#they’re just regurgitating stereotypes at best

[sirenscriptures]

i never like to say that i hate people, but i most definitely hate people who still think women aren’t meant for STEM jobs.

[kinsey3furry300]

My (very late) take on Ricky “Jupe” Park from Nope.

So, when I was a small child, my sister and I were taken to a local museum by my father and it was a wholesome and fun day out for all the family EXEPT FOR THE BADLY TAXIDERMIED WHALE SHARK HANGING FROM THE CEALLING MY GOD WHAT WAS THAT THING?! It was huge, it looked and smelt terrible, the room was poorly lit and crowded and decorated to look like the bottom of the sea and you had this thing with it’s huge open maw hanging right over you all the time. I distinctly remember that I couldn’t look. I could not look. Between the, the ocean episode of walking with dinosaurs, the underwater segment of myst, and fucking books like this that were everywhere in the 90’s!

Fuck you Nigel Marven and Jasper James, Fuck you.

…both me and my sister developed a lifelong fear of being eaten alive by giant, aquatic-type monsters. And because it was advertised and a film about a brother and sister fighting off little green men, and not advertised as a film where 40 people get fucking vored by a flying Portuguese man of war, me and my sister saw Nope together in the cinema and ohhh boy 1, did I catch shit from her about it, to this day, and 2, while I love that film, it scared the shit out of me. It scared me so badly I tried not to think about it until I plucked up the courage to re-watch it this weekend.  So I’m a little late to the party, but speaking on behalf of people terrified of being gobbled up by ever-present sky-sharks (you know they’re there prove me wrong!), I’d like to talk about Jupe.

How was this not a best Supporting Actor win? Give him all the awards!

I’ve seen a surprising amount of commentary say that he’s an idiot for endangering and getting all those people killed, and that he deserves his fate, and while there is a little element of truth to the first part, I can’t fathom the second. One, no, no one deserves that and two… Do, do you guys know how story strucure works? Jupe is a foil for OJ. His life and arc mirrors OJ to a surprising degree: they’re both people of colour working in a white-dominated Hollywood system who have been held back by, or are stereotyped because of, their race. They both witness “a bad Miracle” that’s starts with a strange popping/crunching noise (the balloon for Jupe, Jean Jacket regurgitating indigestible items above them for OJ), that results in death, where a seemingly imposable thing happens (a coin falls from an empty sky, a shoe balances perfectly on one end) and where they are spared death because they don’t look the danger in the eye (Jupe has the table cloth between him and the chimp, OJ looks around whereas Ottis senior looks up and so is hit in his unprotected eye), and are traumatized. Both deal with the trauma badly, and surround themselves with constant reminders of it (Jupe’s Gordy shrine, OJ’s horses and ranch. I mean he keeps the fucking coin!). Both try to commodify and sell their trauma for fame and fortune (the paid tours of the Gordy shrine, getting that “Oprah shot”). Both also want to use Jean Jacket to reclaim the heritage that the film and TV industry has taken from them (OJ wants to save the ranch and memorialize his family’s role in the invention of film, Jupe wants to be remembered for the Starlight Lasso and not just as that Asian kid who survived a chimp attack, for taming the beast, not just surviving it). Both unwittingly train JJ to attack humans (Jupe by teaching it to associate people and music with food, OJ by putting it off horsemeat by feeding it a decoy). Both are a bit greedy, and kind of disrespectful to the dead, and nether Get Out (couldn’t resist sorry) when they should. Both put their family, friends and strangers in danger to get their payday, and both get at least one person killed doing it.

So why does the film kill Jupe and his family in such a hilariously awful way, but spare OJ and Em (and Angel: we love you Angel)? What’s Jupes fatal flaw, that greek tragic hubris that dooms him and that separates him from OJ? Why is he the one who gets vored by an angry stetson? Is it a eat the rich narrative? A critique of the idea of Asian Americans as the “Ideal minority?”. Is it killing off the comic relif, or just done for shock value? No, I don’t think Jordan Peele would be that heavy handed or un-imaginative. I think it’s something far more clever.

It’s this: from an early age, Jupe was trained to perform, whereas OJ was trained to handle performing horses. OJ thinks about how to safely provide the spectacle, whereas Jupe was trained to be the spectacle. OJ communicates with Angel in clicks and gestures without realising: OJ’s internalised how to talk to horses, how to use body-language. But Jupe...His plan, upon finding out that there’s a UAP flying around his home is to build and stage and make it into a rodeo attraction. That’s not a sane person’s reaction, that’s how Homer Simpson would try and Monetize first contact with alien life. That’s how Peter Griffin or BoJack Horseman would treat ET…. That how a 90’s sitcom character, who never got over that one role, would treat the situation.

Every time a name is mentioned in the chapter titles of Nope, the living being it refers to dies… except the title card “Lucky.” The horse (so long as the final shot is real and not Em hallucinating) lives. It (and OJ) makes it out. But then again….

Jupe probably thought of himself as Lucky, after the Gordy incident. He was probably told time and time again that he was Lucky, until he internalized it. He learnt the wrong lessons from the experience, he learnt that he not only needed to perform, but that he was special. “You’re’ chosen.” He learnt that he needed to perform, to be a spectacle, to survive a horrible industry that swallows people whole and chews them up and spits them out and occasionally has animal control shoot its stars dead if they go of script. He was conditioned, and trained, from an early age to treat everything that ever happened to him as part of a performance, until he can only talk about his own trauma in terms of how good the SNL take on it was.

And like every other trained living being taken from their natural habitat and forced out on stage as spectacle in this film, his training fails him at the worst possible time.

He’s “Lucky”, and he’s tragic, and he’s just another victim of spectacle, and that’s the scariest part of the film. ...Other than the FUCKING MURDER PANCAKE IN THE SKY OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!?

[fortressofserenity]

White Woman’s Focus

(While this isn’t unique to white western women, well to some extent, it’s pretty not uncommon for many white western women to focus solely on gender (and to some extent, sexual orientation). The problem is, as what many black western women have suspected, is that it doesn’t focus on the things black western and minority ethnic women would relate to.

Black women in the west are often expected to be strong, that to be weak is to be relieved of the stereotype imposed on them. Likewise Asian diaspora women are often expected to be intelligent, especially being proficient in STEM and medicine, that being ditzy’s a way to relieve oneself of the stereotype. Different demographics require different contexts.

Certain societal expectations may not universally apply to various ethnicities, especially if they’re perceived by the majority ethnicity. I don’t think many white women are aware of it, well to the same sincere extent they apply to white western cultures. At best, being white and western’s what they know of best. At worst, any mention of nonwestern, nonwhite cultures risk being tokenising if mentioned in passing at all.

I don’t think white women really understand what many minority ethnic women go through, perhaps due to their white privilege and never studying nonwestern cultures in depth, that they often regurgitate western stereotypes of nonwhite, nonwestern people. Sort of like how African women were often stereotyped as tending towards skimpy clothing, even if this isn’t true for African Muslim women.

The latter would’ve been modest for many years due to Islamic dress code requirements, likewise for their Christianised counterparts they’re no longer this scantily clad. They can wear shorts, but no longer bearing bare chests anymore. I guess in this regard, white western women can be rather short-sighted. Like it’s almost always a white, western view of nonwestern cultures if they never set foot in African countries.

They probably don’t have a sincere interest in African cultures like they do with western ones, though in fairness that’s all they know best. But this is why black and minority ethnic women in the west don’t relate entirely to white women, especially if almost all what white women talk about is just gender and sexual orientation. Little to no regard for nonwhite, nonwestern cultures in depth at that.

[inkofamethyst]

May 16, 2022

You know I relate to Lin Manuel Miranda because I, too, don’t have that great of a singing voice but boy howdy I sure do love me a good solo.

I’m writing this research paper and it’s meant to be twelve to twenty pages long and I really do not know what I am doing.  How did I, once awarded the Senior of the Year in English thing or whatever (alongside my puzzle-friend), end up here?  It’s meant to be mostly regurgitation, but there’s no rubric or anything so I get the feeling that it’ll be graded based on vibes and effort.  I’m cutting it a little close but I’ll get it done.  I always do.

I literally never see the windows open from the rooms across from me which like,,, on some level I get it bc privacy but their rooms aren’t situated like mine, so they only have the one window and I simply cannot fathom keeping the blinds closed literally all the time on my only window.  Man I love my room so much.

