#the source of all evil and abuse i genuinely hate that movie so fucking much

[xx-psych0-rabbit-xx]

oh my god they released the fucking renfield movie in brazil.fucking amazing now everyone here can know about pop psychology and start commiting even MORE hate crimes against the mentally ill

[pandoraborn]

Cruelty of the Beast - Part 6

( previous. )

Characters: c!Tommy, c!Wilbur Word count: 1896 words Content: wilbur soot & tommyinnit are siblings, reference to abuse, reference to torture, reference to death, healing, wilbur makes amends,

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Wilbur’s walking too fast for Tommy to keep up, he has to actually jog just to remain a step or two behind the man. It’s not hard to figure out where they’re going; they’re easily headed for some beach.

Tommy doesn’t want to be here. He wants to at least stay in the cabin if he’s to stay put anywhere, but Wilbur had given him a shovel and an axe and told Tommy to follow. There’s never much of a choice with an order like that.

Wilbur also hasn’t spoken to Tommy in close to an hour now. The trek is long, but it’s also a torture all on its own. Tommy doesn’t do well with silence, fearing that Wilbur is silently judging him or sizing him up. He feels very much like he’s marching toward his own demise.

He very well may be.

Keeping his gaze down, Tommy tightens his grip on the handle of the shovel, trying to keep focused on staying right behind Wilbur, ignoring how much his legs are hurting.They’re passing by abandoned portals, portals they could easily light. The idea that there would be paths waiting for them on the other side is a far-fetched idea though; they’re too far out from any sort of civilization.

After what feels like forever, Wilbur finally stops. Tommy stops next to him, peering out at the water. It’d be so easy to craft a boat and sail out toward escape, but that would just be more isolation and loneliness. The potential escape isn’t worth that.

“Grab as much sand as you can carry in your inventory,” Wilbur explains. “We’re going to have to make another trip, possibly to a desert, but this is good enough.” He offers Tommy a smile. It’s reminiscent of the old Wilbur, the one that ran L’Manburg with all the pride and charisma he used to possess. There are shades of it again, but not enough to induce an illusion that this is good. Nothing about this situation is good. Ranboo and Dream had also disappeared some time ago, and there’s no telling when they’ll be back.

“What are we grabbing sand for?” Tommy asks to fill the silence. He’s already at work, grabbing sand and filing it away into his backpack. It’s messy and coarse, already getting into his shoes. “This already sucks.”

"Explosives,” comes the casual reply. Too casual for Tommy’s liking. He’d already had an idea, but the fact that Wilbur wants them both to fill their inventories, and then make a second trip scares Tommy. Narrowing his eyes, he pauses in his digging to lean against the shovel.

“Why are you doing this Wilbur? Why do you and Dream want to hurt everyone so bad? Why am I even here?”

“Instead of me answering those questions, can I ask you a few questions instead?” Wilbur too pauses, pressing his hands together as he studies Tommy with a pensive expression. “Please, be as honest with me as possible, alright?”

“No promises.” A nod signals for Wilbur to go ahead, however.

“Are you happy with your life right now?”

It’s a very pointed question that has Tommy flinching back. Instinct would have him deflecting or changing the subject entirely, but Wilbur looks like he’s waiting patiently for an answer. This isn’t the revived Wilbur, this is the one that had been Tommy’s closest friend for the longest time... brothers, even.

Part of him is tempted to lie, but that would be pointless. They’d talked endlessly in the void, with Tommy bitching every moment he could about how unfair his life had become. Wilbur knows him far too well.

“No,” Tommy finally mutters, turning away. “I’m not happy, but you knew that.”

“Is there anyone, any single person you trust and want to go back to?”

Tommy thinks of Tubbo, then of Puffy. He and Tubbo are still too awkward around each other, not having had a proper conversation since the final showdown with Dream. Sure they’d spoken a few times, but nothing deeper than arguments over where to live.

Puffy had made some promises, but he doesn’t know her from Sam, and Sam had broken his promise completely. With his shoulders slumping, Tommy shakes his head. Everything about this conversation is fucked up, and they both know it.

“Are you afraid of me?” Wilbur’s not ending his line of questioning anytime soon. This is the one question Tommy doesn’t really want to answer.

“Yes.”

“I see.” Wilbur falls silent as he turns away, going back to the task of gathering sand into his own backpack. The silence stretches between them, and Tommy feels it like a cold sweat on his back. It’s just as piercing as Wilbur’s questions, just as numbing as the afterlife. Silent, too, if the ringing in his ears is anything to go by. Even the lapping of the waves isn’t enough to snap him back to reality.

“Do you remember when we were younger?” Wilbur finally asks. The silence doesn’t snap Tommy back, but Wilbur’s voice does. Always a source of calm, always there to keep him grounded. It’s aggravating, this effect Wilbur has over him. Annoying and comforting at the same time.

“I don’t remember much anymore, Wilbur,” Tommy responds. “I remember wars and death and everything I worked for going up in smoke.”

“You don’t remember you and me?” Wilbur’s facing him again, wearing that ugly serene smile on his face. “You don’t remember how I used to read to you?”

“Vaguely.” It’s a dismissive answer, because Tommy wants to squash anything friendly out of his mind. The less he associates with Wilbur, the sooner they can end this game and he can go back home to his dirt house. “That was a long time ago, Wil.”

“It was our favorite activity.” Wilbur actually sounds sad. Tommy can’t tell if it’s acting or genuine, but he’s being drawn in anyway. Part of him wants to throw his arms around Wilbur and comfort him. A strong, loud part of him is already moving closer.

“I remember our favorite book was ‘The Hobbit’,” Wilbur continues. “I also read the Lord of the Rings trilogy to you a couple of times. You were so cute, hanging on every word. Simple times, Tommy. The best times.”

“I don’t have any best times,” Tommy snaps. “Like I said, I remember lots of wars. Lots of fighting and people dying. You died. I died, and now you kidnapped me. Why are you trying to butter me up? Wilbur this is so fucked.”

