#he doesn’t even seem that anti nazi

[riverkingmarley]

So… what was the point of Theo?

They set him up as early as arc 11, but he doesn’t really do anything?

He doesn’t stop Jack. He’s kinda sad about it. His family is composed entirely of Nazis. He’s kinda sad about it. His family is grey boy bubbled. He’s kinda sad about it. He puts a rift between himself and Taylor. He’s kinda sad about it. He named himself Golem. He’s kinda sad (and weirdly mean?) about it (seriously how do you, the child of Nazis, name yourself after a Jewish thing and then talk about how you regret it because the Golem is too mindless??? That’s so messed up what is wrong with you).

Maybe it’s just me but while all of these ideas are mentioned, none of them really feel relevant or like they’re explored. What really nailed this in for me was how Theo comments on Hookwolf. He has a little internal monologue about how he didn’t like Hookwolf cause he was a jerk, but he doesn’t talk to him about it. He doesn’t even yell at him or something. Did Hookwolf ever get his memories back? He could have taunted him with his failure to accomplish his dream or with the fact Hookwolf doesn’t know who he is. But nothing ever comes of it. What was the point of bringing it up?

I feel like the story pays some lip service to all these themes and ideas but never really explores them. Is there some key to it that I was missing? It mentions that he tries to cover his emotions up to put on a front. That could explain why he doesn’t really touch too heavily on topics, but that never comes to a head either. Also, there’s already a character I like more that covers those ideas: Grue.

Here’s my fun little counter pitch though: We just replace him with Sophia.

Jack nominates Sophia instead of Oni Lee before she is shipped out of the bay and instead of being sent to prison she works out the same deal with him about killing him in two years to save herself.

She still puts up this front about not caring about anyone so she acts like she doesn’t care about her family being on the line. She might try to run away at first but she gets caught by the prt who force/convince her somehow to stay and train/fight.

Maybe something happens with the nine that scares her enough to stay and train. Maybe Bonesaw puts a tracker on her and Amy’s not around anymore to remove it. Then, when Taylor becomes weaver, she’s still scared enough to put up with her the same way Taylor is willing to put up with her because of the end of the world.

Emma’s emotional state went differently because she never separated from Sophia in the same way. After Weaver shows up, she sees Sophia and Taylor working together on the news. Maybe she feels more alone then ever. Maybe this is the push that’s needed to finally get her help.

Sophia grows and develops over the time skip. She works hard and she even reconnects with her family.

This is why it hits ten times harder when they get grey boy bubbled and Taylor kills her younger sibling. She thinks of all the time she lost when she was younger and hated/was apathetic to her family. How her family is suffering forever because of her rash decisions when she was younger.

When she fails to take down Jack it’s a major blow in how she failed both in stopping him and getting revenge. When grey boy gets taken down without her she feels more powerless than ever. She breaks down and shows emotion, maybe for the first real time in the whole book (echoing Taylor’s breakdown with the end of the world).

Maybe she even kills Hookwolf, and it doesn’t make her feel better. While it’s still good that the nazi is gone and she’s protected people from him but she realizes that having power over others doesn’t really make her feel better and she finally realizes that she needs to heal and connect with people she cares about. This made all the more tragic by how her family is gone and it’s too late.

Maybe she says something about this to Taylor at the end and it influences how she fights scion. Taylor takes one last lesson from an enemy except this time it’s a gift instead of a scar.

We see Sophia in the epilogue. Maybe Sofia’s power allows her to affect grey boys bubble a little, lessening her family’s pain somehow. Letting her move past barriers between her and others instead of dodging and running from things.

[the-witchhunter]

You know, if Spider Punk gets people interested in punk, good. We all have to start somewhere and Hobie is a damn good representation. If he is what makes a person go “hey, this seems cool, I should check it out.” good. That’s one more person interested in punk and wanting to get into it. 

That being said, if you are new to punk(hi baby punks!) some things to keep in mind

1. Punk philosophy is largely anti-authoritarian. Individual and even punk communities differ on specifics, and some are more political than others, but the core themes tend to be resisting those who would control and oppress us, and supporting and including people in your community

2. Punk fashion SHOULD NOT BE EXPENSIVE. A lot of fashion companies will try and sell you jackets for a couple hundred bucks, but that’s just corporations trying to cash in on a subculture. A big part of Punk and its history is DIY because Punk should be open to everyone and putting that behind a fashion paywall is just not punk. You don’t even need to be dressing punk to BE punk, but thrift your clothes. Make stencils and use spray paint or bleach to give it a pattern. Use old jeans to make patches. Buy your spikes and studs in bulk and go wild. Turn your old t shirt that doesn't fit anymore into a back patch. Go crazy with some safety pins. You can make more with $30 than you can buy from a designer for $300. And skill is not needed, frankly if it looks a little wonky it makes it look more punk

3. Dental floss makes for good thread for sewing on patches. It’s good for thick, stylistic stitches and is both cheap and durable. Don’t know why I made this its own point but it’s one of the most common tricks for punk DIY besides taking paint to scraps of fabric to make a patch. Honestly, if you want to know how to do more, just ask other punks how they made their vests and jackets, they’ll probably be happy enough to tell you

4. Punk philosophy and music is closely related. The communities evolved around the music scene so it is closely linked. Give some punk bands a try if you haven't already. There’s a bunch of subgenres so you’ll probably find something you like. From OG “proto punk” where the sound was still developing into what we call punk, to pop punk, anarco punk, and folk punk. There are people who say you can’t be punk if you don’t listen to the music, and there’s a whole conversation to be had about all that, but it’s just a good idea to try listening to some punk music

5, Nazis fuck off

6. Seriously, nazis fuck off. There’s a whole history behind it and why we associate skinhead punks with neo nazis. Largely we’ve made it clear we don’t want nazis in our community and the street punk music scene that nazi punks became associated with has made strides to separate themselves from that.

7. Be cool and respectful of people regardless of religion, ethnicity, race, sexuality, gender, background, etc. Solidarity with our community is important and all sorts are welcome. Gatekeeping isn’t cool and frankly women and minorities have done a lot for punk as a whole. Respect for everyone

[notaplaceofhonour]

it’s october 7th. you hear about the attack by seeing people you followed glorifying the terrorist attack—a massacre, a pogrom—as victory & justified resistance, glorifying a terrorist group that was founded with the explicit intent to kill your entire people

you make a post in which you make it clear you support palestinians and oppose the ways israel has wronged them, explaining that the terrorist group is still not good. you know you will probably get some flacc from the pro-Hamas side, but naively underestimate how much.

you get thousands of notifications on that one post, the majority of them hateful comments.

some of the response is positive. multiple messages thank you for the post, expressing bafflement that it’s controversial.

a few Israelis are upset at the loaded language in your post, but explain their problems with it civilly. you called Israel “apartheid”. they ask you what apartheid laws Israel has. you admit you honestly don’t know.

your inbox is flooded with anonymous hate from anti-Israel leftists.

over the course of a few weeks you have received hundreds of death threats, a dozen rape threats. people accuse you of being pro-genocide. you’re a literal Nazi. you’re racist, you thirst for the blood of Palestinians. you’re brainwashed by propaganda, a shill for The Zionist Entity. a few of the hate messages are from literal Neo-Nazis; the overwhelming majority are from leftists, many of them queer.

you are considering suicide.

you see footage of the october 7th attacks. you see footage of the bombings in gaza. you see footage of a Jewish man being murdered at an anti-Israel rally.

a popular creator you follow posts in support of an antisemitic hate group that masquerades as a Jewish organization. this organization regularly posts blood libel and other antisemitic rhetoric, works with groups that are even more explicitly antisemitic, including celebrating October 7th, holocaust inversion, blood libel, “Khazar theory” and others. more than one of the orgs they work with is pro-Putin.

your former roommate liked the post.

graffiti appears on a street you frequent that says “#freepalestine” and “end settler colonialism”

the boyfriend of the friend you spent most of the summer with makes his first post about the war. it’s a reposted comic that mocks and downplays the october 7th attack.

you doubt he’ll be receptive to criticism. he’s shared leftist memes about “monied elites” pulling all the strings and evangelicals being modern day “pharisees” in the past, and getting him to understand why that was antisemitic was like herding cats. you try anyway.

another of his Jewish friends also pushes back. he smugly dismisses her, tells her she’s falling for Zionist propaganda and uses several antisemitic tropes. you go off on him. he just deletes your comment.

you give up. you’re done. you block him.

