#none of these came out as good as the turnabout trump one

[dreamsy990]

more of these because i was in a quirky sort of mood

[4ragon]

I'm not the original anonymous but I would extremely want to see that essay about Apollo's trust issues.

Also since I just finished Spirit of Justice, do you think Lamiroir ever told Trucy/Apollo about her and if so what would be their reactions?

Let’s see if I can write this up without crying again like I did on twitter.

So a while ago a friend of mine asked me why I liked Apollo, and I really couldn’t put my finger on it. I knew he was my favorite, but unlike Simon Blackquill, I hadn’t done that deep dive into figuring out why. I’d always just sort of loved him, and was never able to pinpoint the part that made me care about him so much. It drove me crazy, too, I love rambling about characters that I love, and I love writing from Apollo’s perspective more than anything. So why did I love him? Why did I care about him?

Well. I figured it out. I figured out my answer.

I think there are two things that characterize Apollo more than anything. One: He has trust issues. He genuinely believes that the people around him don’t give a shit about him. Especially after being betrayed multiple times in that first trial, he truly and deeply believes that the people around him are only trying to hurt him and is too scared to really believe that they care about him.

And two: He cares so much about the people around him that he constantly helps them anyway.

So like. And I won’t tag her because I don’t think she’d appreciate it, but I was watching the laquilasse AA4 stream last night, and the entire opening of Turnabout Corner is so striking to me, especially right after the end of Turnabout Trump. At the end of Turnabout Trump, Apollo’s trust and belief in Phoenix is finally and thoroughly shattered, and Apollo lashes out, punching Phoenix in the face. And for good reason! That was a huge breach of trust! Apollo literally did the exact thing that got Phoenix disbarred, namely present evidence that wasn’t real. Sure, they never exactly claimed it was the real deal, but Apollo didn’t even know it was faked, he just trusted Phoenix and this new piece of evidence and it almost fucked him over. It did sort of fuck him over, he did lose his job and his Mentor.

And then, Phoenix calls him and says that they’re in trouble, and Apollo doesn’t even question it, of course he shows up to help.

Like. You can feel how much he mistrusts Trucy on their first meeting, in everything he does and says. Especially when Trucy and Phoenix are in the same room, he’s actively thinking about how he doesn’t ‘buy their act’ when Phoenix is calling Trucy daughter-ly nicknames. And then, in a way, he’s kind of right? They guilt him into essentially being their errand boy, and I feel like they’re constantly and loudly using him throughout so much of the game.

And Apollo was there anyway. Apollo doesn’t even trust them and he’s still there the first instant Phoenix says he needs his help.

Like you can loudly do and say whatever you want and crush his dreams and betray his trust, and despite everything, there’s always that part of Apollo that desperately needs to help anyone who asks him. He can’t even bring himself to trust them, and he’s still crawling back the moment someone needs him, ready to let them disappoint him over again.

Like this struck me about Apollo from the moment I played AA4, but he’s so lonely? And desperate for connection? He cares so much about a world that has always and consistently never cared about him, and he just keeps caring and keeps caring even as that starry-eyed naivete is ripped away. And I feel like he just wants someone to care about him back, but never really able to believe that they do, because they never really seem to, because every time he allows himself to trust it’s just thrown back in his face so horribly.

Here’s an interesting thing I noticed: in Turnabout Trump, there’s a really interesting line. Phoenix has accused Kristoph of being the murderer, the extra person in the room. Kristoph takes the stand and claims to have witnessed the moment Phoenix committed the murder. And this exchange happens:

Apollo: There must have been someone else there at the moment of the crime!

Kristoph: Justice... I just said I saw no one. Not a soul.

Apollo: B-But, that goes against what Mr. Wright said!

Kristoph: Ah yes, this mysterious "fourth person"... ...who would conveniently be the "real killer", I suppose.

And this is well past the point where Phoenix has accused Kristoph of being that person. There’s no possibility at this point that they’re both innocent, it’s either one or the other. And Apollo is still so desperately trying to find a way for them both to be innocent, basically saying, “Just give me a fourth person and I’ll believe you.” And then Kristoph turned out to be a monster, and then Phoenix turned out to have betrayed Apollo from the start, and as far as Apollo is ever aware, none of the care from either of these men was ever real. He trusted, and he suffered the consequences.

But again. He’s still there. Someone pointed out a while ago, but Apollo stays. Apollo shows up to the Wright Talent Agency under false pretenses, and he complains and hems and haws, and he still stays. Why?

