#or “we only bring back those who'll have an impact”

[thewardenisonthecase]

Look, no shade to Isabela, love her, but like what was actually impactful about her in Veilguard's narrative that warranted her cameo over other characters

[psychotrenny]

There's a real unearned confidence to the way that Social Democrats talk about their ideology, like they've cracked the code and found the perfect way forward and the only reason people disagree is because they're misguided or evil. Like they'll correctly point out problems within Neoliberal Capitalism before spouting some absolute nonsense about how uniquely evil and dysfunctional Communism was (nearly always in the past tense too; they take it for granted that the end of the USSR was the end of all Communism) and then going "Don't worry though, there's a third way; a mixed regulated economy. We can have a free market in consumer goods while making sure that corporations pay their fair share in wages and taxes that can fund the welfare that looks after everyone". And like putting aside the fact that such a model relies on the super-profits of imperialist exploitation to actually function, and the inherent instability of an arrangement where the Bourgeoisie make concessions even while maintaining ultimate control of the economy, there's the simple fact that much of the Imperial Core did indeed had Social Democracy but does not anymore.

Like these Social Democrats never think about why that might be, why their ideology failed and what they can learn from it going forward. They just act as though some dumb individuals (i.e. Ronald Reagan, Milton Friedman etc.) managed to slip into power and make bad decisions and like the best way to fix this is to vote good people in who'll change it back. Like hell a lot of these people take the previous existence of these policies as like a good point, the whole "We had them before so we aren't being radical by wanting them back. We don't want anything crazy we just wanna bring back The New Deal or Keynesian Economic policy or whatever". There's never any thought about why those policies failed (how often do you hear these people even talk about "stagflation" or "the oil crisis" let alone the impact of the fall of the soviet union) and what implications this might have on the viability of bringing it back. They also love talking about how Social Democratic institutions are still largely intact in the Scandinavian countries, but rather than even consider what specific factors in their political-economic situation led to this these people just go "Damn isn't Sweden great. Why aren't we doing exactly what they do?"

And sure some people might compare this to Marxism-Leninism, the whole "trying to bring back a defeated ideology", but for one it's stupid to treat the dissolution of the USSR as the end of Communism as a global political force. It may have been a major blow, but even if you write off like Cuba and Vietnam as too small and insignificant to matter you can't just fucking ignore that over 1/6 of the world's population continues live under a Marxist Leninist party. Whatever concessions these countries may have made to global Capitalism, it's just plain ignorant to act as though Communism suffered anywhere near the humiliating loss of global power and credibility that Social Democracy has. Sure the latter may be more politically acceptable to toy with in "The West", but "The Western World" ≠ The Entire World. Also, nearly every ML on the planet is painfully aware that Soviet Communism collapsed and that it collapsed for a reason. There might be plenty of contention about why exactly it died and what exactly we can learn from this, but nearly everyone agrees that we need to learn and ideologically grow. No serious Communist wants to "bring back the USSR" in the same way that many Social Democrats want to "bring back The Welfare State". Far from being a form of "best of both worlds" mixed economy, Social Democracy is nothing more than a flimsy tool to stabilise Imperialist Capitalism at its moments of greatest strain. And if people are still gonna promote it wholeheartedly as the best possible solution, I wish they'd be a little less arrogant about it. It's not as though they have history on their side

[untitledmemes]

Hazbin Hotel Prompts

Part II An assortment of prompts taken from the series Hazbin Hotel on Amazon Prime. Adjust as necessary to fit pronoun and/or descriptor. In case of Multimuse, don't forget to specify which one/s. Reblog, please do not repost or add.

“ That looks perfect! ”

“ What the hell is that? ”

“ Everyone is being too nice. Obviously, it must be a lie. ”

“ I can sense they are planning to kill me, but when? How? I must be prepared! ”

“ People are being nice because they want you to feel welcome. ”

“ No, don't resist. This is how it has to be. ”

“ Do you mind? I'm in the middle of breakfast. ”

“ I'm not about to put on a show for these fucking chumps. ”

“ Actually, I thought maybe you could take the lead on this one. ”

“ I swear to fuck if you say dicks--! ”

“ Get your mind out of the gutter. ”

“ I don't know if this is really working they way we hoped. ”

“ Honey, you have to trust me here. ”

“ What's the plan, boss? ”

“ It has been age since thou hath graced us with thy presence. ”

“ It's fun to keep everyone on their toes. ”

“ Coming from someone as ancient as you, I take it as quite the compliment. ”

“ We need to discuss what can be done to minimize the impact to our interest. ”

“ Yes I know, I've been absent for some time. I'm sure you've all been wondering. ”

“ Where did you get this? ”

“ You better show some respect. ”

“ You've got it twisted. I'm not the one who needs a new attitude. ”

“ Mad that I acted respectless? Well, it's cause no one could respect this. ”

