#fuck the dystopian society we live in

[escapism-from-the-real-world]

The society within the hunger games has been analyzed and compared to our society many times

Let’s do another one

I think something that’s at the forefront of my mind, especially with the genocide going on in Palestine/Gaza/Congo/Sudan/heaven knows so many more places is how we so easily let murder and genocide slide

And I don’t mean we’re making bets and shouting for bloodshed like the capital did in the books (though, from what I’ve seen, the IDF, Israeli government, and many more are). We protest, we sign petitions, donate to the cause, call and email are representatives, but short of causing an actual uprising and stopping the whole genocide by baring teeth and dripping blood, I doubt we’ll stop them from proceeding with it.

Because the vote has been made, the lines have been drawn and the US government has made it clear that this is something they are willing to do.

Over

And over

And over again

In their own sick form of the hunger games

But instead of letting it be watched from our tv, where we can document and criticize their actions in 4K, where we can openly point in disgust, revolt in a publicly agreed opinion that this is wrong, instead if a slaughter where we can see just how human those people are, how many humans we really are killing

They hide behind walls and lies and manipulative words that guide your attention elsewhere. They murder and bomb and kill and destroy without a single bit of it entering your life in any way. Well, most of it anyway.

(Look up the massacres and genocides the US has been a part of, has funded. It’s there, they just don’t want you to find it.)

In the Hunger Games, everything is so obviously meticulously planned out and purposefully done so we, the audience, can see it, call out the injustice, gasp in horror as children are killed, as they kill each other, and we wonder how can they bot do something about this? Don’t they know it’s wrong? Inhumane? So past what you thought a human was capable of.

Little do we know it happens in real life too, it’s just a little more hidden, a little more tricky to line out, a little more innocent looking, but the intent is the same.

We live in a subtle, almost boring very of a dystopian society. The rich are richer than ever, the poor work long and hard for not even a fraction of the same riches. We notice, we grovel about it, we complain, but ultimately, what do you do? Vote in another bastard to replace the last? Protest against a law that has already been passed in the hearts of our government? Overthrow the government for another?

No, you have kids to feed, siblings to take care of, people and things to be selfish about.

People are slaughtered senselessly everyday and we don’t even know it or don’t even blink at it or maybe so stunned with the reality of the world you don’t know what to do or so filled with rage all you want to do is rebel

Kill a tyrant

What violent thoughts for a seventeen year old to have

But will you? Revolt and kick and scream? Set ablaze to the country you may call home? To deny all the falsehoods of strength and patriotism and freedom that hold our beliefs in this country and actually make a change?

We don’t have a Katniss to start our revolution. We don’t have a game to look down on for killing our kids. We don’t have an obvious target to kill for all our troubles.

We only have each other, sharing stories and advice and truth in our little corners of the internet. We only have wars and genocides that kill more than twenty four and have so many following the deaths of miners, poor families, and victims of circumstance alike. Buried. Starved. Shot without a second thought. We have tyrants upon tyrants, greater evil upon greater evil, fighting for the chance to be game maker this year while still following the same old tune.

That’s what they’re counting on, at least. For us ti be at each other’s throats, for us to wallow in despair, for us to be selfish and heartbroken but still apathetic enough not to care, not to do something about it.

I say it’s time we start our fucking rebellion and get someone to shoot all those fuckers with an arrow.

Because whether we like it or not, our Hunger Games have begun and everyone is on the chopping block.

It can’t just be some of us either, we see how it works out in the Hunger Games. It has to be all of us, together, standing up against these insane shows of disregard for human life. If we can get everyone on board, they couldn’t stop us if they tried.

I mean, that’s why they separated the districts in the first place, right? We have too much power together.

And together they will fall.

Free Palestine. Free Congo. Free Sudan. Free every single place they’ve turned into a district.

[aikastales]

the heat we’re experiencing rn in the philippines is so extreme that it not only affects our electricity but also our physical health and livelihood. it’s fucking crazy. it’s really so hard to focus on anything else.

[jackinalex]

I remember listening to one of the livestreams ATL did at some point and Zack was talking about being involved with a company that was trying to create small environmental jobs for homeless people or just people who couldn’t find jobs. And all that the other guys just said was that that was awesome and then Rian made a joke that drinking a mimosa is a charity for the self. And I think about that sometimes. I think it was the OIAL video release livestream. Maybe they do donate to non-profits or charities and just don’t advertise it but it would be cool to see them individually get involved with something they are passionate about, like Zack with the beach cleanups and environmental stuff. Even now he’s been constantly posting about different ways to help Maui and I respect that. Jack did once raise some money for Lebanon but that really is the bare minimum, setting up a link for people to donate. I feel like he has plenty of time when he’s off tour so I would love to see him help out in a dog shelter or do something with kids because I think that is something he’s passionate about instead of just posting cute moments on instagram. I don’t know, create a space for kids who can’t afford it to learn music or something. It doesn’t have to be anything earth shattering but I feel like they could use their platform to bring attention to good causes more because they clearly care about them. I listen to this indie artist Novo Amor who is a lot less popular than ATL but he constantly does something to support things he cares about. He made an absolutely amazing music video for his song Birthplace bringing attention to plastics in the ocean that accumulate in Indonesia, he made a fund and a contest for young filmmakers to create their own music videos to his songs to highlight an issue in an area that they are from, like water pollution in Mexico. There is so much good that can be done when you have a platform and means to do so.

I can’t love this ask enough. This is exactly what I’m talking about! Zack is incredibly passionate about cleaning up the oceans and also about taking care of the fire victims in Hawaii, and he puts in the work! He’s done so much for those people and he’s not doing it for any reason other than because it’s the right thing to do! He also helped out with Dr. Phil’s son’s Kids Who Rock organization. Jack can certainly do better, too. And I’ve been pissed at Rian ever since he fostered that adorable dog during the pandemic and said he couldn’t adopt a shelter dog because he was gone too often, then turned around and BOUGHT a dog (one who runs $700-3,000 depending on the breeder and location, etc.). I love when the guys visit children’s hospitals and shit, but I really need to see more from Alex and Jack and Rian. Donating proceeds from a t-shirt to the Trevor Project once a year is kind, but it also puts the onus on the fans to buy shirts when they could put in much better work. I hope I’m making sense.

[jimkirkachu]

Finally got all the ducks in a row to start the process toward top surgery, but now all I can think about is, "should I use this money to try for a bi-salp instead??"

[sasssydaddy123]

One of the super cool things about living in Nevada is that casino mega corporations can buy parts of the city. So that's what Jacobs Entertainment did, they bought an entire ward. Hear me again: They. Bought. An. Entire. Ward. Knocking down motels and every affordable living place, pushing out local businesses, painting over local murals, and slapping their stupid logo all over everything. Fuck you Jacobs Entertainment, I hope your souls rot in capitalist hell, tormented by the spirits of those who died on the streets because you demolished the only place they could afford to live

[oprika]

I mean, seriously, isn’t life for us? Aren’t we alive to be? How is it that we live under a system that is self-serving? We’re getting absolutely nothing out of it. Even relationships have societal meanings and instructions that doesn’t work for US.

Everything seems to be FOR the system. If you were to tell me that we’re getting SOMETHING, just anything valuable, out of it I wouldn’t be so mad. However, there’s no order. Psychopathy is a byproduct of this society. People are less and less willing to be alive. The prison system is bs. People get punished for their desperate need to survive; there’s more minorities of every kind in the prison system than people who ACTUALLY committed a crime.

AND THEN IM BEING TOLD THAT MONEY IS VALUABLE?!! PAPERRRR?!!!! How is THAT more important than US. JUST HOW. Why are we living for a system. A system that doesn’t even provide BACK to us. Why has our ‘purpose’ been decided for us and diminished by some fucking CONCEPT. A CONCEPT. ITS A FREAKING CONCEPT. A CONCEPT THAT DOESNT SERVE UUUSSSSSS.

[blockgamepirate]

This is my petty complaint time, this video annoys me SO MUCH and even more so what annoys me is that the latest comment on it is this:

HE TAUGHT YOU SO MUCH BULLSHIT, PLEASE NO, DON'T LISTEN TO HIM

And yes, I've been thinking about this stream for nearly three years now, I've been meaning to go through it to critique Wilbur's arguments, I just never got around to it

Wilbur: "Tubbo, you've created an anti-state capitalist dystopia"

So all Tubbo had explained so far was that his town had a big company that owned two other big companies. Nothing about the government or anything. It's true that one company owning all the major businesses is pretty dystopian, sure, but I have no idea where Wilbur got the "anti-state" thing from, usually capitalist companies are fine with the existence of states, states do a lot of dirty work for the capitalists

Spoiler alert: Tubbo's city turns out to be pretty much a city state so Wilbur is just wrong anyway, not that he ever acknowledges it even when it does come up

Also it's not like corporate acquisitions are completely unheard of in the UK, as far as I know. Admittedly the UK is also arguably a capitalist dystopia but you know what I mean, the concept shouldn't be all that shocking to Wilbur

He's being so dramatic and trying to make it sound like he's caught Tubbo in a mistake or something. He also keeps asking questions and then not letting Tubbo answer properly before taking like one word Tubbo says and running with it

But this is the one that I find the most obnoxious:

T: "I did some research into like economics and stuff and I discovered this thing called UBI, have you heard of it?"

