#or alternatively they accuse every character of being a psychopath???

[dogboysammerlotte]

redditors will be like “these guys HATE each other!” and then it’s two guys who want each other carnally

[rametarin]

If I could speak Japanese...

I'd pretty much apologize for the whirlwind of westerner fandom bullshit they're currently being subjected to. I saw a post recently of confused Japanese at some western nonsense, and they're right to be confused and outraged about it.

The Japanese social culture is nearly virgin waters for the sort of invasive, parasitic people that have hijacked it with absurd discourse. We in the west have dealt with their nonsense for a long, long time, and it has failed to translate over to them exactly the sort of sinister insanity we're dealing with. So it's kind of like having a family psychopath escape their containment and menace your foreign friend, who has no idea what is happening or what the problem is of that freak.

It's embarrassing, actually, and the worst would be if more Japanese started actually listening to their insanity and trying to conform to it instead of resisting it. Because I know what's going to happen. I can already see a few native Japanese trying to get with that program and start impressing it on their countrymen, the way they do over here.

When you don't know what's happening and why they're doing it or how they operate, it's easy to be blindsided by their insanity and go, "Is it everybody else, or just me?" Because these people currently bandwagoning on fandom are good at doing that. Making you question your own reality as they interact with this weird alternative version of it that isn't true, but they're demanding you conform to.

Such stupid bullshit as accusing Japanese artists of "whitewashing" Nessa of Pokemon and calling them white supremacists for not making her blacker. Erasing darker skinned Asians and going, "These characters are definitely black, so represent them as African people," and then making a fuss over people not doing what they want.

When I was a young man, things were different... In fact, for a brief while, they were so much worse. It was en vogue at the time and pop culture radical feminist discourse for female peers to hate "boys comic books" like cape comics and see them not just as immature and juvenile, but also hateful towards women for the skimpy outfits. Saying that western comics were boys fantasy (derogatory) and maintaining these beliefs about western society that were simply bigoted. That western society wasn't just majority white (Europe, the United States) but that it was inherently white supremacist and male chauvinist, and anything and everything that socially stemmed from that, in their eyes, was inescapably white supremacist and misogynist. Even benign things. Even something as simple as a comic book.

They said, "Comic books are an OLD BOYS CLUB that don't hire women writers or put women in charge of the business, they just exploit the image of women for profit and sell misogynistic characterization to reinforce anti-woman sentiments among boys." And they were wrong, of course. But the reality was, I couldn't even read She-Hulk around female peers my age between age 8 and 12, because it was enough to get angry lectures from them about how just reading the comic proved I was mentally immature (because they were too "polite" to use a term like retarded) and thought poorly of women.

They had been coached and tutored into believing such hideous things that made any western comic book into a toxic mess in their eyes, just seeing cigar smoking, woman hating, scotch drinking old white men in the business and just seeing every body reading comics as a miniature version of that.

We'd ask them what it would take for comic books to be okay, in their eyes. We were so much as told they'd only read stories written, drawn by and from companies owned by women. Because, they believed, women doing things inherently makes them better. And a man doing things inherently makes it oppressive and anti-woman.

And then an amazing thing happened.

Japanese media started hitting US shores. It was largely bootlegged and pirated with a few outlets from companies that were trying to stake their claim and establish themselves as distributors for Eastern products as comics and cartoons, but it was a secret fandom regardless. And among them, were Japanese standards and stories and subject matter, which hadn't been henpecked and nagged into the ground and buried under endless amount of discourse, the way the west had.

Radical Feminism tried to attack Japanese media getting popular in the west. And oh, it had a lot of material to find contemptuous, and then do a little bee-like dance to signal to the sycophantic radical feminist girl proteges why everything in Japanese cartoons was harmful to girls and women........ but.................

The girls didn't listen. They enjoyed the material too much for their programming by radical feminism to be heard.

Radical feminism tried to remind them how horrible the depictions were to images of femininity.

The girls argued back that these stories from Japan fit the criteria they looked for. 1.) MANY Mangaka were female sexed. 2.) Women are and have always been involved in the Japanese comics and cartoon industry. 3.) On top of all that, they were/are Japanese. You know, one of those "oppressed minority groups" in their ideological view. A person that isn't white, and is therefore someone oppressed by white people (and capitalism) internationally.

The last point in the late 80s/early 90s was incredibly important, as it was a value of theirs as progressives that white people were not allowed to criticize or judge non-western/white majority societies or hold them to the same standards of what was sexist or discriminatory towards women as the west did. Because it was popular for western feminists to have different standards. They'd go on a rant about how horrible western men and western society was to women, and then praise what would be blatant and brazenly, objectively patriarchal culture and standards overseas because the people there were not white and clearly it was not our place to judge them. They argued judging Asian, Middle Eastern or African cultures would be imperialistic and white supremacist, so it was kept off the table.

So, Japanese media existed in this magnificent bubble at the time, impervious to western radical feminism and their academic bubble where they tried to make it popular to fabricate how every industry they didn't have control of the public relations for was bigoted and prejudiced in some way, shape or form. It could be everything that western media was no longer allowed to be. The girls could be feminine to the point of neotonous caricature and female anime fans could consume it up like iridescent, candy coated drugs without feeling some sort of guilt for consuming, "white supremacist mind control" or whatever. We could enjoy things together again without being judged as callous woman hating barbarians. We could have fun again.

That's partially what made it so popular. It was immune to the scrutiny of western feminism and out of their hands to criticize without getting people to turn against it.

If you speak Japanese, you have my permission to translate this as best as you are able and share it. I am a westerner from the United States, and I don't trust translation programs to properly convey my meaning. Having to learn how to deal with these people and their conspiratorial bullshit from scratch is never an easy task, and someone unfamiliar with their shame and peer-manipulative tactics is liable to get hurt, if not by others, than themselves.

[libertasforte]

Oof yeah I forgot about & I agree with the part that Childe would not want to be taken care of.

She views herself as a masculine being (in some way) and she sees that ego extension of that part of herself in Childe. And so she classifies him to that side and she is tough to him - and this is probably something that Childe appreciates in some way and prefers to the alternative. (That sacrifice bit is random, but it’s like - she would sacrifice herself if she was a man - because she isn’t; she takes a random man and sacrifices him in her stead.) So as much as I think they are great caretakers for each other, Childe doesn’t want to be taken care of (and neither does Arlecchino).

And this is where I’m like - just get over yourselves and choose to be taken care of - but this is how the mommy&child dynamics come in, I think. Why it’s mommy&child if this is a relation of mutual care - I think this is a gender thing, like I think women are generally more taken care of by “society” (so like, random people) (under some definition of “take care”) than men, so the man is more dependent on that mutual care than the woman is. I think it’s more complicated than that, but anyway. And Arlecchino is so dominant. Lmao. Manipulative and controlling. (And anyway, in my head at least, they have gotten over the “take care of each other” part, which is why I had forgotten about this…)

I like what you’re saying with how Arlecchino is not Kind, but Good - however, this might be a difference in interpretation, or a difference in picking apart the nuance of certain words, but. I don’t consider Arlecchino to be Good, and I don’t think she considers herself to be Good. What I think is that she is Principled, and that her principles derive outwards from her ego. I think that she is logical and rational in an internal way that reads as insanity when it is seen from the outside (like a “rational agent” in economics - what is that; other than an insane person?) I think that she is moralizing; which is different from Good. Her role is that of the accuser; the adversary; who was never considered Good. I do think she is Harsh; but I also think she is Kind. She was Harsh to Focalors and Neuvillette. But she was still Kind in action, like bringing her her favorite cake.

I think that her character is about effectiveness. She is Harsh because it is effective. She is not Cruel; because Cruelty is not effective. The presence of Kindness is usually, always more effective than the absence of Kindness. And Kindness used for Effect is often called hypocrisy; the Harbingers call her as much.

Good is, very often, not effective; for that reason, she is often, not Good. It is effective to be considered Good; it is not necessarily to be Good. (And so, I think “ineffectual” would be the measure by which she uses to weigh Childe.) Another thing that Arlecchino might say is that it is more effective to be Feared rather than to be Loved.

And all this makes it sound like she is some sort of super Psychopath; she is not; this effectiveness is just the internal logic by which she operates and is baked into the bones of her character. She lives in a body with every part marked by Intent.

But her lack of Goodness is - and this is the question of her treatment of Childe - on a meta level, I think the question is like, would Arlecchino punish Childe (for being out of line) - and for me, my choice is, at least - I love her because I want her to be radically amoral.

(What does this mean? I think there’s this dynamic of how men police each other, and women do it to men too. You can argue all day about how Childe was a terrorist who tried to sink Liyue. But it just feels good to hit Childe (unfortunately for him) (problematic comment of the day). You keep on hitting him week after week and you start inventing evils for him to be accountable for. What I like Arlecchino for is for her ability to be articulate of things like this. For me, this clarity makes it so that it doesn’t feel entirely insane to be Childe. But when you get to this level, why would she care for someone who is in a worse position than her, especially if it comes at cost to herself? And so I feel like there has to be something that necessitates their relation of mutual care on Arlecchino’s side. But also I think they’re just two shattered parts of a whole -)

Recently, I started looking into the mythology of the Baba Yaga - she may be from Fontaine but she has been adopted by Snezhnaya - she is an evil being who, due to existing outside the norms of society, catalyzes change for the better. She eats children. I think that’s the direction I like for her.

At this point, also; is Childe good? (Not capital G Good - because I don’t think that ever applies to him.) 

Childe does not regard himself as good, he said as much. What I think of him is that he is a force of nature, like a tornado; or a hurricane. And the Harbingers regard him as such; which is why they keep him as far away as possible from their delicate plans. Childe saving Fontaine reminds me of the original meaning of the phrase “kamikaze” - this phrase originates from back when the Mongols were taking over the entirety of Asia; they tried to invade Japan too.

They tried to invade Japan two times. Both times, what happened was that there came a hurricane that sunk pretty much their entire fleet. It happened twice. If you had a nickel every time that happened, you’d have two nickels.

The hurricane killed many soldiers. They called it: kamikaze; the winds of god.

Although he is from Snezhnaya, I love that his talent books are from Mondstadt, for freedom; as a storm, as a hurricane, he is not just water, but also a child of the wind (and he even has his delusion for the lightning…)

Is a hurricane good or evil? Is it such a bad thing, to stare into the hurricane, and to call it beautiful?

What I like the most about Childe, his best and most redeeming quality, what has me going at times “wait but maybe Childe is the best person actually, morally” - (although I can see how from a different perspective, this could be what people hate about him, as it reads as an avoidance of accountability and responsibility -) is his ability to take any situation he is in, to take it at face value, and to care about it. “Tartaglia” is the man with many faces, and to be him is to care and give all to whatever and whomever is right in front of him, all the time. It is his ability to choose and affirm life.

To take the religious interpretation, maybe we can assert that all that God made is Good - and that it is human Artifice and Intent (as embodied by Arlecchino; the Devil) - that made Evil -

Aside. If Childe did die fighting the star-devouring narwhal, he also fulfills the modern meaning of the phrase “kamikaze” - in order to buy time to stave off an imminent disaster, cast down by the powers that be for a crime that he didn’t commit, to die in a watery grave…

Aside  2. You know how Childe’s Foul Legacy form is based off of the Japanese super sentai, who are Japanese superheroes? Just like how American superheroes originally represented the power and might of the American military, Japanese superheroes represented the power and might of the Japanese army. And he tried to sink Liyue, a Chinese harbor city. I feel like the reference isn’t exactly subtle.

Footnote. When I say good/bad, I’m defining it as how I think of their character, and not about their actions taken. When you look at the next effect of positive/negative value to the world (at least from what we know in the plot), then Arlecchino is probably good, and Childe is probably bad. But this utilitarian good/bad is different from the good/bad of their character as people (to use an extreme example, a guy who causes a car crash that kills 10 people isn’t necessarily a morally bad person). Like people who say that it’s fine that Childe tried to sink Liyue because he knew that Morax was going to stop it - like okay, maybe he is not morally bad, but at least he is incredibly criminally negligent.

Assigning a moral value to Childe presupposes his agency; as I said that Childe is a hurricane. As for Arlecchino, I don’t want her to be morally good; I want her to be beyond morally good. I want morality to be another tool in her toolbox.

thank you childe

[loominggaia]

Anonymous asked:

Why are Dworfs and Humans treated so negatively in Looming Gaia. It’s not their faults that they literally can’t use magic at all and are some of the weakest people, forcing them to use tech or beast taming to defend themselves and not be oppressed/enslaved/eaten by the other peoples/Nymphs, and it isn’t their fault that their ruling kingdoms are so awful. *part one*

*Part 2* meanwhile, nobody talks back against the nymphs for being racist, murderous pricks perfectly willing to kill children for not being able to sing good, as well as forcing people to let animals eat them or die from the common cold! (I’m really sorry for this rant, I just needed to get this off my chest, I just feel as though the Humans and Dworfs in general are treated too negatively in the stories, meanwhile most of the nymphs get away with the stuff I just typed (I like looming Gaia).

I totally get what you’re saying, and this is actually the same argument that Zareen Empire basis all of their actions off of. I’ll get back to that in a moment

So, humans and dworfs...they are commoners. Commoners are resistant to iron, they can lie, and they can’t use magic. To compete with the strong gaians and the magical fae, commoners have adapted in a few different ways:

1) Assimilated with gaians and fae (Matuzu Kingdom, several others)

2) Rejected/enslaved/committed genocide against gaians and fae (Evangeline Kingdom)

3) Use dirty industrial technology to defend themselves against gaians and fae (Zareen Empire)

Nymphs scrutinize commoners harder than other peoples because of #3. Because they are resistant to iron and a lot of toxic chemicals moreso than other species, using dirty industrial technology is the path of least resistance for commoners. They COULD develop greener technologies or use their innovative brains to come up with alternative solutions, but that’s not the path Zareen took. Because of its large size, Zareen Empire has become one of the “faces” of commoner kind. Evangeline Kingdom is another face.

Nymphs universally hate Zareen Empire, but most of them have no problem with Evangeline Kingdom, which is another commoner-dominant civilization. Evangeline culture, for all its faults, is quite eco-friendly. It’s also a rich and powerful nation, which proves that commoners don’t HAVE to take the dirty industrial path to survive like Zareen Empire wants everyone to think.