“ You're long past trending. ”

“ Why are you avoiding war? ”

“ No bond stronger than those formed through bondage. ”

“ I'm ready to punish some bad boys. ”

“ This is how you learned to trust people?! ”

“ There is nothing stronger than the trust between comrades and arms. ”

“ I took charge today and it all went sideways. ”

“ I'm supposed to protect you. I'm supposed to never fail you. ”

“ Ugh! I just walked up all those stairs! ”

“ I did what I had to do. I'm not discussing this. ”

“ Who's to say who'll survive the fray? I might lose the ones that I was killing for. ”

“ I'll be your armor. ”

“ Let's keep this between us, shall we? ”

“ Well, at least you can take a beating like a champ. ”

“ Thank you for pulling me out of there. ”

“ It's hilarious you think I'll tell you anything. ”

“ What makes you think you have any right to insult my work to my fuckin' face? ”

“ I see right through you and all that bullshit, and how fake you are. ”

“ I'm sure you'll manage without me. ”

“ Maybe you can, I don't know... Command some authority? ”

“ It's not mean. It's, uh... Aggressive kindness. ”

“ Oh, so this is where the magic happens. ”

“ You don't want a role, do you? Because I can make you a star. ”

“ You bring her here to protect you? To fuck with me? ”

“ I own you. Or have you forgotten that? ”

“ I didn't want you to come here. I already asked you to leave and you didn't listen. You made things worse. ”

“ Any way you want me, baby, that's the way you got me. ”

“ Didn't realize this was a 'drinking to forget' kind of night. ”

“ If you got a problem, you're not gonna find the solution at the bottom of a bottle. ”

“ You would be lucky to get a chance to fuck me! ”

“ Have fun being a lonely piece of shit. ”

“ Be a doll and bring me another one? Daddy's outta juice. ”

“ You think I ask for it? I don't ask for any of this shit! ”

“ You might as well just cut the act. ”

“ It's not an act! This is who I need to be! And this? This is my escape. ”

“ I know what it's like to regret the choices made and knowing you can't take it back. ”

“ You're a loser just like me. ”

“ You're a power bottom at rock bottom, but you got company. ”

“ I'm trapped and it gets worse with every hour. ”

“ Eat lead, sucker! ”

“ I can handle myself, baby. ”

“ Sex ain't the only thing I'm good at. ”

“ Thanks... for caring about me. ”

“ Hey, how about that drink? ”

[bruciemilf]

Do you have any head cannons about the batkids absolutely loving and adoring Batman/Bruce? I'm obsessed with the idea of them being like "I beg your pardon, but he is our Father™? Our provider? We require his attention and affection at all times pls do not distract him."

omg gonna take the chance to talk abt the batkids & their love languages bc <3333

Dick's is quality time; I can imagine him being downright territoial over his and Bruce's "watching bad Gray Ghost reboots just to laugh at Dad getting mad" time, because it's his absolute favourite.

He gets to lay his tired head on Bruce's lap and sigh pleasantly when his hair is groomed. If you make Bruce tea -- no you don't. That is illegal. Dick does.

And he's just enough of a bitch to be passive agressive about it because "It's our thing; Would you take the mic from Lady Gaga at a concert? No? Then outta my tea!"

Jason's is physical affection!!! And I say that with my whole chest!! This Frankenstein Baby is touch starved and requires all tactillness, always. It's a form of self-reassurance, AND an olive branch; It's his way of saying "I'll always want my father's love" and "You didn't come back wrong; You're not made to be handled roughly. I need to know you're here and alive and content"

and he might play tough guy, might sigh as if this is a favour, but everyone sees him melt. Bonus, the image of Jason's 6'5 ass clinging to Bruce while the poor guy tries making lunch because he CAN, ALFRED, is so cute. Jason for the son who has to lean down to get his hair ruffled like a german shephard.

Tim's is acts of service and gift giving; He's vigilant, observant, pays attention to Bruce with a hawk's eye. Especially those interests he has too little time for. Give me Tim who doesn't know a loving father but when he gets him, he's super attentive. Give me Tim who seeks Bruce's company on his own free will.

Give me Tim who'll bring puzzles home and solve them with Bruce for hours, and who'll listen to mouthpiece after mouthpiece about mechanics and cars, who doesn't like getting dirty but will stay with bruce in his workshop just to watch him work. Give me Tim who gets Bruce gifts despite his dad giving him dissaproving looks. "You shouldn't waste money."

"You're not a waste."

Damian's is words of affirmation -- PLEASE. THIS BABY IS SO READY TO YELL "Batman is actually the best superhero, actually, here's a 30 slide PP presentation as to why. Number one- because I said so" it's very inetresting for Damian; Because if he got anything from Bruce, (Please, please, he begs no one in particular, let me have something from him) is a crushing amount of insecurity.