W: "What's it stand for?"

T: "Universal Basic Income"

W: "Yeah, I know about that"

He clearly does not know what UBI is.

It becomes very apparent very quickly:

W: "So you've got universal basic income but then also the rich exist still?"

T: "Yeah! Yeah they do."

W: "How does that come about then,"

T: "So in my mind--"

W: "is this universal basic income different for different people?"

T: "No, no, the universal basic income is better for everyone, just the people who have--"

W: "In order for there to be a 1% that means someone's earning more,"

T: "Yes, someone is earning more"

W: "but that means the universal basic income isn't universal!"

T: "No no no, not everyone's getting paid the same but everyone gets the same to begin with, okay? But then you can build on top of it."

W: "Oh no, you've got a-- Tubbo, you've got a fucking social point system!"

T: "Have I made a social point system??"

W: "Tubbo, you've made China!"

None of what Wilbur says makes ANY sense here. The only explanation I can think of is that he didn't know what UBI was, made an assumption that it just meant "everybody gets paid the same amount of money" or something like that and then just spoke fast enough that Tubbo couldn't correct him

Tubbo is correct here, Tubbo knows what he's talking about, but he can't out-speak Wilbur who is just throwing so much bullshit out of his mouth that there's no time to even respond

So, UBI means that everyone in the society gets a regular payment of a specific amount of money that's the same for everyone regardless of their life situation (and generally a requirement would be that it has to be enough to live on, altho people do like to water this down a lot...) This would be completely irrelevant to your wages or salary or capital gains. You can choose to either live on the UBI or you can just do the regular capitalist things to earn extra money on top of the UBI

Obviously I'm not one of those people who think that UBI would solve all of world's problems, I mean I am an anarchist and all (and not an ancap either), but it's literally just a very streamlined welfare system. That's all. It would probably be a lot better than the current models we have but it's not fundamentally different. There's nothing particularly weird about it, the point is just to make sure that everyone has enough money to live on, in every other regard it's just normal capitalism

Wilbur completely misunderstands the whole thing (because, again, he does not know what UBI is so he's just trying to imagine what it might mean based on what Tubbo is saying) and jumps immediately to something he apparently has heard of, which is the Chinese social credit system, which has nothing to do with UBI. In fact I'm pretty sure it also doesn't actually have anything to do with income either, or at least not directly, so I don't think Wilbur knows what the social credit system is either

He's literally just talking in buzzwords

Like if you actually wanted to make a leftist critique of Tubbo's city, you could, don't get me wrong. But instead Wilbur keeps insisting that he's made a social point system despite Tubbo trying to explain why it's not that at all

Wilbur just keeps yelling over Tubbo until his own chat turns against him and finally Tubbo himself also kinda gives up

And from there Tubbo also kinda just starts playing into the bit and just lets Wilbur direct the whole conversation, the rest of it is just them getting more and more into the roleplay. Wilbur keeps talking about the state pension plan, even though Tubbo already tried to explain that it's part of the UBI (this actually is how UBI is supposed to work, it does indeed streamline most of the welfare spending! Obviously you can still raise questions about that (I can think of a few at least) but Wilbur didn't let Tubbo explain so I have no idea what Tubbo actually had in mind)

I could try to go through all of what Wilbur says here but it's just too much, so maybe some other time. Although to be honest there are so many other streams that I probably should talk about instead that some fans unfortunately took a bit too seriously because they assumed Wilbur knew what he was talking about

My point here is mainly that just because someone sounds really confident and knows a bunch of buzzwords doesn't mean they know what they're talking about.

[tonythr]

The Watcher's telescope view is a social commentary and here's why

Ok so let's set some things right first. City of Tears is amazing.

(Yes, Pale Court is also an amazing mod)

I've played Hollow Knight many times, and City of Tears is probably the one location I never get tired of. The scenery, the lore, the room layout, the music, the atmosphere - it's all perfect. It's the culmination of Halllownest's beauty, the peak of the game's art style, and the narrative's most essential location. City of Tears is the heart of Hollow Knight.

This game is a story about a Kingdom and its death, a tragedy of a society that was built on dreams of light but ultimately was consumed by the light so much that darkness became its only hope. And City of Tears stands at the center of this story. So it's fitting that the themes of corrupted dreams, society flaws, and dark hopes are what shape the lore and atmosphere of this beautiful, gorgeous location.

Did you ever notice that the tears of this Kingdom are dark despite them originating in a glowing blue lake, and the waters that flood the streets are almost as dark as the void in the Abyss? Do you ever think about how the vibrant blue color of the City is basically a culmination of how the color blue is presented in other locations (Howling Cliffs, Forgotten Crossroads, and later Royal Waterways being more of a remix of it), and how it's tied to the very essence of Hallownest (and how Resting Grounds, the location that contains Blue Lake and also uses a bright blue color, represent the very foundation of Hallownest's history, that being Seer's story about the Moth Tribe's betrayal that started the war between Pale King and the Radiance)? Do you feel like Soul Master basically represents the thunder and the lightning in this never-ending rain? Do you get it????

Anyway yeah, there are many things that can be said about City of Tears, and this is hopefully not the last time I make a post about it. What I want to talk about here is the City's society.

Basically, Monomon said it better than anyone could:

It's a very complicated topic. The narrative basically explores the inner mechanisms of a free mind, how its primary need is finding a purpose, and how its purpose turns out to be a constant need of... something. Anything. As long as there is something to want, a free mind will want it. As long as there is something to yearn for, something to enjoy, something to dream about, our minds are going to move in its direction, never wanting to stop. Because a stasis is worse than death. Because a world without dreams is an empty world.

But then again, isn't constant yearning another instance of, well, constance? If dreams never end but also never evolve, doesn't that create another kind of stasis?

Like I said, it's very complicated. Let's go back to what I was getting at in the first place. What I actually wanted to say is this:

Theese guys fucking fucked up as a society.

It's classic dystopian shit (or maybe I'm using the wrong word, but you get the point). Rich people are living in luxury while the rest are suffering. They're making gold a fucking religion and are seeing it as the only beauty in the world. The corrupt upper class are using heavy gatekeeping on the lower class.

Literally.

What's interesting is that, at first, we barely see any lower class bugs in the City. There's suspiciously few regular husks in this location, compared to how many rich guys are on the eastern side. But then we get to Soul Sanctum and it all starts to make sense.

There are no red cloaks in those corpse piles. Only the poor were killed for those experiments. It can't be a coincidence. It's straight-up elitism-based genocide (again, I don't know if I'm using the right terms, correct me if there's a better way to say that, but the point is clear).

Also, see how many streets are flooded on the western side in comparison to the eastern side.

Point is, the bugs that ruined the kingdom by always wanting more (what Monomon wrote about) are most likely theese rich ones. It's a very fitting thing for this dystopian narrative: neverending greed that leads to the downfall of a civilization.

There's a note in the Hunter's Journal that describes it in the best way possible:

For every location in the game, there is a place that functions as the center of its essence, its narrative heart, the culmination of its themes. For Queen's Gardens it's the White Lady's cocoon, for Greenpath it's the Lake of Unn, and for City of Tears (or at least its eastern part, the one with the upper class) it's the Watcher's Spire. The tallest building of the great capital. The home of (evidently) the most rich and influential bug of the City's high society. Literally the top of this social hierarchy.

He is also arguably the most mysterious dreamer out of all three. I mean, why does he have only one eye? What type of bug is he? How did he get this much power? Does he really have some kind of connection with the Collector? Is he a motherfucking fluke? Why does he seem to have an obsession with serving the King?

That last question is kinda answered by the cut content though.

That last sentence is kinda confusing. Is it regret? Is it humility? Is it pride in his sacrifice? In any case, here we see that Lurien actually knew that the Pale King was literally a god, and desired to worship him, like any other bug yearns to worship some kind of deity. So while other bugs of Hallownest worshiped PK because he was a monarch, albeit a godlike one (for all they knew he could be just an extraordinary bug, but a bug nonetheless), Lurien worshiped him as an actual god. And the intricacies of worshiping a god are one of the central themes of the game. From the moth tribe's betrayal of Radiance leading to the birth of the Infection to the Godseeker's shenanigans leading to the birth of the Shade Lord - the game makes multiple statements about gods, religious devotion and the semantics of divine power. Just that one idea that a god takes its power from the ones that worship it deserves its own post - heck, it deserves its own book.

So yeah, Lurien's devotion to the King is an important part of the story. He sure is an important character in this narrative. He also got a cool house. Being able to observe the entirety of the Hallownest's capital is badass.

But there's one thing I find odd about all that, and it's the moment we get to actually look through his legendary telescope.

Is it just me, or does this feel kinda... Underwhelming? Almost disappointing? I mean, don't get me wrong, I love this view, it's beautiful, and I would certainly love to be able to see something like this with my own eyes irl, but, looking at this picture, I can't help but wonder...

Did he actually see anything from up there?