you see anti-Israel posters and billboards around town

you mention what happened with the guy you went off on to his girlfriend—the friend you’ve grown very close to, who you’ve been listening to as she unburdens her fears for the future and complains about her bf’s BS over the last year. she doesn’t respond to you.

a friend of a friend shares posts tokenizing fringe groups that spread blood libel and have collaborated with holocaust deniers. you know they don’t know what you know, so you explain what those groups are. they seem somewhat receptive, apologize, and take it down

the next day they share several more posts that dip into antisemitic tropes. you mention this to your mutual friend, that you’re worried about them being radicalized. you’re not sure how receptive they’ll be to continued criticism

you have a confrontation with the foaf. in the meantime they’ve shared even more antisemitic posts. they say they didn’t mean to cause you distress but instead of stopping they effectively block you.

the “end settler colonialism” vandalism has been counter-vandalized with the words “commie propaganda” in place of “settler colonialism”. you don’t know if this is an improvement.

a month passes. the friend whose bf you went off on still hasn’t spoken to you. you see she shared a post defending an SJP chapter that posted Nazi cartoon caricatures of Jews repurposed in “Anti-Zionist” memes. you unfriend her on all social media platforms but you can’t bring yourself to block her number.

you see a friend of someone whose couch you surfed when you were homeless harassing Jewish celebrities with “Free Palestine” comments. you block them.

you’ve lost count of how many people you’ve unfollowed or blocked, or who’ve blocked you. friends, content creators.

when a friend takes an unusually long time to respond you worry if it’s because of your posts about antisemitism.

most of the podcasts, youtube channels, and other content creators you regularly engaged with no longer feel safe. you wonder who will be next

a couple friends wish you a happy hanukkah. you don’t celebrate much aside from lighting the hanukkiah and making some latkes.

you see posts about a destroyed chabad menorah, antisemitic comments on Jewish celebrities’ Hanukkah posts.

your neighborhood is covered in pro-Palestine & anti-Israel posters. some are seemingly innocuous, some are JVP “not in our name” posters. some call for intifada. “globalize the intifada” “Zionists fuck off!” “solidarity means attack!”

a man kills himself shouting “free palestine”. you learn about his suicide by seeing posts from several popular accounts you followed glorifying it.

you follow a bunch of jewish accounts on social media and commiserate with them about everything happening

your jewish friends post screenshots of the dead man’s antisemitic, pro-Hamas views. you look at his reddit and find even more horrific shit: anti-Ukraine posts. mocking Zelensky. “elites” are “lizard people”; the only named individual he calls a lizard person is Jewish. you start to notice a pattern: a lot of the people he dislikes just so happen to be jews.

several people you know share a post glorifying this man’s suicide. most are acquaintances, one is someone incredibly important to you.

you wonder how they would respond to your suicide.

you tell the close friend that shared this post how it scares you. you show them the receipts of the man’s antisemitism. their response is a single sentence. they didn’t know about the antisemitism.

they don’t apologize.

you notice none of your irl friends, even your closest ones, interact with your posts about antisemitism. you are able to vent to a couple friends, but no one has reach out to you

you try not to read into it. you try not to take it personally.

you haven’t slept well in months. you’ve always been an insomniac but not like this. you’re not sleeping until 4am, 6am, even 9am. even when you get to bed at a decent hour and get a full night’s rest it takes you hours to get out of bed.

a few weeks go by. the friend with the single sentence response shares a post saying they’re excited and proud to join a group to help palestinians. you’re excited and proud for them.

a couple days later, they share a post about a fundraiser to help a palestinian family get out of gaza. you note to yourself this is a much more effective & less concerning form of activism than the pro-suicidal antisemite post.

your friend shares another post about the fundraiser. it’s a joint post between their group and another group.

you open the other group’s page

the page is just a wall of signs from rallies. you swipe through one after another: “from the river to the sea”, “by any means necessary”, justifying/denying the atrocities of october 7th, calling for violent revolution. anything done in the name of resistance can’t be terrorism, all Israelis are terrorists. Jews aren’t indigenous; they’re white colonizers. holocaust inversion. other vile, thinly veiled violent rhetoric

you feel sick to your stomach imagining talking to your friend about it.

you already feel like you’re burdening the few friends you can talk to about this. you already feel like you think about it too much, talk about it too much. but you can’t not think about it; it affects every aspect of your life.

you’ve filtered out relevant keywords on more than one social media site to avoid the worst of it. some still manages to leak through.

there isn’t a single friend you regularly interact with that you don’t fear the moment when they will switch from listening to your concerns to seeing you as the evil zionist or indoctrinated hasbaranik they’ve been warned about.

it’s not an irrational fear. it keeps happening. you knew it would then, and you were powerless to do anything about it before, and you continue to be as it happens again and again.

you don’t know what to do about any of it.

[dragoneyes618]

My grandparents lived in the dark. Literally. Born in Germany, they made a short stop in Italy as they escaped Hitler’s clutches, and after ten years in La Paz, Bolivia, they turned finally to the United States, settling, like so many Jewish immigrants, in New York. In those days of incandescent bulbs, lighting a room came at considerable cost. Leaving a room without shutting the lights was simply verboten in Oma and Opa’s apartment.

But even with the lights on, the rooms seemed dim, with no discernable difference between day and night. I attributed this darkness to the situation of their living quarters. Theirs was a ground-floor apartment, generally a highly coveted commodity. But their building was built on a hill, so while the windows of some rooms were at eye level, in other rooms the windows were too high for anyone to reach. No wonder it was permanently dark.

After my grandparents passed away, my father took over their apartment, redecorated, and moved in. He threw open shades all around. And lo! Sunlight suffused every room. I was aghast. I couldn’t understand it; my grandparents had chosen to live in the dark. I’d never seen a window shade open when they were there. I didn’t even know the windows were there; I’d assumed we were too far underground.

For years, this perplexed me. Why would anyone keep their home so gloomy when free sunlight was readily available? I could not conceive an answer to the mystery.

Then one day, it occurred to me. Oma and Opa had escaped Europe with the Nazis so close behind them, they could practically feel their breath. In Bolivia, they became somewhat well-to-do. But one day, Oma took her three young children to the park where they began to scamper over some statues. Two men sitting on a bench looked on in disgust. Then, in German, one said to the other, “Those Jews ruined Germany. Now they’re going to destroy South America.”

Seemingly, they didn’t know Oma spoke German. Or perhaps they didn’t care. Either way, Oma quickly rounded up her children and took them home. “We’re leaving,” she told her husband simply. Heading for the US, Washington Heights was a natural choice, with its thriving Yekkish community. It was there Oma and Opa would spend the rest of their lives.

Looking back on all this, I wondered. Maybe Oma and Opa were in a permanent state of hiding. Being Jewish, they had learned, was not safe. Better for no one to see. For no one to know who lived behind those shuttered windows. After all, they told me over and over, “It could happen here, too. We never thought such a thing could happen in Germany.”

Somewhat smugly, I pitied my grandparents posthumously. Poor Oma and Opa, stuck in the past. They couldn’t understand that things are different here. This kind of thing doesn’t happen — can’t happen — in America. Why, we have a constitution and laws that guarantee equal rights! We have a government chosen by the people — including us. What a shame that my poor immigrant grandparents let their past color their entire existence, I thought.

But, as the tentacles of wokeism spread around the country, I watched anti-Semitism stir from its slumber. Frightening events occurred, hitting closer and closer to home. But it was okay. There will always be some people who hate Jews, I reasoned. Most Americans understand that we’re human just like they are. Most know we’re good people just trying to do our best, pursuing our flavor of the American dream — to live in peace and prosperity and practice religion free from persecution. The volcano of hate, the stories of inquisitions and pogroms and concentration camps, I thought, were extinct.

I couldn’t deny my stirrings of uneasiness as the Western world teetered ever more precariously to the left. But as much as things changed, as much as I heard my grandparents saying, “It could happen here, too.” Deep down, I knew things were different. History was behind us. The present was rosy and bright.

Then, Simchas Torah, 5784. The most joyous day of the year turned to the most unbearably tragic, shredding our collective hearts almost beyond repair. We were all shocked when, before the dead were yet buried, the sleeping dragon awoke; the volcano erupted in all its historic fury. Anti-Israel (read: Jew) protests arose in every corner of the globe, attended not by dozens, nor hundreds, but thousands of screaming, rabid, depraved beasts, crying, “Gas the Jews!” and “Hitler was right!” We looked on stunned as the presidents of three of the US’s most respected houses of learning proved unable and unwilling to condemn calls for Jewish genocide.