“I know. I messed up Toms. I messed up so many times, especially with you. Even now, I know what I did was cruel and stupid. I promise, if you give me one more chance, I’ll make it all up to you. No more pain, no more agony. You’ll have a support system-”

“Do I have to remind you of Dream?” Tommy snarls. His voice cracks as he speaks. “He’s the one who fucking killed me, remember? He had me exiled, he tortured me. And you come in like you know exactly what all took place!”

“Tommy I was dead. Had I been able to stop him, I would have. You know I would never condone anyone hurting you. I don’t like that you’ve been hurt the way you have been. I hate it more than anyone, trust me!”

“You still died and left me alone. If you weren’t so selfish, neither of us would be in this position! My life went to shit ever since you died, you don’t get to stand there and tell me you hate it.”

“I wasn’t good for the server. I wasn’t good for you. I thought that if I was gone, things for you would improve. I thought you would’ve won, that Dream wouldn’t have hurt you, or that your friendships would be strained.”

“Stop, stop!” This is embarrassing. Tommy’s crying, standing there in front of Wilbur and sounding like a petulant child. “Stop talking! Stop making me relive everything, okay? You weren’t there, you don’t get to act like you know what happened. It was shit. Everything was shit, everything is still fucking garbage, and now I’m stuck living with the one person who hurt me, thanks to you.”

“Toms. My Tommy...” Wilbur has tears of his own in his eyes. With his shovel falling into the sand, he gathers Tommy in his arms. Tommy doesn’t resist, because everything about this hug means something. It’s an actual, loving hug, and not a ploy at manipulation. He can feel it in the way Wilbur is holding him, rocking bath and forth with tiny hiccups. “Tommy I’m so sorry I hurt you. I’m so sorry you were hurt and cast aside by everyone. I’m here now, alright? It’ll be me and you, just like it’s always been.”

Tommy sniffles as he leans into Wilbur. He’s not returning the embrace, but Wilbur feels so warm. It’s been so long since anyone had hugged him like this, or just loved him. He wants to savor this feeling.

“All your long years we’ve been friends,” Wilbur whispers. “Trust me as you once did.”

“You want me to let it all go?” Tommy finally wraps his arms around Wilbur. “I don’t even know what to let go of.”

“All the pain, Tommy. “All the pain, trauma, abuse. All your attachments. Even the memories. With us, you won’t hurt anymore. Dream won’t touch you, and Ranboo is your friend. I’ll be your brother, okay?”

“...let it all go...” Tommy relaxes more into Wilbur’s embrace. Slowly, his arms come up to rest against Wilbur’s back. “Let everything I had go, right?”

“I’m here again. I won’t leave you. I promise you Toms. Tommyinnit, gremlin child. Vice President, and my best friend, brother...”

“Don’t overdo it now,” Tommy jokes under his breath. It earns a chuckle from both of them. The laughter helps him feel normal, like maybe everything really will be okay. This doesn’t feel like an indoctrination, really. Wilbur isn’t evil. Maybe he’s got some misguided beliefs, but Tommy missed him. There’s no one that can fill the void in his heart like Wilbur can.

“Point is, it’s you and me against the world,” Wilbur continues. “We won’t count the other two yet, so we’ll stick with just us, alright? When all this is over, I’ll read to you again. Any book of your choosing.”

“Will you read me The Hobbit again?“ Tommy pulls back enough to blink slowly at Wilbur. His vision is still wet with tears, but he’s cheering up. “And maybe we can watch the movies together?”

“Absolutely. Anything for you, alright?”

“Then I trust you.”

“And?”

“And...I’ll stay by your side.” Tommy nods.

There are matching sighs from the pair, with them looking awkwardly at each other for a moment. Then, with a blush, Tommy picks up his shovel again and preparing to dig up more sand.

“I still don’t get why we have to do this,” Tommy grumbles.”

“Tell you what, after we get back to the cabin, I’ll let you blow up the surrounding area. You’ve earned yourself a few explosions to vent your anger.”

His excitement is barely contained, with him moving faster and shoveling even more dirt. Okay, the situation as a whole might still be fucked, but Tommy can’t resist playing with fire. As a treat.

[sternenteile]

DETAILED DISLIKES!

( answer the questions for your muse and tag some people. ) tagged by @sangfear​ !! ♡

muse’s name.  ♡♪!?  /  call him ‘geno’. least favourite nickname.  ‘starlight’ under certain circumstances. friends and certain family (i.e. rosalina and the lumas) are free to call him that, but he feels nothing but bitterness when the star spirit collective uses it on him. it just has sour roots for him.

