#but this is a serialized tv show that you’re making for profit

[stacy-fakename]

Rat Grinders:Don’t do anything to the Bad Kids until antagonized, and it’s later revealed that their bad actions were a result of being groomed by one of their teachers for years and then murdered and possessed.

Intrepid Heroes:Fuck you, sending you to hell and you can’t be revived.

[writingpracticetime]

Interactions with other villains

From the notes of Mitchell Newman:

Let me set the scene.

First, the Discreet Entrepreneur’s Network, or the DEN as it is appropriately titled, is a loosely organized guild of sorts for villains to meet and exchange illegal goods and services. It’s members are vicious, super-powered criminals of all stripes--master thieves, serial killers, unethical scientists, the whole spectrum. They’re dangerous, violent, and not at all kind to non-members, or even new members.

Second, we have Constructor. A famous hero and  goody two shoes who only ended up in prison for protesting a mass eviction. More to the point, an (admittedly, not self described) pacifist who at the time was famously bad at combat.

The DEN should have torn Constructor to pieces, and this whole problem should have ended there. Instead our goody two shoes swipes dozens of members and eventually breaks the whole network into pieces.

How?

---

You have always been bad at public speaking.

You don’t stammer.  But seeing lots of eyes on you makes you freeze and all of the words you planned slip away. It doesn’t help that at least half of the people in this room are murderers, but they would have the same effect if they were third graders.

You wish Sandy was here again. She was always good at coaching you through these things. The only reason you ever made it through interviews or press talks was because of her prep work.

"The pipeline," you try again.

The Organizer quirks an eyebrow at you. For a second he looks to his assistant, a pale woman whose eyes are fixed on, and then he motions at you. "Go on."

"the pipeline they're building," you try again. "Its damaging to the environment. The people don’t want it there. And it’s. Illegal."

The crowd actually bursts into laughter.  You’re too used to talking to politicians.

---

Afterwards, Bonfire nods sympathetically at your grimace on your way out.

“There’s a reason I’m not a member,” she tells you.

“Did you hear? Did I…?”

Did I do good? It’s the sort of approval you used to seek from Sandy. You stop yourself, because you already know the answer regardless. Not a single person in that room approached you to join your next operation.

“There’s still the two of us,” Bonfire shrugs. “Best not to work with too many, anyway. That’s how snitches worm their way in.”

“Yes but…”

“Wait!”

A reedy voice calls after you. You don’t recognize the stick figure man who darts after you, eyes darting.

“Wait, okay okay okay okay,” he says, quickly. “Constructor. I’m--Cyberscout. I, your pitch, I mean--”

You wait. You hear a flare of irritation at your shoulder.

“Okay, your pitch sucked,” Cyberscout says. “Didn’t you used to go on TV? Man. N-not to down you or anything, what I mean to say is, just… I can help you with that. Not with your speaking skills, but getting the word out other ways, and doing some information gathering for you. So I’ll sign on. Pay back the favor.”

“Favor?”

“Yeah, uh. You jailbroke me,” he says. “I don’t work for nothing, normally I’d ask for a favor or cash but… since you already did me a solid… just this once.”

You hold out your hand, and like that you make your second ally.

---

Your second venture into the DEN goes better. You practice with Bonfire and Cyber ahead of time, so your voice is stronger. When you enter the latest venue, you nod at the Organizer and the silent pale woman next to him, taking a deep breath and refusing to feel intimidated.

Again, you  describe what you’re opposing as wrong. Again, you talk about the people’s wishes. Again, you call it illegal, and again there is snickering, but instead of falling silent your voice booms.

“Are you going to pretend you all don’t care?” you ask, and you hear yourself echo from the back of the hall. “How many of you have been thrown into solitary Akonite cells for store robbery, for having? How many of you got beaten by guards? Now CEOs are lining their pockets with medications they got from experimenting on prisoners just like you have been, and they go completely free. This is illegal, against the public good, all of the things they say about your own actions--and yet the men doing this go free.”

Dead silence.

“If the hypocrisy doesn’t make you furious,” you say. “That’s because you have no fight left in you.”

---

When you leave the conference, you know Bonfire heard because she’s smirking.

“Better?”

“Better,” she agrees. “Still no takers?”

“They’re probably worried about losing face,” Cyberscout says. “I mean, I was. But after a talk like that, just wait. They’ll trickle in.”

And they do. Days after, a greying old woman approaches you. She seems hesitant to meet your eyes or speak at first but when she does his tone is cold, brusque, and to the point.

“You may have heard of me, you may not have,” she says. “But to the point, I know a few things about unethical experiments, how they are run...and how to help the subj--victims. If you are willing to look past my past indiscretions, I can be an asset.”

“I care more about what you’re willing to do now than anything you’ve done in the past,” you tell her.

She holds out her hand stiffly.

“Call me Asag,” she says. “Dr. Asag.”

---

At your third DEN meeting, the Organizer’s lips thin as he sees you. He once again exchanges whispers with his assistant before glowering at you. You brush him off, and stand to explain your next venture.

“One more thing,” you say. “Before anyone here thinks of joining, this is going to be a no-kill operation.”

“What?” booms a hulking figure in the back. “Are you fucking serious?”

“No interrupting,” the Organizer drones, but you speak up.

“Wait,” you say. “Let him talk.”

The man steps forward, and you have an instant flash of recognition. It would be impossible not to recognize him, actually. You don’t think you've met anyone else that big.

“You don’t know shit about what it’s really like out there!” the giant says. “You really expect anyone to go out and not defend themselves?”

“I didn’t say you can’t defend yourselves,” you explain. “I said you can’t kill anyone.”

“You can’t get shit done if you’re not willing to kill,” the man says, darkly.

“Really. And how has that worked for you? Wait--” you make a show of trying to remember him. “Oh wait, I know. It got you in prison. Where I broke you out, without killing anyone.”

There is actually some laughter. In your favor this time. It makes you grin.

“Hobbes, right?” you ask. “It’s possible to fight and neutralize someone without killing them, and it’s usually better that way because then the feds can’t justify using as much force against you.”

“Then I’d like to see you try to neutralize a real super,” Hobbes spits.

“Alright,” you say. “Come at me then, and I’ll show you.”

“Absolutely not!” the Organizer shouts. “There will be no fights during conventions!”’

You don’t even spare him a glance. “Outside, then”

The Organizer hisses at the entire crowd follows you both, eager to see blood. “This isn’t--the rules--”

After a fight that admittedly takes a lot more out of you than your previous efforts neutralizing low ranking heroes, Hobbes grumpily becomes your next ally.

---

More and more come to you. Some asking for monetary compensation, some asking for prison breaks in the future, and some who seem to be as drawn to your ideals as you are, deep down.

With each venture, the Organizer seems less and less happy to have you appear, until one day when you are about to come to another gathering you find yourself barred.

“You’ve broken enough rules,” the Organizer says, darkly. “You aren’t welcome in the DEN anymore.”

“What rules?” you ask.

There are a few, of course. Some minor things here and there, but nothing that got anyone else banned. He tells you, and you are about to object but someone else cuts in first.

“You’ve been cutting into his profits.”

It’s the pale assistant. Her voice is weak and thready, like she can barely speak up.

“What are you talking about?” the Organizer sneers. “I never--”

“He’s been working with some of those corporations you’ve been undercutting with your, um, stuff,” she says, her voice getting higher. “B-both sides. Always got to work both sides, he thinks. Get some villains to help, sell out the others.”

Other people inside are listening, murmuring. The gathering of villains are getting agitated--clearly, this is news to all of them, as well.

“Please,” the assistant says. “I have proof. I’m a--I read minds. I can tell you everything, just get me away safely and I’ll--”

He turns on her and attacks, hands around her throat. You don’t even have to think about it. You slam concrete into the Organizer’s face, and all hell breaks loose. Someone grapples you--and then Hobbes wrings them off you. Bonfire, always drifting at the edge of the event, darts in and jerks the coughing assistant out of the fray. And with that, your last venture at the DEN becomes an all out brawl.

You decide it’s still better than public speaking.

---

---

MN: So, real talk for a moment. How did you do it? Money? Threats? Brainwashing? I know there were a few mind control types in your group.

#4598: Hm?

MN: How does a hero go to a bunch of violent crooks and end up leading them?

#4598: The only way you can. With their consent.

[defensefilms]

Defense Films Lists His Favorite TV Characters Of All Time

5. Chris Partlow- The Wire

The ending of The Wire paints Chris Partlow as something closer to a serial killer. 

He wasn’t. None of his hits were done out of pleasure, curiosity or even impulse. Every one of those bodies helped the Stanfield organization become what they became, even the one on Michael’s stepdad.

What Chris represents is reliability and capability. The ultimate “get shit done” guy. Out of all the characters on the show, none were more dependable or crucial to the success of the institution they served. 

Lester Freeman was capable but not a good politician and ultimately a nuisance to his superiors. Bill Rawls was incredibly capable at his job but he was power hungry and ambitious. In season 5, Gus Haynes is the most capable man in the news office but the problem was that Gus questioned authority and didn’t “go with the flow” when the office decided the paper needed a “refreshing” of how they cover the local news.

Chris didn’t have any of these handicaps impeding the people he served.

He recruits the foot soldiers for the Stanfield crew, even training them himself and Marlo had something akin to a small army at his disposal as a result. He organized his sub-ordinates, handled all surveillance when Marlo’s crew was under investigation at the start of season 5 and took care of incoming shipments after they established a direct line to the Greeks. 

When the task required finesse or subtlety, like the time he stole Sergey’s picture from the court office, he was more than capable of that too. When Marlo is questioning how to address the murder of one of his dealers, he listens to Chris and chooses to retaliate on the perpetrator directly rather than targeting everyone on his corner. 

Marlo truly comes to rely on Chris in matters concerning Omar Little. Every step of how Marlo wants to get back at the near mythical larcenist, is first passed by Chris. Chris takes this as his number one job throughout the show. Anything concerning Omar is handled with brutal efficiency, tact and an almost out ouf place  sense of professional pride. 

That’s Chris’ most endearing quality. Through all the blood, guts, scheming, lying, betrayal that comprises Baltimore’s underworld, all of which Chris is very much a part of, he has a pride in how he approaches the day to day business aspects of what he does. 

Stringer Bell is arguably the best second-in-command in the show’s run but he was dishonest, ultimately harming the survival of the institution he served and damn near going rogue. 

Chris doesn’t share such qualities as blind ambition or selfishness. He understands that trust is all he has in this game. When the indictments eventually come down and Chris is facing a life sentence he doesn’t complain or even raise the possibility of turning state witness. Instead he ends up on the yard along side Wee-Bay. Marlo in turn makes sure that Chris’ people are taken care of financially.

Many of the men that serve in the various institutions depicted in the show could learn a thing from Chris Partlow. When the time came, he fell on his sword and did so in full acknowledgement that this is where it all leads. There’s a kind of honor in that.

4. Tony Soprano- The Sopranos

One of the biggest misconceptions about The Sopranos was that it was a story about a gangster. It wasn’t, or at the very least, that would be an over-simplification of what the story actually contained.

What it was was a story about a man and his family, both biological and criminal. That’s the tie the binds all of the story’s narratives together.

Another way of looking at Tony’s story is one of leadership. Having ousted his Uncle Junior from the seat of power, season 2 and onwards, as far Tony’s criminal life is concerned, focuses on what happens once you get to the top. 

While the show’s creators gave you plenty of grizzly, violent scenes, what leads to those is the story of a man struggling and failing at leadership. 

In every season, Tony has to deal with a problematic figure, employee or subordinate. 

Season 1 was his Uncle and the idea of old fashioned leadership. Then in season 2 it was the ever-acerbic Richie Aprile, representing a generation older than Tony’s, that still feels entitled to something. Seasons 3 and 4 gave us Ralph Cifaretto, the only one among the men I’m mentioning that actually earns his status and then in season 5, it was his cousin Tony Blundetto.

Each of these problems is uniquely stressful for Tony because of how they pull at the threads of both his family and criminal life. With the exception of his Uncle Junior, he kills all of them.

By that metric, Tony is in fact a very poor leader. 

He doesn’t really deal with the Richie Aprile problem because his sister beats him to it. He doesn’t willingly promote Ralph Cifaretto even though Ralph earns it and is the only one among the candidates with any real intellect and business savvy. In both the cases of Christopher Moltisanti and cousin Tony Blundetto, Tony allows favoritism and nepotism to cloud his judgement and ironically both those men die at Tony Soprano’s hands.

This paints a picture of a tyrannical man, slowly devouring everything around him because he’s got to be in control. Worse yet, his need to be in control doesn’t actually lead to smarter long term decisions or better people management.

