#first world didn't mean rich or privileged or important

[backofthebookshelf]

I know I'm a week late but I do think people are misunderstanding the point of the Anthony Bourdain quote about Kissinger

The point was never "Anthony Bourdain has good politics and is an unproblematic fave," the point is that even someone with mainstream liberalish politics who goes to Cambodia for a food tour - a, let's be honest, very bougie type of trip to be part of your job - and has a basic understanding of history and a bare minimum of human decency can come away from that bougie food tour wanting to murder Henry Kissinger with their bare hands. The point is that Henry Kissinger fucked up this country so bad the only reason he wasn't lynched decades ago is because it's on the opposite side of the world and the people who were in proximity to him never really saw what it was. The point is that if we could see firsthand what our First World politics do to the Third World we would understand that monsters walk among us and it's a cultural failing that we let them die at home at 100 years old surrounded by their friends and family.

[uglynicc]

Listen, I avoided this movie for AGES thinking it fit into the Bro Movie Torture P0rn™️ genre which really isn't my thing, but after going down a rabbit hole of video esays and analysis, I decided to watch it.

And I actually loved it. There is SO MUCH commentary about this movie but I enjoyed it enough to dive into my own analysis of it lol, even if it's one that's been done before.

The book does sound like it's a bit too gruesome for me (plus the author's comments about "women can't make movies" definitely rubs me the wrong way), but only going off the movie I am blown away how some toxic trolls out there entirely miss the point and unironically idolize Bateman.

Firstly, I interpreted this as a comedy, a real dark satirical one, and I laughed a LOT.

Second, I do think the murders are in his head. I know there's room for commentary about The Rich And Elite Being Able to Literally Get Away With Murder, but I'm fairly certain someone would, at the very least, complain about a naked man running through an apartment complex with a chainsaw after a screaming woman. All the little hints that a lot of events didn't happen also lead me to think this.

I think he's still a D Bag who abuses sex workers, but that the killing was either a fantasy to give himself a sense of power, control, and greater agency in his life, or that it is a product of untreated and worsening mental state.

Ignoring his potential neurodivergency/mental illness here purely for the fact I think it's a separate interpretation from the one I have, and focusing on the idea that he's getting lost in the dark fantasy world he's constructed, my greatest takeaway from the movie:

Bateman is a loser.

Yes, he's wealthy and attractive, but what does he actually have going for him, even in his shallow little group of elite toxic fuckwads?

For his inflated sense of importance, no one gets his name right or even remembers who he is most times. His fiance doesn't respect or even like him, and he doesn't like her either. He pays women to be part of fantasies where he is awe inspiring, a rich, muscular sex god, and even they are bored and unimpressed, they can't even act like he's worthy of their admiration. His male peers don't think he's anything great either, and how could they when they're constantly wrapped up in meaningless pissing contests. He's so insecure in his masculinity he is close to tears when someone mistakes him as being homosexual. He can't even buy his way into Dorsia, can't use his good looks or cash, the only things he has going for him, to get a dinner reservation at his White Whale restaurant.

He's failing to achieve anything even in his shallow little world, so his Wall Street job (with a business card no one thinks is particularly great), fancy apartment (which he grudgingly admits isn't even as nice or as expensive as his rival's) and chiseled good looks mean nothing. He craves status and recognition, which he fails to achieve.

And yeah, he's a misogynist, racist, classist, homophobic dishrag too, can't forget that.

He's the archetype of toxic, impotent-with-misplaced-rage, insecure yet inflated male ego we see everywhere. If people don't perceive what Bateman feels is his inherent "greatness" or "importance," he lashes out, through mistreatment of those more vulnerable, and/or through dark fantasies which give him that sense of greatness and importance.

It's almost too real, because there are so many real world examples of this kind of privileged dickwad (which makes it even more baffling when these same real world dickwads put Bateman on a weird pedestal thinking he's actually great), but I loved the way the movie examined it. I don't think it's celebrating Bateman or men like him at all, I felt more compelled to laugh at him as a figure of jest, a ridiculous caricature of entitlement and failure. Hell, even his "confession" falls flat, he can't even get that right.

Anyway, just my musings after my first viewing, 20 some years late to the party lol.

[llynwen]

hey I saw your tags abt reading the MM book too and I desperately need to hear abt it from more ppl that also shoved it up their ass. Thoughts?

oh brother you have no idea just how many thoughts i have about it.

i really didn't wanna read the book because i knew it was going to make me go insane, but then a friend of mine who i'm trying to force to watch the show (i beg of you martyna. it's so good) decided to get it for me for my birthday.

from the very first few fucking pages i was Perplexed, to put it lightly. i was expecting a light and breezy autobiography with some silly childhood anecdotes and maybe behind the scenes tea about the hollywood crowd. Instead i was served almost 300 pages of trauma dumping, philosophical ruminations and some very TMI info that i wish i never read. i rated this book 5/5 on goodreads btw.

the first thing that really knocked me on my ass was this (i'm ignoring the ketchup story i DON'T want to think about that)

this should've given me an idea about that kind of book this was gonna be. yet i continued on, blindly, thinking, okay maybe he just wanted to get that out there. more power to him. whatever. (not really).

then the motherfuckers starts explaining his little philosophy, the titular green lights, right? and i'm like, yeah. i agree. you're correct. but why did it take you 50 years to figure this out? i'm 24 and i've been living by this very logic for years. Anyways. i continue reading.

now, bro spends half the book trying to convince us his parents were NOT abusive. i disagree. i think he has stockholm syndrome. i hope he's in therapy. i don't wanna think about this either.

now, this is where i started catching on that he was lying to me. i know it took me an embarrassingly long time, but i was giving him the benefit of the doubt. the undead parrot and the 13 story tree house, however, was what made me go Wait A Damn Minute.

yeah, turns out this book isn't a memoir, it's a mix between a magical realism novel, a self help handbook and a philosophical treaty. served to you on really nice paper (i mean Really nice. i appreciate that) with important words in bold, italics or even sometimes in green (which i appreciate even more, since i am tragically dyslexic).

after establishing that all men do is, in fact, lie, i gained a different outlook on the whole thing (i swear i need to read it again, this time in full englit major mode, make some notes and dissect this thing like it's shakespeare).

i like how candid he is about kind of getting lucky with the whole famous thing. he really took that slutty slutty waist and peculiar bone structure of his and said I'm Gonna Make A Career Out Of This. good for him.

