#not going over the 'it's just racism' theory because that one has no support in the story

[comikadraws]

Was the curse of hatred actually a real thing? or did danzo just demonize the uchiha;s anger? idk, being murderously angry or just angry in general is a reasonable and human response to oppression and genocide.

The "Curse of Hatred" Analysis

An interesting question. The Curse of Hatred looks dumb at first glance but there are also many misconceptions surrounding it.

Since it is such a hot mess to begin with, I will try to focus mostly on the in-universe canon and lore rather than making it even more complicated by bringing in too much real-world logic and criticizing Kishimoto.

There's a bunch of rambling in the tags though.

Kishimoto's Intentions

Whenever we talk about the "Curse of Hatred" the fandom will usually apply terms such as "racism", "bigotry" and "pseudoscience" - particularly in reference to Tobirama.

Again, I don't want to bring too much irl logic into this but I feel like we need to make a clear distinction between intention and interpretation over here. "[insert character] was a racist" and "the Uchiha were justified" is a valid interpretation of the story. But at the same time, I doubt that this was ever intended by Kishimoto.

I have talked about this at length in another post of mine, in which I analyzed Kishimoto's most likely intent and how exactly this information is relevant to us with a look at authorial intent in fiction. But the TL;DR version is that Japan is not exactly very sensitized to themes of racism and the "Curse of Hatred" is never framed as racist propaganda but exposition only. The lore also lines up with Kishimoto's personal views on how grudges are responsible for war (instead of corruption or racism) and the Uchiha's curse might be a metaphor for that.

In other words, the Curse of Hatred is real in canon. Even if it's a massive red flag and deserves to be criticized.

What Is The "Curse of Hatred" Even?

I have to admit, it's been a while since the last time I watched Naruto from start to finish, so I had to use the sources listed by the wiki rather than relying on my own findings and I might be biased. Because of that, I'd prefer everybody to regard my findings as headcanon or interpretation (especially further toward the end) rather than undisputed fact.

As far as I remember, the exact wording "Curse of Hatred" is only ever used by Obito. While not using the same wording, the curse is also referenced by Itachi, Hagoromo, and Tobirama who each have their own understanding of it. Unfortunately, we have no idea where exactly this wording or concept originated and we have no idea what exactly causes the Curse of Hatred that Obito refers to.

Hiruzen, Koharu, Homura, and even Danzo, while potentially influenced by Tobirama's teachings, do not reference the Curse of Hatred at all, at least not in relation to the Uchiha Clan itself.

Now here's the first one of my findings: The Curse of Hatred is supposed to be some sort of involuntary biological or cultural inclination causing Uchihas to become consumed by hatred but it is also something voluntary - a Nindo. While the former could be considered a "curse" in the traditional sense, the latter is definitely not.

For the Nindo, it is supposed to be some sort of antithesis to the Will of Fire. Because of that, it is not limited to the Uchiha but, according to Tobirama and Obito, closely associated. As explained later on in this post, most Uchihas do not follow this Nindo.

Core aspects of the Curse of Hatred as a Nindo:

Valuing a precious few above the many

Directing your hatred at those who took away your precious few

Growing stronger from those feelings of hatred (for the Uchiha, reflected in the form of the Sharingan)

A Biological Inclination?

Now back to Tobirama's theory, due to the narrative framing, we will assume his words to be truthful for the sake of this analysis. However, I will provide links to other people's posts delving into the fantasy racism discussion.

Tobirama is racist and his theories cannot be trusted.

Tobirama is not racist and there is validity to his theories.

I myself do not completely agree with either of these, but they might be interesting reads for you. If you do not agree with either of them, please keep it to yourself and do not bother the original creators.

Tobirama's theory goes as follows:

The Uchiha feel love and hate more strongly than other individuals

The strength of the Sharingan and the Uchihas' hatred are correlated

In a fit of hatred, odds are an Uchiha will commit evil

It is nowhere mentioned that the Uchiha are more likely to feel hate - only that their hatred is worse than the average person's and puts them at risk of being swayed by hateful ideologies.

A Cultural Inclination?

Aside from Tobirama's theory, multiple characters comment on the historical origin behind the Curse of Hatred.

We are talking, of course, about Indra. Obito explains that Indra's values and his hatred (particularly what later became the Nindo of the Curse of Hatred) were passed down to his descendants - the Uchiha clan. Tobirama's exposition implies the same thing.

Tobirama states that there "used to be a thought that [...] the basis of the Uchiha clan's strength was the power of their jutsu". It is very similar to Hagorormo's description of his son.

If this is correct, that would mean that the importance placed on powerful jutsu by the Uchiha Clan does inadvertently promote hatred due to the close correlation between hatred and the Sharingan.

But then again, in the story, it is shown that many Uchiha were not particularly fond of perpetuating hate and it is also implied that to avoid hatred, they sealed their emotions away. My interpretation is that they recognized the pain that hate could cause and then took steps to avoid it.

The Reincarnation Cycle

Sticking with Indra, another explanation that is frequently brought up is Indra's and Ashura's reincarnation cycle, which has also been described as curse-like or haunting and neverending. A fate seemingly set in stone.

There is not much more to say, other than that this theory suggests that Indra's reincarnates are just naturally inclined towards lusting for power.

The True Origin

Now, here's another thing that's constantly being overlooked. Aside from Obito's exposition in chapter 462 on the Curse of Hatred Nindo, Tobirama's exposition in chapter 619 on the Uchiha's tendency to follow said Nindo, and even Hagoromo's exposition on the reincarnation cycle in chapter 670, we get a vital piece of exposition in chapter 681.

Ladies, gentlemen, and anything in between. May I introduce to you...

...the real Curse of Hatred.

Or at the very least what I believe is the real reason why the "Curse of Hatred" exists in the world of Naruto.

From the very beginning, Zetsu approached Indra to take advantage of his hatred and turn it into a tool for his own purposes. He then did that again and again. He focused on the Uchiha in particular - Either because of the previously mentioned reasons (i.e. the Uchiha / incarnates have a tendency to become obsessed with hatred and power) or because the Uchiha were otherwise easy to take advantage of / manipulate (through Hagoromo's stone tablet that was left in the Uchihas' possession, an ill reputation thanks to Indra's / their ancestors' actions, etc).

In order to achieve his goal (awakening a Rinnegan), he had to somehow combine both Indra's and Ashura's power. It is implied that for this purpose, he instigated, perpetuated, and escalated wars and conflicts between Senju and Uchiha by pitting their reincarnates against each other. But unlike the wars he caused, Zetsu went unnoticed by the history books. Basically, he kept haunting the clans like a curse.

And without a doubt, had Zetsu never been there, 99% of the Uchihas' problems would not exist - regardless of what ideals, genes, or history the Uchiha hold. Indra's declaration of war, centuries of conflict, Madara's defection, Obito losing Rin, the Kyubi attack, the Uchiha massacre, Sasuke's defection, the 4th Great Shinobi War. All of these were directly caused by Zetsu or set off by a resulting chain reaction.

You could even think this further. Assuming the Uchiha clan really came across as "cursed", perhaps Tobirama's, Obito's, Hagoromo's and everybody else's explanations were just desperate attempts to make sense of anything. They didn't know that Zetsu was pulling the strings, so perhaps they tried to explain the Uchiha Clan's history in some other way. One that made sense without that missing variable.

What is actually going on here is, of course, uncertain. There are basically no definitive explanations on the matter and right now it looks like all of the above could be true and at the same time none.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Traditionally, the image of a figleaf was used by artists to cover the body parts (think Adam and Eve) that they were not supposed to show in their paintings. As I use the term, a figleaf is a communicative device that provides just a bit of cover for something that one isn’t supposed to show in public – like racism. To see how this works, let’s first take a closer look at Trump’s call for a Muslim ban. Here is a statement, cast in the third person, that he read aloud in December 2015: Donald J Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on. The anti-Muslim message is loud and clear, and not hidden at all. But the end of the statement is the bit that I want to focus on: ‘until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on’. For some people, this phrase provided reassurance that Trump isn’t racist – because a real racist would want to ban Muslims period, not just while we figure out what’s going on. This is a figleaf: it provides just enough cover for the racism that isn’t acceptable to show in public. One reason that figleaves like this work is that many white people accept what the sociolinguist Jane Hill called ‘the folk theory of racism’. This view sets a very high bar for what counts as racist: a racist has to consciously believe in the biological inferiority of people of colour, and intend to be racist. Somebody like this would want to ban Muslims forever, not just temporarily. Similarly, they wouldn’t suggest that ‘some’ Mexican immigrants are good people, as Trump did. Nor would they have a Black friend, or declare themself to be non-racist, this line of thinking goes. A view such as this one makes it very easy for utterances to serve as figleaves for racism. These figleaves allow a voter to continue supporting a candidate who has made a comment that might have worried them. They don’t need to become fully convinced that the candidate is non-racist; it’s enough in many cases to be uncertain about whether the utterance indicates racism. When I examined discussions among Trump supporters online, I found people who worried about Trump’s views on Mexicans being reassured by those who pointed out that he also said some of them are good. ‘I didn’t hear him say anything racist against any race,’ one person posted. ‘What I did hear him say is, “Illegal Mexicans bring drugs, crime, and are rapists, but I’m sure some are good people.” Seriously, whats racist about that?’ Another Tweeted: ‘Trump is not racist … Trump is not against all mexicans just the illegals.’ Another classic form of figleaf involves reporting the words of others, either specifically (‘John Smith says…’) or in a vague, handwavy way (‘Lots of people are saying…’) This is a great way to avoid responsibility for what one is inserting into the discourse. We see this technique in the British politician Enoch Powell’s infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech in 1968, in which he described a constituent (a ‘quite ordinary working man’) as saying: ‘In this country in 15 or 20 years’ time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man.’ Reports like these help to normalise the sentiments expressed, while distancing the speaker from them. Figleaves are not for everyone. Some people don’t need them: fully committed racists are happy with blatantly racist comments, no figleaves required. Many people won’t be convinced by them: antiracist activists, for example, will see right through the attempted reassurance. For others, though, they provide just what is needed – a licence to go on supporting the person they feel drawn to.