Because that’s Zareen’s whole justification for their pollutive, exploitive ways: “But we commoners NEED all this dirty technology! We HAVE to exploit the environment! We don’t have a choice, sorry! UwU” But Evangeline has already proven that this isn’t true. So has Matuzu, which also has a very significant commoner population. Commoners are creative, innovative, and adaptable enough to be better than that. Alternative green tech, diplomacy, and creativity can replace dirty industry--and god knows Zareen is advanced enough to shift into cleaner technology if it wanted to...but it doesn’t want to because that’s expensive, and Zareen culture is all about money. It’s more profitable to keep dumping filth into the ocean than to process it into clean water.

“meanwhile, nobody talks back against the nymphs...“

Oh, not true at all! Zareen Empire’s entire culture is centered around anti-nymph rhetoric, painting them as violent psychopaths who just want to destroy commonerkind for no reason. Damijana spews the same propaganda at its citizens too. There is TONS of pushback against the nymphs all over Looming Gaia, it’s one of the main conflicts of the series and the cause of many wars.

Burmek Commonwealth started a massive war with the local nymphs over their restrictions. The nymphs just happened to win that war and Burmek collapsed. Zareen Empire and Damijana are constantly fighting off nymph attacks every day. Small-scale battles between peoples and nymphs happen regularly, like in Yerim-Mor Kingdom for example. People aren’t just laying down and taking shit from the nymphs, they are defending themselves the best they can.

I say this all the time, but I’ll say it again: nymphs are not a hivemind. Each one is an individual. There are violent radicalist nymph factions and peaceful friendly ones. Some even go out of their way to defend peoples from their sisters, to their own detriment. The story “Nymph’s Hollow” explores this concept; basically the local nymphs decide that they don’t want peoples in their forest anymore, but Flora stands up to them and with her help, the refugees are allowed back in Drifter’s Hollow.

All nymphs love their Mother Gaia and want to defend her. They’re just stuck in a shitty situation where they must make a choice: defend their mother or defend the people destroying her. Some nymphs choose violence to deal with this, others try to solve things peacefully with diplomacy and compromise.

I also should point out that commoners aren’t the only ones getting scrutinized and attacked by nymphs. Damijana, for example, is 95% elven and they’re at the very top of the nymphs’ shit-list. Just because a society uses magic doesn’t mean it isn’t pollutive or destructive. The Seelie and Unseelie Courts are a good example of this. They almost completely ruined their local ecosystem by slinging magic around irresponsibly, and if it weren’t for Green Witch defending the western forest, the entire continent of Umory-Ond would probably be barren by now. Magic can be just as harmful to Mother Gaia as dirty industry when used incorrectly. Nymphs hate this too and will attack any nation--no matter their species--for causing too much destruction of any kind, magic or otherwise.

I hope that makes sense! If I’m doing a bad job at portraying this in the series, then I’d like to examine and correct that ASAP because “commoners bad” is definitely not the vibe I’m going for.

I think there are some things that are just objectively evil, like greedy Zareenite CEOs poisoning sirenes to save money on waste processing. Or nymphs murdering random young men because they blame all commonerkind for the actions of that CEO. Just like in the real world, there are some behaviors that can’t--and shouldn’t--be excused. 

But there are also gray areas where most of Looming Gaia’s population lies, where they don’t mean any harm and they’re just trying to live their lives the best way they know how. Those are the stories I want to tell. I want to present a story about a characters’ life without passing judgement on it and let the reader come to their own conclusion about what’s going on.

If I’ve presented a bias in my narrative, then I did something wrong. I don’t want to impose my own opinions on the reader. I’ve been accused of writing Captain Planet-esque “nature good, people bad” narratives in the past, but it’s NOT what I’m going for, I promise. I’ve tried to correct that by showing the other side of the coin too, that nature is not good or bad, it is just IS, and it is equal parts beautiful and absolutely brutal.

[jbuffyangel]

The Good and the Bad: Arrow 8x09 Review (Green Arrow & the Canaries)

Arrow did another backdoor pilot for the spin-off even though 7x16 felt like one, 

but it’s clear from this episode things have been… retooled. 

Not always for the better. I liked Green Arrow and The Canaries more than I disliked it, but I’m an easy sell. If Olicity’s progeny are available via my television then I’m watching. Period. End of discussion. 

There’s good content for the writers to mine, but there’s definitely some kinks to work out.

Doing things a little different with this review. Yes, I can change. 

It didn’t feel like a fully fleshed out episode and I have a feeling we’ll be repeating this pilot in some form if Green Arrow and The Canaries is greenlit, so for now we’ll just hit the highlights – the good and the bad.

Let’s dig in…

What I Loved

This is the first episode immediately after Crisis, so we don’t entirely know how the present day is impacted, but the future certainly is bright. Mia and William have grown up in an almost paradise. Star City is the safest city in the country. There’s been no crime for almost twenty years and it’s all thanks to the city’s hero – Oliver Queen.

Source: feilcityqueen 

It’s nice to see Oliver being honored years later by the ungrateful twats of Star City. They are slightly less ungrateful in my eyes. However, it’s even more wonderful to see that Oliver’s children grew up safe, protected, and maybe even a little pampered. It’s everything he wanted for them. 

The big stick with this carrot of course is Oliver not being able to raise William and Mia.

Mia Smoak is the princess we were promised and she is ready to ascend the throne. I loved everything about her character. 

Source: kathmcnamara 

The alternate timeline/universe (?) has softened Mia. There’s no anger. No dark and twisty past. No hatred of vigilantes. No resentment over lies and betrayals. 

Mia knows her father was a hero, but she hasn’t grown up hiding out in a cabin with Felicity. Instead she grew up with William in the Queen Mansion (where she currently resides). On the surface, Mia’s life has been pretty friggin perfect, even if she’s a little adrift. That said, the Grand Canyon sized hole in her life is that her dad is gone.

Source: oliverxfelicity

Mia blissfully wakes 

Source: kathmcnamara

and is proposed to by… JJ DIGGLE!

Source: kathmcnamara 

We have a scantily clad naked Diggle boy and he’s already dropping down on one knee. This show is my crack.

This also means JJ Diggle isn’t evil! Plot twist!! Dun dun DUNNN!!!

Source: kathmcnamara 

Mia says yes after a brief hesitation and the DIGGLE BROTHER LOVE TRIANGLE HAS COMMENCED. I know I’m the only person who wants this love triangle, but I don’t care. 

JJ is the “good” brother and Connor isn’t “evil” but he seems like a colossal screw up with questionable facial hair. 

But also maybe I like the facial hair? 

It’s clear he has an adversarial relationship with Mia, but so many romances have been born from loathing. Enemies to lovers is a classic trope. I’m all in.

Of course, we’re supposed to expect Connor in Mia’s bed since the Season 7 flash forwards more than hinted at a brewing romance between the two, 

but instead it is JJ. A plot twist the Olicity fandom called ages ago.

John Jr. is new and improved though. There isn’t much to dislike about this version of him. He’s kind, sweet, sexy, attentive and pulling out expensive jewelry in the first five minutes. What’s not to love? There’s a smol and tol aesthetic happening too. Everyone knows that’s my shipping jam.

Things immediately get rocky though (pun intended). First, JJ gives Mia the Queen family engagement ring. 

Source: arrowdaily 

Mia makes a point of saying it was her mother’s which gives me the feels. 

I never had the same issues with Moira’s engagement ring others did, but even I can recognize there’s some bad juju in it

Next, Mia gets her memories back (more on THAT later) and officially remembers her fiancé was a psychopathic killer who ran one of her friends through with the pointy end of a sword. It’s a little difficult to kiss JJ after that visual. 

Things don’t get much easier after Mia accuses JJ of being the mastermind behind Bianca Bertinelli’s kidnapping. (Yes, she’s Helena’s daughter). He’s not the kidnapper. All his secrecy revolves around the honeymoon JJ is planning. It does lead to a truly hilarious moment between the two characters. 

JJ: Jumping to conclusions is I’m cheating on you not that I’m a kidnapper. For the record, I’m neither.

It’s a heavy moment, but I died. It’s going to be a little hard to pick out cake now.

The scene itself is heartbreaking. Charlie and Kat acted their asses off in it too. JJ thinks Mia doesn’t want to marry him. She hesitated before accepting his proposal (Yes, he noticed that Mia. So did I). JJ believes Mia is commitment phobic. It’s not wildly unlike how Oliver’s story began. Thank God there’s no cheating with siblings though.

Mia is merely struggling with the idea that her fiancé was a cold blooded killer in another world. She just needs some time to… adjust. She’s also a little commitment phobic. After stopping the real bad guys, Mia reassures JJ, but she doesn’t tell him the truth about who she is.

Mia: I couldn't imagine spending my life with anyone else."

I see your not-so-subtle wink at SmoakNHawke writers. I AM SO HERE FOR THIS.

The truly awesome moment with JJ’s character is when he gets his memories back too. I was not expecting this and was genuinely surprised. Charlie Barnett is a PHENOMENAL actor. He played that scene perfectly. 

Giving JJ his memories back is a stroke of genius because now he's a more complicated villain (I hope). He gets to struggle with his love for Mia and his loony tune desire to take over the city. 

Katherine McNamara also does a fantastic job of blending the two versions of Mia after she gets her memories back. 

Source: supercanaries 

She’s reeling from the suffering and loss, but Mia is still our bad ass princess who takes no crap. 

Source: oh-my-hades

She is still every bit the hero Oliver and Felicity raised her to be.

Source: feilcityqueen 

She’s just a little more pragmatic. Her communication skills are much improved. One of the best moments of the episode is when she gets to show up L*urel with her “new” experience.

Source: supercanaries

Mia telling L*urel where to stick it was a long time coming. We had to wait twenty five minutes for it to happen, but it was GLORIOUS when it did. 

Source: arrowversedaily 

William is a perfect cupcake, excited to be Mia’s man of honor, but bummed his boyfriend cheated on him. We hate Kevin. 

Source: arrowdaily 

He encourages Mia to join Smoak Tech, but she’s not sold on joining Mama’s company. William running Felicity’s company fills me with a deep and abiding joy.

William Clayton-Harris-Smoak-Queen is perfection from start to finish. 

Source: oliverxfelicity 

The chemistry between Ben and Kat is so natural. William’s good natured teasing about their “family heirloom” exuded warmth and love. 

Source: feilcityqueen 

I adore how comfortable the two characters are now. Erasing William and Mia’s separation is the best thing to come out of Oliver’s Crisis retcon.

ZOE IS ALIVE because I said she would be and I like to get my way.

Source: oliverxfelicity 

Din*h owns a bar (Thea’s old club) and lives in the apartment upstairs (Thea and Olicity’s old loft).  

Source: canarynetwork 

She woke up in the future after Oliver’s funeral and discovered she doesn’t exist in 2040. I’m only mildly curious about this. The bigger shock is Din*h is tolerable. She’s compassionate towards Mia and often serves as the peace maker between her and L*urel. She feels like an older and wiser Din*h Dr*ke. More like Season 5 Din*h, but not so angry.  

Also, hello that voice? She can be like Lorne on Angel and randomly break out into show tunes.  Juliana did a beautiful job.

E2 Oliver cheated on L*urel with Sara too. There is no universe where L*urel & Oliver end up together. Nobody hates L*uriver more than these writers.

What I Hated

L*urel. I hated everything about L*urel. 

At first, I thought I was being too sensitive, but after a certain point it was clear she is just an asshole. L*urel being unbearable in Arrow pilots is a tradition apparently.

It starts with how Mia gets her memories back. There were some spoilers out on this, but I wasn’t entirely sure how it would play out onscreen and yeah… total dick move. 

Source: supercanaries 

L*urel destroys Mia’s life by forcing unbelievably painful memories on her without discussing it with her first. And for what? So, Mia can help L*urel find her kidnapped friend. 

Even the newspaper article L*urel drops about the Green Arrow failing the city doesn’t excuse the way she gave Mia her memories back. I understand she is trying to convince Mia to be a superhero, but I feel a more effective approach would have been to sit down, grab a cup of coffee, offer the pros and cons of getting her memories back and then let MIA DECIDE.  

Source: supercanaries 

L*urel didn’t need to grab her from behind at her graduation/engagement party.  It had the uncomfortable vibe of mind rape and no amount of “girl power” makes that okay.

Oh hey - if  J'onn J'onzz from Superg*rl is going around and zapping people’s minds without clearing it with them first - 

What was with L*urel insulting Mia every two seconds? UGH. Where is that damn bird baton?

There’s a fine line between snark and nasty. L*urel was just nasty.

L*urel decides Mia is a lazy, self absorbed, idiot because she’s not immediately jumping at the chance to be the Green Arrow. She literally blew this kid’s life apart, gives her no time to process, and immediately begins insulting her because she’s not following all of L*urel’s commands.

On what planet does L*urel have any authority over Mia's life? 

They have a warm and fuzzy heart to heart about choosing to be a hero to smooth over L*urel’s wildly unpleasant personality, but it’s ludicrous. L*urel didn’t even rate a goodbye from Oliver. I find her suddenly being an expert on what Oliver would want for his daughter pretty tough to swallow. 

This conversation should’ve been with William. PERIOD.

Source: oliverxfelicity 

It’s insane L*urel is judging anyone about anything because SHE IS A MURDERER. But sure, being a socialite is the real crime. Thank goodness L*urel is here to stop all the shopping.

The show was desperate glaze over Bl*ck Sir*n’s history with bizarre explanations.

L*urel: I wasted a lot of time pretending to be something I wasn’t because it was easier.”

So, Bl*ck Sir*n was pretending to be a murderer because it was easier? 

That’s not a thing. You don’t pretend to a murderer. You just are one.

Bl*ck Sir*n wasn’t like Oliver Queen. She killed good and innocent people. We’re just supposed to accept she was always a good person simply because she says so? Sorry sweetheart, the evidence does not exist. I would send your ass to prison for a good 25 to life, but the network didn’t ask for my opinion about your participation in the new show. THEY SHOULD HAVE.

Then there’s the way they casually avoid things Bl*ck Sir*n has done.

Din*h: I can let go of the people I lost and mistakes that I made.

Din*h lost her boyfriend because L*urel murdered him. They ate French fries and drank milkshakes in a ten second scene and now we’re supposed to believe they’re best friends. Umm… no. If you want to make this friendship believable don’t pretend their history doesn’t exist. Most of your viewing audience is coming from Arrow. We remember that L*urel killed Dinah’s boyfriend.

