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mwebber · 9 months

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im p confused rn lol, feel free to ignore this ofc but questions are meant genuinely.

is it the domination that you have a problem with? the lack of fight at front?

or is it more simply you want seb to keep his record(s)?

or just with verstappen winning?

i understand the first 2 and hear the 3rd a lot but just ur prev posts came a lil outta left field for me lol. i'd like to hear your thoughts, with peace and love on planet earth <3

pourquoi pas les trois... actually i think it might boil down to two main things: my frustration at the continued erasure and diminishing of seb's achievements, and my pet peeve of Total Fucking Bullshit.

it's no secret that this sport has a problem with dominating teams. and yes, you could argue that's the point--hello, it's a constructor's championship, the point is to have the best car. and red bull have built beasts the last couple of years! seriously, all my respect to the team as a whole for pulling everything together. i was and remain a red bull fan at heart despite it all, and it makes me happy from an objective standpoint to see so many elements of a team come together in harmony. red bull is a well-oiled machine at work.

but i genuinely don't think there's been this level of domination by a singular driver in a singular team since like, 2013. think: if lewis' era of domination was so much "worse" than this as the dudebros like to say, why hasn't lewis come close to beating 9 wins in a row? the main phenomenon at play is the sport's short term memory--but really, the way fans like to completely forget 2015-2018 and arguably 2019 too really frustrates me. it wasn't like 2014 hit and suddenly lewis was winning everything. nico won the 2016 wdc. seb posed a real fucking threat in 2015, and in 2017-18 the messaging from the sport was that the battle between him and lewis was, quote unquote, titanic. a battle between, quote unquote, titans of the sport. fast forward to 2020/21 and the narrative is that nothing has stood in lewis' way for the last 6 or 7 years, and that his era of domination needs to be ended for ~the good of the sport.~

so seb makes a couple mistakes, fine, but mostly gets visibly cucked by his team for years, and suddenly he's nothing. his four championships mean nothing, his 3rd most wins in the history of f1 mean nothing, he's just ferrari's next failure.

but then the narrative around max. max, who's introduced in 2021 like he's an up and coming driver intent on toppling lewis' throne. it's a great narrative, right? mercedes took red bull's ball. red bull want it back. casually ignoring how max has been in the sport since 2016, max is red bull's new young golden boy, the one who's going to lead them to victory as the youngest driver like seb already did before and wow, wait, sorry for mentioning seb in relation to success there, let's keep on reinforcing that he's an old man who needs to retire. anyway, max is someone who doesn't give a flying fuck about anyone or anything except racing! max is a beast on track! max is [checks notes] our great white hope!

let's put the racism discussion on hold, because i think people try really hard to pin him down as this like, absolutely sociopathic bigot who is the most racist person in the world, and while he's not NOT racist, i don't think the extreme conclusion ppl are reaching is true. plus this rhetoric is mostly smoke and mirrors to try and find a leftist/social justice reason to hate on him anyway. so let's get fucking real: i dislike max for the same reasons i dislike taylor sw*ft. i hate that there's this blatant marketing campaign that fans buy into and perpetuate, that these people are the greatest of their generation, that they're masters of their craft. like, what? max's racecraft is just threatening to crash people out or push them off the track, something multiple drivers have been quoted saying. that's not ruthless, that's just bad fucking driving. that's an asshole on the dvp suddenly merging into your lane without using their blinkers or checking their blindspots and forcing you to pull out your defensive driving skills from that one class in drivers ed just to avoid a massive pileup on the highway. and i'm expected to suck this guy's dick?

max wins a fraudulent championship in 2021 and proceeds, for the next two years, to basically cruise at the front. it's like the second half of 2013, except it's lasting for a YEAR AND A HALF. only this time, instead of the sport trying to diminish this stint by saying it's just the car or that the golden boy has put himself above the team, people are......... celebrating? listen, i enjoy a singapore 2013 moment as much as the next seb fan but come on. get real. if every race was singapore 2013 that would be boring. and that's what we're seeing, but that's not what fom wants us to think we're seeing. it's complete bullshit.

which leads me to my posts. oh my god, i hated the comparisons between max and seb's first championships. the circumstances could not be more different--it was fucking insulting. seb won his championship fair and square, no rulebook bending required. seb's most violent moment on track that year was in turkey with mark--but he didn't park his car on top of mark's head and walk out saying that's what you get. how could people say that seb was anything like max.

seb's 9 wins at the end of 2013 were the culmination of five years spent fighting tooth and nail for his success. even for how dominant he was in 2011, there were still other teams up there! he had to fight his own teammate for so many years! and even with displays like singapore 2013, there were races where he was fighting in the second half of the season! and now we see this current streak of wins from the last two years where everyone else has tumbled behind and perez is contractually obligated to be a doormat. (not to say that teams haven't tried--i had so much hope at the start of 2022 when ferrari showed up with that pussy monster.) so look me in the eyes and say that max has fought with everything in him just to get that #1 spot. the two of them are leagues apart, but people--the same ones who have said seb is washed--are inevitably going to say that max has beaten seb, that max is on par with the third most successful driver in the sport. it's like a slap to the face.

and so we end back with the constant retconning of seb's position in f1 history. it drives me insane. he's nothing when it comes to propping max up, and then he's the benchmark to prop max up. he's a titan of the sport, and then he's just a failure. come on. come on. i'm just tired of my favourite driver never being given the credit he deserves, and i'm tired of having this fictional story shoved down my throat that max is anything like the goats in the sport. tl;dr. get real.

#inbox

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obsoleteozymandias · 1 year

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Hi!! I love your match-ups. May I request one for Resident Evil, please? Maybe Stardew if that's okay too.

I'm short, chubby, heavily tattooed, rampantly bisexual, and nonbinary. Leftist. Medical lab biologist, but about to start my masters in forensic science. I love puzzles/puzzle games, reading, video games, making nature journals, and collecting postcards. I LOVE birding! I'm great in the kitchen, but not good at much else. Low self esteem and not very pretty. Severe chronic pain so some days I have a lot of trouble getting around at all. OCD + bipolar + ptsd so some days are... very difficult. I'm working through it, though. Autistic + ADHD. Big hyperfixations are bugs, sharks, bats, trains, lighthouses, astronomy, geology, paleontology, wildflowers, and lots of shows/movies/etc. Into vulture culture. Love horror movies. Jaws is my comfort film. The Shape of Water is my favorite, though (also a major monsterf*cker, oops). Star Trek: DS9 is my comfort show. Talk too much, but easily become nonverbal. Lots of bad puns and useless trivia. Will infodump about culinary history and foreign horror films. Parent to a young kid and love being a mom. Love cats. Keep tarantulas as a hobby. Don't like crowds, sunny days, hot weather, making small talk, or drinking. I wish I could travel all the time. But like. In a ghost way where i can drift around without being perceived. Also, as much as I like nature, I'm definitely NOT a fan of camping/roughing it. Tbh my idea of a good date is a rainy autumn night talking on the back porch with a blunt and Korean takeout.

Forensic science gang rise up!!!!

== Resident Evil ==>

I match you up with…

Jake Muller

This man….is so good. He’s got a rough exterior, but he’s got insides that are so soft he squishes when you hug him.

Jake finds your choice of study very interesting. He finds the two of you like pieces of a puzzle that complete eachother: he makes the crime scenes and you investigate them. He also finds the way you can draw conclusions all from one drop of blood very cool and kinda sexy.

He’s good with kids, even if he scares them away at first. He has a strong parental instinct over your kid, wanting to protect them and indulge them in everything he can.

He also knows his job is dangerous, though. He’ll be hesitant to initiate anything with you until he can guarantee that you and your kid will be safe.

Jake’s seen his fair amount of trauma. That isn’t to say he’ll completely understand yours, but he’s always a shoulder to lean on. He’ll give you gentle kisses on top of your head. He might not know what to say, but he’ll do his damndest to remind you that someone loves you.

He’s enamored with you, to put it simply. He finds that the two of you are sides of the same coin, even if your lives are drastically different. He finds comfort in you in a way no one else can provide.

== Stardew Valley ==>

I match you up with…

Leah

Leah loves your passion for nature. She’s (obviously) a big fan of the world around her. She especially adores your nature books. She’ll bring you flowers to press after a day of foraging, and will watch your process with a gentle, adoring smile.

Unrelated, I get the vibe that Leah would also adore The Shape of Water. She seems like she’d appreciate the artistry of it, but also find the monster hot. The two of you talk about this frequently.

Leah’s more than willing to help parent if you’d let her. She’s not crazy about kids, but she’s got a particular tenderness for yours. In fact, she loves most anything that reminds you of her.

Leah’s not as big of a horror fan as you (she’s actually quite scared of horror movies), but she’ll watch with you just to cuddle up against your arm when she gets scared.

In turn, she makes you watch a LOT of True Crime documentaries, of which she is a fan.

Leah likes how genuine you are with your interests. If everyone in the world was as passionate and knowledgeable as you, she’d probably love the world a lot more. But in the mean time, she’s completely satisfied with loving you.

#oz’s requests #matchups #resident evil x reader #resident evil matchup #jake muller x reader #stardew x reader #Stardew matchup #leah stardew valley

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cryptids · 2 years

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Honestly I find the '2022 Riddler is alt right/a white supremacist' interpretation really frustrating not only because he genuinely just isn't one, but it's also lacking in any critical analysis of the source media itself.

Despite being given extensive explanations of his motivations and beliefs, nowhere in the movie, the novel or even the deleted scenes does he say anything at all about race, nationalism or any other alt right/fascist belief (and I am including dogwhistles too) these are a very distinct ideology. If it was there it would be identifiable, and its just not.

I shouldn't really have to explain his motivations bc like I said they're explained at length... but he's targeting wealthy and politically powerful people in Gotham, most of all those with links to Falcone and the mafia, because he blames them for the suffering he went through as a child after they stole the renewal money, and he wants revenge for it. In his view its more than just the faults of a few bad people though, he believes the system itself is corrupt and designed to keep those people in power while everyone else is pushed further into poverty, and that its beyond ‘fixing’ and the only real option is to destroy it outright. And these are very obviously radical leftist and Marxist beliefs.

The first point of confusion imo is the way that his online following is reminiscent of how the alt right use the internet to recruit angry and socially outcast white men, since the one follower we saw unmasked was another white man. While this isn't exactly the same situation (it's ignoring the fact that they're angry about completely different things? Being a nazi or believing in racist conspiracy theories is a pretty far cry from being justifiably angry about very real government corruption that we know for a fact was actually happening), I DO believe however that it was an intentional choice to give him followers and depict them this way, rather than just giving him regular henchmen, and I'll get to that.

The second of course is his attempt to kill Bella Reál, who is different from his other victims because she's progressive and a good person, as well as a black woman (the other 5 of his targets all being white men). But in the video to his followers he explains that his motivation for targeting her is because he believes she's the same as every other politician, and because she was just elected he wants to use the spectacle to make a statement. Like I said before he considers politicians all equally complicit, and he thinks it's just "more lies" when she says she genuinely wants to do better. He is wrong about her of course, but I'm just talking about his motivations here. The guy that Selina had on the roof (I forgot his name lmao) said that the election was a joke and it wouldn't have mattered who won because everyone is being controlled by the mafia anyway, and that's fully what Riddler believes to be true.

