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hirazuki · 6 years

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I’m going to try and summarize what bothers me about VLD from as objective a standpoint as possible. A lot of people, including myself, have already made posts pointing out specific issues, especially with regards to the messages it sends to abuse victims, so I’m not going to touch on that or any type of emotional issues here at all. I’m going to skip specifics except where needed as examples, and just talk about the nature of story telling itself. As someone who not only has used fiction for escapism, but who has studied story telling both in terms of literary analysis of novels and of religious texts, it’s a subject that I feel very strongly about.

Warning: long ass post.

Okay, a couple of disclaimers first.

One, I am a firm believer in the “don’t like, don’t read” mentality. If I don’t like something, I don’t talk about it, I just move on. Y’all have never seen a single discourse post about The Dragon Prince, right? Yup, that’s ‘cause I really didn’t like it. It goes for countless other things too. I don’t expend time and effort and energy on things I don’t like, that’s just wasteful. So, why am I harping on VLD? Because I really enjoyed it, despite a couple of what I felt were minor issues at the time, for most of its run. That’s why I -- and I imagine the same goes for many other fans -- am so bitter.

Two, I came late into the Voltron universe. I joined in a couple of days before s6 dropped, and only watched DotU as well as the other Western versions in the past couple of months. Haven’t had a chance to see the original Japanese anime yet.

Three, I’m not a shipper, in general. I don’t ship anything in VLD except Zarkon/Honerva. Romance/sexual stuff is just not my thing, I’ll take swords and explosions any day over that. So my saltiness regarding the series has nothing to do with ships.

Alright, so I think my major gripes with the series can be sorted into three categories:

1. Inconsistency of Story Type:

This is, of course, my own opinion, but through my time of consuming fiction, I think there are three types of stories:

Good vs. Evil: the most basic type of story. The good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, and everyone stays well in their lanes. Think Disney movies, typical Saturday morning cartoons -- the heroes are exemplary of good traits, the villains are one-dimensional and unrepentant, evil for the sake of being evil. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this story type imo, and there are several stories of this nature that I really do enjoy.

Grey Morality: a much more nuanced take on the concepts of good and evil, right and wrong. Due to the very nature of grey morality, there are varying degrees to which this can be implemented. Probably the most common one I’ve seen is where the heroes do some bad/questionable things, the villains/antagonists do some good things or have the right motives or are “noble” in some way; but overall, there is a sense that there are certain lines that shouldn’t be crossed, certainly by the heroes but also sometimes by the villains/antagonists too. An excellent example of this is Firefly. Another example, that puts a total twist on it by having the protagonist also be the “villain,” is Death Note -- even though the story resolves in a way that to the audience is, really, the only sustainable way possible, it still leaves neither the characters in-show nor the audience with any sense of victory. This concept is taken to the extreme by a series like Tenpou Ibun: Ayakashi Ayashi, where no one is right and no one is wrong, but at the same time everyone is right and wrong, and simply just human. There is no good and no evil, just context, circumstances, and choices.

Combination: this type of story starts with the Good vs. Evil dichotomy but, as the story progresses and the protagonist becomes more acquainted and involved with their environment, both the protagonist and the audience come to understand that the picture is actually much more complicated than that, and it evolves into Grey Morality. Bleach is a great example. We start with seeing the Hollow as evil, mindless monsters that need to be killed; we learn that they are actually human spirits that have transformed into “monsters” through pain and grief and, therefore, we pity them but also understand that it’s a mercy to put them down; we then find out that, actually, not all are mindless and they have a complicated society and culture of their own; and, eventually, come to accept them as (reluctant) allies against a bigger threat, understanding that they are creatures in their own right.

From the moment that Keith -- arguably the character within the main cast that had the most time/character development spent on him -- was revealed as being half-Galra (that is, half the “evil” race of the show), VLD promised to be that third type of story. Because there is no way that the writers would make one of their protagonists evil by default because of his blood in a kids’ show, duh, so by logical conclusion this means that that race is not all evil, after all. This was further emphasized by Lotor’s introduction to the plot -- a severe departure from his character in any previous incarnation -- and cemented by the episode, “The Legend Begins,” where we finally get to see the other side of things and the fact that not even Zarkon and Haggar were “born evil,” as well.

After the Keith reveal, we got shocked reactions from his teammates, notably and understandably Allura; got only an apology from her and not the rest for their treatment of him (which could have been better but, whatever, it was a step in the right direction, great!); and then... back to a weird strained relationship in working alongside Galra without another word on the subject.

Okay. Fine.

