education classes in all grades.

If we turn around to review the Greeks point of view, we obtain phrases as "healthy mind in healthy body", which pinpoint the direct relationship between the mental health and the exercise. This argument has been proven by scientific studies that have shown that anxiety and depression are less frequent amognst individual that exercise on a regular basis.

On the other hand, we face a time where the success of a person is measured by grades and a fierce competition is in place to prove that one is worthy by accomplishing goals such as a good-paying job, having a house, and having financial freedom. All of this -we are told- can be accomplished by achieving academic brilliance. Having these goals in mind, the Physical Education program can be deemed as irrelevant, in comparison with other topics.

However, we have seen countless cases of people that can be labeled as "successful" by having accomplished all those goals, and that are also part of another statistic: drug abuse, violence, suicidal rate even. We live in a society packed with adults that played by those old rules and as a result we face a pandemic of misery.

From my point of view, the labour of this millenia parents is a holistic mission: for nurturing and developing all the components of the humans we have under our care; to offer them a balanced lifestyle that unites mind expansion with physical wellbeing.

In conclussion, I support the inclusion of Physical Education classes in the curriculumn for all school-age children, given the importance of a well-rounded education that has as a goal the formation of functional adults.

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some-other-number · 1 year ago

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the reason people prioritize women and kids isn't because of feminism, idiot, its because of cultural reasons, some of them sexist, some of them not, and because obviously children are more at risk. not to mention most of the actual violence by the israel state is perpetuated BY men and so the population is wary because women and girls experience wartime rape more often than palestinian men. none of this is related to feminism . white knights need to shut the hell up. you do not get to dehumanize us and pretend arab women are favored over our brothers and better off during our own annihilation, just to make a vague antifeminist debate out of it. we are ALL begging the west to see us as human beings and propaganda doesn't allow you to. and extremely little of that propaganda has anything to do with "radical feminism" or whatever you are in a culture war against.

you seem genuinely very upset and I'm sorry about that but why are you in my askbox. I'm not the person you should be taking this issue up with, and if you're going to every single person in the notes of that post even in the circumstances I think you have a problem and need to take a step back. there are other things you can do aside from this, because you're not being helpful. I don't think anyone with a scrap of decency is denying the horrors perpetuated against palestinian women and children; there is just, due to the assumption under gender essentialism that men must be the protectors of women and children; that women need protecting, probably from other men, placing the blame of men's violence onto women, as well as dismisses the need to teach everyone, but especially men, to respect their fellow human beings, and this has metamorphosed into assuming any man is a combatant; a specific kind of dehumanisation due to gender. this assumption that all men (especially between ages eighteen and sixty-five) are combatants is used as an excuse to further dehumanise palestinian men and excuse the massacre of them because 'what if they were secretly combatants' when instead they were innocent civilians. this is about viewing every single palestinian facing the horrific ongoing genocide as a human being, including the ones that are more likely to be excused as 'oh but they may have secretly been terrorists'. your other points are completely irrelevant to that specific discussion; nobody is going to say that's not happening to prove a culture war point. nobody decent at least. and assuming that is what's happening is incredibly bad faith and shows a callous nature towards your fellow human beings, especially when it is calling out the dehumanisation of men due to their gender and cultural gender expectations by specifically western 'feminists' who hide behind the label and degrade the work of actual feminists by colluding with fascists.

#ask #I'm genuinely confused about how you took 'hey let's not allow WESTERN people to dehumanise people experiencing crimes against #humanity because of their gender' as 'women aren't affected by this and are prioritised'#that - and granted I could've misread the post; I have had a migraine - is to me a leap of logic #how is discussing the fact that due to gendered expectations there is a specific way in which men are dehumanised #saying that women are prioritised. please. explain that to me.#you just seem to be projecting beliefs onto me that I don't have based on one post and that's not healthy #please if you're feeling distressed I know it's near impossible to look away from what's happening but you need to do something #that will make you feel better. there is no point in causing yourself any more distress than is necessary.#ik gazans can't and we're very privileged to be able to do so. but genuinely. burning yourself out with distress and grief #is only going to help the yanks and israel.

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nidmightcookies · 7 months ago

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you talk about Ed baiting the crew to murder him and committing other violent acts. The original point is stating that Ed is not depicted as uncontrollably violent in the show, not claiming that he perpetrated no violence full stop.

Yeah, I addressed this is another reply to someone, but I'll apologize again for going off on a tangent without making it more clear. I did agree with PCCP, that Ed was not uncontrollably violent, but the fact remains that he was a danger/did harm to his crew (which I've seen other people argue against). The thoughts all got smushed together. Sorry. :(

I’m really glad that you mentioned that OP hadn’t made either of those arguments (that you know of), that was genuinely very cool.

I truly was/am trying for honest discussion. A lot of shitty arguments about the characters and their motivations have been made on Tumblr, but I've always liked PCCP's more grounded arguments. So it was only fair to point it out.

As for the rest of it, I don’t believe I’ve seen anyone say that Ed is “never shown to be violent” or that he can always be “absolved of the blame” unless you want to remove all of the nuance from common talking points.

Sadly, I have seen those arguments, hmm, sometime in the last month I'd guess? I don't recall who made them, just noticed them uttered in the daily anti-Izzy rants I scrolled past. I haven't seen them in a few days. Maybe those people blocked me as well.

I mean, back to my question: how many other pirate captains did we see get literally beaten to death by their own crew, in order to stop the violence? I'm not saying Ed was violent without reason, or that he deserved what he got, or anything. He got abuse heaped upon him, and he reacted. It's not the why I was trying to point out, just the fact that it happened.

His actions make sense. They’re not spontaneous violence committed because Ed flies into rages and homicidal spirals out of the blue.

Agreed. But those actions, while perhaps not his fault, had consequences that other people (even people who had done him no harm) had to suffer through. Back to those "absolved of all blame" posts mentioned upthread. It was frustrating to see that argument come up. I won't miss it, if it's gone now.

Ed's race isn’t inconsequential. We can't really remove race from the story and end up with the same character, y'know?

True, though my question here was more directed at PCCP's comment on the subject of racism being used to paint Ed as uncontrollably violent. I wondered what would be different in a situation where everything was the same, but that couldn't be a factor.

Also: I do think it’s inappropriate to turn this question back on POC. I don’t think that POC are obligated to reconsider biases against a white character.

No one's obligated to do anything. I thought the post was meant for debate as is was posted to the general public and labeled "discourse". I had questions, so I asked them.

Ed’s relationship to Izzy is not comparable to his relationship with the crew. The crew have done nothing wrong and haven’t behaved antagonistically towards Ed.

I feel like that's irrelevant. My statement was in response to "Ed never hurt the crew, only Izzy", which I felt was ridiculous, because Izzy is still crew, even if he's bad crew.

Yes, Ed did do that, but I think that Atticus is talking about Ed’s S2 actions in that point, not what happened in S1.

Yeah, valid. I didn't get that on my first read.

When we watch OFMD, we have to adjust our physical violence meters to account for the fact that we’re dealing with an environment that’s full of physical violence.

See, I feel like that leads us back to the "most violent pirate discussion" though...

I don't consider Ed emotionally abusive.

Heh, now here's where I was the one talking about just the Kraken stuff! I was thinking of Ed pointing the gun at everyone, "do you think this is a toxic envionment?", Fang crying... up until they're all facing dying in a shipwreck. Plus, killing Ed was pretty traumatic for them also.

Someone really needs to open up Ye Olde Pyrate Therapy. Maybe Spanish Jackie's new side gig.

Same, friend, and I'm sorry you went through that.

Same to you. :(

(That’s actually one of the reasons I’ve always been wary of Izzy. What he says and does in S1 is too familiar to me, sometimes to a point where I can’t watch certain scenes.)

Hadn't thought of it that way, I guess. I can see how that would make it hard to warm up to the character.

For me, Izzy's redeemable because he actually has a redemption arc, and tries to make amends in a few ways. The abusive people I've known personally never felt the need to change, so it feels kind of hopeful to see that in the fantasy realm of OFMD. I'll admit, Izzy is a prick in the beginning...and the middle... but when he has to change, I dunno, I like the idea that he could come back from where he was.