But after the initial shock, I felt embarrassed by our collective foolishness. How could we have been lulled into complacency yet again? The cycle of Jewish history has repeated itself so many times; what made us think the wheel had stopped turning? What made us think that our generation’s ascent to prominence and wealth would not give rise to a fresh wave of this stale bigotry? That we had conquered the beast and reached the end of times?

My perspective changed forever on October 7. I know now how right my grandparents were. My enlightened generation notwithstanding, it turns out it was I who was living in the dark.

[caesarflickermans]

A common question is to the state of the world outside of Panem. We receive a brief information dump at the beginning of the story that details what happened in Panem’s history:

He tells of the history of Panem, the country that rose up out of the ashes of a place that was once called North America. He lists the disasters, the droughts, the storms, the fires, the encroaching seas that swallowed up so much of the land, the brutal war for what little sustenance remained. The result was Panem, a shining Capitol ringed by thirteen districts, which brought peace and prosperity to its citizens. (THG, 1)

This implies that Panem is not only a post-USA country, but built on the North American continent as a whole. Countries might have fallen apart in the face of climate change and war.

In addition, we know that District 13’s main expertise before the Dark Days was the nuclear weapons development program; it was the reason why the Capitol left District 13 alone (MJ, 2). This fact appears to point to a Cold War metaphor of mutual assured destruction. Based on a strategy of deterrence, one wants to deter the enemy from using their, for example, nuclear weapons by threatening to use one’s own (nuclear) weapons.

Commonly, this is perceived as evidence pointing to the fact that there are other nations left: If Panem, at some point, had a nuclear weapons program, then they would have needed to have enemies abroad which they wanted to deter from attacking.

While this might have been the case in the past, the Capitol has seemingly never re-established their nuclear weapons program.

Instead, seeing this book as a story about war, the opposing factions of the Capitol and District 13 might point to the Cold War, as the order in Panem appears to be between two regimes: it is a bipolar world order. The nuclear weapons might simply want to point to this Cold War metaphor.

A frequently mentioned comparison is North Korea. Panem might simply be an isolated nation.

However, this doesn’t seem likely.

Having an enemy for the people to rally behind is an extremely common tactic by populists (the Brexit movement and its anti-immigrant policy) as well as fascists (the Nazis and their antisemitism). North Korea, too, employs this strategy:

In second grade we were taught simple math, but not the way it is taught in other countries. In North Korea, even arithmetic is a propaganda tool. A typical problem would go like this: “If you kill one American bastard and your comrade kills two, how many dead American bastards do you have? (In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park)

(Picture source)

Furthermore, North Korea commonly allows its rich elites to go abroad, and forces its poor people into slavery abroad, as well as having been vulnerable to international trade.

Thus, North Korea is not at all an isolated nation.

Even within fiction we notice that foreign entities are not absent in dystopian regimes. George Orwell’s 1984 is at constant war with one of the other two superpowers. Because they live during active war time, its citizens remain in constant fear and obedience to the regime that seemingly promises safety. If one is afraid of “the outside” then one would never run to “the outside”. Furthermore, 1984’s propaganda can explain away the relative poverty and hide the luxury of the upper classes: It’s the other nation to blame. As in The Hunger Games, food is a common theme. The reduction of resources is justified due to war. Unbeknownst to most, however, is the splendour that the upper class live in.

Overall, Panem was not truly meant to be understood in such detailed worldbuilding.

Instead, Collins has mentioned that she was channel switching between coverage on the Iraq war and reality TV. Therefore, it seems that Panem is a metaphor for global relations, for the Cold War, and for the Western disinterest about ‘other’ countries. Following this metaphor, we see a split between First World countries (Capitol), second world countries (District 13), and third world countries (the remaining Districts).*

* those terms are not in common use anymore due to the hierarchical undertones. They are only used here to describe the possible thought process Collins might have had as someone who grew up during a time where those terms were more commonly applied.

In reality, Panem already has a foreign enemy. District 13 has been independent for over seventy-five years.

If there had been other countries capable of reaching out to Panem, it would have been likely they would have reached out to District 13. Coin might have spoken about foreign aid. Or, following the end of the war, other nations might have reached out to Panem. Without doubt, we, too, would do the same if and when the North Korean regime would collapse, no?

The Hunger Games was always meant to be a message, not a messenger. Its underlying concepts, metaphors, and theories have been far more vital than worldbuilding questions for the sake of worldbuilding.

[solarbird]

Why I keep checking back in on eX-twitter

Every so often, I still have to go back and check up on the fascist disinformation and propaganda fountain Elon Musk made out of Twitter, and it’s never good news.

I once again urge everyone who is still there to migrate their followers away from it, to… basically anywhere else, really. Literally. Anywhere in the Federation would be outstanding (Mastodon being the most famous, and where I am now), BlueSky, TikTok if you can do video, hell, even Threads – though I’m a bit hesitant these days about Threads, for reasons I’m leaving out for now.

It’s not just because continuing to use Xitter puts money in Elon Musk’s pocket. I mean, it does, but I’ve beat that drum for months and nobody cares.

It’s because if you depend on it this election, you’re making a real big mistake, because there’s a real good chance that it won’t be there when you need it – at least, not for you. It’ll be there for the fascists, but not for civil society and/or the left. It’ll be part of the problem, and most certainly not part of the solution.

I mean, you’ve got Xitler’s pet AI lying to people about the election now, you’ve got pro-Harris accounts be labelled spam and shadowbanned now, you’ve got Xitter still placing ads directly next to fascist and other neo-nazi/white supremacist accounts now, you have Elon himself spreading anti-election lies that never seem to get community labels (because he turns them off) now…

…and that doesn’t even get into what he did in the UK a few weeks ago.

But if you missed it – or just forgot about it already – did you know about the biggest race riots in the UK in over a decade, spanning across much of the country?

It was a loosely coordinated effort by fascists and spread via far-right chats on Telegram, fuelled by disinformation spread on Twitter, now X. Musk propped it up and helped spread the lies, using fash lies of a two-tier anti-white justice system, comparing the UK to the Soviet Union, pushing lies about detainment camps being set up in the Falklands, and proclaiming that a UK “Civil War,” by which he pretty clearly meant “race war,” was “inevitable.”

UK commentators are calling it his “trial balloon” for what he intends to do in the US this autumn. Some American commentators other than me are talking about it as well.

This is why he bought Twitter, team. These days, he even admits it, saying he bought it to “fight the woke mind virus,” by which at this point he means basically anything to the left of White Christofascism.

So if you’re relying on Twitter to be how you work, how you coordinate, how you get politics done when things go pear-shaped in a way they actively intend to make things go pear-shaped, I really have to ask:

How do you expect that to work when the guy who owns the tool you use is all in on the other side, and has been working out how best to use it against you for the last two years?

Make it make sense to me, ’cause I don’t see how.

Hopefully things won’t actually go south. Hopefully the results will be so overwhelming that they’ll know not to try.

But that’s in no way guaranteed. Nothing about this election is in the bag, and if it’s not – if they do try another coup… well…

From what I see, you have two months left to get your people away from the reanimated corpse of Twitter, and get re-established somewhere else.

I suggest you use that time you have now, while you can, because if they do try? If there is another coup attempt?

There won’t be time in November.

[kahlb]

s26 e1 spoilers

just me rambling forever about the new ep and kyman thoughts after my bedtime

so many different threads of thoughts running through my head at the newest ep...

Cupid Me tends to be in my favorite eps and I don’t even know if I like him, but they tend to be gay eps and say a lot about Cartman’s psychology. I definitely think this was one of the best ones lately, and I of course love that it didn’t have a B plot/adult plot.

saw a couple ppl say this wasn’t a kyman episode but it super was to me??? haha

my synopsis for the ep would be “Cartman sabotages Kyle spending too much time with someone outside their friend group too close to Valentines Day, but when he realizes his actions are going too far into anti-Semitism, he won’t abide by it and makes his alter take his psych meds”

Basically I didn’t take it at face value that Cartman was truly doing that for Stan’s sake, because Cartman’s generally secretly doing things for his own sake. I know the message Matt and Trey were trying to send was just that people can be influenced by Ye and do horrible things by trying to be good Christians, but I don’t know if Cartman actually gives a shit about being a good Christian, so I’m headcanoning right now that he felt more comfortable acting like he was doing this all for Stan when he himself is as jealous as Stan.

And also it’s really huge that Cartman thinks Nazism is too far, and he works hard to save Kyle from it with zero personal benefit?

Funny thing is I’m not sure Cartman believed the anti-Semitic stuff about Jews running Hollywood to begin with, or if it just seemed like a useful rhetoric in manipulating Token to break up with Kyle. 