I think one of the biggest things I learned from PJO/HOO was that anyone could be a hero.  Age, gender, stereotypes, learning ability/disability, economic class... those things didn’t matter.  Even Paul Blofis, a dude without a magic bone in his body, was able to help in the Battle of Manhattan.  As a ten year old, seeing kids with dyslexia and adhd use those “disabilities” to their advantage as a literal cannon aspect of the story was so so cool despite myself not having either.  I’m literally so excited for the series.

Not gonna lie though,,,,, it’s a little bit funny to me that nobody’s up in arms over Grover being nonwhite when he was white (I’m almost definitely sure lil goat dude was a redhead... like that feels like a description from really really early on that I recall reading, like when they were on the bus or somethin) in the books.  Y’all boutta tear your throats to shreds arguing over hair colors but have no problem seeing a goat-man as nonwhite?  Hasn’t it been shown that the depiction of poc as non-human/animal characters has a lil bit of uhhh racist undertones?  Now, I’m happy for the kid, don’t get me wrong.  I’m just saying that a lot of people’s true colors are showing both from what they’re arguing about and what they’re not mentioning at all.  “Oh ya it was really easy for me to picture Grover as nonwhite” and why exactly is that, hm?

I’m making a list of WTNV episodes that could be good for someone to listen to for their first ever WTNV thing.  Now, I, personally, was hooked by episode 1, but I think there are definitely some better monologues that Cecil’s performed.  I don’t want there to be character arcs (not that one Lee Marvin episode), no major plot developments (no Desert Bluffs)...

Episode 22 (The Whispering Forest) for the opener, 62 for the but no I can’t bc Maureen leaves and that’s a spoiler, 54 (A Carnival Comes to Town) for just one line but it’s got the right amount of creepy, I would do episode 60 but it doesn’t mention weather by name and goes a bit out of the formula so not that one, not 56 bc spoilers, not the episodes about You or Them because even though they’re fantastic they go outside of the normal formula, ... I think of the ones I’ve listed as having cool quotes, E22 and E54 are probably best to show newcomers.

Speaking of podcasts I’m watching CR c3e22 and the whole conversation around 3:19:00 where they’re using edging to describe Chetney’s feral reaction has me in TEARS AND MATT JUST WON’T STOP THEM

...what if I made my dad a Star Trek apron... hmm.  And since we’re on the topic of sewing I’ve got this lovely pink linen blend at home that I’ve known for ages was going to become a bishop-sleeved blouse (maybe princess-seamed, like KittenishBehavior’s Shirt of Dreams? (I do think I’d prefer the tucked-in look, so that might be what I go for, we’ll see)) but every once in a while I start to think well what if I used it for something else (what if it was a tank dress with princess seams (I don’t tend to wear light-colored dresses (...but then I’d have two ways to style it (that assumes I’d even have enough fabric for a dress))), what if it was a half circle skirt (I prefer darker bottoms though), what if it was a chemise-style top (I think I want one in white first)).  And I take myself through a bunch of projects on my list but always return back to the same original idea.  I guess sometimes you just find fabric that fits a project really really well.  

Today I’m thankful that I’ll have the opportunity later this week to visit a smivy smeage lab.  There’s the remote possibility that I could intern there this summer, but I’m not really holding my breath over it.  I’ve never stepped foot onto an ivy league campus before so this should be interesting.  I also get to ride a train up there which will be dope!!  It’ll be a whole day trip on my own, really.  

[voxofthevoid]

Taking It Up The Ass Isn’t Character Growth - A Rant

So, in response to an ask a while back, I said I had a rant brewing on fandom and sex positions, and well, a lot of you wanted to see it, so here you go. You literally asked for it.

Disclaimer: This is going to talk a lot about top/bottom roles in slash fic and fandom attitude towards them and is heavily filtered through the lens of my own tastes and experiences with fandom. I’d also like to be upfront that I am 100% in favor of people writing whatever fictional content they want, and it’s not what fandom does with characters that bothers me but rather how that translates into attitudes towards real, live people. Also, this is the essay version of a slow burn AU because I regurgitate my entire fandom history before getting to the point. Beware.

I discovered fan-fiction around a decade ago, had no clue what the hell it was, got hooked and dived deeper. I started participating in fandom circa 2013, and I was fairly young and also completely inexperienced both sexually and romantically. The fandom in question was Hannibal and my ship of choice was Hannibal/Will. It was/is a very chill fandom in general, but we had our drama. And chief among the contentious topics was—you guessed it—the top/bottom debate. I can’t actually remember any other topic that was discussed and argued for so ardently in that fandom, at least in those days. Even after I drifted away, I came across a few posts on the matter.

Generally, you had two camps—people who supported strict roles and those who were in favor of switching*. And because we’re a society plagued by illogical assumptions, the strict role camp mostly had people who thought Mr. Big Bad Cannibal in the Fancy Suits wouldn’t take it up the ass because he’s older, more experienced, more mentally stable, and of course, more ‘dominant’ in personality. Yes, that sentence is chock full of problematic shit. I am aware. Lots of people were aware and argued strongly against attributing top/bottom roles to personality. I don’t remember anyone arguing as enthusiastically for Top Will, but those voices were also there. But the general idea was that assigning strict top/bottom roles to a male/male couple was casting them in a heterosexual mold and thus, the progressive option was to make them switch. Strict roles also garnered comparisons to “yaoi” and uke/seme stereotypes, which was of course bad and fetishizing and we, the Western media fans, of course had to do better. Stealth racism is fun to untangle.

Anyway, I lapped up the woke juice. Partly because I was a baby queer from Buttfuck Nowhere, Asia, who had zero exposure to LGBT+ communities and what queer folks did with each other. Partly because it was the stance taken by most of my favorite writers so it seemed like a good position to emulate.

Emulate it I did. Most discussions I had about this happened in private with the handful of close friends I had in fandom. Where it really showed was in my writing. I made sure to write switching—maybe not in every fic, but then I alternated between fics. Thing is though, I did have a preference. I liked Top Will. I created and consumed a ton of Top Hannibal, and sometimes it was okay, sometimes it was not, but I couldn’t pinpoint why it made me uncomfortable. Back then, I thought I was a cis questioning/bi girl and once again, the impression I got was that not being MLM, having a preference was automatic fetishization. So I tried my best to justify my preferences, to my friends at least. I think what I said was that fandom was skewed towards Top Hannibal, and I liked the opposite because I’m a contrary fuck. Which I am, to be fair, but this was just me desperately trying to figure shit out without being offensive.

That’s the line I touted all the way until 2018, which was when I fucked off to grad school in A City, finally freed of Buttfuck Nowhere and able to actually date. At this point, I was settled in my sexuality (girls only) and questioning my gender (non-binary or trans guy). I had also tentatively figured out during undergrad that I’m an exclusive top and a Dom. Actual attempts at dating cemented that, yes, those are my preferences, about as flexible as a steel rod. Cue motherfucking epiphany over my fanfic tastes.

And see, over these years, I was engaging intermittently with fandom. I dutifully wrote switch couples. I also continued to have rigid tastes and continued to explain it away as being a contrary fuck—to be fair, until Steve/Bucky, my preference did seem to be the opposite of the larger fandom preference. But correlation, as we know, isn’t causation. Until Steve/Bucky, I continued to write versatile couples because I honestly didn’t have the guts to just say I liked it just one way. I do now but even then, I feel compelled to add that it’s because I want to see my own taste reflected in fic, so I write/read the character I relate to as a top, it's not that deep etc. Would I be as forthright if I didn’t have that reason? Would I have such strict preferences in fic if I didn’t have strict preferences IRL? The latter’s a mystery, but the former isn’t—I wouldn’t be because fandom is still entrenched in the same ideas that got me to this point to begin with.

In every fandom I’ve been in, I’ve seen some version of this debate go around. Sometimes, it’s one party saying “why would you write Character X as a bottom, he’s so Reason A” and a reblog chain that insults the OP and/or extols the virtues of switching. Sometimes, it’s a general-ish message that says they don’t understand why people have strict preferences when we all know real gay couples switch. Sometimes, it’s blanket statements that accuse anyone with preferences of fetishizing. Sometimes, it’s the same reasoning that gets you “Character Y is a top because of Reason B” transposed on versatile couples except this takes the form of “they switch because they’re equals.”

Ya’ll, I’m fucking tired.