There are things in the show -- whole episodes, if you want to look at S1E5 and the fancy party guests who treat Ed like exotic entertainment and not a peer

Yep. Each time *cough*too many times*cough* I did a rewatch I'd notice another condescending look or snide remark or whatever. It's brilliantly scripted/acted/directed. But yeah, it is the show we have. My questions around this point in the post were mainly in the "what-if" realm.

And yeah, Ed being brown changes the dynamic between Ed and Izzy.

The reason I singled out this point in the original post was that "Izzy tried to control Ed" was used as an example underneath the heading "are all Izzy fans racist"... TBH I don't remember exactly where I was going with this, but it struck me as a sort of loaded question type argument, and I wondered how it would go if the difference in race was removed

Agreed. The only problem being when the one side says the other side isn't allowed to feel whatever. (This applies to every side)

But with OFMD, it can raise eyebrows when people say their main concern is the suffering of a white man who behaves antagonistically towards a brown man

Honest question: Has anyone actually said that? (Some of my problem here is I'm somehow missing most of the arguments that trigger these "ugh the Izzy fans are at it again" posts) Or is that just something that people are reading into it, every time somebody says Izzy's their favorite character? I don't think that being a bigger fan of Izzy than you are of Ed, actually equals "the white man's pain is greater". Some people just root for the asshole characters?

and that Izzy's loyalty belongs to the violent worksona that Ed wants to shed.

I just want to take a moment to delight in the word "worksona", which is perfect. Okay, moving on.

Is Ed being abusive when he’s reacting in response to abuse from his abuser?

In retaliation for abuse directed at him, no. When he later directs the abuse at subordinates who hadn't previously hurt him, yes. (I know that wasn't part of your argument)

There are also a lot of things that are very clear. When people try to subvert the messages and ideas that OFMD is conveying loudly and openly, other fans get suspicious and wonder if the folks doing the subverting have an agenda, a bias, or just misunderstand what the show is saying.

We're back to the "I haven't even seen these posts" again, which is why I'm so damn confused. Seriously, is it stuff bleeding over from Twitter or somewhere, 'cause I'm not really on any other platform.

Or are you trying to tell me that my posting was the problem? In which case... I can only wave at the word "discourse" one final time, and promise I'm not trolling here.

I did enjoy reading/responding to your reply. Thanks for taking the time!

Heyo, @nidmightcookies! This is my response to your reply on Atticus' post over here -- I didn't want to take away from the message of that post or the additions from other POC.

Sidenote: I'm extremely white and have no credentials that make me qualified to talk about race (I'm just a person who reads and tries to listen), and my takes are probably going to show that. That's another reason I didn't want to clutter up the original post with my reply.

In response to this

“Why is it racist to depict Ed as uncontrollably violent? Because he's not actually depicted that way in the show.”

What Ed does is purposeful, not uncontrollable. He doesn’t push Lucius off the ship after he gives up all hope because he’s a violent guy who just does stuff like that, and the mutiny situation in S2E2… as allthinky said in a response, “that’s Ed at the end of his rope,” not him being uncontrollably violent. He’d been working towards suicide ever since he started baiting Low. As a backup plan, he’s been working the crew hard, disregarding their well-being, and being an overall awful boss in an attempt to incite a mutiny.

Yes, he was “a serious, immediate threat to his crew” by the time he was out of other ideas to make someone take him out. Ed commits acts of violence -- I don’t think I’ve seen anyone claim he doesn’t -- but he always does so with some amount of reason (not necessarily good reasons) and control.

“Upon reflection, my biggest issue may be with the people who argue that Ed's never been shown to be violent, or that any time he has resorted to violence, he's absolved of blame by the fact that someone was mean to him first. Which... I don't think I've seen you make either of those arguments at any point in the past.”

I’m really glad that you mentioned that OP hadn’t made either of those arguments (that you know of), that was genuinely very cool. As for the rest of it, I don’t believe I’ve seen anyone say that Ed is “never shown to be violent” or that he can always be “absolved of the blame” unless you want to remove all of the nuance from common talking points.

He is never shown to be more violent than the average pirate and, due to his deep-seated trauma relating to his own capacity for violence, he’s actually on the less violent end of the pirate spectrum. He can’t be absolved of all blame for his actions because he’s a grown man who makes his own choices (and saying otherwise robs him of his agency). What I’ve seen said is that Ed’s actions are informed by things like trauma, abuse, and racism. His actions make sense. They’re not spontaneous violence committed because Ed flies into rages and homicidal spirals out of the blue.

“Not saying we shouldn't consider it [that is, are we “assigning more weight to Ed's violent actions than those of other characters or assuming he's worse than he actually is”], but I mean. If a white character on the show had cut off his employee's toes and fed them to him, shot him in the leg, ordered his death, held a gun on his other subordinates, marooned some/tossed one overboard, threatened to drown the ones that remained... because he was pushed into it, with the same combination of abusive childhood/hostile work environment... would he be equally deserving of that consideration? Would it be an overreaction to call him dangerous?”

Probably, but if everything was the same except Ed Is White Now, his baggage and his relationship with Izzy wouldn’t be exactly the same. Ed's race isn’t inconsequential. We can't really remove race from the story and end up with the same character, y'know?

Also: I do think it’s inappropriate to turn this question back on POC. I don’t think that POC are obligated to reconsider biases against a white character.

“Izzy is crew”

Ed’s relationship to Izzy is not comparable to his relationship with the crew. The crew have done nothing wrong and haven’t behaved antagonistically towards Ed. Izzy and Ed have a complicated, toxic, and difficult relationship (regardless of where you stand on whether or not Izzy’s abusive), therefore any harm caused to Izzy has to be considered differently than harm caused to the rest of the crew.

“Even if we say that he doesn't count, Ed still pushed Lucius off the ship.”

Yes, Ed did do that, but I think that Atticus is talking about Ed’s S2 actions in that point, not what happened in S1. Most (I think all?) meta I’ve read does consider Ed pushing Lucius off the ship an act of violence that Lucius himself did nothing to provoke.

This might be controversial, but I’d put Ed pushing Lucius overboard on par with, like, a particularly unjust firing in a workplace that isn’t a pirate vessel. When we watch OFMD, we have to adjust our physical violence meters to account for the fact that we’re dealing with an environment that’s full of physical violence.

“Also, emotional abuse directed at the rest of the crew is still abuse”

I don't consider Ed emotionally abusive. He works the crew hard. He’s a terrible boss who doesn’t give his employees vacation days or paid time off and then throws them a sad pizza party. That sucks, it’s not okay, and his final death spiral in S2E2 is terrible and he never should have involved the crew in that.

Abuse is a pattern of behavior that’s meant to control people. Not all harm is abuse. When I say that Ed isn't abusive, I'm not saying that he didn't hurt people.

“So... I was raised by a physically and psychologically abusive parent. I get that Ed's been hurt, is still hurting, and why. The "why" doesn't matter for the question of "did he or didn't he", though. It may or may not be his fault, he may or may not have done it because he felt unsafe. The point is, his actions did hurt people.”

Same, friend, and I'm sorry you went through that. (That’s actually one of the reasons I’ve always been wary of Izzy. What he says and does in S1 is too familiar to me, sometimes to a point where I can’t watch certain scenes.) I don’t think anyone’s saying that Ed isn’t hurting anyone, or that all of his actions can be attributed to abuse. If that’s not what you’re getting at here, apologies for misunderstanding.

“His boss that he was trying to control was brown. Was that a factor in his power play though, or was it because Taika wound up being cast as Blackbeard? Any other (white) actor in the role, would Izzy be as bad for trying to control him? Would the scripts have gone a different way?”

Here’s the thing. In the show we have, Blackbeard is played by a Maori/Jewish man, and this fundamentally alters the character. There are things in the show -- whole episodes, if you want to look at S1E5 and the fancy party guests who treat Ed like exotic entertainment and not a peer -- that wouldn’t be the same if Ed was white.