Anyway kinda the biggest ep for Kyman in a long time. In spite of where Cartman’s canonically stood before in regards to Hitler and Nazis, he doesn’t want that part of himself to get out and cause harm right now. 

Not sure if Cartman discovers once Ye gets more blatant and unhinged that this anti-Semitism has been wrong all along or if he’s still fine with all he’s done this ep so long as they call it Christianity.

Also just wanna say I love Stan in this ep, laughed out loud at his lines twice. “Stop talking to me”. lol

can’t believe we have TWO episodes now of “Cartman spreads rumors around the school to keep Kyle from dating someone else” but here we are. 

love that Cartman is just fully like ‘don’t worry stan you’re gonna get back together with kyle and it’s almost valentines day’ like these are not the words you use when talking about friends, this is just a gay little episode i just watched a gay little episode.

it’s also a Style ep and I love that for it too, i just don’t have much to say about that haha. glad there’s a Style ep because they like barely have any content these days like it’s actually weird.

[about-rock]

Ville Valo - religions and beliefs - atheism, christianity, satanism

Why would anybody care about some rockstar’s religion? Therefore there’s Ville Valo. Used so many symbols and did so many references to it. That’s why I think it’s a topic to talk about- it might get interesting.

He wasn’t growing in a religious family, in a religious country, so to these days it’s not the topic of his life.

,,Even at school I studied ethics instead of religion.”

,,I wasn't baptized when I was born. My parents thought that if I wanted to believe, started believing, or wanted to be a part of a church, religion, or movement, I could make that choice for myself. “

Satanist stuff

But just at the beginning of HIM he used so many symbols, devil’s symbols such as 666 and the name of the band.

Ville has been always assuring us, that these are only symbols that he used more for fun and reference and because of his big fan of Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath.

,,Our song ‘Your Sweet 666’ is more of a tribute to Led Zeppelin and Iron Maiden’s ‘The Number of The Beast’ than to something actually evil.”

,,I’m immensely proud of the Heartagram. People having tattoos of it... it’s amazing. It’s not a symbol - it’s a movement. I love religious symbolism..”

Also name of the band (his infernal majesty) wasn’t taken directly from Antony Lavey books but from one of his favorite song back then- as he said in interview from nowadays, telling he is not sure still about origin of the name.

Clearly he’s not, more than 8 years ago he said:

The name Him came from Helsinki ice-hockey maniacs and it was our protest to Haile Selassie's rastafarian religion, he used to be called His Imperial Majesty..but nowadays because of Linde's hair, we actually might be supporting him.

After all it seems that name of the band has nothing with devil worship or something like that- it was more like playing fun with it- back then in 90s Sweden, Finland and Norwegia were the most black metal satanic bands in the world. It’s pretty obvious it got some influence at that time on Ville, that’s why he used some symbol with with but never seriously and as he said: all this stuff what satanist made was stupid for him[about burning churches].

“But I’ve always been laughing that, maybe it makes all the sense in the world for Fins to create metal – the headbanging keeps us warm. You know, it gets terribly cold in the winter. So it makes all the sense in the world that that would be the reason. That’s also probably why the Norwegians burned the churches. It’s nothing to do with Satanism, but they were cold.”

Ville could not be a satanist: he’s song is never about devil and he hates posture of satanist,here a simple example:

,,I hate Nazis”

(Which is typical for devil’s followers)

Topic about Ville being satanist we can close up by his own words:

,,Record companies are devil worshippers - not us.”

and,

,,I don’t believe in Satan or Satanism or the Christian dogma or Islamic or whatever.”

So he is an atheist?-not exactly.

Atheist?Christian?

He never said that he don’t believe in God, such as he said he that he don’t believe in satan.

Ville don’t believe in Christian dogma, but it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t believe in God. It’s also seems that he is more anti-religious traditions more than a whole point of it.

"I am not anti-religion, I am anti-assholes and, unfortunately, in the religious realm, there are a lot of assholes."

There are many proves in press that he got quite big experience with Christianity.

from 2010:

“I read the Bible every day,” he says, grinning impishly as he switches the light on in his bathroom to reveal he’s wallpapered it with pages ripped from a King James edition.

Some days,” he says, giggling, “I read it twice.”

from 2010, also about wallpaper in toilet:

"But you've never read [the bible]?"

"I read it every time I take a shit"

Well, is it profanation, approach to the Christian religion some kind of joke? Probably the same as with Satanism, Christianity is not important to him- he do some fun with it only. Also, I think that this ,,wallpaper” kind of think was

more like a ,,drunk Ville” idea who don’t give a shit, now, I’m pretty sure, he wouldn’t do that. But about today’s Ville will be later.

But on the other side:

,,My maxim to the young people is: "Don't kill"”

Just like from Bible, maybe he really read it and liked some of it. Clearly not everything, that’s why he does not represent as a Christian.

,,I believe in God for the sake of orphan kids”

I wonder, rather it was sarcasm or more like his another thing he actually agree in religions.

,,My idea of heaven is a bit unusual...”

Does that prove Ville believes in an afterlife( from the Christian religion)?It seems like that for sure.

Oh, here’s another about Heaven:

,,But we all like sleeping, chess, the Adam's Family, we prefer night to day, Halloween to Christmas, weddings to funerals, X-Files to Friends, Abba to the Cure and Heaven to Hell because we all want to go there”

It's very hard for me to deduce in what realities Ville lives because he believes in Christian heaven and hell, but he doesn't bring himself to the most important holiday for Christians-ok, I said it too bluntly and to be honest after this statement you can expect not 100% sincerity.

Another thing that can’t be unsaid: Jesus and Ville. Ville quite often talk about him, really.

,,I’ve crossed oceans of wine” is probably one of not many(or only one) song by HIM which there’s something about Christianity.

,, We're so Christlike”~ I’ve crossed oceans of wine

In my interpretation, he used the motif of Jesus here as a sacrifice up to death. This motif fits very well with his concept of music - death and love. Maybe that’s why he used to wear Jesus on t-shirts and belts, crusader? Probably yes, it’s not like he believes in it, he just like more his story.

"Ozzy is after all an icon to me in the same way as Jesus, Motörhead’s Lemmy”

Here’s perfect proof, 666 and Jesus just an icon, symbol for his art.

What today’s Ville Valo on all of this religious stuff?The Answer

,,I believe in friendship, life, love, music, food, but I don't have any religion that I follow.”

,,[..]still didn't find what I'm looking for.”

For me it seems he is more like a person who believes in what he sees, sometimes he believes in Heaven, sometimes not, sometimes in God, sometimes not- for sure never in Satan since he has always used to be an opposite of it. What I could say as a…Christian- Ville mixes up in himself everything what he think is right- sometimes from Bible, sometimes,more often, from live experiences.

,, I think life is all about good manners. You should open up doors for ladies and you should say ‘thank you.’ You should not swear and you should not spit. That’s what my parents told me and that’s what I’m trying to do. It’s brought me this far.”

Ville just does what he thinks is moral and good, you can see it from the man he is now - it's probably the type of person who thinks that this is the most important thing in life and the settlement after death, if it exists at all, will decide.

Ville never grew up in family, with any beliefs like most Finns, so it's no wonder he doesn’t attach much importance to it like the rest of Europe, and treat it more as a culture.

[lucysweatslove]

Finished NeuroTribes today. Yes, I binge-listened, and I even put it up from 1.5x to 1.75x then 2x and then 2.3x. My brain just needed it faster, idk.

This means I’m 2 books away from 100! If I finish Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (misplaced Kindle and need to find) and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck (20% through) by Friday before bed, that would be kinda cool, 100 books in half a year.

Contrary to what people say to do, I try not to set too many goals for recreational things / things I do just for fun. Such as reading. Meeting goals can give a sense of achievement and pride, and goals are particularly helpful in getting me to do things I Don’t Really Want To Do (assuming I set the goal myself; otherwise Demand Avoidance enters the chat). However, goals also start to suck the fun out of things I already want to do / am motivated to do on their own. Even if they’re reachable, I focus too much on the goal instead of the intrinsic enjoyment of said thing. Which is why I try not to have goals for # of books to read in general. Buuuut I think this is a time where a short term goal can actually help.

I wavered on whether or not to give NeuroTribes 3 or 4 stars in Goodreads as I felt it was sold 3.5; ultimately I went with 3. That might be different if I visually read instead of listening to the audiobook, as no matter how slow (or fast) I have audiobooks playing, I don’t retain small details as well as I do while visually reading. General thoughts:

Seemed to portray more pictures of autism as those who are lower masking and have higher support needs.

