#i could really get into the fucked up nazi origins of a lot of those new age cults in america that ppl just pass off as hippie shit

[weirderscience]

it really is funny though how quick alien conspiracy theories and new age stuff start delving into race science though. i guess its the tendency for people who believe in made up social structures to also really want some kind of magical thing that proves their specialness to everyone else. like even if they dont believe in aliens being progenitors of the white race or whatever theyll find some other thing like “aliens are racist and only like white people bc theyre smarter” or some shit. its like a whole Thing

[cleolinda]

When I was a child in the '80s, I absorbed some kind of cultural truism that disco was ridiculous, embarrassing, cheesy, a cultural relic to be mocked at every turn. Remember, I'm under ten years old at this time, and I still manage to get this impression. There was another, milder sea change when grunge overtook the hair metal of the late '80s, so I never questioned the idea that disco should be dead and buried. We like silly things, I thought in my 13-year-old wisdom, and then we get over it.

Then I saw The Last Days of Disco (1998) while I was in college, and suddenly I realized that disco was fun, and it was like—it was in the roots of—music I already loved. And the end of that movie also—hints? tells you? I can't remember how explicitly—that disco didn't just fade like most trends; it was killed off.

I watched a lot of VH1 in those days, the late '90s, with a little TV sitting on my tall university-issue dresser, its corner overlooking my computer desk while I struggled with piles of assignments. This was the heyday of Behind the Music, so it was great background TV. And then one day (1999) they ran a Donna Summer—the "Queen of Disco"—concert special. The video up there is the song that immediately became my favorite of hers. It’s just instant serotonin to me, any version of it. I bought the whole VH1 album on CD, and "This Time I Know It's For Real" may genuinely be one of my all-time favorite songs, now, still, more than 20 years later. You can hear the original version (1989) here (the backing instrumental that I just found today is lovely), but the live version ten years later, the video up there, has a really special comeback—joyous, gracious survival—energy to it.

Watching the whole concert, I got it. Why the fuck did I ever think disco wasn't amazing? It was always the kind of thing I loved; we had all just been pretending that it was embarrassing glitter trash.

And then I found out why we were pretending. From densely-footnoted Wikipedia:

Disco Demolition Night was a Major League Baseball (MLB) promotion on Thursday, July 12, 1979, at Comiskey Park in Chicago, Illinois, that ended in a riot. At the climax of the event, a crate filled with disco records was blown up on the field between games of the twi-night doubleheader between the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers. Many had come to see the explosion rather than the games and rushed onto the field after the detonation. The playing field was so damaged by the explosion and by the rioters that the White Sox were required to forfeit the second game to the Tigers. [...] The popularity of disco declined significantly in late 1979 and 1980. Many disco artists carried on, but record companies began labeling their recordings as dance music. [...] Rolling Stone critic Dave Marsh described Disco Demolition Night as "your most paranoid fantasy about where the ethnic cleansing of the rock radio could ultimately lead". Marsh was one who, at the time, deemed the event an expression of bigotry, writing in a year-end 1979 feature that "white males, eighteen to thirty-four are the most likely to see disco as the product of homosexuals, blacks, and Latins, and therefore they're the most likely to respond to appeals to wipe out such threats to their security. It goes almost without saying that such appeals are racist and sexist, but broadcasting has never been an especially civil-libertarian medium." Nile Rodgers, producer and guitarist for the disco-era band Chic,

(who survived the disco era to make half the music I loved in the '80s)

likened the event to Nazi book burning. Gloria Gaynor, who had a huge disco hit with "I Will Survive," stated, "I've always believed it was an economic decision—an idea created by someone whose economic bottom line was being adversely affected by the popularity of disco music. So they got a mob mentality going."

The DJ who ran the whole thing, Steve Dahl, complains that it was VH1 itself—you know, those Behind the Music specials I was watching—circa 1996 that labeled the whole debacle as bigotry when it so totally was not, you guys, and he is so tired of defending himself. But I'm gonna tell you, Steve, I don't really care. Maybe Disco Demolition Night was your fault; maybe you were just a part of something so much bigger and uglier that you couldn't see the whole size of it. Can you draw a direct line from the weird bigoted vitriol directed at those dance records to Ronald Reagan, elected the very next year, not giving a single fuck about the AIDS crisis? You probably don't want to, but I will.

And I don't care because I can look around the U.S. right now and tell you, nearly 45 years later, people are trying to demolish a lot more than disco. The Club Q shooter was sentenced to life in prison just a few hours ago. It's Pride Month, and we're all sitting here holding our breaths. That's a terrible way to end a post about a beautiful happy song I love, I guess, unless you turn it around and say, that should have been the whole point of this post in the first place. Listen to this song and think, people wanted to destroy this music, this sound, this joy for some reason. They want to stop people from just living their lives, from dancing. And yet, disco is still here. It was there in 1979, and it was there when Donna Summer released this song in 1989, and it was there when she returned in 1999. The Queen of Disco passed away in 2012, and it's still here. I feel a lot of joy when I listen to this song, but I don't think I'd ever thought about it being the joy of grooving with something just because it’s beautiful, the joy of just being here, still.

[gffa]

I saw your post defending the way Jedi adopt the children/accept them into their culture, and I absolutely loved it! It was so well-informed, and you are right: It is all there in the original content!

I find it very ironic that many people spew these lies about the Jedi when that’s exactly what the Empire did. Iirc, this argument of Jedi being “kidnappers” was actually fueled by Emperor Palpatine and the Empire in their campaign against the Jedi. They wanted to discredit them and make the people turn against them so that they could erase them all more easily. So I find it very ironic that these lies are now being upheld by some people as the truth. (Really, have people forgotten the Empire was created bases on the Nazi’s and their own racist strategies?)

You are not inmune to the Empire’s propaganda.

Please correct me if I’m wrong. I’m not as good at pulling examples and proof from all the SW content as you are.

Hi! Thank you for the very sweet ask! Navigating stuff in fandom like this can be difficult at times, because there has to be room for compassion and tolerance for disagreement, like it's fine if people disagree with my views, I'm not your mom, I'm not telling you want to do or say, especially since this is fiction, these are made up space stories. But there also has to be room to understand that sometimes our commentary on fictional stories are echoes of reflection of real world attitudes--we can't just go around spewing racist, sexist, homophobic commentary and be like, "It's just fiction, you can't get upset!" There's no easy line for any of this, no single hard set in stone rule for when it's truly just fiction and when it's an echo of a real world attitude, especially in Star Wars, which often draws influence from a lot of non-Western sources and traditional Western sources. (My general rule of thumb is: I think it's fair to criticize those things through the influences they have, but if your criticism is then ended with, "So that's why we shouldn't have or acknowledge any Buddhism/Black people/queer people/women in Star Wars!" then fuck right on off with that.) And I also understand a lot of the anti-Jedi attitudes (or at least what I've personally experienced of them) because I've talked a bunch of times about how I started out as pretty Jedi-critical myself! I did the whole, "They had grown stagnant and refused to evolve with the galaxy, so they needed to be wiped out." thing because nobody had framed it explicitly as what it was: a genocide. It wasn't until a friend and I were talking and they mentioned that lens of it that it just sort of crashed down on me, oh, that's literally what it was and genocide is never justifiable. I did the whole, "The Jedi failed Anakin and taught him to repress his emotions." thing as well, because I saw it all over the place in fandom and just automatically folded it into my view, until I went back and actually watched Lucas' movies and Lucas' animation (first six movies + first six seasons of TCW) and read his interviews, which blew me onto my ass when I saw Obi-Wan being supportive of Anakin, when I saw Anakin not listening to the advice he was given, when I saw that Jedi were expressing emotion all over the place, when I saw they were respecting other Force traditions in the galaxy. I can't speak to why so many people think badly of the Jedi, there's probably a thousand reasons and I'm only vaguely aware of like half of them, but I do think that it's often unpopular to promote the idea of emotional regulation already being achieved, instead of something to be struggled with. I think we're all primed by a lot of mainstream media saying that an explosion of anger is what will save the day. I think there's so much anger in the world today that we're all angry and being told to let go of it feels really insulting at times. (But, as someone who has lost years of my life when I was younger to anger, I gotta say, I am so much better off having let go of as much of that shit as I can. It was poison in my veins, carrying that anger around. I lost so many friendships and opportunities and just time to being miserably mad about stuff.)

I'm getting off topic of the kidnapping aspect about the Jedi, but a lot of it starts to swirl together in what I've experienced (especially people who try to put this stuff on my posts--thankfully, that's died down/I block the people who won't respect boundaries) and so I kind of bounce from one aspect of it to another.

I do think it's good to talk about these things--both from "it's fun to analyze the content of the story on a meta level" perspective and "here's how this echoes into and from the real world" perspective, like I enjoy saying, okay, here's what's actually said in the movies/TCW, but also I think talking about how the Jedi are Buddhist influenced is important because that means they're going to have values that are meant to be reflected in that and Western fandom has a really big problem of being derisive about non-Western influences or automatically saying they're wrong. (I come from anime/manga fandoms, let me tell you, it's a big problem.)

And, yeah, in a way where it's really awful, but I think one of the most well-done things Disney's Star Wars has done is that it's really focused on showing that the Empire was a fascist one and the propaganda they used about the Jedi are ones that are super relevant to the conversation.

[thereallad64]

As you all know by now, I was stupid enough to post the shittiest take known to man regarding a certain Super Bowl ad, without doing even a minute of actual research or even watching the fucking Super Bowl itself. I have no excuse for that behaviour.

Not that long ago, for four hours, I let myself become a mindless fucktoy of the ‘totally not nazis’ antisemitic assholes. Those few hours were enough for me to spout the dumbest, most bigoted shit and watch it spread to all the other assholes. How pathetic of me.

There’s a lot of ways to describe the person I was when I posted that. A mindless moron, a parrot, a fucking idiot who can’t think for himself. These are quite accurate.

I may have admitted I was wrong and made attempts to fix what I started, but what I did cannot be undone.

Of course, there’s the assholes that took that bigoted conspiracy that I spouted and liked and reblogged it as ‘truth’, thus allowing it to spread to over a thousand notes…and still counting. They have given me a voice that I didn’t fucking deserve. I can’t tell if those people believe the same shit I did out of ignorance (like myself) or outright intentional malice. Even the bigoted asshole me from only a few days ago hated that it would be the most popular post before he even posted it.

I already said this before, but I do want to genuinely thank everyone who spoke up against the shit I mindlessly posted. The people who are trying to stop assholes using the Isreal/Palestine conflict to justify antisemitism deserve the attention that I got. Seriously, thank you for making me think for myself.

After the whole incident, I have looked at various perspectives from both sides of the conflict on tumblr. While I consider myself somewhat better informed, I don’t have all the answers. It’s hard to believe anyone on social media, because you never know if they’re just lying just to pressure you into joining a side without second thoughts.

So, what now?

To repeat, it’s impossible to undo the shit that I’ve caused. All of the following posts where I admitted I was wrong and absolutely fucking stupid will never get as much attention as glorified hate speech.

I despise how much attention I got for being an ignorant asshole, but deleting the post altogether feels too cowardly.

I’m completely open to suggestions on what I could do, as long as it doesn’t involve demanding the death of one side while ignoring the immoral actions of the other. But for now, I have considered taking a long break from the hellhole that is modern social media. People think too highly of themselves to ever consider themselves wrong or to listen to anyone who may disagree with them.

Before all of this, I had promised myself that I wouldn’t mention the conflict on my tumblr page. Is that selfish? Maybe. But after letting myself be controlled by YouTube rage-bait and bigoted idiots, it would’ve been better.

Fuck the Earth.

Edit (March 2nd 2024): I somewhat mentioned this in the first of several apologetic posts, but I was only aware of the ad about the hostages and never knew that the #StopJewishHate ad even existed when I made the original post. Still, it doesn’t really make that post any better or justified as I was still ignoring the suffering of actual people.

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Hi! I really loved a post you made earlier about how society is only now returning to a variety of religious beliefs and was wondering if you could talk more about it. Any thoughts on countries taking up their original religions? Magnus and asatru? Rhys or his siblings with druidism?

TW discussions of religion, religious skepticism and fictional depictions of religion in historical fantasy. I feel like they pick up things they themselves remember but the modern human iteration is... Meh. No shade to believers, I did some time with the Nordic pantheon before the Nazis took it over but the modern iterations of almost all European pre-Christian religions are unfortunately mostly constructed between the 18th and 20th centuries. Almost none of it dates back further than revivals during the enlightenment. Would they see echoes of their lived experience in these revivals? Sure. I just don't know if they'd be adherents to the modern form when they can remember at least some of the real thing, otherwise now dead and gone. So I do think there's things in them that survive but they can't quite look at modern paganism as a belief system.

But two parts I think would really feel important to them: a lot of the pagan revivals are about a rejection of the Calvinist themes of Reformation and counter-reformation Christianity that emphasize individuality, created the belief of the elect who are saved by god and stripped Christianity of a lot of its older emphasis on community and mutual aid and responsibility. I think a lot of the pagan revivalism would very much appeal there and in its counter-culture themes.

And second, because I'm a weirdo who uses hetalia to get into really niche topics and practice writing historical fiction I want to publish when I'm grown, I try to stick to what we actually know. I want to replicate the perspectives of history. The fantastical aspects are often just adaptations of what magic was actually believed in, as far as I can adapt from a very limited pool of knowledge. I have written Alasdair carving the symbols we have from some Pictish standing stones and Ogham, a Gaelic form of literacy into objects and sacred trees to make them into portals and protective objects. I have written Arthur's primary contact with their mother as being not when he visits the site of her barrow and the Kirk that gives them their name that was later built on he same site, but after he drowns or is caught in a storm, because we know the Britons of prehistory and the Roman era and even into the early medieval believed water was a kind of portal between this world and the sacred. I gave Rhys their mother's bronze age sword because magic swords are everywhere in every flavor of Celtic Mythology. Arthur keeps Cromwell's head on the mantel partially because he's a stubborn fuck who can hold a grudge for centuries but also because we know that the ancient Celts believed the head specifically to be a very powerful magical object.

Norse paganism as we know it today is based on things like the Icelandic Sagas and the descriptions of the temple of Uppsala by Adam of Bremen. Those are fantastic documents but they only come into being centuries after the end of the Viking age and are written by Christians, usually clerics, and usually men. Our heads are full of images of powerful priestesses, shield maidens and goddesses, but more than a third of human women were starved as children compared to under ten percent of boys. Every Norse grave is different, with only general categories being able to be sussed put based on grave goods, the style of inhumation or cremation and marking ships or stones. We just don't know fuck all about the specifics what the people of this era really believed.

Or with the British celts. We know what the Romans said. That they burned criminals in wicker men, committed human sacrifice, that the Romans slaughtered the druids on Anglesey in Wales. We know the names of their gods when they are twinned with Roman ones or archaeologists find inscriptions. But so many of them are only known by one or two inscriptions. There are only eight for Brigantia and she was the patron goddess for the largest tribe by territory in Iron Age Britain. We know they offered sacrifices of value to bodies of water, we know from medieval Irish sources, also written by Christians, that they had 4 holidays aligning with the seasons and divided the year into half light half dark. But we don't know shit about songs or prayers or even how much the Romans made the fuck up. Which was likely most of it but we'll never know. What the Picts in Scotland may have believed is especially lost, we don't even have most of their language or even sheep counting like Cumbrian.

