#y’all really want jews dead don’t you

[lem0nademouth]

this, friends, is what we call “saying the quiet part out loud”

I’m curious to know where goyim think the Jewish people are from. Colonizers have to have a mother country from which to colonize; what country would that be? I’m being so genuinely serious, if you don’t want Jews in Israel, where do you want us to go? Or do you just want us dead?

[pettytiredandjewish]

antizionism is not antisemetism and you are delusional for believing so. the victim complex is strong

Well….it seems that you really don’t know the history of the term anti Zionism. Let me help you out a bit. The term anti Zionism was created by the Russians during the Soviet Union. The Russians hated jews. During that time period they wanted to find a way to destroy jews and their culture. That’s where anti Zionism comes in.

If you haven’t read Dara Horn’s people loves dead jews, she does an amazing job with going into detail about what happened- I’m gonna summarize it (I may not do it justice)…

During the 1920’s and 30’s the USSR was “supporting” Yiddish culture- they would pay for Yiddish language schools, theaters, publishing houses, etc. A lot of Russian jews were thriving in Russia during this time period due to the USSR “support”. But the Soviets wasn’t doing all of this to be kind and good. This was part of a larger plan to brainwash the jews so that they would submit to the Soviet regime. It came with a price.

The Soviets would eliminate anything in the celebrated jewish “nationality” that didn’t suit soviet needs. If you DIDNT practice your religion, study traditional Jew texts, Spoke Hebrew, or support Zionism- you were awesome. The soviets pioneered a well known slogan- which has spread all over the world and which it remains popular today: “it was not antisemitic, merely anti- Zionist”. The Soviets managed to persecute, imprison, torture, and murder thousands of Jews….

The only reason that the Soviets allowed Yiddish was so that they could continue their Jew hating game. Soviet Yiddish schools changed the language to get rid of biblical and rabbinic Hebrew. Why? Because Hebrew was and is still part of Jewish culture. The Soviets also forced Russian “anti-Zionism” Jews (who was brainwashed into hating their own Jewishness) to write stories and plays that would show how “horrible” traditional Jewish practice was. They would create these happy heroes who would reject both religion and Zionism.

This continued until the Soviets moved on to the next phase- purging Russian jews. If you were caught in a synagogue, a Jewish centered club, etc. you would be imprisoned, murdered, or exiled. This went on until the Soviets started to do the same thing to the anti Zionist jews.

Y’all this is why anti Zionism is antisemitic. Please know a terms history before you start spitting it out- thinking you know what it means. Anti Zionism is literally rooted into antisemitism. And the reason why a lot of countries and people use this term is because- (drum roll please)- they hate jews. This is why I keep telling y’all to please read up on history. Don’t get your info from social media or random websites. Just pick up a book, journals, or sourced papers and read them. It’s not that hard…

[cerastes]

Apropos of that Jew Question post, since it’s gotten me thinking, it makes sense, yeah. Bloodline’s never meant anything to me personally, and that won’t change, but I obviously can see it being important to others. It always puts me a bit on guard, because then I need to know your adjacent stances on topics and peoples — does your pride in your lineage reflect into thoughts such as “and I want all the enemies of my people dead :)” or is it purely and honestly a matter of good faith pride? Nationalism and all it carries with it is not too far away from all that on the skill tree, after all — so I know what I’m dealing with.

Technically (or practically in this case? I don’t know) I do have some Jewish blood in me from my father’s end of the branches, but it’s my father, so it doesn’t pass on to me according to tradition (his mother was Jewish), and additionally I am directly of Basque lineage, so you can imagine how impassioned some conversations were when the Jews and/or Basques were present for family events, which was always really off-putting to young me, in all honesty, because, well, y’all didn’t do any of that shit you are so proud of, was my line of thought. Of course, that was young me that wasn’t taking the bigger context of history into account, and that was more concerned with looking at it in a vacuum (and not without resentment for various reasons, chief among them being bored as hell and wanting to go home to Bomberman Hero already).

It didn’t help that my hometown was a Muslim hotspot and I had a lot of neighborhood friends that some more outspoken but overall not representative family members wanted to ethnically cleanse. Don’t ethnicity cleanse my buddy, please, we play Bomberman together.

But experiences aren’t universal, of course, so it’s not as if I think that pride in one’s lineage is synonymous with waiting for the right excuse to start unloading a magazine in a religious building’s general direction, but I do understand why it puts me, specifically, on guard, and I understand that’s a me thing that doesn’t reflect on the world as a whole.

[canichangemyblogname]

“You believe that a movement can simultaneously have deep Zionist roots while relying on antisemitic conspiracies to spread their ideas?”

Absolutely. And I’m tired of y’all pretending that Zionist is synonymous with Jewish or being an ally to Jews.

The RadFem/DivineFem movement is one such example of an antisemitic movement that believes whole heartedly in the Zionist cause. Many of its followers believe “Jewish doctors and billionaires” are “transing” and “gaying” children by funding, supporting, campaigning for, and performing sex changes on children, which they call “synthetic sex.” No such thing is happening. JB Pritzker and George Soros are not performing or funding sex changes for children. The doctors at your local Planned Parenthood or gender-affirming clinic are, by and large, not Jewish AND not operating on children.

The Trans Exclusionary Fem’s rhetoric mirrors the rhetoric the Nazi regime used against Jewish scholars, doctors, and researchers who studied queerness in Germany prior to being shut down and burned to the ground. Right down to the calls for these doctors and successful Jewish business men to be “hunted down” or “prosecuted” for the way they are destroying the “naturally given” (god-given) bodies of (white, Anglo) children.

At the same time that the TER movement frequently traffics in antisemitism, the movement also has deep Zionist sympathies. They believe in the righteousness of the “West’s” military force as a means for furthering human rights. They support Israel despite its Jewish citizens, not because of them, because they believe that the Zionist project more closely aligns to US and UK “western” values in regards to women, and thus will be a “civilizing” force upon the local Arab population, who they see as being a “backwards lot” that cannot respect women. No consideration, of course, for the West’s colonial history of raping and murdering Arab women and imposing upon them the conditions of life designed to bring about destruction. A marginalized group’s material conditions get worse under imperialism, but the TER cares only for the way that Zionism mirrors Manifest Destiny and British “Trade” Expansionism.

This is why when queer people and women in the “West” express concern for the treatment of women and queer people under Imperial invasion, the TER’s usual response is to tell the stupid faggots and cunts that SWANA citizens would rape us and throw us off roofs. They point and laugh, “Look at how these dumb trannies show humanity toward people who don’t respect their human rights,” as they campaign to strip us of our bodily autonomy and access to any public accommodations. “They’ll throw you off roofs,” says the man who posts about wanting to beat queers to death in bathrooms for the protection of “real women.” The “Western State” is somehow our saving grace; the best place for our human rights, but really the only threat to them.

While they feign to care about the treatment of women and queers in SWANA nations, the TER ignores the fact that our brutalization occurs in our own— supposedly “civilized”— countries at the hands of their policies and state actors who support their cause. I truly find it hard to believe that the TER cares about whether I’m thrown off a roof given how they discuss my lack of humanity. They will only ever bring forward the brutalization of people in the “West” when it serves their narrative, like when they want to justify their support for the violent weaponization of the paternalistic carceral state for the supposed protection of women (see: slogans that say “The only good criminal is a dead criminal”). Which women? Certainly not Black women. Not Indigenous women. Not immigrant women. Not queer women. Middle and upper class WASPy ladies.

[kdrama-mama]

I am SO FUCKING DISAPPOINTED with a white Jewish friend of mine. We bonded on Twitter over politics more than 10 yrs ago. We’ve discussed so many topics over the years, and I really thought we had the same values.

She’s literally sharing IDF propaganda and it’s KILLING me. I’ve been doing my best to retweet plenty of educational content from other Jews on the Palestinian struggle and why Zionism is bad. I’m not Jewish, but part of my family was, I lost family in the Holocaust, so I understand the generational trauma the Jews face and why a mass killing of Jews would be so traumatic, and am certainly sensitive to that, but a fucking genocide is not the answer. So I’ve been trying to tread lightly but at the same time, how the fuck can you believe a government that has been proven to be lying over and over and over again?!

One thing I noticed right away is that she was one of only like two white Jewish folks in my feed who were supporting Israel from the start of this. Literally not a single Jew of color of my Twitter friends (who are part of our mutual longtime circle) and follows (which I have many, as I’ve been on Twitter a long time). My friend is always “listen to black women” except she’s been awfully dismissive of the black Jewish voices.

But today, TODAY she shared a video that is straight up IDF propaganda. It is 3 purported black Israeli Jews (all with NY accents) talking about “don’t forget about us! Protecting Israel protects us too!” She isn’t listening to anyone, is obsessing over the rape that are alleged to have happened, thinks it’s a gotcha to be like, “Why are LGBTQ groups supporting Palestine? They want y’all dead!”

I swear the obsession with the rapes feels like the way white women in the South were told and believed propaganda that black men were all hyper sexual beasts who could rape them at any time (my husband’s grandmother was afraid to be in a room with a black man!). “How can you support Palestine if you’re a rape victim? Hamas raped so many Jewish women!” It’s like post 9/11 Islamophobia meets racism in the US South. It’s wild that she’s neither LGBTQ nor a rape victim, and that does not sit well with me at all considering I’m both. I’m very close to doing a thread directly tagging her to educate her and then blocking her if she doesn’t receive it well. I just can’t be friends with people who think that what happened in Gaza in okay under any circumstances.

[hazel2468]

All in response to a post about AMERICAN Jews being put on a hitlist because people just LOVE using antizionism as a veil for their racism against Jews.