And yeah, Ed being brown changes the dynamic between Ed and Izzy. It would still be bad if a white guy was trying to control another white guy, but it wouldn’t be bad on the same level. Same goes if they were both brown. A white man trying to control the behavior of an indigenous man is worse.

“Izzy got permanently disfigured, crippled, and dead, while Ed came out largely unscathed in a physical sense, due to Muppet logic. Not to say one is more deserving than the other, but for a bunch of fans, there's probably a sense of Izzy getting the short end of the stick, to consider.”

That’s fine if some people feel like Izzy got the short end of the stick. It’s fine that some people feel like Izzy’s arc was kinder to him than it should have been. It’s okay to feel whatever! We connect emotionally to different characters and that biases our opinions and meta. That’s not a crime. We just need to be aware of our biases and why they exist.

The thing with OFMD is that Ed is a main character with more background and a story that, at every turn, asks you to sympathize with him. We’re given a look into Ed’s psyche. We understand at least some of his trauma and hurt and why he acts the way he does. Izzy has virtually no backstory and we’re never offered a glimpse into his mind; we don’t know why he’s like that. You can totally like a secondary character (or even an antagonist!) with no real canonical background or mental groundwork. It’s fun to ask why characters do what they do when canon doesn’t offer us any answers, and who doesn’t love a mystery box?

But with OFMD, it can raise eyebrows when people say their main concern is the suffering of a white man who behaves antagonistically towards a brown man, especially when that brown character is a well-developed lead who also suffers (and suffers at the hands of aforementioned white character). It’s not inherently racist for someone to care more about Izzy than Ed, but it’s also not unreasonable to ask that someone to think about the possibility that subconscious racism could be factoring into their point of view.

“I don't think it's fair discussion to have a rule saying ‘even though you didn't directly call out the brown man, your argument is still racist’... even if it's true in many cases, it effectively means that no criticism of the character can ever be considered valid. If someone wants to argue ‘removing your employee's toes and feeding them to him is abusive behavior’, they can't, because of the unspoken skin colors involved? I don't know what the solution to this is.”

No one is saying that all criticism of a character of color is racist or invalid. As allthinky said in response, we’re saying that “those critiques have to be based on real evidence, and placed in a careful context, so that their actions can be understood as human, and not just the brutality of some brute.”

Criticize, but criticize with evidence and with awareness of the context of the criticized behavior.

With the Izzy example, you have to consider the context of their relationship and Izzy’s actions throughout S1. Izzy isn’t just an employee: he’s a trusted second-in-command who has been insulting, controlling, and disloyal; he endangered not just Stede but also Ed and the rest of the crew; he told Ed that he was better off dead than acting as he was, and that Izzy's loyalty belongs to the violent worksona that Ed wants to shed. Is Ed being abusive when he’s reacting in response to abuse from his abuser?

“[T]he show has layers (like an onion). Sometimes the meaning is not entirely surface-level, and everyone has a different level of comprehension. Sometimes obvious things to us aren't obvious to other fans/vice-versa. There's a whole 'nother discussion of media literacy to be had.”

I think that Atticus said it best here: “This is not a subtle show. That's not to say it's a simple one [...]. It's amazingly layered and emotional responses by characters are often extremely complex. However, when the show is trying to tell you something, it's not subtle and it never tries to hide it.”

There are a lot of things in OFMD that are subjective and open to interpretation, and those things are fun to discuss even when we have different takes. There are also a lot of things that are very clear. When people try to subvert the messages and ideas that OFMD is conveying loudly and openly, other fans get suspicious and wonder if the folks doing the subverting have an agenda, a bias, or just misunderstand what the show is saying.

I hope that reply was sufficient!

#ofmd #fandom discourse

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suneeater · 2 years ago

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☼ 𝕤𝕦𝕟𝕖𝕖𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕟𝕒𝕧.

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nightswithkookmin · 3 years ago

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Jimin is getting hate again just because of a humoured Taekook subunit 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 how to protect our precious Angel

Sadly we don't have the numbers. We never had. That's the reality their solo IGs have exposed. We been knew though. The OT7 agenda has never been about stanning each member equally. In fact, it's been worn as a badge of violence, a badge of oppression, a font and camouflage to disquise the inherent baises, preferences and favoritisms of some members at the expense of others.

It's sad and unfortunate they bullied anyone who so much as pointed it out or questioned the authenticity of that agenda and labeled them solos or antis and propagandists.

The OT7 slogan has been used as the go to excuse and justification and license to be dismissive of the troubling and disconcerting schisms and unequal stanning prevalent within the fandom. To that I say, shame on Army. Shame on all of you. Y'all exposed your butts.

They prove this time and time again when they never stood up for the members equally when they recieved hate, remained silent while it happened and pretend they are each loved and hated on equally, refused to admit that that's never been the case- OT7 is a delusion. Anyone who preaches that or worse acts like that's the case is just plain delusional.

Perhaps now they would be forced to confront these biases within themselves and within the fandom, fight and stand up for the members who aren't necessarily in the majority here and learn to call out the bs when others come shitting.

The why they are hating on him is irrelevant to me because they is no justification for hate. There's no justification for abusing others, traumatizing them or terrorizing them. Hate is not the answer.

Just be a good human and I promise none of this would happen.

Apart from the clout and wanting attention, why does the existence of one person bother people so much??

The more they hate him the more I feel compelled to love him, pray for him, root for him and protect him.

If we had the numbers things would have been easier. They use divide and conquer tactics. They stick together but will draw a wedge between us by constantly pitting our differences against us and each other.

Tuktukkers are 'hard to cancel' but jikookers are so easily deactivated and bullied out of the fandom because jikook centers Jimin not JK. Worse, jikookers will be the once to terrorize their own out of the fandom because they has pleasing streaks. Pick mes. Always looking for praise from other shippers. 'I am a joker but I'm different.' You know I'm not like the rest- A. B. C .D EF. U

youtube

I dedicate this song to all Jimin haters and anyone out there claiming i hate Jimin. You all can FUCK OFF.

Hybe can FUCK OFF TOO for allowing this to happen for this long and not say a single word against the so called 0T7 solos in disguise.

While you are here, if you are not following ALL the boys on IG FUCK YOU.

IF YOU ARE OUT HERE AND YOU DON'T LIKE JIMIN BURN IN HELL

IF THE OT7 PARROTS CANNOT CALL THIS HATERATION AND VIOLENCE AGAINST JIMIN OUT AND CALL FOR HYBE TO PROTECT JIMIN BY SUING OR THROWING OUT THESE SLIMY CREATURES OUT OF CONCERTS LIKE THEY DID FANSITES FUCK THEM.

FUCK HYBE

FUCK ANYONE WHO THINKS I HATE HYBE.

IF HYBE IS WONDERING IF I HATE EM THO

youtube

You protect Jimin by not spreading the negativity. By not giving those attention seekers the engagement and retweets they are so desperate for.

You protect him by loving him.

Unfollow any 'big account' silent on this. They are enablers and JM antis in disguise.

Help clear searches.

Boycott hybe. Yea I said it. They are enablers too and because of money are too afraid to go after toxic army. Until they put out a statement to warn ARMY they will protect their artists even against THEIR OWN 'FANS' they do not have my respect.

Stream his music.

Post links of his songs under the comments of his hate tweets lets give him free exposure and make him money from these ass warts.

Lastly, report these hate comments for targeted harrassment and hate speech.

I hope he doesn't let them get to him.

LOVE JIMIN TOO. OT7.

Goldy

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nineteenthmay · 2 years ago

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Dan Humphrey as Gossip Girl

Decided to write down my thoughts on the matter. I have seen a lot of people saying that Dan turning out to be Gossip Girl doesn’t make sense, that it was a stupid retcon but while I agree that this idea was not very well executed and there are inconsistencies (like Dan reacting to Gossip Girl’s posts with surprise or shock while being alone) I don’t believe that making Dan Gossip Girl was the writers’ last minute’s random decision or something because there are a lot of signs and circumstantial evidence throughout the series from the very beginning that point at Dan that simply can’t be accidental. Let’s consider...

