#this is more of a rant under the guise of a character analysis

[aesdi]

I keep thinking about it and thinking about it so here is Murdoc character analysis, buckle the fuck up!

Okay so out of ninety-four episodes, Murdoc is in eleven of them. So of course we don’t get a lot from him. Yet the things we are given paint a picture more complex than “creepy stalker lol” i promise im not frustrated i promise im not frustrated i promise im not

First, we learn that Murdoc does some hits for free. Specifically, hits against people who he thinks the world would be better without. He never really specifies what that would be, but based on the target we learn that bit of information from (a man who beat his girlfriend to death) we can conclude it’s people who are abusers and anything lower than that.

Then we learn about Cassian, which is Murdoc’s biggest motivation this entire show. Seriously, most of the things he does is because of Cassian, with the biggest example being “Murdoc + MacGyver + Murdoc”. Cassian is the only thing Murdoc probably cares about (probably being the key word but we’ll get to that) and the main brute of his empathy, he literally does anything for Cassian. And when we learn a bit about Murdoc’s past, it becomes easy to see why. From what we are told, Murdoc’s father was abusive, which gives us a hint on why Murdoc tries so hard to be a good father towards Cassian. It also makes Murdoc’s reaction to Amber using Cassian for money a bit more layered. 

Now, remember when I said we’ll get to that probably? Well we are here. As a result of digging through Murdoc’s character and every episode he is on screen, I can confidently say that he doesn’t actually want to kill MacGyver. In fact, I think Mac is the only other person besides Cassian Murdoc cares about. Out of eleven episodes, he only personally goes after Mac in three of them. The first time is in “Corkscrew”, which is his first episode and before he even knows of what Mac can do, so he has a pass. The second time was “X-Ray + Penny”, which was part of a bigger plan and he wanted Mac to escape. And this leads us to the most interesting one, “Diamond + Quake + Carbon + Comms + Tower”.

Murdoc in “Diamond + Quake + Carbon + Comms + Tower” interests me, because him teaming up to take control of Codex seems so out of character for him. The only time he did something like this was when he formed HIT, which ended terribly for him. Plus, if you think that Murdoc genuinely wants to kill Mac, it’s really not in character for him to do so in such a public way, with help from someone else no less. Yet, when you take into account Murdoc’s main motivation the entire show, it becomes clear. With that, I’m pretty sure that Andrews had Cassian kept somewhere and was using him against Murdoc, not unlike what Murdoc did to Nasha. This is all speculation, but since I’m always right it’s probably true.

One thing that annoys me specifically is that fanfic usually goes for the fact that Murdoc just hangs around Mac’s house, which I have to say he probably has so much more he could be doing. Like seriously. He still has a job (which takes him around the world might I add) and a kid, who he would spend as much time with as possible. And if that doesn’t convince you, Murdoc, in canon, would simply not go near anyone on Team Phoenix for absolutely no reason. Every time he goes near Mac in the show, it’s because he needs something, simple as that.

Now I’m not saying that Murdoc is a good person, because he obviously isn’t. I’m just saying he’s more complex than the “obsessed with mac and watches him sleep” idea that everyone in this fandom has.

In conclusion, Murdoc accidentally has empathy for for Mac, is a single father trying to make a difference, and is really not that creepy.

[siriusly-the-best-bi]

Ok I just wanted to say a few things about Reki’s character and how I appreciate how he’s being handled in the show.

I think it’s obvious by now that Reki has signs of depression, and what I wanted to point out was how it’s something that’s been happening from episode one. Reki’s feelings and insecurities are not something that writers are pulling out of their ass in order to set up a weak plot point. They carefully instilled it in his character before working him up to a breaking point.

!!!!TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of Self Harm!!!!!

I just saw this post by @aslightlysaltylemonbar which points out many things about the characters, specifically stating they can see “Reki's combination of determination and low self esteem escalate to self harm”.

Op is entirely right, but I believe Reki has been self harming all along, but in more subtle ways that aren’t expressed as often through the media.

Episode one:

This strikes me as very important in Reki’s character as this takes place before getting to know Langa, and before he reaches a peak in his insecurities which eventually sends him into the downward spiral we see him in now (episodes 7-?)

Manager Oka asks Reki if he needs a break after Reki seems to spasm and twitch, faltering in his job of restocking the shelves. He continues however, and we get the heart breaking line: “You know what sucks about the way you say ‘I’m fine?’ The fact you never really are.”

This is a form of self harm in and of itself, wether it’s conscious or unconscious. Reki is obviously needing a break, but he continues to stock the shelves as if he’s punishing himself for the previous nights failures.

This behavior is seen again in Episode Seven, but in a much worse degree:

As Reki tries in vain to complete the trick Langa had performed effortlessly, he throws himself into damage, fall after fall before he lays on the ground as it starts to rain. The picture of the ‘X’s portrayed above was taken before multiple more shots of Reki bailing from his board and landing in compromising positions like as shown in the second image, him thrown violently into the metal gate which would be enough to at the very least bruise a rib or two. (I say this with confidence as my dad recently broke three ribs only tripping into something similar)

Keep in mind, this is only one example of the mutliple tumbles shown in this montage, not to mention the previous that came before that are alluded to by the supposed 10 ‘X’s shown on screen.

This is a form of self harm. Undoubtedly so. The repeated notion of putting oneself in danger and pushing yourself to the max when you know you are no longer operating under your best and safest self is a form of self harm that’s not often recognized in the media. I feel like this scene showed Reki’s beginning decent into his downward spiral very well. He continuously pushes himself and puts himself in danger, putting himself into positions where he’s getting hurt and losing the strength and motivation to carry on in a safe manner in favour of hurting himself over and over in the guise of ‘perfecting Langa’s trick.’

This could easily be something he’s doing unconsciously, and if that’s the case I entirely agree with @aslightlysaltylemonbar ‘s analysis linked above, that Reki will begin to purposely find himself falling into self-destructive tendencies.

Especially with the final scene from episode 9 in which Reki hands in his pin:

Reki says: “it’s okay... now.” When questioned by the guard to whom he had handed his pin.

I’m not going to suggest anything too dark in writing, but I’m sure those of you who might have bothered to read my 12am analysis might understand what I’m implying by adding this in. As someone who deeply identifies with Reki’s character, this hit a little too close to home for me, and while I don’t suspect Sk8 to take any such dark paths or explore the entirety of depression and it’s nature, it was the first worry that popped into my head at this scene.

As I mentioned, this is simply me going on a 12am insomnia induced Rant about why I love Reki’s character and they way he’s been portrayed throughout the show. I don’t even know if this is comprehensible but please lemme know what you think. If anyone has any other thoughts or wants to scream with me please reach out!!

[komca]

hello, ive been sending this ask to mark fans to see the general opinion on this, do you think mark suits better 127 concepts or dream concepts?

my apologies for the lengthy answer and also because I went a bit off track with a reflection on each unit oops.

see under the cut for my mini essay response rip

with his experience with different groups and unit combinations, you know how versatile mark is musically and as a performer. so versatile he's almost a chameleon, able to adapt to each new concept thrown his way, however he always manages to stand out somehow (on purpose or not).

in my opinion, if we're strictly speaking of concepts in terms of styling, mark goes beyond just "suiting concepts" because he commits 100% to the assignment regardless of the unit, either by putting a twist to his styling or through the persona he takes on during shootings/performances to fit the part, he makes the concepts his own while preserving his individuality. (which ties into that one dance analysis which pointed out how he plays characters on stage)

to really answer your question tho i'll be considering other factors relative to concepts beyond the mere styling : how each unit and its members are marketed regardless of music, album concepts, photoshoot concepts for clothing/retail brands, and music genre.

but before i delve into a detailed comparison, i would just like to point out the lack of creativity of the styling across all units for the past couple years because they have been recycling outfit pieces under the guise of different concepts, and incoherence with the songs.

comparison time:

127 is arguably the most experimental unit in terms of music and styling, with bolder or classier, more ‘mature’ concepts. with an eclectic discography, they cover a wide range of music genres (rooted in rnb, hip hop, house and edm) which sometimes comes at the cost of cohesiveness in their full albums as they have songs that clash with the overall album tone and concept. In addition to that, one of their biggest shortcomings is their inability to fully commit to a concept during promotion cycles, there have been several instances of discrepancies between the variety content and album/mv. as for mark regardless of the changes in artistic directions always falls 100% in character and owns it.  Also I don’t know if you’ve noticed but they tend to emphasize him being part of the maknae line through his styling, especially for fashion photoshoots, they play on innocence and modesty. With regards to music, I do believe mark is an integral part of their musical identity and it’s I believe the closest to his own preferred genres making it look almost natural for him to fully appropriate the feel, theme and concept of the songs.  

Dream on the other hand is branded as the fresh, youthful, and tightknit unit, laying it heavy on the ‘coming of age’ aspect. I often think this traps him and allows little to no space for them to grow or explore as a group bc thematically they’re recycling, and I admit that their discography is not to my taste but I don’t think it’s stimulating mark’s artistry as much as 127 or superm do. concept-wise as I’ve mentioned before, mark completely commits to the concept beyond the styling and this was very apparent to me during glimo/beatbox promo because of the way he carried himself and made his ‘character’ come to life in the promotional content on social media, which wasn’t the case of the others imo (especially for the band concept but that’s a whole other rant), he was on the right side of ‘extra’. in theory dream concepts are lighter and more fun but i hate the styling they give mark 80% of the time but i disgress.