least favourite colours.  he doesn’t really have any lol? he sees something good in any color. least favourite season.  n/a; he loves every season. least favourite weather.  blizzards. he loves winter and snow, but blizzards are the worst. it’s snow that he can’t frolic in, and to make matters worse, it keeps him trapped inside with likely no electricity. lamest thing ever. least favourite, hot or cold.  he adores the cold, but as a star, he is naturally used to and radiates significant warmth. he loves the sensation of cold and is complacent with heat, so i suppose that’s your answer: hot. least favourite holiday.  n/a; he loves them all. least favourite food.  kimchi. he and spicy food already don’t get along, but that stuff is particularly reviling for him, and this is from a guy who will eat almost anything. least favourite flavour.  spicy. he has very low tolerance for spicy food, and while there are very mild exceptions to the rule, he generally does not like spicier flavors. least favourite drink.  alcohol in general. how anyone can drink that stuff is beyond him. least favourite scent.  while only experienced at one point in his life, he’ll never forget it. the scent of synthetic material and metal mixed with the rotten smell of inherently vile magic, like the magnified taste of blood in your mouth in scent form... but with a little extra zing. the heart-wrenching scent present on every member of the smithy gang, especially within bowser’s former keep, is one he never wants to face again. while not the most nauseating thing he’s smelled, the weight behind it is indescribable. oh, he also hates the smell of someone who hasn’t showered or worn deodorant in too long. ew. least favourite sound.  the sound of eldstar’s voice is like nails to a chalkboard for him now. least favourite books.  none. even trashy, terrible novels are fun for him, because he gets to have fun tearing them apart for how bad they are. they’re worth a laugh. he’ll find something to like in just about anything. least favourite movies.  movies that shatter his suspension of disbelief when they’re supposed to be taken seriously. hilariously bad movies are the best, but something he wants to like and enjoy being tarnished by poor writing and lack of forethought just... makes him ridiculously irritable. he will complain and bemoan the loss of potential ‘til your ears burn. least favourite tv shows.  soap operas. gaz’s mother loves them, and geno... cannot understand why. he just... he really tried to give one a chance, but as the mushroom turns was just not that compelling. sorry. least favourite area of study.  mathematics because he is a basic 90′s fuckwad who dislikes the same thing everyone growing up hated. he basic as hell. least favourite aspect of job.  the restrictions and poor treatment from the higher-ups. the only person he’d prefer to refer to as his ‘higher authority’ (note the lack of plurality) is rosalina. the star spirits that govern star haven are the one aspect of his job that he loathes. as such, he prefers to think of himself as a vigilante nowadays, an independent defender of wishes. least favourite person.  smithy, easily. while his elders’ ideals conflict with his own, he doesn’t hate them as people, even though he despises the way they treated him. smithy, however, is someone he absolutely hates with every fiber of his being. he is the antithesis of everything he loves and stands for, and unlike the star spirits, he has no redeeming qualities, so fuck that noise. least favourite trait in others.  controlling, abusive people. easily. this comes from personal experience. least favourite place to be.  not so much a specific place, but a conditional place: alone and trapped. most of those moments were spent in the star road he loves so much and his old home in star haven, not because of any disdain towards those places, but because of his superiors tearing him down, isolating him there. being imprisoned with his own mind and his mind alone, his loving heart distant from all that he wants to reach out to, is the foulest place he can go. least favourite thing to talk about.  the star spirits. he loves talking about his job and fulfilling wishes, because there is a lot of good to be had from that. just... just, nope, not them, not them lmao. least favourite thing about themself.  that he sometimes doesn’t even know who ‘himself’ is. remember, he’s spent decades by his lonesome, his duties being his sole modus operandi with very little autonomy granted to him. if he’s at any point ever asked to describe himself in detail, despite him having many qualities that makes him a real person, he’ll likely either blank out or end up with one grating answer: ❝ i don’t know. ❞ he’s well-aware that he possesses personality traits and unique experiences like a person should, but knowledge versus believing it is a battle he often wages in himself. at times, it makes him feel like he’s delusional, either for feeling like he lacks personhood or for feeling that he has any. he’s a mess lmao. least favourite daily chore.  anything that involves having to reach high-up places, especially in rose town inn. it’s embarrassing having to clean stuff down in front of guests when he needs a freaking step stool or ladder for it. haha geno too shorte. least favourite style of clothing.  n/a; he likes all kinds of stuff, from modern wear to stuff as cheesy and terrible as parachute pants from the 90′s. he’ll just wear whatever if it comes down to it. least favourite activity.  swimming, or in his case, a lack thereof lmao. more like flailing like an idiot unless he’s got water wings on. least favourite thing about humanity.  how some people slip through the cracks and become downright evil without any sort of decent qualities. he adores humanity and the bulk of its flaws, mostly because it all feels so real and genuine in its imperfection, but people who spend their lives doing horrible and unspeakable things (that are so problematic that i’d rather not mention them here) are just... oof. nope. the worst. nope. get out of here. you’re blacklisted from wishes forever. least favourite thing about falling in love.  the fear of being forcibly torn away from it, not by his other half, but by outside sources like his elders. least favourite thing about death.  the inevitability of it, the shortness of his friends’ life spans, and the knowledge that he’ll watch every single one of his friends, their descendants, and their descendants’ descendants die.

[susandsnell]

it's been bugging me for a while now, but five worst parts of the dark Knight and one good part. bc I know you hate the movie 😂😂

boh. oh my gosh. b please don’t hate me.  😂😂

Five worst parts of the Dark Knight: 

5. The Filmmaking. More specfically: LONG AND WASHED OUT PALETTE. IT’S SO FUCKING LONG. IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE OVER TWO AND A HALF HOURS WITH TEN PLOTS TO WRAP UP AND HAVE NO FUCKING COLOURS IN IT. WE GET IT, NOLAN, A MAN DRESSED UP AS A BAT BRINGS YOU NO JOY AND SO NOW WE HAVE TO NOT HAVE ANY JOY IN OUR HEARTS EITHER, THANKS A LOT. HERE I THOUGHT I WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE FUN AT A MOVIE ABOUT BATMAN, BUT YOU SURE PROVED ME WRONG. 

4.  The Writing. Holy pretentious dialogue Batman! Where do I begin?Harvey Dent’s “I will state the theme of my arc in the most lazy and blatant foreshadowing speech until Emma Stone literally says she’s gonna die in the opening of The Amazing Spiderman 2″ gets quoted all the time and yes, superhero movies aren’t known for their subtlety, and not all great movies need to be subtle, but the “die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain” is egregious not only for the reasons I stated, but is a nauseating indicator of the film’s cynicism (despite what the boat climax purports to be proving!). Alfred’s “some men just want to watch the world burn” speech is similar albeit less facepalmy and Theme Stating. It’s blunt and heavy-handed, overly expositional, and very hit-you-over-the-head with regard to commentary. 

And here’s the thing! It could work in the context of the type of movie it is - The Shape of Water pretty much opens with a statement of the “who the real monster is” idea, but it works because the film is a fairy tale and presents itself as such, whereas this movie wants to have its cake and eat it too as a “super adult DEEP subtle COMPLEX movie” with incredibly clear and simple shit like this. Beyond that,  Nolan really has a dialogue issue in a lot of his works where nobody just has a fucking conversation. Everything has to be the most serious issue in the world or a ten thousand word treatise on the fundamental dichotomies of human nature or some shit you’d hear in a freshman philosophy 101 course from that guy nobody can tolerate who thinks he’s G-d’s gift because he wears glasses or some shit, I don’t know. Even the Joker, an agent of chaos, gets wrapped up into it! Like he is a showman, but the yammering and rambles of shit that isn’t even that deep but pretends to be gets on my damn nerves. And the worst part is that it comes at the expense of the characters. 