he is, however, just a man, and at the end of the day, you can really tell he sees the world through his privilege. the white straight cis christian rich and famous thing kinda sways him into obnoxious territory in some parts, and it had me seething with rage. like, i too would love to go hike through south america because it came to me in a dream. i'd looooove to go visit my favorite unknown artist in a country on the other side of the world. i was half hoping to read about a piranha biting his shlong off when he went skinny dipping in the motherfucking amazon. (un)fortunately, no dice.

the david and goliath story made me chuckle out loud. he makes it Just believable enough to make you think about it. i like being made to think.

the philosophics continue in the form of the single most cursed wall of chicken scratches i ever did see. i sat there, straining my eyes, trying to decipher this shit, and i'm pretty sure he was on something when he wrote it because all of this

could be summed up with "you've gotta leave your comfort zone to learn more about yourself and the world." suck my cock dude.

i Really like how he talks about his wife. but then again, when you look at her, there really isn't any other way of talking about her.

i mean. how the Fuck did his stinky ass pull this goddess. lucky bastard.

now, the 3ish pages where he talks about filming the show (which was the whole reason i even started reading) are criminally underwhelming. i was hoping for a sneak peak into that elusive 450 page manuscript (i will Steal your laptop matthew. watch out), but instead i got a one liner of him being like i wanna play rusty because he's the specialest little girl in the whole entire world and the producers going yeah fine. THAT'S IT. still mad about this, especially because after that he hits you with the love letter to new orleans. i mean be serious. he should Not be allowed to write shit like that.

to summarize, i think he might be a genius, or he might be insane. he is probably both. i want to shove this book up his ass for many reasons, for example him making me learn the names of his kids (i hate knowing things about celebrity kids. leave them out of this) or for making me agree with him. because i do. agree. I don't appreciate his continued efforts to convert me to christianity and i think he's disgustingly obnoxious in some places, but the truth is he has a real cool outlook on a lot of things and i'm very mad that i now respect this bastard for more than his acting skills. i would like to buy him a six pack and listen to him talk about it. i'd love to argue with him, too. i can recommend this book to everybody who feels like they need to experience some psychic damage and maybe an existentialist crisis alongside it. on Very Nice Paper.

[amarriageoftrueminds]

Do you see Tony stark as a male version of Peggy Carter? A rich high class brat that won't hesitate to do anything and side with anyone to shine and then act like everyones protective god mother? Or do you think he is at least a bit redeemable because he might have learned bit from his mistakes.

There are certain similarities. Peggy definitely has more in common with the Starks than anyone.

In her show, all her 'friends' are not from the same SEC as her, as with the Starks. In fact, her friends are... employees. Butlers, waitresses, housekeepers... they're almost literally being paid to be friends with her. You see that with Tony, too. His 'friends' are: an air force colonel (when Tony has extremely lucrative military contacts with the air force), his PA (who gets made his CEO and... immediately dumps him), his bodyguard, his robot butler, his other robot servants... and women who benefit financially from sex with him (Christine Everhart and Maya Hansen). In Peggy's case, she's that woman to Howard Stark. 😬 (And Steve).

In AC, the only time you see a person from the same socioeconomic class as Peggy, they're a villain. Similar thing with Tony's villains in IM (Obadiah Stane, Anton Vanko, Justin Hammer, Aldrich Killian...) they're just Other Tonys.

(So you can tell that TPTB have some kind of... English fetish going on and think upper classness is definitely part of her Specialness?)

While Tony has the same 'avoidance of all consequences for his actions' wealthy white privilege that Peggy has, there are certain important differences.

Generally speaking, they share one over-arching trait, which is: if you consider whether or not the world / people around them would be better off if they didn't exist, the answer is yes.

Without Tony, there'd be no Anton Vanko, no Aldrich Killian, no Quentin Beck (which means no Spider-Mans dimensional incursion), no Ultron (which, in another universe, endangered the entire multiverse), no dead Pietro, no dead Sokovians generally (meaning probably no Scarlet Witch, no Vision, no Westview Hex, all the knock-on effects of that?), no Snap. And Hulk or Thor could have put the nuke through the wormhole in A1 (except he wouldn't because it wouldn't have been written into the story at all since Hemsworth doesn't have short man syndrome.)

With no Peggy, Steve's story in CATFA isn't altered (because she didn't matter to the plot or his life at all). But there would be no Winter Soldier programme (since she wouldn't be around to give the man who started it a job at SHIELDra), ergo no Black Widows being mind-controlled either (since that was based on Winter Soldier tech), no continued Hydra (WhatIf confirms all this by showing that a SHIELD founded by everyone else who was there originally, except her, has no Nazis in it.) Ergo no Project Insight. No Winter Soldier means no assassination of Howard Stark, so no Civil War bust up of the Avengers, if Tony still exists (unless Zemo found some other way to effect it). C.1940s her male colleagues in SSR would have handled everything she interfered with in AC, Edwin Jarvis's wife wouldn't have been sterilised by gsw in the uterus, and Daniel Sousa would have settled down with a nice girl (nurse Violet, possibly Skye) and wouldn't have been assassinated by Hydra for whistleblowing in 1955, because there wouldn't be any Hydra.

.

Now the differences:

First, Tony is actually above-average at some of the things he thinks he's good at, so his arrogance based on that is at least partially warranted (which Peggy's conviction of her own competence, moral integrity, etc. isn't).

His estimate of his own ability is debatable, though, since his genius (in the MCU) stems from the Grand American Capitalist Tradition of stealing other peoples' work, doing a minimal amount to hone it, and then claiming all the credit / reaping all the financial reward.

(See: Iron Man suits, AI, E.D.I.T.H., B.A.R.F., Extremis serum, time-travel, etc. Tony's only original creations I can think of in the MCU are his robot-servants and the improvised booby-traps from Iron Man 3. And for all we know these could be rip-offs, too, it's just not mentioned.)

Second, Tony may have got into MIT as a legacy admission (nepotism), but he does actually have at least some of the expertise in a STEM field to warrant a place, which Peggy lacks. (She gets an honorary degree from IIRC Oxford: ie. rewarded for doing no work. And while she claims competence in mathematics (as part of the AC retcon of her non-existent war record), outside of one code-breaking scene, her alleged mathematical ability is never shown. (And in fact Bletchley Park's concession to her leaving it mid-war suggests she wasn't a crucial employee.)

Third, while Tony may have inherited his company without earning it, he does have the necessary brains and thieving habits to create and maintain such a company if he wanted to. He has the appropriate skills; which cannot be said of Peggy in any of her unearned spying jobs.