I have long since lost count of the number of stories I’ve seen where an exclusive top learning bottom and liking it is character growth. Where a character who prefers to bottom taking a turn on top is empowering.

Isolated, these are fine. But I’ve seen enough of such stories that it’s distinctly discomfiting and a major squick. Sometimes a trigger, if I'm too immersed in the story. I’m not going to try and burn an author at the stake because they pissed me off. I am just going to close that window and quietly handle my shit. People can write whatever they want. But this one theme hits too close to home, as you can see from this 1.6k rant.

My friend (also my ex-girlfriend) and I had an all-out bitching session about this the other day. Both of us are kinky fuckers who have rigid, complementary roles we prefer and we have both had our grueling days of struggling to reconcile our sexual tastes with our ideologies precisely because of how these things are frowned upon in conservative and progressive circles. Seeing that in fandom, of all places, is both insulting and exhausting. Topping and bottoming aren’t personality traits. Neither is D/s. It’s sexual preference and power play. It really does not have to be that deep. I am not exorcising childhood trauma using the bodies of women. My partners, former and current, have not been brainwashed by the patriarchy. We will not become better, more complete individuals once I magically stop being a stone top and my partners embrace the joys of a strap-on.

I have, with my own two eyes, seen someone say that in a really committed relationship, of course the couple will switch.

Bullshit.

It’s transparent bullshit. This does not get attributed to cisgender M/F couples. Even when the automatic assumptions of woman = bottom and man = top get addressed, switching isn't presented as the default. No one’s saying “oh, if you really love your husband, you’ll peg him”. I do know butch/femme sapphic couples get their own share of shit. Because it’s all heteronormativity, right? Can’t have any other reason for top/bottom roles.

You have two extremes with “so who’s the woman” on one end and “it’s woke only if they switch” on the other, and as far as I’m concerned, they’re equally damaging. There shouldn’t be a pressure, however subtle, to conform your taste in fiction to some arbitrary idea of progressiveness. People are going to like whatever they want anyway; all this does is create an atmosphere where those likes can’t always be freely expressed without a lot of mental gymnastics. We’re seeing so many versions of this in the pushback against so-called problematic content, but smaller, subtler versions exist too.

Fictional characters aren’t real. They can be whatever you want them to be. And yes, other people will often want them to be the exact opposite of your ideas, but that’s just how things work. Meanwhile, the people behind these usernames? They’re real. No one should be throwing real people under the bus to ‘protect’ characters that don’t exist. Hannibal Lecter doesn’t care whether he gets fucked or dismembered in Author B’s fanfiction, but the discourse that surrounds the dick up his ass? That does affect flesh and blood people.

I am not claiming that this is the only attitude in fandom. Middlegrounds do exist. Plenty of people abide by fic and let fic and there are folks who pipe up to say not every RL queer couple switches. But it’s often the extremes that reach most people. That was certainly my experience, and I’m not the only one.

I don’t really know how to end this post. It is 100% a rant and one that’s been building up for a while. Bottom line is that people’s sexual behavior varies wildly and whenever you attack sexual tastes in fanfic by saying it’s unrealistic - or worse because let’s be real, that’s a very tame word choice - please remember that there’s likely someone out there who practices it.

* I’m using switch and versatile synonymously in this post. It’s mostly concerned with top/bottom debates. A lot of what I’m saying is also echoed in portrayals of and discussions surrounding D/s dynamics, but I’m not addressing that as much for now.  

[brightlotusmoon]

-

Recently the singer Sia made a movie involving an autistic character, which is receiving (100% deserved) backlash because she is having an allistic (non-autistic) play that character.

Part of the backlash involved multiple autistic actors saying they’d be ready at a moment’s notice, and that it’s obvious there was no effort to actually include us.

Her response? “Maybe you’re just a bad actor.”

I’m sure they weren’t bad actors, in fact I would guess that they’re some of the best actors there are.

You know why? It’s because as autistics in an allistic world, we are acting every single moment of our lives, and have no choice to do otherwise. For some of us, we’ve done this act so much that we don’t even know what our actual selves are.

This world would not accept our true selves, a fact we’ve learned through bullying, ostracism, lost opportunities, broken friendships, and so many other things that have left enough trauma to make it so we feel like we have no choice to create a mask, one that fits all the social rules and expectations that are so unnatural to us, one that drains us every second we wear it, but one we’ve been taught by society that we must keep up with everyone, even the people closest to us, lest we do something that makes us lose them. It makes most relationships seem artificial because it feels like people love and care about the act, not our actual selves. There’s been many times where I’ve let my true self show to people I felt were close friends only to lose them because the person I actually was wasn’t what our friendship was built on, which just reinforces the belief that we can’t be ourselves with anyone.

I’m so tired of allistics playing autistics because they always just end up being regurgitated stereotypes not actually what we are. Then again, too many of us don’t know what it’s like to actually be ourselves due to the same systemic oppression that disenfranchises those of us who actually make a job out of pretending to be someone else, rather than just creating a persona to be accepted in our everyday lives.

-

At least now I will just have covers of Titanium and Breathe Me to listen to...

[diverse-writing]

I'm always afraid that I'm stereotyping poc if I give them any distinct personality. How do I combat this?

Anon, I’m sorry but there is no way to put this politely so I’ll just say it: this is a racist question, wrapped in the guise of ignorance and good intentions. I understand you didn’t mean to cause offense–likely, you were seeking to avoid offensive content–but your question’s premise reveals a deeper level of internalized racism.

Ask yourself: why are you so afraid of writing “distinct” POC? Why are you afraid that a distinct POC = a stereotyped POC? Why are you so certain that you may inadvertantly write your characters into stereotypes if you dare to be write them as distinct, fleshed out characters? The thing about stereotypes is that, almost by definition, many of them function in the broadest levels of characterization. The angry Black woman, the Dragon Lady Asian, the Latin Lover, the earthly magical Native American–these all work in the broadest terms, and they’re all relatively easy to avoid once you know they exist. More subtle stereotypes–the strict East Asian parent, the Black star athlete, the shy hijabi woman–can be harder to avoid because they’re not as prominent within the public conscious but not if you ask yourself why you want to write your characters of character with those specific traits or with that specific character arc. Stereotypes can be pitfalls, yes, especially if you aren’t vigilant, but they aren’t traps, designed to trick you into being offensive despite your best efforts.

The implication here–“if I give them any distinct personality”–is that you’ve either a) only ever written white characters, out of a fear of getting POC wrong or b) only ever written indistinct POC, which almost certainly means sidelining them to minor roles or monoliths where the specifics of their personalities don’t affect the main story and thus don’t need to be fleshed out. You describe your hesitation to write POC characters as a fear, which may be true, but fear in this context often stems from ignorance and a subconscious recognition of the prejudice you’ve internalized and may be liable to regurgitate into your writing.

(The third possibility to the aforementioned options, which I think is probably less likely, is that you have indeed written main POC characters, did an extensive amount of research on whether they fell into any stereotypes (because given this ask I doubt you continued writing without research), and nevertheless still feel afraid that your next POC character might be offensive. In which case, you already know how to do the necessary work and understand that the only way to push through that fear is to research more and perservere with your writing. But I digress.)

To combat this fear of “getting POC wrong,” I’d start with reading some anti-racism books, ideally not by a white author “waking up to their privilege” and in the process talking over POC who’ve been doing antiracism work for far longer and with a greater personal understanding of racism (there are a lot of books in this category you should avoid, but White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo especially comes to mind). Read antiracism books by POC authors and truly, intentionally ask yourself: how have I upheld racist ideologies or preconceptions? How can I work to unravel those unconscious biases and divest myself from them? How have I internalized racist talking points and stereotypes, and how may they have unknowingly resurfaced in my writing? And, moving beyond the world of writing fiction, how may they have affected your interactions with real life flesh and blood POC?

Read antiracism books by POC authors, and then read fiction books by POC authors. Read as many POC authors as you can. Watch movies written by, for, and about POC. Read POC’s memoirs and personal accounts. Read POC’s reviews of books, both to understand books we feel have portrayed us correctly and books we feel have let us down. Read POC’s reviews of your favorite books, specifically, and pay special attention to their analysis of race and racism within the book that you may have subconsciously internalized in your own writing. Read up on race tropes in fiction and practice identifying them in books, movies, shows, podcasts, etc. Read POC’s analysis of those tropes, of how we feel harmed by them or stereotypes or–very rarely–uplifted. Read Writing With Color’s wishlist posts to understand how POC want to see themselves portrayed in fiction. Read about POC’s joy and sorrow and frustration and satisfaction and struggles and triumphs and desires and fears and complexities. 