It’s one thing to play the part when you’re in costume and another to embody the character to make the story come to life and mark has honed the latter which is why restricting the question to which unit concepts he ‘suits’ best isn’t enough lol.

objectively, dream’s concepts fall better in line with some aspects of his personality because he’s bubbly, positive and fresh and all that, but as an artist I’m of the opinion that 127 is best suited for him.

also take this with a grain of salt because i'm heavily biased and much prefer the concepts mark had during SuperM days and what we've seen so far of his solo works.

[anianimol]

Character Analysis: Kuroo Tetsurō

Ok, this is j gonna be me ranting about character depth and complexity so if you are not a character analysis nerd like myself I’m sorry you had to see me babbling as usual🥺👉🏻👈🏻i j needed to get this out of my system! Also just want to make a disclaimer: this is NOT me criticizing the work of any other writers on this platform or others, more so me wanting to talk about this man for hours on end and smacking myself for not characterizing him better😊

Though I am an absolute SIMP for some smutty Kuroo content that goes a tad bit ooc(and love to write it myself) I wanted to dive into him as a character a bit, and I hope to do more of this in my own writing.

While a 1k fic can’t exactly spend paragraphs upon paragraphs trying to capture the complexity of Tetsurō’s personality, I would love to see him written with more flaws. (This is me @‘ing myself😔)

Often times, we see sex god!kuroo, or playboy!kuroo, which I think are facets of his personality when truly comfortable with someone, but I believe it would take him a considerable amount of time to get to that stage in a relationship, or at least a very special person.

Kuroo’s confident persona, though not exactly a guise towards others, is not something that has always existed. Remember, it is cannon that Tetsurō was initially a shy, reserved kid, hesitant to break out of his shell when first moving to his neighborhood. I think his friendship from childhood with Kenma has helped grow that confidence of his; the quiet reassurance and understanding the two of them have has given him a strong foundation of trust and loyalty—Kenma’s friendship has been a constant in his life, allowing him someone to lean on. While I do not believe their bond is overlooked, the dynamic of theirs is sometimes under appreciated. Kuroo and Kenma give each other a sense of purpose, lending one another familiarity and comfort.

Not unlike his setter partner, Tetsurō is extremely good at reading others; by observing the nuances of their personality and spending time with one another, he understands their needs, finding ways to support them silently, not looking for a thank you or praise. While he may appear to have this surface “cocky” and “I’ve got it all figured out” sort of attitude, he deeply cares for those on his team and his loved ones, taking care of them and encouraging them in the way that they need it. Whether it is pushing Tsukishima’s buttons enough to spark a passion for volleyball, or persuading Kenma to join the club, Kuroo tends to the needs of those around him, bringing out the best of their potential.

Though this rooster haired captain may seem like Mr. Popular, I truly believe he is the biggest dork I’ve ever seen. I mean come on. Who unironically makes chemistry puns aside from your 54-year-old chemistry teacher from sophomore year? Kuroo Tetsurō. And put this man in the same room with his crush? He’d be a stuttering mess, tripping over his words as his ears burned a bright crimson. He is awkward. Awkward as hell. Which makes him even cuter.

Eventually, though, I think he’d get more and more comfortable around them, engaging in teasing banter and growing his confidence.

-

Before I shut up, I want to talk a little about his needs in a relationship.

I don’t think I’ve heard many people talk about this, and some might disagree with me, but this man is STARVED for affection.

As a captain, Kuroo is not used to being vulnerable, spending more time supporting his team and lifting up those around them, making sure each member is performing at their best. I think he’d be tentative to lean on his s/o, hesitant to rely on them and preferring at first to act as their rock, their foundation. In a true partner, though, he requires reciprocation. Tetsurō needs someone to come home to. Someone who can care for him as much as he does them, allowing him to open up emotionally and release the stresses of his life.

What I’m trying to say here is that Kuroo is human. He is both sexy and dorky, and that is why we adore him so much. Loyal and a tad possessive, but someone who understands the independence of his partner and their boundaries. Tetsurō is both fire and water, the flame of passion and intensity burning bright within his heart as the cool tide of calm laps against it.

-

gen. taglist! : @janellion @bokutoskb @stcrryskies @thirsthourdemon 🍄

some babies who also may want to see this? @kuronekomama @strawbirb @deadontheinsidebut 💕

does this count as metsu content?

[aeternallis]

Rant / Meta Analysis regarding The Untamed’s Ending

Having finally watched the last episode of The Untamed, I just wanted to take some time to sort through my thoughts about the last scenes, and what the production team had wanted to accomplish with it. As I have nothing else better to do on this rainy Sunday evening anyhow, here we go!

Oh! And for anyone who would like to continue reading, please be aware that these thoughts are strictly my opinions and how I understood the ending, so by no means do y’all have to agree with me! ^^

Personally, I found the ending quite satisfying; it didn’t leave much to the imagination that it was indeed a happy ending, and the relieved smile on Wei Wuxian’s face during that last shot was as poetic as it was fitting. The very first shot of him in the first episode of the drama is him looking broken with blood running down his chin, so the juxtaposition with the final shot of him looking healthy and smiling just makes the collective audience’s hearts sigh in content, methinks!

The scriptwriters for this show managed to give WangXian their happy ending without having to step over that line that could have taken the show off the air or kill one of them off, so for that, I’ll eternally be grateful.

I can now honestly say that in terms of Asian drama set in a historical/fantasy setting, this is definitely one of the best, despite the sometimes mediocre acting and frustratingly small budget. ❤️

The Set Up

Perhaps the biggest impression that the ending left on me would be the idea of Lan Wangji as the Chief Cultivator, because it’s one that’s unique to the live action drama. In the novel, they gloss over the political matters after the Guanyin Temple arc, so MXTX left it for interpretation. If memory serves me correctly, I believe Nie Huesang volunteered for the position, but someone please correct me if I’m wrong~

At first, I was a little bit confused as to why the scriptwriters for the show added such an original idea so late in the drama, when they’ve stuck pretty close to the source material throughout the show. But after spinning said idea in my brain for a couple of days, the realization slowly came that it was actually a marvelous and useful plot point for WangXian to get their happy ending! :D

In the novel, it was quite simple for MXTX to give WangXian their happy ending simply for the fact that the characters love and trust each other. They both can’t live without the other person, and after the shit they’ve been through, it’s only natural that they wouldn’t hesitate to take that once in a lifetime second chance to create a life together.

But in the drama, it’s different. The subtext is there, their feelings for one another jumps out of the screen, but no matter what, WangXian is not considered an official couple in the show. This isn’t to say that they aren’t or that the audience feels the same way; their relationship certainly has the development and trajectory of a regular couple had this been a drama with a het pairing as its focal point.

But alas, that’s the reality of censorship.

Ultimately, their ideals (to do what they believe is right, and to do it with their conscience clean) take much more precedence, compared to the novel. That isn’t to say that they place no importance on their feelings, but that this show portrays their morals in the most idealistic way.

In other words, they’re a romantic couple in everything but in name.

All the more reason, I think, that the show runners had to find a way around this roadblock they had no choice but to set themselves up for: without acknowledging the romance and relying on it, what excuse can they come up with to keep these two characters together?

Which brings us back to the live action’s original idea of Lan Wangji as Chief Cultivator.

Chief Cultivators

Before we fully get into the aforementioned topic, let’s first establish how Chief Cultivators are depicted in the drama: two portrayals in which although they seem complete opposites on the surface, are quite similar in nature, as this show has more than once pointed out to the audience.

During the first half of the drama, we have Wen Ruohan and his Wen Sect. As Chief Cultivator, he resided in the Nightless City. The palace is shown to be located on the side of a cliff, surrounded by volcanoes and oozing lava. He was a man mad with power and wanting an endless supply of it; by all means and purposes, Wen Ruohan was just #evil, and the show didn’t hide it. Lol

In contrast during the second half of the drama, the new Chief Cultivator resides in the Golden Koi Tower. The setting is the complete opposite from Nightless City; the skies are blue, the palace looks tranquil and majestic compared to Nightless City’s brutal design. Even so, Jin Guangyao was a man also mad with power and wanted more of it, he just knew how to hide it a lot better and under the guise of a thousand different justifications.

I think what struck me the most about these two portrayals is how cut off they are from the rest of the world (one is literally an ivory tower, lol) and how little both these ex-Chief Cultivators understood the nature of people.

A big part of the Wen Sect’s downfall is that because they were drunk and high on the power they’ve held onto for so long, it didn’t once occur to them that in such isolating circumstances, the smaller sects would eventually come together to rebel. So when it did happen, it was really no wonder the Sunshot Campaign was such a success, because the Wen Sect definitely got the rug pulled out from under them. When the smaller sects have been pushed and bullied around for so long and shared a common enemy, it’s an almost guaranteed hot pot for a successful coup d'état.

For any world leader, both real and fictional, this is common sense.

In that same vein, Jin Guangyao only understood the world through his own personal grievances. His very motivation for power was to avenge himself on everyone who has ever looked down on him and whether it was a big or small slight, it didn’t matter. Regardless, if one had committed a slight against him, he would repay it in full and perhaps a bit more.

So as far as portrayals go, Chief Cultivators aren’t really considered a very good thing in the show. They’re shown as not only power-hungry and manipulative, but more importantly, also isolated and stuck in their ivory towers.

LWJ as Chief Cultivator

And finally, we get to the million-dollar question: would Lan Wangji make for a good and effective Chief Cultivator?

In and of itself, this is a tricky question for me personally, as a fan of this show. On the one hand, my bias towards Lan Wangji says yes, but on the other hand... While I can admit he’d make for a trustworthy Chief Cultivator—meaning, he would know how to work through the technicalities of the job, without relying on shady political dealings and manipulations—understanding the people of their world and how/why they do the things they do would prove to be much more of a challenge for him.