They don’t really…develop emotional bonds (even with Rachel, the token woman And Therefore the Object At Which Emotions are Thrown). I’m not invested because none of these characters are real or relatable or have human interactions. The script shouldn’t be an anchor that drowns the actors and suffocates the characters to the point that there’s no chemistry, no connection, no believable core. Alfred is practically Bruce’s father and I get no love out of them! Harvey and Bruce don’t connect at all! Lucius Fox, the only POC in the entire movie, is literally reduced to a plot device despite having moral concerns! 

3. That damn third act. This one takes special mention because it just pisses me off. It’s just too much! The chase with the Joker would be fine, but that’s not the end. His plot already extends way beyond where it would logically end (hence the bullshit runtime), but on top of that, on top of the drama with the escape ferries hammering you over the head with the point they’re trying to make about humanity and the obnoxious moralizing, and then you have Harvey’s fall to the dark side which I’m sorry, needed a lot more time than just getting crammed in to the back end of the movie. His descent into evil happened way too quickly. Two-Face is a great villain! But take Batman the Animated series (to me, the best adaptation of Batman there is, while not perfect) as an example: he’s established as a character and his descent into Two-Face receives the full focus of entire episodes and impacts the characters later on! Having him play sideshow to the Joker is a huge mistake, especially with something as huge at play as threatening Gordon’s family; it completely disrupts the focus of the plot and unnecessarily prolongs the film as a whole, but he goes down pretty easily in one of the movie’s shitty-ass fight sequences that I’d make their own point if there weren’t worse things because I can’t tell who’s punching who. And if you’re gonna rush Dent into villainy only to kill him, that makes his whole plot kinda a waste.

And The Dark Knight Rises was a lot more criticized than the Dark Knight, so how’s this for a fix for the entire trilogy? Don’t kill Two-Face. Keep Joker getting carted away gloating about having corrupted him, but then have Two-Face get away too.  Don’t make whitewashed lamely written Bane the villain of the next movie - instead, let the tail end of this movie build Two-Face up as the main villain for the final part! That way, you have more time for development, cohesiveness, consequences, exploration of themes, and you don’t waste characters. 

2.  Batman / Bruce Wayne’s entire character. Okay, so whenever I fawn over the Lego Batman movie and how it confronts the issue with modern portrayals of Bats and rightfully points out it’s not deep, he’s just a humongous dick, this feels like the source material of that popular portrayal. Of course, it pre-dates it in the comics - Miller and company are to blame for Grimdark Asshat who Batmansplains, but I feel like Dark Knight especially, for its success and greater accessibility as a film, is what widely propagated this portrayal. 

Secret identity or cape and cowl, there is a serious issue in your Batman movie if your Batman is terrible. He’s the protagonist, the titular character, and he’s fucking terrible! At best, Bruce Wayne is like…completely deadpan and not even there (I don’t give Bale shit because I think a lot of the fault lies with the writing/direction, Ledger was pretty much the only lively performance in the movie), placeholder of a protagonist. At worst, he comes off as deeply self-centered, self-aggrandizing, entitled, and violently unstable. I don’t care how bad the Joker is, when in custody, he still had legal rights, and Batman fucking tortured him. Even brutal criminals should not ever be tortured for information! And the film never engages with Bats reaching the point of beating people to a pulp as means of interrogation; he just feels conflicted about who’s worse and broods over it after the fact instead of, I don’t know, maybe thinking twice about torturing someone. The darker Marvel Netflix shows have their characters doing a lot of grim things, but the narrative or other characters almost always holds them accountable for it in ways beyond “aww, I feel kinda sad that I beat mentally ill people to a bloody pulp” – it challenges them often, or has other characters call them out. Batman just does this shit and people are like “oh you shouldn’t do that” and he’s like “AHHH I’M A MONSTER” and it borders into uncomfortable real-life implications with regard to authority and violence. There’s something to be said for introducing grey morality into superhero media, and I get the anti-hero thing, but Dark Knight codified the “white guy grimdark antihero being actually just a terrible fucking person who is the good guy in name only” deal we see in a lot of our media today.

It’s one thing to have a complex and flawed protagonist, but you have to balance that out with redeeming qualities, otherwise, he’s not even a fucking superhero! Again, I refer back to the 90s animated series: Batman has his moments of ruthlessness, but it’s balanced out with the philanthropy work we see in Bruce Wayne, and moments of genuine compassion that he shows many of his enemies – he apologizes genuinely to Two-Face, often tries to give them an out, and is frequently super kind to Harley Quinn, bringing her the dress she was accused of stealing when she was sent back to Arkham in the episode where she tried to redeem herself, and frequently trying to get her to acknowledge that the Joker is abusive towards her, as well as convince her she can still start over and be a good person. On top of which, Batdad is super popular in both the show and the comics. He’s frequently shown as having an especial soft spot for children; addition to all his adopted kids, you also have a lot of his interactions with children, whether as Bruce or as Batman, marked by gentleness, care, and compassion, largely based on what he went through as a child. 

You get no such moment in the Dark Knight. I cannot for the life of me think of kids who would go to see this as a Batman movie and leave looking up to Batman and wanting to be like him except on the surface level of wearing a cool costume and punching bad guys. There is nothing heroic or admirable about this Bruce. He fights crime as a vigilante - brutally, I might add -and this time, it comes off more as a desire for vengeance than a desire for justice, a point which the film raises, but ultimately doesn’t resolve or engage with in a satisfying character arc. 

The closest thing we get to humanizing this character is his relationship with Rachel, and even then, his interactions with her have heavy shades of Friendzoned Nice Guy which is especially bullshit because he won’t pursue a relationship with her yet is bitter about any decisions she might make about her own love life. He doesn’t even care about her that much as anything more than a conquest! He really doesn’t, and Alfred tearing up the letter proves that – with regards to how he behaves towards her, it really feels like it’s not so much that the letter would break his heart as it is that he’d resent her beyond the grave! 

