#it makes it feel disingenuous and as if Ben is just a stand in for someone who treated the author poorly

[bucksboobs]

I’m the anon from the post before and I understand what you mean! I guess I just took differently when I watched the show. I don’t think Charlie or Nick was upset about Ben being closeted I think they (especially Charlie) we’re just upset how Ben treated Charlie the entire. Also I’m not saying this to be rude or start anything this is just how I saw it:) I think Charlie was angry (as he should) about how Ben treated him through out the relationship they had and not about him being closeted. Because I do believe if Ben just communicated better and treated him better and didn’t treat Charlie the way he did it could’ve worked out. I’m just saying that I didn’t see them bashing Ben for being closeted only bashing him for treating Charlie the way he did without acknowledging how it felt for him.

Yeah I don't think Charlie or Nick is mad about Ben being closeted but weirdly I think the narrative is and that's what irks me. All his issues and bad behaviors are because he's closeted (you said yourself that it's because he's closeted that he treats Charlie the way he does) but the story doesn't seem interested in exploring that so much as punishing him for it by having both Imogen and Charlie yell at him and then throwing him out of the series before he can improve at all.

And when this show is so renowned for it's love and celebration of queer experiences and identity it will always feel out of place that Ben was left out in the dust seemingly because he and his experiences were too complex.

[batboyblog]

hello @queerarrow thanks so much for taking the time to comment on my thoughts, it was interesting and I wanted to address some of them here:

Two things I don't think gay media is lacking in hope or joy focused stories? The movie Love, Simon comes to mind, where his coming out is supported by his mom with a lovely speech, it ends with a Ferris wheel romantic moment and the final scene is Simon with his friend group in the car now plus boyfriend getting their morning coffee as an upbeat squad. There for sure is a narrative about gay media being a downer but I think thats a little disingenuous, and feels like again the conversation around Heartstopper is trying to take advantage of that narrative to sell itself as the "only" hopeful and positive gay YA story.

thing two is... I don't think they do deal with problems in a hopeful way? which maybe is different from focusing on hope and joy? The only serious issue they really focus on is bullying and how do they deal with it? Charlie quits, he leaves the Rugby team? something we're shown him enjoying, but once a bully shows up he quits gives up, leaves. He doesn't show that he a skinny gay boy can do rugby even though he's not "supposed to" as gay boy, it doesn't show that the team rallies to support Charlie against a homophobic bully (that'd be hopeful) it should Charlie walking out of Rugby and indeed not even for himself but for Nick. Charlie hasn't learned anything across the show, he's still putting a boy's needs/happiness over his own, just like with Ben. Then Nick also "quits" (or walks out of Sports day, idk how British school works, but the implication was he quit Rugby) so the hopeful and joy filled way they deal with the serious issue of bullying is to... run away? to allow the bully to get what he wants? (no queers in sports) I agree that the visuals and narrative focus on the positive side of the scene, ie that Charlie and Nick are together and Nick picked Charlie over sports.

I think people often frame it as an either or, I don't think anyone is saying Nick and Charlie need to be getting it on. Only the show doesn't do a very good job of showing thats something they might want to do at some point? The kissing is very cautious, demure, and polite, now that might be the actors maybe they were not comfortable really macking on each other, or putting hands on hips or into back pockets etc. But the result is there's a lot of romance without a lot of desire. Which links back to Ben, narratively I think we can all agree Ben going through all the trouble of sneaking around with Charlie and Charlie going through all the trouble for 3 second chased kisses doesn't make a whole lot of sense, particularly as we are shown clearly later that Ben does not respect Charlie in general and his boundaries in particular. And I think it's troubling that the gay character who is the most sexualized, Ben, is also very rapey since a long standing stereotype of gay men is that we're sexually dangerous and untrustworthy.

I mean I hope they do do something, I'm unsure what they could do to turn Ben into a real character rather than a cartoon villain, and given the over all black white morality of the show's thinking I have doubts, plus it does kinda feel like a damage done thing. But yeah they have two more seasons to add a little complexity to his character, maybe explain why Charlie "went out with him" at all since the narrative need to make sure Charlie wasn't "cheating" really destroyed any kind of relationship they. might have had.

So there's a thing in storytelling called "show, don't tell" which is we the readers or viewers should see what we're being told about. Don't have a character say "he was so freaking tall!" have us slowly pan upward along a very tall man. Any ways we're told about Elle's trans experiences, all of which have to do with bullying and abuse for being trans (again not very joyful..) but we don't see them. Indeed a friend of mine missed the line about the transphobic teacher, and picked up the line about her hair when she's talking to the girls. And my friend, being black, assumed the bullying and school switch was about her being a black girl with big natural hair, a common problem black girls face (hair bullying that is). So he thought she was a cis girl for like 4-5 episodes. And indeed if you changed the reason she was bullied, literally turn "transphobe" into "racist" with ADR, nothing would change for Elle's story. I mean it's cool a trans actress got a role on a big show, and I think it's cool in general terms to have a trans friend in a friend group and it be not be a big deal thats cool. But it's pretty clear that the show either didn't want to or didn't know how to tell an explicitly trans story/love story for Elle and Tao and basically avoiding any of the emotional or psychological road blocks either of them feel about falling in love/dating.

[andysandfordcomedy]

2022 I bid you adieu

(badass album cover by Ben Ziskind)

(me after first surgery. August 2020)

I’ll be honest with you, trusting reader: it feels pretty good to do one of these end of the year posts without the all too familiar “good riddance, this stupid ass year and hello, arbitrarily numbered upcoming year: Imma make you my BITCH!” At a certain point, the disingenuous core of that fake attitude shines through and it’s just a bit cringy. I can’t help but fall into the trap of assigning meaning to this year because it just so happens to be proof in a 3 year cup of pudding for me. 2020 was so fucking rough for me, and I was not in the mood to overcome all that bullshit (Crohn’s flare up, addiction issues, 2 surgeries, 3 months with a colostomy bag, intensely alone and depressed the whole time) just to get to a starting point of 0 for what I needed to do: build, workout, and eventually tape my best hour. I built and worked it out after moving to Atlanta in March of 2021, recorded in February 2022, and after some bullshit, finally released in November of 2022. It feels so goddam good to be able to say that. And not only that, but with all the tracks in rotation on 3 different channels on XM and an amazing jump off with 6 full album spins (meaning whole album played straight through 6 times) in week one. That’s the way to start the day right there(woo!).

I’m not one for heavy spiritual overtones, but if I hadn’t already had experience in setting goals that were just beyond the horizon and with no road map to guide me toward accomplishing those goals, I don’t know if I could have followed through with how far past the horizon and how vague the path was to get to where I hoped to get on this particular trial and tribulation. I really felt on the cusp of letting myself wither away in my room in bedstuy OR following the pull of the intuitive compass inside my chest pulling me towards Atlanta, towards the Earl, towards the people I needed to work with, and toward a very specific career path that I would be the first person I know to prove to myself it’s a viable one. I know that sounds crazy, or maybe dramatic, but I don’t know anyone that made the same plans as me, much less someone to watch pave the away ahead of me, reassuring me that it’s doable. Now I know that it’s more doable than I had initially hoped, which never fucking happens to me. 

Ok, I will try not to be vague here for the sake of others wondering what career paths are viable in stand up comedy. Of course, I think everyone should know that there truly is no set path to “making it” and I don’t even know what you have in your head as what “making it” is, but everyone should come to terms with the good and bad sides of how true that is, that there is no set path to a comedy career. On one end, you need not be discouraged if you don’t seem to fit what is often portrayed to be the path to comedy success. If you are like me and mysteriously unbookable for all supposed comedy stepping stone up & coming comedians on the rise/look out for these new faces of comedy’s future showcase festivals as decided by industry gate keepers with the power to “make” whoever they think they’ve discovered...don’t worry. Not only is it possible to have a career without being tapped by a future outted sex offender type, that whole model is completely hollow. That is all pomp and pageantry that doesn’t predict the future of comedy at all. On occasion, they happen to see the talent in a talented person that would’ve gone onto to do big things with their talent regardless, and then people reverse engineer what was causation and correlation or whatever. My point is, don’t fucking shed one tear over not getting New Faces, or wonder if you should quit because Comedy Central told you in a meeting that they just don’t know what to do with you, but hey you are funny. And yes, that’s me I am referencing there. My intuition told me to let my stubbornness take the wheel and laugh at those execs when they said that to me, because at the time Comedy Central was everything and to accept reality at that moment would mean I was just informed for sure that I had no chance at a career in comedy. Luckily, I have to do this anyway, and as it turned out, Comedy Central ain’t shit now and is only going to be less relevant to anyone in the world of stand up going forward. That’s the good part about there being no set path: you can’t know for a fact that you’re screwed. The downside is of course that you can’t be sure what is a viable approach until you know where that approach leads. And now I will stop gumflappin and explain my personal path I’ve decided to thwack through the comedy woods.

One aspect of comedy that you can bet your bottom dollar on is that you can’t really rely on shit. Everything is so precarious and quick-sandy. So many big things almost happen before the bottom falls out. Even live shows that you have already done make you nervous until that check clears. One of the only dependable sources of income in comedy for me personally has been residuals through the world of comedy audio. Over the years, my monthly sound exchange deposit has only become more and more crucial to my survival, and it’s at the heart of any possibly viable shot at making the kind of passive income where I could do more than just get by, but could actually see myself having real money to retire on and continue to grow. It took a couple albums that I worked very hard on and years of experience learning how XM and Pandora and the world of comedy audio itself works to not just be able to pay my rent and bills with my monthly deposit, but to see a path and timeline that could be very lucrative and actually doable, though not easy at all. In 2018, I released my second album and first special, Shameful Information, and my first album, Me The Whole Time, was still getting played on XM quite a bit, so for 2018/19 I was averaging an all time high for me on my monthly deposits. Well life kept happening to me as it does, and I had never had to think along the lines of any timeline beyond check to check my whole life, so yada yada, by the time pandemic hit and my deposits started to dip down some and I had no other income, and no plan or real possible way to be ready to record a next album that would be anywhere up to snuff, much less better than my last one (always my goal), I had to think about how to start gettin busy working toward my next best hour, and I knew that best case scenario, I wouldn’t have a whole grip of new tracks being added to rotation for at least a couple years. And as things tend to go, I was thrown into much worse than the best case scenario, so it’s really a miracle that I only had to suffer a more or less 5 year gap. The longest gap I will ever allow moving forward, I assure you. However, even with that damn near 5 year gap, I am still covering rent and bills with my deposit having no tracks newer than 2018. That goes to show the staying power of comedy audio if you put in the effort to make a good album. That showed me that if I can bust my ass to record a quality album every 2 to 2 and a half years, I won’t just be playing catch up, I will be stacking paper more and more with each album. 

Basket Case came out in November, and I will start getting money from those tracks in February and March, and my hope to get back to where I was in 2018/19 and then work on the next album to put me over that mark turned out to be wrong in the best way. The good news is, I will be making the money I hoped to be making in 2024/25 by February 2023. That is wonderful news, but no reason to think I added time to the clock. It’s all about keeping the quality up anyway, but that happens to be an obsession of mine that I can’t not shoot for. I’m just putting all this down on record here to let whoever needs to know that a career in comedy without fame or celebrity or the average person even knowing who you are is very possible. I am that comedian. Only comedy nerds know me, and I really don’t mind that at all. I want everyone who would love my shit to be able to find my shit and see me in person. Beyond that, everyone else can kick rocks. I don’t need em. I’ve been poor as shit most of my life, and I am about to be richer than I ever thought I would be. I feel lucky as hell that I can’t help myself from doing what some would consider an insane amount of work, but it isn’t work to me. It never will be. That’s dumb luck, ya know?

Do me a favor: Don’t follow your fucking dreams. Dreams are nonsense: follow your obsession, and figure out some way to satisfy that obsession so that it pays you well enough to not have to actually work just so that you can do that thing. If that isn’t possible in the end, turn to non-violent crime. That’s what I’d do. Anything but soul draining jobs that make other people money. Do whatever you can to have money and not let money have you. Don’t be afraid to lean toward the less safe route. Having a financial safety net won’t save you from being miserable. Do whatever ya gotta do, just don’t do what you wanna do any less. That’s all you’ll regret in the end, believe me. You heard it here: 2023 is gonna be great. Imma start dispensing rhyming wisdom, for real. 

Follow your obsession, fight off your depression.

toodles 2022!

-Andy

[sagaofstardustmkg]

A Reflection on the Water || Mizukabe Trial 6.4

Haruki has never had a solid relationship, he'll admit that. They've been weak, like standing behind a paper screen from the person he wants to connect to. They've been disingenuous, a puppet boy on strings for people who claimed to love everything he was. Haruki found it difficult to truly love people. He was scared of opening his heart to others, letting them matter, letting their opinions matter.

But then he came to Stardust, and he met a man who saw every broken piece of him, chipped away at him from an angry sculptor who wasn't proud of what he was. He met Caleb, who was strong, a little blunt, understanding, and kind. Caleb had an ability to hit the perfect spot in Haruki's heart to make him cry. He also knew the exact words that made him feel accepted. As they grew closer, Haruki felt every part of him reached out to him for comfort. He wanted guidance. It was silly, but Haruki looked up to Caleb. He taught him so many things about magic, himself, and the world they live in. Though he could deny it over and over for a hundred years, Caleb was a father figure Haruki's inner child always wanted. Someone who helped him realize the things he was too stubborn to see.

Caleb helped make Haruki whole. Or.. well. What he thought was whole.

The man before him was not the Caleb he thought he knew. He was tired... He must have been fighting for a long time to fix what had been broken. They didn't have the full picture; they didn't ask the right questions. When he transformed, Haruki pulled away, leaning into Dragom for comfort. He was scared of the man who stood before them. Haruki couldn't help himself from questioning everything Caleb had said to him. All the words of comfort. The pride he had in Haruki. The hugs and acceptance. He and Ben both promised to give him a place to stay when this was all over. He told Haruki he would always have a home with them! They were family in one another's hearts. If Caleb knew that was never the case, why promise it?

Was their quiet moments of contemplation a lie? How many times had Haruki opened his heart, just for it to be reset? Did Caleb even care for a phantom? An echo? Someone who wasn't whole? Haruki had come to love Caleb like he was family, as shameful as it was. But now he feels that maybe those were just empty comforts. Haruki shared so many moments crying, laughing, and feeling loved, only for this Timekeeper to be pretending it all? Part of him wanted to wish away his knowledge, and let this loop reset. He wanted to bask in the warm light of Caleb that made Haruki feel like he was deserving of everything. Caleb helped Haruki understand he was more than what his parents asked of him. He wasn't responsible for others. He could hurt and cry and laugh unabashedly without anyone having to interfere. Caleb helped Haruki learn to love himself, as hard as it was in times like these. Haruki felt welcomed and accepted in every meaning of the word when he was with Caleb. What could he do now with the knowledge they've gained?

Haruki didn't cry, he didn't feel like crying this time. He didn't yell, for he wanted to respect Caleb's wishes. He might still want to help Caleb with whatever he's doing. But  now he knows that everything Caleb ever told him was read from a script he's probably read a million times. Haruki's heart breaks again, feeling that someone he had looked up to so greatly betrayed him. He knows these are selfish feelings, but he's tired of dismissing them because they're his. So in the aftermath of that transformation, as the dust settles after Ben's grief stricken reaction, Haruki just looks up to Caleb, unable to speak. His amber eyes plead with Caleb, despite it all.

Please tell him it's going to be okay.

Please tell Haruki that he's going to be okay.

[frumfrumfroo]

Thankfully the story around this movie is shaping up to specifically be about JJ’s terrible storytelling and the way this movie betrayed The Last Jedi, so I feel like the long term conversation around it is going to be more like “Hey remember when Lucasfilm fucked up a completely good trilogy in the last movie?” instead of the ROTJ discussion where people just accept the retcons as canon now. Because frankly the Luke/Leia sibling reveal was as foreshadowed as and made more sense than Reypatine

Yeah, that’s what I think too. It’s still going to be accepted by a lot of people, unfortunately.

The sibling reveal ass-pull is the worst thing about the OT, it instantly shrank the universe and will always feel disjointed (I don’t remember seeing any part of the OT for the first time, it’s been on a loop since i was born- I still don’t naturally think of Luke and Leia as twins even though I’ve always known they supposedly are), but it doesn’t break the story, it doesn’t destroy anyone’s character arc. It leaves Leia hanging as far as resolution with Anakin, but that wasn’t something she needed until the retcon. They do at least acknowledge that it’s missing and try to address it (’tell your sister you were right’).

Whereas this Reypatine Skyusurper shit defeats the entire ST narrative. And no, it is not about found family.

1. Rey's whole problem she needed to grow out of was her delusion about her long lost family who totally loved her and living in a shitty desert by herself with their imagined ghosts instead of getting off her ass and having a life of her own, she needed to stop looking for parents in every authority figure she met, she needed to accept her past and move on and forge her own identity. That was her entire character arc and the whole thematic basis of TLJ was confronting her with it. With this ‘um actually’, the story now says she was right to sit around in a graveyard waiting for her parental daydream to come true and to have a ready-made identity handed to her on a silver platter with no character development or hard work necessary on her part whatsoever. She's back in the fucking desert on a dead planet with a delusion family of ghosts, but now the ghosts are literal. Her love is entirely barren.

2. Rey is a grown ass adult who ‘adopted’ herself into a dead family. They didn't adopt her. This is infantilising and creepy. She doesn't need a mummy and daddy, she needed to grow up and be her own person and start her own family. Now she never will, she's completely subsumed any stirrings of her own identity she started to have. Ben was the only person who pushed her towards adulthood and actualisation, without him she settles back into her bad coping mechanisms surrounded by enablers who don't know or understand her well enough to help. This is a horror film on at least three levels- Rey as the cuckoo changeling who steals the place of the true child, the Skywalkers as a cursed family of sociopaths who are haunting this bystander now that they’ve wiped themselves out, and Rey as mental patient who retreats completely from the real world into her fantasy.

3. Good Victim/Bad Victim replacement child bullshit. All of the Skywalkers and Han are such gaping fucking assholes they reject Ben but love Rey for the SAME reasons. Because she's just inherently better than him and there's nothing he can do to be worthy. There's no moment in his life he could have done something differently to be accepted, he's just a garbage child no one wants. He was doomed from conception. He dared to be traumatised by being preyed on, abandoned, and betrayed, so he doesn’t deserve to live.

4. Terrio said in an interview that the 'original sin' of SW was separating the twins. So adoption is bad, actually. Never mind that Luke and Leia were separated for their protection and both went to loving homes where they were raised well by good parents. They didn't get to grow up together on Tatooine so that's terrible?? And he says they were never reunited there so we all wanted that. a) No we didn't, Chris, everyone hated Tatooine and no one wanted to live there, Luke says 'if there's a bright centre to the universe you're on the planet that it's furthest from', Anakin was a slave there, his mother was murdered there, it's a DEAD PLANET where BAD THINGS HAPPEN and every character wanted to escape from it b) Have you seen RotJ? Because Luke and Leia were together on Tatooine in the movie, my dude. Leia got to be a slave there for a while too. How fun for her to get in on the family tradition.

