#and the original critique was not commentary on your moral politics

[cuntylittlesalmon]

i’m finding it really hard to take more media discourse seriously right now because a lot of it tends to be hinder by emotional fragility. the “if something make me feel this type of way (namely the escapist, or the horny) it is inherently above criticism, and any attempts to critique (even if said critique is coming from a place of endearment) is an attack on my morality” stuff.

[transmutationisms]

I don't necessarily disagree with your take on David Lynch but I feel like at least part of Twin Peaks is about deconstructing or questioning the myth of the idyllic small town, like everyone in Twin Peaks has a dark secret, most of the men were abusing or complicit in abusing a teenage girl, etc. and the Return to me is about showing that it's kind of fundamentally impossible to return to that glamorized nostalgic past. I could totally be missing something though.

wow ok this was my most controversial david lynch statement yet... so first of all i disagree that there's any tension between the kind of conservative nostalgia i see in lynch's work, and the idea that the past is impossible to return to. in fact i think that kind of lament is pretty central to quite a lot of reactionary rhetoric: it's that emotional appeal of, look what we've lost / damaged / destroyed forever. it doesn't need to be a coherent political platform because it's an appeal on the grounds of pathos.

anyway if i can just quote from my own post lol:

i simply cannot read the series in any way besides as being deeply conservative lol. this becomes especially clear to me in 'the return’, which is largely motivated by a narrative of the loss of american innocence (the double r subplot, the numerous instances of drugs and violence tearing nuclear families apart, the encroachment of electricity and processed snack foods and gambling, &c). but this viewpoint is seeded too throughout the first season-and-change of the original series, and fwwm; because what was laura palmer if not the series’s first use of rape as metonymous for what lynch sees as a broader process of social breakdown and irreversible change? i understand that some people try to read bob and laura as a critique of the family, in the sense that the violence comes through the father, but i don’t think this reading holds even in the original series and it certainly doesn’t after part 8 of 'the return’, in which bob is explicitly and directly invoked in reference to the bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki, here construed as an originary act of american evil.

i think in david lynch’s mind, the spiritual forces and influences in the show are literal and apolitical, and frequently he seems to mean to depict them more as sources of artistic inspiration than anything else ('twin peaks’ is in many ways a tv show about making a tv show, hence the double use of electricity throughout 'the return’ and fwwm, in particular). but i find this really irritating frankly, because it’s at best ignorant of the inherently political nature of the constructions of small-town americana, teenage innocence, violence as an act of moral corruption, and so forth—and also because, after the return, it’s simply impossible to deny that the show’s overarching narrative IS plugged in to political and historical lines of critique. like, i am not trying to 'force’ a reading that deals with us imperialism—lynch put the show on this discursive terrain explicitly and deliberately, through not just the bomb footage and the penderecki threnody but also the inversion of classic symbols of american 'greatness’ (the unlucky penny, the evil lincoln impersonator), culminating again in the violation of a young girl’s body by the forces of evil. what this all adds up to is the invocation of american empire as a kind of universal moral struggle, stripped of its historical specificity or even the barest pretense of material critique or commentary. if it sounds like i’m asking too much of network television… i mean, maybe i am, but again, these were deliberate choices lynch made and specific historical events he invoked on purpose, lol. see also the jacoby trump commentary in 'the return’ (cringe and yawn).

i’m not a lynch scholar but i do think there’s a tension throughout his work (what i’ve seen) between the desire to make art about what he sees as the purely spiritual process of making art (heavily informed by his own TM beliefs), and the conservative elements that creep in anyway, noticeable especially in his commentary on american history, corruption, modernity, &c. the idea of any pure, transcendent, apolitical spiritual dimension of human existence is itself, i would argue, at best a misguided conservative fantasy, and 'twin peaks’ ultimately shows these cracks more blatantly than some of his other work (say, 'inland empire’) because it tries to subordinate the material to the spiritual in a kind of fantastical historical parable. but, you can see this recurring tension throughout his filmography, eg, the loss of small-town innocence ('blue velvet’) and a kind of generalised modernity anxiety ('eraserhead’, though taken on its own this one would permit other readings depending on how you interpreted the role of german expressionism in it).

i don’t think lynch is an ideologue or even considers himself particularly political, but nevertheless his narratives do idealise a certain conservative vision of post-war america, mourn its loss, and wax nostalgic for its perceived ethos (& it’s not a coincidence lynch is/has been a reaganite, lol). anyway, i thought 'twin peaks’ had some really incredible moments of visual artistry (part 8 of 'the return’, for example!) and i found much of it frankly beautiful and compelling to watch. so, i don’t mean any of this to dismiss lynch as a filmmaker—he is, if nothing else, highly technically adept.

[communistkenobi]

Now that Succession is over I’ve been reflecting more and more on the fandom that sprung up around it. When I made this post I had Succession in mind, but it was too large of a sidebar to get into, so now I’m making a separate post.

And before I get into anything, both in anticipation of being yelled at and so I don’t have to constantly inserts caveats into every paragraph: this is not a universal or comprehensive description of how people interact with Succession in a fandom setting online, but rather my experience with it on tumblr and the experience of watching my friends interact with it. Additionally, this diagnosis of a narrow slice of the Succession fandom is not a moral or intellectual damnation of anyone who ships characters or whatever. I am talking to myself publicly on my own blog and this post is a sequel to the post I linked at the top, and so the primary focus of this is going to be about the “methods problem” within fandom that I outlined in that original post. If anything, this is an invitation to reflect on your own experiences and extend/adapt/critique the arguments I’m about to make to your own contexts, not a condemnation of those experiences and contexts. If you feel the urge to say things like “you’re trying to censor me” or “let people have fun” I would rather you not do that because I’ve heard those things hundreds of times already and those complaints are deeply uninteresting. anyway

I think one of Succession’s strengths as a show is that it is a drama about a modern corporate empire that is shown entirely through the eyes of the individual Roy family members. There is a particular, deliberate clash between the intensely intimate drama of Shiv and Tom’s marriage, Kendall’s addiction issues and estrangement from his family, Roman’s sexual and romantic problems, Connor’s loneliness manifesting in him “buying a girlfriend,” and the fact that they are wealthy beyond comprehension. They are so far above material need that the only arena of conflict is their personal lives. This comes to a head in S4, when their father dies and their family drama becomes the primary battleground over who will take the throne. Yes, they are fighting over acquisition deals and legal issues surrounding their father’s company, this is the “material” component that has a direct influence on their wealth, but that is still secondary to their conflict as a family. Kendall and Roman deliberately attempt to sabotage the sale of Waystar, both because of their personal desire to “be the boss” and the constantly-cited desire to “do what our father wanted.” Their primary concerns are always either an attempt to appease their dead dad or their desire to replace him with themselves.

This is the most intensified form of bourgeois interiority in fiction - all material concerns are made invisible, shoved to the side to focus solely on individual emotions and relationships, because the Roys are part of the ruling class. Their material needs will never be part of their problems. The individual landscapes of their emotions, desires, and traumas are the only real site of conflict. The army of servants and underlings beneath them, the public that is only ever at the periphery, are part of the massive social, political and financial scaffolding that allows them the time and freedom to act out these hyper-intense psychodramas with their lovers, friends and family. The character-centric focus of the show is itself a commentary on their wealth - they don’t have to work, they don’t have to worry about money, they don’t even have to interact with public infrastructure, and so they are free to focus entirely on interpersonal turmoil and pleasure. This intense, indulgent look into their personal lives is predicated on their wealth, and highlights how ridiculous and out of touch they are. This is an integral part of how the deeply uncomfortable, second-hand-embarrassment tone of the show is maintained.

But this nuance doesn’t get translated into fandom - or is only translated haphazardly - which is likewise deeply character-centric. As a fan of the show for many years I have largely avoided the Succession “fandom” because of its intense focus on shipping and rooting for your favourite characters to win. This is how you end up with people deeply invested in Roman’s character, running cover and damage control for him as he becomes increasingly openly racist, misogynistic and fascistic as the show goes on. In particular, the way that misogyny in fandom intersects with this character-centric method of engagement is that a lot of apologetic discourse about Shiv is reactive, excusing or rationalising her behaviour to an online crowd who finds fault with her behaviour not because she’s wealthy but because she’s a woman. It’s how you end up watching people online defend the actions of a fictional billionaire girlboss, because the dominant mode of discourse in fandom is focused so heavily on the actions of individual characters that said actions become free-floating, divorced from their context. Shiv is not being defended on the ground of her wealth and power (or not always, lol), nor even really being defended from the fact that those things make her an objectively horrible person, but that popular fandom perception of her boils down to “man what a huge bitch.” It’s not that (necessarily) people want to log onto tumblr to apologise for liking a fictional billionaire - although again, that does happen - it’s that fandom misogyny is so individualistic that Shiv’s actions are always discussed at the lowest rung possible, commonly expressed as “she’s a bitch” or “she’s being unreasonable”, and so that is the discursive arena that discussion about this character remains in, never moving beyond the individual. It reminds me of the backlash against Skylar from Breaking Bad - it was impossible to talk about anything else about her character aside from explaining why she’s not the devil incarnate. Yes there are also unironic fans who love the fact that Shiv is a vaguely progressive rich white woman, those people absolutely exist, but even when you want to approach the show from outside of that uncritical angle, I think you oftentimes get painted into this narrow discursive corner anyway because of how stupid fandom discussion tend to be.

And yes it’s all fictional, it’s not real, and people “blorbofying” a Roy sibling or shipping Kendall and Stewy together are not remotely good indicators of their beliefs about the ruling class in real life. I am not making claims about anyone’s beliefs or political convictions because they enjoy a show about billionaires. I also enjoy the show. But the rhetoric of fandom is so intensely individualistic that “shipping” characters in a show like Succession is seen as a regular thing to do. The easiest way to tell if you’re in a “fandom” on tumblr is to see if people are writing ship fic or drawing shipping fanart. I enjoy Succession a lot and talk about it with friends, but I am not “in the Succession fandom.”

And at least with the people I follow who do engage in Succession “fandom,” there is an intense self-irony on display - people making fancam edits of Gerri, someone who is general counsel to a fictional version of Fox News, or AMVs of Stewy, a hot ruthless venture capitalist. It’s funny precisely because of the dissonance between the use of fandom aesthetic forms (ie fancams) and the subject being fandomised. Embedded into these behaviours is an ironic self-distance, a performance of fandom with a wink to the audience that you don’t actually believe in this, that this is a self-ironic indulgence, a way of articulating sympathy for these fictional characters while maintaining the air of being in-the-know, being a good person who gets what the show is “really” about. And I enjoy that! Those posts rule lol. If anything I am in the meta-fandom, I stay on the periphery with friends to enjoy posts about how stressful shareholder meetings are, to celebrate the tomshiv scorpionmarriage win, to know what the phrase tomstar gregco endgame means.

But that self-irony is only possible to express because of the fact that “doing fandom stuff” with Succession necessarily involves an intense and constant form of apologetics for your favourite character or relationship - it is this assumed, unstated default that this self-irony is engaging with. If you were just talking about the plot of the show or its themes, if you disavowed any desire to ship characters together, if you never got into arguments with people about which Roy sibling “deserves” to be CEO, you would hardly be doing “fandom,” or at least you would be doing it in a fundamentally different way, and crucially you wouldn’t need to be employing that self-ironic tone of “alright now we all know billionaires are bad. But isn’t Roman such a cute little baby? Don’t you just want to hug him?”

