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soyouareandrewdobson · 4 years

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Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na RACIST! (how Dobson thinks Batman is a supremacist, why I think Batman is not so good and Frank Miller is problematic

Over the last couple of years, Andrew Dobson has mad eit clear that he is not a fan of the character of Batman much (or anymore), calling him a Mary Sue and an embodiment of toxic masculinity as if that term means something nowadays considering how often it is thrown around. And don’t get me wrong, if you don’t like Batman as a character, that is completely fine with me. I myself am not the biggest fan of Batman myself. Or rather should I say, his overexposure in the comics.

Cause honestly, I do not hate the character on concept. I watched reruns of the Adam West Batman show from the 60s and the animated 90s show long before I even saw the Burton versions. Batman Brave and the Bold is one of my favorite animated shows of the 2000s. And I think that there are quite a few good Batman stories, shows and games out there overall. I do however believe that when it comes to Batman in the mainstream comics, things have taken a nose dive for a long time. Writers like Grant Morrison, Scott Snyder and Tom King in particular have over the last 10+ years (at least in my opinion) not just attempted to write stories about Batman as a hero, but also put him into the center of ever escalating events and philosophical wang fests so often, the comics and its characters (Batman and his villains alike) have become quite ridiculous. As a result Batman as a comic series is at times just too edgy, people get sick of certain characters (I like the Joker, but the way how he was handled in some of Snyder’s stories was ridiculous to the point they should have just called him Satan) and Batman comes off as a Gary Stu almost by default, cause the only way a “normal” human could even dare to deal with the over the top situations he faces, is by being even more over the top and smart and awesome by default.

Now that we got my soapboxing regarding why I think Batman is not as good as a comic character anymore out of the way, lets see what Dobson’s take on Batman is and why he thinks he is turning Bat- I mean bad.

He believes that Batman turns into a fascist.

... I would ask if that is a joke, but I know that Dobson does not get humor at all or can tell a good joke if he was possessed by Leslie Nielsen.

Okay, so lets just try to dissect why this is dumb.

First off, while I did not talk about it in detail, I did mention that there are different incarnations and versions of Batman to enjoy. Hey, Dobson himself said that the one he enjoyed the most was the Batman of the animated series in the 90s. Which btw I highly recommend. And so do others. But here is the thing: There is not one “ultimate” version of Batman to stick to. There are different interpretations of the character. And most people are okay with that. Heck, there are more than enough people who both enjoyed the 60s Batman and Burton’s Batman. The important thing is, that all those interpretations need to have a certain key element of Batman still in order to make the character recognizable as who he is to be. Which in my opinion is the willingness to fight for good even in the face of some serial killer level baddies and show also once here and there his smarts as well as a bit of heart (guess what people, Batman can be compassionate too if he needs to be) while at the same time wearing a costume as he does and try to convey the image of being “the night” to put fear in the hearts of those cowardly criminals.

Which is why people in general will call writers out on being bad, when you do not “get” Batman or what people in general associate Batman to be. But Dobson seems to insinuate at least indirectly that people are dumb for not understanding it. That he is supposedly the only one who “gets” Batman right. No Dobson, you are not the only one. The shitton of people who mocked Batman vs Superman of which you were a part of, are proof enough.

Next, I have to admit I find it hilarious that he believes that Frank Miller’s version of Batman is what he believes people consider slowly the mainstream version of the character. No they don’t.

Let me try to explain it with this version a bit, seeing how Dobson does not and in doing so is utterly misinformative. In the late 2000s, comic writer Frank Miller, known for work such as Sin City, 300 and his run of Daredevil in the 80s, was tasked by DC comics to write “All Star Batman and Robin” a miniseries in 12 issues. While the thing has actually pretty good artwork by Jim Lee (an artist Dobson wishes he could be), the story itself is very, very bad. While Miller was in the past quite respected and was the man behind “The Dark Knight Returns” in the early 90s (a comic even I think is pretty decent as a story about Batman as an older man taking the cowl up again) , his work in general even at this point was not that good. Miller had become an openly racist person towards people of muslim background after witnessing 9/11 in New York in person, Batman in his work became a vigilante who gets away with levels of assault, violence and edgy philosophing and beating his meat (metaphorically) that it just became pretty obvious that Miller had turned into a racist grandfather with power fantasies whose ideas oozed into his work. I am not denying the accusations Dobson throws here at Miller. His Batman in All Star is violent, acts like a self righteous psycho, kidnaps an underaged boy and does at one point consider that if he had Green Lantern’s power ring he could make the world “better” than Hal Jordan. Which considering his actions so far in that comic makes any person with self preservation instincts and empathy wonder, what “better” means. Additionally, other characters like Superman, Wonder Woman and the mentioned Green Lantern don’t really fare good either when it comes to having likable personalities, making you wish a villain like Luthor would just get rid of those “heroes” already just to assure us they could not go crazy next tuesday.

So yeah, it is a shitty version of Batman, despised by many to the point All Star Batman is mocked to the nth degree. Miller himself became even more controversial and hatred when he wrote and got Holy Terror released, a beast I do not even want to touch upon at the time righ now. I just say it is bad as shit and one of the worst writen and drawn things I ever saw.

HOWEVER… this version of Batman is not the mainstream one. I repeat: this is not the mainstream one, “accepted” by a majority of people. As the paragrpah previously show.

The character All Star Batman is considered ONLY associable with Millers miniseries of the same name, that did not even properly conclude as it was put on endless hiatus with issue ten. It has never become inspirational for any other portrayal of the character so far and DC comics also does not endorse the character in correlation with its main universe, even if they still sell tradepaperbacks of the series.

This, if you have any reading comprehension, points towards one of the biggest lies in Dobson’s comic: The idea, that THIS Batman is the one that’s been popular for the last 15 years or so, as STATED by Dobson himself in the second panel of his comic.

No. No, this “Batman”, the violent psychopath who uses guns and drives a tank, is not the mainstream and never was so in the last 15 years. Or I should rather say 20. See, this comic was published like in 2015. Meaning he is referring to Batman from between 2000 till 2015.

Lets see what versions of Batman were popular at this point

So we got a Batman who was there for a girl dying cause of something done to her brain, a 60s inspired Batman who still was badass and worked well with other heroes and saved the world a few times, a videogame Batman who would not even have let the Joker die when his poison finally got the better of him (Arkham City), a Batman who travelled backwards through time into the present and then tried to use his fortune to support heroes in other parts of the world to do good (I acknowledge though, the Batman shooting Darkseid thing was crap, even if Darkseid is the god of evil in DC) and we even got (though not shown here) a Batman who even when he drove a freaking tank did not run over peolpe with it (Batman, Nolan trilogy) and would rather accept people hating him than being a hero, by taking on the blame of Harvey Dent being killed to not taint the laters reputation. Oh and did I forget to mention that Nolan’s Batman almost sacrificed himself to prevent Gotham from nuclear destruction?

And before someone says “gotch’ya” by pointing at another rinfamous work by Miller, known as the Dark Knight strikes again… I said popular. That comic from the early 2000s was not popular and again NOT referenced much by mainstream media or mainstream fans as good.

Now I will say, Batman as in the mainstream comics at the same time got unfortunately darker to the degree I hinted on when I made this post. Cause the last 15 years were comic wise the time of Morrison, Scott and others in particular. Who were involved in such “brilliant” moves as the Court of Owls story, the introduction of Professor Pyg, turning Joker into a satanic archetype villain stu, Batman having the brilliant idea to go Big Brother Eye, the No Man’s Land shit, having to deal with more brutal murders than previously etc. Yes, mainstream Batman got more violent. But the violence was less in the character itself as more within the world he was part of. Mainstream Batman comics took on a more violent tone than there was before. But ironically, even if Batman had to face more brutal beatdowns and villains, by comparison he is one of the most “kind” characters compared to the ones he faces or even works with. This is a character who had to teach his own son that murder was not okay, cause the kid was raised by an evil murder cult.

And even with the mainstream comics such as Detective Comics and Batman main series becoming darker… they are not pro-fascist or go into that direction. I read a lot of DC in general, not just Batman, and Batman is not going sieg heiling or beating up people because of the color of their skin or because they are poor. When Lex Luthor was president, Batman was one of the main heroes opposing him. Mainstream Batman is beating you up for being a murderer and highly violent criminal with a gimmick, independent of your political agenda. And the writers are also not pro fascist, including even post 2015 Frank Miller.

