#also they keep calling me racist for ‘trying to interfere’

[avatarvyakara]

Don’t you just hate it when you have a condition where too much loud noise causes you to collapse to the ground in pain with a sensation like your head is being pressed in a very large vice and your neighbours accuse you of literal torture when you ask them to turn the bass you can hear through a solid wall from the other side of the house down so you don’t collapse to the ground in pain?

Or is that just me?

[siofra-river]

Anakin, can you explain Bioshock to me like I am 5 years old?

I can! So, most of bioshock takes place in an underwater city called Rapture. The whole idea behind Rapture was that you basically could do whatever the fuck you wanted without interference from any kind of government or religious bodies, and surprisingly, it does not end well.

Bioshock is the story of a city doomed to fail from the start. The creator, Andrew Ryan, follows what’s essentially extreme individualism and libertarianism, Objectivism, so basically he doesn’t stop people trying to manipulate the system. And so, a right asshole named Frank Fontaine takes advantage of that, he hires two people, Brigid Tenenbaum and Yi Suchong to create and refine what is called Splicing, which is basically modifying your genetics and changing yourself, and the explanation behind the powers you get in the games, but Fontiane uses the Splicers (people who are addicted to Splicing) to start a civil war with Ryan, who also resorts to manipulating Splicers and his security systems and it just sends the whole city to shit. When you’re running through it as Jack (first game protag) or Delta (second game protag) it’s got like lots of damage and decay, whole areas will be closed off or have water up your characters knees. In the second game you can actually go through areas completely underwater and you see a lot of the damage and rust that’s been caused by the neglect.

To explain the enemies more, you have: Splicers, Little Sisters, and Big Daddies. The main enemies of Bioshock 1 & 2. They’re basically all people who have been changed some way by ADAM, and in-game you get ADAM from Little Sisters.

They’re children taken from the orphanages run by Fontaine . And have the slugs that produce ADAM implanted within them, they’re also like brainwashed conditioned to basically just see everything as a wonderland so they keep gathering/producing ADAM. And little Sisters are always followed around by people known as Big Daddies, who were people who have been experimenting on with the ADAM and have been surgically implanted within Giant Diving suits and have also been brainwashed and essentially turned into attack dogs, they follow around Little Sisters and protect them if they’re attacked by Splicers or You. They’re pretty tragic since you learn a lot of the time they didn’t have a choice or were like blackmailed into getting these experiments done on them. The protagonist of the second game, Subject Delta, is also a Big Daddy, the one on the left of the pic below

Also I guess I forgot to explain Splicers but they’re essentially the main enemies you’re fighting 95% of the time, average joes and janes who essentially went insane from Splicing too much. And yeah I’ll also say this, I think it’s pretty tasteless for your main enemies in this game to essentially just be drug addicts :-/ who are based off like WW1-2 veteran photos of those who’ve been like. Disfigured during the wars.

There’s also Bioshock Infinite but it is so far removed from Bioshock 1-2 it’s kinda wacky. It basically takes place in like the 1800s in a city that’s basically a flying white supremacist wet dream. And you play as a guy named Booker trying to get to the daughter of the Racism land leader, and to all goes to shit and there’s like a lot of dimension travel and it gets confusing very quickly and it’s very goofy and doesn’t get the spirit of Bioshock which I’d say is like Isolation, the ambiance and fear of a whole city against you. It just feels like a shoot-fest with lamer powers than bioshock 1 or 2, and also it’s messaging is that if you’re a black person fighting racists with violence you’re just as bad as systemic racism.

[audreydoeskaren]

it's wack you keep getting all these white ppl in ur ask box trying to coax u into giving them permission to wear hanfu when no single person from any group really has the power to do that. they just wanna soothe their guilty consciences for being culture vultures. even if you say you're uncomfortable with it they'll just keep harassing chinese ppl until they find someone who says it's okay. j letting u know u dont have to be so accommodating.

tw racism

Uhh, I wanted to say thanks but then you are making me slightly uncomfortable because you think I'm being coaxed into saying the things I do because I'm trying to be moderate? I always say my honest opinion. It's true that I as a single Chinese person do not have the power to give a white person permission to wear Chinese clothing, but there are also many other Chinese people who don't have a problem with it and I think as long as nobody who sees the white person wearing Chinese clothing feels offended it's none of my business to interfere, really?

However you do touch on a massive problem I forgot to bring up which is white people refusing to listen to people of color when they say they're offended and trying to gaslight them, I hate that kind of shit. No matter how much research a white person does before wearing a Chinese garment and how respectful they are, the instant they dismiss a Chinese person telling them they're uncomfortable, they cross the line into racism. If the Chinese people around a white person are ok with them wearing something Chinese or even like it, it should be acceptable; but if one, just one Chinese person points out to them that they don't like it and they think it's cultural appropriation, the white person has to stop, I need to make that clear. Some white people who appropriate cultures (or do racist things in general) do like to defend themselves after being called out by people from that culture where they could just apologize and move on, that is disgusting tbh. Why would you go out of your way to offend someone with something that is not even remotely vital to your existence?

Rule of thumb for non Chinese people wearing Chinese clothing: if a Chinese person doesn't like it, stop, and under no circumstance should you try to convince the Chinese person that their feelings are invalid.

[inklingshadows]

Do Asian Parents Actually Care About Their Children?

The negative stereotypes about Asian lifestyle - or more specifically, Asian parenting - never failed to amaze me. I have lived in the West, interacted with so many people abroad and while not everyone are racist and xenophobic towards Asians, most of them had all sorts of myths made up in mind about Asian lives. I spent so many countless exhausting hours explaining to them how these stereotypes are so deceptive (which, by the way, is literally true about every single culture) and even then their brains would not concede. Which brings the question: how rooted are these beliefs in non-Asian (and even Asian) people? It literally prompted me to write this post where I want to break the stereotypical beliefs and explain them:

Asian parents care more about family reputation than their children. 

True that Asian culture is family orientated. True that we prioritize our family duties more than we do independence and individualism. But you need to understand that this goes both ways. Most children also feel the same way the parents do. You also need to understand being family orientated does not mean we as children are submissively obedient to our elders’ desires. Being family oriented means growing up in a household always full of cousins as playmates, aunts and uncles bringing over food, celebrating meals for no reason apart from the fact everyone is together, gossiping about family drama here and there. Having a cousin come over rather than a friend to help you with your breakup dramas, your parents and other close relatives the first people to call for a place to stay or loans/gifts for money if you fell into crisis, rather than hotels and banks. Being family orientated means finding pleasure in making your family members happy rather than your childhood superhero ambitions. I chose to study architecture because my grandpa dreamed that I would be designing houses and bridges in the poor villages one day. I came back from abroad even though I had a cool and high pay because my father was dead and my mother would be all alone in the country. I study and get good grades simply because I wanna make my parents proud. As Asian children, we do these not because our parents force us to, but because we actually feel like this. And we do feel amazing when parents go around gushing on to their friends about how proud they are of us, see her? See the girl with the engineer of the year award? That’s my daughter! My son came back to the country just for me, because I wished he would be near and helping the country grow.

So the individualistic and independent Westerners look at the Asian kids doing what their parents want, and they immediately assume that the parents have oppressed us into leading this life. The truth is, we do it because we want to. And in case the kids don’t, in case they don’t study what their parents had dreamed them of doing so….ah well. Parents may be disappointed but they would rarely oppress their children into choosing their majors. They may seriously interfere and try to convince their children if they were choosing a major that did not have a high-paying job and chance at success and leading a comfortable life, such as music. Even then, this is because they care very hard about their children. Not because of honour at all.

Asian parents are never satisfied with the achievements of their children.

This is very untrue. On the contrary, they are more satisfied with your achievements. It’s just that they rarely tell you that to your face. They would give you flat tones of “Good job” and then criticise and tell you how you can do better. It’s because they believe that you can still thrive harder and do better. They never want you to stop trying. So while you keep working more on bettering your math scores or your literature subject, your parents go gush about how good you are at this and that to their relatives and friends.

But they do appreciate you and tell you they are proud of your achievements. It’s just they make those moments count. When you feel low and need to boost your confidence, they will tell you how much faith they have in you. The fact that these moments are so rare makes them more special.

Asian parents are very controlling and oppressive.

By Western standards, it does seem that Asian parents are very controlling about their children’s influences and movements. But you also need to understand that life in the West is usually very secure, less poor and you can rely on the government to protect your human rights and laws. For most of the Asian territory, this is, or was not for a long time, true. Staying in community is the way to survive here. Asian parents know this face and they want to shield their children from the harshness of life they have faced. This is why they appear very protective and controlling. But children are not oppressed. Given a certain age, definitely children have a say in their lives and they are allowed much freedom as they grow older.

Asian culture is just as flawed as any culture.  It’s got its great points, as well as severe drawbacks. They can be too overprotective to the point they shelter their children and make them unprepared for real life. They can be stoic and rigid so they don’t have intimacy with children. But they also raise their children amidst a lot of laughter and family reunions. They teach their kids to be sensible and practical about life. Yes, there are extreme parents who oppress their children and only care about family reputation and force them into marriages with business partners and make them choose careers they are not enthusiastic about. But it’s not like abusive parents don’t exist in the West either. It’s not easy to understand a culture that you are not part of. We need to put ourselves in the shoes of the people and view the world as they do, to understand their actions. Learn not to judge a book by its cover. If you cannot afford to read it, try not to judge it at all.

- From the shadows. 

[darylandbethfanforever9]

Devil’s Backbone

Devil’s Backbone

Chapter 3

AN: I hope everyone is enjoying the story so far, and thank you everyone who has commented, reblogged or liked the story :)

Story Rating: Explicit, 18+

Warnings: Smut, violence, flashbacks of past sexual assault, descriptions of torture and racial hate. Not Tony Stark friendly.

Relationships: Bucky/OC, Steve/Natasha, Billy/Wanda/Grant, Sam/Sharon, Clint/Laura, eventual Clint/Yelena and Frank/Karen Page.

Summary: In the aftermath of the Blip, Bucky struggled to find his place among the world and the Avengers. However, when he is sent on a mission to Madripoor to investigate a mysterious woman, he starts to realize maybe his past isn’t too far behind him. Co-Written with WalkingPotterGirl14.

The girls at the Red Room would whisper about the Winter Soldier. He was a ghost story, a tale whispered to keep them in line by warning them if they didn't succeed in the classes or missions, that the soldat would creep into their room and kill them.

She remembered seeing those cold eyes watching her and over girls when he had come to the academy to train one of their classes. He had thrown a young girl called Polina Paseka across the room after she failed four times to do a pirouette in ballet class.

She frowned as she tried to make sense of how the Winter Soldier had escaped the Red Room. It was rare when someone was able to make it out, almost impossible. She decided to call Carter and inquire about the soldier. Her interest was piqued by the man. Maybe she would know something.

Bucky and the others returned to the compound to inform Fury about the black ops team that the Power Broker had sent to kidnap Isaiah and Eli Bradley. The man must have been hellbent on creating the serum after Zemo destroyed the ones that Dr. Nadler had created. "Hill is identifying the people who were sent to kidnap Isaiah and his grandson. Two of them have already been identified," Fury announced grimly. He pulled up two images of two men, one of whom that Bucky recognized instantly. Jack Rollins. He knew him from being there at the Ideal Federal Savings bank when he had his mind wiped by Pierce after trying to kill Steve, Sam and Natasha in Washington D.C. "You might remember the guy on the left, Barnes and Rogers. That is Jack Rollins, former member of the STRIKE Team. After fleeing the U.S., he settled in Madripoor and began working as a mercenary for the highest bidder. Tomas Calderon is a former S.H.I.E.L.D agent, who was fired after killing a group of Inhuman refugees in Nairobi, Kenya," Fury explained gravely. He paused for a moment before glancing their way. "Rogers, Wilson, I want you to ask Carter if she knows how long this mystery young woman has been living in Madripoor. See if there's a gang war brewing over a power struggle. Barnes, Barton and Maximoff, I want you three to talk to Russo, Karen Page, Murdock, and Curtis Hoyle. See what they know about the Power Broker," the director instructed. They nodded and all left.