First, we know that in Gossip Girl’s centre of attention there had always been Serena, Gossip Girl’s first post was about Serena, we see Serena’s picture and hear Gossip Girl uttering Serena’s name in opening credits of every episode etc. Who had been obsessed with Serena since pre-pilot days? Dan. It’s said in 2x25 that the posts started when our gang was at the ninth grade; Dan first met Serena at a ninth grade birthday party.

At the beginning of the pilot when Gossip Girl is introduced during the voicecover of the famous phrase "that's one secret I'll never tell" the camera points at Dan sitting at his laptop. I mean, common, there’s no reason for Dan to be shown right then and there, such things on tv series are never a coincidence. Plus, in the same episode helping his father with fliers Dan recommends to him to have a blog and suspiciously hovers behind Chuck and Nate on a bus listening to their conversation, Chuck actually notices it and asks if he follows them.

The Season 2 finale is another episode that is full of clues. Dan is upset about his name being omitted from the list of graduates and what soon follows is Gossip Girl’s blast with labels where among other stuff Serena is called ‘irrelevant’ (like Dan was made to feel irrelevant a moment ago). Dan’s label is the only one that is inoffensive and it is also very suggestive - "the ultimate insider", indeed, what better label could Dan assign himself as Gossip Girl? Later at the Van der Basses’ penthouse when Serena gathers the gang together to unmask Gossip Girl Dan is very irresponsive to her idea and together with Vanessa conveniently leaves the party right before the gang implements their plan to unmask Gossip Girl. Finally - and it’s pointed out in the series finale - Dan is the first person who appears at the bar where Serena was waiting for Gossip Girl to come. Also, Dan thanks Serena for letting him in her world from outside which not only shows that it was indeed important for Dan to belong to the Upper East Side but his phrasing also sounds kind of suspiciously (in 1x02 Gossip Girl’s voicecover says "the ultimate insider has become a total outsider") .

In 4x09 Dan tells Nate that "Serena van der Woodsen does not exist", the same phrase is repeated by Gossip Girl’s voicecover in the Season 5 finale.

In 5x10 when at a hospital Serena and Nate accuse Gossip Girl for causing Chuck and Blair’s car accident Dan is weirdly defensive on Gossip Girl’s behalf. Next episode we learn that Gossip Girl has shut her site after the accident, Gossip Girl starts to message Nate offering him to investigate what caused the accident and helps him out. Feeling guilty Dan as Gossip Girl would be very interested to prove that someone else was responsible for the car crash in order to clear his conscience. And, indeed, luckily for Dan/Gossip Girl it turns out that the accident was caused by Nate’s cousin Tripp.

Also, around the same time, in 5x12 Gossip Girl seems unsatisfied with Serena running a column for "Spectator" and via messages demands Nate to take down her column. Who else is unsatisfied with Serena making career as a blogger? Dan.

In 5x22 Dan follows Chuck and Blair to the brothel-mansion. We see him sitting in a taxi outside the building and speaking with Rufus on phone but we never see him departing. In the same evening Gossip Girl succeeds in getting into the building and regaining her laptop. In the video that Diana sends to Nate in the Season 5 finale it’s revealed that the person who stole the laptop was a guy.

In 6x01 Nate texts to Gossip Girl asking for help to find Serena but Gossip Girl seems very mad at Serena and announces that "Serena is dead". Who else is very mad at Serena and declares that he doesn’t even want to help her? Dan.

And of course, the last episodes before the finale are transparent: in 6x08 Dan announces to Rufus that he has had a plan all along, in 6x09 when Serena tells him that he is worse than Gossip Girl his facial expression says it all, etc.

These are the things that first come in my mind, I’m sure that one can find more re-watching the series closely.

I also believe that the writers made Serena acting as Gossip Girl briefly in Season 5 taking into consideration the idea of Dan as Gossip Girl so that Serena could forgive him at the end because she had done the same thing.

Plus, Dan was the only one who had a believable motive and it was in line with unsavoury traits of Dan’s character like his envy of the Upper East Siders’ privileges, power and wealth, self-righteousness, lack of self-awareness, hypocrisy, tendency to exploit people around him for his writing purposes.

Yeah, there are holes in this Dan as Gossip Girl business but some things that I have seen being pointed out as plot holes on closer inspection can be explained. I want to discuss the two here: the Rachel Carr situation in Season 2 and Gossip Girl’s blast at Blair’s wedding in 5x13.

So, why would Dan post a rumour about himself and a teacher? Well, why wouldn’t he? It’s important to understand that Dan craved for attention, recognition, fame, power, he wanted to be noticed and talked about. And by posting this rumour he didn’t really risk with anything, he knew that the rumour was false and nothing could be proven, he haven’t started an affair with Carr yet, it happened after and Carr couldn’t be fired on basis on some rumour that was floating on a teenage gossip blog. Moreover, it gave him an opportunity to take down Blair exposing her as a slanderer. Re-watch 2x17, it was Dan who reported on Blair to Carr and suggested to use one of her minions Nelli Yuki to prove that Blair sent the tip, and Dan almost succeeded in getting Blair expelled. Problems for Dan started afterwards when Serena saw him with Carr in intimate atmosphere, took a photo of them and gave it to Blair, and Blair e-mailed the photo to the headmistress and made appearance at the parents-teachers meeting.

Regarding the blast at Blair’s wedding I have seen the question posed - how could Dan send the blast or text anything unnoticed when he literally was standing in sight of everyone at the altar? The answer is simple, he didn’t. It was Georgina, who had stolen the site and was acting as Gossip Girl at the time. Dan only sent the video to Gossip Girl, perhaps in hope that whoever has stolen the site would not be able to resist to such a juicy piece and will post it.

In conclusion, I believe that Stephanie Savage told the truth when she said that the idea of Dan as Gossip Girl was there right from the start. It simply was inconsistently executed partly because they didn’t tell the actors about it (and consequently Penn Badgley couldn’t act accordingly when Dan was reading Gossip Girl’s posts/blasts), partly because they hadn’t decided whether to reveal Gossip Girl’s identity or not, and partly for reasons unknown to us, who knows, maybe there were disagreements between the writers on this matter.

#Gossip Girl

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moran-with-a-g · 7 months ago

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Jews can be antisemitic like queers can be queerphobic. Being Jewish doesn't protect you from internalized antisemitism or from antisemitic propaganda. Also I don't recall calling you antisemitic? Unless you're saying you're one of the people who went into Wikipedia to edit out Jewish history and erase the Jewishness of famous people. I'm pro-palestinian too, it doesn't contradict my Tzioni identity.

I'm gonna try to explain to you seriously why your point is coming from the wrong point of view. I didn't go into your links because I'm on mobile and it's midnight and can't bother to figure out how to copy them and can't bother to read the pages. You can let me know in a reblog if there's anything important I'm missing from not going into the links (only thing I ask is that if you include images you add image descriptions in the alt text please).

First of all, I know I said "while we weren't here", but by "we" I didn't mean the Jewish community as a whole - someone corrected me in the tags of a reblog and they're correct, there was consistently a Jewish community living in the land of Israel ever since the existence of the kingdom of Israel - I meant "we" as in "diaspora Jews who made Aliyah around the last 150 years".

Second, do you have a source on them actually being descendents of Israelites? I heard so many people claim that, or that they're descendents of Canaanites, or whatever - but I also recall seeing actual sources that they're not genetically distinctive from Syrian Arabs or Egyptian Arabs. I just want to know where you got that information from, I'm not saying it's necessarily true or false.

I don't think you understand tho how that's actually irrelevant to the discussion. You're looking at the wrong facts.

What's relevant is:

The culture of the two groups.

The ancestry of the two groups.

The options the two groups have in the modern day.

I'm not an expert on Palestinian culture. I have never claimed to be. I cannot tell you how distinct it is compared to Jordanian culture or Egyptian or Lebanese. And especially, I cannot tell you how tied it is to the land of Israel-Palestine.

But jewish culture? It's directly tied to the land. You cannot celebrate Pesach without mentioning Israel, you cannot get married without remembering your love of Jerusalem, we are Am Yisrael, we are the children of Judea, we came from the land of Israel and the land of Judea. The language of most of our prayers and of our Torah came from there, most of our rituals include it, it's directly tied to Judaism.