I remember a popular sentiment being expressed around when Succession first got popular online, saying that Succession pioneered new ways for people to talk about their favourite characters on the internet. “He’s my Disney Princess” “I want to put him in a Pringles can and shake him” “she is a bug I need to study under a microscope” and so on. And I think this is partially a result of 1) absurdist internet humour in general, 2) a memetic mirroring of the show’s brand of humour specifically, and 3) people’s general political instincts running up against fandom engagement, the desire to engage with Succession as a fandom-text without experiencing intense cognitive dissonance, producing ways of expressing love and enjoyment for characters that are fundamentally, irredeemably bad people, people who are direct reflections of and parallels to the ruling class of modern America. It doesn’t even give you the benefit of historical distance the way a medieval fantasy would, where it’s easier to “stan” a king because it’s taken for granted that everyone here doesn’t support hereditary monarchy. Succession is a direct, immediate commentary on contemporary American life in a way that is impossible to ignore, and so to engage with it on fandom grounds requires a certain kind of additional effort, a way of simultaneously performing your real-world beliefs while also letting loose. I know Succession is not the first show to be like this, nor is it the only thing that has impacted the way fandom operates online, but it has enjoyed a five-year popularity whose digital omnipresence has reached far beyond its immediate audience. Most people on twitter remotely engaged in fandom have seen a Kendall Roy fan edit, for example.

So, all this to say: even when it feels like a text is deliberately choosing a character-centric focus to comment on its themes and structures, I think what happens is that this character-centric lens becomes easily and instantly adopted by fandom, but the commentary gets left behind. Which is again what I meant in that original post I linked at the top - character-centric lenses are not inherently bad, or inferior, or lesser to other lenses, but that fandom only ever engages in a very narrow and particular type of character-centrism, a lens that is so adaptable that you can easily import shipping discourse and “x-character-did-nothing-wrong” style apologetics into a show like Succession. If you engage with Succession primarily as a vector to ship characters together, or to “pick your favourite character,” I think you are falling into this fandom mode. Which I’m not saying is inherently bad, I have also done this with Succession by calling myself a romangirl or whatever, I’m just trying to articulate the whiplash I sometimes get when watching prestige drama television about billionaires being murderers and sex pests and fascists and then going online and seeing hundreds of people expressing a desire to wrap Roman Roy in a little blanket. A lot of people are engaging with the show’s themes and also doing this “fandom” thing with it, so you don’t have to choose one or the other, nor am I saying that there are necessarily “low” and “high” classes of artistic interpretation that people permanently slot themselves into, but I do think these modes of engagement are at some level mutually exclusive, because they require the adoption of fundamentally different interpretive lenses when approaching a text

[karlastarion]

intro.

It’s a BG3 sideblog! My main blog is @bogunicorn, and I go by Bog (or any type of nickname you can wring out of “bog unicorn”). If you’re looking for more info about me as a person, that’ll all be over on my main

This blog and my main are both 18+. Please do not follow me if you’re under 18. I don’t keep close track of my followers, but I do check out blogs that follow me because of the spambots, and I block minors on sight.

what to expect here.

Spoiler tags, both for the game in general and by act. I use #bg3 spoilers, and #bg3 act [number] spoilers. I AM NO LONGER SPOILER-TAGGING.

Gifsets, fanart, jokey jokes, and probably speculative/meta posts.

My own BG3 thoughts, feelings, theories, random whatevers. My original posts of all kinds are tagged #bog post.

A general positivity toward queer shit, weird shit, horny shit, and kinky shit.

My fanfic and my OCs, when I get around to writing again. Anything relating to my own writing will be tagged #bogfic, anything involving my characters tagged #my ocs and then #character name (oc).

Generally, I’m a multishipper at heart and can find something to love about any given ship, PC choice, character, or type of storyline. Chances are if I’m spending my time talking about something or speculating on it, it’s because I’m having fun or enjoying myself.

Commentary on fandom trends and behaviors (and, sometimes, common sense reminders not to be a dick to each other about fake stuff).

To get blocked if you put rude or annoying shit in my mentions, including using any of my posts to character bash or otherwise go off-topic in order to air your personal grievances underneath my stuff. Mind your manners and blacklist or scroll if you need to.

what not to expect.

Consistent character bashing or character hate. I simply do not spend a majority of my online time thinking about stuff I hate.

Anonymous asks. Anon is always turned off, both here, on my main, and on my AO3.

Real world politics and news, or general (as in, not-BG3-specific) Disk Horse. Honestly, probably not even that much Baldur's Gate Discourse, either.

Equating in-game choices or fandom opinions with real life politics and morality. My politics and activism are for real people, not Wizard Politics or whatever.

the tag system ™.

#bog post - Any and all of my original posts.

#bogfic - Anything involving my writing or my OCs.

#my ocs - My OCs. Often accompanied by #[character name] (oc).

#spicy bog - Ye olde horny tag.

#bogcrit, #[character name] critical, #bg3 critical, #fandom bs - These are my Complaining Tags. If you never want to see anything truly critical or negative, just blacklist #bogcrit. If you want to avoid grousing or critique of a specific character, the game in general,or the fandom itself, blacklist whatever listed tag is relevant to you.

#fic, #art - Fanfic and fanart that I didn’t make.

#meta - Meta or speculation posts.

#ask meme - Blanket tag for any put-it-in-the-tags posts, as well as actual ask memes.

Characters are tagged by their full names. Custom characters are either #tav or #the dark urge, even if the PC in the post has a non-Tav name. It's just for organizational purposes.

Ships are tagged #[character] x [character] in alphabetical order.

contact.

complain to my manager

send me an ask

read my fic

[jakethesequel]

I've been binging The Boys off my dad's account recently and having read the original comics like any self-respecting edgy teenager, I can see why people say the show is an improvement over the comics so fucking often. It's a pretty addictive show and does a good job adapting the broad-strokes storyline to a new medium, a new decade, and a new audience. Only slightly disappointed they haven't done the all-black-trenchcoats uniform look from the comics yet, hopefully they're saving that for a big moment in a later season. And thank God they gave Kimiko an actual name and way to communicate.

Cw for mentions of all the kind of shit that happens in The Boys, in case you don't want to read about that on a nice Wednesday afternoon. (Meaning: sexual abuse and excessive violence.) Also, long.

The political aspect is often sharper than you'd really expect from an Amazon product, too. It's not gonna start a socialist critique of the political economy or call for revolution anytime soon, but the commentary on the relationship between mass media (Vought), original and/or neo- Nazism (Stormfront), and neoconservativism (Homelander) is pretty well-done for a show mostly about superpowered violence. My one gripe is that the political commentary doesn't have that Ennis-brand bite to it that the comics have, the evil is a bit less in-your-face and gratuitous (and even the heroes are a slightly lighter shade of grey, like 75% from 90). Might be a surprising thing for me to say about a show that loves head-exploding effects even more than Scanners, but this is in comparison to Ennis writing any rich or powerful character as being one or more of: a serial rapist, a pedophile, a child murderer (I guess the show has this but we're told it was an accident where Ennis would have done it on purpose), a perverted serial killer, etc etc etc. On one hand, you could argue this gives the show villains that feel more realistic and less outlandish; but on the other, it's really missing the viscerally palpable disgust and disdain Ennis displays for the upper crust. That said, as much as I like the way Ennis displays the bourgeois as grostesquely evil, I'm more than happy to give it up if it means we can avoid the habit of violently transmisogynistic caricatures he always includes in his work.

There is a couple places where the political commentary does fall short compared to the comics, though. Particularly when it comes to criticizing the military and to criticizing monopolized corporate control of the media. Now granted, both the show and comic Boys work for a CIA contract to different extents, but because almost everyone in the comics is a bit more of a dickhead than in the show, the CIA likewise doesn't come off as clean. Not that the show is entirely unwilling to have the CIA and the US government suck, in both versions it stays an alliance of convenience between the Boys and the CIA against the temporarily greater common enemy in Vought, but the comics are just a little bit more willing to show that the CIA have themselves done indefensible and unforgivable things. In the show they tend to come off more sanitized Jack Reacher types, doing morally gray things for morally good reasons, instead of the more true-to-life morally dark things for morally dark reasons. The third season gets a little closer by mentioning Iran-Contra and the CIA crack smuggling in Black neighborhoods, but that's still just "accurately showing historical events the CIA was in" rather than the comics' "coming up with new horrible shit just to remind you the CIA's no good."

Now, as for the monopolized corporate control of the media. There's two levels to this, as I see it. There's the ways in which the show has been limited in criticizing the mass media on its own merits; and then there's the ways in which the show's criticisms of the mass media differ in content and direction from the comics. For the former, there's obviously a big elephant in the room: Amazon. The Boys show clearly wants to criticize the ways in which mass media influences our view of world events, and its central villain even moreso than Homelander is their world's largest and richest company, Vought International. But you can obviously only criticize the actions of a fictional megacorporation so much when your show is produced by one of the real world's top five megacorporations. So thus far the show's commentary has focused it's most pointed criticisms at stuff like social media, news media, religious influencers, and daytime TV (like talk shows, reality shows, etc). Those criticisms have been very good, especially the social media stuff and the stochastic terrorism induced by Stormfront, but I do notice that the areas they focus on are never really areas Amazon has a lot of money invested. While there have been spoofs about streaming services -- and I really enjoy all the in-universe media the cast and crew have put together to sell the illusion of this massive media franchise, it makes the show's internal history feel really lived-in -- I find that it has more of a wink-and-nudge self-deprecating vibe rather than the pointed criticism other media gets. The Prime analogue gets the harmless goofy Seven movies, the real pernicious media manipulation moments happen more often on livestreams or news broadcasts. Part of this might just be a difference in style: the Supes are shown to be more brash and unpredictable opportunists while Vought themselves are patient and surreptitious manipulators, but then Vought's big moves are also announced via press conference more often than not. I don't mean to act like they never criticize Vought's ersatz Amazon Prime, though. It is shown to be a shitty, erratic place to work full of impossible to placate alpha personalities that mainly makes propaganda for evil and powerful people. There might be something to be said about Amazon also being run by impossible to placate alpha personalities and Prime Video acting as propaganda for evil and powerful people. But on the other hand, all the Vought employees tend to be either actually evil, helplessly idiotic sycophants, or nameless grunts. I'd be more impressed if they had the stones to show, say, Vought Video employees threatened by laser to work crunch time, or Vought warehouse workers made to smuggle Compound V. Maybe I shouldn't go too hard on them, they are doing a lot more than other shows, but I always get the vibe that there's a line they keep toeing but can't cross because of corporate.