5. You made it 100% about bloodlines, Chris. This disingenuous bullshit that it's about rejecting that is the most hollow fucking nonsense I've ever heard.

Rey’s power came from her bloodline, her ‘darkness’ is biologically inherited and isn’t her fault and disappears with no effort from her, you turned the Skywalker name into a fucking superhero mantle and had all the legacy characters anoint her as their heir because she was just born worthy. You made her ‘heir of all the Jedi’ and they’re her ‘chosen ancestors’. Hey, dumbass, the Jedi don’t have heirs. Anyone can have the Force, anyone can be a hero without the Force- you have destroyed that by making Force sensitivity the sign of the elect. F/nn shouldn’t be Force sensitive and making all the defected stormtroopers Force sensitive robs the characters of agency. You have rewritten a story about the deathless hope offered by the eternal possibility of choosing differently into a story about predestination.

This was never about ‘the Palpatines’ vs the Skywalkers. The Emperor was just one evil guy whose backstory and bloodline were irrelevant, he stands in for all selfishness and callous ambition, for the temptation to choose power and control over love. It’s a personal story about individuals and individual struggles- how to be an ethical adult. Lineage didn’t fucking matter, it was so important that Vader was Luke’s father because of the personal relationship it gave them, because of how it challenged Luke and his worldview. The connection it gave them which would radically redefine the stakes and ultimately give the OT its meaning. Rey has no connection to Palpatine and being related to him does nothing but implode any meaning her character ever had.

[rametarin]

Little note hider. Or, alternative title: “Ante up for arguments.”

So a few days ago I made a post about the tactics I remember from my youth.

Actual disruption and propagandists that filled little girls’ heads with emotionally charged political shit and encouraged them to, “stawt convuhsayshuns uwu” to, “change society.” And we’re talking kids being emotionally blackmailed to accept many of these subjective things as truth.

Taught to argue with other children, the age where they weren’t even really clued in on how to read or argue with academic buffoonery or emotionally charged appeals to authority.

I remember quite well the interactions.

Babby Radfem: “Our society is racist.”

Me: “No it isn’t. Societies can’t be racist, only the people in them.”

Babby Radfem starts citing known examples of racism talking about slavery.

Me: “Yes I know you can talk about things that happened, that doesn’t mean society is racist, it means there are racists in it.”

Babby Radfem: “Proof? You have any proof? :^) Because I have proof of what I’m saying! So YOU have proof for what you’re saying?”

And you have to understand; these little socio-politically programmed children didn’t just waltz into a library and grab up some Feminist Book of Statistics. They were coached, they were groomed, they were armed with bogus academia huffandpuff and then set loose to go after kids who’d never even heard of these issues before.

In my case, I learned what the concept of rape was because a baby radical feminist informed me because I was a boy, and, “epidemic societal rape” was a thing, that she could never wholly trust me of be comfortable around me, because, “men in our society are so violent and rape women.” Not really an appropriate mindset for a girl under the age of 7. Or a boy, for that matter.

It’s at that point they’d put on this big performance with that smug, disgusting expression on their face, setting up a bunch of articles and examples of things that’d happened in the past and examples of singular racist assholes operating, conflating that deliberately with, “a racist society.” Because you know, if one member of the hivemind super colony acts bad, I guess to socialists that’s, “proof” that “society” didn’t do its job in programming them right, or something.

And it’s at this point that no matter what you say, they aren’t looking for a reasonable discussion where you respect one another’s positions and perspectives, they’re looking for a show trial, and they think they’re being clever by trying to make you defend the actions of actual racists, since in their minds, you’re denying their actions ever happened.

No matter what you say, like broken interfaces, they’ll just sit there smugly reminding you, “you aren’t proving society isn’t racist yet! Do you even have an argument? Do you have proof? Any actual PROOF, not emotionally charged denials? Still not seeing any proof of what you’re saying. Guess you don’t have an argument. I’m sorry, I don’t accept crybabying nuh-uhs, I’m a rational person with a scientific mind :^)”

I say again, this shit, these big blowhard guns, were brought out and used on me. I was fucking 5, at the time. It’s not like I was going to stand up, shout, “Foucult was a boy toucher and a monster!” and show the 10 page report with bibliographed citations. You can’t spur of the moment refute someone handed a book wwwwaay about their age range just to tell you bogus statistics like women only make 50-75% of what a white man makes, “for the same job,” that demands you also spur of the moment disprove what they’re saying in order to dispute or disregard it at all.

Then plays to the peers around you like your outrage over the things you’re being accused of by proxy of being a boy, is just because you don’t like, “hearing the truth.”

And you know what this behavior influenced? Yeah. Annoying Youtube Atheists of the 00s. I’m an atheist, but the difference between me and An Annoying Youtube Atheist, is I don’t make not participating in an organized religion or believing in supernatural creators. While the other considers themselves an intellectual for arguing with probably the easiest arguments to disprove and discredit you can possibly engage.

So when I talk about shit like this that I witnessed and observed happening in the fucking late 80s, early 90s, of course I’m not going to have “proof.” Who the hell happens to have examples of such a random a sporadic thing in the wild? The odds are literally a million times better now than they were when our communication and interactions were in person, without internet, with only access to the information resources in the books you had in your local library or in your house.

The, 1.) Inflammatory Statement 2.) Whipping out a book that may as well have been written by Jordan Peterson or Ben Shapiro for all the bias it has 3.) “Here’s my proof. You have proof? Any proof to source your beliefs, or do you just have feefees? :^)” approach, predates on people being both unfamiliar with the subject matter, as well as not having the resources to effectively dispute the claims.

It’s predatory, it’s deceptive, and it is used to socially browbeat women into their corners, whom them become like enablers and believers and supports in the pew after their cryfests, powwows and ‘come to socialist Jesus’ moment.

But no, I don’t currently possess any proof of this phenomenon or effect, and the mercurial social nature of young girls means catching this interaction in the wild is very unlikely. Which is exactly why that disingenuous request for, “Proof? :^)” is so disgusting.

Even when you HAD proof, the next step after isn’t to concede they’re wrong. It usually went in a number of ways.

1.) The person requesting proof goes dead inside and ignores what you’re saying, and if they respond at all, it’s simply to speak as if you hadn’t just shown them the proof, still arguing as if it wasn’t shown. I guess in a silly attempt to socially override the new information from the discussion and give the speaker the burden of proof to try and make it stick to their denial filled, teflon minds.

2.) They meet all the effort taken to argue with stupid shit that wastes your time and energy. Replying to a thorough rebuttal that rebukes and dismantles the things they are saying with, “KUNG POW PENIS, *GIGGLE*” or just going “DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!” and giggling to show they don’t actually care what you have to say and won’t take you seriously. This one is done alone or only when they have other supporters there that won’t accept opposition as legit or genuine, proof or not.

3.) They’ll simply retreat and then scream if you follow them. If they retreat, the conversation effectively ends, and they won’t hear any more of it since it threatens to challenge them, OR they simply wanted to convince people to take what they have to say as fact and it’s a waste of their time to sell lies to people that know they’re lies. But they will scream and make the priority that you’re apparently following or harassing them, when they see argument is futile.

4.) They’ll nod along and pretend you’ve corrected them when you demonstrate you aren’t going to believe what they say, because you have both proof and conviction that their argument is weak, they don’t have a leg to stand on, or you throw in their face you know what they are. But, they won’t retract their stance, they’ll simply go on to, “stawt that convuhsayshun” with someone else, to try and convince them of their politically charged talking point.

5.) They’ll start crying or looking like a kid with their hands caught in a cookie jar, and admit, “I was just twying to stawt a... convuhsayshun..” Which is code that means, “I was trying to propagandize and make you think this thing was true, and make you mad about it as if it was the truth.” This typically happened when I called them out in front of adults that also didn’t agree with the things she was saying, had been programmed to say, and was around adults that could cite proof that what they were saying was false.

It happened so often I realized that at some point it might be in my best interests, to at least THINK about how to prove arguments to random strangers.

In the past, being sidewound by baby radical feminists that, “just started conversations” around the water cooler, axes to grind disguised as random conversations, was a thing. They were like social guerillas or velociraptors. But they were always tangentially rooted in whatever thing they’d been handed to read in order to sound smart.

So, if you knew the contemporary radical feminist talking points, had the time, literacy and resources to research and understand the holes in their claims, where they substituted for integrity, you could unravel them. Or could critique things like sample size or the likelihood they arrived at their conclusion and worked backwards to meet the result they were looking for, or started with a faulty premise.

And when they tried to stretch and flex and get believers and followers, presenting these, “facts” (that were not facts, but lies, subjective talking points, or just feelings) trying to use the trust bonds of friendship to get people to accept them as true for risk of hurting the relationship and their friend’s feelings (an exploitation of people, by the way) you could dispute them.

But they really do not like that, and once you reveal yourself as someone capable of shooting holes in what they say, they’ll only bring out their talking points to your mutual friends when you, ye that has identified yourself as capable of disputing what they say, aren’t around to dispute them.

Pre-internet, pre-cell phone, this was the methodology by which radical feminist zealotry was reproduced among young girls and young women. And drove them absolutely fucking nuts for a few years, until they resolved it and came back to reality. For one reason or another.

But do I have proof of this? Not on hand.

[crmediagal]

Now Posting On AO3!!!

Seeds of Redemption by CRMediaGal

Synopsis: The First Order may have fallen, but the Proclamation has risen in its stead. As the galaxy is threatened by the coming of a Second Darkness, Ben Solo must painstakingly navigate both sides, the Dark Side and the Light. Only he is no longer alone in this fight, with far more at stake to lose than he ever would have dreamed.

Rated M, AU. TFA, TLJ, TROS, and Post-TROS. Originally written and published between December 2015 - April 2018.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12 *NEW!*

Excerpt:

“This is my oldest Pawawan learner,” Master Luke began to introduce.

An inkling stirred meditative Rey as she watched herself and this person interact for the first time. A small jolt echoed from her seated position on the floor, too, the puzzle of her past piecing itself together into harmony. This wasn’t just any boy she had encountered once or twice as a child. She and he shared a history, a deep, unwavering connection, and she wasn’t sure how complicated that might become; but she could feel it with every skip of her heart.

Before Master Luke or the boy could utter his name, Rey already knew it: Kylo Ren, except he wasn’t Kylo Ren here. Not yet. He went by another name; his truest self.

An intriguing, calamitous reflection of the man’s adolescent self—before the hollowed eyes, emptiness, and swallowing Darkness had consumed his soul—showing him remarkably changed to the point of being almost unrecognisable looked upon her with kindness and affection. He donned beige robes that marked that of a Jedi in training, though they were darker in hue than Master Luke’s. His hair was black, curly and long, but with a sidelong braid that draped over his right shoulder. Most fascinating of all was his face, however. He may have somewhat resembled the harsher, sharpened countenance Rey had come to memorise, but a younger Kylo Ren’s eyes weren’t nearly as sunken in or desolate. His smile, too, at meeting little Rey wasn’t disingenuous or hair-raising but, rather, sweet, even fetching in all its gawkiness.

“He’ll be your second teacher when I’m not around,” Master Luke finished explaining.

“How do you do?” Little Rey reached out her small hand, and Kylo Ren crouched down to be at eye level with her. Without hesitation, he graciously accepted it into his own. His hand completely engulfed hers.

“Nice to meet you, Rey. I’m Ben.”

Ben Solo…

Meditative Rey’s breath stalled, the utterance of the boy’s name sending crashing waves of long buried feelings she didn’t quite understand thrashing to the surface. They really did share a history with each other, and yet, Rey could recall none of it. How was that possible? It wasn’t trying to search her feelings and remember how, during her interrogation, Rey had sensed more than just a Force tug-of-war between them. Something much deeper was there, glazed over and patched up, and not by Rey.

Now it all makes sense, she realised, with horror and amazement alike. I knew him before any of this…

“This is where we leave you, my love,” came the affectionate but upsetting register of her mother.

Rey, who had long lost hope of ever reclaiming what her mother used to refer to her by—or what her voice sounded like at that—was suddenly flooded with past dialogues the two had exchanged when she was a child. Her younger self interrupted those reflections, however, for little Rey clutched at her mother’s robes and burst into tears.

“NO!” she cried, as her mother made to push her away, though her hands were shaking. “Don’t go, Mummy! Please! DON’T GO!”

“My little one, it’s all right,” the tender, lower register of her father interrupted, his stubby hands coming into view to drag Rey off of her mother’s clothes. Meditative Rey startled. She hadn’t sensed her father’s presence until the man was evidently standing in front of her, as if materialising out of thin air. He had serene, hazel eyes—the same as hers—and wispy, short hair that was a touch darker than her mother’s. He had a well-groomed beard and was smiling at his daughter through his tears; his fatherly expression shattered Rey’s heart. “We’ll visit you when we can—”

“No, no, no! Please, Daddy! Mummy! Don’t leave me!”

“Hey, Rey?” It was Ben who spoke this time, and he placed a caring hand on her small back to garner her attention. Little Rey eyed the boy sidelong whilst continuing to try to cling to her mother. “It’s going to be all right, I promise.”

“But Mummy… Daddy…” she whimpered, tears leaking down her perfect little cheeks.

“My parents left me here, too, when I was a little older than you, and I came to love it; you will, too.” His eyes betrayed those words, and yet, still, he tried to comfort her. “They’ll come back to see you, Rey. It’s all going to be fine. You’ll see.”

[leftpress]

louisproyect | July 10th 2019 | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

On their Gray Zone website, Max Blumenthal and his mini-me Ben Norton (aka Ned Borton) have just come out with a 5,600 word diatribe against the Socialism 2019 Conference in Chicago. Most people still tethered to the planet would understand that the main political questions raised by the DSA/ex-ISO conference was whether support for Democratic Party candidates is tactically permissible. Instead, the two geniuses were playing Vishinsky-like prosecuting attorneys making the case that “Socialism is now apparently brought to you by the US State Department”.

They dug up every connection that conference speakers had to inside-the-beltway NGOs and government agencies like the NED to read the DSA and ex-ISOers out of the radical movement. One would think that these two nitwits would put more energy into helping the left put together a conference that did not have such nefarious ties. I can recommend some left groups that are as unsullied as them: Workers World, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the Socialist Equality Party, the Spartacist League and Socialist Action. These five groups have never been implicated in smoke-filled room deals with officials of the Deep State, to be sure. In fact, if all of them got together to stage a Communism 2019 Conference, they wouldn’t need to line up a Hyatt hotel. A church basement would do just fine.

To turn NED funding, or any other such body, into a litmus test as to a group’s leftist credentials is a problematic methodology. Its main problem is that it turns the nation-state into the unit of analysis rather than the social class.

For example, they excoriate the China Labour Bulletin for taking money from the NED but do not say anything about what it stands for. If you go to their website, you’ll find articles, for example, on coal mine safety in China that contains such data:

The Daping coal mine in Zhengzhou, Henan province, where 148 people died in a gas explosion on 20 October 2004, had been inspected and approved for an annual production capacity of 900,000 tonnes. In 2003, the mine produced 1.32 million tonnes of coal, and from January to September 2004 it had already produced 960,000 tonnes. Similarly, the Sunjiawan coal mine in Liaoning province, where a gas explosion killed at least 214 miners on 14 February 2005, had been approved for a production capacity of 900,000 tonnes, but its actual output in 2004 was 1.48 million tonnes. The Shenlong coal mine in Fukang county, Xinjiang province, where 83 miners died in a gas explosion on 11 July 2005, had a safe production capacity of only 30,000 tonnes, but during the first half of 2005 alone it had already produced almost 180,000 tonnes of coal.

You will find absolutely nothing about “regime change” in the CLB. It is simply one of the few voices Chinese workers have making their case. If the NED provides funding for their work, there is no stigma as long as the money comes with no-strings-attached.

The truth is that the NED and similar bodies from George Soros’s Open Foundation to Human Rights Watch will always try to take advantage of protests in every corner of the world in order to influence them. Why would anybody expect anything different? To be consistent, you’d have to condemn the student movement in Egypt in 2011 in the same way you condemn CLB. In fact, Global Research—Gray Zone’s closest relative—did exactly that. Tony Cartalucci put it this way in an article titled “The US Engineered “Arab Spring”: The NGO Raids in Egypt”:

It is hardly a speculative theory then, that the uprisings were part of an immense geopolitical campaign conceived in the West and carried out through its proxies with the assistance of disingenuous organizations including NED, NDI, IRI, and Freedom House and the stable of NGOs they maintain throughout the world. Preparations for the “Arab Spring” began not as unrest had already begun, but years before the first “fist” was raised, and within seminar rooms in D.C. and New York, US-funded training facilities in Serbia, and camps held in neighboring countries, not within the Arab World itself.

In 2008, Egyptian activists from the now infamous April 6 movement were in New York City for the inaugural Alliance of Youth Movements (AYM) summit, also known as Movements.org. There, they received training, networking opportunities, and support from AYM’s various corporate and US governmental sponsors, including the US State Department itself. The AYM 2008 summit report states that the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, James Glassman attended, as did Jared Cohen who sits on the policy planning staff of the Office of the Secretary of State. Six other State Department staff members and advisers would also attend the summit along with an immense list of corporate, media, and institutional representatives.

Can you tell the difference between Tony Cartalucci and the Gray Zone? I can’t.

Much venom is sprayed at Anand Gopal and Dan La Botz for the same kinds of reasons. Gopal is an acclaimed journalist who has made repeated trips to Syria from Turkey without Baathist approval. As with other reporters who refuse to write propaganda for the dictatorship, he had to find other ways to interview Syrians. He would crawl beneath a barbed wire fence on the border and follow painted rocks that were place there by villagers to avoid land mines. In a talk on Syria recently, Gopal argued that part of the explanation for the failure of the revolution was that the leadership were small proprietors in the local governments of rebel-controlled territory that insisted on preserving private property relations. If this book is nearly as good as his book on Afghanistan that was a Pulitzer prize runner up, it should gain widespread attention. Meanwhile, Blumenthal’s reporting on Syria is the same as Vanessa Beeley’s, just regime propaganda. At least Beeley went to Syria, even if was limited to 4-star hotels and tea parties with the dictator. Can you imagine Sidney Blumenthal’s golden boy crawling under barbed wire fences and stepping close to land mines to get a story? I can’t.

The attacks on Dan La Botz are just as apolitical. I am just as opposed to La Botz’s special pleading for the reactionary student movement in Venezuela as Blumenthal and Norton but I wouldn’t dream of smearing him as a State Department tool. In fact, this kind of attack has roots in Stalin’s demonization of his opponents who were supposedly trying to overthrow the USSR because both they and the capitalist media described him as a ruthless dictator.