Then we get Lotor -- again, some of that initial resentment/treatment could be understandable to some extent, and eventually on the road towards, seemingly, genuine acceptance. Cool.

I won’t go into details about the colony episode, because that’s been done to death already, but, woah, major setback there. Back to the knee-jerk reaction of treating individuals of a race as complicit and responsible for the actions and perception of that race as perpetuated by a handful of individuals. And then -- flash forward to s8 -- we are welcoming Galra allies in our cause! Please join our Coalition! We want to help you!

Look. I’m not saying that you can’t retcon stuff; that you can’t go Good vs. Evil, develop into Grey Morality, and then reveal something and BOOM, jk, it was Good vs. Evil all along, gotcha! I’m sure that there is an author somewhere out there that has pulled that off effectively (I can’t think of any examples myself right now, but I’m sure it must exist somewhere).

I am saying that if you’re going to do that -- if you are going to pull the rug out from under everyone’s feet and sacrifice some crucial character development (and crucial characters themselves, let’s be honest) -- you better have a DAMN GOOD IN-UNIVERSE reason for doing so. And no, shock value or getting rid of a character because they were overshadowing the protags doesn’t count. Otherwise, your protagonists will look like giant jerks. Unless, of course, that’s what you’re going for, but I highly doubt that was the thinking here.

And then, we proceed to flip flop between “I knew it, the Galra are irredeemably evil, what’s wrong with these people?!” (I think Hunk -- HUNK, by far the most empathetic character -- said this at some point in s7?) and “Here, we can work together towards a brighter future” or some shit. You can’t do that. I mean you can, but you’re gonna get major backlash from your audience. Pick a fucking direction and stick with it.

For the past three seasons, it has really felt like the story line is being pulled into two different directions: 1) staying true to the original source material of Paladins = good, Galra/Drule = bad, and 2) providing the viewers with a groundbreaking, nuanced interpretation.

My dudes. You can’t have both. Trying to implement both of these approaches means having morally grey, nuanced characters operating within a narrative framework that is subject to an overarching principle of a strict Good/Evil dichotomy. Do you know how fucking hard that is to pull off effectively without diving headfirst into the pitfall of punishing your morally grey characters by default, simply because they happen to exist in a universe that cannot, by nature, support them???? I can think of only a handful of authors that have managed that and, I would argue, that the man at the top of the list only managed to be so effective and influential because what he wrote was, in essence, a mythology. Mythologies have a totally different set of concerns surrounding them. And even then, he went to great lengths, both in his works and outside of them in discussions/interviews, to note that the “evil” in his world could never have happened without it intentionally being part of the larger cosmological design, i.e. balance. I’m talking, of course, about Tolkien.

Why the fuck would you attempt to pull something like this off in a kids’ cartoon?! Avatar: The Last Airbender, since everyone loves that comparison, was defined by a black/white view that developed into a very simple grey morality, and it was this limited scope that allowed it to be presented so effectively. None of this sashaying back and forth.

Especially when this flip flopping is done for le dramatic effect/shock value, with seemingly no good in-story reason?? Of course it’s gonna fall flat.

2. Concept vs. Execution:

This is probably what drives me crazy the most about VLD.

As an idea, it was fucking brilliant -- anyone who has watched DotU, even with all the nostalgia, I imagine, can admit that it was very much a cut and dry 80s cartoon, with simple concerns; Vehicle Voltron attempted some nuances, but the Lion Voltron part of the show, which was by far the more popular part, was pretty stiff in that regard. VLD took that and introduced themes like: being biracial (Keith, Lotor, etc.), having to choose between duty and family (Krolia), having to choose between personal dreams and important relationships (Shiro), having to overcome deep-seated understandable prejudice and work with people you never thought you could come to stand for a greater cause and through that see that not everything is black and white and attain a greater understanding of the world (Allura), leaving home and learning to survive in a totally foreign environment in the worst circumstances possible (the paladins), dealing with disability, mental illness/ptsd while also dealing with issues of being in a position of leadership/power (Shiro), parental abuse (Lotor), substance abuse (Honerva and Zarkon), being a clone and coming to terms with that (Shiro/Kuron), learning to compromise and sacrifice personal integrity/morals for the betterment/survival of those you have made yourself responsible for (the paladins), and so much more than that. Lotor’s relationship with Honerva/Haggar had serious undertones of both Mother and Child symbolism, as well as Arthurian legend. The whole quintessence thing drew pointers from ancient and medieval concepts of alchemy.

The inclusion of any of these things, injected into a pretty straightforward and tame original source material like DotU, was inspired. What an absolutely fantastic take, with incredible potential.