Tony’s relationship with Ralph in particular is built on professional envy. He feels entitled to Ralph’s race horse winnings because “why should his subordinate benefit more from anything than he does?”. He then proceeds to take ownership of the racehorse itself without assuming any of the costs of owning the animal. Then to top it off, he steals Ralph’s girlfriend purely because he has the status to do it, even digging in to Ralph’s personal life in order to justify doing so.

Textbook mismanagement. Every type of managerial violation you could imagine.

So how does Tony handle it when an employee is actually being a problem on a criminal/business level?

He rewards Tony Blundetto’s deception after the Joey Peeps killing by letting him run an already profitable gambling joint. He promotes Christopher to “made guy” even with his drug problems being well known, and he promotes Bobby Baccalieri, partly at his sister’s behest and partly out of spite.

 It was fun to watch on screen but you’d hate to work for Tony Soprano.

How does that translate to his family? What kind of leader is Tony at home?

Season 3 does well at examining Tony as a father/paternal figure starting with his relationship with Jackie Jr, which is built on concern at first. Then later it starts to make Tony anxious. Before Tony decides to push nature towards taking it’s course, when Jackie runs afoul of men in Tony’s charge.

His relationship with AJ is also a bigger part of the show as the seasons go and it’s not much better in as far as the leadership or guidance that Tony offers. We can waffle on about AJ’s failings as a spoilt teenager but the real problem is that Tony doesn’t see himself in AJ. 

That’s the first step to any failure of leadership. An inability to find common ground or identify with the people you’re leading.

We won’t go in to how hypocritical it is because the entire way that Tony entered the mob life is because he himself was a mob prince and his father’s status definitely paved the way for him. 

Hypocrisy. That’s the other key to failure in leadership. 

All these negatives added up to make the most fascinating television character in over 20 years. A constant stream of contradictions and watching a man say one thing but do another was it’s own experience and you didn’t realize what a horrible human being you were watching until you saw the show over and over again. A scary observation that implies people are either blind or really comfortable with evil and narcissistic behaviour.

3. Noah Solloway- The Affair

Out of all the characters on this list, this one was hurt most by writers hitting a ceiling in how much they could say about the character or how much they wanted to say.  Divorced men don’t really have that much representation, so if you’re writing a character that so strongly linked to that one particular event in his life, you may hit a ceiling if you don’t actually have real life examples to work with.

They had the right actor, the right story and it was the right time in human history to tell this story, it just felt like they didn’t follow through on really speaking on the plight or rise of guys in Noah’s situation.

Anytime I watched The Affair, and unlike most, I was pretty loyal to it despite what reviews told me, I identified with Noah. All those other characters didn’t make sense to me the way Noah did.

The story begins with my man being stuck in a rut, the kind of middle age funk  married men tend to fall in to, so he drives out to visit some folks and while he’s there he happens to meet a baddie. Story of every man’s life. Only he does what you’re not supposed to do and sacrifices everything he has so he can be with the bad-bad. 

Then my mans starts popping off with his book writing, gets a publishing deal and in his 40′s, he starts achieving his highest career peaks. See this is important because it shows that the writers understood the subject matter really well, as well as the demographic they were talking about.

Then the next season, they go in to some murder mystery plot, Noah ends up in jail somehow, almost as if the writers and producers didn’t feel confident that they could tell Noah’s story without the theatrics/murder mystery element. 

The other danger that the writers probably didn’t want to indulge was rewarding the character with any kind of happy ending or positive outcome. Noah’s infidelity serves as the jumping off point to all of the story’s unfolding plots, mostly depicting the impact on the lives of his immediate family, a handful of which play out in sad dramatic fashion. So the writers likely felt like Noah couldn’t win at the end. 

In the 1930′s when gangster films were first being made, they would commonly feature PSA messages at the start warning against criminal behaviour. 1931′s “Little Caesar” starring Edward G Robinson, features a warning at the end that makes it clear the film’s producers and writers needed the character to go down in flames at the end, to prove the moral point that “crime doesn’t pay”. 

A writer’s moral obligation and the times in which they live can lead some to write the ending that makes a moral point rather than writing the most dramatic or honest ending. I think Noah Solloway kind of suffered from this.

I don’t know. 

There was a chance to explore modern men in a way that most stories fail to. They had the foundation. They knew enough about who and what they’re talking about. However it didn’t manifest in the telling of the story. 

I’m not saying Noah needed a positive ending, it’s just that the one we got was not the most fitting nor did it wind up ending the story honestly or even dramatically.

Noah Solloway should have got the Tony Soprano treatment in as far as how much the writers explored his inner world but instead the show’s creators decided it didn’t matter. They didn’t answer the question of why this happens to modern men.

If nothing else Noah Solloway can be a blueprint or foundation for those telling this story in the future.

 2. Ciro Di Marizio- Gomorrah

About as slimy and as low down as a television character can possibly be. Ciro represents Machiavellian criminality pushed to it’s extremes. 

When writers plot a character’s trajectory, they often fill it with moments that make the character more endearing. Exploring the relationship the character may have with a child, friend or spouse that makes you see the character’s more genuine/compassionate/likeable side. The writers of Gomorrah did plenty of that with Ciro.

However, they didn’t hesitate to show you just how off-the-rails and downright evil Ciro could be. 

What’s funny is that Ciro is defined by loyalty and servitude when the story begins. He is a capable captain and rises to 2nd in command when the Savastano family needs him to. However the death of his close friend and mentor changes him for the worse and he goes ham. 

What follows is betrayal and Ciro basically masterminding a coup of the Savastano clan but the levels of paranoia that his new found power push him to, make him question whether it was all worth it. The world burns around him and a kind of justice is restored when Gennaro is able to take back power and restore the Savastano name. 

That’s one aspect of the show that Ciro truly exemplifies in that he rises to the top but the throne never truly feels like it’s his.

He is Iago-like in his ability to understand the weaknesses of people around him. He proves himself more cunning, capable, strategic, murderous and even business-minded than almost every other character. Every character except for Pietro Savastano (the man he betrays) and Gennaro Savastano. 

The show goes to great lengths to put forth the idea that crime families in Naples are on the same level as the pope. True modern day monarchies. Royal families that have the power to benefit or harm anyone around them. People bow their heads to them when they walk in public and use reverential terms when addressing them. They will often have salons, jewelers  or restaurants cleared out so they can enjoy the establishment in ostentatious privacy. 

When you look at it like that, Ciro was always an outsider. The difference between just sitting on the throne and being born of the throne. 

In that way maybe Ciro’s story is about redemption. 

He eventually sides with Gennaro Savastano again, helping him get his wife and daughter back after they’re kidnapped. He does this by essentially lying to/duping a crew of young dealers from Florence to fund this hostage rescue and then he offers himself as a sacrifice when the Florentines demand blood.

At his best Ciro served the clan and went to great lengths to restore what he had destroyed. 

1. Marlo Stanfield- The Wire

Is there any greater?

Sure there are characters like Tony Soprano whose world and whose inner thoughts the audience gets more familiar and intimate with. Within the same shared universe as Marlo is a character like Stringer Bell and the writers of the Wire go to great lengths to understand and convey his moral conflict as a drug kingpin turned wannabe real estate tycoon. 

Marlo is something purer though. 

You don’t need to know his inner-most thoughts like Tony because his utmost desire is simple, he wants to be the top kingpin of Baltimore. What more do you want?

He does not share Stringer’s moral complexity because unlike Stringer he is not conflicted at all. He’s not a drug dealer playing businessman, he’s just a drug dealer and that’s all he ever wanted to be.

From the start of season 3, it was fascinating watching this man move about on the screen with a confidence reserved for the richest and most talented. Indeed Marlo proves he has both in bundles. 

He outwits the older drug kingpin in Stringer Bell by maintaining independence from the Co-Op. He matches Avon Barksdale’s war effort step-for-step after Avon comes home from prison. He outsmarts the wily, Proposition Joe in order to learn how to launder his money and then get access to the Greeks.

It was fascinating watching Marlo avoid pitfalls, monopolize Baltimore, out-think his older counterparts and grow his empire to the scope that he did. 

There’s a youtube video that compiled all of Marlo’s scenes from his 3 seasons on The Wire and it pretty much plays like a feature film. Watch it here if you dig Marlo as much as I do.

You’re not watching a drug dealer become a kingpin, or at the very least that’s what I believe. It has more to do with watching the younger generation upset the order, and in a lot of ways that’s what Marlo represents. From the moment Marlo shows up, all old agreements are null and void. He does this over and over again throughout his story. Constantly upsetting the order and establishing his own. 

Indeed Marlo isn’t aware that this is what he’s doing. He’s acting on ambition, arrogance and naivety. 

It speaks volumes that most of the characters on this list have on-screen relationships that explore their personalities, like the aforementioned Ciro’s relationship with his daughter. Marlo has none of that.

Marlo’s most revealing relationship is his rivalry with Omar Little, a man he only ever encounters once. The continuation of their feud happens because Marlo refuses to let any perceived slight towards him slide. One way of looking at what this shows is that Marlo is both egoist and perfectionist, the latter of which is actually very prized personality traits in today’s business environment. The combination of the two is actually commonly seen among CEO’s and top executives.

Marlo shows every weakness and drawback of youth while exposing the follies of the more seasoned and experienced in his field. A walking contradiction in that way.

[thelittleredheadedmusician]

Have you read the comic where Kon goes to Gotham to talk to Tim only to discover Stephanie as Robin. Kon is defensive. Batman shows up but refuses to tell Kon where Tim is and instead tells him to listen for Tim's heartbeat. That is some lovers plotting. I'm pretty sure Superman has used that method for Lois Lane.

Then DC wants to act like Kon x Tim shippers are deviant. Like oh sorry DC comics that you used a writing trope usually only reserved for lovers and people built better stories based off that then whatever dan didio wanted.

I felt like being bitchy about this. I know DC hasn't been openly critical of Kon x Tim shippers (that I've seen anyways) but more that indifferent mega corp way and not caring.

I have read that comic. And go off anon? I really don’t do/care about ships so I really don’t have a horse in this race. 

My 2 cents is this: you’re right in that comics is an industry and so they’re going to make story and editorial choices that will give them the highest profit margin, it’s why they’re baiting both dickbabs and dickory shippers in current comics between Nightwing & Titans Academy. Unfortunately, queerbaiting is a pretty good way to get money out of one group of fans without alienating another. So they’re likely to keep doing it. 

That being said, my views tend to align with fandom olds in that fandom and fan content exists for a reason? If you’re not getting it in canon, then make it yourself. And timkon is a MAJOR fandom ship so there’s plenty of stuff out there. At the same time, I’m also not a fan of people/fandoms demanding their ships become canon. Part of it is that I just don’t really do shipping or care for romance plots, especially in serialized media like comics and tv shows where everything about it is subject to change based on different writers and what higher ups are saying. Part of it also goes back to that fandom old mentality and seeing how access to the internet has made it really easy to attack creators. Sometimes the stories that someone wants to tell isn’t the story that you wanted to see, and that’s ok. You can complain, I do ALL THE TIME, but at the end of the day there’s a reason that you like whatever it is, so focus on the good and bitch about the bad and then find a good fic to soothe your soul. 

Maybe dc will make it canon, maybe they won’t, that doesn’t stop or invalidate your interpretation of it. Death of the author is a thing, art is always open to the interpretation of the viewer/reader. So, if they’re madly in love/soulmates to you then run with it. 

[blastoisemonster]

Kodomo No Omocha’s Sticker Album Highlights (Merlin, 2001, Italian)

Let's keep talking about retro japanese cartoons, shall we? I've done some posts lately in which I reviewed Game Boy games based on comics or animations from Japan, with the intention of covering series that I either used to watch as a kid or recall being popular during the GB and GBC eras. A lot of these games have never been released outside Japan, so it's also an occasion to gather up some imports and see what Italy has missed on. There's actually a particular cartoon I wanted to talk about since the start of this research, but unfortunately it seems it has never recieved any videogame adaptation. But hey, this is my blog, and I can talk about whatever I want! >:C Also I suddenly remembered my Fandom tag has been created purposely for non-gaming objects. >.> So, let's look at some stickers while I tell you the tale of Rossana.

Rossana can be best described as the soap opera that spawned a second wave of nipponic hysteria among every single italian person under 20 during the very last period of the 90s. It's like The Bold And The Beautiful looked at Pokèmon and said "yeah, I want something like that.". Its popularity hit even harder my personal view of the world as the plot starts with the protagonists attending the last year of elementary school... which is exactly what me and my friends were doing, multiplying the relatable factor tenfold. This cartoon took everyone by their necks since its first episode: it was broadcasted on what was, at the time, the best and most popular italian channel for children entertainment, and heavily advertised before starting, so we knew exactly when to tune in to catch it. The day after the first episode, school looked like a different place. Everyone in class was chanting the opening at the top of their lungs; boys were acting like the male protagonists, all girls mimicked the main role Rossana, the more artisticly inclined ones started doodling the characters anywhere possible, including textbooks and homework. Teachers were in tears. I had watched the first episode and found it amusing enough to keep me entertained, so for some period I fully partecipated in the general enjoyment of the cartoon. Then, I started missing episodes (when you missed something on TV during the 90s... it was gone!) and upon returning to it, I found the plot had become much more complex and centered on sentimental intrigues, of which I never gave a toss about, so I jumped off the hype train while others still followed it until the end.