[eddiediazismyhusband]

you know it really speaks volumes when you see people on here who are afraid to post opinions/theories about a certain ship bc they don’t want an influx of hate and vitriol in their inbox from people who up intil a couple months ago were super on board with that ship themselves

like there is so much hate and violent behavior coming from some of these people and it’s concerning how we can’t enjoy characters/a ship that have been developed over six years just because they think their plot device character is the most important thing to to the show and that he plays this integral role despite having less than 30 minutes of screentime, and not having appeared in almost 6 years (his first appearances where he was only important as sn antagonistic plot device for two poc)

every fandom has drama, and there is no such thing as a perfect fan… we are all human beings, we all have flaws

but the fact that the fandom is being policed so hard by these people to the point where cast and crew are being harassed over this random character, screeners are being sent death threats for talking about what was literally shown the show, queer people are being called slurs and/or having their queerness invalidated for having valid qualms with the way this storyline has been handled

this is worrying behavior and it’s not acceptable from anyone regardless of who they ship/don’t ship…. and the fact of the matter is most of this behavior is stemming from that half of the fandom

i personally as a queer person don’t wanna see a relationship on tv in which a long-term main character is throws together with a poorly written character who has zero chemistry with him, as well as treating him with disdain and disrespect at every turn. that’s not the representation i want to see on my screen. i don’t want a queer character who has had no signs of change from when he was making casual racist and misogynistic comments in the workplace; whose only “growth” are two throwaway lines that don’t even acknowledge his involvement and complacency in the bigotry. i don’t want s character whose blatant racism is blamed on the fact that he was closeted. to me that is not good representation- that’s weaponizing queerness to say that it’s okay for queer people to be problematic because they’re queer which is NOT true at all…

your queerness does not erase your bad behavior

your queerness is not a get out of jail free card

and seeing it portrayed as such in a huge network tv show while simultaneously dragging queer women of color through the depth of despair, and completely destroying the development of another heavily queer-coded poc character by having his son taken away in one if the most egregiously poorly written and out of character plotlines of the series is such a massive disservice to queer fans- whether they accept to see it or not- bc when this is how we are portrayed in media, this is how people begin to view us

and especially in the US, this is not something i want to see going into the 2024 election when queer rights are actually being threatened by one side while the other is actively supporting genocide

[cellarspider]

5/30 The pseudohistory of Prometheus

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We return to a movie I wish to send on a journey down the Kola Superdeep Borehole, Prometheus.

And my insanity truly begins in this segment. We are only 1/10th of the way through the movie so far. Content warnings for discussion of racism in pseudoscience and historical anthropology, Spider getting hung up on logistics and space nerd stuff, and pictures of Yuri Knorozov, the most sour-faced man to ever live.

The cast sits down for a briefing. This is a scene with an easily identifiable narrative function: providing exposition to the theater audience. The act of doing a briefing makes sense. It is the last thing here that will.

We are introduced to a hologram of Peter Weyland, the financier of the expedition. The name means all sorts of Lore to the series, but what’s intensely distracting is that we seem to have caught Weyland halfway through applying his zombie makeup.

Weyland is played by Guy Pierce. As of the filming of this movie, he was somewhere around 45 years old. Yes, they smothered this Australian in old man drag so that he could play this character. This is a baffling decision, that only gets slightly less baffling if you know the production history of the movie, which I did not at the time.

Guy Pierce was hired to play a younger Peter Weyland. There’s a promo video out there of him giving a fictional TED Talk in the not-to-distant future of next Sunday AD 2023, there were various plans for him to appear in the movie proper. None of those scenes are actually in the movie. They refused to double-cast the role for some reason. While the practical effects in the movie are generally excellent and it does make the tiniest smidge of sense that a hypercapitalist asshole would be portrayed as a literal rubber-faced movie monster, this, like many things in Prometheus, made the movie a very weird sit. One where I was increasingly less open to going along with the movie’s fiction. You are telling me that this is an actual human man. I am not buying it. He looks far less human than David, the only non-human there.

Speaking of David, Weyland calls him “the closest thing to a son I will ever have”, and then immediately says David is an inhuman lesser being, who does not appreciate the specialness of his existence because he does not have a soul.

Which is funny, because I think you can see David’s soul leaving his body at this exact moment.

Weyland then tries to mash in some existential weight to the movie: they might finally get an answer for “why are we here?” and all that jazz! He also tries to explain why naming a ship Prometheus is totally not like calling it Titanic II: Don’t think about the part of the myth where Prometheus is chained to a rock and has his ever-regenerating liver eaten by an eagle every day! Think about the bit where he brought fire to mankind! We’re gonna bring back that bit!

And then the archaeologists take over the briefing, and this, THIS, is the bit where they entirely lost me. My suspension of disbelief had already been strained by multiple oddities up to this point. My skepticism about these characters in particular was already a bit elevated by their implied invocation of the ancient astronauts concept.

Turns out, only Vickers, Shaw, and Holloway know why they’re here. 

Two years away from Earth. On a massively expensive expedition that intends to make first contact with an alien culture, the first alien culture that humankind has ever found evidence of. Nobody has been briefed up until this point.

This is lunacy.

Explanations have been figured out by fans since then: this is a passion project by Weyland, an annoyance to the rest of the corporate structure that nobody else believes in. The movie eventually intimates this, through Vickers. 

Fans have thus speculated that Weyland was just quarantined off to do his little alien hunt, with no logistical support that would make it actually functional. He believed a crazy theory put forward by Shaw and Holloway, and everyone else wasn’t actually best-of-the-best, they were just whoever would take a big paycheck to do fuck-all for nearly five years of sleeping their way to and from their destination.

I am willing to consider that this was intentional. The movie possibly tries to confirm this with Mr. “I’m here for the money” Fifield, but none of the other characters have enough characterization to determine if this is the general trend.

How could we make a story that more clearly spells this out? Maybe Millburn the biologist could encounter more of the crew talking about the payout from taking the job, or reveal that he himself has some project he needs money for. It would also chip away at the dearth of character-building dialog for most of the cast.

As a result of those deficiencies in characterization, a lot of my discussion of plot points is going to be focused around what they do, rather than why. …Except when it is about the why, at which point the main commentary will be “WHY.”

In any case: while it makes sense, I'm still not certain the film meant for this character motivation. Prometheus is just so loudly explicit with so many of its plot points that it doesn’t seem like this is the case. The movie certainly believes in the sincerity and correctness of the archaeologists, though.

Unfortunately, it also immediately tells me that they’re a couple of wingnuts. I’m not sure if it intends to, for reasons I’ll get into after I foam at the mouth for a little while.

They present a series of artifacts to the crew: Egyptian, Mayan, Akkadian, Sumerian, Hittite, Hawaiian, and their Scottish cave painting. All of them feature “men worshiping giant beings”, who are pointing to what stargazer nerds call an asterism: a pattern of stars. Shaw and Holloway believe that these are aliens that engineered humans into their current state. Shaw literally says “it’s what I choose to believe” as the entirety of their justification for this.

Again: I knew the movie wanted me to take this as truth, within its universe. That’s the implicit deal the movie has made with the audience, this is truth. You are supposed to be contemplating the "whys" of it all. But the movie had also smacked me in the brain so many times in the past five minutes, that I, like Millburn the Biologist, was ready to call bullshit.

I appreciate him for doing so, and it shows he could have been a smart character, but sadly, he is in Prometheus.

Because he is a fictional biologist and I am an actual biologist, I will expand on his argument, as I descend into ranting for the rest of the post.

Millburn objects on the basis of evolutionary history, which the movie only partially succeeds in papering over: the implication is that evolution on Earth was directed with the deterministic outcome of creating something like humans.

This opens up a whole new can of worms that the movie doesn’t get into–when exactly did this engineering start? When great apes evolved? When mammals did? Tetrapods? Skeletons? DNA itself? After all, we know the aliens, now dubbed Engineers by the archaeologists, have DNA. Did they seed all life on Earth? How did they evolve? Our last universal common ancestor is believed to have already been using DNA 3-4 billion years ago, evolving out of a likely RNA-based genetic standard. Hominins diverged from other apes around 15-25 million years ago. What sort of culture would undertake a project that required at least 15 million years on the extreme low end?

All excellent questions! The movie is not concerned with them. I am, and that is part of why this movie still lives in a special, awful place in my head.

This isn’t actually what made me become actively hostile toward the archaeologists, though. What managed that, well! It was their archaeology. Anybody who had an Ancient Egypt Phase in their childhood should be able to articulate multiple reasons why the academic community would’ve laughed these guys out of the building.

Bigness in ancient egyptian art does not indicate literal size. It indicates importance. In fact, the artifacts the movie uses exclusively come from artistic traditions which feature hierarchical or non-literal scale. Do the Engineers turn out to actually be eight feet tall? Yes! Am I still annoyed by this? ABSOLUTELY.

You know what else is a big problem? Many of the cultures they reference here had written language! A LOT of written language! They include Egyptian, Sumerian, Babylonian, and Mayan art in their evidence, all of which not only wrote a LOT of things down, but had a habit of annotating a lot of their art with labels to tell you what was going on! You can actually see some on the props they used in this scene!