L*urel: D you’re up. You ready?

Din*h: Never not.

Ugh. Cringe. Arrow was effortlessly bad ass because Stephen Amell made Oliver Queen look effortlessly bad ass. 

The action was show, not tell, and that includes the dialogue. There is no making L*urel and Din*h cool, so just-

And POSE. It’s like mannequins in a Macy’s window. YIKES.

Source: canarynetwork

They force this “Ra Ra Girl Power” nonsense with clunky lines and empty camaraderie while at the same time; L*urel eviscerates Mia’s life choices by insulting her all hour. If you want to bolster “female relationships” on this network then start with the women treating each other with respect.

There was a criminal lack of William, Zoe and Connor. TERRIBLE DECISION.

Hopefully, this changes dramatically if the show goes to series. This is what I meant by “retooled.” It is clear two different concepts are being slapped together. The one we saw in 7x16 and whatever KC pitched to the network. The biggest flaw in this backdoor pilot is how disjointed it feels.

It’s like there are two shows. Mia has her life with William, Zoe, JJ and Connor and the other show is Din*h and L*urel. It’s similar to Oliver and L*urel/Tommy/Thea versus Diggle/Felicity in the beginning of Arrow, but it feels really unnecessary to make that mistake again. I do not feel Green Arrow and The Canaries is Marc Guggenheim and Beth Schwartz’s vision for what they wanted the spin-off to be and it is GLARINGLY obvious.

No mention of Felicity or Diggle. Yes, I understand why. We have to watch the Arrow series finale to find out what happens to our beloved characters. Mia and William never mentioning Felicity and JJ and Connor never mentioning Diggle & Lyla is WEIRD. Particularly since it was Mia’s graduation and her engagement party with JJ.

Stray Thoughts

 I vote for this to be Mia’s next tattoo. Source:  amunetblack

Well… that’s new information Din*h. Source:  shawgroves

Why is L*urel calling Din*h “D?” When did that start?

Rene is running for a third term. Do we need to be concerned about a utilitarianism regime happening?

I will never believe Din*h can do “Felicity stuff.” Where the hell is William?

“Oh frack you.” FINALLY.

The adversarial relationship between Mia and L*urel is a wise choice given how KC and Katherine McNamara interact online with each other. Or don’t as the case may be.  

What is happening with L*urel's boots? Are there bombs attached to them or something?

The lipsticks on L*urel and Din*h are not good. There's a lot of eye makeup happening too. Let's tone it down makeup department.

This is my face whenever I see L*urel too.  Source: supercanaries

You killed her fiancée L*urel. Pay your fucking tab.

Female Big Bad. Could be awesome. Just have to wait and see.

I'm really glad William and Mia are rich again. I missed billionaire money. It's fun.

Disclaimer: Any gifs on the blog are not mine. If you would like a gif removed from my reviews, please message me. 8x09 gifs credited.

If you’d like to support the blog, please buy me a cup of tea!

[zimuse]

All of my issues with S8 of Voltron

So. Firstly, the show is always brilliantly animated and I deeply appreciate their attention to detail. But I have WAY MORE issues than anything else, and I’m not at all happy or content with how it ended. So let me go ahead and list my gripes with the eighth season, in no particular order: 1) That whole thing with Allura violently forcing her memories on Zarkon. What the actual fuck, dude? I don’t care what Zarkon has done; this was clearly, visibly, not the same Zarkon they have been dealing with – a Zarkon who is not corrupted by quintessence, who is bewildered by what’s going on, has no clue what the hell anyone is talking about, no recollection, knowledge or memory. And she just fucking assaulted him? Moral issues aside, how do you know that that’s not going to break him and turn him into the Zarkon you do know? Oh, right, consequences; I forgot, we never think about those. And I know she’s got a lot of anger, but literally no one in the group reacted?! Not even his fellow paladins that have been trapped in this same state with him? Real heroes, guys. Bravo!   2) Zarkon calling his wife a “psychopath”. Excuse the fuck out of you, sir. She’s not a psychopath - she is doing what she believes needs to be done to get her family back. And after everything she’s been through, do I blame her? Hell no.  Her driving force, her only motivation, is her family. With Zarkon dead, her focus went to her son, and she quite literally ripped through time and space to bring him back. No, I really don’t think that qualifies as a psychopath. Using what’s basically portrayed as his corpse to control the Sincline though, that’s another story but I’ll get to that later. Anyway. Check your privilege, sir. 3) Allura “seeing the good in Honerva” like she saw “the good in everyone”. Where the hell was this in the confrontation with Lotor, who she supposedly loved? Because apparently this doesn’t at all extend to him. Honerva, as much as I adore her, did so much worse than Lotor ever could be accused of. Yes, Allura did admit in the end that Lotor sought peace but, well, it was well past the point where it mattered. Seriously. He supposedly died screaming, alone, and ended up a fused quintessence robot... Zombie thing. But Honerva? She’s Altean. So she gets off easy during the actual confrontation and on screen. 4) I HAVE SO MANY ISSUES WITH THE LIMITED AMOUNT OF LOTOR IN THIS SEASON. Yes, that deserved to be in all caps. Okay, we saw a glimpse of his body, and I get that in the narrative we're supposed to believe that he's dead. Well, as the weirdly fused robot zombie. Does anyone else have a problem with this shit? BECAUSE I FUCKING DO. The quintessence field was literally described as life itself - how in the actual fuck are you going to tell me he died, surrounded by the essence of life itself? And also, yes, we saw a glimpse of his "corpse". There's no proof that it was actually a corpse. We saw the back side of him. Until I see a FULL BODY FRONT VIEW of it, I do not believe he's dead. Whoever made this be a thing... -flips off- 5) BUT if we are to accept that he's dead... The paladins literally murdered Lotor and no one, save Honerva, even stopped to acknowledge it. And honestly? This tears at my heart. 6) Was there a reason they used the name Merla for that one Altean at the end? I didn’t see any similarities between these two characters other than betrayal. Why even include it? 7) Speaking of betrayal, is this an affliction most Alteans suffer from? Because  Coran is literally the only exception to this that we’ve seen. And supposedly Romelle, but I still don’t trust her, so I don’t include her. Fuck Romelle. 8) Keith as spokesperson for the Galra and Galra rep? Why would the remaining Galra with any authority listen to someone who doesn’t even look Galra? Randomly cheering at his speech? What is this. I can see his Krolia and Kolivan being the representatives and all, but why weren’t THEY the ones giving the speech? Oh yeah, I know why. The next point. 9) Oh, and about that speech, it was word for word literally what Lotor said to the Galra once up on a time (in s5, I believe?). Add insult to injury, why don’t you. 10) The Altean marks on Lance at the end, how does this even work? I thought it was genetic, purely Altean thing. Is it not? Can anyone acquire them? Does this mean you’re considered Altean now, Lance? WHY on earth is this a thing and why isn’t it explained? - EDIT: After thinking about this more and referring back to the series itself... I can conclude that the Altean marks are as magical as the race that is born with them. Think about it, these marks fundamentally tell you something about that character. Allura’s and Coran’s are small, just on their cheeks, and are smooth. They don’t have edges. Honerva, who has been corrupted, had elongated, jagged marks. But when she was “redeemed”, the long jagged marks we’ve seen throughout all eight seasons (after being corrupted), her marks shrink, becoming her old smooth marks post-corruption. And Lotor? His marks aren’t as long as his mothers’, but they were a tad jagged - signifying that at his core, he was a good person, yet he’d been touched by darkness and that darkness was a part of him. The Prince was born with the same unique energy signature that his parents were corrupted/killed/reanimated with. I do think that the marks take on the personality, for lack of better word, to match the individual. It’s visibly obvious that these things are magical in some way, but does that justify the “ability” to mark someone else with them? This could be up to interpretation. I don’t think so, though. It seemed like a random thing to toss in. So kind of like the Balmara (which I’ll get into in another point), if it had been seen previously in another portion of the series, I’d have accepted it as something that Alteans could do. As it stands in the current narrative, I don’t think it should be a thing, nor was it meant to be a thing in the original draft. It was supposed to be Lotor in Lance’s position, not actually Lance. Thus, I feel that scene was supposed to be the reappearance of Lotor’s own Altean marks. Not the gift of Lance’s. 11) Altea and Daibazaal came back... Why? That tells me it’s not actually their reality that they returned to. But then that raises several questions, so what do? If it’s because eliminating the rift undid everything associated with it, then that should have restored Alfor, Zarkon, Lotor, Honerva and literally everyone else involved with that too. Which I would have totally accepted. 12) Sooooo killing Lotor essentially not only led to the loss of millions of lives throughout the universe, but ultimately led to the erasing of all but one reality. And no one addressed the Voltron team’s hand in this? Seriously? 13) “Join the Coalition.” “What’s the alternative.” “There is no alternative.” That... That sounds like conquest to me. Thanks for the options, broski. 14) The whole way they dealt with Lahn. He brought up some excellent points, about Voltron/Allura having everything handed to them, but I guess the power of teamwork and friendship managed to give him a sudden bout of amnesia and sign up for the Coalition. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Way to slap a bandaid on that, guys. I hate it when writers do this. And if I ever do this? Slap me and tell me to fix it. 15) The paladins literally leaving everyone they help undefended, and then being shocked that those places have fallen to whatever villain is the focus at that time. Like, Olkarion? What were they thinking? As what was arguably the central nexus of their forces, possessing the most advanced technology they have access to, it should have been the number one priority to make sure it didn’t fall to enemy hands. But that makes way too much sense too, doesn't it? I want Shiro back as the Black Lion. Or Lotor to have returned to be the Black Lion. He did use the Black Bayard to kill Zarkon after all, and that was never revisited for... Reasons. That could have been a fantastic plot point to show that Lotor was the next Black Paladin. He’d certainly make a better one than Keith. 16) Speaking of - they never even checked up on the Olkari citizens that evacuated. Why? Was this done off-camera and just never mentioned? Because that seems really important to know WHERE your highly advanced tech/weapon makers are. Are they okay? Did they find another planet before their provisions ran out? Why are all casualties and losses either not mentioned at all or are/were glossed over? 17) Everyone treating Lotor like an immoral murderer when he was anything but. I swear. The writers present him as sympathetic and provide ample reasonable arguments on his behalf, both in show and in interviews, etc., but then proceed to have every other character treat him as though he’s a monster. Why tf are you having everyone demonize him, when you show us that it’s not true and you’re not going to bring him back for the redemption arc he deserved, and gave him the chance to explain himself? All that’s doing is affecting my opinion of the other characters lmao. 18) The paladins seriously took 5 episodes to come to the conclusion that, yes, it is Honerva that’s responsible for all of this new shenanigans. I’m honestly not sure why they’re surprised. We all knew that she went SOMEWHERE. She was the wife of Zarkon, and Lotor’s mother. She made several adversaries that Voltron struggled to face. She was the alchemic force driving the Galra Empire, and no one thought, “Hmm, we should probably keep tabs on that, she’s dangerous”? And then took another 6 episodes to figure out her motivations? There’s only one conclusion to draw from this: They’re dumb. 19) There are several opportunities taken to go to great lengths about how it’s not what you are but who you are that counts, that it doesn’t matter what you have done in the past and you can always grow from it and deserve a chance. I’m thinking specifically of the Acxa/Veronica scene, but there were a couple of other instances. I guess that we just don’t extend that courtesy to Lotor. He literally got the shit end of the stick from all directions and all of the characters are just pouring salt in the wound. -rubs temples and fumes- 20) Acxa, what the actual fuck? Lotor using their rage as half breeds? What. He never, ever let them go on a rampage, and always emphasized no killing. Zethrid and Ezor were the ones always portrayed as really bloodthirsty, but all of a sudden Ezor is the one who can’t take the anger anymore and wants out, and wants Zethrid to let go of her rage? Ezor, who was so eager to bleed and torture? Lolwat.

21) Why were there two episodes dedicated to trans-versing Honerva's mind? They were completely and utterly useless. The plot did not move forward with it, Voltron and the Paladins didn't bond stronger or learn new moves/techniques that could have helped them in their final battle with Honerva - nothing. The only thing I got from it was how much more badass Honerva actually is. She trapped SOULS in her mind and kept them prisoner. That’s terrifying and cool, but did we really need to know that? Not really. What happened to the original Paladins could have been covered in a single episode, in a different fashion. So the "dark entity" and the connection to Honerva? That didn't need to be in the narrative at all. You could argue that without it, they couldn't have saved the souls of the original paladins, but they would have been saved at the end any fucking way when Honerva and Allura sacrificed themselves to fix all the shit. Sooo. Thanks for wasting 40 minutes of our time. 22) So in episode 13, when they're chasing Honerva through the holes in dimensions... And she drains Voltron (and the paladins by extension) of energy, we see the hole CLOSE. Okay? We saw it close. That means they're stuck there forever. Done. Finito, they no longer exist - none of them, not from that dimension. Then we went to Honerva getting what she wanted at last - except she didn't. Lotor outright rejects her. I do not blame him at all for being angry if that dimension's version of his mom was dead and he's still grieving, but it was alluded to that it's been a couple years since she died. We see Zarkon protect his son in this dimension, and that he’s uncorrupted. Thus, we can assume that Honerva wasn’t corrupted either, and was never abusive towards Lotor. And he just... Didn't accept her? I know that Lotor is extremely perceptive, even as a kid, but why? If she wasn’t abusive towards him in that dimension, why does he immediately reject her? More over, his rejection seems to be the last straw - which feels... Odd, because it feels as if she’s heard it prior and that was the nail in the coffin that said “fuck it, destroy everything”. It would have made more narrative sense if Lotor had been alive, and in his own redemption arc, to tell “the witch” that his mother was dead - and that is why this dimension’s version of him saying the same thing struck such a nerve. But what bugs me the most is that Voltron came out of nowhere and continued the battle. The gateway into that dimension closed. We all saw it close. The dimension they were IN dissolved completely, so HOW did they get there?! How are they not dead at that point? This should NOT have been a thing. I’d have accepted it if they had just barely made it through the hole, but no. This is just another Dues Ex Machina, and I’m not having it. I'd have been absolutely fine with the series ending with Honerva in the alternate universe with her family, having to work to earn kid!Lotor's affection and recognition that she's his mother. That could have easily been worked on. A kid is a kid, no matter what. He'd have warmed up to her eventually. I think. And in that alternate universe, Lotor and Allura would have grown up (sort-of, she appears much older - at least a teenager at that point?) together, and more than likely still would have fallen in-love. With his father and mother there. Honerva would have had everything. 23) Did we actually need to go as big as the multi-verses being threatened? Nah. As cool as as they were, time travel would have been much easier for Honerva. And would have made a lot more sense, all things considered. If she went back to before she and her hubby were corrupted, she could have stopped ALL OF THIS SHIT from happening to begin with. THAT would have been a better ending, to have done time-travel and to fast-forward a couple years to seeing how everyone ended up. Allura and Lotor, married. ANd the rest of the cast? With the same ending as they had in the narrative, given that the original paladins either stepped down as Paladins of Voltron and let new people succeed them, or having never been involved with the plot as a whole BECAUSE the original paladins never died. I can understand that this would feel like a huge cop out, and that not everyone fancies time travel stories these days. There have been quite a number of them throughout the years. It would’ve worked here though, but I don’t think that was the point. I think the point of going to another dimension is that Honerva didn’t want to change the past - she wanted to start over, and leave the reality that she helped to fuck over.