... and it was the shoddiest, shittiest implementation and execution of any concepts that I have ever seen. Like... how? How did they manage to not be able to successfully see any of these themes to a close, and to actually offend the vast majority of their fanbase (regardless of background, age, race, sexuality, literally from all walks of life) by the way these themes were handled????

I’m sure time restraints, direction from above, etc., played a big part in it, but still. If you don’t have time to properly develop the interpersonal relationships between the core members of your main group of characters -- to the point that, say, Keith and Pidge? Hunk and Shiro? Did they ever properly, truly have any meaningful interactions? -- there’s no way you could properly handle all of this.

Don’t bite off more than you can chew.

Also? As stories are being fleshed out, they and their characters tend to take on a life of their own. The Lotor/Keith parallels? I totally believe and understand how it’s possible that it was unintentional. But when that happens, you go back and rework the rest of your plot to make sense with what you now have before you. You adjust and adapt. You don’t barrel on ahead headless and not acknowledging it, and you don’t force your characters into straitjackets just because you want to doggedly follow this one idea.

3. The Female Lead:

Let me begin by saying that I really, really wanted to like Allura, and the way she was written was one of the biggest turn offs and disappointments for me. I won’t go into specifics regarding her, as there many posts that already address the problematic nature of how she treats people of her race vs. anyone Galra, but I will just look at her character development as a whole.

Perhaps the easiest way for me to voice my frustrations here would be with a comparison. Let’s look at my favorite female protagonist of all time, Nakajima Youko, from Juuni Kokuki (aka. The Twelve Kindgoms).

Youko starts off as a very meek high school girl, from a typical modern Japanese family. Class representative, top grades, is scared of conflict and wants to live up to everyone’s expectations of her, which makes her very submissive, a total coward emotionally, mentally, and physically. She seeks to please everyone and, as a result, harms her own development by never giving any thought to her own desires and ends up bullied by everyone around her. Magic happens, shit goes down, and she is whisked away to a different world that is parallel to our own, along with two friends from school; ripped from her home, her family, with absolutely no way back. This other world has a different language, people who end up in there from our world are treated like garbage and are slaves, has a medieval level of tech/advancement, and Youko with her friends has to figure out how to survive. She finds out she is actually queen of one of the realms in this world, which makes her a target of various groups. She is betrayed by literally everyone around her, everyone she places her trust in, including the two friends that got transported to this world with her.

She goes from meek and mild to bloodthirsty and brash; lashing out at everyone around her, plotting to kill those that offer her a helping hand, becoming unreasonably suspicious and racist and way out of line. Understandably so, but the narrative doesn’t, for one moment, present this as okay. Some more stuff happens and she finally snaps out of it, comes to a couple of realizations, and has major character development. She develops the attitude that, yes, people have betrayed and hurt her, but their actions towards her and their opinion of her is none of her business. It will not stop her from acting in ways that are in line with her own morals; if people choose to betray and use her, that’s on them. She will simply do what she must, and treat everyone as an individual according to their actions. This doesn’t mean that she adopts a pushover mentality -- it just means that she loses her knee-jerk reaction, and doesn’t rush to conclusions. She becomes a badass warrior and queen, strong and just, and, frankly, one of the most well-developed female characters I have ever seen.

Do I think this is the only way to write a strong female character? Of course not. But I’m convinced this is what the writers wanted to do with Allura, this kind of progression and path, from being angry, lost, and alone to being a confident, capable, magnificent ruler. And, imo, they totally missed the mark.

I think that the writers were so focused on giving us a “strong” modern female character, and getting as far away from her DotU damsel in distress depiction as possible, that they ended up writing her as, basically, a bully. Sure, they tell us -- both through other characters’ words in the show and through interviews -- about her diplomacy, peaceful nature, leadership quality, open-mindedness, etc., but they never show it to us. In almost every key moment in the series, she has been written to be combative and suffering from tunnel-vision.

And a huge part of this is that they simply didn’t give her any room to grow. Youko’s character started off at maybe... 5% of her potential? She was honestly so “weak,” I thought about dropping the series. But by the point the anime ended (because the story itself is unfinished and unlikely to continue, unfortunately), I’d say she’s at around 70%. That makes for an extremely dramatic, fulfilling, and believable character development. The VLD writers started Allura off much higher than that. Too high. From the get-go she’s a highly accomplished martial artist, has incredible physical strength due to her Altean heritage, a seemingly natural affinity for leadership and for appealing to people, she’s very attractive, well spoken, had a loving and supportive family, is a princess, had a brilliant alchemist for a father, has access to the universe’s greatest super weapon -- I mean, yes, she’s had to deal with immense loss and grief and come to terms with it in a very short period of time, and lost her father a second time so to speak with Alfor’s AI -- but overall, everything has been set up and handed to her in a nice package. Other than overcoming her hatred towards the Galra and idealization of Altea/Alteans, really, there’s nothing left for her to do that would be defining for her character.