Let’s not forget that although Lan Wangji has a good reputation for his honor and admirable conduct, it’s easy for people to turn against him if they don’t understand his motivation and/or his reasoning. Case in point: during episode 44, a random sect member easily called him out for his association with the Yiling Patriarch. The call out was made through the sect member’s limited view of how she perceived Hanguang-jun’s character through his reputation alone.

It also does not help the fact that Lan Wangji doesn’t really know how to express himself directly. During episode 13 when they’re making their way to the cave to find the Tortoise of Slaughter, Wei Wuxian had to work his way around his friend’s lack of skills when it comes to communicating what he needs (in this case, needing to rest his broken leg, lol). And don’t even get me started on how the man can’t lie to save his life; he’d rather not say anything and uphold his honor, rather than spout lies (mayhaps the only exception to this would be to protect the other person).

As much as it pains me to say it, Lan Wangji’s personality and natural demeanor makes for a great hive of misunderstandings. And this is only in describing his personal relationship with Wei Wuxian; what more on the grand scale of being the Chief Cultivator, when you have to deal with so many more people? T_T

If anything, the show does an incredible job of showing how Lan Wangji comes to understand the people around him when he’s with Wei Wuxian: his understanding of Song Lan’s pain when he lost his own soulmate, the struggle and determination he sees in his own brother when faced with the fact that Jin Guangyao may not be the man he thought he was.

It’s a great contrast to how he was during the time period when Wei Wuxian was “asleep.” Jiang Cheng mentions that Lan Wangji has been traveling all over the world looking for someone, yet isn’t it interesting how in those years of travel, the latter hasn’t made one single human connection outside of the people close to him at home?

While it shows serious dedication to Wei Wuxian and the memory of their history together, it’s not a very helpful backdrop to his new position, imo. In all honestly, it’s safe to say that at this point, Lan Wangji mostly gains his understanding of people through his relationship and connection with Wei Wuxian.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, of course. If anything, it means that his connection to Wei Wuxian is a positive influence on him, and vise versa. Lan Wangji is the type of person who, although he doesn’t care for many people on a personal level, the ones that he does care for are the ones he loves fiercely and is deeply attuned to.

Tbh, the level of detail in this show is astounding when it comes to Lan Wangji and his character. During episode 46 of the golden core reveal, the audience sees mainly Jiang Cheng’s realization of what truly happened all those years ago in real-time. At that point, Jiang Cheng had only begun to realize the cost of not only his, but Wei Wuxian’s pride and honor.

In contrast, Lan Wangji had already fit the puzzle pieces together in his mind; there was no need to show his own flashbacks and moments with Wei Wuxian. Because he already understood and saw for himself the kindness and selflessness that is so deeply ingrained in his beloved, along with the evidence in front of him, there was no reason to doubt Wen Ning’s testimony.

It isn’t until we get to the lake scene though that audience witnesses the crucial realization for Lan Wangji of how...callous and almost naive his initial reaction was to finding out that Wei Wuxian has been practicing demonic cultivation. While in his mind he may have thought at the time that he was interrogating his friend with a clean conscience, I will admit that for a time, the way I (key word here is I, so don’t come at me folks) saw this scene as part of the audience, Lan Wangji was also suspicious of him.

Which is why I believe on episode 33, it was due to this that Wei Wuxian couldn’t help but ask regarding that time period in their life:

In other words, Lan Wangji’s reaction at the time, no matter the fact that he hadn’t known the truth of Wei Wuxian’s golden core yet, wasn’t done with as clean a conscience as he had once thought. It isn’t until he came to learn of Wei Ying‘s true motivation explicitly, that he realizes his own misjudgment of the situation, which I would think is very important as to how he will deal with other people as the Chief Cultivator.

This is also why, although I may have had reservations about this original idea at first, I will say that it makes for a great vehicle in keeping these two characters together all the way to the end. 😆

As the position of Chief Cultivator has been given to one of the Two Jades of Lan, I think it’s reasonable to assume that the seat of centralized power has now shifted to the Gusu Lan Sect. But, as this show has once again shown to the audience, no sect is infallible, not even Gusu Lan, for all their righteousness.

After all, let’s not forget that the Gusu Lan Sect produced Su She and the questionable morals of Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji’s father. Yikes, man...

Even if Gusu Lan is portrayed as an upright sect with many rules and regulations and has the most upright disciples, it’s no less of an ivory tower for Lan Wangji, as the Nightless City had been for Wen Ruohan and the Golden Koi Tower for Jin Guangyao.

And this is why I think in the end, Lan Wangji chose to come back to Wei Ying and travel the world with him, amongst other reasons. 😆 Because as much as Lan Wangji loves Wei Wuxian in the context of this show, he’s also not the type to let go of his responsibility, especially one he chose to accept himself.

It’s much too simple, I think, to say that he became Chief Cultivator for awhile, then once he “settled everything,” he came back to Wei Ying. If anything, this drama reiterates the fact that the world is not always so simple, especially when it comes to the thoughts and feelings of others.

Besides, what would stop the audience from thinking that Lan Wangji became a traveling Chief Cultivator, one who actually makes an effort to get to know people and understand their motivations? Although I will also point out that, in the end, whether or not he gives up the position of Chief Cultivator, it doesn’t necessarily matter. 

The point of the matter is, he is a better person at Wei Wuxian’s side, as Wei Wuxian is at his, in order for them to keep and maintain their promise! ^^

And yet furthermore, which better person to travel the world with in order to understand it than Wei Wuxian, the one who arguably knows the most in regards to the nature of people, just because he’d seen firsthand what could be the worst of it? The man who usually has the keenest sense of getting to the bottom of an individual’s motivation, but also knows that sometimes, as he states in episode 43:

After all, in order for Lan Wangji to become an effective Chief Cultivator, in order for him to maintain his promise of protecting the weak and helpless whilst keeping a clear conscience and not make the same mistake as he had done with Wei Wuxian the first time, he needs to learn about the hearts of other people.

A Chief Cultivator stuck in his ivory tower would only repeat the same past mistakes, but a Chief Cultivator who knows the hearts of people and makes the effort to understand them would, I think, make the biggest difference in their world.

[thaumaturtles]

Epilogue Thoughts

So, I finished the epilogues at around 11 AM on 4/21 and spent the better part of today mulling over it internally. Overall, I think I liked ‘em. Don’t get me wrong, they were brutal and tragic and ripped my heart out, but this is my garbage and I’m allowed to enjoy it. I was planning on liveblogging the epilogues but constantly pausing to jot down my feelings detracted from the overall experience. This is probably gonna be pretty scattershot, since I have neither the ability nor the desire to order my thoughts properly. Now, without any further preamble, let’s get into it.

Jane

 A lot of people said they didn’t like the treatment of Jane in the epilogues, and, fair enough, she was pretty awful and Crocker stans have every right to be pissed. But to anyone saying it came out of left field or didn’t make sense, I’d have to disagree (for the most part). Jane was brainwashed by the Condesce for the first 16 years of her life, and we see the effects of this when she goes Crockertier. She’d almost certainly have baked-in presumptions about how trolls were “meant to be” (ie super violent) even before she was consciously aware that trolls as a race existed. Jane was also always really in denial about having been brainwashed by the Condesce and I can definitely see adult Jane flat-out refusing to do any self-analysis and just assume there are no remaining effects of the brainwashing and she’s “totally cured” now or whatever. Jane’s also not super progressive? Like the conversation where she discovers Dirk has a crush on Jake and that Jake might even reciprocate was pretty uncomfortable to experience, and she starts a business on Earth C even though there’s no real need for corporations in a world with infinite resources. This shows that she’s still stuck in the belief that capitalism is inherently good/necessary for no reason other than “it’s what i grew up with.” All in all I could totally see Jane as someone who’d grow up to become xenophobic and have this colonizer mentality of “I have to regulate the Other because they’re not capable of functioning without me”

As for the non-consensual/rapey stuff... I’m actually not gonna touch that shit with a six-foot pole. The narrative is very explicit in the fact that Jane is an abusive partner and what she’s doing Is Bad, but like if she’s your favourite character you probably aren’t going to be all gung ho about seeing her do all the things that she did, which were admittedly very upsetting to read. I completely understand if you couldn’t read past those parts because they were pretty rough.

The Epilogues do get pretty unpleasant to read though :/

The Epilogues are highly antagonistic towards Homestuck’s readers. This is a fact. Whether this is a good or bad thing is up to interpretation, but it is at the very least not a new thing. Listen to Kate Mitchell of the Perfectly Generic Podcast and YouTuber OptimisticDuelist for more in-depth analysis than I could possibly provide on this, but one of Lord English’s greatest weapons is his ability to get people not to care about Homestuck, or even better, to revile it. That’s what the aspect of Rage represents: Plot Contrivance. As Karkat says,

THERE ARE OUTCOMES THAT ARE EVEN WORSE THAN THE COMPLETE ANNIHILATION OF EXISTENCE ITSELF. FORCES MORE DAMAGING TO THE INTEGRITY OF REALITY THAN THOSE CAPABLE OF TURNING IMAGINATION INTO PURE VOID. THEY ARE FORCES WHICH IF HANDLED RECKLESSLY WILL NULLIFY THE BASIC ABILITY OF INTELLIGENT BEINGS IN ALL REAL AND HYPOTHETICAL PLANES OF EXISTENCE TO GIVE A SHIT.