Did talk about the strengths that autistic people bring to society, used Temple Grandin a lot here (I like her so I’m not mad about it).

The downside was that for most of it, he really presented autism in two ways: more profound autism with lower IQ, or such low social engagement, or such high support needs (often to the point that families find them a burden and families, historically they have been institutionalized, there is significant shock and relief when they can do basic ADLs on their own- which I’m iffy on the presentation), OR genius “savant syndrome” level autism. I would’ve more liked representation from those who do have low support needs and are high maskers but aren’t “savant syndrome” level geniuses at their special interest or anything to that degree. I found it difficult to find “me” in the examples, exactly, or a lot of the autistic people I know, and I had to remind myself much of the time that I am still valid even if my intelligent and hyperlexia doesn’t reach the examples he gave.

In later portions he did talk about it as a spectrum (which he also credits Hans Asperger for initially postulating- but that brings up another bullet point), so it’s not like he totally ignores that there are people like me, or my autistic friends, or whoever out there, but the general feel seems to gloss over us.

Also used the “if you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism” idea to reflect that every autistic person is different

Thankfully portrayed how ABA was founded in a negative light. Not like “ABA is stupid and harmful and nobody should ever do it” but actually explained how using punishment for behavioral modification passed review boards

I can’t remember if it was addressed, but he used “functioning” labels for some of the book which is gross.

Dude had a huge boner for Hans Asperger, but this was also written in a time where the common idea was that he was anti-Nazi and only seemed to favor the “lower support needs” kids (“little professors”) to try to get Nazis to not kill autistic kids. Like “look at how useful these kids are, it would be such a shame to kill them when they have so much use to the state.” When I have more emotional energy, I’d like to do a deeper dive into the guy, but as of right now, my opinion of him is fairly low, and I was overall very annoyed at the level of reverence given to him in the book.

Talked about some controversies regarding vaccines and how autism speaks is more “cure” driven than actually support/resource driven.

Did eventually get into the modern day advocacy movement, how more autistic people are demanding their voices be heard when autism is discussed, and how there is a push from actually autistic people for advocacy groups to focus on resources and support and “normalizing” autism as a different neuro type vs “curing” it like it’s something faulty. Also mentioned that actually autistic people have pushed for “disability first” language instead of person-first, which I appreciated.

Overall an interesting history of how we have historically categorized, tried to explain, or pathologize autism in general, and how as we have come to understand it more, we realize how much more common it is.

He talked a little about how when autistic people are around other autistic people, or when alone, struggles and level of disability tend to decrease. But, I wish he would’ve gone deeper into some of the social issues autistic people face, especially the women who do want to fit in, how NT people can often tell when somebody is autistic even if they don’t have the words for it (they can just tell there is something uniquely different)

I think if I had read this in 2015 when it was published, it would have been a 4 star. Which is why I struggled with the 3 or 4 star rating- I want to judge it based on the information available at the time he was researching and writing, but at the same time, I feel like I can’t condone a book that is so Asperger-positive, and a 4 star review feels like condoning it. And I really did want more of a comprehensive look of multiple presentations, not just the very much struggling autistic people who need high levels of support or the Darwins and Einsteins or Grandins in the world.

I guess what it comes down to… to me it feels like this was written for the neurotypical person, and maybe with a goal to shift their view of autism. Establishing a common ground of the stereotyped picture, but then challenging that view primarily by showing the amazing achievements of autistic people, too. Which, I mean, that’s fine to a degree, and it’s not like he talks about those who present more stereotypical in disrespectful ways exactly (he himself isn’t disrespectful, but he doesn’t shy away from detailing the awful history). I just wish the message was less “we need autistic people in society because of all the good the genius ones can do for us NTs” and more “regardless of their support needs or achievements, autistic people deserve to live in an accepting, accommodating, understanding world.”

[finitefall]

if you want to see a pro-dany video essay, i recommend "Who is the real Dany show vs. books" by David Lightbringer on his channel. it's very cathartic and he touches on some very interesting nuanced stuff that most of the anti-dany fandom misses such as dany being a slave herself. the comments are very positive too and since so much of youtube has "why dany has always been Mad" videos this is a fresh change

Thank you nonnie! For those who want to see it, here's the link. Warning: there are a few clips of the finale episode in the very beginning of the video, including Dany being killed by Jon.

But as you can guess from the title, the video was made after an extensive reread of the books to answer the question "Who is Dany in the books and can anything like we saw on the show could happen to her in the books?" (spoiler alert: the answer to that second question is obviously no).

Daenerys Targaryen is one the most compelling fictional characters ever created in modern storytelling and certainly she is one of if not the most talked about fictional characters created in the age of social media.

From the beginning, he's on point. Even Dany haters spend their time talking about her because they know she's one of the best characters ever created and the most iconic one in GOT. They can't stand it. And there's a reason why the ending of the show is one the most controversial we've ever seen, as he explains. Just the Nazi imagery was insulting, and it's clearly in the script written by D&D too. If we talk about what politics views Dany can remind us of, it's certainly not this. I also appreciate that even though it's a Show versus Books, he does say the ending wasn't consistent with her character on the show either.

I won't talk about the rest of the video, I obviously agree with David Lightbringer. You should watch it too, even though many points have been discussed in metas here, it's worth bringing them up again, especially since I know many of you are worried about her ending in the books thanks to the show. The video is very long and very good, so watch it when you have the time in one go

Edit: @ladyalianora brought to my attention that David Lightbringer is also an Alicent stan who got into fights on twitter with those who are team Blacks, and seems now convinced that there was no right side and he’s “team smallfolk”. It’s really disappointing from him, but it doesn’t make this video about Dany any less relevant. Just don’t go look for anything else he made.

[brightbeautifulthings]

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

"'Nightwalking men always have a hunger on them,' she croaked. 'They never stop taking and they don't know about enough. They mortgaged their souls away and now they eat and eat and never know how to stop.'"

Year Read: 2023

Rating: 3/5

About: Patricia is an upper-middle class housewife in the 90s, under-appreciated by her husband and kids, and the only bright spot in her week of cleaning, cooking, and shuffling the kids back and forth to school and activities is her true crime book club with the other Charleston moms. When a tall, dark, and charming stranger moves to the neighborhood, Patricia begins to suspect that he's responsible for recent attacks and disappearances. But who would ever believe her? Trigger warnings: character death (graphic, on-page), child death, pedophilia (on-page), rape (graphically described), animal death, child abuse, abduction, body horror, gore, dismemberment, severe injury, rats, implied anti-Semitism/Neo-Nazis, sexism (strong theme), racism, ableism, ageism, dementia. Graphic NSFW content.

Thoughts: This is another instance where I feel like a book is well-done, but I didn't particularly enjoy it. It might actually be Hendrix's most complicated and well-written novel to date. I just didn't like it. At the heart of this dislike is a simple preference in supernatural horror: I wanted more actual vampire in it. Of all the points, I felt like that aspect was the weakest. There's very little lore on Hendrix's vampires, and what's there seems more like a matter of convenience than consistency. (For example, if James can control creatures like rats, why does he not call on them when he's in danger?) What lore we do get is actually pretty gross. No sparkling Twilight vampires here. No fangs, even, which is just a bit sad.

My second issue is linked to that one, and it's that the vampire aspect is completely irrelevant to this story. It makes no difference whatsoever that James is a vampire. He could be literally any other male character in the story, any other normal human predator, and still accomplish all the same things, still put people, particularly women and children, in danger in exactly the same ways (except, granted, maybe the rat part). He's so terribly lackluster as a villain, just as arrogant and banal as your average scumbag rapist, child predator, or scamming embezzler. No fangs required, these things are already terrible. In part, this is one of the things the novel does well, since it highlights the cracks in our own culture. It's so easy for him to sway people to his side and turn husbands against their wives, but I prefer a better class of villain in my fiction.

I waver back and forth on my feelings for Patricia, but I think we're meant to. She doesn't always do the right thing, the women don't always have each other's backs, and she buckles under the pressure of keeping her life perfect and orderly, which is about what you'd expect from real life. If there's a character to pull for, it's actually Mrs. Greene, the Black caregiver who sees what's happening long before anyone else but is powerless to stop it. There's an obvious thread in there about how white, privileged people only care about awful things when it affects them, regardless of anyone else's children dying. (As a side issue, I also don't appreciate Hendrix's use of dementia for shock value. It's not edgy, just insensitive to people actually dealing with it.) It's gritty, dark, and gory, but the ending is satisfying in a way that bumped it back up to three stars for me.