As it is usual for these productions, Rossana was another anime based on a manga series; the original work is titled "Kodomo No Omocha" (which literally means "Children's Plaything"... yeah, I too find it a tad creepy), drawn by mangaka Miho Obana and serialized by Ribon from 1994 to 1998. It tells the story of Rossana Kurata, a child actress (an idol in the original story) trying to balance her career with a normal kid's life by going to school and having normal friends: however, her class is anything but normal and she finds herself often fighting against the biggest bully of the school group, Hayama (translated as Heric in italian). As the story progresses, though, Sana understands Heric's complex and at times completely inappropriate attitude is a result of a troubled childhood, having lost his mother at birth and being bullied by his older sister and completely ignored by his father. Willing to help him out, Sana befriends him and starts to develop even deeper feelings, also sharing her own troubled past: she had been actually abandoned as a newborn and adopted by Misako, a famous writer. New characters are introduced along the way, among which the child actor Charles, Sana's schoolmate but also colleague which the girl will work alongside during a trip to the States, and Funny, an extremely extroverted kid that will at first become close friends with Sana, but that will, at some point, steal Heric's heart, leaving Sana to deal with heartbreak and jealousy. Despite the story being drawn in an energetic shojo style and the episodes showing many hysterical/demential jokes along the way, Kodomo No Omocha is a dramatic story centered on overcoming past secrets, venomous feelings, and describing the difficult shift from childhood to adolescence.

The original 10 manga volumes got adapted for animation in 102 episodes, which broadcasted on TV Tokyo from 1996 to 1998. In Italy, the anime got imported first with the direct title "Rossana": it was aired in its entirety during all of the year 2000, and yes, all the 102 episodes got translated! Unfortunately, the channel wanted to make Rossana completely targetable to little kids, which meant that many plot elements had to undergo heavy censorship. The result was a comedy/demential series that at times showed a sentimental route, and for the rest felt very cut, like it was hiding something. This was no Chou Gals!-styled localizaion effort: scenes were edited or completely deleted, names and terms translated losing all context, graphics and objects concerning japanese culture got zoomed out, some episodes even aired randomly without following the original order, and finally the ending got cut, leaving it as an open cliffhanger. Kodomo No Omocha is, originally, marketed towards an adolescent audience, but kids are a much more profitable target, so a lot of the original plot points went away: Sana no longer thinks of Rei (her adult manager, called Robby in italian) as his boyfriend; it's never mentioned that her actual mother abandoned her in a park after giving birth at only 14 years old; and many instances in which some kids (Heric, but also Komori in later eps) practice self-harm or have suicidal thoughts are cut in their entirety. And yet, despite this general mangling, the story managed to become popular anyway, gaining three reruns, some video distribution on VHS and DVD (both cut, for unknown reasons, after the 20th episode), and an opening with lyrics that will never leave the minds of an entire generation. The manga got translated only after 2002, getting marketed instead for its actual audience and going for a literal translation of its original title: "Il giocattolo dei bambini - Rossana" got published by Dynit in its entirety, however I'm not sure wether it underwent the same censorship measures of the cartoon or it was left to a more faithful state.

The hype about Rossana was interestingly lacking of any substantial, original merchandise imported from their origin country; instead, every gadget we had about the anime was produced by italian companies and it consisted in the usual cheapish stuff sold in order to cash a quick buck on popular media. We had school supplies such as bags, pencil cases and diaries, decorated stationary, and the never-missing sticker album. This last merchandise, aptly featured in this post, is what I remember most since everyone was trading doubles at school; the blindingly hot pink package has also burned a permanent image in my mind. Published by Merlin in 2001, Rossana's abundantly pink album could contain 204 stickers; be them glossy, holographic, single or combined, it adds up as quite a large selection considering that all images shown were nothing more than screenshots of the cartoon, with album pages filling up a description of episodes shown, or giving a little more insight on the general plot. At least my previously reviewed Pokèmon album showed interesting action poses by Sugimori and doubled up as a Pokèdex, but I do recognize the latter can count on a much more substantial franchise. What Rossana's album excels in, though, is its value; remember when I said a completed Pokèmon album was only worth a few bucks? Well, a completed Rossana album goes instead for nothing less than a hundred euros on secondhand markets. Even the single stickers, if sold in lots, can become a pretty penny, and still sealed booster packs can range from 30 to 70 euros depending on how many you're selling. I can already picture italian readers going through their cupboards to see if they still have this relic intact! As for me, I was too focused on Pokèmon during that period to care about filling up another sticker album, so I had completely skipped that. And no, I'm not gonna spend 100+ euros on an album just to make a Fandom post: what you're seeing here are all images collectors have shown to the net.

It's interesting to notice that Merlin tried to cash in on the anime's popularity even beyond the sticker album itself, by advertising even among the album pages an upcoming periodical (monthly I suppose?) magazine almost all centered on the cartoon, but trying to double up as a typical girls' magazine with pictures of boybands, various articles, and the always present and equally emberassing mail section. For some reason I have very vivid flashbacks of me going through the pages of the first volume: probably some friend brought it at school, they had it lying about at their house, or I may have bought it along with other girls then left it to them. This mag was nothing particular and doomed to be shortlived: you can't keep a single anime series relevant forever, and it was apparent that arguments tried to always pull Rossana into context when in reality it had nothing to do with the articles. It seemingly disappeared after its second issue, and got buried under the sheer abundance of more relevant girly mags, among which the legendary Cioè.

All in all, Rossana’s shout of livelyhood was probably short, but loud enough to have shook the heart and soul of many of us, especially in this country. It’s apparent that companies wanted to keep the profit margin as high as possible by not importing any substantial japanese gadget about Sana and opting instead for printed publications or cheapy stationery; however, apart from dolls, plushes and general toys, even Japan didn’t seem too keen on releasing actually peculiar stuff dedicated to the franchise. The most technological gimmick I found is a toy audio recorder, of which I can only find a few images online and not even one single listing so I can get and review it. Maybe I’m just sour no one ever thought about doing a Game Boy adaptation, because I’m sure it would’ve been a major hit among girls here. Oh well, can’t change the past... but surely you can remember it. :)

[sapphichymns]

In defence of the Thirteenth Doctor and Series 11

There has been a lot of rhetoric about the state of the show and it’ll probably continue no matter what the show does (that’s Doctor Who for ya). But 1 year later, why not have a new look at the Thirteenth Doctor and Series 11 and some of the criticisms it received?

By the way, this will be quite long so buckle up!

Audience

A needed change

While Doctor Who has a loyal fanbase and it’s one of BBC’s most profitable intellectual properties, the TV show came to a certain halt. Twelve’s era had the lowest average ratings, declining over its 3 year course. Of course, there are a lot of things to take in consideration when talking about audience ratings: the day of the week the episode aired, what was before or after it, the rest of the competition in other channels, etc. A LOT.

The thing is, Moffat’s era is complicated to watch if you’re a casual viewer. The plot gets convoluted and the fan service can be exhausting. Casual viewers like to jump in, check things out but if there’s a plot thread that is confusing or needs more background knowledge of the show, they will just change the channel. RTD’s era didn’t have this problem. Most of the necessary information for the Series 1-4 arcs would be in the last 2-3 episodes and, the way he would reward hardcore fans, was with environmental/dialogue hints that paid off in the end (Bad Wolf, Torchwood, the Drums, the Doctor-Donna). It was rather simple to follow and understand.

So to get the audience that left and acquire new fans, the BBC/Chibnall decided to go to the basics*. To not have two parters or any overarching arc. It is the first Series in modern Doctor Who where this happens (and probably the only one for a long time with the confirmation that Series 12 will indeed go back to its traditional structure).

In my opinion, this risk was worth it. Ratings went up and, more importantly, Doctor Who is once again part of the public conscience. People are talking about it, even if the BBC handles the show like a rejected son when comes to its marketing. At times, to continue, the basics are the best way.

*Actually, wild theory but I feel the BBC played a big hand for Series 11 to just have stand-alone stories. Some of the stories seem to have parts cut out and it explains the rushed endings. It Takes You Away had an extra monster and all the evidence we got of it is a BTS photo. It wouldn't surprise me if later, at some point, it was revealed this was indeed the case. 

Characters

Would you kindly reset?

For those who don’t know, the Time Lords were only introduced in the Second Doctor’s last serial The War Games. Before that, there wasn’t any background for the Doctor except they were an alien travelling through space and time discovering new worlds, meeting new people and making new enemies. Over the years, the mythos expanded and changed (complicated to be consistent when you have 56 years of history on your back) but modern Doctor Who tied itself rather tightly to the concept of the Time War, especially how the Doctor relates to it. The pain, the grief and the consequences. How the rest of the Time Lords outcast and abandoned the Doctor, time and time again. All because of a desire to explore and see the universe.

The Thirteenth Doctor doesn’t have this weight upon her shoulders. She moved on, she is past that. She wants to discover the universe and meet new people. That’s why the only thing she says about herself to Graham, Ryan and Yaz is:

“I’m just a traveller.”

She’s is scared of attachment. She lost the closest friends she had and her family. There’s also the guilt for not being able to protect Bill like she had promised. If it wasn’t for the accidental teleporting of Graham, Ryan and Yaz, she would probably be alone.

The situation the Doctor is in right now is a double edged sword. She doesn’t want to be known but she grew close to these 3 humans. She doesn’t want them to know her dark past and she is able to avoid it (Resolution is a turning point for her). I think it’s clear that Series 12 will make her face the consequences of her hiding (Cybermen appearing is a big hint at this).

Doctor Who did “reset” with Thirteen but by going back to the formula that was set in the First and Second Doctor’s eras of a clean slate, and instead of having a big old explosion that wipes everything, it’s by making the Doctor hide the worst parts of herself from others.

Granddad

Graham and Ryan are the only ones who have a character arcs of all the four members in Team TARDIS. Graham tries to handle his grief over Grace’s death and the dilemma of Ryan not accepting him as a part of the family. While Ryan is similar, there’s the feeling of abandonment from his father, Aaron. He learns to accept Graham and faces Aaron about his negligence in Resolution (he does forgive Aaron but it’s probably the last chance he will ever have) showing growth and maturity.

While there is an obvious influence of the adventures with the Doctor in them growing closer and closer, understanding what they are going through, this is probably the only relationship in modern Doctor Who where the Doctor doesn’t directly influence. Maybe the only part she directly influences is in Ranskoor, where she knows Ryan can warn Graham before he does something dumb and idiotic*. Yet, she hangs back compared to previous incarnations. All the relationships between the companions and their loved ones, were, in some way or another, influenced directly by the Doctor. Ryan and Graham healing and growing at their pace is a breath of fresh air compared to previous series.

*By the way, I do think Graham wanting to go John McClane on Tim Shaw was really OOC cause there was a lack of hints that he wasn’t healing properly and it does contradict the end of It Takes You Away. If he just said that Tim Shaw had stolen his sarnies, I would believe his behaviour a lot more.

Want to do more

It is curious that Yaz is the one who sticks more to the background considering how much she is an archetype of the modern Who companion. She is unsatisfied with her job and wants more than what she’s being given. She’s kind, compassionate and she has a strong admiration for the Doctor (the novel Molten Heart mentions it). Heck, she even parallels Rose in some of the things she says/the Doctor tells her.

I do think it is unfair to say her police skills are never utilized. She’s usually the one who gathers info and reassures people that everything will be fine. The Doctor obviously trusts her in dealing with more dangerous situations (the P’ting in The Tsuranga Conundrum). She has been trained to keep a level head and also fits how the UK police is trained, to defuse dangerous situations by talking.

Her work overlaps with what the Doctor does in her adventures.

There’s a lot of trust between Yaz and the Doctor but it’s so superficial. They are both so closed off* and while, we know the reasons for why the Doctor is doing that, we don’t really know anything about Yaz (except when she tells Willa in The Witchfinders about being bullied). She is the same as the Doctor and both have to open up.

But she needs character development in Series 12. Mandip Gill is obviously excited working in the show and it saddens me that she didn’t enough of a spotlight.

*Mandip Gill does hint that Yaz has been hiding something and that will be revealed in Series 12 so that's a step (I wrote all this before the video so....).

Mythos and other shenanigans

Contradictions that aren’t contradictions

There has been some talk about how Thirteen contradicts herself and the main examples are Kerblam and The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos.