That segues nicely into the latter way, how the show's criticism of media differs from the comics. Obviously, the comics have a lot more freedom of speech as a creator-owned series under an indie publisher than as a megacorporation's high-budget production. But there's an even bigger difference at their core direction, and I think it's the biggest loss in the transition from page to screen. The Boys (show) values using its evil supes as an exaggerated analogy for political power and celebrity culture, in addition to the "power corrupts and superpowers would be more likely to fuck you up than make you a hero" central message that it shares with the comics. In contrast, while The Boys (comics) does also share that central message, and also talked about political power and celebrity culture, what it values most is using its evil supes as an exaggerated analogy to criticise pre-existing superhero comics and narratives. It was in direct dialogue and in direct opposition to the existing highly duopolized corporate superhero comics industry. The Boys (show) isn't nearly as interested in being in direct dialogue with the MCU or DC cinematic universe. Honestly I think this is the main reason people going to the comics from the show find a lot of the supe characters flat and uninteresting or even mean-spirited: most of them aren't characters in their own right but parodies of existing characters that don't really make sense without the metatextual background of Big Two superhero comics. Yeah, the comic does have a lot of weak spots in its characters and plot, but especially so if you only view it on the layer of the literal story. Many of those weak spots are a lot stronger when understood by analogy. I'd argue the metatextual analogy is a solid 50% of the comics' message. Don't get me wrong, there are still a good amount of weak spots left over -- Ennis's jokes can keep going long after they stop being funny -- but the comics are greatly improved if you don't take them as a completely literal or serious text all the time. Vought in the comics isn't just any massive corporation, the particular ways it exploits supes isn't a generic criticism of capitalism, it's more often than not a specific criticism of what the Big Two superhero comics duopoly of Marvel and DC have done to the comics industry. Vought superheroes encroaching into every aspect of the economy and culture? That's Marvel/DC taking over the comics industry and pushing out almost every other genre of comics in favor of superheroes. Without spoiling too much, even the central ideological conflict of Butcher vs Wee Hughie/Starlight vs Vought supes can be taken as a metaphor for different views on the superhero genre's role in the comics industry. The show is really missing an opportunity (maybe deliberately) to take similar shots at the superhero blockbuster movie industry. The conflict is arguably more potent than ever, as superhero movies dominate the cinema to an unprecedented degree, and with far more widespread cultural influence than comic books have ever had. The show has mostly limited itself to a couple jokes about Batman V Superman and the Snyder cut, which is a far cry from what they could be doing. I'd love to see them really take a fucking swing at the MCU, maybe bring in Tek-Knight as an Iron Man analogue, have him be a rich asshole making tons of movies, making billions off of his underpaid and overworked support staff, insisting on having his company cronies take over other projects outside his wheelhouse like idk healthcare to disastrous results. Really, yknow, try to say something about Disney-Marvel's monopolization and bad work practices! But, they'd be a real shift in direction for the show's writing, so I don't think they'd go for it. Just a shame that the analogy layer isn't present so much in the show, even if the literal layer of the plot is better to make up for it.

I think that's all I had to say. Oh wait also I was sad they downgraded Love Sausage from the most successful hero of the Soviet Union's supe program, with the full standard set of super-strength/durability/speed, a loyal communist long after the fall of the USSR, one of the very few comics supes that's a genuinely decent person, one of the fighters who beat Stormfront to death, and who just happens to also have a massive penis; to basically being just the dick joke and having dick-related powers. What a downgrade! This guy was a powerful supe and a total bro to the Boys! When he (bit of a spoiler) dies, he spends his last breaths sending out a warning to save Wee Hughie's life! Justice for my man the Love Sausage, capitalist Amazon hates to see a communist winning lmao

[epistolizer]

Hit & Run Commentary #146

Autarch Biden in an address to the regime assured that, if the collective harkens obediently to his directives, he MIGHT magnanimously allow the thralls to celebrate Independence Day not in large groups but rather in small clusters. But if most have been duped into obediently surrendering to invasive alchemical injections by that point, what does the size of the group matter? He did not nothing to discourage the superspreader swarms that assembled at the announcement of his election victory.

Wonder if Autarch Biden will be as disconcerted over the size of riots likely to break out this summer in the name of Communist revolution as he is over the number likely to be at cook outs held in local cell blocks, oh I mean neighborhoods.

Four workers at a Chicago area hospital experienced an adverse reaction to the Coronavirus vaccine. Administrators assured that accounts for only .15% of those to whom the inoculation was administered. But if that constituted the percentage coming down with the virus, wouldn’t society come to a screeching halt and pretty much not be allowed to start up again?

So does Facebook post a disclaimer to everybody that has ever posted about an adverse reaction to peanuts since the vast majority can consume that agricultural product without an allergic reaction? If not, why one in regards to an unnamed form of invasive pharmaceutical alchemy?

California Governor Gavin Newsom admitted to considering curfews to combat the Cornavirus such as those in Saudi Arabia. Should we also consider that regime’s methods for controlling carnal deviants and reluctance to allow female drivers on the roads as well?

In a podcast with social theorist Yuval Levin, Southern Baptist functionary Russell Moore remarked how easily people get offended over social media as a result of taking things so seriously. But hasn’t he himself contributed to this environment in light of his overreaction to Donald Trump --- likening the at the time candidate to a “Bronze Age warlord” ---- as well as Moore’s conniptions in response to support for the Confederate flag on the part of some Southern Baptists in that particular ecclesiastical association?

Regarding these medical cost sharing ministries that posture as being morally superior to traditional health insurance and attempt to guiltttrip Christians into signing up by emphasizing the opposition to abortion. If members write checks directly to cover each other’s expenses, what is to prevent this service from degenerating into a popularity contest or as a way of rewarding who can be the squeakiest wheel? After all, as anyone that has been around church for a while knows, some are inherently granted most of the attention while others that are quieter are nearly always overlooked.

A headline at ChurchMilitant.com read, “A Message To Mayor Pete From A Latino Momma: Don’t Force Your Sexual Ideology On Me and My Children”. It must be asked, what does your race or ethnicity have to do with this? Is it somehow less of a moral outrage when this sort of invasive totalitarianism is imposed upon White children? Are Latinos, even the ones no darker than run of the mill White people with a suntan, somehow more moral than Caucasians?

Contrary to Kamala Harris, not everyone here deserves to be recognized as an American. Only those with U.S. citizenship should be recognized as Americans.

Biden says hate has no safe harbor in America. But how is that defined, simply disagreeing with a minority?

If you get more back in a child tax credit than you paid in taxes, that is not a credit but rather a welfare handout. I don’t care what President is behind it --- Reagan, Trump, Obama or Biden.

Insisting that something is not political but rather scientific is euphemism that you do not possess the right to question or critique regime decrees.

Tolerancemongers are insisting that Trump is responsible for the attack on Asian whorehouses because of his remarks categorizing the geographic origins of the Coronoavirus (a fact actually more scientifically unassailable than mandatory mask decrees). So applying this reasoning, shouldn’t Autarch Biden condemn Black Lives Matter for constantly harping on “White supremacy” for the looting and destruction of property that still continues night after night which his regime is barely saying jack squat about in comparison to statements made in regards to the Capitol Kerfuffle?

Apparently massacring Asian harlots because you can't otherwise get enough of them is not as bad as doing the same because you despise them for being Asian.

If America is such a racist vile place as insisted by Deputy Autarch Harris, why did her parents come here rather than remain in their respective Third World utopias?

The Centers for Disease Control, an agency under the auspices of Autarch Biden, issued a decree advising Americans not to travel at this time. It is feared that such could spark another round of Coronavirus. Yet the Autarch is extending his blessing to illegal migrants not only brought into the territorial boundaries of the United States but also allowing their free movement across the country without being subjected to the same invasive medical exams actual Americans are subjected to often as a condition of being allowed out of their very homes or to go about making a living.

In response to the Colorado supermarket massacre, Autarch Biden remarked that he would not be speculating or commenting as to the motives of the gunman. No doubt because the name and geographic origins of the murderer was evocative of Islamist jihadism. For Biden certainly doesn’t mind shooting off at the mouth to parrot platitudes and talking points in condemnation of “White supremacy” and “systematic racism”. For someone supposedly not wanting to speculate as to the nature of the specifics of this incident, the Autarch certainly did not mind droning on about the need for increased gun control.

On Fox News, a Democratic propagandist remarked that it was imperative to remember that acts of violence have been inflicted upon people of color for decades. So because minorities were mistreated in the past, the launching of bottle rockets at diners in a restaurant that played no part in that mistreatment is really no big deal. The interview ended with the remark that we all need to come together and be united. But just what exactly is the average American obligated to surrender for such a ballyhooed state to come about if such explicit acts of terrorism are being inflicted upon those for merely peacefully expressing a dietary preference and dismissed by pundits claiming to speak on behalf of the nation’s most powerful political party?

Was blocked on facebook from commenting for twenty-four hours over posting a link to a Yahoo story about Republican men being a threat to public health for not getting vaccinated. I titled it “Vaccine Reluctance Equated With Man Spreading, Unwanted Hiney Swatting & Assorted Acts Of Terrorism”. So apparently we must be so pro-vaccine that it is out of line to admit that content exists produced by leftwing technocrats themselves that vaccine reluctance even exists.

By Frederick Meekins

[angelo-thoughts-and-stuff]

Yeah the whole superhero thing ain’t that good.

I recently just finished watchmen, not the movie but the HBO series and my first thought was that this a masterpiece. The social commentary of the current political climate in America was bold to do because many writers would not touch this subject. For good reason, it is very hard to write a story about that tackle these themes racial injustice, inequality and white supremacy without the story feeling based. And the showrunners did an okay job but their are many issue that I had the with story. I’m not a avid reader of the watchmen graphic novels but I have a very basic understanding of what the graphic novel was trying to portray. The idea of a superhero is hero weird, some would say problematic but I’m not that far of the deep end. First I think it is important to understand why superhero were created and at first what was the idea behind them. The golden age was when the comic book industry started it’s introduction into the American culture. This being around the second world war, and when one goes back to read these issues they were propaganda and hopefully to a small extent. Captain America punching Hitler, Superman punching Hitler these portrayed we the “good guys” America beating up the bad guys Nazis. And a lot of these issues played with stereotypes. And they played into the bogeyman trope a lot. These costume vigilantes always had a traumatic experience that led them to seek justice, Batman parents got killed in front of him , Spiderman he’s uncle died. And in the case of Batman his parent left him a fortune and yes I’m going to play into the whole Batman meme but as Bruce Wayne he could help Gotham in many more ways than he could as Batman.  But it is important to understand that these stories are meant to entertain the consumers but that does not mean they are above reproach. Batman has a choice, help Gotham the way many critics think he should, with he’s money but he does not, he does it by breaking criminals bones, and yes I know in some writer do make Bruce help the city in this way. My favorite Batman comic is the White Knight were it tackles these issues. He’s moral absolution is what drives his character but what happens when someones “good” it different from your “good”. And this is where watchmen comes in. A more grounded approach and some what nihilistic “superhero” story. Try to imagine superhero's in the real-world, it would be a lot reminiscent of the Boys universe or the Watchmen universe. And the power that comes with it, power can corrupt anyone, a teacher, a ceo, presidents the list goes on. And with being a superhero there comes a sense of supremacy with it, as Baron Zemo so eloquently said “the desire to become a superhuman cannot be separated from supremacist ideals”. And Alan Moore who I don’t always agree with spoke about this a lot when he critiques the superhero genre. He’s most damming critique came from calling D.W Griffiths movie Birth of a Nation the first superhero movie. Not a lot of people know what Birth of a Nation is about so here is quick summary, the Klan goes around saving white woman from being raped by the evil enemy the blacks. At face value this seems like a huge stretch to say this is the first superhero and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth to entrain this idea but let’s just run with it. Black and White good and evil , hero vs villain, who is the hero in Birth of a Nation? who saves the woman form being raped? who wears masks and capes to hide their identities? who is the villain of story? Why do these hooded figures take up their mask and capes? in my opinion this a very distasteful comparison, we know what the Klan is, we know what they did. But all the tropes in Birth of a Nation are seen in all comic book stories just take the racisms out.