And then? And then write about them.

[thecoleopterawithana]

Hi! Have you watched the Understanding Lennon-McCartney documentaries on Yotube, by any chance?

Hey there! Thank you for your question!

And wow, I still can’t believe how amazing it is you should ask me this now! I just spent my day revisiting Vol 3, 4 and 5! (They’re as excellent as I remember).

I really can’t recommend this series enough! 

The outstanding creator, @sweating-cobwebs, achieves the amazing feat of contextualizing a lot of insightful information through a medium that makes it easier to absorb. All with a conscientious subtlety that allows one to draw their own conclusions about the matter presented. 

It has truly helped me gain a deeper understanding (and a deeper appreciation) of the beautiful relationship that was Lennon/McCartney, of the two wonderful human beings that constituted it, of human dynamics in general, and of my own inner workings in specific. 

This series is a must-see for Beatle fans and any person that is fascinated by human relations and the prevailing power of love.  

Understanding Lennon/McCartney Vol 1: Together

To understand the Beatles and why they touched so many lives, it is vital to examine the relationship at the core of this phenomenon: Lennon/McCartney. 

This 5-part series is the most intimate, comprehensive biography ever made on John and Paul. Told almost entirely through their own words and music, with information culled from a variety of direct sources and compiled in a way that has never been done before, it directly challenges many of the dominant narratives in Beatles mythology.

Understanding Lennon/McCartney Vol 2: the Break-Up

Questions about the break-up of Lennon/McCartney have persisted for more than 50 years and there lingers in the cultural consciousness a never-ending dissatisfaction with the standard party-line explanation that they “just grew apart.”  This film attempts to search for the true causes of that break-up; of John & Paul as creative partners and best friends, in what John (and sometimes Paul) often referred to as their own marriage.

Understanding Lennon/McCartney Vol 3: the Seventies

First, advancements in technology have greatly enhanced our ability to compile and cross-reference research material (video, audio, bootlegs, print sources) since the events in the film occurred.  Today, we can develop a much more well-rounded story than we could in the 70s, and ALL of this information: John's and Paul’s words, actions AND their music must be viewed holistically to get a full picture of what took place. 

Second, it’s imperative to look at this information critically, even if -especially if- it challenges established myths and stereotypes. In the midst of a deeply emotional separation, it’s common for the people involved to spin the story in a face-saving manner.  But it’s also extremely irresponsible to perpetuate a historical narrative built almost entirely on the calculated public statements of the wounded parties. 

Human nature has not changed over the past fifty years, but the way Western culture views masculinity has. With that in mind, it’s well past time to stop regurgitating the same perspectives from half a century ago and look at the Lennon/McCartney phenomenon with a fresh lens. 

Understanding Lennon/McCartney Vol 4: Last Dance 79-80

After a recent string of hits (and being awarded the most successful songwriter of all time) Paul takes a more experimental route and begins work on cult classic McCartney II, bewildering critics and mainstream audiences with strange and sometimes dark forays into what would eventually be called electronica. 

Meanwhile John is awakened from a long creative hiatus upon hearing Paul’s “Coming Up” after a transformative sailing journey. 

Interviews and music from 1979-80 tell the story of John & Paul’s enduring emotional and creative connection and their attempts at "Starting Over" before time abruptly ran out.

Understanding Lennon/McCartney Vol 5: Never Apart

History has been shamefully remiss about honestly documenting this world famous partnership. 

Why is this important?  Because our notions about the Lennon/McCartney dynamic inform every aspect of Beatles discourse, including our estimations of John and Paul as artists and human beings.  We interpret Lennon and McCartney partially by how they perceive and define each other, so it is imperative that we observe, listen and get it right. 

When I began work on this last volume, I vowed to be as thorough as possible and follow the story wherever it led.  My impression of the Lennon/McCartney relationship evolved continuously throughout this process and I encourage interested viewers to reserve judgment until the end.  I believe the truth that ultimately emerges is clear and consistent, but I’m not going to tell anyone what to believe; viewers can evaluate all the information presented here and then make up their own minds.

[adamwatchesmovies]

Like a Boss (2020)

The fact that no female directors were nominated at the 92nd Academy Awards could be mere coincidence. Movies such as Like a Boss proves that argument flimsy. It seems Hollywood and certainly, director Miguel Arteta, writers Sam Pitman and Adam Cole-Kelly have no idea with the way the real-world works, much less the way women think. It's so far removed from reality they might as well have thrown in wizards and robots. This scenario would've seemed more plausible that way.

Best friends Mia (Tiffany Haddish) and Mel (Rose Byrne) have started their dream makeup company. Unfortunately, the business is failing. When Claire Luna (Salma Hayek) offers to settle their debts in exchange for 49% of the company, they agree. Now, Claire seeks to pit the friends against one another so she can take control of their enterprise.

After attempting something different with The Kitchen (a movie which wasn’t well-received but really wasn’t bad), Tiffany Haddish is back to her old tricks again: speaking loudly and being nasty. It all points to a woefully underwritten script everyone was hoping she would save by regurgitating the same gags from her previous hits. A bloody vagina-shaped cake? Sure, why not? People throwing tantrums in broad daylight while everyone around them acts as though nothing's happening? It would be bad just once but we get it several times. The picture is set in a world devoid of human resources department. Everyone can say or do whatever they want without consequence. Products that would spark outrage in our world are accepted, even celebrated - but don't hate the movie because it slathers itself with a dishonest message about female empowerment and inner beauty before ending in a co-ordinated dance scene, the lazy screenwriter's trump card.

Every night, Mia and Mel are out partying, getting drunk, etc. It’s no surprise they’re nearly a half-million in debt… but we learn their business is earning them over $20,000 in online sales a month. Huh? How could these two screw-ups possibly manage that kind of success when they only have two employees (Jennifer Coolidge and Billy Porter, playing a dated gay stereotype that gets more jaw-dropping with every scene)? When Luna gives them assignments to create a new image for their business (overnight, further showcase the story's detachment from reality) everyone panics but not for the reason they should. Neither ladies know how to create a brand! so wait, who came up with all of the elaborate packaging and graphic design we see in the store? If you're asking these questions, then the movie's not for you. Any inch of scrutiny in its direction and the picture shatters into a thousand pieces.

Like a Boss does just about everything half-assed because it doesn't believe in its audience. It gives the performers nothing to work with, it takes your time, your money, and you receive nothing in return. At least it's got the courtesy of being short but I’d rather it be funny. (Theatrical version on the big screen, January 14, 2020)

[eng2100]

blog 08 - neuromancer

So as an introductory note, I’m actually quite a big fan of cyberpunk. I’m a hobbyist DnD player and the first campaign that I’ve Dungeon-Mastered for was actually a simplified version of Shadowrun that I wrote all the backstory and lore for. It’s in what I would call a “sequel” right now that I’m very much enjoying. So bla bla bla I was excited to get to Neuromancer this whole time because I’m a genre fan.

a brief primer to cyberpunk

So western Cyberpunk owes its roots largely to the detective fiction genre-- most notably the hardboiled detective archetype, a darker western interpretation of your Sherlock Holmes type who is usually a jaded antihero that works for money, but still has a sense of justice deep down. You see this more reflected in Blade Runner than you see it in Neuromancer’s Case, but there are still a number of correlations (Funnily enough, Neuromancer and Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep both end on nearly the same line-- “He never saw Molly again.” and “...and I never saw her again.” respectively.) Interestingly enough, Case kind of spawns his own kind of cyberpunk hero trope-- the rebellious hacker, seen in Neo. 

If detective fiction owes itself to the inescapable aura of The Great Depression, then cyberpunk owes itself to the Reagan administration. Cyberpunk’s whole thing, at least in the west, springs forward from the fear of unregulated corporate growth in tandem with the rise of technology, and what the mixture of the two might bode for humanity at large. Both Neuromancer and Blade Runner owe their entire aesthetics to the vision of a world taken over by neon advertisements, bereft of nature, replaced by plasticity. 