But what I really want people to stop and think about is why this movie has a "good politician" character in the first place. And I love Gordon, but he is there to be a "good cop" for the same reason, and its deliberate that they are both poc. I think if you understand why a character like Holt from B99 is designed to be copaganda, you'll be able to see what I'm getting at here.

Superhero movies as a genre are absolutely full of very thinly veiled military and police propaganda and really have been for a long time now. As much as I enjoy 2022 Batman it really is no exception. I think it does a bit better than most... it surprises me they'd go as far as depicting the majority of politicians as unambiguously corrupt, though if course they still had to add a little "not ALL of them though, there's still some politicians who are good and trustworthy" in there through Bella's character.

This is also why so many superhero movies feature storylines where the villain is the person who is trying to drastically change society in some way (they will often have leftist motivations mixed in with with actions that are scary and bad, which is deliberate to make radical leftism look scary and bad, and I would not be surprised if that's what they were doing with depicting his followers in a way that would immediately bring alt right internet groups to mind in the audience) meanwhile the heroes fight to keep everything the same as it already is. Because the police and the military do that too, their function in society is to protect the existing social order.

And I mean.... Bruce.... I love him very much, but the hero in this story who we're supposed to root for to stop Riddler's violent anticapitalist revolt is literally a billionaire. Do I really need to say more lmao.

Now I know I need to add a disclaimer before I get accused of doing this, but I am NOT saying Riddler's actions were justified in any way at all, or that anyone has to be sympathetic to him. He's a serial killer and a terrorist lmao. My points are just to stop conflating any kind of violence carried out with political motivations as being the same as the alt right's as if it's all interchangeable (also think about who it benefits when we do that), and we need to go beyond just arguing about fictional characters as if they're people and be more critical of the media itself and why these characters and stories are being written and portrayed the way they are in the first place.

#🐊#dc #(tagging mostly for people who blacklist)#long post #this is VERY long I'm sorry lmao....#i tried to cut it down but i couldnt without getting rid of anything i knew id immediately get an anon asking me to clarify #turning reblogs off bc I had to get this off my chest but im also not interested in starting discourse #racism tw

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ideal-girl · 5 months

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"Tumblr Leftists" are some of the insensitive people online, and this is coming from me, someone who lacks the capacity for affective empathy (I'm a Cluster B). I genuinely believe that a lot of them are closet bigots on some COINTELPRO shit (but that's for another conversation).

There are a couple posts "they" wrote that truly angered me, like when the homegirl said that she was fine with Andrew Tate's misogyny but could not accept him "trafficking" because she was a communist. Doesn't she know that misogyny and exploited labor go hand in hand, that in accepting the oppression of females, that she also accepts them being an exploited "labor force"? Does she not know that daughters, wives, executives, etc can be and are often exploited for their labor merely because they are female? Does she not know that as racism facilitates the annihilation of racialized people, as does misogyny for females? Does she not know that? Or is she another one of those "gender traitors" with "secret blogs" not so hard to find?

Perish.

There was another popular post that positioned neglectful and/or abusive fathers as the personal failing of the misandrist female, who only feels that she needs to rule over men as dogs because she was not loved by a man in her childhood. Who is to blame for a neglectful and/or abusive father? You all keep arguing that it's the daughter, therefore not ever understanding that men are their own worst enemy.

Fathers are hated because they neglect their daughters, they beat their daughters, they rape their daughters, they kill their daughters, and before that, they pit their daughters against their mothers, or whichever old "hag" that could help them, and then they wait for some dimwit daughter to glorify "fathers" as if it's truly always a joy to have one in your life.

I don't hate men because apathy is more than enough.

If I were to hate men, it would be because of my father who taught me to hate them. If I were to hate men, it's because I sat in the furnace room with my father, watching them die on camera. It's because as they were being eaten by dogs, as they were fighting the flames consuming their flesh, he told me about all of the evil things they have done to children like myself and him, that eradicating them all is the one true solution to the moral evils plaguing the planet, that (other) men will never change and they will never be good enough.

I'm tired of daughters positioning a father's love as the greatest jewel to be held because it's often not. (I hate the idea of a girl being better than another because of a man, whether it be her father or a husband.) I'm tired of daughters positioning the bad father as the fault of the daughter (or son). I'm tired of you getting it backwards: if we all had good fathers, no bad men would dare to exist. How is it that even as I have not communicated with my very evil father for over a decade, that if I show a picture of him to degenerate men, they disappear because they believe that he will return? That's because they sense that he will sic the dogs on them or set them on fire, because he truly hates men while I don't even, despite all that has happened to me because of them.

This rant kind of got out of hand, I guess, but I just wanted to say that I hate the way other females handle misogyny and "misandry". Misogyny is a "root of all evil", just like racism, and "misandrist" women are not bitter or jealous or man-hating because their father didn't want them (while yours did, so you are better off). They "hate" men as an oppressive class, not as individuals that let them down. This is how many women manage to have husbands while hating their father. This is how many women can love their brother while hating their father. That's how I can actually sincerely love my father, but recognize him as being my enemy. It's not individualized hatred, but a hatred directed towards a collective that has conscripted all men, even the ones who do not want to be part of the problem. This is how a father who watches "misandrist gore" with his daughter can also beat her to the point of having cPTSD and a Cluster B personality.

This happens...all the time.

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denimbex1986 · 9 months

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'With the biopic Oppenheimer, writer-director Christopher Nolan, known for brain twisting films like Interstellar and Inception, addresses an old childhood dread — one based not on science fiction but on real science, namely the threat of thermonuclear war and human annihilation.

The film follows the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the cerebral, charismatic and tortured physicist who was tapped to lead the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico, to build the atomic bomb during World War II.

The subsequent bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war against Japan in 1945 and Oppenheimer was hailed as a hero. But only a few years later, in 1954, his security clearance was revoked in an infamous hearing of advisers to the Atomic Energy Commission that declared him a security threat based on leftist ties at the University of California, Berkeley, US, and his opposition to building an even bigger bomb, the “Super” or hydrogen bomb espoused by his colleague Edward Teller.

That was the end of Oppenheimer’s career in government circles and of his ability to influence the future of atomic energy in the Cold War. As a result, he became a martyr to the scientific community. Many physicists, including Albert Einstein, were disappointed that the United States had dropped the bomb without warning on an enemy that was already defeated, while Oppenheimer hoped that the advent of the bomb would make war unthinkable and lead to international control on such weapons. Once the Russians had the bomb, however, that dream had no chance with hard-liners like the president at the time, Harry S. Truman, who called Oppenheimer a “crybaby”.

Over tea at his office in Los Angeles, US, Nolan discussed why he thought Oppenheimer was the most important person who ever lived, choosing between myths and the record, and how he came to make this movie. These are edited excerpts from our conversation.

q. In the production notes you say, “Like it or not, J. Robert Oppenheimer is the most important person who ever lived.” Why?

In Hollywood, we’re not afraid of a little hype. Do I genuinely believe it? Absolutely. Because if my worst fears are true, he’ll be the man who destroyed the world. Who’s more important than that?... I think it’s very easy to make the case for Oppenheimer as the most important person who ever lived, because he is the person who facilitated and achieved atomic weapons and indeed the hydrogen bomb, because he let Teller work on it…

q. Why Oppenheimer now? I mean, this is a story I’ve grown up with my whole life as a child of the nuclear age.

There are certain stories that you want to kind of wait until you feel ready to tell them. (This) story is one that I’ve known about since I was a kid growing up in the shadow of nuclear weapons in the early ’80s in the United Kingdom. It was very much in pop culture… For me, it’s always seemed one of those stories that I don’t think it’s been told in any definitive movie sense. And yet it’s one of the most important and dramatic stories there are. So reading American Prometheus — it’s such a well-researched and well-told book — gave me confidence. That could be the basis, you know, of a film or a screenplay.

q. Truman called him a crybaby. Doesn’t seem very presidential, does it?

Given recent history it sounds very presidential to me. That was an enormous dramatic point in the film for me because it just made it so completely clear how badly Oppenheimer had misled himself.

q. That’s a good way of putting it. There are different accounts of that meeting, but these are things that Truman recollected.

I feel it’s only fair to present things the way he saw them. Because in that moment, you’re looking for a huge shift in perception about the reality of Oppenheimer’s situation. Those two men come into that room with completely different expectations about what that meeting is. And I think that was a massive moment of disillusion, a huge turning point — for Oppenheimer — in his approach to trying to deal with the consequences of what he’d been involved with.

q. Oppenheimer does come across in the movie as a tremendously tortured person, and sparks always seem to be going off in his head.

Well look, the film is my interpretation of his life. I wanted it to be a strong interpretation, a very personal interpretation. I didn’t want to make a documentary. As far as the adherence to the historical record, I think the film is much more accurate than people will imagine. A lot of the things that potentially seem like contrivances turn out to be true.

q. A quick question about the Trinity test, when Oppenheimer, Groves, the physicists and engineers set off the first nuclear bomb. How did you get that shot? Was some of it old footage from the test itself?

The way we approached (the) Trinity test was to forgo computer graphic imagery because I think computer graphics are inherently a bit safe, a bit anodyne, so I challenged my effects crew to come up with analogue, real-world types of imagery that we could use to pull this off because we knew the Trinity test had to be a showstopper in the film. Some of the things they came up with were extremely small and microscopic that play as bigger. Some were absolutely massive and required all kinds of complicated safety protocols and involved the actors in some very small version of what it must have been like to be there out in the desert at night in those bunkers waiting to detonate that device.'

#Christopher Nolan #Oppenheimer #American Prometheus

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whitehotharlots · 3 years

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The point is control

Whenever we think or talk about censorship, we usually conceptualize it as certain types of speech being somehow disallowed: maybe (rarely) it's made formally illegal by the government, maybe it's banned in certain venues, maybe the FCC will fine you if you broadcast it, maybe your boss will fire you if she learns of it, maybe your friends will stop talking to you if they see what you've written, etc. etc.

This understanding engenders a lot of mostly worthless discussion precisely because it's so broad. Pedants--usually arguing in favor of banning a certain work or idea--will often argue that speech protections only apply to direct, government bans. These bans, when they exist, are fairly narrow and apply only to those rare speech acts in which other people are put in danger by speech (yelling the N-word in a crowded theater, for example). This pedantry isn't correct even within its own terms, however, because plenty of people get in trouble for making threats. The FBI has an entire entrapment program dedicated to getting mentally ill muslims and rednecks to post stuff like "Death 2 the Super bowl!!" on twitter, arresting them, and the doing a press conference about how they heroically saved the world from terrorism.

Another, more recent pedant's trend is claiming that, actually, you do have freedom of speech; you just don't have freedom from the consequences of speech. This logic is eerily dictatorial and ignores the entire purpose of speech protections. Like, even in the history's most repressive regimes, people still technically had freedom of speech but not from consequences. Those leftist kids who the nazis beheaded for speaking out against the war were, by this logic, merely being held accountable.