The first thing Ana decided to do was renovate the whole damn penthouse that the Power Broker owned. She ordered new bedding, a new mattress, and a nice bed frame. There was no way in hell she was sleeping in his bed. She followed suit with the rest of the apartment, glad to have all this control now. The next thing she did was arrange a meeting with all the criminals who lived in Madripoor. She was putting down some rules. She was no saint - far from it - but no way in hell was she tolerating slavery, sex trafficking, and fucking child molesters and pedophiles. She knew Madripoor thrived on crime, but she was going to be instilling some rules for everyone. She personally called off the bounties on the Winter Soldier, the Falcon and Baron Zemo, from what she had heard around. She had no quarrel with them at the minute. Her main focus was going to be ensuring the Red Room remained shut down. She didn't want anyone else to go through what she had gone through. No child deserved that horror. The buzzer rang then, and she answered the call immediately. She had a feeling that a few of them were going to be aggravating. But she had dealt with worse people. "Miss Liukin, this is Conrad Mack. You wish to speak with me about a beneficial arrangement between us?" The man asked politely. She smiled slightly. "Please come in, Mr. Mack," she said smoothly. The door was unlocked and locked behind him. She might have her bodyguards, but she wasn't defenseless by herself if Conrad decided to play dirty. Two could play at that game. Conrad Mack entered the living room. He was a handsome man in person. He had dark brown eyes, but there was a sharpness in them, like an eagle, always watching. He was wearing casual, but smart clothing. "Mr. Mack, it's a pleasure to meet with you. I've heard a lot of things about you," Ana said warmly. The man offered her a charming smile that showed perfect white teeth. "The pleasure is all mine, Miss Liukin. I have to say that I'm impressed by your bloodless takeover of Madripoor. If you don't mind me asking, what inspired you to take over Madripoor from the Power Broker?" She smiled at his question, as she sipped from her glass of red wine and Conrad drank from his glass of whisky. The man was a gangster, but he did have morals. She decided to give him some of the truth. "The Power Broker wished to recreate the Super Soldier serum after Baron Zemo destroyed the vials that Karli Morgenthau stole from him. But he wanted me to kidnap a man called Isaiah Bradley and his grandson…I presume you know who he is?" she asked meaningfully. Conrad nodded, his smile turning to a grimace. "Yeah, I know who he is. My grandaddy fought with him in World War II. The US government threw him in jail and took his blood. He escaped during the eighties and settled down in Baltimore," the man said bitterly, well aware of America's racial discrimination against African-Americans. Ana nodded at his answer as she looked at the Monet art that decorated the walls. She disliked racists fiercely. "Then you understand why the Power Broker had to go, Conrad?" He lets out a quiet nod at that. "As I've said before, I'm not a saint. I've done some horrible things. But I draw the line at people dragging innocents back into their dirty hands. For years I had no control of what I was able to do, and now that I do, you can bet I'm going to make sure that no one else gets hurt like that." Conrad smiles to that. "That's very noble of you." Ana snorts and shakes her head. "Not noble. It's called being a human. However,…I'm not a good person too. And the reason we're here is because of that." She comes over to him, leaning against her chair. "I know about your little business on the side here. You thrive from the drug community here, don't you?" "If we're being honest, it is one of, if not the most, profitable business you can have in Madripoor." "On the brink of a collapse the city would be if that whole system decided to go belly-up," Ana states, holding her glass in her hands. "Which is why I'm willing to offer a truce with you. An agreement, of sorts. If you keep a low profile and continue your business, I'll make sure it can still run with the people here and the cops won't be on your ass. I know how hard it can be to stay on the downlow but I'm willing to compromise on that as long as your guys don't interfere with what I'm trying to do." Conrad raises an eyebrow. "You're very interesting, you know that?" She raises an eyebrow back at him. "How so?" "You're like the opposite version of what you say you are. You're trying to be good but also trying to keep crime going…it's a strange contradiction, if you will." Ana shrugs her shoulders, walking over to where he sits. "We all have our contradictions. But the main part here is making sure your business can still run despite those contradictions. So…" She holds out her hand to him. "Do we have a deal?" Conrad looks at her hand for a split second before extending outwards, shaking it firmly. "We have a deal."

Talking with Karen, Frank, Matthew and Foggy had gone about as well as Bucky had been expecting. They didn't know that much about the Power Broker except for the fact that he just wanted to have as much power as possible, simple as that. They had stumbled into them when Fisk had gone away to jail, leaving his powerful empire in the city free for the taking. Due to the power vacuum, the Power Broker had tried to break in.

But luckily, they had come in at the right moment to stop him from taking over, before he had escaped off to Madripoor. Bucky truly wondered what went through this man's mind to make him think like that, that he could suddenly own everyone just because one man got arrested. But then again, the man was clearly unstable. If he wanted to still create more and more super-solder serums for the world to use…there was no way he would allow that. Secretly, Bucky really hoped this new mysterious woman had killed the Power Broker. Hell, maybe even taken over herself. If she was willing to help Sharon out and let them know about Isiah, she at least had some sort of morals compared to the original man. But he also had a feeling that Fury, if he did find out who this woman was, was most likely going to send them after her. So maybe he'd get the chance to meet her after all. A part of him still couldn't believe that he had seen Ana at a coffee shop…it was such a small world. A part of her still felt so familiar, and at the same time he couldn't remember where he had seen her before. He was thankful that the Wakandan's had gotten out all the trigger words in his mind but damn it, he wished he had his whole mind back. Something he would just have to live with for now.

Was this a stupid idea? Probably. Could Fury walk in at any moment? Most likely. But Natasha needed to know. She had to know if this woman was alive truly or not. Maybe she would get lucky, and they would be able to swing around this situation. Maybe the woman who had come into the facility wasn't even close to her. When Nat and Yelena had destroyed the Red Room area, they had been able to access their system remotely to be able to view who had died and who had lived from the program. She had never checked for her to see if she was still around. But this time was better than no time. She typed in the name quickly, searching through the files before she lands on the one, she had wanted. And her shoulders sink as soon as she reads through the file on the computer screen. 'Anastasia Liukin. Dead – complications of operation.' "Oh, thank God," Natasha breathes out, running her hand through her hair. This at least said that she was gone. Maybe she would be able to get out of this alive. But something still didn't sit right. A part of her didn't think that she was dead. If it wasn't her…then who? She bites her lip, glancing deeper into the file.

"Fuck it," she said finally, before delving further into the files. She found information on Anastasia about the year she was born. The young woman had been born on July 10, 1995 in Voronezh, Voronezh Oblast, Russia in the aftermath of the Soviet Union collapsing. Her mother had died when she was five years old, and she had no one else to raise her. She was then placed in an orphanage until the age of seven when the Red Room had approached her under the illusion of being taken to a ballet boarding school. There were no other records of her aside from the file about her dying from an operation. The reasons for the operation were redacted, but deep-down Natasha knew the reason. 'I had to do it. I had to protect Yelena. She was too soft for the Red Room despite all the training we put her through,' she thought rationally, ignoring the pang of guilt that pulsed through her.

Sharon was honestly trying to keep herself calm as she drove to the penthouse that was owned by the Power Broker. She hadn't seen the mysterious woman again, but she had told Sharon to call her Ana. Now, she was driving there and was stunned by the sight before her very eyes. The building itself was amazing and very spacious, but the apartment was even better. She was shown into the penthouse by a bodyguard and kept her face neutral as she was greeted by none other than Ana. "You wanted to see me?" She asked politely. Ana smiled at her calmly as Sharon sat down on the comfortable black velvet sofa. The living room was very spacious but had a homey-vibe around it. There were framed photographs on the mantelpiece. "Yes. I was wondering if I could buy some of the Art Deco paintings and sculptures in your art gallery?" Ana asked curiously. Sharon blinked in surprise but nodded and leaned forward. "I'll be happy to sell you them, Miss Liukin," she said reassuringly, stunned that the woman wasn't going to kill her for helping Bucky, Sam and Zemo escape from the Power Broker. Speaking of the man, she hadn't seen him around Madripoor for the last couple of days. She wondered if finally, someone had killed him for having too much control and power. Considering Ana was in his penthouse, she had quite the feeling it had something to do with her, since the man had been tied up by her not that long ago. "Then I'll see you tomorrow morning. I'll enjoy doing business with you, Sharon," Ana said kindly, her voice genuine. Sharon nodded as they both walked out, seeing that the whole penthouse was being renovated. At Sharon looking, Ana smiled as she put her bottle of water down on the coffee table. "This penthouse belonged to the Power Broker, and it didn't give a welcoming feel. So, I decided to have the whole house renovated, including an indoor ballet studio, along with an indoor swimming pool, a library, and many bedrooms," the woman explained amusedly. Sharon smiled before saying goodbye and Ana watched her leave. She had to admit, it seemed the women had the strength to stay around – and wasn't planning on leaving anytime soon.

Bucky was annoyed with himself. He felt like he had seen Ana before and not at the coffee shop. It was irritating to say the very least, as he walked to the conference room, where Fury was holding a team meeting. He entered the room, sitting next to Steve, Sam, Clint and Wanda as Billy and Grant joined them. He wasn't surprised to see Scott Lang and Hope van Dyne being in the room but was wary about seeing Bruce and Tony in the room. Both of them, along with Natasha and Yelena, despised him. He didn't blame Natasha for hating him - he had tried to kill her three times, and had attempted to apologize, but she had refused his apology. "Now that you're all here, I have news about the mystery woman who infiltrated the compound. We ran her through Interpol, MI6, FBI, and the S.H.I.E.L.D database and found nothing on her. She's unknown to us," Fury explained gravely, his face betraying nothing. "So, what you want us to do then? It's pretty obvious that she's dangerous if she escaped the HYDRA base, and they had her in cyrostasis," Tony questioned suspiciously. It was Steve spoke up. "That doesn't necessarily mean that she's dangerous, Tony. She's most like been forcibly placed in cyrostasis. We did uncover some possible information," Steve informed Fury, who looked interested as he looked at the man. "What did you and the team find out then?" The director inquired curiously. He was clearly wondering if the young woman was a threat to them. "We did some digging - plus Sharon called us this morning. The Power Broker might possibly be dead, as he's not been seen for at least three days. He was last seen Monday night, and had arranged to meet a young woman to discuss kidnapping Isaiah and Eli Bradley, so he could use their blood to recreate the Super-Soldier serum. According to Sharon, the young woman refused to comply, and a fight broke out," Steve explained quietly, his voice not quite disapproving at the young woman's actions and possibly murdering the Power Broker. "She was the person who told Sharon about the attack on Isiah." Fury looked thoughtful and looked around at everyone who was sitting at the table. Natasha and Yelena were silent, but they were clearly hiding something. "Is there something you'd like to add, Belova and Romanoff?" he asked calmly. Natasha nodded. "There is something I'd like to add, Fury." Natasha stands as she grabs the file of Ana, placing it on the table. "I did some digging on this girl with the file that we found in the HYDRA base in Siberia. As the ones who shut down the Red Room and the areas surrounding it, we are allowed remote access to the former directory of agents that we've had interactions with. It turns out that Ana has actually died from an operation due to unforeseen circumstances," Natasha states. "At least that was what her records state." "Hold on." Bucky stands from where he was, gesturing to the file. "That's impossible. We've been doing our own research and there has been some steady evidence that she's still alive." "Barnes, I remember her. She's gone." "That's impossible because I saw her literally days ago," Bucky says angrily, but he holds back his temper to a point. He didn't want to let go of his own morals because Nat's words contradicted his own. Her brow raises in shock. "You're-wait, what? How the hell did you-" "She was in a coffee shop," Bucky states, crossing his arms against his chest. "A couple days ago before heading off. I didn't learn the girl's name, but she looked exactly like Ana. There's no mistaking it." "You're insane, she's gone!" "No, she's not!" "ENOUGH!" Fury yells, his booming voice causing them to jump in surprise. They both turn their eyes to where Fury was breathing heavily, his head down, clearly trying to control his own temper. He takes a moment before looking at the two of them. "Sit both your asses down now!" The two Avengers do as he says, knowing that if they pissed him off even more there'd be more than just yelling coming their way. Fury starts to pace before he looks to them. "From what I see, we have several problems here. One is-" His phone suddenly pings, and he pulls it out quickly to glance at it before cursing under his breath. "Now we got even more problems," he mutters, putting his phone back in his pocket. "Just got word from H.Q. Apparently, the original Power Broker is officially dead." Silence rings throughout the room. Bucky knew it. He just knew it.

"Again, now we got even more problems," Fury continues, running a hand along his head before looking to them. "One, we have some mysterious woman that broke into our damn base and now is missing. Two, we have a power dynamic clearly underway in Madripoor, and another young woman there that we don't know about looking to take over. Third, we have two goddamn conflicting arguments about a girl that we don't even know about. There’re too many things here for us to even come to a proper conclusion. I'm over this fighting that we got going." "Then what do you suggest we do, sir?" Natasha asks, raising her brow. Fury sighs and then nods back at the team. "What we do best – undercover. But there ain't no way I'm sending a whole team after this girl. If the Power Broker is dead, that means she's a serious threat, regardless if she'll hurt us or not. She's got friends in high places. Only one of you are fit enough to do a proper undercover mission of this high of a status." His eyes turn directly to where Bucky was. "And that's you, Barnes." His brow raises in surprise. "Me?" "I can't think of someone better than the former Winter Soldier. It can't be Nat or Yelena with personal ties to this said mystery woman, but we don't know how much she knows about you possibly. It's the best option for us going forward. I'm not about to let any other goddamn intruder come in, so we need to find out who this woman is as soon as possible, and if she's taking over as the Power Broker." Bucky was quiet for a moment, letting his words mingle. He wasn't wrong. He most likely would be able to find her the quickest and see exactly who this woman was. "Plus, you've literally seen her before," Steve agrees lightly. "If anything, that'll only help you try and find her again." "I think he's got this," Sam states, agreeing. Bucky rolls his eyes and glances at his friends. "It's alright, guys. I'm fine." He always knew that the ones who were on his side tried their best to show their support for him, but something he just wanted to prove it himself. He turns back to Fury. "I can do that, sir." "Good, glad to hear it." Fury stands and grabs the file. "You leave as early as tomorrow. We want to make sure we handle this with care but as quickly as possible. Don't want to linger any longer. Pack your belongings – I'll inform Sharon that you're heading to Madripoor and you're undercover there." "Sounds good," Bucky responds, standing. "Meeting adjourned," Fury concludes, getting up and heading out, pulling his phone as he does so. Bucky hears Tony groan as he stands, sighing. "He's making a mistake sending you out." "Tony, we don't need this right now," Steve responds, trying to shut down the fight before it even began. "How can you even trust him to do a good job? He was literally part of HYDRA, the place that this mysterious woman is even coming from!" "So are Nat and Yelena and you trust them," Wanda points out from where she stands. "They at least had a head on their shoulders to sign the damn accords." Steve sighs and shakes his head. "I'll never be able to prove to you that Bucky is a good man, but that's your loss. It's not like I'm not surprised Nat is on your side after she did what she did." At Nat's confused expression, Steve snorts. "Don't show me that look, Nat. I know that you agreed with Tony to lock Bucky up is a psych unit even before he was pardoned. I know you don't want him here just as much as Tony doesn't. You don't need to say anything." Bucky runs a hand through his hair stressfully. Good god, this wasn't how he wanted his mission to start out.