Worse yet, he gives no shits about anyone else. This has a lot to do with Nolan’s scripts having a toxic masculinity problem where it’s not cool for guys to sympathize with or have emotional bonds amongst themselves, but like… he’s allies in a shared venture with the other characters, and nothing more. Alfred is practically his dad but you wouldn’t know that. Gordon, as revealed in TDKR, was kind to him after his parents’ deaths, but they’re just partners. Harvey is a rival for claiming a woman!  In other adaptations, Bruce and Harvey’s friendship is fleshed out a lot so the guilt and shock of his transformation into Two-Face is really impactful! Here, Bruce doesn’t really give a shit beyond it just being another thing to do. 

And that’s what heroism and motivations are to Batman in this - just a thing to do. I don’t want to watch a hero who’d rather bitch about doing good than actually just fucking do good, this is the safety of your city, not a school essay! He doesn’t really seem to want to help people, he wants to complain about people, but then thinks he’s so fucking special and such a snowflake martyr for still helping them regardless! It’s such a deeply childish and yes, toxically male mentality. I know it’s become a meme, but the ”I’m not the hero Gotham needs, but the hero that it deserves” line pisses me off so much for this reason, as well as the fact that he thinks that Gotham’s flaws justify the fact that he beats the fuck out of people and roars in their face to get answers; I think the perfect refutation to both that line and how a superhero protagonist that explores what heroism means can actually be found in Wonder Woman – “It’s not about deserve, it’s about what you believe.” In fact, that’s what made Wonder Woman so good (and feminist!) – it’s rejection of toxic masculine ideals and emphasis on love, compassion and vulnerability being one’s strength, and that people are inherently deserving of being saved if you believe in the good of the world - a much better treatise on good and evil than “see, people sometimes don’t explode boats but they still suck so it’s okay for a billionaire in furry cosplay to beat the shit out of mentally ill people because that’s what this city deserves, a guy who’s more into violence than saving people.” He just doesn’t care, so why the hell should we?

And there’s just no arc. He just reacts to shit and that’s it, which makes him boring when he’s not being a fucking maniac. Despite the script not allowing him to have feelings for other human beings, having him break his no-kill rule with Harvey at the end would have been impactful….had he not already broken it in Batman Begins by leaving White Ra’s al Ghul (Liam Neeson I love you but there is no reason to have whitewashed him or Talia the way Nolan did in the series - same as he did with Bane and arguably Catwoman since she’s been portrayed as a WOC many times before, actually come to think of it, there is a LOT of whitewashing in this trilogy) to his death. 

The film comes up with no real way to challenge it’s hero, have him grow, or change, or even show consequences for his failure to change, making him come off as stunted, unlikeable, and yeah, not much of a hero.

1. The sexism. (You knew this was coming, and yes, it is the worst part). I already mentioned how the men in this movie all fall prey to toxic masculinity as is common with Nolan characters, then even more characteristic of a Nolan movie is The Dead Girlfriend, Wife, or Daughter (you know, the only three things women could ever be!) of Sad White Guy(s). Rachel is the only female character (strike one) and she is handled nothing short of atrociously. Her entire job as a lawyer, intelligence, and hard work established in Batman Begins (which is also too grimdark but actually doesn’t piss me off half as much!) is hardly even mentioned and takes a backseat to her being a prize for the men (including her boss!) to throw feelings at and squabble over. While the male characters have no personality except for one characteristic and a goal because this script was written by an edgy thirteen year old boy, Rachel has no personality except to be a living emotional crutch/plot device. She does not exist as an autonomous individual outside her relationships to the men in the movie. Shit, she’s barely autonomous within these relationships! Bruce is a bitter little shit about her not wanting him back and we’re supposed to feel for him despite him literally offering her nothing relationship-wise for two movies and actively pushing her away at times! He feels he can’t be with her, but the framing is such that she shouldn’t have the right to be with anyone else, either! What the hell? I would even go so far as to say that her choosing Harvey just as she gets blown up, as well as how both of them got to that point, almost feel like the narrative punishing her for not wanting Bruce. More male entitlement bullshit. 

 And her fate…well, I mean. There’s a damn reason The Dark Knight is my go-to example when I want to explain what Fridging/Stuffed in the Fridge means. After having every possible stereotypical pigeonholed white girl trope tossed at her, Rachel is killed off callously for the character development and man angst of not one, but two self-obsessed stubbled white guys who make it about themselves and their right to act like phenomenal turds. She’s Helen of Troy – a woman blamed for people’s reactions to her (Harvey becoming Two-Face, Batsy or Bruce being saaaaaad, etc). She’s the Lost Lenore; a person reduced to how their death impacts their romantic interests.  We have reached peak Nolan here, and frankly, peak Batman too, because the franchise (comics, movies, etc) has always had this same problem with its treatment of women. Her fucking death isn’t even about her! It’s Harvey’s fucking villain origin and Bruce’s sad ending and Alfred’s resentment and note-burning and would she have waited, oh boo hoo, how about, did she have a fucking family, what would have happened if she hadn’t been murdered young, et fucking cetera. 

The thing that really gets me is that Rachel is by no means the worst treated woman in speculative fiction (especially not those that make a claim to some degree of intellectualism); she’s white, so her death is beautifully tragic and she’s put on a pedestal rather than being subjected to racialized misogynistic tropes (being treated more roughly by the narrative, having her suffering ignored or erased altogether, her death being callously ignored except for a throwaway line of dialogue, etc), she’s not unnecessarily and gratuitously sexually brutalized for shock value (that looks uncomfortably like fetishism at times) like the women on Game of Thrones or in nu!Bond movies, or, if we’re still in the Batman universe, Barbara Gordon in any iteration of the Killing Joke (which is another tentpole of misogyny in the Batman universe and I fucking hate it and it clearly influenced the Dark Knight, so, chicken, egg). She isn’t forcibly sterilized and her inability to get pregnant treated as making her a freak like AOU Black Widow. She has no pointless and insulting fanservice scenes like Carol Marcus in her underwear in Star Trek: Into Darkness. Her suffering is not treated as empowerment like any number of women written by Joss Whedon, she isn’t used to be chewed up and spat out and destroyed in a romance with either a guy who terrifies her and in whom she’s shown no prior romantic interest or an outright villain who has caused her nothing but pain in some stupid half-assed not-redemption arc where she has to sublimate herself and be stupidly forgiving beyond the willing suspension of disbelief so some horrible man can evolve.