In cut dialogue, Lurien talks about how he loves the City's streets, and his hidden lore tablet contains words about his love for bugkind, but... I see neither any streets on this image, nor any bugs (that are not vengeflies). Only spiked rooftops and rainy fog, clouding the view of the actual City.

And sure, the Spire has many windows and even had multiple watchers who were helping Lurien with overseeing the capital...

But his own spot was always this one.

His telescope was sealed in one place, letting him see only a small portion of the City and its life. Almost like his own worldview was stuck in one perspective.

Notice the wording here. It's not "The Seals must remain". It's "Bonds must remain". He's not thinking just about the Seals containing the Infection. He's thinking about the whole Kingdom needing to stay unchanged. His dream is the stasis that the Knight (and also Monomon, Hornet and, in a sense, even Radiance) want to end. The stasis that the Pale King wanted to create in order for his Kingdom (and therefore himself) to be eternal. The stasis that would allow for both Pale King and Lurien's worship of him to remain forever.

But there is always a cost to ascending higher than others, and it's that you can no longer see what's going on below or who's suffering down there. I think Lurien, sitting atop the tallest tower, was actually detached from the struggles of regular bugs. He and his Spire are the culmination of the City's upper class' ignorance towards the ones who were below them on the social hierarchy. A dreamer who dreamt of watching over the very heart of the holy civilization lived so high up he could no longer see his beloved world in its complicated, detailed entirety – and the tears of the stasis created by those like him only blinded him more.

All those flooded streets, those broken buildings, those empty halls, those starving bugs, those sealed doors - even though he watched over them, he couldn't see them.

I'm pretty sure Lurien didn't even know about the Soul Master's experiments, despite the fact that the Soul Sanctum was located right next to his Spire.

Or maybe he knew but chose to turn a blind eye to it (pun intended).

But it's kind of poetic, isn't it? It's the beauty of the tragedy of this game's characters. A Beast who had to surrender everything to the opposing civilization. A Teacher who could no longer teach. A Watcher who couldn't see the truth.

And all that makes me wonder... How much suffering could the Pale King see, standing on that platform at the top of the Abyss, facing away from the pit where his children died?

TL;DR: Lurien's point of view was too high up to actually see what was truly going on down there, both literally and metaphorically. His desire to worship the Pale King made him ignorant of the struggles of regular bugs. Similarly, the extreme elitism of the high society of Hallownest lead to ignorance, discrimination and greed, which ultimately caused the sprawl of the Infection. This side of Lurien's story might also parallel the Pale King's with his ignorance towards the discarded vessels.

TL;DR²: Eat the rich

[ef-1]

I'm like. just thinking about how dystopian it is that Vogue, undisputedly the most influential fashion magazine in the world, who's demographic (according to Mediascope TSN) is split at approximately 80%/20% people who identify as women to people who identify as men would churn out an issue about women in motorsport, an actually grotesquely under-represented minority in that field.

BUT instead of shedding light on women who are ACTUALLY involved in motorsport in ANY meaningful capacity, they put a turbo fascist nepo baby on the cover whose claim to fame is being some guys daughter and some dudes girlfriend and whose last two visits to the spotlight involved a fascism scandal and a racism scandal and had her cosplay as a driver then proceeded to crown her the princess of motorsport whatever the fuck that means. it's not even satirical bc the irony is laid on too heavily

we sure do live in a society

[justatalkingface]

The 'Great' MHA Read Along, Part Five (Chapters 22-44): The Mandatory Exploitive Tournament Arc

Been awhile, huh? Let's see if I can still pull this off. I'm warning you, this is probably going to have a bit of heft to it.

We start off people trying (and failing) to investigate Shigarki and the Villains and, first off, a couple of things. The whole, 'Quirk Registry' shit? Very X-Men. I'm... kinda mixed feelings on it. It makes sense for a government to try and keep track of this kind of shit, but at the same time it feels like a whole lot, you know? That said... the way the guy in the suit phrased it makes it seem like they only searched for 'Shigaraki/Disintegration' and 'Kurogiri/OP warping' pairings, which seems... dumb. Like, really dumb.

Are they.... are they not going to search for anyone with a similar Quirk? Because it sounds like there are other people with similar Quirks, so... what about them? Oh, this pale haired guy who mutters a lot about how horrible heroes are isn't named Shigaraki, so clearly this isn't the guy? Do some ground work or something, man, bloody hell.

*spits out drink*

Even All-Might thinks Shigaraki is a man-child, lol. Brutal. That said... Vlad goes, 'You mean he's just like a kid with a 'power' or something?!'

And I. My dude. You're just some guy with a power. It feels like some depersonalization of the 'villains' because, yeah, everyone in this story is, in fact, just some rando human, 99.9% of the time with super powers. I don't know, it just feels like that's this really concerning perspective for someone in authority to have.

'I keep forgetting this is an actual school!'

That. That's... actually really concerning? Everyone, literally everyone, from Aizawa, to the students, to the actual author, can't seem to figure out if UA is some military academy meant to pump out child soldiers, or an actual high school meant to prepare children to go into society. And not to belabor the point here, one I've talking about on and off again for awhile, but that's fucked up.

I can't help but get the impression that UA (and presumably every other hero academy) is some military complex, setting up the students to live a life where the only way they know how to live is through violence and trying to be famous, but it's just... pretending to have standards, pretending to care for the kids as anything more than the next generation of... idol-police, or something. The way every school related thing is so out of place, the way their grades are so unimportant... it's very telling.

And like. It's not a bad thing, per say. Morally bad, sure, but from a story telling perspective? For a story like this, the way the heroic's school is morally dubious is actually a really good plot point to work off of. But... that's the problem. It never happens.

If the setting was fucked up enough, it'd be understandable if it wasn't explored, but it's not. I feel like there's some fertile ground to talk about... how heroes don't know how to handle living normal lives. How to cook, clean, do taxes, hIstory (which is, of course, very loaded sort of topic in a more dystopian kind of a set up) and so on. There's no way they have the time and energy to do all the thing a normal kid should do at their age, and as they grow up, and get these dangerous, fucked up jobs? There has to be consequences to that.

And the next line later, they bring up, you know, a bunch of terrorists just attacked the school. Which is, in fact, a serious fucking concern! What does Aizawa say?

'No no, we're only doing because we're so sure we have this shit locked down.'

Spoiler alert: They did not, in fact, have this shit locked down. In the least.

My god, this is so fucked up. It's pretty clear that the fact this is still happening is because UA, and heroics as a whole, honestly, is doing a show of force to try and make all the bad things go away. In all honesty, they're putting these kids lives at risk; the only reason nothing went wrong isn't because 'the school had all its ducks in a row when it comes to crisis control' or what the fuck ever, but because AFO didn't want to do anything. And you know why he doesn't interfere?

Because it's so damn useful for him that they flat out broadcast the details of the students and what their Quirks are!

And don't even get me started on this 'Olympics have fallen out of favor' bullshit. It's a world wide event, and it doesn't matter if the population has... shrunk (? That's what my translation says, anyways. Is this honestly saying that so many people died that the Olympics no longer holds any attraction? I mean.. what? What the fuck? What happened???? Why in the hell is this getting brushed over?! Or is that just a bad translation, and if so what is he saying is the reason the Olympics no longer have any appeal?) or whatever, because that's just... bullshit. That's just bullshit. If super powers happen, and they get at all stabilized and regulated like they are in here, all that's going to happen is that the powers are going to be part of the Olympics, and a lower population count really isn't going to change the fundamental reasons why it's popular in the first place.

Speedster racing, various forms of competitive flying (racing (in all its variations), acrobatics, mid-air dancing, synchronized flying.... flight along has dozens of potential new Olympics sports, easy), something like shot-put hurling but with some kind of projectiles, fire, lasers, whatever? Oh yeah, the Olympics are going to be just fine.

So please, Hori, spare me your obsessive need to make heroics the most important thing EVAH all of the time.

But, wait, there's more! It's not just, the new super Olympics, oh no, this is for their careers. In high school. This is, apparenlty, a make or break moment for the rest of their lives (again, with however that undefined heroics ranking and what not works). How old are they? What, fifteen? 'Here, go do bloodsports, and if you fuck up, you're going to be a menial, loser fry-cook of a wannabe police officer, dressed in brightly colored spandex for the rest of your life, barely making any money, and never getting any real respect or validation for putting your life at risk'.

Oh, I have opinions on the Sports Festival, believe me, I have a lot of opinions, but I'd like to save at least some of these more for when the actual Sports Festival starts, and not, like, five pages into the first chapter out of what, twenty two? We've got the time.

Uraraka! You're an actual character! My, this is nostalgic. I always loved the contrast between her hyper cute-zied design of her and the fact she's down to beat the living shit out of someone at the drop of a hat, and it's nice to have that again.

(Also, she's showing more ability to inspire the class here than Bakugou has shown literally the entire series, no matter how much Hori goes on about his 'charisma' or whatever.)