In channeling Stalin, these two pinheads make sure to use the word “Trotskyite” throughout, a term that is a dead giveaway for politics that have largely died out after the collapse of the USSR and the transformation of the CPs into Eurocommunist type parties, except for the KKE in Greece that is cut from the same cloth as Gray Zone.

Looking back at the history of the radical movement, you will find many attempts to take advantage of imperialist rivalry. For Blumenthal and Norton, the only imperialist powers in the world are those in the West. China and Russia are clearly seen by them as anti-imperialist states even though the subjugation of the Uygurs and Syrians that Gray Zone defends are clearly imperialist in character. If Uygurs and Syrians are expected to pass their litmus test, it would mean suicide since the world is divided into two major geopolitical blocs. For all of their ranting against the White Helmets from receiving funding from the West, you would be hard-pressed to see how else they could have assembled a first responder team that has saved thousands of lives. Obviously, Gray Zone must believe that bombing hospitals is warranted in rebel-controlled territory since all the patients are likely carrying the dread sharia-law virus.

Fortunately, people like Roger Casement and others trying to exploit the differences between Anglo-American and German imperialism didn’t take Gray Zone type advice.

Who could blame Irish freedom fighter Roger Casement for trying to strike deals with Kaiser Wilhelm to get weapons to liberate his people? During a period of inter-imperialist rivalries, it was not considered a betrayal of socialist principles to look for such opportunities. In Roy’s case, there was the added dimension of his writing the theses on national liberation adopted by the Comintern. How could you cozy up with imperialists and then write such classic statements of Marxist policy?

This is not to speak of V.I. Lenin’s stance with respect to the same bogeymen. In “To the Finland Station”, Edmund Wilson describes the uneasy feelings that some of his comrades had that were by no means as disgusting as Gray Zone’s attack on Socialism 2019:

In the train that left the morning of April 8 there were thirty Russian exiles, including not a single Menshevik. They were accompanied by the Swiss socialist Platten, who made himself responsible for the trip, and the Polish socialist Radek. Some of the best of the comrades had been horrified by the indiscretion of Lenin in resorting to the aid of the Germans and making the trip through an enemy country. They came to the station and besieged the travelers, begging them not to go. Lenin got into the train without replying a word.

Even after Hitler took power, some nationalists continued in the same vein, the most notable among them Subhas Chandra Bose who relied on both German and Japanese support for an army that could liberate India. Despite this marriage of convenience, Bose was politically on the left and an admirer of the USSR. Indeed, Stalin’s nonaggression pact with Hitler served his policy aims well as indicated by his 1941 Kabul Thesis written just before he travelled to Germany to consult with the Nazis:

Thus we see pseudo-Leftists who through sheer cowardice avoid a conflict with Imperialism and argue in self-defence that Mr. Winston Churchill (whom we know to be the arch-Imperialist) is the greatest revolutionary going. It has become a fashion with these pseudo-Leftists to call the British Government a revolutionary force because it is fighting the Nazis and Fascists. But they conveniently forget the imperialist character of Britain’s war and also the fact that the greatest revolutionary force in the world, the Soviet Union, has entered into a solemn pact with the Nazi Government.

While some sought advantage by aligning with the axis, others found the allies more amenable to their broader goals. While he would eventually find himself locked in a deadly struggle with American imperialism, Ho Chi Minh had no problem connecting with the OSS during WWII as recounted by William Duiker in his 2000 biography “Ho Chi Minh: a Life”:

While Ho Chi Minh was in Paise attempting to revitalize the Dong Minh Hoi, a U.S. military intelligence officer arrived in Kunming to join the OSS unit there. Captain Archimedes “Al” Patti had served in the European Theater until January 1944, when he was transferred to Washington, D.C., and appointed to the Indochina desk at OSS headquarters. A man of considerable swagger and self-confidence, Patti brought to his task a strong sense of history and an abiding distrust of the French and their legacy in colonial areas. It was from the files in Washington, D.C. that he first became aware of the activities of the Vietminh Front and its mysterious leader, Ho Chi Minh.

The next day, Patti arrived at Debao airport, just north of Jingxi, and after consultation with local AGAS representatives, drove into Jingxi, where he met a Vietminh contact at a local restaurant and was driven to see Ho Chi Minh in a small village about six miles out of town. After delicately feeling out his visitor about his identity and political views, Ho described conditions inside Indochina and pointed out that his movement could provide much useful assistance and information to the Allies if it were in possession of modern weapons, ammunition, and means of communication. At the moment, Ho conceded that the movement was dependent upon a limited amount of equipment captured from the enemy. Patti avoided any commitment, but promised to explore the matter. By his own account, Patti was elated.

Right now, the biggest question facing the left is class independence, something clearly of little importance to Ben Norton who is a big Tulsi Gabbard fan. In this interview, he is positively glowing about her political growth even though she had “odious” views in the past.

Trying to stake out a position that will stand out in a crowded “anti-imperialist” left will be tough for Norton and Blumenthal. You can read the same sort of thing in Consortium News, Moon of Alabama, Mint Press, Off-Guardian, 21st Century Wire, DissidentVoice, Information Clearing House, et al. To separate themselves from the pack, my advice to the two careerists is to find some sugar daddy that can throw some money their way. Ron Unz of UNZ Review not only has deep pockets but lots of sympathy for their tilt toward Russia and Syria. That is if you can put up with his neo-Nazism.

[Read More On LeftPress.org]

[megexpress]

ok clois, aquamera, and diana/steve in order of your favorite and an explanation of y?

Hello~

I’m assuming that you want me to rate only the DCEU adaptations because, if it were overall (including comics, animated, television, etc), the order would change.

Keep in mind that these opinions are my own and everything I say can be argued against. Don’t come screaming into my inbox because these are opinions and you can’t change mine so expel your energy elsewhere. One couple has to be #3, lol. 

I based my decisions on three “main” components: chemistry, story, and equality. Let’s go~

#1. AquaMeraI’m sure no one is surprised here. They win the trifecta. They fulfilled all my wants and needs in Aquaman. I haven’t felt this type of love for a DCEU couple until them. I wrote a one-shot for them and posted it. I haven’t done that with any other couple. Ever. I love them.

Chemistry: They have it in spades. I somehow missed it in Justice League (I think it’s the difference in vision between directors, to be honest), but the exact second that they met eyes again in Aquaman, I knew. The entire world around them paused and so did my heart. I stopped breathing, I clutched my invisible pearls and thought, “Oh. I’m in for it.” Oh boy, was I. Their chemistry was just pouring off of the screen. I was in a constant state of muffling my screams, trying to not annoy the people around me with my squirming. Every time they looked at each other, my heart raced. Even seeing gifs of them now, my heart does the thing. I don’t call him Arthur Heart Eyes Curry for kicks - it’s the truth. He is always looking at her like God is indeed a woman and that woman’s name is Mera. Mera looking at Arthur like ‘he’s a dork but he’s MY dork’ just sets my heart on fire.They have the best chemistry amidst all of the couples in the DCEU, hands down.

Story: They’re not an in-your-face love story. At least, not in my opinion. It’s a slow progression but it’s natural. They bicker but it’s playful, not mean-spirited at all. It’s just two big personalities interacting and it’s so fun to watch. They start off the film already in a rather friendly place (all things considered). They already had a basis for a relationship at the beginning of the film. They progress throughout the film respecting each other’s opinion and space. She’s betrothed to his brother and we ALL saw the shared look after that revelation. That painful realization, the look of longing, apology, and confusion all rolled into one? Mmm, I love the angst. Arthur’s slight jealousy and the sad look from Mera just seems earned to me. It makes sense. They seem like actual friends with crushes the entire film so that when they kiss at the end, you’re exhaling in relief because IF THEY HADN’T KISSED I WAS GOING TO EXPLODE. I can’t cover all the couples who become romantic without that basis of friendship and so the romance seems underdeveloped and disingenuous. I love the friends-to-lovers trope and that’s what AquaMera is. 

Equality: The only thing I wanted from DCEU!AquaMera was an equal romantic-partnership. They delivered. When the film starts, Mera already shows her allegiance is with Arthur. They are a unit, together even after the film. No one is reduced to the love interest. They save each other, believe in each other, give pep talks to each other, etc. There are multiple scenes of them fighting alongside one another without getting distracted by the other’s fight. They are both shown as capable and that isn’t a problem. In fact, it’s embraced. They are strong, slightly rash, independent warriors who just so happen to fall in love. Their strengths and weaknesses blend well - where one is weak, the other is strong. It’s beautiful. I could go on and of about my love for AquaMera so I’ll stop, but I really do love them a lot.

#2. WonderTrevThis was an easy second place for me. I went into this film not knowing anything about Steve Trevor. In fact, I was kind of skeptical of them as a couple. I could not put my finger on it, but I knew I just didn’t want them together. I was wrong. My past self is an idiot and has been beaten into submission. WonderTrev are precious and I can’t wait for the angst in WW2.

Chemistry: Gal and Chris have chemistry. You can see it at the beginning when he wakes up after she saves him, her hesitant caress, her soft smile, his “Wow.” GOODBYE. It also stems from the fact both Chris and Gal are fantastic actors. The look of enchantment on Steve’s face right before they kiss… I thought he was going to get on his knee right then and there. Diana’s scream when the plane blew? I can still hear it. It carved a whole in my chest and lives there now. It’s the small gestures that really showcase their chemistry. It feels natural. It’s never forced and doesn’t feel rushed even though they fall in love, kiss, and have sex all in the same film. Their love is so pure and their chemistry organic that it doesn’t feel false.

Story: Their story starts by Diana saving her and Steve pulling her away from gunfire. She looked at him and instantly trusted him; she protected him when her mother was going to strike him down. Their story is unique in the way that Diana is kind of oblivious to what women normally experience in our world (i.e. sexism and rape culture). Diana isn’t used to being shut down and ignored. Steve listens to her, helps her, and they are friends first. They have scenes interspersed through the film implying that there is a mutual attraction, but it doesn’t erase the fact that they are friends. (Can you tell I’m weak for the friends-to-lovers trope?) As for the rape culture I mentioned, what I mean to say is that Steve respects her space. During the boat scene, he doesn’t intrude and gives her space to sleep without him all up on her. I love that. She doesn’t understand what the problem is, no, but he still gives her that space regardless. When she keeps asking, he finally moves to sleep next to her, still leaving space between them and never making a move. There is a healthy amount of respect between them. They are just so pure and soft. The ice cream, the dance, the “I wish we had more time.” It’s beautifully tragic. After all these years, she still loves him. She clings to memories of him - the photograph, the watch - even though they spent such little time together, they were real. Their love was genuine. Their ‘meant to be’ was cut short and it will forever break my heart.

Equality: This is where they lose me. Diana is freaking Wonder Woman. Of course they aren’t going to be equal. She’s a goddess come to us from the DC Gods. She’s beauty, she’s grace, I wish she’d punch me in the face. Steve Trevor pales in comparison. Sure, he knows stuff about our world that Diana doesn’t and I guess that could equal them, but it really doesn’t. It’s obvious that once Diana becomes aware of the customs, the power becomes imbalanced again. She’s just that damn amazing. The film was also written as a role reversal of sorts. Such as Diana observing Steve’s body while he awkwardly stands there - definitely not equal to the “male gaze” as Diana isn’t ogling him and making crude remarks - but still there nonetheless. He’s almost damsel in distress-like, but only because Diana is so strong that she outshines him. There’s nothing wrong with that, though. Diana doesn’t need Steve, but she wants him and she loves him and that’s all that really matters. He doesn’t have to be as powerful as she is because she loves him for him. So, no, they aren’t as on equal footing, but that’s okay. After all, it isn’t the strength of the body but strength of the heart. 

#3. CloisMy dear, Clois, I’m sorry. If I were to include overall DC canon, Clois would actually be my number one (they are a childhood OTP so I have memories associated with them). It just so happens that DCEU Clois is my least favourite version of them. I still like them and can acknowledge them as Clois, but my heart doesn’t beat for them like it does for, say, Tom Welling’s Clark and Erica Durance’s Lois on Smallville. They are my ultimate Clois.

Chemistry: Henry and Amy don’t have chemistry. I blame a lot of that on the fact that they don’t actually spend a lot of time together. Compared to AquaMera and WonderTrev who spend BIG chunks of their respective films together, Clois are constantly separated or are together for maybe a 5 minute scene before being pulled away again. When they first kissed, I was confused. I thought they were setting up for a slowburn (even though it’s Lois and Clark, what the heck) so, when they kissed, it felt forced. This could stem from my issues with Henry’s acting (even though I still remain adamant that he’s a great Superman), but he didn’t show interest in Lois when he was around her. To be honest, Henry had more chemistry with Ben in BvS and JL then he had with Amy in all three films. Them’s the facts.

Story: Their story went down with the DCEU. They were sacrificed for larger stories even though a BIG component of Clark’s story is LOIS. Their time together was minimal and so their story became stretched over multiple films. It became disjointed and weird. It seems like they had only started MAYBE dating and all of a sudden he’s dead but OH WAIT he was going to propose. OH LOOK he’s resurrected! I guess they are engaged now? Oh, look, off he goes again. What I’m trying to say is the writing for DCEU Clois is an insult to the amazingness that is this ship. They deserve better. Man of Steel didn’t convince me that they were in love. BvS had some cute scenes (namely, the tub scene) but overall ‘meh’ (although, it hurt seeing him die and Lois crying over him - that stab of pain is what gives me hope for future Clois content). As for JL… They were barely together, lol. If we do ever get a MoS2, I’m hoping that the writing is better for them. I hate that they are #3 on this list. It’s bugging me.

Equality: I actually feel like they are quite equal, just not in the typical way. Sure, Clark saves Lois. That’s just a trope that will never die. I’m fine with it, tbh. That doesn’t really bug me. I actually like that Lois saves Clark, too. It’s not a physical way, but just her presence alone kind of centers him and makes him come back to himself. She’s his heart and when they are in the same vicinity, she calms him and snaps him out of stupor. She saves others from Clark’s wrath in JL just by being Lois-freaking-Lane. Their love is equal (at least, that’s how it’s supposed to be written, even if it seems disjointed in the DCEU) and I’ve always loved their love. They are each other’s True Love and one of their main goals is each other’s safety and happiness. Not to mention, Lois is very smart and her role as a journalist isn’t some stupid joke forced into JL. Her intellect balances out Clark’s superhuman strength. It’s complimentary, just not in an obvious way.

This issuper long but I definitely answered the question, lol. Thanks for the message, anon.

[videogamesincolor]

Resident Evil 2 (2019) - Not quite the ‘re-imagining’ it purports to be (SPOILERS)

[Written: Feb 4-25, 2019. As always, act brand new on my post, you will catch the fastest block in the west.]

The 2019 iteration of Resident Evil 2 shares a lot of common ground with games like Silent Hill: Shattered Memories versus something like Bluepoint Games’ Shadow of the Colossus or even Sega’s Yakuza Kiwami series. 

The first game is a re-imagining – effectively a reboot –, recreated from the ground up with almost little to do with its predecessor. The others are genuine remakes that change very little in the way of the framework or structure of the game and merely recreate or repair its presentation with the graphical fidelity (or control schemes) of the present era.

While both profit and rely on nostalgia, a remake has the specific ‘obligation’ to maintain what came before it. A re-imagining has cart blanche to do what it wants under the pretense that it has no obligation to restore or replicate. In the case of Resident Evil 2, it’s a bit funny in the fact that the existence of its reboot was reliant on the 2002 remake of Resident Evil.

During the re-release of the 2002 Resident Evil remake in 2015, Capcom more or less ransomed the idea of making a “remake” of Resident Evil 2 by placing the burden of that reality on the shoulders of Resident Evil HD. Or rather, the shoulders of their consumer base.

If Resident Evil HD didn’t meet publisher sales expectations, no “remake”. It was an easy sell, of course, because the Gamecube remake was not a game everyone played (on account of Nintendo console exclusivity). To no surprise, Resident Evil HD ended up being their “fastest selling digital title” in 2015. That same year, Capcom officially announced the Resident Evil 2 “remake” was becoming reality, went radio silent, and the aged fandom wept.

Common knowledge, but Capcom originally wanted a remake for RE2O in the vein of the 2002 remake. Mikami, however, was preoccupied with Resident Evil 4. He would never return to look back on the series because Capcom was Capcom, which inspired Mikami to depart from the company.

I think the assumption folk made (at the time), was that because the reboot was necessitated by the financial success of Resident Evil HD, Capcom might go for an experience similar to the 2002 remake, but with the graphical fidelity of present day consoles.

Graphical remasters and remakes are a “hit and miss” production. They happen because publishers (and by extension, developers), know there is profit to made in the machine of nostalgia, not (necessarily) because they’re interested in preserving or restoring old games. You see developers clearly holding back the desire to remix instead of being completely restorative, removing things they either didn’t like or expanding on things that couldn’t be done with previous hardware. 

Yet, “if it ain’t broke, just update the visuals, maintain the rest”, is an adage some prefer. More often than not, remakes end up splitting older and younger audiences down the middle regardless of what changes or what remains. And that’s without taking into account bugged and half-hearted releases that never get addressed by devs.

But, Resident Evil 7 (“we swear it’s not a reboot”) happened, and it was fairly clear what direction Capcom was going to go in. While Capcom and fanbase for the game were content with calling Resident Evil 2 a “remake”, Capcom later insisted, “This is not a remake. It’s a retelling, a new game built from the ground up.” So, on the surface, RE2R definitely has more common with Shattered Memories than it does 2002’s Resident Evil. But, where Shattered Memories wasn’t interested in treading so familiar waters, the same cannot be said of this reboot.

The 2019 iteration of Resident Evil 2 is a monkey’s paw wish of a game, just based on the observation of how the established fanbase is reacting and my own personal feelings (as someone with no nostalgia for it). For some, they got exactly the experience they wanted (more RE7). For others, modifying the game (on PC, naturally) to recreate an experience closer to the 1998 release is a must. And then there are some who are simply disinterested in the game, content with the original, or dissatisfied with the creative or business choices made by Capcom (and given Capcom’s track record, I can’t blame them).

Within the game itself, there is a lot about the reboot that feels unfocused, hindered by budget, last minute decisions, a blandly retold narrative, and trying to cling to abstract bones in an effort to maintain the audience it courted, when abandoning those bones might’ve been a better idea.

I. Presentation – The "Realistic” “Re-Imagining”

If Marvin’s final moments with Leon or Claire weren’t enough to convince you the of the severity of the situation, maybe a emotionally manipulative scene with Dad and Zombie child will.

The Resident Evil series is not one known for its screenwriting. If anyone’s being real honest themselves, the shit’s bad 90% of the time, reached peak stupidity in RE6 and just kinda self-destructed from there. YMMV, but Resident Evil is the “so-bad-bad-its-good” game you could enjoy up to a point. The 2002 Resident Evil remake took a particularly poor script localization and improved upon its delivery, right down to the voice direction (which could still be a bit stilted). Yet, you never got the feeling RE1R was striving to be anything other than what it was: A cinematic-based video game that reveled in the aesthetic of Gothic environment design, mood, and b-movie monsters with a world domination plot thrown for extra spice. It had a decent sense of humor, and often poked fun at itself.