24) What was with all of the Dues ex Machinas!? There were at least 3 or 4. That’s too many across a single episode, or even two. Like ZOOM, suddenly the Balmera were there. When did that become a thing? If it had been shown earlier in the series that they could do that, I’d have accepted it. But to bring that in so suddenly? No, the writers pulled that outta their asses. 25) And let’s not forget that Honerva used that one giant Balmera as a battery when Merla knocked out one of the towers. That mighta been a lotta crystals, but the power difference between several of those crystals and the energy of entire planets that had who even knows how much life on them, astounds and bothers me. Yeah, the crystals are used to power ships and all, but really? Those things have more energy than six planets? I need this in waaaay more detail somewhere, because until it is, this was also a Dues Ex Machina.

26) One of the two biggest issues I have with season 8 is Allurance - not because I’m against the ship nor because I dislike Lance’s character. My issue is with how it was portrayed. If you compare season 8′s Allurance with season 5 and early season 6′s Lotura, you’ll seen just how drastically different they are. We see Allura at her happiest with Lotor than we do in any other season. With Lance? She doesn’t look happy. That same spark just isn’t there. Its like she’s forcing herself to move on, and it just doesn’t work. I mean, consider the episode with the Dark Entity and how it primarily assumed Lotor’s form. She misses and longs for him, and the vision of her in the Altean robeast draining her beloved planet of quint to save it was - and I full heartedly believe this because otherwise it’s randomly there in the narrative - for Allura to feel and understand what it was like to be in Lotor’s shoes. And Lance? Lance doesn’t particularly look really happy either, honestly. Frankly, the boy looks miserable. More over, the fact that Allura has rejected him for six seasons only to sorta flirt with him in s7 and then date him in s8... Really bugs me. That’s akin to sending a message that if you persue a woman long enough, she’ll eventually cave and accept a man’s romantic feelings. No. That is not a message to send to kids ages 7 and up. Add to the fact that Lance has had thoughts of Allura clinging to his leg while he’s proclaimed as the winner and everyone is looking up to him, and that he tells Allura that he’s “great at winning prizes” which essentially hints that he thinks of her as a prize that he’s won - and this isn’t only disturbing, it’s outright revolting and sexist. If I were a parent, this is not the kind of message I’d want my child to have. Period. 27) But the most disturbing thing about season 8, and the reason it was essentially ruined, was the fate of Lotor. There were several moments throughout s8 where he could have been there. And we can clearly see in the closing scene where the lions are flying out into the cosmos that it’s not just Allura’s outline in the stars. She’s clearly with Lotor, as if he was supposed to have been there the whole time and was supposed to share her choice. Season 8 had the potential of being the most beautiful redemption story tied into a Heroine’s journey that I’ve ever seen. But instead, we see an abuse survivor that only wanted to do good, a victim of neglect that longed to be loved... Get the most graphic death in the series with absolutely no chance to redeem himself. All of his plot points are left forgotten and untouched. We’re only given more of his abusive backstory to make him a more sympathetic character. He was never given a real chance to explain his half of the story concerning the Colony; we never see the point that he killed Narti come back up between him and his generals at all, almost as though it never happened to begin with; his potential as the Black Paladin, shown when he used the Black Bayard to kill his father, is left completely unexplored; and being as he wasn’t given a redemption arc, we don’t see him get to have another chance at the White Lion trial and succeed. What we are given is the desecration of the animus, the death of a dark youth character, and the light youth Allura thus being unable to complete her heroine’s journey. The disturbing message that this sends to children, particularly to children that are/were victims of abuse themselves, is completely unacceptable. I stand with @leakinghate and @felixazrael and the others on this point. This is not the story that was written originally, and we see that in the choppiness of certain episodes, as well as the conclusion with both Allura and Lotor in the stars. Legendary Defender was always meant to be their story. I don’t personally believe that the writers who put so much thought, so much care, so much love into these characters would write them to end up as we see them in the season 8 we were given. If you haven’t already, please sign the petition to release/explain the original season eight.

[starwalker03]

I posted 12,847 times in 2021

56 posts created (0%)

12791 posts reblogged (100%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 228.4 posts.

I added 274 tags in 2021

#dick grayson - 51 posts

#dc comics - 37 posts

#nightwing - 35 posts

#fanfiction - 27 posts

#slade wilson - 25 posts

#whumptober 2021 - 23 posts

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#deathstroke - 22 posts

#young justice - 18 posts

#batman - 14 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#there are two seperate incorrect quotes with din and luke doing the same thing and like wouldn’t it be hilarious if it was done in unison.

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Oh yeah, I was just thinking about the season three yj theme being a ‘sad’ quieter version of the ‘grungey’ higher energy theme of the first two seasons and how that mirrors literally everything in the show and it’s characters and it got me feeling all kinds of bad. Anyway, how was your day?

13 notes • Posted 2021-01-24 07:07:06 GMT

#4

what do I need? not medication, therapy, love, hugs or some fucking water no what i need is a fan fic of the foxes after Neil was taken by his father's men and they have a panic as they look for him and Andrew thinks on Neil's little 'you were amazing' comment thinking Neil finally ran even though he said he wouldn't only for Kevin to have to tell them 'hey I think he's been kidnapped by his father's psychopathic gang members', and they all go crazy on the insanely small amount of information Kevin gives them while they try to stay sane wondering if Neil is even going to be alive by morning, whilst also dealing with the shock of how small the amount of information Kevin gave them was but how massively fucking huge it seems in comparison with everything they know and everything they thought they knew also Wymack must have at least one paternal panic and Allison needs to say something like 'I can't lose another person' because she's realised Neil is her friend now and that seems insane and Matt has Older Brother Worry (TM) and Abby has a galaxy brain moment where she puts two and two together about some of Neil's scars and just-

I need it. I need it a lot.

24 notes • Posted 2021-07-01 13:00:32 GMT

#3

You know what imma say it.

Asajj Ventress deserved a proper, full, thorough redemption, detailed entirely that ended with her living happily and free, making new connections with people and feeling genuinely safe and supported by a new family.

And no I will not elaborate.

29 notes • Posted 2021-04-25 11:59:09 GMT

#2

Thinking about the trans Luke and trans leia headcanons.

I’m just thinking like. These are probably the most chaotic twins in the whole galaxy right? Like. Let’s be honest. They are. They win the title hands down.

So let’s imagine a universe where they’re both trans, and instead of them being ‘Male name that sounds like Leia’ and ‘female name that sounds like luke’ who transition into our space twins, instead they are Luke and Leia. The brunet little boy and the blonde girl. And then they are Luke and Leia. The brunette girl and the blond boy.

They both figure out that, their assigned birth gender? Yeah no they don’t fuck with that. And they transition together and just… swap names. They’re space force twins, they know everything about each other anyway. They just fuckin switch and tell no one except space murder dad.

I don’t know what kind of continuity or AU or whatever this could be set in. Maybe it’s one where they grow up rebels with their mother or one where Vader finds them Both and raises them I don’t know okay. But imagine. IMAGINE.

Like in the former scenario, they’re the rebel heirs. They grow up as rumours and whispers, the children of the rebels most outspoken leader.

But the alternative, they’re the heirs to the empire. And one day someone says something about what Leia did as a kid, accusing Luke of it, and he just has to be like ‘sigh… Leia why were you so dramatic as a child, I’m still paying for it’ meanwhile Leia constantly deals with people being like ‘you were so nice when you were a little girl. What happened?’

And just, yeah, it was an idea. It made me giggle. Imma leave it here.

ALTERNATIVELY gender fluid space twins. Wherein they just switch sometimes a la Fred and George. This would rely on them both being different genders at the same time but like it’s just a thought that made me have a laugh.

54 notes • Posted 2021-06-03 05:36:17 GMT

#1

Do you think when John Mulaney wrote his skit about horses and hospitals and Donald Trump that he had any idea how it would effect the population and his own career.

Because Inauguration Day is trending right alongside John Mulaney because he made one joke and it has become such a big part of humanity’s hive mind that we didn’t even need prompting, we just all turned to the same joke. Billions of people and we all know and make this joke.

That is very fun and sexy of us. Human beings really were like ‘oh we’re not a hive mind? Lemme just make an international connection anyway, just for fun. We call it the internet, because humans should have a little communal thinking, as a treat.’

204 notes • Posted 2021-01-21 00:21:30 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[sunwukong-stoaway-blog]

Oh shit, 3AM, time for a hot take on the FNDM from the perspective of someone who’s drifted in and out of it for years now. And yeah, spoilers, it involves Sun, the Bees, and experience therein.

We do need a few things set for the record before I dive further in. First, there is indeed a difference between normal Bee fans and flat out Wasps. Y’know, the psychopathic harassing jerks. There is also a segment of the Blacksun fndm that is more than happy to be as harassment heavy and take things too damn far. The problem in judging which is bigger is that you’ll only ever see the size of whatever groups you happen to be in contact with, which means if you’re a normal fan of one side, you’re likely to only see the hate-filled opposite side. And if you’re removed, then it’s a roll of the dice whether you see Wasps or... whatever the BlackSun equivalent is. And whichever side is bigger, they both still exist, which is the main problem. Now let’s take a stroll down memory lane and acknowledge a few things.

First and foremost. The Bees as a ship only exists as it does because people were throwing the first characters on screen at each other and held to them. This was true of Ruby and Weiss after the Red and White trailers, then true of Blake and Yang after the Black and Yellow trailers. We didn’t know anything about any of these characters, (in fact it completely flipped Ruby and Weiss’ personality traits, making Ruby a cool and aloof sniper chick and Weiss a soft melting princess) but the ships were already cemented and beloved by the community.

This kept going into the first season proper. Sure, we had alternate blends of ships, like Ladybug, Freezerburn, and Monochrome. Even Enabler, Ruby/Yang if anyone remembers that incestuous ship, before it was burnt to the ground by canon. But Whiterose/The Bees were the biggest game in town. Seemed to be backed by the canon too, to an extent. All the characters introduced were paired off and sent on their way, including JNPR, but this didn’t stop FNDM from laughing and enjoying themselves. (One particularly popular joke during the Jaune Arc was snickering that Yang and Blake were doing the do offscreen instead of running for help, for instance.) It didn’t matter Yang and Blake didn’t have a single conversation that didn’t end in Blake snubbing Yang and Yang writing Blake off as a “lost cause,” they were the pairing and nobody else was around, so, that was canon. And then episode 15 rolled around.

Everything broke down with episode 15, though not all at once. It introduced Sun and Penny, and FNDM wasn’t entirely sure what to do with them. Some, like myself, found the new characters and their dynamics fun and interesting. Some, on the other hand, declared immediately that Sun was a rapist/stalker/murderer/assassin of the White Fang, sometimes all at once. Some people had been a little bored of Jaune by this point but Sun was the first morally good character the FNDM declared a monster, and to this day, has received the roughest ��welcome.’ And, among the accusations, the declaration that Sun was nothing but a genderbend of Yang for a hetero ship. And so the tensions began to mount.

Bear in mind, up until this point the Bees had grown to be the de facto biggest ship in the FNDM. Nothing against Ruby, Weiss, or Whiterose, but Blake and Yang were the most mature/adult of the team, and consequently, got the most attention, desire, fanart, et cetra. Now here comes the first character to make contact with Blake in a definitively different fashion and connect with her. Without question, they saw Sun as a threat and an excuse to attack the show for not giving them the Bees. Hell, it’s no surprise they even shipped him with Penny (Optimal Primates) for a time, just because they debuted the same episode, to try and get him ‘away’ from Blake in the fandom’s eyes. The response to Sun by these proto-Wasps, otherwise known as ‘the entirety of the Bees at the time’ was swift, overwhelming, and nothing short of cruel. Especially when they started harassing Sun RPers, those who defended him, liked him, and so on. People who drew those first few pieces of Blacksun art were flat out attacked and screamed at to shut down their channels. (Similar attacks started appearing at this time too at artists for other pairings, noticeably Ladybug.) And for a time, that oppressive and painful atmosphere was reality.

Then, I put up a post pointing out how little canon the Bees actually had, and compared it to Blacksun. In V1? This was an overwhelming difference. I outright called the Bees a “Ghost ship,” a ship that had absolutely no basis in canon yet sailed anyway... And attacked others. Needless to say, this was not taken well by the proto-wasps.

It didn’t matter that I actively shipped Whiterose, passively Ladybug, and eventually Nuts & Dolts. It didn’t matter if what I said was true, that the emperor had no clothes (or canon.) All that mattered to these people was slamming me down and declaring me to the world a homophobic monster for not shipping their ship. To do everything in their power to break my spirit, break my connections with people, and break any place I had in this fledgling FNDM of comfort. All for their blatantly bullshit moral highground arguments. 

This went on for a good three weeks after that first post. Round the clock attacks, harassment, and vile displays of power. It really did break me, all things considered. That much negativity drove me into a deep depression, to the point I could barely leave my dorm room in university for food, let alone class. I’m still hesitant to use the term for fear of it’s overused impression, but this made the Bees ship into a full on trigger for me. Triggering every emotion of fear, depression, and anxiety that constant bombardment thrust upon me around the clock. To an extent, it still is such a trigger, and so I can admit without issue I’m biased.