Peggy is a nepotism baby who couldn't stomach any of the jobs she was handed, one after another, that she kept idiotically choosing to ask for despite her unsuitability for them (which she cannot recognise).

And then she flaked out on these jobs from 'boredom,' even in the middle of a crisis like a world war (failure is never her fault, always the job's, always the mens').

She is a woman who thinks she's a maths whizz and yet has to have the number of sides of a cube explained to her (and as said, Bletchley Park were apparently fine with her quitting mid-war. It's like the opposite of all those 'screenshots of my boss begging me to come back after I quit' sm stories about crucial workers).

She believes she is a brilliant, underappreciated spy, surrounded by inferiors, but cannot spot a single spy when they infiltrate her organisation or home (any one of many, many, many, many occasions: during the war and after).

She's a spy who craves attention.

Whose disguises fail in seconds, and are so inept that she cannot avoid detection by someone who barely knows her, even when photographed from the back.

(Contrast that with actual-spy Natasha, whose disguises are so good not even we realise it's her until she reveals herself!)

Peggy is a woman who thinks she is a sort of hero to other women... but is fine shunting the work which she considers beneath her off onto them... (when she reacts with outrage when men do that exact same thing to her)... or fine with letting her rich male friends get away with chauvinism.

Who interferes to prevent male feminist colleagues from taking steps that would make life better for the Other Girls whom she is Not Like and who Cannot Therefore be allowed to Become Like her.

(Because as long as White Feminist knows Her value, she's the only person that matters!)

It takes a certain level of competence to correctly gage the extent of your own competence, or relative incompetence.

It's the basis of true self-awareness. She lacks that. (Whether Tony also lacks it is... not clear. Maybe he does, too).

Peggy's continued bloody-minded belief that she is, eg. a competent spy and a feminist, directly contrary to the evidence... (because the writers aren't capable of recognising when they've written the exact opposite of what they vaguely intended) ...is the proof that she lacks the qualities necessary to actually be either of those things. And to realise that she is just not physically or temperamentally suited to spying or heroism, at all.

She does share Tony's habit of blaming anything but herself for her problems, though. 🤔

When Peggy shows up hours late for work, eats like a slob at her desk while all the men are doing their paperwork, refuses to do said paperwork (even though that's the job she's been hired for and accepted) as if it's an insult to even ask her, shunts it off onto female underlings, and then does nothing except sabotage her colleagues' work for months, then unilaterally hiring someone who cannot be trusted and who kills 40+ people... (Johann Fennhoff)

She acts as if her male colleagues' lack of enthusiasm about her ability is due to... sexism, only... and not to her being, for example, a lazy, entitled, violently bad-tempered, disastrously-incompetent dickhead and self-outing nepotism hire.

When Tony calls himself a "genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist..." He is at least getting 1/4 of those right... ish.

(Is it genius to commit industrial espionage and rip off the designs of other men including employees, do 12% of the work and then patent them as your own? When it's JARVIS and FRIDAY who do everything for him, actually? Is inheriting generational wealth a flex? Does exchanging sex for favours make you a womaniser or a creepy Weinstein-esque loser? Does making money off cleaning up the very mess you caused, for Rich-White-Guy tax write-offs, count as actual philanthropy? Would an actual philanthropist list philanthropy last, of all those things on the list?)

He does appear to learn from his mistakes for a brief period...

(His Act 1 Fuck Up is usually revealed as a Plot!Coupon necessary for his Act 3 Success; the icing over of the Iron Man suit, the double-reverb attack gained from firing at Rhodey, etc.)

...But that is over-ruled at the beginning of each new Iron Man movie, when the lessons of the last one are ignored to set his personality back at 0. 🙄

In the case of the Avengers movies, though, he doesn't learn at all. Ultron tries to murder everyone, (WhatIf reveals he would have eventually destroyed the entire multiverse.) Hydra tries to enact Project Insight A.I. to kill millions...

And yet years later Tony is still claiming those two as morally correct successes, flawed only because they were made to fail (not because they were horrible fascist ideas to begin with), and redoing Insight as EDITH only giving it to a disastrous teenage boy. 🤦‍♀️

Peggy, however, is pathologically incapable of learning from mistakes, because that first requires you to acknowledge that you are capable of making mistakes, which is inconceivable to her.

She has herself up on a high pedestal, as the pinnacle of womanhood around which the world and all other women (surely?!) revolve, and cannot be knocked off its axis.

The closest she has ever come to an accurate self-assessment was when Edwin Jarvis called her arrogant and ignorant and she flippantly pretended to agree. (Inadvertently proving him right).

Tony is possibly redeemable because he at least has sensible people around him, telling him he's a fucking idiot.

He does occasionally make the obeisance of saying 'my bad,' even if he doesn't fully comprehend it.

Peggy on the other hand isn't redeemable because she doesn't think she's ever done anything wrong in her life, ever. She thinks she is practically perfect in any way. Atwell thinks she's a good enough sort of woman to fix any man! Like a lot of TERFs and white feminists, she would see the mere suggestion of any wrongdoing on her part as preposterous.

[stargazer-sims]

🖊+Kiri

thanks @dandylion240 ! Here you go!

I feel like I should put some kind of disclaimer or content warning on both Kiri's and Maxan's info (but Kiri's especially). Anyway... I'm putting it under a cut for that reason (and because it's long).

Maxan (left) & Kiri (right)

((There's going to be a lot of background stuff included here, for context))

If Kiri had to choose one word to describe himself, it'd be survivor.

Kiri has a spot colour mutation known as polychromia. The majority of his species have single-coloured spots (or spots in shades of the same colour), but a small percentage of the population is born with a mutation that produces multicoloured spots. There are four known mutations; standard polychromia which shades from purple/pink through blue to teal/green (Max and Sri both have this one), dilute polychromia with pale purple/pink shading through to turquoise/teal, cool-tone polychromia with shades of blue and green (Kiri's colouration), and warm polychromia with fuschia/pink shading through to coral/orange and yellow (Kaji's colouration). Standard is the most common type and warm is the most rare.

Males with polychromia are generally smaller than typical males. They're considered to be more beautiful than average, with the smallest and the ones with the most colours or rarest colour mutations being the most highly-prized. Unfortunately, spot mutations aren't just connected to colour. A lot of males and some females with polychromatic mutations also have intellectual disabilities, compromised immune systems or congenital health problems.

Societal expectations for polychromatic males are low. They aren't expected to work or to receive more than a basic education. They're often spoiled and indulged by their mothers and their mates, sometimes to an extreme degree. Their most important role is to give birth to and raise children. Both males and females are capable of impregnating and becoming pregnant, but it's more often the males who have the babies.