There's been a lot of push back against terms prehistory and dark ages and rightly so in that they conjure images of a filthy past, people living in their own shit and grim misery. But on a historical level, on an archival level, there really are such things as dark ages and prehistory where we just do not know the details and when discussing and writing religion I err towards what we know the most about, especially where archaeology and history can support each other.

[wingodex]

just a post about my thoughts about g o m e n s 2 just to get it out of my brain so i can finally move on to something else. some spoilers obviously

like first off, it wasn't very good. sure, there were parts i enjoyed and i didn't think it was an entirely miserable experience but overall it just wasn't much of anything

the main plot really wasn't that interesting and there wasn't much substance to it, so it was padded out with a bunch of az/crowley flashback scenes. none of the scenes were like, that bad, but i never felt like they added all that much to the overall story. it's one of those things though, where i don't think taking them out would make the season better because the main story isn't good, but having them there also doesn't make it good. lose/lose situation. the fact that they're officially considered separate minisodes is also so janky, like lol why would you just outwardly admit they don't really fit into the story? why would you do that on purpose.

the best one was the first one about job because at least it seemed like it was trying to say something vaguely interesting about the tension between heaven and hell and did something to help set up for aziraphale's decision at the end of season. the worst one was the nazi zombie one and that's so painful for me to say as an amateur card mechanic and magic enthusiast. like they put stage magic in the show and they did it so badly that instead of losing my mind at crumbs like i usually do (like my reaction to the first season when god plays three card monte during the baby switch scene), i thought it was kind of stupid and wished it would end. also this isn't even why it was bad from a storytelling perspective but they didn't even do that trick right!!! you gotta take a drag of a cigarette first before the shot and then blow it out when you reveal the bullet to hide the fact that you had the bullet in our mouth the whole time. misdirection!!!! also the fact that he started the performance with the bullet catch instead of warming up to it? so stupid. no sense of good stage progression. ughhhh and the way they filmed az making the photograph swap made it so that there was no conceivable way he could have actually done that sleight of hand, so it was all just movie magic! i don't mind if actors can't actually do the tricks, like who cares, but at least pay attention to the framing of the scene so that it's actually plausible. and also there's not fucking way that crowley, who was sitting behind him, wouldn't have been able to see the sleight. like come onnnnn

one of the issues with the first season already was the way that az and crowley were elevated to main character status rather than just being part of an ensemble cast like in the books. it didn't ruin it or anything then, but both of them had a much more comedic role in the original story, like they're not there to carry the plot forward, the way adam or anathema are. their job is to fumble it all even though they're the only focus characters who truly understand what the fuck is actually happening. but in the second season, which is entirely about them, they just don't have enough going for the two of them to make an interesting story. they made their relationship a lot more volatile in s1 compared to the book to make up for this, like neither of them is as settled into their "role" the same way. which honestly i don't have a problem with it that much, i think drama is funny. and honestly the most interesting part of s2 was their big fight at the end, like that was the only thing that happened in the show that actually felt like it mattered to me. it felt like there were no real stakes in it at all, and it felt like stuff just kind of happened to az and crowley but they never really did anything, and the other characters weren't able to pick up the slack for them because they also weren't that interesting and had nothing really going for them

something that i really, really missed in s2 was the way that there wasn't enough weird little people around doing their own weird little things. that was something that was always so delightful to me in the book, the way there were all these weird little guys around. in s2, all of secondary characters are there specifically to move parallel to az and crowley, and to contribute to that story line, so none of them feel particularly interesting or unique. so much of the character based humour from the book is completely missing, and none of the new characters felt like they had any weird or interesting goals or driving forces the way that they did in the book

and then finally, and this is minor compared to the problems with characters and plot, i didn't like the decision to change the weirder style elements of the first season. i loved all the little animations and sidebars from the narrator because i think it did a lot to get across the comedic feel of the novel. it wasn't a perfect solution, and i know that when adapting something between mediums that means that you have to leave stuff behind. but it worked for me because so much of the humour in the original happened in the narration rather than in dialogue or as action, and you really feel the lack of it in s2 because it's just not as funny as the first season.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

Super late to the discussion but I’ve been underfunded with spoons lately and I try not to engage much with the mcu discourse nowadays but I’ve seen the discussion about Peggy Carter and the Cynthia Glass inspiration on my dash lately and I’ve been thinking.

It would actually make a lot of sense for an original concept for the movie to have Peggy (Cynthia?) actually be a nazi spy. The movie feels somewhat unbalanced at times, with Steve having... a little too many helpers. The villains are clear-cut villains, Hodge is just a bully and never really feels relevant to the plot at all. Philips is skeptical about Steve’s abilities, but is never really a strong obstacle for Steve, who eventually just goes and does his thing.

Erskine is a helper, Peggy is a helper, Howard is a helper. Bucky is the love interest damsel in distress war movie tragic companion. The US army becomes a helper once Steve proves himself. The narrative ends up being a little flat, as, as soon as Steve picks up the first shield... everyone helps him against the bad guys.

If Peggy were a spy, though? She would be a wonderful foil to Erskine, a German person who helps in the fight against the nazi regime.

And also that would put her in a position where she would totally help Steve... in a way that turns sinister once you reveal where her loyalties lie. Consider this: Steve’s superior officers deny him the permission to go and save American soldiers from nazi territory, because it’s too dangerous and the last thing they need is to lose more men, especially the only one with a functional supersoldier serum in his veins. Peggy, on the other hand? Absolutely encourages the only person on whom the supersoldier serum works to walk right into the place where Armin Zola works. Gives him all the help possible to do so.

Oh, whoops.

See? The narrative of the movie becomes considerably more interesting. Her character becomes considerably more interesting (despite what some seem to think, there’s little interesting in a girlboss who is not like other girls).

But of course the movie didn’t do that eventually. In fact, they did something else with her... which could have been even much more interesting, actually! But no, we cannot have good things.

Her being a nazi spy would have made CATFA more interesting, but the actual way they chose for her character would have been even better if they had actually addressed it instead of just dropping it into the bin where everything that isn’t supportive of the American imperialistic status quo gets yoten.

You know, she does not have to be a nazi spy. She can just be on her own side. (With Zola.) She has her own goals. She wants the nuclear weapon supersoldier for those. She runs fictional cointelpro after the war, for fuck’s sake. It’s funny (in a “aha MCU you’re so funny and imperialistic and funny” way) she’s British, because she is... the United States of America. But okay. I digressed from what was supposed to be the point of this post but... I mean. Either nazi spy or female J. Edgar Hoover in red lipstick, it’s not like we have a large array of good choices.

But Margaret Tatcher had girl power logic makes people forget about Black men, so.

[roostertuftart]

This meta was sent to me during a argument, and while disagreeing with this opinion, I couldn't line up my thought to why. I want to hear ur opinion on this since you're a Kyle fan like OP and has a lot of meta posts about him. thank u for reading this post and sorry for my bad english! https://curiouscat.live/ginzura/post/1191543937

First of all, no need to apologize for your English, and it’s perfectly legible regardless! I’m going to paste the OP’s exact words here because I don’t know exactly how CuriousCat works and I don’t want to original text to get deleted so no one can see what exactly I’m arguing against, so here it is below: 

Ask: What do u think about those ppl who say  shipping kyman is bad bc you’re shipping a jew with a nazi 🧐

Answer: good question! if people really believe that then i can't blame them for not wanting to have anything to do with kyman, however my interpretation is different. buckle up cause this is gonna get kinda long though....

so first of all, cartman is without a doubt, a bigoted person. he's racist, he's classist, he's shown signs of being sexist too (though nowhere as bad as butters lol), etc. the thing is, his anti semitic remarks towards kyle for being a jewish person feel different than his other very backwards beliefs. i'll expand on this. 

take for example the way he treats token, often alluding to the fact he's black, applying stereotypes to him and commenting stuff such as 'your people'. all this because token is black, nothing to do with token's personality or hobbies, it's just because token is a black person. when he shot token it wasn't because token did something to him, it was because token was a black person, and therefore, a threat to him, a white person. with this we can assume that the first thing cartman notes about token is his ethnicity above all else. he doesn't see him as a person but just part of a minority he looks down upon.

now let's address his relationship with kyle. he belittles kyle, calls him a 'goddamn jew', has threatened his life, etc. to the naked eye you would think it's exactly the same to what he does to token but that's where i disagree. he doesn't hate kyle for being jewish, he hates kyle for BEING kyle. is it cause kyle is smarter than him? maybe. is it cause kyle makes has things he doesn't have? maybe. but the point is that kyle's very existence annoys cartman so he has to put him down and the most obvious thing he could possibly remark about kyle is the fact that he's jewish because it's a low hanging fruit. but that's not the only thing cartman has had issue with concerning kyle. cartman tried to make people turn against gingers and emphasized that daywalkers were the worst type. who is a daywalker? kyle, of course. when he found out kyle was partly new jerseyite, he was against that too. he just tries to single out kyle as a menace as soon as he has an excuse for it. and that's why i don't actually think he's a nazi as much as he's a big fucking dick with an unhealthy obsession for kyle. i'm convinced that if kyle wasn't jewish, cartman would still find an excuse to get on his case

furthermore, and this is something that escapes fans a lot, cartman has pretty much stopped calling kyle 'jew' for quite some time now. the development started in s19 where he promised he wouldn't anymore after getting the shit beat out of him by pc principal. he still did in the ninjas episode, same season, but ever since that habit has died. so, in any case, i think cartman is mellowing out…

---

I’m not sure if this is the answer you’re looking for, but honestly, even as someone who really isn’t super fond of both-sided Kyman myself, I kind of agree with a lot of this take and I have for a while, though I don’t think it’s all because of Kyle either. 

Cartman’s feelings towards Judaism seem extremely complicated to me, ranging from fetishizing the religion to outright hating it, and I think in large part this all does come down to his obsession with Kyle. Whether you believe the theory that Cartman is secretly in love with Kyle or not, it’s undeniable that he is obsessed with him and getting his attention. Maybe even having the envy of wanting to be like him in some aspects. 

I’m not going to go into a deepdive into this because I’m not the most well versed about Cartman’s character as a whole, but I can go over how Cartman’s feelings towards Kyle and Judaism seem to work. 

To start off, to say that his anti-semitism entirely comes down to how he feels about Kyle isn’t really true either. In early seasons, Cartman is already spouting out some pretty nasty stuff at Kyle about him being Jewish, and I would argue that this far back, he didn’t yet really hate Kyle or have any real obsession towards him. Not moreso than the other boys anyway- In fact, he even claims to hate Kenny the most, and there seems to be a genuine effort on his part to be liked by Stan and Kyle who tend to pick on him or show their outright hatred towards him- That’s not to say Cartman isn’t an asshole himself, but that seems like how he is towards everyone- He genuinely seems to crave their attention though, especially in episodes like Prehistoric Iceman. We’ve also seen that Liane seemed to have a pretty bad influence on Cartman at this time, teaching him some fairly bigoted shit. It feels likely to me that Liane probably had some if not full influence on Cartman’s opinion on Jews at this time, as she probably did with everything else he believes, leading to his general bigotry towards most minorities that he still holds today. 

What I agree with OP about though is that if Kyle had not been Jewish, Cartman would not be so intent on his anti semitism. I still believe he would probably be in the same way he is racist towards black people like Tolkien, but I can’t see him being nearly as obsessed with it, nor do I think he would fetishize it as much as he sometimes does. Cartman’s hatred of Jewish people in large part is because of Kyle, not the other way around. Of course, this isn’t at all Kyle’s fault and is still extremely egregious on Cartman’s part, but I think it’s important in meta discussions of how Cartman thinks and feels towards Kyle. 

One thing in OP’s post that does bother me however is the last part- Cartman “mellowing out”. I really don’t like the implications that Cartman’s antisemitism becoming more subtle is the equivalent to it being less, or even an improvement on Cartman’s behalf. Like, I do agree that he’s a child who has had a lot of bad influences and that he’s not beyond outgrowing his bigotry, but the show itself hasn’t really given us that just because Cartman doesn’t call Kyle “jew (derogatory)” anymore. We can’t get into his head obviously and see exactly what he thinks of Jewish people now but it’s pretty clear to me that he still holds a lot of antisemitic values and likes to torment Kyle in targeted ways because he’s Jewish. 

Season 21 and the first episode of season 23 are pretty obvious signs of that. In S21Ep7, he straight up told Heidi conspiracy theories about Jewish people and basically convinced her that Kyle has been manipulating her simply because he’s Jewish, as well as even going as far as teaching her that Jewish people are always “trying to get ahead of everyone else”. This isn’t some micro aggression he accidentally dropped despite showing vast improvement most of the time, this is extreme Nazi rhetoric, and it’s just as dangerous and damaging as the shit he was saying before Season 19. In S23Ep1, Cartman uses ICE to have Kyle’s family separated and placed in detention facilities in an extremely targeted act of revenge. He knows what he’s doing, and it’s obvious. He’s not stupid, and I don’t know how anyone can fall for his very clearly fake act in the episode that he somehow suddenly forgot Kyle was Jewish and that this situation would be something Kyle would be extra sensitive to. I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt that OP just forgot about these episodes but this is NOT an improvement in his behavior. It’s just more subtle and manipulative on his part which is disturbing and dangerous in its own right.

And then to talk about Cartman in the recent specials, I think there’s a strong argument for his behavior towards Judaism just seeming really fetishistic and even disingenuous, so even if his hatred isn’t there he’s still pretty antisemitic. 

So yeah, TL;DR, Cartman’s antisemitism seems to mostly revolve around his hatred/obsession with Kyle and he has not mellowed out in any positive ways since Season 19. 

[opheliawillowbrook]

That Time of the Year...

Summary: After six years of marriage and three children later, Raven and Damian struggle to get through their holiday anniversary and the arrival of the dreaded ELF ON THE SHELF.

Also if you would prefer to read in Ao3 the think is 👉Here  Also Tumblr does not keep original formatting so if that is important you please read there. 

I would first like to say, if you are the creator of Elf On A Shelf, I hate you. Like I already don’t have enough to do making literal magic for two months: pulling Christmas miracles out of my ass on a shoestring budget that I don’t even get to take credit for. NO! Instead, the praises goes to an overweight, diabetic man, who’s a possible sex offender, and the only reason we don’t question it further is because he doesn’t really exist. So instead, we act like Big Brother spying on our children is little more than harmless fun, until one day you find out the CIA has been spying on you through your Smart TV (turns out your crazy uncle Roy was right about that fine purchase. So what else is he right about?) and yet somehow your groomed response is, “Well, it’s not like I was doing anything wrong. What’s the big deal?” Yeah, just remember that next time you google some weird shit, and since most of you write Fanfiction, we can assume that happens a lot. My advice: get a VPN. Encrypt that shit. Anyhow, now that we’ve established the Grade A parenting on our part: Yay Santa… We can shift our attention to the fact these were only some of the things Damian Wayne was grappling with when his wife, whom he loved greatly, (but also sometimes drove him crazy, because that's marriage) decoded it was time their family embraced the magical 🤮 tradition of being a day-to-day slave of this false prophet. As if the elf were Jesus or something. So with that in mind, let’s embark on a Christmas tale nobody asked for!

…Save yourself.

“But really, Raven? Elf on the Shelf?”

Raven rolled her eyes; she knew her husband would not be swayed by what he considered mundane and pointless. But as a mother, she told herself that there was importance in making her children’s lives far better than their own. Not to mention, they both had super fucked up childhoods, and she wanted to spare their kids those horrors.

“It’s for the kids, Dami.”