Anyway. This is why I don’t trust y’all. Person who says “there are bigger threats than anti-colonialists” when those “anti-colonialists” are BDS. And they just put out the addresses of Jewish schools and elderly centers. Doesn’t seem to understand that YES, people who think like this are just as much of a threat.

Admit it. You just want Jews to shut up. You really like us when we’re dead and you can use us as an excuse to hate on nazis, but at the end of the day you’re no better than all the other racist assholes out there.

Antizionists are antisemitic. Antisemities are racist. And you have made it so obvious that you don’t care about Jews.

[anamericangirl]

A fetus is a human life but it’s not a human being, we don’t grant personhood simply for being alive so that’s highly debatable. Whether or not a fetus is deserving of moral consideration is irrelevant because that’s a personal view, the main point is outlawing abortion goes against bodily autonomy laws that we have upheld in the western world for decades upon decades. A 8-10 week old fetus ( which is when majority of abortions happen ) is not viable. If a fetus is not viable and has to directly survive off the mother, she still has her bodily autonomy rights. A fetus is not granted those bodily autonomy rights because the fetus is the one infringing on the mother’s bodily autonomy & it can only be granted those rights once it’s viable. By outlawing abortion, you’re giving this non-viable fetus more rights than a woman. You’re granting a non-viable fetus more rights than a literal dead person ( we have bodily autonomy rights that protect dead people from the government infringing on it & donating organs to those in need, even though they are already dead . We still have to respect their bodily autonomy.) Bodily autonomy laws protect citizens from having to use their own body to sustain the life of another, regardless of if that other life dies or not.

That aside, we already had laws preventing abortions after a certain time period ( about 24 weeks ) and only made exceptions for health reasons.

Also I don’t understand why anyone would be for completely outlawing abortions knowing the state of our current foster care system being overflowed and abusive , our lack of affordable healthcare and how these laws will impact the poor. Forcing women to give birth will not fix anything and “pro lifers” rarely advocate for actual changes in these systems and instead stand outside abortion clinics harassing women all day. It’s pathetic and shows that what y’all really want is to feel a sense of moral superiority & control instead of fixing the actual issues at hand and helping women & children.

Thanks for explaining what you believe and not being rude about. I really appreciate it!

I have a problem with your position from the very first sentence, however. You really need to define your terms because if something is a "human life" by all definitions I have seen anywhere, whether it be law or science, then it's a human being. If you are going to assert that there is a difference between human life and a human being then you need to clearly define what the difference is. A human being, from a biological viewpoint, is a human organism. That's what classifies us all as human beings. And, from a biological standpoint, the unborn are human organisms from the moment of conception. And if being a human organism is what determines whether we are human lives, and thus, human beings, why doesn't that apply to the unborn? If an organism is human and alive then it's a human being. There are not human lives that aren't also human beings.

The next problem with what you're saying is also right at the beginning.

"We don’t grant personhood simply for being alive so that’s highly debatable."

Who, exactly, is "we"? Personhood is not something we grant to others. If it's something to be granted then it's something we can take away and maybe that's the problem here. If you and other pro-choicers think personhood is something we grant and not something that is a truth then we just have a fundamental disagreement. The concept of "granting" personhood never leaves anywhere good. People who believed personhood could be granted would not grant personhood to slaves or Jews and that leads to great evil. Now we are not "granting" it to the unborn. The problem here is you do not acknowledge that they are persons just because they exist as a human being. They don't need to wait for personhood to be granted. Personhood is not a philosophical concept. The definition of person is a human. And if you acknowledge the reality that a human life is a human being and human beings are people it's not debatable at all. So, once again, if you are going to assert that being a human being is not the same as having personhood then you need to clearly define the difference.

This got really long so I'm going to hide the rest of it so people don't have to scroll past a long post.

"the main point is outlawing abortion goes against bodily autonomy laws that we have upheld in the western world for decades upon decades."

Laws being in place is not an argument for whether something should be tolerated. Bad laws that should not exist have existed. Slavery was legal and allowed human beings to be treated as property. Is this something that should not have changed since it was a law upheld for decades? Was the Dred Scott decision something that should have been left in place? If a law is bad and violates a human right then that law should be fought against regardless of how long it has been in place.

Bodily autonomy is not license to kill. If exercising your rights demands you intentionally end the life of an innocent person then you cannot exercise that right. Your rights end where another person's begin. Bodily autonomy is not a right without limits. Seat belt laws violate bodily autonomy, drug laws, laws against drunk driving, mask and vaccine mandates, etc. In fact, every law violates bodily autonomy in some way or another. So to simply argue that outlawing abortion goes against bodily autonomy when every law goes against bodily autonomy isn't a compelling argument. We generally restrict bodily autonomy when exercising it would cause serious harm or danger to another human life. So when that is the justification for restricting bodily autonomy and abortion directly kills an innocent person, then you are going to have to explain why in this case the life of the innocent person doesn't matter and, why, in this case, bodily autonomy trumps the life and health of a person who would continue to live without your interference, when it normally does not.

"If a fetus is not viable and has to directly survive off the mother, she still has her bodily autonomy rights. A fetus is not granted those bodily autonomy rights because the fetus is the one infringing on the mother’s bodily autonomy & it can only be granted those rights once it’s viable."

I have a real problem with the language you use about human rights. Once again, you are using the term "granted." Human rights are not something that are granted to people. They are called human rights because you have them by the very nature of being human. If you exist as a human, regardless of how old you are, how developed you are, or where you are located, you have human rights. The only qualification needed to have human rights is that you exist. So if bodily autonomy is a human right then the fetus has that right because it's a human being. A fetus also has the right to life. These rights are in place at the moment you exist, not the moment you're born.

When you justify violating the rights of the fetus because they aren't viable, are you claiming that viability is when a person has rights and is no longer ok to kill? Some babies are born very early, like before 24 weeks, which is when a fetus is considered viable. If a baby is born at 20-22 weeks they are not considered viable. Is it acceptable to let them die or intentionally kill them?

Also, it's very important to know that the fetus is not infringing on the mother merely by existing. It's existing exactly as it's supposed to. The mother's personal desires about whether or not she wants it doesn't determine whether there is an infringement. You talk like the baby just climbed into the uterus of its own accord or there was an embryo floating around looking for a uterus to invade and pregnancy happens randomly to completely unsuspecting women. But that's not the case. If a woman is pregnant, it's because she chose to engage in an act where the sole purpose (biologically speaking) is reproduction. She chose to take the risk of creating a baby. She made the baby. She put it there. It's not an uninvited guest. The process of reproduction is a natural biological function. It's part of life. It's not an infringement. If you invite people into your house, they aren't infringing on you by accepting the invitation. And once there, if you decide you don't want them there anymore, you can't expel them from your property by killing them.

"By outlawing abortion, you’re giving this non-viable fetus more rights than a woman."

The non-viable fetus is a human being just like the mother. And I'm not giving them more rights. I'm acknowledging they have the same rights. You are the one ignoring rights. You can't use your own rights to kill innocent people. Give me a time, other than abortion, where it's ok to kill an innocent person in order to exercise your rights.

"You’re granting a non-viable fetus more rights than a literal dead person ( we have bodily autonomy rights that protect dead people from the government infringing on it & donating organs to those in need, even though they are already dead . We still have to respect their bodily autonomy.)"

I know pro-choicers like to use the analogy of donating organs to explain why you'll think abortion is ok, but it's not a good comparison. You're comparing two completely different situations and acting like they are the same and since one is ok so is the other. But the situations aren't the same. One situation requires you to kill a person. The other does not. And that is a huge difference. You are not killing a person by not donating an organ. You are killing a person by performing an abortion. Can you stab the person who needs the organ? Can you take your organ back after you donate it and the person is using it? You are ignoring the fundamental difference between these situations. The act of killing is the core issue here. When is killing ok in any of the scenarios you brought up?

"Bodily autonomy laws protect citizens from having to use their own body to sustain the life of another, regardless of if that other life dies or not."

Regardless of if the life dies or not, independent of your own choices, that's true. But not regardless of whether or not you are making the choice to intentionally kill that other life, which is the key point here you keep glossing over. In any other situation, even in an organ donation one, we would call that murder.

"That aside, we already had laws preventing abortions after a certain time period ( about 24 weeks ) and only made exceptions for health reasons."

Yes but that's not everywhere and it's not good enough because abortion should be prevented from the moment of conception. And there is no health issue that is treated by abortion.

"Also I don’t understand why anyone would be for completely outlawing abortions knowing the state of our current foster care system being overflowed and abusive , our lack of affordable healthcare and how these laws will impact the poor."

Because I don't think killing children is the solution to these problems. Killing existing people to save them from poverty or the foster system is not the winning argument you think it is. The foster care system, not being able to afford healthcare, etc. is not worse than death and I'm really curious as to why you think killing the children is a better option than fixing the system and helping the kids currently in it. You're not making any of the situations better by killing people before they're born.

"Forcing women to give birth will not fix anything and “pro lifers” rarely advocate for actual changes in these systems and instead stand outside abortion clinics harassing women all day. It’s pathetic and shows that what y’all really want is to feel a sense of moral superiority & control instead of fixing the actual issues at hand and helping women & children."

This is how I know you know nothing about pro-lifers. You bitch at us for "rarely advocating actual changes in these systems" when that couldn't be further from the truth. Like yes, our main focus is ending abortion because it's a literal genocide of the unborn and that is the most important thing to stop. But pro-lifers are also more likely to foster and adopt than pro-choicers are. We provide resources for struggling mothers with healthcare, childcare, their living situation, etc. We help them choose life and we help them after they choose it. But you pro-choicers don't see it. You just assume we don't do that because you're not out there doing it. You think until pro-lifers fix all the problems out there ourselves the only solution is killing babies and it's the only one you advocate for. You bitch at us to fix all the systems you use as justification for killing people but don't do anything to fix them yourselves.