[kouhaiofcolor]

Advise plzzz: I just quit my retail job. The management is trash and talked to their employees any kind of way. They were also extremely racist bc any minority of color was apparently “stealing” from the store. They even accused me (a black women) of stealing $ from the register and the head manager said I was being “too vague” & “defensive” about the situation. One of my former coworkers said that the “employee who was being vague & defensive is the main suspect” from the managers.” They took me off the registers & claimed they never did to make me seem “crazy.” I got feed up and just left. Once they called they asked why, & as I was explaining myself, they hung up on me bc they claimed that I was talking to them “any kind of way.” They were try to fast talk me in the conversation & tried to make me seem like I was crazy, so my (black) mother took the phone & started talking to them. The claimed that she was yelling & started attacking them on phone. The gaslighted my mother & I to make it seem like “I was crazy.”

Did I do the right thing?

First off, i'm sorry you had to endure any of this while working period. How shitty this country is set up to where workers' mental health be so compromised having to work for greedy ass corporations & dangerously biased ass employers is the #1 reason i dont believe in just staying at a job if the environment is toxic; esp around racial issues or being underpaid for the work demand. these companies do not deserve loyal workers. least of all black ones. i'll leave a job in a heartbeat as soon as ive got something else for sure set & waiting for me. no two week's notice either cus i also condone making it just as hard for companies to replace workers as they do for ppl to get employed w/o kissing a ton of ass & sacrificing so much to do so.

The gaslighting you definitely experienced I apologize for as well. I see no valid reason for them to have been so short w you on the phone, either. For sure sounds like whoever called you, esp if it was a manager, was a bitch on average too to hang up on you like that. Unprofessional af lol. I don't wanna assume they were white but i wouldn't be surprised if they were. I hate giving advice that's ultimately unyielding (since i can't really tell you to like, not go back to work given that survival depends on that & all). All i can advise is that you look for another job as soon as possible -- but also take care of your mental health following this clear misogynoir both you & your mom were subjected to. I know black women never really get opportunities to recover from antiblack experiences like this in environments where professionalism calls for our silence & tolerance of misogynoir in our faces as well as behind our backs, & i'm sorry for the pressure that imposes on us too to just.... wordlessly absorb being dehumanized & move on like it doesn't even matter.

Maybe if you can tho, try & document this issue w the company's HR department. Give names specifically as to who handled you this way, even if it may feel redundant given that you've quit. Ppl ought to be held accountable for handling workers nasty period -- but i genuinely believe that applies tenfold for being racially discriminated against where you work. It takes time & energy & commitment to start over & find another job -- which employers don't give a fuck ab at all. they don't care if it interferes w how you're able to keep a roof over your head or pay bills on time; they don't give a shit if you're already socioeconomically disadvantaged & it's easily made that much harder for you to survive following circumstances like this.

You did nothing wrong. Fuck them ppl. Sincerely hope you find something better & they get the karma they deserve for treating you & your mother like that.

[nostuntmanneeded]

Pardon me, felt like joining the long rant club 😬

Couldn’t agree more with the last ask about people being too meddlesome, they don’t even realize that they are already stepping on a line, and they have been doing this a lot lately. Any sane and reasonable human being would know better than to spend their time scrutinizing and reading too damn much into every single thing about a celebrity. It’s one thing to talk about their relationships, friends, pets whatsoever but things started becoming out of line the moment people started being a bunch of Psych majors all of a sudden, dissecting his actions and behaviors, acting as if ‘boundaries’ is such a foreign concept to them.

It’s ironic how these people point out how hypocritical Sebastian is, and he sure as hell is, but they are literally no better, they are just as hypocritical. As mentioned about the Toby thing, I’ll be the first one to admit that I was one of those who theorized about the cake more than I should have and Toby definitely pissed me off, but let’s face it we’re no better than Toby, yeah he’s a liar and he adores racists but apart from that we’re just as meddlesome as Toby and I got thrown by people who were making fun of him for “why the hell is he going off about a cake, it’s no big deal”, we were literally the one who started it though? He wouldn’t even have to ‘defend’ the cake thing if there wasn’t anything/anyone to defend it from, it would be understandable if it was some isolated case where one fan pointed out that the cake wasn’t even for her but no, we practically spent almost a whole day talking about a damn cake.

Make it make sense, for the love of God. You keep saying that you don’t care, you don’t want to look into things that much, you don’t want to judge too much but you go around saying ‘he should do this and that’ ‘he needs to get his shit together’ ‘he can’t do/be like that’. You claim that he’s such a mess and all that yet you spend your time getting so pressed about some ‘mess’ being passive aggressive. How is that even any of your business? Does him being paggro affect your daily life? You all treat celebrities as if they're cold blooded murderers who don’t get to feel whatever they want to feel just because they are public figures.

The way that these people had a feast day over his statement during the Variety interview just goes to show how guilty and defensive they are. They always have something to say and more than half of the time their comments are just plain gratuitous, just like the constant jabs about Alejandra's cooking and her outfit. It's why people find it hard to believe that she's actually problematic, because you all keep on bringing things up that are impertinent to the actual issue that people are trying to shed light upon. You have every right to get pissed off by their actions but sometimes you also need to keep your mouth shut especially if they're actions/words/behavior does not even directly affect or insult any person or community, know the difference between calling someone out and blatant impudence and meddling.

There’s a fine line between harmless gossiping and out-and-out disregard for personal limits, you need to get yourself checked if you think “they’re a celebrity, they know what they signed up for and they should stop being a baby and deal with it” is enough reason for you to cross boundaries.

Exactly!

Gossiping on a surface level is normal. People are curious and want to know more, so they turn to gossip blogs and tabloid articles to discuss and learn things. But we cross that boundary when we start to over-analyze and interfere in someone else's life.

Well said!

[beastars-takes]

Zootopia Takes: Darker’s Not Better

The Shock Collar Draft

So, it sounds like people are largely positive on me doing some Zootopia posts on this blog, and I wanted to talk about this tweet I saw the other day:

I’ll punt on explaining why Beastars isn’t “Dark Zootopia”--that’s a great topic for another post. But I would like to talk about why this popular yet stridently uninformed tweet is so, so wrong. Why the shock collar draft was not better, actually.

And obviously, I’m not writing several pages in reply to a single tweet--this is a take that’s been around since the movie came out, that the “original version was better.” It’s been wrong the whole time.

Let’s talk about why!

Part 1: “Because Disney”

Let’s start with this--the assumption that the film’s creators wanted to make this shock collar story and “Disney” told them to change it.

That’s not how it works.

I try to keep stuff about me out of these posts as much as possible, but just for a bit of background, I’ve worked in the animation industry for about half a decade. I know people at Disney. I have a reasonable idea of how things are there.

There is this misconception about creative industries that they’re constantly this pitched battle of wills between creative auteurs trying to make incredible art and ignorant corporate suits trying to repress them.

That can happen, especially in dysfunctional studios (and boy could I tell some stories) but Walt Disney Animation Studios is not dysfunctional. It’s one of the most autonomous and well-treated parts of the Disney Company.

The director of Zootopia, Byron Howard, isn’t an edgelord. He made Bolt and Tangled. He knows what his audience is, and he’s responsible enough not to spend a year (and millions of dollars in budget) developing a grimdark Don Bluth story that leadership would never approve. It wouldn’t just be a waste of time--he would be endangering the livelihoods of the hundreds of people working under him. Meanwhile, Disney Animation’s corporate leadership trusts their talent. They don’t generally interfere with story development because they don’t need to. Because they employ people like Byron Howard.

Howard and the other creative leads of Zootopia have said a dozen times, in interviews and documentaries, that they gave up on the shock collar idea because it wasn’t working. They’ve explained their reasoning in detail. Maybe they’re leaving out some of the story, but in general? I believe them.

But Beastars Takes, you say, maybe even if Disney didn’t force them to back away from this darker version, it still would have been better?

Part 2: Why Shock Collars Seem Good

I will say this--I completely sympathize with people who see these storyboards and scenes from earlier versions of the movie and think “this seems amazing.” It does! A lot of these drawings and shots are heartbreakingly good, in isolation.

I love these boards. They make me want to cry. I literally have this drawing framed on my wall. Believe me, I get it.

But the only reason we care this much about this alternative draft of Zootopia is that the Zootopia we got made us love this world and these characters. You know what actually made me cry?

Oh, yeah.

So let’s set aside the astonishing hubris of insisting Zootopia’s story team abandoned the “good” version of the story, when the “bad version” is the most critically-acclaimed Disney animated feature in the past SIXTY YEARS.

“But Beastars Takes!” I hear you say. “Critics are idiots and just because something’s popular doesn’t make it good!”

Fair enough. Let’s talk about why the real movie is better.

Part 3: The Message (it is, in fact, like a jungle sometimes)

This type of thing is always hard to discuss, in the main--a lot of people don’t want to feel criticized or “called out” by the entertainment they consume, and they don’t want to be asked to think about their moral responsibilities. But it’s hard to deny that Zootopia is a movie with a strong point of view. Everything else--the characters, the worldbuilding, the plot, grows out from the movie’s central statement about bias.

And the movie we got, with no shock collars, makes that statement far more effectively.

To dive into the full scope of Zootopia’s worldview and politics (warts and all) would be a whole post on its own, so I’ll just summarize the key point of relevance here:

Zootopia's moral message is that you, the viewer, need to confront your own biases. Not yell at someone else. No matter how much of a good or progressive person you consider yourself to be--if you want to stand against prejudice you have to start with yourself.

That’s a tough sell! For that message to land, we need to see ourselves in the protagonist.

Judy’s a good person! She argues with her dad about foxes. She knows predators aren’t all dangerous. She’s not speciesist. Right?

Ah fuck.

Let’s fast-forward to the pivotal scene of this movie. In an unfortunate but inevitable confluence of circumstances, Judy’s own biases and prejudiced assumptions come out, and she shits the bad.

Nick, who’s already bared his soul to her (against his better instincts), is heartbroken. But not as heartbroken as he is a minute later when he tries to confront her about what she’s said, and she makes this face:

Whaaaat? Come on, Nick. I’m a good person. Why are you giving me a hard time?

People like to complain about this scene. That it’s a hackneyed “misunderstanding” trope that could be easily resolved with a discussion. They’re wrong. Nick tries to have a discussion. She blows him off.

This isn’t Judy acting out of character, this is her character. Someone who identifies as Not A Racist, and hasn’t given the issue any more thought. This is not only completely believable characterization (who hasn’t seen someone react this way when you told them they hurt you?) it’s the film’s central thesis!

Yes, Nick somewhat provokes her into reaching for her “fox spray,” and her own trauma factors in there, but she’s already made her fatal mistake before that happens.

(As an aside, people also make the criticism that the movie unrealistically deflects responsibility for racism onto Bellwether and her plot. It doesn’t. All the key expressions of prejudice in the film--Judy’s encounter with Gideon, her parents’ warnings, the elephant in the ice cream shop, Judy’s early encounters with Bogo, Judy's views on race science--exist largely outside of Bellwether’s influence. She is a demagogue who inflames existing tensions, she didn’t invent them. Bogo literally says “the world has always been broken.”)

So, anyway. But we love Judy. She’s an angel. She also kinda sucks! She’s proudly unprejudiced, and when her own prejudice is pointed out to her she argues and doesn’t take it seriously. This is bad, but it’s also a very human reaction. It’s one most of us have probably been guilty of at one point or another.

Look at Zootopia’s society, too--it’s shiny and cosmopolitan, seemingly idyllic. Anyone can be anything, on paper. But scratch too deep beneath the surface and there’s a lot of pain and resentment here, things nobody respectable would say in public but come out behind closed doors, or among family, when nobody’s watching. It’s entirely recognizable--at least to me, someone who lives in a large liberal city in the United States. Like Byron Howard.

Wow, this place is a paradise!

Wait, what’s a “NIMBY”?

Part 4: Why Shock Collars Are Bad

So, with the film’s conceit established, let’s circle back to the shock collar idea. Like I said, it’s heartbreaking. It’s dramatic. It’s affective.

It also teaches us nothing.

If I see a movie where predator animals are subjected to 24/7 electroshock therapy, I don’t think “wow, this makes me want to think about how I could do better by the people around me.” I think “damn that shit’s crazy lmao. that’d be fucked up if that happened.” At a stretch, it reminds me of something like the Jim Crow era, or the Shoah. You know, stuff in the Past. Stuff we’ve all decided couldn’t ever happen again, so why worry about it?

The directors have said this exact thing, just politely. “It didn’t feel contemporary,” they say in pressers. That’s what it means.