And then we get into her "impure" motivations to be a hero, (which I've also talked about on occasion), and it's very humanizing, both for Uraraka as a character, and the industry as a whole. It's one of those great set ups Hori ended up dropping on world building, which sucks because it'd be so interesting if he got into the nuts and bolts of the world a bit. I'm not saying we need to see the tax code or anything, but for a series that's about corruption and what not, some more detail would really help pull all of this together.

Ah, Dumb Might. I didn't miss you, except I kind of did because Dumb Might is still better than Useless-Side-Character Might.

Also, can I talk about how stupid it is that Dumb Might is burning his less than an hour's worth of time 'teaching' students again? Because holy fuck that's such a waste it's honestly criminal.

And what the hell is this switch in motivations, here? All Might never mentioned, you know, replacing him is the Symbol of Peace before now. Before this point, the whole reason he chose Izuku is that he'd be worthy user of his power, not, what, replacing him. If Izuku never gained any real fame, but still managed to save a lot of people? Before-this-point All Might would have been fine with that. More than that, he would have been proud of it, proud his successor was humble and chose to focus on doing good rather than fame. Hell, not too long ago it was pointing out by All Might that Izuku wouldn't want to use All Might's fame to benefit himself, to go slow and steady and earn his success rather than relying on fame.

Where the fuck did this come from? What the fuck kind of pressure is he trying to put on this kid?

And then right after that, we see flashes of who All Might used to be with the whole 'don't forget how you felt at the seaside park, that day', bit. Because, like, that's good. That's great! It's real, and deep, and gritty, and I'd love it if it wasn't being use with this set up, because those expectations work in other shonens, but they don't work here. Izuku can't do what All Might did, because he can't stop damn hurting himself. Going Plus Ultra, here, now, for this? It could cause real, serious harm to him for the rest of his life! And for what? To make a good impression?

And if something would call him on that, it could still work, because All Might is canonly shit at taking care of himself, that could, like, close the circle for all of this, bring it together with the two them as shit at at self care as a place to build them improving off of, but for whatever reason, Hori never went all the way on that because he was too damn afraid to commit to it, commit to a story, commit to a theme, commit to a moral.

...Holy shit, how many pages is this? We haven't even gotten to actual Sports Festival yet in the post about the damn Sports Festival.

And now we have this creepy, kind of morbid mob of people filling the hallway to stare at Class 1-A for.... being attacked by terrorists.

*what the fuck.jpeg*

What is wrong with you people?! What the actual hell is wrong with you???

And then Shinso rolls up:

"Wow. Look at these arrogant assholes, so excited about not getting killed. I'm going to declare war on them, because they deserve it for getting all high and mighty."

...

You know, I completely forgot about the epic story of, 'Shinso Hitoshi and his Completely Unmerited Persecution Complex'. I'm sad that I remember that now.

Bakugou: "People's opinions don't matter once your at the top."

Me: *looks at how much people's opinions matter to getting to the top, and staying there*

Me: ...Uh.

Thank you, Kaminari, for pointing out his edgy bullshit is, in fact, actually bullshit, and is only going to make his life more difficult for no reason. I like you as an actual person who does things other than cheerlead for Bakugou.

Izuku. Izuku no, Izuku...! Damn it. Bad Izuku. Bad! Stop getting inspired by the festering waste spewing out of Bakugou's mouth!

Cue all of two panels of the media being absolute assholes only out to make ratings with no redeeming features.

And... here's the actual Sports Festival, god knows how long into this post later!

(if you believe the text editor I just posted all of this into? Well into four pages. ...Even with my generous use of spacing, I think I have a problem.)

..Wait. Wait. Where the hell is this happening?

*does five seconds of research on the wiki*

I'm right. They have a stadium for this. Like, a giant ass sports stadium that exists for this. Only for this. That is used once a year.

At this point, I'm honestly wondering why UA isn't just it's own city. Like, Izuku should have moved here, along with the rest of the students, and all the families and various staff needed to run this just.... live on site. It's not like it'd cost them anything, since they apparently have spare cities sitting around for the kids to trash.

That's... that's actually a really interesting idea? Because it'd be a hero run city, then, which feels like it'd work well into the over commercialized, corrupted state heroics is supposed to be like, their overwhelming level of influence. I don't think that's what Hori was going for, to be clear, I think he has no idea just how much space he's causally put on UA's campus and didn't think through the implications... at all.

Ooh, and here comes Todoroki's characterization.

And... here comes the bloodsport, because that's what all of this is: bloodsport. They're throwing a bunch of teenagers onto this stage, broadcast them to the entire country, and have them fight against each other for fame. This society is so fucked up.

Random Gen Ed kid: Yeah, he placed first in the Heroics Entance Exam.

...Yeah. As fucking stupid as it is that Bakugou somehow placed first, it does make sense the person who place first in the Heroics Entrance Exam would be class representative in a school for heroics. Damn, you're salty, kid, but you're also kinda dumb, not going to lie.

Bakugou: *opens his mouth on live TV*

Bakugou: *vomits diarrhea for the entire country to see*

Izuku: ...Wow, Bakugou's so cool! He's grown up and mature now!

...Izuku. Izuku, buddy, please, stop doing this to yourself.

As yet another thing I've mentioned before, a lot of our views on Bakugou comes from Izuku. Izuku who has, from chapter one, all but worshipped Bakugou. Even when he does things wrong, even when he's actively fighting against him, Izuku can't stop himself from going on and on about how great Bakugou is, how cool and tough and determined he is. Izuku's hero worship of his abuser is sheltering Bakugou's actions from the readers, papering over all of his worst traits with a a transparent facade that he's this glorious figure. It's the narrative going the extra mile to cover his arrogant ass, to make him seem like a rival instead of an bully, someone worthy of respect rather than contempt.

Hmm. I don't want to go too much into the nuts and bolts of the event, I think, since I've done that before, so let's try something else: How Many Times Could This Kill A Literal Child? Where I, you guessed it, count how many times a teenager could have been killed, on national television, in this event.

Count one: The start of the race itself, where... *counts how many kids are in 1-A, multiplies by eleven*... two hundred and twenty kids run forward at the same time, trying to force themselves through the same opening. This shit is why it's illegal to shout fire in a theater, because a stampede like this could get someone trampled to death, or maybe crushed by the sheer weight of the crowd (which is something that happens, someone getting killed by the a crowd of unruly people just... squeezing them on accident).

*stares at Shinso being carried around like a wannabe king instead of using his own damn legs judgingly*

Count Two: Mineta gets bitched slapped by a robotic arm bigger than he is. I don't think I have to get into how that could be fatal.

Count Three: The army of Zero Pointers who could easily step on someone.

*Momo wondering about how UA can fund this makes me feel very validated, BTW*

Count Four: Todoroki dumping the Zero Pointer on the rest of the competition to block the way, again for obvious reasons. He obviously doesn't meant to, but this kid isn't even looking back. This is both lamp shaded and then dismissed because it happens to the only two people who could shrug that off, but holy shit that could have killed so many of them.

...The cameras are robots. The cameras are robots with AIs that are cheering on the other robots. I- I can't- what?!?

And then everyone can't stop themselves from praising Bakugou for the radical idea of going over a problem instead of blasting through it. Wow, Bakugou. Amazing. Such brains, such smarts.

Count Five: The Fall. Because there's no way that anyone could get themselves killed by. You know. Falling. If I was more generous, I'd say something like, 'There's probably something down there to catch them if they fall', but I'm not terribly impressed by UA's ability to actually keep these kids safe, so that doesn't make me think they'd have thought that through that much.

Grudgingly, I'm going to give a landmines a pass, because they're explicitly supposed to be non-lethal, and them blowing up didn't do any real damage. Burns, maybe, possibly a broken limb, probably some scars, but this count is about people dying. Izuku's pile could have been, maybe, but that's a level of deliberate action on his part big enough that I can't really blame UA, per say.

Eraserhead, on how 1-A has improved: I didn't do anything.

...Well. At least he's honest.

One other thing: I've said before how bullshit All Might telling Izuku to 'fight to win' was, and right here, here's the proof: All Might explicitly going, "I was afraid you'd be too nice to try and beat other people in competitions, but you proved me wrong! I'm so proud!". You know, fighting to win. Like he later says Izuku doesn't for some mysterious reason *cough*, to make him seem at the same level as Bakugou, *cough*. Poor, poor All Might, yet another victim of Bakugou's narrative warping favoritism.

And here we see the management kids going all out in how to sell Izuku and his brand, which is so very fucked up, for them and the people they're 'selling'. I'm aware this is something that celebrities go through, (which is fucked up for them as well, don't get me wrong; I'm an equal opportunity 'this is fucked up' call out-er), but these kids are in high school. The fact that they're doing this, and getting this done to them, in such numbers, in such an early age... yeah. There's no way this could give them lots and lots of long term stress and psychological problems, right?

Meanwhile, as we get to the offical rankings, I think it's time go back over the 'How Many Times Could This Kill A Literal Child?' count... at five. Five times they could have been killed on complete accident.

That is not a good score.

I'm stopping it here because the other events don't have the same problem, but instead of a whole new problem of delibrately pitting them against each other. On live TV. With minimal supervison. Cementoss popping in at the last second in Izuku vs Todoroki, considering how badly Izuku got hurt in the process, does not fill me with a great sense of these fights being well monitored.