The two conceptualizations of censorship I described above are, 99% of the time, deployed by people who are arguing in favor of a certain act of censorship but trying to exempt themselves from the moral implications of doing so. Censorship is rad when they get to do it, but they realize such a solipsism seems kinda icky so they need to explain how, actually, they're not censoring anybody, what they're doing is an act of righteous silencing that's a totally different matter. Maybe they associate censorship with groups they don't like, such as nazis or religious zealots. Maybe they have a vague dedication toward Enlightenment principles and don't want to be regarded as incurious dullards. Most typically, they're just afraid of the axe slicing both ways, and they want to make sure that the precedent they're establishing for others will not be applied to themselves.

Anyone who engages with this honestly for more than a few minutes will realize that censorship is much more complicated, especially in regards to its informal and social dimensions. We can all agree that society simply would not function if everyone said whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. You might think your boss is a moron or your wife's dress doesn't look flattering, but you realize that such tidbits are probably best kept to yourself.

Again, this is a two-way proposition that everyone is seeking to balance. Do you really want people to verbalize every time they dislike or disagree with you? I sure as hell don't. And so, as part of a social compact, we learn to self-censor. Sometimes this is to the detriment of ourselves and our communities. Most often, however, it's just a price we have to pay in order to keep things from collapsing.

But as systems, large and small, grow increasingly more insane and untenable, so do the comportment standards of speech. The disconnect between America's reality and the image Americans have of themselves has never been more plainly obvious, and so striving for situational equanimity is no longer good enough. We can't just pretend cops aren't racist and the economy isn't run by venal retards or that the government places any value on the life of its citizens. There's too much evidence that contradicts all that, and the evidence is too omnipresent. There's too many damn internet videos, and only so many of them can be cast as Russian disinformation. So, sadly, we must abandon our old ways of communicating and embrace instead systems that are even more unstable, repressive, and insane than the ones that were previously in place.

Until very, very recently, nuance and big-picture, balanced thinking were considered signs of seriousness, if not intelligence. Such considerations were always exploited by shitheads to obfuscate things that otherwise would have seemed much less ambiguous, yes, but this fact alone does not mitigate the potential value of such an approach to understanding the world--especially since the stuff that's been offered up to replace it is, by every worthwhile metric, even worse.

So let's not pretend I'm Malcolm Gladwell or some similarly slimy asshole seeking to "both sides" a clearcut moral issue. Let's pretend I am me. Flash back to about a year ago, when there was real, widespread, and sustained support for police reform. Remember that? Seems like forever ago, man, but it was just last year... anyhow, now, remember what happened? Direct, issues-focused attempts to reform policing were knocked down. Blotted out. Instead, we were told two things: 1) we had to repeat the slogan ABOLISH THE POLICE, and 2) we had to say it was actually very good and beautiful and nonviolent and valid when rioters burned down poor neighborhoods.

Now, in a relatively healthy discourse, it might have been possible for someone to say something like "while I agree that American policing is heavily violent and racist and requires substantial reforms, I worry that taking such an absolutist point of demanding abolition and cheering on the destruction of city blocks will be a political non-starter." This statement would have been, in retrospect, 100000000% correct. But could you have said it, in any worthwhile manner? If you had said something along those lines, what would the fallout had been? Would you have lost friends? Your job? Would you have suffered something more minor, like getting yelled at, told your opinion did not matter? Would your acquaintances still now--a year later, after their political project has failed beyond all dispute--would they still defame you in "whisper networks," never quite articulating your verbal sins but nonetheless informing others that you are a dangerous and bad person because one time you tried to tell them how utterly fucking self-destructive they were being? It is undeniably clear that last year's most-elevated voices were demanding not reform but catharsis. I hope they really had fun watching those immigrant-owned bodegas burn down, because that’s it, that will forever be remembered as the most palpable and consequential aspect of their shitty, selfish movement. We ain't reforming shit. Instead, we gave everyone who's already in power a blank check to fortify that power to a degree you and I cannot fully fathom.

But, oh, these people knew what they were doing. They were good little boys and girls. They have been rewarded with near-total control of the national discourse, and they are all either too guilt-ridden or too stupid to realize how badly they played into the hands of the structures they were supposedly trying to upend.

And so left-liberalism is now controlled by people whose worldview is equal parts superficial and incoherent. This was the only possible outcome that would have let the system continue to sustain itself in light of such immense evidence of its unsustainability without resulting in reform, so that's what has happened.

But... okay, let's take a step back. Let's focus on what I wanted to talk about when I started this.

I came across a post today from a young man who claimed that his high school English department head had been removed from his position and had his tenure revoked for refusing to remove three books from classrooms. This was, of course, fallout from the ongoing debate about Critical Race Theory. Two of those books were Marjane Satropi's Persepolis and, oh boy, The Diary of Anne Frank. Fuck. Jesus christ, fuck.

Now, here's the thing... When Persepolis was named, I assumed the bannors were anti-CRT. The graphic novel does not deal with racism all that much, at least not as its discussed contemporarily, but it centers an Iranian girl protagonist and maybe that upset Republican types. But Anne Frank? I'm sorry, but the most likely censors there are liberal identiarians who believe that teaching her diary amounts to centering the suffering of a white woman instead of talking about the One Real Racism, which must always be understood in an American context. The super woke cult group Black Hammer made waves recently with their #FuckAnneFrank campaign... you'd be hard pressed to find anyone associated with the GOP taking a firm stance against the diary since, oh, about 1975 or so.

So which side was it? That doesn't matter. What matters is, I cannot find out.

Now, pro-CRT people always accuse anti-CRT people of not knowing what CRT is, and then after making such accusations they always define CRT in a way that absolutely is not what CRT is. Pro-CRTers default to "they don't want students to read about slavery or racism." This is absolutely not true, and absolutely not what actual CRT concerns itself with. Slavery and racism have been mainstays of American history curriucla since before I was born. Even people who barely paid attention in school would admit this, if there were any more desire for honesty in our discourse.

My high school history teacher was a southern "lost causer" who took the south's side in the Civil War but nonetheless provided us with the most descriptive and unapologetic understandings of slavery's brutalities I had heard up until that point. He also unambiguously referred to the nuclear attacks on Hiroshmia and Nagasaki as "genocidal." Why? Because most people's politics are idiosyncratic, and because you cannot genuinely infer a person to believe one thing based on their opinion of another, tangentially related thing. The totality of human understanding used to be something open-minded people prided themselves on being aware of, believe it or not...

This is the problem with CRT. This is is the motivation behind the majority of people who wish to ban it. It’s not because they are necessarily racist themselves. It’s because they recognize, correctly, that the now-ascendant frames for understanding social issues boils everything down to a superficial patina that denies not only the realities of the systems they seek to upend but the very humanity of the people who exist within them. There is no humanity without depth and nuance and complexities and contradictions. When you argue otherwise, people will get mad and fight back.

And this is the most bitter irony of this idiotic debate: it was never about not wanting to teach the sinful or embarrassing parts of our history. That was a different debate, one that was settled and won long ago. It is instead an immense, embarrassing overreach on behalf of people who have bullied their way to complete dominance of their spheres of influence within media and academe assuming they could do the same to everyone else. Some of its purveyors may have convinced themselves that getting students to admit complicity in privilege will prevent police shootings, sure. But I know these people. I’ve spoken to them at length. I’ve read their work. The vast, vast majority of them aren’t that stupid. The point is to exert control. The point is to make sure they stay in charge and that nothing changes. The point is failure.

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thecelestial-art · 4 years

Photo

ok but like, here me out,,,,, avatar high school au but its just me projecting my personality and trauma

my instagram

Aang

Freshman

He's trying his gosh darn hardest

The group baby

Appa is a therapy dog so he spends the day with gyatso in his classroom :)

Hes a saint bernard

The best man

Despite katara being the ‘mom friend’ he runs the god damn show

Momo is a shit head sphinx cat

The gang dropped movie nights for “knitting nights” so they could all learn to knit him sweaters

Hes very fashionable

he hates it

sokkas best friend

Aang makes costumes so when halloween comes around momo is very scary as dorothy

Track and field babey

Does not curse

He has a hard time keeping up with world events

Straight (i'm not wrong)

he and toph have an ongoing tradition of going in full dress to waffle house before school dances.

it got to the point where now all the workers know them by name

they also accidentally crashed a white lotus meeting and just kept going

Azula

Band kid

Sophomore

Rich girl with 2 friends

Pre eng

i know most schools dont have this program, but mine did and holy shit. those were some overachievers

The most annoying mf on the planet

Not a single teacher likes her

The know it all that will fight if you don't agree with the facts

She was the ww2 kid

Capitalist in the worst fucking way

Closeted lesbian, when she figures that shit out she gets a lil better

The one who can drive

Mai

Bisexual

She's really good at math?? Like shes the gay who can do math

But cannot drive, bitch failed her permit more times than she can count

She nearly went to an all girls boarding school at one point

Sophomore

Colorguard!!

She has beat the shit out of people she's walked in on making out in the bathroom

Genuine friends with the faculty??

She takes programming/coding as a filler class but she's pretty good and continues to pursue it.

Her tumblr looks sick as hell

has caused a teacher to cry

Ty lee

Bisexual

Lesbian earings actin mf

Sophomore

Cheerleader

She is the nicest mother fucker and everyone loves her

Despite acting like an airhead she's really science orientated

When she takes biology she passes with flying colors

Very invested in social justice

She would never hurt a fly but she will fuck you up

The one with a healthy relationship with her father

has comforted a teacher she found crying in the parking lot

Iroh

Now runs the jasmine dragon where zuko works after school w/ katara

Knows every single kid who comes in and tries his hardest to make sure everyone feels appreciated

Former war criminal

In a book club

The white lotus? Yeah this is the white lotus

Idk if it would be the same as the show, or if its just an old person shit talking group

Zuko

Junior

His dad got full custody of him and his sister when he divorced their mom

But at 13 he got kicked out for another bullshit reason and ever since Iroh has had custody of both of the siblings

But bitch boy ozai has visitation rights but only wants to see azula

Theatre kid!!

I mean he was gonna join jrotc to appease his dad but he figured his shit out before he really joined

A republican turned leftist

Hes queer he just doesnt know which label to use

Himbo rights

He and katara are best friends idgaf about ships but they are bros

orchestra kid! (yes this is me self projecting bc we have similar trauma)

Violist

Teachers have no idea what to do with him bc on one hand he's very reclusive and on the other his sister has the worst opinions so they don't know

Katara

Sophomore

Still the mom friend but this time she goes to therapy

Bc she literally raised her brother after her mother died?? And then became a parental figure to her FRIENDS???

Biggest political activist, genuinely does her best at educating herself and others about civil injustices

Also really obsessed with cults and true crime

Choir kid

She takes AP history, english, and second language classes

Is trying her hardest in math and sciences

Huge stuffed animal collection

Student council vice president

she originally ran for president but jets gang voted him in as a joke

The teachers pet

Swim team bitches

Best friends with the school janitors

This is my au so fuck off she and zuko are chaotic friendgroup parents and annoying best friends i love them

and maybe something more???

who fucking knows theres a betting pool in the white lotus and so far aang is winning

Sokka

Junior

Bisexual

Gym and History teachers LOVE him

On the swim team and the fishing team

Started crying when he took his drivers test

Goes to gsa w/ toph and loses his fucking mind

He's the reason suki’s car is disgusting

In all advanced/ap classes in math and science

Was the kid who carries a portable speaker around until suki put him in his place

Still has to use his hands to figure out left and right

Yue

Technically she doesn't go to school with them she goes to a nearby private school

She met the gang at a football game and has been invited to every group outing since

Junior!!