[politicaltheatre]

We Are All Hostages Now

We have more sympathy for Flaco than we do for Aaron Bushnell. It doesn’t seem fair, and it isn’t, but we do.

Flaco, for those of you who do not know, was a eurasian eagle owl that escaped, with a little help, from the Central Park Zoo just over a year ago. He spent that year hunting Manhattan’s pests and perching for Instagram-able pictures, alone, the only one of his kind flying free in New York City.

Aaron Bushnell, as you should know, was a United States airman who killed himself yesterday by setting himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington DC. He did so, he said at the time, to protest Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and his unwillingness to remain complicit.

Odds are, Flaco will still be remembered, fondly, long after Bushnell has been forgotten, “human interest” stories filling our airways and web portals for weeks or months. The reason isn’t that difficult to grasp.

We can project our fantasies onto Flaco, imagining how happy he was, how happy we might be if we were set free in our own way. The reality of how and why he died - he crashed into the side of one of New York’s glass towers - is easily brushed away. 

We’ll tell ourselves he had his time, as if a year of lonely freedom is all anyone could want, and maybe even build a small sculpture in some park, like we did for Balto, the sled dog.

Bushnell, on the other hand, only offered reality. At least, he only offered the chance to look at the reality of our decision making, of our indifference to the suffering of others, of our need to push that suffering away into some kind of abstract, far off warfare between equal sides, as though the people of Gaza had any means of defending themselves. 

Bushnell’s belief that his act would carry more weight than the death of an owl was, of course, delusional, but that, for too many of us, is the most comfortable thing about it. We can hold onto that delusion to belittle him and justify belittling why he felt compelled to do what he did.

We will always prefer to celebrate those who seem free over those who are held in captivity. This is a large part of what drove the Palestinians of Gaza into the hands of an organization like Hamas. It is what led Hamas to take hostages on October 7th. We will always pay attention to hostages more than those who take them. We identify with their captivity. We want them to be free.

For generations, Palestinians have effectively been hostages themselves. Beyond the systematic arrests by the Israeli military, almost as if they have been filling a quota, the entire populations of the “occupied territories” have served as hostages, all of them kept prisoner so Israel’s Muslim neighbors would not attack. Anything happens to Israel, the Palestinians would die, too. 

This hasn’t prevented anti-Israeli terrorism, that has been a constant, but it has played a significant role in preventing attempts at full invasion or bombardment. You might think, “What about Israel’s nukes or the support of the United States and Europe?”, but they did not prevent previous attempts in 1967 and 1973. 

No, the Palestinians have served as hostages, the price paid, along with the destruction of the holy sites in occupied territories, for another invasion or full-scale attack, and that is no way to live a life.

What is more insidious, though, is how Israel has held the entire religion and ethnicity of being Jewish hostage. This is not unusual in politics. Religious groups of all kinds seeking political power have always held their own religions hostage in the same way: an attack on our politics is an attack on our entire religion.

This is ridiculous, of course. To criticize a politician or an army is not to criticize a religion or an ethnicity. A child could see that. And yet, for Israel it has been effective, exploiting guilt and shame over what the the Nazis did and, in the case of Germany itself, laws preventing actual anti-semitism.

If only the Israeli government were the only ones doing this. In the United States, our own government is routinely held hostage, threatened with shut downs by Republicans if the Democrats don’t give them what they want. The Republicans actually campaign on this, boasting of the power of the threat while blaming the Democrats for making them use it.

Bills in Congress are tied together, too. The same bill that would give Ukraine much needed money to defend itself against Russia also contains money for Israel to continue its onslaught against Gaza as well as money for Taiwan to defend itself against China and money our own armed forces.

Oh, and money to deal with immigrants crossing the border, you know, the thing Republicans say they want. 

But if they don’t fix the problem, they can campaign on it, much as they did with Roe v Wade for decades, so they’ll stop the bill - hold it hostage - to extract concessions to help them win votes. Or, you know, they'll shut the government down, holding its entire function hostage. They'll do that, too.

The problem with this kind of hostage taking is that you eventually have to let the hostage go. In overturning Roe v Wade, the right wing now has to defend having overturned it, their choices reduced to making a rational argument for why they did or doubling-down on the rights of eggs and embryos, effectively taking them hostage, like they have in Alabama. 

They couch this not as a way to control others but as an exercise in faith, in protecting life, in love. Making critics have to choose between defending themselves from charges of hate and keeping silent is merely a political tactic, something from the toolbox to be used, and to be used without empathy.

Hamas acted without empathy. Even now, Hamas would sacrifice every Palestinian life if it meant removing Israel from the maps of the world. What they did on October 7th was an atrocity. They committed that atrocity in order to draw their enemy into committing an even greater atrocity. And they succeeded, as much as any terrorists could hope to do.

Israel and its allies have now been exposed in ways they cannot have imagined. Instead of killings, territorial seizures, and kidnappings of their own being done away from international attention, they are now being done in front of thousands of cameras, a 24 hour-a-day newsfeed. The government and military have slaughtered tens of thousands of defenseless men, women, and children, and have been seen to show no empathy for a single one of them as they did it.

What happens, then, when Israel has no Palestinian hostages left, or simply not enough? What happens if the countries that have held back for so long no longer have financial incentives not to attack? What happens if the authoritarian leaders of those countries feel they must attack Israel in order to hold onto power over their own people?

If they have spent the past 75 years building the foreign policy of their countries in the same way Israel has built its own, those countries might, as Israel did in Gaza, decide to sacrifice the lives of the hostages held by Israel. All of them. Better to let the holy sites burn, they’ll say, than let Israel hold onto them one day more.

If that sounds, well, “biblical”, that’s what you get when people treat the world as though they are fighting a holy war. If Israel doesn’t stop what it’s doing and release all of its hostages, literal and figurative, it may end up giving Hamas exactly what it wants. 

And we’ll pay for it, too. Because we are complicit and there is no one coming to break our locks and set us free. That, we’ll have to do on our own.

- Daniel Ward

[canmom]

kerberos final comments

ok, i think this is the end of the latest week where i take a semi-deep dive into a semi-obscure film series from the 80s-90s. after all’s said and done, then... what the hell was going on with this thing? does it manage to justify, you know... that?

So. About the Nazi thing.

If we start with the manga, Kerberos is a essentially similar concept to Ghost in the Shell (which is ofc in Japanese 攻殻機動隊 Kōkaku Kidōtai, “Mobile Armored Riot Police”) or Patlabor. It’s about a heavily armed, ethically dubious near-future paramilitary police force, the sort of people you’d find in such an organisation, and the political context that created it. Compared to GitS, its characters are much less vividly defined, but like GitS, it largely reacts to the world through the lens of Kerberos, and to a certain extent their rivals Public Security. Plotlines in Kerberos concern the individual lives of Kerberos soldiers, or the machinations of their leaders trying to expand the organisation and squabbling over territory with the normal police. It’s full of dog metaphors

Incidentally, if you’ve seen Jin-Roh, you’ve seen a better version of the first three storylines in the manga. The fourth one concerns radicals hijacking a plane, drawing on the actions of radical groups in the 70s. The leader of the the radicals takes more of a centre stage, although his motivations are kinda opaque at the end of the day; he seems like a prototype of the villain Yukihito Tsuge in Patlabor 2, at least in terms of affect, but he dies before his hijacking can get very far.

All of that on the face of it sounds reasonably interesting! The art of the manga is very nice in an Otomo-inspired sort of way, and while none of the characters are especially sympathetic, it’s a convincing window into an interesting historical pastiche.

But the first thing you’d ever notice about Kerberos is that they dress like this:

...big scary Nazis with glowing red eyes. That’s the iconic image of the series, and just about every work makes sure to have some scenes of a guy dressed like that machine gunning some poor unarmored sods, to greater or lesser dramatic effect depending on whether or not you’re Hiroyuki Okiura.

So my biggest question going into Kerberos is like, why do they dress up like weird Nazi space marine cosplayers?

Diegetically, it’s because Japan lost WWII to the Nazis, who used a nuke. Most Kerberos media that I’ve encountered doesn’t especially seem to bother spelling that out, but Jin-Roh - easily the most artistically accomplished of any Kerberos media, sorry Oshii - goes far enough to illustrate it with historical-photo styled still images of Nazi soldiers marching up the streets of Japan:

In Jin-Roh, at least, Kerberos are clearly continuous with this occupation, with an almost identical shot of Kerberos soldiers marching shortly after:

How did Japan end up in a war with Germany, a country that notably does not border the Pacific, and how the hell did they end up losing so badly as to be occupied when Germany lost the war hard even with Japan’s help in reality? (Who indeed fought the war besides Japan and Germany?) But none of the Kerberos media I’ve read have tried to address this wider geopolitical situation; the role of replacing the Americans with the Nazis seems to be to just slap a lot of WWII-era German aesthetics in a rather superficial way: replace an airline with Lufthansa here, or have the slogans of the protestors mention Lebensraum or Weimar there.