But why this sexism sticks out to me is that it’s so insidious; if it were more on the nose like the examples I listed above, it’d almost be less jarringly offensive, but it masquerades as her being an empowered yet tragic character and weaves into an overall narrative that validates all the tropes I mentioned, and legitimizes itself in a way that feels fundamentally dishonest about how sexist it’s being. Worse yet, there’s the fact that The Dark Knight is more than just self-contained; its influence on not just comic book movies, but all kinds of media as we know it, is undeniable. And as far as setting the example goes? This hugely well-regarded, influential film is almost entirely white, and tells us that women exist as distractions, tragedies, and extensions of men’s storylines, and this bullshit has been echoing in similar media works since. 

AND NOW, THE ONE (or multiple!) NICE THING(S): 

All this being said, I admit there actually are a lot of things I like about this movie if I can separate them enough from the main issues! 😂For one thing, Hans Zimmer’s work on the score is top-notch; I listen to Like a Dog Chasing Cars and Harvey Two-Face all the time and the music alone provokes stronger emotions for the characters than anything in the movie actually did. The opening heist is just fantastically entertaining, and up until the messy third act, the pacing and plot is pretty tight and engaging! Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker is of course fantastic; although he’s not my favourite Joker, he really gave it his all, and is by and large the highlight of the film. Nolan is really good with visual appeal (with the exception of that damn colour palette) and the shots are fantastic. I really love the chase scene with the Joker and wish the rest of the movie held my excitement like that.  

Finally, it’s odd to say this, but I really like the world of the movie once I ignore the characters and plot. The Gotham that was built in Nolan’s trilogy, the contrast between the classes with the lavish receptions and dinners versus the underbelly, the corruption versus the goodness, how these disparate elements work in a terrible symbiosis, the architecture and technology reflecting this character – it’s incredibly vivid, both grounded in reality and yet sufficiently speculative fiction-y enough to be intriguing. I just wish that the people in it matched the quality of the setting. 😂😂😂

[theliterateape]

The Therapeutic Approach to Nationalism

by Don Hall

When it came to Chicago Thanksgivings, I could be a real cunt.

Sure, Jen and I would host Orphan's Gatherings—Thanksgiving for people stuck in Chicago and unable to travel to their family's homes over the holiday. I would drop a couple of hundred bucks and make a huge spread of food but the transaction for coming was to have to listen to me bitch about how shitty the holiday was.

"Enjoy the turkey. Afterward, I'll be providing each of you blankets covered in small pox and steal your property. I mean, I'm thankful for a lot but I'm mostly thankful I wasn't native to this country because, man, then I'd be fucked, amiright?"

This screed went all day long and became more and more incessant as I drank Scotch and beer and cooked. Depending on the year, it would spread out from the genocide of Native Americans to the American military industrial complex, the woeful state of our civil rights, and how evil the Republicans were.

"Here's some food and some vitriol as gravy. Happy Fucking Thanksgiving!"

What an asshole. It's hardly a surprise that most of those people in those early days don't bother to talk to me today.

I used to think that blunt honesty was always the best approach to all situations. It's, well, honest, and it's mildly therapeutic to simply air your truth to those around you. I used to believe that until I lived with Alice.

Alice was like me at Thanksgiving but every day of the year. Her inability to accept less than exactly how she wanted things was maddening. She was always brutally honest about her feelings (unless it was something she decided needed to be kept a secret and then it was as if she locked it away in a trunk she bought at a yard sale and hid under the stairs).

"I hate your hair." "This is a stupid Christmas gift." "I can't believe you're wearing that to dinner." "Wow. You're really getting fat." "Don't embarrass me by talking politics with my University friends, OK? You're practically right wing."

After a few years of this constant honesty, I found myself walking around like Eeyore, head down, eyes on the ground, feeling a sense of dread overcoming me with the now drilled-in idea that nothing I did could possibly be enough or correct. If Alice wasn't happy it was because I was inadequate. She now had someone to blame for her disappointments in life.

What I learned from Alice was that for blunt honesty to be effective and useful rather than merely a bludgeon of self importance leveled upon those who are willing to put up with it, it was about seeing how that honesty could be used by them.

If the criticism couldn't be utilized for the betterment of someone or something, it was just noisy, pointless bitching. Childish complaint and attempts to beat down those around into some aspect of submission. Looking for someone to blame as if the recipient's guilt and subsequent anguish could be healing in some way.

Common wisdom suggests that by thoroughly revisiting our traumatic experiences to understand why they happened and how to move past them is therapeutic. Unfortunately, like the movies in the 1980s subsidized by the Pentagon to help recruit kids with a Top Gun drumbeat of "How Cool is War, Right?," the therapy industry proliferates this constant vomiting of pain and search for who to blame for it is in contrast with new research.

"New research is showing that some people only get worse by continuing to brood and ruminate,” Stanford psychologist Mischel said. “Each time they recount the experience to themselves, their friends or their therapist, they only become more depressed."

SOURCE

It's quite possible that I have had uniquely bad therapy experiences. A few when I was younger felt pointless, the couple's therapy I went through with my first and second ex-wives felt disingenuous. While skewed for maximum satire, the talk therapy groups in Fight Club ring more true than anything else—sad, busted up people sitting in a circle complaining about how hard their life has been next to another room with another circle complaining about theirs next to another.

Talking about your problems to be heard seems fine but it also a cul de sac of constantly re-opening the wounds over and over without any sort of solution provided. Even if one discovers an abuser in their past to pin the blame upon, even if there is some sort of reckoning and accountability, neither talking about it or understanding your place in the grievance hierarchy manages to solve the inability to move past the trauma.

That's the goal, right? Move past it? It may not be an easy task but, at the end of the process, learning to get on with things, heal the pain, live with the scars is the goal, yes?