“They have enough,” Damian grumbled of his three children, two sons and an infant daughter (who he’d never admit was his favorite). She looks like her mother and she complains the least. He’d just spoiled her to death while his sons earned everything. “I mean, if anything, they need a reality check.”

“For God’ sake, Damian, they are four and five. Reality isn’t exactly in their vocabulary.”

“Entirely my point. When I was their age, I could not only say reality—I lived it.”

“You also had at least three confirmed kills and a developing mommy complex,” Raven droned, reminding him his childhood was not one to model their kids by.

“I’ll concede you have a point, but how is a stuffed elf going to fix that?”

“It’s just something fun for the kids. Y’know, that thing your childhood lacked? Plus they asked Santa for one.”

“Can’t we just tell our children the elf won’t come to our house because I’m Jewish?”

“You’re being ridiculous!” Raven howled, her husband still firmly against the childish notion.

“Am I, Raven? It’s a known fact elves are very anti-Semitic,” Damian continued. “We can claim the reason elves work for Santa is because the Nazi Party is no longer hiring.”

Raven scowled, as this was a new low, even after 6 years of marriage and 4 years of dating. “Are you even Jewish?”

Damian uncrossed his arms and replied. “Short answer, yes, but it’s complicated.”

“How is it—Y’know what? Never mind,” Raven glowered as she’d learned (the hard way) Damian Wayne could complicate anything. “Now give me your credit card so I can buy the damn elf.”

“I have to pay for it too?” Damian scoffed.

“Well yeah. You work while I birth and raise your children. That was the deal, remember?” Raven patronized as they started a (unplanned) family young. Damian being rather business savvy and good with money (not to mention a Wayne) meant Raven could focus on raising their children and be the mother neither she or husband had. However, it had challenges, mostly Damian. “Also, don’t even give me shit about spending ‘your money'. Every time I talk about going back to work or school, you knock me up again.”

“Hey, I warned you how many kids I wanted.”

“Well, now that we have three, do you really want Seven?”

“It’s good to have spares.” Damian reasoned. “You never know what could happen.”

“That’s definitely your mother talking.”

“No, if that was my mother talking, I’d be talking about bio engineering and cloning them. And though there are moments I’m tempted: like when they swallow Legos and or shove craft deeds up their noses, (true story) I recognize how harmful that was to me as a person. I’m still not completely sure whether I’m a clone or the real Damian. Beth’s struggle is real.”

Raven shook her head, reconciling with the fact her husband identified strongest with the Rick & Morty character, and yet somehow, that made perfect sense. “Again, I’m sorry that happened to you, but we’ve talked about this. I love you and I don’t care if you’re a clone or not. It doesn’t matter. But all I’m trying to do is give our kids the childhood we didn’t have. I agree, the elf is stupid. But it would make them happy, and the upside is, you can use it to threaten them.”

“How?”

“Elf is supposed to 'report to back to Santa' on whether they've been naughty or nice.”

“So the elf is a treacherous spy?”

“Oh my fucking god, Damian!” Raven lamented as the vein in her temple pulsed. She may have loved her husband, but that still didn’t mean he wasn’t a pain in the ass from time to time. “You threaten to call Santa’s direct fucking line and tell him all about our kid’s fuck ups.”

“Because I’m their father. I can do that. It’s practically my job! Just like when you threaten to eat their souls.”

“Damian, whatever the fuck your middle name is Wayne,” (Cause we aren’t 'privy to that information') Raven said with warning, realizing how absurd it was she didn’t know her spouse’s middle name, assuming he has one. As he had too many titles to keep up with, but who cares? Not this girl. “If you ever wanna get laid this side of the moon, you will buy our children that stupid elf!”

Damian glared at her hard. He liked to think it was an idle threat: he’d come to learn it wasn’t. He also liked to think he could hold out, but as he’d learned on previous occasions, he was no match for her on the carnal front. She knew exactly how to push his buttons and she did it all too well.

“I suppose if it’s what our children want....”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“Am I, though?”

Just then, their front door swung open, and Damian’s father Bruce, along with butler Alfred, came walking in. In an uncommonly good mood. Something was up?

“Merry Christmas,” Bruce sang in a tone that was uncharacteristic of him.

Something was definitely up.

"Father?” Damian replied suspiciously. “Showing up unannounced, I see?”

“No, Raven invited us!”

Damian only glared at his wife, realizing she was in on whatever treachery was a foot. You’ll pay for this betrayal later, Beloved!

“I told you we were doing our anniversary dinner tonight,” Raven reasoned; Christmas always overshadowed their anniversary. She was definitely in on it.

However, before accusations could be made, his two sons came barreling in from down the hall, excited for their grandfather’s visit. He always spoiled them.

“I should probably mention your mother called,” Raven added unenthusiastically. “She’s on her way…”

“And you’re only telling me this now?”

“Hey, I’m not excited about it either,” the Empath defended.

“Is anyone ever excited to see her?” Alfred added through his side eye, as the children hugged him and Bruce with excitement.

“Mimi’s coming too!” their four-year-old Rami screamed.

We should note that Talia’s term of endearment came about because she insisted she not be called “Grandma” or anything of the sort. So Bruce started referring to her as “Meany” in front of the kids. You can put the logical path of devolution together yourself.

“Unfortunately,” Raven replied under her breath as even though she and Talia got along famously, the Empath was reluctant to accept her mother in-law's parenting advice, to which there was plenty. I swear if she tells me hugging my kids too much will make them gay. I will fucking lose it. “Talia!”

“Mimi!” Both boys sang as the assassin walked through the door, not even bothering to knock.

“Just in time to annoy everyone,” Bruce quipped with a sly grin.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing, how’ve you been?”

I hate my parents. “Is that wine, Pennyworth?”

“Requiring a glass, Sir?” he replied with a wink, far too familiar with Damian’s struggle.

“Is that a question or an observation?”

“Does it matter?”

“No.”

“Here Alfred,” Raven smiled, “Why don’t we go open that in the kitchen and you can help me check the roast,” which was Raven’s way of saying, lets go do good luck shots and leave Damian to the wolves, fuck him. “While Damian catches up with his parents.” Because that’s what you get for being difficult over an elf.  

It’s a sad day in Hell when you only have your four- and five-year-old to see you through, Damian thought bitterly, as he turned to his parents. His two sons gleeful as they jumped up and down, excited to see both their grandparents. Such little fools.

“What’cha bring us, grandpa!” Rami, their four-year-old, asked.

“How many times have I told you two it’s rude to expect gifts from your grandfather?” Damian reprimanded.

“Oh, don’t listen to your dad! Of course I brought gifts!”

“It’s two weeks before Christmas?” the younger Wayne protested.

“So,” Bruce replied, “When do I not bring them gifts?”

“Who are you and what did you do with my Father?” Damian asked, watching him act so gentle and kind towards his grandsons. “Also, can you stop bringing them things every time you see them? You’re spoiling them.”

“Now you just sound like your mother,” Bruce smirked, not a fuck given.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Talia asked in an accusatory tone.

Bruce only smirked. “You know what it means.”

Talia gave the Bat a derogatory eye roll and turned to her son. “I assure you, Damian,” she said, and gave her ex-lover a rather cruel look, “it’s not a bad thing.”

“You’d think that,” he laughed under his breath when he heard baby Arella cry.

I have never been so happy to hear my daughter cry , Damian sighed inwardly. “Well, look at that. Ari is up from her nap. I’m going to tend to her now.”

The wavering scowl remained on his face as he headed down the hall toward the sound of his fussing infant. His parents were insufferable enough apart, let alone together. To the point where he couldn’t recall a single instance where the two didn’t bicker or contradict one another, and now that there were grandchildren involved… Maybe I should just take my family to the middle of nowhere and not tell anyone? Though Raven would never go for that: at least not in the context of not telling anyone.

“Who am I kidding? They’d find me… I’m probably wearing a tracking device as we speak. I wonder what else Roy is right about?” Damian thought aloud, picking up his daughter who was more than happy to see him—she always was. “I’d like to say I’ll never be crazy enough to implant a tracking device on your person, my darling girl, but that’s a promise Daddy might not be able to keep,” he sang. “God help the poor bastard that attempts to court you.”

He placed the baby down on her changing table and undid her onesie and went through the motions of changing her diaper. YES! Damian Wayne changes diapers because he is a good father and loves his baby daughter. Also, Raven wouldn’t stand for the whole. ‘Changing diapers is below my station ,’ bullshit he tried to spew and made him do it, anyway.

“Well Ari,” Damian continued, grabbing a fresh wipey, “I have some bad news. Daddy’s parents surprised him with a visit today, and he suspects they may have conspired with Mommy to do so. So Daddy’s probably gonna be a little cranky tonight.” He removed the soiled diaper and replaced it with a clean one. “I honestly hope you never find yourself venting to your baby daughter one day. You know, if Daddy ever allows you to date. So you won’t have to burden your children with how much Mommy and Daddy drive you crazy. Because if they overheard me talking to you like this, they’d ask what the fuck is wrong with me? To which I would reply: Really, neither of you has any idea? Not a clue?” he concluded and lifted the baby girl up high as she laughed. “But you don’t think Daddy is crazy, do you, my little angel? No!”

Meanwhile, as he continued to snuggle the cheerful baby and tousle her soft black hair, Raven watched from the doorway, a warm look across her face. “See, this is the man I married,” she said, entering the room with an extra glass of wine. “I thought you’d need this.”

Damian rested their baby to his shoulder and took the glass with his free hand.

“You should know,” Raven added, “I invited your father and Alfred, but I had nothing to do with your mother.”

“What did Pennyworth say?”

“That was all your dad.”

“I knew it,” Damian scolded. “The scoundrel can’t help himself!”

“Well, that’s your parents for you. They can’t stand to be in a room together, and yet, they can’t stay apart.”

“Promise me we’ll never be like that?”

“We won’t; we actually like each other and I am nothing like your mother.”

This was true; Raven may have been strong willed and independent, but to say she and Talia were cut from the same cloth would have been a stretch. Raven was a solid wife and wonderful mother; even if she wanted to appease their already spoiled children with a treasonous Elf that was creepy as fuck.

“This is true,” Damian admitted, noticing how pretty aha looked for their anniversary dinner. “Not to mention I can’t keep my hands off you.” He put his thumb across his wife’s cheek; for all their bickering, he loved her more than anything. But before he could share a much needed kiss with her, parenthood shot them straight from orbit.

“AAAAAHHHH! Liam hit me!” their son Rami cried from the living room.

“Maybe if you weren’t such a baby I wouldn’t have to,” the eldest boy said as if it were a valid defense. It was often pointed out Liam was a brat, just like his father. Or, as Bruce lovingly referred to the boy, 'Payback.'

“We should probably get back to your parents before they let our children kill each other.”

“Or we could just wait in here and see what happens?” Damian offered.

“Remember the last time we did that?”

Damian thought back to the last time they foolishly trusted his parents with the boys. It was at the gender reveal party Steph had somehow talked Raven into letting her throw for them at their home. Yet somehow Raven ended up cooking nearly everything, as Steph forgot to book a caterer. Or, as Damian suspected, forgot she couldn’t afford one and bailed. Thank God Cass insisted she handle the cake that held the secret pink frosting. Anyhow, it was not even five minutes into the famous last words, “Can you please watch the boys while I help Raven before she kills someone,” that Liam accused Rami of stealing his favorite Nerf Gun, (they have the exact same one) and demanded it back. Rami refused and was then pushed face first into a table, which led to the younger boy hitting his older brother in the face and breaking the toy gun over his brother’s head. Resulting in a trip to the hospital, one black eye, a fractured frontal bone, a damaged lateral rectus muscle, and six stitches as a result of hitting a table. And all because, according to Bruce and Talia, they were “working it out.” Needless to say, they’d not been alone with the kids since then.

“How could I forget?” Damian winced. “They didn’t even offer to pay the hospital bill.”

“So we should probably get out there,” Raven suggested, taking a generous sip of her wine. “One more hospital trip and we’ll have Child Protective Services at our door, and I DO NOT wanna give Liam that power. Little shit will have us looking like Joan Crawford in that movie.”

“Oh, if he did that, I’d just let him go,” Damian warned. “I would be like, you wanna live with Grandpa. Here, I’ll help you pack. Little bastard.”

“I don’t know. Your Dad didn’t exactly know how to handle you. I’m not convinced he could handle our son.”

“I meant your father, Beloved.”

Raven only laughed and took their daughter, hoping to God she wasn’t anything like her father. And secretly feared what Damian would have been like as a teenage girl. If so, we are fucking doomed.

Damian must have read her mind or felt the anxiety as he added. “At least Rami seems to be less blood thirsty, well, when he’s not engaging in combat with his brother.”

“Yeah, he’s got a temper, but he’s a lot more level headed about it.”

Their four-year-old was actually pretty docile compared to his older brother, who had all of Damian’s fury and none of his mother’s patience. Rami, however, was a better combination: he was smart, methodical, and very focused, but when he allowed his feathers to be ruffled, he could turn Hell into high water. He could also be quite the little sneak.

“I still can’t believe you caught him dropping F bombs?”

Damian rolled his eyes, recalling the incident. He just so happened to be in the garage toying with the ride-on lawn mower, which always broke every time tried to cut the lawn… And was ironically the reason his children came to learn the F word in the first place. He’d heard Rami and his cousin J. Jay (Jason Jr.) come barreling into their play room, excited for their play date, when he heard, “J. Jay, look at this fucking train!”

Damian paused, unsure if he heard him right. His son was four, after all; why would he feel the need to curse? And gave the child the benefit of the doubt.

“It’s so fucking cool?”

“Rami, we’re not supposed to say that word,” his cousin reasoned, as he’d likely been told daily not to repeat the horrific things that came out of Rose and Jason’s mouths. Leaving Damian to mow over the irony: I can’t believe my fucking kid just got reprimanded by Todd’s spawn.

“It’s fine as long as no one is around to hear it.”

“Is that so?” Damian said, emerging from the garage, his son’s face white and guilty as sin.

“More proof that ‘Santa is always watching consequence’ is ineffective at curbing behavior.”

“Mommy! Did you know Grandpa went to college with Santa!” Rami screamed in excitement.

“And yet they’re so gullible?” Damian mused, glaring at his father. “I thought it was Pennyworth who attended university with Clause? He’s certainly old enough.”

“Charming, Master Damian,” Alfred said emotionless, hardly glancing up from his wine. “I see the holiday spirit is not lost on you.”

“How can it be,” Damian droned, “I’m reminded of it every time I look at my credit card statement.”

“Don’t be such a Scrooge,” Raven quipped and topped off her wine glass.

“Maybe if I could understand why you needed 10 boxes of Christmas lights?”

“Oh yeah, I’m gonna need you to put those up tomorrow, so the house is decorated."

“Are you serious?”

“As Darkseid taking over the planet. Happy Anniversary, Dami,” she added and clinked his glass.

“It’s nice to see you taking on the fatherly husband role so well, Son,” Bruce smiled, though Damian couldn’t tell if it was an insult or a compliment: it was probably a little of both.

“To be fair, he’s normally not this cranky,” Raven reasoned. “Christmas just makes him a total Scrooge.”

“Too much Holiday cheer, I suppose,” Alfred added. “Wouldn’t want to have too much fun now, would we, Master Damian?”

“It’s just a stressful time of year on top of everything else,” Damian replied in his defense. “Three kids gets expensive.”

“Stop knocking me up then,” Raven murmured under her breath.

“Beloved?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, now you know how I felt having to buy gifts for six or seven kids,” Bruce shrugged, not even bothering to count.