Phoenix and Trucy loudly manipulate him into working their case. They’re perfectly happy to flaunt that they’re basically tricking him. And he stays. Why?

Because Apollo can’t trust them, but he wants to so fucking bad. He doesn’t even seem to like Phoenix that much, but he wants that connection so fucking bad. He cares about them so much and he doesn’t believe for a second that they extend that feeling back at him, and he’s compelled to stay anyway.

He knows Trucy is practically using him, and he’s a sobbing mess when he thinks she was kidnapped for a few minutes. He’s cynical and mean and it’s all just to cover up the fact that he loves all these people around him with all his heart and they never once pay it back. And he comes back anyway. He’s like a fucking loyal dog that is never given enough affection and so he’s constantly trying harder and harder to earn that love while never believing he’ll ever really get it.

(Shit nope crying again)

It’s just so sad. And this is all without adding anything from the 3D games. The 3D games do build on this theme in one way or another, but from the get go, this is who Apollo is. A caring young man who is constantly punished for caring and yet can’t stop caring anyway.

We see it again in the 3D games. And I think part of why I don’t enjoy DD as much as SoJ is that DD doesn’t capture this mistrust the same way. It’s so surface level, that sense of betrayal and mistrust and anger he gets consumed by in that final case. And the worst part is it doesn’t have to be! There’s already that foundation! Apollo has been hurt already a million times. The only person he’s ever been able to trust, the only lifeline that’s kept him above water since he was a child, was Clay Terran, and now that was taken from him because he DARED to trust someone new. That’s so fucking compelling! But we never get that! We never get to see how Apollo is feeling. We get that he’s convinced Athena did the murder, but never really get into the Why, into the What This Means for Apollo.

It’s a bit better in SoJ. We see how far he’s come in terms of trusting people when he trusts in Trucy wholly and immediately in case two. And then, conversely, we see his mistrust and hurt when they introduce Dhurke into the mix. Apollo refuses point blank to believe that Dhurke had come to visit him, that Dhurke cared about him. Apollo demands to know why Dhurke was there, what Dhurke wanted, how Dhurke was going to use him. He’s been able to slowly start building that trust with people like Trucy, but he still cannot let himself trust again when Dhurke had already betrayed that trust.

I said it before, but as much as I hate the slapdash ways in which Capcom keeps throwing backstory at this boy, I love what the backstories are, because they build on this angry, cynical, lonely young man I care about so much. He’s been hurt and abandoned and used and betrayed since he was young, and being good never truly paid off for so long, but he kept doing it, he kept being good, he kept caring about people because he couldn’t help it, and kept hoping that maybe they could care back. And eventually I think it does start paying off for him. People do start caring about him. And I feel like it takes until around SoJ for him to start really believing that the people around him might care about him too.

Also congrats on finishing SoJ! Since there’s a very good chance that they might be announcing AA7 soon, I...hope? fear? expect? that they’ll touch on this then. However, I also worry that they’re going to botch it up so hard.

I know what I want to happen. I want Trucy to be angry. I want her to be angry at Lamiroir and Phoenix. She is constantly putting on a mask to try to make the people she loves happy, and I feel like this is a reasonable breaking point. After all, this is kind of the one thing that Phoenix hasn’t been honest with her about. She had a brother right there, and knew the whole time?! She had a mother there the whole time?! And no one bothered to tell her?! I think she’d be heartbroken, and I think she deserves to be angry. She’s been through so much, and they never give her time to really grieve or be upset.

I think Apollo would be ecstatic and angry at the same time. All he’s ever wanted was family, and now he does! He already loved Trucy, and thought Lamiroir was amazing, so I think he would be so happy to have that family back in his life. On the flip side, I do think he’d be angry at Phoenix, particularly for keeping it to himself before Lamiroir came into the picture, but I think if they talked it out, Apollo would come around to it and be able to forgive Phoenix.

[libertariantaoist]

President Trump’s former enemies in the  mainstream media, which he has characterized as purveyors of “fake news,”  turned on  a dime the moment he bombed Syria: the Establishment  was thrilled that, suddenly, he was acting “presidential.”  CNN, a particular target of the President’s ire, was gushing:  NBC’s Brian Williams, in a bizarre turn of  phrase, hailed the “beauty” of the bombing, which killed a number of civilians.  Democratic party politicians, with few exceptions, stood at attention and saluted,  while Trump’s Republican critics – notably John McCain and Lindsey Graham –  praised the President while taking the opportunity to agitate  for more extensive military action.