*gets an omake chapter*

*Bakugou gets called Izuku's childhood 'friend'. Bitch, please.*

So. Here's a new point: the million point bullshit is... well. Bullshit. It's the snitch in Quiddich all over again, giving the hero something both super import, with an extra layer of difficulty, to drive up the stress and stakes, only kicked up by a million. Making more than the others makes sense, and making it enough to pass by itself is still pretty reasonable, but making it so excessively much has no point other making Izuku feel isolated from his peers and hunted by his classmates.

Also, Mt Lady going on about how 'great' an exercise the second round is is missing the point that this is literally a thing Japanese kids do in school. Literally, this is a game they're playing with Quirks, not some tactical exercise; it's like saying that playing hide and seek makes you great at hunting people down or something. Again, Hori, dial back your constant need to tell us how great the Sports Festival is. Because it isn't. It really, really isn't.

More doses of everything drooling over how great Bakugou is, and how much of a total shit of a human being he is, joy. Mineta and Shouji's teamup is actually pretty damn brilliant, even though it's tainted by how much of a one-dimensional character Mineta is. Iida is getting shown as Izuku's enemy, but honestly it looks more like he's just trying to improve himself more than anything, while acknowledging how competent Izuku is. Not just that he won the first round, or has a lot points but that Izuku, as a person, is the goal he wants to surpass; there's some good shit there, and pretty validating, if Izuku could allow himself to accept it.

Oh Mei! Mei... actually, I have a post I need to do about the Mei and Izuku dynamic at some point, how they're so designed to work together, but yeah she's fun.

And then Uraraka thinks about how strategic Izuku is being and again, I can't help but contrast this with how things happen later on; even if Izuku never lets himself really feel the respect people have for him, people at this point in time really, honestly seem to respect him, not for his Quirk, but for his brain, his determination, his heroism; it's so well setup for Izuku to stand on his own two feet without OFA and it's some really good stuff. It's a shame Hori gets rid of it.

Hmm. Class B. Class B is... interesting. They're set up as rivals but after this it never goes anywhere, and just leaves us with a bad impression of Monoma, without letting him get a good chance to get past it. I don't like him, honestly, his personality grates at me and he needs to get over himself, but he doesn't deserve the hate he gets from the fandom.

That said, though, the Class A vs Class B victory philosphy is honestly just another example of destroying yourself vs having realistic limits, how All Might and Izuku keep destroying themselves vs everyone else not doing that. The fact Class B is actually thinking ahead is smart, but the series doesn't give them that credit because it's not ambitious enough... even though that runs straight into conflicting with Izuku and his issues.

Hori, fucking commit already. In all honesty, it feels like 1-B should have won over Bakugou and knocked him out of the compition; they planned it out, and played him like a sucker, because he's a bullheaded moron. It's all right there, but right as they win... Eraserhead shows up in the booth and says, 'Yes, you've won, but actually no, because Bakugou need to win anyways. So he is. Because REASONS!' Then All Might gets dragged into that same bullshit just to make it really clear that no, Bakugou is right. Planning? Strategy? That's for losers. Real winners just need to want it hard enough, and no one wants things more than Bakugou!

It would have been better, as a story, and for everyone's character development, if that had happened. Bakugou would have lost to some 'nobodies', Izuku would have gone past him without even validating him with a fight, and Class B and Monoma would have gotten a better chance to show themselves as characters; win win win.

And then Endeavour shows up. Fuck Endeavour. Also that is a man who looks like a serial killer. Dumb Might continues to reign and be completely unable to recognize when someone hates him when he monologues about it right in front of him.

Meanwhile, Bakugou is just... there. For some reason. Why? Why does he need to be there for this? It makes his hissy fit later even worse when you realize he knows why Todoroki doesn't use his fire, and it has literally nothing to do with him. Ignoring him, though, Todoroki and Izuku's moment here is some good stuff, a nice setup for a healthy rivalry based on mutual respect, rather than the toxic mess he has with Bakugou.

Ugh. That cheerleader bullshit. Honestly, it says a lot that they can be told that, 'Aizawa says you need to dress up as cheerleaders', and apparently no one questions this, because of course Aizawa would pull some kind of weird bullshit on them with absolutely no warning at what anyone else would think is the worst possible time.

Midnight being really creepy about how she talks to teenagers, of course, and now... Shinso.

'Consent is for losers' Shinso. 'Everyone is coasting on their Quirks except for me, who only knows how to use my Quirk' Shinso. 'Let me use my Quirk on someone before we even get in the arena so I can blatantly cheat' Shinso. 'No one else has dreams or ambitions' Shinso.

I don't like Shinso. I like the idea of Shinso, sure, but that idea is another one of those paper thing veneers Hori likes to put on his characters, without doing the work to make that match the reality; the only hardship we've seen him go through is his apparent inability to work hard. Like, everyone loves Shinso, in story and out, they can't stop themselves from telling him how great his Quirk is. And you know what? It is. It is a great Quirk.

But Shinso talks like he's had a such a hard time with it, even though he seems to love it, love using it, and the way he acts, like he knows he can go through a career as a hero based only on that Quirk. He's wrong, since he's so out of shape he can't even run, apparently, but he's operating off that assumption at this point, which conflicts with his poor little martyr act.

I want you to look at the iceberg Todoroki makes, and compare it to his efforts against Stain. If he did that against him? That fight would have been over the minute he showed up, and Todoroki ambushed him. This is pretty much our last moments of Todoroki, certified badass, before the nerfs roll in. Savor it, Todoroki fans, because he'll never recover from having to lose against Bakugou.

Another omake, which seems like foreshadowing about Hori deals with women characters: bringing up a good characterization, or valid idea (do women heroes need sexiness to do their jobs?), before throwing it away to fall for the same tropes that he was making a stand against just a minute ago (women getting in a cat fight, which apparently gets really explicit, all of this on a TV before Mineta, Hori's avatar of his own horniness).

Then, as if to prove my point, we get Bakugou vs Uraraka where, like Class B before her, she does everything right, gets the win... and then gets it taken away at the last minute by idiotic bullshit pulled out of nowhere (since when could Bakugou make a blast like that? Why does he need those bomb gauntlets if he can do that?) because Bakugou isn't allowed to lose. And then Eraserhead, Hori's mouthpiece, shouts down the crowd, and us, when we think bad thoughts about it because that isn't allowed either; we need to love Bakugou.

Bakugou respects women! ...Just as much as he respects everyone else. That is to say, he doesn't. Hell, he doesn't respect her enough to think Uraraka planned her own fight! He just gets one line for one second that makes it seem like he respects her, but of course once that moments gone it's back to the normal level of complete disrespect. That's totally character growth right there, one second of acting different before returning right back to standard behavior.

So... Izuku vs Todoroki. I like the fight, it's very dramatic, very cool, but... stop to think about it a second, and about a minute in, Izuku's entire ass hand is broken. That is not OK. Why are they letting it go on? It's simultaneously a great fight, but a seemingly awkward implementation of Izuku having a Quirk, because so much of this arc is built off of him not using a Quirk, not having it. This fight only works with it, though. And it's cool, don't get me wrong, but it's shallow at the same time because of the Quirk, because Izuku has to go Plus Ultra, has to go past his limits. Instead of accepting a more reasonable win, he has to win, period, and he doesn't have the power for that.

There's this awkward conflict here between the story's various narratives, between Izuku needing to suffer, and struggle, and break himself, and his more grounded planning and actions, and you can see Hori's old, better planned out ideas getting replaced with newer, less thought out ones. It's honestly kind of a theme for this arc in it's own right.

Flaws aside, though, the fight is gripping, and it's a great setup for Todoroki, a great starting point in making him an important character, in giving him growth. Shame Hori ends up throwing all that away literally the next fight.

Well, before that happens, let's talk the one two punch of, 1, Izuku having done himself permanent, life long damage, which nobody thought to stop, and 2, the sheer, unmitigated clusterfuck of Recovery Girl going, 'I'm not going to treat wounds like these'.

So. If Izuku breaks anything... well. She's not going to treat that. I guess he has to walk around with a broken finger/hand/arm, without any medical attention whatsoever? Well. I certainly don't see any problems with that.

Then we get Bakugou, who canonly has problems using his Quirk for extended periods of time, outlasting someone by using his Quirk for extended periods of time, before going on to fight someone who uses cold, his canon weakness, and ignoring how it should completely neutralize his Quirk to overpower it, through what I can only call his sheer, narrative warping concentration of favoritism.

On what happens after he wins... I've seen people say that he doesn't mean to attack Todoroki, just try to wake him up, but looking at that scene: he's holding Todoroki's body up with one hand as if to shake him, sure, but it's the other hand that's the problem. The way he's holding it is, for his Quirk, an offensive pose, making it ready to attack his target. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt (against my own opinion) and say it's not proof positive that he was about to attack, but there's no getting around that Bakugou had himself perfectly set up to hit Todoroki, full blast, while he was unconscious. Even if it's the more innocent explanation, that feels like something that should have disqualified him because... that's really concerning. That feels a step away from him threatening victims he thinks should have stood up for themselves or something; it's not heroic, in the slightest. The fact they had to knock him out, presumably for Todoroki's own safety, says enough about how bad that is.