The Kerblam example is how she says she hates conspiracies, while, previously in Arachnids In The UK, she said she loved them. Both are different though. Yes, it is the same word but the context and the tone of the scenes are completely different. In Arachnids, there is a bit of playfulness to it. There’s even acknowledge from Sonya and Yaz that this isn’t the first time that Hakim has his head wrapped in a conspiracy theory. Only later,  there’s the revelation that massive spiders are mucking about and the toxic garbage is affecting them. In Kerblam, the situation is different. The Doctor knows that the situation is dire and people are disappearing.

    “Don't like bullies, don't like conspiracies, don't like people being in danger, and there's a flavour of all three here.”

And then there is The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos and the gun situation. It’s not exactly a contradiction but more of a conscious decision from the Doctor. She does say:

“You were new. I have to lay down the rules if someone’s new.”

Ryan was immature in The Ghost Monument. He thought the situation was just a game of Call Of Duty. She had to make it clear for her to trust him, he had to mature. That’s why she is okay with Ryan using the bombs later in Ranskoor. She trusts him cause she knows he grew! 

Another interesting thing to point out is that the Doctor obviously trusts people who clearly had training. She’s okay with Yaz using the stazer to immobile the P’ting in Tsuranga cause she had training to deal with this kind of high tension situations and has less chances of making mistakes compared to a civilian like Ryan. It shows that Thirteen is okay with authority while Twelve wasn’t.

It’s easy to take everything you hear in a literal manner but it’s important to think of the context, tone and the characters.

The so called destruction of the mythos

The funniest accusation I’ve seen about Series 11 is how Chris Chibnall and the rest of the writers are rewriting the show’s entire mythos. Well, I understand what it’s to be saddened about the Doctor not hinting about the Time Lords or her past but rewriting? If the mythos isn’t even mentioned, how can you rewrite it?

What about how Moffat’s era messed with the show’s mythos? Clara saved the Doctor in multiple periods of their lives (even point out which TARDIS to pick), Twelve met Davros as a kid and taught him about mercy, the War Doctor just appears out of nowhere too. What about RTD’s era? Ten regenerated to himself, the Time War was introduced, Rose Tyler gave a Dalek feelings. Even Classic messed up with it too. The Doctor only starts having 2 hearts in Third’s era. Just because the Thirteenth Doctor says that she had 7 grannies and her favourite was Granny Five doesn’t mean they are destroying the show’s mythos.

With 56 years of history on its back, comics, books and audio dramas, it’s impossible for the mythos to not change. It’s always changing. The best they can do is to be consistent during its own era.

“Pure” history

So this is going to seem wild, but uhm...the historical episodes of modern Doctor Who (maybe in Classic it’s different) have never been “pure”. They were always about the Doctor landing in a place in time and by coincidence, there’s something alien happening nearby. They solve the problem and move on.

Maybe the two historical episodes that this does NOT happen is The Fires of Pompeii and Rosa. While in Pompeii, Donna and the Doctor discover that the eruption of Mount Vesuvius was provoked by alien life, in Rosa, Team TARDIS has a battle of wits with Krasko (time travelling criminal) to make sure he doesn’t interfere with this fixed point time. But they are still not “pure”.

They have sci-fi elements that add a new element for the story, a conflict. I’ll admit, that at times some of those elements are boring but they still interact with the historical premise (except in Let’s Kill Hitler where the historical setting is nothing more than shallow set dressing and an edgy joke).

The promise of consequences

Series 11 is known for taking a lower stakes approach and this is shown with the lack of series long arc plus the Doctor’s flat character arc. It never promises that there’ll be anything big that is going to shake up the status quo. The only line that seems more of a hint is the Timeless Child that the Remnants use to taunt the Doctor in The Ghost Monument. BUT that was obviously not going to be utilized (again, no arc) and that’s fine, it didn’t deceive people and stuck to what it had promised.

And in hindsight, this is better than to be promised consequence over and over again, just for it to be rendered useless in the next episode/series. RTD’s era doesn’t suffer much of this problem but Moffat’s era is full of that. We kept being promised consequence, for the show to just go “all is fine again!”. Clara is a prime example of this where she dies in Face The Raven to only come back again in Hell Bent to erase the Doctor’s memories of her… which only lasts one series till he gets them back again in Twice Upon A Time.

This lack of consequence was thought out for series 11 and that they are betting for series 12 to be the one that shakes up the status quo.

Extras

Politics: series 11 has the same politics that were always present in the show since the start. Nothing changed!

Dubious morality: that’s the Doctor’s brand. Thirteen isn’t the first one to make eyebrow raising moral decisions. This is a problem with the show in general than just series 11 (Ten was prone for genocide and Eleven basically brainwashed humanity to commit murder for him).

Themes: series 11 is rather consistent with its themes of grief, family and change. They are always present in every episode, some way or another. Yet, no one ever discusses them.

Ups & Downs: The show, in general, has its ups and downs and that’s fine. Every series got really episodes that are wonderful and others that are just “eh, sure”. Series 11 isn’t the odd one out.

Unsatisfied fandom: ...actually this is the best way I can describe Whovians, as never satisfied with what we are given. Even me so...I just wanted to get this off my chest

Final notes

I know that series 11 has some issues and I do have some gripes with it (which I didn’t talk about it here cause then I would be here forever) but it does some things in rather subtle ways, yet they end up being ignored in favour of bad faith criticism.

Thanks @isagrimorie​ and @braddersbangerz​ for the help!

[notmyrick]

Okay this is a theory not theory or a "hear me out" type of thing. This actually isnt a theory, just a cool what if. Something to be scrapped.

But if you're with me this far let's begin overanalyzing shit!!!!!!!

Argument: The entire show is evil Morty

*mic drops ready for the tomatoes to be thrown*

But guys let's take a step outside of Rick and morty for a second.

You want to talk about rick and morty without talking about rick and morty?

Yes! Second voice I'm using purely for a narrative aspect!

Remember some time ago that Rick and Morty was suppose to be or at least considered to be a procedural type show?

Procedural shows are shows like the Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, Tom and Jerry, Futurama, Phineas and Ferb, etc.

Typically a show that has a very obvious formula with characters that typically never change, don't age, and rarely grow. Typically you could tell a show is procedural of you can watch any random episode from any season and understand what's going on (given it is not the final episode of a completed series).

Objectively if you look at Rick and Morty, you can say it it still holds true to its procedural structure. I could start on any episode season 1-4p1 and understand the dynamics of the Smith family.

Okay now just keep in mind that procedural shows last longer than serialized shows.

You can give me shit, but who the fuck is still a fan of Degrassi. And I know that there are some hardcore fans of GoT or Twilight, but I havent seen anymore hype or recent buzz about either of them since it ended (or near ending I dont keep up with stuff). Yet i could go to a person and ask if they watched Friends and some third party will scream to us "PIVOT!" or "They were on a break".

But I'm getting a bit off topic. The thing is Rick and Morty are now going semi serialized, but (hopefully) still keeping it procedural.

The fact is you can start anywhere in the series given the few special episodes. Episodes that are a direct continuation like the ending of season 2 to the premiere of season 3. Those episodes MUST be played together. Ending season 1 to premiere of season 2 is kinda iffy bc they basically summarized/hinted what happened at the end of season 1 with a few sentences.

If you go to most procedural type shows, they tend to have a serialized component which to be honest can be summarized by certain episodes. The serialized component can be either, what I call a "time stamp" or a character change. For time stamp it's mostly used a certain time period the characters response (i.e. the relationship of Rachel and Ross). The other characters tend to reference their relationship in certain episodes.

Or the character change, can be also known as character development, can be the serialized component in which a drastic epiphany happens to the character that changes the relationships with the characters or changes to their environment.

With this as a foundation, let's talk evil morty.

We know that their are infinite versions of Mortys out there. One of them is evil Morty, but it has been shown, by not being shown, how or why this morty became evil. There are many theories out there, most of which I like, but they are just wild speculation. I am going to twist up my own version of it now lol.

What if we've been watching a possibility of a Morty becoming evil. With Rick and Morty being a Procedural type show, the episodes aired does not have to be "in order" with the exceptions of of the special episodes.

Rick, in Rick and Morty, rather not Fuck with time travel, but doesnt mean the audience won't.

Think of it like an archeological excavation. We keep uprooting or discovering more about ancient civilizations or what our past ancestors did, but we don't find them in order. One min. We are discovering something about King Tut, the next we discover something about the the first homosapien.

With this, besides the special episodes, nothing was in order.

This theory is making a huge assumption that we've been watching the same Rick and Morty pair throughout the seasons. Meaning we've been watching Rick C137 and this Morty. This could explain why we dont see alternate versions of our favorite side characters. Why we dont see alternate versions of BirdPerson, Squanchy, Crombobulus Michael, hell another version of Tammy. If we've been watching (at least) the same Rick this entire time, then besides the special episodes, we've been jumping to moments of Rick's life. Like with the recent episode of Never Ricking Morty, Morty was able to buy the toy train because this took place before Rick destroyed the Citadel, but after the introduction of the evil Morty.

With what I've stated previously, hear me out, we've been watching the evolution of evil morty, or at least another version of him. ALTHOUGH only granted that evil Morty is one, if not the biggest climax to Rick and Morty. Remember how procedural shows may have some serialization in their shows. This also means they are not confined to one story arc. Which means evil morty is one of many sotry arcs to be discovered. This "theory" only works if Evil morty is one of the bigger climaxes to the show.

Recall previous procedural shows:

Futurama has 140 episodes

Phineas and Ferb have 189 episodes

I primarily used these tv shows because I am biased and watched them.

I would argue both had procedural and serialized components

With Futurama they had a few story arcs in their show, the one I remember and personally favor is the Leela-Fry relationship.

Similar to Phineas and Ferb, they also had had a few story arcs, with again being bias my favorite being the Phineas and Isabella relationship.

Note: can you see I like relationship arcs

If Evil morty is the one of the biggest story arcs of the franchise they would need to make sure that the ending for evil morty was satisfyingly tied up in a bow similar to the phineas and ferb final episode. If Evil Morty was the Final climax/arc of the franchise, I would say the ending needs to loop back around to make it "open ended" to keep it procedural similar to Futurama for replayability.

Rick and morty was renewed 70 more episodes somewhere after the end of season 3 making the current total of Rick and Morty episodes to barely pass over the 100 episode threshold. Which is the benchmark for networks for a shows profitability or syndication(profit and syndication are completely different dont get that confused).

So with my, hear me out theory, Rick and Morty has a lot of time to explore the evil morty story arc and/ or make better arcs for the future. Expecting it to be explored now in SeASoN 4 feels a bit too soon. If they keep a 10 episode per season schedule we can expect 6 more seasons of Rick and Morty to explore it. If they decide a 12 episodes per season then at least 5 more seasons.

[takerfoxx]

Okay, so how do you rationalize enjoying the works of H.P. Lovecraft? Does 'death of the author' play a factor in your decision?

Good question, and one with a very...complicated answer. So I would say...yes and no.

Look, you can’t get rid of Lovecraft. The man’s fingerprints are all over modern fiction. The Cthulhu mythos and associated works are just too damned big and widespread, and even if society collectively decided to jettison everything Lovecraft wrote and forget about it entirely (which they won’t), he still practically invented the cosmic horror genre and remains its gold standard, and his influence is all over horror, sci-fi, and various flavors of fantasy. His stuff is too baked in at this point. It’s not going anywhere.

Well, okay. Then let’s get rid of the man himself. Death of the author and all that. It’s not like Orson Scott Card where purchasing his work will put money into the pocket of someone with terrible views and allow him to use that money to further his despicable causes. Lovecraft is dead and buried, his work is public domain, so it belongs to everyone now! Besides, the man was a notoriously bad businessman who couldn’t keep control of his own intellectual property even in life, so he never profited off his works and died early in massive poverty from a disease likely caused by his inability to purchase healthy foods! So we agree that he was a scumbag but still enjoy his works without guilt because we won’t be supporting his abhorrent views, right?

Well, no. Because he differs from Orson Scott Card in another respect, in that at the very least Card’s views are separate from his works, whereas with Lovecraft they’re baked into the very marrow. There are so many of his stories where the big terrible twist is that someone turns out to be black or part black or something like that, which he saw as being bad enough to act as a horror twist, and even the stories that don’t directly incorporate his racism, there’s ample evidence that his fascination with cosmic horror, with the whole “Something so alien that simply beholding it will cause insanity!” was directly caused by his demented fear of the other. One directly informed the other, there is no getting around that.