Thankfully, it did all have a silver lining. I became a lightning rod of hate, but the heavy atmosphere was broken. Bees no longer were unchallenged rulers of the FNDM, and people legit began to call out the behavior of these proto-wasps as full on bullying, or at least stopped acting like the Bees were canon. There was room to move forward now. But... of course, it didn’t stop there.

V2 rolled around. On the one hand we got Yang and Blake having the first dance, as well as actually having a real conversation on screen and developing some kind of unique bond, flimsy as it may be to some. (Seriously, Blake’s having severe overwrought depression and anxiety over Adam and the White Fang, Yang makes it about her. Yeah, that can show solidarity for the cause, but it does little to assuage Blake’s issues. I do see it as a good scene, but it’s still not a great relationship.) On the other hand, we were confirmed halfway through the year, and thanks to Sun/Neptune being cut from that last part of the Paladin fight, Blake had to be the one to ask what Yang’s Semblance was. ...Yeah. Half a year of being partners. And she doesn’t canonically know yet what Yang’s Semblance is. Hell of a partnership, yeah?

And on the other side of the coin. Sun and Blake had their full on dance, came to it as a date, and it included Yang stepping aside to give Blake to Sun. This on top of meeting Sun’s team for the first time and solidifying his place as being right there with RWBY and JNPR. ...And to counterbalance, we got Neptune. Seriously. Wasps had Neptune pegged as Sun’s “actual girlfriend” from the second his name was dropped. Then the design came in, they declared Neptune FtM trans, and that Sun was dating him. I mean, clearly, right? Then Neptune actually showed up, he turned out to be the most aggressively straight-showing guy on the show yet, and the FNDM HATED him for it. Pitched him into the same bin as Sun right then and there, while shouting they’d be a better couple than the alternatives. (This also ended up, for the first time, generating enmity from Monochrome shippers for Sun. Before, Blacksun and MC shippers were effectively “ship and let ship” considering both had suffered under the Bees, but since that stranglehold had been broken after V1. Now Neptune came to town and fucked that peace up too.) Seriously. Just like the Bees, Seamonkeys only exists as a ship because the FNDM slammed the characters together without a clue what they were even like. Same as with Optimal Primates, remember?

Overall, V2 ended up being more or less like the aftermath of V1 the whole way through. Salty and bitter Wasps bickering and yelling about Sun even being in the same frame as Blake, trying to reaffirm their position, while everyone else just relaxed, some bitched about Jaune existing, and others enjoying the moment. ...Then V3 happened.

V3 was a powderkeg of moments for both Blacksun and the Bees. From the fingerguns/blushing/”dork” scene, to Blake tearfully holding Yang’s... one remaining hand, to the questions of where Blake was going after the ending. And consequently, the ship-to-ship combat had grown once again. Things like editing the fingerguns scene into a gif of Weiss proposing to Blake, or conspiracy theories that Sun was a mole for the WF hiding in plain sight, or just generally arguing back and forth over how important Blake holding Yang’s hand and Sun’s poppy love song were. The thing was, by V3, enough new fans of the series drawn in to all the Bee fanart that didn’t have the Wasp mentality existed to properly differentiate between the two groups. And consequently, some would-be Bee fans were surprised when their open appreciation for the pair was met with negativity and disdain by those who were used to liking the Bees being associated with far worse. The Wasps still existed, without question, but their presence muddied the waters and turned what was once a straight-forward fandom war into messy, vile person-to-person conflict, with bystanders dragged into the fighting. This, to my knowledge, is where the wasp-equivalent of Blacksun fans ended up coming to be, unable to differentiate between the Wasps that they hated and the Bee fans that they shouldn’t. In short, V3 was the most divisive and painful of the seasons for this warfare.

As we approach the modern day it should be noted that the longer the show runs, the less and less these ship-to-ship combats make an impact on the FNDM as a whole. This is a good thing, realistically, but it comes from an unfortunate division in the FNDM in general, with camps splitting off into effective echo chambers, and generally only interacting to spit hatred at each other.

V4 was easily the single lowest point for all of the Bees. With Blake and Yang canonically split apart, and Sun hanging around Blake full time as her only traveling partner, the Bees had effectively nothing to do but sigh and hope for a reunion soon. The Wasps, on the other hand, eagerly took to instead tearing into Sun’s character again, this time jumping on the questionable decision to shadow Blake and keep her safe, and characterizing it as flat out stalking... even without full knowledge of the situation. The Wasps just painted the scene as “Sun has spent months following Blake in a coat,” and a large part of the fandom picked it up in turn. Then, as a follow-up act, decided to screw with Sun a different way and ship him with, of all people, Kali, or Blake’s mom. Yeah, it was creepy and fetishism, and had no purpose other than to break Kali’s implicit acceptance of Sun as a partner for Blake into bizarre OOC lust. It’s telling that there was far and away more porn and pure shipping for Sun/Kali than Ghira/Kali for a while, despite the Bees laughing to themselves that “of course YANG would be accepted by Ghira, unlike Sun~.” Legit, Sun/Kali was just another attempt at slamming Sun together with the nearest character that wasn’t Blake. Just like Penny. Just like Neptune. But, V4 was the volume of personal growth and discovery for each of the main cast... And consequently, this journey down each of their four paths was panned by many “rwde” fans for not having the inter-team connections they wanted. Funny how the volume most about each member of RWBY and their personal stories gets panned as the one least about them. Whatever. All of this led to V5, however, and where we are now.

And where we are now is... Right back to how we were in V3. With giddy Bees squealing over Yang and Blake exchanging eye contact and words, while Wasps re-characterize Sun’s connection to Blake (including pushing her back to the team that she ran away from because it was time to reconnect and he knew that) as “pushing Blake to be with Yang.” It’s kind of absurd, right? Well... That’s what this FNDM war has been to me. Just absurd.

I’ve watched wasps shout down Micheal Jones because they don’t like Sun being close to Blake. I’ve seen wasps countless times call out RT as queerbaiting for not giving them the Bees right fucking then. I’ve heard directly from Wasps that it doesn’t matter to (the ones I talked to) whether any other LGBTQA+ people/ships/focuses appear or are naturally featured in the show, unless the Bees are made canon, they believe RT lied to them.

And that astounds me. RT did not lie to you. Either you were lied to by fans from that Trailer era, the original proto-wasps, or you lied to yourself. You were told the lie that the Bees were canon, had to be canon, needed to be canon or something was wrong. That Sun is a monster. That you are owed anything. Hard fucking stop.

So where does all this leave us? ...Hopefully, understanding that this fighting has been going on for far too long, and is over far too little. I want anyone in the FNDM who has ever been affected by the ship wars to read this, to share this with others with similar experiences, on either side of it. Because ultimately, I’m only on one side, and I’d love for Bees to give their take on all this. To get both sides to come to an agreement to ship-and-let-ship, to put to rest the anger and frustration and fear of the other side that fueled Wasps and, perhaps, myself for so long.

This shit’s gone on long enough.

[spottedtoad]

Freud, in the only book of his I’ve read, The Interpretation of Dreams, argues that every dream, no matter how unpleasant, represents an unarticulated desire. This has always struck me as more convincing (and useful) as a description of fictions like books and movies than for interpreting my own dreams. Whose unarticulated desire is being represented is a matter for debate of course- the protagonist’s, the author or director or performer’s, the audience’s? Hard to say.  Karl Popper said of Freudianism that it wasn’t science because you couldn’t prove it wrong, but literary criticism isn’t astrophysics and a certain malleability goes a long way.

But accept for the moment that movies represent desires (not always unarticulated: I’ve heard multiple four-year-olds say they want to be Iron Man.) What kind of desire is represented by the new movie Joker, comic book in origins but resolutely art house in style? This question was taken to have some social import even before the film was in wide release. A story in which a man (the appellation “young” often added by critics beforehand, though more about that later) finds actualization through psychopathic violence was warned to be a potential instigation to more real life instances of nihilistic violence, of the mass shooter type we’ve seen with great regularity over the last several years. This fear was not, I thought, entirely groundless: a showing of an earlier Batman-related movie, The Dark Knight Rises,  was the scene of a 2012 mass shooting, and while as it turned out that killer had not intended his dyed hair to mark himself as “the Joker,” the rumor that he had has persisted. The earlier incarnation of this character by Heath Ledger, in the 2010 The Dark Knight, seemed indeed to embody exactly what makes mass shootings a potent source of terror, in spite of their low aggregate frequency and body count relative to other forms of homicide: The Dark Knight‘s Joker was motivated by chaos for its own sake, often contradicting himself in discussing his motivations and “how I got these scars.” Heath Ledger’s death at 28 prior to The Dark Knight‘s release from a cocktail of abused prescription drugs put a seal on an indelible performance, suggesting the darkness of the character (in a movie that, to be honest, I find kind of a slog whenever Ledger’s Joker is not on screen) came at least in part from real life internal torment as well as the actor, director, and screenwriters’ craft.

If this backstory gave some cause for concern, media outlets were eager to magnify it, with dozens of articles warning that the Joker movie could set off copycat (copying off of real or fictional violence unclear) killings, to the point where it became ambiguous whether these articles were intended to forestall violence, use its threat to boost ticket sales, or, for the benefit of an ideological narrative, call it into existence. Fortunately, we have been spared any accompanying violence related to the film; even last night, there were two uniformed local policy prominently standing at the entrance to my local megaplex when my wife and I went to see the 9:45.

The genre which Joker forms a part of is both an unusual one- the art house homage to Taxi Driver and King of Comedy that is also a comic book movie- while it is also immediately adjacent to the preeminent commercial production of our time, the superhero origin story. Almost every superhero franchise and reboot now begins with a portrayal of how the hero gained his or her powers, how he or she became- by magic or mutation or training montage- a god sent to live among men. The origin story is, it would appear, the audience’s entry-point into identification with the superhero; it is not enough that the great ones of the earth have our interest at heart, but that we learn how they were once weak and helpless like us, whether as babies saved from Krypton or as young orphaned billionaire heirs.

More precisely analogous to Joker is 2011’s X-Men: First Class, which sought to portray the origin not of an individual superhero (though it is really antihero Magneto’s film) but of the broader social world of the other X-Men films, of Professor X’s School for mutants as well as Magneto’s competing band of outlaws. What was distinctive about First Class was its temporal setting: casting backwards before the era of the earlier movies of the series, it sets itself in a mythic Kennedy Era of Cold War intrigue (unleashed in the film by mutants rather than ideology) and of mutants’ Civil Rights struggles substituting for black Americans’. While to me one of the most artistically successful of recent superhero movies, First Class is notable in how comfortable its alternative history feels to us; we are used to viewing the era immediately before the 60s counterculture as an ancien regime both glorious and unjust, as Mad Men was fond of showing- we are eager both to revel in the aesthetics and grandiosity of the world of the Baby Boomers’ childhood and deplore its moral failures and unequal civic ethics.

Joker is more unfamiliar and unsettling in its setting. The disintegration of urban America prior to its partial rebirth in the last 30 years is easily remembered, and in the case of New York, where Joker is more-or-less explicitly set, is often if incompletely discussed. But it is an ambiguous and incompletely mythologized portion of our collective narrative. What exactly led to American cities being riddled with garbage, graffiti and crime, near abandoned by middle class families, aesthetically blighted and seemingly spiritually bereft? Why were there over 2,000 murders a year in New York City (when there have been under 300 per year in a larger city in the last few years)? My precinct in my last neighborhood in Brooklyn had 99 rapes in a single year in the early 90s, and only one the year I lived there, 2006. To say that this descent into Tartarus was due to lead poisoning, or white flight, are clearly incomplete; to say this was due to a collapse of civic authority and popular morality begs the question.

Joker is, in its own way, eager to answer this question. The Gotham of Joker is not Tim Burton’s cartoonish 1940s Gothic of his Batman movies, or Christopher Nolan’s Bloombergian circle of shiny glass and steel from the Dark Knight trilogy. It is, instead, an exaggeratedly decayed, almost shattered, version of the 1970s pimps-and-pushers New York of Taxi Driver, with an endless garbage strike reminiscent of several from 1968 to 1977 piling refuse in every exterior shot, over which giant rats crawl, and the filming locations drawn from the sadder and more austere corners of the Outer Boroughs. The movie’s most deliberately iconic image, of Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker dancing on the steps leading to his apartment building, is a real staircase in the Bronx several blocks from the school where I taught and which I described in 13 Ways of Going on a Field Trip.

In fact, in an ill-fated field trip that didn’t make it into the book, I led my students to and from Crotona Park past those exact stairs to dig up and observe grubs and earthworms. (On the way back, a boy was accused of slapping a girl’s butt, leading to hours of recrimination, between me and the students and between the principal and me). I lived at the time next to a similar, if slightly less filmic set of stairs in Washington Heights, and spent a lot of time in apartment buildings identical in design if slightly less poorly maintained to the one where Joaquin’s character Arthur Fleck, lives. The subway stations and trains are similarly familiar to anyone who has lived in New York, even if the names are changed.

All of which is to say that Joker wants itself to be set in a real-seeming, if mythically nightmarish, New York-turned-Gotham, a 1970s megalopolis collapsing under its own refuse and under the burden of hatred and collective ill will. The first image of the film is a faded, deliberately dated version of the Warner Brothers’ logo, flickering and faltering. The human elements of Gotham are, in general, shown through a similarly harsh lens; while many reviewers describe the Arthur Fleck character as an alienated young man, Joaquin Phoenix is shown as anything but; his face, on screen for practically every shot, is made to seem every minute of his 44 years:

His wasted torso, for which the actor lost over 50 pounds, is similarly contorted, abandoned, presumptively worn down by the character’s nonexistent diet, constant chainsmoking, and cocktail of pharmaceutical meds. There’s something interesting about this visual emphasis on the character and actor’s age. Compare, for example, to Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, a youthful 32 playing 26:

De Niro’s Travis Bickle is, implicitly, the “all American kid from New York City,” explaining other characters’ frequent positive affect towards him, and his own social incapacity and descent into violence is, visually at least, the result of the fallen world impinging upon him rather than his own intrinsic corruption. He amiably convinces Cybil Shephard to go out with him on a date, before his incomprehension of the world leads him to take her to an X-rated film.  Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck on the other hand, is not only visibly aged and incapable of ordinary conversation, passing into peals of barking laughter and incoherence, but evidently has an inner life constructed only of darkness and destructive images, as shown by the ink-scribbled journal and alleged joke diary he writes in, into which pornographic images are taped and from which inopportunely fall out.