The fact that the ending comment is basiclly lamenting from his perspective, that this 'isn't what he wanted' is... certainly a choice. He won, but, gasp! The person with long held issues in using his full power that long predate him didn't use his full power! The poor baby!

Then we get to the award ceremony where they... chain him up? Why!? If the doesn't want the damn award, don't give it to him; they let those guys earlier give up when they felt they didn't deserve it, why is Bakugou different? It feels like it's Hori tying him up here, against Bakugou's own will, and characterization, to give him that win just so he can win, but also to forcefully set up Bakugou's own importance with the League later. It's ham handed. It's probably child abuse. It's stupid.

It's fucked up all the way down, is what I'm saying.

Then All Might shows up, and fucks up his entrance timing because he's not allowed to win anymore, of course, and then forces that medal on Bakugou.

Uuuugh.

Last couple of panels, though, are pretty nice: we build up Uraraka's character, get the next arc set up, set up Izuku (fucking finally) getting away to use his own damn power, and develop Todoroki a bit.

A nice little cherry on top of the shit sundae.

[donnerpartyofone]

This has been a really hard one to talk about. I'm always very ambivalent about mourning celebrities. I try to remember that I don't know these people, that what is really mourned by most of us is the person's ongoing work, which in the best cases has helped us understand ourselves and the world in which we live. Unavoidably, though, you can start to develop the sense that you know these people personally, which isn't true or even appropriate necessarily, I mean you have no idea whether you would even like someone you've only seen on a screen or received an autograph from; but at the same time, I don't know if you can really force yourself not to feel like the deceased celebrity is a dear friend you will never get to talk to again (the last time I tried and failed was the passing of Lux Interior). Maybe this is more forgivable, and also more inevitable, if you feel like you grew up with the person.

Of course this is all about ME now, but my mother (who also died from cancer) was an extremely hip, brilliant, funny individual who for whatever reason refused to form a relationship with me. This was pretty strange, because we liked a lot of the same things--B movies, old comics, all types of camp and kitsch--but when I liked those things, it was in poor taste and punishable by exile, whereas when she liked those things, it was evidence of her cultural genius. Before I make anybody too mad I should say that I'm being a little bit unfairly reductive just so I can get to the point, which is that one of the few things we could share was Pee-Wee's Playhouse. I didn't know anything about the show's more adult origins or the fact that Paul Reubens was sort of a performance artist, but I didn't have to. Pee-Wee's Playhouse was a feast for any child's senses: stylish, hilarious, and on some subliminal level, really sophisticated. I was clued into some of what was going on just because I watched it with my mom, who always laughed at Pee-Wee's winks and nudges to the hep parents in the audience. The show might have been my first encounter with the kind of anthropological humor favored by people like David Byrne and Laurie Anderson, artists who engage subversively with cliches, stereotypes, and other memetic parts of popular culture. In Pee-Wee's Playhouse, with its sharp, edgy cast and crew, kids like me were getting into fine art without even knowing it--which is possibly the best way to learn about art anyway.

In fact, on the other side of our house, I became obsessed with Gary Panter's incredible punk opus Jimbo In Paradise, a Dantesque comic book about an innocent young guy living in a dystopian future, where he is occasionally joined by guest stars such as Nancy and Hedorah. I was about 7 when I started reading Jimbo over and over again even though I could barely understand it, and I had no idea that Gary had pretty much designed Pee-Wee's Playhouse. I'm speaking about him so familiarly because I got to know him a little bit as a grownup. I remember Gary talking about how private Paul Reubens could be. He used to do this thing where he would accept a dinner invitation from anybody who asked, as sort of a stunt, but he had to stop doing it because people became so intrusive and entitled with him. Gary said that they'd be walking around in New York and when they saw an obvious Pee-Wee fan gearing up for an offensive, Paul Reubens would sort of transform into this totally different person, putting out an aura that let you know not to fuck with him. It's crazy-making to think that someone who was so protective of the boundary between his private and public selves had to suffer that ridiculous arrest, but it's heartening that most of society eventually grew the fuck up and forgot about it. It's also helpful to remember when he turned up later on the MTV Music Video Awards and started off by asking the audience, "HEARD ANY GOOD JOKES LATELY??"

I'm glad we got one more Pee-Wee special in the past several years, but I always wished that we would see Paul Reubens in more movies. He was such a cool actor, funny, convincing, and naturally charismatic. While people are cycling through their favorite roles of his, I want to point out that he had a great role on a recent HBO miniseries called Mosaic, an intense, engrossing crime drama that I definitely recommend if you have access. Maybe I'll rewatch it, too. In closing, here's a great story that I grabbed from Facebook that should warm everybody's heart, along with the heartbreaking statement (inappropriately cropped by Instagram of course) released upon the death of the very private Pee-Wee Herman. It makes you wish you could thank him in person, for everything. The best we can do is just remember him.

[escapism-from-the-real-world]

You know it never really sunk in that we live in a dystopia, or at the very least a society that accepts and shrugs at dystopian societies when they appear in real life until I thought about the implications of North Korea.

There is a whole ass country where the people aren’t allowed to LEAVE under penalty of DEATH. You have to look a certain way, act a certain way, you’re constantly monitored, you’re encouraged to rat on anyone who is “different” or has any kind of ideology that differs from the expectations of your government. Hell, well the last dictator of North Korea died, you were PUNISHED IF THEY THOUGHT YOU WEREN’T MOURNING HARD ENOUGH.

That is straight out of a dystopian novel and we just??? Ignore it?? Like we joke about how insane and awful and crazy North Korea is but we never do anything about it?? We hear the stories of people who escaped that hell hole and we’re just like “wow that’s crazy” AND THEN WE DON’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT???

Like I was truly brainwashed as a kid for not realizing that we live in a world where a fully functioning and running dystopian government is ruling ruthlessly over a whole group of people. That it was just normal for that to happen and for people to be suffering like they did, like they are, and for us, the so called “freedom fighters”, us “liberators” who “stand for justice and democracy” to do NOTHING ABOUT IT.

Are we really surprised that our government and when world governments are okay with genocide when a) they have performed many genocides before this point in time for their own personal and financial gain and b) HAVE ALLOWED A LITERAL DYSTOPIA (THAT ONE COULD DESCRIBE TO SOMEONE AND THAT PERSON WOULD GUESS IT WAS A FICTIONAL SETTING WHEN IT IS, in fact, A VERY REAL PLACE AND GOVERNMENT) TO EXIST WITHOUT ANY KIND OF PUSH TO STOP THE DICTATORSHIP OF THAT LAND???

It’s insane. This is insane. How are we not seeing the dystopian society we are currently living in? That we are letting people live in?

Fuck this. Fuck the world governments for letting this happen. Fuck the education system for making this seem like a normal fucking thing.

Free Palestine. Free the people being literally tortured, manipulated, and abused right in front of our fucking faces.

[mdhwrites]

Owl House tries to be critical of religious thinking and thought processes but the ending unfortunately supports the notion as well as the writing do you have the same thoughts as well?

It's not the ending that ruins this. The WHOLE SHOW is terrible at this. The reason why is obvious as well: The show is too busy mocking modern society and late stage capitalism for its villains, if it's mocking anything, to have time or room to say anything about dystopians, puritans or religion.

Just to make this point quickly: The first time we EVER hear about the Titan in any sort of context that implies even reverence is the S1 FINALE. It is only first brought up as the reason how Belos came to power: His ability to hear the Titan. Before then, the Titan is maybe used to replace God in common expletives but that's it. It's just the place they live in so supposedly one of TOH's main critiques takes an ENTIRE. SEASON. to show up.

However, it's not just how long it takes for people to start even mentioning it that's the problem. It never gains a foothold. People don't do things for the Titan. They do things for Belos. There's like maybe a half dozen LINES in the entire show that have anything to do with religious allegory besides the fact that witch hunts were religiously motivated. Maybe closer to a dozen because of Hunter's ramblings during Hollow Mind but that is ONE episode for the majority of any talk about this.

And it's not just that she show fails to depict a religion. Allegory exists for a reason. But... What is the faith then? The Coven System is MUCH closer to a stratified class system, or a communist economic system, that it literally ever comes to being a religion. It's basis might be in that but no one treats it that way. It's just a job and what you decide to specialize in.

The wild witches being absent is another part of this that also explains why it's absent. Eda doesn't get bothered by... Anyone? In the entire show? about being a wanted criminal. Covention is the absolute closest the show ever comes to having anyone besides the EC give a shit. In that one, people at least squint at her but despite her suspicious behavior, they don't do more than that. That is actually pretty accurate to how someone in the US might act in the modern day... But not in a dystopia. Especially not a religiously motivated dystopia.