By the ancestry of both groups I mean the current people living in the land, and both groups have been there for multiple generations. I believe a person being born somewhere should grant that person the right to live there, so personally I don't care even if someone proved to me rn that every single palestinian is actually a descendant of someone who came from another land about 200 years ago, I'd still believe they have a right to live there and have a country. Even if before Israel's independence they denied the label of "Palestinians", I still believe in their right to have an independent country called palestine and exist as Palestinians.

And with somewhere to go - Jews have faced pogrom after pogrom in our years of exile, and Palestinians are barely accepted as refugees in the neighbouring arab countries. Both groups have nowhere to go.

Palestinians being genetically related to Canaanites or Israelites doesn't matter. Even if they aren't it doesn't make them less entitled to have independence on the same land. And I'm not so sure they are, because Arabs colonized the middle east, and Palestinians are mostly also Arabs. You can admit that without it taking away from the right of modern day people to live in their countries.

Wanna really argue what came first? The kingdom of Israel came first, with the expulsion of the Jewish communities it was renamed Palestina to try to erase our connection to it, the name was kept for the region until the political zionist movement started trying to reclaim the land, and then when both Israel and Palestine got the opportunity to declare independence on their own part of the land - only Israel did.

You can't tell me palestine came first and then ignore the origin of the name palestine and the origin of the name Israel. There's a reason why Israel of today is called Israel and why palestine of today is called palestine.

Don't nitpick what facts you wanna follow. Support palestine but use the full truth to do it. Their 'side' doesn't need to be morally pure to deserve support. Fuck if Israel is morally pure ik a jar of pickles. I still believe in Israel's existence - I just think our government should go to jail and not that all of Israel should mass immigrate to Poland. And Palestinians aren't morally pure either, Hamas isn't ever the only terrorist organisation operating under palestine's name, but I still believe palestine should exist.

Do the antisemites that invaded the pro-palestinian movement know the origin of the word Palestine is from the Hebrew root פ.ל.ש, the root for the word invaders? Do they know it's based on Philistia, the name given to the region that's based after the Philistines? Do they know we don't actually know the actual name the Philistines called themselves, and that we called them that as an insult, because it's from the same root as invaders?

Like do you realise all this time the name of this land was "invaded" while we weren't here? When you try to claim Jews have no connection to the Levant do you realise what you're claiming? This is driving me insane.

(this is NOT saying palestinians aren't natives and don't deserve a country of their own, and I will block anyone who reblogs this trying to claim that)

#morgan megiva #reblog #i/p #antisemitism #image id #image id in alt text

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hopeymchope · 3 years ago

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Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! final thoughts

I’ve been wanting to talk about my feelings on “Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!” for a while now, but for whatever reason, I’ve been struggling to put them into words. Given my training as a writer, this is pretty embarrassing. So I’m just going to ramble at you.

There are basically three stories in DDLC+: The main narrative/”campaign,” the side stories (which add up to one continuous story when viewed in sequence), and the meta-narrative of Metaverse Enterprise Solutions. (It’s funny how this release hit in the same year when companies like Facebook and Epic Games started pushing their own definition of the word “metaverse,” but there is no relation between their metaverse and this fictional company.) The Side Stories are unlocked by playing through the main campaign, and progressing through the Side Stories helps you unlock the bulk of the MES story that is provided via email text.

The main campaign is the game that the Internet fell in love with back in 2017. Because of my personal choices in the game, they successfully tricked me into thinking there was more variation to the story than there really is. In reality, although you can certainly unlock some different blocks of text and different reactions along the way (and in fact, you have to do some save-scumming to unlock all of the CGs and achieve the best ending), it’s mostly a linear narrative. By 2021, a lot of the tricks in this game feel less amazing than they did in 2017, but it’s still a very clever story, and it’s impressive how well-written it is. Even before it takes a hard left turn into existential horror, it manages to establish an endearing main cast.

Mmmm nah, I think you’re always a mess, honey.

Everybody is likable here, from our surprisingly snarky MC down to the initially prickly Natsuki. What really grabbed me was how they manage to make it clear that the lead girls are more than just jokey visual novel tropes; they are all, as I’ve previously observed, struggling mentally. That’s true of them from the very start, and it becomes readily apparent by the third and fourth “days” of the game. That depth keeps things emotionally engaging on through to the end, and it pays off even more in the “Side Stories.”

By now, most of the Internet knows who the “secret” main character of the game is. But without stating who that is, I want to say that I never found them creepy? Even when they felt misguided, they were sincerely based in their actions. I never stopped being sympathetic to their plight. Perhaps the hardest part of the game for me was doing what I needed to do to progress into the fourth and final act.

If I have one complaint about the primary campaign, it’s the way in which the MC is filtered out of it over time. This is never really explained or resolved; he’s just irrelevant and stops being discussed or sharing his thoughts at a certain point without any justification for that fact. You — that is, the player at home — are just left to notice that he’s suddenly not offering any first-person commentary or thoughts any longer... even when other characters seem to still talk to him like normal. He becomes functionally absent without us ever understanding what changed or why, and that doesn’t make sense.

I hear that. Think I know anybody else IRL who could read or tolerate a visual novel? The struggle is real.

And as I already referenced, you can unlock a “best ending,” but I’m not sure if it’s really worth it. It barely diverts from the default ending. Oh, and the credits sequence? Dynamite, deeply loved it, super sweet and cool and affecting.

Okay, so: SIDE STORIES. These were the main selling point of the “Plus!” edition. Players familiar with the original 2017 game now get an entire new narrative that starts out like a prequel but eventually feels more like a parallel universe. And yes, when I say “narrative,” I mean that the Side Stories are — despite their label as plural “stories” — actually a single linear tale that you just happen to view in parts. Furthermore, when taken as a whole, the “Side Stories” are about as long as the main game is. Their presence effectively doubles the game’s length. They even get a unique soundtrack and their own separate credits.

This time, the MC is kept off-screen (although he gets referenced in dialogue) because the focus is on how the girls first met and formed the club. Thanks to the struggles of these girls that were established in the main campaign, I found the experience of watching them open up to one another and face their inner demons together to be emotional and affecting. That moment in the first couple of chapters when Sayori writes those five words on a sheet of paper for Monika to read? Holy shit. I related to that. I felt that. When Natsuki ultimately determines how to deal with her longtime friends? Brutal, but again, totally relatable. It got me feeling that tight, sour sensation in my chest. Writer Dan Salvato proves in these things that he’s completely capable of creating excellent material without relying on the gimmicks that the campaign focused on. This is a story where the only “horrors” are real life, our personal demons, and the ongoing struggle to connect with other people in meaningful ways. Seeing how these characters connected makes the events of the main campaign much more tragic. In short: I love it.

Heartfelt, heartwarming shit.

If I can step back and remark on both the main game and the “Side Stories” mode for a second... It’s legitimately impressive how both the main campaign’s third act and the overall Side Stories both contain a lot of really good, accurate advice for how to treat people with various mental struggles/illnesses. I can only assume that Dan Salvato did his homework or knew a lot about this stuff firsthand. There is no single solution for how to best help someone in your life cope with a given mental problem, but the suggestions put forth in this game are genuinely very, very constructive. Major respect and kudos for that.

Okay, let’s get back to the matter at hand. The only thing left for me to discuss is the meta-narrative, the whole thing with Metaverse Enterprise Solutions. By design, this is the shortest story of the trio — it adds up to total nothing more than a few pages of plain text on a white background. It also takes time to unlock each piece of this puzzle, and ultimately, it doesn’t really work IMO. See, this meta-narrative purports to offer insight into the (fictional) developer of the very game you are playing, but it’s too disjointed and out-of-step with the content in the other modes. The emails and logs that make up the meta-narrative are totally disconnected from one another, with each one feeling like a tiny window into a five-way conversation that you’re only seeing a single side of. It doesn’t even work as a meta-narrative for the bigger game because whoever wrote this aspect couldn’t keep their shit right. For example: One of the emails you unlock talks about how/why the MC doesn’t exist within the Side Stories — which is patently untrue! The dialogue makes it clear that he DOES exist! So yeah, although there are some cute details in this part of the thing, they never fall into place to construct a story or even some compelling side notes. They’re just curiosities.