It is the same when it comes to big picture items as well.

As someone decidedly Left in political views, I can't say I've ever been in a huge Bitch Session of Truthtelling with anyone right wing. Not my monkey, not my circus. On the hand, I can't count the number of Leftist circle jerks I've been mired in, often contributing more than my fair share of discourse and blockading to the mix. It is the Choir Preaching to the Choir so that One Solidifies Membership in the Freaking Choir.

So many of these sessions amount to telling the truth and identifying who is to blame for that truth.

"There is no reason for the evil that is represented by the Billionaire Class. How much money does anyone need? And at the expense of everyone else? The System is rigged by the wealthy, for the wealthy."

"The systemic racism in the country's policing stems from its racist beginnings and that's why so many black men are indiscriminately killed by cops. How many videos do we have to endure before things change?"

"Fossil fuels are the source of climate disaster. Everyone can see that. If we don't change course, the planet is going to be destroyed in our lifetime!"

All true, I'd think. But I heard that last week and the week before and the week before that. Sort of like my Thanksgiving rants.

Who’s to blame? The rich. The police. Big Oil. Where are the solutions to the problems?

Playing the blame game never works. A deep set of research shows that people who blame others for their mistakes lose status, learn less, and perform worse relative to those who own up to their mistakes. Research also shows that the same applies for organizations. Groups and organizations with a rampant culture of blame have a serious disadvantage when it comes to creativity, learning, innovation, and productive risk-taking.

Harvard Business Review

Blame, beyond personal accountability, is likewise pointless without a plan and “Hold Those to Blame Accountable!” isn’t a great plan.

Truth without pragmatic action is meaningless.

And so … the birthday of the nation comes up. The therapeutic gripe sessions begin. Instead of celebrating the country’s progress, the ideals it is founded upon, any sense of national pride, we have a host of Thanksgiving Don Hall’s pissing and moaning about the missteps and outright horrors committed by those long dead.

There is a lot of blunt trauma truth tossed out just before, during, and after our national day. Things like the fact of indoctrinated worship of the Founders without some serious views upon their flaws as human beings. Like the intentional absence in our collective history of the contributions made by those not in the majority. As I would've said on a typical Thanksgiving, an absence of any genuine reflection on the near genocide of the natives.

Not so much the next step of how to fix the issues or even the simple truth that most of the problems in the past cannot be fixed rather the recurrent results modified for a more just and equitable nation. Lotsa bitching. Not lotsa solution building. Tons of blame. Ounces of creative problem solving.

A whole bunch of Thanksgiving Cunts holding court and demanding that if you want to shoot of fireworks, wave the flag, eat some grilled meat, and get a bit drunk in celebration of the enduring experiment in democracy and multi-culturalism America strives to be, you are forced to listen to them piss all over the parade.

The thing about Alice was that for all of her brutal honesty, none of it made me want to change my hair, I stopped buying her gifts altogether, I intentionally wore things and said things that would embarrass her and the only reason I lost weight was because the gym was a place I could escape her for a few hours. Her mean spirited honesty accomplished the exact opposite of what she was aiming for.

The United States ain't so united and maybe it never has been but wallowing in the painful trauma of the past only has value if the next step is to focus on what we can do together to avoid the mistakes made by our elders. That's the entire point of America in the first place.

So, Happy Birthday, America. Let's keep trying to improve.

[the-desolated-quill]

Justice League - Quill’s Quickies (No Spoilers)

Oh Warner Bros. You’ve really fucked up this time, haven’t you?

I’m sure we’ve all heard about the situation at the box office by now. Apparently Justice League only made $281 million worldwide during its opening weekend, which for any other movie would be great, but not for Justice League. You see the geniuses over at Warner Bros and DC decided to spend $300 million on the movie (that’s including the extensive reshoots directed by Joss Whedon). And if that’s not bad enough, according to some sources, the film’s extensive marketing brings the overall budget to somewhere in the realms of $450 million. The film is going to need to make at least $750 million in order to make any sort of profit. That is beyond stupid and judging by current figures, it looks as though the film is set to bomb big time. Whether the film is good or not is frankly immaterial at this stage. It’s going to flop. That’s practically a guarantee thanks to WB and DC getting too big for their fucking boots and spending a moronic amount of money on a film that was never guaranteed to be a hit. You’d think they’d have learnt their lesson after Batman V Superman. The fact that movies like Deadpool, Logan and even their own Wonder Woman became gigantic hits on relatively lower budgets should have given them just a little clue that maybe pouring the equivalent of Scrooge McDuck’s money bin into Justice League wasn’t a good idea. And now it looks as though the entire DCEU is in jeopardy as a result.

Let’s face it. Even if Justice League was a good movie, it would have struggled to make a profit on such a ridiculously massive budget like that. It was always destined for the cinematic graveyard no matter what Zack Snyder or Joss Whedon did. The fact that it’s crap just means the movie can now die faster.

Oh yeah. Justice League is crap. And when I say crap, I mean crap. (And please bear in mind this is coming from someone who actually enjoyed and defended Batman V Superman). Granted it’s not the worst movie I’ve seen. It’s not even the worst DC movie I’ve seen. That honour still goes to that misogynistic, wafer thin and utterly tone deaf piece of shit known as Suicide Squad, and while Justice League does share a few of the same problems with that movie, at least I didn’t feel unclean after I watched it. So hey. At least it has that going for it, right? But to say I left the cinema feeling disappointed would be an understatement.

So some random alien called Steppenwolf shows up to take over the Earth using these Mother Boxes. Who is Steppenwolf? I don’t know. What are the Mother Boxes? I don’t know. Why does he want to take over the Earth? I don’t know. This is literally all you’re getting I’m afraid. There’s not even any philosophical discussions or symbolic meaning to it like Man Of Steel and Batman V Superman had. When I say this is literally the entire movie, I mean LITERALLY. Some random alien we’ve never heard of shows up to grab some boxes that have never been mentioned before in previous movies and tries to take over the Earth because... he’s evil I guess. It’s so uninspired and so thin on the ground, you could have told me that Zack Snyder scribbled the entire script on the inside of a chocolate wrapper whilst he was on the toilet having a shit, and I would honestly believe you.