And yeah, the pro-life movement does a lot for women outside of the abortion issue but if someone is pro-life and their sole focus is to stop abortion that's perfectly valid. There's nothing wrong with focusing all your activism on ending the killing of babies.

Maybe instead of getting mad at pro-lifers because you chose to be ignorant about all the things we do to help women and children, you should get mad at pro-choicers who just say there are too many problems and we can't fix them so just kill the children.

Pro-lifers do not force women to give birth. Reproduction is a natural biological process. We don't force it anymore than we force digestion. Pro-choicers are the ones forcing birth. You're advocating to force the baby to be birthed much earlier than it is supposed to be. Once a woman is pregnant, she is going to have to birth that baby one way or another. The difference here is you advocate for killing a baby so that it's delivered dead, and we're advocating for the delivery of a living one.

[davidcampiti]

A SCREENPLAY IS NOT A COMIC BOOK SCRIPT

I'm frustrated by writers who hire a comicbook artist then send a screenplay as their script.  My first question to them is, "Are you hiring one of our writers to adapt this into a comic book script?"  Usually they'll respond, "No that's the script to work from."

But it's not.  

Word balloons aren't broken out or numbered, SFX aren't identified, the pacing is wrong, and most panel descriptions are missing, causing the artist and the editor to do twice as much work without a corresponding increase in pay.

Here's a good article from Nick Macari about the differences --

I think you’d be hard pressed to find some work of fiction, some type of writing, that you could NOT turn into a comic. That is to say, you could create a comic from notes on bar napkins, a published novel, heck I bet you could even create a comic using nothing but a movie as the source material.

If you’re making a comic yourself, like literally by yourself, it doesn’t really matter how you do it… only the final product matters. If you have some crazy process that gets you a beautiful finished product, good on ya mate.

But for those writing spec scripts, trying to write for others, or trying to entice others to their project, it pays to create scripts that open doors instead of closing them.

In 2020, there are a million writers writing screenplays and pawning them off as comic scripts.

If you want to be one of those guys… as you were.

But if you actually want to write comics, if you want to be a comic book writer, you should learn how to write an actual comic book script, not how to sell some other script as one.

There are lot of useful technique comics can borrow from screenplays.

For the innocent novice writer, it’s understandable to see some technical execution confusion. But for working and professional writers, knowing what transfers over and what doesn’t separates the riff from the raff.

Before we get into it, let’s put to bed, once and for all, why a straight screenplay script is not a comic script. Here’s why;

Director Production Designer Art Director Costume Designer Cinematographer … Camera Assistant Director of Photography Scenic Artist Set Decorator Storyboard artist … Makeup artist Wardrobe stylist Assistant Director Production Assistant Production Coordinator Production Designer … Script Supervisor Sound Mixer Special Effects Coordinator

oh yeah, and actors.

These are a few of the people involved in a film.

Individual roles dedicated to a specific area of production. In essence, a screenplay can deliver fairly minimal information and it’s someone’s specific job to interpret that information, its context, and otherwise apply their knowledge, experience and skill, to turn that information into some tangible, successful element.

If you think it’s the artist’s job to fill all these roles, you’re crazy… and mean to artists.

Ok, you still here?

Good.

Let’s showcase some specific examples of why a screenplay doesn’t hold up for comics;

THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Drug Dealer I don’t…

Doyle Ever pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?

Drug Dealer What?

Doyle Did you ever pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?

Drug Dealer I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.

Doyle Were you ever in Poughkeepsie?

Drug Dealer No… yeah…

Doyle Did you ever sit on the edge of a bed, take off your socks and stick your fingers between your toes?

Drug Dealer Man, I’m clean.

Doyle You made three sales to your roaches back there. We had to chase you though all this shit and you tell me you’re clean?

Russo Who stuck up the laundromat?

Doyle How about that time you were picking your feet in Pougheepsie?

The drug dealers’ eyes go to Russo in panic, looking for the relief from the pressure of the inquisition.

Russo (in pain) You better give me the guy who got the old Jew or you better give me something or you’re just a memory in this town.

Drug Dealer That’s a lot o’ shit. I didn’t do nothin’.

14 dialogue exchanges, with for all intents and purposes not a single visual description (one minor one toward the end about the dealer’s eyes.). This is likely at least one page of comic with this volume of exchanges and dialogue, and there is literally, nothing cuing the artist as to how this should go down.

THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Mutchie

That’s right, he couldn’t fight legit. One night at the Garden about 1950, ’51—he fought either Jake LaMotta or Gus Lesnevish, I think it was—he took one o’those cream puff punches in the sixth—the laziest left you ever seen—missed him entirely. Down goes Blackjack without even workin’ up a sweat and the whole Garden gets up on its feet and I swear to Christ, everybody starts singin’ “Dance with Me Henry.”

75 words. Way too much for a single panel.

How many ways can you break the dialogue into how many panels?

Is one way to break it up more effective than the others?

Because if it is, and that’s NOT the method you write up, you’re producing a less effective script.

But ultimately, what works in film as a 30 second monologue (doesn’t work in comics), would be far more effective as caption narration over flashback action.

THE EXORCIST

EXTERIOR – IRAQ- NINEVEH- DAY

The old man arrives back at that dig site in a small jeep. As he pulls up two armed guards rush out. When they see who it is the old man gives them a wave and they slowly walk back to there quarters. The old man walks up the rocky mound and sees a huge statue of the demon Pazuzu, which has the head of the small rock he earlier found. He climbs to a higher point to get a closer look. When he reaches the highest point he looks at the statue dead on. He then turns his head as we hear rocks falling and sees a guard standing behind him. He then turns again when he hears two dogs savagely attacking each other. The noise is something of an evil nature. He looks again at the statue and we are then presented with a classic stand off side view of the old man and the statue as the noises rage on. We then fade to the sun slowly setting as the noises lower in volume.

Hey! this has some nice direction, this screenplay stuff is perfect for a comic.

NO.

Let’s break it down;

The old man arrives back at that dig site in a small jeep. As he pulls up two armed guards rush out. When they see who it is the old man gives them a wave and they slowly walk back to there quarters. The old man walks up the rocky mound and sees a huge statue of the demon Pazuzu, which has the head of the small rock he earlier found. He climbs to a higher point to get a closer look. When he reaches the highest point he looks at the statue dead on. He then turns his head as we hear rocks falling and sees a guard standing behind him. He then turns again when he hears two dogs savagely attacking each other. The noise is something of an evil nature. He looks again at the statue and we are then presented with a classic stand off side view of the old man and the statue as the noises rage on. We then fade to the sun slowly setting as the noises lower in volume.

This passage is 15 beats, give or take. One beat a panel, 3-5 panels per page, we’ve got 3-5 pages of comic in this passage alone.

Hang on we’re not done.

If you fill your page with this type of description (you shouldn’t, but let’s say you did), you could get almost double that amount of beats. So one page of screenplay delivering nearly 6-10 pages of comic content!

Tell me, when was the last time someone delivering a screenplay “comic script,” delivered a 2 page script for a complete issue?    Never says I.

BONUS on this example:

Did y’all notice the soundtrack emphasis in this excerpt from the Exorcist script? Of course you can have sound effects in a comic, but no matter how you crack it, comics DO NOT have soundtracks. Relying on film soundtracks in a comic script is a sure fire way to deliver less effective scripts.

BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA

JACK Alright, where’s my truck, Wang? I’m outta here. And my money, too.

WANG Forget about your truck, Jack. You don’t wanna go back there. You’ll have to go through the Wing Kong to get it. It’s insured, right?

JACK Of course it is. But that’s not the point.

WANG The smart man comes back for it later…

JACK The smart man calls the cops!

WANG Cops have better things to do than get killed.

We showed the typical lack of visual description a screenplay gives in the first example. [Screenplays tend to focus on the scene setup, then briefly hit key actions of the scene.] Here we have another example of missing visual description, but I point it out for something more specific–LACK OF EMOTIONAL context.

As I point out in the Writer’s Guide, Emotional content is one of the essential elements of each and every comic panel. So not only do we not have visual cues to support the action in the screenplay, but how are the characters delivering these lines!?

JACK Alright, where’s my truck, Wang? I’m outta here. And my money, too.

How many ways can you say this line?

I can say it pissed. Irritated. Fearful. Sarcastically. Comically.  Those are just a few that pop in my head… and I’m no actor.

Leaving emotional context open to interpretation undermines narrative control–in a big way.

A good, effective scene, could die a horrible misinterpreted death.

For the record, you can use parentheticals in a screenplay. This can give emotional context, like the one from Jack’s first line I omitted to make the example more effective

JACK (pissed off)

But where parentheticals do contain emotional context, you use them in a script sparingly. Just like you don’t tell the director how to do his job filling your screenplay with camera direction, you don’t try to tell the actors how to do theirs. (Remember, the answer to why Screenplays aren’t Comic Scripts, there’s a lot of people, hopefully professionals, bringing their expertise to the table.)

CASABLANCA

Ilsa Your secret will be safe with me. Ferrari is waiting for our answer.

At the bar Ferrari talks to a waiter.

Ferrari Not more than fifty francs though.

Ilsa and Laszlo walk up to him.

Laszlo We’ve decided, Signor Ferrari. For the president we’ll go on looking for two exit visas. Thank you very much.

Ferrari Well, good luck. But be careful. ( a flick of his eyes in the direction of the bazaar) You know you’re being shadowed.

Laszlo glances in the direction of the bazaar.