Beyond that, they had very prescribed formal styles, where you can follow the action entirely through gestures, held objects, attendant symbols, and clothing! If all these cultures, as implied, had actual, direct contact with aliens, recorded in the art presented here, we would know what they were told.

Skipping ahead of the movie for a minute: the Engineers were apparently not telling humans “we’re here in these stars, come find us”, they were telling humans “settle the fuck down or this is where the hurt’s going to come from”. 

Here's the thing. Ancient peoples weren't stupid. They wouldn't just not talk about this. If giant aliens came down from the sky and gave them a stern talking-to that contradicted their religion, that would be a big deal. And these characters specifically say the Engineers are being "worshiped" in these images! They're apparently taking onboard what's being said!

It is certainly possible for information to be lost. Over long time scales, that's unfortunately the rule, rather than the exception. But again: half the artifacts have writing on them!

I chose to believe that Shaw and Holloway simply did not attempt to read any available translations of attendant texts, and they were thus cursed for their foolishness by the ghosts of Mayan Studies pioneer Yuri Knorozov and Egyptologist Jean-François Champollion, and the still-extant spirit of Assyriologist Irving Finkel.

Knorozov knows your sins against Mayan Studies. Knorozov is a vengeful god. Chapollion and Finkel are likewise very cross.

Two last things stood out to me in the theater. One of them was extremely petty but tied into some very serious issues with pseudoscience, and the other one was not.

Pettiness first: the asterism shown in the artifacts is a pattern of six stars. The movie wants you to believe that it is very spooky that the only asterism that precisely matches this pattern are six stars that are too faint to see with the naked eye. This is laughable, both because the asterism is so generic-looking that I can think of several very visible asterisms that are good matches for the pattern, but it also recapitulates a bunch of really fucking annoying stuff from pseudoscientific bullshit. 

First: Pseudoscience and pseudohistory likes to make a big deal out of the fact that every culture has stories about the stars. Why? 

The sky is very important to every culture’s mythology, because every culture can see the sky. Like, that’s literally it. People can see the sky. They tell stories about it. There’s not much to do at night except look at the sky, when even keeping a fire lit can be an expensive prospect. It is not even the least bit weird when multiple cultures–all of them in the northern hemisphere in this case!–have stories about the same stars.

Second: Cultures varied in their ability to faithfully reproduce celestial landmarks in art and align their architecture, and were not as exact as modern techniques can manage. Pseudoscience will claim that they are exact, when it fits their pre-existing theory, or fudge the difference if they want something to fit their claims.

(This is a photoshopped image, by the way.)

Were the stone age temples of Malta secretly aligned with a particular star that foretold the doom of Atlantis, precisely tracking its location through the sky over thousands of years of Earth’s axial wobbling? No! They were roughly aligned with the sun. Sunlight is important when you don’t have electric lights. Were the Great Pyramids of Giza laid out ten thousand years ago to match the layout of the stars in Orion’s Belt, according to the designs of a legendary lost race of highly advanced non-African people? Were they tapping into the Earth’s magnetic field to generate energy? No! They were aligned with the cardinal directions, and they got them a bit wrong! 

Hell, if we want to play at that game, I found a decent match for the asterism in Stellarium's Egyptian constellation set. Just flip this 90 degrees clockwise and you'll see I'm totally right. Aliens confirmed.

I know the movie is trying to tell me that all the asterisms in the art are precise matches for each other and are thus impossible to explain without intercultural contact (or aliens!!), but it is also showing me that they are not that precise. So, it’s just showing me stars. At least in some of them. Their little charcoal lad from the Isle of Skye may be throwing fruit at his audience.

In fact, there's a further, probably unintentional link to pseudohistorical claims in the artifacts presented: the Maya artifact shown does not actually depict a "giant figure" being worshiped, in fact, it shows one instantly recognizable, known figure in Classical Maya history: It is an altered version of the ornately carved coffin lid of Kʼinich Janaab Pakal I (24 March 603 - 29 August 683), with the top quarter of the carving replaced with a star pattern that looks nothing like the ones on the other artifacts.

The carving shows Pakal in the pose of an infant, entering into death and being reborn. It is packed full of so many symbolic elements that can be easily recognized by those more familiar with the Classical Maya than I am.

Conspiracy theorist Erich von Däniken thought that it showed Pakal rocketing away on a spaceship. Däniken proposed this because he didn't understand the cultural symbolism, but he had seen pictures of astronauts before.

And on that note, 2,400 words into this rant, we get to the actually bad shit. Unfortunately, it ties into the issue I had with the premise to begin with: the real-world context of pseudoscientific claims of ancient alien contact. Specifically, the racism.

We’re going to unspool this more near the end of the movie, because there was further behind the scenes I was not aware of when I first saw Prometheus, and it just compounds this stuff. 

So, when I went on my first tangent on how unpleasant ancient alien theories are, one thing I highlighted is that the further from Western Civilization you get, the more these theories presuppose that fellow humans are incapable of building great works or imagining interesting things. No, they had to be guided, and explicitly shown things that they copied down to the best of their limited capability.

The only european example of alien contact they show is from the Upper Paleolithic, 37,000 years ago. All the examples around the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia range from 5,500-3,700 years ago. The examples from the Classical Maya and Hawaiʻi are from 620 and 680 CE. 

During this period, Tang Dynasty merchants were creating the first paper money as the famous female emperor Wu Zetian was on her way to the throne. The Prophet Muhammad went to al-Aqsa mosque, and we’re only eight years before the birth of Charlemagne’s grandfather. We’re no longer talking ancient, it’s just old.

I want to emphasize that the movie is presenting these not as depictions of myths that have been passed down–though there are more problems with that I’ll get into shortly–these are implied to be contemporary depictions of events witnessed by the artists, who were quite possibly instructed by the Engineers to record a precise pattern of stars. An equivalency is being drawn between stone age Europe, bronze age Africa and the Middle East, and a couple of startlingly recent Mesoamerican and Polynesian cultures. 

But let’s be generous. Maybe these aren’t supposed to be contemporary accounts in these two outlier cases: the movie’s script will certainly indicate later that they have no idea what they’ve implied here. Perhaps these are story traditions that were handed down from the Olmecs and Melanesian precursors of the first to sail to Hawaiʻi. 

Unfortunately, this just recapitulates a different racist trope: that European and more “developed” civilizations invented so much cool and comfortable material culture and philosophy that they forgot the Mystical Religious Truths of the old ways, which were preserved only in Primitive Lands and among Uneducated Peoples, where they never found anything better to do with their time. Oh, if only we had heeded the warnings from those spiritually attuned non-white people!

(Look, I only remember Devil (2010), which has 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, because M Night Shyamalan wrote and produced it, and this was two years after The Happening came out, so I watched it out of morbid curiosity. It's not as unbelievably bad as The Happening, but as shown in the clip above, the spiritually attuned latino security guard Ramirez attributes toast landing jelly side down to Satan. That is an actual thing that happens in the movie. He is proven right.)

But let's be even more generous: someone probably realized that they'd focused near-exclusively on Middle Eastern cultures, and wanted to throw in a couple from elsewhere. Sitting here, having seen the movie in full, this is the most likely option: their inclusion creates a contradiction with a later scene, and was thus probably not checked for consistency. These cultures were thrown in as a bit of background flavor. I list this last, because in the theater, there was no way to know this at the time.

That answer's still not great. Still leaves us in the same position, where Europeans are pretty much given their own agency, while other cultures need to be led.

Oh, and to anyone else who’s made it this far and knows the production history of Prometheus: don’t worry! I know what Ridley Scott told that one interviewer, about a contact between a less-ancient European power and the Engineers. I’m saving that one. I like to save that one, because strategic deployment of that quote made some of my IRL friends scream.

Next time: the Prometheus descends to an alien world, and I descend further into madness. I am going to drag you all down with me.

(Pictured: Yuri Knorozov, and my present mood.)

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Citations for alt text ramblings:

https://www.almendron.com/artehistoria/arte/culturas/egyptian-art-in-age-of-the-pyramids/catalogue-fourth-dynasty/

[ride-thedragon]

Nettles Discourse.

I'm a big Nettles fan. I accept that the bias I have towards her can affect my judgement when it comes to negative discussions, no one likes their favourite characters to be undersold or talked about in a negative regard. That being said we've lost the plot yet again when it comes to her.

I know I can be out there with my claims about her (George literally wrote asoiaf to support her narrative), but I do think she's often disregarded about the way she impacts the narrative. Because she does, she leaves some of the biggest questions that carry over into the main series in fire and blood.

. Was she a witch that seduced a prince

. Did her and Daemon spend the rest of their days in the Vale.

. Did she create the burned men

. Is she actually Valyrian

. Can non Valyrians ride and claim dragons.

. What happened to her and Sheepstealer (the dragonskull found in the main series...)

For who she is as a character, she's so misrepresented in the fandom, while I know I'm annoying about her, it's within good reason.

That's without the paedophilia discourse surrounding her character, the race and racism discourse surrounding her character at all times. Someone conflating her popularity and race isn't entirely incorrect.

The way people undermine her written story because they don't like her. The way they will make race and class the forefront of that undermining is quite insane when you see it.

There is also this air of mystery intended by her character that allows for theories and tie-ins to the main plot.

I've said that she mirrors Dany in some regards, which is true. They have a lot of parallels, like Rhaena and Sansa or Baela and Arya.