That’s not to say that characters that are extremely accomplished from the start are a bad thing. But in their case, their emotional and mental development and maturity is that much more important, because that’s all that’s left to work with. The writers didn’t really give Allura any significant room to grow in terms of any of that. (And no, I don’t consider her new alchemical powers from Oriande as her growing; she expended no effort for that, it wasn’t really a trial at all for her; it was like me playing a video game on casual mode with the “killallenemies” console command enabled). Her overcoming her racism towards the Galra, beginning with Keith and BoM and continuing to do so with subsequent Galra allies, had a TON of potential and I had been so excited to see where it would go; but that fell flat, totally forgotten by the story.

In contrast, you have Lotor -- we see him struggling to claw his way out of the hand that fate has dealt him, to grow beyond his family’s influence and abuse. Both on and off screen, even described by his own enemies in great detail, we see just how much he has had to fight and to earn everything he has and he is, even things that shouldn’t have to be “earned” in the first place. He’s lost Daibazaal and Altea, both his father and his mother, he’s too Galra for anyone who’s not and not nearly enough Galra for anyone who is. Literally nothing has been handed to him. The juxtaposition between him and Allura, had Allura been given more breathing room by the writers, could have been fantastic and I would have shipped the hell out of it, like I do in DotU. She’s had everything he’s ever wanted (loving family, supportive father, Alfor himself, exploration, alchemy), etc.; envy would have been extremely appropriate on his part, and very interesting to work through, but that was never explored either.

So, I feel like what ended up happening was that a huge imbalance in how these two characters came across was created, made only more evident when their relationship with each other was what was front and center. And, at least for me, this is what makes me completely unable to see Allura’s side of things, and I freely admit it -- I simply don’t understand her or her actions, because I don’t feel like I’ve been shown enough of her inner workings as a character to be able to care about her in the slightest. I can definitely see where the writers were going with her, or where they thought they were going. But unless they actually meant for the character that is, for all intents and purposes, their female lead to be a racist, abusive, immature person playing at being an adult and at being the leader of a coalition spanning galaxies, who has no problem condemning millions of lives to death and devastation at a whim of her emotions because they are Valid™, and who wades dangerously close to “Mary Sue” territory many times due the way the narrative frames her... then all I see on screen is an unfinished character. Unfinished, because the writers didn’t take any opportunities in the narrative for the flaws and issues she does have to be addressed and overcome, opportunities of which there were plenty! I absolutely don’t mind that she has flaws -- flawed heroes are amazing. But, you gotta do something about them, i.e. address them and work through them. Otherwise your heroes remain static in a plot that is evolving and that’s not a good look.

And, you know, I honestly think DotU Allura is a much stronger female character. She works for everything she gets. She works her ass off. She has to fight to not only be allowed to be part of the team and fly a lion, but even just to do everyday common things like be out in the fields or swim or whatever; forget practicing martial arts. Coran literally ties her up at one point to prevent her from participating. Nanny is a constant battle for her. Over everything, from her clothes to her manner of speaking to where she’s going. But she doesn’t stop, she doesn’t give up. And she fucks up, BIG TIME, several times, she does TONS of stupid shit. But she learns, acknowledges it, gets called out on it, tries again, and keeps on trying. DotU Allura’s biggest battles, in my mind, aren’t with Lotor or the Drule forces or Zarkon, but with her own team and those she considers family, and her struggle for the others’ acceptance of herself and her skills within the group. And for that, she is a much stronger, more solid female character than VLD Allura, despite all superficial appearances and frilly pink dresses and 80s voice acting.

Again, like I said in a previous post, I don’t conform to the view that creators owe their fans anything. Write things however the fuck you want. You want to kill Allura off, fine. Do away with Lotor too? Cool. I completely understand people who want happy endings in fiction because, it’s true, reality fucking sucks; there are several fictional works I turn to whenever real life is too much. And I would be lying if I said that I don’t crave stories where characters like Lotor are given happy endings; of course I want my favorite characters to be okay. But overall, I’m the type of person who, as long as things make for an effective, compelling narrative, I’ll be content with it, regardless of whether the ending is tragic or happy or anything in between.

So you want to kill off your morally grey character and your female lead, who is also one of the only women on the team, who is also a princess figure, who has also been completely visually redesigned in such a way that you know women of color will relate to her? That’s fine by me, go right ahead. But do so in a way that is meaningful and makes sense within the larger narrative you created, and isn’t some empty, sensationalist gesture.