This is why Watchmen is a cult classic, as many superhero stories are nowadays aimed at a younger audience and paint their universes as black and white, people get tired with this formula. That doesn’t mean these stories don’t have value and can teach good lesson to kids, but that’s were it’s value ends. It’s for kids, some stories try to tackle more mature themes but their is an issue, the characters are meant to be seen as beacons of justice not as humans who are flawed. Watchmen has it’s story follow damaged individuals, Nite Owl is a mess in the graphic novel, he has a lot insecurities is scared for the pending nuclear doom. It’s implied that he took up crime fighting to help with his self-confidence not a heroic origin story. Many of the “hero's” in watchmen took up crime fighting  because of their insecurities and personally issues it isn’t some virtuous purist of justice. Some characters are lost without their masks Nite Owl being one. The HBO show has a lot different storylines that it wants to discuss. Towards the end of the show I found the whole white supremacist plot of brainwashing blacks to kill each other and having a Dr. Manhattan white supremacist's kind of goofey. It makes white supremacy this bogeyman forces in the show. By having people in the dark corners of society plotting against blacks is weird, their is no nuance to what racisms is and how our institutions are built around it. But I can't tell what the showrunners were trying to tell it’s audience, racisms is bad any decent human being knows that, when characters beat up racist's in a weird way they try to make it seems as they are doing bad things and I use that term very lightly. You can't expect an audience to feel sorry or try to connect with characters that are doing things most of use agree with, the beating up racist part. It’s not faithfully to the source material but is it still good? meh                  

[eliotquillon]

mark walden and politics in h.i.v.e

as you probably all know by now (thanks to the j.k rowling fiasco), art and politics are inherently linked; whether it’s intentional or not, it’s difficult to extricate an author’s beliefs from the way they manifist in literature. and with that in mind, let’s talk about politics in h.i.v.e.

h.i.v.e is a series that has never exactly shied away from criticising the politics of the year each book was published in, and you can probably see this best in the character of matt ronson, who is the most obvious stand in for mitt romney that i’ve ever seen in my entire life. romney was running against obama in the 2012 election, and, coincidentally enough, matt ronson appears in deadlock, which was published in 2013 (and almost certainly written during 2012). in case you’ve repressed the events of deadlock (which i wouldn’t blame you for lmao), ronson’s a senior member of the disciples - he’s actually head of an entire cell - and is running for president in order to secure the disciples’ control over the united states. it’s not exactly subtle imagery. it’s definitely the boldest walden gets in terms of critiquing the state of late 00s-early 2010s politics, and is also the example that i think is easiest to pick up on, because of how similar ronson and romney’s names are, and how in-your-face the whole scene is. i mean, otto leaves ronson to die in a plane pre-programmed to crash in the middle of the ocean because when raven tells him that a bullet would’ve been quicker, his response is, quote, “too quick.” for further proof, if you check walden’s twitter, he’s pretty positive towards obama on the whole, which i imagine is why he decided to kill off obama’s presidential challenger.

but that’s not the first time politics gets infused in h.i.v.e. the first time - the one that actually serves as the catalyst for, well, everything - is otto deposing the prime minister by making him moon the nation on live television. book 1 was published in 2006; this was when tony blair was prime minister in the uk. if you’re unfamiliar with uk politics, blair is pretty harshly criticised on both sides of the political spectrum for his role in the iraq war/the 2008 financial crash (although he resigned and appointed gordon brown as his successor in 2007), and the fact that he created ‘new labour’, a movement which pushed the predominantly working class, leftist labour party further towards the ‘moderate centre’ in an attempt to capture more of the middle class vote as opposed to labour’s traditional post-industrial ‘northern heartlands’. the prime minister that otto deposes is blair, or at least a stand in for him; i’ll give proof below.

the important thing is that otto decides to get rid of the prime minister because st. sebastian’s is closing down, and st. sebastian’s is closing down because of the prime minister’s childcare reforms that result in, quote, “the restructuring of local childcare provision.” whether or not st. sebastian being closed would’ve been an overal net positive or not is debatable (otto mentions that the building was starting to become “genuinely unsafe”), but if you don’t know much about blair, he was BIG on restructuring, especially in london, where st sebastian’s is located, and something in particular that blair was fond of was giving more powers to local councils (essentially, shifting the uk to more of a federal system than a centralised one). you’ve probably already guessed, but yep, the letter that announces st. sebastian’s is closing comes from the local council. it’s also mentioned that the childcare reforms have “the prime minister’s personal backing”, and, yep, childcare budgets and early years spending increased exponentially under blair (he even renamed the department of education to the department of children, schools, and families, which was promptly renamed AGAIN once labour left office, but that’s a rant for another day). there’s also the fact that otto goes to brighton for the prime minister’s party conference - this is where the labour party conference is held, whereas the conservative party conference alternates between birmingham and manchester. finally, in zero hour (published in 2010) it’s mentioned that the prime minister resigned and that his party lost in the next general election - this is exactly what happened to blair and new labour after the financial crash. of course, this evidence is very circumstantial, but i don’t think that this is a coincidence, and, anyway, i struggle to see how walden could’ve been more explicit in implying that this is blair without facing parental backlash.

now onto the political commentary; i’ve already mentioned how everyone hates blair, and walden is no exception. the statement that otto makes the prime minister is absolutely damning. it’s too long for me to copy and paste the entire thing (i say, when this post is going to be ridiculously long anyway), but here are some highlights: “we hold you and your families in nothing but the deepest contempt”, “i don’t think that we get enough credit for having to put up with your constant whining”, “half of you can barely read or write, and the way the education system’s going, that’s not going to change any time soon”, “we don’t care” “all we care about is power and money”, “shut your mouths and cut the moaning, because we don’t give a monkey’s.” i think it’s pretty safe to say that this is not exactly positive. personally, i think that the “moaning” and “whining” walden refers to here is a reference to the anti-war protests about the us/uk invasion of iraq, and there were complaints about the scrapping of grammar schools/“dumbing down” of the GCSE qualifications (regardless of whether or not that was intentional) across the board for years both before and after blair got into power. but whichever way you look at it, this is not a glowing representation of blair. and if you look on walden’s twitter (again), he tends to retweet a lot from michael rosen and owen jones, both prominent labour members who are very staunchly anti blair and anti ‘new labour’.

also, while searching walden’s twitter for blair references, i also came across this 2019 tweet:

where, as you can see, he shares an anecdote about how his old house used to be next to an army range and that his neighbour told him that military helicopters were often “flown by a 21 year old with a hangover”. and, like, i’m not saying that that’s the inspiration for 13 year old laura being able to hack a military base so she could spy on her classmates, but i’m totally saying that.

anyway, there’s one more political figure i want to cover here, and that’s duncan cavendish, aka the prime minister in zero hour. anyway: duncan cavendish is former conservative prime minister david cameron (notice the identical initials). i did actually ask walden about this on twitter, and he said he ‘couldn’t possibly comment’, which imo most likely means that he’s unable to confirm because of contractual reasons. but anyway: zero hour was published in 2010, the year of the election which put the conservatives (for clarity’s sake, i’m going to be referring to them as tories for the rest of this post) back into power for the first time in 13 years (albeit in a coalition with the centrist libdem party), meaning that it was written in 2009 when cameron was party leader, and after the 2008 crash. i don’t think walden knew for sure that cameron would come to power (after all, in zero hour it’s stated that cavendish’s party won by a landslide, whereas the actual 2010 election resulted in ‘hung parliament’), but it wasn’t exactly a hard guess to make that labour would lose after the events of 2007/8 and their record in iraq.

something that particularly sticks out to me is cavendish thanking nero for switching him from the polfi stream to the alpha stream - in real life, cameron has an a level in economics, and studied philosophy, politics, and economics at oxford and his father is also a stockbroker, all aspects which certainly scream polfi to me. personally, i think this was a dig at cameron’s fairly elitist background, and the fact that he’s historically been seen as an opportunist rather than a real leader. also, cameron was once approached in the former soviet union by two men he suspected were KGB agents trying to recruit him, and i’m not saying that walden used this connection when linking cavendish to pietor furan and the disciples, but....yeah. there’s also the fact that nero references cavendish’s academic record of going to an elite boys’ school being fudged, and, yeah, cameron attended eton (he also got suspended for smoking cannabis, which is just. a lot to think about for a man who helped push through legislation that further penalised cannabis users). again, on twitter walden has been extremely outspoken against the tories in general, specifically about brexit, the referendum for which occurred under cameron’s government. also walden kind of predicted the future: in zero hour, cavendish is blackmailed by nero into resigning. in real life, cameron resigned the whip (left both his post and the tory party as an MP) in 2016 after the uk voted to leave the eu. obviously that’s not proof of anything but it just makes me laugh.

those are the specific figures - now let’s talk more about walden’s general ideologies. he’s very anti-gun on twitter, and this obviously links to wing and his refusal to wield guns/shoot people; wing’s arguably the most staunchly moral character in the series, which i don’t think is a coincidence. walden bashed mass surveillance by having otto abhor (and later destroy) echelon; echelon is actually a real international government project that was originally designed for military surveillance but later branched out into greater mass surveillance (also, fun fact! i only live about an hour’s drive from an echelon radome base, so i hope my mi5 agent is enjoying this post). we see walden criticise mass surveillance again with the existence of the artemis project (and also the disciples’ use of facial recognition software), and while i have no idea whether or not that’s real, i think everyone knows that there are multiple international coalitions devoted to gathering and sharing data on world citizens (google the nine eyes partnership if you want to give yourself a bit of a crisis). walden has reposted a picture that says ‘make orwell fiction again’ on twitter, so it’s pretty clear where he stands on that. in general, walden is left wing, and that shows in his books - while i’ve corroborated all of my assumptions here with evidence i found on walden’s twitter, i came to most of these conclusions on my own just from reading the source material.

and this is why i’m only 90% joking when i talk about walden lagging behind on book 9 because there’s so many different things he needs to satirize. the global stage has changed dramatically since deadlock’s publication, and if walden’s passionate about critiquing those in power, he’s got a lot of content to choose from - trump, obviously, but also boris johnson and theresa may over on this side of the pond (and he really, really hates johnson). h.i.v.e as a story is inherently political, and not just because of the more obvious “morally grey villains” trope. walden uses his fictional world to critique the real-life authority figures in control, and does so while keeping it subtle enough so as to not tip off most casual readers. overall, it’s pretty impressive.

[joeys-piano]

Header created by @ao3commentoftheday, where creators may share sneak peeks their wip and readers can leave comments/motivation on unfinished works to let writers know that they can’t wait to see the final product~

In this segment of Work of Progress Wednesday, I’ll be sharing a preview and outline of the opening chapter to my current project, Survive Said The Prophet. Now keep in mind I wrote this chapter outline last night and that the outline will go through a few revisions before I deem it’s set and ready to start working on it. Originally, this opening chapter was from Dazai’s point-of-view when he was sent on a mission to quell discord in the West at the age of 18. However, I thought it would’ve been more interesting and more insightful if the chapter was told from Fyodor’s (22) point of view.