“Like you couldn’t afford it,” Damian frowned. “And if I recall, it was Pennyworth who bought the gifts, and wrapped them, and did all the decorating, and the cooking, and the planning, and the sent the Christmas cards, and even made the seating arrangements.”

“Finally someone noticed,” Alfred said, sipping his wine as Bruce gave him the side eye.

“Not like you can’t afford it either,” the Bat drawled, noting that his son had always been rather tight with the wallet.

“I might be well off, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be fiscally responsible, Father.”

“Damian, you could live off your trust fund alone and never worry about money a day in your life!”

“I’m not a charity case, Father,” Damian scolded, as he hardly ever touched his trust fund and, if anything, saved and invested it wisely. “You’d rather me be single and starving in a loft like Grayson? Talk about failure to launch.”

“It’s a little late for that,” Raven droned as she bounced their baby. “You’re also being a little unfair. It wasn’t Dick’s fault Kory got married and Barabra dumped him for the guy who makes her latte at Starbucks—By the way, is she bringing that guy to dinner?”

“No," Bruce replied, “she’s going to her father’s.”

“Oh good.” Damian may not have acted like it, but he had grown to be quite protective of his elder brother. Meaning Barabra and Kory had both incidentally become prominent enemies on the family front and were just sort of his Kill List. (Fun Fact: Jason is constantly removed and reinstated on the Kill List for even minor infractions while Tim is permanently on the list.)

However, before Damian could go on a tirade, Raven announced that dinner was ready and for everyone to take their seats. They made their way to the dining room where Talia, of course, took Raven’s seat at the head of the table, across from where her son sat. It was something Raven felt disrespected by. However, over the years, she came to terms with the fact that no one told Talia what to do and that there would be bigger battles to be fought. Specifically the woman’s review of her parenting skills and wifely duties.

“Damian, what do you think you’re doing?”

“Feeding my baby?” he replied, not even bothering to glance up from the child.

“And Raven isn’t doing it, because?”

“Because I’m making plates for the kids,” Raven answered on her own behalf. “And I spent all day cooking. The least Damian could do is feed the baby.”

“I see,” Talia smiled and lifted her wine, “So you’ve given up breastfeeding?”

Raven gave Damian a visible eye roll and replied. “I wasn’t producing enough, and it was getting too stressful.”

“Really, stressful ?” Talia noted. “So doing what’s best for the baby is stressful?”

“Mother,” Damian scolded.

“What? Am I not allowed to be concerned with the betterment of my grandchildren?”

“If that were the case, you wouldn’t gift them dangerous weaponry,” Raven smiled, recalling the previous Christmas that the boys received child sized katanas from none other than their grandmother.

“They have been passed down for generations,” Talia defended. “Damian received them when he was three.”

“And look how well that turned out,” Alfred mused as he took a bite of his roast. “This is Divine Mrs. Wayne.”

“Thank you, Alfred,” Raven smiled and sat down between her husband and children.

“This is very good,” Bruce added, “and the potatoes are phenomenal.”

“Yes, this is wonderful.” Talia grinned and glanced down at her plate. “If you’d only put this much effort into feeding your child.”

Raven felt the vein in her temple throb, the one that always did when her mother-in-law was present and running her mouth. Leaving Damian to realize he had damage control to conduct.

“Mother, how long did you breastfeed for?”

“Oh, I didn’t,” Talia replied, unfazed. “I used a wet nurse. I just simply didn’t have the time for such a thing.”

Damian could feel his wife’s eyes burn into him as he glared at his mother disapprovingly.

“On that note,” Bruce interjected, “What do you kids want Santa to bring you!”

“Elf on the Shelf!” Both boys replied to their father’s discontent.

Talia rolled her eyes and made a play of sipping her wine. “I still can’t believe you allow them to believe in such things.”

“Mother,” Damian warned from across the table. “We have talked about this.”

“Damian, look me in the eye and tell me you don’t find any of this foolish?”

“I never said I didn’t.”

“Then how can you allow them to be raised as such?”

“Do you really want me to answer that, Mother?” Which was his way of saying: I swear to God if you ruin my children’s childhood’s and rob them of the magic of Christmas, you will never see them again.

“Y’know, how Grandpa went to college with Santa?” Bruce interjected once more to cut through the tension.

“I don’t know which of those things is a bigger lie?” Damian mumbled.

“Don’t listen to your dad. Grampa graduated from Yale!”

“What’s Yale?” Rami asked.

“It’s a school, dummy,” Liam snapped.

“Don’t call your brother that,” Damian ordered, unpleased with his son’s tone.

“Why? You call uncle Tim worse things all the time and he’s your brother.”

“Not by blood or by choice.”

“Well, I didn’t choose Rami. I told you guys to return him.”

“Hey Liam, you wanna live in the shed?” Damian threatened.

“No!”

“Then shut it! Rami is your brother, whether you like it or not. One day you‘ll realize how lucky you are to have him.”

“Yeah, Wiam!” Rami added with sense of second-hand  pride.

The older boy scowled. “He can’t even say his L’s right?”

“And you still wet the bed,” Damian replied, his son’s face growing beat red.

Raven scolded him as the adults at the table all paused at the child’s embarrassment, the younger boy giddy with laughter. Bruce, however, found some humor for his son’s frustration. As he was the only one who could appreciate the fatherly context. Sometimes dad’s gotta do what dad’s gotta do.

“You’re gonna pay for that humiliation, Father!” the boy threatened, crossing his arms.

“Don’t worry, Liam, your father wet himself on a mission once,” Bruce offered, leveling the playing field; Damian offering an unamused glare.

“Really?”

“This is the first I’m hearing of this,” Raven asked her husband, half sorry she was even getting involved.

“I was tased by Quinn…”

“What’s a tased?” Rami asked, confused.

“It’s what’s gonna happen to you two, if you don’t stop talking and eat your dinner.”

“Really, Damian,” Talia tsked, “They don’t know what a taser is?”

“No Mother, they are CHILDREN!”

“Speaking of them being children,” Bruce interrupted. “I talked to my old college buddy, Santa Claus, and he sent me a special gift for you guys to open up before Christmas!”

The boys cheered with glee, forgetting all about their rivalry and failing bladders. “What is it!”

“I don’t know, but you two can open it after dinner… but only if you both behave and stop picking on each other.”

“Okay!” they sang and began eating their food and not another peep was made between them.

Damian rolled his eyes as he hated bribing his children into compliance, especially since both his mother and father would have never put up with such behavior when he was a boy. In fact, Damian could recall a time in the Batcave where (for once) he and his many siblings were excited for Christmas, and his father, being someone who was allergic to joy and joyful situations, threatened: “If you guys don’t knock it off and focus, I’m gonna buy you all coal for Christmas.” And in typical Bruce fashion, he did.

That Christmas morning, everyone, including Alfred, was treated to a lump of coal. Bruce even lined everyone up in front of the tree, disappointment and annoyance on every face as he took a family photo.

“Say Christmas cheer!” Bruce grinned, pleased with his prank.

“Fuck you, Bruce,” Jason frowned with his middle finger displayed.

“That is definitely next year’s Christmas card.”

Sadly, Damian could recall how his mother’s approach to the holidays was not any better.

“How bad are we talking?” Raven asked, as Damian helped her clean up after dinner.

Damian thought back to a time when he was still very young and somewhat impressionable.

“I told her I knew Santa was not real, nor was the Tooth Fairy… But hoped the Easter Bunny was…”

“Oh my God,” Raven mused, thinking of her husband’s childish notion and the sheer innocence he begged her not to dash. “I’m afraid to know what she said?”

“I can still remember the look on her face as if it were yesterday: pure confusion settling in the lines of her expression while what little motherly instinct she had, battled with her warrior complexities. And for a moment, I think she might have felt for my childishness?... Or maybe it was just resentment?”

“So what did she say?”

“She said and I quote: ‘Let me ask you this, my son. Why would you assume a rabbit that lays eggs, a biological impossibility, is more probable than an obese man with flying reindeer that can fit down a chimney?’ Those were her exact words.”

“What did you do?”

“Said nothing and walked away.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Raven replied, recognizing the trace amounts of devastation that stayed with him all those years, as did many of his childhood memories. And with that, she could begin to understand why Damian struggled to embrace such childish traditions, even for his own children.

“Anyway, we can buy our kids the pointless Elf…”

Raven smiled up at her husband, “Despite all you have endured, you really are a wonderful father. Our kids are lucky to have you, Dami.” She kissed him in a loving, grateful way. Even through all his faults, he still always did right by their family and she couldn’t have loved him more.

“Also, be warned,” Damian added. “If I catch you competing with Sandsmark and Danvers for who comes up with the most creative hiding places and posts it on Instagram, I’m gonna burn the thing.”

“I’ll burn myself,” Raven laughed. “Plus, I have a feeling I’m gonna forget to move it more than a few times and be forced to take a page out of Rose’s book.”

“You’re gonna tell them the Elf is a lazy freeloader?”

“Yeah pretty much.”

“Just emphasize the freeloading part and I’m completely on board.”

“MOOOOMMMM! DAAAAAAAD!” their children screamed as Alfred faintly explained in the background that’s not what he meant by get your parents.

“We’re being summoned,” Raven said sarcastically.

“Just for that we should make them wait.”

Raven shook her head. “Just a few more hours and they go to bed. Until then, let’s just get through this visit… together.”

“Together,” he repeated and locked his hand in hers, recalling the moment on the Ferris wheel when he knew she was the one. And as the years went on, it didn’t matter that they’d reversed the order, conceiving a child out of wedlock (his mother loved that). They were a little in over their heads, but they had each other, and from that moment, Damian wanted nothing more than to marry her. However, that was a slight contention, as Raven insisted they wait until after the baby was born: to Damian’s greatest horror. He refused to let his children grow up like they did. Which led him to conspire with an unlikely group of allies, his mother, who was on the same page, as her own regrets led the charge. As well as Alfred, who could not pass up aiding in such a romantic gesture. Damian’s father, who recognized he’d succeeded in raising his son a man. And his brother Dick, who loved Damian and Raven more than words could describe and was essential in rallying the troops. So that Christmas, once Raven was just past her third trimester, Damian did the absolutely unthinkable and put together a surprise wedding. Nothing big; he just gifted her a white cocktail dress and asked her to wear it that night, then officially proposed to her outside the manor as a gentle snowfall flurried around them. When she said “yes” and they shared their moment and Damian began setting the rest of his plan into motion.

“So you really wanna spend the rest of your life with me?”

“Yes,” Raven smiled and kissed him, the white snow clinging to her coal black hair.

“And have all seven of my children?”

“Let’s just see if we survive one,” she laughed as he took her face in his hands.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he smiled and looked into her eyes. “I know you want to wait until after the baby comes, and I understand. But I just don’t see the point in waiting to start our life together when it already has.”

“I suppose you’re right… I know how important it is that our baby doesn't grow up without either of us.”

“And I know how important it is to you that our children grow up with parents that are good role models. So if that's what we both want, why wait?” He kissed her again as he brushed the hair off her face and chose his next words very carefully. “If you had no choice but to marry me today, would you?”

“Yes,” Raven grinned with no hesitation.

“Good,” Damian grinned, “because I’m about to hold you to that,” and revealed the rest of his plan: only their closest friends and family were there while Alfred officiated the wedding. The two of them vowing to love and protect each other for a lifetime and more. And that said, Raven officially became Mrs. Damian al Ghul-Wayne… Well, it was official the next day when they went to the courthouse and got a marriage license, but that didn’t sound romantic enough. Oh well.

So even if Damian was never a big fan of Christmas, he loved his wife and that was what Christmas eventually became for them: a time of family and love, and that was what mattered. And as long as he had her and their children, nothing else mattered.

“You kids’ ready for your surprise!” Bruce asked, the two boys jumping up and down as he gave them the gift to open.

The two boys ripped the wrapping paper to shreds, like two lions ripping into a gazelle, and to their glee, declared, “It’s an Elf on The Shelf!”

Damian immediately looked at his father and shook his head. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”

“It’s what they wanted,” Bruce smiled.

“I mean, if nothing else, now I don’t have to buy the stupid thing… and they’re happy,” he added under his breath. His children may have driven him crazy from time to time, but he loved them more and genuinely wanted them to be happy in life.

“I still can’t believe you allow them to partake in this foolishness.”

“Shut up, Mother,” Damian replied, to her shock.

“And you wonder why I never married you,” Bruce mumbled under his breath.

“Excuse me?” Talia glared.

“Nothing... You wanna get a drink after this?"

Damian shook his head; sadly he knew his parents loved each other on some strange level, but was grateful his relationship with Raven was nothing like theirs. And in that moment, he knew he couldn’t pass up his opportunity. He stepped to the Christmas tree and pulled a small box out he’d hidden on the mantle.

“I was going to wait until Christmas to do this, but… I don’t know, now feels like the right time,” he said and got down on one knee.

“What are you doing?”

“Reliving the best decision I ever made.” He opened the box, revealing Raven’s original engagement ring he’d had reset with her wedding bands. “Raven, my beloved wife, will you marry me... again?”

Raven looked around at the life they’d built together. Was it perfect? No, but that’s what made it so meaningful and worth living together. And at the end of the day, she had her husband to lean on. Whether it was his mother degrading her out of jealousy that she led a life she never had with his father, or days she felt like the world was out to get her. Her husband may have had his flaws, but he loved her more than anything, and she could more than feel it when he gathered her up in his arms.  

“If I had to do it all again, I would… yes,” she replied with tears in her eyes and a smile on her face.

Damian slipped the new gold ring on her finger and rose to meet her in a loving kiss. Alfred politely clapped with a smile; he never thought in a million years that Damian would be the one to have such a well adjusted family. Also, recalling that it wasn’t easy for him to get there and without Raven (or her patience), he may have never become the man he had. It was then he knew he had to give a toast.

“I know I don’t say this enough, but I cannot begin to say how happy I am for the both of you, but more so Master Damian. When he first showed up in his father’s charge, he was, at best, an insufferable lad with a bratty sense of self entitlement that I not only DID NOT care for, but resented. Needless to say, he was my least favorite Robin…”

“Watch it, Pennyworth?”

“My point exactly,” Alfred sang and continued. “However, throughout the years, that changed. That selfish, angry boy that once sulked the halls of Wayne Manor met a young lady and she helped him understand what trust and friendship meant. And through each other’s patience and guidance, you both grew and together have become a solid unit. I am forever grateful to whatever force in the universe brought you together. Congratulations!”

Raven with a tear in her eye, wrapped her arms of around the old butler and thanked him: Alfred the grandfather she never had. While Bruce and Damian also shared a rare hug.

“I’m really proud of you,” his father whispered briefly.

“Let’s not get overly emotional,” Damian replied, but let his facade break. “But I appreciate it, thank you.”

Talia not going as far, as "overly emotional" meant finding someone’s head in your bed God Father style, because no one fucks with that bitch and lives to not regret it, but that is far besides the point. There might be a story there. I’ll let you be the judge; if so send me the head canon: I’m open. Anyhow, with my rant over for the time, Talia, in her stoic manner, let Raven know she approved of her… over other choices?

“Congratulations dear, I would like to take this moment to just say that I know I’m hard on you, but it’s only because I realize that I could have been far more present as a mother and well… I really am happy you’re married to my son… Especially given the narrow options I could have been faced with. I don’t know where Damian would be if he ended up with that righteous blonde, or the one with the bad makeup?”