This is repeated, by Hussie himself no less, later on during his smug self-insert, found here. After Hussie dies and loses control of the narrative, LE is free to try his hardest to get you, the reader, not to give a shit. Rose, in the Epilogue’s Prologue, says that if people stop caring about Homestuck, reality as they know it will break apart, which is exactly in line with LE’s plans. So the fact that the Epilogues are very hostile towards the reader is basically par for the course. That said, I can see how it kinda sounds like I’m being all “oh it’s SUPPOSED to be shitty you wouldn’t underSTAND,” but that’s. literally what’s happening. and there’s evidence for it in the text.

Of course, in the past, when the narrative would pull things like this it would be under the guise of, say, Homosuck, which is very obviously meant to be bad and is presented in a fun, satirical way. The Epilogues, on the other hand, are downright upsetting. They’re presented in a much grittier light, which can obfuscate to what degree it’s Actually A Joke, if it even is a joke in any capacity. The fact that they’re tragic, though, should not be seen as evidence that they’re bad.

Some stuff I Liked

Both routes had some really top-notch interactions in them. A lot of folks seem to be overlooking how genuinely good the writing was. I said the phrase, “they’ve still got it” ALOUD to myself once or twice because the dialogue really did have that good ole Homestuck Charm. The Dave/Karkat/Jade interactions early on in Candy (before everything went to shit) were pretty great, as was basically everything that came out of English’s mouth. I dunno who the Antiquities Consultant was, but they did an excellent job at mirroring Jake’s usual speech pattern. I find that a lot of people, when writing Jake, just kinda throw in as many random old-timey words as possible and as a result it feels kinda disjointed, but the writing team for the epilogues managed to make him feel very... would light be a good way to put it? Sort of airheaded I guess. Just very goofy idk

We got to see Rosemary and they were married and raised a kid and it was the best! Rose was really well-written, as was Kanaya; I really loved seeing those personalities balance each other out again. It was nice to see them be good parents in the Candy-verse. The Vriska they raised was such a fucking scamp too! It was nice to see a Vriska who had a positive home environment but still had that same spunk

Also, Dave. Just, all of Dave. He was really solidly written throughout the whole thing. I fucking love his interest in the economy holy shit. I got to hear Dave Strider say the phrase  “neoliberal austerity measures.” That’s the best. “Economically Aware Anti-capitalist Dave” is rivaled only by “Karkat (True Leftism)”. I’ve seen a few complaints that Dave’s interest in the economy was also OOC, but for one thing he’s an adult and can cultivate new interests if he likes, and for another Dave is a pretty clever kid, and very numerically-minded. (Is that a term? I mean he’s good at maths and such). Don’t forget, not only did he manage to accumulate all the wealth on LOCAH in the span of three days by taking over their stock markets, but he also used the hash map modus in his day to day life, showing that he was able to do calculations in his head as quick as breathing. As shown here, the hash map modus is pretty complex and requires you to come up with a word that has the same value as the thing you wanna use in order to use it. That’s not easy to do on a dime and yet he uses it in his rooftop battles with Bro. All of this is to say, he’d certainly learn to be very good at economics if he wasn’t already. It just suits him.

Oh and I also love that Dave still makes SBaHJ and Karkat has a bunch of sockpuppet accounts he uses to defend Dave’s honour. it’s very cute.

Karkat also had some lines in the epilogues damn. I hadn’t realized how starved I was of VantasRage until I read a few of his rants. Also we finally got to see Badass Rebel Leader Karkat and he’s just as great as we all knew he’d be

The davekat kiss in Meat was great too. It was very gratifying to see after all the narrative cockblocking that went down in Candy.

John realizing in the Candy universe that he isn’t responsible for everything and that they’re all still just people with their own autonomy was good. Much as I have problems with the Candy universe on a whole I liked this specifically.

Also, roxygen! I love roxy/callie as much as the next guy but John and Roxy were very cute near the end of the comic and I liked seeing them grow up and have a kid. John names his son after the guy from Night Court because he’s a massive dweeb. Love it.

We got some great Terezi writing as well. The johnrezi at the end of Meat was nicely written and made me feel a whole host of emotions despite me not even having shipped them that hard beforehand.

OH MY GOD THE OBAMA SHIT. I almost forgot to put this in because I was focused on other stuff but my word the whole Obama Situation was beautiful I loved every second of it. It was so over-the-top in the best way and it simultaneously carried airs of being So Serious And Important To The Narrative and being just the dumbest load of crap. I loved it so much

Also, I was very happy with Roxy and Callie coming out. Roxy talking about how he’d already come out as dating an alien with a green skull for a head and how it felt like maybe he was being “selfish” by also wanting to come out as trans was a great illustration of something that already-out LGB people often feel when realizing they don’t identify with their assigned gender. Additionally, Calliope coming to terms with the fact that they don’t have to identify as female just to further differentiate themselves from Caliborn was great. It really helped to show how far they’d come from just being Caliborn’s foil into being their own person. However, this leads into:

Some stuff I didn’t like

Speaking of Roxy and Callie’s transition, Dirk also came out. As a transphobe. Which was disappointing, to say the least. He made a point of misgendering Roxy as often as possible and was pretty dismissive towards NB people when he learned about Calliope’s identity. (You could make an argument that Dirk is being thoughtless by misgendering Roxy and not intentionally malicious, but I don’t see Dirk as the kind of guy who slips up very often. He’s very careful with language.) I always headcanoned Dirk as trans, as I’m sure most people did, so having him just up and become transphobic was kind of the worst. I intend to talk about Epilogue!Dirk a lot more in a later post but yeah. Not a fan.

EDIT: I’ve thought about the Dirk thing a little more and he does eventually start calling Roxy by the correct pronouns, albeit in kind of a “see see look at how openminded im being youre such a manly dudely stud bro” way. Dirk’s initial discomfort with Roxy and Callie’s identity more comes from his own egotistical belief that he should have already known about it than it does from genuine animosity. That aside, he does still say “She probably would have loved being a “they” when she was a teen,” which sorta rubs me the wrong way. I might just be being oversensitive though.

Also, in the Meat universe, Rose and Kanaya split up! I’m very upset about that. Ultimate Power be damned, I want happy, married lesbians! It sucks that we either have Rosemary OR Davekat but not both

On the topic of davekat, Jade really got done dirty by both Epilogues, huh? She was used as a narrative device in one and was an intrusive presence in the lives of Dave and Karkat in the other. TBH I was never a fan of davekatjade for a lot of reasons but I would have preferred they be in a happy poly relationship than what actually happened in Candy.

Actually, the only two polyamorous relationships in the Epilogues both turned out awfully. I doubt any of the writing staff had anything against poly people; I’m sure it was just a coincidence but either way it’s pretty unfortunate. I have a bit to say about this but this is running too long as is.

Gamzee

Fucking Gamzee.

Unanswered Questions

Will there be any further updates? I sure hope there will, because the ending was not very satisfying and creates more questions than it answers. I can sort of see where it might be going but they left way too much up in the air and it feels very much like it’s unfinished. V has referred to it as “the whole thing” on twitter, so it might be finished for good, but i really hope it isn’t

Why did Rose say the session they’re creating will be the most important session of SBURB ever played? Why couldn’t they play it on Earth C? Surely Earth C’s inhabitants would be more used to seeing alien life forms and would know the basics of SBURB, thus making it more likely for them to survive it. Why go to the trouble of seeding a whole new planet? I’m curious.

Can a character be said to be “Out Of Character” if the character’s own creator wrote those actions? What if they passed on the actual writing to someone else but still had to verify it themselves? What does OOC even mean? Does it mean “this doesn’t fit my headcanon” or “there is no evidence for this” or “the author wouldn’t write them like this”? If it’s the last one, can an author merely saying “this interpretation is correct” absolve ANY action from being deemed OOC? I like that I’m being made to think about this kind of thing now

To what degree is each universe truly “Canon”? I’m aware that Candy lost its canon-ness when John decided not to fight LE, but the two universes are intrinsically linked: we see characters from one universe travel to another and it’s implied that Terezi has spoken to both Johns. How canon is Meat, even? Are either of them even still bound by the need to be part of the Alpha Timeline anymore, since Lord English has been created? What does anything mean?

Final Musings

I understand completely if you don’t like the epilogues. Maybe you think they’re too dark. Maybe you just don’t agree with portrayals of the characters. Maybe you hate that they gave jade a fucking tail when she never had one in the main comic. There certainly were bits of it that I wasn’t a fan of, but there are also parts I really wanna go draw fanart of right now. I like the Epilogues, but if I write fanfic or make dumb joke posts about Earth C, I’m probably gonna ignore large swaths of it (such as, I’ll probably keep both John and Dirk alive, and make them kiss a lot)

There has been a great deal of vitriol directed specifically at Hussie about the epilogues despite the fact that other people worked on them. It’s difficult to take these criticisms in good faith when so many people are blaming solely Hussie. I’m aware that he had total control over actual plot elements and wrote a bit of dialogue, but the bulk of the actual text was written by V. Another thing I’ve noticed is that people’s attitudes towards the epilogues are very much like the general attitude towards Act 7 when it first came out. I’ll admit, I left the Homestuck fandom in like 2014 and didn’t return until mid-2017, but people’s Jimmies were definitely still Rustled even then. There was a general atmosphere of “I hate Hussie, and you should too! The ending was bad and no one asked for it!” but as time went on, and people started analyzing the ending and making meta posts about it, everyone sort of grew acclimated to the ending. Suddenly, the general consensus was that Homestuck was Good Again Finally and the ending was Amazing and The Fandom Loved It. I feel like maybe that sort of thing’s gonna happen again with the Epilogues. I really hope that, as it continues to update (if it does), everyone will sort of chill out about it

[hanzi83]

This may be my last blog

I feel the end is coming near for me. I don’t know where to start because more and more they are suspending me from different platforms for being hateful, when it is clearly something bigger at work. I refuse to believe these social media sites who help let right wing bigoted assholes spew their views with no repercussions, but someone like me who is venting to get it off his chest and defending myself from attacks, where I feel these attacks are coordinated on purpose to fuck with my mind and instill more fear and paranoia. I literally don’t feel like I have anyone on my side, and even if I did have people on my side, I am sure I would just lose my fucking mind and accused them of being against me at some fucking point.