So what’s the answer? Well, for me the answer is simply to be wise about it, and make your own choice. For me, I can acknowledge that the man was an appalling bigot even by the standards of his day, to the point where other appalling bigots were embarrassed to associate with him because of how far he took it. I can also acknowledge that he was a fabulously talented writer who created an amazingly detailed mythology. I can agree that the whole Old Gods and their like is a super cool concept and even incorporate it into my own work while also being fully aware of how much of it was informed by some really fucked up views. I take the whole plate, make use of the great stuff while refusing to turn a blind eye to the shitty parts, because there is still something to be learned from it. But by the same token, there’s many who are so disgusted by Lovecraft that they’d rather have nothing to do with him at all, and that’s perfectly valid as well. 

There’s a quote I like from the TV show Firefly, where a jackass mercenary discovers that some entirely selfish actions of his from the past had accidentally turned him to a folk hero at a backwater town, and he’s all confused by it. And his captain tells him something to the effect of, “Everyone who’s ever had a statue made of them was one kind of sumbitch or another.” And the guy who created Firefly turned out to be a serial cheater, with a lot of his own...problematic views still popping up his works. Basically, we have to come to terms with the idea that talent is no respecter of decency, and so many of our “heroes” did pretty rotten things. Thomas Jefferson was a pretty nasty guy, MLK was also a serial cheater, and Ghandi...man, what a weirdo. And let’s not even get into the hot mess that was Mother Theresa! Hell, I’m a wrestling fan, and do you know how many times we have to come to terms with these things? Chris Benoit, Hulk Hogan, Vince McMahon, the list goes on. But this also doesn’t erase the great things that these people did, and how much it shaped our history. So yes, I can watch and enjoy a Chris Benoit match while still keeping in mind that the deep-seated issues that eventually drove him to murder his family also played a part of why he was such a great wrestler while also acknowledging the many traumas, concussions, and lack of sorely needed help that caused those issues to spiral out of control while also not justifying the things he did. I can enjoy Hulk Hogan’s work and appreciate what he did for the business while also acknowledging his racism and the shitty way he treated other people. I can enjoy many of the things Vince McMahon did and created while also pointing out and condemning all the terrible things he’s done and continues to do, even if I do currently refuse to put money into WWE’s pocket. I can say that the Ultimate Warrior’s final promo was a masterpiece while also agreeing that he was a deranged, bigoted asshole. But I wouldn’t hold it against anyone that couldn’t.

So basically, it comes down to personal choice, but I feel that the best way to enjoy great work by terrible people is to NOT turn a blind eye to their terribleness, to openly acknowledge and condemn it, while also being mindful of our own flaws and also learning to not be surprised when yet another one of our heroes lets us down. Hell, I myself was raised in a deeply conservative household and thus struggled for years with the inherent prejudices that came with that before I was able to break free, and I’m still coming to terms with everything I’ve learned about people I used to hold in high esteem. 

So acknowledge, but neither erase nor excuse. Condemn those terrible qualities, while also try to learn from them to help keep others and yourself from falling into the same trap. Celebrate greatness, but also keep the bad stuff in the conversation so as to learn from it. Accept that your heroes will let you down, while also being mindful of your own flaws, messy history, and inherent prejudices to further better yourself. And also keep an open mind about others that are also trying to come to terms with themselves while refusing to tolerate openly embraced bigotry and keep it from targeting those who are vulnerable. Make up your own mind about what you’re comfortable with. But above all, agree that no matter what it’s going to be messy and requires constant critical thought.

[sindri42]

You like anime.

Hrm... yes and no.

On one hand, if I see a good story, the medium and country of origin don’t matter much. Like, I’d want to know what language a book was originally written in so I know more of the author’s cultural context, and can figure out potential awkward phrasings and mistranslations, but I’m no more or less likely to read a book because it came from japan, or france, or poland.

But on the other hand, I think that the current culture surrounding the creation of anime if much more conducive to stories I like actually getting produced and aired than the culture around american television (and movies). The number of american shows that make it onto my list of favorites is a tiny fraction of what’s on the air, because for every actual creative concept you see, there’s thousands of ‘the same shitty sitcom done again but with different names’ or ‘lower quality remake of a movie that was done better decades ago’ or ‘stupid edgy grimdark bullshit where every actor looks exactly the same and every frame is dimly lit and washed out’ or ‘slight variation on the exact same reality show you’ve been not caring about for twenty years’. And yeah, a large fraction of anime is also doing the same dumb shit over and over again, but a much larger minority of shows are encouraged to do something shiny and new, or at least a unique twist on the tropes we’ve seen before.

I think it’s probably because western TV is usually designed by committee, doing whatever your focus groups and shareholders tell you will give reliable profits? It’s very difficult for a new concept to make it through production, because the guys supplying funding consider it too much of a risk; same basic problem as all the bland iterative AAA video games. But animes seem to come from one of two sources: either a big name in the industry has a cool idea for an original series and they’ve got enough influence to push the whole thing out the door as they originally envisioned it, or it’s an adaptation of a story that started as a manga or a light novel or even a web serial. In the first case, the financial backers are willing to take a gamble because they trust that the auteur will make something that sells, based on the quality of their past work or the size of their fanbase. In the second, the gamble has already been done; mangakas and LN authors and the kids on the online writing forums have already thrown thousands of concepts at the wall, most have failed, and the ones that rose high enough to be publicly noticed are pretty much guaranteed winners... as long as you don’t screw up the things that made them popular in the first place.

Another major factor? Anime, with a few exceptions, goes in with a story to tell and then they tell that story and they are done. Sometimes you get cut off halfway through, sometimes you need to end early because you couldn’t afford more episodes, sometimes the manga source isn’t done yet and you have to wait or tack on your own alternative continuity, but in general a series is a whole self-contained story. Western TV, with a few exceptions, tries to milk their concept as long as they can until they get cancelled. There’s almost no ending gracefully, no overarcing story to speak of. Something like Supernatural is really cool... for about three seasons, five if you’re lucky, but if it’s still going sixteen years later you know there’s nothing of value to be found anymore. Same with Stargate. Burn Notice started out awesome, but the concept they were building on was something that just could not sustain more than 2-3 years, and instead of finishing the story and walking away they kept coming up with increasingly contrived excuses to keep things going. In contrast things like Babylon 5 or Gravity Falls are great because they follow the anime pattern: they started with a plan that led them directly into an ending, and they had to edit a few things along the way to make allowances for real life issues but they were always going toward that conclusion.

Anyway my current book selections are like 60% american, 25% japanese, 15% various parts of europe, because literature is lower profile, lower budget, and thus less subject to the problems american tv and movies have. For comics, well, the two big american comic book publishers both have serious problems, but western webcomics and manga follow a lot of the same patterns so my attention gets split pretty evenly between those two. For television, I think the only american shows on these days that I still care about are Penn & Teller and My Little Pony. (Maybe Elementary? NCIS used to be cool but it was only valuable for its characters and all but two of them have left and the writers fucked up the characterization for the couple who are left so really it should have been ended a few years ago.) There’s just not much worth watching. But there are like six things from Japan that just came out this season which are fun and interesting as long as you can get past the fact that they’re cartoons in a different language, so why would I limit myself to shows that aren’t anime?

[recentanimenews]

Killer Interest: Shonen-style Horror and Humor in Zombie Loan

Bad to the Bone.

  When it comes to the marketplace of anime, we've all made a few poor decisions here and there. One moment you're watching an unfamiliar series, the next you're six figures in debt to a dubious loan shark and working out of a shady office in Roppongi, trying to pay down your interest by assassinating the walking dead. Who hasn't been there?

  But it doesn't have to be that way. Before you sign off on an unknown anime series, let “Cruising the Crunchy-Catalog” be your helpful financial adviser. Each week we provide additional info and cultural context for a series in Crunchyroll's library of titles, so anime fans can make informed decisions about whether or not they'd like to partake.

    What's Zombie Loan?

  Zombie Loan is a 2007 TV anime with direction by Akira Nishimori and animation production by Xebec M2. The series is based on the manga of the same name by Peach-Pit, which was serialized from 2002 – 2011 in Square Enix's Monthly GFantasy shonen manga magazine. Crunchyroll describes Zombie Loan as follows:

    What would you do if you could see death? Michiru Kita can see rings around other people's necks, and when those rings turn black, death follows. So when two boys from her class, Chika Akatsuki and Shito Tachibana, show up with black rings around their necks, Michiru doesn't know what to do. She tries to warn them, but they don't need it--because they are the ones death needs to hide from! With a certain loan keeping them alive, they need money to pay back the debt, and when the two zombie slayers learn of Michiru's unique ability, they decide to use her for their own profit and gain.

    Equal parts action movie, horror flick, high school comedy, and “chunibyo” teenage drama, Zombie Loan follows our heroes as they track down undead monsters in an effort to get paid, running afoul of wolf-spirits, serial killers, mad scientists, and even rival teams of monster hunters in the process.

    A Dash of Mysticism.

  Although set in modern Japan, for its sense of world-building Zombie Loan draws inspiration from a variety of sources, including Greek and other European mythology (Ferrymen, Grim Reapers), Jewish mysticism (the Kabbalah, golems), and Chinese spiritual practices (the magic wielded by Touhou the Exorcist).

  The concept of the Akashic Records, which grew out of the West's resurgent interest in spiritualism during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, also plays a major role in the story-line. Because of this melding of different influences, the plot of Zombie Loan is able to pivot easily in strange and intriguing directions, preventing the story from growing rote or predictable.

    A Pinch of Audio and Visual Design.

  It's clear from the limited animation that Zombie Loan is not a lavish production, but what the series lacks in smoothness it makes up for in visual style. The background artwork by Emiko Kaneyama and Yuriko Nagaya is especially on point, using strange and otherworldly color schemes to create a spooky, surreal atmosphere.

  The music (by Hiroyuki Sawano of Attack on Titan fame) and the sound effects also do a lot of heavy lifting, and the opening theme by The Birthday and the ending theme by SATO-chi are top notch. Despite it's limitations, Zombie Loan looks and sounds good.

    The True Monster is...Capitalism?

  In addition to the action, the comedy, the drama, and the macabre and scary bits, Zombie Loan also finds tension in a critique of predatory loan practices. If the main characters can't repay their debts, they'll cease being zombies and start being ordinary corpses, and the stress of that scenario is only exacerbated with the introduction of Alive Loan, a competing company with deeper pockets and stronger resources at their disposal. What's a debt-ridden zombie to do?

    Repaid with Interest.

  Crunchyroll currently streams Zombie Loan in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the US Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the United States Minor Outlying Islands. The series is available in the original Japanese language with English subtitles. The Zombie Loan TV anime is also released on DVD in North America by Discotek Media, while an English language version of the original Zombie Loan manga is released by Yen Press.

    Humorous and horrifying, creepy and cute, Zombie Loan is a good match for fans who are in the mood for something a little different for the Halloween season and also who don't mind a cliff-hanger ending that encourages viewers to check out the manga for more monster-mashing goodness. If that sounds like your sort of thing and the series is available in your area, then please consider giving Zombie Loan a try.

    Is there a series in Crunchyroll's catalog that you think needs some more love and attention? Please send in your suggestions via e-mail to cruisingcrunchy@gmail.com or post a Tweet to @gooberzilla. Your pick could inspire the next installment of “Cruising the Crunchy-Catalog”! 

-----

Paul Chapman is the host of The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast and GME! Anime Fun Time.

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[douchebagbrainwaves]

SOME CHANGES MIGHT BE BIGGER THAN OTHERS, BUT THE SORT OF THING A RIGHT-WING RADIO TALK SHOW HOST WOULD SAY TO STIR UP HIS FOLLOWERS

It will start with small ones. At the time any random autobiographical novel by a recent college grad could count on more respectful treatment from the literary establishment. And once it spreads to hotels, where is the point in size of chain at which it stops? At Viaweb our system had so many components and changed so frequently that there was no longer such a desperate need for publicity, so although the software continued to evolve, the whole idea of your computer is going away, and being replaced with your data. One reason it was profitable to carve up 1980s companies and sell them for parts was that they hadn't formally acknowledged their implicit debt to employees who had done good work and expected to be rewarded with high-paying executive jobs when their time came. Disk crashes won't be a thing of the past, but users won't hear about them anymore. That one succeeded. Several of our competitors were offering desktop software and actually had version numbers.1 We serially dated RAID suppliers. We did the first thing we thought of good ideas, we implemented them. So the biggest cause of bad ideas is the still life effect: you come up with a much firmer grip on the code.2

And yet, I am pretty sure that the notation is not the problem, even though he probably deserves to be on any shortlist of admirable people. Ultimately you always have to guess. The suburbs of Pittsburgh in the 1970s.3 But are these just outliers? At Viaweb the key to getting users was the online test drive. A round. It's also true that there are quite a few marketplaces out there that serve this same market. We lost several high-end merchants to Web consulting firms who convinced them they'd be better off if they paid half a million dollars for a custom-made online store on their own servers.4 I think it would be Fred. It's not far from saying that Python's goal is regularity and readability, not readability. Of the language now, but I remember the feeling very well. Some of our competitors were offering desktop software and actually had version numbers.5

But if you want to learn what people want, deciding how much to charge, customer support, paying your bills, getting customers to pay you, getting incorporated, raising money, and so on. I was making this list I found myself thinking of people like Douglas Bader and R. You should be able to write a program to help by searching source code for repeated patterns. Jack Lambert.6 So I think it would be such a great thing never to be wrong that everyone would do this. Programmers and system administrators traditionally each have their own separate worries. Another great thing about Web-based application now for less than the cost of sending them the first month's bill. And you don't have to be even faster, and you know wherever I am, I'll come running. The good news is, choosing problems is something that can be learned. Hundreds if not thousands of conversations of this type are happening now, but I don't think they'll dominate this new world is the way you do releases. PG, Thanks for the intro!