“Thank you, Talia,” Raven replied, though she was struggling to understand if it really was a compliment or a consolation admission. Like: Uh she’s nice enough; at least she doesn't dress like every regret her father ever had... Or as Jason referred to the fling: Damian’s I hate my mom and dad phase!

“At least Raven has yet to awaken to a severed head in her bed,” Damian smiled as he looked back at his loving wife, never wanting to be without her.

“And I plan on keeping it that way.” Which Talia much appreciated, as serving one’s head was a timely process, plus then you gotta get rid of the rest of the body, but we’re not gonna go into that.

Later that night they put their kids to bed, but not before placing the long awaited (trust me, you can wait) Elf on its prospective shelf. Where it would inevitably move from under the cover of night and find a new shelf… Seriously, whoever came up with this I hope your soul burns in Hell. Like really? How am I ever gonna remember that shit?

“That thing is so creepy,” Damian mused over his wine as the Elf’s soulless eyes peered through him. Leading him to realize how much he hated dolls.

“Yeah it’s definitely not anything I’d want to find on my nightstand.”

“I don’t understand why kids like it so much.”

“They probably think it’s cute,” Raven dismissed, and she nestled against her husband’s chest.

“So when do you want to do our vow renewal?”

“Not Christmas,” Raven laughed. “I’d like a day when we can focus on ourselves and not everything else.”

“Yeah, I definitely didn’t think about that,” Damian hummed, not realizing their anniversary would be shared with so many holiday events it was hard for them to even think of themselves on their own anniversary. “So Christmas in July?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Raven replied. “I can’t wait to pick out my own wedding dress that you’re not gonna be allowed to see and that I’m not gonna be knocked up wearing.”

“That second part can still change.”

“Or you could just get a vasectomy,” Raven said dryly. “I mean you still have two more weeks before Christmas there’s still time?”

Damian chuckled recalling the week prior when he asked his wife what she wanted for Christmas. “You getting a vasectomy.”

“Very funny, Beloved.”

“You’re the only one laughing.”

“I’m just gonna get you a tennis bracelet,” he smiled pulling back from the memory. Though he was realizing that three kids was enough. “But who knows, maybe I’ll surprise you.”

Raven rolled her eyes, unsure which direction that comment was meant to go. “Just remember you have to send these little terrorists to college.”

“Let’s see if they make it that far, I mean I’ve died several times at this point.”

“Yet here you are.”

“Hey, I told you Beth’s struggle is real. I could very well be a clone?”

“Well whether or not you’re a clone, I still love you… Even if Death herself will not have you, you are that insufferable.”

“Yet you suffer me just fine,” he grinned.

“I’m well trained in that matter,” she teased up at him. “That’s why I’m Mrs. Damian Wayne.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way." He pulled her lips to his and took her in a tender and long awaited embrace. She was very much a part of him, a part he couldn’t live without that made him whole. Not just as a man, but a person. For a time he feared he wasn’t good enough for her, that he was not capable, and undeserving of that sort of love. It didn’t matter that she was his closest friend, his fear of losing her kept them apart for many years. But in the end, their bond prevailed and nothing could keep them apart… well nothing but maybe their own children.

“What are you guys doing?” asked the voice of a suspicious child.

Damian and Raven stopped mid kiss and glanced over at the peering eyes of the sons: Liam with his arms crossed disapprovingly, much like his father, and Rami with his stuffed puppy named Titus after their late dog. Yes, unfortunately Titus passed away because Great Danes have really short life spans. But you should know he led a full life and lived to the ripe old age of 12, which is ancient for a great Dane. We should also note that Damian still isn’t ready to get another dog, but regrets letting Raven get a cat... Especially after what it did to the Christmas Tree.

“Nothing either of you need to be privy to,” Damian replied with contempt.

“We’re just hugging, Sweetie,” Raven added.

Liam’s stare hardened in a way that reminded Damian of himself and knew he'd resent whatever came out of his mouth. “Last time you guys hugged like that, Mother ended up with Ari in her belly.”

Raven could feel the deep shade of red bloom on her face as Damian inwardly said, Sometimes I could kill my own children.

“What are you two doing out of bed?” he asked out loud.

“We wanna see the elf move,” Rami said from behind his stuffed puppy.

“Aww,” Raven giggled as this display was actually adorable.

“That’s not how it works,” Damian said with an eyes roll, annoyed, but begrudgingly heart warmed as well. “It only moves while you’re asleep.”

“Can’t we outsmart it?” Liam asked.

“No.”

“But it’s an elf, how smart can it be?”

“It’s not smart, it’s magic,” Damian droned, “Now go back to bed before the elf tells Santa to bring both of you nothing but coal.”

“He wouldn’t really do that?” Liam challenged with doubtful scowl.

“You wanna find out?” his father threatened.

They didn’t answer and bolted back to their beds as Raven and Damian followed to tuck them in. It was then their father told them of the time he’d received coal for Christmas and that he had the photographic to prove it. Thanks Father.

Once the children were tucked safely in their beds with the door closed, Raven and Damian returned to the couch where they sat with a plop.

“Sometimes I could kill our own children,” Raven sighed and sipped her wine.

“I second that notion,” Damian replied, glaring at the elf who’s invasive stare seemed to be undressing them. “That thing is unsettling.”

“Yeah, the more I drink the creepier it gets,” she noted as Damian rose from the coach. “What are you doing?”

“Moving the elf.”

Raven watched as her husband turned the elf around so as not to face them any longer. Only to turn with a smirk on his face. “I like the way you think, Wayne.”

“Of course you do, that’s why we’re married.”

“Don’t get too full of yourself,” Raven chuckled as he made his way back to the couch.  

“Funny, since you’re the one who’s about to be full of me,” he snickered, giving her a warm kiss.

“You really just said that?” Raven laughed as her husband crawled on top of her and laid a trail of hot kisses down her neck.

“I did, and I regret nothing,” he purred in her ear.

“Me either.”

And on that note, I’ll leave you with goodnight and Happy Holidays to all… Also fuck whoever created Elf on Shelf: You SUCK!

[comedicreliefonlyworkswhenfunny]

I am against the "Americanization" of fandoms.

What this applies to

Holding non American characters (and sometimes even fans) to an American moral standard. This includes

Refusing to take into account that, first things first, America is NOT the target audience, so certain tropes that would or would not pass in the west are different in Japan.

Like seriously, quite a few of the jokes are just not going to pass or hit, because they require background information that is not universal.

Assuming all American experience is standard. (This could mean watering down just how much pressure is placed on Japanese youth irl by saying that sort of thing is universal (while it is, to a degree, Japanese suicide rates are pretty fucking high because of how fast paced and work heavy some of their loads tend to be), and it's really annoying and rude when someone is trying to speak out about how heavy and harsh the standards are placed on them to succeed just for some American whose mom occasionally yells at them to do their homework dropping by to say "it's like that everywhere")

Demonizing (or wubbifying) a character using American morals, including and up to harassing fans over their interpretations or gatekeeping whether or not a character "should" get development (while you shouldn't do that fucking period, it's rude and annoying- this is specifically for the people who use American standards without acknowledging the cultural gap between them and, you know, the fucking target audience) ((Like seriously, saying "It's different in Japan" is not the end all be all excusing someone's actions, but sometimes the author didn't immediately think that maybe (insert vaguely universal thing) was that bad or that heavy of a topic before they put it into their media. If you don't want to see things like that? Pick a different series and stop harassing the fans))

Getting mad at or making fun of Japan's attempts to satirize their own culture. (A good example is Ace Attorney! To most of us, it's just a funny laugh can you imagine if courts were actually like that- guess what? Japan's are! (Not that America's are actually that much better, they just look good on paper))

Making America/American issues the center of your fan spaces

(Usually without sharing or bringing light to the issues that other countries are going through)

Your

Experiences

Are

Not

Univseral!

Seriously, very few things across America, even, are universal. Texas things the hundreds are nothing while Minnesota's like "oh it's only thirty degrees below zero"- so for fucks sake, stop assuming that all other countries work in ways similar to America.

It's good and important to share Ameican issues with your American followers, but guess what? America isn't the only country out there, and it's certainly not the only one going through bullshit. Don't pull shit like "why's no one reblogging this?" or "why should I care about what's happening in (X country)?"

Don't assume everyone lives in America.

Stop assuming everyone lives in America.

America is not and has never been the target audience for anime, and it's certainly not the only country outside of Japan that enjoys it.

Like I said above, sometimes Japan attempts to satirize its own culture. We can't tell what is and isn't meant as satire, because it's not our culture.

Social media activism can be tiring and maybe you don't have the energy to focus on things that are out of your control, but, if someone tells you about the shit they're going through, don't bring American politics up.

For the neurodivergent crowd out there thinking, "But why?" it's because a lot of social media, especially, is very heavily Americanized- sometimes to the point where people assume that everyone is American. Not to mention, it's disheartening. I'm sorry to say, but you're not actually relating to the conversation, you're often diverting the focus away from the topic at hand. Even if you mean well, America is heavily pedestaled and talked about frequently, and people from other countries are tired of America taking precedent over their own issues.

Don't divert non-American issues into American ones. Seriously. It's not your place. Please just support the original issue or move on.

Racist Bullshit

This especially goes for islanders and South Asian characters, as well as poc characters (because, yes, Japan DOES have black people)

Making "funny" racist headcanons. Not fucking cool.

Changing the canon interpretation of an explicit character of color in order to fit racist stereotypes.

Whitewashing or color draining characters. Different artistic skill sets can be hard, yes, but are you seriously going to look at someone and say "I don't feel like accurately portraying you or people that look like you, because it's difficult for me." If someone tries to correct you on your cultural depiction of a character and/or their life style, don't be an ass. (If possible, it would be nice for those that do the corrections to be polite as well, but it does get really frustrating).

Seriously, no offense guys, but, if you want to persue art, you're going to need to learn to depict different body types, skin colors, and/or ethnic features.

On that note, purposefully, willingly, or consistently inaccurately portraying people or characters of color (especially if someone in the fandom has "called you out" or specifically told you that what you're doing comes across as racist and you continue to do it). If you need help or suck at looking things up, there are references for you! Ask your followers if they have tutorials on poc (issue that you're having), whether it be bodily portrayal, facial proportions, or coloring and shading. Art is so much more fun when you can depict a wider variety, and guess what? Before you drew the same skinny, basic, white character over and over, you couldn't even draw that!

Attempting or claiming to DEPECT CULTURAL ACCURACY within a work or meta, while being completely fucking wrong. ESPECIALLY and specifically if someone calls you out, and you refuse to fix, correct, or change anything.

*little side note that the discussion revolving art is a very multilayered conversation, and it has quite a few technical potholes, which I'll bring up again farther into this post.

Fucking history

Stop demonizing or for absolute fucks sake wubbifying Japanese history because UwU Japan ♡0♡ or bringing up shit like "you know they sided with Nazis, right?" It's good to recognize poor past decisions, but literally it's not your country keep your nose out of it. And? A lot of decisions made by countries were not made by their general peoples. Even those that were, often involved heavy propaganda that made them think what they were doing was right.

Seriously, it's not your country, not your history. Unless you have some sort of higher education (but honestly even then a lot of those contain heavy bias), just don't butt in.

^^^ this also goes to all countries that are NOT Japan (specifically when people from non American countries talk about their history while in fandoms and someone wants to Amerisplain to them why "well, actually-"). When we said, "question your sources," we didn't mean "question the people who know better than you, while blindly accepting the (more than likely biased) education you were given in the past."

What this does NOT include:

Fanfiction

FANfiction

FanFICTION

FANFICTION.

Seriously, fanfiction is literally UNPAID WORK from RANDOM FANS- a lot of which who are or have started as kids. ((No, I'm not trying to excuse racist depictions of people just because they're free, please see above where I talk about learning to grow a skill and how it's possible tone bad and get good, on top of the fact that some inaccuracies are not just willful ignorance))

"Looking it up" doesn't work

"Looking it up" almost never works

Please, for fucks sake, you know that most all online search engines are heavily biased, right? Not to mention, not everything is universal across the entirety of Japan. You want to look up how the school system works in Hokkaido? Well it's different from the ones in Osaka!

Most fanfiction is meant to be an idealized version of the world. Homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, and racism are very prevalent and heavy topics that some fan authors would prefer to avoid. (Keep in mind, this is also used by some people in those minorities often because thinking about how relevant those kinds of things are is to them every day).

A lot of shit that happens in writing is purely because it's an ideal setting. I've seen a few arguments recently about how fan authors portray Japanese schools wrong- listen, I can't tell you how many random school systems I have pulled from my ass purely because (I need them to interact at these points, in these ways). Sometimes the only compliment I can think of is 'I like your shirt' or sometimes I need character A to realize that character B likes the same thing as they do, so I might ignore the fact that most all Japanese schools require uniforms, so that I can put my character in a shirt that will get someone else's attention.

Sometimes it's difficult to find information on different types of systems, and sometimes when you DO know those things, they directly rule out a plot point that needs to happen (like back on the topic of schools (from what I've seen/heard/read- which guess what? Despite being from multiple sources, might still be inaccurate!) Japanese schools don't have mandatory elective classes (outside of like gym and most of them usually learn English or another language- I've seen stuff about art classes? But the information across the board varies.), but, if I need my character to walk in and see someone completely in their element, I'm probably not going to try and gun for accuracy or make up a million and two reasons as to why this (non elective) person would possibly need something from (elective teacher) after school of all things.)

Some experiences ARE universal- or at least overlap American and Japanese norms! Like friends going to fast food places after school doesn't /sound Japanese/ or whatever, but it's not like a horrible inaccuracy to say that your characters ate at McDonald's because they were hungry. Especially when you consider that the Japanese idolization of American "culture" is also a thing.

Also I saw someone complaining about how, in December, a lot of (usually westerners) write Christmas fics! Well, not only are quite a few of those often gift fics, with it being the season if giving and all, but Japanese people do celebrate Christmas! Not as "the birth of Christ," but rather as a popularized holiday about gift giving (also pst: America isn't the only place that celebrates Christmas)

But, on that note, sometimes things like Holidays are "willfully ignorant" of what actually happens (I've made this point several times, but (also this does by no means excuse actual racism)), because, again: plot convenience! Hey what IF they celebrated Halloween by Trick or Treating? What if Easter was a thing and they got to watch their kids or younger siblings crawl around on the ground looking for tiny plastic eggs?

Fanfiction authors can put in hours of work for one or two thousand words- let alone ten thousand words, fifty thousand words, a hundred thousand words. And all of these are free. There is absolutely no (legal) way to make money off of their fanworks, but they spent hours, days, weeks, months- sometimes even years- writing. It is so unnecessary to EXPECT or REQUIRE them to spend even more hours looking up shit that, no offense, almost no one is going to notice. No one is going go care that all of my combini prices are accurate or that I wrote a fic with a Japanese map of a train station that I had to backwards search three times to find an English version that I could read.

Not everyone has the attention span or ability to spend hours of research before writing a single word. Neurodivergent people are literally a thing yall. Instead of producing the perfectly pretty accurate version of Japan that people want to happen, what ACTUALLY happens is that the writer reads and reads and reads and either never finds the information they need or they lose the motivation to write.

^^^ (This does NOT apply to indigenous or native peoples, like Pacific Islanders or tribes that exist in real life. Please make sure that you portray tribal minorities accurately. If you can't find the information you need (assuming that the content of the series is not specifically about a tribe), please just make one up (and for fucks sake, recognize that a lot of what you've been taught about tribal practices, such as shit like human sacrifices or godly worship, is actually just propaganda.)