Very invested in world politics

When she joins the group at school events she ends up making friends with all the staff

Debate team kid!!!

She's not a rule breaker she just knows their limitations ;)

at one point missed school for like 2 months and everyone thought she died

turns out it was just fucking pneumonia and sokka is one dirty liar

Suki

oh? you mean yue’s best friend bc we dont respect pitting women against each other in this household?

Junior

Bisexual icon!!!

Oh god what sport would she do??

Probably basketball??

Or she would just do martial arts outside of school

And have a ‘female empowerment’ club or somethin

100% believes in self government in society and that the current gov exists purely on the theory that all humans are inherently evil

Bitch for bernie

Her car is DISGUSTING

She asks if she can hit peoples juul and then throws it in the trash

The gym coaches really like her but she fucking hates them

Is very close with her school counselor??

She never wants to run but she keeps getting elected to homecoming court

Toph

Freshman

Former homeschool bitch

Joined the wrestling team and the fishing team??

She doesn't even like fishing she just thinks it's hilarious

Very good a pottery and that's her arts credit

She and iroh have lunch together every thursday

If she catches wind of you putting gum on desks they will find your body in a ditch

She makes sokka and suki take her to prom

She hates it she just likes to fuck with people at prom

Sometimes she just tells people she doesn't believe in something bc she cant see it

has been wearing the same sandles for the past 3 years bc “they’re reliable”

Cryptid hunter

Goes to gsa bc its better than any fucking reality tv show

Has nearly burnt the house down making ramen

405 notes · View notes

melanielocke · 3 years

Text

Lost in the Shadows - Chapter 14

AO3

Taglist: @nott-the-best @foxglove-airmid @alastair-esfandiyar-carstairs1 @justanormaldemon @styxdrawings @ipromiseiwillwrite

Alastair had been about to change for bed when Thomas entered his bedroom, holding his pajama bottoms in his hands. Thomas himself had intended to wish him good night and then go home. But when he saw Alastair, he drowned in his dark eyes like a starving man, and he wanted nothing more than to kiss him again. It couldn’t hurt to stay a little longer, could it? Alastair invited him in, Thomas could hardly refuse.

After a while, they’d stopped kissing to talk while they lay on the bed together, both fully clothed, but their bodies close. Thomas still couldn’t quite fathom that he was here, with Alastair, kissing him. He couldn’t quite believe it was real and Alastair wanted him. He couldn’t even describe how he was feeling right now, flustered and warm, yet shivering at the same time.

‘I love how you ask before you kiss me or touch me,’ Alastair said. ‘It’s not always easy for me to be touched. I still want you to keep asking, at least for now. I like it when you touch me though.’

Thomas hand rested on Alastair’s side, Alastair had placed it there himself. Thomas was starting to suspect that Alastair was very sensitive to touch. It was easy to get a response out of him, and Alastair was looking for just the right amount of pressure in just the right place.

‘I didn’t realize it’d be so important,’ Thomas said. ‘I know in movies people rarely ask to kiss someone, it just sort of happens. Usually when both people want it and apparently they knew that all along. But in real life you’re not always that sure and I felt too awkward, had no idea what you were expecting or if you even wanted to feel my lips. So I figured I’d ask.’

Alastair pushed a lock of soft dark hair out of his face. ‘I guess that’s what happens in most relationships. People just kiss when they feel the other wants it. But I feel like people often overestimate how well they read others, and might wrongfully assume consent.

I’ve heard people complain that asking makes it not sexy, which is stupid because there are very sexy ways to ask for consent.’

Thomas turned very red when Alastair said that, his face burning. He stroke Alastair’s cheek with his thumb. ‘I can’t wait for what you’ll come up with. Have you done that before?’

Thomas then realized, of course, Alastair only had one ex and that had been someone who had mistreated him. Asking about that would be hurtful and he didn’t think Alastair would want to talk about that. Oh shit, had he done the wrong thing already? Thomas was positively freaking out by the time Alastair answered.

‘No I haven’t,’ Alastair admitted. ‘I never really took the initiative since it was always about his wants and desires and I was expected to just follow along. I never realized how important it was to me until you asked to kiss me. It can be difficult, being touched, but it’s much better when I know someone cares if I want it or not.’

In the end, Thomas felt like it was a bit too early for a sleepover. He wasn’t sure Alastair would be comfortable, and the idea of sleeping next to someone else was still foreign to Thomas. He decided it was time to go back to his parents.

‘Will you be there tomorrow morning?’ he asked. ‘Even if we can’t go into the woods.’

‘Of course,’ Alastair said. ‘Same time as always.’

Thomas slept peacefully that night and when he woke up the next morning, he didn’t remember what he’d dreamt, or if he’d dreamt at all. He checked his phone and realized it was eleven already. That couldn’t be true, so Thomas checked again, but the numbers on the clock hadn’t changed. Startled, Thomas got up quickly and got dressed in the first clean clothes he could find. He’d asked Alastair to come here, and considering Alastair consistently woke early, he must have arrived here several hours ago. Thomas would eat quickly, and then go to the Herondales and apologize. He dressed and quickly made his way to the kitchen. Alastair was still there, sitting at the table with his parents in conversation.

‘Morning, sleepyhead,’ Alastair said with a grin when he noticed Thomas.

‘Alastair, I’m so sorry,’ Thomas said.

Alastair shrugged, sipping from a cup of coffee. ‘I take it you needed to sleep. I don’t blame you, I wish I had that ability.’

‘I do feel very energetic and rested,’ Thomas admitted. ‘So maybe it was necessary. I only just woke up.’

Alastair frowned. ‘Energetic and rested, huh? What does that feel like?’

Thomas grabbed some bread and spread some plant based butter on it before putting it in the toaster. ‘I don’t know. Like, not tired, feeling like I can easily do whatever I want to today. You know, when you slept well and are ready to face the day and take on whatever comes onto your path.’

‘I don’t know, that sounds fake,’ Alastair said.

Thomas looked Alastair in the eye. ‘You’ve never felt rested and energetic?’

‘Not really. I just can’t imagine people being rested or energetic. I can’t remember feeling that way and I always figured people were all just in different stages of tiredness. Then of course, under late stage capitalism that’s probably true.’

Thomas knew trauma was exhausting, he’d read a little about it since coming here and had found that fatigue was common. Of course, being tired was hardly specific for PTSD and could be a symptom of nearly everything, and he guessed overall it was common. But could Alastair truly not imagine not being tired?

‘Maybe if you slept better, you’d feel rested too,’ Thomas suggested.

‘You’ve been having trouble sleeping, Alastair?’ his father asked, some concern written over his face.

‘Oh, just the usual. Nightmares, waking up several times a night, then waking up early and giving up on sleep.’

‘You had another nightmare?’ Thomas asked.

Alastair shrugged. ‘I have nightmares nearly every night. I’ve gotten used to it, and tonight wasn’t particularly bad. But even on the rare occasion I sleep long and don’t have nightmares, I don’t feel rested when I wake up.’

‘Fatigue builds up,’ his mother said. ‘One good night won’t make up for that many bad ones. Best you could do is discuss it with your doctor, but I know nightmares like you have are difficult to combat.’

Thomas wished there was something he could do to help with that, but he suspected it was a very complex problem and there was little he could do beyond comforting Alastair when he needed it.

‘Cordelia wants to see us, by the way,’ Alastair said. ‘She’s been texting me for over an hour, but I decided to wait for you to wake up.’

‘Oh, in that case I’ll hurry,’ Thomas said and he quickly finished his breakfast.

He and Alastair left to walk back to the manor. Would Cordelia be very upset about him sleeping late? What would she want to see them for?

‘I’m really sorry I slept in,’ Thomas said. ‘Was it very awkward with my parents?’

‘No, it was alright,’ Alastair said.

Thomas was glad to hear it, he liked seeing how well Alastair seemed to get along with his parents. With Barbara’s boyfriend Oliver, it had taken some time for his father to warm up to him, possibly because Oliver had been the first time any of them had dated and his father had freaked out a little by how fast they were all growing up. Then there’d been Augustus, Eugenia’s creepy ex, whom his parents hadn’t liked at all. They’d kept quiet out of respect for Genie’s wishes, but were proven right when she discovered Augustus had cheated on her.

‘They seem to like you,’ Thomas said.

Alastair shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I think they like that I have a useful ability, and that I will do what it takes to save your life than they like me.’

Thomas frowned. That didn’t sound like his parents at all. Being protective was one thing, but they wouldn’t And hadn’t Alastair opened up to his father about his past lately? ‘Did they say that?’

‘No, not really,’ Alastair said. ‘But it’s sort of obvious, isn’t it? They are scared they’re going to lose you, and I am willing to do whatever it takes to save you.’

Thomas wasn’t sure what to make of what Alastair was saying. ‘Those are not mutually exclusive, are they? My parents can genuinely like you, but also be glad you’re willing to help save me.’

Alastair didn’t say anything.

‘What did they talk to you about this morning?’ Thomas asked, genuinely confused.

‘They wanted to know all about university, and how my first year went. I didn’t realize your father was a politician.’

Thomas wondered what was going on inside Alastair’s head, but wasn’t sure if he should press on the issue. Did Alastair not think people could genuinely like him? How did he conclude his parents only liked his willingness to save Thomas when they asked him about his life?

‘He’s on the city council,’ Thomas confirmed.

‘Yes, he said that,’ Alastair said. ‘I think he’s decently leftist, although there’s room for improvement.’

Thomas frowned. ‘In what sense?’

‘He seems a bit moderate leftist still.’ Alastair shrugged. ‘Very much seeking to improve within the system, when really we should be tearing down the system and start over. There’s always room to move farther to the left. But your father seems open to suggestions.’

‘You’re not regretting your decision to stop studying politics?’ Thomas asked.

‘No. I still think sociology is going to be a better fit. I’d much rather do research and write the blueprint for a better, not capitalist society in peace than argue with people about it,’ Alastair said. ‘I like the theory, writing out the arguments and coming up with solutions that are overlooked by others. I’ve always hated debate.’

‘We had to do some debating in school,’ Thomas said. ‘I can’t say I hated it, but I never cared for it either.’

‘I had a complicated stance towards debate in school,’ said Alastair. ‘Mainly because we always had these stances that I don’t think should be up for debate at all. Being against human rights for certain marginalized groups of people is not a valid stance and teachers should not pretend it is. But when the stances were interesting, I did like researching, writing out the arguments. Of course, debate in school is also pretty much acting out the discussion, which I’ve never quite understood.’

Thomas wondered if there were any specific stances he was referring to, but before he could ask they arrived at the Herondale manor. Cordelia immediately dragged them inside when she spotted the two of them. ‘You are so late!’ she scolded.

‘I just woke up,’ Thomas said. ‘What was so urgent?’

‘That girl visited me last night,’ Cordelia said when they were all sitting. ‘Grace.’