Notes

Earlier versions used a TV for a year to keep their stock.

The first assumption is widespread in text classification. If you extrapolate another 20 years. When the Air Hits Your Brain, neurosurgeon Frank Vertosick recounts a conversation in which YC can help, the partners discriminate against deals that come to you; you're too busy to feel like a core going critical.

They then grant the founders enough autonomy that they got to Yahoo, but I think the company and fundraising at the outset which founders will seem to lose less on investments that failed, and also really good at acting that way.

And if you were still so small that no one is harder, the angel round from good investors that they were just getting kids to be so obsessed with being published. Applets seemed to us. Look at those goddamn fleas, they can do to get the people they want.

In practice it just feels like a probabilistic spam filter, dick has a pretty comprehensive view of investor behavior. No, we could just expand into casinos than software, because such companies need huge numbers of people we need to be a good plan for the fences in our common culture. We just store the data, it's software that was killed partly by its overdone launch.

While the space of careers does. What lures founders into this tar pit. Some introductions to other knowledge.

Thanks to Paul Buchheit, Eric Raymond, Kulveer Taggar, Robert Morris, Patrick Collison, David Sloo, Jessica Livingston, and Aaron Iba for reading a previous draft.

[thechroniclesofdaraliss]

100 Mutants & Masterminds Session Ideas (Part II)

You all liked my first list so much, I couldn’t resist putting another one together. That’s right! Another 100 exploits for your super-powered adventures. Whether you’re a engaged in a gritty war against crime or silver age shenangins, there should be something here for everyone! If you like what I do, please like, comment, or reblog. So let’s don our masks, strap on our capes, and take the skies for another day of heroism!

Flying saucers loom over the city, but you discover that humans are piloting them. It’s up to you to find out who they are and how to stop them. 

A corporation has developed an android model that will replace super heroes. While the idea works in the beginning, the androids soon turn violent and believe humans are obsolete. Not just in heroism, but every aspect of life. 

Someone has stolen a list of retired superheroes and super-villains. You have been tasked with finding the mastermind and taking them down.

An eccentric magician is taking classic magic tricks and turning them into death traps for civilians. The end goal is to lure the city’s heroes into the open to defeat them in combat. 

A legendary superhero sacrifices himself as he fights alongside you. But there are clues scattered throughout your city that he/she/they are alive. 

Ancient artifacts in your city’s museum are revealed to be incredibly advanced war machines. They are so ahead of their time, they exceed modern technology.

The heroes are sent back in time so none of their acts of heroism happened. They must find a way to return to their original time without altering history.

Intergalactic authorities charge humanity with harboring fugitives from other planets. If you don’t give them up or prove their innocence, the planet will be destroyed to make an example of what happens when you oppose the Galactic Federation.

A gang of bandits are plaguing your city. Their trademark is wearing masks of classic monster movies. They choose their personas based on what powers they possess. (Dracula drain, Frankenstein strength, Wolfman senses, etc).

A Mage Hunter is in your territory, and he’s killing anyone who practices the arcane arts. No one is safe from Demonic Serial killers to young students of magic.

A villain has constructed a Flying Fortress which rivals the world’s most powerful air force. You have been tasked with infiltrating this armada and taking it down from the inside.

An art gallery has taken all of those in attendance and trapped them inside the paintings. The guards at the scene claim that the heroes need to find a way to get them out, because the victims are being killed by a monster is locked in with them.

A mad scientist harnesses the power of a natural disaster (earthquake, hurricane, volcanic eruption) making it possible to replicate the destructive force at will. 

The mob has gone to war with the villains of your city. While it seems beneficial for one to win over the other, civilians are getting caught in the crossfire.

A villain is stealing monuments from the most powerful countries and the wealthiest cities in the world.  It’s up to you to stop them before your city loses its monument (the progression shows you’re next).

A top-secret complex is broken into, and you have been tasked with returning the stolen property. You discover that the project was a collection of highly mutated animals that have super powers.

Movie trailers, TV broadcasts, and all other media in the city announced the arrival of the next major crime. While no specifics are mentioned, clues begin to surface as to who the victim will be, when the crime will occur, and what to expect.

A network of orphans and runaways has been uncovered. They are fed, clothed, and kept out of police custody so long as they obey their ringleader’s orders. The catch? None of them  have ever seen him.

Advanced technology has been stolen and applied to the vehicles of street racers. Dimensional portals, anti-gravity, and other attachments are made to raise the stakes. Any opposition from heroes is seen as another obstacle to complete the race. 

A team of supervillains take over your headquarters. To take it back, you’ll have to find a way to beat your own security and defeat the intruders in combat.

You discover that there’s an underground school dedicated to training villains. However, your discovery of it was planned. In order to graduate, these students have to kill your team.

A retired supervillain comes back after being out of the game for years. They have designs on securing their legacy by forming the most powerful syndicate the city has ever seen. 

Ghastly figures emerge that bind their bodies to technology. No one is sure where they came from, but they are growing larger and more resistant to force as time goes on. 

A new hero steps into the fray, and he is a public figure. He takes footage of his exploits and is trying to outshine you and your team. Is it a grab for fame, or is there an ulterior motive?

A kidnapping goes haywire when it’s revealed that the victim is an immensely powerful wizard, and the kidnappers are Lovecraftian agents of chaos.

An airport/train a station/taxi service has had all of its vehicles rigged to blow. The party responsible says that if the heroes don’t comply with their demands, everyone in the vehicle will die, as will those at the destination.

An adversary of the heroes sues them in court for enacting vigilante Justice, as well as any other questionable acts they’ve done in the course of their duties as heroes. 

A team of dojo disciples/super heroes have pleaded for your help in getting their mentor back from his arch nemesis. If he reveals his secrets of Martial Arts to this villain, there will be no stopping him from creating an unbeatable army of warriors and assassins. 

An immensely powerful Psychic is being tasked with a government mission. In it, he is to monitor an entire city and prevent all crime from happening. While it was effective in the beginning, the mental strain is enormous. He has messaged the heroes in a desperate bid to help him escape.

Zombies are running across town, and their bite victims are screaming about a massive entity that controls them all. You must save the civilians, subdue/Kill zombies, and eradicate the source.

A website has surfaced that teaches civilians how to become career criminals. Training, social networking, and even heist planning come with membership. You must find a way to the source. Otherwise, crime will go viral. 

Someone has been spotted trespassing at graveyards, haunted houses, and accidents. But when you confront them, you discover they possesses otherworldly powers. By harvesting the spirits of the departed, this villain becomes more powerful!

A new meta-human has emerged that has the ability to control insects of all kinds. No one is safe behind locked doors, or even locked windows as the bug life of the city rises up on behalf of their hidden master.

A pair of master thieves get married and spend their honeymoon robbing your city blind. The catch? They somehow know all of your team’s weaknesses and use them to their advantage.

Corruption has taken hold of the police. Only now, their masters have called for the elimination of your team. A false charge has justified their chase, and you must find a way to escape without proving them right. 

You’ve captured every drug runner in the city, but the narcotics are still flowing through the streets. You have been tasked with finding out how this was done and ending the operation once and for all.

While the circus is in town, some of the acrobats are moonlighting as thieves and assassins.

Totalitarian rule has fallen over your city (Alien/villain/malevolent entity), and its first move is to wipe out all heroes. Looks like you’ll have to win this battle as your secret identity. 

A villain has unlocked the secret of absorbing human minds. Knowledge, skills, and ideas can be transferred all with the touch of a button. In time, even the secret identities of heroes will be revealed. 

A doctor has absorbed disease from all of his patients, curing them. However the doctor have become a living conduit of pure disease.

After saving a bus/boat/train full of innocents, you are knocked unconscious. It turns out that one of your villains was on that doomed vessel, but they were completely unprepared for you to arrive.

Corporate sponsors have agreed to assist your team. Complete with a new headquarters, top of the line vehicles, and top-notch gear. The catch? You need to do some jobs for them. None of it is legal, and getting caught could mean prison. Any attempt to leave your sponsors will result in blackmail or being framed. Fight your way out of this conundrum and reclaim your freedom as heroes! 

You fight a villain and are exposed to a chemical that throws your powers into overdrive. Soon after, you revert to your normal strength. Then you lose your powers completely. Can you get them back?

Fires burn all across the city. But it’s not malicious destruction for the sake of profit, it’s a cover for a blackmailing ring.

Someone has been attempting to destroy your civilian life piece by piece. The twist? They know you’re a superhero, and are doing everything in their power to make that the only life you lead. 

You have been challenged to partake in a series of tests that blur the line between hero and villain. If you prove yourself a true hero, you win. If the villain breaks you, they win.

Mobile Bombs are scattering around the city (Flying drones, rolling spheres, or remote control torpedoes). The team is to deactivate them and to uncover a clue from each to find out where the bomber is. The more bombs they disarm, the more lives that are saved, and the more clues to go on. 

A villain attempts to absorb the team’s powers (mad science device, evil ritual, etc), and the party ends up swapping abilities. You must master each other’s skills to defeat your enemy and return to normal.

Denizens of another planet have called for the complete surrender of your world. You must join the heroes of the world in a Resistance to reclaim your freedom. 

Mob bosses are getting knocked off one by one. They respond by speaking with police, witness protection, and the government. But in the end, they’ve requested protection until you take the Assassin down.

A villain has committed heinous crimes in order to fulfill a prophecy that will supposedly lead to a utopia. 

A fanatical villain has called for the enslavement of humanity, believing mutants to be the superior race.

A serum has been created that unlocks all the secrets of human evolution simultaneously. Little does it’s creator known that it turns any human into a power-resistant monstrosity. 

Retired heroes are being persecuted and hunted by the public when one of their number is charged with committing a major crime. They reach out to you for help, and it’s  revealed that their friend was framed. Help clear their name, and bring peace back to the city. 

The city has erupted into massive  riots of unwarranted violence. Only your team seems immune. You must find the source before the people tear themselves apart. 

A time manipulation device has been created that will hold a massive radius frozen in a single moment. This device can turn the tide of any heist, battle, or operation. You must disable it so it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. 

A new nation has emerged on the map, and it is headed by a villain of immense power. It’s end goal is to create a United Underworld that will b win par with the strongest militaries and superhero teams. 

Someone is siphoning magical energy out of everything from sorcerer’s Artifacts to the simple magic found in nature. You must discover what would warrant such a relentless hunt for arcane energy before t is used for evil (reviving a malevolent spirit, unlocking a dimensional gate, sheer power and superiority over all mages, etc).

A villain emerges that entices and feeds off of fear. Massacres, terrorism, and wars allow it to take physical form. It then feeds on the fear of others, becoming stronger by the day.

You and your teammates respond to the latest crime spree by turning it into a competition. Whoever brings in the most baddies and stops he most crimes wins.

New technology has surfaced that allows the human consciousness to be placed inside a small device (similar to a flash drive). Kidnappers use this technology to hold their victims without having to accommodate the needs of the body, and with no chance of escape.  

Children are being abducted by aliens to be the central processors for their weapons array. Apparently the latent imagination and cruelty of a human child is more devastating than anything they could design. Plus they have a hostage, should heroes get any ideas. 

A young meta-human emerges with the power to absorb energy. It starts out with fuse boxes and power lines. But they soon become too powerful to handle (more powers awaken with new types of energy being absorbed). Soon, they’ll be able to absorb nuclear energy and be unstoppable.

A twisted killer is taking his victims and posing them into bizarre statues. Each “exhibit” contains a clue leading to another. Each also promises that a confrontation for the ages when the heroes meet the artist.

The heroes have nightmares of committing crimes every night. It becomes even worse when similar crimes are being investigated each morning by police. 

Historical artifacts are unleashed in transit to the local museum (airport, freeway, harbor, etc). They all have a common link to a pharaoh that was obsessed with puzzles. Each Artifact is a hostile, living entity that must be defeated/solved in order to gain a valuable treasure. 

A robotic hero has been ripped apart by his enemies. Each of his body parts has been modified to fuel each of their villainous schemes. 

A device has been stolen that’s capable evaporating a city’s entire water supply.