And also be aware of your fanbase. This is a reboot -- that comes with certain expectations attached, as a number of the viewers will very likely be fans of the old series, watching out of curiosity, nostalgia, etc. Expectations like, the princess lives, the heroes aren’t assholes, etc. (and I’m referring to expectations from DotU and other Western iterations, rather than the original Japanese series). You don’t have to conform to these expectations -- personally, I’m a big fan of tropes being subverted -- but you need to be aware of them. You need to know the rules before you break them, and if you break them, you better break them damn well.

Imo, VLD ultimately failed to deliver on these fronts, and pretty much fell prey to what a lot of series do -- it couldn’t handle the shift from being primarily episodic in nature (i.e., each episode is self-contained, with a clear beginning, middle, and end, while operating under a distant general goal, like defeating Zarkon; so, s1 and s2) to becoming a more complex narrative unraveling a hidden agenda (s3 onwards). Kind of like how the paladins made no provisions for how they would handle things after Zarkon’s defeat, it feels like the writers didn’t really have one solid plan for how to develop past that point as well.

tl;dr: Whoever is responsible for the way VLD turned out should write a book: how to offend your entire audience in eight seasons or less.

#okay i think this is my last personal post on the matter #i think i've vented about everything that's been bugging me for the past couple of seasons #i'll still reblog and comment on things i find interesting #but i'm gonna focus my energy on constructive stuff #like plucking the hairline of lotor's wig and writing fanfic :)#talk: v

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brazilianism · 6 years

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Brazilian Elections - Let’s talk about Fernando Haddad

Alright, so. Elections this year and we’re in a big mess, right? The new plot twist to our ever changing political scenario is Fernando Haddad, who happens to be one of the only politicians I actually like, so i’m gonna use this post to talk about his work so y’all can get to know him better since he’s not that famous outside of São Paulo. First of all, for all of you who have no idea what i’m talking about, let me catch you up: Lula (our ex-president) is still, ya know, in jail. For corruption and stuff. We can debate that more thoroughly in another post. Problem is, he wants to run for president again (he wanted before he was arrested already), and technically by some legal standards he might, cause his sentence hasn’t really been contested in every possible court, which is to say that even though his chances of them being overthrown are VERY small, it could still happen and therefore there’s a legal breach there that could allow him to run for president. And bOY is he popular at it - he was leading all the polls around the country these past few months, he was at the lead with nearly 40% of the votes at the last poll (published on the 21st/august). But there has been a debate for months now on whether he’d appoint someone else as a candidate in his place in case the most likely thing happens and he can’t run... And we kinda got the answer a few weeks ago - he didn’t appoint someone else, but he picked his vice president: Haddad, from his own party. Which is to say, in case he is barred from running, Haddad will likely be taking his place. [in the very surprising scenario where Lula DOES run Haddad would not be vice president anymore cause they have a deal with another party and then Manuela D’avila, another ex-candidate for the presidency gets the job cause she’s now supporting Haddad as kinda vice-vice president but that’s a whole other matter). So let’s talk about Fernando Haddad.

Quick background: Haddad is the son of a Lebanese immigrant and graduated in law school (and is a certified lawyer). He's also got a masters degree in economy and a doctorate in philosophy, all at USP, which is like, one of the best universities in Latin america. He’s also a teacher there in Social Sciences and currently a teacher at another private university. In public office, he has been the Minister for Education for 6 years of Lula’s government and Mayor to Brazil’s biggest city, São Paulo, from 2013 to 2016. I’m not saying you need any of those titles to be any good at the job (I mean, just look at Lula I guess) but we sure have to say Haddad came prepared for the fight talking about ground knowledge.

As the Minister for Education Haddad invested mostly in making the access to universities broader - it was his government that created ProUni (a program that provides government scholarships to poor students in private universities), and re-designed FIES (the financing and credit system for poor students to pay for universities) making it easier for people to pay (less interest rates, more time). During his time we also got 14 new public (free) universities and other kinds of educational centers making the number of available spots go from about 140K to 218K. He was also responsible for reformulating ENEM so that it could start to become a sort of brazilian SAT, now accepted as an entrance test to several universities that all had different tests (and you had to take all of them and pay for all of them if you wanted to apply to multiple places). When he started, Brazil invested about 3,9% of our GDP in education. At the end of his run, we were investing 5,1%. The PISA results showed Brazil among the 3 countries that had evolved the most in education during those years (yeah, we were still pretty low on the rank, but we can’t say it wasn’t working). So education is quite his thing, but that’s not all.