Now, why the primer? Well, I think it’s important to preface the discussion of this novel with the idea that cyberpunk is a deeply political genre in a way that not many other genres inherently are. (All fiction is, of course, inherently political, whether intentional or not, but most genres don’t regularly feature as much political charge as cyberpunk, is what I mean.) Neuromancer is politics from an era before most of us in this class were born, and as such, atop being a seminal work of genre fiction, it’s a lurid look into what the landscape looked like in the 80s. We are living now in the times that 80s Cyberpunk once called “the future”-- and, well, what does it look like for us? Are we living in the Urban Sprawl?

not quite

Our dystopian future is significantly more...mundane than coffin hotels and the television sky over Chiba. You might say we got all the corporate deregulation and none of the glimmering aesthetic slickness of cyberpunk-- we really are living in the worst timeline. If i’m going to have to labor under capitalism for the rest of my short life, couldn’t I at least have a slick pair of mirrorshades?

the text

There’s a lot about Neuromancer to like. It earned its reputation wholeheartedly-- it is definitely the legendary cyberpunk novel that it is well-known for being. Its writing style can often be abstract at the same time that it’s luridly detailed, and it uses strange and interesting words to create vivid images in the reader’s mind of this foreign landscape of the Sprawl. It uses a lot of “old world” associations to lend deeper weight to its descriptions (the Tank War Europa game comes to mind in tandem with the Screaming Fist operation that looms over the plot). 

The book doesn’t shy away from the visceral nature of its own plot and setting-- drug binges and cramped love affairs in coffin hotels, fear and violence are all described in visceral detail that grounds the book hard in its reality while simultaneously indulging in a sort of dream-like surreality. I really admire the ways in which Gibson writes physical sensation whether it comes to the sex or the pain or the weirdness of cyberspace. The introduction of the novel sort of failed to catch me until Gibson went into detail about Case’s harrowing journey after losing his ability to jack into cyberspace and the intense, surreal affair with Linda Lee. Perhaps my biggest issue with the writing of Neuromancer is, however, Gibson’s tendency to throw a lot of world-building terminology at you really fast. Nothing bogs down a fictional story more than having to pause to wonder what certain words mean.

Describing cyberspace during a time in which VR wasn’t even a thing yet had to have been a challenge and a half, but Gibson found interesting ways to visualize the experience, and coined interesting terminology for it (ice and icebreakers, most notably). The Sense/Net bits are also pretty cool, but I’m also biased because anything that gives Molly Millions more screentime is just the best thing.

Did I mention Molly is my favorite character? I just can’t get over her. It sucks that her and Case break up in the epilogue, but it also feels fitting in a weird way. She really struck me as a standout character for a woman in a cyberpunk novel-- she’s an active player in her own sexuality, she’s violent and the stronger of the two between herself and Case. She has a sort of unapologetic way about her that feels very fresh even today. The first time Case uses Sense/Net to see through her eyes, I was hit in an unexpectedly hard way by the description of people in a crowd moving out of the way for her-- for most girls in real life, that’s a fairly unheard of experience, and to me, as a female reader, it did a lot to establish to me just how powerful she is.

That being said, this is a good place to segue into the conversation you know my Obnoxious Feminist Ass has been waiting to bring up.

cyberpunk vs women

You can tell a lot about a person’s base assumptions about the world by the way they talk about people in their works of fiction. Now when I say “base assumptions” I don’t mean their political leanings, I mean something that’s on a deeper, more subconscious level-- in this way, base assumptions are inherently neutral in a way, they’re incapable of being truly malicious, even if they’re harmful, because they’re just the base coding of how a person regards things inherently.

What I’m getting at is that at the time of writing this book, I don’t think Gibson had much of a regard for women at all. When the first mention of women in your novel is calling them whores, I’m going to be forced to assume both that you don’t like women very much and that women are primarily sex objects to you-- or at the very least that women factor into your view of the world in a very marginal way that is largely informed by porn culture. Now, let’s suppose that maybe it’s actually the POV character Case that’s just a raging sexist-- that theory might hold water if this were a character trait that is brought up as a flaw, or indeed, if it were really brought up at all in his personality, but it’s not.

To my great frustration, in the Neuromancer world, it seems like “whore” is about the only job available for women! Who knew the job market would shrink in such a way? Now, perhaps you could argue that Gibson was actually trying to make a point about the way in which porn culture commodifies women into sexy leg lamps for male consumption, and I won’t claim to know his intent, but to me, it doesn’t really seem that deep. It seems like to me that, to Gibson, women being mostly vapid sex workers in his dystopia is a foregone conclusion-- he didn’t think about it that hard, that’s just his stereotypical image of what women in an criminal underbelly do.

This problem of a lack of regard for female perspectives in cyberpunk narratives that largely concern themselves with themes of objectification and oppression under capitalist systems and the regurgitation of harmful sexist tropes certainly isn’t exclusive to Neuromancer. Cyberpunk is a economic-political type of genre, so oppression in the genre tends to fall upon class lines rather than race or gender lines-- and perhaps, this could occur in a far flung future in which capital manages to supersede bias, however, I can’t help but feel that this is a lazy way to write a political narrative. Blade Runner, Blade Runner 2049, and The Matrix all have distinct problems with addressing the idea of intersectionality when it comes to the ways in which ones gender and race plays into their role in a capitalist system. 

Cyberpunk, for all its shining successes as interesting fiction and pointed political commentary, totally fails in the regard that it co-opts the struggle of lower-classes and applies the romanticized aesthetic to white male characters completely unironically. (You can read a pretty good take on Dystopias and post-racialism here.)

east versus west

So, when I went over the primer to the rise of Cyberpunk earlier, I left something out (on purpose!). During the 80s, there was another prime ingredient to the mix of the nascent genre’s formation: the rise of Japan as a technological leader in the global market. Before World War 2, and indeed, during it, American’s conceptualization of the future, was, well, American. They viewed themselves as the originator of innovation within the world and the blueprint from which the rest of the world should be based. However, this all changed in the post-war era as Japan began to participate in the market, leaving behind their isolationist ways-- suddenly, Japan was what the vision of the future looked like in American imagination-- the Tokyo urban sprawl.

The imagery of Japan is ubiquitous in western Cyberpunk, whether hardcore or or softcore or simply an incidental portrayal of futurism. Disney’s Big Hero 6 features San Fransokyo, San Franciso and Tokyo jammed together complete with neon signs in Japanese letters. During the 90s, Marvel launched Rampage 2099 and Spider-man 2099, both set in glittering neon cityscapes. The series Firefly featured a strange universe in which everyone seems to speak Chinese pidgins (but there’s no Chinese people in the show, funnily). MTV had Aeon Flux, a U.S. take on anime. Even movies like Total Recall borrowed the bright neon flavor. Video games such as Deus Ex and Cyberpunk 2077 feature these influences heavily, with less-bold-but-still-there influence being seen in games like Remember Me and Detroit: Become Human.

There’s an interesting cultural exchange going on between the east and west when it comes to Cyberpunk, as the 90s were rife with cyberpunk fiction in both places-- The U.S. saw The Matrix (which was inspired by Ghost in the Shell, as admitted by the Wachowskis in a phrasing that I find really annoying as an animator: “We want to make that but for real”.), while Japan had the seminal Ghost in the Shell and Akira. It’s interesting to note the stark contrast between western and eastern Cyberpunk-- eastern Cyberpunk misses entirely western Cyberpunk’s detective fiction roots, for one. For two, eastern Cyberpunk tends to concern itself more with philosophical questions about the nature of the soul in relation to technology and deep-seated cultural fears about weapons of mass destruction and government.