Yeah. Frank Miller, whose work I am not fond of and who I think is a racist asshole who had things coming for Holy Terror, is not really writing (or at least publishing) racist Batman anymore.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think the guy is bad and I believe if he had a chance to get his opinion out unfiltered, we would be in for a shitstorm. But I actually read up on his Dark Knight 3: The Master Race thing because I was worried how racist that is and how DC would recover from that dud. Turned out… it was not as bad as you would expect with a title like this. The “Master Race” referred in that story to a group of racist kryptonians who thought they should take over earth because their powers made them superior. While Batman was not the most positive character in it, he was fighting against them with many other heroes. This Batman was actually a vast improvement personality wise from Batman in Dark Knight strikes again and All Star. So yeah, Batman written by racist grandfather was still a hero. Granted, I think a lot of that was also thanks to the fact that DC had partnered up Miller with someone who kept things tighter around him, but still. Fascist Batman is not a thing the comics and the majority of fans want.

Ironically, if you want to see how a publisher taints the image of a hero people look up to by making him more racist… well, Dobson’s “praised” and woke Marvel did once something called Secret Empire. Which had Captain America turn into the Fuehrer and taking over America. And the Nazis for a lack of a better word, were “competent” enough in the story that the heroes really only won in parts thanks to a shitton of asspulls. So… yeah.

I mean, the event still ended with the good guys winning and the bad guys defeated, but still.

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#batman #adobsonsartwork #andrew dobson #frank miller #dc comics #this sucks #grimdark #batman and robin #syac #idiocy #fascism

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thedouglastrap · 5 years

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So I binged my way through Meat and Candy tonight. I’m gonna have to go through a reread because...yeah, it’s pretty dang dense. I am SURE i missed things. But I feel like I got a general feel for where both were going on the whole. And you know what? (Spoilers ahead.)

I fucking loved it.

At least, if I can figure out where to start. I guess i’ll start with where I was coming into this: I am not holding my breath too hard for it, but I’m also not 100% sold that this ride is over. Even with just the prologue of the epilogue it feels less like this epilogue is a true ending and, not unlike the Intermissions and Sub-Acts, more like it’s Hussie further playing with the structures used to define the parts of a story. I mean, that we got a prologue to an epilogue feels like that’s not out of the realm of possibility, never mind that V was implying how long it was.

And man, it was long. 43/41 chapters? Roughly 700 pages? Hot damn. It probably didn’t help that I started with Meat, got to Dirk manipulating Rose into joining him, and then stopped to read candy because Dirk basically said that’s what Rose was looking at. Except that I’m super glad that I did that? Like, I know V said that reading one or the other first would make for a different story, but I feel like I got the best of both worlds there? Like, I knew about Dirk’s metatextual fuckery going into Candy, but didn’t know where it would end. So when Alt!Callie shows up talking about the prince, how he had no influence in that universe, i knew where she was going with it, I knew how it tied in.

I guess that made me lose out a bit on Candy, knowing that the war and john’s interpersonal relationships and everything with DaveJadeKat was ultimately a side tangent, but...I feel like that was kinda warned against up from the prologue anyway? And even with that in mind, I still got invested. I was so happy when John and Roxy got together, Dirk’s suicide took on a whole new level of ominous, and when I started feeling more and more like the characters were a bit off, it made sense. I see people saying “Saying it’s intentionally bad doesn’t excuse bad writing, just write something good!”, but...I don’t think it was BAD per se. It was unsettling, sure. It was offputting, definitely. But from an in-universe perspective, we’re getting things on fast forward. Over those chapters we went what, 10-20 years beyond the 5 year timeskip we started with? Like, everyone starts at 23, when for the most part we haven’t had any meaningful interaction with them since they were 16. That’s a huge difference. The only real exception to that, I’d say, is Jane in the snaps, where she’s a corporate headpiece that’s clearly dealing with some issues with the trolls. Hmm, I wonder where that leads?

And then everyone else gets the mix of six years of growth in a strange new world, unresolved mental/emotional issues of all shapes and sizes, AND the increasing distance from canonicity that Rose warned of throwing things off, it’s no wonder people are a bit off, even if certain core elements remain the same. Roxy is the one who’s the most off, but I’d think they’re probably the one of the people most strained by the events of Candy, between the distance with Callie sneaking up on her, Dirk’s suicide, John’s bullshit, and everything else happening around her. Esp her bit at the end about her own growth and reality and stuff. And Jane’s a fascist, but honestly? It was a slow descent that kinda tracked imo. She always had anger issues, she’s prone to ignoring the advice of her friends, iirc she didn’t really seem to have any issue with crockercorp despite its being shady even pre-mind control, and the snaps showed that she’s dealing with intra-species tensions. Was she a junior-fascist in HS? No, but did she have to be? Growth isn’t always positive, m’dudes.

Realistically, my biggest issues with Candy were Gamzee and Vriska. Not their scene together (which was...uncomfortable but managable), but more their just kinda...being there? But the more I think about it (and their scene together), the more that fits as well. It’s Candy, it’s all about character-building fluff that doesn’t necessarily tie in directly to plot stuff.

On to Meat. Oh man, Meat. While Homestuck proper did plenty of things that should be innocuous but ended up being more, I was still floored by just how OMINOUS it was when the narration turned orange. Like, holy crap man. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The loop of everyone entering the juju, coming out, and depositing John alone in the furthest ring ties up that loose end pretty neatly. I was kinda confused at first with it flipping back to the political shenanigans at first. Like, they’re high stakes, but against the context of dealing with LE it seemed off. THEN we hit the dirk reveal and suddenly things go into overdrive. The back and forth between Callie and Dirk was great, and esp with the end of Candy in mind, the manipulations of Dirk just felt...chilling. And that’s the other side of “out of character stuff”. Where Candy was their fading canonicity, Meat is Dirk’s manipulating them into not being who they are. Again, they’re out of character due to outside interference, in this case Dirk trying to make them do what he thinks is best for them. Which was freaky and fucked up and offputting and how could that not be intentional? And then the Johnrezi snuck up on me and oh damn my heart. And Dave’s “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HEAD” moment? Nice.

The real kicker tho is the ending. Like, that cliffhanger...I think that’s my biggest issue with Meat. It’s not character stuff, or plot stuff, or Jade being left comatose and less relevant again (the last one being the only thing that actually bothered me of those). It’s that the ending is DEMANDING followup and there’s no assurance that we’re going to get it. If we don’t actually get anything to follow up, to show where that goes, I am going to be so disappointed. Candy ended...mostly conclusively. The war isn’t over, there’s still conflict, but john’s on his way up, he and Roxy are def on the mend even if they don’t get back together, and it just kinda works. But Meat’s end...there’s no closure, just the call to action. And it’s not like, the end of Animorphs where the cliffhanger is adding a brief moment of action that’s unrelated to what preceeded. It’s a cliffhanger after (for me at least) 190k words of progress.

Also, Holo-Obama (Holobama?) was amazing, that blend of silly and just ominous enough that i can’t help but feel that it implies dirk was working on this plan for a lot longer than expected. And come on, how could Obama be anything but a Hope player?

Edit: got the actual word/pagecount from V’s twitter

#upd8 spoilers #homestuck upd8 #homestuck epilogue #homestuck

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pumpkins-s · 6 years

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Stormbreaker / Coffinmaker

Read On AO3 Here

When Pidge is offered the spot as communications officer for the Kerberos Mission, to accompany her father, and her friend and former classmate Shiro, she’s expecting eight months of quiet, beautiful cosmos, ice samples, and—if she’s lucky—some broadcast signals to support her alien life theories.

She is not expecting to end up the prisoner of a fascistic race of alien cat-lizards hellbent on apparently reenacting the ugliest parts of the Roman empire, down to the massive enslavement and expansion effort and the gladiators as entertainment shtick.

But, if she’s going down, she figures she might as well go down swinging.

(Or, in which Pidge is the third Kerberos member, is decidedly not a damsel in distress who needs protection—thank you very much Shiro—is very much done with this crap, and fully intends to make it home to her little brother, no matter what it takes.)