As a Mayor, Haddad had a clear vision for the city that involved making it more livable - his slogan said “more human”. The ideia is based on studies that say once the citizens have a sense of personal relationship with the place they inhabit the whole area starts to become safer (and also better taken care of, obviously). And that seems obvious but São Paulo had some MAJOR problems of livability.

Imma list some of my favorite projects. For starters, Haddad changed the lightning of a big part of the city to LED lamps (they’re way brighter so the sense of safety is enhanced cause no dark alleys and stuff AND they’re more efficient so we also started saving energy) [x]. Then he created bike lanes and more bus corridors to make public transport faster and so that people could actually use BIKES in the damn city without too many risks (the number of people who use bikes here grew over 60% in a couple of years, who could have guessed it [x]). He then reduced the speed limits for several streets and speed lanes. That was MASSIVELY impopular, but he said he didn’t care if people hated him as long as it worked in the long run - and, lol, it did. With all of that he reduced accidents and deaths on traffic in the city by 15% overall and by half in specific areas [x] [x], and most interestingly: São Paulo dropped over fifty fucking places on international traffic ranks (which is over 10 times what ANY other brazilian city varied in the ranks those years so there’s no blaming it on any external factors) [x] . Yeah, Haddad started to solve traffic, which is arguably the thing everyone hates the most in this city. People spending less time in traffic start spending more time at leisure - no matter, he closed important avenues on Sundays so that people could use that space, public space, for fun, and anybody who’s been at Paulista on a Sunday nowadays will have seen how damn awesome that place became. He also regulated and stimulated Carnaval as a street party that is now country-famous (do y’all remember how nearly nobody ever considered spending Carnaval in São Paulo a cool thing before 2012? yeah. and people come to the city now just for that and spend a whole lot of money here cause of it [x]). Then he created our very first fucking city tour program with buses and all (man, biggest city in the country and we didn’t have a city tour bus for tourists, what the fuck). He did the first actual Floods Tackling project that involved actually mapping the floods and acting directly on them with more cleaning of the streets and even smart-monitored sewers and trash cans at some places [x]. He created LGBT support centers and was responsible for putting the São Paulo Pride Parade (one of the biggest in the world) on the official government calendars (and as minister for education he was responsible for trying to implement an anti-homophobia program involving educating and orienting teachers to deal with these situations) [x] . He tackled the drug problem (especially the crack-cocaine problem) downtown by offering support (food, housing, medical and psychological assistance, and actual jobs) to addicts - a lot of people were against “giving money to drug addicts”, but again, it worked, and I have a whole post about this here. He created a program to stimulate recycling food at the big open markets and to ensure that organic food was served in the local schools every week. He helped open several tech centers that allowed for people to take tech and coding courses and use 3D printers and other stuff for free or at low prices [x]. Still want more culture? He created public cinemas at poor areas (that showed all kinds of movies, local ones, international ones, all in theaters as good as the paid kind) and created a whole institution to stimulate film making in São Paulo, SPCINE [x] [x]. Oh, and he started a project to take the names of our previous dictators and torturers off the street names (cause yeah we had that) and replace them with, well, decent people [x].

Not enough to have some cool ass projects? K, we can discuss his economy as mayor. Cause not only Haddad was innovative as fuck as said above, he also made the city’s finances as good as ever - and I mean it, cause he renegotiated our historical debts to the federal government and reviewed several contracts to companies AND created an agency to investigate corruption scandals regaining several millions into our vaults [x] [x], in a way that by the end of his government we had over 40 billion less in debt [x], 2-3 billion in store and had our investment rate (you know the thing that Brazil kept being lowered at? by international agencies? those grades and stuff?] raised. Oh yeah, and he got like 95% of what he promised in his campaign done [x].

And I said all of this so I can exemplify why I like Haddad - it’s not about one or two individual projects, it’s about the way he thinks as a whole. He thinks ahead and he thinks based on actual science - without forgetting a human side of it all. All of his unpopular and polemic measures had positive results - they went miles away from common sense, but it didn’t matter for him cause scientific studies had showed it would work (and it did! what a fucking surprise!). Of couse, that made him the most hated mayor by some people cause all he does is just so weird, right? and he never cared, multiple times he mentioned he didn’t mind being unpopular if it was the right thing for the city. And he was in fact unpopular cause of that (and cause of his party, obviously). He left office leaving contracts signed for about 7 years ahead. He didn’t even have high hopes of being reelected by then, but he left stuff ready to work for the next government (likely an opposition one) anyway. Cause that’s what you do if you’re a decent politician, but it’s so damn rare to see this kind of attitude here. Haddad looked at cold hard facts, saw a city that could use a lot of change in several areas, made a plan and went ahead with it knowing that a lot of people would hate him for it but that in the end it could actively change how we live - and he was right. By the end of it, people did have a different relationship with the city.