Kiri originally came from a poor family, and when his mother realized she'd given birth to a child with the second rarest colour mutation, she couldn't help but see it as a future opportunity.

Sixamish culture has a practice of "bonding gifts" in which a female will give a gift to her future mother-in-law in exchange for the privilege of taking the older woman's son as her mate. Its intended purpose is a token of thanks, sort of like, "Thank you for trusting me with the care of your precious son. I honour your trust with this gift." It's largely symbolic and bonding usually isn't an arranged marriage type of situation. However, like so many things that start out innocently, people somehow find a way to corrupt it. Their world is a matriarchal society, and the most rich and influential people on the planet are females. Wealthy, powerful females decided they were willing to pay large amounts of money or other resources for the most beautiful males, essentially as trophy husbands or as a means to produce beautiful children, and of course there are always opportunists like Kiri's mother who are willing to give their sons for the right price.

Kiri was given to a wealthy businesswoman when he was only fourteen. He was a few months away from turning fifteen, but he was already sexually mature, so everyone looked the other way about him being more than a year underage (age of majority is 16 for them). Kiri's new spouse didn't waste any time getting around to educating him on the ways of mating, and he had his son Kaji when he was still just fifteen.

Kiri wasn't her only mate. Her first husband, the older one, hated Kiri and felt threatened by him because he'd produced the most beautiful child any of them had ever seen. The first husband was also the one their wife actually loved, and he had a lot of influence with her. As a consequence, Kiri was badly mistreated, sometimes being physically abused and often being denied food as a punishment for some arbitrary thing he did that displeased his mates. The most painful thing was that they often took Kaji away from him for days at a time as a punishment for some random thing.

Kiri had three miscarriages between having Kaji and having his twins, Xai and Sevan. By the time the twins came along, Kiri was determined that they would not be taken from him like Kaji was, and that he was going to protect them and teach them everything he could despite his limited knowledge. He refused to let his wife put the twins in a separate room, They slept with him and were practially with him at all times. When they got older, he would give his food to them, which meant that he sometimes didn't eat for days at a time. His health, which had never been the greatest, deteriorated to the point where several doctors were of the opinion that he'd never fully recover.

Fast-forward several years, and Kaji ends up in a similar predicament to Kiri, essentially being sold to a powerful female. Fortunately for Kaji, the female he ended up with was an ambassador to Earth, and she took Kaji there with her. While on Earth, Kaji escaped and was eventually rescued by Félix and Davian. Zira was the doctor who looked after him, and he eventually befriended Zira's husband Sri, and her best friend Maxan, who is also a doctor.

It was thanks to Kaji, along with Zira, Sri and Maxan, and Sri's mother, who is a magistrate (judge) that Kiri and the twins were eventually rescued and brought to Earth as well. The ship's doctor was afraid that Kiri wouldn't survive the voyage to Earth, but by sheer willpower and determination to see his long-lost Kaji, he did.

Maxan was the doctor who looked after Kiri once he arrived on Earth. Max was way more dedicated to Kiri's care than professionally advisable, but it worked out well for both of them in the end. Over the course of Kiri's recovery, they got to know each other far better than any doctor and patient rightfully should, and at some point they realized that they were destined to be more than just doctor and patient. Max is a survivor too, and they found strength in each other that they both needed.

Kiri still isn't in perfect health, but he's a lot better now than he ever was before coming to Earth. He and Max have had two children together, both of which Kiri gave birth to, and it's been a joy for him to raise his children without fear of them being taken away and without worrying about being able to feed them.

[aercnaut-archived]

why does your lee hate asriel but give mrs coulter a pass?

she doesn't get a pass, she gets compassion and empathy whereas asriel can eat a dick. the short version as to why? privilege, motive, and most importantly, lyra.

note all of this is from lee's perspective. in no way am i saying this is how these characters are or anything like that.

lets start with lee's point of view on asriel: none of the evil acts he's done are necessary. do they eventually lead to the death of the authority and all that shit? yes. but why does asriel want the authority gone? from lee's perspective, its because he's a rich boy who didn't like being told no. he talks a good game and gives pretty speeches, but lee has known enough politicians to know horseshit when he smells it. then there's how he treats lyra. he treats her like a means to an end. he abandoned her and lee sees a little too much of his own father in asriel. not to mention, the fact that asriel faced no consequences (that lee knows of) for the affair but marisa had her life ruined by it never sat right with him, so he already had a bias against him even before knowing the rest of it.

as for marisa: i combine show and book canon, so her and lee's scenes in s2e3 are canon to my portrayal. marisa is a woman who has done terrible things. awful things. there's no denying that. these actions disgust him. he's killed people for less. however, this is what he knows: she's a woman in a man's world. not only that, but a woman who was the only carrier of a sin two people committed. her life was ruined by an affair while the other half pretty much got away with it. she's clearly a disturbed person, and, frankly, none of that would've been enough for lee's empathy to win out over his morals...

if not for their scenes in the show.

lee learns two very important things about marisa in their interactions: the first is she loves lyra just as much as him, and even if she's got a fucked up way of showing it, she still does and tries to show it. the second is she's just like him. they're parallels of each other: both had abusive upbringings and both escaped them by any means necessary, with mixed results. he doesn't agree with her actions and she doesn't get a "pass" but he does understand, to an extent.

finally, there's the fact that she sprung him. her love for lyra made her betray the magisterium -- putting herself at risk -- and turn him lose. her parting words to him aren't telling him to find lyra and bring her to her. they simply instruct him to keep her safe. even if that means away from here, keep her safe.

her actions are cruel, but the difference between her cruelty and asriel's, to lee, is marisa felt them truly necessary to her survival (for the most part. not all of it is explainable by any means.) lee understands doing fucked up things to survive. asriel, on the other hand, is a privileged man who got pissy when that privilege stopped being enough (AGAIN THIS IS ALL LEE'S PERSPECTIVE.)

[deadendtracks]

Because it feels like recently I’ve heard so much from the shippers: Tommy/Grace

LOLOL I have written so much about them.

If I'm super brutally honest? That relationship would have gone just as bad as Lizzie/Tommy went, for very different reasons.

And though of course Tommy would play a role, a lot of those reasons would be Grace herself. Her ability to compartmentalize and lie to herself and disregard the consequences of her own actions is an important part of her character that is often ignored. She's never had to face the consequences of her actions because she's rich, basically. And Tommy never has had that luxury, and it was bound to end in conflict of some sort. Their understanding of the world and their experiences are so drastically different, but Grace doesn't appreciate that on any level, where I think Tommy's pretty aware of it.