A ninja Clan has accepted an assassination contract for your entire team. While the attempts occur during your crime-Fighting exploits, they soon extend to any time you don your costume. 

You have been cloned, but all of your memories are wiped. The more of your doubles that die, the more memories you regain. But be careful, the original dying makes everyone lose their memories.

A notorious criminal has been sentenced to death row. But shortly after they flip the switch, he laughs, claiming he cannot die. You must find out how he survived.

An evil sorcerer has enchanted the church bell to turn people into frogs with every chime. When the heroes approach, they are transported to a world where direction, gravity, and powers mean nothing. 

A space pirate has come to your planet in search of recruits. He offers you the chance as meta-Humans to abandon your life of servitude and to take up a life of adventure and respect in the stars. Refusal will be met with deadly force.

A nightclub has its patrons go missing. The twist? None of the family or friends seems to remember the victims at all. 

A cosmic chess master has gathered the world’s finest heroes and set them on a board with interesting rules. Each space landed on is a challenge, and every collision means a one-minute fight. Winners continue on, and losers are banished to Nonexistence. 

Two villains have fused their minds and bodies to become unstoppable. In order to defeat this new Heinous Hybrid, you will have to do the same.

A villain has the ability to counter your powers exactly (Speedsters are slowed down, pyromancers have their flames dowsed, etc). If left unchecked, no one will be safe.

A rogue spy is developing his own intelligence agency. He is looking to gather enough resources to rival the CIA, and local heroes. 

A radar disruptor has been stolen. It had the potential to make any aircraft lose control and crash over populated areas. As a twist, the villain who stole it is demanding ransom.

A device known as “Encryptor” is being intercepted by supervillains. Their intention is to gather classified information and sell it to the highest bidder. You must stop them from using it by any means necessary.

The sewers of the city have been rigged to blow with a mysterious chemical. The mastermind can use a control pad to demolish buildings for insurance, roads for getaways, or the entire city if their demands aren’t met.

An ancient being has designs on absorbing the life force of every human in the city. They will graduate from humanoid parasite to immortal.

It turns out that one of the most ruthless villains in your city is a protected informant for the police. In exchange for giving up goons, the villain is untouchable by the law. Where the law has failed, you and your team must succeed.

A villain clones himself with the intention of having his duplicates replace ten of the most powerful people in the world. After altering heir appearance, he and his organization will rule the world as one entity. 

Random patches of the city turn into swampland. The twist? Dinosaurs come out and are running rampant from these spaces.

A lab complex is discovered that holds cryogenically frozen people. The catch? Some of the subjects go as far back as the 1800s. 

A villain has established a network of undersea domes to house humanity. The catch? Global flooding will ensue and a new era will dawn from the domes.

All of your trophies and artifacts from previous adventures fuse to create a sentient being that possesses all of your enemy’s powers. Is it hostile, peaceable, or indifferent?

The hottest line of toys have come to life. Many of them have lethal intent, and families across the city are in danger.

The latest video game is actually linked to controls for military weapons. The folks at home think they’re shooting at horrible aliens, but are actually firing at you in real life.

An intergalactic overlord has designs of shrinking your planet and adding it to his vast collection of conquered worlds

Counterfeiters have introduced undetectable currency into the marketplace. While this seems minor at first, they will be able to gain unlimited resources and shatter the nation’s economy if left unchecked. 

The villains close off all exits to the city, turning it into their own fiefdom

Someone has stolen the team’s DNA and created an anti-league of all your teammates.

A villain is being extradited from one country to another. You and your team have been tasked with escorting them to their final destination. But more obstacles arise as you get closer.

An artifact has possessed a powerful villain. In order to remove it, you must do so by keeping the villain alive, or a cataclysm will occur.

A twisted scientist/sorcerer has discovered a method to transform objects and life forms into energy to fuel their powers. The most effective power of all comes from humans. 

A shadow organization has spread its influence over your city.

The foundations for the next World War have been made. You must crush architect’s plans before they can spark the war’s beginning and become rich from selling weapons and at the expense of innocent lives.

The apocalypse has officially begun. Some turn their corners of the world into feudal empires, while others descend into an animalistic state of being. As heroes, you must restore earth back to its rightful state or hell will be unleashed just after the bombs fell.  

[thebaileynina]

PayPal Enters Installment Loan Business Targeting Fintechs Affirm And Afterpay.

Point-of-sale financing – the modern item that allows you to pay for a new TV or dress in four installments instead of putting it on your credit card – has grown in popularity dramatically over the past two years, and the pandemic has propelled it to new heights. Australian company Afterpay, whose business is at stake in the program, has grown from a market valuation of $ 1 billion in 2018 to $ 18 billion today. Eight-year-old San Francisco-based startup Affirm is rumored to have an initial public offering of up to $ 10 billion. Now PayPal is entering the space. The new “Pay in 4” product will allow you to pay for any item that costs between $ 30 and $ 600 in four installments over six weeks.

Pay in 4 rates makes it different from other “buy now, pay later” products. Afterpay charges retailers approximately 5% of each transaction to provide its fundraising feature. It does not charge the consumer, but if a payment is late, they will pay a fee. Affirm also charges transaction fees to retailers. But most of the time, it forces users to pay 10-30% interest and no late fees. PayPal appears to be a less expensive hybrid of the two. You won’t charge consumer interest or additional fees to the retailer, but if you’re late on a payment, you’ll pay a fee of up to $ 10.

Serial entrepreneur Max Levchin started two of the top three players offering online point-of-sale financing in the USA. He co-founded PayPal with Peter Thiel in 1999 and started Affirm in 2012.

PayPal can hurt fee competition because it already has a dominant and highly profitable payment network that you can take advantage of. Eighty percent of the top 100 US retailers allow customers to pay with PayPal, and nearly 70 percent of US online shoppers have PayPal accounts. PayPal charges retailers a transaction fee of 2.9% plus $ 0.30, and in the second quarter, when Covid-19 shopped online like a rocket, it had a record $ 3 billion and profits of $ 1.5 billion. Its shares have exploded, adding $ 95 billion to market value in the past six months. In an economic environment where e-commerce is booming, “PayPal can grow 18% to 19% before waking up in the morning,” says Lisa Ellis, analyst at MoffettNathanson.

Data from Afterpay and PayPal shows that consumers spend more money, sometimes 20% more, when offered point-of-sale financing options. When PayPal launches Pay in 4 this fall, it will likely increase transaction size, and since they are already earning 2.9% on every transaction, the earnings will increase overall.

The online point-of-sale financing market has so far had millions of US customers. Afterpay, which expanded to the United States in 2018, has 5.6 million users. Affirm also says it has 5.6 million. Stockholm-based Klarna, 9 million, and Minneapolis-based Sezzle, has at least a million.

Separated from Pay in 4, PayPal has been providing point-of-sale financing for over a decade. They bought Baltimore start-up Bill Me Later in 2008 and renamed it PayPal Credit in 2014. PayPal Credit allows consumers to apply for a lump sum line of credit and today has millions of borrowers. Like a credit card, it charges high interest rates of around 25% and requires monthly payments. These consumer loans can present a high risk of default and PayPal does not hold most of them, transfers US loans to Synchrony Bank. (In 2018, Synchrony acquired PayPal’s extensive US consumer loan portfolio for approximately $ 7 billion.)

Last spring, as the pandemic spread rapidly and concerns about consumer defaults grew, PayPal halted lending. “Like many installment lenders, they basically stopped lending in March or early April” says Ellis of MoffettNathanson.

With Pay in 4, PayPal’s new credit boost indicates the business is becoming more aggressive in a volatile economy in which many consumers have performed better than expected so far. Unlike PayPal credit, PayPal will host these new loans on its own balance.

This article is shared by https://www.itechscripts.com/php/paypal-clone-pro/ | A leading resource of inspired clone scripts. It offers hundreds of popular scripts that are used by thousands of small and medium enterprises.

[calledchaos]

VILLANELLE IS NOT A PSYCHOPATH, IN THIS ESSAY I WILL-

Okay, so Killing Eve is currently my favorite TV show, but there's one thing that's been bothering me since season one and it's the INCORRECT assumption that Villanelle is a psychopath.

First things first, please note I'm not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but I've done a lot of research for this show (if you listen to the parcast's Serial Killers podcast, you saw what I did there 💁🏾‍♂️).

While I don't know a lot about hired assassins, I do have a fair amount of knowledge on serial killers and their traits. So let's break Villanelle's character down so I can explain why I don't believe she's a psychopath OR sociopath, for that matter.

Actually, before we even to that, let's clarify WHAT IS a psychopath. For starters, the correct medical term used, as in, when you get diagnosed it's not as a psy/sociopath but rather as having antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). A person with ASPD can be born like that (that's what we usually call a psychopath) or can become like that (that's the sociopath). Their main difference is that psychopaths are most likely to be organized and calculating, whereas sociopaths are more "react in the moment" type, they're sloppy and messy.

Here's some patterns of ASPD:

* Superficial charm;

* Dishonesty;

* Lack of empathy;

* Coldness;

* Inability to form honest relationships;

* Poverty of emotions;

* They don't think through the consequences of their actions and they don't care about them either.

* They break rules, laws, moral codes, etc.

Now you're probably going like "well, you just described V before she met Eve", BUT NO, my dear fellow gay, NO. What really sorts a person with ASPD out is their inability to FEEL REMORSE.

They CANNOT FEEL IT. It's been scientific proven that their brains are wired in a different way than the regular human. If they're in a relationship it isn't based on love, but rather some kind of profit, whether it's financial or sexual, or whatever. If they're with you it's because they WANT something FROM you. They don't form relations as in "I vs You", but rather as "I vs It".

Now what normally shapes a person's personality besides their nature it's their nurture. Villanelle grew up in a toxic home with an abusive mother. That's like... mental illness starter pack (a very familiar field for tumblr users, ain't it? Have you taken your meds today btw?). Did yall see her mother? It's pretty easy to understand why she looks for validation so desperately and why she's attracted to older women with wild hair. Mommy issues at its finest.

Now to be diagnosed with ASPD a person necessarily needs to also be diagnosed with conduct disorder before the age of 15. For what we've learned, Villanelle was a difficult child and she did set the orphanage she was living in on fire, which is one of the patterns to qualify her. But if you suffer from some kind of abuse at an early age, you will act out, one way or another. They didn't make it clear, but I don't believe she used to torture animals and commit petty crimes when she was a kid, and those are the most common behaviors of children with conduct disorder. So if she didn't behave like that, she couldn't be diagnosed with ASPD after she turned 18.

When she killed Anna's husband it was from a place of jealousy, which's pretty common for female murderers, you don't have to be a psychopath for that, could very much be a crime of passion. His castration, however, indicates she perhaps needed to set a ritual to get her point across - which she repeated when she murdered Frank, but then again that was staging the body to shock Eve... Did she want to shock Anna as well or did she want to emasculate the husband? Honestly, I don't remember what that was about. BUT had her not be recruited by the Twelve, would she had killed again? She seems to be questioning that herself and from where I'm standing, I'd say maybe no. Because SHE ISN'T A SERIAL KILLER. I mean, now she is by definition, considering she's killed a ton of people, BUT LIKE serial killers kill because that's all they know, that's the only thing that brings them fulfillment and even that it's a tricky statement, because MALE serial killers kill for satisfaction; FEMALE serial killers normally kill for profit, like a tool to reach their goal. There are very few female serial killers that I know of that kill for the sake of it or even less so, for sexual gratification.

It's difficult to follow a pattern with a character, because you don't know how accurate the writer intended to be or how vast is their knowledge on people with ASPD, but because she has shown empathy for various characters so far (Konstantin, that kid she killed in the hospital so he wouldn't have to live without his family, her brothers...) and also because she fell in love with Eve, she CAN'T have ASPD. I mean, sure when it comes to human behavior nothing is 100% certain. Gary Ridgway, aka The Green River Killer, was convicted for murdering 48 women, but by the time he was caught he was married to a woman who pretty much said he was a great, loving and caring husband and he did say he actually loved her too, but he kept soliciting service from sex workers and killing them afterwards.

The thing is, specialists say that killing can be addictive. Though I don't consider Villanelle a psychopath, I'm okay with her having psychopathic tendencies. When she said she doesn't feel anything, she's just so bored, remember? It could very much be the reason why she got stuck in killing. Her first kill, Anna's husband, got her in jail where she would've stayed if it wasn't for the 12 recruiting her. They taught her how to do the job and I believe that gave her some kind of fulfillment. It made her finally feel something and that's why she kept killing. She had to learn how to disassociate herself from what she was doing in order to keep doing it. People became just subjects. But once she felt connected with Eve, that all started to crumble down.

Okay, so the first two seasons we don't see her really loving Eve, we see her obsessing over her. And that's pretty easy to crack: there was a middle aged woman with beautiful hair dedicating her days to find Villanelle. For someone who so desperately needed reassurance and attention, that was probably a burst of excitement she wasn't used to feeling.