Neuromancer is deeply entrenched in eastern aesthetics-- many Japanese brands are brought up explicitly by name within the model (Mitsubishi, Sony, etc.). Gibson cites the “Kowloon Walled City” of Hong Kong as something that haunted him after he was told about it, and the idea of Coffin Hotels owes quite a lot to it. Gibson is quoted as saying:

“Modern Japan simply was cyberpunk. The Japanese themselves knew it and delighted in it. I remember my first glimpse of Shibuya, when one of the young Tokyo journalists who had taken me there, his face drenched with the light of a thousand media-suns - all that towering, animated crawl of commercial information - said, ‘You see? You see? It is Blade Runner town.' And it was. It so evidently was.“

One of Neuromancer’s primary settings is The Night City, a supposedly gaijin district of Tokyo on the bay-- this...sort of explains why there don’t seem to be a lot of Asian people in Asia, but the issue still stands. This isn’t a game-breakingly “I wouldn’t recommend this book” bad case, but it is something that I felt I should point out. Neuromancer is a foundational work to the genre, which means that not only are its successes carried over, but many of its flaws as well. Now, I don’t want this cricitism to sound like I think William Gibson is a raging bigot or anything-- I really don’t! I follow him on twitter and he’s a perfectly likable guy, actually. Problems aside, I really enjoy his work.

conclusions

Going into the future, I don’t think Cyberpunk is going away anytime soon, and certainly much of it owes its roots to Neuromancer. With shows like Altered Carbon and games like Cyberpunk 2077 on the horizon, I’m interested to see the ways in which our current economic political climate may effect what our vision of a technological dystopia may look like. Cyberpunk is easily one of the most interesting genres of fiction, and if you haven’t looked into it deeply, I highly recommend checking it out.

[shamimahammedz]

5 myths about royalty free music

You might have heard some of the negative stereotypes about royalty free music. It’s poor quality, it’s difficult to edit and is not worth the hassle.

But these days, this just simply isn’t true. Whether you need music for a corporate video or explainer video, a short film or a documentary, the quality and range of library music is astoundingly good.

MYTH 1: Royalty free music is poor quality

Years ago, it used to be the case that royalty free music was terrible quality. Tinny MIDI tracks were the best you could expect to get unless you hired a composer, but that’s definitely a thing of the past.These days, you don’t have to sacrifice quality by using library music. 

That’s right, they’re blessed to be in the heart of Music City in Nashville and have great relationships with some of the world’s most talented composers and music producers. They are ensuring that they are providing nothing but the best quality of music. I know how important it is to deliver the best quality work, which is why we do exactly the same on Twine so that you know you’re getting the best quality.

MYTH 2: The range of music is terrible

Yes, it’s true that the selection of library music out there used to be dreadful. One jazz track, a couple of dance tracks, maybe some folk and ethnic tracks is about the best you could get. This couldn’t be further from reality these days.Today the range of music available is truly astounding. Just about every genre, tempo and instrument combination you can imagine is at your fingertips.

MYTH 3: I’ll get no support if a claim is made against me

Every royalty free marketplace makes disputing the claim really simple! They have a claim resolution system that asks you to explain your claim and you just have to simply write, “Licensed through......” That should take care of it, but if you continue to have issues, then just reach out and their excellent customer service team and they will help you get it sorted quickly.

MYTH 4: The tracks will be used by tons of other people

You want the music to stand out and sound fresh. Using the same string quartet sample just won’t hack it.You can now select tracks by their emotional quality rather than just genre and filter by the instruments used. They add new tunes to their library every Friday, and generally add around 200 new, quality tracks each and every month. So you don’t need have to keep regurgitating the same tracks for every client.

MYTH 5: Royalty Free Music is a waste of money

Gone are the days where you’d have to pay hundreds of pounds a month to get access to a small library of music. These days, the cost of music libraries is really impressive for the quality and range of music you can get.For example, Palma Entertainment’s unlimited music license. That’s less than a meal out every month for 200 quality unique new tracks every month!Also remember that Palma Entertainment don’t just chuck any old music into their library, they hire professional composers and curate only the best professional level music. Your membership unlocks unlimited licenses for every song so you can concentrate on delighting clients and no worries about licensing issues down the road.

[problemstarchild]

also i’ve been talking abt this to a friend but. i feel like ash gets dealt a pretty shitty hand by fandom. a lot of people get rid of her on virmire bc she’s xenophobic, but the first contact war was only 26 years ago, and her whole family’s been blacklisted in the military because her grandfather made the choice that saved civilians

she spends her whole life living with this idea that she has to be better than the best to even get off the ground. she’s spent her whole life trying to be accepted by other humans, and it’s because of aliens that she even faces that difficulty.

of course, it’s not actually their fault. it’s the fault of the alliance (and especially her father, though i sincerely doubt he meant to) for putting that pressure on her.

i only feel like this is wild because she’s just more directly vocal about being xenophobic than garrus. garrus in me1? sucks. i mean, i love him as a character; he’s very reactive to your moral advice in me1, but as soon as you take him on an elevator, he proves his ignorance and turian racism. he chides tali for her people’s involvement in creating the geth, defends the genophage - he doesn’t even know that quarians have to be suited (making a comment about how she should get armor without a helmet, though tali’s response to that has several character variants so they might have just needed him to say something to reuse tali’s audio for a conversation? but it’s also in there and canon), pretty blatantly insults krogans in general with one of those “you’re different from them” comments to wrex. garrus gets all preachy in an elevator convo w/ kaidan, “humanity will be judged by the sacrifices it’s willing to make”, saying the turians would have kept the L2 implants (that have led to horrific physiological issues for human biotics - there are at least 2 missions in me1 that have to do w/ angry biotic groups killing politicians and military alike because they feel that they’ve been abandoned by humanity).

if someone asks him about going up against saren, he’s fixated on “restoring the good name of turians everywhere”.

i mean like... he’s a cop. so... it’s kind of a “duh, he’s a xenophobe” moment, i guess? the only aliens he doesn’t seem to insult in me1 are the asari.

ashley insults aliens in general, but only to your face, iirc. she hates cerberus as much as anyone else, and is actively hostile toward a representative of the xenophobic terra firma party. she only kills wrex if you signal her to, or if you’re not persuasive enough to change his mind on virmire - and if wrex HAD shot shepard? there’s no way everyone else wouldn’t have retliated. in her elevator conversations, she’s nowhere near the bar garrus set for xenophobia (servantofclio’s transcript of elevator dialogue can be accessed here, if you need a refresher): she asks a few personal questions, talks a little about sexism. if she’s the one who talks to tali regarding the dialogue about treated like a beggar or thief, she admits she’s heard things about quarians and suggests that people don’t get to know them because they don’t stay in one place for long. i think that’s the worst thing she says to an alien, and most of her grievances about the council are out of a hatred for politics. she’s jumpy around aliens, period, when you’d probably assume that her family’s background would make her specifically wary of turians. despite that, all of her elevator conversations with garrus are polite. she’s also the only person that garrus doesn’t racially insult (though he does comment on having noticed that most alliance women serve support roles rather than frontline roles).

so i feel like most of the fandom’s widespread love for garrus and dislike for ashley stems from the fact that ashley’s me1 xenophobia is general and to your face, where you can confront it, whereas garrus’ xenophobia is specifically targeted to "background characters” - inescapable elevator rides where he regurgitates common racial stereotypes and galactic history. as me1 is the first entry in the series, typically, the player reads it as worldbuilding. they’re focused on the information they just heard, not the implications of that information.

honestly, i’m only bringing it up because a friend and i have been replaying recently and it’s astonishing once you know the series pretty well to listen to him talk to your other squadmates the way he does in me1. his crew on omega in me2 was diverse, and he tells you they’d all lost someone to the asteroid’s extensive underbelly - his experience on the normandy turns him into someone who can look at a batarian and see a real, actual person who loves and grieves like anyone else... and then do that a couple more times until the message sticks.

ashley’s effectively written out of mass effect 2 (or the end of mass effect 1 if you don’t save her on virmire), so she doesn’t get any immediate character development the way garrus does, aside from throwing away her previous deference to shepard aside on horizon to (rightly) criticize their apparent new loyalties. even then, it doesn’t show until me3, where she’s willing to shoot you to protect the council (which, of course, contains a human now, too, but if she were as bad as some people think she is, wouldn’t he just let her in on it? leaving out the cerberus part, of course).

she spends a good chunk of mass effect 3 just sitting in a hospital bed... idk. again. i ADORE garrus, but he got way more opportunity for character development than ashley did - coming from systemic privilege, holding a position that gave him significant power over civilians (he admits to roughing up a suspect in interrogation until he started bleeding when he’s telling you about dr. saleon!), and then starting a new life on omega where all of those unsavory non-council species gather and having to actually interact with them on a daily basis.

ashley just doesn’t get the same narrative chance to redeem herself that garrus did, even though i feel like garrus’ initial xenophobia is way worse. narratively, shepard can tell ashley she’s out of line for her comments, and she won’t make them anymore. narratively, shepard just stands by and listens to garrus make snippy little condescending comments to their other allies on long elevator rides without saying or doing anything about it, no matter what side of the paragade spectrum they fall on.

tl;dr if you love garrus vakarian or even just like him, and/or don’t see a problem with his me1 self re: his elevator conversations in me1, you have a duty to extend the same courtesy to ashley, whose potential for character development suffered badly from artificial scarcity in both me2 and a solid chunk of me3.