She was never shown to come to any kind of terms with how she'd betrayed Tommy or the impact it had had on him or his family. She doesn't seem to consider that this might be why he didn't tell her about the Russia business at first, for instance.

Her attitude in s1 towards Small Heath and the people there -- where Tommy grew up -- was classist and terrible, and she appeared to see Tommy as an exception, which is a dangerous way to look at someone from a very different and far less privileged social group from you. This stuck with her through s3, so it didn't seem to be modulated by time or getting to know him and his family better. She's not angry at her family for showing up in uniform to their wedding, she's angry that Tommy's upset about it. For example.

And contrary to shipper wisdom I don't think she'd have been able to deal with Tommy's trauma in the slightest. He's having a full on panic attack in their son's nursery and she more or less just reminds him that his duty is to keep them safe and that he's failing at it (that's implied, but it's there). She doesn't ask him what's wrong or try to comfort him. She wants the situation to go away, and doesn't want to know anything about it.

Part of this is definitely a reaction to s1 -- her line in s2 about how she doesn't need to carry a gun anymore is important. She doesn't need to because she was done with all of that after she got revenge for her father's death and realized it was hollow. But unlike Tommy, she can just return to the life she knew before, to the safety of wealth.

Of course Tommy contributes to all of this -- he absolutely wished to assimilate into the upper classes well before he fell in love with Grace, his own class issues are deeply internalized, etc. But he also chose his family over her once, and I have to wonder if he actually ever put together what she did to Freddie, you know?

This is all coming across as if I hate Grace, and I don't! I really like her character, I just think she tends to be idealized in fandom, which contributes to people thinking she's flat and boring, funnily enough. She's actually more complex even in s2-3 than people tend to acknowledge; you just have to look beyond the badass spy romantic trope idea people pinned on her in s1 and actually see what actions and choices she takes and what they mean about her as a person.

I would really liked to have watched their marriage blow up, because though they definitely loved each other, they never had a chance to face the kind of adversity that would have inevitably come in that marriage, under those circumstances.

And I could see someone writing it in a way where they both grow and get through it, sure. But that would probably have to be in a situation without all the other external stressors we see on the show, so idk. I'm not against that idea, but what I'm really interested in is how the relationship would have been strained due to those differences and pressures.

This will probably all be taken as evidence I'm a Grace hater and hate Grace/Tommy, but this is exactly the kinds of thing I find messy and interesting and why I love Lizzie/Tommy in s5-6, and the fanon version of this ship bores me to tears.

[ambitionsource]

At this point I am reading ambition season 4, summer of 21 and i have to say I love the series. The way that this story has taken the source material of girl meets world and has created a reimagining of the series if it was a drama is so amazing for months, I passed this story until I finally decided to read it I am so glad I did. When reading it reminded me of the fresh prince of bel air reimagining, Bel air. I can't wait to read more.

As I am writing this, I am reading 401 new start, and i have to say I love this story. Once I read the pilot, I was hooked. This reimagining of GMW flows so well, and the fact that you found a way to take the source material and mix it together and make it come out so different but found a way to bring the characters something that the original did not do but you do very well which is called character development. Every single character has changed or will change. I also like the fact that you took the side character and made them part of the story. I can't wait to continue to read this story. I wish I had read this story much sooner, but I wish that this was on streaming because I can't put it down.

hi hi hi!! first of all, please accept my apologies for the extreme delay in answering these lovely messages and thank you for taking the time out of your day to send them. little notes like this always mean the world to me and the rest of the creative team. 😊

and doubly the thank you for deciding to take a chance on our fake tv series! the fact that you passed it by many times but ultimately decided to give it a chance is a special little beauty to the enduring presence of stories -- so long as we're allowed the privilege to share them -- and i'm happy you gave ambition a go. i definitely think that's a common experience of many readers with this story, where it becomes something they didn't realize they wanted or needed in their life, and that has been one of the greatest joys i've had working on this series and being a writer for as long as i have. so welcome to the club ahaha, and i hope it continues to keep you hooked.

(i also am very very happy to see that it hooked you in pretty fast -- considering how elaborate and layered the later seasons get, i always wonder (and maaaaybe worry) that season 1 won't do it justice, and i always get proven wrong. so thanks for that little reassurance as well).

lastly, thank you so much for shouting out our character development in particular. strong characterization and growth is something that is so important to me as a writer and reader, and i'm always really grateful and humbled when i see readers getting that out of my works -- especially ambition, which has been a labor of love and a half with such a rich, ever-expanding ensemble.

if you decide to stick with us to the end, i wish you all the enjoyment as you keep reading, and i hope we will only match or exceed this high praise in the episodes left to come. cheers! ✨

-- Maggie

[cobbssecondbelt]

So I was feeling down and listening to sad music (to help my case, obviously) when I thought of something. Here me out:

Cobb doesn't know pretty much anything about Din. He sees this perfectly sculpted warrior is shiny armor worth 10 times his whole town, flying in a Naboo Starfighter of all ships (he never saw the Razor Crest okay) and probably assumes from this alone that he is a somewhat important man. Born and raised in the technology and high cities of Mandalore with the best training, the best equipment, the best education. He is most likely wealthy, to own all these things and expose them proudly to the whole world to see.

Now. Someone said it before me: every time Din visited Cobb, Cobb lost something; his armor, then his arm. His plans cost some of his people their lives. Having had nothing for half of his life, Cobb cherishes every single thing he has, as little might they be. So it's only natural for him to be angry when this rich Mandalorian know-it-all warrior working for Daimyos and whatnot comes to use his town again, and it costs him his damn shooting arm.

So what about when he wakes up at Boba's palace and sees Din again for the first time, under the shock of his amputation, the fear he'd only been used once again like a tool instead of seen like a friend, a person, and maybe unfairness from all the privileges Din is granted with, he just breaks. Snaps at him and rambles about why does he have to take everything from him. Is this really all Mando wants from him? Not companionship, just whatever helps him finish his job? F*ck off. He can fly back to his fancy planet to that shiny, oh so much more important life and let his town alone. Because Cobb has lost too much already, he won't let it happen again. Obviously he doesn't mean all that, not really, but he's so tired and done with everything, the words and anger just spills out of him before he can control it.