On the other hand,  conservative media that has been supportive of Trump reviled  the  move: Breitbart  readers weren’t happy, Ann Coulter  was furious,  and Laura  Ingraham was hardly supportive. Michael  Savage declared himself a “conservative peacenik,” Tucker  Carlson was very skeptical, and on Twitter, the “Trump trolls” were trolling  their former hero. British populist Nigel Farage, who led the Brexit referendum  to victory, and who endorsed Trump, opined  that Trump voters “will be scratching their heads” in bewilderment. Even over  at National Review, a neocon redoubt, the voice of dissent was raised.

In short, Trump’s most vocal supporters were joining the ranks of the antiwar  movement, a development the media noted with the same vitriolic disdain it had  formerly reserved for Trump himself:

As Carlson noted in the video above, “on this topic the news has never been  faker.” Politico ran a piece excoriating “Trump’s  troll army,” in rebellion against their ostensible leader’s policy, as racists  and conspiracy mongers; the New York Times denounced anti-interventionists  as representative of “a “small but influential white nationalist movement” on  the “far right,” while the Washington Post described them as holding  “racist, anti-Semitic and sexist” views.”

“Like so much news today,” said Carlson, “this isn’t news but propaganda designed  to smear and deceive rather than to inform. On this topic “the ‘news’ has never  been faker.”

Fake – just like the media’s coverage of Trump himself. And now that Trump  has ditched one of the pillars of Trumpism, those who took it seriously are  being treated exactly like he was treated before – with a barrage of outright  lies.

It serves the War Party’s agenda to frame a narrative that characterizes anti-interventionists  on the right as “racists,” “conspiracy-mongers,” etc., but the reality was more  accurately described  by Daniel McCarthy in The National Interest:

“Before he gets more deeply involved in Syria’s civil war, Donald Trump  will have to win one at home. The Republican Party was already divided after  failing to repeal Obamacare. Now the conflict has spread to the White House,  where Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner are at daggers drawn. Even Trump’s most  loyal grassroots and media supporters are in an uproar over the president’s  evolving foreign policy, which has taken a turn toward the establishment as  his domestic agenda sinks into the swamp he promised to drain.

“How much damage has the Syrian attack done to Trump? He’s lost Ann Coulter,  who took to Twitter to vent her outrage and retweet lesser-known supporters  who felt equally betrayed. He’s lost Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com and the  sizable blocs of Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan activists who had flocked to Trump’s  ‘America First’ banner….

“The president has lost his base, or is in  grave danger of doing so. But he has also picked up new support: from John McCain,  Lindsey Graham, and Bill Kristol, all of whom praised the airstrike on Syria.  Neoconservatism is suddenly back in fashion at the White House, or so it seems.”

While I’m not sure how “losing” little old me is significant, McCarthy is entirely  correct about the President’s activist base: they are defecting in droves. And  while the Syria turnabout is bad news, especially for the Syrian people, there  is a bright and shining silver lining.

The millions of voters who voted for Trump based, at least in part, on his  “America First” foreign policy views had to experience – and embrace – what  might be called “Trumpism” before they could be react in bewilderment and disgust  as he turned on a dime. Trumpism, in this sense, was a bridge they had to cross  before coming to a full understanding of just what “America First” means. Trump’s  many denunciations of our regime change policy in Syria, Libya, and throughout  the world brought them halfway across that bridge – and his betrayal is bringing  many thousands of them all the way over … to us.

This is what sectarians of all stripes refuse to understand. With their static  one-dimensional view of how political change comes about, they simply see Them  and Us – and never the twain shall meet. How, they asked during the presidential  election campaign, can those Trumpian troglodytes possibly be opposed to our  foreign policy of perpetual war? What they didn’t get – and still don’t get  – is that it took a catalytic figure like Trump to explode the phony left/right  paradigm and imbue his supporters with some understanding of why the Empire  exploits and impoverishes them. With this sudden reversal, the President is  increasing their understanding of why this is so – because they aren’t  going along with it.