[tigerlover16-uk]

The fact that you call yourself a Goku fan proves you're stupid and have no taste in characters when you say he's better than Vegeta. Goku is a completely selfish jerk who only cares about himself and fighting people all the time, and is a complete moron who hates his family. Toriyama confirmed that's how he is in the manga, and Dragon ball Super proves it. Wake up.

Wow, you really don’t have any kind of a life, do you?

I almost forgot I still had this ask lying around. Wonder if the anon who left it is still lurking around? I thought about doing a long essay on why your logic here is complete nonsense and how Goku in canon is a far cry from how you’re describing him here, and how this whole thing reeks of a biased Vegeta fanboy trying to shame fans who think anyone is better than their precious perfect prince isn’t the best character ever and they’re an idiot if they like another character more than him, and feels the need to viciously tear down another character to make Vegeta sound better… when all that does is make you sound like a raving jerk with the critical thinking skills of a headless chicken.

I really did think about doing a nice long post with actual evidence from the manga that proves that the anon clearly hasn’t watched or read Dragon Ball in any form for years and is just regurgitating stereotypical fandom nonsense… but you know what. By this point they probably wouldn’t see it anyway, and there are tons of people on this site who have routinely and continue to tear apart the fandoms ill conceived, illogical misinterpretations and baseless hate of Goku’s character and could probably do it a lot better than me.

And frankly, any true Dragon Ball fan would know why this whole “Goku’s a heartless jerk who hates his family” thing is nonsense, and it’s not my job to educate hate filled anons who clearly aren’t looking for a real debate and just want to hurl venom at decent people who just want to go about their fanboying in peace. Odds are that whatever I say at this point will fall on death ears anyway, anyone else reading this post is free to dive in with as many detailed explanations on why Goku is a good person and this anon is a stuck up prick is free to do so.

But honestly, if you’re reading this anon, I just have one thing to say in Goku’s defense: READ THE FREAKING MANGA! ACTUALLY ANALYSE GOKU’S CHARACTER, HIS MOTIVATIONS AND HIS ACTIONS! And then come back here, and then just TRY and tell me that Goku is a “Completely selfish”, awful person who hates his family.

Although I will bring up two points because they make me laugh. One, Toriyama NEVER said that Goku was a completely selfish person. His explanation basically amounted to him saying that Goku wasn’t a traditional goody two-shoes, superhero kind of character and that he did have some fatal flaws that could lead him to do selfish things from time to time. NOT that being selfish was his defining character trait.

Second… have you even WATCHED Super? Goku shows tons of affection for his family throughout the show, has gone out of his way to save his friends and the earth multiple times, and even though the show sometimes does overdo it with how dumb the writers think Goku can be, he’s overall portrayed as a good hearted person who generally does the right thing and doesn’t cause any harm intentionally. Grow up, buddy. I stay out of this discourse usually, but regardless of how you think he’s written in the show and the quality of said writing, you’re blatantly lying if you want to tell me he’s being portrayed as a completely selfish monster who doesn’t care about anything but himself.

Suddenly I feel like I put too much effort into responding to such an obvious troll who’s unlikely to listen to anything I say. But seriously, to anyone reading this who doesn’t like Goku, either for logical reasons or because they’re brainwashed by fandom stereotypes and watch too much TFS… fine, that’s okay. It’s none of my business what people choose to like and dislike, I’m not going to argue anyone’s points if they aren’t trying to instigate a fight or purposely spread misinformation. But don’t EVER go around insulting and attacking the people who do like the character in their own personal spaces.

That goes for any fictional character really. I hate Sasuke uchiha more than any other character I can think of, you don’t see me going into every Sasuke fan’s inbox and ranting to them about how horrible a character he is and how anyone that likes him is an idiot that needs to grow up. Because I’m a decent person that respects other people’s rights to not be mistreated over what are ultimately trivial matters, and you all should too.

[joeygoeshollywood]

The Greatest Hypocrisies at the 89th Academy Awards

Last week, I predicted that this year’s Oscars would have the lowest viewership in the history of the telecast. I stand corrected. It was the lowest viewership in the past nine years. Why’s that? Because A. barely anyone has seen these movies and B. most would rather not be talked down to by Hollywood.

Boy, the Oscars sure didn’t disappoint.

But instead of regurgitating all the anti-Trump jabs that were made, let’s go over the four most notable hypocrisies of the night.

Jimmy Kimmel

I want to start off by saying that I like Kimmel. Overall, I think he’s a funny guy. And I personally liked the way he started his opening monologue when he said urged viewers at home, whether you were a liberal or a conservative, to reach out to someone you don’t agree with and have a positive, considerate conversation, which earned some applause. However, he apparently couldn’t adhere to his own advice as he spent the following three hours ridiculing President Trump, which only alienated his millions of supporters. No wonder the ratings sucked.

Gael García Bernal

When presenting the award for Best Animated Feature, Mexican actor Gael García Bernal gave a lecture about how many actors are migrants who work all over the world to “construct stories and build life that can’t be divided”.  He adds, “As a Mexican, as a Latin-American, as a migrant worker, as a human being, I am against any form of wall”. That in itself is utterly ridiculous. For starters, the Dolby Theatre where the Oscars took place has walls and is highly guarded by security. And I’m sure the same can be said for Bernal, who probably lives comfortably with his reported $12 million net worth, and the liberals who were applauding him have luxurious mansions that are likely surrounded by concrete walls and steel gates. If they’re all against any form of wall, why do they choose to live within such walls? Or better yet, why don’t they take in the refugees they say our country should take in? I’m sure each of them can house as least ten of them in their giant homes. So enough with this “let’s build bridges, not walls” crap because it’s empty rhetoric coming from Hollywood.

The Return of Mel Gibson

Hollywood claims to be the champion of diversity and they’ll attack anyone (aka conservatives) who they perceive to be a racist/sexist/bigot even though most of the time they’re absolutely wrong. Just take how they perceive White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, who the left claims to be an anti-Semite based on one statement his ex-wife made during their divorce proceedings. Meanwhile, there’s actual evidence that Mel Gibson is an anti-Semite and a misogynist. And not only that, he’s apparently a racist who has used the n-word! I guess ten years of isolation from Hollywood was a fair enough punishment because not only was he welcomed back with open arms with his new film Hacksaw Ridge, the Academy frickin nominated him for Best Director! So here, Hollywood gives a known anti-Semite accolades, but insist without any direct evidence that Steve Bannon is the Nazi.

Iran

When President Trump approved a travel ban that halted travel from seven terrorism-plagued countries (which has been halted by the courts), Iranian Academy Award-winner Asghar Farhadi announced he was boycotting the Oscars despite being nominated for his film The Salesman to show solidarity for the people of Iran and the people of the six other countries. So of course the Academy wanted to make a political statement by giving him the award anyway. To accept the award on his behalf, Iranian-American Anousheh Ansari read a prepared statement written by Farhadi. In it, he said that the people of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen were “disrespected” by the “inhumane law that bans immigrants from coming into the US.”

He adds:

“Dividing the world into the us and our enemies categories creates fear. A deceitful justification for aggression and war. These wars prevent democracy and human rights in countries which have themselves been victims of aggression. Filmmakers can turn their cameras to capture shared human qualities and break stereotypes of various nationalities and religions. They create empathy between us and others. An empathy which we need today more than ever.”

He is speaking on behalf of Iran, which is the #1 state sponsor of terrorism. This is the same Iran that suppresses the rights of women and gays. This is the same Iran that calls for the death to American and the death to Israel. This is the same Iran that has a travel ban on Israelis from coming into their own country! On what planet does Iran have any sort of moral high ground to the US? And how does the Hollywood elite in the room react? They clap like the mindless seals that they are.

Got any favorite hypocrisies that I missed? Let me know!

[duaneodavila]

The Root of the Problem

The conclusion was clear as could be:

“Diversity of thought” is white supremacy.