I think the problem lately I have not been able to express myself in my private thoughts and when my notes got deleted I have not felt like putting effort into doing it and normally it is full of wrestling analysis and what conspiracies are happening mostly and I am not even good at doing this anymore because so much thoughts poor into my psyche and I hope that it is somehow recorded by some advancement and is being extracted in some kind of manner and I am already getting bored with writing this because I have nowhere to start, so lately I have wanted to keep up with what is going on so I can have material from what is happening in the social landscape around the world, and then I figure it might be better if I react and retweet other people a lot smarter than me.

I have become a lot more aggressive with my irrational rants, and it feels like people push me to react this way and I feel I have to fight back, so if I do fight back, they can suspend me for telling someone to fuck themselves, or tickling themselves with a razor blade and if I don’t react then they get away with it. I have cried out for people within media establishment would help but I don’t know if they are allowed to do anything or even say anything, especially when it is Howard Stern, as irrelevant as he is in the lexicon of popular culture, I still feel I am being targeted by him. It is not a coincidence that he has gotten Leslee Dart to be his publicist for his book, who also represented Woody Allen, and I could bet money she is behind help censoring the online stuff and pushing back against the negative reaction to his book, not that I know for sure.

He has always had his own followers, who I feel are employed fans who bad mouth others and even bad mouth Stern as well, so it gives off this notion that the right wing contingent of the fan base is against him simply for being a little more liberal about his views, when I feel he is a neoliberal, and even people messaging me on twitter thanking me for being right all along because Alyssa Milano was promoted the book etc. These people are sick, they have dedicated a sub reddit to me, that has to be a sub reddit of another sub reddit which is Howard Stern, and that is done because they used to encourage that on their reddit, but now that I have called it out and put eyes on it, they have since then made another one and the people on the Stern Show reddit are “against” any Hanzi comments and pretend it is me, so now this troll who is obsessed with me, will project his feelings on me, and act like I am the problem.

I have no idea who this dude Gorilla Baconator is, but he will always post my periscopes and misrepresent what I am saying and because these periscopes are deleted afterwards, if someone goes online to look about things about me, they might seen the titles of some of these threads and not see it is being misrepresented. I always upload most of the scopes onto my public facebook page, but lately since I have been off twitter I have been on different periscopes that happen. I have met some cool people, and some people hated me. It is a variety, whether it is religious people wanting to pray for me, some wrestling ones, or women trying to get guys to pay for private shows while I just name drop I was on Stern Show and ask conspiracy questions. I do that because I literally have nothing else interesting about me, and also want to see if the trolls who stalk me, will pop out and I have caught some of them doing that, so I boasted about feeling better going on periscope and meeting new people, the trolls then have to say “Hanzi is stalking black teens” and I get if it was just a joke, but their goal to do this is for me to get in trouble, and because these people are paid to do it and have no soul, they will make me crazy even more.

One screen grab I put out was about them making insinuations that I am trying to pick up underage girls and that an arrest is eminent and even as untrue that is, it puts paranoia that they can control this narrative and I have no one to watch my back. I posted the screen grab on my facebook to show people how fucked up this is, and I like documenting it so people can see what kind of shit they are trying to misrepresent and character assassinate me.

I certainly cannot count on anyone I know because I think all my friendships and relationships have been strained severely with my subtle jabs because of my hatred for not being connected with my city over this Toronto Raptors thing. I have voiced my displeasure, as irrational as it is, and then valid displeasure came out because it was reported the owner of the Raptors wants to take the team to Israel, and anyone pushing back against that, is seen as an anti Semite since they purposely pile lump in criticism of Israel and Zionism in with the white supremacists who hate Jewish people. So this made me not want to root for the team, and it made me not want to care about it.

I couldn’t even go a day without social media where I did not see any footage of celebration, and as much as I think it is cool the Toronto team won a championship, it makes me overwhelmed because I see a lot of Canadian exceptionalism taking place and more and more it is like Toronto is becoming like the United States, and while the hatred for that is overwhelming, the fact that people I know are part of this type of shit it makes me regret even knowing these people, and the media can show a Sikh guy who owns his own car dealership and has gone to every game etc and then say “Hey look Toronto is diverse, we’re not as racist as the US” is horrible, I am happy that we are celebrating people uniting and feeling good about a sports team winning, but I can already see the pretentious cockiness about this and how smug people will become because of all of this and because I have not handled this well, and have been taking jabs at people I presume are in group chats, and people who have used my “fame” to get what they want systemically while I have to suffer and if I even say anything back to them, I really think people will plot to kill me or fuck with me.

People have hinted they sneak into my house and move shit in my house. I don’t know if it is all true, but if people are targeted I could see how they have “regular” people to become agents and do the bidding at the elite’s behest and I feel like they have done it to me and will continue, until they get me offline or until I attempt suicide and they will keep pushing me more and more. If I do a periscope to do air my thoughts out and don’t have any comments on, they will take it personal, if I take my anger out on them because they are adding to my mental stress, they will then carry on to fuck with me over everything.

I don’t think it is a coincidence I got suspended on twitter the week of the championship game, and now on facebook I have been suspended off of, when people are reporting my lives for being “suicidal” when it is clear I am not going to do anything and I can tell it is a plethora of people in my life who do that. It is scary to think that people I know, or people at the top are taking the time to fuck with me like this, and I don’t know what they are capable of and how they could kill me, since people can be bought off for the access in the elite. They will gossip about me constantly in group chats, posting whatever move I make, what I tweet out, what pictures is being put out there or whatever blog I post. I think they even shut down the Hanzi83 sub reddit, because they said they wouldn’t shut it down until the mission was complete. Are they disguising the truth under the guise of shit post, or they actually trying to instill paranoia in me. I would not be surprised because a plethora of whack packers are going down and are sick in the hospital, and it feels like sacrifices could be made, even though they would not officially expose that, and maybe my time is coming since I have to pay for the fame I got, even though I have paid the ultimate price for it, and instead of killing me, they will just imprison me even more mentally. I think the end is near for me unfortunately. This blog will only be seen officially by a couple of hundred people, because I can’t post this on facebook or twitter.

I think they will kill me. My parents are ashamed of me, and why wouldn’t they be? Look at me. I should have never been alive this long, but around my house I can sense this dark energy of silence and it feels like the elite have warned them about something that is going to happen. I could be wrong, but my life has been a fucking waste. I will never be able to trust anyone in my life, and they will never take accountability for anything and I feel people with power in the system will use it to fuck with others and bully them, without making it look obvious. Everyone in the system is corrupt and fucked up. Why would you let me be on this planet, I can never look at these people the same again, they all fucking hate me and sometimes I feel the same way and I never want to feel like that

I need to take a break from the internet and get active again. I have to try, because as much as I loved making new friends on Scope, and actually trying to have a connection on a human level because it is a fresh start for friendship, because I don’t think I will ever have a good rapport with people I already know because of the damage that has culminated and I always hoped I would be at peace with people now because whatever has been creeping on behind the scenes, I thought would be done now. I think I have become such an asshole and political about this Raptors shit, and maybe it is my insecurity of never reaching to do great things because I did not sell my soul, and I kick myself sometimes for not doing it because maybe I need to be praised and cheered on, and then I get back down to earth and just want a revolution to take place. I don’t know if I am going to be sacrificed. I feel people have used me and set me up, because I am going to have to be fucked with and put away in some hospital. I might have to decide to check in and disappear for a bit.

It is funny that I am a joke in my town, but in my fucked up head, I feel I helped get people their connections without even knowing it because of the alleged politicking that existed behind the scenes, and it fucks with me that so much has happened to me behind my back and now I am so hurt emotionally that I have no choice but to vent so I can get out whatever is in my head, but no one sees that. I really don’t mean harm on anyone. I just wish the world would just let me go because I will never fit in with anyone every again. I have angered the brass and their minions are hard at work trying to get rid of me.

Even if my twitter and facebook is restored, I should just get off. I can try deactivating it but time to time I would like to see what is going on in the world in the news since we are at a dangerous times, I feel that way. I just lessen the amount I take in because I am so hell bent to catch up on everything, I don’t have time to want to leave my fucking house. I have to get going and do something. Lately my desire to catch up with anything or even write has lessened but then when I want to go do something active I become worried I will not know things or get references because I still fancy myself a comedian in training, but never actually doing stage time, but still finding ways to creatively vent. I can feel them coming for me, I don’t know if they will further hinder my attempt at a career, and then it could just be that I suck. I don’t fucking know. Even if this is kind of funny, can I use this again? Or did I just waste material and left it open for anyone to just take from me, and I will never get any credit.