And they aren’t going along with it because to even consider voting for Trump,  while the media was hammering away at him and the Washington Establishment was  sliming him as a dangerous “isolationist,” took a not inconsiderable independence  of mind. Whether Trump was sincere in making his various anti-interventionist  pronouncements, particularly when it came  to the Syria issue, is beside the point: the point is that millions of voters  took him at his word. The idea that his supporters were “fooled” by his rhetoric  is similarly irrelevant. I, for one, foresaw that he would contradict himself  while in office, as  I wrote back in January of this year:

“That Trump is inconsistent, and an imperfect vessel, hardly needs to be  said. That the danger of war still looms over us is also a fact that none can  deny. Yet all this is irrelevant in the face of the conceptual victory his winning  the White House represents. Here is a candidate who campaigned against GOP foreign  policy orthodoxy, explicitly rejecting the legacy of the Iraq war and even going  so far as to call out the Bush administration for lying us  into that war….

“Yes, the Trump administration will take many actions that contradict  the promise of their victory: that is already occurring. And we are covering  that in these pages, without regard for partisan considerations: and yet it  is necessary to step back and see the larger picture, looking past the journalistic  details of the day-to-day news cycle. In short, it is necessary to take the  long view and try to see what the ideological victory that was won this past  November augurs for the future.”

Well, we’re living in that future right now: I have  to admit it came a little sooner than I imagined, and a bit more abruptly than  I thought possible. Yet that abruptness is a good thing: it dramatically underscores  the contradiction between what Trump said and what he is now doing, and his  most vocal supporters – particularly among the conservative opinion-making class  – aren’t taking it lying down. They are in open revolt. Taking advantage of  that revolt, encouraging it and highlighting the contradictions, is the task  we have before us.

As I said in my January column cited above, we have  to take the long view: that is, we have to understand that we’re building a  movement. And the way to build that movement is not to stand aside and denounce  those who are only halfway to understanding why the Empire is an albatross around  our necks, but to patiently explain and let them learn why and how their leaders  have betrayed them.

Betrayal is a painful experience: it is also a useful  one. Physical pain is the body telling us that there’s something in the environment  that must be avoided: psychic pain plays the same instructive role. As Trump’s  supporters process what is undoubtedly a painful experience for them, they will  realize how and why it happened – and with a little help from Antiwar.com, the  best of them will come to understand how to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.  

The post-Trump political landscape is far better  for anti-interventionists than it was before the orange-haired real estate mogul  came on the scene: there now exists a considerable faction within the GOP and  its periphery that not only supports an anti-interventionist foreign policy  but is also in open rebellion against the policies of the President they helped  elect. They are sorely disappointed, but they are also angry – and energized.  Because anger, after all – anger at injustice  –  is the primary motivating factor  in politics, and never more so than at this moment in our history.

As I said in January:

“This isn’t about Trump, the politician, or the journalistic trivia of the  moment: we are engaged in a battle of ideas – and, slowly but surely, we are  winning.”

We are indeed winning, and the War Party knows it: that’s why Politico,  the Washington Post, and the New York Times are doing their best  to marginalize  the emerging antiwar movement. They won’t succeed, but our victory won’t happen  overnight. Nothing worth achieving ever does. As long as we take the long view,  and adopt a movement-building perspective, the case for optimism is irrefutable.

[libertariantaoist]

Trump came into office touting his “America First agenda,” disdaining NATO,  and asking “Why is it a bad thing to get along with Russia?” He told us he abjured  “regime change” and held up Libya as an example of bad policy. Now he’s turned  on a dime, bombing Syria, and welcoming tiny (and troubled) Montenegro into  NATO. His intelligence agencies are even accusing  Russia of having advance knowledge of the alleged chemical attack in Syria  (although the White House disputed  that after it got out). And all this in the first one hundred days!

How did this happen? It’s easy to explain, once you understand that there is  no such thing as foreign policy: all policy is domestic.

That’s the core principle at the heart of what  I call “libertarian realism,” the overarching theory – if such a grandiose  term can be applied to what is simply common sense – that explains what is happening  on the world stage at any particular moment. And there is no better confirmation  of this principle than the recent statement  by Eric Trump, the President’s son, who said: “If there was anything that Syria  [strike] did, it was to validate the fact that there is no Russia tie.”

Oh yes, and Ivanka was “heartbroken” – and so it was incumbent upon the President  to change course, break a major campaign promise, and declare via his Secretary  of State that “Assad  must go.”

Got it.

Trump’s Syrian turnabout is clearly a response to the coordinated attack launched  on his presidency by the combined efforts of the Deep State, the media, the  Democrats, and the McCain-Graham-neocon wing of the GOP – a campaign that still  might destroy him, despite his capitulation to the War Party.