Not only does it setup the story and its conflicts in a rather unique way because it’s told from the perspective of the antagonist, this is one of those few moments where you get to read what’s going through Fyodor’s mind and understand why he does what he commits to. Additionally, this is one of the very few moments where he’s honest in his intentions and you have a clearer idea of what's going on behind-the-scenes in his mind.

If you do get a chance to read this, let me know what your thoughts are on this chapter outline/sneak preview~ It’s been a long time since I’ve written/outlined the first chapter for any story, so critiques are welcomed in regards to direction, conveyance, characters, and so forth.

Chapter Outline Disclaimers: The following content below the [read more] contains social commentary in regards to human rights and dignity, prejudice, and gun violence. Although the violence portrayed in this chapter outline is not vividly described, reader discretion is advised.

                                                       ~~~~~

Outline of Chapter One - No One Dares To Tell A Lie

The arc — and subsequently, the story — begins with a philosophical argument that overlays the opening scene of a female politician rising from her seat behind a crowd of men and former colleagues before stepping forward to face her audience, both local and international for this is being broadcast across all major networks, to apologize and promise to right what the government had done wrong. The philosophical argument that shrouds the atmosphere and gives a gray tinge to the surroundings is thus: Freedom vs. Justice. It’s been forty-three years since the manifestation of supernatural abilities, it’s been forty-three years since many innocents and families have been torn from their communities and from their loved ones due to discriminatory provisions and bounty hunts that have taken more than what was believed to be good, and it has only been six years since the nations of the world have asked themselves if what they’ve been doing has been wrong.

The female politician elaborates on the politics surrounding ability-users and the ability-community, of the culture and the paradigm of a society torn apart where brothers have turned on each other, and the efforts of organizations such as the International Gifted Alliance and the World’s Gifted Organization that have fought for and have provided the freedoms and dignity that ability-users were robbed of at the moment when differences between neighbors turned to prejudice and hate speech against people that were once friends and colleagues but now, strangers because of their manifestation of an ability. As the female politician speaks, in the midst of this public conference and rally in the country of Uruk (one of many countries who’re going through an internal reform to ‘right what had been wrong’), the philosophical battle between Freedom vs. Justice is illustrated on the wings of a bird, flying overhead as a feather slips from its body and momentarily blocks Fyodor’s line of sight as he steadies his sniper rifle. Interesting enough, he’s sprawled across the roof of one of Uruk’s courthouses. Fyodor speaks into his earpiece and affirms that he’s clear. He has the female politician in his sight. Asking where he currently is and how the other half of the mission is going, one could hear a smile in Nikolai’s response as he mentions he fits in so well that not even the political guards can’t tell that one of their own is missing.

The plan is not for Fyodor to shoot and kill the female politician. No, Fyodor’s mission is to incite a distraction and ensue chaos over the fact that a live shooter is active on the premise. In the disarray, Nikolai (disguised as a guard) was to escort the female politician to safety before shooting her in a predestined location, behind society’s eyes, before vanishing from the scene with the use of his ability, The Overcoat. Both men had been rented out by their Bratva and were hired by an opposition group to take down the female politician and her message of change. Who was anyone kidding? Uruk was merely one out of dozens of countries, across Europe and the world, drowning in political discord at the very thought that ability-users were reclaiming their dignity and were being seen as more than the “monsters or mere tools” that they have been viewed as for over forty years. Wasn’t it ironic, knowing that the two men for this job were also ability-users? But for now, the best way to put it was that Fyodor and Nikolai were merely stray dogs, quite aware of how far their leash could extend for each and every time they pulled against their restraints. Simply, they were merely carrying out the job that was expected for people like them.

Ability-users were more like tools for an ideology or a means to a cause. Whatever power residing inside of them had one purpose in the minds of conventional, old-school train of thought: these abilities were merely weapons and thus, it was required to leash and remind an ability-user of what they were to prevent them from doing anymore harm. In the old-school train of thought, it seemed absurd to let “untamed weapons” run amok and coexist with those of normal society. Without rules and a stubborn leash, it only bred disarray and discord for ability-users could manipulate their powers and upset the balance or status quo that had been maintained by normal society for centuries now. To bear in mind, ability-users were a relatively recent phenomenon and the opposition believed that these individuals needed to be treated as lesser in order for society to balance itself. The world was never meant for ability-users or at least, that was what those of conventional thought held dear to their hearts. To maintain the status quo and to not be usurped by a growing population of individuals that they couldn't quite understand, the opposition to Uruk’s changing stance on ability-user sought for Fyodor and Nikolai. Both men were formidable in their work and their abilities possessed unique properties that made assassinating a politician as easy as could be. Because Crime and Punishment and The Overcoat hardly left any traces behind, and both abilities never failed to get the job done. However, in a moment of pause as guilt settled in, Nikolai’s morality caught up with him and he expressed his concerns if this was the right thing to do. This wasn’t the first time Nikolai expressed such thoughts. His morality often had a habit of resurfacing before a job needed to be done, and it was merely Fyodor’s job as his partner to dissuade those intrusive thoughts and realign Nikolai’s objective to the current one at stake. Fyodor asked if Nikolai had seriously considered what the politician had said in her speech. It was fundamentally impossible for people like them to coexist in a world that was never meant for them. In that response, Fyodor wasn’t parroting the opposition that had hired him and Nikolai. He was speaking from his own experience, speaking from a past event that made it very clear that a person like him could never live normally after he had been outed as a monster by his own ability. Behind his sniper rifle, Fyodor inadvertently tensed up when a voice from his past, a voice he could never escape from, taunted him at his ear. “Your crime is your ability, your death will be your punishment.” Nikolai turned Fyodor’s response on its side and replied if that was the case, then humans were never meant for this world and that the only reason why people remain on this earth today was because of a benevolent promise bestowed on a certain family. For as it was written, this family believed that there was good, even in the places and the people where one wouldn’t expect it from. Even when it seemed that the other of their society were criminals and debauched, this family believed that good people did exist in the burrows of sin and sorrow and wanted to protect those people.

Nikolai compared that biblical story to the present, to the efforts of global organizations and leaders and people that were doing something to protect and aid those who didn’t do anything wrong from unjust punishment. Despite what their client may believe, Nikolai’s morality and his conscience were in favor that ability-users weren’t the real monsters of this conflict. The real monsters were the people and groups that refused to view those different from them as anything more than just those differences and did everything in their power to suppress, harass, belittle, and harm just because they were afraid of what they couldn’t understand. Fyodor could feel his ability twitch inside as Nikolai’s choice of words, and he decides to give Nikolai something to think about to suppress that morality Nikolai had worn at his sleeve. And, at the same time, perhaps these words were for Fyodor as well to suppress that change of heart that nearly consumed him. Fyodor has gone too far to turn back on who he has become, and it was his fear of the unknown that keeps him grounded in a set of beliefs that made him exist as a walking contradiction. “It ought to be something that Lady Justice judges blind but occasionally, when her scales tip to another’s favor, she’ll peek from under her blindfold and make her swift judgment then.” Through Fyodor, Lady Justice will enact the true verdict to an issue that she could no longer ignore. As long as there were ability-users in this world and if people came to accept them for who they were, they were only opening a threshold for demons and Fyodor’s wings had yet to be clipped. Fundamentally, as long as they were ability-users in this world, they would only stir the greed, hate, and jealousy residing in humanity’s nature and unravel the nuances of the Devil and of sin. Because of ability-users, the work of the Devil had firmly integrated itself into society and that was why Fyodor was so against acceptance for people of his kind. He believed in the opposition and believed that things could’ve been taken one step further. If there was a way to rid the world of ability-users, only an act like that would truly restore the world and cleanse it from its sins. With his mind steadied and quelled, Fyodor waited for his opportunity to shoot. His client had specific orders, telling him to shoot at the moment he got the all-clear from them. The opposition had planned and prepared a joint-argument that they were to make in the midst of the chaos, inciting that change would only harm and kill more lives than it would save. Truly ironic, coming from a group that hired one man to stage himself as a live shooter while they hired another to kill the vocal piece of Uruk’s changing stance on ability-users. However, a job was a job. When Fyodor received a visual all-clear from the crowd below, Fyodor pulled the trigger. The bullet passed the female politician and pierced the podium, embedding splinters and wood into her skin as chaos tore the scene apart. Right on cue, Nikolai moved from where he was stationed and escorted the female politician to safety while the other guards escorted the rest of the political officials and colleagues. Fyodor prepared to move out and meet Nikolai again at their rendezvous point. Pulling out from the scene and slipping away into the network of alleys and cobbled streets behind the courthouse, Fyodor passed his weapon to one of the men from the opposition and promptly killed them with Crime and Punishment when they grasped him roughly and demanded for respect after Fyodor slammed the rifle case into their chest. After his ability had done its work and Fyodor inspected that not a drop of blood had gotten onto himself, he turned to look at the mutilated, pulp of a body left behind and bid his respect that the “dear gentleman” had covered things up for him. The rendezvous point that Fyodor was supposed to meet Nikolai at was near a local bakery, blocks away from the chaos down in central, and it was quiet and quaint enough where they could enjoy a bit of leisure before leaving this country and returning to St. Petersburg. Fyodor purchased a bagel that he knew Nikolai would enjoy and grew increasingly concerned when Nikolai didn’t return. Fyodor spoke through the earpiece and learned through Nikolai that their client, the entirety of the opposition group that had hired them, were all dead. Someone knew what they were doing and had taken them out. It was quite possible that whoever did it were on to them, and Nikolai warned Fyodor that he needed to leave.

Fyodor asked where Nikolai was and did he finish the job. Nikolai didn’t answer if he accomplished the job, but said they weren’t the only ones on a job today. Someone from another organization, someone from the East, had been contracted and Nikolai believed that today’s kill was done by the same person that had been taking down opposing riot groups who’ve attempted to silence the peace talks and changes for ability-users all over Europe. Nikolai concluded this when he was the aftermath of what happened to the men that had hired him and Fyodor and saw the distinct, kill-signature that had been left behind. Nikolai and Fyodor agreed to go their separate paths and to meet again at sunset in another location. Afterwards, Fyodor boarded a public bus to blend into the crowd and make up some ground. Cautious and wary, Fyodor pulled his hands from his pockets as he walked through the crowded bus to find a place to stand. Along the way, his hand lightly brushed against people and he could see into their moral judgment and the most recent crime or sin they had done. It was a preemptive way for him to learn about the people around him and to find out who the contractor from the East was if they had boarded the bus with him. Through his connections and the information gathered from his employment with the Bratva of Spades, the only information in regards to this contractor was that they weren’t an ability-user, they went by the name of Vino, and that their signature kill-style involved shattering one’s jaw after either emptying bullets into the body or stabbing the major and most vulnerable parts of the body. Obviously, this Vino character knew the human anatomy quite well and was proficient at the job. While on the bus, Fyodor didn’t notice anyone strange until he was about to leave. Someone reached out and clasped their fingers around his hand. An odd sensation overcame Fyodor, as if a part of him had died, and he turned around. There was a young man with shaggy hair holding his hand, with a black cap over his head and obscuring his eyes. He spoke with a lilt in his accent when he said that Fyodor had dropped something. It was the bagel bag. Fyodor accepted it, unable to shake off the feeling that his ability had been suppressed at this young man’s touch. Fyodor had heard about something similar to this before, back in Yokohama during the Dragon Head Rush Incident a few years ago. When he unearthed information about the research facility that exploded offshore and how the wild beast that rampaged through the city suddenly disappeared without a trace. There was a brief mention in the records he gathered that a Nullification drug in development on the offshore research facility, but whatever came of it was never known. Presumed that it was destroyed but now, Fyodor couldn't shake off the feeling that he had just encountered someone with that fabled property at their touch. The feeling remained with Fyodor, even after he and Nikolai finally reunited and Nikolai confessed that he didn’t kill the politician. Not after what he saw and found of their client. Even with the Bratva of Spades, one of the best organizations when it came to intel in the underground world, there was hardly any information about Vino. Nikolai speculated that Vino may’ve been hired by Strain, but Fyodor doubted it because it wasn’t in Strain’s best interest to take a hit on the people that made up their clientele base. Just as both men were about to leave and transport back to St. Petersburg through Nikolai’s ability, Fyodor was about to duck his head and enter Nikolai’s coat when his partner suddenly pushed him out of the way. A bullet casing from a sniper pierced through Nikolai’s eye when he took what would’ve been a fatal hit for Fyodor. Both mind and body were thrown into overdrive at the mere sign that Vino was within the vicinity. Without a gun of his own, Fyodor pried the one from Nikolai and defended him and his partner as he hurried them to safety. If Vino was going to take them out from the high-ground, Fyodor and Nikolai ducked behind a series of narrow and obscured streets until they found salvation in a place that was relatively hidden from the rest of the world. Once there, before doing anything to soothe the agony Nikolai was going through, Fyodor asked if Nikolai got a good look of who Vino was.