I apologize to people I have hurt but keep in mind you have hurt me and I will never get the answers because none of you would ever admit what you are supposed to be accountable for, or at least in my fucked up head, I wish it was not like this but this is all I have, to vent and I just rather act irrational. I should just take a break and work on my notes and at least save them for my own journal, and then gradually bring it out but even when I am typing in my own journal, I don’t think it is actually private because I feel these people are watching me. I am afraid of doing things because whatever I do, I wonder if people are paid agents and always meant to keep tabs on me, and it feels like there is literally no one to talk to about anything and that is why I have been addicted to periscope for the last week because I felt I was seeing all walks of life doing different things, whether it was shit talking, presumed sex workers trying to advertise themselves, debates about prison reform,  Christian women praying for me, it was just fresh of interacting with people, and also me trying to cram it in that I was on the Stern Show because there is literally nothing interesting about me, because of my limited experiences and knowledge, and only way to sound kind of interesting is having discussions of conspiracies and then tying it in that I might be the victim of a conspiracy and having great discussions about it. I am also worried because I would go in scopes where it might come across like women were being forced to do it, or maybe they are legitimate sexy workers, I did not indulge further than just dropping conspiracy talk and asking how old they were. But when I would go on random scopes of musicians or just regular people if they were underage or just barely legal, I would walk out of the conversation pretty quickly. Anyone within my age range I was never going on to these places to get off, and maybe that is because I am medicated so much that I don’t even have a sex drive anymore, so I was really looking for good conversation with people within my age range because I need some mature conversation. It was just good talking to different people, there are a lot black and brown people on there that I gelled with and even being made fun of and busting their balls back. I even got felt like someone important with a couple of people, whether they were just feeding my ego or genuinely interested in my story and the fact that I am kind of known, it felt good and maybe it was one of the best things that happened, because it has made me want to try and get my shit together. I don’t know if these people will come for me, and try to frame me for shit because of how much I have tried to speak up about the world and what my theories are, and they punish people like me for doing things.

I can see the disgust in people’s demeanors around me more and more. I really don’t feel like I fucking belong. I get fucking scared when there are certain things these people admit to and then act like it is for real but they know there is nothing for me to do about it because literally everyone is compromised and since I feel targeted, and it gets scarier when they spread horrible lies about me, and accuse me of being a pedophile when it is not fucking true, and it makes me think since they have my computer hacked and have showcased what they can do, whether it’s moving my keyboard, taking from my actual document on my computer and pasting it on reddit before I even posted it in the blog site I use, or stopping music being played on my device when it is somewhere else, or posting under my name on my public page with my personal account, there is no telling what they have done to my computer and even if I wanted to indulge to see if they did any funny business, what the fuck am I supposed to look up to know if anything shady is on my computer if anything at all. These people really love to mess with me. I might just have to check myself in the hospital, but I will probably get abused there or I will be put through torture or something. I don’t fucking know. I wonder if they want me out of commission it will be so I don’t have to be present for something people in my life can’t hide.

I am going through so many emotions. I need to break from twitter, even if it is restored, as attempting as it is going to be seeing the jokes about OJ getting on twitter and then me complaining how they are beating a dead horse since it is all planned out anyways because they needed to make twitter interesting before it completely becomes nothing, like it is WCW, “You know what will keep people invested with twitter? OJ SIMPSON”  I am already getting sick of the responding with a GIF movement that has taken a light of its own, and then people thinking the GIF chosen is such a genius move.

Anyways I am happy Raptors won but then I am not because it brings joy and I hate that I am not included in it probably. I really don’t know how I fucking feel. I know that putting that out there makes people come bust my balls, even subtly just to try and trigger me. Then if I go off on this shit, then people act like I am the guy who is treating people like shit so then I put people down for their tactics and how they act behind the scenes, and since this “fan base” is not getting paid by me, and maybe they would be a little more supportive if I did like anyone else with a fan base who pay their fans indirectly and do it with perks etc, in my opinion, but I don’t pay these people and they might be paid by other people to harass certain people, they will try to set me up by asking what they can do or what are the orders, even if it is something small. I tell people to act on their own.

Anyways this blog is out of control because I am doing random thoughts because I have not written much in my journal, so I am all over the fucking map, but who cares I am not credible and no one is going to read this, and even if they do, they don’t care. It does hurt that people who are leftist could be part of the group that decides I need to be put out of commission online as well, because some of them don’t seem to want to bring attention to it, and maybe their battles are limited, it is like wrestling, and any decent person would ask “Why aren’t the other good guys helping this dude who seems to being outnumbered with mental abuse as the referee continues to ring  the fucking bell” and it feels like that is what is happening, all the other good guys can’t help or I have been such a fucking asshole, that people don’t think I am worth saving, until the narrative changes then conveniently people will start fucking caring. I realize neoliberals wouldn’t help because we know they don’t care, and the republican types won’t care because they will justify it why I am the bad guy, but people are leftist, I would expect they would at least make mention of it, but even their word is limited, even though they are also speaking out on other evil, so maybe some fat delusional Pakistani in mommy’s basement is not high on their list. No one cares or it feels that way and because of that I will always feel aggressive with my shit talking because I am so hurt by no one seemingly caring and letting all this alleged harassment to go on and make me feel so fucking horrible, that I fucking want to die. When I speak with my case worker, I might have to really ask about going away for a bit. I know that is what you want anyways.

[kierkehaard]

Analysis of ‘mother!’

About a week ago, I went with a friend to watch Darren Aronofsky’s psychological thriller ‘mother!’. Truth be told, I’m still recovering. Aronofsky and Jennifer Lawrence themselves did mention that the show wasn’t for everyone, and I understand why they would say so; the show is prodding, uncomfortable, and excruciatingly persistent in discussing what it wants to discuss. But I’m not just saying this because of its controversial portrayal of religion and Christianity - I’m pretty sure the internet has already been flooded by discussions on the matter by now. Instead, I wanna talk about how it deals with one of the concepts I personally hold quite dear to my heart: pacifism. Spoilers ahead, of course, so I’d recommend you watch the movie before reading this post. 

Angel In The House

Let’s first talk about the portrayal of Jennifer Lawrence’s character, since she’s probably the most pacifistic and passive character in the movie (at least, in Act I). She represents an old Victorian literary trope that Darren Aronofsky revives in his movie, called the ‘Angel in the House’. This is basically the archetype of the domestic goddess, the pure and virtuous wife who brings life and beauty into the household, the compliant angel who glides through the house performing her domestic duties. Essentially, the Angel in the House is the Victorian ideal for everything a woman ought to be. We can see this being represented to the letter in Lawrence’s character (henceforth referred to as Jenny for the sake of brevity). When Jenny is by herself, she is often seen performing household chores like painting a room or washing the clothes. Even more telling is her lack of identity except in relation to her husband. He can be seen to have a job, and leaves the house multiple times. Jenny never does, and can be assumed to be a homemaker. She and the house are actually actively paralleled, with the house constantly mirroring her state of mind, especially during her breakdowns when the house itself shakes. The hole in the floor disappears once the domestic conflict that Adam and Eve bring about is resolved, and the house itself actually physically breaks when she finally loses it in Act II. In fact, the only times she actively requests to leave the house are when He puts her in uncomfortable, destructive situations: once when Cain had just left the house and was probably going to return, and when the house was invaded by cultists worshipping her husband, ‘Him’. Yet, every time, her requests are denied, and she readily complies. She never actually leaves the house. The notion of her being the Angel in the House itself already symbolises compliance, meekness and passivity. The fact that she actively keeps herself within that role from the instruction of her husband seals her identity as the representation of these values. She isn’t going to be a Nora or a Lady Windemere; instead, she remains, for the greater part of the movie, blindly compliant, blindly passive. 

Passivity to Pacifism

This is the part where we make the jump from her representing passiveness to her representing the values of pacifism. You can probably already see the links; pacifism in its garden variety is essentially a moral code based on passivity, but the jump requires moral conflict. Aronofsky provides Jenny with plenty of these, and often in explicitly violent terms. We see Cain beat his brother to death, we see Jenny forced to witness the death and gruesome consumption of her child. Even her rebirth involves the tearing out of her heart. In other words, Jenny is subject to violence throughout the movie. And for all the damage the various characters wrought on her house, for all the harm that came to her, she simply turns the other cheek. In fact, when Cain confronts her and aggressively justifies his innocence to her, she simply cries and nods. I’m not saying that this isn’t a reasonable action to take in that circumstance; hell, if some guy cupped my face in his blood-soaked hands and demanded if I understood the rationale behind his murder, I’d probably do the same thing. But the fact that this was explicitly slid into the scene rather than making Cain simply just leave there and then does more than to add realism. It characterises Jenny as one who is most comfortable sitting in the backlines, accepting and enduring all the wrong done to her and within her house; it characterises Jenny as both passive and pacifist. 

Of course, she isn’t ALWAYS passive. She finally snaps and turns violent at the sight of her child being eaten, massacring the cultists who engaged in the perversion of the Holy Communion. In fact, she refuses to allow Him to carry her baby out to the crowds in the first place, the first act of disobedience she actually makes in the movie. That’s where the importance of the baby comes in. The common idea of what the baby represents is that he’s supposed to be Jesus. And of course, that’s definitely the case. But evidently, using that definition alone doesn’t really do justice to what the baby means to Jenny. All her major character developments are done in relation to the baby; she flushes her painkillers down the toilet bowl after she becomes pregnant, a resolution to her inner conflict that arose from the intruders in her house; she takes a stand against Him when he demands her baby, and she finally descends to pure rage at her baby’s death. Ultimately, the baby is Jenny’s motivation. It is goodness, purity and innocence. And that’s exactly where Aronofsky’s critique of pacifism lies. 