Screenplays live in movement. Unless you’ve got a static insert of a letter or photo or something, everything is in motion and there is constant change (even if subtle) from micro-second, to micro-second.

While comics work to capture movement (and  there are some tricks), it is ultimately a static medium, locked into showcasing moments frozen in time.

What I explain in the “works in movies not in comics article” is that the constant movement and motion, supported (primarily) by actors, but by the lighting people, the art direction people, director, etc. all gives depth and purpose to every single second of a film.

With all these people doing their job, a screenplay can give super general stage direction, like what we see here in this Casablanca excerpt.

At the bar Ferrari talks to a waiter.

Ilsa and Laszlo walk up to him.

Laszlo glances in the direction of the bazaar.

These trivial actions carry no narrative. They work in film because of performance and motion, which steps in to create narrative.Without performance and motion, a single frame captured from core stage direction translates to ineffective comic panels.

By the way, all the examples I’m giving here, are from solid movies. The big pink elephant in the room when writers deliver “comic screenplay scripts,” is that they assume they know how to write a good screenplay in the first place. Trust me, novice writers rarely do.

There’s a lot of technique and skill in writing a solid screenplay. And if you think a good screenplay causes problems converting to a comic, wait till you try it from a shitty screenplay.

Still thinkin’ screenplay is synonymous with comic script? Well you’re wrong sunshine, but what do I know?

I’m just a non-famous full-time mercenary writer, writing almost exclusively in comics and games for a decade or so. :p

I’ve spent a few hours writing this article, but there are plenty of other examples I haven’t touched on.

I’ll come back and add some more as I think of them in my down time. Maybe eventually when the list is so long it takes you a couple hours to read this article,  y’all get it through your noggins that comics are there own medium which demand the attention and respect of a unique format and writing approach. Something the comic book writers reading this, already know. #justsayin

About the Author — Nick Macari is a full-time freelance story consultant, developmental editor and writer, working primarily in the independent gaming and comic markets. His first published comic appeared on shelves via Diamond in the late 90’s. Today you can find his comic work on comixology, amazon and in select stores around the U.S.  Visit NickMacari.com for social media contacts and news on his latest releases.

[i-am-a-koi]

y’all remember that rant i had yeah i just want y’all to know the person blocked me

but said this before she did:

lets debunk some things shall we????

first of all the priest thing: in their bio they go by she/her. Women aren’t allowed to be priests or pastors (i believe it has to do with the fact that the Church is the House of God and men in the Bible are considered the head of the household) women can only preach to other women not a mixed congregation. So if this person is preaching to ONLY women, then that is fine, but don’t use the term Priest since women can’t be ordained as one.

I guess you could say that Jesus was threatening the political life of the Jews but you need to remember the Pharisees and Sadduccees had ridiculous rules in place that no one could follow (it was literally the point of all the laws, God was trying to show that no one could be perfect and follow every law) and if you broke one you would have to go to the temple and sacrifice a lamb. Jesus never broke any of the ten commandments. (there is more stuff that has to do with this and why it is more important he didn’t break the ten commandments but it is somewhat complicated stuff that i really don’t want to get into) 

If you don’t believe Jesus rose from the dead and ascended, you aren’t a Christian that is a core fundamental belief of being Christian. That belief has literally been taught over and over again.

Also don’t try and use your friends and familys’ titles to try and prove you are right somehow. People in a place of power are wrong all the time. (As you basically proved with with your statement of Trump not doing something with the virus). I could sit here and tell you: My dad was an elder, i grew up around many pastors, they were our family friends. (hell one of them gave me a some turtles) I went to a christian private school and took Bible classes since i could remember.

but none of that would matter if i was wrong, but considering you gave no proof that i wasn’t wrong, i am just going to assume you are butt hurt that a girl half your age that runs a shitposting blog is able to argue against you validly and successfully, and that is probably the reason you blocked me.

[pettytiredandjewish]

Hey, I just want to say congrats on all the hard work and advocacy you've done. People who can't climax without looking at a photo of a dead Middle Eastern child are one of the most spat upon and derided groups, and it is so brave how you have chosen to step up to advocate for them ❤️

And it’s so brave that you’re hiding behind anon. How about you come off anon?

It’s funny that you’re saying this because it’s you people that really have a weird and sick obsession when it comes to middle easterns and honestly POC as a whole. Y’all love to post and share horrible graphic images from war torn countries (especially images of the wounded and dead). Then y’all add captions about said images but frame it in a way where it makes y’all the “main character”. You do know that doing that is so disrespectful. Y’all are being disrespectful to the dead and their families. Maybe stop making the war about yourself- especially if you’re not Israeli, Palestinian, Jewish, Muslim, or middle eastern in general. I could go on but we all know that you will not listen.

I’ve said this before but this war- it’s not a fucking game where we pick a side and root out teams. It’s a fucking horrible war. People on both “sides” have died. But the thing is- Israel is trying their best to prevent civilians from getting caught in the crossfire. But it’s kinda hard for them to do that when hamas is happily k*lling everyone. That includes their own citizens too. We all know they don’t give a fucking damn about Palestinians. They’ve made it known multiple times. Most of the civilians that were killed in this war- Hamas did that. But y’all are ignoring that. Hamas has control over their news media and are pulling the strings in other news media too. Y’all are falling for their propaganda and it’s disturbing. Hell when some of their “claims” have been revealed as lies (surprise) y’all literally turned a blind eye or pulled the fake news card. If y’all really did care for Palestine- hell even the Middle East in general, y’all would idk not support and root for terrorist organizations. That fact that y’all are rooting for them and calling them freedom fighters is just fucked up. I honestly could go on but would you even listen?

Honestly the pro Israel groups actually cares more about Palestinian civilians then you pro pal/ anti Zionist groups. Which shows that it wasn’t about the Palestinians in the first place. The majority of y’all are just using this war as an excuse to go fully unmasked as a Jew hater. We all know that. Y’all can try and deny it but when ever you guys say “those evil Zionist has control over blah blah blah” we know know what you really mean. We ain’t stupid. Is the Israeli government perfect? Hell no. But the citizens are not their government. They are not to be blamed for what is going on. They are also victims of this war. All they want is their loved ones to be released from being held hostage by Hamas. They also want the bodies of the deceased to be returned to so that they can be properly be put to rest- so that their loved ones can find some closure. But not only that- they want Hamas (a fucking terrorist organization) to be stopped once and for all. Hell if Hamas is gone- Palestine will be fucking free.

I could keep going but I know it will just be cricket noises for y’all. I’m tired and exhausted. And to be perfectly honest? I can honestly say that I don’t give a flying fuck if you don’t like what I said. It’s not my first rodeo with dealing with you people and it won’t be the last ( because y’all probably get off by harassing random Jews on the internet). So good bye and F yourself. I’m gonna go relax and enjoy the rest of the night.

[arcade-stannon]

Nobody asked but I wanna walk y’all through my Spotify playlist for Running in Blind lmao

1. Heroes and Villains—the Beach Boys

This one is just straight vibes. Rory and Arcade take off together at the beginning of the book and this starts playing. The lyrics don’t line up very well unfortunately but I chose songs that worked for sound vibes in equal measure to ones I chose for lyrical content. This one’s the former. Besides, the lyrics could be chopped around in the Eventual Cinematic Adaptation. ;)

2. Dead Hearts—Stars

For Oliver’s death.

It’s hard to know you’re out there/It’s hard to know that you still care/I can tell you, but you won’t believe me/You say you do, but you don’t deceive me/Dead hearts are everywhere/Dead hearts are everywhere

A little on the nose lyrically, I’ll grant you, but also partially chosen for sound vibes.

3. Blood//Water—grandson

For when we are introduced to Caesar.

The price of your greed is your son and your daughter/Whatcha gonna do when there’s blood in the water?

This one is the one I might be most proud of. Lyrically AND sound wise it just matches PERFECTLY to what a fucking bastard Caesar is.

4. Everybody Knows—Leonard Cohen

How can you have a story featuring Vegas in a critical light and not include this song, is my question?

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded/Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed/Everybody knows the war is over/Everybody knows the good guys lost.

This one is kind of an aberration sound-wise in some ways, but it fits so well lyrically that it’s impossible not to include.

5. Very First Time—John Fulbright

That sweet scene where Rory and Arcade get to just chill for a minute and drink some wine? I had this song in mind the moment I started writing it.

Don’t answer the phone/Don’t answer the door/Pretend nobody lives around here anymore/No need to get up/I brought the wine/and I feel alright/for the very first time.

Finding songs that are explicitly about best friends is hard, so I sometimes must settle for songs that are NOT explicitly about romantic partners. This one may have been coded that way, but I feel confident in saying it can be read easily to the tone of Arcade and Rory’s friendship.

6. Candy Jail—Silver Jews

For Arcade’s Mentats addiction.

Life in a candy jail/peppermint bars/peanut brittle bunkbeds/and marshmallow walls...

You’re lying if you say you don’t think Mentats resemble Altoids. Straight up lying.

7. King and Lionheart—Of Monsters and Men

This one doesn’t necessarily have a corresponding scene, but it’s too good not to include. If anything it’s when Arcade and Rory (and Sparrow!) finally escape the Legion camp.

Howling ghosts they reappear/and mountains that are stacked with fear/and you’re a king and I’m a Lionheart

This one was @mitsybubbles suggestion btw. I think I listened to it thirty times in one night the night she showed it to me. My neighbors then shot me. (Not really. But I’m sure they wanted to.)

8. Mambo Italiano—Dean Martin

COME ON GUYS THIS ONE NEEDS NO EXPLANATION. If you’re confused, read the fic!

A boy went down to Napoli/Because he missed the scenery/the native dancers and the charming songs/but wait a minute! Somethings wrong...