Bruce is just downright allergic to compliements; He spits them out like a rotten meal, in fact, as if his body just can't hold them down. Damian just. Won't stand for it. "Baba, you look very pretty today. "

"...Thank you, Damian. That's very kind of you to say."

"I recently learned you won't accept compliments to your character, so this will have to do. " Does he give up? Of course not. He's a Robin. They never learned what that is.

Cass, like Dick, loves to spend time with Bruce, -- but what's surprising to the Batdad? Cass is wraith made of warmth and softness. She's stealthy and moves smoothly like wind and punches like ten men. But her love is loud.

Bruce is her only father and she's not timid about saying it. Wordlessly, sure, but no less impactful, with no small amount of passion. Give me Cass who holds hands with Bruce while on the street, and shows him funny videos on her phone, and who texts with him regularly, and who has him as her wallpaper.

That is her father and she carries him lovingly.

[gerryconway]

Storytelling POV and emotional engagement: critiquing "Terminator: Dark Fate"

(SPOILERS)

Dark Fate is a fun ride, visually exciting, with a standout performance by Mackenzie Davies, but I left the film feeling unmoved and emotionally disengaged from the climax and denouement. I wondered why that was and I believe it was the result of the film's badly fractured point of view.

Point of view in a story is crucial to emotional engagement. In non-technical terms, it's about who you're rooting for-- whose story you're experiencing vicariously. It could be the protagonist or the antagonist, or in really well-crafted stories, both. (Admit it, in "Silence of the Lambs" we're rooting for both Claire and Hannibal Lector.) But whoever it is, the maintenance of character point of view is crucial to developing audience emotional engagement with the overall story. Ideally, you should begin and end a story through the personal experience of the same character, so that you can follow the arc of their character development and feel satisfied that you've accompanied them on a full journey.

Taking the first two Terminator movies as excellent examples of point of view storytelling, here's a breakdown of how that works effectively:

In Terminator, we're introduced early (within five minutes, I think) to our point of view character, Sarah Conners. A harried waitress, "perky" but clearly not delighted with her life, we follow her journey from freaked-out potential victim to self-directed hero. Every major beat of the story, once she's introduced, is told through the lens of her emotional reaction. For example, when she realizes she's being targeted and flees into a night club to escape her supposed pursuer (but actually her rescuer), we're in her emotional POV-- the scene is dark, confusing, paranoid, fearful. If we'd been in Kyle Reese's emotional POV, it would have been suspenseful but alert, wary, tense, controlled. In the Terminator's viewpoint, it would have been cool, precise, analytical. By sharing Sarah Conners' point of view we experience the scene emotionally the way she experieces it. We identify with her, we experience the story with her, and her emotional journey becomes our emotional journey.

Terminator 2 does something similar, but more complicated, and as a result, has an even more satisfying emotional impact. We're given two point of view to follow, with two different emotional journeys, that eventually flow into one shared point of view. Initially, point of view is divided between Sarah Conners and her son, John. Though they're connected by shared experience they're in two very different emotional places. Sarah is consumed by paranoid anxiety and a fierce maternal protectiveness; John feels betrayed and abandoned by a mother who smothered him and is in full rebellion against authority (while simultaneously seeking a parental figure who'll love him unconditionally). In the first hour we follow their stories in parallel, experiencing their journeys from their individual points of view-- and when those two points of view meet up, conflict explodes, with the "good" Terminator as the fulcrum for that conflict.

The separate points of view are each presented as emotionally valid and because we've spent considerable time within each point of view we accept the conflict as justifiable. We're rooting for both Sarah and John and we want to see their emotional conflict resolved in a way that justifies both of them. And we do-- when Sarah's desperation and anxiety drives her to attack and try to kill the man she identifies as the cause of her pain, Miles Dyson, and John arrives (too late) to stop her, their points of view converge. The conflict between them is resolved through the acceptance of a common purpose, and once again the (good) Terminator is a fulcrum, helping to provide resolution by offering a way out of their shared dilemma. Destroy Skynet and the future that Sarah fears (and which prevents her from being the parent John needs) will be eliminated. From this point on in T2, we experience the story from Sarah and John's shared point of view. It's a deft storytelling move, and it's why we're so invested in the eventual outcome-- the "good" Terminator's self-sacrifice. As the fulcrum that the two points of view turned upon, providing both mother and son with a resolution of their conflict, he's become central to their emotional journey--and ours. At the end of the film, mother and son hug each other in shared grief over the Terminator's death-- their conflict completely resolved. It's an incredibly powerful moment and a triumph of storytelling-- only possible because of the consistent use of point of view.

Unfortunately, "Terminator: Dark Fate" completely fails at constructing or maintaining a consistent point of view, shared or conflicting or otherwise. SPOILERS ahead.