What All This Means

What Aronofsky presents to us in mother! is the self-defeating and hypocritical nature of passive pacifism. It’s not just that you’ll eventually snap and get sick and tired of being kicked around; it is about justice. Think about it; if nobody is there to enforce right and wrong, who’s there to uphold the notion of rightness in the first place? In a morally bankrupt world where fans eat babies and the poet simply watches as his own son gets torn to shreds, how can one simply stand back and watch as the individual’s and the world’s purity becomes corrupted, and simply offer up your other cheek? I’ve read some complaints that the characters in the movie are unrealistic, but I frankly think those criticisms just show a lack of awareness of what mother! was trying to do; subverting reality is the whole point of the movie. In this world, everybody is compliant and everybody is passive: even God. There is no individuality among the cultists, and completely no objection to the consumption of the baby’s body. They even just stand there meekly like sheep as Jenny culls through the herd in her rage. ‘He’ himself says that ‘I don’t want them to leave’, demonstrating his wilful ignorance of the cultists’ evilness in his desire to be worshipped. Even the non-passive characters, like Cain and Eve, bring nothing but harm to the homestead when they act of their own volition. In a world like this, the supposedly moral act of letting evil acts pass unjudged ironically breeds more and more evil. Ultimately, pacifism ends up morally corrupting itself, just as Jenny, in her inability to assert her will, eventually burns down her own house in her fury. 

The idea of moral passiveness often has links to religion. God is the arbiter of the just and unjust, and men have no right to enact their own flawed moral compasses as the ethical standard. John 6:37 - Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Instead, what we should do, as Matthew 5:39 puts it, is simply ‘not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also’. But if God himself is passive, if God himself lets injustices continue in the world without punishment, then who is left to make sure that goodness prevails? mother! is often interpreted as a religious allegory, and that’s of course the canon and mainstream reading of the movie. But through its treatment of the religious, I think Aronofsky might be getting at a more moral, more tragic message against sitting in the backlines and simply taking everything in stride. Because that doesn’t just hurt you. It hurts everyone around you too. 

This is not to say that pacifism or religion isn’t justified. The last thing I want this article to be seen as this edgy rant on the ‘inconsistencies of Christianity’ or ‘how Christianity makes you weak’ or whatever. I myself am a Christian and largely identify as a pacifist as well. But maybe that’s why this movie left such an impression on me. Of course, this isn’t exactly a matter of critiquing pacifism as a whole. You can still be against violence without being guilty of the hypocrisy that Aronofsky describes here. But what I think he’s really trying to get at is moral and personal passivity, the idea that standing back and letting things just run their course is somehow the right thing to do. And the justification for this is always that ‘my moral judgements may be wrong’, or that ‘it’s not my place to rock the boat’, or even ‘who am I to judge?’. Far too often, we simply dismiss our lack of courage to do something about injustice by hiding it under the guise of ‘simply wanting peace’ and ‘never resorting to violence’. But that really isn’t what being a good person, or even being a pacifist, is really about. And I think we all need to start acknowledging that - even though it isn’t always wrong - the fatalistic commitment to inaction itself is a conscious decision that we cannot shirk responsibility from. 

[logh-icebergs]

Episode 7: Iserlohn Taken!

May 14th, 796/487. Infiltrating Iserlohn fortress in the guise of a damaged Imperial ship, the Rosen Ritter swiftly overpower the control room. The quick thinking of one Imperial soldier temporarily locks them out of the fortress computer, forcing Yang to stall for time while Schenkopp and co. rush around Iserlohn kicking ass and taking names—names and computer passwords, I guess, since they unlock the system and allow Yang’s ship to dock. The Thor Hammer makes quick work of a large chunk of the Imperial fleet, although Oberstein flits away like the cockroach he is.

Technical Aside: Character Redraws

As I mentioned, when LoGH was released on DVD the episodes were remastered. By and large this involved evening out the colors, fixing the lighting when it was too washed out, sharpening lines, etc., and it’s beautifully done and deserves a lot of credit for making this show such an aesthetic joy to watch.

However. For reasons lost to the sands of time (at least, unknown to us) some scenes were entirely reanimated, primarily in the first and early second seasons. These redraws go beyond the touchups of other episodes—sometimes in ways that have little consequence (changing backgrounds, slightly different positioning of the characters in the scene), but sometimes in ways that significantly alter the emotions conveyed on the characters’ faces. This poses a problem for us, since the whole thesis of this project is that the animators of LoGH intentionally conveyed a ton of important information about emotions, thoughts, and relationships of the characters specifically via the details of the expressions and body language.

As an example of an inconsequential but unfortunate change, they made this random dude’s hair way more boring. Poor guy.

The original here conveys much more character though the body language.

Our policy will be to base our analysis off of the original animation when we believe there’s a real difference. In these cases we’ll give a heads up and include plenty of screenshots for those who don’t have access to the laserdiscs on which it was first released. Episode 7 is one of the handful of episodes that was actually about 90% redrawn, including a few key character moments, so in some of the discussion below I include both versions to illustrate the differences. In the future we may not even show the comparison, but just analyze the original animation. It’s annoying that the version on hidive is the redrawn version, yes, but these are the hurdles one must contend with in pursuit of true LoGH scholarship…

Believe it or not, changing poor Julian’s outfit and pose here is not the most egregious example of straightwashing in the redraws—we’ll come to that later in the season.

Ideals, Pragmatism, and Tea

Okay, with that out of the way, let’s get into the substance of the episode. One main theme that’s woven throughout the entire Iserlohn mission (dipping back into episode 6 as well) is Yang’s distaste for the abstract ideals that are commonly invoked as justification for the continuing war and destruction. We saw this a bit in his reactions to Trunicht’s speech in episode 3, and we see it again when he addresses the newly-formed 13th fleet:

(From episode 6.)

I love the tea speech. While at one level it’s humorous—silly Yang, so awkward and out of his depth giving a speech to thousands of people—it’s also a really pithy expression of Yang’s priorities. In two sentences Yang undermines the fundamental concept of this war: that they’re fighting for an ideal, for honor or love of their country or hatred of the empire. Circumstances have led the people in this fleet to find themselves facing a battle, and given that reality, the motivation he offers them for fighting is that living is preferable to death. And not just living, but living pleasurably. For Yang it’s drinking good tea that pops into his head, but it’s not a leap to substitute a more general idea of tangible, visceral experience of the world: being alive to do the things that make life enjoyable.

Yang believes that life is the sum of choices and experiences, and he hates the war not just because of the unnecessary death, but also because of the way it cuts off people’s choices and individual agency—his own, for example, and as he sees it, Julian’s.

Never mind that Julian claims to *want* to fight; in Yang’s view Julian’s agency is an illusion since it’s so shaped by societal forces. Hmm, projecting much, Yang? We’ll come back to this, of course. (From episode 6.)

Toward the end of this episode we see again how frustrated Yang gets with rigid adherence to ideals of honor at the expense of actual lives. We saw this in episode 1 when his commanding officer refused to abandon the already-defeated fourth fleet; here Admiral Seeckt of the Imperial Iserlohn fleet refuses Yang’s offer to let them withdraw, instead responding with haughty phrases about the honor and glory of soldiers. Yang’s reaction here is the single biggest difference between the original animation and the redraws, so I’ll show both here:

The redraw exaggerates Yang’s reaction in a way that feels inconsistent with his character. He is angry here, yes, but the composed, sad anger of the original fits him more than the seething, almost explosive rage of the redraw.

Also he is just so much more beautiful in the original, damn.

Yang’s hatred of the rhetoric of war is palpable here, and his reaction—to concentrate fire on the flagship—accomplishes the dual goals of allowing the rest of the fleet to go ahead and withdraw, and eliminating the Admiral whose attitude he found so harmful.

But despite hating the war and wanting it to end, Yang accepted this mission; and when Schenkopp grills him about it in episode 6 we get insight into his specific goals.

Yang’s pacifism is of a highly pragmatic flavor: As a historian he views cycles of war as inevitable and lacks the hubris/ambition to think that anything he does will change that in a lasting way. But the value he places on individual freedom and self-determination means that he sees full surrender to the autocratic government of the Empire as worth avoiding, and his hope in taking Iserlohn is that it might be the bargaining chip they need to conclude a peace treaty that would allow the Alliance government to remain independent.

His desire for peace is intimately tied in with his desire to leave the military and go back to the life he finds more enjoyable: drinking tea and studying history. And indeed when the mission succeeds, he initially attempts to do exactly that, going so far as to hand over a letter of resignation to Admiral Sitolet.

This is obviously a huge turning point for Yang. Nothing is actually stopping him from resigning here; it was his plan from the beginning of the mission and he has the power to do it. But Sitolet, who was his instructor back at the military academy so has known him for a long time, knows exactly how to play him. 

While Yang scorns the typical lofty ideals that his government puts forward to justify the continued death toll of the war, he believes deeply enough in the value of individual human lives that Sitolet’s guilt trip works on him. He can’t quite bring himself to put his own aspirations above the futures of the people in his fleet when faced with what amounts to a threat on their lives. Yang has served under other commanders and seen them, for example, advocate suicide attacks in order to play a game of attrition; Sitolet’s words are not abstract to him. While he urged his soldiers to fight so they don’t die, he himself feels the burden of fighting so that other people don’t die, so that other people have the choices he’s turning down himself.

I introduced Yang as a man of paradoxes, and we see that here: his belief in the ideals of freedom and self-determination pushing him to stay on this path he doesn’t feel suited for.

Oberstein

We already met Paul von Oberstein when he accosted Kircheis in episode 4. (In fact he’s been around lurking in the background since “My Conquest.”) Here I would just like to point out that Oberstein is set up as a clear parallel/foil to Yang. Remember in episode 1 when Yang is the only one to see through Reinhard’s plan but his commanding officers won’t listen until it’s too late? Oberstein plays exactly that role here, seeing right through Yang’s delay tactic of pretending to control the weapons of Iserlohn before they actually did, but Seeckt refuses to listen to his logic.

(Yang shots from episode 1.)