And Din... lets him. Lets him yell at him, insult him, punch the air once or twice maybe. Not because he is a good friend (even though he is) and knows it's only shallow threats covering a much bigger wound, but because he believes him. The guilt he felt for leaving him armorless, for not staying just a minute longer so that whole confrontation with Bane wouldn't have happened, for not being able to convince the mod artist not to take away his arm. Tears drip silently beneath the visor, and he just stands there, letting the man confirm his fears. When Cobb finally takes a hold on himself, the silence weights heavier than anything else. He's still too upset to apologize. Without a word Din turns around and slips out of the room almost mechanically, dazed from his friend's words that still hurt like poisoned daggers.

Cobb only learns later, maybe from Boba (who clearly is Din's self-proclaimed therapist), who Din truly is. The 4 homes he's lost. All the friends that didn't last. His childhood spent hopping from planet to planet and hiding is sewers as the Empire chased his tribe down like rats. Said tribe who threw him out after over two decades of fidelity because he protected his foundling. Him being an orphan.

Cobb suddenly realizes that all this time he's known him, he'd had more than Din ever has in his entire life. He does everything others ask him to do because if he doesn't, what else does he have left to shush the demons? Nothing. He was just trying to help and now he thinks he's lost Cobb, too.

He realizes his mistake and feels like pure garbage.

He sprints of the palace and finds Din just outside of it, sitting in the main stairs, staring at the setting suns. His head his bare, helmet sitting right next to him. Cobb knows he heard him arrive, but he doesn't make a single move to show it. So he walks toward him slowly and come to sit behind him, on the stair just above. For a long moment, they sit in silence. It's a soft silence, without the weight of the previous one. Yet it speaks volumes. Then there's a warm hand on Din's shoulder, a real flesh one. It doesn't do anything. Just stay there, lightly squeezing. And it's all he needs. His own hand slides up to rest over it and just like that, both an apology and a promise is sealed.

Cobb is there for Din.

Din is there for Cobb.

They always will.

[caitlynxviolet]

Hi! Hoping you have a great day!

Been meaning to tell you. I found out this tweet maybe interesting for you

She deliberately hides the family symbolic in her handkerchief so Vi wouldn't see or known that Cait is another noble family. Because she was scared of being hated or rejected by Vi, yeah makes sense for being "misfit" :(

And after read your another meta post about conversations between Cait and Ekko, I noticed when Ekko asked so you got plan? Cait said I have a friend on the Councilor (Jayce)

This! She didn't tell him her mother is another Councilor too. I mean compared to Jayce just started in 2-3rd day, Cassandra's more influence and longer in Councilor position right? I mean if I was in Cait position, given how much conflict between her and her mom yeah I would prefer Jayce who understands/listening more than her mom.

Yeah I can feel her emotion for wanted Vi Ekko to trust her and was trying to do that by being enforcer, thinking that would be better than Vi Ekko knowing her house..

Cait tried to hides it from Vi and still trusted to show her house, Vi was the one who she wished most to not judge her for being who she really was. And Vi didn't throw these words when they were at her house because Vi knew that Cait was not arrogant like the rest of people Piltover.

When in rain scene, suddenly Vi's word go back to that big shiny house of your really hits Harder.. I mean compared to other enforcers are mocking her for that (like in eps 4 before explosion) she is like yeah whatever idc, but it's come from Vi, a person she care about and who saw real Cait and that's why it's hurts so much 😭

I love when people notice things that are kind of hard to tell upon first watching the show!! She definitely flipped the handkerchief over so that the Kiramman symbol wouldn't be visible because she didn't want Vi to see it :') Thank you for showing me this tweet gahh I love details like these.

Like you said, she's so used to people mocking her for being privileged, therefore having Vi see her as a rich Piltovian girl, a Councilor's daughter... it makes sense that it's not the impression she wanted her to have. I understand why she wouldn't want to flaunt her family's affiliations.

Now that you mention it, I didn't even think about how she didn't mention that her mother was on the Council and said a friend instead. Hiding her true identity once again, but it also makes sense considering Caitlyn and her mother's differences and how she would do anything to keep Caitlyn from seeing the real world.

They also snuck in through the window of Caitlyn's own house, perhaps so that Vi wouldn't see the full exterior/living area and her parents wouldn't hear them coming in. Despite it all, Vi could tell the house had to belong to an extremely rich person, hence why she suggested a Councilor.

"Don't you have a cocktail party to attend?"

"Go back to that big, shiny house of yours"

There's a contrast in what the two jabs at her being a Kiramman mean. The first sentence is said by a Piltovian enforcer who knows exactly what a person of social status and importance like Caitlyn would typically do. All the fluff and the extravagant parties - the rich people nonsense. That's what causes her to disrespect her, reminding her that she's in no position to rule. She had everything handed to her. It's her privilege that's bothering her.

Vi only remembers the house. After all, Caitlyn saw Vi's own childhood house. She let her see just how little they had growing up, entertaining themselves with using chalk on walls of steel. It was incredibly vulnerable for Vi, I assume, and then she saw Caitlyn's childhood bedroom. That's what resonated with her. The sheer luxury of it all. We used to share a bed like this, except, maybe half the size.

I mean, Caitlyn didn't have siblings growing up and her only friend was like a decade older than her. It's kinda sad, when you really think about it. I can sympathize with that, even though she never had to worry about food, shelter or money. At least, Vi was loved and she had company. That makes her desperate search for Powder even more tragic, damn.

[familyagrestefanblog]

And once again Adriens Instagram account is laying out another meta question appropriate for a character like Adrien

Because yes, Adrien is the son of a super rich and famous fashion designer. The brand "Gabriel" is huge in the world of fashion. And him being the son of Gabriel one would think that he would most likely stay within his fathers fashion empire for his adult life. And it would be quite practical and obvious wouldn't it? I mean Adrien is not only Gabriels most prominent, popular and profitable model, hes also the face of the brand and became a quite a name himself. Adrien basically has nothing to worry about concerning his future. Even if he one day gets too old to model, his family is so loaded, he wouldn't need to work anyway.

Basically

Adriens privilege of being born into a rich and famous family with their own popular fashion brand gives him the opportunity other people can only dream of right? His heritage gifts him a set in stone future of luxury and fame for a life time. Perfect, isn't it?

Theoretically, yes

But Adriens Instagram post brings up an important question:

"Does Adrien even WANT this?"

Call this first world problems however you like (because frankly, to some level it IS) but one has to keep in mind that just like any other kid in this show Adrien didn't choose his family status either (I don't think I have to clarify that Adrien would seriously prefer to have a more normal, closer and private life like the Dupain-chang's for example).