What isn’t, by the reasoning of MIchael Harriot, “World-renowned wypipologist. Getter and doer of “it.” Never reneged, never will. Last real negus alive.” His reasoning is that the phrase was used to defend some academic he described as pro-confederate. Whether the prof was racist isn’t the point. Someone used “diversity of thought” to justify the person Harriot says is a white supremacist, so the phrase itself is now white supremacy. 

This is why we can’t have nice things, like equality, because people incapable of basic logic write stupidity like this, and people who are even less capable of basic logic regurgitate their idiocy. Yes, thinking is hard, but these are people who wouldn’t be capable or willing to think regardless. They are the useful idiots of progressivism.

So in the spirit of a dolt like Harriot, I too will make a simple pronouncement.  Progressives are not liberals. Progressives are the antithesis of liberals. Progressives suck.*

A liberal can believe that government can do more good or less, and one can debate how much to conserve. But progressivism is inherently hostile to moderation because progress is an unmitigated good. There cannot be too much of it. Like conservative fundamentalism, progressivism contributes to the polarization and paralysis of government because it makes compromise, which entails accepting less progress, not merely inadvisable but irrational.

Unlike liberalism, progressivism is intrinsically opposed to conservation. It renders adhering to tradition unreasonable rather than seeing it, as the liberal can, as a source of wisdom…The critic of progress is not merely wrong but a fool. Progressivism’s critics have long experienced this as a passive-aggressive form of re-education.

People use the words progressive and liberal interchangeably. They are not at all the same. Liberals have far more in common with conservatives than they do with progressives, which could well explain why progressives call out liberals for being conservative. Well, that and the fact that their only response to reason is ad hominem attacks. Like “diversity of thought is white supremacy.”

Both liberals and conservatives share an appreciation of rationality and tradition. They both wants what’s best for people and their country. They differ on how to get there, but can appreciate that reasonable people may differ. But progressives?

Because progress is an unadulterated good, it supersedes the rights of its opponents. This is evident in progressive indifference to the rights of those who oppose progressive policies in areas like sexual liberation.

There can be no discussion about this, despite the constant pretense of saying “we need to have a conversation,” unless you define discussion as being lectured by simplistic self-righteous prigs until you give in or commit internal suicide. If they are right, because their goals are, by definition, the “unadulterated good” and it’s not possible for the unadulterated good to be wrong, then what’s left to discuss?

I speculate that many people who imagine themselves progressive will dismiss this, just as they will dismiss Harriot’s idiocy as being representative of progressivism. They support the vaguely good goals, equality through the elevation of interests of whoever is deemed marginalized at the moment at the expense of the majority, who enjoys an unrecognized and undeserved privileged existence. What’s not to like?

But then, that merely makes you a white supremacist to Harriot and those who are sufficiently woke to be obsequious. You will find yourself like Laura Kipnis, Brett Weinstein, and others who saw themselves as progressives, as true believers in social justice, only to end up burned at the stake when they failed to adhere to the rules of the orthodoxy.

One cannot, of course, make too much of labels. But democracy is conducted with words, and progressivism, by its very definition, makes progress into an ideology. The appropriate label for those who do not believe in the ideology of progress but who do believe in government’s capacity to do good is “liberal.” They would do well, politically as well as philosophically, to revive it.

Most of us can discuss what the best goals should be and how best to get there. How much government is the right amount, and how much is too much. What things government does well, and what things it does very poorly, even disastrously, often resulting in dead people in the street. The more you know about the efficiency and effectiveness of government, the more you appreciate the merits of a libertarian-ish skepticism. Theories are cool, but rarely work out as well on the ground as they do on paper.

It’s not the labels that matter, but since we’re constrained to communicate through words, we’re stuck with them to some degree. We are also stuck with stereotyping, even though each reader believes himself to be his own very special snowflake whose personal ideology is entitled to its very own wikipedia page all about me. As if every person should fully plumb the depths of every other person before any word can be uttered.

Sorry, but it can’t happen. It won’t happen. It’s quite likely that no ideology captures you perfectly, but that’s because there is diversity of thought, areas of agreement and areas of disagreement. It doesn’t necessarily mean your beliefs are in bad faith, even if they’re idiotic, but it does mean that there is such a thing as diversity of thought. You, most likely, are a diverse thinker.

Michael Harriot says you are, therefore, a white supremacist. He’s progressive. The problem isn’t what he’s said, or that he reflects anything other than a confederacy of dunces, but that “mainstream” progressivism dictates that I cannot dispute the lived experience of a black man because I am enjoy white privilege and I support diversity of thought.

*The word “progressive” is used here in the sense of the current wave of social justice warriors.

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[theliterateape]

What The Duck!

By Chris Churchill

I. AM. OUTRAGED. Completely outraged! I am completely out of rage! I spent up all my rage! Now I’m plum out! No more rage can be squeezed out of me! SO…with my last bit of rage oozing out of my ear, I must announced that I am outraged at the depiction of ducks in the media! I see ducks everyday, minding their own business, not getting wet, looking panicked as they fly, really doing their thing with all their might and THEY want you to believe they are some ridiculous stereotype!

Exhibit one: "Donald" Duck. This white, pantsless muthafucka, is a buffoon! He does not represent ducks on the whole! Most ducks don't have a quick temper! Most ducks cannot stand shirts! And how does he button that thing?! Did I mention he and his girlfriend (who is an opportunist at best and a golddigger at worst) don’t wear pants?! Ever!

He can’t keep a simple job because of his anger! In one scene, forced down our throats by some Disney enthusiasts page on YouTube, this simple, short-sighted bastard had to listen to a giant cow or dog or something that was smoking a cigar as he explained how to do his job as bellman at a fancy hotel! First of all, we are to believe that a duck couldn’t work in a hotel? I’ve seen pictures of that hotel in Kentucky or Tennessee or wherever where the ducks work the elevator or some shit and THOSE DUCKS WORK! Secondly, when the simple concept of carrying someone’s bag becomes, inexplicably, too complicated for this idiot, he flies (not literally…that’s a different article) into a blind rage! Like the one I’m in right now! It is not simply insulting to insinuate that ducks can’t do a simple job but that they don’t have the emotional stability to work their way through problems! Have you ever seen that video where the ducklings got stuck in the sewer and that duck got some humans to help? I did! It was adorable. Donald is not.

Exhibit two: "Daffy" Duck. So, of course, they made the daffy one black! And then, after establishing his daffiness with idiotic song lyrics (because, of course, the black one can sing) like “Please pass the ketchup. I think it’s going to rain”, they completely abandoned his daffy persona and made him a whiney bitch! After he meets the smarter, lighter skinned, Bugs Bunny, he is suddenly no longer the star but, rather, some second rate, second class, not very smart, loser.

In one interchange, Daffy and his “superior”, the rabbit, are arguing over which hunting season it is. Duck season or rabbit season. Seems like a reasonable enough premise. But WAIT! As they pull the paper notices of which hunting season it is off of a conveniently located tree, we realize that, apparently, someone has posted enough of these notices to last 30 years. “Duck season! Rabbit season!” Over and over again! I mean, come on. Ducks may occasionally mistake the interior of a discarded foam mattress for bread but they aren’t stupid. After some painfully long back and forth they arrive at “Duck Season”. And Daffy doesn’t even think to read the sign himself before saying: “Read the sign, you’re so smart”. The rabbit has, of course, switched the order of the sign, leaving Daffy hornswaggled once again! Typical.

I mean, I understand a joke. I heard one weeks ago and I legitimately LOLed. But this type of misrepresentation of an entire species of aquatic bird is irresponsible, despicable and immoral. Most ducks I have met are simply trying to get on with it. Just living life. A hard working dad, finding fish to regurgitate into mom’s bill. An ever vigilant mother who leads 12 kids across the street, without government assistance or welfare of any kind. They walk really cutely, they dive like experts and when they fly, they are working HARD. (Look into the eyes of a flying duck sometime, they’re barely staying up there.) Then there’s the uncertainty of what kind of bread, bagel or donut someone will feed them on any given day. They come home to the duckhouse at the end of a long day and have to hear 5 year olds from the 1940’s doing a Donald Duck voice at them. It’s terrifying and discounting of their personhood.

You may have noticed the lack of exclamation marks as this article has gone on. That’s because my rage has dissipated and transformed into just plain tired. I can’t believe that in 2017 I have to say any of this. But here we are. Ducks are still the last group that it is okay to discriminate against. Also stupid fat people with lisps and bad haircuts and unnaturally pervasive acne.

That’s still acceptable.