I’m sure some of you are objecting to me blaming Zack Snyder for all this, and I’m sure Joss Whedon deserves a lot of blame too, but honestly i’m past caring at this stage. Is Joss Whedon to blame for mucking about with Snyder’s vision, or is Snyder to blame for not better co-ordinating Whedon? I don’t know and I don’t care to know. We could debate for days whether it’s the organgrinder or the monkey who’s at fault, but at the end of the day the result is the same. The movie is crap and I’d rather neither of them were let near this franchise ever again.

This movie doesn’t even have any decent characters to fall back on. I suppose Ezra Miller’s interpretation of the Flash was okay. He provided a few genuine laughs and his Speed Force sequences do look pretty cool, even though they don’t in any way cover new ground because, you know, Quicksilver exists in the X-Men movies and his running scenes looked so much more impressive than this. i also quite liked Ray Fisher’s portrayal of Cyborg, and there are some genuinely touching moments at the beginning of the movie with his character. Beyond that, there’s basically nothing. Aquaman is by far the dullest character in the movie with no personality and is basically just the spare wheel. The film never takes advantage of his unique powers or the underwater setting, and he never gets any real moments where he stands out or comes into his own. You could literally replace him with Robin or Green Lantern or the Martian Manhunter, and it wouldn’t have made the slightest bit of difference. And as for Wonder Woman... Oh how the mighty have fallen. Remember when her solo movie broke new ground, doing away with a lot of the sexist tropes we normally see in these types of movies and became something truly unique and revolutionary? Well hope you enjoyed that while it lasted because here the sexist tropes are back with a vengeance. Wonder Woman is pretty much interchangeable with Lois Lane and Martha Kent because they all play the same role. The empathetic woman who props up the male heroes. The only thing that sets Wonder Woman apart is that she can fight, but not too well because God forbid she should steal the spotlight from Batman or Superman. 

And then of course there’s other sexist elements that I’m sure you’re all aware of by now. The Flash tripping over and comedically landing on Wonder Woman’s tits (LOL, a feminist icon has been reduced to a sexist punchline! How hilarious!) and of course the fact that most of the Amazonians seem to have scrapped their practical armour in favour of leather and/or metal bikinis (and to those people defending this saying that it’s historically accurate, fuck off. Seriously, just fuck off. This is a movie that claims that Amazonian warriors, merpeople, aliens and Gods had a massive war at some point in Earth’s prehistory. I’m pretty sure that’s not historically accurate, but suddenly the studio and filmmakers care about historical accuracy when it comes to how much bare naked flesh the sexy women warriors are showing in fight scenes? Fuck off. Your argument has the same whiff of bullshit as those idiots defending Suicide Squad’s romanticising of the Joker and Harley Quinn’s relationship by saying that it’s intentional because it’s from Harley’s point of view and that, if you turn your head to the side and squint hard enough, a few seconds of one particular scene could be interpreted as abusive. Look, we all like an underdog and i’m sure it must be hard to hear people constantly criticising your favourite franchise, but can we at least have the fucking spine to admit when they screw up? You just sound pathetic!).

But the absolute worst characters are Batman and Superman. Yeah we all knew he was coming back, so it’s not really a spoiler. And do you know what? I really wish Superman stayed dead. Because not only is the way they bring him back from the dead so contrived and so stupid, it also results in Batman’s character arc being regressed in order to justify this massive leap in logic. Remember in BVS when Batman became so paranoid and so controlling that his actions nearly resulted in catastrophe? Well the exact same thing happens here. In fact there are a few moments where he’s almost indistinguishable from Lex Luthor at points with his rhetoric, but the movie just wants you to conveniently ignore that. It’s okay. He’s a good guy, so it’s alright for him to be a hypocritical arsehole. So not only has Batman become a wisecracking fascist with a massive God complex, Superman has also become an insufferable dickhead. The reason why I liked Man Of Steel so much was because it got me to appreciate the character in a way I never had before. Justice League seeks to undo all of that by reminding me of all the reasons why I hated the character in the first place before I watched Man of Steel. He’s a ridiculously overpowered Mary Sue (or is it Gary Stu?) who can do no wrong, can beat up baddies effortlessly to the point where all threat and tension is chucked out of the window, and keeps stealing all the good scenes from other characters. Is the Flash about to prove his worth as a hero by saving a family? No it’s okay. Superman can do that. Is Wonder Woman going to avenge her fellow Amazonians by defeating Steppenwolf once and for all? No it’s okay. Superman can do that. Is Cyborg going to reclaim his humanity by saving the world? No it’s okay. Step aside Cyborg. Superman’s got this. Superman can do anything because he’s powerful and special and the bestest guy eveeeer.

So to all those people who were complaining about how much you hated Man of Steel because it ‘wasn’t your Superman. Boo hoo,’ I hope you’re pleased with yourselves. Sure they may have brought the entire franchise crashing down into a pile of rubble, but at least they ‘fixed’ Superman.

You can tell this movie is trying so hard to be like the Avengers, right down to the bullshit alien invasion story, but they forget what made Avengers Assemble so good. All the characters were well developed and likeable, each of them were given their own arc and they all evolved and bonded over the course of the movie. Justice League just pales in comparison. It gives the illusion that they’ve all bonded and evolved by the end, but they haven’t really. There were never any moments where they felt like real people or where they truly interacted and grew closer to each other over time. We never learn anything significant about them and I certainly don’t feel an overwhelming desire to see them all again in future films like I did after the first Avengers. I’m not necessarily saying each member of the League needed their own movie before a crossover, but there must be a better way of doing it than this.

So there you have it. Justice League. 10 years of production and approximately $450 million spent... and this is the result. A lifeless, shallow excuse for a movie with one dimensional characters, incompetent direction, and the realisation that all this buildup meant precisely jack shit in the end. Can the DCEU continue after this? Not in its current state, no. And if I’m being honest, I’d rather it didn’t.