I’m sure many people will never bother to read the unlocked files and notes, etc. Which is no big loss.

In the end, I think it’s clear that I loved this package as a whole. Particularly in regard to how much I adored these characters and their inner struggles. I only wanted to spend even more time with them.

Guess who made the cover of Famitsu’s October 2021 issue?

It’s interesting to note that just last month, in October of 2021, DDLC finally got its first official Japanese release (the translated version of “Plus!”). I think it’s curious that this game that is so deeply inspired by Japanese visual novels took so long to get over there. If the Famitsu coverage and review are anything to go by, it seems that Japan may love the crap out of this Western-made deconstruction of their homegrown dating sims. And that’s pretty cool.

WARNING: The comments on this post contain spoilers. Just a heads-up.

#ddlc+#ddlcp #ddlc plus #ddlc #doki doki literature club plus!#doki doki literature club plus #doki doki literature club #video games #visual novels

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mercymorn-was-right · 3 years ago

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I think it’s great when crews talk about behind the scenes stuff and discuss their thoughts about what they’ve created and all that

but I loathe this culture of taking authorial intent as 100% canon

like not to mention that there are very few times there is actually one single ”true” author of a piece of media

but it also ignores the point that what is canon is what’s in the text

authorial intention can certainly inform our reading and interpretation of a text

but it isn’t law, it isn’t “canon”

and this culture I’ve noticed of attacking other fans because they interpret something in the text differently than what the/an author has stated was their intent (or even their own thought of what might’ve happened that they haven’t even decided on!) — it’s harmful to media analysis, but on a smaller level it’s harmful to fans and fandom spaces

like, one example of this would be in one of my own fandoms — She-Ra (2018)

none of the characters have outright stated sexualities in the show — something the crew has even commented on that there wouldn’t be labels on Etheria as everyone is just taken as they are

like yes, you can certainly see hints in the text to some characters attractions: Bow pretty explicitly has a crush on Sea Hawk and later gets into a relationship with Glimmer, so it’s not fa-fetched to say he is canonically bi or pan — it exists in the text of the show! Similarly, Adora shows explicit attraction towards women at numerous times while being portrayed to be pretty indifferent towards men, meaning there is good evidence she is canonically a lesbian. Scorpia is portrayed this way too, being completely unimpressed when Sea Hawks tries to charm her in season 1

but for others, it’s not as clear

Catra, Perfuma, Netossa, Spinnerella etc

they are certainly sapphic — that much is clear, but we know nothing (in the text of the show) about what their attractions look like apart form this

for Catra, it’s by virtue of her obsession with Adora — unlike Scorpia and Adora herself, Catra never shows interest in anyone but Adora, and so we really can’t speak on what other attraction or capacity for attraction she has. It’s just Adora.

for the others, it‘s by the virtue of being side characters. Spinnerella and Netossa was a couple since day 1 so really, it’s irrelevant and the text doesn’t give us any indication of attractions outside their very happy marriage. Perfuma goes to prom with Bow, but it’s unclear if it’s in a friendly way or if she’s into him, and later she has a flirt with Huntara, and eventually gets with Scorpia. Because she‘s a side character her attractions aren’t pondered on any closer

and yet I see some fans hound other fans because they headcanon Catra as bi, or any other “infraction” on what the crew has said in panels or on Twitter

and like I get the urge

because the common argument is that you are “harming/erasing X sexuality”

and like, in some contexts that’s certainly true

for example, it would be helluva lesbophobic leap to call Adora a straight woman

but while bi Adora isn’t my cup of tea, and it goes against canon (which I agree with in this instance bc I like it), as a lesbian myself I don’t really see an issue with it

because it’s not erasing queerness or Adora’s queer attractions — it just shows a different flavor of queer that that particular fan vibed with more, maybe cause they are bi themselves and see themselves in Adora. Hell, I headcanon Adora as a demiromantic lesbian because that’s what I am and I recognize myself in her character

and so it really astounds me when some fans vigorously hound others for “erasing canon lesbians” because they headcanoned Netossa as bi when she isn’t even explicitly anything but sapphic in the text, and furthermore it doesn’t even harm queer people as a group

it only furthers separation between queer groups when we are all truly better of together

and not only does this have implications on queer issues of solidarity which is a big important topic

but on the interpersonal level, it works to make fandom a less welcoming, more hostile place for (queer)people wanting to be creative and play with characters they love

and it’s a damn shame

#Rant #like entrapdak 🤮 is canon in text but I don’t like it so I refute it and that’s ok #Canon is only holy in Catholicism #Fandom is supposed to foster transformative works and how can that happen when not only do you have to keep to the canon of the text #but you have to also keep to “canon” of what the creators said in a livestream once #And that’s ignoring that there exists many different interpretations WITHIN the crews that create media

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munchflix · 2 years ago

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WHY ‘KNOCK KNOCK’ MIGHT ACTUALLY BE THE WORST MOVIE OF ALL TIME - A WELL-THOUGHT-OUT AND ORGANIZED LIST OF COMPLAINTS (AKA REVIEW) BY BISCUITSANDHORRORSLASH

MAJOR CONTENT WARNING: The following review heavily discusses themes of sexual assault. Reader discretion is advised.

Film is an art form, right? Well, if you disagree, you've probably just had the insufferable experience of watching Knock Knock, a 2015 film directed and partially written by Eli Roth.

"2015?" You might ask, "Why did you write out this whole long-winded review of a movie that came out seven years ago?"

Well, because I have a lot to say about it.

Not long ago here on the Munchflix blog, Munch and I made a tier list of all the movies we'd reviewed. The one we ranked as the worst was a 2018 pseudo-documentary called Demon House, the brainchild (in the loosest sense of the word) of one Zak Bagans. We placed it there not because the movie fails on any front to deliver the basic qualities of a movie - writing, acting, directing, editing, etc. No, while all those things about Demon House most assuredly do suck, the reason I truly hated it was because the film came off as a morally dubious vanity project built on the foundations of exploitation and intentionally trying to deceive its audience.

That was a movie that really, genuinely made me angry - and, for a long time, if you asked me what I thought was the worst movie ever made, I would've said "Demon House". But I have found a movie I think I hate more than that.

Even the trailer for this movie made me mad. This is a movie so unwatchable I could barely even watch it all, even when I was drunk. The first time I tried to watch it all the way through, I had to stop and come back to it later.

This movie is a genuinely harrowing watch for all of the wrong reasons. Now, I don't want to sound like too much of an armchair crusader or anything, but some things make me angry. Sometimes I feel like I have a right to get angry. And at the end of the day, this shit makes me mad.

I do want to say as a disclaimer that this is all my interpretation, and that my takes on this movie and on the portrayal of sexual assault in horror movies (we'll get to that later) in general are most definitely not the end-all be-all. I also do not claim to speak on behalf of victims of sexual assault or abuse and, again, the views and opinions expressed herein are solely my own.

Anyways, I'm still going to eviscerate this movie.

(You may notice that there aren’t any of our usual gifs in this review, and that’s because a. I really didn’t want to have to scan back through this movie to make them and b. what I assume is screen recording protection has made it so I literally can’t capture gifs or even screenshots, so I just made some memes instead.)

To help make my thoughts more linear and digestible and not in any attempt to mimic the success of Jenny Nicholson, I have condensed my deranged ramblings into a numbered list.

Point #1 - The "Plot"

The plot of this movie, summarized succinctly, is as follows:

The story follows Evan Webber (Keanu Reeves), a wholesome family man, who invites two young women seeking shelter into his house. These women then spend a gratuitous amount of screen time violating his personal space despite his obvious disinterest, culminating in them forcing themselves on him. They then go about ruining his house, blackmailing him, and spending the latter part of the movie mostly just torturing and berating him. He survives, though, and is rewarded by being buried alive up to his head in the backyard while they publicize a video of him having sex with one of them (which was against his will, by the way) on social media.