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Relationships: platonic Pidge & Shiro, Pidge & Matt, Pidge & Sam Holt

Characters: Pidge, Shiro, Sam Holt, Matt Holt, Thace, Ulaz

Rating + Warnings: Rated Teen; trigger warnings include graphic violence, blood, combat, murder, and systematic transphobia on the part of the Galra. I recommend checking AO3, or in my author’s notes under the cut, for a more extensive list.

Stormbreaker was written for the @pidgebigbang, and is accompanied by art from @anime7otaku7artist7.

Chapter 1: Willow

((Author’s Note:

Hello, hello! Welcome to Stormbreaker / Coffinmaker, my fic for the Pidge Big Bang. Developing the concept and storyline for this fic was the work of months (even if I wrote 90% of it in the last two weeks before it was due shhhh), and I'm so pleased to finally be able to share it. I love Pidge and the friendship she holds with Shiro, and I really wanted a chance to explore that in a setting where they were closer to being peers, as well as what her relationship to Matt would be like if she were the older sibling, and hence that (+ my desire to just see Pidge kicking ass as a gladiator) is how Stormbreaker was born.

As always, music played a big part in my writing, and I'd like to take a moment to credit that: I wrote and outlined this fic largely to the work of Barns Courtney and Florence + The Machine, particularly his The Attractions of Youth album and her How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful album, respectively, and the influence of both is definitely there in how the story turned out. The title of this fic was chosen as a nod to two songs that pushed the concept and development of Stormbreaker by leaps and bounds. Of Monster And Men's Winter Sound, and Florence + The Machine's My Boy Builds Coffins. And of course, I can't not mention the song that played the original inspiration for this fic: No Doubt's Just A Girl.

For your listening enjoyment while you read, there's also an actual playlist for this fic (with more than just those previously mentioned couple of artists in it, promise). You can find the tumblr post for it here, with art by the wonderful corpus--corvus, or jump straight to the Spotify or Youtube link.

Before you read, a final warning for the content -- this is a gladiator fic, boys & girls & nonbinary pals. That means violence, blood, injury (Shiro's probably an obvious indication but people do lose limbs), fight to the death scenarios, and murder. People die in this story, and not all of them necessarily deserve it, though rest assured Pidge and Shiro themselves stay (relatively) intact. There's also the presence of underage drinking in a flashback scene, some mentions of the sexual abuse and forced prostitution of slaves within the Empire, and swearing. So much fucking swearing. Additionally, while all relationships are written to be strictly platonic, Shiro and Pidge's longer friendship and view of each other as closer to peers does mean their friendship has an emotional intimacy that wouldn't necessarily be seen in their canon counterparts. They lean on each other for support, quite literally, so if any of that would be a personal squick to you for whatever reason, please look away now.

That's about it! Enormous thanks to the Pidge Big Bang mods for putting this all together, and to my artist, anime7otaku7artist7, for their phenomenal work. Their art is embedded in the story, and you can also find a link to it here.

Stormbreaker is split into eight sections, with the entirety already written out pre posting. Chapters range from about 4-10 thousand words, with the first one being the shortest. It will update every day until its completion (so long as everything with editing and posting goes smoothly on my end, at least. Here's hoping). Enjoy!))

(( Author’s Note [Cont.]:

Willow: Forsaken

The gorgeous title art opening this chapter, while not provided by my official artist for the Pidge Big Bang, is provided by the wonderful corpus--corvus, who put up with months of my ranting about Stormbreaker!Pidge, and generously provided me with both this title art, and coverart for this fic's playlist. Thank you Logan you're a peach.))

Oh I'm just a girl, living in captivity

Your rule of thumb

Make me worry some

Oh I'm just a girl, what's my destiny?

- "Just a Girl", No Doubt

“Careful,” is the first thing Pidge’s father says to her, and she sighs, blowing errant bangs out of her eyes—she knew she should have pinned them back when they were suiting up—as she steadies her arms and inches the ice sample out of the extraction drill.

“Yeah, Pidge, careful,” Shiro says with a grin she can only classify as shit-eating, leaning over the back of the drill with his forearms resting on top.

“I am careful,” she snaps, fully removing the sample and hefting it between her arms. The weight is less than that of Earthen ice of the same mass—which is expected, given the gravity on Kerberos is much lesser than that on Earth. It’s a lucky thing their suits are specially designed and weighted to model Earth’s gravity on their interior, Pidge wouldn’t want to be hopping and stumbling around like the astronauts of her grandparents’ generation.

She hands the sample over to her father carefully, his eyes bright as he studies it. “Extraordinary.”

Pidge glances over at Shiro, who is doing his best to look anything more than politely interested, and smirks. “What? Not impressed?”

Shiro looks down at her, and shrugs ungainly against the bulk of his suit. “You guys get…a little more excited about ice samples than I do. I understand their value, but it’s not exactly my area.”

“Yeah, yeah, motorboy.” Pidge rolls her eyes. “I get it, you’re only interested in things with an engine and that go really fast.”

“That’s—“ Shiro makes a face. “Ok, that’s only partially true. I also like…uh…” He trails off, brows furrowed, and Pidge grins. “…What do I like?” he finally asks, looking to Pidge in askance.

“Uh. Reading? Fixing Keith’s bike?” Pidge counts off on her fingers, squinting down at them. “That’s…you’re really bad at having non-work-related hobbies, dude.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Oh! Me!” Pidge holds up a third finger triumphantly. “You like me!”

Shiro groans. “You’re my best friend, that’s a given—“

“You know what I like?” Pidge says, and then continues on before Shiro has the chance to respond. “I’ll tell you what I like. Motherfucking aliens, that’s what I like, Shiro.”

“And here we go again—“

“And that—“ Pidge points at the ice sample, “could be the key to finally proving their existence, right Dad?”

“Well,” her father says, looking quietly amused as he shifts the sample in his hands. “We certainly can’t rule anything out, all the way out here. And I’d hardly complain if one of these ice samples wanted to come along and solve my life’s—“ There’s a rumble all around them, rock vibrating slightly beneath their feet, and he pauses. “…What was that?”

“Earthquake?” Pidge asks as another rumble starts up, stronger than the last.

“Kerberos-quake?” Shiro mutters behind her, and she turns to tell him just how terrible that was, before the strongest shake yet occurs, throwing her off balance, and she yelps, falling forward.

“Pidge!” She catches herself on Shiro’s outstretched arm. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” She shakes her head, trying to dispel the hair blocking her vision and the vague sense of dizziness she feels. “We should get back to the—“ She stops, caught up in the feeling of something suddenly here, large and looming and right behind her, and slowly turns around as a ship comes into view.

For once, all her knowledge—all her calculations, her observations, her vast vocabulary, abandon her, and she is left with one thought, and one thought only.

That isn’t one of their ships.

“It can’t be…” She hears her father say, but it’s distant, muffled, as if he was underwater, and then all she can focus on is Shiro grabbing desperately at her arm, yanking her along.

“Run. Run!”

She runs.

It’s a rush of sudden sound, sudden movement that seems at odds with the serene stillness expected of space. All she can hear is the roaring noise of whatever is behind them, Shiro’s shouts, her own heavy breathing as she stumbles along in her suit, the previously steadying weight suddenly cumbersome.

There’s a sudden pull behind them, around them, everything lit up purple, and Pidge screams as her feet suddenly leave the ground, flying up into the void of black above them. She hears both of the others yell her name, and she reaches out blindly for something, anything—her father’s blurry form, the outstretched hand she knows is Shiro’s, only to find nothing.

Tractor beam, a detached, scientific part of her mind supplies for her. I’m the smallest, so it’s natural I’d be the first picked up.

Sure enough, one of them—she thinks her father—flies up a moment after, Shiro caught up off the ground last.

They’re both shouting in panic, and Pidge thinks she should be screaming, too. Might already be screaming, or perhaps she’s forgotten to altogether, it’s impossible to tell, right now. She is not in control of the motion of her own body, of her senses.

Debris off the ground, caught up in the beam with them, catches on the side of Shiro’s helmet, scraping along, and she can only pray it hasn’t knocked it loose, hasn’t stolen his oxygen, before another rock slams into her own head.

The last thing she hears as it all goes black is the sound of her own voice tapering off, dying in her throat like a person hanged, condemned and left to die.