All this is to say that even though she isn't a main character in Fire and Blood, she's still important, and race does affect the perception of her a lot, which is an issue. We see the same thing with the popularity of Baela and Rhaena in the show, especially. She isn't a pov character or a main focus by any means, but her mystery alone would've had her 10 times more popular if she was a white alternative to that familial ship.

AND WHILE WE ARE HERE, DETTLES DISCOURSE.

Let's be serious.

Nettles is a child, Nettles is a victim, Nettles was groomed has no basis in the actual story.

If it's a reservation, you hold in the discourse fine, that's great but it's not an in universe thing.

She's legally an adult. She's an impoverished black girl in the narrative who's saved by a prince and a house protecting her against their world's Monarch and escapes on a dragon she claimed and she again escapes and her escape is framed as Daemon's redemption in the narrative.

When people say she was abused by Daemon, they never contextualise it in her character. She's just a poor, 16 year old at the mercy of a prince. That's unfair.

I'll be the first person to scream from the rooftops that Daemon should be held accountable for his every breath in the narrative as well as not being redeemed for all his crimes because he let my favourite character go.

But let's be clear, if someone views their story as romantic, it doesn't mean that they want paedophilia in the narrative. Nettles is closer to Book Brienne's age and perception than she is to Sansa's, two character with prominent ships with men older than them. Nettles is an adult by Westeros standards. (Daemon will burn in hell for messing with teens), but she is an adult.

It's not a question of a person's morality if they ship Daemon and Nettles. They are within the bounds of the world to do so. That's just how they choose to engage with the material instead of being critical and applying our standards to a ship.

[leportraitducadavre]

I have 3 long questions that have been bothering me for a while.

1)What actual evidence Konoha had to suspect the Uchiha Clan after the Kyuubi's attack?

I've reread some of my issues and noticed that Minato never actually passed on his info about his confrontation with the masked man (Obito) to the Leaf. He suspected he was an Uchiha, Madara, but he went from his fight straight to the Kyuubi and then straight to the shinigami's belly. he really chose to die instead of raising his son, I can't believe there's a dad worse than Boruto!Sasuke

So what evidence they had to point the finger at the Uchiha Clan? There were bodies left behind and the Kyuubi was summoned through a jutsu to Konoha, instead of breaking out by itself and rushing over from the hideout, so everyone can see that it wasn't just the complications from childbirth breaking the seal but an actual attack by someone. The only one who managed a contract with the tailed beast was Madara, but he only managed that after he left the clan didn't he?

Did Konoha really just go full racism (because they were halfway there) against the Uchiha without any proof? they were right in the end, but honestly i think it's their fault for not attempting to retrieve Obito's body so screw them

2) Was Obito's attack on Kushina a genuine attempt on extracting the Kyuubi?

The order of events are a bit weird but I don't think Nagato summoned the Gedo Mazo at the time of Naruto's birth, so was Obito just gonna sit on the Kyuubi until then? It was the best time to attack and he dealt a big blow against Konoha, but what was the plan after that?

3)Was the Uchiha Massacre part of the plan by Madara and/or Obito, or was it just a side venture?

In one hand, the order came from Konoha. In the other, Obito definitely knew what was going to happen after doing something only an Uchiha has done before.

Could Obito have consciously implicated the Uchiha with the Kyuubi attack?

They had not a single shred of evidence that someone within the clan controlled the Kyuubi, they based their theory of an Uchiha monitoring its actions upon their prior knowledge of Madara’s capacity to control it; they decided that the possibility of one of them incurring in such behavior was enough to move the entirety of the clan to the outskirts of the village, reinforcing their surveillance via Anbu. They weren’t “right in the end” because their suspicions implied that an individual/group within the clan orchestrated the attack, and Obito operated from outside it and Konoha. It was the government's actions against the Uchiha, supported by these unfounded suspicions, that gave Madara (and not even to the man himself but to his mistrust, passed on by word of mouth after his desertion) enough supporters inside the family, who started to voice complains about their mistreatment and sought change –diplomatically at first. Itachi learned prior to their massacre that there was, in fact, someone who presented himself as Madara lurking in the village’s borders, a founder that the clan itself turned against when he wanted to leave the village, Itachi either conveniently kept such information until after the UCM or the Elders willingly ignored such data, choosing to solve their diplomatic struggles with one of the founder’s clan by massacring them entirely. Itachi even sought Obito’s help to kill his family, further proving that he knew “Madara” operated outside the clan and Konoha, as he was willing to kill those who “turned his back to him.”

Yes, Obito planned to extract the Kyubi and break havoc in the village (he summoned the Kyuubi upon Rin’s grave, that should tell you a lot of his reasoning), I’m not sure if he planned to seal the Kyuubi inside someone specifically for harvesting it after more easily, or if he wanted it to roam free until he could use Nagato’s eyes to summon the Gedo Mazo (using it in the meantime). Likely his plan was hardly thought through, as he gained information about Kushina giving birth by spying on Kakashi, so he knew the seal that kept Kurama inside her was to weaken due to her condition. He even became far more patient after Kyuubi’s attack, so perhaps he was mostly impulsive and was able to tame his emotions far better after such an experience.

I believe that the massacre, while not part of the original plan, became an important aspect of their ultimate goal, as by killing the Uchiha, Obito guaranteed that there would be few Sharingan-wielders that could compromise their plan. Obito’s logic was that no matter what he did in the real world, nothing of it would have any say in the IT universe, as everything can be undone or modified at his will.

Could Obito have consciously implicated the Uchiha with the Kyuubi attack?

No, I don't think he did it consciously, after all, he didn't make sure someone outside Minato knew of his implication in the matter, that was something that happened outside his control.

[burnitalldowndarling]

https://www.tumblr.com/burnitalldowndarling/744870483940524032/whats-been-particularly-vile-to-me-is-this-group

#alladis#the left started to die when the white people took over#obama derangement syndrome hit them just as hard#they've just displaced their bigotry in more convoluted ways Really? How so? /genuine

Short on time so not a lot of links or theory, but I think a major example of what I'm talking about is the white leftist dismissal of "identity politics." What they mean by idpol is marginalized people taking pride in their identities or talking about bigotry, which white leftists typically frame as a distraction from more important issues. Thing is, the "more important" issues tend to be those of primary importance to white men, such as UBI or copyleft -- but it's not idpol when they do it. Another example is the embrace of class-centered (also called "class first" and "class reductionist") leftism. Addressing class disparities and economic justice does help marginalized groups as well, but do remember that the people who stand to gain the most from class uplift are those who were already well-off -- as white cis people tend to be, in America, thanks to historical and systemic bigotry. The rising tide floats all boats, but those who already had speed boats in the water are still going to do better than the folks surviving on inflatable rafts.

Identity-centric politics such as anti-racism have always addressed class and economic justice issues, but had the added benefit of centering the most vulnerable groups. The idea was that if you address the needs of/reduce harm to those groups first, everyone still benefits, but you save more lives. In their rejection of idpol, the American left now often ignores harm reduction, denigrates incremental improvements that benefit marginalized groups, and weakens the whole coalition by permitting established power hierarchies and bigotries to run rampant. See the "dirtbag left". See also Bernie Sanders' own 2016 campaign staff revolting because he failed to address racism, racial and gendered pay disparities, and sexual assault. How's he going to build a progressive national coalition when he can't even get his own house in order, progressively?

And I blame white leftists, along with white conservatives, for Trump's election in 2016. These are the people who kept pushing third-party voting, "boycotting" voting, and accelerationist nonsense like the idea that letting Trump get elected would hasten The Glorious Revolution -- never mind if it killed a few poor or brown people along the way. These are people who attacked and dismissed marginalized people online (especially Black and queer women) whenever they pointed out the dangers of a Trump win. They were absolutely vile in their sexism toward Hillary Clinton and anyone who supported her. In a lot of cases these were "leftist" influencers and such who embraced Gamergate and other harassment campaigns, and used the techniques of same against their fellow leftists -- and surprise, surprise, several years later a whole lot of the most prominent ones have come out as fascists. They got right-wing radicalized during the 2000s and 2010s same as white conservatives, in other words; they're just as racist, just as gender essentialist, just as anti-semitic and classist and so on. They just like UBI too. And they're better at using therapy-speak or communist-speak to hide their bigotry.

Tl;dr, while there are plenty of white leftists who are doing the work and doing it right, the most prominent face of leftism for the last 10 years has been the dirtbags, the brocialists, the accelerationists, etc -- people who IMO make the left weaker, and who are frequently dangerous to the very same vulnerable groups that the left should be centering. And way too many of them have become very wealthy from doing so, at which point a lot of them stop being progressive. Almost as if they were only ever in it to advance themselves, in the first place.

[notesfromtheidiotbox]

I'm showing a picture of this post instead of reblogging because I don't want to distract from OP's point, but the various comments and reblogs all seem to have a common thread of "how did this happen? Why don't people seem to care?"

My personal theory is widespread compassion fatigue. It's finally ingrained itself fully into our collective psyche. And I'm not just talking about recent events either.

I'm 47 years old. I've lived through the end of the Cold War, two Gulf Wars, one major terrorist attack on US soil that upended literally EVERYTHING about everyday life in the US, the rising threat of climate change, a once in a century pandemic, multiple boom-and-bust economic cycles, the rise of the internet and with it the rise of accessibility of both information and MISinformation, multiple smaller conflicts around the world, the change in corporate attitudes from "we serve our customers our products faithfully and loyally" to "fuck you! That's our money in your wallet and we're not even going to pretend we thought of you as anything else anymore," the creeping resurgence of fascism as a political ideology in the US not seen since the 30s and early 40s,* rapidly rising inflation and wage stagnation without any sort of action to mitigate it for most of the population. and literally hundreds to thousands of people online yelling at each other for not "doing more," "doing better," or for not supporting/believing/doing the right things in the right way.