‘Who is Grace?’ asked Alastair. ‘Am I missing something?’

‘That girl we saw with Tatiana,’ Cordelia explained, gesturing wildly. ‘She came to my room last night. When I woke up, she was sitting in my chair.’

Thomas remembered Lucie mentioning her name was Grace after following Jesse, but didn’t know anything else about her.

‘That sounds terrifying,’ Thomas offered. ‘Are you alright?’

‘She came to me to ask for help,’ Cordelia continued. ‘Tatiana is controlling her and the only way we can free her is by finding her skin.’

Thomas wasn’t sure he was following. ‘And that’s not on her? You mean her literal skin?’

‘I am definitely missing something here,’ Alastair added. ‘That, or my sister is not explaining this very well.’

Cordelia groaned. ‘She’s a selkie. Siren. Something in between. She has the song powers of a siren, but like a selkie she becomes a seal and can come to shore and turn human. In the process she sheds her skin, which she needs to return to the sea. Tatiana has enchanted it and hidden it somewhere, and as long as Tatiana has it Grace is under her control. She asked me to retrieve her skin for her.’

Thomas frowned. ‘Where is her skin?’

‘Somewhere in the woods,’ Cordelia said. ‘Guarded. She said that if we do not free her, she can make us do anything and so we won’t stand a chance against Tatiana.’

Thomas remembered the ruins from yesterday. The trapdoor neither of them had been able to open. Could that be where the skin was hidden? They hadn’t translated the script yet either. He took out his phone and searched the picture. Taking pictures of the supernatural was very confusing in Thomas’ experience. Sometimes he took pictures of something he could see, only for it to not appear on the photograph. Other times, the picture showed what was really going on. And every once in a while, someone without the sight would take a picture of something they could not see and later while going through their pictures realize there was something strange there. People often thought such pictures were hoaxes, but according to his mother sometimes people really caught something on camera. Yesterday, he hadn’t gotten lucky. The picture of the inscription was gone. Instead, there was a picture of some shrubs Thomas did not remember taking. The picture of the corpse was gone too, replaced by a vague picture of the ground.

‘Alastair, do you have any pictures from the ruins?’ Thomas asked.

Alastair went through his phone. ‘Apparently my camera didn’t agree with the supernatural,’ Alastair said. ‘Only forest pictures I do not remember taking. If we want to go over what we saw, my memory will have to do. This does confirm though, that the ruins themselves are part of something supernatural.’

They spent the next few hours going over Alastair’s memory and copying the script onto a piece of paper. Thomas guessed it was exhausting for Alastair, bringing all of them there, because once they had the whole script on paper, he collapsed onto the couch under Lucie’s Lilo and Stitch blanket. Thomas couldn’t help but think he looked adorable. His eyes were closed, and although Thomas didn’t think he was asleep, he seemed at peace.

Thomas decided to leave him for a while, Alastair had said he’d slept badly last night. Perhaps he could get some more rest. Instead he helped Lucie and Cordelia with the translation. Although he didn’t speak the language of the inscription, Thomas had always been good with languages and he went into it as if it were a puzzle he could solve, first translating the letters into something he could understand and then looking up what it meant and finally turning the words into sentences that made sense.

When Alastair got up from the couch and joined them, they were done with the translation.

‘Did you get anything?’ Alastair asked.

‘Yes,’ Cordelia said. ‘This is interesting.’

Welcome to the land in between

Halfway to the thief of Souls

Here you can guard whichever you do not want found

But every puzzle has an answer and every lock has a key

And beware, for if you stay too long there will be no way back

Your soul will be forfeit

‘A land in between,’ Lucie mused. ‘In between what?’

‘Halfway to the thief of Souls,’ Alastair said. ‘I think that means in between our world and what belongs to this thief creature. I’ve never heard of the thief of souls though.’

‘I have,’ Cordelia said. ‘In my dream, a washer woman appeared and told me to beware the thief of souls.’

Alastair frowned. ‘When did this happen? Last night?’

Cordelia shook her head. ‘No, the night before.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Alastair asked, concerned.

‘Because you were in the woods for most of the day, and when we found you we’d just killed a werewolf and you were injured. I didn’t want to stress you out more.’

‘You didn’t want to stress me?’ Alastair asked, raising his voice. ‘You think ignoring the problem, or keeping it from me will make it go away? You cannot keep such things from me!’

Cordelia looked like she was about to say something in response, but changed her mind. ‘I’m sorry, dâdâsh. I simply had not seen an opportunity, and then I forgot about it. That was all.’

Alastair seemed to calm down, and Thomas guessed it was best to leave it at that. Alastair was protective of his younger sister, just like Thomas’ older sisters were of him, and he understood, but he also knew it could be frustrating. Thomas sometimes hated how easily he understood everyone’s perspective in such conflicts.

‘Alright, yesterday we somehow made our way into the in between land, those ruins,’ Thomas said. ‘And if we stay too long, there will be no way back. How did we get there?’

‘I think these places in between appear and disappear all over the globe,’ Alastair said. ‘Perhaps it is possible to summon or control where or how it appears, but I am not sure. So these stories of people getting trapped in the woods somehow.’

‘They are trapped in that other realm instead,’ Lucie exclaimed. ‘That boy in the lake, whatever he was sucked into was limited only to the lake so he could not swim out. And Jesse was trapped in the woods in another realm, and that’s why he saw no one looking for him and why no one found him until he’d died.’

‘Thief of souls sounds like a powerful entity,’ Alastair mused. ‘The kind someone like Benedict Lightwood might have struck a deal with. And the name implies his price would be a soul.’

‘There are all kinds of stories of people selling their soul for power,’ Lucie said. ‘But in this case, it seems like it’s someone else’s soul that is bartered away. How do you imagine that works?’

‘I suspect he won’t take just anyone,’ Alastair said. ‘I do not think Benedict Lightwood would have chosen to sacrifice his wife if a random stranger would suffice.’

Thomas frowned, had Benedict Lightwood chosen to sacrifice his wife? The way his father told the story, he must have assumed her death was an unintended consequence, that he might not have been aware of the consequences. But perhaps his father had been too kind in that assumption.

‘The washer woman said something to me about Benedict’s blood, so he might desire a relative,’ Thomas said. ‘And a spouse must have also sufficed.’

‘Someone important to you,’ Alastair said. ‘Although how important could a grandson he never met have been?’

‘He turned into a monster, didn’t he?’ Lucie asked. ‘Does anyone know why that happened? Is that also because of this thief of souls creature?’

Thomas has assumed that was another part of the whole price for magic. But if someone wanted him to trade souls for magic, why transform him into a monster? That would mean the supply would stop. According to his father, Benedict had made deals with several entities though, and there were plenty of ways that could have gone wrong. Perhaps something else had turned him into that monster.

‘No,’ Thomas said. ‘My father had no idea. Perhaps Tatiana knows more since she has access to all his journals and we don’t.’

Thomas wondered why there were no libraries or resources related to the supernatural. Too few people knew about it, he guessed. People sometimes traded information among each other, but no one kept track of everything. Many with the sight either believed they were crazy, or tried to stay away from the supernatural and live a normal life. Thomas couldn’t blame them. But it was difficult that there was nowhere they could find answers, except asking people with some experience in the hopes they’d encountered something similar. His father had been unable to contact uncle Gabriel the past few days.

‘I do not think we can count on getting those journals from Tatiana unless we steal them,’ Alastair said. ‘I think we can now be certain that she is our enemy. My best guess, she wants to bring back her son from the dead and does not care what it takes.’

‘We need to go back into the woods,’ Lucie said. ‘I think there’s more to be found in these ruins. Based on what Grace told Cordelia, that must be where the skin is hidden.’

‘Grace mentioned something about her skin being in the land in between,’ Cordelia added. ‘This must be it.’

Alastair stared at his sister. ‘You do realize we might end up trapped in another world with no way back?’

‘I’ll go,’ Thomas offered. ‘If we fail, I’ll end up trapped there anyway.’

‘Not on your own, you won’t,’ Alastair said. ‘If you must go, I’ll join you.’

Thomas sighed, he should have seen that coming, even if the point in him going was that if they failed, he would be dead anyway.

‘I must come too,’ Cordelia added. ‘We’ll need cortana in case we run into anything else that tries to kill us.’

‘I’m not going to sit here alone,’ Lucie said crossly.

Cordelia looked at her friend with fondness. Thomas wondered, did she feel about Lucie as Lucie felt for her? Thomas was usually observant when it came to people’s feelings, but Cordelia and Lucie were such close friends he struggled to tell the difference.

‘It’s going to be very dangerous, Lucie,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure there are any ghosts there for you to talk to, whereas we need my sword and Alastair’s memory. Thinking about it, perhaps it is better if Thomas stays too.’

‘I have the sight,’ Thomas protested. ‘And I don’t want to stay behind.’

‘Well, me neither,’ Lucie said. ‘If you’re going, so am I. If you want to stop me you’re going to have to tie me up here.’

Alastair gazed at the ceiling as if he was considering the option. Thomas knew Cordelia made a point, and he didn’t want to put Lucie in danger, but he also knew Lucie was one of the few people who could match his stubbornness, and realistically, they weren’t going to stop her.

Thomas sighed. ‘I see you intend to Herondale to the fullest today, Lucie. So, we’ll all go take a walk into the woods, find the ruins, and retrieve that girl’s skin?’

‘I thought we’d discussed none of you are going into the woods.’

They all turned around to see Will had walked into the room. He looked amused. ‘It seems you are all much like me when I was young,’ Will mused. ‘I must say it is very irritating.’

‘I’m your daughter,’ Lucie said. ‘What did you expect would happen?’

Will shrugged. ‘Well, you could have been more like your mother, but it appears you do indeed intend to Herondale to the fullest. I suppose someone has to keep the family tradition alive.’

‘You’re not going to stop us?’ Lucie asked.

‘Oh no, I definitely intend to,’ Will said.

#Thomas Lightwood #Alastair Carstairs #Cordelia Carstairs #Lucie Herondale #Thomastair #Lucelia #the last hours #fanfiction #fic

21 notes · View notes

mrmallard · 3 years

Text

Boston Legal Curated Watchlist - Season One

Boston Legal is a courtroom dramedy that aired from 2004 to 2008. It stars James Spader as Alan Shore, a plucky champion of the underdog who tilts at windmills with incredible charm, and William Shatner as Denny Crane, a gun-toting, cigar-smoking fatcat with an ego the size of Texas.

The show is set within the offices of Crane, Poole and Schmidt as the cast tackle an assortment of cases, from the deathly serious to the absolutely ridiculous. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll probably retch a little before it's all said and done. It's Boston Legal.

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This is the first installment of a curated watchlist I'm putting together. The purpose of this watchlist is to collect all of the best episodes of the show, and to cut out the ones that are either outright bad, extremely sleazy or which have otherwise not aged well.

It should go without saying, but this list is my opinion and I accept that people may feel differently. Leave a reply with any episodes I missed that you want to see represented, and I can amend the watchlist if I agree.