There’s a few more songs on the playlist, but they start to get a little murky and blur into the sequel, so I’ll cut it off there. There’s also definitely some holes where major plot points could be filled in with corresponding songs. If you’ve read it, I’m super open to suggestions!

[quakerjoe]

LAST CALL ON FACEBOOK

I’m done. I’ve had it with Facebook, so fuck this shit; I’m out. Here’s the final publication...

THE LAST CUPPA JOE SERVED ON FACEBOOK:  TUESDAY 10 MARCH 2020

Perhaps you’ve noticed that it’s been quiet around here despite all the political excitement. If you’ve guessed “He’s in facebook jail again”, you’d be right. Being put in a childish “time out” because I pissed off someone who came to MY page uninvited is the name of today’s game, and I’m done with it. I already lost the original Quaker Joe page with well over 10,000 followers without an opportunity to say good-bye, so I’m doing so here and now to you all and to share some final thoughts about what I’ve learned about America, its people, and the political process in a collection of simple, straightforward observations. Here it goes.

First, it has become abundantly clear that America simply does NOT want to make this “a more perfect union” as prescribed in the Constitution that everyone claims to hold so dear. My whole life I’ve watched the GOP sink the economy and destroy civil rights and worker & environmental protections while making massive money grabs. While doing so, they’ve enacted shit laws to benefit the rich while screwing “the help”, meaning YOU in general.

This brings me to “Democrats are feckless” and suck-ass at delivering a clear message or any sort of show of strength. While they’re busy trying to clean up the mess left by the GOP every turn of the tide, the GOP points at them and they shout “Look at the mess the Dems are responsible for!” and Dems say nothing. Civility, I guess. It only goes so far before you get the reputation for being wimps. You know, like today.

Democrats are yesterday’s Republicans. They’re scared, angry and afraid of taking chances. Bold leaders like Bernie Sanders want to bring us ALL to a new, all-time high. Democrats are now his #1 enemy, trying to tear an honest man down. “He hasn’t accomplished anything” the same way Jesus didn’t in the N.T. No, I’m not comparing the two, but it’s funny how a “Christian Nation” isn’t rallying behind a Jew who is a former carpenter and is trying to lead a movement to tend to the poor and heal the sick. Fuck, Bernie could walk on water and turn water into wine all while bringing a dead man back to life and the Dems AND GOPers would still shit on him.

Liz Warren. She’s a brand. Granted, her brand is taking a royal shit on the rich and powerful by calling them out on their bullshit, and she used to be a hero to me, but we’ve got to face it- she ignored the call in 2016 when Bernie urged her to run for POTUS. She was either afraid of Clinton or she was playing the “But I’m A Woman” card and secretly wanted to back HRC. Either way, Warren was out for Warren, not a Progressive agenda and clearly wasn’t behind the cause. When Sanders picked up the torch for the Progressive Cause, she fucked him over and backed HRC, all while calling herself a Progressive. Again, she saw HRC as the inevitable victor and ponied up with her, probably hoping for a cabinet position. She’s doing it now, only more cautiously. This round, however, she thought it smart to shit all over Sanders EARLY in the game and when she did it cost her and her campaign tanked. She’s dropped out. So why hasn’t she openly endorsed Sanders, a fellow Progressive? She won’t. She’s waiting to throw in with Biden after the Primaries and we ALL know it. She’s no champion of the Progressive cause. She’s a brand and she’s looking out for her own ass and nothing more. She’s fallen from grace, if she ever truly had some. She WAS GOP before and clearly nothing’s changed much.

Biden. Fuck me, are we seriously considering fronting this next generation “W”? Why not just hand the election to trump now and get it over with. 2016 all over again. He’s already lining up his potential cabinet with Wall St. tycoons, and has OPENLY admitted that he’s going to slash Social Security (even though the Fed. OWES it a fuck-tonne of payback from all the times it has dipped into YOUR paid-in benefits) and Medicaid/Medicare, but do Americans find this a threat? With typical GOP mentality on BOTH sides of the aisle, it’s only a threat when a Dem. wants to do it, but if the GOP tries, well then it’s all good and fine. Biden is a fucking REPUBLICAN. Just because he CLAIMS to be a Dem, it doesn’t make him so. He’s racist, and twats like Kamala backing him already after the whole “I was that little girl” jab in the debates only shows that she’s not for “We the People” but her own ass. Shocker.

I could go through the list of formerly anti-Biden hypocrites who’ve jumped on board to support Biden and shit on Sanders. All the moneylenders are organizing and ganging up on the ONE true delegate trying to save YOU and not the RICH. Again, this is a CLEAR example of how America doesn’t WANT to be saved.

This has taught me that Americans are not only deluded and hypocritical, as a people in general, but that they seem to LOVE being put into position of strife and misery. It’s where they’re the happiest; embracing the stupidity and ignorance instead of trying to find a way to make us ALL safer, healthier, and happier. Americans HATE being happy with the “others” are happy too. Instead of reaching down to help a fellow American up, it’s the “American Way” to punch down and blame the poor and powerless for their own failings while the rich at the top keep pissing and shitting down on them all while making money grabs.

Next, there’s all this infantile bullshit about “Bernie Bros”. Seriously, shut the fuck up. Hypocrisy in action, yet again is what this is. I’ve found in my personal experience that if I call out another Dem on their bullshit, I’m labeled a “BB”. No matter how you try to point out how Pelosi’s asleep at the wheel or Schumer’s a babbling idiot or how Biden’s a declining fuckwit who can’t string words together and that trump will eat him alive on the debates if he’s the nominee, because I back Sanders, I AM THE ONE getting labeled. The media and the fuckwits out there who are tender little snowflakes who can’t handle criticism or having dirt on their picks dug up and called out cry and cry and cry until someone puts an admin in FB jail for days or even weeks or months.

So to them I say- “Fuck ALL y’all!” I’m done here. Cry me a river because I’m sailing off of Facebook and leaving you all with this cesspool of social mania run by a cunt who backs trump. It’s bad enough knowing that the game is rigged when electing who’ll be our nominee in the Dem. party, but it’s fucking stupid trying to fight the battle here on social media when there are thousands of people following who don’t have a problem with my postings, the description WARNS that I cuss here, yet it only takes one or two fucktards to shut down your page. Fuck this bullshit. I’ve got better shit to do, and my posts on other platforms like Tumblr and even Twitter never get me blocked or locked out. Childish as this whole notion of social media is, at least virtually every other platform is infinitely less riddled with whingers, bitchers and cry-babies who can’t take the heat and instead of clicking to go elsewhere they feel the need to fuck up a page. Enough is enough.

So for those of you who’ve even made it this far and still want to follow me, you can find me on Tumblr, a much more grown-up platform, here at https://quakerjoe.tumblr.com/. If you’re into Twitter (yuck) I’m there too for who knows what reason. https://twitter.com/QuakerJoe2020 will get you to me. I hope to see you all at one of those places. It’s been a real adventure and learning experience, but all I’ve learned is that America is a dirty, filthy nation with a dark and sinister past that it refuses to acknowledge and accept, let alone apologize for because admitting that you’re wrong is UNAMERICAN. Trying to do some form of penance is considered weakness, and turning to truth instead of lies and deceits only leads to the revelation that you’re all up to your eyeballs in selfishness, racism, misogyny, all sorts of phobias, and that you’re only happy as a nation in general when you’re literally given the liberty to tear each others throats out legally.

Good-bye, Facebook. I hope you ALL get a chance to get the fuck out and perhaps regain some sanity one day because if there’s one thing that trumplefuckstick did that was good, it was that he took off the covers and the gilded paint and showed us all what Americans REALLY are, it we’re not pretty.

-Quaker Joe

[captainlordauditor]

300x3, Y2, 2:01

Obligatory explanation -  writing challenge for at least 300 words on a wip, 3 times a week, for a total of 900+ words on 1-3 works every week. Here’s today’s 370 words, which is not much as far as numbers go but it is a complete scene.

This is more Earth 988/Optical Illusions. I appear to be writing backwards here, because this is the end of the chapter before y2 1:03, which in turn is the chapter before y2 1:01 and 1:02...

I’m also looking for specific advice on this scene - Specifically, I want y’all’s impressions of what’s going on in it. Both in general, and specific - my partner said it was clear who Windischmann is, but I’m looking for second opinions.

Warnings  and language notes: 

violence, both in general and guns and implication of torture specifically.

Tateh - Yiddish informal for father

Yid - Yiddish for “Jew”

“Hello, Adelar Windischmann.”

A lip curls. “This is his student.”

“Even better. You don’t have a name, do you?”

“I don’t need one. Who is this? How did you get this number?”

“A seer. Good job on the voice scrambler, by the way.”

“I’d thank you, but it’s not my work. Why are you calling?”

Typing, rerouting a file. “Is Windischmann there?”

A head shifts, considering. “He’s a bit busy.”

“Perfect. I have work for you.”

“I’m not available for hire.”

“You’ll want this job. Robin’s gone missing.”

A face pales. “How long?”

“Twelve days.” A small lie.

A pause. “I’ll be in state in the morning.”

A sigh. “No sooner?”

“You know I’m in Argentina, I need to get there somehow.”

“Fine.” More typing. “Give me a name and twenty minutes and I’ll have a ticket out of Buenos Aires for you.”

A woman in a room, surrounded by screens, running a file again, then shoving herself to a file cabinet where she pulls out a disc and launches herself, still in her chair, back towards the computer, where she shoves the disc in and runs the program again. She buys a ticket as the program loads, then pulls the files up side by side to compare. The voices and photos alone prove nothing but when she puts them together, and with his alias-

She drops her coffee.