Adriens "job" (pretty sure Gabriel ain't paying his son) as main model for his fathers brand isn't so much a opportunity for him than a time consuming responsibility he has to uphold for an unlimited amount of time. This could literally go on for the next 10+ years because that's expected of him.

Which brings up another question we also could answer ourselves straight away:

"Has anyone ever asked Adrien what HE wants out of life and what he wants to do in his future?"

Because the show tells me and now this post of Adrien confirms it that, no, what Adrien wants has never been a priority to the point that either Gabriel(lol as if) or even EMILIE supported their son in his own interests enough that he could now follow and turn those into a future carrier like Marinette, Alya and even Nino for examples

Even his "hobbies" we see in the show (fencing, Chinese and Japanese and piano) are depicted more as activities that are EXPECTED of him than actually hobbies of his own choice.

And even if his parents did support him and let him do hobbies of his own choice (if one did then probably Emilie tho), Adriens interests, once he started having to uphold his family name and its responsibilities, were then quickly put second in favor of the Agreste responsibilities put onto him and more practical and reputable hobbies.

In other words

Fuck Gabriel Agreste. And Emilie, you're on thin fucking ice Lady cuz I can't proof shit right now and I wanna believe that you were a good mom but I swear to God the evidences ain't on your side

[absolutcoca]

I didn't like the first episode of the second season of ODAAT and that’s why

I'm engaging through a very tricky battle right now and ready to get all the hate you guys have to give me but first let me explain.

“The turn”

That's its name. I suppose it was meant to strike us, to makes us want to watch the next episode and as always, feel appalled but also relieved that what was weighing upon us had finally words put on it.

This episode is principally talking about racism and the way we react to it, which, in this regard, makes a very accurate analysis. Indeed, I am very thankful for it to exist, because it does depict our society and the different characters that live in it, in a quite faithful way. 

 Though, ODAAT is not only a slice-of-life show, it is also a “teaching” show, that makes us realise the way we could or should live in a healthy family, in this society. It is not only a show to laugh at, this is a true “bildungsroman”, but in the Friends format. 

So, what is bothering me?

you don’t care? too bad for you my opinion is very important

I was surprised, in this episode, being annoyed by the way Schneider was considered and also by the moral of this story overall.

What a cool reaction, Elena. Showing your support and amazement about him taking interest in your culture. (yeah she gets a bit on my nerves) [...]

(bilingual. he’s dumb and knows it)

(and she can’t take a joke)

[...]

same, buddy.

Schneider, that weirdo with the sad rich syndrome, who somehow is welcomed in this Cuban-American family, happens to know spanish better than Elena, the daughter. He’s proud of himself (and so I am) and the waiter is happy to speak Spanish with a fellow bilingual. He says he’s bi, and she gets offended. Nothing was dangerous or insulting out there, chill girl. Anyway, regular Elena stuff.

it IS. IT FUCKING IS

Schneider tries so fucking hard. Like, he didn’t have any sense of what a family is for real other than the fact he was covered in gold. Being poor is an ocean of pain, but you know how the saying goes, money and situation can’t fulfill you as a person, and thus, he found fulfillment in this family.

So, he’s learning everything. He wish he hadn’t naively said that racism couldn’t exist in LA, because as a white person that has no problem with difference, who would even fight for it, he tends to forget racism exists.

Okay so now the whole “white” thing. 

Stereotypes are for everyone, some suffer truly from it, some not, and this is determined by the fact you were born looking like settlers (or being their descendants) or looking like who was persecuted by settlers (or, being their descendants). Now we all agree, violences are, in this western world, perpetrated by those who look like settlers, against those who look like those who were persecuted by settlers. Long story short, you get me, white people against whoever is not a white, christian, cis, straight, blabla, you know the drill.

This was taken as a joke, because come on Schneider, are you really living hell corresponding to all of the societal criterias? Of course not. But what I don’t understand is that tendency to reverse, just as grudge would, the effects of racism against POC. This “them and us” tendency, when Schneider here only tries to show empathy, to be part of the fight. He’s kind of not considered as an “ally” as you say out there, and that’s a problem.

I mean, Penelope is just being salty like. “I don’t know where these stereotypes come from”, when the episode begins with a proud:

which is so fucking cliché! and so fucking fine!!! because they KNOW they’re being stereotypical, and it hurts no one, they are being happy and proud about it. But get me: all stereotypes have some kind of basis. The real problem comes when those sterotypes are changed into weapons. Very easy to hurt when it touches the heart, very easy to make you feel not at home. 

It’s kind of reccurrent in the show that Schneider, trying to show his support, is being silently shut down, because of his priviledged situation. Yeah no, he can’t relate, but he tries, at his level, and maybe what he feels is not the same kind of pain, but you have no right to invalidate it.

Generally speaking, the dirty looks/talk to the most privileged ones arise, meaning: “you don’t welcome us, we’re not acknowledging you either”. Basically, doing the exact same shit the persecutors did/do, assuming that if they look like persecutors, they probably are, when people could actually want to USE their privilege to help fighting for equality rights.

Any ways, it’s kind of not okay reducing someone to their skin colour, building a whole mockery list out of it and invalidating them showing support. Reducing someone to some of their aspects is literal discrimination (not discrimination as in the big word including persecutions, okay? the literal definition.). Even if it’s white.

out of context but well fucking said.

But actually all of this is me just being petty. The true problem comes with the end of the episode.

Some random guy asking them to keep quiet inside an icecream shop, really unpredictable when they are basically screaming.

Then Penelope decides that she’s not happy someone said fiesta/asked them to shut it down a bit.

...aaaand that’s beside the point.

He never said they didn’t have the right to be here, and being the owner or not doesn’t change the fact they aren’t allowed to have whatever attitude they want to have in a public space. That could have come from a latinx/poc! So he just reiterates:

[...]

He admitted it wasn’t a smart move. But then she’s insisting on the bad clichés when he said nothing but fiesta. I’m sorry but this “Arriba!” thing makes her pass off as a crazy latina lady. It was particularly unnecessary. 

And, they were actually throwing kind of a party so what. He’s not telling them to get out of here and he didn’t attacked them “other than” using a spanish word when they were clearly screaming spanish words in an opened-to-public ice cream shop. I would have done the same. Anyone would have.

and thats when I made the same fucking face. He didn’t stereotype anyone for God’s sake.

Still making the same face like lmao. You get the right to be a “little racist” but when they come saying something NOT racist, like, “fiesta” to a bunch of spanish screaming people, you lose your shit? Not only it’s not credible at all, she’s also making a fool of herself by throwing a fit to someone asking them to tone down in a public space. One person's freedom ends where another's begins. This attitude was welcomed in a sports event, just as in the beginning, but not in a café which is natural.