RE2O built its foundation on the basic principles of the original (isolation, aesthetic, framing, mood), but focused a little more on its humor, body horror and action-movie flair. The plot of RE2O was as bare-bones as it got with the presentation of its narrative. A new cop and an AWOL cop’s bike enthusiast sister wind up trapped in a police station, accidentally stumble across a corporate conspiracy and must escape a giant underground complex before it blows up. Simple stuff. And the dialog – with a fairly improved localization and English performances – got you from point A to point B.

For everything I didn’t like about RE7 (from its aesthetic, plot, combat, creature design, and its bologna white characters), it was, to some degree, an attempt to recapture the camp and b-movie horror that RE4 so firmly embraced without damaging its atmosphere. RE7 was self-aware enough to embrace the inanity that was its premise in a way the series had only recently attempted again in Resident Evil Revelations 2, which also had its tongue firmly placed in its cheek. Resident Evil is a game comfortable with its silliness, but can still deliver a tense mood and atmosphere.

It’s disappointing that RE2R adopts the tone of, “Please, take me seriously”, with all the self-awareness that RE6 had when it tried to be an action/thriller.

RE2R’s primary issue is tone and presentation. From the jump you can tell the scenario writers of RE2R want the game to be this gritty drama with “complex characters”, grounded in reality, right down to the HBO-levels of profanity and the redundant use of “bitch” littered throughout the script. In an attempt to remold a cast of characters designed for the absurd into “realistic” persons, what you get characters largely disinterested in their circumstances. Claire and Leon seem only mildly inconvenienced by the end of the world. They casually shout over explosions (that might as well not have happened), and often can’t be arsed to sound anything other than annoyed by most events that unfold around them as repetitive canned reactions regurgitate through the speakers.

The script doesn’t trust scenes like Leon’s one-to-one moments with Marvin to sell the dire circumstance. So, casually chauvinistic characters like the Gunshop owner (who got comically bodied by zombies) becomes a saccharine drama piece that stalls the progression of the plot in what might be one of most disingenuous moments I’ve seen in a game. When monsters like William Birkin, Mr. X, the Licker, and the plant monsters eventually begin to appear, they stand out and heighten the already problematic uncanny valley present in the game, and seem better suited for the elder games of the series.

You never really get moments like Chief Irons sorrowfully lamenting, “And to think taxidermy used to be my hobby”, Ada shrugging dismissively at Leon’s pride as a police officer, Annette getting conked upside the head by falling debris, or Claire tricking Mr. X into jumping over the ledge to go after the G-Virus hidden in Sherry’s locket and straight up calling him a sucker. The drab, washed out presentation of the plot, played so deadly serious, honestly made for a joyless experience.

RE2R asks and answers the questions like, “What if Leon was wearing civvies on the way to work?” or “What if Ada Wong pretended to be an FBI agent?” A lot of it comes off like a fan novelization that proudly boasts “My version of how Resident Evil 2 would go”. The first time you read it, maybe it’s an interesting take to indulge, but the more you revisit it, the more unessential or cosmetic the changes end up feeling. (The only real cosmetic change that doesn’t seem weird to me is the idea that the police hijacked a museum and made it their dumping grounds.)

A lot of changes to the plot seem to function largely on the assumption that things like Ada posing as a civilian, Sherry being sent to the police station by her parents (as opposed to leaving her in a unprotected living residence with no immediate help), the RPD knowing about the Mansion Incident and brushing off the survivors (Chris, Jill, Barry, etc.), or Ben the reporter locking himself a jail cell to avoid other monsters, are things that strain suspension of belief or just wouldn’t happen in “real life”. So things of that nature either get removed or reworked altogether, often times for jump scares telegraphed a mile away, or left hanging for prequel baiting (because Capcom knows folk are going to be clamoring for another remake of RE1 and RE3).

The plot and its progression feels condensed down to something that’s like the bullet points version of RE2O. It over-simplifies what was already a simpleton of a narrative, largely to compress a lot of events into two campaigns that now never work in harmony. To add insult to that injury, Claire and Leon never communicate, let alone work together. They pretty much forget the other exists, thus making that friendship pretty non-existent.

Say hello to your friends. Say hello people who care. Nothing’s better than friends.

With regard to the two campaigns, for all the focus Capcom places on Leon – the mascot of the reboot itself –, Claire’s campaign is probably a better presentation of a rebooted RE2O, even with its drawbacks to Claire as a character overall (more on that later). The highlight of Claire’s campaign is the fact that her friendship with Sherry Birkin remains intact. I actually think it gets a better representation here than in the original, or what was only marginally improved in side-games like Darkside Chronicles. The downside is that the two interact even less than they did in RE2O, the plot separating them immediately after forming a partnership.

There are some genuine moments of scripted walk-n-talk between Claire and Sherry as they explore the early parts of the game, which in turn makes Claire a far more engaging character than she is with Leon (who is devoid of any real charm or personality in this reboot). The downside, however, is that Sherry is reduced to a prop, where she was a far more proactive party in the original game. That and by the end of Claire’s campaign, there is a lot of “shitty mom” apologia from Claire, whose basic human decency makes her better guardian than Annette Birkin.

Annette Birkin is questionably re-framed as a sympathetic and even tragic hero character who “never meant for this to happen”, never-mind she and her husband (who is also framed as a victim) were involved in the testing, abuse and deaths of orphaned children in the name of science. Then there’s the whole virus that turns people into zombies. But, yeah, what a tragic figure.

My primary issue with the narrative of Leon’s campaign is that they decide to tie him more into the Umbrella plot (aka, Ada and Claire’s shtick) instead of having him focus on finding a way out and helping other people. The reboot actually had the opportunity to employ the “help the other survivors” bit I always felt was dropped in the original (but revisited in Outbreak), and put Leon’s altruistic character into more action. But, then the reboot removes this motivation altogether by making Marvin and RPD’s rescue efforts a complete and utter failure (thanks, Capcom). 

His plot lacks any real momentum, largely because the game nixes his original cast dynamic. Despite nothing crucial happening in his campaign until the end of it, his bears the greatest consequence on the reboot’s compressed narrative. The outright removal of his friendship with Claire, and even the briefest interaction he has with Sherry, makes Leon pretty bland as hell. 

The only time he comes off as remotely personable is when he interacted with Marvin. Otherwise, it’s one eye open, one eye closed with this iteration of the character. The fact that he’s less of a take charge personality, and more of pushover (to sad degrees) also makes for less entertaining interaction all around.

You can tell someone with no ability to write or direct romantic subplots handled this. Whoof.

And while I’m not against reworking the Ada/Leon dynamic where the start of an attraction is a little less like a brick to the head (”Ada wouldn’t do that. I KNOW her!”)?  A): this is Capcom, so that didn’t happen, B):  It’s still pretty much like a brick to the head, only this time it’s last minute, with less foundation, and outright unimaginative. Nothing about the execution of the “romance” in this game works at all. Where Ada and Leon at the very least had a functional rapport and partnership in RE2O, in the reboot the majority of their time is spent in passive aggressive disharmony. The outright antagonism between the two characters in the reboot is not only boring, but not remotely conducive for what follows near the climax.

As something that takes up the majority of his narrative, for worse instead of better, a lot the dialog – a direct consequence of what they choose to do with Ada – is comprised of uninspired “enemies-to-lovers” shtick, right down to drab flirt dialog and throwing one’s words back at the other (“I didn’t realize you were keeping score” / “I didn’t realize we were keeping score”).

The worst thing about his campaign is Ada’s depiction. The reboot effectively turns her into a character who does more damage to her own agenda than Leon being remotely present. I get the writers think having Ada posing as a federal agent is “smart” or “realistic”, but the character instead comes off as more suspicious than a civvie with a gun. She’s a pretty terrible spy in this reboot. Reboot Ada is an antagonistic character with zero charisma or personality, there’s no fun in finding out her ulterior motives. On top of that, the FBI shtick is probably the dullest iteration of the character since her “fringe observer” status in her RE6 campaign. 

But, where you had complete control of her and she was motivated by her own subplot (that did intersect with Leon, sometimes), realized in gameplay and plot, RE2R reduces Ada to a purely cinematic and expositional tag-along character with no agency in the narrative. A lot of what was done to and happens to Ada’s character is purely in service of Leon’s plot and actions. They really fire-bombed the character, but if you’re a hardcore Ada/Leon shipper, then her function will have served its purpose, both for you and Leon’s arc.

Marvin Branagh is humanized on such a level he is no longer the same character from the original game, but his role is effectively the same one. Like Ada, Marvin was re-contextualized largely as a sacrifice to Leon’s character arc (this is not a vibe you get with Claire’s campaign ever). Chief Irons, who feels like he appears out of nowhere, with no buildup, has been reduced to this kind’ve ineffectual kidnapper who disappears just as quickly.

Resident Evil is at its best when it knows it’s an interactive horror b-movie – with action elements – and has a director who knows how to balance all those elements. Beyond the singular moment wherein Claire Redfield declares “I’m gonna kill the monster” while wielding a six shooter and Annette Birkin is actively cheering for the death of her Frankenstein husband, RE2R never tries to be that kind’ve game. It actively runs away from schlock, and so it is the less remarkable product.

Things gleamed from Resident Evil 2′s abandoned direction offer a far more interesting “re-imagining” than 2019 end result. To a degree.

Part of the problem with Capcom’s attempt to “re-imagine” RE2O is that it wants to cling so badly to the framework and story beats of the original game instead of creating an identity of its own. It wants the ability to say, “we’re a totally different story!”, but at the same time does very little to become a different story, and exiles itself to this island of nowhere because it actively alienates the connections to the games that come before and after it.

This is where I think, while a lot of people disliked Shattered Memories, it’s a better re-imagining of the original Silent Hill, because its bold enough to actually commit to that definition. Capcom’s execution here is pretty half-hearted, deliberately so.

I’ve only just chosen to acknowledge the prototype of Resident Evil 2, but despite knowing the devs were not happy with the end result (and just scrapped it), it does a lot of things that this reboot honestly should’ve at least attempted.

Not only does it handle the character plots in a way where scenario nonsense would not be a problem, you basically had (what are now) established (or nixed) characters in different roles, reasonably isolated from the RE1 plot, working in tandem with your player characters (Eliza and Leon) and their cast of characters, who were never designed to meet until the apparent end of the game. Also, Marvin had a larger role and a functional relationship with Leon (I hate Capcom).

As a “retelling” of RE2O, RE2R is pretty weak. There are so many ways Capcom could’ve “re-imagine” RE2O if they were being genuine about that, but the final product more or less proves they weren’t. It’s over-reliance on referencing or leaning on things from RE2O hinders more than helps the game. It invites comparison to what is a better product despite its age. 

The reboot wants to be taken seriously, and does everything it can to project that image to the detriment of its presentation. RE2O more or less reveled in its silliness, and shlocky horror movie tropes and knew you would enjoy the ride anyway.

Separate Ways, Broken Scenarios

Claire and Leon working together, solving the problems...

RE2O’s scenario system was a fairly interesting way of presenting the story of two characters, and I always wondered why this was never more of a thing in games. Claire and Leon’s plot were separated on two discs (PS1). Leon was first, Claire, second. Completing one character’s “A Scenario” unlocked the other character’s “B Scenario”. Certain gameplay actions created minor consequences to affect the respective character’s scenarios (if you took a certain weapon or item over another, it wouldn’t appear in the other character’s alternate scenario).

The scenario system and the corresponding plots of the player characters were clearly developed in tandem with each other. Whatever goofs arose from therein, the narrative position of the characters remained firmly in place (largely because they were told through cinematics).

Claire’s B scenario always felt the most changed because the cinematics had to accommodate for a change to get Claire in places I was otherwise unaccustomed to seeing her. Legit, some of the cinematic differences were wild.

Back in June 2018, Capcom made it clear that RE2R was not intended to have a scenario campaign at all. The decision was (apparently) made back in 2017, when it was clear doing an A/B scenario was going to be costly on a AAA budget. It was only going to be a single campaign for Leon and Claire. So, Claire and Leon’s campaigns in RE2R are, structurally and plot-wise, “Scenario A and B did a fusion dance”.

In execution, their campaigns are like choose your own adventures. It asks the question “what if you went with Claire?” and its answer is “Leon de-spawns and doesn’t appear again until the end of the game”. It’s definitely not “Two strangers walkie-talkie a plan to escape a zombie infested city”.

Inside or outside, the B Scenario for the player characters barely differentiates itself from Scenario A

In this case, they should’ve stuck to their guns, just released one campaign per character (it’s not exactly like the absence of the B scenarios would actually impact their sales. Not with the fans whipped into a frenzy) and focused on getting their plot to work a little better.

“Claire B” and “Leon B” come off like a slapdash cut-and-paste job that made me question whether or not I had hit something on the controller that was causing the sequences to skip right through whole gameplay segments. Yet, now armed with the knowledge of a year before, it would explain why nothing in this game’s presentation ever feels like it gels, or was hastily put together.

Another issue the RE2R’s alternate scenarios make is not maintaining the characters static narrative placement as RE2O did. I think this is where you really start to see how little interest Capcom had in Claire as a character versus Leon. 

RE2R’s “Claire A” Scenario opens with a brief clip of Claire on her bike, talking to someone on the phone about Chris, then hearing something in the gas station store. The game then proceeds to put her in the exact same circumstances as Leon, which is baffling. They really have her doing the Leon shtick and repeats what she did in “Leon A”, but inside the gas station. Whack.

If you play “Leon A” first, she appears out of nowhere like she’s been attacked outside the gas station somewhere nearby. Her motorcycle isn’t even anywhere in view, so, the natural assumption you make is that maybe they’ll show that later when you play “Claire B”. Maybe there’s another area you can explore.

Nah. In “Claire B” the exact same cinematic plays again, trailer music starts, cut to black, and, it jumps to her intro scene in “Leon A”. At no point are you given a unique gameplay level or cinematic for Claire to bridge the gap between Leon heading for the store exit and Claire being chased by zombies that suddenly surrounded the gas station. She lit. just spawned into the area! Whack.

Now for some awkward car dialog

The original game was smart enough to give you a cinematic where she scoped out an empty diner and happened across some zombies while Leon’s boots were being accosted outside by zombies near his jeep. It really sold the idea of events happening concurrently to two different people within the same area.

Claire in “Claire B” doesn’t even get a section where she runs through the city after escaping the T-bone incident. The game just drops you in the graveyard, and then drops you at the rear police station gate where Leon spots her outside. You do a lot of backtracking in RPD with zero character interaction, and then, about an hour into the game, you end up on the exact same track as you did in “Claire A” (meeting Sherry, saving Sherry, Birkin #3-5 fight, escape) with no scene restructuring or whatnot, just the standard “Extended Ending” shtick.

“Leon B” in RE2R shares the exact same problems as “Claire B”. It feels like an abridged version of “Leon A”. Beyond Leon standing outside the gas station store and instant transmission’ing to the back of the police station there are zero story differences. But, with Leon you always have the reassurance that you can just play “Leon A” if you want a more complete experience.

Driving motorcycles in the rain is, factually, an accident waiting to happen

Claire regardless of the scenario you choose for her, A or B, will never get a unique starting gameplay moment of her own. While I think they did a far better job of reworking “Claire A” better than either of Leon’s scenarios, that’s disappointing. Claire really feels like something of a afterthought. 

Other detractors from the scenario nightmare include Mr. X following you around in the A Scenario and the B Scenario, instead of the B scenario only. Mr. X went from a fairly unsettling stalker of a boss enemy, who worked on slasher movie principals (the monster appears out of nowhere when you least expect him), then quickly transformed in a wearying exercise of dodging an enemy type that overstays its welcome. Both scenarios feature the helicopter crash and skylight Licker ambush, etc., etc.. 

If they couldn’t build upon or better realize what the 1998 game did, then the B Scenario was best left to the wayside. Naturally, Capcom didn’t follow their own advice and the want to cater to nostalgia bit them in the ass. 

Water is wet.

II. Gameplay – Night of the Living Bullet Sponges

Lickers (who are still terrifying) are practically one-hit-kill monsters now. Yippie.

There is a lot about the cinematic presentation of the elder Resident Evil games that defines much of its identity. An identity strong enough that most games that came out during the high point of its career were content to copy or refine its formula (Temco’s Fatal Frame, Konami’s Silent Hill 3, and Capcom’s Onimusha and Haunting Ground for example). There is a lot that loses the more it – a two decade old franchise – attempts to keep up with an ever-changing landscape of what’s considered modern-gaming-at-the-moment, instead of going to sleep like Onimusha, or even being forcefully put out to pasture like Silent Hill and Dead Space.

RE2R is a standard third person shooter that de-emphasizes cinematic presentation within its plot and its game space. There are no establishing cinematics, and the Kamiya action-movie-esque flair that made the last stretch of the climax what it is, is thoroughly absent. RE2R instead opts to – present the plot of the game completely within the game space itself with minimal cinematics. Sometimes it works, other times, it doesn’t.

Lickers drop unceremoniously on your head in your first encounter, Mr. X just appears out of nowhere then hounds you like Jehovah’s Witnesses, the sound of a helicopter crash goes whizzing by in time for you to walk past the model that’s already in the wall, Marvin becomes a zombie with no real sense of mourning or terror about his passing, Ada Wong gets the worst on-screen send off, etc. Cinematic moments that were meant to emphasize and foreshadow the decaying situation of the police station and the stakes of the characters are just kinda nullified.

Sherry Birkin’s gameplay segment is one of my favorite parts of the reboot.

I think one of the reasons Claire’s campaign leaves a better impression on me than that of Leon’s is what they decided to with Sherry Birkin’s part in her plot. Leon’s scenario has Ada trudging through a boring sewer corridor hunting for fuse boxes and then the game knocks her out so Leon can come to her rescue. With Sherry, you get something a little more creative, something that doesn’t treat her like a momentary distraction from the player character like it does with Ada. The entire orphanage level, from its presentation, to its level design, is probably what I would’ve liked to haven seen more of in the game.

The game puts you in the shoes of Sherry, but instead of traveling through sewers on your own, you’re exploring and searching an empty building that invokes a mood similar to – but not like – 2002’s Resident Evil. Obviously, this choice was made to keep Leon and Claire’s paths from intersecting (fuck that, I guess), and in a lot of ways, the game abandons the mechanics of Resident Evil and becomes a modern Clocktower game.

Chief Irons becomes the scissorman to Sherry’s Jennifer Simpson, and you, the player, have to navigate a fairly limited space to get away from him. They basically expand upon the Natalia stealth segments from Resident Evil Revelations 2 and create a fantastic gameplay segment full of distressing near misses and a legitimate win for Sherry. (I only wish they had allowed her to lock Irons in the bathroom. He would’ve Nicholson’ed his way out anyway.) Unfortunately, it ends with a Deus Ex Birkin appearance and leaves the player asking more questions that it’s not interested in answering on any level. Also Mr. X just spontaneously appears as well, which only compounds the Deus Ex Birkin thing.