I honestly think the compassion/empathy tank is not just empty in the US, it's burned through the fumes and is now bone dry.

Being as generous as possible with the timeline, ever since 2001**, what we laughingly call the news in this country has served us a 24/7 diet of crisis after crisis, with no respite. It's ebbed and flowed, of course, but the general message has been "everything is getting worse, nobody is going to save us, we can't solve the existential threats of war, disease, famine, climate change, racism, and lethal prejudice that exists everywhere." And while collective action has garnered several significant victories, the attitude is still "this won't work because everybody has their own ideas of what needs to be done and how to do it and spend more time arguing over the details rather than doing anything***"

I think we don't care because we just CAN'T anymore. Even the things we would normally use to recharge ourselves aren't working. The food doesn't taste good, the entertainment is turning into forgettable sludge by the rapid rise of streaming, and it seems like you aren't allowed to be anywhere in public without spending money, and if you aren't required to spend money to be somewhere, odds are if you stay there for too long you'll have somebody giving you the side eye and demanding an explanation.

And online? Anger, dehumanization, and the constant cry of any sincere expression of joy or excitement is "cringe."

22 years of being constantly told the world is shit, humans are awful, you only have as much value as your bank account has digits, your employers don't respect you or the customers who get affected by their boneheaded decisions, leaving you to take the bullet, and constant reminders if problems which are too big to be solved in our lifetime.****

We're all tired, and we're beaten down, and we just don't have any more fucks to give about the latest crisis created by those in positions of power for what we are realizing are the most petty and stupid reasons.

There isn't a one size fits all solution here. But that's pretty much what I think has happened: the people of the United States in general have reached a point where we don't have the emotional capacity to deal with any more of this seemingly unsolvable shit. And I honestly think it's going to continue to get worse before it starts to get better.

Try to take care of each other out there, okay?

--

*For younger readers: oh yeah, during Hitler's rise to power until Pearl Harbor, there were PLENTY of people who thought Hitler was just swell.

** I'd actually argue the trauma cycle started with Vietnam, but it really accelerated with the 24 hour news cycle, the increase in internet speeds, and the events of 9/11.

***On a related note, be EXTREMELY leery of those online who won't accept anything but full-scale revolution as a remedy. Most of the time, these people have no plan for what comes after or seem to think that when society collapses, they'll be on top of the pile, ready to be the boot.

****The kinds of changes that would be needed to wipe out war, prejudice, and many other systemic problems are probably going to take decades, if not centuries. And because of the always on demand nature of society right now, a lot of people seem to have a real problem wrapping their heads around that. Change for the worse happens immediately. Change for the better takes a LOT longer.

[drbased]

Your last two theory posts are absolutely fascinating and I'd love to read more on this subject from you, it really resonated with me. My father started getting radicalised online during lockdown, he's now a Q anon, a climatosceptic and a antivax amongst other things. I saw the man who taught me tolerance and acceptance become extremely racist, antisemitic, homophobic and most of all misogynistic over a few years (even tho he has two daughters, one being out as a lesbian. And his family having been subjected to horrible racism in his youth when he immigrated from Algeria) and it has utterly destroyed our relationship. We're no better than acquaintances now.

The biggest shift of all was how he went from an agnostic antitheist to a Christian during lockdown, then shifting again to a weird neutral stance I can't really explain. He says he's against all organized religion and authority (just so we're perfectly clear, I don't believe that for a second), but at the same time he has started seeing everything through the lens of Christianity (which was a big factor in how antisemitic he suddenly got). What I mean by that is that satanism in particular has become the central point of his whole philosophy. Everything is about the devil now. He told me I was supporting satanism as a horror movie fan, but also as a woman who supports femen activists. He thought the Olympics opening Ceremony was about Satan. Every single movie has a hidden message about Satan. He also notably started becoming a weird fan of psychiatry (my mum is a psychiatric nurse and an amazing one at that, she is very knowledgeable about these things) and started diagnosing random politicians and celebrities with "conditions" he made up which STRANGELY, have very demonic symptoms according to him.

[content warning ⚠️⬇️]

If I said everything I have to say about how the satanic panic got to him I would write for 4 hours. This has completely uphanded his life. Obviously like many like him, everything is about pedophilia too. The two are obviously linked. His new theory is that the president of our country (Emmanuel Macron) was raped when he was a newborn by his current wife (who is actually a man according to him) and it affected his brain which allows a secret organisation in the shadows to control him 👍 and also it's all about Satan too how could it not.

This whole thing has genuinely ruined my family, and he has been relentlessly trying to convert us and prove to us that these theories are real. This has not worked out great for him as his four children pretty much gave up on him. And the worst part is that I'm sure that our collective reaction and repulsion has only cemented his convictions. Because people like him love to feel oppressed and silenced.

I'm gonna be honest I completely forgot where I was going with this, I typed way more than what I planned. (Sorry for any mistakes English isn't my mother tongue)

I think feminists need to talk more about these conspiracy theories (at least I'd like to feel a bit less crazy, because I only hear about this from him and all that gross stuff he talks about like it's nothing is getting to me) and I was so relieved when I saw your posts! I was like omg I hear about that subject from someone who actually makes sense. If you have any recommendations of things to read, listen to or watch on this subject I'd love that and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Love your blog btw! Sorry for the long ask. Have a great day 💜

No worries about the long ask! I love reading other people's perspectives and experiences. And I wouldn't have guessed english isn't your first language; the only thing I noticed is that you wrote 'uphanded' when I think it should be 'upended'.

This is such a lovely ask to recieve! Whilst I love writing and analysing there's always a small part of me that thinks, ok, this specific thing I wrote is totally bunk, nobody's gonna wanna read this. So it's wonderful to recieve such recognition, especially not on anon (no shade to the anons though!)

'His new theory is that the president of our country (Emmanuel Macron) was raped when he was a newborn by his current wife (who is actually a man according to him) and it affected his brain which allows a secret organisation in the shadows to control him 👍 and also it's all about Satan too how could it not.' whaaaaat? Is that an existing theory or something he invented? I can see like three different patriarchal fears in that:

that 'leftist' men are a corruption of healthy masculinity

that men are corrupted by women's sexual violence (patriarchal reversal)

transphobia stemming from a conflation of homosexuality and femaleness as inherently linked; the ultimate in male emasculation and humiliation is the idea of the masculinised woman who dominates him

I grew up with conspiracy theories so I have some understanding of how they create a simplistic narrative out of the complexity and inherent unfairness of life. I always recommend Innuendo Studios' youtube series The Alt-Right Playbook as it was instrumental to me in gaining an understanding of how the right-wing mind works, but on this subject I recommend in particular the video 'You can't get snakes from chicken eggs'. The commentary that really resonated with me is relevant to phrase 'a lie is halfway around the world before truth gets its boots on': a lie can always be percieved - and communicated - much more simply than the truth, so it spreads easier and faster. And conspiracy theories are a way of both simplifying down the narrative into good vs evil, but also adding complexity to fill in all the obvious gaps - e.g., since there's no proof satan exists, but we need him to exist, there becomes an addiction-like obsession with trying to seek patterns that 'prove' he exists.

I can't remember where I read/heard it, but one of the psychological benefits of believing in conspiracies is that you get a gamification of life that generates a community - qanon with his 'q drops' has perfected this process: small bits of incoherent babble alluding to something are drip-fed to the community, who get to decode it in real time. The collective narrative-making is exhillarating, especially in a world with a fragmented culture and isolated people with diminishing 'third spaces'. And I know from personal experiences that one satisfaction from being a conspiracy theorist is that you get to 'achieve' something by doing absolutely nothing; you don't have to be any sort of activist or help people in the real world: since it's all information 'they don't want you to know', simply knowing the information is all that is needed for you to feel accomplished. I would definitely put 'conspiracy theorist' into my 'symbolic states' category because it's so transparently about placing a narrative layer over reality.

It's really sad what's happened to your dad; I imagine it would be incredibly painful seeing someone you love lose touch with reality so violently like that. And I believe you're right; that your collective response to him will only have strengthened his convictions. It reminds me of how it's been shown that door-to-door preaching is terrible at actually converting people, but instead is more useful to cement bonds between the group members as social outcasts. And conspiracy theorists basically pride themselves on being the pariahs who see the truth no one else dares to see.

[eye-in-hand]

Fighting against, and standing up to antisemitism is very important to me. Not just because racism in all of its forms is vile and should be called out, but because antisemitism is something that's affected me very personally.

I talked a little bit about this in my why I'm converting post, but to keep it simple. I was raped by a neo-nazi who kept me isolated, forced me to be financially dependent on him, targeted me when I was 17 years old, kept me in his basement, physically abused me, among other things - because he thought I was Jewish. I am not ethnically Jewish. I'm English and Rusyn. However my entire life I've been perceived as Jewish. It got me bullied, abused, and raped.

So of fucking course when some idiot shows their ass in the one fandom space I had, about how they're sooo antiracist, sooo not bigoted, they just don't want jews, I mean zionists, in their space, of fucking course it's going to make me angry. Of fucking course I'm going to talk about it. Of fucking course I'm fucking disgusted.

It's not my fault these people fell down the rabbit hole of Russian and Iranian propaganda. It's not my fault these people think they get to tell Jews what Zionism means, or automatically assume that not advocating for the genocide of Jews, or being pro- the country where 50% of the Jews (and about 100% of the Jews from the MENA region) live must mean I support killing Palestinians. Or it means that I support genocide. It isn't my fault. Yet I, and other Jews, pay the punishment for it.