A common factor between religious zealots and dystopias is the CONSTANT PARANOIA. The fear that is put into them of the other. How they are directed to destroy ANYTHING that is against the doctrine. This is why Christianity has had SO MANY SCHISMS because a single question for the faith will cause some people to lose their minds! The witch trials, no matter where they were, were often motivated by fear of demons and empowerment of others and used to keep those who might be shaking things up down, using both genuinely held beliefs and those that could be manipulated to cause the masses to agree that the person had to die. Even from a less extreme perspective, these same ideas are used to discriminate, alienate and attack.

However... That doesn't happen. Just because Eda is nice, to a couple people, an entire mob of loyal citizens is able to be rallied to go against the ONE LAW of the Isles. There is no belief there. There is no indoctrination there. If the Isles actually cared about the Titan, Eda should be fucked. Luz should cast a glyph in front of Amity and TERRIFY her because, as Amity puts it, "I've never seen someone cast it like that."

And the funny thing is, this would have made Luz's character climax statement ACTUALLY WORK. If everyone was terrified of her simply because she chose a different path, had to do things differently and was just inherently different, she could be a great stand in for all the effort so many marginalized people have to put in. All this work just to be understood against held beliefs that don't reflect reality. Held beliefs that only exist to prop up the status quote.

But that would mean making the Isles an inherently hostile place. To make Luz have to work for EVERY. SINGLE. INCH that she gains. And, well, the writers weren't interested in that. They weren't interested in a struggle. Instead, they were interested in the story of a young bi teenager going to a fantasy world and living out her dreams.

So sure, her literally being blessed by God to enact his will against his enemies is AWFUL. It explicitly makes it so that she is actually just Belos but she actually DOES hear the Titan! So you know, just don't believe in false prophets but prophets do exist and you should follow them unquestionably.

However, the problem starts LONG before then. Like almost any problem with TOH honestly.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[shuttershocky]

I see conversations about people being tired of fantasy works having fantasy racism bc other than often not being handled well, the presence of it implies there is a valid reason for it kinda like how ogres are often treated as pure evil. Thinking about Arknights, I think Oripathy manages to avoid the issues? Systemic prejudices against the infected like classism, ableism, & they make statements with it all & have nuance, it's not just racism for the sake of it but real + complex issues in Terra

I understand your point but Arknights very much does have fantasy racism with the Sarkaz. It takes a backseat to general oripathy discrimination and hidden by the fact that plenty of the main cast is Sarkaz, but you have lines from Meteorite for example stating her surprise that Rhodes Island hired Sarkaz like her in public-facing jobs.

I do like though how Arknights handles the topic of racism towards the Sarkaz. They're shown to actually be a hugely diverse group of people, they're the minds behind the whole Rhodes Island project (Theresa, Closure, and Warfarin are all Sarkaz), and the "reason" for their discrimination isn't because they have superpowers (fucking everyone does) or otherwise are naturally dangerous, it's because they are simply different (everyone else represents an animal, while a Sarkaz is a mythological monster).

Fantasy racism is often eyerolling because it's usually like "In this world the race called Normies are discriminatory towards The Exploders, a race that eats the brains of passerby and then explode. However, when this Normie cop finds a ten year old Exploder lost in his backyard, they will go on an adventure to break down the walls of society, and hopefully not explode."

Arknights explores the topic of the Sarkaz with some nuance, and the careful explanation that the reasons they continue to be discriminated against today came about BECAUSE of their oppression. They are often mercenaries and hired muscle, because there are no other jobs for them. Many are depressed, cynical, and violent from living such a hard life where their lives are seen as expendable, further enforcing the stereotype of Sarkaz as a race of warmongers. Their only land to call their own was ravaged by foreign invasions and then by a civil war.

Even Buldrokkas'tee's entire backstory was about Sarkaz oppression. During Theresa's reign over Kazdel he brought his clan with him to Ursus seeking a better life for them (keep in mind Vigilo called Theresa a great war hero, implying her reign or the leadup to it was marked by war with other nations), and when they arrived in Ursus they were thrown to the frontline of a demonic invasion, made to fight horrifying and inhuman monsters to prove they were worthy of Ursus. It's almost understandable why Buldrokkas'tee sternly told his son not to rock the boat, not to protest the Ursus government's treatment of the infected: they had already fought so hard and sacrificed so much just to get here, just to be citizens.

It's also why Rhodes Island as a creation of a Sarkaz venture is important to the games' themes. Almost every single nation in Terra is a complete dystopian nightmare and yet from the most beaten, oppressed, and discriminated people comes a genuine effort to Make Things Better. Not only does RI reject the status quo of status and power by being a community effort where everyone works according to what they can do and is given according to what they need, they're also the most advanced Oripathy research institute on the planet because of the Sarkaz's own long intertwined history with the disease.

It's a fantasy, in a way. "Yeah you all treated us like garbage but we'll save you anyway while saving ourselves, fuck it. This pandemic will kill us all if we don't."

[flamingplay]

Everything Everything's Mountainhead: a Track-by-Track commentary from AppleMusic

Everything Everything lead vocalist Jonathan Higgs thinks that the thread running all the way through the Manchester quartet’s catalogue is the urge to encapsulate the effect on humanity of living in this time. “That’s really what all our albums are about,” Higgs tells Apple Music. “It’s a varying degree of looking inward and outward, observing how it feels to be alive in this place in this time. This one is very much looking outward for the most part.” “This one” is Mountainhead, Everything Everything’s seventh record and another astounding leap forward from one of the UK’s most inventive bands. It mixes pulsing synths and gleaming guitar licks, euphoric electro grooves and art-rock dynamism—music where the strange and the soothing seamlessly overlap.

The album pairs a dystopian concept about a society which has built a huge mountain and its people live in the shadowed pit it has created at the bottom (a “Mountainhead” is someone who believes the mountain must continue to grow taller no matter the cost) with some of their most rhapsodic pop hooks yet. It’s all been created with the confidence that there is an audience for this sound. “It always feels like we’ve got a lot of goodwill from the last thing we did, so a lot of people are waiting for the next thing we do,” says Higgs. “I think people really liked the last record [2022’s Raw Data Feel] and this one’s better.” This is the sound of Everything Everything on the crest of a wave, confidently hitting new peaks seven albums into their career. Allow Higgs to guide you on a journey to the top of Mountainhead, track by track.

“Wild Guess”

“This was a little demo we made on tour with Foals back in 2017 or something. I put a vocal on it but it was all sung an octave up from what you hear, which was ridiculous. We happened to rediscover it and were like, ‘Remember how ridiculous this song was? Maybe it’s fine to do it now.’ There was just something about the confidence of that big fat solo beginning the record, no vocal for ages and it’s not very nicely played. It’s the same recording Alex [Robertshaw, guitarist and keyboardist] did backstage into his laptop all those years ago. It just felt like this was a good way to start a record, basically, like, ‘Fuck you. Here’s your big fat solo that sounds awful and you’re going to have to wait for your vocal.’”

“The End of the Contender”

“This is vaguely about Ronnie Pickering [ex-boxer who went viral in 2015 for a road rage incident] and people of his ilk, but it’s also about the creep of capitalism and how it’s seeping into everything. I’ve tried to put a reference to money or electricity on every song, so he talks a lot about it in that song—whoever ‘he’ is. Obviously, ‘It’s all about the Benjamins’ is quite a cheeky thing to sing in the chorus, but I don’t think I’m going to get sued for it.”

“Cold Reactor”

“This is setting out the stall of the record. It really hinges on the human element of it and the desperation of it. The ‘I haven’t left the house’ line, somebody being quite isolated and communicating through screens and emojis, felt very relatable. There’s a sad longing for connection that you can’t quite get to that runs through it and because it has this rushing feeling of everything coming to a point, it really emphasises the desperation of it. It was a question of getting the right sort of heartbreaking-versus-hopeful tone and trying to get across a lot of exposition in the verses in quite a short time. It feels like a film script in terms of its simplicity.”

“Buddy, Come Over”

“This is about cancel culture a little bit, it’s got this dark-side- and underworld-type feeling to it. There’s a line, ‘Make me a website so I can completely ruin my life’ and that made the guys laugh quite a lot. Sometimes when that happens, we’re just like, ‘Yeah, let’s go down this path.’ It fell together quite easily, it was more like a really fun one to play live, like, ‘What can we play that feels good in the moment rather than trying to get all these tracks on the go.’”

“R U Happy?”

“This is about the effect of isolation, living in cities, living now and asking the question, ‘Are you happy? Does all this stuff make you happy?’ in the simplest way I could, which is to literally say, ‘Are you happy?’ over and over again. There’s definitely a through line of being an animal and the ‘dance in a skeleton way’ line was me saying if there’s a skeleton there, you’re dead but if there’s a skeleton there, you’re alive as well, talking about being alive and trying not to be sad all the time.”

“The Mad Stone”

“This is more about the religious element to the idea [of the album]. It’s more like a spiritual song in its presentation and its content. It sounds like an argument between two or three people who really believe in this idea of the mountain and people who are very doubtful about it. The thing on top of the mountain [in the chorus] is this big mirror that reflects you over and over again into infinity—that’s the more magical element of what might be at the top of the mountain. I was trying to come up with a metaphor for an idea of something that would be an actual goal that someone might want to get to, but it’s also really obviously selfish and self-aggrandising. It took an afternoon of singing it to get the chorus right, getting it so it just didn’t sound silly—being understood and not sound like I’m mumbling.”