Where you could soccer kick a head from a zombie in the original, Claire and Leon can barely expend energy to shake ‘em off their shins. Fantastic.

Combat wise, in a lot of ways, RE2R feels like a chore. A regression of the advancements that RE4 and RE1R was able to strike a balance with, but later iterations leaned too heavily on or used too little. Hell, I even think it’s a regression of how Dead Space approached combat. RE1R encouraged the player of doing away with zombies much in the same fashion as its counterpart and RE2O, with tactile and visible indicators that the zombies were dead (pools of blood under the body, dismemberment, headshots), but, it also threw in the risk of dealing with a new threat (Crimson Heads) if you chose not to oil and burn the bodies you left behind as you cleared the area. The gameplay was solid about letting the player know their resources had been put to good use.

RE4 encouraged smarter gunplay, aided by laser sight, and critical damage hits to other areas of the Ganados. The risk of taking headshots were being attacked by the parasites that could take large chunks of your health out in tandem with the mobs that – one way or another – would catch up to you. Dead Space took the critical hit system of RE4 and transformed it into a mechanic that made the complete dismemberment of the Necromorph critical to survival. Effectively, both you and the enemies were fairly balanced against each the other. You were never so strong that you could blast through your opponents and your opponents were never so OP that you lost unnecessary resources trying to kill them.

The same really cannot be said of RE2R. Nothing about the combat or enemy encounters feels particularly balanced for much of anything save busywork and resource death. There is no real balance between yours and the strength your opponent. I’ve heard RE4’s adaptive difficulty is still in play here, but if it is, its implementation here is not great. I certainly never reached that flow-state where I felt I was in harmony with the game.

Yeah, I didn’t miss this bit at all.

Headshots are nullified in a way they’ve never been in the series, and right off you can tell what the devs consider a “challenge” in terms of gameplay. Zombies eat bullets as badly as any mid-tier B.O.W., regardless of what difficulty setting you choose. In standard I saw six-to-nine bullets go into the head of a zombie and there was no guarantee they were dead until you saw their head explode or maybe saw them twitch. In hardcore (my sister’s preferred mode), zombies will eat eight-to-twelve-or-more bullets to the head and the consequence is the same.

It’s imperative to try and incapacitate the undead, because minimizing your enemy count in RE2R is an exercise of frustration and often, a waste of bullets. Zombies move far faster than they did the original iteration of this game, practically zapping over to you no matter how much space is between you and them. They do just about the same, if not more, damage to you. The common defense against this is grenades, flashbangs and knives. If you haven’t used them for other things (like Ninja vanishing or crowd control), it’s the quickest way to get out of their hold. It’s simply not as reliable or was enjoyable a method to fight the zombies off in the vein RE4 provided (German Suplexes, kicks, elbows to the face, a knife that isn’t dollar store plastic, dodging, etc.).

If you can avoid them, by all means, avoid them. The consequence, however, is if you have to backtrack, well, you might be running into a bigger crowd, one that may include the problem monster of the given area (Lickers, Mr. X, Dogs, Plant Monsters, etc.) and potentially less resources. It’s a particular problem in the police station with Mr. X following you everywhere and not being remotely helpful enough to do some of the killing for you. He just gently pushes them out of the way.

A lot of the time, my sister was preoccupied with head-shots (against all odds) while I spent my time (trying to) cap their knees, and remove their limbs (so they couldn’t grab us after I capped their knees) so we could sprint our way through environments when the opportunity presented itself (largely to save ammo for another problem area). She’s the better shot, I’m only great with projectile weapons (so Claire’s campaign is even better to me in that regard), which I largely prefer on principal of strength. For me, there is no real satisfaction in the game’s combat, not even in a fight-or-flight sense (prime example: the village and castle encounters in RE4), or on a level capable of inducing the worst panic attack in me like Dead Space 2′s opening hospital sequence.

I was frustrated with near misses. My sister was a little more forgiving about the changes despite never being to make the clean headshots she wanted. We only really agreed on mutual dislike of the boss battles, but’s more or less how we feel about all of RE’s bosses. There is not a single one we’ve enjoyed fighting, and the worst ones were all in RE6 (which literally had us not talking to each other for days afterward) and Revelations 2.

Local zombie mocks police station’s lack of shutters

RE2R is pretty generous with its ammo cashes, with most of what you need readily available. The map, for the most part, makes locating items easier, but spotting them poorly lit environments, and around mini horde-like numbers that seemingly materialize out of nowhere is a bit of chore. Rarer types of ammo, like shotgun or automatic weapon ammo are often hidden in safes or lockers with combination locks.

Resource management returns in the reboot, copy-pasted from RE7, right down to the stark menu and a minimalist design that makes item management, I guess, less busy (color wise). It works, so it doesn’t bother me in context. The maps are definitely easier to read and a little more explicit about what items are where, but have otherwise maintained the “cleared” / “in progress” blue and red dynamic. 

Depending on the difficulty level you’re playing on --- easy (assisted), normal (standard), or hard (hardcore) ---, your resources will be readily available to you, somewhere in the middle, or few and far between (in practice). Hard mode will have you rely on ink ribbons to save your game (like a standard PS1-PS2 game), and I think there are no checkpoints. Save points are scattered in new locations and are a brief safe haven.

Puzzles in Resident Evil have always been a series of frustrating events, particularly slide-and-complete-the-picture and “find the missing themed piece” puzzles. But, this game actually made me appreciate them, largely because the gun-play is no longer a satisfying aspect (and probably will never be again). 

Mechanically speaking, a lot of the puzzles or item hunts from RE2O are sort’ve retained, but they’ve been mixed up or their importance to getting to one place or another has been (extremely) reduced or made even more convoluted. The reboot is definitely not that interested in puzzles, so it feels and is designed less like a dungeon crawler.

Item hunting in order to solve puzzles requires you backtrack quite a number of times through the environment-of-the-moment. However, backtracking is perhaps more nightmare-ish and gauntlet-like than previous entries because it seems like the game spawns more zombies into the area. And with Mr. X basically breaking the exploratory pace of the game, the want to explore your environment is actively discouraged.

[Sighs Loudly For a Thousand Years]

Despite the game’s over-reliance on Mr. X, breaking from the series formula of not over-exposing its mini-bosses (the Regeneradors, Verdugo, or even that huge Centipede in a Trenchcoat for example, were not following you everywhere), Mr. X was, for a short time, the only ‘combat’ element in this game that invoked the right kind of déjà vu.

It was actually satisfying knocking him down, and ducking his punches at the last minute. I mean, at least it was in levels having nothing to do that Ada Wong segment. (Then. he. kept. coming. back.)

Ending him isn’t quite as satisfying as it is in the original game. Not because he effectively became an SNK boss, but because the component that makes that fun (The Resurrection of Ada Wong and the emancipation of the Rocket Launcher) was removed entirely from the game for a sequence far, far blander in comparison.

III. Non-Union for Billion Dollar Corporations

Around 2015 or so, there were rumblings (outright vocalizations)  from unionized voice actors that shed some light on some particularly horrible business practices that developers and publishers were carrying out on voice actors. They were either not being paid their due, or not allowed proper rest-time during the jobs they worked on. Big studios like Insomniac Games, EA Games, Activison, and the like were mistreating voice actors, often to the point where some confessed to experiencing vocal damage, stress or injuries sustained from shitty work conditions and people who clearly viewed their occupation as a lesser division of their project’s production.

At the same time, well before the strike became officiated, Capcom made the conscious decision not to hire unionized voice actors for the production of the Resident Evil 2 reboot. No one knew about this until 2017, when the game was well on its way to being released the following year (before a delay pushed it to 2019) and the Strike was ongoing. Alyson Court (on-again-off-again VA of Claire Redfield), Matthew Mercer (the most recent VA for Leon), and Courtenay Taylor (the most recent VA for Ada Wong) all announced that they weren’t reprising their roles in the game because the reboot was not a union project, but it was not a result of the strike.

Some vocalized their displeasure with this, even going as far as to say that they wouldn’t buy the game in a show of support of the actors. Others aren’t sparing it a glance because they’re otherwise disappointed with the creative direction anyway. But if the reception of the game from basic users – aware of the circumstances or not – is anything to go by, solidarity will typically lose out to FOMA (Fear of Missing Out). Especially if you’re not getting anything out of it personally or emotionally as a consumer of media.

I’m not particularly interested in demeaning non-union voice actors, (I’ve watched and paid for many a-thing that used non-union labor). Capcom, despite working on union projects, also continues to dabble in non-union label as well. I know Capcom’s likely wasn’t interested nor aiming to help voice actors not represented by SAG-AFTRA (or other organizations) become better known or gain better opportunities.

The less money they can probably shell out with non-union work, the better it is for them in the long run. Knowing the striking voice actors didn’t remotely get what they wanted out of negations (and probably didn’t get the support they wanted on account of whataboutism) will probably only embolden Capcom and other publishers and developers to make/continue behavior like this, whether or not another strike ever occur.

Resident Evil has never been particularly known for its voice acting beyond the scope of how terribly it started out in 1996 and kinda petered out on the platform of “meh, it’s not completely terrible” with later entries.

The series could hire some fantastic voice actors (Rino Ramano, Karen Dyer, Sally Cahill, and Paul Mercier, for example), and a lot of them can deliver some dud performances regardless of experience. At the end of the day, unless they have an equally strong director and screenwriter, you’re going to end up with an embarrassment of riches that may become memes one day (“Complete. Global. Saturation.”).

That said, RE2R’s issue seems to lie primarily within the writing. In an attempt “humanize” characters, major to minor, the script is often littered with profanity that not only distracts from the point of what you’re reading or listening to, but adds unnecessary fat to a script that’s already bogged down with dialog and text.

The downside to a rebooting a 20 year old game, is when corporations indulge in fandom bullshit. RE2R is pretty rife with cutesy dialog meant to whip the “Cleon” shippers into a frenzy. Its nauseating, really.

Claire and Leon’s conversation at the back of the police station is a prime example of that: Instead of having the dialog delivering urgency of the scene,  the objective of the characters we get an aimless exchange full of flirty dialog, and two characters not all that concerned with zombies materializing behind them (given they take forever to put the fire under their boots). In RE2O, at least the writers were smart enough to have the characters meet in a zombie-free room or hall.

I’ve seen people make the Realism™ argument constantly with this game (esp. when counterpointing the gameplay criticisms), but, "realism” is a weak argument and esp. when you’re simply looking to be dismissive. When dialog begins to wander from its point, when profanity hinders more than helps your delivery, your story not only loses impact, it rather shows you’re a mite lazy or weak as a writer. 

Comparatively, RE2O was able to communicate the urgency, anger and tone of their characters, and under no circumstances were they this reliant on profanity or long-winded dialog. The issue isn’t that profanity is present, or that the game is text or dialog heavy, it’s how its executed. And at present, the execution is lacking in a strong focus or reduces the game to script written by someone who just realized, “wait, I can make characters swear????”

I can honestly see why a lot of protagonists in survival-horror games were silent for so long outside of cinematics, or simply had substituted thoughts (”I better find Ashley quick”). Running commentary really does break the immersion. 

Claire and Leon go from mildly relatable to mechanical models spewing canned reactions that lost their bite forty minutes ago. It’s like being stuck with multiple versions of the Generic Husband from RE7 who “what the fucks?” at every single thing when given the opportunity. So, in a lot of ways, it has a lot of the same problems that made the dialog in Resident Evil Revelations 2 anguish to listen to (hello, Moria Burton), but it lacks such charming (/s) quips like, “Holy balls, my life is awesome!”

That said, not all of the performances are terrible. The voice actors for Claire (Stephanie Panisello), Marvin (Christopher Mychael Watson) and Sherry (Eliza Pryor) probably leave the greatest impression, and are arguably the strongest performers in the game. Christopher Mychael Watson in particular gives a wildly different performance depending on who you’re playing as (Leon or Claire) and has the strongest rapport with Stephanie Panisello.

Nick Apostolides, on the other hand, he just turns in a really unremarkable performance as Leon. Like, in comparison to Mercer, Mercier, he simply does not charisma to inject personality into what is an otherwise really boring version of Leon. He definitely doesn’t have the hammy, but dead-serious delivery of Paul ”why does no one listen to me?” Haddad (Leon’s original VA). 

I think one of the more disappointing sequences in the game is when Leon returns to the main lobby in the station and gets jumped by zombie Marvin. Instead of sounding devastated, Leon just sounds mildly disappointed his C.O is a zombie (Panisello gives you a better impression of Claire’s heartbreak). And because this scene isn’t a cinematic, you as a player are just running around in circles hoping you have enough ammo to kill the bullet sponge zombie Marvin. When Marvin is finally a gory mess on the ground, Leon saying, “Don’t worry, Lieutenant. I’ll stop this” (paraphrasing) to the pieces of Marvin’s body, comes off as unintentionally hilarious, right down to the delivery of Apostolides.

My feelings are about the same on Jolene Andersen (but we all can’t be Sally Cahill, can we?), but also makes me wonder why Capcom didn’t go the distance to hire a Chinese-American voice actress for Ada. They clearly had the opportunity to do so, they found a Black actor for Marvin, but they just didn’t bother with Ada.

The worst performances out of the bunch is probably Daddy Gunshop owner, “Hello Human” reporter guy, Annette “You’ll Never Get the G-Virus” Birkin, and Chief Irons.

IV. Capcom’s Adventures in Sexism Rebooted

One of these characters had some thought put into their design. It’s not the character on the left.

The Resident Evil series is no stranger the sexualization or objectification of female characters. Historically, for every step forward Resident Evil takes with the presentation of its female characters, it takes six steps back. If there is a female character in the series, the chances are she’s going to be wearing something meant purely for the male gaze, while her male companions wear something far more appropriate for the game’s plot. It only gets worse with alternate costumes, which are typically comprised of sexy school girl fantasies, Daisy Duke hot pants, anti-Black fetishism, and little red riding hood looks. (And no, costumes like Chris’ Sailor Man and Mad Max looks aren’t a counterpoint gotcha.)

RE2R, on the surface, seems to be yet another step-up in the presentation department for female characters in the series. Claire is wearing a leather jacket over a black tank top and sports jeans instead of shorts in new her default costume, they even presented Ada Wong in a world’s ugliest looking trenchcoat. Even better, one of Claire’s alternate costumes is a suit pants and shirt look. Claire has three alternate costumes that aren’t even remotely fanservice-y in the least and it’s great.

Then Capcom announced the “Classic Costume” for Claire and finally revealed Ada Wong without the trenchcoat, and it was business as usual. Claire Redfield’s “Classic Costume” in the reboot is, for lack of a better word, closer to fanservice-y than the original leotard under shorts, black shirt, and vest combo ever turned out to be. The only marked improvement made are the shorts are equal to the length of the leotards and no longer look like underwear.

Where the tank top worked with her new jacket and jeans, it throws the entire look of the original costume’s framing off, and based on the cinematics. While it’s nowhere near as sexualized as her Revelations 2 alt costume, Capcom’s intent here is pretty clear.

Effectively, Claire looks closer to a character who would appear in a Michael Bay produced horror film, whose talking points are usually how sexy the actress makes being terrified look. In the original she was simply meant to look “cool”. When she removed the vest, and wore the holster over her black shirt, she did.

Ada Wong goes from wearing a halter top dress with leggings, and flat heeled shoes that looked fairly maneuverable in, to looking as though she’s been zip-locked into a red slip that doesn’t fit her, finished off with a tacky tiny black bow, a choker and two inch heels. 

The entire look of it rather screams at you like a flashing ad banner advertising for an explicit website fetishizing Chinese-American woman. A lot of the fan art coming out of the fandom for Ada Wong in the remake is reflecting more or less that, so the target audience has been completely satisfied in this regard.

She looks absolutely ridiculous in gameplay segments because the dress was designed with no reactionary physics. It doesn’t flex the way a dress does around legs. It looks like a bad mod made by a fan that wanted a “sexier” looking Ada Wong.

Even outside the context of alternate costumes, female characters like 18-Year old Rebecca Chambers (who isn’t even in this game) ends up being oddly sexualized in a photograph where she was originally just sitting on the ground with a basketball in front of her leg, grinning like a goofy kid on a Scholastic paperback from the 90s.

Were it not for the fact that they were legitimately aiming to make Annette Birkin look undesirable, I’d be surprised that she didn’t appear in this game wearing a lab coat, half-open dress shirt, office skirt and three inch heels with heavy makeup.

Meanwhile, Leon Kennedy gets a “Classic Costume” that gets no [major] alternations to its look and thus is restored, unlike Claire or Ada, normal civilian clothing, and a Noir costume. Ada basically got no alternate costumes despite her playability, and I think it was the same with Sherry as well?

Standard, tried and true sexism aside, when it comes right down to it, even if your female character has the reputation of characters like Leon, “How can I make her sexier?” is a question Capcom all too readily answers instead of being creative.

V. RE Engine or, a Trip into the Dark Valley of Uncanny Gray People Land

Photorealism in games isn’t something I’m crazy about and how I react to it ultimately depends on the developer. A lot of video games have been worse for it – dead eye and plastic looking characters is an issue that persists – while very few have used it to the advantage of their creativity.

The major thing that puts me off is the blandness of a photo-realistic white faces. Developers are have shown they can sleepwalk a photo-realistic white face with no issues, but when it comes to the faces of people of color, well, either their biases start to show in the designs (its real easy to make a caricature of Black or non-Black face for video game devs) or their limitations are inherent in their how they see faces that don’t look like them.

I find myself struggling to say what I enjoyed about this game on a visual aspect, because its biggest detriment is without a doubt the RE Engine.

Environment Design - You want it Darker

Creative Assembly’s Alien Isolation did something I really liked. And that’s make the player reliant upon its darkness. You spend as much time in the light as you do enshrouded in the dark. The A.I. systems of Amanda Ripley’s enemies: Hostile humans, androids on an aggressive warpath of helpfulness, and the Xenomorph make hyper-aware of just how exposed you are bathed in the light, just as the dark and shadow make you equally aware that you’re just as open to an attack from the Xenomorph who needs no light to see you should it ever spot you therein.

A lot of the design philosophies in RE2R were built on the groundwork established by RE7, but its disadvantage was the player’s familiarity with RE2O’s level design. In a lot ways, I think they opted for pitch black environments to break that confidence. There are several environments throughout the presentation of RE2R that are turn-the-lights-off dark (which makes for an unpleasant experience for my eyes), but in a way that’s more superficial than essential.

Most areas in the game contain low-level lightning most of the series is known for, but it lacks any of the color and saturation from older games that make set pieces stand out. The most light you’ll see in RE2R is within the lobby, library and upper offices of the police station and the underground lab at the climax of the game. 