If anything, the shock collar draft reifies the mindset that Zootopia is trying to reject--it shows us that discrimination is blatant, and dramatic, and flagrantly cruel, and impossible to miss.

And...that’s not true. If you only look for bias at its most malicious and evil, you’re going to miss the other 95 percent.

The messaging of this “darker version” is--ironically--less mature, less insightful, less intelligent. Less useful. Darker’s not better.

Part 5: Why Shock Collars Are Still Bad

So what if you don’t care about the message? What if you have no interest in self-reflection, or critical analysis (why are you reading this blog then lmao)? What if you just really want to hear a fun story about talking animals?

Well, this is trickier, because the remaining reasons are pretty subjective and emotional.

The creators have said that the shock collar version didn’t work because the viewers hated the cruel world they’d created. They agreed with Nick--the city was beyond saving. They didn’t want to save it.

The creators have said that Judy was hard to sympathize with, not being able to recognize the shock collars for the obvious cruelty they were.

Fuck you, Judy!

But we haven’t seen the draft copies. We haven’t watched the animatics. We have to take their word for it. Anyone who’s sufficiently invested in this story is going to say “well, I disagree with them.” It doesn’t matter to them that they haven’t seen the draft and the filmmakers have. The movie they’ve imagined is great and nobody is going to convince them otherwise.

But the fact remains that the shock collar movie, as written, did not work. And, if behind the scenes material is to be believed, it continued to not work after months and months of story doctoring.

There’s even been a webcomic made out of the dystopian version of Zootopia. It’s clever and creative and well-written and entertaining and...it kind of falls apart. The creator, after more than a little shit-talk directed at Disney, abandoned the story before reaching the conclusion, but even before then the seams were beginning to show. How do you take a society that’s okay with electrocuting cute animals and bring it to a point of cathartic redemption? You can’t, really. The story doesn’t work.

Does that mean people shouldn’t make fanworks out of the cut material? That they shouldn’t be inspired and excited by it? Hell no. This drawing is cute as hell. The ideas are compelling.

But I suppose what I’d ask of you all is--if you’re weighing the hot takes of art students on Twitter against the explanations of veteran filmmakers, consider that the latter group might actually know what they’re talking about.

See you next time!

[purgatoryandme]

Saw that tfatws antagonists were called “flag smashers” lmfao and was apprehensive about watching the show. But how do you think they’re handling it ? Like, what are they doing with the show so far ? If you’re comfortable talking about spoilers, that is. 👀

Take my thoughts with a tablespoon of salt because, despite reading summaries, I won’t actually watch the eps because I hate Disney+ as a concept and Disney’s entire push to essentially kill cinema for overpriced streaming. Spoilers below the cut:

TFATWS keeps with the trend of Disney+ shows being more self-aware and less hamfisted than their movie predecessors - it focuses on the fact that Sam is a black man in a position of care + in poor finances and how that’s relevant to the mantle of Captain America. It acknowledges police brutality, American nationalism, anti-blackness, inequality and protest movements, and (in tiny little pieces) how all of those things frame Sam being gifted the shield by contrasting him with a new State-sponsored Cap. John Walker is a decorated soldier who gets the serum, but feels his power deserves respect and can’t quite place himself in other people’s shoes...and has an oppression complex. Sam was trusted with the shield originally, gave it up, and now doesn’t know if he should take it back because of all that it represents - the good and the bad. The whole show is...good and bad itself. One of the central framing points for Sam’s character is his empathy. He can see the perspectives of all the villains and, while he understands them, he doesn’t agree with them. It’s an excellent callback to him being a counsellor and really places him as a whole new Cap. Beyond this, he prioritizes his family over being a hero and taking up the shield! He is someone who cares about issues that aren’t just physical! This is a good thing! Mostly!  Sam’s empathy often just turns his character into a sounding board for the rest of the cast. It’s frustrating that it took 4 episodes for Sam to really have a role in events that isn’t just trailing after Bucky or responding to Bucky’s feelings. It’s even more frustrating that all of Sam’s dialogue that is his OWN is so subtly framed in a show that otherwise smacks you over the head with it’s themes - “I wonder if I should’ve destroyed it” about the shield is a KILLER line, but surrounded by the deluge of other exposition and one liners, it doesn’t get to shine at all.  Another central point of Sam Cap is that it’s difficult to proudly represent a country that has such a long history of anti blackness that continues to this day. It’s excellent that Sam feels this conflict, if a little confusing considering his previous placement in the army that gets tapdanced around, and I love that this remains a sticking point for him despite his empathy. He doesn’t just get over racism as an institution just because he understands the feelings of the white characters around him.  The show is mostly tasteful about this conflict, though it’s somewhat frustrating that Sam rarely gets to express it himself - the show constantly has the surrounding world or characters express it instead. A cop demanding Sam’s ID when he’s arguing with Bucky and asking Bucky if Sam is bothering him was...hm. Extra annoying to have Bucky interfere with the situation by stating the obvious “do you know who this is?” because I mean yeah the guy should know? But also it doesn’t let the situation further develop with Sam’s actions and places Bucky in a position of protecting him that is just a bit sour when the show doesn’t want to dip into Bucky being a man from the 40s. The whole “there was a black supersoldier in the 40s” thing falls into the same category - it’s a great storyline in the comics, but having the guy show up just to highlight the way black people have been dehumanized in the US and drive a wedge between Bucky and Sam was ????? It wasn’t a moment for Sam’s own conflict or for the character himself or even for lore building - it was just to draw attention to Bucky and Sam’s differences in a way that seemed mostly meant for Bucky’s development. This also goes for Lamar’s death, however the show chooses to play it - the irony is too on the nose. Finalish positive thoughts: the symbolism is mostly pretty good, nice shots, everyone is much more fleshed out than in the MCU, Zemo made me laugh, Bucky development, less Sam development but what we have is pretty good. Final negative thoughts: I don’t really love that the shows main protest movement has to be one that’s “gone too far” because it feels super played out and like it’s taking advantage of current political climates in an annoying “we should all be in the middle :)” kind of way. Their name is also rock fucking stupid. The way the show awkwardly brought in Wakanda was lacklustre - I really wish we could forget Bucky was there entirely, and the tongue in cheek reference to him being “White Wolf” wasn’t really funny so much as it was depressing. Bucky should really be more of a side character than he is, and this is coming from someone who loves the potential of the character - I really feel like he’s gonna turn into “white dude with all black friends, proving he’s not racist and also a really good guy!” at this rate.  TLDR: too much Bucky, not enough Sam, addresses relevant and interesting issues but isn’t entirely sure where it wants to go with it, ultimately trying a bit too hard for mass appeal by taking a pretty centrist approach to its messaging for my taste. Better than the movies though? 

[ranma-rewatch]

Episode 15: Enter Shampoo, the Gung-Ho Girl! I Put My Life in Your Hands

*bzzz* *bzzz* *bzzz* Oh wow, look at the time! My alarm’s gone off, which means another Ranma Rewatch is ready to begin! This week we’re nearing the end of the first season of the show, with the fifteenth episode. Judging by the title, this one introduces Shampoo, a fairly major character throughout the series. I’ve mostly been neutral on her, but I am interested to see if this viewing makes me like her more or less. We’ll see next paragraph, after I’ve seen the episode.

So, uh, holy moly. I did not expect this episode to be this meaty for stuff to talk about. I’m not doing a Character Spotlight again this week (waiting for more Shampoo content before I give her one), but this should still be quite the post. So, let’s get started.

The episode starts with Akane and Ranma (in his cursed form) eating parfaits in a restaurant together. There’s a TV special in the place showing some reporters making contact with a village of amazon women, who live deep in China. Ranma’s like, ‘Hey, I’ve been there!’ but soon one of the walls to the building is destroyed by someone. That someone is one of the amazon’s from that very village, Shampoo, and Ranma knows who she is: she’s there to kill Ranma.

Doing what he does best, Ranma hides, and Akane wants to know what the deal was with her. He explains that a few months previous (the timeline feels weird to me there), Ranma and his dad were in China, still with the Jusenkyo guide. So, probably not far from the springs. Oh, and they were still cursed at the time. They came upon that village of amazons, right as they were having a tournament. Ranma and Genma ended up eating the grand prize, and when the winner, Shampoo, took issue with that, Ranma just fought her to make him the winner. That turns out to be a problem, because in doing so he triggered one of their most customs: whenever they’re beaten by an outsider, the guide explains, they give them a Kiss of Death, which is a promise to follow them wherever they go and kill them.

Which is exactly what Shampoo did. The entire time they were in China, Shampoo chased them, and now she’s finally found them in Japan. Back at the Tendo estate, Ranma has changed back to his original form, so when Shampoo shows up she’s quite confused. She never met Ranma while he looked like that before, and doesn’t know it’s him. But she does remember seeing Akane eating with her target, and when Akane refuses to tell her where Ranma is, Shampoo decides to add another person to her murder list. Ranma defends Akane, knocking out Shampoo in the process.

At that point, everyone is expecting her to give Ranma the Kiss of Death, again, but she doesn’t. I mean, she does kiss him, a lot, but it’s not a murder promise. No, she is clearly snuggling up with him hardcore, pissing off Akane something fierce. For a moment, it looks like she and Shampoo will fight, but Akane backs off, leaving Ranma to her. Everyone is now sure that Ranma must have been lying before, and she was some girlfriend he had in China, but he keeps disavowing it. Akane only shows back up to the situation to clarify that she doesn’t think of herself as ever having been Ranma’s fiance, then storming off.

With Akane’s dad pissed as hell and wanting to know what’s going on, Shampoo, who barely knows any Japanese, hands over a copy of her country’s rules. Soun tries to read it, but he doesn’t know any Chinese. Nabiki starts reading from it though, revealing that the Kiss of Death is only for outsiders who are also women. If an outsider man beats an Amazon in combat, she has to marry him. Ranma pushes back against this, hard, but Nabiki makes clear she doesn't know Chinese either, the rules have a Japanese translation that Soun completely missed.

Later, Akane is beating up a training dummy she dressed to look like Ranma. Clearly, she is not upset about this situation whatsoever. She tries to tell herself that, well, it wasn’t like they chose to be together, their dads made the engagement. But she flashes back to an episode that hasn’t aired yet, remembering how protective Ranma can sometimes be of her. Then, she hears Ranma trying to tell Shampoo that her village’s customs are outdated, that they can’t get married for that dumb of a reason. Akane’s sisters appear to further explain to Akane that Ranma wasn’t trying to cheat on her or anything, it was out of his hands. Sadly, she’s set off once more as Nabiki translates some of Shampoo’s Chinese phrases as ‘My beloved husband’ and ‘I love you’. It’s obvious she either doesn’t understand Ranma’s attempts to divert her, or she doesn’t care. Either way, the more she snuggles up to Ranma, the more he has a hard time talking her out of this, making Akane mad again.

That evening, Ranma’s on the roof considering the situation. Now that she isn’t trying to murder him, he realizes that Shampoo is actually pretty cute, and ‘nicer’ than Akane. Ryoga appears, throwing cold water on Ranma and explaining how much he hates to see Akane getting jealous because of all this. Ranma starts to say that it isn’t his problem is Akane feels that way, but she appears and denies it, saying he could do whatever he wants. But then Shampoo shows up, sees the red-headed Ranma, and tries to kill him.

From there, the last five minutes or so of the episode is a loop of events: Ranma, in his cursed form, tries to escape the violent Shampoo; Nabiki, realizing an opportunity, gives Ranma hot water but charges him ridiculous rates to use it; Shampoo switches to trying to cuddle Ranma, he runs away, and Ryoga uses cold water to turn him back. The episode ends back where that cycle started, for the third time, as Shampoo chases Ranma away, and Mr. Tendo looks at his damaged home, realizing how much this whole situation is going to cost him.

So, that’s the episode! Let’s get into more detail, though. Starting at the beginning, I find Ranma’s scene there really interesting. I don’t think it’s the first time the show has shown Ranma as eating something he usually wouldn’t while in his cursed form, but it is the first time that’s discussed with someone else, I believe. Ranma clarifies that as a guy, it would be embarrassing to eat a parfait, but it isn’t embarrassing to do when he’s a girl.

This is maybe the first time Ranma has actually called himself a girl while in his cursed form, and it leads me to a few different ways to look at the situation. It could be that Ranma’s normal embarrassment comes from how other people see him, in which case he’s just using how he looks different while cursed as a way to avoid that. It could also be that Ranma’s embarrassment is entirely internal, and he’s started to think of himself in his cursed form as actually being a girl, giving him a way to do feminine things without hurting his pride. This is kind of a complex topic, weaving together gender and gender expression, so all I think I can say for now is that I don’t think this is evidence towards Ranma not being a guy, but instead that Ranma is an opportunist who will find loopholes, even in rules he imposes on himself.

Also, this scene raised another question for me: were they on a date? Throughout this whole episode, Ranma and Akane had a really different vibe to me. Especially in the sub, the way they talked about them made it sound as though they were actually in a relationship now, on some level. That kind of threw me for a loop, because it kind of shatters how I saw the series.

The way I remembered it, Ranma and Akane were ‘officially’ engaged, but never considered themselves more than friends, at least to a level they were willing to admit to. It’s obvious they care a lot about each other, but I didn’t think it went further than that, at least thus far in the series. But their hangout at the cafe seriously felt like a date, and while Akane is angsting later on she’s talking about them being ‘together’.