Right off the bat, though, I can say that season one is one of the most cohesive seasons. I found myself going like "oh yeah, THAT episode!" for a majority of the season, and two thirds of season one is on this list. It hits its stride at episode 8, starts firing on all cylinders at episode 11, and it has the hottest streak of episodes all the way down to episode 17.

For season one, this watchlist is a formality. If there was any season that you should just outright watch, season one is it. And the ones I miss actually set up a lot of Denny Crane's character arc - so I would go as far as to prompt you to use this guide as a starting point to test whether you'll actually like the show, and then decide whether you want to commit to a whole season or not.

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Disclaimer: this show ran between 2004 and 2008, during George Bush's second term. The characters are sleazy and sexist at times, and the depiction and discussion of such issues as LGBT rights have a long way to go - though I would argue that season one has an episode that is significantly ahead of its time in that regard. And while the show can be a sleazefest, it does has a liberal slant.

I enjoy the show for its solid heart and great character interaction, but this show is very much a product of its time and I want to give a fair warning to potential viewers that it should be viewed within that context.

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Episode 1: Head Cases

Description: Edwin Poole, a named partner at the law firm Crane, Poole and Schmidt, has a mental breakdown. This comes as a shock to Denny Crane (William Shatner), a fellow named partner, who has to contend with losing a friend at the office.

The question is raised as to how long Denny has to go before he suffers a similar fate - he's seen as bloated, egotistical and past his prime. Despite being a legendary figure in the profession, he tends to be a liability as much as an asset to the firm nowadays. Who'll hold out for longer - the firm, or Denny Crane?

Meanwhile, Alan Shore (James Spader) settles into his role at the firm. He finds a few familiar faces, as well as opposition from firm hotshot Brad Chase - a former marine, staunch conservative and vocal critic of Shore's demeanor and courtroom antics.

Why it made the list: It's the first episode of the show. It introduces Alan Shore and Denny Crane, it sets up the character dynamic for most of the series's runtime, it has a courtroom scene that defines the sort of jokey bluster the show will be known for, and it kickstarts Denny Crane's character arc. Episode one is essential viewing.

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Episode 6: Truth be Told

Description: Alan represents the husband of his old crush Samantha, who's running for mayor. He flirts with the idea of getting back together with her as the case unfolds.

Convinced that he's slipping, Denny takes a test to determine whether he has Alzeimers.

Why it made the list: My recollection of this episode is a bit foggy. The main reason I picked it is because it's an early episode dealing with Denny's mental health - as far as I'm concerned, it's essential viewing.

But upon scratching the surface, this is also a good early episode depicting one of Alan Shore's old flames. This episode works best in tandem with episode 5, which leads into Denny's plot in this episode.

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Episode 8: Loose Lips

Description: Alan Shore is tasked with defending a mall Santa who was fired when his perchant for cross-dressing is made public. Convinced he won't be able to win, Brad makes a bet with Alan that he'll lose the case.

Lori, another attorney at the firm, is drawn into her therapist's concerns about a client who may be at risk of killing his wife. Lori wrestles with morality and doctor/patient privilege as she debates whether to inform the client's wife about his violent fantasies of killing her.

Why it made the list: This episode is the reason this list is being written. It is the best episode of Boston Legal up to this point, and it's one of the best episodes of the entire series in my opinion.

First of all - the mall Santa character is played by Jim O'Heir, who would go on to play Jerry in Parks and Recreation. That's a novelty of the episode, but he also puts in an incredibly powerful performance as a person who deviates from heteronormativity in an era where it was still very taboo to be such a person - or even to depict one in a serious, sympathetic manner on primetime television.

Which leads into my second point: this episode is incredibly sympathetic to Jim's character. Not only is he a crossdresser, which is depicted as him being a sexual deviant by his employer (and thus grounds for dismissal) - but he's a mall Santa. There's an added layer of scaremongering in that he works with children. And yet he's depicted as nothing but competent, caring and sympathetic, as opposed to furthering the stereotype of the gay pedophile that has dogged the queer community for decades.

Alan Shore has nothing but respect and empathy for this man, and he does everything in his power to get his job back by proving his competence at the job and his natural affinity for the role against the charges of degeneracy and wrongness levelled at him by his employer.

Another reason why this episode is so good is that it pays off a joke from the first episode. Without spoiling anything, Alan's first case involves a courtroom antic devised by Denny Crane. This episode sees Alan utilize the same courtroom antic on Denny's advice - essentially christening himself as a disciple of Denny's larger than life style of practicing law. It begins a theme of legacy that goes on until the end of the show.

A fourth reason I love this episode? The plot with Lori is fantastic. Alan and Denny are the main guys in this show, and other characters tend to fall by the wayside. But other characters have moments of brilliance as well, and this episode is Lori's time to shine.

To sum up - the A-plot was ahead of its time in the kindness and respect it shows to a character who would be a queerphobic butt of a joke in another show, and the B-plot is a thrilling argument between professional ethics and moral duty. All in all, this is a dynamite episode with very few weak parts. It's an excellent episode of television, and arguably a Top 5 episode of Boston Legal.

Caveats: Despite all the praise I just heaped upon this episode, it didn't entirely escape the trappings of its time. And it manifests in a form that the show will continue to be tested by - Denny Crane.

Denny is a gun-toting Republican, and he's unabashedly homophobic. This is demonstrated by the fact that he drops the case due to his bigotry and openly admits how uncomfortable he is about it. It's that dismissal that drives Alan to pick up the case in his stead, and as I mentioned, the show goes on to knock this storyline out of the park.

Alan is depicted as a more lefty type of character, more on the precipice of the new PC atmosphere that was coming in at the time. He's not a leftist persé, more of a left-leaning moderate the longer the show goes on - especially exemplified in the way he treats women - but Denny is a Bush-loving, Cheney-idolizing Republican fatcat. That's the POV he represents, wholly and entirely.

A big part of the show is how he and Alan get along despite their differences, but it does involve Denny expressing bigoted points of view at times. But please understand that his viewpoints are depicted as regressive and oafish by other members of the cast, tying into this conflict between the great Denny Crane of old and the liability that he is today.

And it should be emphasised in the face of that point that the show still shows Jim O'Heir's character with more dignity and respect than the contemporary atmosphere of the time it was made in. Even with Denny's objection to it, this episode is greatly resonant to this day, and I genuinely do believe that it was ahead of its time.

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Episode 9: A Greater Good

Description: The firm takes the case of a woman who's taken out of a clinical trial for a drug that could cure her terminal disease.

Tara, a love interest of Alan, is able to glean privileged information for a case by flirting with opposing counsel in a bar. However, Lori points out that they can't use that information without risking disbarment.

Why it made the list: It's a great early episode of the show, particularly for the B-plot with Lori and Tara. But the A-plot is a good mystery plot - why was the client taken off the drug? Was it out of prejudice or bias? She has a terminal illness - should she not be allowed to take the drug at great risk to herself? So you're wondering about the true nature of the study and the drug. The eventual outcome of this plot is pretty good.

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Episode 10: Hired Guns

Description: Alan Shore takes the case of a woman whose estranged partner keeps kidnapping their children for the holidays despite their custody agreement. After winning the case, he's confronted by the man at work, who takes him hostage in the middle of Crane, Poole and Schmidt and threatens to shoot up the place after killing him.

Why it made the list: This episode has one of Denny Crane's best moments. A lot of his character up to this point is unchecked braggadocio, which is entertaining to watch despite his outdated viewpoints. But this episode is where the zany nature of both the setting and the character really takes hold as Denny takes matters into his own hands. Must-watch episode, hands down.

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Episode 11: Schmidt Happens

Description: Crane, Poole and Schmidt has three named partners. The first one is Denny Crane, one of the stars of the show. The second one is Edwin Poole, whose mental breakdown kickstarts the first episode of the series. So who's Schmidt?

Answer: Candice Bergen.

This episode introduces Shirley Schmidt, Denny Crane's one that got away. She begins her run by firing a prominent cast member, cementing herself as a force to be reckoned with.

Why it made the list: Shirley Schmidt is a central character of the show from this point on, so this episode is essential viewing. Candice Bergen is a great addition to the cast, and her introduction bumps the rest of this season up a notch.

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Episode 12: From Whence We Came

Description: The firm defends a school superintendent who fired two science teachers who refused to teach creationism. Alan has concerns about his new secretary.

Why it made the list: This episode is important because under Shirley, the firm isn't just taking wacky feel-good cases any more. They're a law firm, and they need to make money. So they take cases like this, where they have to be the ones who are essentially defending the teaching of creationism in schools.

But the show doesn't necessarily depict Creationism as a positive. The narrative around the case is about the rise of the religious right, and the ethics of teaching something that goes against scientific evidence in a science class.

In all, it muddies the ethics of the characters that we've come to expect, but that doesn't mean that they're in favour of what they're meant to be defending in court.

This episode is also notable for introducing a recurring character named Catherine Piper - played by Betty White! That alone is worth tuning in for.

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Episode 14: 'Til We Meat Again

Description: Alan Shore starts a bar fight while out on a date with Tara - he's pushed around by a big guy who he could never hope to beat, so he starts paying people $100 each to whale on him. The man subsequently sues Alan for aggravated assault.

The firm takes the case of a steakhouse operator whose steakhouse has been shuttered. Concerns over Mad Cow Disease has led to a growing concern over red meat as a whole, which led to the business's closure. As he and Shirley learn more about Mad Cow Disease, Denny becomes convinced he has it - rationalising his love for red meat as a potential cause of his mental health concerns.

Why it made the list: Mad Cow Disease becomes an important touchstone for the Denny Crane character. Whenever he does something eccentric? Mad Cow. Whenever he acts inappropriately or forgets something important? Mad Cow. So this episode is essential viewing for that.

But what's significant about Mad Cow Disease is that its symptoms mirror the effects of Alzheimer's when it manifests in people. A few episodes ago, Denny took an Alzheimer's test - a driving force behind his character is the concern over whether he's slipping, and what his ultimate legacy will be. This episode is essential viewing.

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Episode 15: Tortured Souls

Description: Shirley asks Alan to try a case with her where they need to defend a police officer charged with torturing a detained suspect for information.

Catherine befriends recurring character Bernard, who's appeared in several previous episodes.

Caveats: I'll admit that it's been a hot second since I've seen this episode, and I remember feeling very on the fence about it. They're defending a police officer who tortured a detained suspect - what the fuck is that doing in a silly, irreverent show like Boston Legal?

It's an especially hard sell in today's climate, where intense, systematic police misconduct is widely discussed and the reputation of the police force has taken a beating. Even if the core message is that the police are fucked up, does anyone want to see a show where a police officer who tortured a detained suspect gets defended by the main cast? I don't blame you if this premise turns you off the show.

I'm recommending this episode because it's another episode showcasing this early trend of Shirley taking on morally murky cases for the sake of the firm. It's ruthless - she's taking any means necessary to get the job done, which is to secure clients for Crane, Poole and Schmidt, which the firm needs to keep its doors open. It's an important facet of her character.

It's also interesting to see what this does to other characters who try these cases with her, despite having a strong distaste for the position they're arguing for. Alan tends to be more of a puckish rogue at this point, taking on a lot of cases that appeal to his values and to a clear sense of justice. And as later episodes show, overextensions of the law are one of the causes he chooses to fight against.