The man in her files stands in a tiny room five and a half thousand miles away, putting down a phone and switching languages to German. “You know, I really didn’t wanna do this so quickly.”

An old man on a chair, half dead already, lifts his head up to look at the youth in front of him. “You are a quick learner. It’s a shame to cut things short this way.”

The young man picks up a pistol and loads it, notes the old man’s reaction. “Oh, sorry - was this yours?” He smirks. “It’s funny, that you say that.”

“It’s true.”

“Yeah, you’ve said it the whole week I’ve been here. Bit ironic, isn’t it?”

A twitch of confusion on the old man’s brow.

A gun is raised, and the young man switches languages one final time. “Mein tateh Yid.”

[words-writ-in-starlight]

I read your Steve and Logan bits and they are amazing. But consider this; Steve learns that Logan, who's older than WW1, has lost his memories. He gives a statement in an interview describing this man, this patriot who always looked after other people in his own gruff way, describes his side-burns, his claws, his cigars. And suddenly, people are calling into the station; "Yeah, think I met this guy a few years ago" "My granddad has this photo..." "So, In this bar one time..."

And all these people call in, sharing their own memories of this mysterious Cryptid named Logan who is apparently an immortal, grumpy, wandering dad-friend who's also a patriot and he helped punch out Nazi's and free camps and beats up assholes who don't respect women. And the whole while Logan is watching this from a TV screen with Kitty or Rogue holding his hand so gently, after they dragged him to the couch in a hurry. "You recording this?" "Don't worry, we won't let you miss a single word."

Okay but if we’re gonna do this we’re gonna do this HARDCORE HISTORIAN STYLE, and it initially comes up while Steve is being interviewed for a book about the Howling Commandos or a bit for the History Channel or something.  Because this person is like “Hey, there are a bunch of stories of you showing up somewhere with only one dude for backup, was that Bucky?”  And we’ll assume that this is before the whole Winter Soldier thing, so that’s not a hideously loaded question.  

And Steve kind of laughs and he’s like, “Oh, wow, God, that was actually this dude on detached duty from the Canadian special forces, he and I got sent on a bunch of missions together.  His name was Logan, he was the weirdest guy I ever met, and I knew some pretty weird guys, but he could take a hit even better than I could, so when the Howlies were laid up, they sent us out together.”  And he launches into this story about how one time he and Logan stole a plane complete with pilot and stormed a prison camp that was holding German Jews before sending them up to Poland, and the historian he’s talking to is taking frantic notes and trying not to drool because THIS IS A NEW GUY.  CAPTAIN AMERICA’S STORY IS METICULOUSLY WELL DOCUMENTED BUT NO ONE’S EVER MENTIONED THIS GUY.

There are no pictures, obviously, so Steve does a sketch for this historian, because he’s helpful like that and also because.  Like.  Listen.  Steve’s been through a lot of weird shit, and to be sure this Logan he used to know could take a bullet and keep coming no problem, but this dude’s probably been dead fifty or sixty years.  No harm in giving him a little posthumous glory, right?

So this historian runs back to her university and starts doing research on the Internet.  She reaches out to her coworkers first, then to anyone else she knows, then to the premier WWII and Captain America scholars of the world, and asks all of them “Do you happen to know who the fuck this dude is?”

And like, no, they don’t.  They’ve got no idea.  Steve’s not even totally sure what the guy’s real last name was, because Jameson is common as hell and there’s no Logan Jameson on the books.  So they start doing research into this WWII cryptid, and finally they reach an old woman who listens to her grandson’s boyfriend talk passionately about this new project he’s working on and goes “Oh, yeah, I met Cap in Germany one time, there was a guy with him who sounds kind of like what you’re talking about.”

This passionate history major immediately sends an email in all caps to his adviser and it just says “MY BOYFRIEND’S GRANNY KNOWS WHO WE’RE TALKING ABOUT PLEASE COME TO KANSAS ASAP THANKS” or whatever, because, listen, historians are Like That.  Speaking as someone who could easily have claimed to be a history major based on my thesis, I would have gone to Kansas in 0.2 seconds if someone had been like “What’s up we found that book you were after but we can’t take it out of the museum.”  It does stuff to you.  Trust me here.

So this woman tells the story of how Cap and his weird buddy broke her and her mother and father out of a temporary prison camp, and this history professor immediately takes all the tiny bits of information and starts asking around, looking for literally anyone else who knows this Logan dude.  He saved your ass one time in Paris?  He gave you some rations in Berlin?  He beat your grandfather’s ass in Russia?  He took three bullets for you?  You had a passing conversation?  This historian and his extremely pumped undergrad who just changed his senior thesis want to hear about it.

And then someone gets in touch with them and is like “Hey, I know you’re looking for WWII stories, but this guy saved my dad’s entire unit on the Somme and I have pictures?”  And someone else is like “Hey, I have a file from a Vietnam MASH unit for a Logan who looks like that guy, do you want it?”  And someone else is like “Uh, fuck all of y’all, I think this is him in the Civil War, what do I do about that?”

AND SO BEGINS LOGAN, THE HISTORICAL CRYPTID.

This undergrad is taking an extra year of college and basically getting a Bachelor’s degree in Tracking Weird Mutants Through History, and also his adviser is very lucky to be on tenure, because otherwise he would have been laughed out of the college three times by now.  But there is an absolute preponderance of evidence, is the thing, so it just turns into this massive quest to investigate exactly whether or not Logan the Mystery Dude was actually in China for the Boxer Rebellion or whatever.

Forget this being a collaborative effort between colleges, there are multiple continents involved in this by now.  Canadian government is under pressure to turn out their WWII special operations files for this guy from five different big name universities in five different countries, including their own.  Things are getting a little wild in academia.  Steve’s been interviewed nine times and he has a filter set up in his email specifically to catch stuff from the University of Toronto.

It takes a little bit for Kitty’s bubbe to get a phone call.  Kitty’s bubbe has been living a quiet-ass life in Illinois and likes it that way, especially because her last name is not Pryde and therefore Kitty and her weird friends can crash at Bubbe’s house whenever they’re in the area without any trouble.  It’s fine if her granddaughter wants to run around in spandex and save the world and shit, she’s honestly much more chill about it than Kitty’s parents, but Bubbe does not care for news crews in her neighborhood thank you very much.

But so eventually this nice old Ashkenazi woman gets a phone call from an extremely pumped undergrad who read a very brief statement she gave in a news article forty years ago about Captain America, who she is very grateful to for breaking her, her older sister, and their little brother out of a prison camp during WWII and also helping them get across the border.  Did she happen to see anyone else?  Why yes, very polite young man, the Captain had another man with him, he was very grumpy but he let my brother ride on his shoulders so I liked him very much.  That’s great, would she mind if someone came and talked to her about that?  No, very polite young man, not at all, when would work for you?

And she gives Kitty a call that night, because she gives Kitty a weekly call since Kitty and her parents are going through a rough spot to the tune of “please God stop risking your life//listen I’m saving people I’m not going to stop learn to cope”.  Bubbe mentions offhand that she’s going to have a talk with this very polite young historian about the Shoah and Kitty’s understandably a little concerned for her bubbe’s mental health, and asks some questions.  

So Kitty hears her bubbe out in increasing degrees of shock, hangs up the phone, and immediately goes and does an extensive google.

Then she goes and hammers on Logan’s door until he says to come in, slams her computer down in front of him, and says “Holy shit, Logan, why didn’t you tell us that you knew Captain America?”

“Uh, because I mostly didn’t,” Logan says, wary.  “Don’t remember that much.”

“You might want to take a look at this, then,” Kitty says, and Logan looks through her fifteen tabs and thanks her and calls the university that seems best informed.

Which is the story of how an extremely pumped undergrad gets a phone call from the object of his thesis that opens with “This is gonna sound pretty fuckin’ wild, but my name is Logan and I’m pretty sure you can catch me up on the last hundred years better than I can.”

Oh, and then Logan and Steve meet up again and it’s very nice and sweet and that undergrad gets a full ride to the PhD program of his choice.  The full ride’s name is actually Tony Stark, who’s doing a favor for Steve, who’s doing a favor for Logan, who’s secretly doing a favor for the undergrad, but no one really knows that.

[chocoboinspectorbalduin]

Personal Stuff

I was going to say something ... but I decided against it.  Civilians have the right to speak their minds on whatever subject they please.  Whether they’re right or not is none of my business.  So, thanks for the entertainment and you’re welcome.

Beyond that ... it’s been a hellish week at work.  Finding someone competent at their job seems to be a miracle nowadays.  I only say that because I have to clean up other peoples messes - because they were too lazy or too ignorant to do their job correctly the first time.  The ignorance ... I can mostly forgive, but as an NCO - it’s your job to know how to do your job.  The pure laziness I get to witness is just completely astounding.  How did you get this far in life?  How many dicks did you suck to make it here?  Hoooooooly fuck.  I’d go into more details, but I can’t.

I saw a post earlier about using triads in stories and I got caught up on the Freedom vs Justice vs Peace one.  That’s an interesting one.  I started digging into the whole thing.  What is freedom?  What’s the opposite of freedom?  What is Justice?  What is the opposite of Justice?  And so on and so forth. 

I came to what I thought was an interesting parallel between freedom and justice.  The first word that came to mind when I thought of the opposite of freedom (in this case extreme Justice) was - Oppression.  That was even before I got to the dictionary and thesaurus.  So, I tagged on two other antonyms - dependence and heteronomy.  Feel free to look it up.  And then for the opposites of Justice (Extreme Freedom) I found - Prejudice, Inequity, and corruption.  What I’m basically getting at - with too much of either freedom or justice, you always get a form of oppression.  There has to be a balance.