The game changer happened in season 3, though. That scene when Konstantin told her Eve was still alive was SO WELL DONE. The camera angle tilting to the side, the slow motion, Konstantin's voice fading away. You can actually see in her eyes she's SPIRALING and that single tear rolling down her face while she smiled... IT'S A GOOD SCENE. I think in that moment she realized her feelings for Eve were a lot deeper than just her need to have someone to control and play with. She learned that her actions almost made her lose the one person she actually loves and probably also actually loves her back and she doesn't want to blow the miraculous second chance she got.

Since she thought she had killed Eve she was even emptier inside and killing wasn't giving her satisfaction anymore, but the thought of Eve surviving made her burst with emotions. She didn't need to kill anyone now, she just wanted Eve back.

Needless to say that's NOT how ASPD works. They're literally incapable of these kind of feelings. SO the pattern I THINK fits better is NARCISSISM.

Now, see... There are 10 personality disorders divided in three groups: clusters A, B and C. Antisocial Personality Disorder is one of the four disorders in cluster B and withing this group their common trait is narcissism.

There are two kinds of narcissists, the one that concerns us here are the ones that are charming, confident, they'll do whatever it takes to get what they want, even if means emotionally abusing their peers, manipulation, lying, cheating... They think they're the very apex of the world, people that only know them on the surface love them, they're the life of the party and yada yada yada. They're normally very successful, because when you don't care about people around you, you will climb to the top way faster (most - if not all - CEOs are narcissists btw). You're gonna noticed that this description is pretty similar to ASPD, but the big difference here is that narcissists CAN FEEL REMORSE AND SHAME, people with ASPD CANNOT.

BUT being a narcissist doesn't mean you have a personality disorder, it just means you're probably a fucking jerk. What will give you a diagnosis though is when your narcissistic behavior causes you impediments. When it causes you trouble in all areas of your life, professional, personal, familiar, etc., when it makes you miserable it's when you can be diagnosed with another cluster B disorder: Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).

It is incredibly difficult to diagnose someone with NPD, because these people very rarely see themselves as having a problem. Like I said, they normally live their best lives, no need to change anything. So when it comes back to bite them in the ass (which sometimes never happens, because the universe is unfair) and if by a miracle they realize that THEY are the problem, that's when you get a NPD ticket. If you're following my thought process you know where I'm going with this...

VILLANELLE ISN'T A PSYCHOPATH, SHE'S A NARCISSIST WHO DEVELOPT NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY DISORDER.

While being an assassin was giving her everything she wanted, Villanelle was just fine with her nice life, cool flat and fun job. The only thing she was lacking was someone to watch movies with and being a narcissist she thought she had to control someone in order to be loved by them (narcissists are actually very insecure, that's why they're so extra with the manipulation, they don't deal with rejection well). Once she felt actual feelings, when she realized how her explosive ways almost costed Eve's life, that's when she understood that her actions took her to a place she didn't quite like anymore and if she wanted to have a another shot and do things right, she needed to change.

In real life people with NPD need a lot of therapy and even so, they won't impruve much tbh, 'cause that's just how their brains work. But for the sake of the poetry, I'm more than okay with accepting that Villaneve's connection is so strong it made an skilled narcissist assassin to come down from her high horse to put Eve as a priority. Villanelle giving Eve the option to walk away for good to have a better stable life away from the chaos their feelings for each other created is probably the most romantic thing I've ever seen and I can rant about that season 3 finale for hours too, don't try me.

[sleepykittypaws]

Carole’s Christmas

Original Air Date: November 22, 2019 (OWN) Where to Watch?: OWN is re-airing it multiple times this season, and it’s also available via OWN On Demand in most markets

The thing is, I love a Family Man knockoff. Waking up in a new life and then learning lessons about what’s really valuable is, good, cheesy, holiday fun, and it’s one of my favorite, weird little Christmas movie genres, with movies like Holiday Switch, A Family Thanksgiving and Comfort and Joy all among my all-time made-for-TV favorites. (Also a big fan of the Groundhog Day, reliving Christmas over and over movies. What can I say, I like Christmas magic, apparently.)

Therefore, Carole’s Christmas, one of OWN’s first three entries into the holiday originals game, should have been right up my alley.

And, in a lot of ways, it was, Kimberly Elise was glow-y, gorgeous and fairly fun as a harried mom worried about money suddenly transported into a far more carefree (or is it?) existence by Jackée as an angel. Jackée automatically makes any Christmas movie she’s in 25% better, at least. It’s just math, people.

But what fell apart for me here were not only the movie’s terrible wigs—how did Oprah let this happen?—but the extremely low stakes of the switch. Instead of being the devoted business woman who suddenly finds herself stuck in the suburbs with kids she learns to love, or even a poor housewife transported into a wealthy, but loveless, lifestyle, Elise is simply shifted, along with her exact same, loving husband and kids, into a more comfortable lifestyle that includes steady jobs that come with longer hours and a lot more business travel. 

And, like, isn’t that what she asked for? I mean, every choice has trade-offs, but her kids were still her kids, her husband was still her husband, and not some cheating monster who no longer loved her. Wouldn’t it have been easier to stay in that life and maybe, you know, pare back at bit at work, mend a couple fences and, voila, you’ve got the life you want, sans money woes. It’s a Christmas miracle! 

But, instead, Elise immediately starts skipping work (feeling like I know why this family might be so broke) and bemoaning the loss of her Food Network cookbooks, as if they were her children. That her husband and kids don’t remember Wednesday is pasta night, is treated as roughly equivalent to them having become serial killers in this alternate existence. 

I mean, that she wishes she “would have taken a different path” at all makes no sense, since while they’re in a financial crisis, her husband and kids are loving and great and they’re at least getting by. They aren’t fighting. Or even all that desperate. And if she does wish she’d taken this "different path," why doesn’t she AT LEAST give the whole high-powered career thing a try before immediately balking? 

How is blowing off work and jeopardizing other people’s jobs in the process,  the “good” choice we’re supposed to root for?

At one point, Elise reacts as if she’s never seen a box of chocolates before. The movies acts as if she’d been homeless and foraging for food in dumpsters before, so over the top is her delight at a generic corporate gift basket.

There’s also a line where Jackée, explaining what happened, says, “You and Marcus aren’t millionaires, but you’re comfortable.” But that view, and that house, in L.A.? You’d have to be millionaires a couple times over to afford it. So, does this alt-couple just have different money problems?

Then, after seriously little friction, other than her being the world’s worst employee, Elise’s Carole begs Jackée to show her yet another choice, cause she doesn’t like this one. And the level of drama at her distress over possibly having to spend Christmas in London is so incredibly unearned. 

Then, in this next, much more brief, version, they’re back in their old house and he son wants them to do the mother-son Christmas pageant together, so she’s oh-so-happy. (This pageant gave me big Arrested Development Motherboy vibes…Big nope!) But, in this life, husband Marcus is…Dead? Or something. They leave it vague, but he’s definitely not there. So, yeah, I get not wanting to make that change.

Thus, poof, it’s back to life, original flavor, and she’s so happy her kids remember pasta night. But, while she’s been flirting with other realities, her husband landed a job and decorated the house so…Problems all solved? How did this require magic to pull off?

Later, at a Christmas Eve party that was supposed to be just for family, her brother (a degenerate gambler in her alt-life) shows up with Checkov’s newly minted multi-millionaire, mentioned in the first act and always the obvious answer to her “save the community center” conundrum. (There’s also some business about an angel ornament, where she uses alt-existence insider info to win over a CEO, in what seems like a slightly shady manner.)

What kind of terrible non-profit executive was Carole that it never occurred to her to ask a program alum who recently struck it rich, for funds to save the organization? Like, fundraising would be 90% of her job, and she seems to suck at it.

Well, that’s the happy ending. Not awful, but left feeling like both Elise and Jackée deserved better.

Final Judgement: 2 Paws Up

[ericdeggans]

Restoring Respect: How #metoo and #takeaknee are Redefining The Discussion About Sexual Harassment and Systemic Racism in America

In America, who gets to speak loudest on issues of oppression and prejudice? And when someone speaks, who listens?

These questions lie at the heart of two of the biggest stories in the news this week: allegations that Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein indulged in serial acts of sexual harassment and assault, and efforts by NFL players to protest police brutality against black people by taking a knee during the national anthem.

I also expect to address both these ideas tonight, Oct. 17, when I appear on a panel titled “Restoring Respect: Where Did It Go?” at the Cathedral Church of St. Peter in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida. The event begins at 7 tonight; click here for more details.

As I was kicking around ideas on what I might say, I was struck by the notion of gaining respect in the public space. Because the only way to get major social issues addressed in America, is to first reach a point where ideas about those issues are taken seriously in mainstream conversation – on TV, in social media and elsewhere.

Since Sunday, women have put the issue of sexual harassment and assault on the front burner, in part, through the #metoo moment. This involves people posting the phrase “me too” if they’ve been the victim of assault or harassment, sometimes followed by an explanation of what happened.

As my Facebook and Twitter news feeds began to populate with stories about the awful, sometimes daily assaults on their dignity women that I love and admire have endured, I felt boundaries shifting. I could see, almost in real time, the public conversation on harassment turn from victim blaming and shame to a realization that these harassment dynamics are pervasive and intolerable.

There’s been a similar dynamic in Hollywood, where stories about Weinstein’s acts of harassment – originally unveiled in the New York Times and the New Yorker – have encouraged women in show business to speak publicly about the harassment they have endured. Watching the allegations against Weinstein pile up from women like Rose McGowan, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Beckinsale, Angelia Jolie, Asia Argento, Rosanna Arquette, Mira Sorvino and many others, it seems support for them and other victims of sexual harassment has also grown on social media and elsewhere.

The argument at the heart of all these stories: It’s time to respect women enough to change how we view harassment and move decisively to end it.

Believe it or don’t, there seems to be a similar drive for respect behind the #takeaknee protests which have riled some football fans during the National Anthem.

Team owners are meeting this week, trying to find a compromise between players determined to kneel to protest police brutality against black people and some fans who claim the protest is disrespectful. Frankly, those hyperventilating about the protests remind me of people in the 1960s who criticized black activists for challenging segregation by sitting at whites only lunch counters and asking for service.

It wasn’t the action that was disrespectful. It was the challenge to an unfair, oppressive system.

Now, NFL players are in a similar situation. They’re demanding that America respect the crisis black people face in the number of unarmed black people killed by police. To me, the symbolism of kneeling during the anthem is important – it feels like a sign that, for these players, America’s promise will never be complete until the country responds to the policing crisis affecting black people.

I can’t think of a protest that has been carried off more respectfully. Or met with a less respectful response from those who insist on turning an act designed to start a conversation into an excuse for a fight.

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who first tried to mollify players by linking arms with them after President Trump used a vulgar term to criticize those taking a knee, now says he will bench athletes who “disrespect the flag.” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell circulated a memo last week saying players should stand; and one of sports media’s most visible black commentators backing the players’ efforts, ESPN anchor Jemele Hill, was suspended for two weeks after daring to hint on Twitter that fans who back the players might want to boycott the sponsors of teams hostile to the protests.

On one level, it’s a simple equation: When profits are threatened, institutions like the NFL and ESPN take action.

But there’s something else going on here. It’s a struggle by some of the nation’s most prominent black people in the sports world to identify systemic racism, and push America’s white-dominated mainstream to deal with it. The goal seems to be expanding the boundaries of American values to include concerns about systemic racism in a meaningful way.

In both the #metoo and #takeaknee movements, we see the power in the ability to define – and redefine – discussion.

Indeed, one of the great legacies of the classic civil rights movement is the sense that people of color have an insight into how racism works in America and the moral authority to lead conversations on solutions. Combined with the feat of making open racism mostly unacceptable in mainstream American society, this ability for people of color to speak out about racism and racial issues has been an important achievement.

That’s why the fight over these expressions — both on sexual harassment and racialized police brutality — are so important. In each case, people from marginalized groups are trying to take control of the discussion about their own oppression. Along the way, they’re jump starting a discussion many in this country would rather avoid.

America loves to see itself as the hero of its own story. It’s why tales of American exceptionalism are so potent in the culture, from Western movies about cowboys and Indians to the fight in World War II against Nazis.

So it's difficult to push Americans into hearing a story where American culture isn’t so virtuous. The reality of systemic racism and sexual harassment is tough to face, particularly if you’re not directly affected by it. And finding consensus is even more difficult when political leaders use the issue to rile up supporters, instead of seeking common ground.

With any luck, the #metoo and #takeaknee movements will change the public conversation in lasting ways, prodding media and the public to transform how it speaks about sexual harassment and systemic racism, before taking steps to eradicate them entirely.