The closest the game ever gets to replicating the atmosphere and mood of the older Resident Evil games is probably the orphanage level and the later street level in Claire’s campaign. The lightning and shadows are perfect there.  But, more often than not, RE2R is content to plunge you into a adversarial darkness repeatedly with a flashlight. In addition to the game’s muted or desaturated colors and washed out look, nothing about the environment design really stands out as remarkable outside of the aforementioned levels.

I don’t think I’ve read so many complaints about having to adjust the contrast, color, brightness, and etc just to get one area or another to look normal before this game (in relation to RE). It’s apparently bad enough that PC Modders are creating mods that fix the overall presentation of the game (more color contrast, sharper image, improved lightning). Devil May Cry 5‘s environment and lightning design tends to looks leagues better than this game, and its got its fair share of bland looking levels. 

The screenshot is edited, but this is a solid approximation of how dark it is in a lot of areas.

Where almost no light worked in a game like Amnesia: The Dark Descent, SOMA, Penumbra, or even Silent Hill, RE2R’s design template actively discourages exploration in a way the older games did the opposite. It gives you the impression that the game has more to hide than it does to show you. The 2002 Resident Evil remake is still one of the best examples of cinematic light, dark, and shadow created purely for navigation purposes. The game is seventeen years old (holy shit), and legit, I don’t think there is a Resident Evil game in the series that nails how essential lightning is to your environment like this one.

On an aesthetic level, the reboot fails to capture the period of the world that its predecessor was basically developed, lived and breathed in. Setting aside product placement (“Pepsi”) and musical cues (“Baby one More Time”) is beyond Capcom’s budget, it’s the little things about the environment and level design in the reboot that really fails to say, “Here lay 1998. We’re a year away from the full-blown Y2K craze, floppy discs, and pagers were still a thing.”

There’s a tape recorder, yes, there are big, blocky computers sitting on hardwood desks and gas prices I still can’t believe my father grouched over in comparison to the shit they have us paying now, but, a lot of those things feel like superficial window dressing on a poster board. 

The environment design and world of RE2R feels very much like a 2019 era world with very little ringing true of the 90s.. I don’t think any damages the authenticity of the world much like the design of the characters – who look a little too 21st century as opposed to individuals trapped in a moment of time – now twenty years ago – and the same can be said of the secret evil lair of the Umbrella Corporation.

Everything in the final level of the game feels like something of Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil (The HIVE), and less like a lab that was built and constructed with what a 90s era architect would think was cutting edge tech and aesthetic of the late 1990s. It got to a point where I honestly think they should’ve just set the reboot in 2018.

Character Design - Petrified Faces and Awkward Mouths

He’s lit. melting in the rain right now.

Photo-realistic characters live and die by how well they imitate life without setting off the alarms in your mind. RE2R falls on the spectrum of “missing your mark” in a lot of ways. Characters in RE7 had the look of wax mannequin dolls walking around terrorizing you’re equally doll-esque player characters (with no heads). Nothing about how these characters were rendered and animated was particularly great, and it constantly triggered the meant response of “there is something wrong with what I’m looking at” that often comes with the uncanny valley.

The biggest issue facing the grand majority of the white characters RE2R is the fact that Capcom is still manipulating faces like they’re still using stylized animation and not an engine “based in reality” to its detriment. Characters are puppet-esque, or look particularly unfinished in the washed out environment and desaturated colors. This is noticeable in throwaway characters like the trucker in the opening cinematic (eating a burger that reacts unlike food) with a face that seems ready to melt off of its model at any moment, Chief Irons, “Hello Human” reporter guy, and the father and zombie daughter from the trite Gunshop sequence begging for its SAG award. None of these characters emote or animate well and draw the eye to the imperfections of the engine than wow you with its animation.

Among the central cast, the characters that look the worst rendered in the RE Engine are probably Claire Redfield and Annette Birkin. Both characters look as though the face models simply did not cooperate with Capcom tweaking the faces. Annette is more puppet-like than say, Claire (who at least has genuine moments of humanity). The less than stellar facial and lip animation is extremely noticeable on Annette's model who might’ve been promoted to minor antagonist at the last minute, because she has no business moving so robotically. It probably doesn’t help matters that Capcom designed her character with the philosophy of “working women don’t care about their appearances” (paraphrased) in mind, which makes their changes to Ada and Claire all the more suspect.

Claire’s biggest issue seems to be that Capcom simply spent less time on her than they did Leon. The model’s face is often stiff and under-animated, so it looks like Claire’s face is struggling to emote. This is especially notifiable when you compare Claire’s model to her living counterpart (who is far more expressive in a still image than her 3D model). Capcom more than likely tweaked the model’s face more than a little bit, and to the character’s detriment. Honestly, it’s comparable to how she ended up looking in CGI film Degeneration (where her face barley animated). Claire’s model really, really, really needed more work, or Capcom needed to find a face they could work with better than the one they chose.

Leon is the character they clearly spent more time on, at least in terms of details. In general, his animations are probably stiffer than Claire. Most of the cinematics involving close-ups of Leon’s face make it appear as though Leon has mastered the art of talking through one’s teeth without moving their lips, and he’s not particularly emotive unless the emotion is an extreme one.

Out of the characters with any remote screen-time or plot-related dialog, the only ones that look slightly more remarkable are Ada Wong and Marvin Branagh. Marvin in particular might be the best example of what the RE Engine can do with unique faces and competent performance from the animators and the actor. 

Ada Wong looks better than she ever did in Resident Evil 6, and while this not my favorite rendition of her character on any level, she is only female character in the game – in terms of character design – that got a decent face model.

The only drawback with these two characters that Marvin looks as ashy white as the white characters (and no blood-loss isn’t a justification for that) and he shares the same thousand yard dead-eye look in his eyes that a lot of the other characters have. The less-than-stellar facial animation is more than a little noticeable in Ada Wong’s sequences a well (was she snarling or trying to annunciate words at Annette?).

The zombies and non-human enemy types look better suited the grayscale, clay-esque look the RE Engine gives everything. Zombies require almost little to no real facial animation, but against the backdrop of reality they are truly out of place (to reiterate). The same can be said of characters like Mr. X or William Birkin’s monster form.

The big sell Capcom made with the zombies and monsters in RE2R is that they could render insane amounts of gore, based on the human anatomy. On paper, it definitely sounds like a cool idea, in execution? I’ve been so desensitized to gore and human guts – within the fictional spectrum – that this really doesn’t impress me. (My sister, on the other hand, needed a moment.) 

It’s like, “Yeah, that guy’s arm is are hanging off alright.” But, unless you’re giving me RE4 or Dead Space level styled deaths, where the gore is put on display with a sort’ve Evil Dead irreverence, well, the most your doing is just demonstrating gross anatomy. It’s cool, but not exactly satisfying, esp. when taking the clay-esque look of the models into consideration. The masturbatory gore dislay is also probably a big reason why firearms and explosives against zombies no longer have the desired effect. The most you’ll be doing a lot of the time is peeling the skin off of a model, which I guess, is your cue to go, “Wow, look these physics, look at that gore.”

There are some developers who really know how to work with photo-realistic environments and, even moreso, how to render photo-realistic characters, be they based on living people or not. Remedy Entertainment (using the in-house engine, Northlight Engine), is one, and Naughty Dog – who still rely heavily on stylization – has only recently entered that threshold during the PS4 era.

A lot of this of course, is a consequence of experience with that medium. Naughty Dog’s history with more animated styles definitely helps more than harms their photo-realistic models and environment. Remedy Entertainment’s persistent desire to render the real world in a 3D environment has simply improved as the tech has gotten better.

Capcom, like Square Enix and the late Konami, was always at its best with hybrid blend of animation and photo-realism. Resident Evil was rendered and designed in such a way that it straddled the line of photo-realism and stylistic animation in way no other games did. It wasn’t too real, and it wasn’t too cartoony.

That creative style lent itself to their level design as one was often not without the other. The Gothic horror design of mansions or European countries, and the stark familiarity of places like a police station, a cruise ship or a prison island, were often picture-esque or surreal by design. The RE Engine is probably the biggest step backward in terms of design and atmosphere.

VI. Conclusion – “All Employees Proceed to the Bottom Platform.”

Hey, look, a callback to Resident Evil 2. Neat.

As a game I played with my sister, passing he controller to her every fifteen minutes, I had fun based purely on how she reacted to the game. Whatever my quibbles, the most fun I’ve had with this game is probably screaming and yelling with my sister, and acting as her personal exposition machine. 

She asks so many questions about what the hell is going on in the greater scheme of the plot. She doesn’t care, per-say, but she asks anyway because she knows I like reading Wikipedia and thus have the answers. I can only tell her what I know from the previous games, which I know effectively don’t count for shit with this reboot.

That said, the reboot just made me weirdly appreciative of what went into the creation of the original Resident Evil 2, especially in terms of structure, gameplay and presentation. The reboot is ultimately something that feels like it was produced within a AAA space, right down to its paid DLC offerings, which once would’ve been natural unlockables in the game. It’s budget was probably sunk by the over-lavish requirements of the RE Engine, and just from looking at it, this game had budget it was straining against. It ultimately ends up making its predecessor all the more crucial and unique.

It kinda highlights just how useless exploiting nostalgia is in the process of replicating things. You don’t get the same results, and in the end you’re only playing an imitation of something that was a consequence of the right people coming together at the right period of time. It’s what makes things like polygonal character skins, or “play this game with lower resolution settings”, give the impression that devs largely miss the point or misunderstand what people like or continue to like about older productions, even when a newer imitation of it comes out (the discussions people have about Metal Gear Solid vs. The Twin Snakes highlights this best, I think).

I enjoyed Bluepoint’s Shadow of the Colossus, they went above and beyond the call of duty to reproduce the original, but I often find myself playing the older far more than its 2018 remake, because the latter ultimately lacks what Team Ico put into that game.

In its attempts to be a retelling of the game, RE2R probably would’ve been better off abandoning the entire framework and creating something entirely new (I say again). But because it never tries to be different enough from its counterpart, especially in terms of story beats, the end result is a condensed soup with missing flavor. Otherwise, I think restorative would’ve been a better move than remixing it. Not something I could say about Shattered Memories. If I could describe RE2R, outside of the interaction I had with it in the company of my sister, “boring” would be the kindest descriptor I could give it. Everything about its aesthetic, to the delivery as a much toned down version of RE2O, was not gripping [for] me.

Comparing this reboot to something like DMC5, something using the same engine, but manages to be more vibrant in design and presentation, makes RE2R look unremarkable in comparison. The visual quality of the game tended to remind me of the presentation of Ready at Dawn’s The Order 1886, which was also heavily reliant on photo-realistic graphics and a washed out presentation.

This game is nowhere near as engaging as its original. And because the campaigns are basically a Frankenstein hybrid of the original A/B set up, a lot of the changes to the plot seem really superfluous or detrimental to the structure overall.

They really did Ada dirty in this game.

Playing the events of RE2O as more overly dramatic or serious effectively makes for a really dull game. A more reality-based RE isn’t something I’m particularly interested in, especially since the end result appears to be a less exciting product. The fact that they did so little with or reduced characters like Marvin and Ada – who are nowhere near as present or independent of the scenario characters as they should be, just makes for a greater disappointment.

RE2R is a reboot of the original 1998 game in all the ways that are reflective of RE7’s design principals, carrying the pretense of realism on its shoulders. RE2R keeps some of the bones of RE2O, but discards the rest in exchange for something trying really hard to be different, but familiar enough to invoke déjà vu. If you spent the radio silence hoping for the lavish recreation Mikami made of his 1996 original in 2002 for Gamecube audiences, you sadly won’t find it here. If anything this more or less proves something like that will never happen again.

RE2R strives to be a third person iteration of RE7 with an older title. If you weren’t crazy for what a lot of people more or less called “Resident Evil in Name Only” when it was released in 2017, chances are you won’t enjoy your time with RE2R. If you were completely and utterly for RE7, the RE Engine and all that this blueprint entails, you’ll basically have a good time with RE2R and whatever else gets remade under this umbrella.

The last temptation I have toward this game is playing it heavily modified on the PC because the mods for this game actually look like something to mess with. I’m just waiting for the “Classic Ada” costume mod, because that dress is some of the laziest character design I’ve ever seen.

[architectnews]

"Architects need to stand in vocal opposition to the government's segregated toilet proposals"

The UK government's consultation on desegregated toilets is a direct attack on trans rights, says the United Voices of the World – Section of Architectural Workers union.

The government's current consultation on toilets, entitled Toilet provision for men and women: call for evidence, places the provision of "gender-neutral" desegregated facilities and the safety of trans and gender non-conforming people who rely on them, under threat.

This consultation is dog-whistle politics, motivated not by improving access to public toilets, but in suppressing the rights of trans and gender non-conforming people. From the government's pitiful reform of the Gender Recognition Act in 2020, to the recent high court ruling to restrict children under 16 from accessing "puberty-blocking" drugs, it is yet another attack in the on-going culture war that seeks to dehumanise and remove trans people from public life.

The consultation, which people can respond to until this Friday 26 February, seeks to change guidance, and even insert new terms into the building regulations that would enforce a clear steer towards facilities segregated by binary "sex" categories.

It further seeks to reconsider "the ratio of female toilet spaces needed, versus the number for men" and pushes for the use of "gender-specific language" in washroom signage to avoid so-called "public confusion".

Desegregated toilets are known to offer numerous benefits

The era of architects reshaping cities in the hopes of achieving an egalitarian utopia is long gone, if indeed it ever existed, but designers still have the power to prioritise the needs of often-overlooked people. Architects need to use their voices and stand in vocal opposition to the government's segregated toilet proposals.

Desegregated toilets are known to offer numerous benefits – they introduce parity into waiting times for all genders, make toilet trips easier for carers or those accompanying dependents, are cheaper, and use space more efficiently. They have proven particularly successful in schools where they can help to reduce bullying.

In 2017 UK LGBT rights charity Stonewall found that 48 per cent of trans people don't feel comfortable using public toilets due to fear of discrimination or harassment. A huge benefit of desegregated toilets is that they can greatly reduce the risks of verbal harassment, intimidation and physical assault transgender, non-binary and gender non-conforming people often face in "single-sex" facilities.

The government consultation, says that it's aim is to "ensure that everyone is fairly served", but it's framing and baseless claims that "male-only/female-only spaces" are being "replaced with gender-neutral toilets" expose its disingenuous foundations.

The government claims that desegregated facilities place women at a "significant disadvantage" and make them "feel less comfortable" leave little question as to who its authors do and do not consider "women". The experiences of women who are trans or gender non conforming, who often face hostility, scrutiny and physical aggression in segregated public toilets, are completely disregarded.

Trans men, non-binary and intersex people who experience menstruation, pregnancy or menopause are similarly ignored in the government's proposals, as the consultation frames these "sanitary needs" as phenomena specific to women only.

The consultation also fails to consider the experiences of those who are discriminated against because they are incorrectly perceived to be trans- including butch/lesbian women; gender non conforming and intersex people; and black women, due to racist ideas about femininity. It is a failure of the Equality Act not to protect these people's need for safe access to toilet facilities.

At this crucial moment, UVW-SAW calls on allies in the architectural profession to use their voices

A concerned coalition of architectural academics based at the Bartlett School of Architecture and Goldsmiths Centre for Research Architecture, including Ben Campkin, Ged Ribas Goody, Lo Marshall, and Barbara Penner, summarised the consultation as so:

"The government's consultation is based on false premises of binary gender and biological essentialism, which do not reflect the actual diversity of bodies and experiences. It disregards the needs of certain users, including trans, intersex and gender non-conforming people, who are especially vulnerable to harassment and violence in public facilities. It raises the question: why should toilets continue to be divided by gender at all, given that users' needs are known to be shaped by many factors (age, health, ability, gender, caring responsibilities, race, religion, sex and sexual orientation)?"

At this crucial moment, UVW-SAW calls on allies in the architectural profession to use their voices. The government call for evidence states they will listen to relevant stakeholders with "technical knowledge of building regulations".

After years of designing desegregated multi-user facilities, architects know that there are a host of both practical and rights-based reasons that legislation must remain flexible here. Support for desegregated multi-user toilet facilities results as much from their ability to create an inclusive environment as their practical benefits.

Tightening regulations in this area would make the architect's task harder. Through good design, of lobby spaces in particular, perceived negative aspects can often be overcome.

Some of the UK's most prominent practices claim allyship to the LGBTQ+ community. Now is the time to follow up on those commitments

Enhanced privacy can be achieved with a shift from urinals to cubicles, and by specifying full height cubicle doors. Improved safety is simple to implement with a communal handwashing area that can be well observed from circulation spaces, providing greater transparency and preventing opportunities for bullying and harassment.

Building Regulations have never before enforced segregated facilities. Today's Approved Document G for England simply asks for, "Sanitary conveniences of the appropriate type for the sex and age of the persons using the building".

This wording is just open enough to allow for diverse applications, including some religious contexts that require segregated toilets, but there is already an outdated presumption towards segregated facilities embedded into regulations and guidance. We simply cannot risk the introduction of new, tighter regulations.

The ARB and RIBA code of conducts ask that we "treat everyone fairly" and not discriminate because of "gender reassignment", "sex", or "sexual orientation". Year after year, some of the UK's most prominent practices display the LGBTQ+ Pride flag in June, claiming allyship to the LGBTQ+ community. Now is the time to follow up on those commitments.

Architectural workers must stand in solidarity with trans and gender non-conforming people in opposition to this attack on the basic human right of trans and gender non-conforming people to use the bathroom with their dignity and safety intact.

UVW-SAW is a union for architectural workers in the UK.

Image courtesy of  The Gender Spectrum Collection.

The post "Architects need to stand in vocal opposition to the government's segregated toilet proposals" appeared first on Dezeen.