What exactly is Arthur Fleck- or Joaquin Phoenix- doing in this 1970s world, we might ask? While X Men: First Class substituted youthful James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender in telling the origin of the characters previously inhabited by Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, Joker is about a middle aged man trapped in perpetual boyhood, searching pathetically for father figures, resentful of his mother’s injuries to him, yearning for women with whom he cannot speak. It seems not coincidental that both Phoenix and director/screenwriter Todd Phillips are of an age to have been born roughly at the time of the film’s setting, and that the film’s central axis finds Fleck trying to understand the mystery of his birth, becoming the Joker only when this question is revealed to be unanswerable. In other words, Joker is a Generation X origin story, an attempt to find, in the inscrutable dirt of urban blight, the origin of an inconvenient and extraneous generation like Fleck’s inconvenient and extraneous man.

If the viewer is cast backwards into the past to find their own origins amid 1970s decay, Fleck is equally out of temporal step with his world. A clown is intrinsically a dated persona, even in a 1970s milieu, and much of the film emphasizes that Arthur’s world is itself locked in an inaccessible and unrealized past. Arthur first appears dancing to a ragtime piece, watches Fred Astaire on TV, and the songs referenced up until his transformation into the Joker are either old (“Slap That Bass,” “That’s Life,” Jimmy Durante’s “Smile” ) or deliberately dated despite their 1970s provenance, like “Send in the Clowns.” When Arthur tails Thomas Wayne to the theatre, it is Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 Modern Times that they- and the rest of the city’s fat cats- are watching and laughing to; just as we as viewers are caught off from the mystery and dishonor of our origins amid 1970s decay, Arthur cannot come to understand his origins in the forgotten and unlearnable disgraces of the 30s.

At the same time, Arthur is, like Charlie Chaplin’s tramp, incapable of speech, but expressive in movement.  While Travis Bickle’s social missteps are mitigated by his youth and external amiability and the measured tone of his voiceovers, Arthur Fleck is redeemed only in a few moments of physical performance- in the moments before a gang of kids intercedes to attack him or a gun falls out of his pocket, he is clearly a gifted physical performer when in make-up as a clown. While the film concludes with him becoming the Joker, his acts of violence having merged the darkness of his inner verbal life with the grace and self-possession of his clown performance, self-actualized in psychopathy.  Suddenly, the film’s dissonance between temporal setting and cultural signifiers disappear- the Joker dances to Gary Glitter’s 1973 “Rock and Roll (Part 2)” on the stairs, and as Gotham descends into the fire and chaos that delights the Joker’s heart, that universal cliche of unchained liberation, Cream’s “White Room” plays a few distorted guitar bars of freedom.

A hidden tension in our culture- starting to become less hidden- is that once Baby Boomers took over the culture, historical consciousness became somewhat fixed and recent eras have been mostly exempt from the myth-making and revisionism that dominate our views of the world before Watergate. My guess is that both MeToo and some of the media controversy over Joker are partly driven by this closed book starting to open and people angling to grab control over what can be written in it and what cannot. For now, it seems telling the story of the costs of post-Sixties liberation and urban blight is allowable, as long as these costs are presented as result of empowering the rich, white, male, and straight to indulge temptations, not a broader breakdown of order that encompassed multiple types of culprit and victims. This creation of historical myth is perhaps what distinguishes the prominent generational cohorts from the marginal ones.

The supposed political controversy over Joker is at one level strange; the film takes a basically left-sympathetic view of the horror of Gotham, with canceled social services and rich, sadistic or narcissistic businessmen primarily to blame, and the racial dynamics of Joker are at least at a surface level politically correct. While Arthur is assaulted by a mixed-race group of young hoodlums at the movie’s onset, he explicitly forgives them, in a way he doesn’t the three rich white men who attack him later. The riots by which Gotham is consumed at the film’s end is shown as outsider white men rising up against insider, rich white men. The four main black characters- his social worker, his next door love interest, a clerk at the insane asylum he convinces to share his mother’s file, and a psychiatrist he meets with at the end of the film- are not only sympathetic and kind. They are essentially the only characters, apart from a colleague with dwarfism, to show Arthur attention and concern, and with whom he finds himself eager to express himself in humane terms and show himself to be sane. Not coincidentally, they are filmed in a forgiving and gracious light, at odds with the washed-out and unforgiving appearance of almost all the other (white) characters.

  If there is a racial subtext to Joker– and this is America, how could there not be- it is likely that it is, in fact, the desire to sideline racial conflict from the paroxysms of post-60s urban life, to present black Americans as patient, sane, wisely enduring bystanders to class and civic conflict and crime rather than primary participants and victims.  Arthur’s visible fantasies- or hallucinations- of a love affair with his next door neighbor are exaggeratedly chaste, in spite of the cutout pictures of naked black women in his notebook. While 1970s films themselves often wished to juggle the social role of blacks and whites in collective consciousness (as Rocky did), or to offer white men a role as instruments of reactionary vengeance without explicitly invoking racial revenge (as Taxi Driver  did by making the main target of Travis Bickle’s bloodshed the white pimp played by Harvey Keitel), Joker takes place in a different kind of dream-like world- there is a reason Arthur’s six-shooter revolver shoots nine bullets in his first burst of violence. The dream desire I would guess it seeks is to find an origin story for our own incoherences, inequalities, injustices, that does not make race determinative of whether one is inside or outside the circle of privilege, in the present and in the past. If fictions are defined by pretending to be someone else, perhaps Joker is an attempt by middle aged white guys, to be sure to say that, while they may be- perhaps definitively are- the villain, they can at least choose what kind of villain they wish to be.  This choice amounts, according to many in media, and an increasing segment of our most prominent institutions,  to the Joker dancing on concrete steps following bloody deeds, an ornamentation of psychopathy that does not and cannot change its character, whether we used to think our story a comedy, but now realize it is a tragedy, or the other way around.

The Generation X Origin Story Freud, in the only book of his I've read, The Interpretation of Dreams, argues that every dream, no matter how unpleasant, represents an unarticulated desire.

[onlyonewoman]

The women in a world of men

One of the most beautiful things with Black Sails to me, is how it makes modern people take side for villains. The show never gives the audience an easy way out as the heroes are also villains, not only to each other, but also to a lot of things we would defend as the just and moral way to live.

I love that, apart from maybe Thomas Hamilton and Abigail Ashe, there's not one person in this show good enough to defend in the eyes of modern society. They fight for survival in a world we can only catch a glimpse of from safe distance and if I try to see it with 1700th century eyes, I can both defend and accuse all of their actions depending on which glasses I choose to put on.

The first times I came to "feel for the villains" really strong, was when I watched Scorseses "The Goodfellas", "Casino" and Ridley Scotts "American Gangster". Especially with the Scorsese movies, I was struck by how I could feel genuine sympathy for complete fucking psychopaths when their actions finally caught up with them. Even if I knew they got what they deserved, I still felt for them.

I think it's also quite clear that people - myself included - have easier to sympathise with bad men than bad women. Just take Eleanor Guthrie as an example. It's not a bad thing for a woman in that time and place to even survive it in the first place. Secondly, without a husband to secure her status, it's even more extraordinary. And in the moments she actually asks a man for advices, it's not her father or a man close to her own social status she turns to, but to Mr. Scott, her slave. Eleanor understands more than anyone in the show, what a complex society Nassau is and how much it costs to make it civilized. To judge her with our modern eyes, with the knowledge WE have that she hasn't, is absurd.

But we still live in a world where hard women are judged far more harsh than hard men, because we're used to the image of men as "naturally" hard and therefor Vanes, Flints, Silvers and other mens more reckless and/or rightdown evil actions, are easier for us to accept. Eleanor, being a woman, has to do as every woman of power has been forced to do throughout history: be more ruthless than the men, even to herself if she's to keep her independence. The same goes for Max and Anne. A woman in their positions simply can't afford to be nice. In fact, they must be twice as ruthless as the men and sacrifice twice as much. And all three of them have asked themselves far earlier on than Silver, Flint, Billy, Vane or any other man: is it really worth it?

On the "good" side - if there is any true good side here - we have three women. Miranda Hamilton and Abigail Ashe first. Two women from English upper class, who've been forced to see both their own society as well as the pirates with new eyes. I don't think we give them enough credit for this, actually. Then we have Madi Scott on the Marooner’s side, who is forced to be more brutal, since her position as next ruler gives her another role and other problems. Eleanor, Max and Anne are intelligent, streetsmart women, formed in a brutal environment, while Miranda and Abigail just as intelligent, but with a complete different background and thrown into the pirates world in a very different way. Madi works in the background, but is probably the one who has the best qualifications to rule. And the rule as old as mankind is still the same today: in order for a woman to survive AND be successful in a man's world, she has to be twice as bad.

The "cunning woman" has always been the picture of the evil woman who uses "unfair" weapons to ruin men. (Because apparently it's not unfair to use brutal force against someone who's not of your strenght and stature and therefore can't defend herself due to biological reasons she can't do anything about.)

But as little as we can judge Vane, Silver, Low or anyone of the pirates with 21th century eyes, we can't judge Eleanor and Max either. Funny enough, the only ones who've not committed any kind of treason in the show that I can think of, are Abigail Ashe, Ned Low, The Maroon Queen and Thomas Hamilton. The rest of them, even the minor characters, have either caused a treason by starting it or activily supporting it, or just been a silent part of it. It's not always been treasons out of malice, though. In, for example, Miranda's case, going behind Flint's back by sending the letter begging for a pardon, was an act of love, but still a form of treason.

And I think at least to me, this is what's made this show so fascinating. It's not only made me cheer for the villains, but also forced me to constantly separate my own love for a character and see him/her from another point of view. When I defend Billy, I do so with the full notion of his crimes in mind, to not loose perspective. The same with Madi, who wants to kill him for good reasons because in her wish for safety and stability for her people, Billy is an obvious threat. As much as I'm with Billy, I would never for a moment think of Madi as wrong in thinking so. From her pov, this is what she thinks she has to do to survive. She betrays Billy, and it's perfectly understandable. So is Eleanors decision to not try and stop Vane's execution and so is Max's attack on Silver. It's the women who're forced to make the hardest decisions because they know how it is to not only have social status, poverty or - in Max's and Madi's case skin colour - against them, but also their sex.

And still, the show makes it's so easy for me to love the men who either are working against some of these women or have worked against them. I believe, a part of that is the fact that we're more used to find excuses for men's brutality than women's. But think about it: when was the last time we saw this many complex female characters in a historical show made by men, taking place in a time and place in history that's one of the most hypermasculine we know about?

Women like Eleanor, Max, Anne and Madi can't afford to be soft. When the men they have relationships with (romantic or others) just expect "their" women to be on their side as a moral and/or lovingly support, these women very often lies a lot of steps ahead, because this is how they have to do in order to survive with as little damage as possible. They've all showed us that deep romantic/sexual relationships are far from equal to putting their lovers first in everything. To let ALL of the main female characters have other things than romantic love and/or relationships as a primar motive, to let them be brutal and ruthless in different ways just like the men to reach their goals, is a thing I sometimes think a lot of viewers are missing.

We're used to sympathize with male villains, but when it comes to women, people tend to judge them harder. And this is 1700th century men and women, in a world and society in some cases so far from our own it's impossible to fully understand it. Siding up with Silver, Flint, Billy or Vane is so much easier for us, because we've been taught that clever and/or physically strong men gaining power is the "right" way to do it. The thing is, women CAN'T do that in the same way, and still they're seen as less moral when they use the weapons they have to even the odds a little.

And especially when it comes to the hate for Eleanor, it's important to keep in mind that Vane was the one never to underestimate her. He loved the challenge, her intelligens and strenght. He didn't moan about her being "unfair" for using her power in the ways she could. Instead, he took her seriously and fought back in his own way. He was a brutal fucking asshole, yes, and we can still love him.

Eleanor is more complex and I suspect the thing that makes her harder to side up with, is that she never seems to make up her mind on which path she's following. But that, I think, just make her character easier to sympathize with, as a modern person. She's intelligent and is very aware of that the world is changing and that her position with the freedom the world of thieves can give a woman, may not be possible in a civilized world. She does what she thinks she has to do, and I love that the creators let her make both good and bad decisions, play both the good and bad guy just as the men.

The creators have made it impossible for a dedicated audience to make a true hero or villain out of the main characters. They all have, from where they are in their world, just causes for a lot of actions that to a modern person are just horrible and I think it's important to keep that in mind.

I don't think there's one single main character I wouldn't feel for if they'd die, no matter what they've done, or if they've clearly earned it or if I've been royally pissed at them. To judge these characters with modern eyes is not fair. The things they don't question and the things they do to survive that are despicable to us, that we don't have to face 300 years later, forces us to alternate between what we know is fundamentally wrong, like murders and slavery, and the things these characters believe are fundamentally wrong in their time and place - and there's often a huge difference between us there. And to make it even harder, the characters we love and/or hate, who're living in a time so different from our own, have all made both good and bad, smart and stupid, and in some cases rightdown awful things to each other.

Black Sails simply refuses me to have a perfect villain or hero among the main characters. Truth is, no matter which character we love the most, he/she is most likely, with some exceptions, a person we'd rather not want to meet in real life. Someone we would never defend in this time. And so we make cinnamon rolls out of rotten men, and sometimes villains out of women trying to survive in a world where being the one with less physical strenght, literally meant a constant death threat. Because we still live in a man's world, where a female character like Eleanor, gets hate from modern people because she didn't save the man who killed her father, threatened her life, attacked her island and let her mistress be gang raped by his crew. And that says more about our time, than the golden and bloody age of piracy.

[hamburgergod]

parental figure: how come you don’t have a jet lag after a 14 hour flight like the rest of us

me: that’s my secret. i’m always tired

(i moved to korea and i get to watch 12.14 now YAY)

ooohhhh this opening is harsh. 