Now, since we’re speaking in triads - You’ll notice I didn’t mention anything about peace.  And that’s because it doesn’t quite fit within this triad in the the way it was implied.  What is peace?  If you look through the definitions on Merriam-Webster, you won’t go far without seeing “freedom” or “law” (Justice, in this case).  Peace cannot exist without either one in this situation.

I don’t know.  I just feel like it was something super interesting to think about.  Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Bouncing around those same notes though ... I started digging around into all sorts of crazy tangents.  I got to thinking about some of the things that I used to hold strong opinions upon and now I’ve changed my position (growth!).  I would like to think that being in military helped to change my mind on some of these - bigger worldview and stuff.  But let’s be honest, it’s probably because I stopped being stupid and did my own research. 

1. LGBTQTIA - I don’t know how much bigger this dang acronym can get - Whatever.  Y’all should be free to marry or not marry whomever the hell you want /and/ have all rights afforded to a traditional marriage.

2. It’s a woman’s body.  Men have no right to dictate what a women does with her body.  Period.  (Hah)

3. I’m starting to heavily lean toward heathcare becoming a right.  The vast majority of civilized countries have adopted health as a basic human right.  I don’t know how “life” (don’t get me started on liberty or the pursuit of happiness) got interpreted into “insurance”, but obviously that’s wrong.  HOWEVER ... there’s a big disconnect.  Funding.

I ended up dragging myself into taxes.  Nothing fancy, just simple normal people taxes.  Honestly, I was floored.  If you make under ~$10k a year (single person), you are still taxed 10% of your yearly income.  Holy fuck.  Really?  It’s 12% up to just short of $40k.  And then 22% once you reach an actual livable wage zone.  If you make more than half a million dollars you are taxed 37%.  That’s it?  You’re telling me that BILLIONAIRES ONLY PAY 37% OF THEIR INCOME IN TAXES!?!  You could tax the top 10 billionaires 75% of their income and they’d still be billionaires.  That’s fucking ridiculous.  If billionaires actually paid a fair share of their taxes - we could cover heathcare - schools could get actual funding - gods, don’t get me started on education.  You’ll also take note that a vast majority of billionaires are also “philanthopists”.  All the offense, but the money they give away is literally pocket change to most of them.  But yeah, the tax system is fucked.

I had other things written down, but they weren’t changes at all.  Just things I still agree with.  Things like ARs and AKs belonging the the hands of mentally stable Americans.  I mean ... the 2nd Amendment is literally there for us to rise up against the government should we feel the need to change it.  And if you think for one minute that the vast majority of the US military would stand in your way - you’d be dead wrong.  But by all means - regulate gun control until we have absolutely nothing left to defend ourselves from the government with.  Because that’s what’s going to happen in the long run.  Don’t say it’s not when there’s already one open Democratic runner saying it.  Hey, but don’t tell me everything will be fine.  Tell the Native Americans that.  Tell the Jews that everything will be fine.  Look, I’m all for extremely stringent mental health checks.  I’m all for having guns in one locked safe and ammo in a completely different locked safe somewhere else.  Aaaaand ... that’s about it. 

If you read this far - good on you.  Thanks for sticking around I guess.  I just had a lot on my mind.

[theheavymetalmama]

And now, some Unpopular Opinions!

Because at this point, why the hell not?

Iron Man was better than The Dark Knight

I am in no way, shape, or form suggesting that The Dark Knight is a bad movie. Far from it, in fact. It’s a damn good movie with some fantastic performances, a gripping story, and some of the best written characters and dialogue in the history of movie making. So is Iron Man the better movie? For one, it’s not so stuck up its’ own ass about its’ message. The Dark Knight is a lot of things and one of them is pretentious as fuck, come off as less of a love letter to Batman and more of a method of the director Chris Nolan showing how much he has nothing but contempt for superheroes and comic books in general. Iron Man, in contrast, embraces it and has fun with the idea of a guy who builds a mech suit and fights bad guys. There’s also the question of influence, and that right there is no contest. The Dark Knight influenced Batman; Iron Man influenced the entire movie industry.

Final Fantasy XV was a massive disappointment

I kind of feel bad for dunking on this game considering they just cancelled the last of the DLC. Then again the last of the DLC was going to expand on Lady “Show Up and Blow Up” Lunafreya and Aranea “I’m here and now I’m not” Highwind’s stories and now we’re not getting them and I’m still bitter as fuck for the director’s pathetic excuse for why a girl couldn’t attend the coming of age road trip, so all bet’s are off! Okay, the ladies getting shafted aside, there is a lot to like about Final Fantasy XV, but was it worth the tedious development time? No way in hell. The game looks good but like many open world games feels mostly lifeless and empty, and of the four main characters only one of them is likable and isn’t even playable in the game’s vanilla form. The story is a broken mess that requires other forms of media to fully grasp (dick fucking move there, Squeenix) and the summons coming at random times serves as more of an annoyance than anything, especially since they always seem to show up except during times when and where they’d be useful. It also doesn’t say good things about a company’s management when a game can sell millions of copies in record time as well as do gangbusters on downloadable content and then still manage to lose over 30 million dollars.

And for the record, let it be known that Noctis is far and away the whiniest and most emo protagonist in Final Fantasy history, which is saying something considering this is a series where one such protagonist’s entire character is being so jaded and world weary to the point that his name is the sound a crying baby makes, and he doesn’t whine and complain as much as Noctis does.

Just because you’re a cop or a soldier, that doesn’t automatically make you a good person

I’m in favor of police and law enforcement and even though I believe our military budget makes Caligula himself look frugal in comparison I do support our troops. Having said that, being a cop or a trooper doesn’t mean jack shit if the person under the uniform is a complete and utter scumbag, which happens more often than many care to admit. In fact some people, many people, become cops and soldiers not to protect and serve or out of a sense of honor and duty, but simply because they like making others miserable and want to do it for a living. There’s a reason songs about fighting the law and unflattering depictions of authority figures date back as far as authority figures have been a thing. Respect is earned, not given.

‘White Nationalist’ and ‘Nazi’ are the same things

Calling a Nazi a white nationalist is like calling somebody who abuses their spouse a rough lover. Stop beating around the bush and tell it like it is. Also, don’t debate Nazis, punch them. Punch them as hard as you fucking can. If they punch you back, punch them again, and again, and again until they either run away (which most of them do) or stop moving. Trust me, nobody is going to miss them. That goes double for the alt right. Oh, and speaking of which...

Far Cry 5 chickened out

As somebody who grew up in a dead gold mining community that was mostly Catholic, when the first trailer for Far Cry 5 came out I was stoked as hell for the chance to gun down religious fanatics and skinheads in a place in rural America that didn’t look all that different. Then the game came out and it was abundantly clear to anybody that something somewhere in the game was changed at the last minute. Some have argued that it was their intention from the get go, others claimed they didn’t want to alienate their core demographic. It doesn’t say nice things about your core demographic if you’re worried about depictions of white supremacist cultists scaring them away, but okay, fine. Then make a game that takes place during the decline of the Ku Klux Klan, or in a post World War II Europe where you hunt Nazi war criminals, or failing that make something akin to Black Dynamite or a wacky 70′s Kung Fu movie where everything is purposefully over the top and exaggerated, I don’t care! All your other games have you gunning down hordes of brown people, let people like me and my husband kill some skinheads god damn it!

If you still support Donald Trump after all the vile and abhorrent things he’s done, you’re a bad person

There’s no beating around the bush on this one. I don’t blame people who were swooned by this conman thinking he’d genuinely make a good president and have since regretted their decision. I have nothing but sympathy for them. No, I’m talking about the people who STILL trip over themselves to defend this vile, homophobic, delusions, misogynist, narcissistic bigot. Like when he called Nazis “very fine people,” or is still pushing for a stupid wall along our border that will be bested by two extension ladders and a pair of tin snips. The travel ban, the rollback on regulations that kept food insecure people fed, kids dying in his fucking concentration camps, yeah, no. He’s a treasonous scumbag who deserves to be locked in an 8x8 cell until he rots, and if you still support him then you can claim the top bunk.

Climate change is real and coal can fuck off

Coal is dead. Let it lay down and rot. What, coal is your only source of income in the area you live in? Then move somewhere else! You think I would have left my hometown if there were any opportunities other than timber, fishing, and tourist traps? Sorry, but the longer we stay in the past with coal the lesser we can look forward to a future where a planet can sustain human life. If we want our planet to live then coal needs to die.

No, the left isn’t “just as bad” as the right

This is a fucking gas lighting farce that immediately falls apart when put under scrutiny. Are there extremists and crazies on the left? Of course there are, but they’re entirely different beasts as those found on the right. The left is more of a “eat enough kale and you can talk to dolphins” or “sleep with crystals under your bed and you can see the future” kinds of crazy, whereas the right is more of the “kill all the queers and let the brown babies starve” kind of crazy. Oh, and to each and every single person who said “Clinton is just as bad as Trump,” y’all can cover your reproductive organs in honey and stick them in a mason jar filled with live bullet ants and tarantula hawks, you ignorant scare mongering shitheels!

“Captain Marvel doesn’t smile!”

So what? She’s a space Navy Seal, not a boy scout like Captain America or Superman; she’s not supposed to smile.