[annashipper]

Showsie Submission

Hey Anna! Just thought I'd submit on recent events. Although I have not been vocal lately, I have still been paying attention to the land of shamwow. So...Ben goes to a concert in NYC? We get some pics of him solo, and a delightful lack of fuckery to accompany them. We also get some nice, high quality pics of IW filming...accompanied by some Fail articles that focus on his work, sans any fetch attempts from she who shall remain fetchless. I have to say, I find these recent events encouraging...not from any shamwow point of view...but from a good PR point of view. I'm with Ballsy...cookies where they are deserved, really. Granted...I've become so inured to the previous poor efforts of team BC in this respect that the bar of my expectations in this matter has been set quite low as a result...but kudos are given for this week's efforts regardless. I think I'm finally seeing the result of some sensible and grown-up PR strategy here, and I really hope it continues. I also wanted to address JT Anon's comments on the nan factor as pertains to PR strategy. I do think that you find groups like the nans in any fandom...they just happen to be more vehement and vocal in this one. I do believe that pandering to such a group is not a particularly good idea when it comes to a risk/benefit analysis, and that no effective or capable PR would do so, if they could possibly avoid it. But, I don't think that a capable PR is what we have here, given previous form. I think they use the nans for clicks, but without any thought as to the consequences. I've also seen people mentioning the Beatlemania type promo that was used in that Hollywood Reporter article in 2014. In my opinion...that was poor form. I'm sure the nans saw it as validation for their behaviour, but I just saw it as mocking, disrespectful and not good at all. Which brings me to my main point...I've often said that Ben's team have failed to understand his fandom. Let me clarify this point for you now (just in case the intern that is tasked with reading these blogs is paying attention). If I were in charge of Ben's image from the start...I would have aggressively marketed him as the 'thinking women's crumpet' from the start. Because I think my job as PR would have been to determine what demographic my client was most likely to appeal to, and to build a business plan in that direction. I think they had made some good steps in that direction...up until mid 2014...and then the wheels came off that particular train, for whatever reason (which I'm sure we'll never know the truth of), and we ended up with the mish-mash of contradictory messages we have now. Team BC have failed to appreciate the demographic they should have been aiming for. Ben was never going to be the classical Hollywood heartthrob material. He doesn't have the right look for that. Don't get me wrong...I still think he is pretty, in a striking and unusual way, but he's not got the archetypal good looks for such a thing. Instead of the Internet's Boyfriend with a bunch of squealing fans designed to appeal to the barely post-pubescent, they should have been aiming for slightly more mature woman as their target audience for this man. This is the audience I think a man like Ben would appeal to. Someone who isn't about the hype, and is looking for substance over style. And it would have had the added bonus of being directly aimed at where the money is. Because people forget...free thinking and more mature women are more likely to be professionals, established in their careers, with a considerable amount of disposable income to spend on movie tickets and the like. And such women don't require hearing awkward shoehorning and stuttering (and, quite frankly, unconvincing) affirmations about a personal life that should have been kept private, to spend money on their fave. They would have been more impressed by someone showing enough respect for their wife and children to not put it up for sale to the highest bidder in an attempt at generating cheap publicity. This is a vast and untapped market that they have failed to capitalise on, had they recognised it earlier. But...I do feel they have finally cottoned on to this, because we are now seeing a strategy from Team BC that accommodates this view of celebrity. Let's hope they continue their current good form and that they won't disappoint us in the future. Fingers crossed! Hugs to you, Anna

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Ben is definitely standing his ground, I’ll give him that.  And yes, I’m quite optimistic about where this seems to be going.  Cookies for PR though?  I’m withholding those until after Wimbledon (and I think everyone reading this blog knows the reasons why)

As far as Ben’s image is concerned, that’s something I’ve found fascinating since before I even became a fan of his.

I still remember reading through Empire and seeing he’d gotten their Sexiest Man Alive title for 2013 which, I have to be honest, baffled me at the time (but in my defence I hadn’t watched a single episode of Sherlock yet).  

I remember reading article upon article about him back then, all of them talking about legions of Cumberbitches, about him being the thinking woman’s crumpet and definitely seeing the potential for him to make it big in the industry.

When I finally watched Sherlock and couldn’t shut up about this magnificent actor everyone around me had to see in action, one of my colleagues even had a mug made for me that read “Proud Cumberbitch” with a screenshot of Sherlock in the sheet at Buckingham Palace, which I thought was hilarious and kept using at the office (because apparently I have no shame).

So yeah, as long as Ben was being adorable on red carpets, verbose and funny in interviews and wasn’t playing the same game everyone in Hollywood seems to be playing, I had no problem with the Cumberbitch title.  It was just a silly thing that I could find humour in.

Fast forward to the fall of 2014: There was certainly a shift in the way he was portrayed in the press during TIG promo, and they seemed to want to hold on to both aspects of his image at that point.  Having him give long winded interviews about Alan Turing and the way he was slighted by the system, while also having him do that cringe worthy photoshoot for Hollywood Reporter.  

To make matters worse, they kept jabbing at his fans with not only Beatlemania references, but also building him up like this bigger than life movie star who couldn’t run fast enough away from his screaming fans, as well as the paparazzi.

That would have been all fine and dandy, had Ben accustomed the world at large to such behaviour.  BUT, although anyone paying attention knew that lots of his fans were overly enthusiastic (a great number of them willing to go to great lengths to breathe the same air as he does for 5 seconds) and ready to throw themselves into battle to defend him against his critics, they also knew that he was a man who’d been in the industry for close to 20 years already and had managed to always guard his private life.

Therefore, when he kept talking about how fiercely private he was while obviously doing staged pap walks ... globally, he started looking disingenuous.  Something that was amplified by the fact that he kept talking about being happy to find love with Sophie Hunter, a woman who 9 out of 10 people think trapped him into marriage with a pregnancy, while he started looking more and more frustrated around her, the more we saw them together.

Let’s get one thing straight:  No one likes a liar.  No one thinks a liar is the thinking woman’s crumpet.  No one thinks a liar is adorable.

In order for Ben to turn his image around and go back to presenting himself the way that he has worked so long and hard to be regarded, I believe he has to stop lying.  Because let’s face it, he may be a gifted actor, but the poor guy can’t lie his way out of a paper bag.  Not about anything that matters at least...

When he stops lying, I’m prepared to bake heaps of cookies for everyone.  His PR, the poor intern who has to keep reading our ramblings to report back to Karon who then reports back to Ben, the people in Ben’s life who’ve stood by him through all of this adversity, the Skeptics, the Nans, even random people in the streets.  The only people not getting cookies will be the trolls who are posing as skeptics, as well as Shitty and her friends.  And let me tell you Ms Showsie, I make a mean cookie  :P

[angrylizardjacket]

Yaaasss!!! Jelous Ben was si cuteee and we love a supportive mother, her mom is fantastic and a savage. I hace a question, how did you come up with reader's character in x-men?? I legit googled it as I thought it was a real character, so welk done.

i love her mum so fuckin much, dude, she’s supportive but can still be embarrassing at times. i wrote her, not like my actual mum, but like my dad now that i think about it. dude literally told me over the phone that he’d physically fight people for shittalking me (not just in general, there’s more context, but the point still stands). idk i think it’s disingenuous to not let parental characters have certain flaws, like they’re allowed to be overprotective and spiteful, as well as caring and supportive. i love her too.

oH SHIT DUDE LEMME TALK ABT MY GIRL CASSIDY TEMPLE I LOVE HER SO FUCKING MUCH AND I”VE PUT SO MUCH THOUGHT INTO HER THAT THIS WILL HAVE A READ MORE

so cassidy’s powers are actually based off of an xmen oc i’ve already written 70k about, Aoibheal Cassidy, younger sister of Banshee, Sean Cassidy, and Cassidy Temple’s name is a reference to her, since originally I was going to essentially have Y/N playing Aoibheal (because it’s my fic and i can include an homage to my xmen oc as a treat). the powers themselves are based loosely on Multiple Man from X-Men: The Last Stand, except Cassidy’s clones can’t live a life of their own like his can. In the xmen fic, aoibheal starts off with having unlimited clones, and they can explode because i thought it was neat tbh.

From the original fic, Molotov Heart, chapter 3, rubatosis:

[Context; humans experimenting on mutants between X-Men First Class and X-Men Days Of Future Past have caught Sean and Aoibheal and they experiment on them even though Aoibheal’s powers have not manifested (she is approximately 13) and they kill her brother in front of her]:

Stunned into silence, she can feel something white-hot building inside of her, all the rage and fear and pain becoming almost tangible.

She mutates.

Copies of Aoibheal, clones, appear around them, filling up the space between the now screaming and bewildered 'doctors'. Aoibheal herself doesn't seem to notice the clones, bawling her eyes out, an action the clones themselves are mirroring, and she thinks of nothing but freedom and escape, focusing on the white-hot feeling inside of her until it overwhelmed her. With the force of a bunker-buster bomb, the clones began to combust, began to explode, first a few, and then all at once. Killing the human personel who had kept her hostage, the blast reduced the warehouse to mere cinders, freed Aoibheal and left her clothing in tatters, but she was alive damn it.

The reason Cassidy has a limited number is because i needed a way to have her powered up as a horseman, like a distinct power up, rather than just something unseen like heightened reflexes and strength. 

I would like to point out also, that it’s not stated, but Cassidy’s explosions (NOT AOIBHEAL’s) are never to do with heat, they’re always about force. the explosions themselves are never hot, never have anything to do with fire or anything like that, she builds up force inside of the clones, and lets it tear her apart from the inside out as a wave that destroys the things it comes into contact with.

The scream was originally hereditary, like Banshee, it developed as her secondary mutation.

From the Marvel Wiki:

The Secondary Mutation (or "Second Mutation") is a phenomenon in which an existing mutant undergoes another mutation, gaining additional powers, such as healing, or a change in appearance.

Secondary mutation is noted as the appearance of new powers, or an increase in existing powers.

It was stated by Beast that the secondary mutations usually occurred in the twenties of the subjects, and generally appeared in time of great stress.

From the original fic, chapter 8, nodus tollens:

The appearance of the secondary mutation:

The world falls apart in a blur of movement. The gun goes off just after Raven jumps and makes a break for the window, the bullet curves as she crashes through the glass, following her on the way down. Tackling Erik earns Hank a mean right hook to the jaw, but Aoibheal’s there, looking at Trask like a dear in the headlights, memories whipping through her head like a hurricane - the sick fuck looks pleased to see her – her mouth falls open and she screams. She and the clone scream in tandem, their voices supersonic as the surrounding people clutched their ears for dear life; struggling to keep a hold of the feeling in her chest that caused her to explode, the clone detonates like a firework, scorching the wallpaper while Trask is stumbling to the door. There’s blood leaking from his ears but Aoibheal can’t move, can only scream and relive the memory of her brother’s murder over and over again.

Hank discussing it:

"I've never seen a secondary mutation so vastly different!" No longer blue or furry, [Hank’s] smile is excited as he looks over at her. Sharing the cockpit feels almost familiar by now, with Aoibheal curled up in the passenger seat nursing a glass of water. "It makes sense though, your original mutation – the explosions – would be an extension of your temperature immunity, but your secondary mutation is hereditary."

Cassidy’s scream, however, unlike Banshee’s, only effects things with ears, not inanimate objects like glass. Of course she could learn the right pitch to get glass to shatter like an opera singer, but generally speaking, her scream only effects things that can hear. 

OKAY LETS TALK ABT THE STUFF I FABRICATED FOR THE FIC

oh GOD I WANT TO TALK ABOUT HER RELATIONSHIP WITH MAGNETO

not as in romantic, as in he is literally her character’s main inspiration in the films. i’m literally making a fake trailer right now that’s intercut with moments from his DOFP speech that was broadcast to the whole of america.

i love dofp (possibly to my detriment) but i always thought it was weird that no-one was ever like.... magneto has a point. BECAUSE HE HAS A POINT. he’s speaking directly to disenfranchised and SCARED mutants across the nation, and yet everyone’s heralding Mystique as the new face of mutant kind. YES she made a point, but like.... did no-one vibe with magneto when he promised the destruction of mankind? i would. anyways.

so i thought it would be interesting for this character, Cassidy, to have this hero-worship of Magneto, taking his words to heart like scripture, ultimately making her a foil for Phoenix, Xavier’s protege. 

it’s why i specifically included this:

“You should be,” you hissed, putting your all into the words as you spoke them, and you hear Ben inhale sharply beside you, “we shall inherit the Earth.”

“What follows is a struggle as Cassidy and the figure – revealed to be her clone – proceed to kill the man. When they’re finished, and the man’s dead on the ground, Cassidy straightens her outfit, and we hear –“ as the director reads, Michael begins to slowly clap, “a slow clap, and it’s revealed that Apocalypse, as well as Storm, Angel, and Magneto, had all witnessed the event.”

“We are the future, we are the ones who shall inherit the Earth,” Michael reads as he stops clapping.

“Magneto,” you breathe reverentially, and when you look to him, you and Michael share a sharp smile.

which is a direct quote from magneto’s speech in Days of Future Past:

You built these weapons to destroy us. Why? Because you are afraid of our gifts. Because we are different. Humanity has always feared that which is different. Well, I'm here to tell you, to tell the world, you're right to fear us. We are the future. We are the ones who will inherit this earth, and anyone who stands in our way will suffer the same fate as these men you see before you. Today was meant to be a display of your power. Instead I give you a glimpse of the devastation my race can unleash upon yours. Let this be a warning to the world. And to my mutant brothers and sisters out there, I say this; no more hiding, no more suffering. You have lived in the shadows in shame and fear for too long. Come out, join me. Fight together in the brotherhood of our kind. A new tomorrow, that starts today.

which ALSO is what turns her into the next big villain for the franchise, because she sees Magneto, the man she kind of thinks of like a god, turn on and help kill Apocalypse, the man who claimed to be an actual god, and side with the people who, ultimately, don’t want to destroy the human race like she does, and also killed the man she loved. she takes Magneto’s ideologies and turns them up to 11. he fucks off to create a mutant paradise away from prying eyes and is happy, she won’t be happy until all humans are punished.

it’s why, in the beginning, she and raven can’t still work together, because raven wants to rescue mutants, but not at the expense of unnecessary human lives, and cassidy sees all humans as complicit in the torture, and therefore deserving of punishment. 

she has deemed herself judge, jury, and executioner of human kind, and they have all been found guilty.

i’m so excited to see if i get around to writing some of the next film because i really want to explore the dichotomy of Xavier’s ‘no-one is ever really gone/there’s always hope’ and magneto’s ‘you were right to be afraid of us, we are the ones who shall inherit the earth’. Everyone has given up on Cassidy in one way or another, whether it be by betrayal or death, and so when she finds this symbiote who literally becomes a part of her, makes her stronger, and is happy to kill people with little regard for who they are, she’ll take it. 

EDIT: here’s the first 26 seconds of the fake trailer (Y/N here is played by Jurnee Smollett, aka Black Canary from Birds of Prey)

ANGEL & RIOT

i wanted y/n to kiss ben hardy that’s literally it. 

actually no that’s not it 100%, i think it’s super amusing in a kind of bleak way that he got fridged for her, like his death, both in the “””comics””” (as in the comic universe for the fics) and in the film, causes her to seek out a force that would help bring him back to life. in the “””comics””” she originally seeks out a mutant, but when the mutant who can bring people back refuses to help her, she’s told of experiments at The Life Foundation, who are working on engineering the next step in human evolution, and she’s thinking that they’re experimenting on mutants again, like trask, and goes in guns blazing, but instead finds symbiotes. she bonds with a symbiote, thus becoming Riot Control, and the symbiote initially promises her all these things, including being able to find a way to ressurect angel, but eventually (in the “””comics”””) the power he gives her overtakes her need to ressurect her love, and riot ends up using her to try and build a ship to bring more symbiotes to take over earth.

IN THE FILM

okay OKAY okay OKAY so she’s looking for a way to ressurect angel at first, but riot’s in her ear while he’s seeing all her memories, and is convincing her to get revenge on the people who are responsible for his death (nightcrawler, jean, and Magneto specifically) so its not that the xmen are just in the plot by happenstance there’s like actual beef, love it. 

I also love that Cassidy’s powers are handicapped when she’s got Riot, since her scream would injure or even possibly kill him. Yes i specifically paired her with a symbiote for that reason, which is also the reason why her clone explosions aren’t heat based. 

but anyway, can i spoil the ending? i wanna spoil the ending;

so there’s this big showdown between riot control and the xmen, and jean confronts cassidy, trying to talk her down like ‘what would angel think if he saw you? What you’ve become?’ and Cassidy’s furious, thinking that jean’s trying to guilt her, like, angel would be so ashamed

“Keep his name out of your fucking mouth, you have no idea what he’d think-”

“He’d be terrified of you.” And it’s so fucking like, cruel and cold coming from Jean.

“Shut up.”

“You have become a monster; you have maimed your idol-” [we cut to a shot of magneto looking all fucked up and bloody, watching with anger in his eyes] “and you have left Angel for dead. If you’d really cared about him, you would have already gotten him back. Instead, you come for revenge against the people who could have helped you -”

or something like that, and riot control has a whole breakdown, lashing out, snarling that no-one could help her, and when they tried, they ended up dead (angel, apocalypse) and she starts losing control, and her voice starts to distort in and out of riot’s, making it clear he’s taking control of her completely. 

there’s this big, final fight, which culminates with jean grabbing cassidy’s face and trying to burn riot out of her.

“No-one is beyond help.” And Jean’s like, got tears in her eyes, desperate to save this girl who’s caused so much pain, but who sees herself as so wretched and beyond help, and we see the symbiote burning away and screaming, but also the physical signs of cassidy’s mutation as like, peeling away in embers, like the black scales around her eyes, and the way her whole eyes are seen as black is now clearing away, and she takes both of Jean’s hands and forces her to keep holding on, to keep looking in her natural fucking eyes for the first and last time as she burns out too.

“You can’t save everyone.” and then Cassidy’s just ash in the wind.

also this ending, in a meta-sense, makes sense, because after this Disney buys Fox and there’s no more this-universe X-Men films, so they had to do a self-contained story, there couldn’t be things left super unresolved.

OR maybe she’s fine, maybe she gets saved and riot burns out of her (spoilers, he fucks off and doesn’t die, hence, Venom (2018); it takes him about 20 years to recuperate) i haven’t decided.

[abitoflit]

A Beginner’s Guide to Malazan Characters

First published within Tor's online newsletter, this guide, written by Laura M. Hughes, outlines each of the major players within Erikson's world. While this guide is intended for the second book in the series, Deadhouse Gates, some of the characters from the first novel appear and made it into this guide. I am posting excerpts from Hughes' guide in order to help my readers who are interested in this series and because I appreciated Hughes' sarcastic and snarky method of describing the "major players" within this series.

Kalam:

Splitting off from his squad as well as his Bridgeburner BFF Quick Ben, former Claw Kalam Mekhar has one goal in mind: to assassinate the Empress. Well, I say “one goal”; he may or may not get distracted by a book at some point, but we’ve all been there…right, guys?

Fiddler:

Accompanying Kalam is fellow Bridgeburner Fiddler, who’s left his own BFF (Hedge) behind on Genabackis. Like Kalam, ol’ Fid’s big beardy face is set towards righting an old wrong. He’s not the only one.

Sorry/Apsalar:

Remember Sorry? The sweet lil’ fishergirl possessed by the Patron of Assassins, then slipped into the Bridgeburners as their creepy-arsed new recruit? If so, you’ll probably recall that she’s pretty pissed off with a lot of people right now. You’ll also remember that she changed her name to Apsalar, after her buddy Crokus Younghand’s patron goddess (though I suspect he would’ve ended up worshipping her even if she’d named herself Bollockface).

Crokus Younghand:

Ironically, Crokus soon decides to change his profession from thief to—you guessed it!—assassin. You know, just like Sorry, who’s now named Apsalar, a.k.a. the Goddess of Thieves. Come on, Crokus. Aren’t relationships complicated enough already?