I can’t believe Dean says “Cas almost died” and Sam says “A hunter got killed” and Mary replies “I’m the one who burned his body. I’m the one who told his wife”. #marriage confirmed thanks bobo

Dean be nicer to your mother at least she’s talking to you about it instead of leaving one coordinate and going completely off the chart for half a season

DEAN BE NICER TO YOUR MOTHER 

on the side note I can’t believe they’re making Mary go through a weird alternate of the MoC plotline auhghugh i THOUGHT WE DROPPED THAT PLOTLINE. Let them just huddle in a comfy couch and watch netflix  

Ketch is so creepy I wish he’d stop trying to flirt with Mary

Can you imagine how awkward Christmas would be if he ended up being the stepdad ugh gross

OH NOOOOOOOO  MAAAAARYYYYYYYYY TEXTED DEAN A BUNCH OF APOLOGIES DEAN PROBABLY DOESN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THEM HE’S NOT USED TO PPL APOLOGIZING STRAIGHT AWAY LIKE THIS

also this is a really cool sci-fi looking home base and almost similar to the bunker, but in comparison it’s cold in both atmosphere and colour. this place is a military base, the bunker is home.

OH NO OH NOOOOOOOOOOOO MARY “I AM NOT JUST A MOM” AND DEAN “I NEVER WAS [A CHILD]” AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

DEAN JUST CALLED HER MARY I’M GOING TO SCREAM everything is so black and white to him still, you’d think he’d be used to betrayals from loved ones by now

dean take that shirt off 

you’d think he’d know by now that that red shirt is Cursed, or at the very least, throw it out to stop reminding himself of his demon days

or maybe he keeps it around TO remind himself of his demon days. “this outfit’s for when i need to be mean and hold onto anger because if they find out i’m a soft pudding inside i’ll be destroyed”

Dean: what was she thinking man

Sam: idk maybe we should try to Communcate™ with her instead of wallowing in our sorrows while second-guessing why she did what she did

Dean: what

Dean: who even does that

“who does this guy think he is, talking about how we should upright ask our mom about an issue we have with her instead of drowning my sorrows about it in alcohol for 3 weeks”

i can’t believe dean is literally going out to drink as soon as i typed that jesus christ dude 

DEAN BE NICER TO YOUR FAMILY JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

i hate it when he’s like this, taking his anger out on other people when he initially got angry from something else, ESPECIALLY when the other people are hurting just as much as he is. people shouldn’t be treated as punching bags and he should know that best, having been there with John countless times

I hate it when he’s like this. god.

I can’t believe Dean’s become the new Rufus Turner where they have to bribe him with alcohol to get him to do things :P

hm. do you think the BMoL knows about the vampire cure

probably not. even if they did, they don’t seem like the type that would use it if they had it since it would mean filtering through every single vamps they come across, and they tend to look at things in a broader sense. all these monsters are stats to them, whereas Dean n Sam’s methods are far more personal

:I 

so i guess they thought “we have to back Toni’s accusation that Ketch is a ‘psychopath’ with a reason somehow

....let’s just shove her into the crazy ex trope that’ll do”

boooooo

this speech from Ketch about how they’re killing machines who need to kill things kill kill kill is why Dean’s wearing that Cursed shirt isn’t it

I THOUGHT WE DROPPED THE MoC PLOTLINE BLUBHLULHLULULHUH

leave Dean Winchester King of Domesticity out of this mess 2k17

let him tend to a weedy garden for all these killing impulses they keep talking about and let him watch Cas trying to cook him breakfast on their anniversary from the kitchen door frame while holding a mug of coffee in his robe 2k17

i can now never watch someone finish a drink without captain CJ’s voice going “THAT’S gonna leave a mark” at the back of my head

Dean and Ketch hunting together feels oddly like a bonding experience i hate it where’s Cas

strategically placed “pool & spa” sign which is where Dean SHOULD be to wind down, not a fUCKING VAMPIRE NEST

i love how posh everyone in BMoL sounded until they actually have to face consequences for their actions lmao

makes me root for the vamps, you know

poor sam, always gets the short end of the stick.

“i’m so fucking sick of ppl who think they know everything but they don’t actually know anything about what they’re doing. cool. this again.”

sam is so clever but too kind, though i really wish the alpha vamp didn’t have to die. he was such a cool character

also blah. it looks like Mick is getting the arc that I wanted Toni to have 

and he literally replaced her role when he got introduced too :(

on the side note................... why do i see a potential romance between mick and sam................ why does it feel like mick is a little bit in love with sam.................... 

i hate that i like mick

although i can’t understand half the things he’s saying because of his accent 

SAM.......... YOU KNOW BETTER THAN TO WORK BEHIND DEAN’S BACK AGAIN

and he was doing so well this episode.

nonetheless i really liked that episode! had a lot of fun watching it. wish Cas was there during Mick and Sam’s conversation so he can tell him “Sam, [not telling Dean what’s happening] never ends well” again

i just hope Sam’s decision to work with the BMoL doesn’t get Mary killed. hope Dean realizing that Mary is her own person isn’t going to lead to her being killed, then it being framed as “her choice led to this” to ease our acceptance of Mary being off the show and back to being dead where she “originally belongs”. I know they can’t hire her as a guest star forever but would it be so hard to ask to not stuff her back into the fridge???

anyway. really enjoyed the episode, but hopefully mary won’t be killed in the near future because it’s scaring me how much it feels like it’s edging towards that. especially with her in that tan jacket and the blue and white shirts underneath. 

[newyorktheater]

Is a show that’s in bad taste necessarily a bad show? Is a tasteful show always better?

The three full productions from the first week of the 16thannual New York Musical Festival suggest some answers to these questions.

  Illuminati Lizards from Outer Space

Dani Spieler as the beauty pageant queen and Brian Charles Rooney as David the Janitor, an undercover agent

Dani Spieler, Edward French, Daisy Hobbs, Joshua Hobbs

Daisy Hobbs, Emily Cramer, Celia Mei Rubin, Dani Spieler

Tina is a beauty queen who is dethroned when the pageant organizer accuses her of being an “illegal alien” – she’s from Canada.  She winds up at Savra Wellness Centre for Spiritual and Mental Wellbeing, which is actually a front for a group of lizard aliens from outer space who were sent to colonize the planet Earth. They’ve bungled their mission, and their boss lizard back at their home planet has given them just a week more before he sends space ships to destroy Earth.  Tina, who is initially unaware they are alien lizards (they’re disguised as human), organizes a pageant for ugly people in order to lure the mass of human beings into the lizards’ lair.

Little evident effort has gone into making the plot even remotely coherent. I suppose this would matter less if more of the jokes were funny, or fewer of the songs (both the pop rock music and the lyrics) were so generic, or if the show’s attempts at parody were pointed. But, with the exception of an unexpected resolution, there is not much fresh or sharp by the creative team of book writer/lyricist Paul Western-Pittard and composer/arranger Yuri Worontschak idea; their idea of political wit is a passing reference to “an Orangutan who thinks it’s president.” The quality cast does what it can, especially in some powerhouse singing, but for all their talents, “Illuminati Lizards from Outer Space” feels  pointless. It’s also close to witless, and occasionally tasteless. In one song, one of the alien lizards sings:

“Swinging it every which way is really ok,

Trans, kinky, les, and gay

Bi, bi alien all the way

Try try an alien all the way.”

  It’s unlikely that the lyricists meant to dismiss gay people and lesbians as equivalent to kinky alien reptiles. They simply didn’t think this through…like most of the show.

It’s hard to understand why NYMF organizers made “Illuminati Reptiles from Outer Space” the opening production of the festival.

  Illuminati Lizards from Outer Space, Signature Theatre Center. Remaining showtime: Saturday July 13 at 9 p.m.

  Buried

Lindsay Manion,Rebecca Yau,Sebastian Belli

Rebecca Yau, Wilf Walsworth,Lindsay Manion

Sebastian Belli, Lindsay Manion (1)

Lindsay Manion, Sebastian Belli

Talk about bad dates. Rose poisons all of hers – until she meets Harry, who stabs all of his. The two serial killers thwart their mutual assassination attempt, and instead get to know one another: He reminisces that his first kill was the family cat (“they showed him more love than to me”); hers, she sings, was her drunken, abusive father.

“Just like me in another body,” they sing together about each other, in marvel.

They begin dating, together picking up hitchhikers to kill them, but have a lovers’ quarrel when Rose fails to kill a teenage girl who reminds her of herself at that age.

The romantic coupling of two killers is not novel, but previously, the approach has been outrageously dark comedy like the 1985 movie “Prizzi’s Honor” with Kathleen Turner and Jack Nicholson, the 1989 movie “The War of the Roses” with Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas, and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” the 2005 Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie vehicle that doubled as an action thriller. “Buried” instead is a jarring mix of  tones.  Its nine songs are mostly lilting melodies with well-crafted lyrics that are often poignant. Most would fit any serious love story, which provokes a nagging question: Is that what “Buried” is supposed to be?

The creative team of Tom Williams and Cordelia O’Driscoll at times uses the incongruity in what seems like a blunt and awkward attempt at a large metaphor. Rose tells Harry she is a vegan, and she sees no contradiction in this,  launching into a rant about the African children who mine cobalt for cell phones, working 12-hour shifts and dying from the exposure. “From where I’m standing, everyone’s guilty of murder. We’re just the only ones with the balls to enjoy it. They’re the fucking hypocrites. “

Interspersed with the scenes between Rose and Harry (and their victims), are segments supposedly from a television series entitled “The Psychopath Next Door” in which the host and a scientist discuss what sounds like actual research into psychopathology, including whether and how psychopaths can love. But there is a jokey feel to these segments, which is confusing, and they end in a twist that is even more confusing and, yes, in bad taste – offering a more explicit illustration of what’s more subtly problematic in the musical as a whole.

Buried. Signature Theater Center. Remaining showtimes: Saturday at 5 pm, Sunday at 1 pm.

  Ladyship

Ladyship 2 Ensemble Cast photo by Russ Rowland

Ladyship 1 Noelle Hogan (Kitty), Caitlin Cohn (Mary Reed) and Maddie Shea Baldwin (Alice Reed) LadyShip_photo by Russ Rowland

Ladyship 3 Caitlin Cohn (Mary Reed) and Jordon Bolden (Marcus “Finn” Findley) in LadyShip photo by Russ Rowland

Ladyship 4 Maddie Shea Baldwin (Alice Reed), Caitlin Cohn (Mary Reed), Noelle Hogan (Kitty), and ennifer Blood (Lady Jane Sharp) LadyShip_photo by Russ Rowland

Ladyship 5 Trevor St. John-Gilbert (Lieutenant Brandon Adams), Quentin Oliver Lee (Captain Josiah Adams) and Justin R.G. Holcomb (Zeke Cropper) in LadyShip photo by Russ Rowland

Jennifer Blood as Lady Jane Sharp and Quentin Oliver Lee as Captain Josiah Adams

  Alice and Mary are teenage sisters from Ireland who are living in poverty in London in 1789. Out of hunger, they shoplift two handkerchiefs,  and are sentenced to seven years …in Australia. This, incredibly, was the fate of some 25,000 18th century British women who were deported to Australia for petty crimes under the Transportation Act. At the time the law was reportedly promoted as a humane alternative to incarceration in London’s brutal prisons, but, according to Ladyship, it was a part of a plan hatched between the government and private enterprise to provide brides for the out-of-control men already in the Australian penal colony and thus tame them.

Alice and Mary are sent on a ship with 200 other female prisoners – represented by four actresses portraying a cross-section: a 11-year-old street-smart Scottish orphan, a sassy middle-aged wit, an overworked mother separated from her children, an aristocratic woman done in by her gambling husband. Together they endure hardships during the long voyage, some of it inflicted by the men on board – represented by four actors, who portray variously respectful characters or brutes.

Ladyship is told insome 20 songs, one more lively or lovely than the one before it, accompanied by a trio of violin, guitar and piano. The duets are a particular treat (which makes sense, since the composers/creators are twin sisters Laura Good and Linda Good, who perform as the musical duo The Twigs): I Need An Anchor, between the aristocrat Lady Jane and the decent and deep-voiced Captain;  Ready to Begin, between Mary and Finn, the nicest and sexiest of the seaman; and No Matter Where I’m Bound, between Alice and Mary, which reflects what could be called the uplifting, protofeminist solidarity in much of the score:

MARY:

Do you remember running

faster than the river twirling like the leaves as they fell down racing up the hills from the tide and God was on our side

ALICE:

I remember running chasing all the chickens I could never settle down ma said, you’re so strong for a girl

BOTH:

Too strong for this world

I’ll be better as long as you’re around

Stronger together no matter where we’re bound

  Those aboard dance at one point a pleasing Scottish reel. The show even includes the most melodic birth scene I’ve ever witnessed.

But the ten-month ordeal that the women face begins to take its toll on me as well. I think I understand why it is that the Goods chose to set their musical almost entirely aboard ship (save for some opening scenes on the streets of London and in a courthouse) – why the show ends before the women reach shore. But it starts to feel claustrophobic, the songs and situations coming off as too much the same. These sails could be trimmed.

Still, “Ladyship” seems sure to travel. If everything about it feels so tasteful – the costumes, the women’s demeanor, the evocative lyrics, even the harshness and despair – good taste turns out to be a good thing.

Ladyship at Signature Theater Center. Remaining showtimes: Saturday at 1 pm., Sunday at 5 p.m. and 9 p.m

NYMF Reviews: Illuminati Lizards from Outer Space, Buried, Ladyship Is a show that’s in bad taste necessarily a bad show? Is a tasteful show always better?

[foursproutwealth-blog]

The Future Is What We Make Of It - Part 2

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/wealth/the-future-is-what-we-make-of-it-part-2/

The Future Is What We Make Of It - Part 2

Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

I want to really think differently than the very consistent liberal-media line of, Well if they just knew better they would vote differently. They’re under-informed, they’re under-educated. I think it really misunderstands something, which is that, just because people are not acting rationally in accordance with what you think is rational, doesn’t mean that they’re not acting rationally. And I think there’s perfectly rational voter behavior in voting for Trump. For economic reasons and social reasons.

  Life is getting worse. You are less comfortable in your own house, in your own town, in your own skin. Your outlook for the future is worse with every passing year. And you conscientiously voted for people through this entire time. So it is actually an established fact that the system did not work for you. This representative democracy thing. And so you go and lob a grenade at it, when the grenade becomes available. And that is rational.