No. I don't support genocide. Of any group of people. I don't support violence towards other people based on where they happened to live or what race they happen to be. I don't support imperialism when it's done by anyone. And I FULLY SUPPORT the right of indigenous peoples to have self determination on their native land.

And if you have a problem with that, you have a lot of history to learn, a lot of bigotry to unpack, and a lot of shutting up to fucking do.

I support a two state solution because it's the ONLY way I can see peace happening in an area of the world that has been filled with blood shed for thousands of years. But at the end of the day, I'm a western convert, and my opinion on the Middle East is not as important as people who live there. And there are Israelis and Palestinians who are doing much more for peace than reblogging scam donation posts, supporting Hamas, or harassing Jews online and kidding themselves into thinking they're on the side standing against bigotry. And I support those people. Jew, Arab, or otherwise.

I do not support ignorant fuckwads who think they understand a conflict that doesn't affect them. I do not support ignorant fuckwads who think they get to tell a minority group they are not a part of what that minority group's words mean. I do not support historical revisionism, conspiracy theories, or advocating for the genocide of ANYONE.

And if you have an issue with a Jew telling you that what you're saying is antisemitic, when MULTIPLE JEWS ALL OVER THE INTERNET, have said that the movement you're supporting advocates for the death of all Jews, YOU ARE A RACIST BIGOT. You are the racist bitch you say you hate. You are not immune to bigotry. You are not immune to propaganda. You are not helping anyone with your self righteous virtue signaling slacktivism. You are pathetically ignorant. And I'd feel fucking bad for you if you weren't digging your heels in refusing to acknowledge that you have fucked up.

I don't feel bad for Nazis. I don't feel bad for people who throw Jewish lives away. I don't feel bad for people who throw Palestinian lives away. I have no sympathy for bigots.

By the way, that post wasn't even fucking about you. It says more about you thinking my calling someone out for being racist was about you than it does about me. But this post is about you, and it's the only one you're fucking getting from me. Go fuck yourself.

I know what Nazis sound like. And you sound just fucking like him.

This isn't some stupid fandom drama or some stupid fight between people that hung out in a stupid discord. This is shit that affects real people's lives, and you're perpetuating violence. Disgusting.

[thewebcomicsreview]

I sometimes wonder if any of the people who supported Sinfest during its feminist phase are now ashamed of it after it became anti-trans.

Well, yeah, lots, the comic got way less popular after that turn, though it's less "I can't believe I liked that guy" and more "I can't believe Tatsuya Ishida suddenly became a crazy person one day".

Though Z6IIAB, who prefers to be called Celina, might be the oddest. She was on board with Tats' anti-trans turn, often fighting with members of the old board over it. Tats eventually took her side so hard he banned his entire forum and made a new one, with blackjack and hookers. Well, not hookers. Probably not blackjack anymore either, actually, given his RETVRN to Evangelical Christianity. At one point, the new forum had 70 posts and 41 of them were from two users, one of which was her

To a large extent, the yellow forums were made just for her. She posted there 842 times, 29% of all posts on this forum to this day. The forum was literally made just for her.

But then Tats became anti-Vax, and that was the new Current Thing for him.

And Celina was not super fond of that, and would post "facts" and "statistics" in the forums. Anti-Trans she was okay with. Anti-vax she was not super comfortable with. But still. She was Tats' biggest fan, and she wasn't going to throw that away over a conspiracy theory arc.

And then Tats started doing right-wing memes, and that made her real uncomfortable.

This post is from January 2022, and if Celina was already starting to look around her and wonder if she was hanging out with a 4chan nazi...

Then perhaps she saw this February 10th strip about how (((devils))) secretly control the world by controlling the banking system and started seeing the same thing here that I do. She didn't make a post for that strip, and a week later, on February 17th 2002, she posted on the Sinfest forum for the last time.

She hasn't been seen since. And neither has ZozoCitizen, or CopperRose, or RikkiTikkiTavi, all once-prolific posters last seen in September 2022. Tanagra last posted on the 4th of July. The new Sinfest forum was never exactly hip and happening, but it had its regulars once upon a time.

In the last two months, just counting manually, the forum has looked like this:

MeowingInsanely has posted one time Fabbo has posted one time Quil has posted three times, all in one conversation with Russly Russly has posted twenty-three times

Only four people used the forums, and really it's a one-Russly show. For comparison, just looking at site comments for my own not successful comic and ignoring the discord completely, 11 people have posted on the actual site comments (12 if you count me). If you go to my discord, you might have seen the creator of Starhammer lament their low comment numbers lately, and while I have 12 commentors in the last two months, I count 13 on Starhammer in the last two weeks.

Tats has one fan left, and that's it, and that's the fan who replies to her own threads and argues with herself. He has no money. He has no friends. He's got no fight left to fight. He's just a sad, pathetic, lonely man, trying desperately to win approval from literal nazis because he thinks they're the only people desperate enough to still like him, and they're not. They're not! All the alt-right shit Tats has done and they don't respect him at all and they never will and one day I think he'll eventually realize it and flip a switch to a new political identity. Eco-fascism or NIMBYism or communism or juggling or whatever he sees on Facebook that day.

He's just TimeCube now, with less friends and more racism. It's not even upsetting any more. Why get mad about an angry old man shouting alone in the dark?

[caffeineandsociety]

I very strongly distrust a lot of takes about the Gaza situation that insist "there is no room for nuance" because I find they're almost always followed by some really horrifying racist and/or antisemitic implications.

Where there really, truly is no room for nuance:

The bombardment of Gaza is a genocide and a crime against humanity and a ceasefire must be called ASAP.

Where there is room for nuance:

Once a ceasefire DOES happen, where do we go from there? How should the government(s) be restructured and who has the right to decide that? We're in this situation in the first place because 75 years ago, foreign governments just tried to decide that when the conflict was MUCH less horrible and fairer to call a conflict based on their own convenience themselves. Who should mediate and how much influence should they be allowed to have?

Hey maybe you shouldn't be implying let alone stating that every Jewish person or even every Israeli is cool with this? Yes propaganda is powerful and yes Israel has its extremist assholes even outside of the government but this is all true in EVERY country. You need to learn to judge the actions of a government WITHOUT assuming those actions represent the desires of each and every citizen, let alone migrants; that's how you get racist and xenophobic, and that doesn't actually help solve the problem.

For that matter, Hamas aren't brave heroes either, they're extremist nationalist agitators installed by the Israeli government in the hopes that exactly this would happen. Don't obsess over condemning them, but don't just support this party in particular uncritically, either.

That doesn't mean you should pull some homonationalist shit excusing the bombardment of evacuation vehicles.

The area was Judea before it was Palestine, BUT it became Palestine so long ago that it was and still is just plain unreasonable to tell everyone "all right guys pack it in the people with a REAL right to this land are done playing your little games." This dynamic has the potential to be used to fearmonger about present and future landback movements; you should stick a pin in that in case you start hearing it enter the mainstream discourse in the coming years.

You should really look into the relation between modern Israel's founding and the US's military-industrial complex and tech sector and really familiarize yourself with the banality of evil so you don't get suckered into wondering if maybe there IS something to all those media control conspiracy theories.

There is one crucial spot where something that kinda sounds like "both sides"ism is really important actually: if you, like most tumblr users, are not in the immediate area where it's happening, you should REALLY be on the lookout for rising anti-Arab racism and antisemitism alike in YOUR backyard, possibly even as your PRIMARY concern. Because it's happening, and it's something you have way more power to do something about than fantasizing about how you would restructure foreign governments.

[bohemian-nights]

Sorry if I derailed your post about Nettles I tend to be in a minority opinion about every possible ship-I’ve never even seen my personal take on Alyssmond. I do think that Daemon is fascinated by Nettles and is infatuated with her I just don’t think that he’s capable of loving her or anyone really. Maybe Viserys or Laena in the book. I realize that many people think Daemon is hot stuff but I just don’t get the appeal

No, you didn't derail since it was on topic. Yeah, I get having a problem with the ships of HOTD or not exactly shipping them completely. As far as Nettles and Daemon go I wouldn’t say that your opinion is a minority opinion. Most people in the fandom don’t believe that Daemon actually loved her.

They think he either used her for a good time, he groomed her, or she is somehow his child(adopted or biological which is weird because fathers don’t bathe with their grown daughters, but this fandom is weird and moronic at best). So the opinion that Daemon loves and legitimately cares for Nettles with no ulterior motive is actually the minority opinion.

The general consensus before the show was that he loved Laena the most out of all of his wives(her death scene is very touching in the book).

However, after they partially race-bent Laena, the people behind HOTD proceeded to crap all over her character and her importance to Daemon which gave Daemyra stans(who were also next to nonexistent before the show) the go-ahead to say Rhaenyra was the love of Daemons life despite choke gate and the lack of supporting evidence from the book🙃

Now as far as the Daemon being incapable of loving anyone besides Viserys and Laena in the books(and I guess because he never physically assaulted her she’s still technically his most beloved wife in the show) this is where I disagree with the majority of the fandom.

Daemon did love Nettles. I say this because when push came to shove and he would have defended her life at the expense of his own:

Daemon did not have to save her seeing how the orders in Rhaenyra’s letter only pertained to Nettles.

He could’ve easily told Maester Norren to call in the goons and do with Nettles as they wished. She’s a poor penniless girl. Her head is wanted by the queen, his wife. No one is going to miss her, and you said it yourself, Daemon is not a benevolent guy.