What’s so weird about this is that, well, it kind of works for me. They’re still rocky with each other, thanks in no small part to Ryoga’s interference, but they’re definitely a lot closer than they were even back during Ryoga’s introductory arc. I will admit I could just be reading these scenes wrong, but it is so weird to think that, at least before this episode, they had made a step towards being closer.

Let’s move onto the new character: Shampoo. The first thing I found myself thinking about, during this episode, was how similar her introduction here is to Ryoga’s. They both show up out of nowhere, trying to kill Ranma, having just come from China. The big difference, however, is that Ranma’s reaction to Ryoga was mostly, ‘Who? Oh, yeah, that guy from school. Good to see you again!’, and even as Ryoga has become a bigger fixture in his life, Ranma is rarely more than annoyed with him, except when enraged with Ryoga using his curse to get closer to Akane.

In contrast, Shampoo showing up scares Ranma, a lot. Unlike Ryoga, who Ranma never knew was even chasing him, Shampoo has been constantly trying to kill him for months. What is odd about that is that Ranma is clearly far stronger than her, which makes me wonder why he keeps running, instead of trying to fight her again. Does he think it would make the situation worse? Is he worried about the collateral damage? Has he tried it, only for her to just keep coming for him?

I mentioned it before, but I am not a super huge Shampoo fan. I’m actually seeing more to her, at least a little, but that’s mostly because I’m liking her Japanese voice actress more than her English one. She sounds more fierce and less airheaded in the original language, I’m finding. In general, my issues with Shampoo can be summed up as: I don’t really like that her character doesn’t seem to have a lot of agency; I find the fact she’s written to be dumb kind of racist; and the fact she is far weaker than Ranma is a missed opportunity, and more than a little sexist. I’ll cover those gripes more, along with how they evolve through this rewatch, another day.

While we’re still in the Shampoo Realm, there was something interesting I noticed this time around: at first, after she shows up, Akane calls her cute several times. In general, she doesn’t seem to have any issues with her at all, even joking with Ranma about how her attractiveness must make her chasing him at least a little better. She doesn’t seem threatened by her at all.

Again, there are a few ways to read it. You could use it as evidence towards Bisexual Akane, which I don’t mind doing because us Bi’s need more representation, yo. In addition to that, tying back to what I said about it seeming like Ranma and Akane are actually dating here, it might actually be a sign that Akane was feeling so secure in her relationship with Ranma that she didn’t have an issue with Shampoo, aside from the trying to kill Ranma part. It was only once he beat her again, and the kissing started, that Akane got jealous.

Speaking of, let’s talk a little about jealousy. So, fun fact if you didn’t know, but I’ve actually been in a poly relationship before. Polyamory is actually pretty neato, and if you don’t know a lot about it I’d recommend doing research. One important thing about it is looking hard at jealousy and where it comes from. A lot of stories show jealousy as a necessary byproduct of caring about someone, which I’ve grown to really dislike. We kind of get that here, as Akane’s jealousy is treated as a joke about how much she actually likes Ranma, and less as a character flaw to work past.

Jealousy is a very toxic emotion. It’s root isn’t in love, but self-esteem. It’s the fear that, if your partner likes someone who isn’t you, that makes you a less valuable person, that you could lose your partner and with them an important part of who you are. But it’s important to not base your self-worth on how other people see you, and to not be possessive. Just because you’re in a relationship with someone, that doesn’t mean you can control them, you don’t own them. I feel like the series does touch on this a bit as well, as several characters, including Ranma, imply that Shampoo is more attractive than Akane. Ranma has taunted her from day one about her being a plain-looking girl, so it’s obvious why this amazon getting so touchy with Ranma sets off her alarm bells.

Smaller note, but I do think it’s neat how we get a lot of this idea that, when Akane is really upset, she needs to do martial arts. This obviously isn’t the first time we’ve seen this, but I do feel like this episode hammered home the idea that Akane likes to work through her issues by, well, working out. Honestly, that’s not a bad idea, and it fits her character. She sees her martial arts as a big part of who she really is, and by practicing it, she’s emphasizing her individuality and her identity, in a way.

Last of these smaller notes, but I really loved Nabiki’s attitude throughout this episode. In one conversation, she goes from trying to show Akane that Ranma was kind of forced into this situation, to then making sure she knows what Shampoo is saying to Ranma. It genuinely feels like Nabiki enjoys screwing with Akane sometimes, and that was entertaining.

If it isn’t clear, ‘entertaining’ actually describes a lot of this episode. I really enjoyed it! Shampoo’s introduction was good, sure, but that last five minutes was just pure hijinks, and it was genuinely fun to watch. The episode was also just full of great humor. One of my favorite jokes being Mr. Tendo trying to read the Amazon Law book, that whole part got me really laughing.

Before I move onto the ranking, I did also want to talk a little about watching order. Like I mentioned in the recap, there’s a point where Akane flashes back to something that happened in an arc we haven’t gotten to yet. What’s up with that? Well, I mentioned in a previous post how Hulu has a different order from what I’ve seen online as the original one. That’s because the order on Hulu is the chronological order, as well as the one in which the episodes were originally produced. What I’ve been following, and will continue to follow, is the broadcast order. Apparently, they purposefully aired episodes out of order sometimes. In this case, they moved another arc back into the middle of season two so they could get to Shampoo faster, because apparently she was a really popular character in the manga. So that’s neat. But like I said, I’ll be sticking with the broadcast order.

Like I made clear just a few paragraphs ago, I really enjoyed this episode. But exactly how much? I’m actually having a hard time placing it. It’s introduced a major character, as well as just being a very fun episode. I think I’ll give it third place for now, right behind the middle episode of Kodachi’s introduction, and the episode all about Akane’s bad haircut.

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’

Episode 12: A Woman's Love is War! The Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 15: Enter Shampoo, the Gung-Ho Girl! I Put My Life in Your Hands

Episode 9: True Confessions! A Girl's Hair is Her Life!

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 13: A Tear in a Girl-Delinquent's Eye? The End of the Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga

Episode 11: Ranma Meets Love Head-On! Enter the Delinquent Juvenile Gymnast!

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

Episode 10: P-P-P-Chan! He's Good For Nothin'

Episode 14: Pelvic Fortune-Telling? Ranma is the No. One Bride in Japan

Will next episode be just as good? Find out with my next week, as I go into the next episode of this arc, “Shampoo's Revenge! The Shiatsu Technique That Steals Heart and Soul” I genuinely don’t remember what that is, at all! See you then!

[arlingtonpark]

SNK 130 Review

For the first time, thanks to this chapter, SNK is more popular than Domestic Na Kanojo, a manga about a love triangle between a dude and his step-sisters, one of whom is his teacher.

We did it fam. Mission accomplished.

I feel like the scenario where the outside world and Paradis are kept apart with Paradis threatening to rumble the world if there’s any interference is something of an equilibrium point.

They say that nature has a balance to it. A natural rhythm that it follows on its own.

Predators hunt prey, so naturally there are less predators than prey, lest the prey population be wiped out. When predators are too many and prey is too few, the lack of food causes predators to leave the area or die off, which prompts the prey population to rebound.

So there’s a certain point at which things balance out. This is an equilibrium.

Social situations are like that too.  

People have desires and preferences, and in a social situation, a dynamic will form that satisfies as much of those desires as possible.

Because the equilibrium point is the state of affairs at which as many people as possible are satisfied, in the long term any disruption to that equilibrium will be corrected.

Not because of magic or anything, but just because it’s the scenario that most people prefer, so the state of affairs will trend towards it over time.

This is a really long way of saying that I think that some variation on the King Fritz scenario is the best outcome everyone can hope for.

Everyone gets to live and go about their lives.

The downside is that there’ll always be an undercurrent of resentment. And, oh yeah, becoming titans and eating children is necessary to make the wall titans work as a threat. That’s bad, but a natural balance isn’t a utopia.

It’s a testament to how much the SNK world sucks that *this* is the outcome that allows the most people to be happy.

Rape, parents eating children, all of it indefinitely.

That’s one of the most frustrating things about this chapter.

Just…what even is the message of this story anymore?

Attack on Titan is a series about freedom and striving for freedom. Eren has embodied that struggle the whole time.

But now?

Eren is a lunatic who’s about to crush the whole world.

The Cringevengers are fighting for freedom, but not their own. Stopping Eren will only open a pathway for the world to retaliate against Paradis for the failed rumbling. Their mission is one of self-destruction.

That’s noble, but it’s looking more and more like the cringevengers are going to lose. They’re physically and mentally exhausted, and they don’t really have much personal stake in this anymore.

So I guess we’re heading for an ending where Eren destroys the world.

If that’s the case, then…what’s the message?

Is this a tragedy?

Tragedies are about characters failing to rise above their flaws, but they’re also supposed to be constructive.

Tragedies work when they show the audience that a happy ending could have happened but for the character’s flaws.

Romeo and Juliet could have lived if it weren’t for their feuding families, for example. The story ended sadly, but there was a clear path to a happy ending.

What is the path forward in Attack on Titan?

The Marleyans are shit. They’re racist colonialists out to dominate the world. They coral Eldians into camps, use them as weapons, and want to build a global empire. Their long term motivation is to preserve their global dominance.

Eren is a lunatic. ‘Nuff said.

The Cringevengers have the moral high ground, but…if they win, the Eldians still die. So…go Cringevengers?

Who is the hero of this story right now?

Which path is the right one?

What is even the message anymore?

The answer is that there is none.

The situation is clearly designed to make this outcome inevitable.

The world is going down this bad path because almost everyone has the same flaw: they are willing to kill people for the sake of their own prejudices.

If only a couple of characters had that flaw, this would be fine, but making this flaw so widespread makes it seem that humans in general are like this, and that’s wrong.

Most people are not like this.

I think the fact that humanity has not self-immolated yet speaks for itself.

I don’t know what’s going on in Isayama’s mind, but I wonder if maybe he’s a bit paranoid about tensions between Japan, and China, and the Koreas.

The possible social commentary in SNK is always interesting to think about, but I’m just going to skip over that here.

…

Ugh, I guess I have to talk about the pregnancy now.

So first off, my starting point when thinking about the pregnancy is that whatever happened, it didn’t involve rape.

That’s maybe something we shouldn’t assume, but I don’t think Isayama will cross that line. Having Historia go through that trauma for basically no reason is viscerally disgusting and I trust that Isayama knows that.

Attack on Titan is ostensibly about freedom; being forced to carry a child to term is not that.

Clearly.

So I take it as a given that there was no rape.

Once you do that, thinking about the pregnancy becomes much simpler.

There are really only two possible explanations:

1. That Historia fell in love with a man, decided to have a family…and that Isayama is playing up the possibility of rape for shock value.

Or.

2. The pregnancy is somehow fake.

So which is more believable?

Honestly, I lean towards (1), though I’d prefer it be fake.

Before this chapter came out, I never felt it was likely the pregnancy was fake. There was an aura of suspicion around it, but that doesn’t prove much.

We know the pregnancy was inexplicably advantageous to Zeke, and we know that Eren and Historia were up to something right before Eren disappeared.

Isayama is clearly hiding something, but a fake pregnancy specifically?

I see no reason why it would be that and not, say, a secret romance.

That’s what really scares me though.

Most people can explain why callous depictions of rape are bad. The number of people who can explain why callous depictions of queer people are bad is much smaller.

I ship yumikuri. In fact, it’s one of the few pairs I ship.

So call me biased if you want, but the bottom line is that Ymir explicitly loved Historia, and most people would at least say Historia might have reciprocated. I personally would say she definitely did.

Ymir loved Historia.

She loved her enough to reach out to her and try to save her from her own fate.

Enough to jump from the tower and fight off the titans.

Enough to make Bertolt and Reiner turn back to get her.

Ymir did all this because she loved Historia.

But Isayama, it seems, wrote it into his story that Ymir loved Historia just to move the plot forward.

And once Ymir’s purpose as a character was fulfilled, she was removed from the story and killed off screen.

That’s a really shitty thing to do.

Establishing a queer romance just so the characters have motivation to go from Point A to B and nothing more is fucking low.

It’s cheap as hell.

It’s offensive.

But, I have to point out, not as offensive as a rape victim carrying their child to term.

I think that’s important to keep in mind.

People have written about women’s rights for centuries. Those principles are well established, if not always followed.

Gay rights just aren’t.

Most people can tell you why reducing rape to cheap drama is bad; most people cannot tell you why reducing lesbian romance to a plot device is bad.

(The answer is that they both trivialize their subjects, albeit in slightly different ways.)

I bring this up because I think people underestimate the chances that in-universe Historia is pregnant because she wants to be pregnant.

We can infer from what we know that Historia is pregnant because it’s part of a plan to help Zeke or Paradis, but we can also infer that this is not exactly the case.

It’s not directly established that Historia is pregnant because of Paradis’ or Zeke’s machinations. All we know is that these people were plotting to use her to make babies. We haven’t seen the point where she was roped into those schemes.

So I don’t think it can be discounted that Isayama plans to pair Historia up with a guy, most likely either Eren or Farm boy. Unfortunately.

Gay people don’t have many allies in this world. Unfortunately, that means Isayama is likely to *not* be one of those allies.

SNK’s record of depicting gay relationships speaks for itself.

That was all what I thought before this chapter came out.

I still think that.

So.

Now I guess I have to talk about Historia in this chapter now.