  – From the excellent interview of Masha Gessen via The Atlantic

In yesterday’s post, I discussed the future opportunity and danger presented by that large mass of the American public that self-identifies as part of “the resistance.” Before I continue, we should revisit a few of the key points made. For example:

With Trump’s election, the mask is finally off. Even Trump supporters admit that his election was a reaction to how corrupt and fraudulent our economy and society had become during the 21st century — first under Bush and then Obama. Independents such as myself, despite finding Trump revolting and dangerous, tend to agree with this assessment.

  The only significant group of people who simply refuse to admit this fact are those who proudly proclaim themselves to be part of “the resistance.” Many of them thought everything was going just fine for the country while Obama was President simply because things were going well for them, which is just human nature. If things are going fine for you on a individual level, there isn’t much incentive to peek behind the curtain and question what’s really going on. You’re simply too busy feeling good about yourself and focusing on getting ahead. I know because I’ve been there.

Also this:

It’s tempting to just write these people off as useful idiots being easily corralled into the vicious arms of neocons and deep state psychopaths following the emotional trauma inflicted upon their psyche by the election of Donald Trump. It’s tempting to do that, because in many ways that’s a fairly accurate description of what’s going on, but I want to try to be less judgmental right now. When thinking back to the early days of my awakening, I remember how malleable my mind was to all sorts of influences, both positive and negative. This is what happens to people when your entire worldview is suddenly shattered or disrupted. Human nature is to look for an alternative narrative that can help you once again make sense of the world. Unfortunately for most card-carrying members of “the resistance,” nefarious characters within corporate media and U.S. intelligence agencies were ready with a comforting narrative which gave them permission to avoid confronting reality: Russia did it.

We should not write off our fellow humans simply because they voted for Trump, or because they foolishly embraced some delusional conspiracy which blames Russia for everything. There are tens of millions of very decent people within both these groups who genuinely care about the country and making things better. We must never forget that convincing one group of voters to hate and dehumanize another group of voters serves the interests of the power structure and no one else. People have been successfully manipulated into thinking that their fellow citizens with essentially zero power are the real enemy as opposed to the oligarchs who actually destroyed and pillaged the country. This is why I focus pretty much all my posts on the bigger picture and direct my energy to calling out those with actual power. If you spend your entire day fuming about how stupid Trump voters are, or how “the resistance” are just a bunch of brainwashed useful idiots, you’re being intentionally played by those who’re really in power.

As discussed yesterday, Trump’s election caused a mental breakdown across a wide swath of the U.S. population. This happened because millions upon millions of people thought things were going just fine under Obama, simply because things were going fine for them. The corporate media and discredited neocons/neoliberals working in tandem with U.S. intelligence agencies immediately saw this crisis for the opportunity it was. They could present themselves as leaders of “the resistance” and blame Trump’s rise on Russia. This way demoralized, yet financially successful, Hillary Clinton voters could continue to tell themselves the same comforting tale that everything’s inherently fine in this country were it not for Russia. You couldn’t come up with a more perfect narrative for the rejected status quo to use in order to reestablish its authority if you tried. Unfortunately, it’s largely worked thus far.

Sounds depressing, I know. Nevertheless, just because it’s worked so far, doesn’t mean it’ll work forever. One of the key points I highlighted in yesterday’s piece is that people are very vulnerable to manipulation and bad ideas in the immediate aftermath of any trauma that comes with one’s worldview being shattered. People tend to look for grand enemies in the face of such distress, whether that be the Rothschilds, the Illuminati or Vladimir Putin. It’s all the same in the end. This isn’t to say I deny the existence of extremely rich and powerful people in the world who wield tremendous influence in world affairs, I certainly think there are. Rather, it’s to say that human beings often times get so caught up on grand conspiracy theories they do nothing to change the world around them. This leads them to just sit around shivering in fear warning everyone around them about the masters pulling the strings, and how these forces are unstoppable.

The truth of the matter is that we’re the ones ruining everything. All of us are extremely flawed, yet most of us choose to focus on and highlight the flaws of others as opposed to looking inward. As I wrote about at length earlier this year, the greatest impact that 99% of us can have on the world comes from working on ourselves as individuals. Imagine if in the course of such personal work a couple billion people on the planet truly became more decent, conscious people. Don’t you think that would change the world far more than electing another loathsome politician with false promises?

As frustrating and dysfunctional as the current political environment is, we need to remember that we’re still only one year apart from the 2016 election. The clownish “resistance” to Trump rooted in Russia conspiracy fantasies is still very young in the tooth, and I’m optimistic a certain percentage of this group will eventually see the error of their ways and move on. I’m not talking about a majority, but enough to make a difference. There are two things that lead me to this conclusion. First, since I think people are most vulnerable right after a trauma, the low hanging fruits of manipulation have been picked. Second, the argument that Russia is to blame for all that ails us, ignores the existence of the surveillance state, endless imperial wars abroad, a dysfunctional healthcare system, a parasitic financial services industry, etc. The singular focus on blaming Russia for everything as opposed to admitting that our biggest problems are homegrown is as irrational as it isn cynical. It simply doesn’t stand up to any sort of reasonable debate, and will only continue to work on people who desperately want to live a lie in order to feel better.

As Caitlin Johnstone wrote in her excellent piece, Accusing Someone You Disagree With Of Being A Russian Troll Is Admitting You Have No Argument:

There is no legitimate reason to ever accuse a stranger you disagree with of being a Russian agent. Firstly, you cannot possibly know that the stranger you’re dialoguing with works for the Kremlin. Secondly, even in the highly unlikely event that the person you are speaking to really is a secret Russian agent, you should still be able to out-debate them. Kremlin trolls don’t have magical powers. They can’t hypnotize you. If you’re interacting with one they’ll be advancing arguments and ideas just like anyone else, and if your arguments and ideas are defensible you should be able to defend them clearly and articulately.

This is exactly right, and it’s why I don’t think this Russia narrative will continue to exert the societal influence it does today as we move into 2018 and 2019. It’s a psy op which doesn’t stand up to any critical thinking, and a certain percentage of “the resistance” will ultimately move on to more productive behavior. Even if the percentage that discards the Russia obsession is only 5%-10% of the total, this might still equate to millions of people and that’s enough to result in a meaningful change to political dialogue.

Of course, I can’t predict the future and you could easily make the exact opposite argument. I get that, but my overall optimistic vision is based on a lot more than the belief a few card-carrying “resistance” groupies will come to their senses. On a much more global level, I believe the unprecedented connectivity provided to the world via the internet will eventually lead to a much more conscious and healthy environment for human beings on this majestic planet.

People are still grossly underestimating the impact of the internet on human affairs on earth. We remain in inning 1, maybe 2.

— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) November 21, 2017

This will be the main topic of conversation in tomorrow’s piece.

*  *  *

If you liked this article and enjoy my work, consider becoming a monthly Patron, or visit our Support Page to show your appreciation for independent content creators.

[foursprout-blog]

The Future Is What We Make Of It - Part 2

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/wealth/the-future-is-what-we-make-of-it-part-2/

The Future Is What We Make Of It - Part 2

Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

I want to really think differently than the very consistent liberal-media line of, Well if they just knew better they would vote differently. They’re under-informed, they’re under-educated. I think it really misunderstands something, which is that, just because people are not acting rationally in accordance with what you think is rational, doesn’t mean that they’re not acting rationally. And I think there’s perfectly rational voter behavior in voting for Trump. For economic reasons and social reasons.

  Life is getting worse. You are less comfortable in your own house, in your own town, in your own skin. Your outlook for the future is worse with every passing year. And you conscientiously voted for people through this entire time. So it is actually an established fact that the system did not work for you. This representative democracy thing. And so you go and lob a grenade at it, when the grenade becomes available. And that is rational.

  – From the excellent interview of Masha Gessen via The Atlantic

In yesterday’s post, I discussed the future opportunity and danger presented by that large mass of the American public that self-identifies as part of “the resistance.” Before I continue, we should revisit a few of the key points made. For example:

With Trump’s election, the mask is finally off. Even Trump supporters admit that his election was a reaction to how corrupt and fraudulent our economy and society had become during the 21st century — first under Bush and then Obama. Independents such as myself, despite finding Trump revolting and dangerous, tend to agree with this assessment.

  The only significant group of people who simply refuse to admit this fact are those who proudly proclaim themselves to be part of “the resistance.” Many of them thought everything was going just fine for the country while Obama was President simply because things were going well for them, which is just human nature. If things are going fine for you on a individual level, there isn’t much incentive to peek behind the curtain and question what’s really going on. You’re simply too busy feeling good about yourself and focusing on getting ahead. I know because I’ve been there.

Also this:

It’s tempting to just write these people off as useful idiots being easily corralled into the vicious arms of neocons and deep state psychopaths following the emotional trauma inflicted upon their psyche by the election of Donald Trump. It’s tempting to do that, because in many ways that’s a fairly accurate description of what’s going on, but I want to try to be less judgmental right now. When thinking back to the early days of my awakening, I remember how malleable my mind was to all sorts of influences, both positive and negative. This is what happens to people when your entire worldview is suddenly shattered or disrupted. Human nature is to look for an alternative narrative that can help you once again make sense of the world. Unfortunately for most card-carrying members of “the resistance,” nefarious characters within corporate media and U.S. intelligence agencies were ready with a comforting narrative which gave them permission to avoid confronting reality: Russia did it.

We should not write off our fellow humans simply because they voted for Trump, or because they foolishly embraced some delusional conspiracy which blames Russia for everything. There are tens of millions of very decent people within both these groups who genuinely care about the country and making things better. We must never forget that convincing one group of voters to hate and dehumanize another group of voters serves the interests of the power structure and no one else. People have been successfully manipulated into thinking that their fellow citizens with essentially zero power are the real enemy as opposed to the oligarchs who actually destroyed and pillaged the country. This is why I focus pretty much all my posts on the bigger picture and direct my energy to calling out those with actual power. If you spend your entire day fuming about how stupid Trump voters are, or how ���the resistance” are just a bunch of brainwashed useful idiots, you’re being intentionally played by those who’re really in power.

As discussed yesterday, Trump’s election caused a mental breakdown across a wide swath of the U.S. population. This happened because millions upon millions of people thought things were going just fine under Obama, simply because things were going fine for them. The corporate media and discredited neocons/neoliberals working in tandem with U.S. intelligence agencies immediately saw this crisis for the opportunity it was. They could present themselves as leaders of “the resistance” and blame Trump’s rise on Russia. This way demoralized, yet financially successful, Hillary Clinton voters could continue to tell themselves the same comforting tale that everything’s inherently fine in this country were it not for Russia. You couldn’t come up with a more perfect narrative for the rejected status quo to use in order to reestablish its authority if you tried. Unfortunately, it’s largely worked thus far.

Sounds depressing, I know. Nevertheless, just because it’s worked so far, doesn’t mean it’ll work forever. One of the key points I highlighted in yesterday’s piece is that people are very vulnerable to manipulation and bad ideas in the immediate aftermath of any trauma that comes with one’s worldview being shattered. People tend to look for grand enemies in the face of such distress, whether that be the Rothschilds, the Illuminati or Vladimir Putin. It’s all the same in the end. This isn’t to say I deny the existence of extremely rich and powerful people in the world who wield tremendous influence in world affairs, I certainly think there are. Rather, it’s to say that human beings often times get so caught up on grand conspiracy theories they do nothing to change the world around them. This leads them to just sit around shivering in fear warning everyone around them about the masters pulling the strings, and how these forces are unstoppable.

The truth of the matter is that we’re the ones ruining everything. All of us are extremely flawed, yet most of us choose to focus on and highlight the flaws of others as opposed to looking inward. As I wrote about at length earlier this year, the greatest impact that 99% of us can have on the world comes from working on ourselves as individuals. Imagine if in the course of such personal work a couple billion people on the planet truly became more decent, conscious people. Don’t you think that would change the world far more than electing another loathsome politician with false promises?

As frustrating and dysfunctional as the current political environment is, we need to remember that we’re still only one year apart from the 2016 election. The clownish “resistance” to Trump rooted in Russia conspiracy fantasies is still very young in the tooth, and I’m optimistic a certain percentage of this group will eventually see the error of their ways and move on. I’m not talking about a majority, but enough to make a difference. There are two things that lead me to this conclusion. First, since I think people are most vulnerable right after a trauma, the low hanging fruits of manipulation have been picked. Second, the argument that Russia is to blame for all that ails us, ignores the existence of the surveillance state, endless imperial wars abroad, a dysfunctional healthcare system, a parasitic financial services industry, etc. The singular focus on blaming Russia for everything as opposed to admitting that our biggest problems are homegrown is as irrational as it isn cynical. It simply doesn’t stand up to any sort of reasonable debate, and will only continue to work on people who desperately want to live a lie in order to feel better.

As Caitlin Johnstone wrote in her excellent piece, Accusing Someone You Disagree With Of Being A Russian Troll Is Admitting You Have No Argument:

There is no legitimate reason to ever accuse a stranger you disagree with of being a Russian agent. Firstly, you cannot possibly know that the stranger you’re dialoguing with works for the Kremlin. Secondly, even in the highly unlikely event that the person you are speaking to really is a secret Russian agent, you should still be able to out-debate them. Kremlin trolls don’t have magical powers. They can’t hypnotize you. If you’re interacting with one they’ll be advancing arguments and ideas just like anyone else, and if your arguments and ideas are defensible you should be able to defend them clearly and articulately.

This is exactly right, and it’s why I don’t think this Russia narrative will continue to exert the societal influence it does today as we move into 2018 and 2019. It’s a psy op which doesn’t stand up to any critical thinking, and a certain percentage of “the resistance” will ultimately move on to more productive behavior. Even if the percentage that discards the Russia obsession is only 5%-10% of the total, this might still equate to millions of people and that’s enough to result in a meaningful change to political dialogue.

Of course, I can’t predict the future and you could easily make the exact opposite argument. I get that, but my overall optimistic vision is based on a lot more than the belief a few card-carrying “resistance” groupies will come to their senses. On a much more global level, I believe the unprecedented connectivity provided to the world via the internet will eventually lead to a much more conscious and healthy environment for human beings on this majestic planet.

People are still grossly underestimating the impact of the internet on human affairs on earth. We remain in inning 1, maybe 2.

— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) November 21, 2017

This will be the main topic of conversation in tomorrow’s piece.

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