So why would Shirley pick him - the quippy character everybody's rooting for - to defend a police officer who tortured a detained suspect for information?

That's the intrigue of the episode.

Why it made the list: I went over some reasons just now, but I also want to mention Catherine Piper's relationship with Bernard. Betty White's story arc at the tail end of season one is a highlight of the season, and it's worth watching.

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Episode 16: Let Sales Ring

Description: Milton Bombay is a legend in his field. A man with public recognition, an immaculate legacy and immeasurable respect. A man who's considered an equal and a close friend of both the bragadocious and self-absorbed Denny Crane, and the ruthlessly successful Shirley Schmidt.

Milton Bombay wants to be cryogenically frozen so that he may be revived in the future, free to continue his legacy in an era that can accommodate his advancing age. And as cryogenic preservation isn't legal in Boston, he enlists the aid of Crane, Poole and Schmidt to make his dream a reality.

Alan and Chelina, an attorney who joined the firm a while back, are tasked with representing a conservative teen who thinks that his school's refusal to air Fox News is unconstitutional.

Why it made the list: The Milton Bombay plotline is fan-fucking-tastic. The A-plot concerns incredibly weighty topics that affect both Shirley and Denny, which I won't reveal out of fear of spoiling the episode's plot. Ageing plays a part in it, as does legacy. It's a very good plotline, and both William Shatner and Candice Bergen knock it out of the park.

Caveats: I remember this episode bugging me with the Fox News plot. I have nothing to say specifically because I can't recall it too well, but I would advise viewers to keep a wide berth in regards to the B-plot. The show is occasionally a bit iffy - as we'll eventually see in season two with a character I heavily dislike - and I think this is one of those occasions.

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Episode 17: Death Be Not Proud

Description: Alan accompanies Chelina on a case in Texas involving the death penalty. Chelina's client insists on his innocence, but he's days away from execution and they don't have a lot of hope in saving his life. Alan is a certified wildcard at this point - if anyone can pull this off, it's him. But how will he fare in a Texan court?

Why it made the list: This is another serious, gritty episode of the show. The stakes are incredibly high - a man's life is at stake, and Alan Shore is the last line of defence. This episode has it all - drama, action, perhaps even romance???

It's also the season finale of the show, and season finales tend to be pretty okay. And much like other episodes in this guide, it sets precedent and it builds towards future episodes.

Caveats: This episode can be a tough watch. It's not just the death penalty; racial discrimination also comes up as a factor in the client's arrest and placement on death row. It's a heavy episode, and I advise caution to people who feel like the subject matter may be too much for them.

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Overall, season one of Boston Legal is incredibly solid. There's so much charisma and mirth, and a lot of stuff I grew to dislike about the show hadn't manifested in a big way yet.

I didn't mention him at all, but a big shoutout to Rene Auberjonois as Paul. He serves as a straight man to Alan and Denny's lunacy. He's often in league with Shirley, and overall he's a very memorable part of the cast.

The thing about Boston Legal's cast is that people tend to drop in and out over the course of the show. By season two, almost half the cast is shifted around. Lake Bell has already left the show at this point, and the waning screentime of the supporting cast signals their imminent demise. But on the bright side, it makes room for a bunch of new characters - Julie Bowen has a prominent role in the show, years before she got huge on Modern Family. It's all a matter of preference.

#boston legal #james spader #william shatner

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tricky-ghoul · 3 years

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What would happen, if women knew the true extent of misogyny and how men don't see them as equals no matter what they do?

*Sorry but need to vent. Very disappointed at the realization of misogyny and how liberal oversexualized culture is not working. Have so many questions. This is not a poem.

This also doesn't include men who have found "their one" or genuine loving men, because men in love or good men act very differently from other men. And have a feeling that once a man crosses a line or boundary, they can never be redeemed(semi-religious, but feels true). Like if he r@pes or is a pedo or violence, those are just crossed lines between good and cruel alr.

How would women react

If they realized most men only use them for sex

And most times their w*orship and servitude too

Without any commitment from his side

What would happen if women realized

The #1 cause of misogyny

Is men thinking they're "better and superior than women as a gender" in every way

And most men(even leftist men) will actually cape and want male supremacy

Why male supremacy?

Because it helps men max benefit from getting what they want from women, and let's them get away with it even if women suffer or it causes hurt for women.

When will women realize

Most men aren't benevolent, generous, or magnanimous(especially those Playboys only temp nice to girls they want to fuck)

They are quite selfish and predatory

Sometimes sadistic, destructive and r@pey

Why do men like to force chemistry/sexual connections on every woman they're only attracted to superficially? And when she doesn't play into their fantasized role of her accepting him, he gets angry and violent? Why?

Why do men think that just "by virtue of being a man", they are better than women and should get more stuff than women and can shit on/mistreat women for it?

Its very weird how

Most men's primary goal in life is sex

And how most things they do has a motive for sex

Even when it's supposed to be good things like making money and gaining status

Take a lot of men in power for instance

In most cases they just 'pump and dump' lots of young women or do r@pe, assault, other things

Men in power always reveal more of their true colours

How do men think their red flags and dangerous flaws are just "small things" and "little imperfections", when those habits are usually addicktions, abusive, or very derogatory and hurtful? And they expect women to accept these flaws but when she has one thing they don't like they just dump her?

What happens when most women realize,

Most men don't see them as fellow people

Even when he has and did a lot with female friends

He mostly still believe women are "half sentinent window dressing, limited, passive creatures lower than men".

They only ever have a fixed thought mold for all women, and it seems to be "the opposite of all the great things man is".

Worst realisations of all:

- Sometimes when very drawn to men or attracted, there have moments of bias and it can really screw one's judgement and crazy urges to be a pickme again, even though it's known that couldn't work out.

- Nothing one can do will ever force or coax a man to suddenly love them, if he doesn't he doesn't. Even if they're the bestest young virgin wife who bears sons, like PRNCS diana, can still get kicked to the curb. Very sad. Disappointed.

I would hope that if/when more women start seeing these things, we could all have the power to protest. I don’t see men changing anytime soon. They have no reason to, and women are the only ones who could give them a reason to change.

Men are soooo much weaker than they’d ever care to admit. They might have physical strength, but in every other way possible they are weak. They haven’t been socialized to be empathetic or dissect their emotions like the many women have. And when they encounter their own abusive situations, they also don’t have the same sort of inner outlets that women have. They don’t understand the emotions they feel, nor know how to talk about them. It’s scary and emasculating to even try. They don’t learn themselves like women tend to do. Women do the emotional labor men are so ill equipped to handle. They could learn if they wanted to, but most don’t because there’s no point. They’ll find a woman to do it for them. Men compartmentalize their emotions and pack them away, and allow those boxes to fester and seep into everything else. They could change if they wanted, or if they realized they won’t get the benefits of being with a women unless they do.

Society, porn culture, pop culture, and the foundations previous generations laid for us have led us to this. Men have everything they could want at their fingertips. Why behave when you can have it all anyways? Women are the only ones who could press for change. We carry the goods (sex, labor). What would happen if women knocked their standards through the roof and expected men to learn how to examine their emotions, instead of just reacting, before they’d ever allow themselves to be touched?

As for good men, I agree. They’re few and far between, they might put on a good front but it’s quickly gone and the truth comes out. Out of all the men I’ve ever known, only one isn’t addicted to sex and/or porn, and many of them are way down the “kink” rabbit hole, and always cheating on their wives or girlfriends. ONE out of soo many men I’ve met. Friends, clients, or otherwise. When I say former sex worker I mean I’ve seen it all. I was involved in the kink community, mostly as a femdom, for almost 10 years. I trained “sissies.” I did amateur custom porn, all sorts of requests there. Tried doing cam stuff for a while. Stripped at a local club for a few months which turned into a few awful situations outside of the club. I’ve seen what men are all about in so many ways.

The few that aren’t like that are so incredibly different it took me almost 3 years to actually believe it was true. What on earth could have made him different? Some heavy trauma. He was treated in ways so many women are all too familiar with, starting at a young age. Before the internet blew up and porn was so accessible. Everything that’s happened to him over the years turned the dial way down on his libido. He just doesn’t think about sex as much or in the ways most do. For 3 years I was convinced that because he was different, it must just be that he’s good at hiding whatever he’s actually doing to fulfill that need. He can’t just not have that need, why would he be any different? He must have some embarrassing kinks and doesn’t want to tell me, something! But now it makes sense. And it’s sad that abuse is what made things different. But I know trauma definitely doesn’t change everyone in positive ways, this is a bit of an anomaly. It’s just sad that a sweeping majority are porn sick and/or sexually deviant. It shouldn’t be so prevalent. It says a lot about humanity, really. We’re still animals. Preening and peacocking and fighting for reproductive territory, taking control whenever wherever for the sake of fulfilling (mostly selfish) needs. It’s all quite animalistic.

We need a revolution and I’m not sure that’s possible. Women will have to demand the changes needed, and so many things need to change. Men, and many women too, need to gain emotional intelligence. A lack of emotional intelligence is just more fuel for the fire. Whatever happened to mindfulness? Where did that trend go? Unless *mass* amounts of women start speaking up and setting the standards, I imagine things will only get worse. The sex industry and sexual content becomes more and more mainstream every day. I blame it for so much of these issues. Until everyone cares enough to start shutting things down, it’s just going to escalate. Misogyny, sexism, perversion, it all runs so deep. From our peers, families, media, government, and judicial system… who and what can you trust? Victims are not believed, and the perpetrators livelihoods hold more value than the well being of their victims. It’s hard to see where we could even begin to find light at the end of the tunnel.

I hope this was on topic. I don’t know, there’s so much to it all! I wrote a response over the course of a few days with all kinds of crazy things going on irl. But I think with any problem, you gotta find the roots and address them or it all comes back.

#submission

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ultramaga · 3 years

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Well, that was a new one. A leftist called @triviallytrue was complaining that “conservatives” were discriminating against effeminate men. They then revealed they were talking about the CCP, which, like Russia, is pushing a new military drive to turn schoolboys into soldiers, and introducing a new breeding program, presumably to replace the casualties of upcoming conflicts. The Chinese are currently building bases off the borders to my country, and recently boasted that Biden’s America is not going to protect us when we need them - which is actually looking like it will be the case. And what do the Chinese do when they conquer a country? They genocide the inhabitants. A few are left, selling trinkets to tourists from the gutters of the streets they once owned. In the case of the Uighars, men are sent to camps and their wives are bunked up with Han men. For entirely proper reasons, I am sure, and not because they want to commit genocide through forced breeding. So how do Leftists react to that?