So Historia’s scene opens with her having resigned herself to a future of rape and Eren telling her she’s a human being who has rights.

…

……

I almost can’t bring myself to talk about this.

You know, back when Attack on Titan first become popular, it got a lot of praise for how feminist it was.

It was a post-apocalyptic survival horror show, and it really stood out how many prominent women there were.

Hange, Annie, Mikasa, Sasha, Historia, Rico. These people saw real action and had real characters, and a lot of people appreciated that.

Yep.

Good times. Good times.

How did we get here?

What happened?

Historia’s character is all about agency.

She wanted to end her life because she thought she was a burden. In the cavern she was prepared to take on the same burden she’s taking on right now, but she chose to live for herself.

She saved herself from that fate.

She rejected her family’s burden and chose to forge her own path.

Now it’s like that never happened.

She’s back to killing herself for everyone else’s sake, except now she’s also a damsel who needs Eren to save her.

So Eren reveals his plan to her, and she’s totally distraught over it. She tries to reason with him, and Eren just glares at her like she’s Reiner or something.

Finally we get to the most eyebrow raising moment in this exchange: when Historia invokes Ymir to justify opposing Eren.

I think Ymir is supposed to be seen as a tragic figure in Attack on Titan.

She didn’t have to take the fall for those Eldian cultists. They plucked her out of nowhere and randomly decided to worship her. She didn’t ask for any of this trouble.

But regardless, she took the fall for them.

When she got a new lease on life, she chose to live for herself. She’d put herself before everyone else for a change. She’d let no one else’s fate decide her’s.

But it never turned out that way.

I think Ymir’s tragic flaw is that she cares too much for her own good.

She was always going out of her way for others and doing more than she needed to. Helping Connie, helping Historia, helping Reiner and Bertolt.

Her enemies.

Ymir is a good person at heart, and that’s not bad, but according to Attack on Titan’s morality, being “good” to the point of self-sacrifice is bad.

I think one of the morals of Attack on Titan is that if you sacrifice yourself for other people’s sake……you end up sacrificing yourself.

Ymir could have left Reiner and Bertolt to their fates and returned to the walls. She could have lived a happy life with her friends and the girl she loved.

But she didn’t.

She knew that returning to Marley would mean death for her, and guessed what happened?

She did the thing that would likely kill her and she was killed.

Ymir couldn’t help but be a “good girl” and for that she was punished.

Thus endeth the tragedy of Ymir.

Now we come to Historia.

“If I don’t do everything in my power to stop you, I can’t live with my head held high!”

Historia is using Ymir’s words, but she’s actually betraying Ymir right now.

Ymir meant those words in the sense of living for yourself and not others. In the sense of not being self-sacrificial.

As far as Historia is concerned, in her current situation, she only has two options.

Let them rape her for the sake of her people, or let Eren destroy the world.

That’s it.

As far as Historia is concerned, to oppose Eren is to tacitly support the rape option.

So Historia is using Ymir’s words, but really it’s an insult because she’s using them to defend what Ymir would have hated.

Her self-sacrifice.

One thing that’s interesting about Attack on Titan is what it says about standing up for yourself.

In the story, not being self-sacrificial ironically requires you to make sacrifices.

If Ymir had not helped Reiner and Bertolt, they would have been in a lot more trouble with Marley. In a way, if she had not gone with them, she would have been sacrificing them, in the sense that she would have been throwing them under the bus.

When Historia chooses to live for herself in the cavern, she screams about how she’ll happily throw humanity under the bus if it means saving herself.

That’s why she calls herself “the worst girl in history.”

As opposed to Krista, who is a “good girl.”

I think that’s what Isayama is going for here.

Krista is the “good girl” who’ll gladly take a bullet for you.

Historia is the “bad girl” who’ll gladly throw you overboard if it meant she didn’t have to debase herself.

Yeah, Historia later claimed she was in the moment when she said that, but that doesn’t mean much.

When you’re in the heat of the moment, and you’re acting on pure instinct, you’re likelier to reveal parts of yourself you wouldn’t otherwise.

Being in the moment doesn’t mean Historia doesn’t identify with what she said, it means she was speaking her mind with no filter.

In 130, Historia and Eren are superficially at odds with each other, but deep down Historia thinks Eren is right.

She doesn’t want to sacrifice herself, and I’m sure she feels she shouldn’t have to, just on principle.

The only reason she accepts this fate is because she feels she has to.

So when Eren asks Historia to not oppose him, and she refuses, he tells her she has it in her to do it because she’s “the worst girl in history.”

I think Historia is the kind of person who’d throw you under the bus if she knew it’d save what she values most: her friends, yes, but also herself.

But Historia is acting more like Krista, someone who’d throw their life away to save yours.

Eren is saying she needs to start acting like herself again.

He’s trying to remind Historia of who she is and what she used to think was most important to her.

(This scene is *so* misogynistic. I’m going to puke.)

The flashbacks in this chapter were presented as vignettes, so it’s hard to say how Eren’s scene with Historia ended.

One thing that stood out to me though was the clear through line that connected all the various scenes.

The first one is Eren talking to Yelena about Zeke’s plan.

Next scene is Eren and Floch talking about the real plan.

Then it’s Eren and Historia talking about the plan.

Then back to Eren and Floch for Eren’s reveal of what he’s really doing.

Back to Historia as Eren tries to win her over.

Then we cut to Zeke and Eren talking about Mikasa.

Finally, we go back to Historia.

This flow is important because we don’t know much about Eren’s talk with Historia, but I think we can tease out some clues based on what scenes we see when.

Historia is put on the spot. Eren has revealed his plan, and she opposes it. They argue back and forth, and we reach a point where Historia is at a loss for words, and doesn’t seem to know what to do.

Then we inexplicably cut to a conversation between Zeke and Eren.

A conversation about loyalty, affection, and standing by your friends.

The implications for what this hints at are huge.

Eren asks Zeke if Mikasa cares about him so much because of some Ackermann genetics.

Zeke replies there’s no proof of that, and Mikasa probably just loves him.

Finally, Historia speaks, and she asks Eren about getting pregnant.

She doesn’t go to such great lengths for Eren because she’s a slave!

She doesn’t subject herself to this because she’s being coerced!!

It’s because she  L O V E S  him ! ! !

Fuck this! Fuck me! Fuck everything!

[spraxinoscope]

Oct. 14: Why I still think Trump has a ~75% chance of winning

Epistemic status: Who even am I? You shouldn’t listen to me. But see the final section for details.

By ‘winning,’ I mean still being president on 1/22/21, and there being no serious actionable plan to get him out.

2500 words of paranoia and bad math after the cut.

Polling factors:

Today, 538 gives Trump a 13% chance of an EC victory, so let’s use that as a starting point. As Nate Silver will tell you every chance he gets, 2016 presidential polls were only off by a few percentage points, and that’s probably still true. But a similar (or even smaller) systematic polling error would be enough to flip some battlegrounds, bumping Trump up to something like 25-30%. Have pollsters managed to correct for the systemic errors of 2016? There’s true meaningful debate around this, but the balance of evidence seems to be that the pollsters never figured out what caused the errors, and so were not able to fix them.

Note that Trump’s decline in the polls is driven by voters who approved of the president until very recently. Consider the sort of person who still had a favorable of opinion of Trump right up until fall 2020. Generally, dips in Trump’s favorability ratings seem to have been due to conservative infighting. Often, when a person stops supporting Trump, it’s because he is being insufficiently racist. These constituents’ loyalty may be wavering, but they are not likely to switch sides.

As a complete asspull hypothesis, I’d guess that some people who tell pollsters they no longer support Trump are trying to pressure him into adopting more hardline policy and will never vote for a Democrat.

I would posit that the 13% number is the absolute hard minimum chance of Trump winning an EC victory, fair and square. Error bars push that number higher. Taking average polling data over time also pushes that number higher, since it’s almost never been this low.

Dysfunction factors:

So, those are the odds for a free and fair election. What are the odds of the election being free and fair? I’m glad you asked! Zero. 

Election integrity has taken major hits recently. Citizens United turned elections into ad campaigns. Shelby County v. Holder made laws against discriminatory election practices unenforceable. The Hatch Act is also not being enforced. The numerous alleged campaign finance law violations brought against the 2016 Trump campaign all amounted to nothing (except jail time, and subsequent pardons, for some functionaries).

Fine, let’s say elections can never be perfectly fair, but even if we grade on a curve and request that elections be as fair as possible, we’re still not doing great, and it’s been getting worse since 2010.

Hey, remember all those jokes from like 2004 onwards about how unreliable and insecure electronic voting machines are? That shit never got fixed. Remember the story from this week about some 90,000 New Yorkers getting the wrong mail-in ballots?

Remember when the Russians got into the Illinois voter database in 2016? The institutions that were supposed to defend against that kind of thing have since been gutted or captured by republicans.

Hey, remember when the Iowa primary was so dysfunctional that they ended the vote count without ever producing a final tally or figuring out what the problems were?

Election integrity groups have been sounding the alarm continuously on this one. Electoral commissions and underfunded, understaffed, and undertrained in use of modern systems. This is a huge problem all by itself, and it gets worse when applied to the next issue.

Malfeasance factors:

In my American public school civics education, I learned that Richard Nixon was a crook who paid some burglars to spy on the democrats, because of how crooked he was. I did not learn that ratfucking is bog-standard procedure, in every election, all over the world. I had to learn that on my own, later. Generally speaking, the election integrity talking heads take the opinion that most countries routinely interfere in the elections of most countries, and the Ds and the Rs have never not been spying on each other. The extraordinary thing about Watergate was that Republican congressmen were weirdly amenable to allowing an investigation into one of their own, a mistake they have never since repeated.

Some amount of ratfucking is to be expected. The nation has weathered this factor before. But, like electoral competence, this may be getting worse over time. State governments have very wide purview when it comes to voting procedure, and Republican states are wasting no time in finding creative new ways to toss out ballots. The most common reason for a mail-in ballot to be rejected is that the signature on the envelope doesn’t match the voter’s signature on file. There is no official criteria or standard practice for how close a signature has to be to count as a match. Signatures are not useful security for anything, anyway.

Georgia’s 2018 election was arguably illegitimate. Irregularities included voting sites closed at the last minute for unclear reasons and fraudulent ballot collectors stealing ballots. Calls for recounts all failed. Other southern states are on thin ice. All the big Texan cities are getting one ballot drop box each, in case you thought Texas would be allowed to turn blue.

Red states already have various laws permitting them to throw out ballots that arrive after the election. Sabotaging the post office or throwing out all uncounted ballots soon after the election, as most sitting Republicans in congress and governors have already gone on record to suggest may be necessary, is a violation of the letter but not the spirit of existing restrictive voting laws.

The big thing, of course, is that the right wing media landscape has been fully saturated with the idea that Democrats will engage in conspiracies to steal the election, and action will need to be taken to thwart these plots. To that end, Republicans at all levels of government, including at the DOJ, have repeatedly signaled willingness to take unprecedented measures to stamp out fraud. These include numerous voter purge plans, new criteria for dismissing ballots, and sending the DHS or other law enforcement agencies to take custody of ballots.

In addition, the MAGAs are organizing ‘poll watcher’ groups to secure urban voting sites. Even if these groups fully obey the law and do not engage in anything that could legally be termed intimidation or harassment, that’s still a lot of leeway. Of course, over the last couple years, we’ve all learned that right wing protesters can sometimes bend or break the law and get away with it, and sometimes receive cooperation from the police. This goes triple for blue cities in red states, which is exactly what we’re worried about.

Malfeasance in general is made easier by the unprecedented levels of geographically-sorted voting blocs. It is trivially easy to tell whether a district will go hard for Trump or hard for Biden. So, whether interference is coming from law enforcement officers, protesters, or semi-sanctioned militias, they will know which lines to intimidate and which boxes to steal.

Russiagate set a clear precedent: It doesn’t matter if it’s blatant, outrageous, or corrupt. Republicans do not want to defect, and right wing media will keep the base in line. Democrats will be outraged, and then fold. There are no remaining nonpartisan referees to appeal to.

Pundits like to imagine that sitting Republicans in congress will not blatantly steal an election for fear that it will lead to them getting voted out of office, to which I would suggest that the obvious answer is the correct one: Voted out how?

Democrats shooting themselves in the goddamn foot factors:

Trump likes to say that the election will be illegitimate if he loses. Mainstream news outlets like to push back against this. The NYT, for instance, has been loudly insistent that the election is totally secure all year.

It’s not, and they’re morons. No experts agree with them on this. Trump fabricating a bunch of fictional threats does not invalidate the numerous actual threats.

Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer would not be anyone’s first pick for the task of contesting an election, but that’s who we got.

Possible October surprises:

Hey, what do you guys think this year’s James Comey is going to be? The only real prediction I have is that something very destabilizing happens in the week before the election, but the particulars could be anything. Some fun possibilities:

DNC hacked again

Federally sanctioned repeat of the 1985 MOVE bombing

Hunter Biden cocaine sex tape

Anything that startles people, destabilizes institutions, and distracts from other issues is a viable possibility.

Scenarios after a contested election:

There are plenty of bluechecks and think tanks who have already gamed this out in detail. You don’t have to take my word for any of this part. The choices are:

There are rival sets of state electors, and Congress decides which ones count. Result: McConnell and Barr play Calvinball until they get the outcome they like, Trump remains in office.