Haddad showed me in both his public offices that he doesn’t have the small mind of most our politicians that seem to only be able to think about things that can happen every 4 years, nor only about things that will be popular for the sake of being popular without being right. And that’s just what I want from a politician. Seems so simple, and yet it’s nearly impossible to find. So that’s why he’s a politician i’m not afraid to support.

To close this off i’m gonna leave y’all with links to articles from the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times (portuguese here) and The Wire complimenting his time as mayor too so english readers can get some more opinions AND here an Haddad article (in portuguese) that I like if you want to see more of him (especially his views of Brazilian politics), cause this doesn’t even cover all his interesting projects. Here’s also an interview with him in english, and here here and here some in portuguese for people who want to get a better sense of him and his government plan. Feel free to ask more questions about his projects, I’ll try to get to them when I have time.

#brazil #brazilian #haddad #Lula #fernando haddad #eleições 2018 #eleições brasileiras #politics #brazilian politics #luis inacio lula da silva #brasil #br #sp #educação #são paulo

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junker-town · 5 years

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We drafted basketball teams made up of ‘Star Wars’ characters. Which is best?

Was the Force with any of us as we made our picks?

A short time ago in a galaxy very close to here, the Skywalker saga reached its conclusion with the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Episode IX maybe the finale of the series’ third movie trilogy, but it’s far from the end of Star Wars as we know it, thanks to the limitless runway Disney+ offers and the overwhelming desire for nostalgia that is Hollywood today. (Give it a decade before we get the beginning of another movie trilogy). But it still marks a pivotal turning point for those of us invested in the saga.

So to celebrate, five diehard sports and Star Wars fans came together to do something (long pause) truly special: draft a five-man basketball team to take down a crew of alien ballers hiding out in the Unknown Regions.

There will be a substantial reward for the team who defeats these invaders. Managers were free to use any draft methods necessary, but we want this to be a fair fight. No superteams.

So, we laid out some important ground rules:

Only one Force-wielder — i.e. Jedi, Sith, etc — per team.

Only one droid per team. (Though one of the teams doesn’t have a droid).

Each team must possess at least one sentient alien. Unlike the Empire, who looked down on non-humans, we don’t discriminate.

All Star Wars canon can be considered, and by all, we mean all. (No Legends canon, though). Because of that, we made use of lots of characters from the many animated shows, The Mandalorian, and other side projects. We took this very seriously.

We’re building an actual basketball team, so chemistry matters. As the old basketball saying goes, there’s only one thermal detonator.

Those guidelines — particularly the one limiting everyone to just one force user— made for a fascinating draft. Here’s how it played out.

Allow everyone to explain themselves.

The Slamdoshans (Tyson Whiting)

PG: Ahsoka Tano (Force user) SG: L3-37 (droid) SF: General Grievous PF: Bossk (alien) C: Sarlacc COACH: General Armitage Hux

With the guidelines in place for the draft, I wanted to make sure I picked a team with players who would bend the rules as much as possible.

Some might find it “unfair” that I have two lightsaber-wielding players on my team. To be clear, Grievous may have lightsabers, but he is not a Force user. Plus, though he is mostly machine, he is technically of the Kaleesh race, therefore making him an alien pick. (My masters degree in Star Wars is already paying off). His four arms and ability to turn into a weird spider thing has the potential to surprise opposing players.

I was criticized at the time for choosing Ahsoka Tano over a Skywalker as my Force user, but she was trained by Anakin Skywalker, so she knows all his moves. She’s a great leader and showed her craftiness in tight situations during the Clone Wars.

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L3-37 and Bossk are my sleeper picks of chaos. L3 will-trash talk you into submission, though I might have a problem with her on Twitter. I picked up Bossk’s nasty 7-foot-tall ass because he will walk through you, hissing and spitting while he does. I also assume he has incredible ball control with those three-finger hands.

So the Sarlacc. I know what you’re thinking: yes, I AM a genius. Sure, he (it?) can’t move, set a pick, or really leave the ground in any way. But stick this bad boy under the net and you’ll never surrender a layup or rebound EVER AGAIN.

Also Coach Hux will hit you so hard with those pregame speeches that you’ll have no choice but to win.