Between anguish and his muffled screams when Fyodor covered his mouth and tried to ground Nikolai back to reality, Nikolai blurted something along the lines that Vino wanted to go home. When he took the bullet for Fyodor and saw who Vino was, he was able to see what Vino desired most from the world, and all the assassin wanted was to go home. If Vino accomplished this mission, he could return and be with the person that he held dear in his heart. Slipping in and out of consciousness, Nikolai urged Fyodor to leave him behind. Vino would get them both if Fyodor stayed here. He had to go. Fyodor couldn’t leave Nikolai. Not only was Nikolai’s ability one of the only full-proof methods where they could disappear from this country without a trace, Fyodor had made a promise to his partner and damn it, leaving Nikolai to die wasn’t part of the solution-plan Fyodor had in mind. Before another word could be exchanged, Vino found and cornered the duo. How he found them? Fyodor’s mind had yet to process that when he heard the pin of a gun behind him and turned around. Stepping out from the shadows and into the sunlight was the familiar, black cap-wearing young man Fyodor had encountered on the bus earlier that day. From the low, crouching position that Fyodor was in, he could see that the most striking feature on the young man was the dead stare in his eyes. As if he had forsaken good and evil for behaviorism, to do as he was told in an attempt to reunite with someone that he could never return to. The only thing separating Vino from his desire was the fact that Nikolai and Fyodor were still breathing in front of him.

Tags → work in progress, wip, writing, wip wednesday, writing critique, survive said the prophet

[freedom-of-fanfic]

Do you worry about if "anti" will one day become the new "SJW", where people will just lob the phrase at anyone who is merely critical about a ship without argument? I've already started seeing the latter happen slowly.

yes and no, because … well, it’s funny, but ‘anti’ has kind of … come full circle? in this respect?

a brief history of the word/label ‘anti’ in fictional media tumblr fandom spaces is below, but please remember that the word/label ‘anti’ is used in a lot of other communities as well, with different connotations in each one (see ‘antis’ in RPF fandoms for an example).

brief history of the ‘anti’ label in fictional media fandoms on tumblr

in fictional media fandom spaces on tumblr, ‘anti-[ship]’ started out as the tumblr version of ‘that ship is my notp’ and had nothing to do with moralizing or bullying. 

(’anti [ship]’ was itself an outgrowth of the anti-[topic] tags used to keep [topic]-negative posts out of the ‘main’ tag on tumblr (’don’t tag your hate!’), which encompassed everything from intellectual critique of [topic] to vendetta tirades against [topic].)

due to tumblr fandom’s conflation of shipping and activism, anti-kink/anti-porn radfems (swerfs) influence anti-[ship] communities in particular by intermingling anti-[kink/porn] & anti-[ship] blog content.* 

following the social models cued by anti-kink radfems & puritanical anti-sex-ed Christians, a significant portion of self-identified ‘antis’ eventually semi-organize into an abusive fandom-policing machine geared towards picking on fans/fanworks of designated ‘bad ships’ (which are invariably described as ‘pedophilia’/’incestuous’/’abusive’). the superficial appearance of doing good, likely coupled with other factors such as ship wars, feelings of disgust towards dark/kinky fandom content, and misogynistic cultural background radiation draws new fandomgoers into the movement, growing their ranks.

the constant vitriol, hatred, harassment, and negativity spewing from these militant ‘anti-[ship]’ communties cause the word ‘anti’ to become associated with cyberbullying and moral abuse.

a backlash against anyone using ‘anti-[ship]’ tags or calling themselves an ‘anti’ (whether they were partaking in this type of militant anti-shipping or not) results, unfairly hurting self-identified antis who were minding their own business, alienating them from the shippers attacking them. militant antis intensify the resulting polarization by using non-militant antis as shields & strawmen to paint the backlash as unwarranted.

nonetheless, 'anti’ and ‘anti-[ship] as self-identifiers start to fall out of use. militant antis migrate to ‘anti-pedophilia’/’anti-incest’/’anti-abuse’, though they continue to focus on fictional depictions and not real life examples of these things. they assert that anyone criticizing them or their stance on fictional dark content must be a [wannabe] irl pedophile/rapist/abuser, or an apologist for them at the least. 

the constant polarization and nonstop harassment still streaming from militant antis takes its toll on its targets and its bystanders, encouraging hypersensitivity to any sort of critique or negative comment in their relatively anti-free spaces.

hypersensitivity led to shushing and discouragement of negativity of any kind whatsoever in ‘pro-ship’ or ‘ship and let ship’ communities. people who complain ‘sound like antis’.

 and the ironic thing is ... they do. but in the original tumblr fandom sense, not the ‘militant hater anti’ sense.

*come to think of it, radfem descriptions of kinky relationships such as clg & ddlg as ‘pedophilia’ or ‘incest’ and of bdsm relationships as ‘abuse’ no doubt had a significant influence on the way these words would come to be employed by militant anti-shippers. 

[tamaradoubraomonibeke]

Recap from Synergies.

When you first receive a written assignment, which of the following approaches is most appropriate?

-

List the task you need to do then prioritise them and plan a schedule.

What’s the main priority to consider when producing a written assignment.

- To answer the assignment question or brief.

What referencing style does AUB use a version of?

- Harvard.

You find a great sentence in a book and quote it directly in your work. You put the words you have taken in quotation marks and include a citation. That’s not plagiarism.

What does copyright law not protect?

Ideas before they have been written down.

Week 2

Why do creatives perform research mapping?

- To ensure that our thoughts, ideas and actions are well- informed and robust.

Which is a qualitative research.

- How did the audience feel about me writing a poem about my youth.

Research ethics are the moral principles that govern how researchers should carry out their work.

AUB forms to take photos and do interviews.

- Image & Film + Activity + Interview Consent Forms.

Week 3

A research methodology is described as a rationale or justification for the systematic use of particular research method.

A research methodology can be underpinned by a perspective on how knowledge is built.

Practice is a form of research.

What might an activist research methodology seek to achieve?

To try and make change happen

for people or places that have been marginalised by society.

What were 3 ways of knowing identified by Aristotle?

Theoretical knowing, technical knowing, and Making or Creating.

Week 4

What type of source would you look for to find a review on a current example of industry research?

Research article.

What type of search tool should be your first choice if you needed to find a research article in your subject area?

Journals database.

What kinds of research evidence might you expect to see presented in an academic text (book or research article)

- Citations and references.

Reliable authority

- Opinionated commentary or critique.

- Years of professional experience.

- Academic qualifications.

- Lived experience of the end product.

Why is using a technique like the CRAAP text important when doing research?

- It gets us to start thinking critically about sources.

Week 5

How would you cite a source that did not display a publication date?

- Smith, n.d.

What is the difference between a bibliography and a reference list?

- A bibliography is a list of all sources read, watched or experienced which have informed the writer’s thinking. The Reference Lists from the bibliography of all sources cited in the written work.

Week 6

How can we generally define ‘habitus’?

Our lived experience as creators and audiences in relation to the social, political and economic structures of the world.

How does an understanding of your own situated cultural position help you in your research and creative practice?

- It helps me understand my cultural identity and how it relates to other, diverse cultural identities.

Why is it important to consider critical lenses in relation to our research and creative practice?

- Understanding philosophical and political thinking from a diverse range of perspectives helps me better understand culture, symbolism and can enrich my own creative practice.

How might we define notions of ‘hegemony’, ‘normativity’, and ‘counterculture’.

- The dominant socio-cultural and economic ideology of a society, conformity to that system, or resistance against it.

What is ‘radical empathy’?

‘A learned process of direct and deep connection between the self and another that emphasizes human commonality through ‘thinking and feeling into the minds of others’ (Koss-Chioino, 2006)

‘Understanding others’ lives and pain (and) the origins of our biases, ‘internalised oppression.’ (Givens, 2021)

- ‘A relation that increases compassion, the sharing of social capital, and empathic demonstrations of the experiences, needs and wants of all research collaborators’ (Nencel, 2014, in Caswell, 2021, p31.)

Research impact is the effect of new knowledge on society.

Week 7

Which of the following is an Environmental Impact that might arise from a piece of research?

- Changes to people’s individual consumption and sustainability practices.

Which of the following is a desirable set of impact aims for a research project?

- Bringing about positive changes to law, industry or creative practice, academic debate or people’s social experience.

Research into the relationship between dance and ageing might generate a health and well-being impact.

An animation that reveals student experiences of stress and mental health difficulty might generate with regard to social diversity and inclusion.

Week 8

- Knowing who your audience is enables you to: Empathise with their interests/goals and engage them at a level appropriate to them.

Five potential audiences to creative work?

- Clients, the public, members of industry, tutors and peers.

Aristotle’s Rhetoric is comprised of three method sets.

Ethos, Pathos and Logos.

A critical introduction is a shorthand description of the brief you were tasked to do.

You should write your critical reflection and evaluation once you have work to look back over and achievements to celebrate

[blogwritetheworld]

Antonia Harrison on her Winning Peer Review Entry

As a Peer Ambassador, young writer Antonia Harrison dedicates time each week to helping her fellow Write the World members improve their drafts. Last month, Antonia’s stellar review earned her much acclaim from guest judge Cath Crowley who deemed her the winner of Best Peer Review in our Novel Writing Competition. Today, Antonia reflects on the editing process and what she’s learned about her own writing from serving as a Write the World Ambassador.

What drew you to Becky H's piece?

I'm really attracted to pieces with a distinctive tone—maybe the writer is using descriptive phrases that I haven't heard before or conveying aspects of character through their voice. For me, this shows that the writing has genuine meaning to the writer and that they can project their own quirks and individuality onto the work. It's also refreshing to read something that nobody else could have written in the same way—it's more inspiring as a writer to be exposed to freshness and something new. This is what drew me to 'Suspicion'—the way it was written didn't stray into conventionality or cliché, but sustained a really personal element throughout.