…Oh, so she had been screaming.

The night Shiro gets offered the position of pilot for the Kerberos mission, Pidge drags him out drinking.

“Shots!” she announces loudly, placing them down on the bar, and Shiro winces. He’s the one person she knows who gets a headache just from being in a bar. Normally, Pidge would have sympathy, as prone to migraines brought on from stress and lack of sleep as she is, but over time she’s come to accept this is an inevitability of taking Shiro out anywhere fun that isn’t space or flight themed. Luckily, the more alcohol Shiro gets in him, the more he seems to forget about his headache, or his apathy towards bars in general—enough to be willing to repeat the same cycle of misery, ecstasy, and then mild hangovers, occasionally, every few weeks, at least.

“What are those?” He picks one up cautiously, sniffing at it. “Whiskey?”

“Mhmm,” Pidge hums happily, sliding into the stool next to his. “Good brand, too.”

“I think I’ll just order one of those fruity cocktails,” Shiro says with an air of quiet distaste, sliding the shot glass back across to Pidge.

“Weak.” She downs them both, hers first and then Shiro’s, slamming the second empty glass down to the background of his horrified face.

“I don’t know how you do that,” he says, and she sticks her tongue out at him.

Drinking is just one of the many things they do together, but in very different ways. Shiro—perhaps still trying to live down the keg-stand days of his barely-twenties that Pidge remembers sneaking into at seventeen or so all too fondly—doesn’t like anything strong, anything that leaves too much of a burn behind. He finds his preferences in what is sweet, where the alcohol is masked by some more agreeable mix-in.

Pidge, meanwhile, relishes the burn. Chases the chemistry reacting in her own body, the poison her brain somehow just barely sustains, with fascination. Drinking is stupid, objectively. So naturally that only leads to the urge to categorize it, sample every flavor until she understands every urge and every predilection.

She watches Shiro order his cocktail in amusement, and waves her hand when the bartender looks to her. They both know how to take care of themselves—and each other, if they find it necessary. Shiro will sip his fruity drinks, and Pidge will knock back a couple shots before giving it a break and then nursing a beer or some watered down vodka-and-schnapps concoction for the rest of the night.

She’s an experimenter, not an idiot. If she takes it too far, makes herself too sick or poisons herself too permanently, she won’t be able to carry out the next test. She’s the extent of her own sample size, which means she has to make herself last.

“Remember when we were young,” she says languidly, swinging around on her stool and leaning on the bar, head tilting up to watch the ceiling, then Shiro. “And we’d party like the sun wouldn’t come up?”

“I remember going through a bottle of Advil every two months, yeah,” Shiro says dryly. “Besides you’re—I love the way you say that, when we were young. You’re not even legal to drink yet.”

“Shhh.” Pidge waves a hand. “Keep your voice down or you’ll get us kicked out. I worked hard on that I.D., Matt helped me pick the picture.”

“And what a great picture it is,” Shiro offers sarcastically, and Pidge levels a threatening eye at his drink. He pointedly moves it out of her reach, and after a moment, continues. “I still don’t get why you like bars so much. You’re you—I can barely get you out of your room to go to the dining hall.”

“Are you kidding me?” She waves a hand. “Bars are the one place where I can get social stimulus without having to actually talk to or acknowledge anyone beyond the wonderful person providing my drink. It’s an observational heaven. At the Garrison I actually have to make conversation.” She shudders, and Shiro snorts.

“…It still feels weird being out here, with your parents knowing where we go.”

“Joys of being second-gen American,” Pidge says proudly. “Just enough Italian left over where a twenty-one plus drinking age seems like the dumbest thing in the world.”

“I guess.” Shiro wrinkles his nose. “Still just feels weird when my commanding officer knows I go out drinking with his daughter.”

“Shiro, you practically live in our house. You’re in Matt’s elementary school graduation picture, for crying out loud. Bit late for worrying about that sort of thing.” Shiro winces, and Pidge laughs, patting him on the shoulder. “Man. Kerberos. I can’t believe you’ll be locked up with only my dad and some poor communications officer for eight months.” She pauses, and at Shiro’s faintly proud, but still somber look, she grins. “Maybe I should suggest to Dad he bring his zero-gravity specialized Scrabble board along.”

“Oh god,” Shiro groans, dropping his face into his elbow against the bar. “Please, don’t.”

“Doing it,” Pidge says happily. After a long moment, she looks over to Shiro, curling her arms into a pillow on the bar for her to drop her head onto, sighing. “…It’ll be weird, without you here. It was going to be strange enough not having Dad around that long, but at least I’m used to him disappearing off for missions.” Shiro grunts morosely, and she hums. “Always got Matt, I suppose. And Mom. I’ll just spend more time around the house or something. Lucky we live so close.”

Shiro says nothing, stealing the discarded beer bottle of some other long-departed patron, and peeling habitually at the label in one of his little-seen nervous gestures. “It will be weird.” There’s silence again, and Pidge is just starting to wonder if she’s expected to say something, before he continues, quiet and unsure. “You know they haven’t decided on a communications officer yet. You could always…throw your hat in the ring. They’re already worried about team compatibility—with a mission this long, and this important—and everyone knows we work well together.”

“Me?” Pidge snorts. “Please. Even if I wanted to—and I’m not saying I do—they’d never take me. I’m still a cadet.”

“Only while you finish up the last of your engineering credits.” Shiro points out sullenly, still not meeting her eyes. “You’ve been an officially marked communications officer for the better part of a year at this point. And there’s no one better at the job.”

Pidge blinks, surprised at the blunt honesty in his tone. “…You…really want me to apply, don’t you?”

Shiro shrugs, glaring down at the decimated bottle label. “It’d just be—it’d feel weird without you, alright? Like something was missing.”

Almost unconsciously, Pidge reaches across, snatching up the balled-up wrapper, freeing it from Shiro’s wrath and contemplating it, as if it might suddenly give her an answer to this new puzzle.

Of course, looking for solutions in beer bottle wrappers is neither scientific nor logical, so Pidge isn’t very surprised when it offers her none.

“…I guess we do do most everything together, don’t we?” she offers softly. Shiro just shrugs again, avoiding both the answer and her eyes as he sits up and sips awkwardly at his drink. He doesn’t want to pressure her, to suggest her into something she doesn’t want to do. He also doesn’t want to go without her.

He’s always been stupidly good at expressly not talking about his worries, especially when he thinks he’s burdening someone else with them. Luckily for him, while Pidge is no feelings expert, she is a Shiro expert at this point, and very good at determining the logical end point to a problem.

“Yeah, okay,” she says unthinkingly. “Why not?” Shiro turns to look at her, still all kinds of conflicted mixed in with his hope, and she steals his drink easily, downing back the last of it, and when she slams it onto the bar next to the empty shot glasses, it sounds like a promise.

Kerberos. What could go wrong?

It’ll give her an amusing story to tell Matt when she gets rejected, at least.

…We come from a peaceful planet…

Pidge comes to with a quiet gasp and a rush of aching pain along her left temple. She startles just ever so slightly—everything blurry and her suit feeling far, far too heavy for either Kerberos or the conditions of their ship—before the weight of strong hands holding her arms behind her back, and Shiro’s muffled voice pleading somewhere off to her left, come to her attention, and she tenses, stills.

It doesn’t all come back so much in a rush as in a trickle of images, feeding into her brain like a lagging video on a bad connection as her quick, panicked breaths fog up the inside of her visor. The ship, the tractor beam, being dragged up and up and away from Shiro and her father, the sudden crunch of the rock against her skull, all sliding through her mind and clicking into place.

For the first time in a long, long time, Pidge feels true panic grip her, staring down into the abyss of the unknown. She’d come close, in their attempt to flee the inevitable on Kerberos, but had been too caught up in the immediacy of the situation. That was instinctive panic, raw and something close to animal.

This is a panic of exercised consideration. Of weighing up her circumstances and what little information she has available to her and ultimately coming up short—short of a plan, short of an idea, short of even a clue. She has no idea where she is—beyond somewhere she never was supposed to be—who has her, or what is going to happen.

Based on her position and her mode of capture, Pidge can only assume herself and the others are being held captives by a hostile extraterrestrial power. Which is not, she thinks a little hysterically, even remotely fucking close to something the Garrison had prepared them for.