Tosche Station Power Converters (Caroline Darney)

PG: Cassian Andor SG: Lando Calrissian SF: The Mandalorian PF: Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader (Force user) C: Chewbacca (alien) COACH: Orson Krennic

Look at this perfect squad. Getting Chewbacca with my first-round pick (No. 2 overall) was clutch, and his big frame will dominate in this league. Anakin/Vader was a steal in the fourth round, and this is Rogue One peak-condition Darth Vader. His rage may lead to some bad fouls, but he’s been instructed not to force choke the refs.

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I decided to lock down a pair of sharpshooters on the wings in the form of Lando Calrissian (Solo’s Donald Glover version) and the Mandalorian (affectionately known as Mando). They can run off of screens set by either big man (seriously, the screens are going to be so beautiful), and are both catch-and-shoot players. Mando’s inability to take his helmet off could get in the way at times, but his support of Baby Yoda makes it all worth it. Also, imagine the fits Lando will wear walking into the arena before the game. The capes! So many capes and furs!

To bring it all together, I needed the ultimate team player running the point. Enter Rogue One’s Cassian Andor. Quick, resourceful, and full of the intangibles coaches love, Andor is the perfect distributor for this squad. He doesn’t care about personal stats, but he will come through in the clutch if he has to get a last-minute bucket.

I know there may be questions about Director Krennic running the squad, but he’s here solely for the perfect quotes. Just imagine: when the defense is lacking, Krennic can hit them with “Are we blind? Deploy the garrison!” When my team wins the title, you can already hear him saying, “As we stand here amidst MY achievements.” Or, if his job is in question, hitting ownership with “your concerns are hardly warranted.”

But let’s be real. Vader is the player-coach of this team.

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Dooku Blue Devils (James Dator)

PG: Yoda (Force user) SG: Greedo (alien) SF: Boba Fett PF: K2-SO (droid) C: Rathtar COACH: Watto

How did they sleep on this roster? The fools. The intergalactic fools. I’ve got Yoda running the point as my Muggsy Bogues-esque hero and distributor. I wanted my Force user touching the ball every single possession, and this was the best way to do it.

From there, I wanted to lock down the paint. I have some big basketball beasts as my enforcers. K2-SO is 7’1, and Rathtar has as astonishing 20-foot wingspan thanks to its tentacles, which will be too much for most teams to overcome.

The secret to my team is Greedo. I needed offense, and everyone knows his love of shooting first. (Editor’s Note: Please strike the end of that sentence from the record). If he needs to be kept in line, I have complete faith in Boba Fett’s “game respect game” bounty hunter familiarity.

Finally, I picked Watto to be my coach because I want a merciless cheater.

Project Harvester (Mike Prada)

PG: Bo-Katan Kryze SG: Sheev Palpatine (Force user) SF: IG-88 (droid) PF: Captain Phasma C: Jabba The Hutt (alien) COACH: Grand Admiral Thrawn

My toughest decision came in the first round. Do I wait on picking my Force user and build up the rest of the team, or do I just bite the bullet and take the most powerful being in the galaxy, personality issues and all? In the end, I gave in to my hate. Talent trumps character.

After that, I couldn’t take any good guys because there’d be obvious philosophical clashes. Jabba’s ego makes him a risky pick, but I’m gambling that he’ll be fine protecting the paint if Palpatine gives him a few post touches. IG-88 and Phasma are quality 3-and-D wings that’ll take on the tough assignments, and Thrawn is a master tactician who has the star’s trust. Point guard was tricky, but Bo-Katan has the versatility to play a secondary role while not being afraid to challenge the star if he steps slightly too far out of line. (I hope she has more respect for Palpatine than she did for Maul in Clone Wars).

Palpatine will take all the shots, which isn’t ideal. But hey, it works for the Rockets.

The Bombads (Russ Oates)

PG: R2-D2 (droid) SG: Rey (Force user) SF: Jar Jar Binks (alien) PF: Cara Dune C: Wampa COACH: Admiral Ackbar R2-D2 is the true hero of the Star Wars saga and always knows what to do in a tight spot. He’d be an excellent floor general on the court. While she is new to the Force, Rey keeps picking up points and has been able to disrupt the First Order’s offense. Cara Dune is a former New Republic shock trooper, so yeah, she’s going to grab all the rebounds. Better watch out for the claws on the Wampa, or you’ll be sorry. Admiral Ackbar can spot a trap by the opposing team.

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Y’all can hate on the Jar Jar Binks pick if you want. I’ll accept the creative destruction he will cause on the court.

Which team are you taking to address this looming threat in the Unknown Regions? Vote in the poll below. The winner gets the full bounty. The loser is stuck with a bunch of useless tracking fabs. (Click here if you can’t see the poll).

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