And so, no, it was NOT awesome. That was disappointing and did not give much credit to their fight. Penelope is not aiming her anger to the right people here.

Other than that, the moments talking about how words hurt, and the talk Alex and Penelope had made me cry. Still really love this show.

~*end of my very important opinion on this episode, love*~

[austinstahl]

City Paper is Dead, Long Live City Paper

It's hard to describe, to someone who's never experienced it, the pleasure of being a part of something you'd previously loved from the outside. It's what I imagine it might feel like to be drafted by the team you grew up rooting for.

I'd been reading the Baltimore City Paper since high school in the late ’90s, when I'd pick up a copy on occasional trips into the city, and it was a window into a world of arts and music and general adult freedom that I longed to enter. After I moved to Baltimore for college, it became an indispensable companion to the city I was now exploring, and to a growing music scene that I was attempting to infiltrate. And it was a consistent source of great writing about things I cared about — it seems weird to say now, but at the time, it was not easy to find genuinely good writing on the internet — with great photography and illustration alongside it.

So when, as a newly-minted college grad in 2004, I got invited in for a job interview after an acquaintance had recommended me, it was both exciting and surreal to see where this thing I loved got made. (I believe the only time I ever used the stately front entrance to the offices at 812 Park Ave, a converted Mt Vernon rowhouse mansion, was for that interview; staffers, as I soon learned, customarily slipped in via the back alley.) I had spent the previous several months searching for a “real” graphic design job, and this City Paper position was for a production assistant, so I wasn't entirely sure it was the right move, but it seemed like too much fun to pass up. Even for a measly $12 an hour.

It was. The vibe of the Production department was like being in a class populated entirely by class clowns, on a day where you had a substitute: You knew you'd need to get your work done eventually, but in the meantime a feeling of let's-see-what-we-can-get-away-with anarchy hung over the whole enterprise. We occupied a large room on the second of the building's three floors, appropriately between Editorial (above) and Advertising (below). There, six of us laid out some parts of the paper—whatever wasn't handled directly by Joe, our goofily ebullient art director—and designed a massive number of small ads for local advertisers. (We offered this service for free, and it was like layout boot camp.) Music was usually blaring from a boombox perched on the mantel of what had once been a bedroom fireplace, often controlled by the eclectic tastes of our senior designer Matt. A second sonic layer, made up of constant jokes and banter, floated overtop of and intertwined with the music. Even if the work itself sometimes felt like drudgery, I was never bored.  

On Mondays, we worked a 12-hour shift as final ad approvals came up the stairs from Advertising and final article edits came down the stairs from Editorial, all needing to be placed onto pages. At dinnertime we'd wait anxiously for a call from the basement to tell us the company-provided pizzas had arrived, and then march down past “the morgue,” where nearly thirty years' worth of papers were archived—a weekly reminder that this madcap pursuit had a long history (longer, indeed, than my life to that point).  

I'd gotten a lot of advice in design school about making sure my first job was one where I could keep on learning, and while I'm not sure that CP was quite the type of job these advice-givers had in mind, I was undoubtedly learning plenty: When to push back against bad ideas (no, Mr Advertiser, the fact that the ad we designed for you contains a few slivers of white space does not mean that we can now cram 50% more content in) and when to grin and bear them (usually making private use of my colleague Rebecca's oft-repeated saying: “If that's what you want...”). How to wrangle disparate pieces of content into a coherent whole (it was our job to create “The Map” that determined which content/ads went onto which pages, no small task when we had so many different ad sizes that we used the letters of the alphabet to refer to them). How to keep your cool when the pressure was on and tensions were rising.

And though I didn't fully recognize it at the time, I was beginning to learn that publication design was what I was meant to do; I loved spending my days working alongside people who were putting something of value into the world. As difficult as I found the schedule—after Monday's 12-hour slog, you'd grab some sleep and then head right back for the mad dash of Tuesday morning, sending pages off to the printer—I immediately appreciated too that if a week's work wasn't your best, well, you didn't have to wait long for a chance to do it better.

After a little less than a year, though, I was growing weary of that weekly grind. Adding to my weariness was the peculiar mix of entitlement and insecurity that perhaps only young twentysomethings can feel with the ferocity that I did; I felt that my numerous design talents were not being properly utilized as a mere Production department drone, and simultaneously feared that dronehood was perhaps all I was capable of. It didn't take long for this mixture to curdle into a bad attitude that I evidently didn't hide well—at some point that summer, our production director, Athena, called me down into the alley (the only place one could have a private discussion at 812 Park) to ask if I really wanted to be working there. I admitted, to her and to myself, that I didn't.

(Athena, thank you for putting up with me.)

So I moved on. I only worked at the paper for less than a year, but that time has taken on an outsized importance in the life story I tell myself, looking back with a dozen years' distance. As short as my tenure was, I had the privilege of being a small part of this local institution, this forty-year history of documenting and shaping the social and cultural life of my city. There's a pride in that, which I expect will never go away.

City Paper itself, of course, has now gone away, killed by its parent company earlier this month. Count me among those who felt the paper had experienced a sharp decline in quality and consistency in recent years, though to be fair, at least some of that must have been due to rapidly shrinking resources. Certainly they were still capable of great heights: their dispatches from the summer's Baltimore Ceasefire and their longform deep dive into sexual harassment and abuse in the arts scene, to name two from the final few months, were engrossing and important pieces. These are the kind of community-serving features that they seem ready to continue in new form over at the Baltimore Beat, which launched this week under the leadership of some recent CP vets. I look forward to following it.

City Paper's demise has been framed widely as a symptom of the 21st-century media landscape, where the internet has killed print advertising so thoroughly that no free print media can survive, but apparently CP was still profitable—just not profitable enough for the corporation that chose to end it. The narrative that it really fits into is the one where more and more independent media entities, print and digital alike, are bought up by the rich and powerful and don't always survive the whims of their new patrons.

I still have a copy of the first issue of City Paper I worked on, from October 20, 2004. It contains 136 pages (compare this to the final issue's 40) and lists fifty-one employees on the masthead, not counting contributors or distribution. (Baltimore Beat's full-time roster, reportedly: five.) So, yeah, independent media in 2017 is leaner in more ways than one. But I think it can still be a force, a beacon to draw kids like me to cities like ours, and a vital resource for those who are already here. Even if there are fewer opportunities to be drafted by the home team, I have to believe that there are new teams to start, new games to invent that we haven't yet dreamt of.