You're one of our Peer Ambassadors. What does the role consist of and what has being an ambassador taught you?

As a Peer Ambassador, I write a set number of reviews per week in a fairly professional capacity and discuss with others what we have learned from such exposure to the review process. It's taught me a lot, partially because it's been really interesting to hear how others approach this and partially because the volume of reviews we write makes it possible to really evaluate how people respond to feedback and what's helpful. One thing that strikes me especially now is how important it is to encourage writers to keep at it. I frequently get responses to my reviews from people who haven't had their work acknowledged or commented on before and who have felt disheartened by this. As writers, we can all recognize this feeling, which is why it's so essential that we all encourage one another to keep going.

How has being a Peer Ambassador changed the way you view your own work?

The exposure I've had to lots of different styles of writing, and the way different individuals craft their work, has been so useful to me. You can only really consider how you want to articulate or scribe your thoughts when you've seen how others' emotions are manifested on the page. I'm more likely now to try to apply an original voice, for instance, because I've learned how engaging that can be to a reader and how it can make a piece stand out.

If you could get feedback on your work from any writer in history, who would it be and why?

This is so difficult to choose! There are a million people I could choose, but I'll say either D.H. Lawrence or Dylan Thomas because they both have a really unique, unmistakable style of writing that nobody can quite mimic. I'd love to be able to write in such a vivid way. Lawrence was also a stern social critic and offers really interesting social commentary, which I find very important!

You're a self described "activist, feminist and socialist." In what ways do your morals and/or political leanings influence your writing?

I'm a firm believer in the fact that, as a writer, you can't remain distanced from the world around you. Especially in this day and age, it's so important for writers to strive to make a change. Writing without critiquing society is missing one of the key functions of being an artist. As an activist, I've been on the streets trying to make changes in small ways, and it's made me realize the momentous impact that words and language can have on a listener. That's why I think it's always important to use your words to right some of the wrongs we see everyday. Otherwise, why are you doing it?

[feed-our-souls-too]

Art, Film, Faith (part 2)

This is post 2 of 3 from a friend and fellow artist (find her Instagram here). She took a class on faith and film and we both found that the journalling and conversations that resulted from it were thought-provoking and, as such, worth sharing here. ~Julie (The Hopeful Raincoat)

Entry 3

In the class, there has been a lot of commentary about having discretion and understanding the perspective from which we view movies, but not very much about being a ‘glutton’, or the risks that might lead to it. In Through a Screen Darkly, Overstreet comments about a time when he was employed at a video store and had viewing access to a wide variety of films. “I wasn’t thinking about whether my intake of mediocrity and cinematic junk food was doing any damage or dulling my intellect,” then later, “I might have become an addict, hooked on something unhealthy that would slowly corrode my imagination.” This made me think about one of my concerns with striving to find what was underneath a movie to discover meaning, intention, and spots of light in a dark world. I feel like there is a point when the excitement to find these things might lead to shoving them into the narrative in order to justify watching the movie – a symptom of addiction.

The book implies being an addict is mindlessly watching movies for superficially interesting content. However, for Christians well aware of the standard their peers want them to hold to – whatever is pure – their symptom of addiction might be to shove in whatever is pure without much consideration. When I discovered comics in the Seattle Public Library, I ate them up, because I loved and knew the characters from the movies but had never had access to comics before. (It was probably a similar situation to working in a video store – unlimited access all of a sudden.) For the most part, I watched out for content that is corrupting and harmful, but if I could find just one little thing that related to a moral, or a ‘Christian’ value, I probably read it at face value, and was inconsiderate of any other impact it might have had on my thinking.

In the film Wings of Desire, the angel Damiel sees Marion take off her acrobat uniform and then gently touches her neck. An argument is made in the reading that says this is not intended to be a ‘celebration of lust,’ but a moment of admiration for physical beauty. There is merit to this, as Damiel may primarily see her as a creation of God with a unique experience, Marion is a ‘fine sculpture’. I sometimes worry that these kinds of arguments are a mere justification to watch the film without regard for the potential of negative implications. In the case of Wings of Desire, if the argument had stopped at, “It only showed her back,” that may be a sign of addiction because that is an excuse. It is a minor justification using face value without any thought about the significance of the moment.

LATER EDIT: Christians must have personal discretion for everything that they interact with, we must be critical thinkers. We must not be flippant, positively or negatively, with the content we interact with, whether it is the latest adaptation of a Steven King novel or the most innocent children’s television.

 Entry 4

I am still not satisfied with my questions from the last journal entry – when does film become just another piece of entertainment with a ‘fulfilling’ excuse? In Braveheart, fans might excuse the long, drawn-out battles because it is retaliation against oppression. The main character’s violent actions in The Patriot were justified for a similar reason. I remember my brother was pretty excited about the patriot’s original commitment to nonviolence. It might be because avoiding war is not the big picture most Americans think about when reflecting on the American Revolution, so this plot feels like a unique twist, which is a strategy that writers use for building viewer interest. However, I wouldn’t say we watched the entire movie just because the patriot wanted to avoid war in the first twenty minutes.

In the discussion of heroes and characters viewers admire (chapter five of Through a Screen Darkly), The Lord of the Rings was given credit for being a “meaningful mythology of longsuffering, sacrifice, and hope.” I totally agree. But I tend to be skeptic about the next sentence. “Somehow, Tolkien’s “Catholic work” resonated with viewers who flinch at the word religion.” Did it? I’m not sure – I do not really know people’s minds when they watch movies. What kind of response was it? What did they ‘resonate’ with? What is resonance anyway, does it come on a scale from one to ten? Does seven qualify as ‘adequate resonance to be considered a moving experience’ and therefore acceptable content? The success of The Lord of the Rings might demonstrate that the series is an exceptional work of art, meaning that it was ‘moving’ for the majority of those exposed to it. However, the films are not without the mindless entertainment of intense action that draws theater crowds in droves for other movies. The craftsmanship of the film is top notch, a fantasy world brought to life with outstanding realism, truly a spectacle to see. How can we be sure when art has moved beyond that?

Something that comes to mind is conversations with random people. Is it not the small, unexpected conversations with random people that have exponential value? It is highly unrealistic, perhaps outright false, to expect that sharing God’s love with those around us will bring in “results” every single time, or even ninety percent, eighty percent, fifty percent. Why should I expect that standard from art, even if it is exceptional? In light of this, I was actually a little bit comforted that even Gladiator, with a similar surface value as Braveheart and The Patriot, has some sort of undercurrent value that can be read into, and apparently people occasionally see that. But alas - another question surfaces - is the risk of becoming numbed to violence and caught up in the frenzy worth a sliver of a chance to experience something meaningful? If the film challenges itself in regard to violence, acknowledging the moral conflict and implications as in Munich or Unforgiven, (films that were discussed in Through a Screen Darkly, but I have not seen them) perhaps yes.

Entry 5

One of the lines from Through a Screen Darkly in a chapter on humor and comedy that stood out to me was, “It takes humility to accept such a public critique.” This was in the context of laughing at the mistakes that humans make, including the mistakes we make ourselves. It made me think about learning to take jabs – basically my dad telling me to tough it up when my older brother name called. The resolving family policy ended up being if you can’t take it, don’t give it. Our inter-sibling relationship now looks dangerously similar to Ruffnut and Tuffnut from How to Train Your Dragon (the ‘nut’ relationship is much more refined in the Netflix series), and I love it. My little brother and I in particular are willing to take the brunt of a joke just to generate a good laugh. I think that I had that mindset even for political jokes when I first came to Seattle from Montana, laughing along to jabs about Republicans that my classmates, professors, and even church leaders made. It’s a joke, it’s supposed to be funny, I can see why they think it is, I was willing to accept that. However, I think I stopped chuckling when I realized there was no reciprocal (which is also true of my hometown…) and it was not going to stop. Ever.

Receiving a joke from film is different than in-person interactions, whether it is about Christian beliefs and/or hypocrisy, or something else I relate to. It is a lot harder to be humble when there is distance between viewer and director (a growing problem in our media-directed world), and it is easy for a viewer to think that a director is trying to be degrading. Generally, I trust that people willing to make jokes about me to my face do so out of good humor. I am not sure if I can say the same about filmmakers, I do not know them. After some consideration, even if I do not find the jokes humorous, it can still be an opportunity for reflection on why the director thought it would be funny, which could be revealing in itself. If humor is acknowledging an err (a concept that Overstreet develops in his book, and a definition of humor I find to be very accurate), then there might be an err the viewer has not recognized.

The other portion of this reading that I was troubled with was the contrast of fools in real life and film. It seems like a narrative tactic to give a character who behaves against common unspoken (maybe even spoken) rule, opportunity to reveal something great. People do not expect this in real life, so it a surprising twist in a story and adds contrast. A fool in a story can be crafted and designed. But what about the Parry’s (Parry is a character from a film Overstreet mentions, I do not recall what movie he is from, only that he is homeless and seemingly a lunatic) that might cross our paths while we are visiting the downtown cinema? People usually avoid them. There are a lot of different issues in this situation (such as personal safety), but I find it ironic that people let fools inform us in film, but not on the street. Human interactions are supposed to be more effective than electronic ones.

[rwiwriting]

a rundown of why omelas is so important thematically to bangtan’s entire concept

This isn’t going to be MV analysis, per se, because this is just a teaser. I’m not going to tell you who dies (there are 5000 people doing it already please guys don’t ask this of me), or what’s going on, but the theme behind the mv, and the BLATANTLY POLITICAL commentary that makes it so important.

Okay, this might seem like jumping the gun, but BTS have done criticism before on society. Heck, other than Boy In Luv and War of Hormone era, each comeback has been increasingly outspoken. Their debut MV, No More Dream, was about the extremely pressuring education system in South Korea, as was N.O. So something like Spring Day, their new comeback, wouldn’t seem too out of place. Omelas, the glowing neon sign, seems to be the false utopia whose metaphorical existence depends entirely on the suffering of the youth. 

So what makes this comeback so radically different from any of the others?

Let’s look at the summary of the short story before we move on to themes, which you can read here. If you have read it already, CTRL+F to the subversion, but if you want a quick rundown anyway, look below.

Omelas is an utopian society, but not a society like, say, the original Utopia in Thomas More’s story. This utopia is almost the definition of free, has very little restrictions, and the people there celebrate life, not death. We are not explicitly told what it is like, but the writer actively encourages us to image that there are no soldiers, or kings, or even manned temples. It is a republic, of sorts - there is a discourse on what is necessary for happiness, and we are urged to imagine whatever we would see fit for it. Free wifi? Sure, why not? Orgies? Yep. What a beautiful state!

Except there’s a catch. This utopia hinges on one thing: The suffering of a lonely miserable child locked in a cage in a dark basement, given up by the entire city as beyond saving. Because saving it would mean that the whole of Omelas would crumble to dust. 

(Yeah, that’s Taehyung in the Stigma short film. Are they referring to this concept that they planned earlier? You bet.)

Everyone in Omelas knows about the child, but they don’t do anything. Every child and adolescent has the concept of it explained to them before they are taken to see it, and they all recoil in disgust. And although they rage and despair, nothing can be done except to return home.