The supreme court decides. Result: Trump remains in office.

The militias decide. Result: Trump remains in office, plus the Handmaid’s Tale happens.

There’s an orange revolution. After months of protracted struggle, Trump is ousted from office. However, in the meantime, ~8 states have seceded and Russia has annexed Alaska. In the ensuing chaos, John McAfee claims the presidency.

Probability estimates:

Trump’s odds of a ‘legitimate’ EC victory are only at 13% as of this moment, but the running average is higher, with occasional spikes above 30%. Polling errors add a little extra. Let’s say 25%.

Trump’s odds of losing the EC vote, but clawing it back through malfeasance until enough Republicans agree that he’s won, are very low in the case of a Biden landslide. But a landslide is unlikely, and as the results are closer, the probability of Republicans declaring themselves winners approach one. Note that, at least from mainstream news coverage, this won’t look like the power grab that many democrats fear. It will look like a lot of confusion and disarray, with an unclear EC count, followed by a cascade of authorities and sources declaring Trump the winner and securing the acceptance from government bodies one at a time. For the most likely election outcomes in which Trump doesn’t win straight up, I’d say a 30% chance Trump remains in office.

The election being a total dysfunctional disaster, with multiple states unable to certify results, is at least 5%. At least! In such a case, I’d give Trump an 80% chance of remaining in office.

In general, I believe that the only way that Biden gets to be president is if everything basically holds together and works like it’s supposed to, and also Trump legitimately loses the EC. There is one way for everything to go right. There are many ways it can go wrong.

The NYT has fixated on the possibility that Trump clearly loses, but refuses to leave office anyway. I’d give this no more than a 1% chance of happening. But I think there’s a major blind spot around the possibility that we have no idea who won, because the whole thing is obfuscated by multiple layers of confusion and malfeasance. What tools to democrats have for investigating malfeasance? What tools do they have for persuading people that they won when the results are in question? What tools to they have for enforcing election laws that they didn’t have in 2017?

I think they have approximately one asset, and it’s a populace that’s willing to rise up in defense of their rights. But the DNC spent the last five-ish years antagonizing and alienating anyone left of Dianne Feinstein, so, the efficacy of a potential national mobilization has been severely compromised.

Any protracted contested election scenario either favors Trump remaining in power, or the eventual balkanization of the US. One reason there are no good scenarios for a contested election is that mainstream media has been so adamant that the election is secure. When the Democrats are trying to contest results, they will be struggling against their own narrative.

Then, I add a 10% chance that a last minute October surprise tips the race to Trump. It happened last time, and Comey wasn’t even trying; now that every government office is staffed with Trump appointees who are trying, they have a decent shot at this.

Summing up these odds, I arrive at Trump having around a 70% chance.

Then, I add another 5%, because I bet there’s things I haven’t thought of, and every year there’s some small chance that the far right will go all in on a race war, and this would be a good opportunity for them.

I will take actual bets on these odds.

My biases:

Numerous.

I grew up in a red community in a red state and was bullied a lot by kids who grew up to be far-right; I have a chip on my shoulder about this that precludes dispassionate analysis.

I believe the RNC has looked at US demographic trends and likely consequences of climate change, and has accepted a certain amount of fascistic will to power as a necessary evil. This is mere supposition on my part.

Despite the fact that I am more or less an asshole stoner burnout weeb, I remain convinced that the editorial staff at the NYT and several other major American journalistic institutions are somehow even dumber than I am. Although this may sound unlikely, this assumption has been invaluable for making predictions about the world.

I am a paranoid person.

My motivations for writing this:

Believe it or not, I’m only doing this to assuage anxiety. I’ve been convinced that Trump’s odds for remaining in office have been significantly higher than polls would suggest since 2018, and it’s maddening to see so few other people agree even though my core assumptions keep not going away.

If anyone read this far: I’m sorry, and I hope this motivates you to vote, if you weren’t going to already. If Trump remains in office, protests against him will benefit from having the mandate of a clear popular vote win, even if not an EC win, so I do believe that even people outside battleground states should vote.

I don’t know about Tumblr, but on Twitter, ‘no-hopers’ are characterized (fairly or not) as being defeatist Bernie bros who think that Trump should win the election to teach the DNC a lesson. I disavow this idea in the strongest possible terms. I think Biden can win and urgently should win. But every time I see someone talking about the Biden presidency as if it were a sure thing, it takes another year off my lifespan.

No matter what happens, we will be fighting racism and corruption for the rest of our lives, because that’s what ethical behavior entails in this world. But a Biden term vs. a second Trump term are in no way equivalent, and things can still get worse.

In conclusion, [that picture of the guy at the folding table with the ‘prove me wrong’ sign]

[definitelynotplanetfall]

“every single writing book says that uggos cannot write” wtffffff is this real? Fuck I hate literary types the more I read your blog fucking hell

It’s admittedly my brain autocompleting a bunch of things and it’s questionable if the dots are meant to be connected in that order (or at all), but... yeah, a lot of general-purpose writing advice/tips/framework books say you have to have “universal human experiences” or your writing will fall flat, and they put sex/relationships near the top of the list. I also vaaaaaaguely remember one book drawing an analogy between darling-killing and Writing What The Market Wants, and giving up on being someone you like and trying to be a meathead to impress the statistically average girl that isn’t instantiated anywhere in reality (it was pro these things, of course.)

There’s also that thing where beauty is synonymous with virtue and ugliness with vice, but that’s all over literature and basically everyone who’s thought for a minute about why a given YA novel’s message feels hollow knows about it already. What was really startling to me was how little pushback there was in lit classes, not as in a lack of grating, repeated “friendly reminders” but as in barely even acknowledgement - what acknowledgement there was was uncritical. Gatsby’s real sin was that Daisy was out of his league.

That’s... admittedly not nearly as damning as I made it sound, but there’s also tons of gender essentialism that can be really grating and if you have any sort of Not Living Up it can feel especially alienating. For instance, when discussing Virginia Woolf we learned she pushed back against the sexist old notion that stories about politics and sweeping change were more important than stories about the home and everyday life.

Because politics is obviously masculine and the home is obviously feminine and this was just taken as inherently true and barely touched on. To be overly cynical for a moment, it’s probably because Virginia Woolf had to be Right and A Visionary and it’s unthinkable that perhaps she didn’t go far enough.

It’s not like I went to a conservative school either! There was a fair bit of emphasis on anti-racist literature and the ways it seems completely anodyne or even slightly pro-racist to us today but it was quite revolutionary for its time, that sort of thing. Feminist literature supposedly had similar pride of place but was significantly walled off from everything else because without keeping Nurturing Mama / Grunty Beast of Burden intact and implicit and archetypal a lot of the canon is just... nonfunctional.

Should be noted this was more a thing in lit classes than in actual writing classes, and I’m almost certainly projecting insecurities here to a certain extent. On the recommendation of a HS teacher I read How to Read Literature Like a Professor off-and-on during my first semester at college which sort of colored my entire view of the process, and good god was that book full of... not even essentialism, but whatever you’d call “people that interfere with the enactment of gender roles and ~sex for the sole purpose of procreation~ deserve to be crushed by falling trees, this is Good and True and Enduring Art.”

People in the creative writing program were generally nice but I was really struck by the prevalence of “I experience gender as an important truth“ and near-nonexistence of “I experience gender as a hostile imposition,” and when that did exist it was about life trajectory or being harassed or similar, and absolutely no “the general appearance and comportment expected of me based on gender is fundamentally a bad thing that should not exist.”

Which, if you experience that in even the mildest degree and see none of it in the field about the human condition you begin to doubt your own humanity!

I’m rambling again, aren’t I?

[scorpiosoes]

Friends

Hello internet peoples, I was recently given a writing assignment in my history course and wanted to share the resulting work. I am also including the assignment prompt in case someone else feels inspired to writing something.

Prompt: Assume the role of a fictional character either living during, or perhaps fighting, the Second World War-what might it have been like for a Polish citizen in 1939 during the German blitzkrieg, a Jewish inmate surviving in a Nazi death camp, a British pilot during the air war over London, a member of the French resistance during the Nazi occupation or perhaps an American in the midst of the Ardennes offensive. 

The title I gave to the assignment was Friends, hope you like it and if you see this feel free to leave thoughts or criticism, always looking to improve.

Friends

Do I regret what I did? Others like me would say no, but I would say that I do, with every fiber of my being I regret it. I was seduced by power, fame, and glory and could no longer tell right from wrong. What we did was wrong, what happened to the world was wrong, my hands will forever be soaked in the blood of millions of innocent lives for the part I played.

It had started subtly at first, propaganda posters started popping up everywhere, there were ads run in the newspapers and the media. They were printing and spreading blatant racist lies, I wish that where was it stopped, where we stopped. But we didn’t and before I knew it turned into something worse than anyone could have ever imagined, and millions of people were dead.

“But why?” It was one the first questions that I remember asking my mother; this is also the moment that I mark as the start of one of the worst periods in Germany, in the world, and in my own life. “But why?” It was the first question that I had asked my mother the day that she had hunted my down and demanded that I stop playing with my childhood best friend, I didn’t understand it then but things had started to change, and not for the better. “A good German boy like you should not be playing with the likes of him. He’s unclean,” those words made no sense to me as a child, he didn’t look dirty to me, he looked like he always had, his curtain of black curls partially covered his face and his brown eyes glinted in the sunlight. But my mother still pulled me away from him, that was the last time I ever played with Avi … or saw him ever again. Things were changing rapidly I was just too young to know it, I was innocent in the way that children are, blind to the politics and prejudices of the world, I didn’t know what she meant when she said that Avi was unclean. When asked about it sometime later she never elaborated, I never questioned it after that I imagined that my mother had her reasons. It was not until much later that I realized why she never told me. Avi was a Jew.

In the meantime, war came and went, the Great War as it was called at the time. It was fought because of rising international tensions between nations and because of an assassination that threw the world into chaos. It was the war that claimed my father’s life and nearly claimed my own. Germany had been in the war, of course, we were we had allies to help and we kept our word and helped them. This was a mistake. The consequences of Germany’s interference in the way came swiftly and without mercy. They were unfair to both Germany and her people; I shared this opinion with anyone who would listen. Many agreed of course, but none listened with as much fervor as a man I had recently met in the army, this man and I became close and I began to call him a friend. This man was Adolf Hitler, at the time I had met him I had never known a better man. We joked, laughed, and conspired together.

One day Adolf came to me and urged me to join him at an event he was attending, I didn’t refuse the invitation. It was a meeting, more like a rally really, for a group called National Socialist German Workers’ Party, these people shared my views, so I joined almost immediately. I deeply regret this decision; these people were the people that would come to be known throughout the world as Nazis.

Adolf was far more ambitious than I was, and he spoke more passionately about the issues facing Germany; he also pushed more and more people to join our ever-growing party. Because of this, the party insisted that he become its leader, and Adolf insisted that I be by his side. At the time I thought it was a great honor, I was moving up in the ranks and was granted more power. I didn’t consider what this meant for everyone that wasn’t the Nazis. Later, by a crazy stroke of luck, the Nazis were steadily seizing power, and Adolf and I were the two highest-ranking members in the party. Our power grew still, however, when Adolf Hitler was named chancellor of Germany. This when things went from bad to worse.

Adolf came to his inner circle one day and said that something was to be done about his enemies, his political opponents, and the Jews and communists. I was the first to suggest banishment from Germany, if they were no longer in the country, they would no longer be our problem. He like that idea, but he didn’t want to afflict the Jews upon someone else. “A prison then,” I suggested to him. Somewhere where opponents and communists would no longer be an issue. “An inescapable camp that houses prisoners and Jews,” that was exactly how the man sitting across from me, Heinrich Himmler, pitched the idea. Adolf loved the whole concept, we later decided to call these places concentration camps. At first, it was just for political prisoners and communists, we could keep an eye on them, and they couldn’t spread their disease. That didn’t last long; it quickly became a death camp for anyone who was sent there. This is when I started to have doubts about what we were doing, we had been spouting this rhetoric, but I never thought that we would end up in a position to act upon it. Now that we had I didn’t think that I had to the stomach for it. I remained silent and faithful to my friend.

Soon we had taken the whole of Germany and parts of other countries like Austria. I thought we were going to stop, the Jews and communists and any other who would stand up to us had been thoroughly crushed under our feet and we ruled the nation. However, Adolf was ambitious, he wasn’t satisfied with just Germany. He began to talk of bigger things, things like freeing the world, not just Germany, from the Jewish plague and spreading Nazi influence. I mean we had rounded up a majority of the Jews and put them into concentration camps, we had also crushed anyone who dared oppose us, what more could he want. The world seemed to be the answer. I asked him outright if he was sure, we already had Germany and various other countries; the world sounded a bit too ambitious to me, but he questioned my faith and asked where my loyalties lie. With my friend, of course, but faith was starting to waver, I was starting to find out that I didn’t have the stomach for some of the things Adolf wanted.

All of a sudden, we were at war, I warned Adolf that he was being too ambitious, but he did not listen, now he had gone too far. Other countries had gotten involved and instead of dominance, we were now fighting for survival. I thought that The Great War was bad, the war that followed Adolf’s takeover of Poland was a bloodbath, millions were dying daily to gain barely any ground. Millions of people were laying down their lives to try and stop the thing that my friend had become, I wish that I could do the same. I was blinded by my loyalty and our relationship; he was my oldest friend and I watched with complacency as he became one of the worst serial killers the world would ever come to know. I too had a part to play in all of this, I encouraged him in the early days and I stood silently by as things went from bad to worse, during this time I had many chances to stop him, to end the war early and I took none of them. I tried once, I intended to kill him, I had the gun to his head, but I could not pull the trigger. It did not matter; we would not be alive for much longer.