Like Yang, Oberstein is deeply pragmatic and keenly intelligent. His vibe here comes across like “what if Yang but no soul?” We’ll keep an eye on the parallels and contrasts between them as we get to know them better. (Well, get to know Yang better anyway; can anyone ever really be said to “know” the enigma that is Oberstein…?) 

The Rosen Ritter

In case you thought the Rosen Ritter were all sexy swagger and no action, here we get to see them actually doing their thing—hacking people to death with battle-axes. This fight sequence is beautifully choreographed, incredibly badass, and starkly brutal to watch. 

Yang may be sitting out in his flagship doing his best to craft a strategy that minimizes loss of life, but that doesn’t mean much to these soldiers who are sacrificed to his plan. Again, war at all levels of zoom.

Stray Tidbits

I can’t resist ranting a bit more about how much they change Yang when they redraw him. Fortunately it’s pretty rare—we won’t see redrawn!Yang much more until episode 39. But just...why...did they change the shape of his face and make his skin so red? Why? Original!Yang is so beautiful and sad and sleepy. 

This scene makes me crack up every time. Between this and the waitress scene in the last episode we’re amassing quite a “Blumhart waves awkwardly at random women” collection.

[lightwormlol]

Overly analysing books and over use of problematic

I feel like at the rate fandoms are currently going, I envy those reading that aren’t jaded by the fandom’s thoughts\critiques of books. Don’t get me wrong - I love analysing my favourites scenes with my OTPS, re reading them etc - but honestly there is such thing as over analysing. (If you’re a reader who likes to go off at the slightest thing, this post will piss u off lmao)

I think the word ‘problematic’ should stop being thrown around so carelessly at the slightest thing because it detracts from the true meaning of it - reserve it for real issues pls, fandoms are too fucking much for me right now.

As a female hijabi, Pakistani woman - believe me I’m the last person to glorify racism\sexism (just to name a couple obv I can’t speak for ableism\homophobia etc) but I really feel like the word ‘problematic’ is being inaccurately used, its got to the point I just roll my eyes and scroll down every post I see meticulously critiquing every minute detail that could potentially be ‘toxic’ and thus rendering the author and their books 'problematic.’

You guys did this with cultural appropriation too, when that became a buzzfeed term that everyone and her mother was policing people for, its got to the point I don’t even give a shit anymore - most of y'all just want an excuse to attack people under the guise of 'defending your culture due to your blatant identity crisis as a second generation.

Yes, I am an advocate for diversity and stronger representation in books. Having said this, its fairly obvious to me when an author throws in a poc just for the sake of adding 'diversity’ to the book, without accurately portraying cultures - which to me is worse than omitting them. Lmao news flash people, most authors write what they know, and are more scared of misrepresenting and offending an entire culture (and thus being automatically labelled 'problematic’) hence why many tend to stick to white characters as the safe option. if you want to politicise this and act like the author is somehow a ‘problematic’ racist then… throwing out the word racism at every minor topic is what makes people roll their eyes at us when we call it out in genuinely serious topics. In 2017, the term ‘race card’ has people rolling their eyes for a reason, IT IS BEING MISUSED AND THIS NEEDS TO STOP. I’ve firsthand experienced  racism/xenophobia from a young age, so believe me I’m the last person to try and undermine calling out racism irl - what I’m addressing here is literature specifically.

I take English literature for fuck sake, I’m the last person who would normally criticise over analysis of a text - but I go on tumblr to share my feelings with like minded people, a community I used to love. The amount of vitriol dividing this platform right now is frankly disgusting and honestly, I’m just so done. The ‘well informed’ readers who like to enforce their opinions as fact, in addition to undermining/patronising those who don’t agree/ are somehow invalid as readers. Let people read books and enjoy them. Save politicisation for times when it is truly relevant, all you’re doing is perpetuating the archetype of the ‘offended sjw’ which makes people roll their eyes in the face of true discrimination. Frankly, you’re contributing to the problem with your attempts to constantly be politically correct in every fucking aspect of life.

So yeah - Soz for the rant lol - unpopular opinion. i seriously envy those who just read a book without having to encounter the amount of toxic behaviour I have seen recently. 

P.S - this isn’t made with the intention to undermine the opinion of those triggered by certain scenes (eg rape\abuse etc) You are completely valid to be triggered by those scenes/tropes and I honestly do not mean to imply or offend this. This is particularly addressing the focus on diversity within fandoms lol

[jerryadler-blog]

In 2017, the tug of tribalism grew stronger

Among the unheralded winners of 2017 are political scientists, some of whom could spend the rest of their careers trying to explain Donald Trump’s rise and significance. Two of them, Michael Barber and Jeremy C. Pope of Brigham Young University, saw in Trump’s ever-shifting, ideologically flexible views “a unique opportunity” to test a crucial question in American politics: “To which do people give a higher priority: their ideology or their partisan affiliation?” They ask, Why is it that Republicans, self-described defenders of American values and interests, “became four times more likely to view Vladimir Putin favorably” from 2014 to 2016? What changed is that the Republican Party nominated someone who boasted about the mutual admiration he shared with the Russian dictator, illustrating Barber and Pope’s finding that “group loyalty” and “social identity” are more important in shaping voters’ views than their professed ideology.

Another term for “social identity” is “tribalism,” a word that has appeared in more than 60 articles in the New York Times so far in 2017, almost all in relation to American politics or culture. (It showed up just six times in the first year of Barack Obama’s presidency, including two references to American Indian tribes and one to an indigenous ethnic group in Venezuela.) As James Fallows wrote in the Atlantic, there are any number of synonyms for “tribe,” including “clique,” “pack,” and James Madison’s preferred term, in Federalist #10, “faction.” But “tribal” conveys a kind of blinkered, inbred loyalty that seems especially apt when applied to, say, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, whose babbling, content-free defenses of Trump led MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough to ban her from his show, or former CNN commentator Jeffrey Lord, who described Trump as “the Martin Luther King of health care.”

In this context, “tribalism” has two somewhat overlapping meanings.

One is the phenomenon Barber and Pope describe: the growing tendency to see politics as a zero-sum game between diametrically opposed teams, in which loyalty to one’s side is more important than the national interest, or even, at times, one’s own career. Writing in New York magazine this fall, Andrew Sullivan described how “the enduring, complicated divides of ideology, geography, party, class, religion, and race have mutated into something deeper, simpler to map, and therefore much more ominous… two coherent tribes, eerily balanced in political power, fighting not just to advance their own side but to provoke, condemn, and defeat the other.”

Again and again over the last year and a half, the tug of tribal loyalty has kept most Republicans in line with a president they privately, or even publicly, admit is dishonest, inept and erratic to the point of posing a threat of nuclear war. Party loyalty has led congressional Republicans to slow-walk their own investigations into allegations of Russian interference in last year’s election. It brought Republicans to the point of voting for a hugely unpopular tax bill, and many observers gleefully, or fearfully, predict they will pay a price for it next November. Barber, quoted in the Times, said that a large corporate tax cut “isn’t really an ideological priority for much of the rank and file” of the Republican Party, but “if it means that their side has ‘won,’ then they are in favor of it. More broadly, I think it shows us that teamsmanship is much more important than any particular policy agenda.”

Most religions, even those that aspire to universality, are susceptible to tribal appeals.  The loyalty to Trump shown by evangelical Christian leaders such as Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell Jr. has led to a growing crisis of confidence among evangelicals, especially younger ones who don’t want their church to serve as an adjunct to a political movement led by a man they wouldn’t invite into their own homes.

This is not a character flaw unique to one party. As Barber and Pope remark in a footnote, “We believe that given a different scenario that similar stories could be told about Democratic attitudes as well.” If Republicans who during the Clinton years considered personal morality an essential attribute in a president have changed their minds under Trump … well, some prominent Democrats have gone in the opposite direction. Nor is this situation inherent in American democracy. It wasn’t always the case that major votes in Congress were decided along strict party lines. For much of the last century, both parties spanned more than half the ideological spectrum, with considerable overlap in the middle. There were pro-civil-rights Republicans and Democrats who were hawks on Vietnam; legislators may or may not have had stronger consciences in those years, but they evidently felt freer to follow them. Congressional leaders in that era were expected to at least pay lip service to the idea that their policies were advancing the national interest rather than narrow partisan advantage. It’s hard to imagine one saying, as Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell famously did in 2010, that “our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term,” which committed him to automatically opposing anything Obama proposed. It’s not that hard to imagine Nancy Pelosi saying, and certainly thinking, something similar about Trump.

But political parties are “tribes” only in a metaphorical sense; there is another meaning to “tribalism” that cuts much closer to the bone. That is the spread of ethno-nationalism, the polite term for “racism,” which burst into the public consciousness with the tramp of marchers in a torchlight parade through Charlottesville, Va., in August. White supremacy, long thought to have been banished from American public life, came back to life in 2017 in the guise of protecting monuments to the Confederacy, drawing energy from the anti-immigrant rants of Trump and his acolytes. “You will not replace us,” the Charlottesville marchers chanted, with a subliminal, and at times explicit, substitution of “Jew” for “You.”

In his new collection of essays, “We Were Eight Years in Power,” Ta-Nehisi Coates calls Trump “the first white president”: the first whose election — coming after Barak Obama’s two terms — was a specific affirmation of white supremacy, rather than a routine perpetuation of it. Coates proceeds to reject any explanation for the 2016 vote that does not rely on racial identity, such as white working-class dissatisfaction, which he treats as a lazy journalistic trope that obscures the racial biases of Trump’s voters. This analysis — and the passionate dissents to it – are likely to influence political commentary for years to come, assuring that 2017 will go down in history as, among other unfortunate distinctions, the Year of Tribalism.

_____

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