There are always exceptions, of course. Once in a while, the adolescents, or even older people who go to see the child will never return home at all and start walking away from the city into the darkness. And that is where it ends. Abrupt? Perhaps. But it gets the point across.

The next part: What do we take away from this story?

Let’s go over the main themes once.

It’s the subversion of the common morals that humankind seems to exhort others to follow. 

This is interesting, because the author stresses that this is an utopia and it would never exist in real life. Yet excessive, unrestrained lust and passion are very real in our times, to the point that people whom we look up to as role models fall to corruption. It’s even more interesting when you consider that the concept of Wings itself was temptation - and in a Utopia like Omelas, there is no temptation at all, because all your wishes have already been granted. But the question is: have they truly made you happy?

Given the situation of the government in South Korea right now [Park Geun-hye’s Downfall] [Choi Soon-sil Gate Part 1] [Choi Soon-sil Gate Part 2] it’s very, VERY interesting. There’s more resources at Ask A Korean if y’all want to read up on the political situation there, some of which also come into play later.

What’s more interesting is that Namjoon - who we already know had a hand in Demian being part of the concept for Wings - has stated that he was influenced by Albert Camus’ The Stranger in this book excerpt interview that @papercrowns on twitter has generously translated for us. The Stranger has a very...pointed theme, so as to speak. In a nutshell, it’s about a man who kills another man. 

To expand - it’s about a dude named Mersault who feels no despair at his mother’s funeral, and feels no guilt after killing a guy on the beach, and doesn’t even feel any emotion when he is about to be executed, except for anger at a society that does not understand him. Tl;dr according to the author, there are only two truths: we live and we die.

(The murder happens on the beach, btw. Interesting, considering Jimin is standing on the beach holding a pair of shoes, which appear next tied to a tree. Which can signify death. Huh.)

This is what Camus himself said in 1955: “I summarized The Stranger a long time ago, with a remark I admit was highly paradoxical: 'In our society any man who does not weep at his mother's funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death.' I only meant that the hero of my book is condemned because he does not play the game.”

In short, Mersault - is not someone who should be emulated. His actions are born out of pure apathy. However, as a critic has pointed out, paradoxically - “Mersault’s ultimate vindication is in having remained true to himself and to his feelings in a society that cultivates deception and hypocrisy.”

That is essentially what Omelas is. The very concept of happiness in it is built on a lie - on the suffering of a lone child except of cherishing others. People in it cherish their family more because they know that child suffers, not despite it, and make no move to save it.

Now, we see that guilt is an unknown variable. The author writes -

“To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed.”

The children, or adolescents, who first go to see the child beneath Omelas, realize immediately how terrible its state is. However, they make no move to rescue it and start to justify to themselves why they are incapable of saving it. 

Ultimately it boils down to the greater good - and the fact that the child is beyond all saving, since its mental faculties may never be recovered even if it is rescued at the cost of breaking down that entire ideal world. It has already been battered and bruised, even if it knew happiness once. What is the point?

Which is where we hit the root of the problem.

This concept is a political and social commentary.

There’s no doubt that some of this would be very familiar to us. The wretched state of the child - it could be any youth suffering in a third world country, a child dying in an underdeveloped zone, a starving boy in Africa or a homeless girl on the streets of our own city. We hear about them every single day, but none of us make any move to help, because we believe they are out of our reach. 

Society has essentially been built on their blood, sweat and tears and we still want more. 

So what do they prescribe to break out of it?

Let’s go straight back to the story itself. The people who leave Omelas go either west or north, towards the mountains, the Eighteen Peaks referenced in the story. I should point out that the YNWA logo looks very much like a compass, here. But I’m not a design student, and someone else could point that out better. They leave silently, and the author says -

“The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.”

There can be only one possible analysis of this powerful ending paragraph. Essentially, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas is plotless precisely because it is a social critique. And these fortunate few in Omelas are the ones who have discovered a precious emotion that they cannot live without - guilt. The adults in Omelas are aware of that child underneath the city, but they ignore its existence and nurture their children more because they are aware of its suffering, unable to provide it succor because of their own self-preservation. They have, essentially, erased all guilt from their system.

But the ones who walk away have experienced it, and can no longer stay silent. They must protest. They must fight. And they fight in the only way they know how - not with violence, but by walking away from the constructed happiness of that society which thinks a child’s suffering is acceptable for the greater good.

And really? Haven’t they been saying that since debut? Except, what else is this but a very unsubtle reference to the peaceful protests in South Korea demanding the impeachment of Park Geun-hye? 

That same head of state whose associate embezzled millions? The same head of state who was absent from duty for several hours while hundreds of children drowned?

BTS are making a political statement. They’re doing it in the only way they know how - through their music. They’re being respectful, but they’re not being subtle.

Can I tell you if this is all going to be in the music video? Nah. Can I prove that anything I said isn’t just speculation on my part? Nope. In fact, don’t go quote me on it, I definitely don’t speak for BTS or BigHit or whatever their brilliant minds are planning next.

But the fact that they chose to deliberately reference such a controversial piece of philosophical writing that actively promotes peaceful protests is more than telling. Or you know, that their album is literally called You Never Walk Alone. It’s not just about the organization, or some donation. Look.

That, I think, amply showed us that you never walk alone. Not for a good cause. You just have to take the first step.

Peace out.

[fic-dreamin]

Not the uncut version! I love this book, which is quickly becoming one of my all time favorites. But this is definitely not the uncut version. Go to Amazon

The original Stranger--accept no others! I read Stranger in a Strange Land when it first came out in 1961. It was the most important and influential book I ever read. It changed my life, and the lives of millions of others. Inspired by SISL, I went on to create the real-life Church of All Worlds, which is still going strong over half a century later. The 1961 edition is the essential version, edited by Heinlein himself. The later unedited version issued by his widow is a travesty, as it is sloppy, and omits the single most important line in the entire original edition--Heinlein's definition of "Love" as "That condition in which another person's happiness is essential to your own." I corresponded with Mr. Heinlein extensively in the 1970s, and here are his own words regarding these two versions of SISL: Go to Amazon

Moving and educational, not for the young or faint of heart Stranger in a Strange Land was one of the first scifi books I ever read as a kid - and a bit over my head at the time! An odd mix of semi-conservative morals (there is some focus on homophobic concepts, though it seems less anti-gay and more pro-straight), religious iconography, strong liberal morals, anarchy, libertarianism, sex, and scifi advanced enough to fall under Clarke's Third Law. This has a very moving message, deeply engaging characters, a poignant and impactful story, good development arcs, great worldbuilding, and an alternative view of the world and of humanity. This is not for the squeamish; there are descriptions of death, sex (including group sex), extreme injury, dissection of religion, cannibalism, politics, polyamory/polygamy, and more. At times it is hard to say if it's a scifi story or a fantasy one - depends on your point of view. Mike and Jubal are two of the most likeable characters ever written (in my opinion) and their development over the course of the story paints it as a coming of age for both of them, in some lights. Despite the tender age at which I first read it, I would not consider this a book for children in any way, not just because of the R-rated material but also because much of the book would likely go over their heads or leave them confused. This is not a boy's adventure story like many of Heinlein's works nor does it feature incest or other strange behaviors like some of his more adult works - but it is definitely one of the most 'adult' of them all, in content but also in message and theory. This is a book I think everyone should read, even if some of it is rather dated these days. Changed my mind and life as a young thing and continues to entertain and move me now. If you can stomach the material - and unless you are very delicate you should be able to - this is not one to miss. Go to Amazon

I have read and enjoyed this book at least 6 or 7 times. Less A Story Than A Philosophy I grokked it Heinlein is awesome One of his best works Outstanding doesn't hold up Influence WOW. Re-read after many years. Enjoyed and GROKed more. A real critique of our society and mores. A real addition to his future history series in my opinion. Any Heinlein fan, SF fan or someone interested in social commentary will enjoy. ... classic by one of the original masters--some 1960's free love and social commentary that Heinlein was known for

[marysrhetoricportfolio-blog]

Week One

Please read Boyd White, Frost, and Anapol essays on Blackboard and respond the following question: Why is the study of rhetoric and law important to living democratically and justly?  Give what you think are the top 3 reasons based on your reading of Boyd White, Frost, and Anapol.

Read across various social media platforms for news of the day, and find stories related to top legal issues or justice issues. Post links to the top 3 stories that interest you and explain a bit about why each is of interest to you as a rhetoric student. Here are 4 that can serve as examples of what you might look for, basically stories about law, justice, arguments involved in various legal cases, etc. If any of these stories interest you, include them in your post with a brief on why:

https://www.npr.org/2018/01/14/578010819/recy-taylor-s-rape-still-haunts-us?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20180118&utm_campaign=npr_email_a_friend&utm_term=storyshare

http://wapo.st/2mFKeMf?tid=ss_mail&utm_term=.98cb61af6875

https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/legislative_session/election-redistricting-bill-goes-to-wv-house-subcommittee/article_cd8bf776-2a9c-58e8-ae09-27148be9c58b.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=user-share

https://www.npr.org/2018/01/18/578612534/accusations-of-frat-house-behavior-trail-la-times-publisher-s-career?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20180118&utm_campaign=npr_email_a_friend&utm_term=storyshare

Original Post

Rhetoric and law are undoubtedly intertwined from their conception. As a democracy, these two are imperative in creating a just system, and living more democratically. One of the reasons for this is the depoliticized nature of rhetoric and law. Because there is no agenda (supposedly) and no black and white moral code, rhetoric allows for the ability to see every side in an argument.

One of the most important ideas followed in a democratic court of law is that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. James Boyd White writes in his article, “So regarded, rhetoric is the art of establishing the probable by arguing from our sense of the probable. It is always open to replacement by science when the truth or falsity of what is now merely probable is finally established” (p687). Rhetoric makes sure that every possible outcome, everything that is probable, therefore allowing justice to take place. By representing all sides of a case, the legal profession is more democratic and just.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-opioids-litigation-newyorkcity/new-york-city-sues-drug-companies-over-opioid-epidemic-idUSKBN1FC2GK?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters=undefined%2FbusinessNews+=undefined%28Business+News=undefined%29=undefined

This article really interests me because of the laws pertaining drug offences and how they have become a political issue rather than a health issue. How does the rhetoric for these laws change the way the laws are treated?

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/01/19/579185667/las-vegas-police-no-further-arrests-in-october-massacre-and-no-motive

Gun laws and regulation have always been an interest for me, especially how the rhetoric between the original second amendment law differ from the laws made today.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/satanic-temple-challenges-missouri-s-abortion-law-religious-grounds-n839891

Reproductive rights are an important issue that has become, again, from a health issue to a political issue. However, this is an interesting story because it’s the opposite argument--that the waiting period does not abide to their religion. Very interesting intersection between religious law and abortion law.

Commentary

While my original post provides a great point of the connection of rhetoric and law, I had failed to see the constitutive nature of rhetoric and the law. Law is “an art of constituting culture and community” (692); it is the exercising of constitutive rhetoric that engages with meaning-making and community-building. Rhetoric is the basis on which not only law, but the world around us is built upon. However, I believe my earlier claim of rhetoric and law being depoliticized is naive based upon our further discussion of critical legal rhetorical theory. Rhetoric is used to create a reality that can inherently disadvantage certain groups of people, and while the law is supposed to be just, there is a constant critique that must be made to keep it that way.