‘Nothing would have been much different if the Nazis occupied Japan instead of the Americans’ is a statement that would have a lot to unpack (an anti-American statement? discomfort over being allied with the Nazis?), but I’m not sure it’s really what Kerberos is going for. If you look at otaku-oriented media from this period, you do notice a current of Nazi military equipment obsession (which hasn’t exactly gone away, indeed acquiring increasingly esoteric iterations) coming from the ‘military otaku’ side of the subculture.

For example, in Gainax’s FLCL, there’s an episode where Naota’s father Kamon is dressed in a Nazi uniform for a paintball episode (the same one which has parodies of Western animation like South Park), complete with swastika:

Likewise, Oshii’s adaptation of Urusei Yatsura also has a few recurring bits with Nazi imagery, generally played for jokes. For example, in the second movie Beautiful Dreamer characters dress up a café with a WWII theme with a bunch of Nazi symbols, which is discussed well by Hazel in her video on Vladlove (around 11:40 if the timecode doesn’t work)...

So there’s definitely a sense that in the subculture at this time, Nazi imagery doesn’t have the ‘definitely an edgelord, almost certainly an actual fascist’ connotation that it does over here. In Western media meanwhile, Nazis are generally used as the ultimate villains over whom we were victorious, suitable for when you portray some morally uncomplicated violence. So putting in these scary Nazi suits as your main characters feels like a really dramatic statement to me, but it may not have been for Oshii.

Nevertheless, let’s see where we go with it. My general approach to the Kerberos films has been to assume that Kerberos members are by default unsympathetic, it’s drilling into the fucked up depths of fash ideology, and Kerberos certainly admits that reading. A lot of the Kerberos manga concerns the organisation’s overly violent methods and eagerness to accumulate arms causing escalations and needless deaths left right and centre.

Jin-Roh especially shows Kerberos’s conspiratorial ‘Wolf Brigade’ carrying out a ruthless purge of their enemies to preserve their organisation, and then performing a completely fucked loyalty test by demanding that Fuse murder his girlfriend to prove his dedication to being a ‘wolf’. In contrast to the stylised theatric approach of Oshii’s violence, Jin-Roh’s scenes of bodies being cut down by machine guns are about as sickening and hyperreal as animation can make them - they are honestly far nastier than they would be in live action.

In Jin-Roh, the Metropolitan Police come off every bit as fanatical as they describe their enemies. The revolutionaries aren’t necessarily cast in a particularly positive light, with Kei as the main member of the Sect to get extensive screen time - and she finds herself thoroughly disillusioned with being a bomb courier as she gets drawn into the machinations of Kerberos and Public Security. But, even with the playing around the ‘who is the wolf’ concept, by the end we see Okiura’s take on Oshii’s endless dog metaphors is that committing to Kerberos is to decide to assume the role of the rapacious wolf of Red Riding Hood, who would shoot anyone to preserve the unit.

But what about Oshii’s manga? I talked about how Oshii was of the Anpo generation, and certainly the Anpo demonstrations - and the various desperate terrorist actions of the New Left that came after - sit barely under the surface. However, the point of view it’s interested in seems to be much more the lower ranking members of Kerberos. Like dogs - good god is this man obsessed with dogs lmao - the Kerberos guys are blindly loyal, have little other place in society, and are unceremoniously disposed of every so often. The main characters of the films feature here and there - notably Bunmei is the one scheming against Kerberos here, recognisably modeled after his depiction in The Red Spectacles, and Midori gets to stop the plane hijacking - but it’s as likely to focus on a low-ranking soldier (the first Inui, model for Fuse) or a helicopter pilot. There is not, by and large, a lot of internal conflict for any of the characters.

Tachiguishi Retsuden, although it seems a different alternate history again, gives another piece of the puzzle. (Unfortunately the only subtitles I can find for this movie are badly translated from the Chinese subs, which makes it a little hard to follow.) The stand-up noodle bars are associated not just with crime but with stray dogs, who were poisoned in large numbers as a health control measure; this image is also shown in the Urusei Yatsura episode that invented the ‘tachiguishi’ freeloader concept, where we see a dog and a cat fighting outside. Oshii clearly sees something tragic in the extermination of these dogs who had no place in the more modern society, and seems to find this a suitable metaphor for his fascist paramilitary.

To me, the idea that the Kerberos were heroic in suppressing the crime and protests seemed like an obvious propagandistic fantasy, and given the choice I’m obviously gonna sympathise more with the leftist rebels rather than the Nazi-backed state in this conflict, even if the situation has decayed as civil wars do into a point where both sides are more concerned with self-preservation and ruling their turf than winning. Painting the state in Nazi colours then seems like a way of saying, don’t take this guys very sympathetically, and it’s definitely a convincing depiction of a bureaucratic state mired in infighting (no doubt because it’s drawing heavily from history).

But... I’m not entirely sure this is the angle Oshii is taking on it.

In StrayDog, lost puppy Inui searches Taiwan for daddy Kōichi to tell him what to do, with the help of a girl Tang Mie who kind of adopts these two exiles as they do their homoerotic bonding thing. They spend a long time wandering around Taiwan to slow music (it’s a very Oshii film), having muted conversations about Inui’s need to find a master to tell him what to do. Once the pair find Kōichi, although Inui is angry with Kōichi for abandoning Kerberos, they settle down and seem to be kind of happy just being some kind of lobster-fishing polycule. Inui here can’t be the same Inui as in the manga (since that Inui died), but he’s basically the same concept, a boy who is helpless without someone telling him what to do [there’s not exactly a consistent Kerberos continuity so much as variations on the same ideas].

Public Security are on the trail though, and Inui - loyal to Kōichi despite the fact that Kōichi is plainly not worth any sort of loyalty - overpowers him in order to carry out a power-armoured suicide by cop and give Kōichi a chance to escape (which we know that he uses to go to Japan and promptly get shot). If the action scenes in The Red Spectacles were weird disconnected montages that felt extremely theatrical, the action scene here, which sees Inui advancing through a building cutting down identically trenchcoated and facepainted men who run blindly towards him, feels mostly like a video game. In the end, Inui wins the battle but dies from it.

(Which means on the one hand, highly stylised and abstracted live action violence, and on the other, hyperrealistic animated violence with plausible military tactics and genuinely horrible depictions of gun death. Going in opposite directions from different starting points... I’d say they end up in a similar place, but tbh Jin-Roh, as in most things, is way more impactful.)

Anyway, StrayDog seems to have more of an “isn’t this sad” sort of flavour. The dog metaphor for Oshii in the manga is stated most explicitly in a scene shared with Jin-Roh, where Bunmei discusses disposing of the ‘Special Brigade’ in order to integrate Kerberos with the regular police. The dialogue in both versions is a speech full of dog metaphors, but in the manga, the scene is further introduced with a dead Kerberos member and a stray dog passing by. This metaphor then becomes central to StrayDog.

The manga’s Inui, like Fuse in Jin-Roh, hesitates before shooting and almost dies, but here the person he hesitates to shoot is not a bomb courier who’s prepared to take them both down, but a civilian who is trying to help one of the revolutionaries, who levels a gun at Inui. Inui’s story here is about failure to integrate into the Kerberos unit, who aren’t willing to accept this particular ‘stray dog’ despite there being no other place for him. Inui tries to prove himself with dramatic and reckless violence, gets rejected for refusing orders, and then on his way home, gets killed in a reprise of the first situation - oh this poor boy it’s so sad.

In Jin-Roh by contrast, Fuse’s hesitance to shoot is the first move in a whole character arc - at first it seems like his remaining humanity which he eventually abandons, but we are left with some ambiguity whether his original hesitance was genuine, and happened to pay off in the Wolf Brigade’s favour, or part of a very complicated ploy. (Despite being the central character, and even seeing his dream at one point, we’re given a lot of room to interpret Fuse, and the ‘why didn’t you shoot’ question is pointedly never answered.)

Anyway, so, my conclusion about all the Nazi imagery in Kerberos is... honestly I think Oshii just thought it’s cool? As we see in VladLove, he loves to just namedrop historical trivia. I’m not sure he even considers it as fraught as I do. Which isn’t fun but I feel like any other reading is unparsimonious at this point.