Like both the original Terminator and T2, with the exception of a brief prologue reminding us of the T2 backstory and showing us a kind of epilogue to T2 revealing John Conners' ultimate fate, the first half hour of Dark Fate follows two characters from the future arriving in the present. We're introduced also to the nominal new "Sarah Conners" substitute, a young woman named Dani. But our actual point of view during this first act is Grace, the biologically enhanced soldier from the future. She's the one we spend the most time with-- her reactions and behavior are central, and the storytelling of each encounter is from her point of view. An example-- during the initial car chase, we connect more with Grace, whose motivations are clear: determined and single-minded and capable, than with Dani, whose reactions are confused and divided between concern for her brother and father. Grace is simply the easier of the two to identify with. Hers is the point of view we follow-- her situation is compelling, especially when she collapses and even Dani defers to Grace's needs over her own. As an audience, we're led to believe that Grace is our POV character. She's brave, powerful, protective, admirable.

And then Sarah Conners shows up. And suddenly we're asked to shift our POV from Grace to Sarah. Or, at the least, to divide our point of view-- with our two point of view characters in conflict. Sarah doesn't trust Grace, but in this scenario, unlike the similar scenario in T2, we've spent no time in Sarah's POV until she arrives suddenly on scene-- after we've developed an emotional attachment with Grace by following her point of view. Sarah's rejection of Grace feels completely unjustified because we know Grace is one of the good guys (we've already been led to identify with her). As a result, we feel alienated from Sarah's point of view and our ability to identify and sympathize with Sarah is undercut from the start. So, even as we're asked to divide our point of view between Grace and Sarah, we're really not given a reason to do so. We remain in Grace's POV-- but the structural storytelling is now in conflict with the previous emotional stakes. Our ability as an audience to identify the film's point of view is weakened and our emotional engagement is weakened as well.

And let's not forget there's someone named Dani we're supposed to care about too. Unfortunately, we're never given much of Dani's point of view-- she seems to have no strong emotional stake in what is supposedly her own story. Her father and brother are dead and she barely reacts; at no point in any of the encounters with the new Terminator do her emotional reactions inform the storytelling (unlike Sarah Conners in the original Terminator she doesn't justifiably panic and try to run from her protector, complicating the story; she doesn't try to take charge of events, as Sarah and John both do separately in T2; she just follows along, a walking prop).

As confused as this struggle for point of view between Grace and Sarah is, however, it's nothing compared to what happens when the old (bad/good) Terminator shows up. From the moment this Terminator arrives, Grace is abandoned as a point of view character, and now a new point of view fulcrum is introduced-- Sarah's hatred for the Terminator who slew John in the brief prologue, versus the new point of view of a "reformed" family-man Terminator named Carl. Carl is protrayed as loveable and sympathetic, so once again Sarah's own point of view is undercut (just like her suspicion of Grace, undercut by our previous and at that time continuing identification with Grace's point of view). So whose point of view are we being asked to see the story unfold from now? Not Dani's-- she's never been a real point of view character. Not Grace's-- after Carl arrives on the scene, we never again experience a real emotional moment from Grace's viewpoint. Not Sarah's-- her point of view was undercut by our identification with Grace, and Carl's introduction as a heart-warming family man makes Sarah's (potentially justifiable) hostility toward him seem churlish. Are we supposed to identify now with Carl-- a character introduced in the final third of the story? I guess?

For the first third of the film, Dark Fate is emotionally engaging as we root for Grace and her brave effort to protect the life of an ordinary young woman of no apparent importance. In the second third we struggle to settle on who we're supposed to root for. In the last third there's no real emotional connection with any of the characters and it's all just fighting and explosions. The predictable deaths and denouement have no real impact (other than residual impact from the echo of similar deaths and denouement in The Terminator and T2).

So why did the storytellers fail so spectacularly to fix on a point of view (or shared points of view) when they constructed this story? I think it's because they tried to create a story by following the template of The Terminator and its sequel T2: two opposing fighters arrive from the future to kill/protect an innocent nobody in the present day, while also bringing back the stars of the original movies, Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger. These two ambitions are hopelessly in conflict. The story Linda and Arnold were part of was complete in T2; the "prologue" in Dark Fate undercuts the story completed in T2, producing the same sour effect as the opening of "Aliens III"-- and to as little purpose. By grafting this unpleasant revision onto what is essentially a reboot of the original premise of "The Terminator" the filmmakers are telling the audience there's no point to any "story resolution" or character journey in this or any Terminator film. Added to the general confusion and collapse of point of view in the film as a whole-- and what you're left with is a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Yes, Dark Fate is better than any of the Terminator films that followed T2, but it has no reason to exist, and like all the other Terminator movies, undercuts the completed story of "The Terminator" and "T2: Judgment Day."

It's also an object lesson for filmmakers in the importance of developing and maintaining character point of view in successful storytelling.