Yep, that's it. That's the plot. Ignoring all the supremely objectionable content therein, take a moment to notice how I was able to summarize the entire film in a short paragraph. I'm not omitting much here. This movie is labeled as a 'thriller', but I think that might be a simple mistake - they obviously meant for this movie's genre to be 'filler'. Most of the things that happen are pretty inane and irrelevant (an accurate parallel to the movie itself); this film could've been about 30 minutes long and honestly it probably would've been way better. Nothing thrilling really happens. Hell, nothing entertaining even happens. The first half an hour is basically one of those workplace PSAs about sexual harassment, except just the uncomfortable parts. There's some gross shit and a lot of stuff that just makes you uncomfortable, but it sure as hell isn't scary or tense and it honestly isn't even engaging. While Eli Roth is known for over-the-top torture porn type movies, there's not even that much gore in this one, just some tasteless shock value shit. Most of the actual action is exceptionally short-lived and there's literally never any sense of suspense. It makes the movie feel even more pointless and vapid than it already is.

Oh, and it's also choked to death by the fucking over-the-top cringy-ass tone of a goddamn Adam Sandler movie and some of the most repulsive acting and dialogue I've ever seen put to film. It has a 'cheap' quality to it that I think might be intentional but really just makes you feel like literally nobody involved in this movie gave even 1% of a shit. This film was released in 2015 but its combination of uncomfortable ignorance, trashy style and crass tone give it the flavor of an early 2000s comedy released at a time when shit like the Scary Movie franchise was still popular. It honestly feels like a time machine to one of the worst eras in cinema.

Ok, that's basically it for the technical aspects and whatnot. Now it's time for the real shit. Much like our film's duo of unbearably unsubtle antagonists, let's do some digging, shall we?

Part #2 - Just Give Me A Reason

Yeah, this movie has rape in it. In fact, it's a two-for-one special: you get two rape scenes! It's a special Black Friday BOGO sale!

What's that you say - why does this movie need to have rape in it?

Well...because.

Now, rape being mishandled in a horror movie is unfortunately nothing new. Many a horror film has thrown in a completely unnecessary rape scene for the sole purpose of shock value - and shock value is something Eli Roth is a known fan of. In my opinion, using such an element in this way is honestly one of the lowest lows a film can stoop to. Doing so only ever serves to trivialize and ultimately commodify a traumatic event into a cheap and shitty way to get a guaranteed reaction. Naturally, I'm not saying that you can't use heavy thematic elements like that in a movie, or even in a horror movie, but it is a very delicate subject matter that needs to be handled with a great deal of tact.

Of course, this movie was directed by Eli Roth, an overrated hack known for making movies that are unbearably trashy and ultimately hollow and derivative. Roth is the kind of person who thinks that if he tortures characters on screen for long enough, his film will automatically become 'scary’. It's honestly no surprise that he handles the concept of rape in this movie about as well as a toddler with butter-covered hands would handle fine china.

However, in this case, I don’t even think the problem is that it’s being used for cheap shock value. I think that this movie is simply genuinely unaware that it’s about rape at all.

For example, the promotional materials for this movie seem to frame it as if it's a story about a man getting some sort of deserved comeuppance for cheating. All the synopses use words like 'seduced', which is a very funny way to spell 'sexually assaulted’. This cheating angle is particularly egregious when the 'cheating' scene in question involves two young women exposing themselves to a man without his consent, groping him and quite literally pushing him into a corner after he repeatedly said he doesn't want to do this, then insisting that it's 'just sex' and he should 'let himself enjoy it'.

I wish I was kidding.

Oh yeah, remember how I said there were two rape scenes? Yup, later on in the movie when Evan wakes up tied to his own bed, one of the girls comes in wearing his daughter's clothes, roleplays as his daughter while going on a bizarre diatribe about him molesting her, and then proceeds to have sex with him while he is being held against his will and physically restrained. That's what they broadcast to the world at the end of the movie.

And let’s not forget that the girls also claim to be 15 in an attempt to blackmail Evan. They spend the last forty minutes of the movie tormenting Evan for being a 'cheater' and a 'pedophile', before revealing at the end that they were adults the whole time.

You really have no idea how much I wish I was kidding.

But this is all important to the plot, right? This movie actually makes a point about all this fucked-up shit, right?

Point 3 - So-Called "Satire"

Spoiler alert: no. This movie is pretty much exactly as ignorant and asinine as you’re worrying it is.

I have seen this movie described as 'black comedy' and 'social satire', and honestly either idea is fucking terrifying to me. The thought that anyone, let alone enough people to make a movie thought that there was anything even remotely comical or satirical going on in this film leaves me baffled.

You might think, though, that maybe this movie secretly is smart, that maybe it actually knows what it's doing. But then you remember it was directed by Eli Roth.

Having seen the film, the idea that it means to somehow mock the idea that a man cannot be victimized by a woman requires a stretch Mr. Fantastic could not manage. If that is indeed supposed to be the point, then I would say the movie does an exceedingly bad job of actually coming to that point. Of course, a movie doesn't necessarily have to have some sort of deep, complex meaning behind it - but if it's supposed to be a satire, then yeah, it kinda is supposed to, y'know, at least have a point?

The idea of Knock Knock being some sort of 'social satire' feels like nothing more than a weak justification for why it should get away with being straight-up gross and offensive. With everything else in this movie having all the subtlety of an explosive plane crash, I have a hard time believing Mr. Roth slipped any sort of surreptitious theme in there. Also, acknowledging Roth's previous body of work makes me doubt his willingness or even ability to create anything genuinely thoughtful.

Saying this movie is a satire of misandry feels like the same thing as calling a prank a 'social experiment' or saying a slur and then trying to claim it was 'just a joke'. Trying to genuinely analyze this movie as if it were 'satire' or 'social commentary' is a grace I just genuinely don’t think this movie is even worthy of.

If the film is indeed mocking the hypocrisy of gender stereotypes and double standards, then first of all I'm baffled as to why the promotional materials frame it as if it's a story about a man who cheats on his wife. Maybe they thought nobody would actually watch the movie if they thought it was too subversive, so they had to dumb it down a bit.

But the problem is the movie is honestly probably even dumber than it looks. Like, when I said this movie has the tone of an Adam Sandler flick, I meant it. A prime medium for some intelligent social commentary, am I right? The tone of this movie, including its vomit-inducing lack of subtlety (which has come up before and will come up again), would indicate the film isn't taking itself very seriously. After some thought, I do genuinely think parts of this movie were supposed to be funny. This movie acts, throughout its entire runtime, as if it's funny. Like Eli Roth was behind the camera laughing his ass off while his antagonists overacted blunt dialogue about underage sex. Not a single frame of this movie is even remotely humorous.

I know "rape isn't funny" is a pretty toothless criticism, but I don't think it should exactly be a hot take. Maybe that’s just me.

Point 4 - Villains: How They Do and Don’t Work

I'm not gonna lie, the evil girl characters in this movie are the fucking worst.

Now, of course, the women are the villains of this story. We're supposed to root against them. And boy are they two of the most insufferable characters I've ever seen put to film; both these characters are written in such an agonizingly overt way that their actual effect as villains is completely diminished. You go right past hating the characters and straight to hating whoever wrote them. Not to mention both actresses chew the scenery like they're starving to death in every single scene they're in, but especially Lorenza Izzo. I can't even hold that against the girl, though, because I can only imagine the direction she was given was basically 'do that again, but worse'.

But the antagonist role in a story is supposed to serve an important purpose. For this exercise, let's talk about how a villain's motives contribute to a theme (or lack thereof).

These characters' mentality is basically that Eric Andre meme:

But the movie doesn't make any sort of attempt to examine the villains’ motives on anything other than a surface level. Shit, their motivations aren't even clear for the vast majority of the film. The movie never really tries to criticize or even analyze the villains' obviously fucked-up belief system. At worst, these two characters make the film feel very misogynistic as well as misandric. They’re sex-crazed, unrealistically awful simulacra of human beings who are sadistic to the point that they get a kick out of falsely accusing a man of sex crimes and seem to have no real complex thoughts or motivations. Oh yeah, they’re also literally unapologetic rapists.