For Pidge, sorting all this out amongst the overwhelmed screeching in her head and the dull throb of pain above her eyes that signals either an impending migraine or a concussion feels like the work of hours. But it must only be moments, because one second Shiro is talking, stammering out a few desperate phrases on their behalf, before there’s a shuffle of movement, and Shiro’s cut-off yelp of pain as something strikes him.

At that she does stir, almost involuntarily jerking against the hold on her to turn and observe, check on Shiro’s condition—he was speaking, which means at least he hadn’t sustained any major head injuries, surely. In response there’s a tightening of the grip on her arms, an increase on the weight pressing down on her back, a boot maybe, and she buckles instinctively, head bowing to the ground and her whole body going taut but unmoving.

Eventually, after some further exchanges of words she can’t muddle out in the confused space of her brain beyond the disbelieving fact that it’s definitely English, the grip holding Pidge shifts, moving as something like handcuffs with a rigid bar between them is shackled onto her wrists. Something takes hold of the bar, and begins to drag her backwards, assumedly out of the room. Rough sliding noises on her left and right are the only indication she has that the same is being done to her father and Shiro, she doesn’t dare look to confirm.

It’s not until they’re moving along some hallway, and the other dragging noises move past and ahead of her, that Pidge dares to tilt her head just slightly up, trying to catch sight of something beyond her own feet scraping along a metal floor.

She can only get glimpses, between long stretches of endless chrome and the shine of purple lighting coming from some undeterminable source. Flashes in windows of huge containment systems, layers upon layers of prisoners crammed into cages and moved about as if building blocks directed by a child. She sees whispers of floors upon floors of moving figures, all discernable only in the same shades of grey and purple, with splashes of red, outsizing any operation she’s ever seen at the Garrison.

She sees torture. She sees order. She sees cruelty. She sees control.

There’s the bark of voices above her head, and she yelps as she is dragged around a corner roughly, the quick turn putting a strain on her arms. But she doesn’t dare fight back, not at the risk of suffering the same fate as Shiro.

Observation is her greatest—her only strength, right now. She must do what she does best, as she does at officer meetings, in Garrison dining halls and classrooms, even in shitty, dim-lit desert town bars.

Pidge watches. She grasps at every piece of data, commits to memory every variable she can spot, and above it all she is left with only one question, buzzing in the back of her dizzied, overwhelmed mind.

Where the hell are we?

#pidge big bang #Stormbreaker / Coffinmaker (Voltron)#my writing #Voltron #vld fanfic

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unhealthy-gif-addiction · 7 years

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My friend’s firsthand Charlottesville experience

One of my friends who wished to remain nameless posted this on facebook today and because they doesn’t have a tumblr I got their permission to post it here. All names of people associated with them personally are fake.

So begins their post:

Content and trigger warning: Charlottesville, Nazism, severe violence, terrorism, white supremacy.

**** So here's my very lengthy piece (roughly 6 pages) of writing describing what I experienced in Charlottesville. This piece was tough for me to write at times but I feel like it's necessary both for my own mental health and for others to get at least a glimpse at what I experienced. I am sharing this with everyone as a way to try and dispel some of the myths and unknowns about what happened as well as allow myself to fully process what happened. Please note I used the term Nazis sparingly but keep in mind that the right wing protesters, whether they openly support Nazis and/or National Socialism, they were standing with those who openly do call themselves Nazis, wave Nazi flags, wear Swastikas, and give the Nazi salute. Included with this post I've added some images to help give people an idea of how and where things happened. The first is a google earth look at where the main protest/counter protest occurred. For reference, the terrorist attack occurred past point A, away from the park by about 4-5 blocks. I would really appreciate it if everyone was respectful of this post as sharing this experience and getting it all out means a lot to me. Thanks.****

At about 8:30am Frank and I arrived in Charlottesville to the sight of police on nearly every street corner. Traffic was being rerouted, streets were shut down and there were hundreds of people everywhere. We drove around a bit, trying to get our bearings in the city as well as get an idea of where counter protesters were meeting. We parked a few blocks away, napped for a short amount of time as we had driven through the night, loaded up our backpacks with water and medical supplies and left to join the counter protesters. We arrived in the park to the welcome of the Socialist Gun Club and Redneck Revolt. Despite whatever your preconceived notions of these groups I assure you these men and women are heroes. Not even 20 minutes after we arrived about 30-40 men dressed in khakis and white polos (later Identified at Identity Europa) were marching down the street in our direction. They were carrying long metal flag poles, pipes, and picket signs. They clearly looked like they were ready to stir up trouble but after seeing the SGC and RR guarding each entrance to the park, they quickly turned around and left. Inside the park there was a lot going on. There were about three tents set up with people passing out free water, snacks, basic medical supplies, and giving medics red tape crosses to designate them to others. My friend and I began to mingle with the various groups, asking where they were from, what their beliefs were on various issues facing the world, and generally getting to know the other people that had gathered here for the same cause. During this mingling time, Frank and I talked with members of IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) and shook hands with a few of the members, not knowing we would be attending the vigil of one of them before the day was over.

At about 10am shouts were heard to gather up into a group and begin moving towards Emancipation Park (formally Lee park, where the statue of General E Lee was being stood up for). When our group of counter protester approached the park where protesters were camped out, we peacefully (but certainly not quietly) gathered around the block. The protesters standing in the park had formed a line of people with homemade and DIY shields (this can be seen by the red line on the map). Protesters were only allowed into about half of the park as the rest of the park and surrounding areas were blocked off and guarded by Virginia State Police (marked as the green on the map).

Our shouts and chants were returned with mostly equal shouting. This went on for about 20 to 30 minutes with both sides shouting obscenities and chants towards the other. “Go home f*******” was responded with “We're here. We're gay. We fight the KKK”. Other popular chants were “Follow your leader, kill yourselves!” and “No Trump. No Pence. No KKK. No fascist USA”. All the while the right-wing protesters attempted to stir up violence by pushing, and pepper spraying or blowing airhorns into the faces of those who got too close to their lines. Cheap plastic water bottles, tomatoes, and water balloons filled with bright paint (mostly pink, light blue-green, and other colors typically regarded as “girly” colors) were thrown from the counter protesters, but nothing that would be able to cause any real harm. The aim was to humiliate.

After a while of this going on I heard shouts from throughout the crowd that TWP (Traditionalist Workers Party) was arriving. There began to be calls and shouts to form a line to block off the street. Rushing over, we quickly formed 3-4 rows of people, locked arms, and refused to move (marked as point A on the map). We did this to show that we were, first and foremost, standing in a non-violent way. Local clergy men and women joined in our show on non-violence but unfortunately our attempt at non-violence was quickly met with violence. Approximately 10-12 members of the TWP and Southern Nationalists armed with "civilian" riot shields grouped together, charged their way through our lines of locked arms, and in the instants following, sprayed mace, knocked people to the ground and grouped up on them to beat them, broke flag poles, and in general pushed their way through the lines of counter protesters with complete disregard for the fact we stood non-violently. I, along with others, responded to this quickly escalating violence by jabbing flag poles and picket signs into the gaps of their shields towards the individuals who were actively assaulting other counter protesters. Other protesters used pepper spray, threw loose objects, and used other personal defense items. The riot shield wielding demonstrators spread out, pushing people to the ground and beat our people with their shields attempting to scatter us. This tactic proved successful in allowing their group to pass into the park where the rest of the right-wing demonstrators were. While this went on, large unarmed men filled in their gaps pushing people to the ground, kicking and punching their way through the crowd. Meanwhile, during all of this violence, VSP stood behind nearby metal barricades and watched, already armed with their own riot gear, without even reacting to the violence unfolding in front of them. I believe VSP's failure to act here set the precedent for the rest of this rally. Seeing that they could get away with this initial level of violence, the demonstrators kept pushing their limits on what would be allowed by law enforcement, eventually leading to the violence of Alex Field's attack.

In the following hour, the now unified right wingers would gather up behind a line of both DYI shields and "civilian" riot shields, throw water bottles, broken cups and mugs, glass bottles, and eventually rocks, broken pieces of pavement, and tear gas canisters. All of the above, except for the rocks and broken pavement, were thrown back by counter protesters. I was given and handful of water balloons by a counter protester and was told they had "Mostly paint but also a little bit of a Jewish Comrade's piss in them". Meanwhile, again, VSP stands idly by. Small exchanges of pepper spray from both sides were present throughout all of this.