No, the ‘alt left’ doesn’t exist and Antifa aren’t the same as Nazis

Are Antifa breaking the law? Yes. Should they be held accountable for their actions? Yes. Are people who want to kill Nazis exactly the same as people who want to exterminate the Jews and subjugate anybody who isn’t white while wiping other people’s culture off the face of the Earth under an authoritarian rule? Hell to the no and “Antifa is just as bad as the Nazis” is right up there with “Vaccinations cause autism” and “the Earth is flat” on the scale of “If you believe this, you are STUPID.” If Nazis and white supremacists went unopposed they’d go around raping and murdering Jews and non whites until there were absolutely none of them left. You know Antifa would be doing if there weren’t any Nazis around? Sitting in their crappy apartments smoking weed, sipping craft beer, eating pizza, and laughing their asses off at 20 year old Saturday Night Live skits. Ooooooh, scary! Yes, Antifa are assaulting people and destroying public property and yes they should be held accountable for their actions. But I’m not going to pretend, even hypothetically, that Nazi apologist scumbags like Tucker Carlson having his door banged on or actual Nazis like Richard Spencer getting punched in the face is on the same playing field as babies being put in cages, innocent black people being murdered by cops, or Jews being put into ovens, you fucks!

New She Ra is better than Old She Ra and 80′s cartoons in general

If you don’t like the new She Ra and prefer the old one, fine, you do you, but don’t act like the original is “So much better” because it isn’t at all. The villains were jokes, the animation was beyond cheap, the characters all looked the same, there were stupid talking animal sidekicks, and the story went nowhere really fucking fast outside of “Bad guys are doing bad guy stuff, our heroes must stop them” because they were commercials to sell toys. Nothing more, nothing less. If the new She Ra isn’t your bag then that’s all well and good, but don’t be a stupid asshole about it, talking about how it wasn’t featured at PowerCon like it’s a big fucking deal when only sad dorks like us give a shit about conventions, or whine about how you’re being oppressed and censored because a 16 year old isn’t rocking 44DD’s, or talk about “CalArts style” like that’s a real goddamn thing. Oh yeah, and speaking of which...

“CalArts style” is not a thing

Shut the fuck up, no it isn’t. It’s a stupid, meaningless buzzword hurled at people who never fucking went to CalArts in the first place. If you’re perplexed as to why modern cartoons all look like Steven Universe, the simple fact is that cartoons are made predominantly for children and shows are made to be aesthetically pleasing to them. With shows like Adventure Time, Regular Show, Steven Universe, Star vs the Forces of Evil, and Gravity Falls being soaring success stories while shows like Young Justice, new GI Joe, and 2011 Thundercats ambitious failures, it’s obvious that formal abstractionist non angularity is in while aspirational human physical fitness is out, and a big reason the latter was even a thing in the first place is because they were toy commercials first and there were only so many variations on plastic molds to form the fucking action figures and because it was the 80′s and Arnold was the biggest star at the time.

“Star Wars: the Last Jedi” is a good movie and fanboys can eat bantha poodoo

I’ve heard all the reasons for why The Last Jedi is a bad movie and they’re all either stupid nitpicky bullshit or meaningless fanboy gripes. I could write an entire essay debunking those reasons point for point, like how the reason Holdo didn’t tell Poe a damn thing because no admiral would ever a tell a lowly grunt anything about their plan, especially after being demoted for being a hotheaded little fuckup. Or that Rey being related to Obi Wan or any previous Star Wars character didn’t happen because that would have been stupid and the definition of predictable. Or that the reason Akbar didn’t do the suicide run is because he’s a meme that the general audience doesn’t give a shit about and that there’s no way in Hell that the Mouse would allow a character named “Akbar” to do a suicide run. Or that Kylo Ren not being an intimidating villain is the whole point and that you’re supposed to hate him because he’s a petulant Darth Vader wannabe and a snake to boot. Or that the effectiveness of said suicide run, where Snoke came from, or the state of the Resistance by the end of the movie, or that any other so called ‘plot hole’ doesn’t matter because this is a movie about space wizards for children and paying obsessive attention to meaningless and pedantic details is exactly how we end up with stupid subplots in the Beauty and the Beast remake and Metropolis and Gotham City being across the river from each other! But the biggest one is Luke wasn’t portrayed as some Jedi Clint Eastwood (why fanboys want that eludes me; the EU did that a few times and they were all terrible) and that him exiling himself doesn’t make any sense.

Sorry, but no, Luke running off to a far and unreachable island makes perfect sense. For one, it’s kind of a thing that disgraced Jedi do, and for two, Star Wars is a fairy tale in space. All of the characters draw inspiration from characters and archetypes from fairy tales and fables of old, and the one Luke Skywalker resembles most (largely by design) is King Arthur. Think about it. Common boy who doesn’t know who his real parents are, meets an old wizard, gets a legendary sword, discovers he’s of noble lineage, tags along with a few colorful characters, goes on a quest that’s bigger than him and the life he knew, hits a few bumps down the road, and then eventually he saves the kingdom by overthrowing his father who once was a great man and a hero but gave in to power and corruption and became a dark reflection of his former self.

You will never unsee that. 

Oh yeah, and remember how things turned out for King Arthur in the end? He started a whole new kingdom, he had a few good years, he grew arrogant, things started to fall apart, and suddenly he and everything he worked to build up were undone overnight by a younger, more vindictive relative. Disgraced, Arthur was whisked away to an unreachable island deep rooted in his own legend and mythology where he remained until Britain had fallen to darkness and needed him again. Now of course Britain as we know it has yet to see such a thing (we’ll see how Brexit turns out) but Luke did exactly that. And no, sorry fanboys, but The Last Jedi wasn’t a failure in any sense of the word. It grossed over a billion dollars, received critical praise, the DVDs and BluRays sold like hotcakes, and was adored by kids, teenagers, and young adults, the primary audience that Star Wars is for in the first place. And I don’t give a shit what the audience score on RT says, because for one aggregate sites are a blight on film criticism and we went from this;

“Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad are AMAZING, Rotten Tomatoes is biased and paid off by Disney!”

To this...

“Star Wars: the Last Jedi is TERRIBLE, Rotten Tomatoes says so!”

In just over a year. To say nothing of the fact that what you’re currently saying about The Last Jedi was also said about The Empire Strikes, and like ‘Empire’ twenty years from now people will look back on the fanboy outrage and say “Wow, what a bunch of babies.” And before the inevitable response...

“But Solo bombed because of The Last Jedi!” 

Nooooo, Solo bombed because it came out right between Infinity War and Deadpool 2, was rife with development issues since day one of production, it was aimed overwhelmingly at fanboys obsessed with Star Wars deep lore answering questions that the general audience doesn’t give a shit about, nobody was even interested in the thing until the Lego Movie guys were signed on for a hot second, moviegoers aren’t currently hurting for cocky space cowboys...

...and because of the simple fact that it’s a solo movie about Han Solo...and it’s not 1995 and Harrison Ford isn’t in it. See, fanboys don’t realize that just because nerd and geek bullshit is mainstream now doesn’t mean that everyone is now a fanboy deep rooted in everything from where the characters are from to where they’re going, because when people say “I love Star Wars and Han Solo is my favorite character” what the vast majority of them mean is “Those movies with the space wizards and the laser swords are a lot of fun and Harrison Ford is a great movie star.” That’s it. That’s extent of why people like Han Solo. Sad dorks like us may care about stuff like where and when he got the Falcon, how he met Chewie, where the dice came from and all of that and more, but the general audience just wants to see Harrison Ford do cool shit in space. That’s it. To say nothing of the fact that nobody was even interested in the spinoffs in the first place. When Disney announced that they were making episodes 7,8, and 9 everyone went “Oh Hell yes, sign me up!” Then when they followed up with that they were also making spinoff movies about stuff that happened off screen or between movies the same audience was like “Oh...well that’s neat, I guess.”

And no, that stupid fanboy boycott had nothing to do with. Even the dude who started that petition to strike TLJ from canon admitted that he was in a bad place and that he was being stupid and angry, and I can promise you that all the shrieking dorks on Youtube are the buzzing of flies to Disney. If that crowd had any box office and movie making decision influence whatsoever, the next spinoff we’d see a trailer for would be “My Twi’lek Waifu: a Star Wars Story.”

PewDiePie is the worst thing to happen to video games this side of the gaming crash of 83 and he needs to fuck off

Yes, you read that right, and I don’t say that lightly. All sorts of terrible things have happened in the gaming industry since the gaming crash of 83. The console wars, the Atari Jaguar, the Philips CDi, Jack Thompson, the death of the Dreamcast, WoW, an entire console generation packed to the gills with homogenous gray and brown shooters with protagonists who all looked the fucking same, GamerGate, microtransactions, DLC abuse, the death of Maxis, an increasingly toxic fandom, “women are too hard to animate,” the degradation of E3 from a showcase of the biggest and bestest in gaming to a corporately sponsored circlejerk of self congratulatory backslapping and so much, much more.

I don’t care how much PewDiePie gives to charity, or how many fans he has, or how many people think he’s just the greatest, because he’s not. He’s an embarrassing, stupid asshole who constantly gets busted for making stupid racist jokes and by extension making his fans and everyone who has even the vaguest ties to the word ‘gamer’ look like stupid, racist assholes. He’s a corporate ass sucking apologist who gives exposure to anti Semites and racist wastes of space to his audience of mostly 10 to 15 year old boys, and he’s more terminally obnoxious than an Adderall addicted Pomeranian. 

The day he posted his first video of him overreacting to a jump scare while making loud screeching noises on top of edgy rape jokes was the day the progress of “gaming as an art form” was shot between the eyes, placed in a box that was then filled with concrete, and thrown into the ocean. He’s a dumbass man child that’s making all of us look bad and he needs to take his millions worth of corporate sponsorships and fuck off forever into some dark, lonely corner of the Internet where he’ll never be seen or heard from again until an inevitable meltdown that lands him on an episode of Down the Rabbit Hole.

And that concludes this post. I’ll give my final thoughts tomorrow, and on Saturday I’m closing this account forever.