The might of Germany had been tested and exhausted, the 1000-year Reich was crumbling around us and yet people still remained hopeful that we could win this war that we had been losing for the past couple of months. This was the end, everyone knew it, Adolf most of all. Our last conversation happened in his bunker, a place that he seldom left these days. He asked to speak to me. He said that he was sorry for what he had put me through, but that he wouldn’t apologize for what he, we, had done. I got to be part of something great. We had changed the world, if only for a moment. Shortly following this meeting Adolf took his own life he had taken a cyanide pill and then shot himself.

It’s bittersweet news, look at what we have done, we held an entire nation in the palms of our hands, but at what cost. Look at what it cost to get us here, we slaughtered people because they were different than us. Looking back on it now, in my final moments, I don’t know if I agreed with the anti-Jew messages or if I was just trying to find the easiest way to get revenge for Germany’s mistreatment all those years ago. It’s funny looking back at it now, my first friend, my best friend in the entire world was Jewish and now I have unreservedly slaughtered his people. I don’t know how I ended up here, but I pray to his God, to Avi’s God that he has mercy on my damned soul. 

[its8simplejulesblog]

I’m Sitting Here on My Bed Crying

about George Floyd’s unjust murder. My heart keeps sinking further and further and suddenly every remedial thing that bothered me a week ago means absolutely nothing now. It’s hard not to feel hopeless and disgusted by the world we’ve created and fostered. It’s hard to sit around knowing that people are being gassed and attacked and buildings are being burned to the ground while most of my friends are worried about whether or not their crush will text them back and how their Animal Crossing Village looks (I’m sure it’s fine queen, relax). 

I understand wanting to maintain “normalcy”, but if you can’t recognize the privilege in that normalcy then I pity you. Never in my life would I complacently want to be as ignorant as that. It’s really hard for me to keep up with the news. At the peak of my anxiety I would yell and cry at my parents to turn it off because it often kept me up at night. However, now I realize that turning it off is only a temporary fix. And, while the news itself is so obviously biased, even keeping it on wouldn’t do much good. 

As I’m writing I’m crying more and more. It really is like I lost a friend. I know that sounds dramatic, but we really should be treating everyone as if they deserve protection, kindness, and care, and when that doesn’t happen, you really do lose something (like oh, I don’t know, humanity). In all honesty, I am terrified of the world. It really does seem like we are on the brink of collapse. Almost like the freaking second coming of Christ is about to happen. Judgment day better be coming soon though because it just keeps getting worse and worse. 

I know that the majority of the time I am as positive a person as I can be, but sometimes feeling hurt and shame and anger like this is the motivation one needs to make a change. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be happening though. Even as I write this now I think, “so what,” one speck of dust white girl writing on her tumblr blog that no one reads will not bring someone back to life. However, if this can get even one person thinking about a new way to prioritize their life, then I have done something. 

Institutionalized racism never went away. I think that’s a fallacy that unaffected people believe because it’s easy. I loved Will Smith’s quote that “Racism isn’t getting worse, it’s getting filmed.” It’s like when you were little and you “cleaned” your room which really meant you just pushed everything in the closet or under the bed. Eventually, that stuff falls out and people find it. Why do we keep pretending? I can’t believe I just had to compare America to a literal child, that’t what it feels like.

All the while, social media is riddled with friends of mine out in groups. Let’s be real, I get it. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: I want to be with my friends too. I want to hug and kiss and cuddle the people I care about too. I want to party and not feel disgustingly lonely everyday. But guess what, every time I think that I think about what’s really important...and sometimes, SHOCK my wants are not always the most important thing. I’d rather sit in my house alone for another two months than EVER have to experience the loss that some of these people have felt due to COVID-19, and as much as it has been overused as a joke, the phrase “check your privilege” is good advice.

I know in my last post I talked about how excited I was for the future. That is absolutely still true. There is so much beauty in the world that is so regularly overlooked. However (and I’m trying to write this without getting religious..I failed) my inner Hobbes comes out all the time in saying that humans are just innately selfish. We’re animals, literally, (thanks Darwin, wow I’m really name dropping a lot today..also, why do people think that if you’re religious you can’t also believe in some aspects of evolution..ignorance) ANYWAY, what I think it all comes down to is fear. 

I recently read a book by Max Lucado called “Fearless.” This particular book was rooted in Christianity which was interesting because for the past few years I had been a little doubtful of my faith (although that’s a different story). I never really expected it to have any relevance in my blog, but the more I think about it, the more it molds how I live my life. Naturally, I’m surround by people of various beliefs and I wouldn’t want it any other way. However, when the world seems to be as evil as it currently is, it makes most people feel like even God abandoned us. However He tells us to not be afraid. I know that you could easily scroll up to where I said, “I’m terrified of the world,” as an argument and that is still true because I’m human; but, when I look more deeply into that fear and anger I realize that chaos only brings chaos and unless you put that fear aside, nothing will come from it.

Let me clarify, I’m not saying that it would be easy for me to interfere if I saw a cop abusing his power. I’m not saying that you need to become an omnipotent superhero and if you don’t then you’re racist. Instead, do something peaceful that prevent that situation from ever happening in the first place. As much as white privilege is disgusting and the inequality is blatant, at the very least use that privilege to the advantage of everyone’s safety before the situation gets worse.

That is why white silence is deafening at this point. If you fear for the loss of your rights in protecting someone else’s then you’re clearly confused about the concept. How dare anyone tell me that “I’m uncomfortable talking about it.” If it were your reality, you wouldn’t have a choice, and you wouldn’t be uncomfortable then. Posting on Instagram is not enough. It’s not. Take time out of your day to think about someone other than yourself, I’m begging at this point. 

I had an internship last summer that dealt with institutionalized educational racism and it was the most telling experience of my life because even within the STAFF there were clear hierarchies. Even though it wasn’t race, it was either status or age or gender. It doesn’t matter. There will always be something. And even though we should just help people from the kindness of our hearts and shared knowledge that we’re all human, if that for some reason is not enough for you, know that you could be targeted next for a reason other than race. 

I pray in my heart that I continue to live my life in a way that other’s benefit from the work that I do. All I could ever want in my entire life is to make someone else’s world brighter and safer. It baffles and confuses me that someone wouldn’t want this. I truly feel like I am at a stalemate in my head sometimes because while I so fortuitously believe that the world is a beautiful place full of good, it’s getting harder and harder to weed through the ignorance and greed and separations between people that need nothing more than to be unified. 

It’s a confusing concept because while an animal’s instincts are to do anything it can to survive, it’s also known through evolutionary research that humans are social creatures (thanks Sapiens, great book..although a 4th grade student in a history class could have told you that). We quite literally need each other, and it’s unfortunate that this isn’t commonplace fact in society. 

It’s grim and rainy today. I thought, “how fitting.” It’s like the sky is crying over this absolute madness. If anything, I know what my values are now and that is something that I will continue to pride myself on for the rest of my life. 

George Floyd. 

Say his name and don’t forget it. 

In fact, say all of their names. 

I won’t turn a blind eye anymore. 

-Julia 

[gaybullies]

so, people keep insisting on calling henry a psychopath or sociopath. but neither of those things exist. neither of those things are in the dsm.

but you know what is??? paranoid personality disorder!

and you know what everyone who has done some sort of dig-deeper shot at henry’s character has come to the conclusion of?

that he’s scared. all the time. of everything. of everyone. he’s scared of being. everyone who has analyzed him Gets That.

that’s the core of what paranoid personality disorder is.

and not just that, folks.

he shows basically all the signs in some way and at some point or another.

“Paranoid personality disorder (PPD) is a type of eccentric personality disorder. (Cluster A) An eccentric personality disorder means that the person’s behavior may seem odd or unusual to others. An individual with paranoid personality behavior is very suspicious of other people. They mistrust the motives of others and believe that others want to harm them. Additional hallmarks of this condition include being reluctant to confide in others, bearing grudges, and finding demeaning or threatening subtext in even the most innocent of comments or events. A person with PPD can be quick to feel anger and feel hostile toward others.“

personally, i think this should be in the anxiety cluster, as it feels closer to ptsd than schizophrenia ( it being grouped wiht schizophrenia is why it’s in this cluster, not the anxiety cluster) but, im no professional, and regardless, this all says everything i’m trying to get across here. (source)

“The cause of paranoid personality disorder is unknown. However, researchers believe that a combination of biological and environmental factors can lead to paranoid personality disorder.The disorder is present more often in families with a history of schizophrenia and delusional disorders. Early childhood trauma may be a contributing factor.“  (source)

the symptoms this site lists are as follows (its the same source as the last two, but im getting to other sources) 

believing that others have hidden motives or are out to harm them

doubting the loyalty of others

being hypersensitive to criticism

having trouble working with others

being quick to become angry and hostile

becoming detached or socially isolated

being argumentative and defensive

having trouble seeing their own problems

having trouble relaxing

it literally says in an intro paragraph that hes scared of the losers, like, he thinks theyre a threat, and thats why he attacks them so much.

he doubts the loyalty of vic and belch, resorting to trying to scare them into following him. even just speaking up against something he does is soemthing he takes as being disloyal. and that ties into that whole being hypersensetive to criticism thing, too. I havent seen him working with others, but i can imagine its not the prettiest. hes definitely argumentative and defensive as HELL. detached and socially isolated? sounds about right to me, but i could be wrong on that. he definitely has trouble seeing his own problems and trouble relaxing. 

lets get into the next source.

will try to cut out too many repeats, though.

“The essential characteristic of people with PPD is paranoia, a relentless mistrust and suspicion of others without adequate reason to be suspicious. This disorder often begins in childhood or early adolescence “ looks impotrtant. this one also states its more common in men. 

“These generally unfounded beliefs, as well as their habits of blame and distrust, interfere with their ability to form close or even workable relationships.“

sound familiar?

Are reluctant to confide in others or reveal personal information because they are afraid the information will be used against them.

Are unforgiving and hold grudges.

Perceive attacks on their character that are not apparent to others; they generally react with anger and are quick to retaliate.

Have persistent suspicions, without reason, that their spouses or lovers are being unfaithful.

Are generally cold and distant in their relationships with others, and might become controlling and jealous to avoid being betrayed.

Cannot see their role in problems or conflicts, believing they are always right. (a rephrase of a previous point)

Tend to develop negative stereotypes of others, especially those from different cultural groups.

henry jumping to black mail patrick isnt necessarily exactly like bieng reluctant to confide in him or reveal personal information, but the why for why he blackmailed him--- thats the same reason. he doesnt want that information used against him. he’s asserted a position of control in all his relationships, which also keeps him from allowing hismelf to fully trust naybody because he doesnt have to, which keeps him from forming those deep emotional connections with basically anyoneexcept people hes scared of-- his dad, and... patrick.

and the last point? uh... im pretty sure is just polite for “racist” and everything else he is.

“Paranoid personality disorder may be first apparent in childhood or adolescence. People who suffer prefer solitude, have poor peer relationships, social anxiety, academic underachievement, hypersensitivity, peculiar thoughts and language, and idiosyncratic fantasies. These young people may appear to be "odd" or “eccentric,” and they are good targets for teasing. In clinical samples, this disorder appears to be more commonly diagnosed in males.“

this site (probably the most legit out of all of them tbh) basically says everything else the other sources say in a much more strictly prodfessional and clinical manner, so it’d jus tbe a bunch of repeating, but i thought thiswas very good to look at regarding henry. 

i also dont remember if ive added this in and am currently too tired to check so i’m going to put it in from this site too  “There is some evidence for an increased prevalence of paranoid personality disorder among those whose relatives have schizophrenia.“

butch is very often called “crazy” which in the fifties might have meant schizophrenia. hoenst to god, i havent finished the book, and dont know that much about butch, but.

another site. looks like a dad blog but might have merit “People with paranoid personality disorder are generally characterized by having a long-standing pattern of pervasive distrust and suspiciousness of others.  A person with paranoid personality disorder will nearly always believe that other people’s motives are suspect or even malevolent.“ felt this was important too. some sources say paranoia in general, but some sources say this. I think both are worth looking at, especially when taking into account henry’s character

“Individuals with paranoid personality disorder are generally difficult to get along with and often have problems with close relationships. Their excessive suspiciousness and hostility may be expressed in overt argumentativeness, in recurrent complaining, or by quiet, apparently hostile aloofness. Because they are hypervigilant for potential threats, they may act in a guarded, secretive, or devious manner and appear to be “cold” and lacking in tender feelings. Although they may appear to be objective, rational, and unemotional, they more often display a labile range of affect, with hostile, stubborn, and sarcastic expressions predominating. Their combative and suspicious nature may elicit a hostile response in others, which then serves to confirm their original expectations.“

^^ also looks important. not just in regards to henry, but in regards to the disorder as a whole.

this last site didnt say anything new, really, but there were a couple bulle t points that caught me

Often described as cold, jealous, secretive, and serious.

Look for hidden meanings in gestures and conversations.

so anyways.... henry bowers is not a sociopath. he has paranoid personality disorder, if you want to diagnose him with anything like that.