After dozens of counter protesters had to fall back to get help from medics and 2 having to be carried back by groups, one of which I helped to drag back to medics, counter protesters started to call for moving into the park. As we did Nazis began ripping up newspaper stands and trashcans from the ground and pushing them down the steps at us. One counter protester responded by picking up the nearest newspaper stand and hurling it back. This didn't deter most, as counter protesters advanced. But here's the best part; as soon as our front line made it actually into the park, the VSP began firing blanks into the air and announced that it was no longer a legal assembly and that everyone had to vacate the park. “This has now been deemed an unlawful assembly by the state of Virginia. Please leave the park and surrounding streets immediately or you will be arrested” was blasted from a megaphone from behind the line of riot police. As soon as this announcement was made, without a moment of hesitation or a moment to clear out, VSP fired cannisters of tear gas into the surrounding streets. While counter protesters were being tear gassed, KKK and TSP leaders, David Duke Grand Wizard included, along with a handful of others who were not on the front lines, were safely escorted out by VSP officers in riot gear using streets that police had shut down.

The right wingers that chose to stay in the park we're eventually pushed to a back corner of the park by undeterred counter protester. This was when I witnessed a man in a suit coat embroidered with a Trump Pepe and crying Bernie Wojack meme as well as a MAGA colonial style hat get in the face of counter protesters by shouting and pushing. One counter protester attempted to steal his hat but was pushed back. This gave an opportunity to a counter protester with pepper spray to spray him from less than 2 feet away. With one of the more prominent protesters having to be helped out of the park to receive medical attention, most of the other right wing demonstrators left the park. The remaining demonstrators formed lines to push back on the now advancing riot police. After about ten minutes of attempted push back and scattered attempts at reasoning and bargaining with riot police, the remaining right wingers let loose onto the streets. I, along with a handful of other counter protesters, followed the last handful of demonstrators as the left the park and followed them up until they entered a street that was guarded by BOTH a group of armed right wing protesters and police (marked as point B on the map). This is where the cooperation between demonstrators and police became absolutely obvious.

It was about this time that the officer manning the loud speaker announced that a state of emergency had been declared. I left the area surrounding the park and headed into the downtown area to join the main crowd of counter protesters. Roughly 40 local police officers had begun lining up in front of a nearby Wells Fargo leaving VSP and riot police to hold down Emancipation Park (the park where the demonstrators were defending the statue of General E. Lee). With all of law enforcement preoccupied, and the Wells Fargo secure, the angry right wingers who just had their rally broken up flooded onto the streets, forming small groups harassing and assaulting lone counter protesters. This was when I witnessed a black man being beaten on the ground by two twenty-something white males in khakis, white polos, and white construction hats. A fellow counter protester rushed up, wielding a black collapsible baton and shouted “Get out of here!” They stopped attacking the man on the ground but didn't leave. At this time 2 officers entered the alleyway from behind the men in white. They rushed over, got in between the two grounds and ushered the two now cooperative men in white into a nearby business. As witnesses to the crime we stayed around waiting to see the men be arrested (it's all about small victories). About 5 minutes later the doors of the business were opened and the two men were walking out, without handcuffs, and without police. They were very obviously let to go free. With this lack of oversight by law enforcement and counter protesters leaving, this allowed the crowd of counter protesters to be an easy target while crossing the street. Not only did this chaos in the streets give way to the attack by James Fields, about 3-4 blocks from where I was at the time, but there was also a pick up truck driving dangerously close to counter protesters on the sidewalk with 5 right wingers wearing white construction helmets, swinging metal poles and a board of plywood at anyone who got too close. Since then I have seen that 2 people were eventually hospitalized by these individuals.

The majority of counter protesters at this point regrouped at our original meeting place to seek medical attention for those who needed it and warn everyone that people had been struck by the vehicle. Everyone was asked to leave the main gathering only in groups and not to loiter on sidewalks.

From there I heard a rumor that they had gathered at a different park across town. I walked roughly 2 ½ miles to where they were with a small group for safety, realized there was no counter protest presence and immediately left as I did not want to be in a place where we were severely outnumbered. There I met up with a group of locals also checking out their gathering and headed back.

A few hours later we were attending the vigil service for the woman killed. This was an extremely moving experience knowing that any one of us could have been targeted. Dozens of people brought flowers, lit candles and laid them on a picture of Heather Heyer. While this emotional service was going on and individuals were speaking, 3 Nazis made their way into the crowd trying to stir up issues at a vigil service for a woman their side had killed. If I haven't made my disdain for these groups clear enough already, FUCK NAZIS! I knew that these people clearly had no conscience from their use of extreme violence on protesters that clearly were not acting aggressively, but to show up at a vigil service for someone not even 3 hours dead was a new level of low that I've never experienced from another human being. I typically regard myself as someone who has faith in other humans, that at our core we are all good people and if given the choice, the majority will do the right thing, but this experience really and truly has truly shaken this part of my world view. I will not say fully broken or truly made me loose hope that people can and will do the right thing. I say this solely because in the face of true fascists organizing and killing people in our position, I heard words like “I didn't come all the way from New York to be safe!” and “As a member of this community I have to stand up and show these people these people are not welcome here”.

Through my time on the internet I thought I knew how despicable and hateful humans could be, from the pictures and videos of the worst of the worst of humanity, the praising of such despicable figures like Hitler, and the insensitive attacks based solely on someone's race or background; but to have this level of outright inhuman disrespect stare me straight in the eyes and not falter, was a completely new experience to me. I will never be able to fully convey what it felt like to stand up against the extermination of races and sexual orientations and have someone so violently oppose you to the point of literal murder. Part of me hopes that most of you never have to go through something like this, but the other half of me thinks that if you never have had this experience, you will never understand why I would absolutely go back to another rally like this. We tried non-violence, but in order for non-violence to work, your enemy must have a conscience. These people do not.

As for who is to blame and how do we handle things going forward? Firstly I will absolutely point the finger for Heather Heyer's death at VSP. Their unwillingness or choosing not to step in to control the violence from the right wing protesters, that they knew would be coming, allowed the violence to keep escalating which eventually led to the death of Heather. I have heard claims that they choose not to step in because they were not armed well enough, to which I call BS. Not only were they equipped with riot gear but there were people without any form of self defense in the middle trying to stop it. Cops are trained to handle these kinds of situations but normal citizens were acting more bravely than cops if that statement is true. As for moving forward, I hope that this violence is not repeated but my gut tells me that this is only the beginning. Multiple nazis have been recorded on camera saying that this is not the end of the violence and that they are just getting started. Intolerance can not be fought with tolerance as much as I wish it was true. I think we need a variety of tactics from civilians to both publicly humiliate, shame, and out these people. However, if you believe that these forms of non-violence alone will work, try using your glitter or paint to stop nazis with riot shields from charging at you. We need individuals who are prepared to stand up to violence AND we need people who are there to help identify and shame these people. Through this combination, I feel like we can both stand up to their violence and also make sure these people don't have jobs.

In all, to fully sum up my experience in Charlottesville, I feel like the most appropriate summation is something that a speaker and activist said at Heather Heyer's vigil.

"The police are paid for with our tax dollars. They are here to serve and protect the public and the only thing they've done today for the public was to knock on someone's door and tell them that their child isn't coming home tonight. I know that you and I are on the right side of history and I ask you to stand proud for being here and standing up for what you believe is right. As many have said before me: 'Mourn for the dead, and fight like hell for the living.'"

#tw charlottesville #tw nazism #tw violence #tw terrorism #tw white supremacy

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lehdenlaulu · 8 years

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Buddy do all star wars asks 😉

Do you hate me, perhaps? :D Oh god, I’ll try.

Favorite movie(s)

I’ll narrow it down to two: Empire Strikes Back and The Force Awakens.

Favorite Clone Wars episode(s)

Never watched it. *dodges rocks and datapads and lightsabers*

Favorite Rebels episode(s)

Rise of the Old Masters, Ghosts of Geonosis and Twilight of the Apprentice off the top of my head.