He has ordered the murder of a literal child who was his great-nephew. He murdered his second wife’s uncle in the books despite his love for her.

He could’ve abandoned Nettles the moment she became an inconvenience, but he chose to draw his sword and possibly facedown all of Lord Moonton’s men rather than abandon her to the wolves.

Of course you can counter and say that “well Nettles wouldn’t be in this situation if Daemon hadn’t slept with her in the first place so of course he spared her,” but a. You would be taking away her own agency(because despite what this fandom says according to GRRM she’s a grown woman) and b. Once again Daemon would not just save someone at the expense of his own life when he gain’s absolutely nothing from it.

Lastly, even the people at Maidenpool(Lord Moonton’s brother) make note of how much Daemon cares about her:

Not to mention Caraxes, who shares an emotional bond with Daemon, screams, when Nettles departs from him:

So going against fandom consensus, based on all the evidence, I do believe that Daemon genuinely loved Nettles. For that reason, while yes Nettles could do better, she is with a man who loves her to the point where he would lay down his life so that she can live.

I do have my theories on why people(not necessarily you because you yourself said that you have unpopular opinions on multiple ships) are so reluctant to admit that Daemon loved Nettles, but at this point, I feel like I’m repeating myself.

I’ll just end this by saying that it’s due to the fact that Daemon leaves their (white) Valyrian queen for a “lowly” Black woman. Aka misogynoir(anti-Black racism + sexism directed at Black women) once again rearing its ugly head.

I'd really like to say it's more complex than that, but this is the same fandom where you have people throwing a fit over Nettles being in the show:

Upset that she's being aged up because they wanted to see her being raped and groomed:

Upset that she's wearing a dress(if the woman in the blurry photo is her):

People are already calling her ugly even though we can barely see her face:

And even upset that people like Nettles in the first place:

This treatment happens a lot in fandoms when there are Black women involved with a male fave or even when she deigns to exists and be an actual character. By a lot, I mean every single time., Most recently with The Bear, but also with other media like Marvel, Sleepy Hollow, and Star Trek.

Stitches blog is a goldmine on fandom misogynoir so I’d highly suggest everyone check it out.

With Black women characters it’s always “They could do better” or “They don't need a romantic arc” if they can’t use the first excuse.

When you say these statements you are venturing into putting Black women back into a very narrow box of characterization that limits her because in shows, movies, books, etc. Black women traditionally are rarely positioned as the love interest. Not to mention how often times these statements are made by the very same people who ship white couples with the same dynamics as the ship with a Black woman

Case in point, I had someone get mad at me for shipping Shuri and Namor(from Black Panther), not because Namor kills Shuri’s mother Queen Ramonda, but because Namor, who is 500 years old and basically immortal, is “too old” for Shuri who is only in her early 20s:

They said this to me even though they shipped TenRose, a Doctor Who ship where the 10th Doctor is 900(sorta immortal) to Roses 19 🙃:

Are Daemon and Nettles perfect? No, but it's a nice change to see a Black woman in media being cared for which is why I find it irritating when people try to deny Nettles a full story arc and instead want to make her into Rhaenyra’s sidekick/sexless pet.

[aztralnights]

I'm looking for a roleplay buddy, and friend(s)

I've been in need of a roleplay buddy for a while since a certain incident with my old one, but I'm a very open person.

> what I can do:

• NSFW/SFW

• angst/ fluff

• ships! (I'm big on this, I do crack/ rare pairs and a big multishipper I love to hear headcannons and such )

• serious plot (I'm a sucker for a story, I've wrote quite alot in my free time)

• jokes + comedy (I'm a comedy kinda person I'm always free to joke around )

• paragraphs / short sentences! (I like doing inbetween cause sometimes I can be a bit lazy !)

• lore (I'm a sucker for this I love writing lore and writing things together ♡)