Why does the movie even take the angle of them trying to frame him for pedophilia? I’m genuinely asking here, 'cause I sincerely cannot think of anything that this element actually contributes to the film other than just being excessively nasty.

Oh yeah, it's Eli Roth. That was probably the entire thought process.

Also - if we're supposed to be rooting against these characters, why are they literally always winning?

The villains basically play out like some sort of mary-sue self-insert ocs because they absolutely can't lose. Any power struggle is usually short-lived and you never genuinely believe for a second that Evan will actually get the upper hand. Kinda defeats the point of making a ‘thriller’ movie.

And, as I mentioned, the villains win in the end! Evan survives, but the gratuitously awful characters we've been rooting against this entire movie receive no consequences for their actions.

Again, I must ask why.

To subvert expectations? Subversion of expectations only works if it's clever. Just doing things because people won't expect it is much the same as putting rape in your movie just because it will shock people. If the bad guys never get punished or even questioned, then the movie might as well be on the villains' side. I'm not convinced that it isn't.

If the thesis of this movie is 'wow women can be horrible and abusive people too!', then it gets that message across basically as soon as these two cunts show up on screen; the rest of the movie is completely unnecessary. Also, despite what Eli Roth may think, he’s not the first person on the planet to come up with this incredibly intelligent and in-depth take.

Oh yeah, and also, there don’t really need to be two of them. There’s no contrast or interesting dynamic between these two because they’re basically just clones of the same character, and Ana de Armas is honestly barely there for the latter half of the movie. It’s almost as if the only reason there are two of them is that someone involved thought it was unrealistic for a single woman to be able to overpower a man on her own.

Point 4.5 - Metaphors: How They Do and Don’t Work

Some dialogue could be interpreted in a way that would make the villains a sort of metaphor for the way society treats male victims of sexual assault. Of course, I doubt this metaphor was actually intentional - partially because the movie seems to moreso imply that it's about Evan being unfairly judged for his sexual appetites, and partially because it’s so fleeting and inconsistent it basically has no effect. It’s only really plausible for two scenes.

In one scene, a friend of Evan's named Louis comes over while Evan is being held hostage in the house, and he ends up dying when he trips trying to get his inhaler back from the two rapists. Evan begs them to help him but the girls crassly say it was 'his fault' because he tripped. This could be seen as an allegory for victims being blamed for their own assault, but the scene is so disjointed it honestly feels like most of it was edited in after the fact or some shit. It's also immediately preceded by Louis bizarrely declaring, 'I'm from Oakland, ho! I know two ghetto-ass hoes when I see em', in a joke that is both unfunny and vaguely racist. Oh yeah, it also completely ruins the tone of what is maybe supposed to be a meaningful scene.

That possible attempt at a metaphor continues in the next scene with the girls accusing Evan of ruining his family by sleeping with them. But then it gets thrown out the window at the speed of a Randy Johnson fastball when Evan breaks into a nonsensical rant where he yells things like 'you came onto me' and 'you wanted it' at them. He then compares the girls to 'free pizza' showing up at his door and says, 'what was I supposed to do?'

I can't say enough times that I wish I was kidding.

This is it - the part where Evan finally revolts against the unfair moral inquisition he’s been under, and all it amounts to is him screeching nonsense and slobbering. All of this happens in a scene where Keanu gives 0 shits about acting and he screams 'fuck' so many times I think it's supposed to be funny. And also remember, Evan still thinks these girls are 15 at this point in the movie.

This scene squanders any credit I was willing to give this film. It comes so close, so close to giving this insufferable slough of detritus any sort of meaning, and yet it's still so unimaginably far. A helpless and desperate rape victim yells at his abusers in what should be a deeply painful and emotional moment but instead reads like he's trying to victim-blame himself. Way to go implying your protagonist was somehow culpable in his own rape because he secretly wanted it. It's like free pizza showing up at your door, right? What are you supposed to do?

The dialogue directly shies away from acknowledging the undeniable fact that Evan was raped. They had to have the implication that Evan 'secretly wanted it' come out of his own mouth. But you know what word doesn't come out of Evan's mouth? Yup, the r-word. Evan says 'you fucked me' but the only time this movie uses the word 'rape' is when one of the girls mentions statutory rape while they're trying to convince Evan they're underage.

Oh yeah, and near the very end of the movie, the girls tell Evan 'I thought you would be the one to finally say no' and that 'no matter who they are, they never say no'.

I have never seen a movie so blatantly ignorant of its own premise.

Point 5 - Pizza Cutter

How is a pizza cutter like an Eli Roth movie? They're both all edge and no point.

Okay, I know that joke isn't original. But Mr. Roth sure as hell took his fucking all-edge-and-no-point pizza cutter and flayed this movie into Pizza Hut cheese sticks. (I hope they show up with my free pizza!)

I have never seen a movie more grotesquely devoid of art or meaning than this wretched film. It’s so agonizingly shallow that the deep end of its pool is still no deeper than a puddle in the floor, and the shallow end is the fucking Sahara desert. Eli Roth wouldn’t know art if it broke into his house and groped him uncomfortably for half an hour.

Roth depicts a male protagonist being raped (multiple times), blackmailed, manipulated, victim-blamed, and tortured. But why? He has nothing to say about the subjects. The film is not challenging to anyone's preconceived notions or beliefs. It doesn't present any sort of point or thesis. It just shows these things, but makes no attempt to make the audience actually think about them. The movie never even seems to acknowledge that Evan was raped, which is really fucked up.

It should have been obvious, of course. But, like I said, anyone who came into this movie thinking that men can't be raped is not coming out of this movie thinking any more deeply about that viewpoint, I assure you.

With all the stigma there is towards male victims of sexual assault and abuse, you have to be exceptionally careful when handling the subject, or else you fall into the trap of just feeding into those exact negative perceptions. This movie doesn’t even really try, though. It just does a bunch of misandric shit and then pretends like it's deep because 'people don't usually do that in movies'.

If you put misandry in your movie, but fail to actually say anything about it (or even really address it at all), then all you're doing is just…being misandric.

Point 6 - In Conclusion, And Without A Moment to Spare…

Is Knock Knock secretly a misunderstood subversive masterpiece?

You can probably tell by the title of this review how I would answer that question. No, it's really not.

But part of the reason I hate this movie is because I feel like, in the right hands, it actually could have been a subversive masterpiece. If it just took its own fucking subject matter seriously instead of trying to be some sort of goofy horror comedy, I think it could've been a really interesting and provocative piece. But I genuinely don't think Eli Roth had any sort of intelligent artistic vision for this film. I don't think he cares about men’s rights either; I doubt that a man known for his misogynistic comments and throwing unnecessary homophobia into his movies suddenly decided to give a shit about social issues for this one film. I think he just likes making shitty torture porn movies and lets other people defend his work by using social commentary as an excuse for why it's 'satirical' and 'subversive'.

The worst thing, the absolute worst thing about it, is that this movie is so dull and empty that it probably isn’t even deserving of the ire it has evoked in me. Its ratings are pretty abysmal for a production of its size and it seems that most people have more or less entirely forgotten it exists. In a way, it’s poetic. The worst punishment a movie can receive is to simply be shoved so far back into the collective consciousness that it may as well not even be real.

Also…why did he have to do this to my man Keanu Reeves?

Don't get me wrong, this movie would have been equally as abominable if it had starred literally any other actor, but at least then I would be far less likely to have ever had the displeasure of knowing it exists.

Keanu Reeves does show big daddy milkers tho, 10/10 would watch again 👍

( Footnote: I hate that this frame came from this movie. I hate how goddamn hot Keanu Reeves looks in this film. I swear if I were to summit the cloudy steeps of Mt. Olympus and come face-to-face with Eros himself, he would look like Keanu Reeves in glasses and a cardigan. )

#movie review #munchflix editorials #knock knock #knock knock review #eli roth #<-- can suck a fat choad #tw sa #tw r@pe

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