Rather than face the fact it’s not the mean ole conservatives running China, but this strange new gang called the “Communists”, one they apparently have never heard of, they react with the usual deflections - you should touch grass, you should relax and not worry about the Chinese military machine that told your prime minister to expect a war. Leftists absolutely blow me away, because they really have no concept how brief their lives will be if the Chinese do invade. The Chinese mock them as pathetic fence sitters - “Left-Right” in their language; unable to genuinely commit to socialism, and it is true. They think the communists will let them sit about posting on social media. The communists only recently stopped drilling holes in the skulls of gay men - they aren’t going to let you be the people’s poet, mate, they see you as a deformed and decadent aberration. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(19)30153-7/fulltext But no, the wicked Westerners are the ones they fear. Good god! Is a lobotomy mandatory to join the Leftist ideology? The worst possible enemy a gay man can know is the Leftist, because they will persuade them to fear the Christian with his bible, and not the Communist with his bullets. Oh, and in case you think I’m kidding - https://archive.is/CHcXB Yup, he’s genuinely pro-China. And genuinely in favour of Leftists indoctrinating children to hate their country. I would speculate he was actually one of the Chinese chaos agents, but he just doesn’t seem that bright. Maybe they give him a smiley stamp instead of fifty cents, and the occasional napkin to wipe up all his drool.

#Leftism #communism #gay rights #china

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grandhotelabyss · 3 years

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The trouble with literature is that writers have to be the ones who write it. It's always partial; it's always partisan, and it's always incomplete. When I say that writers have to be the ones to write it, I mean that in order to generate the energy to create a big novel, a big play, an involved poem, one has to be a species of fanatic. You have to think that that is really the only thing worth doing. Otherwise, you can't generate the intensity to do it well. And to that degree, by generating that intensity, you are blinding yourself to what does not fit into some preconceived pattern in your own mind. There's no doubt about that to me, and I think that probably lay behind Plato's prohibition of the artist in society, He was right in the sense that the artist doesn't know what he is doing, to some extent. That is, we pretend, or like to believe, that we are depicting the whole truth of some situation, when as a matter of fact, the whole truth is, by definition, made impossible by the fact that we are obsessed people. I don't know of a first class piece of work written by what I would call, or a psychologist would call, a balanced, adjusted fellow who could easily be, let us say, a good administrator for a complicated social mechanism of some sort. It doesn't work that way. We are not constituted that way; so consequently, to be sure, it will have to be partial. The impulse to do it is obsessive; it always is. One of the fairest, most just writers was Tolstoi, who was, to make it short, quite mad.

Arthur Miller, “Morality and Modern Drama: Interview with Phillip Gelb” (Death of a Salesman: Text and Criticism, ed. Gerald Weales)

(I don’t love Arthur Miller—I find him didactic and a bit cheap in his effects, and since he was placed on the syllabus by one generation of right-thinking leftists, I don’t care if he’s removed by another. Yet I admire the above observation. It is true and has more to do with today’s social problems than is apparent at first glance. For isn’t much of our instability owing to the extension of the artist-ideal to, if not everyone, at least the whole of the middle classes, as a compensatory gesture for the casualization of their labor? Follow your bliss from gig to gig! We are trying Plato in reverse, with perverse results—everyone but the artist is proscribed, which, paradoxically, imprisons art wholly with the social and leads the true artist to seek the path of proscription. Someone uncharitably observed, “Every crypto-normie trendoid is now a witch, while all the genuine weirdos are going back to church.” I wonder if in this rumination, behind the self-lacerating self-congratulation, Miller isn’t thinking of his own deficit: that he was too calculated, too much, well, the salesman, even the good administrator. Certainly I prefer his rival at the summit of midcentury American drama, Tennessee Williams. Williams was more outrageous and sensationalist—Miller may have Biff and Happy, but Williams gives us Big Daddy, Brick, and Maggie the Cat!—which perhaps suggests an eye on the box office. It’s a better sell-out strategy, though, than solemn pronouncements on The American Dream and The Common Man. And speaking of “what a psychologist would call” this person or that, we should remember that Miller made his remarks in the same period when Rose Williams—Tennessee’s sister, muse, and anima—had an icepick hammered through her eye socket into her brain to “cure” her madness, a most respected psychiatric procedure of the era, to which, I assume, only the conspiracy theorist or misinformation merchant could have possibly objected. Never mind art, I’m sure when they got through with her, she fucking loved science.

Further reading: my recent essays on A Streetcar Named Desire and Death of a Salesman.)

#arthur miller #tennessee williams #drama #plays #american literature #literature #literary criticism

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stryfeposting · 4 years

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What is Cable, politically? He’s some sort of radical ofcs and I know a lot of people ask about Punisher but what is Cables ideology like in your opinion?

in regards to cable exhibiting genuine radicalism i like the end of cable vol 1/soldier x where cable is off his chops on his unshackled powers and is a boots on the ground soldier using his abilities for direct leftist action, but uhhhh but i really don't care for how that's instantly defanged into the lib fantasy of cable and deadpool. going from direct praxis to this 'what if i enacted change but used it to show everyone the power of electorialism :)' kneecapping is why i don't care for cable's portrayal in 90% of cable and deadpool, and don't really like that run as a whole.

there's a post tumblr keeps recommending to me that's something like, how cable would fix a pothole in the road and it's a rube goldberg series of intricate actions that result in the government sending someone out to fix the road. it's not a bad post, it's a good joke post take that aligns to C&DP era cable, but I personally prefer the era(s) of cable where his reaction to a pothole in the road is to fix the damn pothole himself.

i prefer cable as he started and how he is now, which is a sort of... i'm trying to think of the best way to articulate this, but an unaligned apolitical amoral force for good. cable isn't a true light sided hero, he doesn't hew to the x-men code against killing, but he does whatever it takes to achieve a good result. i say amoral because while he is a moral man (he definitely has his ethics that he lives by; someone doesn't devote their entire early life to the eradication of apocalypse at all cost without having some kind of lodestone to keep himself aligned) those morals also have a dozen asterisks after them that all boil down to essentially 'whatever it takes to get the job done, no matter the cost'.

the 90s were a dumb time for comics but they were a great time for launching anti-heroes and, with thirty years of character polishing, cable being a 'no more committee meetings, i'll just fuckin' do it myself' kind of guy is where i put him.

maybe he's the one true effective centrist: a wrecking ball.

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sludgefriend · 4 years

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the other day, i was given an invitation that i couldn’t refuse. i had walked into my backyard to get my dog to come inside, when one of the neighbors invited me over to their family barbecue. over the past couple of months, we had all become mildly familiar with eachother, seeing eachother throughout town and over the fence and such. i didn’t really want to go over; i knew that they weren’t wearing masks and i figured that we didn’t have much in common anyways. i went over anyways though, because i also knew that if i turned down their offer, they’d probably think that i thought i was some kind of conceited college kid that thought i was too good to hang out with some working-class folks. so, i decided to be friendly and come over to keep the peace and maybe build some bonds.

i knew i was in over my head the second i opened their gate. i stepped into their backyard and the first thing i noticed was that the man that had invited me over, the man that was clearly the Man of the house who everybody looked up to and answered to, was wearing a shirt with the confederate flag on it. to make matters worse, the flag had the SS insignia emblazoned dead-center. at this point, i get nervous but realize that it’s best for me to stand my ground, show no weakness, and keep things civil. these people are my neighbors, after all.

so, i stay. i talk to the family but my conversations are mostly focused with this man, Zack. almost instantly, i could tell that they were trying to test me and see where i stood on the political compass, and how well i stood there. before long, the topics shifted to politics and current events.

of course, it came as no surprise what their opinions were, for the most part. you can probably guess. it was a really tense experience for me, but probably not for them. i tried to not let it show, and i think i did pretty well. i also managed to stand my ground on my beliefs without seriously pissing them off, which i’m somewhat proud of. in some weird sort of way, they seemed to respect what i had to say.

it all kind of comes into perspective when, towards the end of my visit, Zack comes out and tells me that he used to be filled with hate towards POC, and that he was raised in a white supremacist household. however, his mother had recently defected and attempted to change her ways. after seeing that, he said that he’d tried to do the same. apparently he was now a man of god, and tried to learn from his god to become a more tolerant and understanding person. i asked him how he’d managed to overcome his hate, and he told me that he still hadn’t; it was something he was working on. i remember now, that in an earlier conversation about inequality, while his family asserted that success was the absolute result of hard work, and implied that worse off white folks as well as most POC didn’t work hard enough to earn their place in society, he interjected that POC have a much harder time achieving success in society due to the system that’s in place.

so, this experience left me with a lot of weird, conflicting feelings, which is really why i’m writing this post. i can’t help but wondering, is this really the way that he felt, or was he just saying what he thought i wanted to hear? if he did really feel this way, how much does his family agree? i can’t help but feeling like a bad person for even breaking bread with these people, even walking into the situation not knowing exactly what the situation actually was, and even though going and being amicable was first and foremost in the interest of my safety, the safety of my housemates, the safety of my dog, and the safety of my property.

i’m definitely going to avoid going over there again. i can’t help but wondering though, if i could talk to zack again, 1-on-1, could i convince him to come even further with his compassion? how many people with these kinds of opinions can actually be convinced to leave behind this kind of horrible lifestyle? i mean, it’s clear to me that actual behavior associated with this kind of lifestyle must have a zero tolerance policy, and must necessarily be met with violence in certain situations, but also, i feel like we’ve all seen at least clips from those documentaries where actual klansmen are introduced to the people that they claim to hate, have real conversations with them, and end up changing their ways.

it’s clear to me that some of the core beliefs that these people have relate to weakness and hard work. in that, asking for help and similar behaviors are weak, and to be weak is to be inferior, and that success is truly a measure of hard work. You know, and even the latter could have been true, at least for white folks in the mid-20th century, which could really explain how some of their beliefs can sort of bubble up and become solid in their minds.

at the end of the day, it seems to me, that all conflict is directly related to class conflict. racism and inequality are both systems that seem to be in place to keep the working class from uniting and forcing major changes that level the playing field. i wonder if these people can ever be convinced, even in portions, that our enemy isn’t really eachother, but the people who hold the reigns. because that’s how it is. that’s how it really is. no matter how much you hate these people, you have to admit, we’re on the same level. we’re being kept on the same level by the same people. the only difference is our cultures, and how easily our cultures can direct us towards hatred, which keeps these systems in place, and, you know, a lot of these people that are filled with hate, and do and think horrible things are people that are poverty stricken, who have shit education and shit healthcare just like a lot of us, and it’s likely that these conditions helped to make them this way. you’ve got to wonder, if things were better for all of us, if we all had access to the resources we need, would less of these people think the way that they do?

that being said, i think that a decent chunk of people that ended up with their heads in the right place, being compassionate and helpful, people who are active in humanitarian conversations and activities could have ended up just as hateful and shitty given a slightly different situation. i’ll be honest. i grew up in a rural town filled to the brim with white folks, i grew up with shit on TV like family guy and South Park and whatever the fuck else garbage was spewing on there. i grew up with prejudice. i was never hatefully racist, but that environment and upbringing made me feel afraid of POC, even though I’m Mexican, myself. It made me extremely transphobic. I unlearned my prejudice towards people of other races pretty quickly, but it took all the way into my late teens to meet the people that i needed to meet to teach me to respect and love trans folks. had things gone just a little bit differently, i would’ve genuinely ended up some shmuck, glued to 4chan with a weird, twisted worldview and belief system. i probably would’ve been extremely misogynistic, extremely prejudiced. things just had to be only a little bit different, but instead i just turned out a solid leftist with a strong belief system focused around the increased wellbeing for everybody, especially focused on vulnerable groups of people.

so there’s that, i guess. i’d genuinely appreciate any feedback.

#speak

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