Not to mention, it often puts a wall in front of readers who would then need to pull up their OWN information (that may or may not be biased) just in order to interact with the fic ((okay, this one has a little bit of arguability when it comes to things like measurements and currency, because Americans don't know what a meter is and no one else knows what a foot is- either way, one of yall is going to have to look up measurements if they want to get a better understanding of the fic)). However, a lot of Americans who do write using 'feet, Fahrenheit, dollars,' also write for their American followers or friends (which really could go both ways).

On a less easily arguable side, most fic readers aren't going to open up a new tab just to search everything that the author has written (re the whole deep topics, not everyone wants to read about those sorts of things, either). Not only are you making it more difficult on the writer, but you're also making it more difficult for the reader who's now wondering why you decided to add in Grandma's Katsudon recipe, and whether or not the details you have added are accurate.

Some series, themselves, ignore Japanese norms! Piercings, hair dye, and incorrectly wearing ones uniform are frowns upon in Japanese schools- sometimes up to inflicting punishment on those students because of it. However, some anime characters still have naturally or dyed blond hair some of them still have piercings or wear their uniforms wrong. Some series aren't set specifically in Japan, but rather in a vague based-off-real-life Japan that's just slightly different (like Haikyuu and all of its different prefectures). Sometimes they're based on real places, but real places that have gone through major changes (like the Hero Academia series with its quirks and shit).

Fandom is not a full time job. Please stop treating it like it is one. Most people in fandoms have to engage in other things like school or work that most definitely take precident over frantically Googling the cultural implications of dying your hair pink in Japan.

Art is also meant to be a creative freedom and is almost always a hobby, so there are a few cracks that tend to spark debate. Like I said, it is still a hobby, something that's meant to be fun (on this note!)

If trying new things and expanding your portfolio is genuinely making you upset, it's okay to take a break from it. You're not going to get it right on the first try and please, please to everyone out there critiquing artists' works, please take this into account before you post things.

I'm sorry to say, but, while it gets frustrating to see the same things done wrong over and over again, some people are genuinely trying. If it matters enough for you to point out, please offer solutions or resources that would possibly help the artist do better (honestly this could be said about a lot of online activism). I get that they should "want" to do better (and maybe they don't and your annoyance towards them is completely justified- again, as I said, if this becomes a repeated offense and they don't listen to or care about the people trying to help them, yeah you can be a bitch if it helps you feel better- just please don't assume that everyone is willfully ignorant of how hurtful/upsetting/annoying a certain way of portraying things is), but also WANTING to do better and ACTUALLY doing better are two different things.

Maybe they didn't realize what they were doing was inaccurate. Maybe they didn't have the right tutorials. Maybe they tried to look it up, but that failed them. Either way, to some- especially neurodivergent artists- just being told that their work is bad or racist or awful isn't going to make them want to search for better resources in order to be more accurate, it's just going to make them give up.

Also! In fic and in writing, no one is going to get it right on the first try. Especially at the stage where we creators ARE merely in fan spaces is a great time to "fuck around and find out", before we bring our willfully or accidentally racist shit into monetized media. Absolutely hold your fan creators to higher standards, but literally fan work has so little actual impact on popular media (and this goes for just about every debate about fan spaces), and constructive criticism as well as routine practice can mean worlds for representation in future media. NOT allowing for mistakes in micro spaces like fandoms is how you get genuinely harmful or just... bad... portrayals of minorities in popularized media that DOES have an impact on the greater public. OR you get a bunch of creators who are too afraid to walk out of their own little bubbles, because what if they get it wrong and everyone turns against them. It's better to just "stick with what they know" (hobbies are something that you are meant to get better at, even if that is a slow road- for all of my writers and artists out there, it does take time, but you will get it. To everyone else, please do speak up about things that are wrong, but don't make it all about what's wrong and please don't be rude. It's frustrating on both ends, so, if you can, please try not to escalate the situation more.)

Anyways, I'm tired of everyone holding fictional characters to American Puritanical standards, but I'm also tired of seeing every "stop Americanizing fandom" somehow loop into fanfiction and how all authors who don't make their fics as accurate as possible are actually just racist and perpetuating or enabling America's take over of the world or some shit.

Fan interpretation of published media is different than fan creation of mon monetized media. Americans dominating or monopolizing spaces meant for all fans (especially in a fandom that was never meant for them to begin with) is annoying and can be harmful sometimes. Americans writing out their own personal experience using random fictional characters (more often than not) isn't.

[absolutelyfuckingferal]

full offense but if the only reason you're showing interest in anne frank's diary is because of the parts where she expresses some interest in women, you're gross.

i've been seeing lots of twitter posts going around with the passage where she talks about women and experiences she's had as a younger child with them. so, especially in a time so close to Holocaust Memorial day, and as a jew, i am taking it upon myself to once again clear things up. because no one fucking listened to the jewish community so many times before when we have said this.

the diary was not published for people to speculate over her sexuality. yes, of course. this should be a given. but the amount of comments i have seen saying "wow she was bi? that makes me want to read it now!" is disgusting. the book was published by her father to show everyone life under nazi regime through a child's eyes. it wasn't made for people to find the left out passages a few years later and THEN suddenly take an interest in her life. if that's your only reason for reading such an important story - just don't. find your representation somewhere else.

debating the labelling of a child's sexuality, a child who you did not know, is wrong on so many levels. she died at the hands of the nazis when was 15. she didn't get a chance to live and work it all out for herself. for people to sit online and debate whether she was "bi" "queer" or "lesbian" is beyond me. ignoring the purpose of the book being published to debate on something that has absolutely nothing to do with you and which doesn't effect you in anyway is completely insensitive and deeply disrespectful to the jewish people who have been telling you for years to stop. it's not what she would want.

anne's father taking the passage out of the originally published diary was not "bigotry" or "straight-washing history". the amount of people who have said horrible things about her father for leaving out the passage is obscene. this was the 1940s, idiots!! there is no way the diary would have been published with the passage left in! and because, (surprise!) the book wasn't about her sexuality, it wad best to leave it out. it was hard enough to get the diary out into the world without the controversial topic of homosexuality included. and seeing the way people are talking about her when the book was republished in its full form, i don't blame him. all this stuff about "she was a homo" "haha she's so gay" "bi-con!!" like? is that really all you're taking from such a soul destroying event? something that ruined her life and then ended it shortly after?

anne frank is not a token for LGBT people to use to make the Holocaust about them. i am a lesbian and i am jewish so before anyone calls me homophobic you can save it. people have said to me "but the nazis killed LGBT people too!!" yes, they did. that in itself is tragic and we should honour those people. however, the Holocaust was the genocide of jews on a much larger scale than any of the other groups of people. that includes the LGBT community. secondly, the nazis didn't know she had shown an interest in women. she died because she was jewish and because of that only. she had to hide out for years for existing AS A JEW. not a woman who wrote about women a few times in a journal. she is not someone who's sexuality was known, and no one was prejudice towards her because of it. never.

her sexuality just didn't matter. at all. that's a key point here. it just doesn't matter and it never has. she died before she could work it out. no one knew. she's dead and can't decide now. no one can do it for her. that's as simple as i can put it. it just doesn't matter anymore. to read the full diary and conclude that she was gay or bi or queer over everything else, or to want to read it because she might have been is completely missing the whole point. it can even be seen to be deep rooted in anti-semitism. the point was that she was jewish. at the end of the day that's all that mattered to her, her family, the nazis and her entire life's end. let her rest.

read the book to educate yourself on anti-semitism and the absolute nightmares people like my family had to go through. read it to realise that anne wasn't happy at the end of her life. right until the end. read it to realise that otto frank had to come back to the place he last saw his family and read through that diary, knowing he was the only survivor and could never see anne again to talk to her about it. realise that he published FOR her. she wanted to be a writer. not your queer icon or gay rights advocate. read it to make sure it never happens again. read it to honour the dead. not everything has to be about you. not everything has to be about being LGBT. listen to us jews when we tell you this.

[gerec]

So I've just finished reading the solo Magneto (2014) 21 issue series and let me tell you it is wild and hella dark lol. And I have discovered so many new things about comics!Magneto including the following random gems{SPOILERS OBVS - also it's all kinda gruesome}:

- If you are a doctor/researcher/scientist who has helped mutant hate groups than Magneto will happily replace your fillings with road signs shoved (impaled!) down your throat

- Even somewhat de-powered (something something Phoenix Force he's lost a lot of his raw power) he kicks all kinds of bloody ass with a handful of nails (or barbed wire, or the bladed head of a windmill, or etc)

- A single paperclip embedded in the palm under the skin and slowly making its way up the arm is an effective way to ensure cooperation from a scientist turning test subjects into human/sentinel hybrids

- Keeps a computerized memorial wall of thousands of mutants killed by humans, in a secret bunker in the Adirondacks

- Will chop the arms AND legs off a mutant (Greycrow, a Marauder clone of Sinister's) who mass murdered other mutants to teach him a lesson about turning on your own kind

- If you are a hot, human female who stalks Magneto he will definitely threaten you with your own metal leg brace, then, sleep with you when you prove to be useful by providing him with information and resources to go after anti-mutant hate groups, then, threaten you again by casually throwing you around the room until you tell him the 'real' reason you're helping him...

- ...And it turns out the real reason is you were a victim of one of his rampages as a teen and that's why you're wearing that leg brace, but also, you're part of a sub-culture of people who are "fans" of world-threatening villains and his powers/violence just turns you on???

- Will inject you with a Mutant Growth Hormone and turn you into a mutant for a few seconds just so that he can feed you to the giant mutant killing dog beasts that have been killing innocent mutants in your 'fighting ring'

- S.H.I.E.L.D. is somehow both useless and over-confident when dealing with a de-powered Magneto, not bothering to question why he would willingly turn himself in, thereby letting him on their Helicarrier so he could destroy their Cerebro knockoff (based on stolen tech obvs) and their (definitely not legal) database of mutants.

- Also their lead agent tells Magneto (Magneto! to his FACE!) that she doesn't really care about all the mutants that have been murdered left and right by hateful humans because her job is to bring Magneto in (for killing all those hateful humans murdering mutants). I am amazed at the self control shown by Erik Lehnsherr for not tearing her damn head off with his bare hands.

- More proof that 'Magneto is right' is actually true sometimes when he murders the shit out of Red Skull and drops a ton of bricks on his head for a) turning the ruins of Genosha into a mutant death camp and b) stealing a part of poor dead Charles Xavier's brain and grafting it to his own. Really unfortunate that Wanda and Rogue are there to poo poo him killing murderous Nazis and telling him he's bad for killing murderous Nazis jesus fucking wept. (Sadly the death doesn't stick).

- Turns out one of the mutant prisoners he rescues has a power that turns your nightmares real and it ends up turning Mag's Nazi boogeyman into a real life serial killer that goes on a murdering spree in the new refuge he builds on Genosha. The only way to get rid of it is if the original mutant who brought it to life dies (because she can't control it or stop it and once it's created it's un-killable by conventional means) so Mags...kills the mutant (with her blessing natch) just before the dream Nazi murders his human girlfriend (yikes).

- The series ends with him 'dying' while trying to save Earth from colliding with a parallel Earth because the barrier between realities is breaking down and he's fighting off massive Sentinels from the other 'Earth' while siphoning all of his own Earth's magnetic force (which is slowly giving him tiny aneurysms) to repel the other world and he's inner monologuing the whole time and he comes to some sort of epiphany about his legacy and than his final actual words are:

"Ah...Charles...Why didn't I see?"

It is all incredibly extra and I highly recommend 10/10 satellites!!!

[sineala]

Your meta on 616 Tony's political affiliation was very well thought out and insightful! I was wondering if marvel ever did a comic storyline that was supposed to be an allegory for the iraq/afghanistan wars and if so, what positions tony and steve took? Like how the nixon alien thing was an allegory for watergate. Have the comics ever touched on the middle east wars? Do we know steve or tony's thoughts on those wars? Thanks!

The thing about modern Marvel comics is that they really, really don’t like to touch real-world politics.

The Secret Empire/Nomad thing was exceptional precisely because it is clearly supposed to be a take on Watergate -- and, IIRC, in the letters column Marvel tried to assert that it was not Nixon. They did publish it, yeah, but also they immediately disavowed it.

Sure, sometimes comics can’t not deal with major events -- JMS has a (as far as I know) very well-regarded Spider-Man issue about 9/11, but Marvel Comics are set in New York and they kind of had to say something about that one.

But for the most part, they just... don’t. I know this might be hard to believe given that Captain America Comics #1 has Captain America slugging Hitler right on the cover, published back before the US entered WWII and explicit anti-fascism was actually still a controversial position. But that was then and this is now, and as far as I can tell, mostly they just try to avoid telling stories that would explicitly interact with real-world politics in controversial ways.

And yeah, I know that Tony’s origin story was originally set during the Vietnam War and that he was an arms manufacturer during the Vietnam War. But in 1964 or so, this was not the controversial position that it became later. As the war became more and more unpopular, fans wrote in basically begging them to make Tony change. And, yes, they eventually did. In Iron Man #78, Tony leaves the weapons business. He reflects on how some of the terrible, terrible things he saw in Vietnam have made him commit to peace. It’s a lovely issue. It’s very moving. I recommend it a lot. But do you know when it was published? November 1975. Do you know when the US pulled out of Vietnam? I didn’t, so I just checked. The US officially withdrew in January 1973 and they weren’t all the way out until Saigon fell in April 1975. Marvel Comics did not make Tony stop manufacturing weapons until the Vietnam War was actually, completely over in terms of US involvement.

That’s not really what I would call being unafraid to take a bold, controversial anti-war stance. I’m just saying.

And, sure, once it was over Marvel felt free to tell stories about the war. In 1979, they retconned Rhodey into existence, as a Marine whom Tony met in Vietnam. And in 1986 they introduced Frank Simpson (Nuke), whose entire theme as a character is basically “what if the Vietnam War had really, really fucked Captain America up?” And there’s of course Frank Castle (The Punisher), who, like Tony, has a backstory that was originally tied to Vietnam.  Of course, it isn’t anymore, either.

So because of the way the Sliding Timescale works, pretty much every character who has a war-related backstory other than World War II has had their backstory reworked several times to incorporate whatever war would make the most sense for them to have been in if the modern comics happened right now. As I’m sure you know. So both Tony and Frank Castle have had their backstories altered to various places in the Middle East; off the top of my head, I know it was Afghanistan by the time of Extremis, but it may also have been Afghanistan before then. And as far as I know, they also avoided having characters take a stand on that war, either. Nothing is coming to mind, but if anyone else knows something, feel free to chime in.

Currently, both Tony and Frank Castle have their canonical war origin in a completely fictional war in the completely fictional country of “Siancong.”

(For what it’s worth, Marvel has also been known to publish Armed Forces Editions of their comics, and the PR for the Empyre: Captain America miniseries made a big deal out of the fact that the writer was also active-duty military.)

And, yes, Captain America, because of who the character is, does have more of an opportunity to deal with situations that are political but these days he doesn’t usually get to go very far beyond, like, “Nazis are bad and so is racism and sexism (and sometimes if you’re really lucky, homophobia is also bad).” And if you’ll recall, Mark Waid got in trouble for writing an essay for Marvel Comics #1000 in which Captain America described America as “deeply flawed” and they had him replace it with a different, less controversial essay, and this was, what, two weeks after they told Art Spiegelman that his introduction for a book of Golden Age comics could not compare Trump to the Red Skull? (Still not really sure why they asked Art Spiegelman to write that introduction at all since I would kind of assume they knew what they were getting with him in particular. But apparently not!)