Favorite soundtrack(s)

A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and The Force Awakens

Favorite lightsaber duel(s)

Rey vs. Kylo, Vader vs. Ahsoka on Rebels, Obi-Wan & Qui-Gon vs. Maul.

Favorite planet(s)

Yavin 4 is a moon, I know, but I love it. Malachor. Tython. Lots of others I can’t think of right now.

Favorite light side character(s)

Narrowing this down to Force users, and far as this can be said with (reasonable) certainty: Luke Skywalker, Rey, Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi. And Jolee Bindo and Satele Shan from the Old Republic stuff.

Favorite dark side character(s)

As much as I want to kick Kylo in the face, he’s a really cool, well-crafted character. Dooku was also pretty cool (I mean, Sir Christopher Lee, duh). And ahh, Kreia/Darth Traya! The scariest Sith Lord of them all.

Favorite non-force sensitive character(s)

I subscribe to the ‘everyone is more or less Force sensitive’ line of thinking but in absence of canon confirmation: Han, Chewie, Lando, Wedge Antilles, the original Rogues... (I’d say Finn and Poe, but I think they both are Force sensitive - though that too is still speculation.)

Favorite side character(s)

I already mentioned Wedge, but... Galen and Lyra Erso, Admiral Ackbar, Mon Mothma, Nien Nunb, Jessika Pava (and the rest of the Black Squadron tbh)...

Favorite droid(s)

BB-8! R2-D2! K-2SO! HK-47! T3-M4!

Favorite clone trooper(s)

I honestly only know them from Rebels, so I gotta say Rex.

Favorite bounty hunter(s)

I don’t know Sana Starros very well yet, being only one album into the comics, but she seems awesome. Mira from KotOR 2, Brand from Twilight Company.(No, not that big a fan of Boba Fett, no.)

Favorite scene(s)

Oh god. Off the top of my head a random favourite: Rey’s introduction. Minutes of just her going about her day, no dialogue, only the lovely soundtrack.

Favorite line(s)

“Never. I'll never turn to the Dark Side. You have failed, Your Highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me.”

Funniest moment(s)

I’ve said this before, but every time Han tries to act cool/self-assured and Chewie just acts thoroughly unimpressed.

Saddest moment(s)

Hmm. Qui-Gon’s death. Luke and Leia’s talk about their family in RotJ. Rey realizing she has waited in vain. Kylo killing Han.

Most badass moment(s)

Luke defying the Emperor. Luke and Shara rescuing the Force trees (and him just casually flicking the grenades back at the Imps etc.) Poe’s absurd heroics in the Battle of Takodana (seriously, 10 TIEs in 16 seconds, plus sniping the troopers from around Han and Finn and Chewie). Finn finding the courage to face Kylo, and Rey finishing the job by thoroughly kicking Kylo’s ass.

Favorite lightsaber color(s)

Personally, I’m partial to yellow ones, but blues are lovely too. Plus Mace’s special snowflake purple one. :D

Favorite spaceship(s)

Ebon Hawk! And the Falcon, of course. Ghost is nice too, and Hera’s Phoenix. I also love Black One and Thrawn’s Chimaera.

OTP/Brotp/Ot3/Notp(s)

Ultimate (br)ot3 is Luke, Han and Leia, of course. Rey, Poe and Finn and Jyn, Cassian and Bodhi are in the same category. Not in it for romance, really, and I generally don’t have super strong feelings about the ships, but Jyn and Cass have been my favourite canon ship so far, and I like the idea of Poe and Rey because they’d just get along so well.

Only Notp I can really think of is Kylo/Rey (she deserves better than that evil crackpot even if they’re not related), though Anakin/Padmé always personally gave me the creeps as well (I’m not sure if it was the bad writing/acting, or if I was supposed to feel that way).

Worst character(s)

Worst in what sense? Kylo wins at being an evil loser, Boba Fett wins at being boring and overrated. *shrug*

Jedi, Sith, or Grey Jedi

I always side with the Jedi, though there have been periods in the history of the Order that I haven’t always approved of. I’m intrigued by the hints of bringing back the Grey Jedi, though.

Movies or shows

Movies are the primary canon to me, but my favourite SW story generally speaking is still Knights of the Old Republic II. So in a way, neither? :p

Clone Wars or Rebels

Rebels, though I know I should watch the Clone Wars too.

Canon or Legends

Overall I prefer the new canon, especially now that they’re bringing back some of my favourite elements from the Legends.

Clone troopers or Stormtroopers

Stormtroopers, just because I find people willingly (more or less anyway) serving fascist regimes more interesting from a psychological point of view.

Prequel trilogy/Clone Wars era, Rebels/original trilogy era, or sequel trilogy era

I love the Rebellion era in general, but I’m also very excited about the sequel era and eager to learn more.

Underrated moment(s)

I always say this: everything Luke ever does. :p Also, the way Rey’s eyes well up in wonder when she sees The Island.

Unpopular opinion(s)

- I already mentioned Boba Fett, but I’ve also always found Vader/Anakin kinda boring. *dodges blasters and holocrons and kyber crystals* Which is the main reason why Clone Wars never appealed to me all that much (that, and my disappointment in the prequels).’

- Also, I don’t think there needs to be a major romance in the sequel trilogy, and that is apparently anathema in some fan circles. :p (And well, it’s also rather unpopular to root for Poe x Rey if there has to be one.)

There, all done. I’m sure I forgot a lot, though. :D

#Darna talks SW #SW meme #Star Wars #18tpaz #q and a

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willreadforbooze · 4 years

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Hey everyone!!

Sam’s Update

Ginny and I have begun packing and it has hit me JUST how many books I’ve acquired over the last five years. I had three boxes hiding under my bed and in my closet, several stacks of books on the floor, and four bookshelves. Packing is giving me anxiety.

What Sam Finished:

Where Dreams Descend by Janella Angeles: I picked this up at ALA when it was pitched to me as Moulin Rouge meets Phantom. I needed it my life. I suggest going in to this rather blind, the story starts with a twist and it’s best that way. It’s rather slow, this book, but I am enjoying it for what it is =).

What Sam is Currently Reading:

Shielded by KayLynn Flanders: I am only about 10% through this, From what I can tell, this main character princess isn’t supposed to have magic, she’s had to hide the telltale white stripe of hair. Turns out she’s being sold off by her dad for troops to defend the northern border. She’s not there yet, but my take is she’s going to fall in lurve with this prince guy.

Nocturna by Maya Motayne: This is a Spanish-inspired fantasy story. Emil has become the crown prince after his brother was magic’d away during an attempted coups. He seems to think that he’ll be able to come back, but everyone else is like… nah. There’s the thief chick who can change her face. And the cousin/best friend who’s pissed at Emil. Anyway, BFF accidentally ingests poison, Emil makes a deal with a mysterious magic voice to save him in exchange to release the thing. Now SUPER SCARY DARK MAGIC is out in the universe, and the three of them are teaming up to get rid of it. Duh.

Ginny’s Update

I had a good reading week.

What Ginny Finished:

The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman: This book talked a lot about confidence; it’s history, rise to “popularity,” and the science behind it. Like a lot of books like this, I felt the last chapter was overly long, and the examples could get a little tiresome (here’s an awesome, oh wait, she’s not always confident? Who could have known). But overall I got a lot out of this book.

Weekends at Bellvue by Julie Holland: Man, I find myself really conflicted about this book. Julie Holland details her time working on the weekends in the Bellvue psych ward. As a warning this book uses a lot of harmful and ableist language. I find it a little hard to trust a doctor who uses that language so casually. I do think this book goes into some important lessons about the ways that mentally ill people are treated, and how everyone is deserving of respect. Just, really shocking to have that in one moment and a slur in a another.

What Ginny is Currently Reading:

Infinity Son by Adam Silvera: This is a world with superpowers, where the two main characters are brothers and one gets powers and the other one doesn’t. Of course the one with the powers doesn’t want them. Also they are similar to powers stolen using the blood of magical creatures… This book could definitely go some fun places. I think a lot of it will be both of the brothers learning things about themselves (how vague can I get).

Beyond Shame by Kit Rocha: This book is wild from the very start. I’m not super into the insta-connection, but the cast of characters is pretty interesting, and this is set in a world that had been destroyed by solar flares. Pretty light, fun stuff.