• Oc/Cannon characters (Hcs are supported I'd like to talk them out! >this also applies for cannon x cannon, oc x oc , or oc x cannon , I'd prefer if you ship persona x cannon at least be at age ☆

~~~~~~~~~

> Fandoms I'm in:

• Elsword

• Genshin (I do not play currently but I'm still greatly involve with this game!)

• Honkai star rail

• Honkai impact

• Hello charlotte

• idenity v

• omori

• danganronpa

• undertale + Aus( deltarune as well)

• Fnaf (I'm not into this one as much but I still love to talk about theories and lore , I recently watched the movie!)

• JJBA

> besides this I'm into a bunch of others and willing to listen to suggestions!

How to contact me!

I have mainly two apps I use for communication, sometimes even amino along with this! You may contact me via discord but send a warning of you sending a friend request through any of my others message areas! I'll leave a link to my Twitter and my disc account.

Boundaries♡

I don't have any issues with people really but I'm not exactly a extroverted person but I like to hang out via calls or games! When I meet people I am a bit hesitant but I do like to talk and listen as long as we can both keep the convo going , but there's certain things I will not tolerate, aka the following

(slander of Lgtbq+ any other genders or sexualities ) now as a person who's not straight myself, I don't judge if you are straight or not, but I will not react kindly to making fun of this. I'm not fully aware of every thing even new ones and flags because I never really payed attention due to my life growing up.

(Racism ) now, I really love dark jokes, but it comes to something seriously racist or comments that make others uncomfortable I will not tolerate behavior like this.

(SA/ other stuff or grooming/pedo ) if you find this stuff okay, don't interact at all this isn't okay in any manner. The only acceptance I take of this is when it's in a characters past / story and you mention it to inform someone or have some angst to a story but if you support these it's a no go.

(Making fun of mental illness with serious intent) same as the previous thing I will not tolerate the comments hateful towards this, but if a character has any of these please do your best to research it so this doesn't come off as offensive and if you think you have any certain illness ect, please seek medical assistant ect so a doctor could provide you proper evaluation of this, because I am not a therapist or a doctor unfortunately, but I am someone who hopefully you can rely on.

Back on topic of my boundaries (toxic behavior ) i will not stand for any of this rather it's straying from judging a certain pair from the game or someone else's head cannons, it's not okay to talk down upon someone who has different likes or opinions then you, even if it's cannon please keep your opinions to yourself, you can talk to me about it if you don't really see it yourself, but please keep it respectful, but with this you are allowed to have different opinions! Let's just not cause a fight over this ♡.

(Competitive ) well this should be pretty obvious but I am very competitive and I stray from some anger issues, but however I have worked on this and still am, if something where to happen don't blame yourself and tell me if there's anything I can change , please don't be rude about it though, I'd like to be treated with respect as the same way we'd hopefully treat each other.

(Religious matters)so, about this, I am not a religious person but I grew up with my family being religious, if you're in a religion, that's alright ! I won't judge you, I actually encourage you to tell me more about this but, I do not want to have religious aspects forced onto me and hopefully the same goes for you!

(Other matters )

There's of course more but, some what personal, I'm not looking for anything romantic lol cause it's not that kind of search but a friend, i can share ideas with and have fun doing any little bits, and of course I will respect your boundaries as well (you will have to tell me this if we do decide to go through with this ) as well as other things I can't think of on top of my head!

Basic info!

My name is Sirius stated in my bio, I like art and writing, I'm a big game nerd and often listen to music when I'm bored or trying to zone out. I do have a tendency to spoil my friends with gifts whenever I have spare money, I'm probably a person that knows I'm a people pleaser, I have no problem with it as long as no ones forcing me to do it!

Age - over 18 ☆, if you do nsfw I do recommend being at least being a year around this age or over for the safety of both of us!

Birthday / sign , my birthday is July 6, I'm a proud Cancer, but if you don't care for zodiacs it's okay! I can't say I'm a expert on it!

Time zone and availability!

I'm usually available 24/7 besides school I am still in high-school, close to graduating and I do plan to go to college , we can arrange a schedule to your likings if you ask! My time schedule is EST, somewhere in Indiana! I will not give any more personal details closer then that.

Heritage/race?. Okay so I'll just say I'm Hispanic/French, I know some weird combos like lol I have some native American and German in me but the most noticeable is the first two, I do not have an accent that I can tell since I grew up speaking English all my life but, I can write in Spanish and French, I do not fluently speak this and may translate my words wrong but that's why I'm learning some more! Trust me I love people's heritages and hearing about different life styles, this falls into a list of wanting to learn more, head cannons and just facts along with correcting me if I misunderstood something!

Fun facts

I really like shades of purple most commonly lavender and Mauve(if that's how you spell it 💀),

some of my comfort characters - Furina/focalors, Xiao, scaramouche(wanderer), layla, Seele(HSr and honkai impact), jingliu, Melly (idv) and some others from different fandoms!

I've been told I'm very oblivious so hopefully we can share some fun laughs other me being dumb!

What I'm looking for.

Besides this, I want this person to be themselves though I have som preferences I hope we can get along, even with what I'm looking for don't feel the need to change yourself for me, honestly I just wanna have fun.

But specifically I'll list some things I'll have alot of fun with regardless

• someone with similar hobbies, I'd like to share common interest along with someone I can play games with and someone who will be active with me.

• of course the obvious thing, someone who likes these fandoms I'm in even if it's just two or one it'll be okay, hell even if you don't know em hopefully you'd be open to knowing more (do be aware I like sending pictures and ranting about lore ect)

• I'd like someone to be around the same age group as me so we can avoid complications, but if you're a bit younger or older then me, that's perfectly fine but I hope you understand why I'm looking for someone around 16-20 , I really hope that doesn't sound weird.

• jokes and passive aggressive friendship, I'm a bit of a jerk and i tend to like to poke friend it'd be nice to have someone who can poke and joke back and share jokes, hell even calling me out for being smth or a nerd if needed 💀

•someone okay with gifts even if they're small, as I mentioned earlier I like spoiling my friends and being a people pleaser.. so, if you are okay with receiving gifts then we're gonna be just fine! as long as I'm not begged constantly we'll do just fine, oh and, don't feel like you have to pay me back or anything, you appreciating it is enough for me (I'm not saying you don't have to gift me back , >>this applies if you generally want to, do not pressure or force yourself to get me anything!)

• okay with calling and such even dark jokes, now I will not request you doing this instantly unless you generally want to! I will be paitent and steady for us to get to know each other

• meeting my other friends , now I'm not a total loser I made this mainly because I want someone I can eventually be close with! My friends are decently nice and I want force you to meet them right away hell, you can even join us in friend rps if you want

• someone who will share their music interest and art with me, I like learning and taking advice even tips from other artist and I think it'd be an experience to hear each other's favorite music, artist and even writer!

• chill days , i can't always be open to roleplay and I hope you'd understand as if it were you, so I'd hope to be able to spend some chill days where we talk and even game together hell, even if I stream a movie for us

• someone with discord mainly because that's what I use the most !

~ this is basically all I'm really hoping for Maybe I could list more later but that's it for now ~

This concludes it really because I've been working on this for more then an hour and I just want to make it simple.

Links you can use to contact me:

Twitter: https://x.com/Oddball145?t=dxdtuKddosGj7wddDwSKxA&s=09

Discord: astralNightz, Sirius

Sounds cloud:

https://on.soundcloud.com/fmktM

(I have Spotify but not on phone lol)

Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@aztralnights?_t=8hE9n0HIG6s&_r=1

Pinterest: https://pin.it/3wKpLUu

I have some others but I can't list them on top of my head!

And of course here on Tumblr!

That's all I wanted to state, and don't feel like you have to do any of this, it's only an option for if you want to do this with me! But with that, have a good day/night afternoon and a star blessed time

[alittlefrenchtree]

See to me- I always just vibed with Alex more than Henry (from the first time I read the book)

And I will admit I was bit ‘eh’ when Taylor (and Nick!!) were announced just because it wasn’t visually what I thought of firstprince but then when I saw them in the outfits and Taylor talking about RWRB I thought yes this is Alex(!) Nick actually had to convince me a bit more.

So, from when I saw the trailer and clips, I was convinced by TZP as Alex and I was impressed by his acting.

But, as everyone says Nick had the chance to shine more. And that is why more articles were written, as well as the obvious (racism). But he had to do several crying/emotional scenes and even the sex scene it was focused on Henry more than alex so he could show the slight facial expressions etc. Hence, Nick could show off a bit more than Taylor could. As even though Alex had difficulties he was largely supported by his family and had Nora. Henry was in a family and Institution that hated him and his dad dying and having to hide himself so Nick could be more sad and emotional whereas Alex’s anxiousness wasn’t a storyline and the divorce was also taken away. This is further proved that Taylor’s most rated scenes were when he discussed racism (which was only talked about once) and his coming out scenes.

But, as I was more drawn to Alex/TZP. From the first time I watched it, I was focusing on them more than Nick/Henry. And I was blown away and as that anon said it is subtle but I think brilliant.

Like, I really feel (maybe I’m wrong) Nick was chosen and asked to play Henry whereas Taylor had to audition for it. So, I do think all the writers and Matthew wanted to give Nick more chance to shine and told him to act things in a certain way(?) Not that they were trying to hinder Taylor but I really feel like they thought Henry is the more emotional one whereas Alex is a bit more laid back but Alex still has undiagnosed ADHD (which again TZP did subtle signals) and anxiety. Like take the eye contact scene in the NYE scene, there was so much more focus on Henry than Alex. Again I do not think Matthew did this in a negative way as he loves Taylor and would not have casted him if he wasn’t convinced but I do think they had a certain vision for Henry.

Sorry for the rant but I just adore Alex and how Taylor played him. To me he is an amazing actor and it is horrible the amount of hate he gets especially as a lot of it if not all is rooted in racism.

Hey there! Thank you for your very interesting message. A lot to unpack in your words so I’m going to try not to be too long.

I wasn’t there before so I didn’t have any opinion on the cast early on but I do understand how hard it is to accommodate with actors when you’ve been sitting with the characters of a beloved book for so long. 

I’m completely on board with connecting with TZP’s Alex first. I’ve already talked about it in a previous post so I’m not going to dwell on the subject but you are right indeed about the difference of treatment between actors of comedy and actors of drama. It doesn’t devalue any of their respective work but it does mean we need to jump on every occasion to praise the performance that are overlooked.

What you said next is really interesting even if I’m not sure I agree.

Firstly, because I don’t actually know how Nick has been attached to the project, if he has auditioned or how he was approached for the project. I only know he was on board first and that they struggled for quite a time before finding the right Alex. So I can’t know if or how the process has had any kind of influence over the making of the movie.

Secondly, I have two other theories about why you might feel that way.

The main one is the way the story is told. The book is a Alex’s POV from start to finish and the movie is mostly an exclusive Alex’s POV so you’re supposed to feel that way. Closer to Alex and falling in love with Henry while he does. You need less focus on TZP’s acting to understand who Alex is and what’s his story because you have many scenes to explain how he feels at any second of the movie. But you need to rely on Nick’s acting to understand Henry because you doesn’t get to see the world through his eyes for the majority of the movie.

And since you’re supposed to be in Alex’s shoes, you get to see specific scenes through his eyes. Like the night in Paris. You’re seeing Henry’s face through Alex’s eyes. Hence the moment being so mesmerizing for the audience.

So yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s why you feel like Nick’s was asked to act a certain way or has more chance to shine. In a sense, it’s probably true but for me it was mostly in the service of the storytelling. Since Alex doesn’t look at himself with the same amount of love he has when he looks at Henry, the gaze on him and the way of acting him is different.

That’s for the artistic part of the theory.

When I read your ask I thought about something else and the lovely reality of capitalism 🩷 Since Nick was casted first and was the most known (and the most white) of the two, I guess his name was the more important for the producers and Amazon during the process of making the movie -- in a sense that they've probably relied on him first to drag attention to the movie and money to their pockets. I don’t know movie paper work enough to know if or how and to which extend it could have influenced the movie but I guess it's a possibility.

Of course none of this is Nick’s fault or depreciate his performance as Henry 💜 But it’s an interesting talk, thank you for stopping by my inbox 🙏😘

[uboat53]

Hey look, another episode of "how the political media is screwing up", that didn't take long… All right, here we go.

So at the first night of the Republican National Convention, we saw a parade of black Republicans and other African-Americans who support Trump for president giving speeches and this was duly reported as the Republican outreach to black voters. Was it, though?

Look what those African-Americans talked about: they spent most of their time arguing that black voters had been brainwashed by Democrats and were on a "plantation" that they needed to escape from by voting for Republicans. I'm not sure if you know any African-Americans well enough to talk politics with them, but does this sound like it's speaking to the issues they care about? Do you think this line of argument went over well with them?

Assuming the people who programmed the convention aren't stupid (and Republican strategists generally do not have a reputation as being stupid), there must be another explanation for why they would devote an entire night to this because it definitely didn't gain them any serious amount of black votes. And here's the thing, anyone who is savvy about politics and has actually studied the history of race in politics knows exactly what they were doing.

You see, Donald Trump has a racism problem. He's promoted racist militias, tried to "both-sides" a major white supremacist terror attack, has embraced official hostility to civil rights policy, and has a decades-long business record of screwing over black people at his properties. More to the point, white supremacists LOVE him. I don't recommend going onto VDARE or Stormfront or other neo-Nazi/white supremacist websites but, if you do, you'll notice that they're overwhelmingly supportive of Trump. They believe he's advanced their cause immeasurably and moved openly racist ideas into the sphere of acceptable discourse in this country for the first time since the civil rights era, and they believe this because… well… he has. He and his allied media have promoted racist ideas like The Great Replacement Theory and moved it from a fringe idea that no one who valued their reputation would even acknowledge to something that gets discussed in respectable political shows.

And that's a problem for him. You see, there's not a ton of openly racist voters out there, but there are a ton of ordinary, button-down, "sensible conservative" types out there who would really love to vote Republican because they still hold to the Reaganomics orthodoxy but they're afraid of being labeled as racist. I'm sure you know a bunch of these people, they're all over the place.

That programming of black voices was for them. It had nothing to do with getting African-Americans to vote for Trump or vote Republican and EVERYTHING to do with convincing squishy conservative voters that "Trump's not racist, see, a bunch of black people said so."

As I said, this isn't mysterious. Everyone in politics or who studies it knows exactly what this is. I you don't believe me, e-mail any political science professor, they'll be happy to talk about it. Seriously, they'll be thrilled that someone is interested in their opinion, you should try it.

Except, apparently, the political media. And, look, it's not myserious why either. It's not that they don't know what's going on, but they're scared to say it. If they accurately report that Republicans are trying to tamp down accusations of racism to make white people feel secure in voting for them, conservative groups will scream bloody murder and claim that it really is an appeal to black voters (despite that fact that it, you know, has basically no appeal to black voters). At this point there are conservative billionaires on the board of just about every major media company, so those complaints will be amplified and passed down the chain of command. A journalist may not necessarily be fired for pointing out the obvious, but it's not a great career move.

And that, more than anything is the problem with the political media today.

(PS - If you're interested in good coverage of the Republican National Convention this week and probably the Democratic National Convention next week, I highly recommend The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. They're not actual journalists and, thus, are still producing great coverage.)