But anyway, yeah, Marvel Comics’ attitude toward explicitly putting politics in comics these days seems to lean toward “just say no.”

[matthiasschoenaertsdaily]

Matthias Schoenaerts full interview for De Morgen Magazine (original in Flemish, translated into English by @matthiasschoenaertsdaily​)

Interview by Els Maes, published on November 28, 2020

Even a global pandemic will not destroy the optimism of actor Matthias Schoenaerts (42). Because he knows from his own experience how much beauty can emerge from the most hopeless situations. "I've had my back against the wall often enough, I'll always find a way out."

A bleak autumn day on a concrete square. There is lukewarm coffee, lukewarm Chimay and rolling tobacco. At dusk we see the silhouettes of fat rats that shoot past our ankles. And yet Matthias Schoenaerts will tell us in a glowing argument that this, here and now, is the very best place to be. That there is so much beauty to discover, he says. Le paradis c'est ici. As long as we want to see it.

"It's strange to say in this unpleasant period, but I've enjoyed the past few months enormously. It's the first time in ten years, since Runskop actually, that I'll be home for a long period of time. This is so beneficial: I am photographing, painting, writing. I can devote time and attention to the very simple things we'd otherwise race past."

"Seriously, look at that," he says, picking a leaf off the ground. "Those colors, that pattern. I can spend hours looking at the pure beauty of the things that surround us."

Above us a pigeon is wreaking havoc between the thinned out foliage. "While you are singing about the wonderful beauty of nature, that animal is going to shit on our heads," I say. "And that too will be a s-p-l-e-n-d-i-d moment," Schoenaerts answers.

Matthias Schoenaerts is Belgium's most successful international film star. But here and now, on a bench in his hometown, he is a technically unemployed actor, an all-round searching artist, but above all: fighter of cynicism. "I refuse to go along with all negativity and fear. The true battle today is cynicism versus courage. And I always choose the latter."

We're on the Oudevaartplaats, the square that everyone knows as the Antwerp Bird Market, and where Schoenaerts' childhood memories are waiting to be picked up. It comes into the conversation just like that: Brando, the cute chow chow that little Matthias got from his mom on this square, when here on the bird market puppies were still sold. "My dogs were my great loves. The home situation was often difficult, and with my dogs I found security. We had three chow chows, those fluffy lion dogs with a blue tongue. Brando was the first, I loved that animal."

"We lived in a small apartment with three dogs, anything but ideal. One day we let them go, to people with a large estate. That was heartbreaking."

There is a beautiful lesson in that, about love and letting go. It would have been selfish to keep your dogs if you could give them a nicer life elsewhere, wouldn't it?

"Absolutely, but I obviously didn't process that departure properly. Brando still appears in my dreams, after all these years. Then he returns home unexpectedly, and am I mad with joy.

"I often dream about my parents too: that reunion is so intensely beautiful and warm. Oh, there you are, finally! Those dreams are true to life, and the awakening is rock-hard."

Is that one of the reasons why you like being here in Antwerp, because here you feel more connected to the people that you loved?

"This is my home, my zero, I can't imagine a place in the world where I would rather live. When my mom was alive, and especially when she got sick, in between filming I tried to be with her as much as possible here in Antwerp. In the meantime I have an apartment here, my first permanent place of my own, but I've hardly been there in recent years. Now I can finally enjoy my home, I find peace, tranquility and inspiration there. I have seen fantastic sunsets on my roof terrace in recent months. So much beauty, and you can just admire it there, every day, for free. As long as you take the time to enjoy it.

"Normally I would have started filming again in April, and left for a hectic ride of at least two years, with projects that would follow each other quickly. I was at my limits, sooner or later I was going to bang my head against the wall. I feel how beneficial it is to slow down for a moment. David Lynch said that: 'Just slow things down and it becomes more beautiful'.

"As an actor you have to work in a big machine, according to a tight schedule. I have now discovered the pleasure of creating things for myself very spontaneously in my own cadence."

Is that work something you ever want to go public with?

"I want to do something with my photography someday, but I'm in no hurry. I'm also writing a film script, I've had an idea for a trilogy for a long time. It's a very personal project, and it takes time for it to crystallize into something very pure and proper. Maybe those films will come within ten years, maybe never.

"The most important thing is to keep busy. You have to look for something, anything, on which you can focus your passion, love and attention. Of course I would like to return to set, and those projects will come back later. But if I can't change anything about a situation, why worry about it?

"From a very young age I learned that there are not many certainties in life, I adapt easily to unexpected circumstances. There is one thing I can't stand, and that is feeling powerless. I never want to be the victim of a situation, I will always think: what can I do myself? Which way can I go? I have often enough stood with my back against the wall, I will always find a way out and take matters into my own hands."

So Schoenaerts decided to use this period to put Zenith - his artist name as a street artist - to hard work. Since the lockdown he has already created nine impressive murals, including one in the courtyard of the Oudenaarde prison, and one at the beginning of this month in the Antwerp Begijnenstraat, on the bare walls that form their furthest horizon for the prisoners. A moving event, he says. Not only by the touching conversations with inmates, and the forty-minute applause with which the prisoners welcomed him. "The mural contains a poem by my father. While I am there painting those beautiful words of my dad on the wall, I suddenly remember that my mom used to give meditation lessons to the prisoners there in the Begijnenstraat. I had completely forgotten about that until I stood there. How beautiful that is. Suddenly I felt my parents very tangible, very close to me."

It's a bit funny: a long time ago you were arrested for graffiti, now they invite you to prison to make a mural.

"I used to tag a lot, but I really don't like the vandalism that sometimes comes with graffiti. Defacing a facade, that's just ridiculous. But trains, bridges, tunnels.... frankly I think that's the max. Soon I'm going to do another oldskool graffiti wall, with some friends, back to the roots. But with permission, yes."

Scary dudes

The problems of the Belgian detention system are well known: outdated infrastructure, overcrowding and a system of pre-trial detention which means that some people are innocently stuck for years. Schoenaerts: "These are human lives that are destroyed by the Belgian state, isn't that scandalous?"

Schoenaerts' engagement started years ago, after meeting Hans Claus, prison director in Oudenaarde, who contacted him when he wanted to organize a screening of Le Fidèle, the film by Michaël R. Roskam starring Schoenaerts. Claus has been fighting for many years for a reform of our detention system, among others with the non-profit organization De Huizen, small-scale centers that are more focused on rehabilitation and reintegration of the detainee. How does Schoenaerts see his role? "Those murals are a kind of lubricant for me, to get attention for this problem. I am not the expert and I am certainly not a politician. This injustice touches me as a human being, and my message is clear: please listen to the people who have been working hard for decades to reform the system from the inside."

In The Mustang, your last feature film to be seen here before the lockdown, you take on the role of a prisoner who learns to tame wild horses and his demons. Has that role changed your vision?

"That rehabilitation program with mustangs really exists, and the chance of recidivism is almost zero percent. I had a conversation in the Begijnenstraat with the minister of Justice Vincent Van Quickenborne (Open Vld, ed.), and he told me that the chance of relapse here is 40 to 50 percent. Isn't that madness?

"That's what fascinates me most of all: what do we do with those detainees while they're stuck? How can we help to break the destructive patterns that put them in prison? Imprisonment is a punishment in itself, but someday we'll send those people back into society, so let's mainly support them in their self-development.

"In preparation for The Mustang, I visited prisons in the U.S., and talked to men who had been detained for 20, 30 years. Heavy guys: Aryan Brotherhood (powerful crime syndicate of neo-Nazis in American prisons, ed.), Mexican gang leaders... real scary dudes. You know what those say to me? That they live in fear every day, but they must not show weakness. Psychological counseling and things like that have their value, but that's often very cerebral. I especially believe in the healing power of art. Imagine that inmates can express all those fucked up emotions through art: I think that there is an enormous potential in this."

I heard you're playing with the idea of giving acting lessons to inmates?

"That's not a concrete plan yet, but I would love it if people from the creative sector would commit themselves to this: musicians, sculptors, dancers. Or writers who help prisoners put their own story into words.

"The cultural sector needs to start sticking its neck out. The sector is lying flat, and that's terrible. But we have to keep moving. We can all do something for the community, without being paid for it. Planting small seeds, doing something good for your fellow man, something beautiful always comes out of it."

Had you been to a prison before The Mustang?

"To visit friends, yes. In Merksplas, Hoogstraten, Hasselt, Dendermonde... We shouldn't talk about that any further. A prison is deep tristesse. Who dares to call that 'a hotel', shame on you."

This summer you painted an impressive mural in Paris in honor of George Floyd, murdered by American officers. And in Ostend last week a new mural was unveiled, with a 'decapitated' Leopold II. Is activism an important part of your street art?

"Graffiti used to be more of a style exercise for me, you want to create things that get noticed within the scene. But gradually I felt like communicating with a wider audience. I like to incorporate a lot of symbolism in my paintings, such as the cracks I photograph all over the world and then magnify them in another place. And the praying hands, a universal image of hope and faith in yourself. Art has the power to speak to our deepest emotions, and that is what binds us to the other. Connectedness, empathy, harmony, solidarity, that's the essence for me."

The corona crisis is one big exercise in empathy and solidarity. Sometimes we seem to lack that.

"I refuse to surrender to cynicism, and I surround myself with positive people who do beautiful things for others. This period would lead us to insights: how do we deal with each other? Do we help each other, or is it every man for himself? A human is such a wonderful creature, but we mess it up so much for ourselves.

"Yeah, I know. Some people who read this will think: this guy is smoking too many joints. (laughs) I don't smoke joints, and I'm not an unworldly idealist. But I will always focus my attention on the good, in spite of everything."

If you always want to see the good in people, are you sometimes disappointed?

"Yes, of course. I'm not a naive brat, I've learned to guard my boundaries. I can't please everyone all the time, and I don't let anyone rush me. I react badly when people put pressure on me because they want things from me. The perception of me that others have of me, I can't control. I don't let myself put out of balance easily anymore."

I saw that on your Instagram Stories you warned about fake profiles on social media, of people pretending to be you. That made you visibly angry.

"Really, that makes me angry. Every day I receive screenshots from people who have been tricked by crooks who approach innocent victims with my name and my pictures. There are stories of fans who have paid thousands of euros because they were promised a meet-and-greet with me. How disgusting is that? One person has transferred 14,000 euros to someone who pretended to be my manager.

"Of course, that raises questions about how gullible some people can be. But I've seen those chat conversations for myself: those criminals are terribly sneaky. They know how to play on the vulnerabilities of their victims in a very cunning way. This is manipulation and swindle of the filthiest kind.

"Really, I get physically unwell when I think about it. How can someone be so mean? If I ever catch these guys, I'm gonna bash their skulls in, I'm not kidding. Sorry."

Or: those crooks get a jail sentence, where you're going to give them acting lessons.

(laughs) "Okay, let it be clear that I think everyone should be punished for their crimes. My commitment to the prison system is not a plea for impunity, and I certainly don't want to romanticize crime.

"But when someone abuses innocent people's trust in such a cunning way, the question is: how did you derail so morally? And above all: how can we initiate a transformation in that person? Surely you can't lock someone up and expect that person to suddenly make better choices years later? First such a person has to take responsibility for his own actions."

Do you have something criminal on your conscience?

"No." (Thinks for a second) "No. Thank God. I couldn't live with that.

"I've probably hurt people in my life, like everybody else. Sometimes we just hurt people because of who we are, or because we can't fulfill what others want from us. But I have never harmed anyone consciously or criminally, no."

As a teenager you sometimes came into contact with the juvenile court, for vandalism. Do you think you could have ended up on the other side of the bars?

"Probably, a life can take strange turns sometimes."

What made you sit here today, and not get on the 'wrong' path?

"Wait... that's a good question. There's the one terrible dramatic event that caused a total turnaround in my life: when my dad went into a coma after a psychosis, and I was told he only had 24 hours left to live.

"I was 21 then, thrown out of school for the umpteenth time. I was doing graffiti and wanted to find my way creatively. But I was messing around, going with friends who... Anyway, there was latent danger, it threatened to go a little bit the wrong way.

"And then I got that phone call: come and say goodbye. Bam. The relationship with my father had been sour for years, we hardly saw each other. Until I stood there at his deathbed in intensive care... I only felt love, a wave of emotions that I had pushed down very deeply. That realization was rock-hard: this was it. My father and I will never get the chance to figure shit out, I thought.

"Long story, the rest is known: after 72 hours my father woke up from a coma against all odds. Like a plant: he could not speak, reacted to nothing or nobody. According to the chief psychiatrist, we had to accept that his condition would never improve. That was without the fighting spirit of my mother and me.

"It's because of that unlikely event that I've changed my whole lifestyle. For eight months, my mother and I went to visit my father every day. We talked to him, but he seemed to look straight through us. For hours we sat with him at the psychiatry department of Stuivenberg, how desperate those first months were also. We continued to fight, taught him to talk, to eat, to walk. A miracle, the doctors called it. Bullshit of course. It was love, dedication and stubbornness. Especially thanks to my mother, the lioness who kept fighting for him. And see how much beauty came out of it. My life then received an entirely different impulse.

"I suddenly think of an anecdote I've never told before. After a while we were allowed to take my father to the cafeteria once in a while, or to the garden. But he was absolutely not allowed to leave the hospital. Fuck it. I hid a bag of clothes for him, secretly dressed him in the toilet and took my father to the city. By bus, because I didn't have a driver's license. I wanted to stimulate his senses, test if any memories would come back. He was fond of Our Lady's Cathedral, so that's where I wanted to take him."

Matthiaske, why am I crying?

He plays it out. The written version here is only a dead script compared to the lived-through performance, right there on that dark square, just around the corner of the Arenbergschouwburg, where Matthias made his stage debut as a 9-year-old boy next to father Julien, as The Little Prince.

Matthias shows how he supported his frail dad, and how they shuffled in small, careful steps towards the cathedral. Dad looking at the ground to be sure not to fall. "I say, 'Dad, look up'. He looks up, and I see the tears rolling down his cheeks. I had never seen my father cry. 'Matthiaske,' he says, 'can you tell me why I'm crying?'

"I had already decided then that I would take my father into my house. Overconfident, yes, at that age, but they have become the most beautiful years of my life. Mom came by every day to help. Suddenly we were a bit of a family again, something we had only been for a short time when I was young."

It was at that time that you decided to become an actor. Why did you decide to become an actor?

"I had always resisted following in my father's footsteps. In my youth I mainly wanted to break away from my father, and seek my own path. I didn't want to have anything to do with him and all those loudmouths around him in the theater world. But most of all I was terrified that compared to the great Julien Schoenaerts I would never be good enough.

"Only now do I understand why I then decided to go to the conservatory. Not to become an actor, but to understand my father. We had so many years together, and now that we had been given a second chance, I wanted to get to know him as well as possible. By acting, maybe I could get closer to him." (pauses)

Sentimental fuss

He banishes the tears. It's one of the many things he has in common with his father, he says: they're both very emotional, but they hate sentimental fuss. "Come on, Matthias: breathe," he commands himself.

"Voilà, see how much beauty can come out of misery. What a chain of beautiful things came out of the fight my mother and I put up in the most hopeless situation. Who knows how differently my life would have turned out?"

"There are so many lessons in that. If we just talked about the rehabilitation of detainees, for example. It takes commitment. Not a workshop of two hours. You have to persevere, even in the event of a setback, with no guarantee of a happy ending. That's why I think it's so important to keep telling that story about my dad. Those are the values I believe in: dedication, stamina, attention, love. You can apply that to everything in life. Love is the fuel."