What is surprising is that Okiura managed to take what Oshii was putting down and make something genuinely compelling. Jin-Roh a real proof of the power of his realist style and ability to suggest character with subtle acting. Its realist animation becomes hyperreal, the abstraction of cel shading underlining how much is ‘right’ in how the drawing moves, and it works for what’s primarily a spy movie.

At the same time... Okiura did a way better job than Oshii ever did of making those scary Nazi suits seem powerful. Kerberos here are kind of the idealised supercop Judge Dredd types - I was reminded of the Dredd movie from a few years ago where Dredd unstoppably advances through a building, killing everyone in his way. Though maybe Robocop would be a more contemporary comparison.

It works for the movie, in that Fuse’s choice to side with Kerberos and use the armour to massacre the Public Safety agents moving to apprehend him is properly sickening. It becomes kind of like a horror movie at this point, with desperate attempts to stop him with grenades bouncing off the armour.

So I guess we’ve gotten back to the old question of the different ways of portraying violence in film, what a fascist film looks like etc. I don’t want to relitigate that one, although I think Okiura’s angle is appropriate - even if it is fetishistic? One Youtube commenter on the video essay I linked back on AniNight wrote:

Jin Roh is a movie about semi-realistic bullets physics. The creators be like: Guy 1: 'Hey, you know what's cool? Seeing dolls gets rag-dolled by flying bullets.'

and he’s kinda right lol, that is sorta what the movie is about. But it remains a very effective image, much like the gunfights and realistic educations in Dahufa.

All in all, I guess the result of this deep dive is basically the existing consensus: The Red Spectacles is worth digging up as a deeply weird surreal film; I wouldn’t bother with StrayDog, the manga’s OK but Jin-Roh is imo the only one that manages to justify what it’s trading in here.

And as far as all these Nazi images goes, the aspect of the Nazis we’re focusing on in any of these films is much more ‘fearsome invading and occupying power’ than ‘perpetrators of the Holocaust’. If Nazi ideology has influenced the reconstructed Japanese state in the world of Kerberos, the series never bothers to illustrate how. Despite everything... it really doesn’t seem to actually be about the Nazis on a level beyond the superficial. The conflict in Jin-Roh/the manga is basically a heightened version of Anpo, or like... any 20th-century anticolonial movement really. In the first two movies... idk, throwing darts at a board, the Meiji restoration doing away with the samurai lol?

Meanwhile Tachiguishi-Retsuden is kind of... ah, I know some of ya had fun with it, but honestly I found it dragged really badly. The janked out subs were a large part of that and I think a decent fansub could do it a lot of good, but I kind of felt like most of the gags went on too long to really work, even with the ‘spot the well known illustrator/anime director’ game it’s playing with the casting. Though maybe being tired after a long evening of films underlies that reaction, I need to learn my lesson about three-movie film nights. The animation style was interesting as an experiment at least.

And that’s quite enough of that, I think I’m satisfied. Though at some point as far as ‘fash aesthetics in anime’ go, I still haven’t gotten around to ripping Youjo Senki a new one. Expect that... sometime. It’s an exhausting anime to think about though so who knows when.

[eviltothecore13]

I hate that people see “Marvel” and think “MCU” now instead of all the great things the comics have done over the years.

Marvel comics had Spider-Man cheering on anti-Vietnam-War protestors in the 60s and the MCU gets US military support and funding?

Tony Stark in the comics (while still unbearable in the hands of SOME writers) is canonically bi and had alcoholism handled actually seriously and not made into a joke in the original Demon In A Bottle story whereas the Iron Man films chose to portray it as him making an idiot of himself at parties lolisn’tthatfunny instead. Not to mention that the reason he was written as a weapons manufacturer initially in the comics was that Stan Lee knew his audience was mostly fairly progressive young people and was deliberately choosing the person they would hate the most, as a "can I convincingly make this guy become a hero?" challenge--and the story is meant to be about a weapons manufacturer realising the horrible consequences of his actions and deciding to stop making weapons and use technology for good instead--but the original anti-military script of the first Iron Man film got edited beyond recognition because of that US military funding thing, and the films sort of waved vaguely in the direction of him no longer making weapons and then forgot all about it and had him keep doing it? (Also they expected us to laugh at him making a rape joke. WTF.)

They made canonically Jewish-Romani characters into white Christians working for HYDRA. (They also added a whole “oh HYDRA and the Red Skull just worked with the Nazis to gain power, they didn’t agree with the bigotry” thing presumably either so they didn’t have to address themes of bigotry and show their heroes fighting bigots, or to tone HYDRA down enough to sell merch of them, or both--when comics!Red Skull was very much explicitly a fanatical Nazi racist homophobe etc. I’m pretty sure they even tried to sell “Hail HYDRA” merch.)

I keep seeing talk of the X-Men joining the MCU and I just...do not trust them to adapt Magneto properly at this point at all. Or to adapt stories like “God Loves, Man Kills” or similar classic X-Men stories.

For that matter, while I’m not keen on some of the recent direction of the X-Men comics (WHY did they have Xavier and Magneto on the same council as Sinister, NO even remotely sympathetic character should work with Nazis, ESPECIALLY not a Jewish Holocaust survivor! also they seem to have practically made Xavier and Moira McTaggart into scheming supervillains at this point and like...they were both morally grey but I don’t think there was ever any need to take things THAT far...especially with Xavier it also kind of ruins his whole dynamic with Magneto, Magneto is meant to respect/even admire him to some extent and that doesn’t work if Xavier doesn’t have a single admirable trait...I know he was always secretive and did some morally questionable things but him and Moira both feel like different characters recently to in, say, Claremont’s era), they DO have Logan/Scott/Jean as a canon poly relationship, and also Kate Pryde--somehow I don’t think MCU will ever really have an explicitly bi Jewish pirate woman protagonist...

And yet people think of the MCU when they think “Marvel” and you see it in posts like “can’t believe anyone expects to see men kissing in Marvel” when we’ve had men kissing in Marvel for decades, it’s the MCU who won’t portray the characters they’re adapting properly...will “Marvel” ever stop being associated in people’s minds with “movies that are mostly CGI that have an explosion every five minutes and don’t pause to spend much if any time on character development or emotional moments”?

[qu-film-history-to-1968]

The Rules of the Game, Le Corbeau, and French populism. (Franco Morgante)

While The Rules of the Game and Le Corbeau have completely different stories and tones, a common theme they both share is criticizing the elite. The Rules of the Game is much more upfront with this theme as the film is meant to be a parody of the French ruling class. Rather than having one overarching antagonist to the story, the goal of the film is to depict the French elite as narcissistic and morally bankrupt as possible. One example can be seen around 40 minutes in where Christine talks about having children. She asks another woman if she would like to have kids, but the woman responds that she would, but they take up too much of her time, so she won’t even bother. It shows how the French elite think that children are just nuisances that only waste your time. Another example is around 16 minutes in when Paulette is telling Christine that his brother tried to commit suicide, and the first think Christine just shrugs it off saying that “people rarely do it”. Showing how the elite aren’t concerned with the wellbeing of others if it doesn’t concern them.

Le Corbeau’s anti-elite message is much more subtle. The film follows a mysterious person known as The Raven sending out threatening letters to everyone in the town. But the one person The Raven seemed to have a fixation on was the main character Remy Germain. The Raven accused Remy of having an affair, legalizing abortions in the town, and even says that he needs to leave the town. Remy also feels very different from the other characters, as he seems to be strictly a man of science and even says that he doesn’t believe in God. His last name of Germain also seems very specific as it sounds very similar to German. With The Raven’s heightened hostility to Remy, I believe that Remy is supposed to represent the Germans who were occupying France at the time, and The Raven represents the German population wanting them to leave. I think this would make sense as this film was made in 1943, a time when France was still under German occupation. Plus, the legalizing abortions claims from The Raven implies that they view Remy as some kind of invading force who is ruining the town with his views. Much like how the Nazi’s were forcing their views onto the people of France.

So, while these two films are very different from each other, they do share an underlying message of populism and criticizing the ruling class. The Rules of the Game echoes the sentiment of a working class that has been devastated by a global depression. While Le Corbeau echoes the sentiment of a people who wish to be free from an invading country. These films remind me of Georges Sadoul article that I read during this week, as that article described how the economic factors of the time lead to a renaissance in French cinema. And in the case of Le Corbeau, the threat of being governed by an invading force also led to a new era of French filmmaking.