“TV Dog”

“This was a demo that Alex had made that he called ‘Coney Island’ and we all thought it sounded like a New York string quartet. Coupled with that title, it opened up a few little avenues on the record, some strings that appear on other songs. I had about twice as many lyrics and we were like, ‘Is this song going to develop into a bigger thing? Are we going to bring the drums in?’ and then we were like, ‘The most poignant thing you can do is just hear it for a minute and a half, a couple of good lines and then it’s gone.’ Alex went down to a cathedral and recorded loads of ambience in there and put that all over the track in the background, so you get this sense of it being in a huge space.”

“Canary”

“If some of the other songs feel like you’re on the mountain, this one’s very much in the pit, it’s being in the dark. It’s the canary in a coal mine, a warning song that just so happens to fit very well with the larger concept. It’s the darkest underbelly of the album and the imagery is the most fucked up. It feels like a warning about something bad that’s coming, which tends to be where I often find myself as a character in my songs—as a warning character. This was a big production number for Alex, I think he wanted it to be a bit Björk or something.”

“Don’t Ask Me to Beg”

“I started with layering up vocals, I was trying to make a kind of choir thing. I was listening to Massive Attack, even though they don’t really use choirs. We tried different rhythmic schemes for ages to try and get it sounding less white-boy funk and cool. It took us ages working on the drums, actually, and then trying to re-record all of those cluster vocals. I think we just gave up in the end and used the demo ones, so no one knows how to sing those parts. If we have to do it live, we’re going to struggle!”

“Enter the Mirror”

“This is about a friend of mine who was struggling and I wasn’t sure if he was going to make it through. It’s a song about singing to him as if he was gone and remembering our childhood. I haven’t really worked out what it means yet. I think I wanted to say that we’re both the same deep down, even though there’s two of us. But there’s also the mirror on top of the mountain, which might be like you find yourself if you go into it. I don’t know, I’m still a bit too close to that song to even fully say.”

“Your Money, My Summer”

“This was another demo from around the same time as ‘Wild Guess’, something that we thought was just a bit too silly to do something with back then and now, I guess we didn’t. In the past, we would have had a litany of reasons why we wouldn’t do that and now it was like, ‘This is good.’ It’s definitely the most relaxed track of ours you’ll ever find. You won’t find us playing like that anywhere else, a sort of Chili Peppers rhythm section. We would usually run a mile from that stuff but we were just like, ‘Why are we running?’ It’s an example of us being relaxed with each other.”

“Dagger’s Edge”

“This was an older demo. It always had that feeling of being a song of two halves. I think I wrote the second half and Alex wrote the first. We’d binned it because we thought it was too silly. It does sound pretty light-hearted in the first bit, but then the tone changes. I’m taking the piss out of somebody and saying a lot of ridiculous things and then suddenly just turn into this really desperate old wise man on a mountain. No other band could do that and I really believe that that’s very much our thing—a song that sounds like Dr. Dre and I’m taking the piss out of a guy, calling him those ridiculous names, and then suddenly, a harpsichord comes in and it’s turned into a really existential thing about everyone turning into bacon.”

“City Song”

“This is another one that’s got that New York strings thing going on. I wrote the demo and it was much more hip-hoppy. It’s got a hip-hop speed, but, stylistically, that’s been shed. I was trying to do like a David Byrne-style lyric, the sadness of mundanity or trying to make mundane things special. I think there was also some elements of the Mark Fisher book Capitalist Realism, where he was talking about how impersonal it can be to work for a big company where no one really knows each other. I wanted to get across that feeling of isolation, but also no one really knowing who you are and no one knowing each other, living under the lights of the city and it all being very anonymous.”

“The Witness”

“I’ve barely listened back to this because it makes me quite emotional. It was about witnessing somebody go through a weird transition, thinking that it might be a kind of religious experience. It was written on guitars but Alex swapped out the guitars for synths because it sounded like a Radiohead-type song, two guitars picking and a sad guy with a falsetto. It was just like, ‘People would like it but this is really music from 25 years ago that we could do standing on our heads.’ It’s what we were trained to do, we’re good at it, but it wasn’t pushing us in any direction. So we swapped out the guitars for synths and we made a few other weird changes.

[sol-consort]

I like to headcanon that the humanity we see in ME is a humanity who worked their shit out mostly, solved most of our internal issues, and is actively trying to improve and wants to see the other species improve too. Humanity isn’t perfect of course, but we know that (which is arguably one of our strengths, knowing full well we ain’t shit, but that’s another discussion). Because of that I think humans caused a social shift in the non-humans at some point, especially within the council races ESPECIALLY in turian society.

At first the reaction is “nosy humans, mind your business” but after a while I can see some of the aliens realize that “dammit, the humans are right.” Humans are the youngest species but we have lived many lives, we know their struggles, we know their problems by heart, because we lived them too, and we don’t want to see what happened to us happen to the rest of the galaxy.

More turians start asking why it is they’re forced to serve in the military, asari start to unpack their superiority complex they didn’t know they had, salarians start to realize the long term consequences of their short term solutions. Maybe EVERYONE starts to really question why there only three/four councilors and why exactly no one else is allowed in their special club. And the humans in the background watching and cheering because YES BESTIE, START ASKING QUESTIONS!

Humans are easily misunderstood and casted aside Because of how young of a species we are. I mean we've only started recording history what 2000 years ago? That's two Asari generations.

But they forget how much we have fucked around and found out during these 2000 years. All the dumb decisions we have made, all the wars we started, all the near world endings we've evaded by a coin toss.

It never was a matter of if we accidentally lead the homosapiens to extinction, it was always a matter of when.

All the inventions that had the slightest possibility of unleashing a flesh eating bacteria or setting the atmosphere on fire were proceeded nonetheless. All the times we flew too close to the sun with no regard to the wax scorching our skin.

But. We. Persist. Like an annoying roach, we are invasive and can't help but poke our noses where we don't belong just because we are hardwired to be problem solvers. And if there are no problems left? We create some just to solve it!

We easily spot the faults in turian society because we have been through it! We have records of Rome and their great empire which crumbled beneath its own weight, we have records of military centric societies losing sight of their purposes and turning against their own civilians.

We have been through it, and it sucks and we hate it, and we wish they'd just listen to us.

Don't even get me started on the asari and how their superiority complex blinds them so much that they actually rationalised SLAVERY. Humanity's biggest shame and regret. Not only did they enslave the vorcha who can't argue with a proper case against the asari because of their limited 20 years lifespan, but they've reached the level of capitalism hell that they started selling people to work of their debts. Making excuses as if not debriving them of basic respect, food and shelter justifies trading an actual living person's soul to the highest company bidder akin to stock at a sheep market.

Their entire justice system is built on lawyers taking advantage of loopholes, birbes and blackmail. They're living the dystopian cautionary tales every human was told and selling it as the most glamourise life of the advanced civilisation that the rest of the galaxy should all strive for.

Not to mention how their government activity ereased the prothean's interference in their early stages and rewrote history for it to be some asari goddess just to sell their propaganda more that they are born inherently better than the other races whilst also NEEDING us for a diverse genetic sequences in reproduction. Shaming for being lesser than them whilst using us to make more asari.

Or the salarians who narrowed the purpose of existence to birth work then death, who against all the braincells they manged to hoard failed to see how they were so concered with getting as much productiveness out of their short lives that they actually forgot to live the said lives.

The hanar who focused too much on spirituality and left no room for the mortal flaw to exist. Who isolated themselves in feverish reverence to worship their stone statues of past dead species while pretending a world outside isn't being built and almost within reach of the same capabilities of their so proclaimed gods. Who deemed others too ignorant or rude to deal with, who's only interaction with others are to educate their barbarian ways and show them the true meaning of life that they decided without consulting any other race.

IT'S A FUCKING CIRCUS SHOW.

HISTORY IS A FLAT FUCKING CIRCLE.

A PARADE OF HUMANITY'S MOST HORRIFIC DYSTOPIAS MASQUERADING AS THE PRIMA DONNA OF EDENS.

WHAT THE FUCK.

Aliens are in fact just like us.

Because they are rolling in the same mud puddles as us.

The shitstorm just happened to reach us before we could reach the stars.

While they're still flinging mudballs onto each other's faces and calling us the apes.

Having run out of my cynical juice tho, I think we at least will get the chance to play heros in this scenario.

Welcome any alien who decided to diverge from the norm of their society standards amidst our ranks and into our homes. Encouraging our turian friends to have dreams and hopes outside of war and country service, allowing our asari friends to be flawed mortals and calling them out on their mistakes without antagonising them, showing salarians how beautifully love is and there is more to marriage or starting a family than simple reproduction values.

It is funny how Korgans are essentially the least flawed and most civilised in comparison to the rest of the galaxy who shunned them for being savages.

I hope our invasive nature infects them, our songs about dreams and passion to move them, our continous persistent that they deserve so much more, that life could be so much better, that the world is bigger than their government lead them to believe would get them to glance outside their aluminium glided cages and wonder if apes were onto something.