Minda’s Update

What Minda is reading now:

The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins – Our girl Katniss has found herself in the middle of the rebellion, whether she wanted it or not. No progress this week since we’re doing a book/movie watch thing and haven’t watched the third movie yet.

What Minda finished:

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey – Are you a coward or are you a librarian? This near-future pulp Western is full of bandits, fascists, and queer librarians. I really enjoyed this book—the romance was cute.

Until next time, we main forever drunkenly yours,

Sam, Ginny, and Minda

Weekly Wrap-Up: July 5 – 12, 2020 Hey everyone!! Sam's Update Ginny and I have begun packing and it has hit me JUST how many books I've acquired over the last five years.

#Wrap Up

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democratsunited-blog · 6 years

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NYT Pens Laziest Possible Takedown of Democratic Socialism - July 9, 2018

https://uniteddemocrats.net/?p=5614

NYT Pens Laziest Possible Takedown of Democratic Socialism - July 9, 2018

Two weeks after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez‘s surprise victory over a low-profile yet powerful 10-term incumbent, she’s become a symbol of the bottom-up, post-Bernie transformation of the Democratic Party. It feels premature, but it’s not. Having beaten the reasonably progressive machine pol Joe Crowley in the June primary, she’s now running in an overwhelmingly Democratic district that encompasses parts of Queens and the Bronx — it backed Clinton over Trump by 77-20 — she’s virtually assured of victory over token Republican opposition in the November general.

In four months, Ocasio-Cortez will become the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, and she will have done so on a platform of democratic socialism, calling for a carbon-neutral energy system in less than 20 years, the abolition of ICE, free college tuition, and a $15 living wage.

Naturally, this has brought out the laziest, more condescending possible regurgitations of conventional wisdom, about how she only won because she promised “free stuff” or how the only thing that propelled her victory was tribalism (i.e., she’s of Puerto Rican descent, and her majority-Latino district finally voted against its entrenched white-male incumbent for that reason alone). None of that is true. In fact, the areas of Ocasio-Cortez’s future district that voted for her most strongly are ones with diverse populations. And if anyone’s doling out free stuff, it’s the Republican Party, whose giant vortex of red ink masquerading as some sort of tax reform will punch us all in the nose sometime in the next few years.

But over the weekend, The New York Times‘ Bret Stephens penned what might be the ultimate in wrote-it-with-one-eye-open-while-brushing-his-teeth concern trolling. In “Democratic Socialism Is Dem Doom,” Stephens launches an intellectually indefensible broadside against Ocasio-Cortez that goes out of its way to mischaracterize her as a neophyte who has no idea what she’s saying or doing. Yes, she’s 28 and until recently tended bar in the Bronx, but she’s also a runner-up in the Intel Science Fair who interned with Sen. Ted Kennedy, founded a publishing firm, and holds a degree in economics from Boston University. Stephens, a climate-change skeptic and neocon whom the NYT hired away from the Wall Street Journal‘s conservative op-ed page in a bizarre effort to diversify itself post-Trump, mentions none of this.

Calling her program “hemlock for the Democratic Party,” and arguing that ” ‘Democratic socialism’ is awful as a slogan and catastrophic as a policy” Stephens says that it always leads to disaster. Which disasters? He ticks off three obscurities: Israel in the 1980s, India in 1991, and Sweden in 1992. In other words, Stephens can’t furnish an example of a financial crisis from the last 25 years that can be attributed to democratic socialism, although two very large ones come to mind. The Great Recession of 2007-08 started as a housing crisis and grew into a massive banking catastrophe that nearly took down the world economy because financial institutions were essentially writing their own regulations, and the European debt crisis that grew out of it worsened after German Chancellor Angela Merkel insisted on dosing those profligate Greeks and Spaniards with some heavy-handed austerity.

After two colossal failures of neoliberal capitalism in a decade, is it any wonder that young people clamor for change or that people respond to it with enthusiasm?

It’s almost as if… my platform advances policies… that are already proven to work! 🤔

– Social Security (lift the cap) – Medicare (for all) – Tuition-Free K-12 schools (& higher ed) – Federally mandated minimum wage ($15)

They aren’t all my ideas. But they ARE good ideas! pic.twitter.com/2tOLgCkj34

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) July 8, 2018

Stephens then trots out the boogeyman du jour, Venezuela, ostensibly because a decent wage for working Americans is the road to Carácas. Never mind that Venezuela is an authoritarian petrostate with endemic corruption whose former strongman, Hugo Chavez, initially won election as a reaction by desperate people against a cosseted upper class. (Never mind also that he survived a U.S.-backed coup and that his successor is an erratic kook with no respect for rule by law, and who thinks he communes with Chavez in the form of a little songbird.) What’s happening in Venezuela is tragic, but if conservative columnists worry about American decline, they should probably theorize about different avenues of corruption-fueled collapse right about now.

The temptation is to do a line-by-line run-down of Stephens’ fatuous comparisons and overall foolishness. “Fisking,” they used to call it, back in the circa-2004 golden age of blogging. That’s annoying and heavy-handed and I’m not going to do it. But apart from howlers like Stephens calling the U.S. welfare state “robust” — seriously? — the fundamental problem with this column is its insincerity. Why should anyone take a conservative seriously when they proclaim that this or that is good or bad for the Democratic Party? Why should we believe what they say? Desperate to delegitimize a fresh new adversary as a trendy frivolity unaware of the danger of her ideas, Stephens ignores two ways in which Ocasio-Cortez threatens the money-choked power structure: her refusal to accept corporate funding, and her eagerness to rebuild a decimated Democratic Party.

If you think the GOP is terrified of my politics now, just wait until they find out about public libraries.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) July 5, 2018

Try to read these two sentences without shuddering at the smugness and borderline-incomprehensibility: “If Trump is the new Nixon, the right way to oppose him isn’t to summon the ghost of George McGovern. Try some version of Bill Clinton (minus the grossness) for a change: working-class affect, middle-class politics, upper-class aspirations.”

What exactly does that last phrase even mean, and how does it not apply to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? Didn’t we literally just try another middle-of-the-road, aspirational Clinton like 20 months ago and end up in a fascist dystopia? The New York Times paints itself into this corner a lot, because its house brand of “conservative” tends to be a glib, contrarian Never-Trumper-lite who occupies the outermost boundary of acceptability to its liberal readership. They’re never going to hire an Eric Erickson or a Milo Yiannopoulis — which is good, because people that malevolent don’t deserve any more media oxygen. But, however regrettably, such figures are much closer to the soul of contemporary conservatism, in all its fact-free xenophobia and noxiousness. So in its endless pursuit of ideological balance, the Times defaults to predictable socialist-bashing. The same centrists and guardians of savvy who demand Trump be given a chance or the benefit of the doubt are on the attack like never before. Why? Because the idea that the rules may be rewritten to favor the less powerful, the young, the non-white is gaining strength.

70 years ago: Jobs Guarantee, Universal Healthcare & Housing as a Right were all championed by the President of the United States.

In fact, our campaign incorporates the legacy of 2 US Presidents.

FDR‘s Economic Bill of Rights includes Right to Education, Fair Income & more. https://t.co/OTMaXmiENA

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) July 7, 2018

The Times‘ failure to notice Ocasio-Cortez until after she won the primary was so egregious that deposed former editor-in-chief Jill Abramson scolded the paper in no uncertain terms. And now it’s coming for her. But poorly argued socialist-bashing that consists entirely of alarmism tinged with I-can’t-believe-I-even-have-to-explain-this impatience reveals only one thing: fear. It’s the inverse of the fear that seizes progressives when we see Nazis marching with torches and children in cages. So welcome to the club, Bret Stephens! We invite you to show us a way out of this mess that doesn’t involve restoring power and prestige to the very people and institutions that have caused such intractable poverty and mass disillusionment.

Meanwhile, and tentatively speaking, the politics of the youthful Ocasio-Cortez, who was born four days before the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, represent a viable, alternative path. Without causing her shoulders to buckle under the weight of all our hopes and our expectations before she even takes office, every single person with reservations about Trumpism should cheer her on — if only to see how the experiment turns out. The Bret Stephenses of the world can tut-tut about the naivete of optimism and change all they want. But just because you’re convinced a better world than this is not even possible doesn’t mean you’re the only adult in the room.

Read full story here

#Democrats

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