Vladimir Putin has likened  the current Syria imbroglio to what happened in Iraq, with claims of “weapons  of mass destruction” and a war fought on the basis of false intelligence, but  there is one major difference: this time, the bombing came first, with the “evidence”  an afterthought. You’ll recall that in the run up to the invasion of Iraq there  was an extended and quite elaborate propaganda campaign designed to make the  case for war. Now, however, that process has been reversed: bombing first, “evidence”  later.

Speaking of which, Bloomberg national security reporter Eli Lake tells  us that the US is about to release a “dossier” explaining the rationale  for the Syria strike: it is “short on specific intelligence” but long on “its  refutation of Russian disinformation.” As in the case of the “Russian interference  in the election” narrative, we’ll doubtless be told that protecting “sources  and methods” precludes us peons from seeing the actual “intelligence.” Ours  is not to question why, ours is but to do and die, as the old saw goes: but  is that  –  not to mention the moral imperative of safeguarding Ivanka’s fragile  emotional state  –  really enough to justify a 180-degree shift in US foreign  policy?

The real significance of this “dossier” has little to do with justifying the  Syria strike insofar as actual evidence of Assad’s alleged crime is concerned,  and more with signaling to the heretofore hostile “intelligence community’ and  political actors in the US that the days of President Trump trying to achieve  détente with Russia are over. As Lake points out:

“But it is really the report’s condemnation of the Russian response that  is most striking. Trump has sought to reset the relationship with Moscow, as  President Barack Obama hoped to do in 2009 and 2010. Now, one U.S. official  tells me, Russian officials in phone calls with their Trump administration counterparts  repeated in private the same propaganda lines their government was issuing in  public. ‘That has led to a lot of frustration at the highest levels of the government,’  this official said.“

Translation: Forget getting along with Russia  –  just call off your bloodhounds.

We now have Putin warning  that more “provocations” are in store, with some pretty specific details supplied.  It wouldn’t surprise me in the least, but we’ll have to wait and see if that  pans out. In the meantime, however, three factors are percolating in the mix:  1) Our spooks, not content with having turned the Trump administration around  on Syria policy, won’t let up on the alleged “Russian foreknowledge” angle.  These guys mean business. 2) The previously stalled effort to overthrow Assad  by funding and arming the Islamist savages championed by McCain, Graham, &  Co. will recommence, with some success, and 3) The campaign to smear Trump as  a Kremlin tool will continue, unabated, with both the House and Senate investigations  barreling full speed ahead, with plenty of help from the “former intelligence  officials.” They aren’t about to let Trump off the hook quite so easily.

What all this shows is how far removed the making of US foreign policy is from  actual facts on the ground, and the rational calculation of American interests.  What it all comes back to is how it serves the political interests of those  in power – and those who aspire after power. Facts have nothing to do with it  except insofar as they can be manipulated – or created – so as to fit a preexisting  agenda.

There are very few good arguments for striking out at the Syrian government.  One of the pseudo-credible ones is that the use of sarin and other similar weapons,  if allowed to go unpunished, would hurt our legitimate interests, since their  use would then become pandemic. The riposte is that anyone who would even consider  using such weapons is not likely to be deterred by US retaliation, no matter  how swift.

In any case, this raises the question: did Bashar al-Assad drop sarin gas on  a bunch of civilians at Idlib? Despite the rush to judgment, we don’t know the  answer to that question, but several factors make it unlikely. He was winning  the civil war, and this, if you’ll pardon the expression, seems like overkill.  Furthermore, for  years the Syrian rebels have been doing their damnedest to frame Assad for  just such a heinous crime in order to provoke US intervention on their behalf,  to little avail – until now. Their record speaks for itself.

If indeed Assad is guilty, then it’s conceivable – although I would disagree  – that one could make an argument for a one-off warning strike. Yet that is  not what we’re seeing at all: already, Secretary of State Tillerson is echoing  that old Obama-Clinton slogan, “Assad must go.” This isn’t a one-off: it’s a  complete reversal of what candidate Trump said he’d do once in office.

As I said in my  last column, the silver lining is that many of Trump’s prominent supporters  – and former supporters – are waking up to the importance of non-interventionism  as one of the pillars of “Trumpism.” Their former hero’s betrayal is putting  them on a learning curve – and the best of them will come out the other side  with a new awareness of what “America First” really means.

On the other hand, we are going to have to live with the consequences of this  terrible turnabout – not all of which are readily apparent, and none of which  redound to the benefit of the United States and its citizens.