You often talk about your parents as if you want to keep them alive with your words.

"Because my mom and dad are the people I've loved most. With them I shared the most important moments, built the most beautiful memories. That loss is enormous. Life has been really fucking tough since they've been gone.

"That's what grabs me so much in this period. How many people have died of corona in Belgium?"

According to Google, today, on the day of the interview, the counter stands at almost 14,000 deaths.

"Fourteen thousand! Imagine how many people that has an impact on? How many people have suddenly lost their mother, father, brother, sister, best friend or neighbor? Behind those figures lie tens of thousands of poignant stories, of people who see a loved one torn from their lives. That is a mountain of unresolved grief, and far too little attention is paid to it."

Earlier during our conversation a guy had walked past coughing and maskless. It pissed Schoenaerts off: "And whining about masks or strict measures. Grow some fucking balls. Having to say goodbye to a loved one, that's the worst thing."

"Isn't that what this period teaches us? That our time here is limited? And what really counts in life: sharing moments of beauty with the people you hold most dear. All the rest is wallpaper. Having success, making movies, that's all fun. But the day you lie on your deathbed, you really don't think about the professional successes on your resume. No way."

[pinnithin-writes]

The First: Aftermath (Part 2)

A collaborative work between myself and @reneethecyborg on what happened after Lupin III: The First. Part 2 of 4, 1609 words.

It never ceases to amaze Zenigata how quickly things tend to spiral out of control when the Lupin gang is involved. Just a few days ago, he was staking out a Parisian museum in hopes of preventing Lupin from stealing some old diary with vague ties to his grandfather. The stakeout had sort of worked, excepting Lupin’s usual dramatic escape at the last second. Then radio silence for a day or so, until Lupin popped up again in the middle of Mexico for no clear reason. That’s when things really got complicated, as they almost always do with these people.

While arresting Lupin may be the cornerstone of his career, Zenigata’s primary goal has always been to uphold justice and root out corruption wherever it may lurk—even among his own coworkers, from time to time. With that in mind, it’s not terribly surprising that he often finds himself forming a temporary alliance with the Lupin gang when there’s a greater evil to deal with, and there are few greater evils than the one they’ve come up against this time.

All in all, things seem to have worked out alright. The entirety of the Brazil base’s manpower was either taken into custody or gunned down when Interpol (and the Lupin gang) stormed the place, the Eclipse device was kept out of the wrong hands, and Laetitia Bresson can get on with her life as a bright young woman with a promising career in archaeology to look forward to, finally free of the dark cloud hanging over her.

But something still isn’t sitting right with Zenigata.

He would never admit to giving them a head start—it would sound too much like he’s going soft—but it didn’t seem fair to chase the Lupin gang out on a rail before they had a chance to say goodbye to their new friend. From where Zenigata had been watching on Interpol’s own boat, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice, the whole affair seemed rather subdued. Lupin didn’t perform any of his usual grand gestures of farewell; Laetitia had hugged him, but he ended it fairly quickly and spent most of their conversation on the speedboat, like he was trying to keep a bit of distance between them.

The pursuit didn’t last long, on account of the fact that they could hardly leave Laetitia stranded there on the pier, but what little he saw before cutting the gang loose left a bad taste in his mouth. Again Lupin lacked his usual grandstanding and bravioso—no cheeky waving, no jumping around hurling childish barbs as the speedboat careened off into the sunset.

As a detective, Zenigata’s job is to make inferences based on whatever scraps of information he can wring out of a situation. In this case, the information he has leads to one conclusion: whatever happened on that plane, it didn’t go anywhere near as smoothly as Lupin insisted it would when he originally pitched his plan to destroy the Eclipse personally. There’s other supporting evidence, too; when the plan was originally hashed out, Lupin claimed he would set the Eclipse to destroy itself and then immediately bail out before it could become a danger to him. But when the time came, nobody saw him at all until long after the plane had begun to consume itself, and even then he didn’t have his parachute.

Something went wrong up there, Zenigata’s sure of it. If he had to guess, he would suppose that Geralt wasn’t as much of a pushover as Lupin seemed convinced he would be. They probably fought—or rather, Geralt fought while Lupin danced around making a fool of himself. Given the nature of Lupin’s scheme, it would stand to reason that Geralt might have come at him with everything he had. People tend to abandon all pretense when their ideology and life’s work goes up in smoke before their eyes. With that in mind, it’s very likely that Lupin took a beating before he could get away. That would explain his behavior after the fact, if he were injured.

Of course, there’s not really anything Zenigata can do about his theory, regardless of whether he turns out to be right. Going back for Laetitia meant he had absolutely no chance of catching the Lupin gang, or even tracking where they might have gone; he’s got a hunch they’re still somewhere in Brazil, but that’s not enough to work with. And there’s still all the logistics and busywork that come after a caper like this—reports to write and fact-check and edit, charges to file against the surviving Nazis, favors to cash in so Laetitia can make her way back to France (and then, shortly, to Boston) without too much hassle.

Zenigata is going to be up to his neck in paperwork for the rest of the month making sure this mess is sorted out properly and without any mistakes, and that’s assuming everything goes smoothly when it comes to filing charges. He’d like to believe his annoyance at being chained to his desk is purely a result of not being able to hunt down the Lupin gang after having no choice but to let them slip away, but he’d be lying to himself. The truth of the matter is that he’s worried, and there’s nothing to be done about it now except grind through the paperwork and wait to see if they resurface any time soon.

Just as Zenigata’s considering calling it quits for the night, his desk phone rings. That in itself isn’t terribly unusual, but everybody who’s needed to speak with him about today’s chaos has come to him directly—the building’s internal lines have been tangled up for hours with all the cross-department communication. It must be someone from outside the building, then, and Zenigata has a strong hunch who it might be. “Inspector Zenigata,” he says automatically.

“It’s Jigen.”

That’s what Zenigata was hoping for. “I’m not going to bother asking where you are.” Jigen would never say, and it would be impossible to trace the call before he loses his patience and hangs up. Besides, he’s almost certainly calling from a payphone, and that’s only marginally more useful information than ‘probably somewhere in Brazil’.

“Good. Saves us some time.” He sounds about as terse as usual—his gruff demeanor doesn’t translate well to phone conversations—but there’s something else there. Maybe he’s tired. “Just wanted to let you know we made it to dry land.”

Well, that’s good. Pretty vague reassurance, though. “And you’re all alright?” He can’t be blamed for probing a bit. It’s basically his job.

A brief pause. Not a good sign. “We’re all alive, if that’s what you mean.” Definitely not a good sign. Jigen sighs, or maybe it’s just static on the line. “Look, pops, I’ll level with you. Lupin’s not doing too hot. He’ll live,” he adds hastily, cutting off any possible miscommunication.

So Zenigata’s hunch was right. It’s no victory, all things considered. “How bad is it?”

Another pause, though this one is less loaded. “Not as bad as it could’ve been. He didn’t get shot this time, for once.” Lupin had mentioned his plan to palm Geralt’s bullets before they disembarked. Sounds like he pulled it off. “But that prick really did a number on him. Broke some ribs, fucked up his arm. Nearly crushed his throat, looks like.”

Zenigata finds himself gripping the receiver more tightly as he imagines what might have happened to cause those injuries, anger bubbling into his chest. Lupin may be a criminal, but nothing he’s done would ever warrant such brutality. “And you and Goemon, you two have it under control?” If they needed a proper doctor, Zenigata might find himself too busy to notice any reports that might come in regarding notable patients in the area. He’s got a lot of work to do, after all.

“I think so. It’ll mostly just take rest. Lots of rest.”

“Are you sure you can make that happen? Lupin won’t like it.”

“We’ll chain him down if we have to.” Jigen says it flatly, but there’s a hint of humor under there.

The situation must not be too dire, if he’s able to crack jokes. “Well, thanks for telling me. I really appreciate it, Jigen.” He won’t admit that he’s been fretting since he had to make the call to turn the boat around.

“No problem. It’s what Lupin would want, anyway.” Jigen pauses again; there’s a faint tapping noise, like he’s drumming his fingers on the receiver a little too close to the mouthpiece. “Pops, do yourself a favor. Take a vacation once you’re done cleaning up the Nazi mess. We’re not gonna let Lupin do jack shit for at least a month or two, so you’d be wasting your time waiting up for us.”

Now that he mentions it, a vacation sounds nice. Zenigata does get to travel a lot, but only for work; he hardly has time to take in the sights or buy souvenirs. “A month or two, huh? I’m holding you to that. I want a clean bill of health before you even think about another heist, got it?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jigen sighs more than says. “Anyway, I’m gonna go. I’ll tell Lupin you said hi.”

And just like that, the line goes dead. In terms of the Lupin case, Zenigata still has no leads, but he can’t bring himself to be particularly upset about it. He got the information he was hoping for, and he can’t really ask for more than that. Instead, he returns to his paperwork and makes a mental note to look into attending Laetitia’s archaeology seminar in Boston next month.

Part 1 (by Pin) < --- > Part 2 (by Cosma) < --- > Part 3 (by Pin)

[evilelitest2]

Please don't insult Tsar Nicholas II by comparing him to Stalin. Yes, Nicholas had commited many truly vile shit, but... he wasn't an evil person by heart, just an autistic boy who was unlucky to be born in the position of absolute power in the most corrupt and opressive country in Europe. Unlike him, Stalin wasn't born in absolute power. Stalin has many chances to stop going over Old Bolshevic's heads for absolute power and establishing personality cult of himself, but he didn't.

I mean...he killed a lot of Jews dude. Like his secret police wrote The Elders of Zion, one of his long term goals was to eliminate all the Jews in Russia (the imperial policy was 1/3rd of Jews would be converted, 1/3rd killed, and 1/3rd exiled). like there is a reason why I am not a fan of Tsar Nicholas II. My girlfriend's great grandfather had to flee the country because of the pogroms and then again later when he became an activist. In my mind, Nicholas and Stalin are basically two different flavors of horrible Russian autocrat.

Nicholas was certainly a nicer person than Stalin, he was a caring husband and a good father (in a time period when that was not normal) and he was a friendly affable guy to those around him. Meanwhile Stalin was just kinda a dick to everybody at every moment. But when judging a historical figure, how nice they are and how sweet they were personally doesn't really change their policies. Also like...Nicholas was born into the richest family in the world. Stalin was a disabled ethnic minority born into an abusive household in relative poverty, I'm not really sure why Nicholas being from a super privileged background makes him less of a monster? It's true I feel a lot more sorry for Nicholas than Stalin, since his son was a hemophiliac and his entire family is murdered (which for the record I don't consider acceptable) but if we are talkin about autocracy the fact that Nicholas is more likable shouldn't change the fact that again, killed a lot of Jews.

Now Nicholas II was born into power and personally didn't want to be Tsar but...he was given many many opportunities to give up some amount of power and he didn't. He clung to power in the face of the advice from almost anybody who wasn't an arch royalist super conservative. Even if we compare him to other conservative Monarchists at the time, Nicholas is so stubbornly unwilling to share power that it literally gets him killed. In the last two years of his reign he and his wife prefer to lose the war rather than accept aid from the Duma/Worker's Councils. After the disasters Russo-Japanese war (a war that he caused due to his incompetence and lost due to his incompetence) you have the 1905 revolution where after the death of thousand of people and the crippling of the Russian economy finally gets Russia Duma. And then Nikki's Black Hundreds brutally massacre thousands in order to make the Duma largely a puppet organization, and leads a series of nation-wide pogroms against Jews (who he blamed for all of his own mistakes). And what does he do with this absolute power he so furiously clung too? Help get his country into WWI and then does so badly in that war that his dynasty gets overthrown. And when you get into the details of the Russian Revolution, it becomes clear that Russia could have won WWI and the Romanovs could have kept power had Nikki been at all flexible. He is remarkable in that almost every decision he made as Tsar was the worse possible decision he could have made, it's like the platonic ideal of a bad monarch.

Nicholas was an absolute monarch with a brutal secret police and one of the richest men in the world. And under his administration labor conditions were some of the worse in the Industrialized world, political freedom was denied. None of this was for the good of the empire or anyone really other than himself and his rich friends, its just that Nicholas did it under the name of "tradition". Sure he inherited his horrible state whose national motto was "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality" but he was an absolute monarch, he could change it if he so choose. And he didn't, when he oversaw two failed wars, two famines, and two revolutions, at no point does he ever take responsibility for his actions and go "Hey maybe I should take steps to prevent the suffering of my people."

In many ways, that is Nicholas II's greatest crime, he would have been happier as a Constitutional Monarch, but because he was so damn stubbornly conservative he wouldn't even change when it was in his self-interest. All of this was avoidable, had he simply accepted the reforms his people so desperately wanted, he could spend more time with his family, not have to worry so much about his heir, and could leave the governance of the empire (which he sucked at) to people who like....were at all good at it. He would have been great as a Constitutional monarch, he could just sit around and be sweet and then hang out with his family, but instead he stubbornly clung unto power and blamed all of his mistakes on the Jews. All to defend a job he didn't even enjoy. It was all....so avoidable, almost everything under his reign didn't need to happen if he had simply accepted reforms rather than retreat into his little fantasy bubble of pure Russian peasants loving their little father the Tsar.

And again, his secret police wrote the Elders of Zion, which is in competition for "Book with the Highest Death Count in History." And this document was written because Nicholas didn't want to share power. A ton of his loyalists are going to end up working for the Nazis.

Now most of Stalin's crimes came out of malice and most of Nicholas' (again, except the violent racism) came out of incompetence, which does matter in terms of understanding their motives and why they were awful, and I don't think Nicholas enjoyed the amount of death he brought the way Stalin did...but like if your family starves to death it doesn't really matter if it was done because the ruler actively was doing it on purpose or was too fucking stupid to understand how a supply chain worked--you are still dead. And in the case of the Jews, Nicholas was intentionally murdering them by the thousands for its own sake. Stalin was also a racist anti-Semite but you don't have full pogroms under his reign until the last year of his reign (and the Doctor's Plot is no in no way comparable to any of Nikki's pogroms). Again, Nicholas loved and encouraged the "Black Hundreds" who were basically Russian fascists.

And Nicholas wasn't just a raging anti-Semite, he was also a white supremacist and a Russian nationalist. Despite being mostly Danish and German himself, with barely any Russian ancestry, Nicholas got super into the whole Russian supremacy thing, and his empire actively tried to wipe out the languages, cultures and religions of the ethnic minorities in his empire, most infamously in Poland, Ukraine, and Georgia. In fact, part of the traumatic childhood that probably made Stalin so bad was getting beaten for speaking Georgian (his native language) in school. And Nicholas' anti-Asian racism led to him buying whole hog into the Yellow Peril conspiracy theory, the original "White Genocide," which was a huge factor in the disastrous Russo-Japanese war (he regularly referred to the Japanese as "yellow monkeys").

Now Stalin did kill a lot more people than Nicholas over he course of his reign, that can't be denied, so at the end of the Day Stalin is worse than Nicholas in my mind. But not by much: Nicholas' regime would have killed more if he was competent enough to pull it off, and his stubborn stupidity in the face of an empire in desperate need of reform still killed millions of people. And what's more he never seemed to care. So getting up in arms about even comparing him to Stalin is ridiculous, revisionist, and probably a little bit classist, as well as implicitly counting the murder of Jews as less bad than the murder of Christians.