Icarium:

Half human, half jaghut; with his greenish skin, protruding tusks and tall, muscled, Hulk-like physique, you’d likely shit yourself if you bumped into Icarium in a dark alley. As fantasy fiction is so fond of reminding us, however, appearances can be deceiving; if something glitters, it could be gold or it could just as easily be a turd rolled in glitter, and not all that is green is a Hulk. Yes, in spite of his fierce exterior, Icarium is polite, considerate, and well-educated, a gentle giant with a deep philosophical streak and an earnest desire to explore history’s layers during his never-ending quest to recover his own memories.

Just…don’t make him angry. You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.

Mappo:

On a centuries-long mission to wrap Icarium in proverbial cotton wool (and—rather tragically—to keep him from recovering the memories he so desperately seeks) is his BFF Mappo. Theirs is a bromance to rival even Rake/Brood, and Mappo in particular is a real cutie. Sure, he’s a bit rough ‘round the edges physical—with his bristled back and his tusks and his overall solid MASSIVENESS, he’s not quite as pretty as his verdant mate Icarium. However, he is arguably even more tragic: caught up in a centuries-long internal conflict between friendship and duty, Mappo is the most philosophical, empathetic henchman you’ll ever meet.

Mappo and Icarium’s quest also sets them upon the Path of Hands, whereupon they (handily) cross paths with Crokus and Co. Less handy is the fact that hundreds of others are following the Path, too . . .

D’ivers:

Gardens of the Moon introduced us to the concept of the Soletaken when Anomander Rake veered into his draconian form. Surely nothing could be more terrifying than facing an opponent with the power to transform at will into something truly monstrous. Right?

Meet the D’ivers! If the name doesn’t immediately give it away, let me clue you in: you know how Voldemort turned his snake, Nagini, into a Horcrux (a living repository for a piece of his own soul)? Now imagine if he’d been able to a) split himself into multiple animagus forms, and b) use those forms as living Horcruxes.

He couldn’t, of course. But these guys can.

Gryllen / Messremb / Ryllandaras

Some bright spark has spread the word about Tremorlor. This same bright spark (or is it shifting shadow?) has also given out directions to the House, essentially sending an open invitation to any Soletaken and D’ivers who happen to be in the area. Of these, there are some—like Ryllandaras the man-jackal and Messremb the bear—whose veered forms are few, but incredibly strong. But as a D’ivers’ power grows, so too does its numbers. When veered into his D’ivers form, big bad Gryllen becomes hundreds of rats that cover the ground like a carpet, overwhelming his enemies by sheer force of numbers and devouring them in mere minutes. As you can imagine, the subsequent clashes on the Path of Hands between Soletaken and D’ivers (and our poor heroes caught in the middle!) are fraught and unpredictable. Who would win in a fight between three bears and five hundred bees? A hundred rats and a thousand ticks? Twelve dogs and a sea monster?

Which is more powerful: an old Shadow priest, or a million spiders?

Mogora:

One of our heroes’ more fortuitous encounters (or less fortuitous, depending on your perspective) sees Crokus and company taking a break from the punishing desert in a long-forgotten temple of Shadow. The temple—built into a cliff and inaccessible but for a rope lowered, Rapunzel-style, by its inhabitants—is home to an elderly couple. Mogora and Iskaral Pust show about as much affection for one another as Ian McKellan’s Freddie and Derek Jacobi’s Stuart in the sitcom Vicious, while their bizarre plots and ceaseless bickering are reminiscent of cartoon nemeses Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner, Dick Dastardly and that smug bastard pigeon, and—of course—Tom and Jerry. The scenes between Pust and Mogora lend the story an air of slapstick comedy which is, quite frankly, delightful – though our heroes don’t see it that way. Especially when they’re woken in the night by Iskaral Pust standing astride them, brandishing his ever-present sweeping brush in a quest to rid the monastery of its eight-legged denizens (a.k.a. his wife).

Iskaral Pust:

His wife might be a literal nest of spiders, but she’s certainly not the only one spinning webs. He’s no D’ivers, but High Priest of Shadow Iskaral Pust is much craftier than his ostensible role as comic relief leads us to believe. Much like Kruppe in Gardens of the Moon, Pust is all about misdirection, using his constant disingenuous monologues to maintain a façade of madness whilst subtly plucking at everyone’s threads in service to his master, Shadowthrone.

You’re probably thinking that this all sounds very impressive. In which case, the less said about the small, monkey-like bhoka’rala who worship and harangue Pust, the better.

Cotillion:

From webs to Ropes: for the Assassin of High House Shadow, Cotillion takes a surprisingly hands-on role in guiding his reluctant protégée, Apsalar, and her companions. Perhaps feeling slightly guilty about abducting her, then possessing her, then forcing her to commit brutal acts of murder in Gardens of the Moon, the Patron of Assassins now appears to have taken on the role of kindly uncle to the knife-artist formerly known as Sorry.

What a nice guy.

Sarcasm aside, Cotillion is a veritable saint compared to this next lot…

Sha’ik:

Possession—or more specifically, possession as a not-so-subtle metaphor for the way religious belief can override an individual’s own better judgement—is a prevalent theme in the first few books of The Malazan Book of the Fallen. We’ve just recalled how Cotillion possessed Apsalar back at the beginning of Book One; now, we have Sha’ik, the mortal incarnation of the Whirlwind goddess Dryjhna. Every time the old Sha’ik gets too, well, old, she’s replaced with a younger girl in an endless cycle of decay and rebirth.

Does the fact that Sha’ik is a willing vessel make her any less of a victim than Sorry? You’ll probably never get the chance to ask her, I’m afraid. She’s protected very fiercely indeed by her two loyal bodyguards: Leoman, and Toblakai.

Leoman of the Flails:

Desert boy. Hardened fighter. Have a guess what kind of weapon he uses.

[brickdubois]

My Review of Pacific Overtures

Well, John Doyle has left me all at sea with this Pacific Overtures. The show opens with a neo-brechtian prologue where Megan Masako Haley enters the stage and states at the rest of the cast, who are standing offstage at the end of the runway. They bow and George Takei announces via voiceover "Nippon, the floating kingdom..." The entire cast wears modern garb. As they sing "The Advantages of Floating In the Middle of the Sea" they use different fabrics to create adornments that represent... status? How connected to the ancient ways each character is? Heaven if I know. The show ends along the same lines, but whatever "frame" Doyle is using it is I cannot begin to comprehend. Perhaps Megan is in a museum and is looking at a picture of Japan from 1862 - and she wonders how Japan has come so far in less than 200 years? Your guess is as good as mine. To explain how Doyle has cut the show, think of it like this: a production of The Seagull that focus entirely on Konstantin and Nina. Any scenes without them are cut. Or maybe even a Follies that is centered around Sally, Ben, Buddy, and Phyllis with all other songs cut. So we'd have time for "Beautiful Girls", "In Buddy's Eyes", and "Could I Leave You?", but say goodbye to the montage, "I'm Still Here", and "One More Kiss". Gone are all the side stories that The Reciter... recites. "Chrysanthemum Tea", "March to the Treaty House", and "The Lion Dance" are cut. Doyle does not even attempt kabuki style, and as a result, the show seems lopsided and unfocused. Before "Poems", the show has been centered almost completely around Kayama and Manjiro. But there is about a half an hour ("Welcome to Kanagawa", "Someone In a Tree", and "Please Hello"Pacific Overtures previews where they disappear completely. With the entire script intact, this makes perfect sense. The show is not about these two people, it is about larger ideas and the show has delved away from them before. The Reciter interrupts them to tell stories, various other scenes with minor characters are played out, and the audience knows not to expect a perfect through-line of a story. But without these diversions, the show seems to forget about the two main characters and ignore them for an odd amount of time. Doyle seems to have missed the entire point of the show. Pacific Overtures is not about a samurai and a sailor and how their relationship changes through time. It is about the forced westernization of Japan and how an entire culture and way of life was destroyed along with it. Kayama and Manjiro change along with the country and their opposing views on the events are touching, but they are not the centerpiece. Pacific Overtures is perhaps the only musical about ideas rather than people, moreso than even Sunday In the Park With George. It is also a deeply moving musical about ideas, its power retained through its form. You would never get that from this production. The cast is good, with my major exception being Steven Eng. Neither his voice nor acting seemed in the same world as anyone else. Megan Masako Haley is wonderful in a thankless role (a cypher added for this production, as well as the briefly seen Tamate). Ann Harda was lovely, though out-of-place when surrounded by men (Megan's role seemed to be from the present, visiting the past, so it was odd that a woman was involved in the "traditional" cast of the show). George Takei seems to have lost a bet. He has virtually no lines and still manages to mess them up. He shows no warmth, and, considering the concept of this production, serves no purpose to the piece. He is there purely as a star to sell seats. Doyle has directed the cats to have sort of a "wink wink nudge nudge" attitude towards the audience about some of the lines and lyrics. It is awkward and feels disingenuous to the piece, Weidman, and Sondheim. The orchestra sounds lovely, and fill up the small space quite well. The actors are heavily mic'd, for some reason, and they still muddle their words. "Please Hello" was garbled, with most of the cast gasping to get the words out. The lyrics you could hear were mostly unintelligible, especially from the British and Dutch Admirals, and in the choral section that ends the song. Ann Harada seems to have gotten the key changed for her french section at the end, but for the choral end she is so uncomfortable in the register it was hard to hear any of her words. "Welcome to Kanagawa" was so unfunny it was hard to see why it was kept in. "Next" is cut to shreds and does not feel like a finale at all. But "Someone In a Tree" is gorgeous, moving, and all around thrilling. If any part of this production is worth it, it is the eight minutes they sing this fantastic song. Some of the best music and lyrics ever written, and the staging was simple and almost elegant (apart from some haphazardly thrown paper made to look like leaves). Just cups of tea, and history, and someone in a tree... Sondheim says, "Content Dictates Form". Doyle has thrown form away and is left with a confused, half-baked production that is unlikely to initiate new fans for the piece or please old ones. If recent productions of classic shows have been billed as Arthur Miller's The Crucible or Tennessee William's The Glass Menagerie, there is no doubt how Classic Stage should bill this as. Call it John Doyle's Pacific Overtures, because it sure isn't John Weidman or Stephen Sondheim's.

[sinrau]

By Sarah Pulliam Bailey and

close Sarah Pulliam Bailey

Reporter covering religion

[EmailEmail](mailto:sarah.bailey@washpost.com?subject=‘I find it baffling and reprehensible’: Catholic Archbishop of Washington slams Trump’s visit to John Paul II shrine) BioBio FollowFollow

Michelle Boorstein

close Michelle Boorstein

Religion reporter

[EmailEmail](mailto:michelle.boorstein@washpost.com?subject=‘I find it baffling and reprehensible’: Catholic Archbishop of Washington slams Trump’s visit to John Paul II shrine) BioBio FollowFollow

June 2, 2020 at 5:59 PM EDT

President Trump triggered sharp condemnation from top religious leaders for the second time in two days on Tuesday, with Washington Archbishop Wilton Gregory slamming his visit to a D.C. shrine honoring Pope John Paul II.

On Monday, Trump’s appearance in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church across from the White House set off a controversy because it involved aggressively clearing peaceful protesters.

“I find it baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated in a fashion that violates our religious principles, which call us to defend the rights of all people, even those with whom we might disagree,” Gregory said in a statement as Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrived at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Northeast Washington.

The shrine was opened as a museum to John Paul in 2001 but nose-dived financially and was bailed out in 2011 by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men’s religious organization that has lobbied for conservative political causes, such as opposing same-sex marriage.

In his statement, Gregory noted the legacy of Pope John Paul II, suggesting he would not have condoned Trump’s actions, including his walk to St. John’s on Monday as hundreds of demonstrators nearby were protesting the death of George Floyd last week in the custody of the Minneapolis police. Once he got to the church, the president held a Bible aloft and news crews recorded the moment.

“Saint Pope John Paul II was an ardent defender of the rights and dignity of human beings. His legacy bears vivid witness to that truth,” Gregory said. “He certainly would not condone the use of tear gas and other deterrents to silence, scatter or intimidate them for a photo opportunity in front of a place of worship and peace.”

It’s unusual for someone like Gregory to make such a stark statement about Trump specifically; Catholic bishops generally speak about issues more broadly. In a statement last week, Gregory, who was installed as the first black archbishop of Washington in 2019, said Floyd’s death, “like all acts of racism, hurts all of us in the Body of Christ since we are each made in the image and likeness of God, and deserve the dignity that comes with that existence.”

Trump’s brief visit to the shrine appeared to serve primarily as another photo opportunity. The president and the first lady, who identifies as Roman Catholic, stood to face the media before facing the statue of John Paul II for a few minutes. Then they looked at a wreath of red and white roses that held a card saying “Mr. President.”

About half a mile away, several dozen protesters held signs that read, “Black lives matter,” “Trump mocks Christ” and “God is not a prop.” Just before noon, the group knelt down for eight minutes of silence and prayer — one for each minute a police officer kneeled on Floyd’s neck before he died.

Chian Gavin, 57, of nearby Brookland, wiped her eyes while the crowd sang “Amazing Grace.”

“Eight minutes is so long,” she said. “To think that someone would be in pain, would be suffering in that position for that long.”

Chanon Bah, 31, said she’s tried to explain the demonstrations to her 3-year-old son Cairo. Watching television images of riot police advancing on unarmed protesters has confused him, she said. “Mommy, who’s the bad guy?” he asked.

“I tried to explain that sometimes, the police are the good guys, but sometimes they’re not,” Bah said. “We talk a lot about feelings. That maybe those people out there are not mad. Maybe they’re sad. Or scared.”

Michelle Dixon, 38, said she was moved to come out to stand against what she saw as Trump’s disingenuous show of faith. Dixon, a congregant at All Souls Church, said God is “sacred, and really the embodiment of unconditional love.”

“How can you stand there and hold up a Bible and say you believe in this unconditional love that is God when you are sowing fear and hatred and shooting peaceful protesters just down the street?” she said. “It’s unforgivable.”

Trump’s appearances in front of St. John’s and at the shrine were seen as attempts to appeal to his conservative evangelical and Catholic voting base. Both appearances were met with fierce condemnation by religious progressives — and also concern from some religious conservatives.

“The Bible is a book we should hold only with fear and trembling, given to us that in it we might find eternal life,” J.D. Greear, president of the Southern Baptist Convention said in a statement to the Washington Post. “Our only agenda should be to advance God’s kingdom, proclaim his gospel, or find rest for our souls.”

Russell Moore, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Religious Liberty and Ethics Convention, said in a statement that he was “brokenhearted and alarmed.”

“For me, the Bible is the Word of the living God, and should be treated with reverence and awe,” he said, adding that Americans should listen to what the Bible says about the preciousness of human life, the sins of racism and injustice and the need for safety and calm and justice in the civil arena.

“The murder of African-American citizens, who bear the image of God, is morally wrong,” Moore said. “Violence against others and destruction of others’ property is morally wrong. Pelting people with rubber bullets and spraying them with tear gas for peacefully protesting is morally wrong.”

Episcopal bishop on President Trump: ‘Everything he has said and done is to inflame violence’

The Right Rev. Mariann Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, excoriated Trump for standing in front of the historic church Monday — its windows boarded up with plywood — while holding the Bible aloft. “Everything he has said and done is to inflame violence,” she said of the president. “We need moral leadership, and he’s done everything to divide us.”

Budde and other religious progressives have denounced Trump in the past, on multiple issues. from immigration to fiscal policy to LGBTQ rights. But on Tuesday there was also criticism by others who are not vocal opponents of the president.

“There is no right to riot,” said Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) in a statement. “But there is a fundamental—a Constitutional—right to protest, and I’m against clearing out a peaceful protest for a photo op that treats the Word of God as a political prop.”

Ed Stetzer wrote on his Christianity Today magazine blog that the president’s photo op was “jarring and awkward. It did not play well, even with many of the president’s supporters.”

“America is burning. We need a call to justice that sees each and every person as image bearers of their Creator—as the Bible teaches,” he wrote. “But, we did not need that photo op.”

Also on Tuesday, several pastors stood on the steps of St. John’s, calling for an end to police brutality.

Pastors on the steps of [^StJohnsChurch](https://twitter.com/hashtag/StJohnsChurch?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) calling for end to police brutality, solidarity with [^DCProtests](https://twitter.com/hashtag/DCProtests?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw). “God is always on the side of the oppressed. Mr. President, I promise your hands are too small to box with God.” pic.twitter.com/qthHdR47HL

— Heidi Thompson (@hthompson) June 2, 2020

John Paul II is especially remembered by conservative Catholics for his strong anti-Communist and antiabortion stances. In a statement Tuesday, the shrine said that the White House originally scheduled the visit as an event at which the president would sign an executive order on international religious freedom.

Later Tuesday, the president did sign an executive order that, among other moves, stated that $50 million in USAID’s budget should be allocated for advancing international religious freedom.

“St. John Paul II was a tireless advocate of religious liberty throughout his pontificate,” said the statement from the shrine, which did not address Floyd’s death or the related protests.

“International religious freedom receives widespread bipartisan support, including unanimous passage of legislation in defense of persecuted Christians and religious minorities around the world,” the statement said. “The shrine welcomes all people to come and pray and learn about the legacy of St. John Paul II.”

John Paul’s movement for religious freedom, including in his native Eastern Europe from communism, is considered one of his key legacies. Tuesday is the 41st anniversary of his first papal visit to Poland.

The shrine, according to its website, “is a place of pilgrimage housing two first-class relics of St. John Paul II. Here, through liturgy and prayer, art, and cultural and religious formation, visitors can enter into its patron’s deep love for God and for man.”

Stephen Schneck, former head of Catholic outreach for then-President Barack Obama and current executive director of the Franciscan Action Network, said he was “disgusted that the Knights would allow the Shrine to St. John Paul II to be used for what is transparently a Trump reelection campaign event.”

“Pope St. John Paul II was an ardent foe of racism. In his last visit to the United States the saint begged our nation to eradicate racism from its heart. One cannot imagine a worse insult to John Paul II’s memory than to hold a Trump re-election event at the saint’s shrine,” he told The Post in a statement.

Messages to the Knights of Columbus were not immediately returned Tuesday morning. Trump’s attorney, Pat Cipollone, was a top lawyer with the organization, holding the title “supreme advocate.”

Trump has signed several orders related to religious freedom. Charles Haynes, senior fellow for religious freedom at the Freedom Forum, said the orders have been primarily symbolic, but have the potential to change how federal departments enforce existing law.

Early in his administration, Trump promised to abolish the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits clergy from endorsing politicians from the pulpit. But it would take an act of Congress to change the amendment. Instead, Trump issued an executive order on how his administration would enforce the amendment. In another case, he signed a rule offering protections for health-care workers who declined services that violate their religious beliefs, a move that concerned LGBTQ advocacy groups.

“It reiterates the law in some cases,” Hayes said of the orders. “There already are religious liberty protections, but he wants to underscore we’re upholding them or we’re implementing them.”

Marissa J. Lang contributed to this report.